“Right here,” Pug Lester said, “mostly.”
“Anyone with you?”
“Nope, I was all alone.” Pug Lester sighed heavily, and his eyes opened wide enough for me to see the impatience in their depths.
Suddenly, I knew it would not go off as planned. Pug Lester, with me there before him, was not going to wait through a lot of what to him was aimless talk. In that same moment I realized that my position had not changed. McGuire and Sampson could walk out. The detective would have no reason to hold them. That would leave me where I began – with a ticket for the chair.
For a second time that day, I cursed myself for a chump. If I had given Lester some idea of what I was doing, my chances would have been better. Right now my chances were zero. I knew Pug wasn’t going to wait.
Into the silence, I said. “What about it? Think he’ll do?”
McGuire swung his head impatiently. “We’ll see,” he said. “Let’s not hurry.”
Pug Lester said, “Do for what?”
“You had a girl,” I said, talking desperately, “who sometimes called herself Elaine Watkins. It was a secret thing – nobody knew. And the reason you killed her and Malcolm was jealousy – an old reason, but always good. Malcolm was taking your girl away, and you, a coffee salesman, couldn’t compete with him.” I glanced at McGuire. The gambling czar was frowning at my awkward pitch. I looked back at Pug Lester.
The detective’s chins were pleated on his neck. His mouth was open slightly. He said, “What’re you tryin’ to do, Roney? Cop an insanity plea?”
Nothing moved in the room. I grinned tautly, thinking of McGuire’s bewilderment. It was not easy to frame pigeons who talk about copping a plea.
Then McGuire said, “Sampson!”
The little gunman seemed to flick a hand at his lapel, and then the gun was in his hand. He swung it slowly, saying nothing, letting his lips draw back from his teeth.
“That wasn’t smart of you,” McGuire said softly. “It wasn’t bright of either of you. In fact, if I were asked to say what had caused your death, I should have to say stupidity.”
Pug Lester said placidly, “You mean you’re going to kill him and me too?” His small nod included me.
McGuire inclined his head. “I’m afraid Sampson will insist.”
“Just askin’,” Pug Lester said.
I thought, but I couldn’t be sure, that one of Lester’s plump hands brought the gun up from under the cushion. It was a large gun, a 45. It made a hellish roar in the room, and it blew out a section of Sampson’s head.
The slender little hood made no noise as he fell forward on the worn carpet.
McGuire lunged at me. I spun away to avoid being used as a shield. As I whirled, I clipped McGuire on the side of the head.
The man stepped back nimbly. He was far from soft, I observed – probably kept in condition by handball and boxing at his club. I moved toward him, carrying my hands low, swinging precisely. McGuire gave ground slowly, dodging and weaving. Then, abruptly, he landed a straight left that snapped my head back, followed it with a right cross that drove me to the floor.
Falling, with the pink mist in front of my eyes, I could see Pug Lester still sitting in the chair. The mist was still there, but some of it went away when I bounced on the carpet. Digging my nails into the short pile, I hauled myself to my feet.
McGuire came in again, and I had to shake my head to get his image clearly. Then I saw the smooth pink face, red now, and fiercely contorted. One of McGuire’s fists lashed along my cheek.
I took a deep and shuddering breath. Then, with both arms pumping, I began a slow walk forward. McGuire’s blows were landing freely, but I didn’t feel them now. The pink haze was all around me, and in the middle of it a face danced and bobbed, a face that sometimes blended with the haze, but was redder, and could therefore be seen.
The face went away. I stood swaying waiting for the haze to dissolve.
It was clearing, and from somewhere off to my left, Pug Lester was speaking to me.
“I figured you’d want to do that,” Pug Lester said. “I figured you had it coming.”
I shook my head, and then I could see the floor. McGuire was lying there, and as I watched him groggily, he rolled over and staggered to his feet.
I brought my hands up, but I knew they wouldn’t be any good against the heavy ashtray clutched in McGuire’s hand.
McGuire was drawing back for a swing when Pug Lester’s gun barrel caught him and sent him down for the count.
“Let me,” Pug Lester said. “I get paid, you know – and I like to earn my keep.”
I heard myself say, “Thanks, Lieutenant,” and my voice seemed far away. I found myself thinking of Pug’s lonely life, and of the girl who had been a greedy gertie, the one who’d been nobody’s doll. She might have made a wife for Pug if things had been some other way.
Pug said, “Hey, boy. You all right?”
I said, “I wonder if she could cook?”
“Golden boy,” Pug said, “you look mottled. You’re all washed up for the day.”
I shook my head and the haze dissolved. “Where’s your phone?” I asked Pug. He pointed, and stood by while I dialed Lola Grashin’s number. “Gotta tell a girl a story,” I said. “Back me up, and I’ll buy you a steak.”
His mouth had begun to water by the time Lola said hello.
THE SECOND COMING
Joe Gores
“But fix thy eyes upon the valley: for the river of blood draws nigh, in which boils every one who by violence injures other.”
I’ve thought about it a lot, man; like why Victor and I made that terrible scene out there at San Quentin, putting ourselves on that it was just for kicks. Victor was hung up on kicks; they were a thing with him. He was a sharp dark-haired cat with bright eyes, built lean and hard like a French skin-diver. His old man dug only money, so he’d always had plenty of bread. We got this idea out at his pad on Potrero Hill – a penthouse, of course – one afternoon when we were lying around on the sun-porch in swim trunks and drinking gin.
“You know, man,” he said, “I have made about every scene in the world. I have balled all the chicks, red and yellow and black and white, and I have gotten high on muggles, bluejays, redbirds and mescaline. I have even tried the white stuff a time or two. But—”
“You’re a goddam tiger, dad.”
“– but there is one kick I’ve never had, man.”
When he didn’t go on I rolled my head off the quart gin bottle I was using for a pillow and looked at him. He was giving me a shot with those hot, wild eyes of his.
“So, like, what is it?”
“I’ve never watched an execution.”
I thought about it a minute, drowsily. The sun was so hot it was like nailing me right to the air mattress. Watching an execution. Seeing a man go through the wall. A groovy idea for an artist.
“Too much,” I murmured. “I’m with you, dad.”
The next day, of course, I was back at work on some abstracts for my first one-man show and had forgotten all about it; but that night Victor called me up.
“Did you write to the warden up at San Quentin today, man? He has to contact the San Francisco police chief and make sure you don’t have a record and aren’t a psycho and are useful to the community.”
So I went ahead and wrote the letter, because even sober it still seemed a cool idea for some kicks; I knew they always need twelve witnesses to make sure that the accused isn’t sneaked out the back door or something at the last minute like an old Jimmy Cagney movie. Even so, I lay dead for two months before the letter came. The star of our show would be a stud who’d broken into a house trailer near Fort Ord to rape this Army lieutenant’s wife, only right in the middle of it she’d started screaming so he’d put a pillow over her face to keep her quiet until he could finish. But she’d quit breathing. There were eight chicks on the jury and I think like three of them got broken ankles in the rush to send him to the gas chamber. Not that I cared. Kicks, man.