Nicky stopped the car and turned off the lights and took a big nickeled flash out of the car pocket. He handed it to De Ruse.
De Ruse got out of the car and stood for a moment with his hand on the open door, holding the flash. He took a gun out of his overcoat pocket and held it down at his side.
«Looks like a stall,» he said. «I don’t think there’s anything stirring here.»
He glanced in at Zapparty, smiled sharply and walked off across the ridges of sand, towards the house. The front door stood half open, wedged that way by sand. De Ruse went towards the corner of the house, keeping out of line with the door as well as he could. He went along the side wall, looking at boarded-up windows behind which there was no trace of light.
At the back of the house was what had been a chicken house. A piece of rusted junk in a squashed garage was all that remained of the family sedan. The back door was nailed up like the windows. De Ruse stood silent in the rain, wondering why the front door was open. Then he remembered that there had been another flood a few months before, not such a bad one. There might have been enough water to break open the door on the side towards the mountains.
Two stucco houses, both abandoned, loomed on the adjoining lots. Farther away from the wash, on a bit of higher ground, there was a lighted window. It was the only light anywhere in the range of De Ruse’s vision.
He went back to the front of the house and slipped through the open door, stood inside it and listened. After quite a long time he snapped the flash on.
The house didn’t smell like a house. It smelled like out of doors. There was nothing in the front room but sand, a few pieces of smashed furniture, some marks on the walls, above the dark line of the flood water, where pictures had hung.
De Ruse went through a short hall into a kitchen that had a hole in the floor where the sink had been and a rusty gas stove stuck in the hole. From the kitchen he went into a bedroom. He had not heard any whisper of sound in the house so far.
The bedroom was square and dark. A carpet stiff with old mud was plastered to the floor. There was a metal bed with a rusted spring, and a water-stained mattress over part of the spring.
Feet stuck out from under the bed.
They were large feet in walnut brown brogues, with purple socks above them. The socks had gray clocks down the sides. Above the socks were trousers of black and white check.
De Ruse stood very still and played the flash down on the feet. He made a soft sucking sound with his lips. He stood like that for a couple of minutes, without moving at all. Then he stood the flash on the floor, on its end, so that the light it shot against the ceiling was reflected down to make dim light all over the room.
He took hold of the mattress and pulled it off the bed. He reached down and touched one of the hands of the man who was under the bed. The hand was ice cold. He took hold of the ankles and pulled, but the man was large and heavy.
It was easier to move the bed from over him.
TEN
Zapparty leaned his head back against the upholstery and shut his eyes and turned his head away a little. His eyes were shut very tight and he tried to turn his head far enough so that the light from the big flash wouldn’t shine through his eyelids.
Nicky held the flash close to his face and snapped it on, off again, on, off again, monotonously, in a kind of rhythm.
De Ruse stood with one foot on the running board by the open door and looked off through the rain. On the edge of the murky horizon an airplane beacon flashed weakly.
Nicky said carelessly: «You never know what’ll get a guy. I saw one break once because a cop held his fingernail against the dimple in his chin.»
De Ruse laughed under his breath. «This one is tough,» he said. «You’ll have to think of something better than a flashlight.»
Nicky snapped the flash on, off, on, off. «I could,» he said, «But I don’t want to get my hands dirty.»
After a little while Zapparty raised his hands in front of him and let them fall slowly and began to talk. He talked in a low monotonous voice, keeping his eyes shut against the flash.
«Parisi worked the snatch. I didn’t know anything about it until it was done. Parisi muscled in on me about a month ago, with a couple of tough boys to back him up. He had found out somehow that Candless beat me out of twenty-five grand to defend my half-brother on a murder rap, then sold the kid out. I didn’t tell Parisi that. I didn’t know he knew until tonight.
«He came into the club about seven or a little after and said: ‘We’ve got a friend of yours, Hugo Candless. It’s a hundred-grand job, a quick turnover. All you have to do is help spread the pay-off across the tables here, get it mixed up with a bunch of other money. You have to do that because we give you a cut — and because the caper is right up your alley, if anything goes sour.’ That’s about all. Parisi sat around then and chewed his fingers and waited for his boys. He got pretty jumpy when they didn’t show. He went out once to make a phone call from a beer parlor.»
De Ruse drew on a cigarette he held cupped inside a hand. He said: «Who fingered the job, and how did you know Candless was up here?»
Zapparty said: «Mops told me. But I didn’t know he was dead.»
Nicky laughed and snapped the flash several times quickly.
De Ruse said: «Hold it steady for a minute.» Nicky held the beam steady on Zapparty’s white face. Zapparty moved his lips in and out. He opened his eyes once. They were blind eyes, like the eyes of a dead fish.
Nicky said: «It’s damn cold up here. What do we do with his nibs?»
De Ruse said: «We’ll take him into the house and tie him to Candless. They can keep each other warm. We’ll come up again in the morning and see if he’s got any fresh ideas.»
Zapparty shuddered. The gleam of something like a tear showed in the corner of his nearest eye. After a moment of silence he said: «Okey. I planned the whole thing. The gas car was my idea. I didn’t want the money. I wanted Candless, and I wanted him dead. My kid brother was hanged in Quentin a week ago Friday.»
There was a little silence. Nicky said something under his breath. De Ruse didn’t move or make a sound.
Zapparty went on: «Mattick, the Candless driver, was in on it. He hated Candless. He was supposed to drive the ringer car to make everything look good and then take a powder. But he lapped up too much corn getting set for the job and Parisi got leery of him, had him knocked off. Another boy drove the car. It was raining and that helped.»
De Ruse said: «Better — but still not all of it, Zapparty.»
Zapparty shrugged quickly, slightly opened his eyes against the flash, almost grinned.
«What the hell do you want? Jam on both sides?»
De Ruse said: «I want a finger put on the bird that had me grabbed … Let it go. I’ll do it myself.»
He took his foot off the running board and snapped his butt away into the darkness. He slammed the car door shut, got in the front. Nicky put the flash away and slid around under the wheel, started the engine.
De Ruse said: «Somewhere where I can phone for a cab, Nicky. Then you take this riding for another hour and then call Francy. I’ll have a word for you there.»
The blond man shook his head slowly from side to side. «You’re a good pal, Johnny, and I like you. But this has gone far enough this way. I’m taking it down to Headquarters. Don’t forget I’ve got a private-dick license under my old shirts at home.»
De Ruse said: «Give me an hour, Nicky. Just an hour.»
The car slid down the hill and crossed the Sunland Highway, started down another hill towards Montrose. After a while Nicky said: «Check.»