“Come here,” she said, almost thickly.
I crossed the room and put my hands on her hip-bones. I smiled at her.
“Hold me close, you beast,” she said.
I put my arms around her loosely at first. Her hair had a harsh feeling against my face. I tightened my arms and pulled her against me. Her mouth felt hard against mine, but after a while her lips opened. She was shivering.
“Tough guy,” she said softly, her breath going into my mouth.
“What was Herrick to you?” I asked.
Her body stiffened in my arms and her breath made a harsh sound. Her head pulled back until her eyes, wide open, were staring at me.
“Who are you?” she asked, in a soft dull voice.
“Chester Cain,” I said.
Her face fell to pieces. She pushed away, white, her eyes vacant, blank. I let her go
“Who?”
“Chester Cain.”
Slowly she got herself m hand. Her eyes roved around the room, lit on the telephone, lingered, then came back to me.
“Sit down,” I said. “I want to talk to you.”
She wandered towards the telephone. A gentle hissing sound came from between her tightlylocked teeth.
“I don’t want to talk to you.” she managed to jerk out, in grabbed it. She struck at me with her nails. I let go of the telephone and grabbed her wrist, twisting it. She was surprisingly strong. We swayed, and she tried to claw me with her free hand. I ducked my head, and she missed. I expected her to scream, but she didn’t, she fought silently, panting a little, her eyes glowing, her mouth working.
We scuffed up the rugs, and did a lot of tramping and shuffling, but I worked her over to the divan and then trapped her ankle and pushed.
She hit the divan and bounced up, but I flung her down again. She kicked me on the shin, gave me a punch in the face and tried to bite my jugular. I cursed her gently and went into a clinch with her. She writhed, twisted and scratched. We were both panting. She butted me in the eye with the top of her head.
I said, “The hell with this,” flung her off and stood back. I pulled my gun on her. “Let’s skip it,” I went on, “or I’ll blow a hole in you.”
She glared up at me, her eyes savage, but the gun seemed to cool her.
“Stay put, sister,” I said, drawing up a chair. I sat down.
She looked me over, and then flopped back on the divan. I’d torn her shirt and a shoulder peeped through. It was a nice shoulder, white and firm.
“You think I killed Herrick,” I said, “but I didn’t.”
She continued to eye me savagely, and said nothing.
“Killeano’s mob killed him, and tried to pin it on me,” I went on.
“You killed him all right,” she said, and added some fancy names. Her language would have turned a stevedore pale.
“Use your head,” I said. “I’ve just arrived here. I never saw Herrick before until I met him in the Casino for a couple of minutes. He asked me to get out of town because he thought I’d cause trouble, and Killeano made that the excuse for killing him and framing me. Can’t you see how simple it is? Why should I want to kill Herrick? Think, Tutz, work on it. If you were Killeano and you wanted Herrick out of the way, wouldn’t you spring the killing when a guy with my reputation blows into town? It was a gift.”
She looked doubtful.
“Killeano wanted him out of the way all right,” she muttered. “It could be, but I don’t believe it.”
I told her the story, how Speratza had invited me to the
Casino, how Miss Wonderly had been detailed to look after me, how I’d seen Flaggerty watching us, and the whole works. She sat watching me, and the angry bitterness seeped out of her eyes.
“All right,” she said, shrugging. “I’m the sucker, so you didn’t kill him.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “But I’m in a jam. You can help me out.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Why should I?”
“Suppose you tell me,” I said, smiling at her. “What was Herrick to you?”
She swung off the divan and went over to the big cocktail cabinet.
“I’m keeping out of this,” she said, taking out two glasses and pouring whisky. She came over and handed me one, looked down at me, and smiled coldly. “You’re tough, all right,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been fed through a mangle.”
I pulled her down on my lap. She was a big armful, but I handled her.
“Let’s be friends,” I said. “You liked Herrick, didn’t you?”
She pushed away from me and stood up.
“Cut that stuff right out,” she said. “I’m not quite a sap.”
I drank some whisky, lit a cigarette and shrugged.
“I could beat it out of you,” I said, giving her the cold eye.
“Try,” she said, sitting on the divan.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “I’ll have a talk with your pal Gomez. He’ll be interested to know you sexed me up to this room.”
That threw a scare into her.
“You dare!” she snapped, jumping to her feet.
“Come on, be nice.”
“Herrick paid me to play the tables at the Casino,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t know why, so don’t ask me. He always took the money I’d won and gave me other notes in exchange.”
I stared at her.
“Why did he do that?” I said.
She was just going to say she didn’t know, when the door jerked open and Gomez walked in.
Chapter Three
GUNFIRE
1
A POLICE siren wailed in the still night air. Car tyres bit gravel. Doors slammed. Feet pounded on concrete.
I stood in the shadow of the wall facing the rear exit of Miss Spence’s apartment block. It wasn’t a particularly good place to be in with a flock of buttons buzzing around, but I’d been in worse places.
The alley was narrow and sealed at one end. The other end, opening on to the front drive, was lit by a white-blue overhead lamp.
I held the Luger in my right fist, and edged along the shadows. I came to the dead end, looked up. A couple of feet above me I could see the dark sky and the stars. I looked back down the alley. A flat, capped figure was peering around the corner of the wall. He couldn’t see me, but I could see him.
He was very cautious, but I could have drilled him between the eyes without buying myself a truss. He seemed shy of showing me any more of himself. Maybe he thought his head was made of bullet-proof steel. Maybe it was.
I went down on one knee, waited.
He did exactly what I thought he would do. He pulled a flash and sent a long bright beam of light in search of me.
The roar of the Luger rolled around the narrow alley, bounced off the walls. The cop’s flash disintegrated; darkness settled down again.
I had about sixty seconds to get moving before he recovered his nerve. I moved.
The top of the wall was gritty under my hands. I was glad I’d learned the trick of rolling over walls instead of sitting astride them. I was dropping into the far-side darkness when the cop opened up with a chopper. Slugs threw up a little cloud of mortar and brick dust six feet above my head. I didn’t wait.
Beyond the wall was an expanse of trees, shrubs and darkness. I guessed it was the garden of the apartment block. I melted into the darkness; kept edging to my right, where I knew I’d eventually come out to the main street.
There was much shouting in the front drive. Heads peeped cautiously out of windows. The chopper continued to grind away. No one was taking chances.
I kept on. The Army certainly did a swell job in teaching me how to act like a Red Indian. Sitting Bull had nothing on me. Moving through the shrubs and trees, I made no more noise than a ghost and was a lot less visible.