He went back to the Filipino, rolled him over and went through his pockets. There was a well-lined wallet without any identification, a gold lighter set with gannets, a gold cigarette case, keys, a gold pencil and knife, the flame-colored handkerchief, loose money, two guns and spare clips for them, and five bindles of heroin powder in the ticket pocket of the tan jacket.
He left it thrown around on the floor, stood up. The Filipino breathed heavily, with his eyes shut, a muscle twitching in one cheek. Delaguerra took a coil of thin wire out of his pocket and wired the brown man’s wrists behind him. He dragged him over to the bed, sat him up against the leg, looped a strand of the wire around his neck and around the bed post. He tied the flame-colored handkerchief to the looped wire.
He went into the bathroom and got a glass of water and threw it into the Filipino’s face as hard as he could throw it.
Tonibo jerked, gagged sharply as the wire caught his neck. His eyes jumped open. He opened his mouth to yell.
Delaguerra jerked the wire taut against the brown throat. The yell was cut off as though by a switch. There was a strained anguished gurgle. Toribo’s mouth drooled.
Delaguerra let the wire go slack again and put his head down close to the Filipino’s head. He spoke to him gently, with a dry, very deadly gentleness.
«You want to talk to me, spig. Maybe not right away, maybe not even soon. But after a while you want to talk to me.»
The Filipino’s eyes rolled yellowly. He spat. Then his lips came together, tight.
Delaguerra smiled a faint, grim smile. «Tough boy,» he said softly. He jerked the handkerchief back, held it tight and hard, biting into the brown throat above the adam’s apple.
The Filipino’s legs began to jump on the floor. His body moved in sudden lunges. The brown of his face became a thick congested purple. His eyes bulged, shot with blood.
Delaguerra let the wire go loose again.
The Filipino gasped air into his lungs. His head sagged, then jerked back against the bedpost. He shook with a chill.
«Si … I talk,» he breathed.
ELEVEN
When the bell rang Ironhead Toomey very carefully put a black ten down on a red jack. Then he licked his lips and put all the cards down and looked around towards the front door of the bungalow, through the dining-room arch. He stood up slowly, a big brute of a man with loose gray hair and a big nose.
In the living room beyond the arch a thin blonde girl was lying on a davenport, reading a magazine under a lamp with a torn red shade. She was pretty, but too pale, and her thin, high-arched eyebrows gave her face a startled look. She put the magazine down and swung her feet to the floor and looked at Ironhead Toomey with sharp, sudden fear in her eyes.
Toomey jerked his thumb silently. The girl stood up and went very quickly through the arch and through a swing door into the kitchen. She shut the swing door slowly, so that it made no noise.
The bell rang again, longer. Toomey shoved his white-socked feet into carpet slippers, hung a pair of glasses on his big nose, took a revolver off a chair beside him. He picked a crumpled newspaper off the floor and arranged it loosely in front of the gun, which he held in his left hand. He strolled unhurriedly to the front door.
He was yawning as he opened it, peering with sleepy eyes through the glasses at the tall man who stood on the porch.
«Okey,» he said wearily. «Talk it up.»
Delaguerra said: «I’m a police officer. I want to see Stella La Motte.»
Ironhead Toomey put an arm like a Yule log across the door frame and leaned solidly against it. His expression remained bored.
«Wrong dump, copper. No broads here.»
Delaguerra said: «I’ll come in and look.»
Toomey said cheerfully: «You will — like hell.»
Delaguerra jerked a gun out of his pocket very smoothly and swiftly, smashed it at Toomey’s left wrist. The newspaper and the big revolver fell down on the floor of the porch. Toomey’s face got a less bored expression.
«Old gag,» Delaguerra snapped. «Let’s go in.»
Toomey shook his left wrist, took his other arm off the door frame and swung hard at Delaguerra’s jaw. Delaguerra moved his head about four inches. He frowned, made a disapproving noise with his tongue and lips.
Toomey dived at him. Delaguerra sidestepped and chopped the gun at a big gray head. Toomey landed on his stomach, half in the house and half out on the porch. He grunted, planted his hands firmly and started to get up again, as if nothing had hit him.
Delaguerra kicked Toomey’s gun out of the way. A swing door inside the house made a light sound. Toomey was up on one knee and one hand as Delaguerra looked towards the noise. He took a swing at Delaguerra’s stomach, hit him. Delaguerra grunted and hit Toomey on the head again, hard. Toomey shook his head, growled: «Sappin’ me is a waste of time, ho.»
He dived sidewise, got hold of Delaguerra’s leg, jerked the leg off the floor. Delaguerra sat down on the boards of the porch, jammed in the doorway. His head hit the side of the doorway, dazed him.
The thin blonde rushed through the arch with a small automatic in her hand. She pointed it at Delaguerra, said furiously: «Reach, damn you!»
Delaguerra shook his head, started to say something, then caught his breath as Toomey twisted his foot. Toomey set his teeth hard and twisted the foot as if he was all alone in the world with it and it was his foot and he could do what he liked with it.
Delaguerra’s head jerked back again and his face got white. His mouth twisted into a harsh grimace of pain. He heaved up, grabbed Toomey’s hair with his left hand, dragged the big head up and over until his chin came up, straining. Delaguerra smashed the barrel of his Colt on the skin.
Toomey became limp, an inert mass, fell across his legs and pinned him to the floor. Delaguerra couldn’t move. He was propped on the floor on his right hand, trying to keep from being pushed flat by Toomey’s weight. He couldn’t get his right hand with the gun in it off the floor. The blonde was closer to him now, wild-eyed, white-faced with rage.
Delaguerra said in a spent voice: «Don’t be a fool, Stella. Joey —»
The blonde’s face was unnatural. Her eyes were unnatural, with small pupils, a queer flat glitter in them.
«Cops!» she almost screamed. «Cops! God, how I hate cops!»
The gun in her hand crashed. The echoes of it filled the room, went out of the open front door, died against the highboard fence across the street.
A sharp blow like the blow of a club hit the left side of Delaguerra’s head. Pain filled his head. Light flared — blinding white light that filled the world. Then it was dark. He fell soundlessly, into bottomless darkness.
TWELVE
Light came back as a red fog in front of his eyes. Hard, bitter pain racked the side of his head, his whole face, ground in his teeth. His tongue was hot and thick when he tried to move it. He tried to move his hands. They were far away from him, not his hands at all.
Then he opened his eyes and the red fog went away and he was looking at a face. It was a big face, very close to him, a huge face. It was fat and had sleek blue jowls and there was a cigar with a bright band in a grinning, thick-lipped mouth. The face chuckled. Delaguerra closed his eyes again and the pain washed over him, submerged him. He passed out.
Seconds, or years, passed. He was looking at the face again. He heard a thick voice.
«Well, he’s with us again. A pretty tough lad at that.»
The face came closer, the end of the cigar glowed cherry-red. Then he was coughing rackingly, gagging on smoke. The side of his head seemed to burst open. He felt fresh blood slide down his cheekbone, tickling the skin, then slide over stiff dried blood that had already caked on his face.