Two more shots ripped through the sofa near my face. I went down flat. Two more bullets, lower. Both were close. He could have climbed over the sofa, firing. He might have landed on my head.
"The grove," Spelling cried out.
The hell with it again. I stood up, gun leveled as Spelling ran through the open apartment door. I shot, but he was out of sight. I hurried past Tools's body and stepped into the corridor. Spelling was almost at the stairwell. He turned toward me, weapon aimed at my face.
"Too much left to do," he said. "I liked you when we started, but you're beginning to irritate me, Peters."
I took another shot at Spelling. It crashed into plaster right next to the elevator and he darted down the stairs. I went after him. He was almost to lobby level. I moved as fast as I could and missed him when I got there.
I looked at Mixon behind the hotel desk.
"Which way?" I asked.
"Who? Spelling? No way. He just went up to his room three, four minutes ago."
The sleeping old man who wrote movies for the likes of Bronco Billy shouted, "Goddamn it all. A man pays his rent. A man deserves to rest." He looked at me, saw the gun in my hand, and said, "That does it."
I turned around and next to the elevator found the stairs to the basement.
"Call the cops," I yelled over my shoulder. "And an ambulance. Guy's hurt in Spelling's room."
"Oh, shit," Mixon moaned behind me.
The stairway down to the basement was dark, narrow, and bore no connection to gracious living. Something banged ahead of me. I plunged down by the light of the low-watt bulbs and found myself in the basement, the dark basement.
"Spelling?" I said.
No answer.
"Spelling," I repeated, stepping forward, gun held high. "Come on out. We'll talk."
"Nothing to say," Spelling's voice came from who knows where.
I stepped forward on my toes, moving toward where I thought the voice might have come from.
"Clark Gable," I reminded him.
No answer. The sound of a breaking window. I hurried forward or at least deeper into the darkness.
"Got a father, Peters?" his voice and the shot of a gun rang out.
I stopped, got on my knees, and groped for the wall.
"I had a father," I said.
"Everybody had a father," Spelling's voice echoed. "What about now?"
"Father's dead," I said, inching my way toward his voice along the wall.
"Gable killed my father," he whispered. "And I intend to make him pay. Make you all pay."
"How did he kill your father?" I asked.
"Look at the pictures," he said, even more quietly than before.
"If you…" I began but I stopped when I heard the sound of broken glass crushed underfoot. By the time I found the window, Spelling was gone.
I put my.38 away and made my way back up to the third floor, not letting my eyes meet Mixon's when I went through the lobby.
"Police are on the way," he called as I ran up the stairs.
Connie the bellhop was leaning over the fallen Tools Nathanson. She looked up at me, a hopeful smile on her face.
"I think he's alive," she said.
"Good," I said, breathing hard.
"Did you shoot him?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"He's a carpenter or something," Connie said.
"Something," I said, looking down at Tools, whose eyelids were fluttering.
"You'll be fine," Connie said cheerfully to Tools, who coughed, sputtered, opened his eyes, and looked around. He saw me and held out his hand. I took it. He tried to speak. Tools wheezed so softly that I had to get down on one knee to be sure he had said what I thought he said. He grabbed my shirt and pulled me down with more strength than a dying man should have. My head almost hit Connie's.
"I want you should get that bastard," Tools gasped. "Karl was the goods. Do it for Karl or I'll pull your kidneys out with a hacksaw and a number-five mechanic's pliers."
"Number five," I repeated.
"Mechanic's pliers," Tools whispered, letting go of my shirt as his eyes began to close again.
"I think…" Connie began and Tools came to life again, saying: "Nail him, Peters."
"I'll nail him, Tools," I said. "I'm a sucker for sentimental appeals."
"I've got a brother," Tools went on. "His name is… is… can't remember. Oh, Ronald. Accountant in Cleveland. Ronald Nathanson."
Two pair of feet crashing down the corridor. I looked up. Uniformed cops in the doorway. Both my age or older. Both with guns in their hands.
"Show your hands," the first cop said.
I showed my hands.
"You too," said Cop Two.
Connie showed her hands.
"Is he dead?" said the first cop, leaning toward Tools, ready to shoot him again if he suddenly leapt into the air in spite of the hole in his chest "Not yet," I said, standing up and helping Connie to her feet.
The first cop was thin with yellow drinker's eyes. The second cop looked like a milk carton with a sad face mounted on top.
"Will one of you call the Wilshire District and tell Captain Pevsner I've got some answers?"
"You a police officer?" Cop One asked.
"Something like that," Connie answered, looking down at Tools with deep concern. "Collection agency."
"You shoot this guy?" Cop Two asked, looking down at Tools's very pale face.
"No," I said as he patted me down, found my gun, removed it, smelled the barrel.
"Gun's just been fired," Cop Two said.
"At the guy who did this," I explained. "His name's Spelling. He killed three people in the last week. If the ambulance doesn't get here soon, it's going to be four people."
"I think he'll be fine," Connie said hopefully.
The cops didn't answer.
"You both married?" she asked.
The cops looked at each other and then at me.
"Her mother's a widow," I explained.
Tools gave out a sound like air escaping from a balloon. We all looked at him.
"Got a picture of your mother?" Cop Two asked.
"No, but there's one in my purse," Connie said brightly. "Down in the hotel locker room. I can run down and get it."
"You do that, miss," Cop Two said.
Connie looked at me, at Tools, and at the two cops before she went through the door. "Spunky," Cop Two said. "Just the word I'd use," I said. "Let's sit down and wait," said Cop One. And we did.
Chapter 10
The Melody Lounge on Main was almost empty when Phil and I got there. It was early afternoon. The drunks had mostly slid away for a few hours to try to give the impression that they had something to do besides drink in a dark bar where the ceiling fan whined like an engine trying to rev up. The soldiers, sailors, and marines hadn't started their evening yet and the businessmen and women from the neighborhood were still sitting in their offices, watching the clock and listening to Duke Ellington's version of "C Jam Blues."
I had been escorted to Phil's office by two silent cops, and Phil had listened quietly to my story.
"So," I had concluded, talking fast. "The way I see it, Spelling is out for revenge for something that happened to his father."
"And," Phil had said, touching his forehead to be sure it was still sweating, "you think his father may have been shish-kebabed with a sword while Atlanta burned?"