He laughed. His fat shoulders shook cheerfully. He put one of his small hands out with the palm towards me. "I wouldn't think of that," he said dryly, "and the other way's better business. The way public opinion is about the Shannon kill. I ain't sure that louse of a D.A. wouldn't convict Tinnen without you-if he could sell the folks the idea you'd been knocked off to button your mouth."
I got up out of my chair, went over and leaned on the desk, leaned across it towards Dorr.
He said: "No funny business!" a little sharply and breathlessly. His hand went to a drawer and got it half open. His movements with his hands were very quick in contrast with the movements of his body.
I smiled down at the hand and he took it away from the drawer. I saw a gun just inside the drawer.
I said: "I've already talked to the Grand Jury."
Dorr leaned back and smiled at me. "Guys make mistakes," he said. "Even smart private dicks ... You could have a change of heart-and put it in writing."
I said very softly. "No. I'd be under a perjury rap-which I couldn't beat. I'd rather be under a murder rap-which I can beat. Especially as Fenweather will want me to beat it. He won't want to spoil me as a witness. The Tinnen case is too important to him."
Dorr said evenly: "Then you'll have to try and beat it, brother. And after you get through beating it there'll still be enough mud on your neck so no jury'll convict Manny on your say-so alone."
I put my hand out slowly and scratched the cat's ear. "What about the twenty-two grand?"
"It _could_ be all yours, if you want to play. After all, it ain't my money . . . If Manny gets clear, I might add a little something that _is_ my money."
I tickled the cat under its chin. It began to purr. I picked it up and held it gently in my arms.
"Who did kill Lou Harger, Dorr?" I asked, not looking at him.
He shook his head. I looked at him, smiling. "Swell cat you have," I said.
Dorr licked his lips. "I think the little bastard likes you," he grinned. He looked pleased at the idea.
I nodded-and threw the cat in his face.
He yelped, but his hands came up to catch the cat. The cat twisted neatly in the air and landed with both front paws working. One of them split Dorr's cheek like a banana peel. He yelled very loudly.
I had the gun out of the drawer and the muzzle of it into the back of Dorr's neck when Beasley and the square-faced man dodged in.
For an instant there was a sort of tableau. Then the cat tore itself loose from Dorr's arms, shot to the floor and went under the desk. Beasley raised his snub-nosed gun, but he didn't look as if he was certain what he meant to do with it.
I shoved the muzzle of mine hard into Dorr's neck and said: "Frankie gets it first, boys ... And that's not a gag."
Dorr grunted in front of me. "Take it easy," he growled to his hoods. He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and began to dab at his split and bleeding cheek with it. The man with the crooked mouth began to sidle along the wall.
I said: "Don't get the idea I'm enjoying this, but I'm not fooling either. You heels stay put."
The man with the crooked mouth stopped sidling and gave me a nasty leer. He kept his hands low.
Dorr half turned his head and tried to talk over his shoulder to me. I couldn't see enough of his face to get any expression, but he didn't seem scared. He said: "This won't get you anything. I could have you knocked off easy enough, if that was what I wanted. Now where are you? You can't shoot anybody without getting in a worse jam than if you did what I asked you to. It looks like a stalemate to me."
I thought that over for a moment while Beasley looked at me quite pleasantly, as though it was all just routine to him. There was nothing pleasant about the other man. I listened hard, but the rest of the house seemed to be quite silent.
Dorr edged forward from the gun and said: "Well?"
I said: "I'm going out. I have a gun and it looks like a gun that I could hit somebody with, if I have to. I don't want to very much, and if you'll have Beasley throw my keys over and the other one turn back the gun he took from me, I'll forget about the snatch."
Dorr moved his arms in the lazy beginning of a shrug. "Then what?"
"Figure out your deal a little closer," I said. "If you get enough protection behind me, I might throw in with you . . . And if you're as tough as you think you are, a few hours won't cut any ice one way or the other."
"It's an idea," Dorr said and chuckled. Then to Beasley: "Keep your rod to yourself and give him his keys. Also his gun-the one you got today."
Beasley sighed and very carefully inserted a hand into his pants. He tossed my leather keycase across the room near the end of the desk. The man with the twisted mouth put his hand up, edged it inside his side pocket and I eased down behind Dorr's back, while he did it. He came out with my gun, let it fall to the floor and kicked it away from him.
I came out from behind Dorr's back, got my keys and the gun up from the floor, moved sidewise towards the door of the room. Dorr watched with an empty stare that meant nothing. Beasley followed me around with his body and stepped away from the door as I neared it. The other man had trouble holding himself quiet.
I got to the door and reversed a key that was in it. Dorr said dreamily: "You're just like one of those rubber balls on the end of an elastic. The farther you get away, the suddener you'll bounce back."
I said: "The elastic might be a little rotten," and went through the door, turned the key in it and braced myself for shots that didn't come. As a bluff, mine was thinner than the gold on a week-end wedding ring. It worked because Dorr let it, and that was all.
I got out of the house, got the Marmon started and wrangled it around and sent it skidding past the shoulder of the hill and so on down to the highway. There was no sound of anything coming after me.
When I reached the concrete highway bridge it was a little past two o'clock, and I drove with one hand for a while and wiped the sweat off the back of my neck.
EIGHT
The morgue was at the end of a long and bright and silent corridor that branched off from behind the main lobby of the County Building. The corridor ended in two doors and a blank wall faced with marble. One door had "Inquest Room" lettered on a glass panel behind which there was no light. The other opened into a small, cheerful office.
A man with gander-blue eyes and rust-colored hair parted in the exact center of his head was pawing over some printed forms at a table. He looked up, looked me over, and then suddenly smiled.
I said: "Hello, Landon ... Remember the Shelby case?"
The bright blue eyes twinkled. He got up and came around the table with his hand out. "Sure. What can we do-" He broke off suddenly and snapped his fingers. "Hell! You're the guy that put the bee on that hot rod."
I tossed a butt through the open door into the corridor. "That's not why I'm here," I said. "Anyhow not this time. There's a fellow named Louis Harger . . . picked up shot last night or this morning, in West Cimarron, as I get it. Could I take a look-see?"
"They can't stop you," Landon said.
He led the way through a door on the far side of his office into a place that was all white paint and white enamel and glass and bright light. Against one wall was a double tier of large bins with glass windows in them. Through the peepholes showed bundles in white sheeting, and, further back, frosted pipes.
A body covered with a sheet lay on a table that was high at the head and sloped down to the foot. Landon pulled the sheet down casually from a man's dead, placid, yellowish face. Long black hair lay loosely on a small pillow, with the dankness of water still in it. The eyes were half open and stared incuriously at the ceiling.
I stepped close, looked at the face, Landon pulled the sheet on down and rapped his knuckles on a chest that rang hollowly, like a board. There was a bullet hole over the heart.