But I had him spotted. I fired a snap shot around the corner and heard him scramble farther under the crate. Maybe he thought he was safe because neither one of us could take the chance of making the first break.
My fingers searched for handholds, found them, and I pulled myself up, climbing slowly and silently over the rough frames of the crates. Splinters worked into my flesh and nails tugged at my clothes until I disengaged them. A cat couldn't have been more quiet.
The tops formed a platform and I crept across it, inch by inch, my brain measuring distances. When I looked over the edge I saw Feeney's arm protruding from the shadow, a gun in his hand, slowly sweeping up and down the narrow lane, his finger tensed on the trigger ready to squeeze off a shot.
I leaned over and put a bullet right through his goddamn hand and jumped just as he made a convulsive jerk of pain and writhed out from under the box. My feet hit him in the shoulders and cut off his scream and we were one kicking, gouging mass rolling in the dust.
I didn't want my gun... just my hands. My fists were slashing into the pale oval of his face, reaching for his throat. He brought his knees up and I turned just in time and took it on my leg. He only had one hand he could use, and he chopped with it, trying to bring the side of his palm against my neck. He kicked me away, pushed with the warm bloody mess that used to be fingers, and swung again, getting me in the ear.
Feeney tried to say "No!" but my hands had his throat, squeezing... slamming his head to the concrete floor until he went completely limp. I rolled on top of him and took that head like a sodden rag and smashed and smashed and smashed and there was no satisfying, solid thump, but a sickening squashing sound that splashed all over me.
Only then did I let go and look at Feeney, or what was left of him, before I got sick to my stomach.
I heard the police whistles, the sirens and the shouting around the wreck of the car outside. Dimly I heard voices calling that we were in the shed. I sat on the floor, trying to catch my breath, reaching in Feeney's pockets until my fingers closed about an oblong of cardboard with a rough edge where the stub had been torn off and I knew I had the ticket that had cost Lola's life.
They took me outside into the glare of the spotlights and listened to what I said. The radio car made contact with headquarters, who called Pat, and after that I wasn't a gun-mad killer any more, but a licensed private cop on a legitimate mission. A double check led to Lola, and the clincher was in Feeney's hip pocket, a bloodstained knife.
Oh, they were very nice about it. In fact, I was some sort of hero. They didn't even bother to take me in for questioning. They had my statement and Pat did the rest. I rode home in a patrol wagon while a cop followed in my car. Tomorrow, they said, would be time enough. Tonight I would rest. In a few hours the dawn would come and the light would chase the insanity of the night away. My phone was ringing as I reached the apartment. I answered it absently, hearing Pat tell me to stay put, he'd be right over. I hung up without saying a word, my eyes searching for a bottle and not finding it.
Pat was forgotten, everything was forgotten. I stumbled out again and down the stairs, over a block to the back of Mast's joint where he had his own private party bar and banged on the door to be let in.
After a minute a light went on and Joe Mast opened the door in his pajamas. Men can see things in other men and know enough to keep quiet. Joe waited until I was in, closed the door and pulled down the shades. Without a word he went behind the tiny bar and pulled a bottle down from the shelf, pouring me a double hooker while I forced myself onto a stool.
I didn't taste it; I didn't feel it go down.
I had another and didn't taste that one either.
Joe said, "Slow, Mike. Have all you want, but do it slow."
A voice started speaking, and I knew it was mine. It came of its own accord, a harsh, foreign voice that had no tone to it. "I loved her, Joe. She was wonderful and she loved me, too. She died tonight and the last thing she told me was that she loved me. It would have been nice. She loved me most, and I had just started to love her. I knew that it wouldn't be long before I loved her just as much. He killed her, the bastard. He killed her and I made a mess of his head. Even the devil won't recognize him now."
I reached in my pocket for a butt and felt the pawn ticket. I laid it on the bar next to the glass and the cigarettes. The name said Nancy Sanford and the address was the Seaside Hotel in Coney Island. "He deserved to die. He had a murder planned for my redhead and it didn't come off, but it worked out just as well. He was a big guy in the vice racket with sharp ideas and he killed to keep them sharp. He killed a blonde and he killed Lola. He wanted to kill me once but he got talked out of it. It was too soon to kill me then. Murder unplanned is too easily traced."
My mind went back to the parking lot, then before it, when I had walked into Murray Candid's office and seen the door closing and heard the cough. That was Feeney. He had spotted me in the club and put Murray wise. No wonder they wanted to warn me. Feeney was the smart one, he wanted me dead. He knew I wasn't going to be scared out of it. Too bad for him he got talked out of it. He was there that night. Did he have the ring? Damn it, why did that ring present a problem. Where the hell did it tie in? The whole thing started because of it... would it end without it?
Vacantly, I stared at the back bar, lost in thought. The ring with the battered fleur-de-lis design. Nancy's ring. Where was it now? Why was it there? The beating of my heart picked up until it was a hammer slamming my ribs. My eyes were centered on the bottles arranged so nicely in a long row.
Yeah! YEAH! I knew where the ring was!
How could I have been so incredibly stupid as to have missed it!
And Lola, who sent me after Feeney, had tried to tell me something else too... and I didn't get it until now!
Joe tried to stop me, but I was out the door before he could yell. I found my car and crawled in, fumbling for the ignition switch. I didn't have to hurry because I knew I had time. Not much, but enough time to get to the Seaside Hotel in Coney Island and do what I had to do.
I knew what I'd find. Nancy had left it there with her baggage. She was broke, she had to hock her camera. And being broke she had to get out of the Seaside Hotel without her baggage. But she knew it would be safe. Impounded but safe, redeemable when she had the money.
I found the Seaside Hotel tucked away on a street flanked by empty concession stands. Maybe from the roof it had a view of the sea. There wasn't any from where I stood. I parked a block away and walked up to it, seeing the peeling walls, the shuttered windows, the sign that read CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. Beneath it was another sign that told the public the building was protected by some obscure detective agency.
I took another drag on the cigarette and flipped it into the sand that had piled up in the gutter.
One look at the heavy timbers across the door and the steel bars on the ground-floor windows told me it was no use trying to get in that way. I scaled a fence beside the concession booth and walked around to the back. While I stood there looking at the white sand underneath the darker layer of wet stuff my feet had kicked up, the rain, began again, and I smiled to myself. Nice rain. Wonderful, beautiful rain. In five minutes the tracks would be wet, too, and blend in with the other.
The roof of the shack slanted down towards the back. I had to jump to reach it, preferring to chin myself up rather than use any of the empty soda boxes piled there. I left part of my coat on a nail and took the time to unsnag it. The slightest trace would be too much to leave behind.
I was able to reach a window, then tried it and found it locked. A recession in the wall farther down had stairsteps of bricks making an interlocking joint and I ran my hand over it. I saw I had about ten feet to go to the roof, a vertical climb with scarcely a thing to hang on to.