The doorman went out in the street to hail them a cab. There were plenty of cabs out and that was a break. Linton and Cherry climbed into one, and Moran hurried down the block from the club and caught the next cruiser. He told the driver to follow Linton’s cab and it led them to Cherry’s apartment.
Moran ordered his driver to stop half a block away. He watched while Cherry and Linton got out and went into her building. But their cab waited and in a few seconds Linton appeared again and drove away.
Moran let out a relieved sigh. He paid off his cab and walked slowly along the darkened street until he came abreast of Cherry’s entrance. For a second he hesitated, wetting his lower lip uncertainly. It was stupid for him to barge in on Cherry now. It would look as if he were afraid, guilty.
But he felt he had to know what Linton had wanted. That was the only way he could release the tight, aching feeling in his stomach. He made up his mind and turned into her entrance.
She opened the door in answer to his knock, her eyes widening with surprise. “Well, it’s a small world,” she said. “I just left one of your buddies.”
“I know,” Moran said, and stepped inside. She had changed into a green robe and as she turned he saw the flash of her legs, slim, smooth and bare. But they didn’t distract him now.
“What did he want?” he said watching her closely.
“The copper?” She shrugged and went to a table for a cigarette. “What does any copper want? Information.”
He walked to her side and suddenly all the twisted feeling he had for her crystalized to hatred. She was so cool, so bored and indifferent, while he was ready to crack in pieces from the pressure inside him.
Raising his thick hand he struck the cigarette from her mouth with brutal force. She staggered, face whitening with shock and anger. But he caught her shoulders and jerked her close to him.
“Now,” he said, in a low hard voice. “You talk, baby. What did that guy want?”
“You’re hurting me,” she said, breathing angrily. “He wanted to know about you. Now let me go.”
“What did you tell him?” he asked hoarsely.
She turned from him and sat down on the couch. “I didn’t tell him anything,” she said, rubbing her bruised shoulders. “Now you can get the hell out of here. No guy pushes me around, Moran.”
“Forget that,” Moran said. “I didn’t mean to get rough. But I’m in a jam, baby. I had to shoot a guy last night and the old women in the commissioner’s office are on my tail. They’re trying to frame me, and that’s why that guy Linton was snooping around you.”
Cherry’s lean face was interested. She said, “Did you kill the guy, Moran?”
“I shot him. He went for me and I shot him, that’s all.”
“Oh,” she said. She smiled. “You wouldn’t do anything original, I guess. Nothing that might put an extra buck in your pocket.”
“I get along on my pay,” Moran said.
“And your friends have to, too,” she said. “That’s why you haven’t got any, I suppose.”
“I didn’t get anything out of shooting the guy,” Moran said. That was smart. Not talking, not bragging. Guys talked to dames, then the dames talked. That wasn’t for Moran.
Cherry grinned ruefully and leaned back against the fat pillows on the couch. There was one light in the room, a lamp on an end table that caught lights in her loose blonde hair and accentuated the soft curves of her body. Yawning, she put her legs onto the couch. The green robe parted, revealing her slim calves in the soft light. She didn’t seem to notice.
She was smiling, but there was a hard light in her eyes. “Tell me, Moran,” she said, “how does it feel to kill a man?”
Moran swallowed heavily. He couldn’t wrench his eyes from her long bare legs, or stop the sudden drumming in his temples.
When he spoke, his voice was dry. “It’s like anything else you do, like smoking a cigarette or buying a paper, that’s all.”
She sighed. “You’re such a clod, Moran. You’re like a big heap of dough that’s turning sour.”
He came closer to her. “I could be different with you,” he said. “You drive me crazy, baby.”
She laughed with real amusement. “In the Casanova role you’re a riot.”
“Damn you,” he said hoarsely.
She laughed again and sat up, putting her feet on the floor. “Let’s break this up,” she said. “You’re a jerk and always will be, Moran. I might have liked you a little if you were smart, or if you had a spare buck to spend on a girl, but as you stand you’re hopeless. So beat it, will you? And stop hanging around the club.”
“Now wait,” Moran said. His anger broke, melted away. “You don’t mean that. I’ll go, but let me see you again.”
Her voice was hard. “No. You’re all through. Beat it.”
Moran stood beside her, reached for her hand. “What would you think if I was smart, if I did have a little dough?”
“I don’t want to play twenty questions,” she said coldly.
“This is no gag,” he said. When he saw interest in her face, he slid on the couch beside her and began speaking rapidly, the words spilling out in a rush. “I got a little dough,” he said. “I got it from Dinny Nelson last night. He was the guy I shot. I blew him out like a candle, then took his bundle. It’s all yours, baby, for anything you want. But we got to play it quiet until I get a clean bill from the commissioner’s office. You see that, don’t you?”
“Are you on the stuff?” she said. “Is this story coming out of a pipe?”
“No, no it’s on the level,” he said. “I did it for you, baby. I shot hell out of him and got the dough. And I’m in the clear.”
“Let’s see the dough,” she said skeptically.
He took the roll from his pocket. He had kept it on him because there was no safer place. Now he spread it in her lap and watched her face. She fingered the money gently and gradually a little smile pulled at her lips. “I might change my ideas about you,” she said at last.
“Sure you will,” Moran said eagerly. “I’m okay, baby. You’ll see.”
“I kind of want to find out,” she said, grinning at him. “Want to excuse baby a minute?”
He watched her as she walked to the bedroom door. Something tightened in him as he saw the way her shoulders tapered gracefully to her slender waist, and the way her hips moved under the silken robe. She turned at the doorway and winked at him, and he saw the gleam of her long legs before she disappeared.
It was worth it, Moran thought exultantly. He felt happy for the first time since the murder. This was going to make it all right, and the tight ache inside him melted away and he knew it was gone for good.
He lit a cigarette and leaned back against the cushions, closing his eyes. Linton could go to hell, and so could Pickerton. They had nothing on him, now or ever.
He opened his eyes when he heard the click of the doorknob. Straightening up, he crushed out a cigarette and got to his feet, a grin on his face.
The bedroom swung open and Moran’s heart lurched sickeningly.
Lieutenant Pickerton walked into the room, a gun in his hand. The gun was pointed at Moran’s stomach.
“You’re all through,” he said.
Moran stood still, the grin pasted on his face, his mind frozen in the paralysis of panic. He tried to speak but no words came out, and the noise he made was like the grunt of an animal.
There was the sound of a key in the front door and then Linton came in, gun in hand.
He glanced at Pickerton. “You get it all?”
“The works,” Pickerton nodded.
Linton came to Moran’s side, deftly slipped the gun from his shoulder holster. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Dinny Nelson,” he said formally. “Anything you say may be used against you. As you know,” he added dryly.