«I’d like to,» I said and stood up. «Maybe I’d go pretty far to attend to that sentiment.»
«Sure,» Roof said, suddenly thoughtful. «Well, Winslow is a big man. Anything I can do let me know.»
«You could find out who had Larry Batzel gunned,» I said. «Even if there isn’t any connection.»
«We’ll do that. Glad to,» he guffawed and flicked ash all over his desk. «You just knock off the guys who can talk and we’ll do the rest. We like to work that way.»
«It was self-defense,» I growled. «I couldn’t help myself.»
«Sure. Take the air, brother. I’m busy.»
But his large bleak eyes twinkled at me as I went out.
TEN
The morning was all blue and gold and the birds in the ornamental trees of the Winslow estate were crazy with song after the rain.
The gatekeeper let me in through the postern and I walked up the driveway and along the top terrace to the huge carved Italian front door. Before I rang the bell I looked down the hill and saw the Trevillyan kid sitting on his stone bench with his head cupped in his hands, staring at nothing.
I went down the brick path to him. «No darts today, son?»
He looked up at me with his lean, slaty, sunken eyes.
«No. Did you find him?»
«Your dad? No, sonny, not yet.»
He jerked his head. His nostrils flared angrily. «He’s not my dad I told you. And don’t talk to me as if I was four years old. My dad he’s — he’s in Florida or somewhere.»
«Well, I haven’t found him yet, whoever’s dad he is,» I said.
«Who smacked your jaw?» he asked, staring at me.
«Oh, a fellow with a roll of nickels in his hand.»
«Nickels?»
«Yeah. That’s as good as brass knuckles. Try it sometime, but not on me,» I grinned.
«You won’t find him,» he said bitterly, staring at my jaw. «Him, I mean. My mother’s husband.»
«I bet I do.»
«How much you bet?»
«More money than even you’ve got in your pants.»
He kicked viciously at the edge of a red brick in the walk. His voice was still sulky, but more smooth. His eyes speculated.
«Want to bet on something else? C’mon over to the range. I bet you a dollar I can knock down eight out of ten pipes in ten shots.»
I looked back towards the house. Nobody seemed impatient to receive me.
«Well,» I said, «we’ll have to make it snappy. Let’s go.»
We went along the side of the house under the windows. The orchid green-house showed over the tops of some bushy trees far back. A man in neat whipcord was polishing the chromium on a big car in front of the garages. We went past there to the low white building against the bank.
The boy took a key out and unlocked the door and we went into close air that still held traces of cordite fumes. The boy clicked a spring lock on the door.
«Me first,» he snapped.
The place looked something like a small beach shooting gallery. There was a counter with a .22 repeating rifle on it and a long, slim target pistol. Both well oiled but dusty. About thirty feet beyond the counter was a waist-high, solid-looking partition across the building, and behind that a simple layout of clay pipes and ducks and two round white targets marked off with black rings and stained by lead bullets.
The clay pipes ran in an even line across the middle, and there was a big skylight, and a row of hooded overhead lights.
The boy pulled a cord on the wall and a thick canvas blind slid across the skylight. He turned on the hooded lights and then the place really looked like a beach shooting gallery.
He picked up the .22 rifle and loaded it quickly from a cardboard box of shells, .22 shorts.
«A dollar I get eight out of ten pipes?»
«Blast away,» I said, and put my money on the counter.
He took aim almost casually, fired too fast, showing off. He missed three pipes. It was pretty fancy shooting at that. He threw the rifle down on the counter.
«Gee, go set up some more. Let’s not count that one. I wasn’t set.»
«You don’t aim to lose any money, do you, son? Go set ’em up yourself. It’s your range.»
His narrow face got angry and his voice got shrill. «You do it! I’ve got to relax, see. I’ve got to relax.»
I shrugged at him, lifted a flap in the counter and went along the whitewashed side wall, squeezed past the end of the low partition. The boy clicked his reloaded rifle shut behind me.
«Put that down,» I growled back at him. «Never touch a gun when there’s anyone in front of you.»
He put it down, looking hurt.
I bent down and grabbed a handful of clay pipes out of the sawdust in a big wooden box on the floor. I shook the yellow grains of wood off them and started to straighten up.
I stopped with my hat above the barrier, just the top of my hat. I never knew why I stopped. Blind instinct.
The .22 cracked and the lead bullet bonged into the target in front of my head. My hat stirred lazily on my head, as though a blackbird had swooped at it during the nesting season.
A nice kid. He was full of tricks, like Red-eyes. I dropped the pipes and took hold of my hat by the brim, lifted it straight up off my head a few inches. The gun cracked again. Another metallic bong on the target.
I let myself fall heavily to the wooden flooring, among the pipes.
A door opened and shut. That was all. Nothing else. The hard glare from the hooded lights beat down on me. The sun peeked in at the edges of the skylight blind. There were two bright new splashes on the nearest target, and there were four small round holes in my hat, two and two, on each side.
I crawled to the end of the barrier and peeked around it. The boy was gone. I could see the small muzzles of the two guns on the counter.
I stood up and went back along the wall, switched the lights off, turned the knob of the spring lock and went out. The Winslow chauffeur whistled at his polish job around in front of the garages.
I crushed my hat in my hand and went back along the side of the house, looking for the kid. I didn’t see him. I rang the front door bell.
I asked for Mrs. O’Mara. I didn’t let the butler take my hat.
ELEVEN
She was in an oyster-white something, with white fur at the cuffs and collar and around the bottom. A breakfast table on wheels was pushed to one side of her chair and she was flicking ashes among the silver.
The coy-looking maid with the nice legs came and took the table out and shut the tall white door. I sat down.
Mrs. O’Mara leaned her head back against a cushion and looked tired. The line of her throat was distant, cold. She stared at me with a cool, hard look, in which there was plenty of dislike.
«You seemed rather human yesterday,» she said. «But I see you are just a brute like the rest of them. Just a brutal cop.»
«I came to ask you about Lash Yeager,» I said.
She didn’t even pretend to be amused. «And why should you think of asking me?»
«Well — if you lived a week at the Dardanella Club —» I waved my crunched-together hat.
She looked at her cigarette fixedly. «Well, I did meet him, I believe. I remember the rather unusual name.»
«They all have names like that, those animals,» I said. «It seems that Larry Batzel — I guess you read in your paper about him too — was a friend of Dud O’Mara’s once. I didn’t tell you about him yesterday. Maybe that was a mistake.»
A pulse began to throb in her throat. She said softly: «I have a suspicion you are about to become very insolent, that I may even have to have you thrown out.»