He was whistling as he opened the door of his modern, four room apartment, brilliant now with the morning sun. Everything was glinting with it; the bright yellow drapes, the blond, maplewood furniture, the cocktail shaker on top of the big combination bar and record-player. Larry was still whistling as he strode through the short hallway into the living room.
A hand struck his back and knocked him flying into the middle of the room.
Larry staggered forward, almost going to his knees under the force of the blow, and his gray, snap-brim hat bounded off his head and onto the floor. He turned quickly, confused and mad, his lips drawing back hard against his teeth.
A big man in a trenchcoat stood blocking the entrance to the hallway. His shoulders filled the opening, and his lined, tired face was as hard as a clenched fist.
“What the hell do you want?” Larry said.
“You know who I am?”
Larry moistened his lips. “Yeah. You’re Bannion.”
“Your first question was stupid then, Larry. You know what I want.” Bannion came toward him slowly, his hands hidden in the pockets of his trenchcoat. “Let’s don’t make it messy,” he said. “Let’s just talk.”
Larry faced Bannion, his legs spread, and forced a tough confidence into his face. “You’re way out of line, friend,” he said. “Don’t make a fool of yourself. I’ll have you locked up for breaking-and-entering.”
“I haven’t broken anything yet,” Bannion said. “I used a pass key, a souvenir from my cop days. What job did Slim Lowry do for you?”
“You must be nuts,” Larry said. He took a step toward Bannion, feeling suddenly strong and unafraid. This was the character Lagana and Stone were worried about, he thought. Another slob of a cop. “Look, turn your big tail and clear out of here,” he said, snapping the words out harshly. “I got no time for dopes this morning. Go on, beat it.”
Bannion’s hands shot out, terrible hands on the ends of long, powerful arms, and closed relentlessly about Larry’s throat. He pulled Larry close to him, slowly, effortlessly, ignoring the futile flurry of blows on his chest and shoulders. Larry’s tongue came out between his teeth and his knees lost their strength. Only Bannion’s hands held him upright.
“What did Lowry do for you?” Bannion said.
Larry tried to talk, but the words, loud and frantic in his exploding brain, died under Bannion’s hands.
“You’ll get one chance,” Bannion said. “When I let go, start talking. If you don’t, I’ll finish the job.” He opened his hands and Larry went down to his knees, gasping air into his cracking lungs, massaging his throat with his hands.
“Okay, talk,” Bannion said.
Larry raised his head slowly. Bannion loomed above him, pitiless and terrible, a blurred, shimmering figure in his moist eyes. He had been close to the death he feared; his soul had been ready to slip away from him, to leave his body cold and hard and useless in the grip of Bannion’s hands. He choked on the thought, and a vast, weakening self-pity welled up in him he shouldn’t be treated this way, he thought sniffling, he’d only been doing his job.
“They told me to get you,” he said. The words came out in a high, relieved squeak. He caught Bannion’s legs gratefully and pressed his face against the cold, smooth cloth of his trenchcoat.
“Who are ‘they’?” Bannion said.
The voice was high above him, sounding from a place that was cold, lonely, remote.
“Stone, Max Stone. I got Slim to put the bomb in your car. We didn’t want your wife.” He shook his head, crying. “It was a mistake, you got to believe me.”
“Why did Stone want me out of the way?”
“I don’t know. Honest to God, I don’t know.”
He heard Bannion sigh; he tried to shout that he was telling the truth, but the hands were around his throat again, jerking him to his feet...
Bannion believed him at last. Larry lay huddled on the floor, shaking his head feebly, trying to touch Bannion’s leg with one entreating hand. He couldn’t talk; only his seeking hand expressed the love and fear of what had destroyed him forever.
“You’re through, little man,” Bannion said in a low voice. “I’m going to spread the word that you talked. Stone will know in an hour, Lagana five minutes later. You picked the wrong racket, little man. You might have been a happy bookkeeper. Now you’ll never have the chance.”
He walked out of the apartment, closing the door softly, with a little click of finality, on Larry’s sobs...
Bannion drove back to center-city through bright, winter sunlight. He stopped at a drugstore and made two telephone calls, both of them to men with wide contacts in the police and gambling sets of the city. He gave both the same story; he knew who was responsible for his wife’s death. Max Stone. Larry Smith had talked. Neither of the men he called wanted to be involved; they were cautious, non-committal, relieved when Bannion rang off; but they were on the phone themselves a moment later with the news.
Bannion paused in the street to light a cigarette. A man approached him smiling awkwardly. “Can I borrow a light, Mister?” he said.
“Sure.”
The man was tall, with yellow hair that needed cutting, and thin bony wrists that stuck several inches out from the sleeves of his coat. He looked like someone’s country cousin on a first visit to the big city.
“Nice day, ain’t it?” the man said, still grinning.
Bannion held a light to his cigarette, and the man bobbed his head gratefully, and said, “Thanks, thanks a lot, mister.”
“Don’t mention it.” Bannion flipped the match away and walked down the sidewalk to his car. The man with the yellow hair leaned against a building and watched him, smiling around the cigarette in his mouth.
Bannion drove back to his hotel, adding up the information he had gathered. It was the big boys, as he’d thought, Stone and Lagana, who had tried to get him, and had got Kate by mistake. He had been nosing about a No Trespassing sign, so they decided to put him out of the way. It had started with Deery’s suicide. Lucy Carroway had thought there was something odd about it, and, for voicing her suspicions, had been tortured and killed. He had dug into her murder and had been taken off the case. Then, after he had tipped off Jerry Furnham of the Express, they had tried for him and got Kate.
Everything flowed inevitably from Deery’s suicide. There must have been an angle to it he hadn’t seen, something which spelled trouble for the big boys. They’d gone into action when Lucy Carroway had talked, closed the big fist. That was the way they preserved the status quo, kept their harmless, little city-wide bingo game operating. Kill, cheat, lie, destroy! While cops looked the other way and judges handed down suspended sentences. This was their city, their private, beautifully-rigged slot machine, and to hell with the few million slobs who just happened to live in the place.
The desk clerk gave him his key, and said, “There’s a woman waiting for you, Mr. Bannion. I sent her up to your room, because — well, there wasn’t anything else to do. She was the one who was here the other night.”
“I see, thanks. Are you sure she was alone?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
Bannion went up to his room and rapped lightly on the door. There was no answer, no sound from inside. He turned the knob gently, then pushed the door in and stepped aside. Nothing happened. The shades were drawn and an edge of sunlight cut into the darkness, spreading a suffused grayness over the worn rug. Bannion stepped into the room and saw Debby lying on the bed, her face turned toward the wall. He looked at her, annoyed and puzzled, because of the angle of her head he didn’t see the bandages, immediately. When he saw them he frowned and closed the door.