Kells walked north on Spring. At Fifth he turned west, walked two blocks, turned into a small cigar store. He nodded to the squat bald man behind the counter and went on through the ground-glass-paneled door into a large and bare back room.
The man sitting at a wide desk stood up, said, “Hello,” heartily, went to another door and opened it, said: “Walk right in.”
Kells went into a very small room, partitioned off from the other by ground-glass-paneled walls. He sat down on a worn davenport against one wall, leaned back, folded his hands over his stomach, and looked at Jack Rose.
Rose sat behind a round green-topped table, his elbows on the table, his long chin propped upon one hand. He was a dark, almost too handsome young man who had started life as Jake Rosencrancz, of Brooklyn and Queens. He said: “Did you ever hear the story about the three bears?”
Kells nodded. He sat regarding Rose gravely and nodded his head slowly up and down.
Rose was smiling, “I thought you’d have heard that one.” He moved the fingers of one hand down to his ear and pulled violently at the lobe. “Now you tell one. Tell me the one about why you’ve got such a load on Kiosque in the fourth race.”
Kells smiled faintly, dreamily. He said: “You don’t think I’d have an inside that you’d overlooked, do you, Jakie?” He got up, stretched extravagantly and walked across the room to inspect a large map of Los Angeles County on the far wall.
Rose didn’t change his position, he sat staring vacantly at the davenport. “I can throw it to Bolero.”
Kells strolled back, stood beside the table. He looked at a small watch on the inside of his left wrist, said: “You might get a wire to the track, Jakie, but you couldn’t reach your Eastern connections in time.” He smiled with gentle irony. “Anyway, you’ve got the smartest book on the Coast — the smartest book west of the Mississippi, by God! You wouldn’t want to take any chances with that big Beverly Hills clientele, would you?”
He turned and walked back to the davenport, sank wearily down and again folded his hands over his stomach. “What’s it all about? I pick two juicy winners in a row and you squawk. What the hell do you care how many I pick? — the Syndicate’s out, not you.”
He slid sideways on the davenport until his head reached the armrest, pulled one long leg up to plant his foot on the seat and sprawled the other across the floor. He intently regarded a noisily spinning electric fan on a shelf in one corner. “You didn’t get me out in this heat to talk about horses.”
Rose wore a lightweight black felt hat. He pushed it back over his high bronzed forehead, took a cigarette out of a thin case on the table and lighted it. He said: “I’m going to reopen the Joanna D. — Doc Haardt and I are going to run it together — his boat, my bankroll.”
Kells said: “Uh huh.” He stared steadily at the electric fan, without movement or change of expression.
Rose cleared his throat, went on: “The Joanna used to be the only gambling barge on the Coast, but Fay moved in with the Eaglet, and then Max Hesse promoted a two-hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht and took the play away from both of them.” Rose paused to remove a fleck of cigarette paper from his lower lip. “About three months ago, Fay and Doc got together and chased Hesse. According to the story, one of the players left a box of candy on the Monte Carlo — that’s Hesse’s boat — and along about two in the morning it exploded. No one was hurt much, but it threw an awful scare into the customers and something was said about it being a bigger and better box next time, so Hesse took a powder up the coast. But maybe you’ve heard all this before.”
Kells looked at the fan, smiled slowly. He said: “Well — I heard it a little differently.”
“You would.” Rose mashed his cigarette out, went on: “Everything was okay for a couple weeks. The Joanna and Fay’s boat were anchored about four miles apart, and their launches were running to the same wharf; but they both had men at the gangways frisking everyone who went aboard — that wasn’t so good for business. Then somebody got past the protection on the Joanna and left another ticker. It damn near blew her in two; they beached, finally got into dry dock.”
Kells said: “Uh huh.”
“Tonight she goes out.” Rose took another cigarette from the thin case and rolled it gently between his hand and the green baize of the table.
Kells said: “What am I supposed to do about it?”
Rose pulled the loose tobacco out of one end of the cigaret, licked the paper. “Have you got a match?”
Kells shook his head slowly.
Rose said: “Tell Fay to lay off.”
Kells laughed — a long, high-pitched, sarcastic laugh.
“Ask him to lay off.”
“Run your own errands, Jakie,” Kells swung up to sit, facing Rose. “For a young fella that’s supposed to be bright,” he said, “you have some pretty dumb ideas.”
“You’re a friend of Fay’s.”
“Sure,” Kells nodded elaborately. “Sure, I’m everybody’s friend. I’m the guy they write the pal songs about.” He stood up. “Is that all, Jakie?”
Rose said: “Come on out to the Joanna tonight.”
Kells grinned. “Cut it out. You know damn well I’d never buck a house. I’m not a gambler, anyway — I’m a playboy. Stop by the hotel sometime and look at my cups.”
“I mean come and look the layout over.” Rose stood up and smiled carefully. “I’ve put in five new wheels and—”
“I’ve seen a wheel,” Kells said. “Make mine strawberry.” He turned, started toward the door.
Rose said: “I’ll give you a five-percent cut.”
Kells stopped, turned slowly, and came back to the table. “Cut on what?”
“The whole take, from now on.”
“What for?”
“Showing three or four times a week... Restoring confidence.”
Kells was watching him steadily. “Whose confidence, in what?”
“Aw, nuts. Let’s stop this god-damned foolishness and do some business.” Rose sat down, found a paper of matches and lighted his limp cigarette. “You’re supposed to be a good friend of Fay’s. Whether you are or not is none of my business. The point is that everyone thinks you are, and if you show on the boat once in a while it will look like everything is under control, like Fay and I have made a deal; see?”
Kells nodded. “Why don’t you make a deal?”
“I’ve been trying to reach Fay for a week.” Rose tugged at the lobe of his ear. “Hell! This coast is big enough for all of us; but he won’t see it. He’s sore. He thinks everybody’s trying to frame him.”
“Everybody probably is.” Kells put one hand on the table and leaned over to smile down at Rose. “Now I’ll tell you one, Jakie. You’d like to have me on the Joanna because I look like the highest-powered protection at this end of the country. You’d like to carry that eighteen-carat reputation of mine around with you so you could wave it and scare all the bad little boys away.”
Rose said: “All right, all right.”
The phone on the table buzzed. Rose picked up the receiver, said “Yes” three times into the mouthpiece, then “All right, dear,” hung up.
Kells went on: “Listen, Jakie. I don’t want any part of it. I always got along pretty well by myself, and I’ll keep on getting along pretty well by myself. Anyway, I wouldn’t show in a deal with Doc Haardt if he was sleeping with the mayor — I hate his guts, and I’d pine away if I didn’t think he hated mine.”
Rose made a meaningless gesture.
Kells had straightened up. He was examining the nail of his index-finger. “I came out here a few months ago with two grand and I’ve given it a pretty good ride. I’ve got a nice little joint at the Ambassador, with a built-in bar; I’ve got a swell bunch of telephone numbers and several thousand friends in the bank. It’s a lot more fun guessing the name of a pony than guessing what the name of the next stranger I’m supposed to have shot will be. I’m having a lot of fun. I don’t want any part of anything.”
Rose stood up. “Okay.”
Kells said: “So long, Jakie.” He turned and went through the door, out through the large room, through the cigar store to the street. He walked up to Seventh and got into a cab. When they passed the big clock on the Dyas corner it was twenty minutes past three.
The desk clerk gave Kells several letters, and a message: Mr. Dave Perry called at 2:35, and again at 3:25. Asked that you call him or come to his home. Important.
Kells went to his room and put in a call to Perry. He mixed a drink and read the letters while a telephone operator called him twice to say the line was busy. When she called again, he said, “Let it go,” went down and got into another cab. He told the driver: “Corner of Cherokee and Hollywood Boulevard.”
Perry lived in a kind of penthouse on top of the Virginia Apartments. Kells climbed the narrow stair to the roof, knocked at the unsheathed fire door; he knocked again, then turned the knob, pushed the door open.
The room filled with crashing sound. Kells dropped on one knee, just inside, slammed the door shut. A strip of sunlight came in through two tall windows and yellowed the rug. Doc Haardt was lying on his back, half in, half out of the strip of sun. There was a round bluish mark on one side of his-throat, and, as Kells watched, it grew larger, red.
Ruth Perry sat on a low couch against one wall and looked at Haardt’s body. A door slammed some place toward the back of the house. Kells got up and turned the key in the door through which he had entered, crossed quickly and stood above the body.
Haardt had been a big loose-joweled Dutchman with a mouthful of gold. His dead face looked as if he were about to drawl: “Well... I’ll tell you...” A small automatic lay on the floor near his feet.
Ruth Perry stood up and started to scream. Kells put one hand on the back of her neck, the other over her mouth. She took a step forward, put her arms around his body. She looked up at him and he took his hand away from her mouth.
“Darling! I thought he was going to get you.” She spoke very rapidly. Her face was twisted with fear. “He was here an hour. He made Dave call you...”
Kells patted her cheek. “Who, baby?”
“I don’t know.” She was coming around. “A nance. A little guy with glasses.”
Kells inclined his head toward Haardt’s body, asked: “What about Doc?”
“He came up about two-thirty... Said he had to see you and didn’t want to go to the hotel. Dave called you and left word. Then about an hour ago that little son of a bitch walked in and told us all to sit down on the floor...”
Someone pounded heavily on the door.
They tiptoed across to a small, curtained archway that led to the dining room. Just inside the archway Dave Perry lay on his stomach.
Ruth Perry said: “The little guy slugged Dave when he made a pass for the phone, after he called you. He came to, a while ago, and the little guy let him have it again. What a boy!”
Someone pounded on the door again and the sound of loud voices came through faintly.
Kells said: “I’m a cinch for this one if they find me here. That’s what the plant was for.” He nodded toward the door. “Can they get around to the kitchen?”
“Not unless they go down and come up the fire escape. That’s the way our boy friend went.”
“I’ll go the other way.” Kells went swiftly to Haardt’s body, knelt and pick up the automatic. “I’ll take this along to make your story good. Stick to it, except the calls to me and the reason Doc was here.”
Ruth Perry nodded. Her eyes were shiny with excitement.
Kells said: “I’ll see what I can get on the pansy — and try to talk a little sense to the telephone girl at the hotel and the cab driver that hauled me here.”
The pounding on the door was almost continuous. Someone put a heavy shoulder to it, the hinges creaked.
Kells started toward the bedroom, then turned and came back. She tilted her mouth up to him and he kissed her. “Don’t let this lug husband of yours talk,” he said — jerked his head down at Dave Perry — “and maybe you’d better go into a swoon to alibi not answering the door. Let ’em bust it in.
“My God, Gerry! I’m too excited to faint.”
Kells kissed her again, lightly. He brought one arm up stiffly, swiftly from his side; the palm down, the fist loosely clinched. His knuckles smacked sharply against her chin. He caught her body in his arms, went into the living room and laid her gently on the floor. Then he took out his handkerchief, carefully wiped the little automatic, and put it on the floor midway between Haardt, Perry and Ruth Perry.
He went into the bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom. He raised the window and squeezed through to a narrow ledge. He was screened from the street by part of the building next door, and from the alley by a tree that spread over the back yard of the apartment house. A few feet along the ledge he felt with his foot for a steel rung, found it, swung down to the next, across a short space to the sill of an open corridor-window of the next-door building.
He walked down the corridor, down several flights of stairs and out a rear door of the building. Down a kind of alley he went through a wooden gate into a bungalow court and through to Whitley and walked north.
Cullen’s house was on the northeastern slope of Whitley Heights, a little way off Cahuenga. He answered the fourth ring, stood in the doorway blinking at Kells. “Well, stranger. Long time no see.”
Cullen was a heavily built man of about forty-five. He had a round pale face, a blue chin and blue-black hair. He was naked except for a pair of yellow silk pajama-trousers; a full-rigged ship was elaborately tattooed across his wide chest.
Kells said: “H’are ya, Willie,” went past Cullen into the room. He sat down in a deep leather chair, took off his Panama hat and ran his fingers through red, faintly graying hair.
Cullen went into the kitchen and came back with tall glasses, a bowl of ice and a squat bottle.
Kells said: “Well, Willie—”
Cullen held up his hand. “Wait. Don’t tell me. Make me guess.” He closed his eyes, went through the motions of mystic communion, then opened his eyes, sat down and poured two drinks. “You’re in another jam,” he said.
Kells twisted his mouth into a wholly mirthless smile, nodded. “You’re a genius, Willie.” He sipped his drink, leaned back.
Cullen sat down.
Kells said: “You know Max Hesse pretty well. You’ve been out to his house in Flintridge.” Sure.
“Do you know what Dave Perry looks like?”
“No.”
Kells put his glass down. “A little patent-leather, pop-eyed guy with a waxed mustache. Wears gray silk shirts with tricky brocaded stripes. Used to run a string of trucks down from Frisco — had some kind of warehouse connection up there. Stood a bad rap on some forged Liberty Bonds about a year ago and went broke beating it. Married Grant Fay’s sister when he was on top.”
“I’ve seen her,” Cullen said. “Nice dish.”
“You’ve never seen Dave at Hesse’s?”
Cullen shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“All right. It wouldn’t mean a hell of a lot, anyway.” Kells picked up his glass, drained it, stood up. “I want to use the phone.”
He dialed a number printed in large letters on the cover of the telephone book, asked for the Reporters’ Room. When the connection was made, he asked for Shep Beery, spoke evenly into the instrument: “Listen, Shep, this is Gerry. In a little while you’ll probably have some news for me... Yeah... Call Granite six five one six... And Shep — who copped in the fourth race at Juana?... Thanks, Shep. Got the number?... OK.”
Cullen was pouring drinks. “If all this is as bad as you’re making it look — you have a very trusting nature,” he observed.
Kells was dialing another number. He said, over his shoulder: “I win twenty-four hundred on Kiosque.”
“That’s fine.”
“Perry shot Doc Haardt to death about four o’clock.”
“That’s fine. Where were you?” Cullen was stirring his drink.
Kells jiggled the hook up and down. “Goddamn telephones,” he said. He dialed the number again, then turned his head to smile at Cullen. “I was here.”
The telephone clicked. Kells turned to it, asked: “Is Number Four on duty?” There was a momentary wait, then: “Hello, Stella? This is Mister Kells... Listen, Stella, there weren’t any calls for me between two and four today... I know it’s on the record, baby, but I want it off. Will you see what you can do about it?... Right away?... That’s fine. And Stella, the number I called about three-thirty — the one where the line was busy... Yes. That was Granite six five one six... Got it?... All right, kid, I’ll tell you all about it later. ’Bye.”
Cullen said: “As I was saying — you have a very trusting nature.”
Kells was riffling the pages of a small blue address book. “One more,” he said, mostly to himself. He spun the dial again. “Hello — Yellow? Ambassador stand, please... Hello. Is Fifty-eight in?... That’s the little bald-headed Mick, isn’t it?... No, no: Mick... Sure... Send him to two eight nine Iris Circle when he gets in... Two... eight... nine... That’s in Hollywood; off Cahuenga...”
They sat for several minutes without speaking. Kells sipped at his drink and stared out of the window. Then he said: “I’m not putting on an act for you, Willie. I don’t know how to tell it; it doesn’t make much sense, yet.” He smiled lazily at Cullen. “Are you good at riddles?”
“Terrible.”
The phone rang. Cullen got up to answer it. Kells said: “Maybe that’s the answer.” Cullen called him to the phone. He said, “Yes, Shep,” and was silent a little while. Then he said, “Thanks,” hung up and went back to the deep leather chair. “I guess maybe we can’t play it the way I’d figured,” he said.
“There’s a tag out for me.” Cullen said slowly, sarcastically: “My pal! They’ll trace the phony call that your girl friend Stella’s handling, or get to the cab driver before he gets to you. We’ll have a couple carloads of law here in about fifteen minutes.”
“That’s all right, Willie. You can talk to ’em.”
Cullen grinned mirthlessly. “I haven’t spoken to a copper for four years.”
Kells straightened in his chair. “Listen. Doc went to Perry’s to see me... What for? I was with Jack Rose being propositioned to come in with him and Doc, on the Joanna. They’re evidently figuring Fay or Hesse to make things tough and wanted me for a flash.” He looked at his watch. Cullen was stirring ice into another drink.
Kells went on, swiftly: “When I open the door at Perry’s, somebody lets Doc have it and goes out through the kitchen. Maybe. The back door slammed but it might have been the draft when I opened the front door. Dave is cold with an egg over his ear and Ruth Perry says that a little queen with glasses shot Doc and sapped Dave when he spoke out of turn...”
Cullen said: “You’re not making this up as you go along, are you?”
Kells paid no attention to Cullen’s interruption. “The rod is on the floor. I tell Ruth to stick to her story... Cullen raised one eyebrow, smiled faintly with his lips. Kells said: “She will,” went on: ”... and try to keep Dave quiet while I figure an alibi, try to find out what it’s all about. I smack her to make it look good and then I get the bright idea that if I leave the gun there they’ll hold both of them, no matter what story they tell. They’d have to hold somebody; Doc had a lot of friends downtown.”
Kells finished his drink, picked up his hat and put it on. “I figured Ruth to office Dave that I was working on it and that he might keep his mouth shut if he wasn’t in on the plant.” Cullen sighed heavily.
Kells said: “He was. Shep tells me that Dave says I had an argument with Doc, shot him, and clipped Dave when he tried to stop me. Shep can’t get a line on Ruth’s story, but I’ll lay six, two, and even that she’s still telling the one about the little guy.” He stood up. “They’re both being held incommunicado. And here’s one for the book: Reilly made the pinch. Now what the hell was Reilly doing out here if it wasn’t tipped?”
Cullen said: “It’s a set-up. It was the girl.” Kells shook his head slowly. “Dave knows it and is trying to cover for her,” Cullen went on. “She told you a fast one about the little guy and I’ll bet she’s telling the same story as Dave right now.”
“Wrong.”
Cullen laughed. “If you didn’t think it was possible you wouldn’t look that way.”
“You’re crazy. If she wanted to frame me she wouldn’t’ve put on that act. She wouldn’t’ve...”
“Oh, yes, she would. She’d let you go and put the finger on you from a distance.” Cullen scratched his side, under the arm, yawned.
Kells said: “What about Dave?”
“Maybe Doc socked Dave.”
“She’d cheer.”
“Maybe.” Cullen got up and walked to a window. “Maybe she cheered and squeezed the heater at the same time. That’s been done, you know.”
Kells shook his head. “I don’t see it,” he said. “There are too many other angles.”
“You wouldn’t see it.” Cullen turned from the window, grinned. “You don’t know anything about feminine psychology—”
Kells said: “I invented it.”
Cullen spread his mouth into a wide thin line, nodded ponderously. “Sure,” he said, “there are a lot of boys sitting up in Quentin counting their fingers who invented it too.” He walked to the stair and back. “Anyway, you had a pretty good hunch when you left Exhibit A on the floor.”
“I’m superstitious. I haven’t carried a gun for over a year,” Kells smiled a little.
Cullen said: “Another angle — she’s Fay’s sister.”
“That’s swell, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
“It might.” Cullen yawned again extravagantly, scratched his arms.
Kells asked: “Yen?”
“Uh huh. I was about to cook up a couple loads when you busted in with all this heavy drama.” Cullen jerked his head toward the stair. “Eileen is upstairs.”
Kells said: “I thought the last cure took.”
“Sure. It took.” Cullen smiled sleepily. “Like the other nine. I’m down to two, three pipes each other day.”
They looked at one another expressionlessly for a little while.
A car chugged up the short curving slope below the front door, stopped. Kells turned and went into the semidarkness of the kitchen. A buzzer whirred. Cullen went to the front door, opened it, said: “Come in.” A little Irishman in the uniform of a cab driver came into the room and took off his hat. Cullen went back to the chair and sat down with his back to the room, picked up his drink.
The phone rang.
Kells came out of the kitchen and answered it. He stood for a while staring vacantly at the cab driver, then said, “Thanks, kid,” hung up, put his hand in his pocket and took out a small neatly folded sheaf of bills. “When you brought me here from the hotel about four o’clock,” he said, “I forgot to tip you.” He peeled off two bills and held them toward the driver.
The little man came forward, took the bills and examined them. One was a hundred, the other a fifty. “Do I have to tell it in court?” he asked.
Kells smiled, shook his head. “You probably won’t have to tell it anywhere.”
The driver said: “Thank you very much, sir.” He went to the door and put on his hat.
Kells said: “Wait a minute.” He spoke to Cullen: “Can I use your heap, Willie?”
Cullen nodded without enthusiasm, without turning his head.
Kells turned to the driver. “All right, Paddy. You’d better stall for an hour or so. Then if anyone asks you anything, you can tell ’em you picked me up here — on this last trip — and hauled me down to Malibu. No house number — just the gas station, or something.”
The driver said, “Right,” went out.
“Our high-pressure police department finally got around to Stella.” Kells went back to his chair, sat down on the edge of it and grinned cheerfully at Cullen. “How much cash have you got, Willie?”
Cullen gazed tragically at the ceiling.
“It was too late to catch the bank,” Kells went on, “and it’s a cinch I can’t get within a mile of it in the morning. They’ll have it loaded.”
“I get a break. I’ve only got about thirty dollars.”
Kells laughed. “You’d better keep that for cigarets. I’ve got to square this thing pronto and it’ll probably take better than change — or maybe I’ll take a little trip.” He got up, walked across the room and studied his long white face in a mirror. He leaned forward, rubbed two fingers of one hand lightly over his chin. “I wonder if I’d like Mexico.”
Cullen didn’t say anything.
Kells turned from the mirror. “I guess I’ll have to take a chance on reaching Rose and picking up my twenty-four Cs.”
Cullen said: “That’ll be a lot of fun.”
The First Street lights and electric signs were being turned on when Kells parked on Fourth Street between Broadway and Hill. He walked up Hill to Fifth, turned into a corner building, climbed stairs to the third floor and walked down the corridor to a window on the Fifth Street side. He stood there for several minutes intently watching the passersby on the sidewalk across the street. Then he went back to the car.
As he pressed the starter, a young chubby-faced patrolman came across the street and put one foot on the running board, one hand on top of the door. “Don’t you know you can’t park here between four and six?” he said.
Kells glanced at his watch. It was five thirty-five. He said: “No. I’m a stranger here.”
“Let’s see your driver’s license.”
Kells smiled, said evenly: “I haven’t got it with me.”
The patrolman shook his head sadly. “Where you from?” he asked.
“San Francisco.”
“You’re in the big city now, buddy.” The patrolman sneered at Kells, the car, the sky. He seemed lost in thought for a half-minute, then he said: “All right. Now you know.”
Kells drove up Fourth to the top of the hill. His eyes were half closed and there was an almost tender expression on his face. He swore softly, continuously, obscenely. His anger had worn itself out by the time he had parked the car on Grand and walked down the steep hill to the rear entrance of the Biltmore. He got off the elevator at the ninth floor, walked past the questioning stare of the woman at the key desk, down a long hall, knocked at the door of Suite 9D.
Rose opened the door. He stood silently, motionlessly for perhaps five seconds, then he ran his tongue over his lower lip and said: “Come in.”
Kells went into the room.
A husky, pale-eyed young man was straddling a small chair, his elbows on the back of it, his chin between his hands. His sand-colored hair was carefully combed down over one side of his forehead. His mouth hung a little open and he breathed through it regularly, audibly.
Rose said: “This is Mister O’Donnell of Kansas City... Mister Kells.”
The young man stood up, still straddling the chair, held out a pink hand. “Glad t’ know you.”
Kells shook his hand cursorily, said: “I stopped by for my dough.”
“Sure.” Rose went to a cabinet and took out a bottle of whiskey and three glasses. “Why didn’t you pick it up at the store?”
Kells walked across the room and sat down on the arm of a big, heavily upholstered chair. O’Donnell was in his shirtsleeves. O’Donnell’s coat was lying across a table, back and a little to one side of Kells.
Kells said: “I want it in cash,”
Rose put the bottle and glasses down on a wide central table.
“I haven’t got any cash here,” he said, “we’ll have to go over to the store.” He went toward the telephone on a desk against one wall. “I’ll order some White Rock.”
Kells said: “No.”
Rose stopped, turned — he was smiling. O’Donnell unstraddled the chair and sauntered in Kells’ general direction. His pale eyes were fixed blankly on Kells’ stomach. Kells stood up very straight, took two long swift sidewise steps and grabbed O’Donnell’s coat. The automatic in a shoulder holster which had been under the coat clattered to the floor. O’Donnell dived for it and Kells stamped hard on his fingers, brought his right knee up hard into O’Donnell’s face. O’Donnell grunted, lost his balance and fell over backward; he rolled back and forth silently, holding both hands over his nose.
Rose was standing by the central table, holding the whiskey bottle by the neck. He was still smiling as if that expression had hardened, congealed on his face.
Kells stooped and scooped up the gun.
There was a wide double door at one side of the room, leading to a bedroom, and beyond, directly across the bedroom, there was another door leading to a bath. It opened and a very blonde woman stuck her head out. She called: “What’s the matter, Jack?”
Kells could see her reflected indistinctly in one of the mirrors of the wide double door. He and O’Donnell were out of her line of vision.
Rose said: “Nothing, honey.” He tipped the bottle, poured a drink.
“Is Lou here yet?” She raised her voice above the sound of water running in the tub.
“No.”
The blonde woman closed the door. O’Donnell sat up and took out a handkerchief and held it over his nose.
Kells said: “Now...”
Rose shook his head slowly. “I’ve got about a hundred an’ ten.”
Kells rubbed the corner of one of his eyes with his middle finger. He said: “All right, Jakie. I want you to call the shop, and I want you to say ‘Hello, Frank?’ — and if it isn’t Frank I want you to wait till Frank comes to the phone, and then I want you to say ‘Bring three thousand dollars over to the hotel right away.’ Then I want you to hang up.”
Rose picked up the glass and drank. “There isn’t more than four hundred dollars at the store,” he said. “It’s all down on the Joanna — for the opening.”
Kells looked at him thoughtfully for a little while. “All right. Get your hat.”
Rose hesitated a moment, looked down at O’Donnell, then walked over to a chair near the bedroom door and picked up his hat.
Kells said: “Now, Jakie, back into the bedroom.” Kells transferred the automatic to his left hand, took hold the back of O’Donnell’s collar with his right, said, “Pardon me, Mister O’Donnell.”
He dragged O’Donnell across the floor to the bedroom door — keeping Rose in front of him — across the bedroom floor to the bathroom. He opened the bathroom door, jerked O’Donnell to his feet and shoved him inside. The blonde woman in the tub screamed once. Then Kells took the key from the inside of the door, slammed the door, cutting the sound of her second scream to a thin cry, locked it.
Rose was standing at the foot of one of the twin beds. The dark skin was drawn very tightly over his jaw muscles. He looked very sick.
Kells put the key in his pocket. He grinned, said: “Come on.
They walked together to the outer door of the suite. Kells lifted one point of his vest, stuck the automatic inside the waistband of his trousers. He let his belt out a notch or so until the gun nestled as comfortably and as securely as possible beneath his ribs, then pulled the point of his vest down over the butt. It made only a slight bulge against the narrowness of his waist.
He said: “Jakie, have you any idea how fast I can get it out and how well I can use it?”
Rose didn’t say anything. He ran the fingers of one hand down over the left side of his face and looked at the floor.
Kells went on: “I’ve been framed for one caper today and I don’t intend to be framed for another. The next one’ll be bona fide — and I’d just as soon it’d be you, and I’d just as soon it’d be in the lobby of the Biltmore as any place else.” He opened the door and switched out the light. “Let’s go.”
They went down in the elevator, out through the Galleria to Fifth Street and up the south side of the street to Grand, walked up the steep hill to the car.
Kells said: “You’d better drive, Jake. I haven’t got a license.”
Rose said he didn’t have a license either.
Rose drove. They went up Grand to Tenth, over Tenth to Main. When they turned into Main, headed south, Kells twisted around in the seat until he was almost facing Rose. Kells’ hands were lying idly in his lap. He said: “Who shot Doc?”
Rose turned his head for a second, smiled a little. “President Roosevelt.”
Kells licked his lips. “Who shot Doc, Jakie?”
Rose kept his eyes straight ahead. He turned his long chin a fraction of an inch towards Kells, spoke gently, barely moving his mouth: “Perry and the DA and all the papers say you did. That’s good enough for me.”
Kells chuckled. He said: “Step on it. Your chum from Kansas City won’t stay kicked up forever.” He watched the needle of the speedometer quiver from twenty-five to thirty-five. “That’ll do.”
They went out Main to Slauson, east to Truck Boulevard, south.
Kells said: “You’re a swell driver, Jakie — you should’ve stayed in the hack racket back in Brooklyn.” He looked at the slowly darkening sky, went on, as if to himself: “There must be a very tricky inside on this play. The rake-off on all the boats together wouldn’t be worth all his finaygling — shootings and pineapples and what have you.” He turned slowly, soft-eyed toward Rose. “What’s it all about?”
Rose was silent. He twisted his lips up at the corners. As they neared the P & O wharf where the Joanna motor launches tied up, Kells said: “You look a lot more comfortable now that you’re getting near the home grounds. But remember, Jakie — one word out of turn, one wrong move, and you get it right in the belly. I’m just dippy enough to do it. I get mad when a goose tries to run out on me.”
They left the car in a parking station, walked down the wharf. It was too early for customers. A few crap and blackjack dealers, waiters, one floor man whom Kells knew slightly were lounging about the small waiting room, waiting for the first boat to leave. They all stopped talking when Kells and Rose went into the waiting room.
The floor man said, “Hello, boss,” to Rose, nodded to Kells.
Rose said: “Let’s go.”
The man who owned the launches came out of his little office. He said: “Mickey ain’t here yet. He makes the first trip.
Rose looked away from him, said: “Take us out yourself.” The man nodded doubtfully, locked the office door and went out toward the small float where the four boats that ran to the Joanna were tied up. The dealers and waiters got up and followed him. The floor man lagged behind. He acted as if he wanted to talk to Rose.
Kells took Rose’s arm. “Let’s go over here a minute, first,” he said.
They crossed the wharf to where one of the Eaglet launches was moored at the foot of a short gangway. A big red-faced man was working on the engine.
Kells called to him: “Has Fay gone aboard yet?”
The man straightened up, nodded. “He went out about six o’clock.”
Kells said: “You go out and tell Fay that Kells sent you. Tell him I’m going aboard the Joanna to collect some money. Tell him to send some of the boys with you, and you come back and circle around the Joanna until I hail you to pick me up. Got it?”
The red-faced man said: “Yes, sir — but we’re expecting quite a crowd tonight — and one of the boats is out of commission...”
Kells said: “That’s all right — one boat can handle the crowd. This is important.” He grinned at Rose: “Isn’t it, Jakie?”
Rose smiled with his mouth: his eyes were very cold and far-away.
The red-faced man said: “All right, Mister Kells.” He spun the crank, and when the engine was running he put the big aluminum cover over it, cast off the lines and went to the wheel.
Kells and Rose went across the wharf and down onto the float and aboard the Joanna launch. A helper cast off the lines and the launch stood out through the narrows, down the bay.
Darkness came over the water swiftly.
They rounded the breakwater, headed toward a distant twinkling light. One of the dealers talked in a low voice to the man at the wheel; two of the waiters chattered to each other in Italian. The others were silent.
In the thirty-five or forty minutes that it took to clime up to the Joanna, the wind freshened and the launch slid up and down over the long smooth swells. The lights of the Joanna came out of the darkness through thin ribbons of fog.
Kells walked up the gangway a step behind and a little to the left of Rose. Several seamen and hangers-on stood at the rail, stared at them. They crossed the cabaret that had been built across the upper deck, went down a wide red-carpeted stairway to the principal gambling room. It ran the width and nearly the length of the ship. Dozens of green-covered tables lined the sides: Blackjack, chuck-a-luck, faro, roulette, craps. Two dealers were removing the canvas covers from one of the big roulette tables.
They turned at the bottom of the stairs and went aft to a white ath-warship bulkhead. There were three doors in the bulkhead; the middle one was ajar. They went in.
Swanstrom sat in a tilted swivel chair at a large roll-top desk. Swanstrom had been Doc Haardt’s house manager; he was a very fat man with big brown eyes, a slow and eager smile. A black-and-white kitten was curled up on his lap.
The swivel chair creaked as he swung heavily forward and stood up. He put the kitten on the desk, said—:
“How are ya, Jack?”
Rose nodded abstractedly, cleared his throat. “This is Mister Kells... Mister Swanstrom.”
Swanstrom opened his mouth. He held out his hand toward Kells and looked at the door. Kells had stopped just inside the door; he half turned and closed it, pressed the little brass knob and the spring lock clicked. He stood looking at Rose, Swanstrom, the room.
There was a blue-shaded drop light hanging from the center of the overhead and another over the desk. There was a big old-fashioned safe against one wall, and beside it there was a short ladder leading up to a narrow shoulder-height platform that ran across all the forward bulkhead — the one through which they had entered. The bulkhead above the platform was lined with sheet iron and there was a two-inch slit running across it at about the height of a medium sized man’s eyes. There were two .30–30 rifles on the platform, leaning against the bulkhead. There was another narrow door back of the desk.
Rose went to the desk and sat down, took a gray leather key case out of his pocket and unlocked one of the desk drawers. He slid the drawer open and took out a cigar box and opened it, took out a sheaf of hundred-dollar notes, slid the rubber band off onto two fingers and counted out twenty-four. He put the rest back in the box, the box back in the drawer, locked it. He counted the money again and held it out toward Kells. “Now, if you’ll give me a receipt...” he said.
Kells took the money and tucked it into his inside breast pocket, said: “Sure. Write it out.” His face was hard and expressionless.
Rose scribbled a few words on a piece of paper and went to the desk and leaned over and signed it.
Swanstrom was still standing in the middle of the room looking self-consciously at Kells, a meaningless smile curving his mouth. He said: “Well, I guess I better go up and see if everything’s ready for the first load.” Kells said: “We’ll all go.”
There was silence for a moment and then a new thin voice lisped: “Please lock your hands together back of your neck.” Kells slowly turned his head and looked at the narrow white door behind the desk. It had been opened about three inches and the slim blue barrel of a heavy-caliber revolver was stuck through the opening. As he watched, the door swung open a little farther and he saw a little dark man standing in the dimness of the passageway. The little man was leaning against the side of the passageway and holding the revolver pointed at Kells’ chest and smiling through thick-lensed glasses. Kells put his hands back of his neck.
Rose came around the desk and took the automatic out of Kells’ belt, held it by the barrel and swung it swiftly back and then forward at Kells’ head. Kells moved his hand enough to take most of the butt of the automatic on his knuckles, and bent his knees and grabbed Rose’s arm. Then he fell backwards, pulled Rose down with him.
The little man came into the room quickly and kicked the side of Kells’ head very hard. Kells relaxed his grip on Rose and Rose stood up, brushed himself off and went over and kicked Kells very carefully, drawing his foot back and aiming, and then kicking very accurately and hard.
The kitten jumped off the desk and went to Kells’ bloody head and sniffed delicately. Kells could feel the kitten’s warm breath. Then everything got dark and he couldn’t feel anything any more.