«Turn around, pal, while I give you the fan.»
I hadn’t worked my gun loose yet. He got that. I didn’t say anything about the door key, but he took it. So he must have been watching from somewhere. He left me my car keys. He looked at the little empty gun and dropped it back in my pocket.
«Where’d you come from?» I asked.
«Easy. Clumb up the balcony and held on, looking through the grill at you. Cinch to an old circus man. How you been, pal?»
Blood from the top of my head was leaking down my face. I got a handkerchief out and mopped at it. I didn’t answer him.
«Jeeze, you sure was funny on the bed grabbin’ for the phone with the stiff at your back.»
«I was a scream,» I growled. «Take it easy. He’s her husband.»
He looked at her. «She’s his woman?»
I nodded and wished I hadn’t.
«That’s tough. If I’d a known — but I couldn’t help meself. The guy asked for it.»
«You —» I started to say, staring at him. I heard a queer, strained whine behind me, from the woman.
«Who else, pal? Who else? Let’s all go back in that livin’ room. Seems to me they was a bottle of nice-looking hooch there. And you need some stuff on that head.»
«You’re crazy to stick around here,» I growled. «There’s a general pickup out for you. The only way out of this canyon is back down Beachwood or over the hills — on foot.»
Skalla looked at me and said very quietly, «Nobody’s phoned no law from here, pal.»
Skalla watched me while I washed and put some tape on my head in the bathroom. Then we went back to the living room. Mrs. Marineau, curled up on one of the davenports, looked blankly at the unlit fire. She didn’t say anything.
She hadn’t run away because Skalla had her in sight all the time. She acted resigned, indifferent, as if she didn’t care what happened now.
I poured three drinks from the Vat 69 bottle, handed one to the brunette. She held her hand out for the glass, half smiled at me, crumpled off the davenport to the floor with the smile still on her face.
I put the glass down, lifted her and put her back on the davenport with her head low. Skalla stared at her. She was out cold, as white as paper.
Skalla took his drink, sat down on the other davenport and put the .45 beside him. He drank his drink looking at the woman, with a queer expression on his big pale face.
«Tough,» he said. «Tough. But the louse was cheatin’ on her anyways. The hell with him.» He reached for another drink, swallowed it, sat down near her on the other davenport right-angled to the one she lay on.
«So you’re a dick,» he said.
«How’d you guess?»
«Lu Shamey told me about a guy goin’ there. He sounded like you. I been around and looked in your heap outside. I walk silent.»
«Well — what now?» I asked.
He looked more enormous than ever in the room in his sports clothes. The clothes of a smart-aleck kid. I wondered how long it had taken him to get them together. They couldn’t have been ready-made. He was much too big for that.
His feet were spread wide on the apricot rug, he looked down sadly at the white kid explosions on the suede. They were the worst-looking shoes I ever saw.
«What you doin’ here?» he asked gruffly.
«Looking for Beulah. I thought she might need a little help. I had a bet with a city cop I’d find her before he found you. But I haven’t found her yet.»
«You ain’t seen her, huh?»
I shook my head, slowly, very carefully.
He said softly, «Me neither, pal. I been around for hours. She ain’t been home. Only the guy in the bedroom come here. How about the dinge manager up at Shamey’s?»
«That’s what the tag’s for.»
«Yeah. A guy like that. They would. Well, I gotta blow. I’d like to take the stiff, account of Beulah. Can’t leave him around to scare her. But I guess it ain’t any use now. The dinge kill queers that.»
He looked at the woman at his elbow on the other little davenport. Her face was still greenish white, her eyes shut. There was a movement of her breast.
«Without her,» he said, «I guess I’d clean up right and button you good.» He touched the .45 at his side. «No hard feelings, of course, just for Beulah. But the way it is — heck, I can’t knock the frail off.»
«Too bad.» I snarled, feeling my head.
He grinned. «I guess I’ll take your heap. For a short ways. Throw them keys over.»
I threw them over. He picked them up and laid them beside the big Colt. He leaned forward a little. Then he reached back into one of his patch pockets and brought out a small pearlhandled gun, about.25 caliber. He held it on the Hat of his hand.
«This done it,» he said. «I left a rent hack I had on the street below and come up the bank and around the house. I hear the bell ring. This guy is at the front door. I don’t come up far enough for him to see me. Nobody answers. Well, what do you think? The guy’s got a key. A key to Beulah’s house!»
His huge face became one vast scowl. The woman on the davenport was breathing a little more deeply, and I thought I saw one of her eyelids twitch.
«What the hell,» I said. «He could get that a dozen ways. He’s a boss at KLBL where she works. He could get at her bag, take an impression. Hell, she didn’t have to give it to him.»
«That’s right, pal.» He beamed. «0’ course, she didn’t have to give it to the — . Okay, he went in, and I made it fast after him. But he had the door shut. I opened it my way. After that it didn’t shut so good, you might of noticed. He was in the middle of this here room, over there by a desk. He’s been here before all right though» — the scowl came back again, although not quite so black — because he slipped a hand into the desk drawer and come up with this.» He danced the pearl-handled thing on his enormous palm.
Mrs. Marineau’s face now had distinct lines of tensity.
«So I start for him. He lets one go. A miss. He’s scared and runs into the bedroom. Me after. He lets go again. Another miss. You’ll find them slugs in the wall somewheres.»
«I’ll make a point of it,» I said.
«Yeah, then I got him. Well, hell, the guy’s only a punk in a white muffler, If she’s washed up with me, okay. I want it from her, see? Not from no greasy-faced piece of cheese like him. So I’m sore. But the guy’s got guts at that.»
He rubbed his chin. I doubted the last bit.
«I say: ’My woman lives here, pal. How come?’ He says: ’Come back tomorrow. This here is my night.’»
Skalla spread his free left hand in a large gesture. «After that nature’s got to take its course, ain’t it? I pull his arms and legs off. Only while I’m doing it the damn little gat pops off and he’s as limp as — as —» he glanced at the woman and didn’t finish what he was going to say. «Yeah, he was dead.»
One of the woman’s eyelids flickered again. I said, «Then?»
«I scrammed. A guy does. But I come back. I got to thinkin’ it’s tough on Beulah, with that stiff on her bed. So I’ll just go back and ferry him out to the desert and then crawl in a hole for a while. Then this frail comes along and spoils that part.»
The woman must have been shamming for quite a long time. She must have been moving her legs and feet and turning her body a fraction of an inch at a time, to get in the right position, to get leverage against the back of the davenport.
The pearl-handled gun still lay on Skalla’s flat hand when she moved. She shot off the davenport in a flat dive, gathering herself in the air like an acrobat. She brushed his knees and picked the gun off his hand as neatly as a chipmunk peels a nut.
He stood up and swore as she rolled against his legs. The big Colt was at his side, but he didn’t touch it or reach for it. He stooped to take hold of the woman with his big hands empty.