It was Joe’s voice. He had come in through the kitchen. Channing dropped his gun. The men coming in the front door were not policemen. They were Dave Padway and Jack Flavin.
Flavin closed the door and locked it. Channing nodded, smiling faintly. Dave Padway nodded back. He was a tall, shambling man with white eyes and a long face, like a pinto horse.
“I see I’m still a bum shot,” he said.
“Ten years in the can doesn’t help your eye, Dave.” Channing seemed relaxed and unemotional. “Well, now we’re all here we can talk. We can talk about murder.”
Marge and Ruby were both staring at Padway. Flavin grinned. “My new business partner, Dave Padway. Dave, meet Marge Krist and Rudy.”
Padway glanced at them briefly. His pale eyes were empty of expression. He said, in his soft way, “It’s Channing that interests me right now. How much has he told, and who has he told it to?”
Channing laughed, with insolent mockery.
“Fine time to worry about that,” Flavin grunted. “Who was it messed up the kill in the first place?”
Padway’s eyelids drooped. “Everyone makes mistakes, Jack,” he said mildly. Flavin struck a match. The flame trembled slightly.
Rudy said, “Jack. Listen, Jack, this guy says Budge Hanna and his girl were killed. Did you—”
“No. That was Dave’s idea.”
Padway said, “Any objections to it?”
“Hanna was a good man. He was my contact with all the bars.”
“He was a bum. Him and that floozie between them were laying the whole thing in Channing’s lap. I heard ’em.”
“Okay, okay! I’m just sorry, that’s all.”
Rudy said, “Jack, honest to God, I don’t want to be messed up in killing. I don’t mind slugging a watchman, that’s okay, and if you had to shoot it out with the cops, well, that’s okay too, I guess. But murder, Jack!” He glanced at Channing’s scarred body. “Murder, and things like that—” He shook.
Padway muttered, “My God, he’s still in diapers.”
“Take it easy, kid,” Flavin said. “You’re in big time now. It’s worth getting sick at your stomach a couple times.” He looked at Channing, grinning his hard white grin. “You were right when you said Surfside was either an end or a beginning. Dave and I both needed a place to begin again. Start small and grow, like any other business.”
Channing nodded. He looked at Rudy. “Hank told you it would be like this, didn’t he? You believe him now?”
Rudy repeated his suggestion. His skin was greenish. He sat down and lighted a cigarette. Marge leaned against the wall, watching with bright, narrow-lidded eyes. She was pale. She had said nothing.
Channing said, “Flavin, you were out with Marge the night Hank was killed.”
“So what?”
“Did you leave her at all?”
“A couple of times. Not long enough to get out on the pier to kill your brother.”
Marge said quietly, “He’s right, Mr. Channing.”
Channing said, “Where did you go?”
“Ship Cafe, a bunch of bars, dancing. So what?” Flavin gestured impatiently.
Channing said, “How about you, Dave? Did you kill Hank to pay for your brother, and then wait for me to come?”
“If I had,” Padway said, “I’d have told you. I’d have made sure you’d come.” He stepped closer, looking down. “You don’t seem very surprised to see us.”
“I’m not surprised at anything anymore.”
“Yeah.” Padway’s gun came smoothly into his hand. “At this range I ought to be able to hit you, Chan.” Marge Krist caught her breath sharply. Padway said, “No, not here, unless he makes me. Go ahead, Joe.”
Joe got busy with the adhesive tape again. This time he did a better job. They wrapped his trussed body in a blanket. Joe picked up the feet. Flavin motioned Rudy to take hold. Rudy hesitated. Padway flicked the muzzle of his gun. Rudy picked up Channing’s shoulders. They turned out the lights and carried Channing out to a waiting car. Marge and Rudy Krist walked ahead of Padway, who had forgotten to put away his gun.
3
“I Feel Bad Killin’ You …”
The room was enormous in the flashlight beams. There were still recognizable signs of its former occupation—dust-blackened, tawdry bunting dangling ragged from the ceiling, a floor worn by the scraping of many feet, a few forgotten tables and chairs, the curling fly-specked photographs of bygone celebrities autographed to Dear Skinny, an empty, dusty band platform.
One of Padway’s men lighted a coal-oil lamp. The boarded windows were carefully reinforced with tarpaper. In one end of the ballroom were stacks of liquor cases built into a huge square mountain. Doors opened into other rooms, black and disused. The place was utterly silent, odorous with the dust and rot of years.
Padway said, “Put him over there.” He indicated a camp cot beside a table and a group of chairs. The men carrying Channing dropped him there. The rest straggled in and sat down, lighting cigarettes. Padway said, “Joe, take the Thompson and go upstairs. Yell if anybody looks this way.”
Jack Flavin swore briefly. “I told you we weren’t tailed, Dave. Cripes, we’ve driven all over this goddam town to make sure. Can’t you relax?”
“Sure, when I’m ready to. You may have hair on your chest, Jack, but it’s no bulletproof vest.” He went over to the cot and pulled the blanket off Channing. Channing looked up at him, his eyes sunk deep under hooded lids. He was naked to the waist. Padway inspected the two gashes.
“I didn’t miss you by much, Chan,” he said slowly.
“Enough.”
“Yeah.” Padway pulled a cigarette slowly out of the pack. “Who did you talk to, Chan, besides Marge Krist? What did you say?”
Channing bared his teeth. It might have been meant for a smile. It was undoubtedly malicious.
Padway put the cigarette in his mouth and got a match out. It was a large kitchen match with a blue head. “You got me puzzled, Chan. You sure have. And it worries me. I can smell copper, but I can’t see any. I don’t like that, Channing.”
“That’s tough,” Channing said.
“Yeah. It may be.” Padway struck the match.
Rudy Krist rose abruptly and went off into the shadows. No one else moved. Marge Krist was hunched up on a blanket near Flavin. Her eyes were brilliant green under her tumbled red hair.
Dave Padway held the match low over Channing’s eyes. There was no draft, no tremor in his hand. The flame was a perfect triangle, gold and blue. Padway said somberly, “I don’t trust you, Chan. You were a good cop. You were good enough to take me once, and you were good enough to take my brother, and he was a better man than me. I don’t trust this setup, Chan. I don’t trust you.”
Flavin said impatiently, “Why didn’t you for godsake kill him the first time? You’re to blame for this mess, Dave. If you hadn’t loused it up—okay, okay! The guy’s crazy afraid of fire. Look at him now. Put it to him, Dave. He’ll talk.”
“Will he?” said Padway. “Will he?” He lowered the match. Channing screamed. Padway lighted his cigarette and blew out the match. “Will you talk, Chan?”
Channing said hoarsely, “Offer me the right coin, Dave. Give me the man who killed my brother, and I’ll tell you where you stand.”
Padway stared at him with blank light eyes, and then he began to laugh, quietly, with a terrible humor.
“Tie him down, Mack,” he said, “and bring the matches over here.”
The room was quiet, except for Channing’s breathing. Rudy Krist sat apart from the others, smoking steadily, his hands never still. The three gunsels bent with scowling concentration over a game of blackjack. Marge Krist had not moved since she sat down. Perhaps twenty minutes had passed. Channing’s corded body was spotted with small vicious marks.