For the third time in twenty-four hours I took the count.
I came out of this one yelling, with the harsh bite of ammonia in my nose. I swung at a face. But I didn’t have anything to swing with. My arms were a couple of four-ton anchors. I threshed around and groaned.
The face in front of me materialized into the bored yet attentive pan of a man with a white coat, a fast-wagon medico.
«Like it?» he grinned. «Some people used to drink it — with a wine-tonic chaser.»
He pulled at me and something nipped at my shoulder and a needle stung me. -
«Light shot,» he said. «That head of yours is pretty bad. You won’t go out.»
His face went away. I prowled my eyes. Beyond there was a vagueness. Then I saw a girl’s face, hushed, sharp, attentive. Carol Pride.
«Yeah,» I said. «You followed me. You would.»
She smiled and moved. Then her fingers were stroking my cheek and I couldn’t see her.
«The prowl-car boys just made it,» she said. «The crooks had you all wrapped up in a carpet — for shipment in a truck out back.»
I couldn’t see very well. A big red-faced man in blue slid in front of me. He had a gun in his hand with the gate open. Somebody groaned somewhere in the background.
She said: «They had two others wrapped up. But they were dead. Ugh!»
«Go on home,» I grumbled woozily. «Go write yourself a feature story.»
«You used that one before, sap.» She went on stroking my cheek. «I thought you made them up as you went along. Drowsy?»
«That’s all taken care of,» a voice said sharply. «Get this shot guy down to where you can work on him. I want him to live.»
Reavis came towards me as out of a mist. His face formed itself slowly, gray, attentive, rather stern. It lowered, as if he sat down in front of me, close to me.
«So you had to play it smart,» he said in a sharp, edgy voice. «All right, talk. The hell with how your head feels. You asked for it and you got it.»
«Gimme a drink.»
Vague motion, a flicker of bright light, the lip of a flask touched my mouth. Hot strength ran down my throat. Some of it ran cold on my chin and I moved my head away from the flask.
«Thanks. Get Magoon — the biggest one?»
«He’s full of lead, but still turning over. On his way down town now.»
«Get the Indian?»
«Huh?» he gulped.
«In some bushes under Peace Cross down on the Palisades. I shot him. I didn’t mean to.»
«Holy —»
Reavis went away again and the fingers moved slowly and rhythmically on my cheek.
Reavis came back and sat down again. «Who’s the Indian?» he snapped.
«Soukesian’s strong-arm man. Soukesian the Psychic. He —»
«We know about him,» Reavis interrupted bitterly. «You’ve been out a whole hour, shamus. The lady told us about those cards. She says it’s her fault but I don’t believe it. Screwy anyhow. But a couple of the boys have gone out there.»
«I was there,» I said. «At his house. He knows something. I don’t know what. He was afraid of me — yet he didn’t knock me off. Funny.»
«Amateur,» Reavis said dryly. «He left that for Moose Magoon. Moose Magoon was tough — up till lately. A record from here to Pittsburgh…. Here. But take it easy. This is ante mortem confession liquor. Too damn good for you.»
The flask touched my lips again.
«Listen,» I said thickly. «This was the stick-up squad. Soukesian was the brains. Lindley Paul was the finger. He must have crossed them on something —»
Reavis said, «Nuts,» and just then a phone rang distantly and a voice said: «You, Lieutenant.»
Reavis went away. When he came back again he didn’t sit down.
«Maybe you’re right,» he said softly. «Maybe you are, at that. In a house on top of a hill in Brentwood Heights there’s a golden-haired guy dead in a chair with a woman crying over him. Dutch act. There’s a jade necklace on a table beside him.»
«Too much death,» I said, and fainted.
I woke up in an ambulance. At first I thought I was alone in it. Then I felt her hand and knew I wasn’t. I was stone blind now. I couldn’t even see light. It was just bandages.
«The doctor’s up front with the driver,» she said. «You can hold my hand. Would you like me to kiss you?»
«If it doesn’t obligate me to anything.»
She laughed softly. «I guess you’ll live,» she said. She kissed me. «Your hair smells of Scotch. Do you take baths in it? The doctor said you weren’t to talk.»
«They beaned me with a full bottle. Did I tell Reavis about the Indian?»
«Yes.»
«Did I tell him Mrs. Prendergast thought Paul was mixed up —»
«You didn’t even mention Mrs. Prendergast,» she said quickly.
I didn’t say anything to that. After a while she said: «This Soukesian, did he look like a lady’s man?»
«The doctor said I wasn’t to talk,» I said.
EIGHT
POISON BLONDE
It was a couple of weeks later that I drove down to Santa Monica. Ten days of the time I had spent in the hospital, at my own expense, getting over a bad concussion. Moose Magoon was in the prison ward at the County Hospital about the same time, while they picked seven or eight police slugs out of him. At the end of that time they buried him.
The case was pretty well buried by this time, too. The papers had had their play with it and other things had come along and after all it was just a jewel racket that went sour from too much double-crossing. So the police said, and they ought to know. They didn’t find any more jewels, but they didn’t expect to. They figured the gang pulled just one job at a time, with coolie labor mostly, and sent them on their way with their cut. That way only three people really knew what it was all about: Moose Magoon, who turned out to be an Armenian; Soukesian, who used his connections to find out who had the right kind of jewels; and Lindley Paul, who fingered the jobs and tipped the gang off when to strike. Or so the police said, and they ought to know.
It was a nice warm afternoon. Carol Pride lived on Twentyfifth Street, in a neat little red brick house trimmed with white with a hedge in front of it.
Her living room had a tan figured rug, white-and-rose chairs, a black marble fireplace with tall brass andirons, very high bookcases built back into the walls, rough cream-colored drapes against shades of the same color.
There was nothing womanish in it except a full-length mirror with a clear sweep of floor in front.
I sat down in a nice soft chair and rested what was left of my head and sipped Scotch and soda while I looked at her fluffed-out brown hair above a high-collar dress that made her face look small, almost childish.
«I bet you didn’t get all this writing,» I said.
«And my dad didn’t get it grafting on the cops either,» she snapped. «We had a few lots at Playa Del Rey, if you have to know.»
«A little oil,» I said. «Nice. I didn’t have to know. Don’t start snapping at me.»
«Have you still got your licence?»
«Oh, yes,» I said. «Well, this is nice Scotch. You wouldn’t like to go riding in an old car, would you?»
«Who am Ito sneer at an old car?» she asked. «The laundry must have put too much starch in your neck.»
I grinned at the thin line between her eyebrows.
«I kissed you in that ambulance,» she said. «If you remember, don’t take it too big. I was just sorry for the way you got your head bashed in.»
«I’m a career man,» I said. «I wouldn’t build on anything like that. Let’s go riding. I have to see a blonde in Beverly Hills. I owe her a report.»