«That gal’s been cuttin’ corners on me with three, four other guys,» he grumbled. «I owed her the slug. Oky-doke. That’s jake. Now, I go out and collect me the smart monkey.»
He started to get up. Waltz barely touched the butt of his gun with two fingers. He shook his head, and the Negro sat down again. Waltz spoke.
«He got away, Rufe. And you called the buttons to find a dead woman. Unless they get him with the gun on him — one chance in a thousand — there’s no way to tie it to him. That makes you the fall guy. You live there.»
The Negro grinned and kept his dull eyes on the Savage.
He said: «That makes me get cold feet. And my feet are big enough to get plenty cold. Guess I take me a powder, huh?»
Waltz sighed. He said thoughtfully: «Yeah, I guess you leave town for a while. From Glendale. The ’Frisco late train will be about right.»
The Negro looked sulky. «Nix on ’Frisco, boss. I put my thumbs on a frail there. She croaked. Nix on ’Frisco, boss.»
«You’ve got ideas, Rufe,» Waltz said calmly. He rubbed the side of his veined nose with one finger, then slicked his gray hair back with his palm. «I see them in your big brown eyes. Forget it. I’ll take care of you. Get the car in the alley. We’ll figure the angles on the way to Glendale.»
The Negro blinked and wiped cigar ash off his chin with his huge hand.
«And better leave your big shiny gun here,» Waltz added. «It needs a rest.»
Rufe reached back and slowly drew his gun from a hip pocket. He pushed it across the polished wood of the desk with one finger. There was a faint, sleepy smile at the back of his eyes.
«Okey, boss,» he said, almost dreamily.
He went across to the door, opened it, and went out. Waltz stood up and stepped over to the closet, put on a dark felt hat and a light-weight overcoat, a pair of dark gloves. He dropped the Savage into his left-hand pocket, Rufe’s gun into the right. He went out of the room down the hall toward the sound of the dance band.
At the end he parted the curtains just enough to peer through. The orchestra was playing a waltz. There was a good crowd, a quiet crowd for Central Avenue. Waltz sighed, watched the dancers for a moment, let the curtains fall together again.
He went back along the hall past his office to a door at the end that gave on stairs. Another door at the bottom of the stairs opened on a dark alley behind the building.
Waltz closed the door gently, stood in the darkness against the wall. The sound of an idling motor came to him, the light clatter of loose tappets. The alley was blind at one end, at the other turned at right angles toward the front of the building. Some of the light from Central Avenue splashed on a brick wall at the end of the cross alley, beyond the waiting car, a small sedan that looked battered and dirty even in the darkness.
Waltz reached his right hand into his overcoat pocket, took out Rufe’s gun and held it down in the cloth of his overcoat. He walked to the sedan soundlessly, went around to the righthand door, opened it to get in.
Two huge hands came out of the car and took hold of his throat. Hard hands, hands with enormous strength in them. Waltz made a faint gurgling sound before his head was bent back and his almost blind eyes were groping at the sky.
Then his right hand moved, moved like a hand that had nothing to do with his stiff, straining body, his tortured neck, his bulging blind eyes. It moved forward cautiously, delicately, until the muzzle of the gun it held pressed against something soft. It explored the something soft carefully, without haste, seemed to be making sure just what it was.
Trimmer Waltz didn’t see, he hardly felt. He didn’t breathe. But his hand obeyed his brain like a detached force beyond the reach of Rufe’s terrible hands. Waltz’s finger squeezed the trigger.
The hands fell slack on his throat, dropped away. He staggered back, almost fell across the alley, hit the far wall with his shoulder. He straightened slowly, gasping deep down in his tortured lungs. He began to shake.
He hardly noticed the big gorilla’s body fall out of the car and slam the concrete at his feet. It lay at his feet, limp, enormous, but no longer menacing. No longer important.
Waltz dropped the gun on the sprawled body. He rubbed his throat gently for a little while. His breathing was deep, racking, noisy. He searched the inside of his mouth with his tongue, tasted blood. His eyes looked up wearily at the indigo slit of the night sky above the alley.
After a while he said huskily, «I thought of that, Rufe. You see, I thought of that.»
He laughed, shuddered, adjusted his coat collar, went around the sprawled body to the car and reached in to switch the motor off. He started back along the alley to the rear door of the Juggernaut Club.
A man stepped out of the shadows at the back of the car. Waltz’s left hand flashed to his overcoat pocket. Shiny metal blinked at him. He let his hand fall loosely at his side.
Pete Anglich said, «Thought that call would bring you out, Trimmer. Thought you might come this way. Nice going.»
After a moment Waltz said thickly: «He choked me. It was self-defense.»
«Sure. There’s two of us with sore necks. Mine’s a pip.»
«What do you want, Pete?»
«You tried to frame me for bumping off a girl.»
Waltz laughed suddenly, almost crazily. He said quietly: «When I’m crowded I get nasty, Pete. You should know that. Better lay off little Token Ware.»
Pete Anglich moved his gun so that the light flickered on the barrel. He came up to Waltz, pushed the gun against his stomach.
«Rufe’s dead,» he said softly. «Very convenient. Where’s the girl?»
«What’s it to you?»
«Don’t be a bunny. I’m wise. You tried to pick some jack off John Vidaury. I stepped in front of Token. I want to know the rest of it.»
Waltz stood very still with the gun pressing his stomach. His fingers twisted in the gloves.
«Okay,» he said dully. «How much to button your lip — and keep it buttoned?»
«Couple of centuries. Rufe lifted my poke.»
«What does it buy me?» Waltz asked slowly.
«Not a damn thing. I want the girl, too.»
Waltz said very gently: «Five C’s. But not the girl. Five C’s is heavy dough for a Central Avenue punk. Be smart and take it, and forget the rest.»
The gun went away from his stomach, Pete Anglich circled him deftly, patted pockets, took the Savage, made a gesture with his left hand, holding it.
«Sold,» he said grudgingly. «What’s a girl between pals? Feed it to me.»
«Have to go up to the office,» Waltz said.
Pete Anglich laughed shortly. «Better play ball, Trimmer. Lead on.»
They went back along the upstairs hall. The dance band beyond the distant curtains was wailing a Duke Ellington lament, a forlorn monotone of stifled brasses, bitter violins, softly clicking gourds. Waltz opened his office door, snapped the light on, went across to his desk and sat down. He tilted his hat back, smiled, opened a drawer with a key.
Pete Anglich watched him, reached back to turn the key in the door, went along the wall to the closet and looked into it, went behind Waltz to the curtains that masked the windows. He still had his gun out.
He came back to the end of the desk. Waltz was pushing a loose sheaf of bills away from him.
Pete Anglich ignored the money, leaned down over the end of the desk.
«Keep that and give me the girl, Trimmer.»
Waltz shook his head, kept on smiling.
«The Vidaury squeeze was a grand, Trimmer — or started with a grand. Noon Street is almost in your alley. Do you have to scare women into doing your dirty work? I think you wanted something on the girl, so you could make her say uncle.»