He turned on me. “Who are you? What does he mean?”
What was the good of answering? It was five to five on the clock. I needed Burns bad.
The other one snarled, “She’s the patsy’s sister. Chick Wheeler’s sister. I saw her on the stand, with my own eyes.”
Milton’s face screwed up into a sort of despairing agony; I’d never seen anything like it before. He whimpered, “And you’re so beautiful to have to be killed!”
I hugged the negligée around me tight and looked down at the floor. “Then don’t have me killed,” I said softly. It was two to five, now.
He said with comic sadness. “I got to if you’re that guy’s sister.”
“I say I’m nobody’s sister, just Angel Face that dances at your club. I say I only came here cause — I like soft carpets.”
“Why did you send that fake telegram to get me out of town?”
He had me there. I thought fast. “If I’m a stoolie I get killed, right? But what happens if I’m the other kind of a double-crosser, a two-timer, do I still get killed?”
“No,” he said, “because you were still a free-lance; your option hadn’t been taken up yet.”
“That’s the answer, then. I was going to use your place to meet my steady, that’s why I sent the queer wire.”
Rocco’s voice was as cracked as a megaphone after a football rally. “She’s Wheeler’s sister, chief. Don’t let her ki—”
“Shut up!” Milton said.
Rocco just smiled a wise smile, shrugged, lit a cigarette. “You’ll find out.”
The phone rang. “Get that,” Milton ordered. “That’s her guy now. Keep him on the wire.” He turned and went running up the stairs to the floor above, where the other phone was.
Rocco took out a gun, fanned it vaguely in my direction, sauntered over. “Don’t try nothing, now, while that line’s open. You may be fooling Milton, you’re not fooling us any. He was always a sucker for a twist.”
Rocco’s buddy said, “Hello?”
Rocco, still holding the gun on me, took a lopsided drag on his cigarette with his left hand and blew smoke vertically. Some of it caught in his throat, and he started to cough like a seal. You could hear it all over the place.
I could feel all the blood draining out of my face.
The third guy was purring, “No, you tell me what number you want first, then I’ll tell you what number this is. That’s the way it’s done, pal.” He turned a blank face. “Hung up on me!”
Rocco was still hacking away. I felt sick all over. Sold out by my own signal that everything was under control!
There was a sound like dry leaves on the stairs and Milton came whisking down again. “Some guy wanted an all-night delicatess—” the spokesman started to say.
Milton cut his hand at him viciously. “That was Center Street, police headquarters. I had it traced! Put some clothes on her, she’s going to her funeral!”
They forced me back into the silver sheath between them. Milton came over with a flagon of brandy and dashed it all over me from head to foot. “If she lets out a peep, she’s drunk. Won’t be the first stewed dame carried outa here!”
They had to hold me up between them, my heels just clear of the ground, to get me to move at all. Rocco had his gun buried in the silver folds of my dress. The other had a big handkerchief spread out in his hand held under my face, as though I were nauseated — in reality to squelch any scream.
Milton came behind us. “You shouldn’t mix your drinks,” he was saying, “and especially you shouldn’t help yourself to people’s private stock without permission.”
But the doorman was asleep again on his bench, like when I’d come in the first time. This time he didn’t wake up. His eyelids just flickered a little as the four of us went by.
They saw to it that I got in the car first, like a lady should. The ride was one of those things you take to your grave with you. My whole past life came before me, in slow motion. I didn’t mind dying so terribly much, but I hated to go without being able to do anything for Chick. But it was the way the cards had fallen, that was all.
“Maybe it’s better this way,” I said to myself, “than growing into an old lady and no one looks at your face any more.” I took out my mirror and I powdered my nose, and then I threw the compact away. I’d show them a lady could die like a gentleman!
The house was on the Sound. Milton evidently lived in it quite a bit, by the looks of it. His Filipino let us in.
“Build a fire, Juan, it’s chilly,” he grinned. And to me, “Sit down, Angel Face, and let me look at you before you go.” The other two threw me into a corner of a big sofa, and I just stayed that way, limp like a rag doll. He just stared and stared. “Gosh, you’re swell!” he said.
“Gosh, you’re lousy,” I answered quietly.
Rocco said, “What’re we waiting for? It’s broad daylight already.”
Milton was idly holding something into the fire, a long poker of some kind. “She’s going,” he said, “but she’s going as my property. Show the other angels this, when you get up there, so they’ll know who you belong to.” He came over to me with the end of the thing glowing dull red. It was flattened into some kind of an ornamental design or cipher. “Knock her out,” he said, “I’m not that much of a brute.”
Something exploded off the side of my head, and I lost my senses. Then he was wiping my mouth with a handkerchief soaked in whiskey, and my side burned, just above the hip, where they’d found that mark on Ruby Rose Reading.
“All right, Rocco,” Milton said.
Rocco took out his gun again, but he shoved it at the third guy heft-first. The third one held it level at me, took the safety off. His face was sort of green and wet with sweat. I looked him straight in the eyes. The gun went down like a drooping lily. “I can’t, boss, she’s too beautiful!” he groaned. “She’s got the face of an angel. How can you shoot anything like that?”
Milton pulled it away from him. “She double-crossed me just like Reading did. Any dame that double-crosses me gets what I gave Reading.”
A voice said softly. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
The gun went off, and I wondered why I didn’t feel anything. Then I saw that the smoke was coming from the doorway and not from Milton’s gun at all. He went down at my feet, like he wanted to apologize for what he’d done to me, but he didn’t say anything and he didn’t get up any more. There was blood running down the part of his hair in back.
Burns was in the room, with more guys than I’d ever seen outside of a police parade. One of them was the doorman from Milton’s place, or at least the dick that Burns had substituted for him to keep an eye on me while I was up there. Burns told me about that later and about how they followed Milt’s little party but hadn’t been able to get in time to keep me from getting branded. Rocco and the other guy went down into hamburger under a battery of heavy fists.
I sat there holding my side and sucking in my breath. “It was a swell trick-finish,” I panted to Burns, “but what’d you drill him for? Now we’ll never get the proof that’ll save Chick.”
He was at the phone asking to be put through to Schlesinger in the city. “We’ve got it already, Angel Face,” he said ruefully. “It’s right on you, where you’re holding your side. Just where it was on Reading. We all heard what he said before he nose-dived anyway. I only wish I hadn’t shot him,” he glowered, “then I’d have the pleasure of doing it all over again, more slowly.”