At about six-forty Kells dropped Granquist at her apartment house on the corner of Wilcox and Yucca.
“Meet you in an hour at the Derby.”
She said: “Oke — adios.”
Kells drove up Wilcox to Cahuenga, up Cahuenga to Iris, turned up the short curving slope to Cullen’s house. The garage doors were open, he drove the car in and then went up and rang the bell. No one answered. He went back down and closed the garage doors and walked down to Cahuenga, down Cahuenga to Franklin.
He stood on the corner a little while and then went into a delicatessen and called a Hempstead number. The line was busy, he waited a few minutes, called again, said: “Hello, Ruth... Swell... Listen: I’m going to be very busy tonight — I’ve got about a half-hour... You come out and walk up to Las Palmas, and if you’re, sure you’re not tailed come up Las Palmas to Franklin... If you’re not absolutely sure take a walk or something... I’ll give you a ring late... Yeah...”
He went out and walked over Franklin to Las Palmas. He walked back and forth between Las Palmas and Highland for ten minutes and then walked down the west side of Las Palmas to Hollywood Boulevard. He didn’t see anything of Ruth Perry.
He went on down Las Palmas to Sunset, east to Vine and up Vine to the Brown Derby.
Granquist was in a booth, far back, on the left.
She said: “I ordered oysters.”
Kells sat down. “That’s fine.” He nodded to an acquaintance at a nearby table.
“A couple minutes after you left me,” she said, “a guy came into my place and asked the girl at the desk who I was. She said ‘Who wants to know?’ and he said he had seen me come in and thought I was an old friend of his...”
“And...”
“And I haven’t got any old friends.”
“What’d he look like?” Kells was reading the menu.
“The girl isn’t very bright. All she could remember was that he had on a gray suit and a gray cap.”
Kells said: “That’s a pipe — it was one of the Barrymores.”
“No.” Granquist shook her head very seriously. “It might’ve been a copper who tailed us from your hotel, or it might’ve been one of—”
Kells interrupted her suddenly: “Did you leave the stuff in your apartment?”
“Certainly not.”
Kells said: “Anyway — we’ve got to do whatever’s to be done with it tonight. I’m getting the noon train tomorrow.”
“We’re getting the noon train.”
Kells smiled, looked at her a little while. He said: “When you can watch a lady eat oysters and still think she’s swell — that’s love.”
He ordered the rest of the dinner.
Granquist carried a smart black bag. She opened it and took out a big silver flask, poured drinks under the table.
The dinner was very good.
After a while, Granquist said with sudden and exaggerated seriousness: “I haven’t told you the story of my life!”
Kells was drinking his coffee, watching the door. He turned to her slowly, said slowly: “No — but I’ve heard one.”
“All right. You tell me.”
“I was born of rich but honest parents...”
“You can skip that.”
He grinned at her. “I came back from France,” he said, — “with a set of medals, a beautiful case of shell shock and a morphine habit you could hang your hat on.”
He gestured with his hands. “All gone.”
“Even the medals?”
He nodded. “The State kept them as souvenirs of my first trial.”
Granquist poured two drinks.
“I happened to be too close to a couple of front-page kills,” Kells went on. “There was a lot of dumb sleuthing and a lot of dumb talk. It got so, finally, when the New York police couldn’t figure a shooting any other way, I was it.”
Granquist was silent, smiling.
“They got tired trying to hang them on me after the first three but the whisper went on. It got to be known as the Kells Inside...”
“And at heart you’re just a big, sympathetic boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Uh, huh.” He nodded his head slowly, emphatically. His face was expressionless.
“Me — I’m Napoleon.” Granquist took a powder puff out of the bag and rubbed it over her nose.
Kells beckoned a waiter, paid the check. “And beyond the Alps lies Italy. Let’s go.” It was raining a little.
Kells held Granquist close to him. “The Knickerbocker is just around the corner on Ivar,” he said — “but I’m going to put you in a cab and I want you to go down to Western Avenue and get out and walk until you’re sure you’re not being followed. Then get another cab and come to the Knickerbocker — I’ll be in ten-sixteen.”
The doorman held a big umbrella for them and they walked across the wet sidewalk and Granquist got into a cab. Kells stood in the thin rain until the cab had turned the corner down Hollywood Boulevard, then he went back into the restaurant.
Ruth Perry was sitting in the corner booth behind the cashier’s desk. She didn’t say anything. Kells sat down. There was a newspaper on the table and he turned it around, glanced at the headlines, said: “What do you think about the European situation?”
“Who was that?” Ruth Perry inclined her head slightly toward the door.
Kells put his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “None of your business, darling.” He looked up at her and smiled. “Now keep your pants on. I stand to make a ten-or fifteen-thousand-dollar lick tonight, and that one” — he gestured with his head toward the door — “is a very important part of the play.”
Ruth Perry leaned back and looked at the ceiling and laughed a little bit. Presently she said: “What are you going to do about Dave?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’m not going to go on the stand and lay myself open to a perjury rap.”
Kells shook his head. “You won’t have to, baby. The trial won’t come up for a month or so and we can spring Dave before that” — he smiled with his mouth — “if you want to.”
They were silent for a little while.
Then Kells said: “I’ve got to go now — call you around twelve.”
He got up and went out into the rain. He walked up to the corner of Vine and Hollywood Boulevard and went into the drugstore and bought some aspirin, took two five-grain tablets and then went out and crossed the Boulevard and walked up Vine Street about a hundred yards. Then he crossed the street and walked back down to the parking station next to the Post Office. He stood on the sidewalk watching people across the street for a little while, then went swiftly back through the parking station and down the ramp to the garage under the Knickerbocker Hotel.
He got out of the elevator on the tenth floor and knocked at the door of ten-sixteen. Fenner opened the door.
Fenner said: “Well, Mister Kells — you didn’t catch your train.” He smiled and bowed Kells in.
They sat in the big living room and Fenner poured drinks. He poured three drinks and leaned back and asked: “Where’s the little lady?”
“She’ll be up in a few minutes.”
Someone came out of the bathroom and through the bedroom. Fenner got up and introduced the dark medium-sized man that came in. “This is Bob Jeffers — God’s gift to Womanhood... Mister Kells.”
Kells stood up and shook hands with Jeffers. He was a motion-picture star who had had a brief and spectacular career; had been on the way out for nearly a year. He was drunk. He said: “It is a great pleasure to meet a real gunman, Mister Kells.”
Kells glanced at Fenner and Fenner shook his head slightly, smiled apologetically. Kells sat down and sipped his whiskey.
Jeffers said: “I’m going up and get Lola.” He took up his glass and went unsteadily out of the room, through the hallway, out the outer door.
“You mustn’t mind Jeffers.”
Kells said: “Sure.” Then he leaned back in his chair and stared vacantly at Fenner. “Have you got twenty-five grand in cash?”
Fenner looked at him very intently. Then he smiled slowly and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Why?”
“Can you get it — tonight?”
“Well — possibly. I—”
Kells interrupted, spoke rapidly. “I’ve talked to the lady. She’s got enough on Bellmann to run him out of politics — out of the state, by God! You’re getting first crack at it because I have a hunch he isn’t sitting so pretty financially. It’s the keys to the city for you — it’s in black and white— an’ it’s a bargain.”
“You seem to have a more than casual interest in this...”
Kells nodded. “Uh, huh,” he said, smiled. “I’m the fiscal agent.”
Fenner stood up and walked up and down the room, his hands clasped behind him, a lecture-platform expression on his face.
“You forget, Kells, that the Common People — the voters — are not fully informed of Mister Bellmann’s connections, his power in the present administration.”
“That’s what your Coast Guardian’s for.” Fenner stopped in front of Kells. “Just what form does this, uh — incriminating information take?”
Kells shook his head, slowly. “You’ll have to take my word for that,” he said. He leaned forward and put his empty glass on the table.
The doorbell rang. Fenner went out into the hall, followed Granquist back into the room. Kells got up and introduced her to Fenner, and Fenner took her coat into the bedroom and then came back and poured drinks for all of them.
“Mister Kells has raised the ante to twenty-five thousand,” he said. He smiled boyishly at Granquist.
She took her drink and sat down. She raised the glass to her mouth. “Hey, hey.” They all drank.
Granquist took a sack of Durham, papers out of her bag, rolled a cigarette.
Fenner said: “Of course I can’t enter into a proposition involving so much money without knowing definitely what I’m getting.”
“You put twenty-five thousand dollars in cash on the line and you get enough to put the election on ice.” Kells got up and went over to one of the windows. He turned, went on very earnestly: “And it’s a hell of a long ways from that now.”
Fenner pursed his lips, smiled a little. “Well — now...”
“And it’s got to be done tonight.”
Granquist got up and put her empty glass on the table.
Fenner said: “Help yourself, help yourself.”
She filled the two glasses on the table with whiskey and ice and White Rock. She said: “Do you let strangers use your bathroom?”
Fenner took her through the hallway to the bedroom and turned on the light in the bath, came back and sat down and picked up the telephone, asked for a Mister Dillon. When the connection was made, he said: “I want you to bring up the yellow sealed envelope that’s in the safe... Yes, please — and bring it yourself.” He hung up and turned to Kells. “All right,” he said, “I’ll play.”
Kells sat down and crossed his legs. He studied the glistening toe of his left shoe, said: “It’s going to sound like a fairy tale,” looked up at Fenner. “Bellmann’s a very smart guy. If he wasn’t he wouldn’t be where he is.”
Fenner nodded impatiently.
Kells said: “The smarter they are, the sappier the frame they’ll go for. Bellmann spent weekend before last at Jack Rose’s cabin at Big Bear.” He leaned forward and took his glass from the table. “Rose has been trying to get a feeler to him for a long time, has tried to reach him through his own friends. A few weeks ago Rose took a big place on the lake not far from Bellmann’s, invited Hugg and MacAlmon — Mac is very close to Bellmann — up for the fishing, or what have you? They all dropped in on Bellmann in a spirit of neighborliness, and he decided he’d been wrong about Rose all these years. Next day he returned the call. When Hugg and Mac came to the city they left Rose and Bellmann like that” — he held up two slim fingers pressed close together.
Granquist came in, sat down. Kells turned his head in her direction. Without letting his eyes focus directly on her, he said: “That’s where baby comes in.”
Fenner lighted a cigaret, coughed out smoke.
“She came out with friends of Rose from KC,” Kells went on. “Bellmann met her at Rose’s and took her big. That was Rose’s cue. He threw a party — one of those intimate, quiet little affairs — Rose and a showgirl, Bellmann and” — he smiled faintly at Granquist — “this one. They all got stiff — I don’t mean drunk, I mean stiff. And what do you suppose happened?”
He paused, grinned happily at Fenner. “Miss Granquist had her little camera along, took a lot of snapshots.” He turned his grin toward Granquist. “Miss Dipso Granquist stayed sober enough to snap her little camera.”
Fenner got up and took Granquist’s empty glass, filled it. He looked very serious.
Kells went on: “Of course it all came back to Rose in the morning. He asked about the pictures and she gave him a couple of rolls of film she’d stuck in the camera during the night, clicked with the lens shut, blanks. She discovered that the lens wasn’t open when she gave them to him, they had one of those morning-after laughs about it. Bellmann had a dark green hangover; he didn’t even remember about the pictures until a day or so later and then he wrote Miss Granquist a couple of hot letters with casual postscripts: ‘How did the snapshots turn out, darling?’ cracks like that.”
Kells got up, stretched. “You see, it gets better as it goes along.”
“What are the pictures like?” Fenner was standing near Granquist, his little pointed chin thrust toward Kells.
“Don’t be silly. They’re right out of the pocket of one of those frogs that work along the Rue de Rivoli.” Kells ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s not the point though. It’s not what they are, it’s who they’re of: Mister John R. Bellmann, the big boss of the reform administration, the Woman’s Club politician — at the house and in the intimate company of Jack Rose, gambler, Crown Prince of the Western Underworld and a couple of, well — questionable ladies.”
“And exactly what am I buying?”
“The negatives and one set of prints. My word that you’re getting all the negatives and that there are no other prints. The letters — and certain information as to what Bellmann and Rose talked about before they went under...”
The doorbell rang.
Fenner said: “That’ll be Dillon.” He went out into the hallway and came back with a sandy-haired, spectacled man. Both of them were holding their hands above their shoulders in the conventional gesture of surprise. Two men whom Kells had never seen before came in behind them. One, the most striking, was rather fat and his small head stuck out of a stiff collar, his tie was knotted to stick straight out, stiffly from the opening in his collar. He held a short blunt revolver in his hand.
The fat man said: “Go see if the tall one has got anything in his pockets.”
The other man went to Kells. He was a gray-faced nondescript young man in a tightly belted raincoat. He went through Kells’ pockets very carefully and when he had finished, said: “Sit down.”
Dillon shifted his weight from one foot to the other and the fat man, who was almost directly behind him, raised the revolver and brought the muzzle down hard on the back of his head. Dillon grunted and his knees gave away and he slumped down softly to the floor.
The fat man giggled quietly, nervously. He said: “That’s one down. Every little bit helps.”
Kells sat down on the divan and leaned back and crossed his legs.
The fat man said: “Put your hands up, Skinny.” Kells shook his head slightly.
The young man in the raincoat leaned forward and slapped Kells across the mouth. Kells looked up at him and his face was very sad, his eyes were sleepy. He said: “That’s too bad.”
Fenner turned his head, spoke over his shoulder to the fat man: “What do you want?”
“I don’t want you. Go sit down in that chair by the window.”
Fenner crossed the room, sat down.
The fat man said: “Reach back of you and pull the shades shut.”
Granquist said sarcastically: “Now pull up a chair for yourself, Chub.” She leaned forward toward the table. “Ain’t you going to have a drink?”
Kells said: “Don’t say ‘ain’t,’ sweet.”
The fat man sat down in the chair nearest the door. His elbows were on the arms of the chair and he held the revolver loosely on his lap, said: “I want a bunch of pictures that you tried to peddle to Bellmann, girlie.”
“Don’t call me girlie, you son of a bitch!”
Kells looked at Granquist, shook his head sadly. “That’s something you forgot to tell me about,” he said.
“I want all the pictures,” the fat man repeated, “an’ I want two letters — quick.”
Granquist was staring at the fat man. She turned slowly to Kells. “That’s a lie, Gerry. I didn’t crack to Bellmann.”
Fenner stood up. “I won’t stand for this,” he said. He thrust his hands in his pockets and took a step forward.
“Sit down.” The fat man moved the revolver slightly until it focused on Fenner’s stomach.
Fenner stood still.
Kells said: “Does the fella who sent you know that if anything happens Jo me the whole inside gets a swell spread in the morning papers?”
The fat man smiled.
“The inside on Haardt and the barge and Perry, and the Sunday-school picnic at Big Bear?” Kells went on.
Granquist was watching him intently.
“I made that arrangement this afternoon.” Kells leaned side-wise slowly and put his empty glass on an end table.
The fat man looked at Fenner and Kells, and then he looked at Granquist, and at the bag tucked into the chair beside her. He said: “That’s a dandy. Let’s have a look at it, girlie.”
Granquist stood up in one swift and precise movement. She moved to the window so swiftly that the fat man had only time to stand up and take one step toward her before she had moved the drape aside with her shoulder, crashed the bag through the window.
Glass tinkled on the sill.
Kells stood up in the same instant and brought his right fist up from the divan in a long arc to the side of the gray-faced young man’s jaw. The young man spun half around and Kells swung his right fist again to the same place. The young man fell half on the divan, half on the floor.
The fat man moved toward Kells, stopped in the center of the floor.
Granquist yelled: “Smack him, Gerry...”
Kells stood with his feet wide apart. He grinned at the fat man.
Fenner was standing near Granquist at the window. His eyes were wide and he tried to say something but the words stuck in his throat.
The fat man backed toward the door. “I ain’t got orders to shoot,” he said, “but I sure will if you press me.” He backed out into the semidarkness of the hallway and then the outer door slammed.
Granquist ran across the room, stopped a moment in the doorway, turned her head toward Kells. She said, “I’ll get the bag,” and she spoke so rapidly, so breathlessly, that the words were all run together into one word. She went into the darkness.
Kells turned to Fenner. “Give her a hand.”
He bent over the young man, took a small automatic out of his raincoat pocket and handed it to Fenner. “Hurry up — I’ve got to telephone — I’ll be right down.”
Fenner took the automatic dazedly. He looked at the man on the floor and at Kells, and then he came suddenly to life. “It’s in the court,” he said excitedly. “I can get out there from the third floor.”
“Maybe the bag was a stall. Don’t let her get out of your sight.” Kells sat down at the telephone.
Fenner hurried out of the room.
Kells waited until he heard the outer door slam, then got up and went to Dillon. He knelt and drew a long yellow envelope from Dillon’s inside breast pocket. It was heavily sealed. He tore off the end and looked inside. Then, smiling blankly, he tucked it into his pocket.
He went to the broken window, raised it carefully and leaned out over the wet darkness of the court for a moment. He went into the kitchen and stood on the stove, looked through the high ventilating window across the narrow air-shaft to the window of an adjoining apartment. Then he went into the bedroom and got his hat and Granquist’s coat and went out of the apartment, across the corridor to the elevator.
On the way down, he spoke to the elevator boy: “It is still raining?”
“Yes, sir. It looks like it was going to rain all night.”
Kells said: “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The night clerk came out of the telephone operator’s compartment.
Kells leaned on the desk. “Your Mister Dillon is in ten-six-teen. He had an accident. There’s another man in there whom Fenner will file charges against. Have the house dick hold him till Fenner gets back.”
He started to go, paused, said over his shoulder: “Maybe you’ll find another one trying to get in or out of the court. Probably not.”
He went out and walked up Ivar to Yucca, west on Yucca the short block to Cahuenga. The rain had become a gentle mist for the moment; it was warm, and occasional thunder drummed over the hills to the north. He went into an apartment house on the corner and asked the night man if Mister Beery was in.
“He went out about ten minutes ago.” The night man thought he might be in the drugstore across the street.
Beery was crouched over a cup of coffee at the soda fountain. Kells sat down beside him and ordered a glass of water, washed down two aspirin tablets. He said: “If you want to come along with me, you might get some more material for your memoirs.”
Beery put a dime on the counter and they went out, over to Wilcox. They went into the Wilcox entrance of the Lido, upstairs to the fourth floor and around through a long corridor to number four thirty-two.
Granquist opened the door. Her face was so drained of color that her mouth looked dark and bloody in contrast to her skin. Her mouth was slightly open and her eyes were wide, burning. She held her arms stiffly at her sides.
There was a man lying on his face, half in, half out of the bathroom. His arms were doubled up under his body.
Beery walked past Granquist, slowly across the room to a table. He turned his head slowly as he walked, kept his eyes on the man on the floor. He took off his hat and put it on the table.
Kells closed the door quietly and stood with his back against it.
Granquist stared at him without change of expression.
Beery glanced at them.
Kells smiled a little. He said: “This isn’t what I meant, Shep — maybe it’s better.”
Beery went to the man on the floor, squatted and turned the head sidewise.
Granquist swallowed. She said: “Gerry, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”
Beery spoke softly, without looking up: “Bellmann.”
Kells locked the door. He looked at the floor, then he went to the table and reached under it with his foot, kicked an automatic out into the light.
Granquist walked unsteadily to a chair, sat down and stared vacantly at Beery bending over the body. She said in a hollow, monotonous voice: “He was like that when I came in. I stopped downstairs and then I came up in the elevator and he was like that when I came in — just a minute ago.”
Kells didn’t look at her. He took out a handkerchief and picked up the automatic and held it to his nose. He held it carefully by the handkerchief and snapped the magazine out of the grip, said: “Two.”
Beery stood up.
Kells laughed suddenly. He threw back his head and roared with laughter. He sat down and put the automatic on the table, wiped his eyes with the handkerchief.
“It’s beautiful!” he said brokenly.
Granquist stared at Kells and then she leaned back in the chair and her eyes were very frightened. She said: “I didn’t do it,” over and over again.
Kells’ laughter finally wore itself out. He wiped his eyes with the handkerchief and then he looked up at Beery. “Well,” he said, “why the hell don’t you get on the phone? You’ve got the scoop of the season.”
He leaned back and smiled at the ceiling, improvised headlines: “Boss Bellmann Bumped Off By Beauty. Pillar of Church Meets Maker. Politician — let’s see — Politician Plugged as Prowler by Light Lady.” He stood up and crossed quickly to Beery, emphasized his words with a long white finger against Beery’s chest. “Here’s a pip! Reformer Foiled in Rape. Killer says: ‘I shot to save my honor, the priceless inheritance of American womanhood.’”
Beery went to the telephone. He said: “We’ve been a Bellmann paper — I’ll have to talk to the Old Man.”
“You god-damned idiot! No paper can afford to soft-pedal a thing like this. Can’t you see that without an editorial OK?”
Beery nodded in a faraway way, dialed a number. He asked for a Mister Crane; when Crane had answered, said: “This is Beery. Bellmann has been shot by a jane, in her apartment, in Hollywood... Uh huh — very dead.”
He grinned up at Kells, listened to an evident explosion at the other end of the line. “We’ll have to give it everything, Mister Crane,” he went on. “It’s open and shut — there isn’t any out... OK Switch me to Thompson — I’ll give it to him.”
Granquist got up and went unsteadily to the door. She put her hand on the knob and then seemed to remember that the door was locked. She looked at the key but didn’t touch it. She turned and went into the dinette, took a nearly empty bottle out of the cupboard and came back and sat down.
Beery asked: “What’s your name, sister?”
Granquist was trying to get the cork out of the bottle. She didn’t say anything or look up.
Kells said: “Granquist.” He looked at her for a moment, then went over to the window, turned his head, slightly toward Beery: “Miss Granquist.”
Beery said, “Hello, Tom,” spoke into the telephone in a low even monotone.
Kells turned from the window, crossed slowly to Granquist. He sat down on the arm of her chair and took the bottle out of her hand and took out the cork. He got up and went into the dinette, poured the whiskey into a glass and brought it back to her, sat down again on the arm of the chair. “Don’t take it so big, baby,” he said very softly and quietly. “You’ve got a perfect case. The jury’ll give you roses and a vote of thanks on the ‘for honor’ angle — and it’s the swellest thing that could happen for Fenner’s machine — it’s the difference between Bellmann’s administration and a brand-new one...”
“I didn’t do it, Gerry.” She looked up at him and her eyes were dull, hurt. “I didn’t do it! I left the snaps and stuff in the office downstairs when I went out — the bag was a gag—”
Kells said: “I knew they weren’t in the bag — you left it in the chair when you went into the bathroom.”
She nodded. She wasn’t listening to him. She had things to say. “I ran back here when I left Fenner’s. I picked up the stuff at the office — had to wait till the manager got the combination to the safe out of his apartment. Then I came up here to wait for you.”
She drank, put the glass on the floor. She turned, inclined her head toward Bellmann. “He was like that. He must have come here for the pictures — he’d been through my things...”
Kells said: “Never mind, baby — it’s a set up...”
“I didn’t do it!” She beat her fist on the arm of the chair. Her eyes were suddenly wild.
Kells stood up.
Beery finished his report, hung up the receiver. He said: “Now I better call the station.”
“Wait a minute.” Kells looked down at Granquist and his face was white, hard. “Listen!” he emphasized the word with one violent finger. “You be nice. You play this the way I say and you’ll be out in a month — maybe I can even get you out on bail...”
He turned abruptly and went to the door, turned the key. “Or” — he jerked his head toward the door, looked at the little watch on the inside of his wrist — “there’s a Frisco bus out Cahuenga in about six minutes. You can make it — and ruin your case.”
Outside, sultry thunder rumbled and rain whipped against the windows. Kells slid a note off the sheaf in his breast pocket, went over and handed it to her. It was a thousand dollar note.
She looked at it dully, slowly stood up. Then she stuffed the note into the pocket of her suit and went quickly to the chair where Kells had thrown her coat.
Kells said: “Give me the pictures.”
Beery was staring open-mouthed at Kells. “Gerry, you can’t do this,” he said. “I told Tommy we had the girl—”
“She escaped.”
Granquist put on her coat. She looked at Kells and her eyes were soft, wet. She went to him and took a heavy manila envelope out of her pocket, handed it to him. She stood a moment looking up at him and then she turned and went to the door, put her hand on the knob and turned it, then took her hand away from the knob and held it up to her face. She stood like that a little while and then she said. “All right,” very low.
She said, “All right,” again, very low and distinctly, and turned from the door and went back to the big chair and sat down.
Kells said: “Okay, Shep.”
About ten minutes later Beery got up and let Captain Hayes of the Hollywood Division in. There were two plain-clothes men and an assistant coroner with him.
The assistant coroner examined Bellmann’s body, looked up in a little while: “Instantaneous — two wounds, probably thirty-two caliber — one touched the heart.” He stood up. “Dead about twenty minutes.”
Hayes picked up the gun from where Kells had replaced it under the table, examined it, wrapped it carefully.
Kells smiled at him. “Old school — along with silencers and dictaphones. Nowadays they wear gloves.” Hayes said: “What’s your name?”
Beery said: “Oh, I’m sorry — I thought you knew each other. This is Gerry Kells... Captain Hayes.”
“What were you doing here?” Hayes was a heavily-built man with bright brown eyes. He spoke very rapidly.
“Shep and I came up to call on my girl friend here” — Kells indicated Granquist who was still sitting with her coat on, staring at them all in turn, expressionlessly. “We found it just the way you see it.”
Hayes glanced at Beery, who nodded. Hayes spoke to Granquist. “Is that right, miss?”
She looked up at him blankly for a moment, then nodded slowly. “That’ll be about all, I guess.” Hayes looked at Kells. “You still at the Ambassador?”
“You can always reach me through Shep.”
Hayes said: “Come on, miss.”
Granquist got up and went into the dressing room and packed a few things in a small traveling bag.
One of the plain-clothes men opened the door, let two ambulance men in. They put Bellmann’s body on a stretcher and carried it out.
Kells leaned against the doorframe of the dressing room, watched Granquist. “I’ll be down in the morning with an attorney,” he said. “In the meantime, keep quiet.”
She nodded vaguely and closed the bag, came out of the dressing-room. She said: “Let’s go.”
The manager of the apartment house was in the corridor with one of the Filipino bellboys, a reporter from the Journal and a guest. The manager was wringing his hands. “I can’t understand it — no one heard the shots.”
One of the plain-clothes men looked superiorly at the manager, said: “The thunder covered the shots.”
They all went down the corridor except Beery and Kells and the manager. The manager went to the door, smiled weakly at Kells. “I’ll close up Miss Granquist’s apartment.”
Kells said: “Never mind — I’ll bring the key down.”
The manager was doubtful.
Kells looked very stern, whispered: “Special investigator.” He and Beery went back into the apartment.
Beery called his paper again with additional information: “Captain Hayes made the arrest... And don’t forget: the Chronicle is always first with the latest...” He hung up, lighted a new cigarette from the butt of another. “From now on,” he said, “I’m going to follow you around and phone in the story of my life, from day to day.”
Kells asked: “Are they giving it an extra?”
“Sure. It’s on the presses now — be on the streets in a little while.”
“That’s dandy.”
Kells went into the kitchen, switched on the light. He looked out the kitchen window and then he went to a tall cupboard — the kind of cupboard where brooms are kept in a modern apartment — opened the door.
Fenner came out, blinking in the bright light. He said: “I would have had” — he swallowed — “would have had to come out in another minute. I nearly smothered.”
“That’s too bad.”
Beery stood in the doorway. He said: “For the love of—”
Fenner went past Beery into the living room, sat down. He was breathing hard.
Kells strolled in behind him and sat down across the room, facing him.
Fenner took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his mouth and forehead. He said: “I followed her as you suggested — and when she went in through the lobby, I came up the side stair intending to meet her up here.”
Kells smiled gently, nodded.
“I didn’t want to be seen following her through the lobby, you know.”
“No.”
Beery was still standing in the kitchen doorway, staring bewilderedly at Fenner.
“I knocked but she hadn’t come up yet,” Fenner went on, “so I opened the door — it was unlocked — and came in.”
Kells said: “The door was unlocked?”
Fenner nodded. “In a few minutes I heard her coming up the hall and she was talking to a man. I went into the kitchen, of course, and she and Bellmann came in. They were arguing about something. Bellmann went into the bathroom I think, and then I heard the two shots during one of the peals of thunder. I didn’t know what to do — and then when I was about to come out and see what had happened, you knocked at the door.”
Fenner paused, took a long breath. “I didn’t know it was you, of course, so I hid in the cupboard.”
Kells said: “Oh.”
“I thought it would be better if I didn’t get mixed up in a thing of this kind, in any way.”
Kells said, “Oh,” again. Then he looked up at Beery, said: “Sit down, Shep — I want to tell you a story.”
Beery sat down near the door.
Kells stretched one long leg over the arm of his chair, made himself comfortable. “This afternoon I told Mister Fenner” — he inclined his head toward Fenner in one slow emphatic movement — “that I knew a gal who had some very hot political info that she wanted to sell.”
Beery nodded almost imperceptibly.
“He was interested and asked me to send her to his hotel tonight. I had a talk with her, and the stuff sounded so good that I got interested too — took her to Fenner’s myself.”
Fenner was extremely uncomfortable. He looked at Kells and dabbed at his forehead; his lips were bent into a faint forced smile.
“We offered the information — information of great political value — to Mister Fenner at a very fair price,” Kells went on. “He agreed to it and called the manager of his hotel and asked him to bring up an envelope containing a large amount in cash.”
Kells turned his eyes slowly from Beery to Fenner. “When the manager came in a couple of benders came in with him. They’d been waiting in the next apartment, listening across the airshaft to find out what they had to heist — it was supposed to look like Rose’s stick-up — or Bellmann’s...”
Fenner stood up.
Kells said: “But it was Mister Fenner’s. Mister Fenner wanted to eat his cake and have crumbs in his bed, too.”
Fenner took two steps forward. His eyes were flashing. He said: “That’s a lie, sir — a tissue of falsehood!”
Kells spoke very softly, enunciating each word carefully, distinctly: “Sit down, you dirty son of a bitch.”
Fenner straightened, glared at Kells. He half turned toward the door.
Kells got up and took three slow steps, then two swiftly, crashed his fist into Fenner’s face. There was a sickening crackly noise and Fenner fell down very hard.
Kells jerked him up and pushed him back into the chair. Kells’ face was worried, solicitous. He said very slow — almost whispered: “Sit still.”
Then he went back to his chair and sat down, went on: “One of the boys sapped the manager. They fanned me and made a pass for Granquist’s handbag. She tossed it out the window, smacked one of them and the other one went after the bag. Granquist faked going after the bag too and I sent Fenner after her, figuring that the stuff wasn’t in the bag and that she’d come back here and that the three of us would get together here for another little talk.”.
Fenner was pressing himself back into the corner of the chair. He was holding his hands to his bloody face and moaning a little.
“When I sent Fenner after Granquist,” Kells went on, “I gave him a gun — one of the boy’s. He was so excited about getting to the bag, or keeping G in sight that he forgot to frisk the manager for his big dough...”
Kells took the yellow envelope out of his pocket. “So I got it.” He leaned forward, pressed the edges of the envelope and a little packet of cigar coupons fell out on the floor.
“Almost enough to get a package of razor blades.”
Beery grinned.
Kells said: “Granquist headed over here, so Fenner knew that the bag had been a stall, followed her. When she came in past the office he ducked up the side way and, figuring that she had come right up, knocked at her door.”
Beery said: “How did he know which apartment was hers?”
“He had us tailed from my hotel early this evening. His man got her number from the mail-boxes in the lobby, gave it to him before we got to his place tonight.”
Beery nodded.
Kells said: “Am I boring you?”
“Yes. Bore me some more.”
“Bellmann had come up here after some things he wanted — some very personal things that he couldn’t trust anyone else to get. He probably paid his way into the apartment — I’ll have to check up on that — and didn’t find what he was looking for, and when Fenner knocked he thought it was either Granquist, who he wanted to talk to anyway, or whoever let him in.”
Kells took a deep breath. “He opened the door, and...” Kells paused, got up and went to Fenner, looked down at the little twisted man and smiled. “Mister Fenner knows a good thing when he sees it — he jockeyed Bellmann into a good spot and shot him through the heart.” Fenner mumbled something through his hands. “He waited for a nice roll of off-stage thunder and murdered him.”
Beery said: “That’s certainly swell. And I haven’t got any more job than a rabbit.” He stood up, stared disconsolately at Kells. “My God! Bellmann killed by the boss of the opposition — the most perfect political break that could happen, for my paper — and I turn in an innocent girl, swing it exactly the other way politically. My God!”
Beery sat down and reached for the telephone. Kells said: “Wait a minute.”
Beery held up his right hand, the forefinger pointed, brought it down emphatically towards Kells. “Nuts!”
Kells said: “Wait a minute, Shep.” His voice was very gentle. His mouth was curved in a smile and his eyes were very hot and intent. Beery sat still.
Fenner got up. Holding a darkening handkerchief to his face, tottered toward the door.
Kells went past him to the door, locked it. He said: “Both you bastards pipe down and sit still till I finish.” He shoved Fenner back into the chair. “As I was about to say: you were a little late, you heard Granquist outside the door, wiped off the rod — if you didn’t, I did — put in under the table and ducked into the cupboard.”
Beery said slowly: “What do you mean: you wiped it off?”
Kells didn’t answer. He squatted in front of Fenner, said: “Listen, you — what do you think I put on that act for — ribbed Granquist into taking the fall? Because she can beat it.” His elbows were on his knees. He pointed his finger forcibly at Fenner, sighted across it. “You couldn’t. You couldn’t get to first base...”
Fenner’s face was a bruised, fearful mask. He stared blankly at Kells.
“A few days ago — yesterday — all I wanted was to be let alone,” Kells went on. “I wasn’t. I was getting along fine — quietly — legitimately — and Rose and you and the rest of these — gave me action.”
He stood up. “All right — I’m beginning to like it.” He walked once to the window, back, bent over Fenner. “I’m taking over your organization. Do you hear me? I’m going to run this town for a while — ride hell out of it.”
He glanced at Beery, smiled. Then he turned again to Fenner, spoke quietly: “I was going East tomorrow. Now you’re going. You’re going to turn everything over to me and take a nice long trip — or they’re going to break your goddamned neck with a rope.”
Kells went to the small desk, sat down. He found a pen, scribbled on a piece of Lido stationery. “And just to make it ‘legal, and in black and white’, as the big business men say — you’re going to sign this — and Mister Beery is going to witness it.”
Beery said: “You can’t get away with a—”
“No?” Kells paused, glanced over his shoulder at Beery. “I’ll get away with it big, young fella. And stop worrying about your job — you’ve got a swell job with me. How would you like to be chief of police?”
He went on writing, then stopped suddenly, turned to Fenner. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “You’ll stay here where I can hold a book on you. You stay here and in your same spot — only you can’t go to the toilet without my okay,” He got up and stood in the center of the room and jerked his head toward the desk. “There it is. Get down on it — quick.”
Fenner said, “Certainly not,” thickly.
Kells looked at the floor, said: “Call Hayes, Shep.”
Beery reached for the telephone.
Fenner didn’t look at him. He held his hands tightly over his face for a moment, mumbled, “My God!” — then he got up and went unsteadily to the desk, sat down. He stooped over the piece of paper, read it carefully.
Kells said: “If Granquist beats the case — and she will — and you don’t talk out of turn, I’ll tear it up in a month or so.”
Fenner picked up the pen, shakily signed.
Kells looked at Beery, and Beery got up and went over and read the paper. He said: “This is a confession. Does it make me an accessory?”
Kells said: “It isn’t dated.”
Beery signed and folded the paper and handed it to Kells.
Kells glanced at it, turned to Fenner. “Now I want you to call your Coast Guardian man, Dickinson, and any other key men you can get in touch with, and tell them to be at your joint at the Knickerbocker in a half-hour.”
Fenner went into the bathroom, washed his face. He came back in a little while and sat down at the telephone.
Kells held the folded paper out to Beery. “You’re going downtown anyway, Shep,” he said. “Stick this in the safe at your office — I’ll be down in the morning and take it to the bank.”
Beery said: “Do I look that simple? I’ve got a wife and family.”
Kells put the folded paper in his own pocket.
“Anyway, I’m not going downtown. I’m coming along,” Beery picked up his hat. Kells nodded abstractedly, glanced at his watch; it was twenty-two minutes past ten. Outside, there was a long ragged buzz of faraway thunder and the telephone clicked as Fenner dialed a number.