The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (45 page)

“His office?”

“Asiatic Importing and Development Company.”

“Oh? Then if they are calling him maybe he didn’t go to work this morning.”

He frowned. “I’m sure nothing is wrong. Mr. Seagram is often out of town.”

“I’ll go up,” I said.

He was watching me as I started for the elevator. I found C-3 around the corner of the hall, out of sight of the foyer.

There was no answer to my knock, and then I saw that the door wasn’t quite closed. I pushed it open and stepped in.

Randolph Seagram lay on the floor near an overturned chair. He was dead, half of a knife sticking from his chest. The lights were on, although it was broad daylight and one whole side of the place was windows.

“Got him last night,” I told myself. I took a quick gander around, then stepped to the phone. “Get me the police,” I said.

“What’s the trouble?” the clerk asked. “We mustn’t have the police.”

“Listen, brother,” I cut in quickly. “You’ve got to have the police. This guy is stone cold dead on the carpet. Get them on the phone, I’ll do the talking.”

When he got them, I asked for Homicide.

“Mooney talkin’,” a voice said. “What’s up?”

“There’s a guy down here in apartment C-three of the Cranston Arms,” I said, “who came out on the wrong end of an argument. He’s lying here on the carpet with a knife in his ribs.”

I heard his feet come off the desk with a thud. “Where’s that again? Who are you?”

“My name is Morgan,” I told him, “Kipling Morgan. Kipling as in Gunga Din.”

“Don’t let anybody leave,” he said. “We’ll be over.”

Kneeling beside him, I gave the lad a hurried frisk. He didn’t have any folding money, and his wallet was lying on the floor. They had nicked him for his dough, too. But it wasn’t what I was looking for.

Knowing my own habits, I took a chance on his.

There were three addresses on a worn envelope, three addresses and a telephone number. I stuck the envelope in my pocket.

When the police came in, I was sitting in the chair by the telephone like I hadn’t moved.

“Detective Lieutenant Mooney.” The guy who said it was short and square-shouldered, but looked rugged enough for two men. He gave the body a quick looking over, picked up the empty wallet, then looked at me. “Where do you fit?” he asked.

“Acquaintance,” I said. “Met the guy in a bar on Sixth Street. He left word that he wanted to see me. I came up, he was dead.”

“When’d you last see him alive?” Mooney was watching me. He had an eye, this dick did.

“About three days ago.” I hesitated then told him how I’d followed him from a bar, and what I’d seen. I didn’t mention the diamonds.

“Well,” he said, “there wasn’t anybody around to help him the second time. Looks like they killed him when he made a fuss.”

“I don’t think so.”

Mooney looked up at me. “Why?”

“Seagram thought the girl was on the level. I think maybe he found her again. If I’m any judge, he was going to try when he left me. Well, he must have found her. Either he learned something he wasn’t supposed to know, or they tracked him home and knocked him off.”

“Know his family?” Mooney asked.

“Nuh uh.”

“Who are you? Your face looks familiar.” Mooney was still studying me. I could see he wasn’t sure I was in the clear. He was a tight-mouthed guy.

“I used to be a fighter.”

“Yeah, I remember.” He studied me. “Every once in a while you hear of a fighter turning crooked.”

“Yeah? Every once in a while you hear of a banker turning crooked, too, or a cop.”

“It doesn’t sound right,” he said. “You followed them home because you figured it was a heist job. Why didn’t you call the police?”

“What world are you living in? You can’t walk up to a cop and tell him you think somebody is going to stick up somebody else just because you feel it in here.” I tapped myself on the chest. “I knew the signs, and I tailed along.”

“You had a fight with the guy?” Mooney asked.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “You might check your hospitals. The guy had a broken nose when he left me, and he lost a couple of teeth. He had at least three deep cuts, too.”

“You work ’em over, huh?” Mooney turned. “Graham, get started on that.”

Mooney took my address and I left. Me, I had an idea or two. The girl didn’t fit. Somehow she had got mixed up with the wrong crowd, and she might be afraid to ask for help even if she got the chance because of her folks or husband or someone hearing about it; women are funny that way. Seagram might have seen her again, followed her, and tried to learn something. That was when he tried to get hold of me. Then, he went home and they got him.

Yet Blubber Puss didn’t fit into the killing. He was a gun man or muscle man. He wouldn’t use a shiv. Also, he must have his face well bandaged by now. He would be too easily remembered.

B
ACK IN MY OWN PLACE
, I dug out a .380 Colt that I had and strapped it into a holster that fit around the inside of my thigh under my pants. This one I carried before, and it was ready to use. There was a zipper in the bottom of my right pants pocket, the gun butt just a little lower. I could take a frisk and it would never be found. On my hip, I stuck the rod I took off Blubber Puss.

By nine o’clock, I had eliminated two of the addresses on the envelope. The third and last one was my best bet. It turned out to be a big stone house in the hills above Hollywood. It was set back in some trees and shrubbery with a high wall all the way around.

The gate was closed and locked tight. I could see the shine of a big black car standing in front of the house, almost concealed by the intervening shrubbery. Turning, I walked along the dark street under the trees. About twenty yards farther along, I found what I sought—a big tree with limbs overhanging the wall.

With a quick glance both ways, I jumped and, catching a limb, pulled myself up. Then, I crawled along the limb until I was across the wall; I dropped to the lawn.

My idea of the thing was this: Seagram had run into the girl again. Maybe he had talked to her, probably not. But, mindful of what I’d told him, he might have been uncertain of her, and so maybe he had tailed her. Then, he had tried to come in here. Perhaps he had convinced himself she was okay, or he was planning a Galahad. But he had died for messing with something out of his league.

This setup still smelled wrong, though. The house was too big. The layout cost money. No fly-by-night hoodlums who might use a girl as a plant to pick up some change would have a place like this, or a girl with diamonds like she had.

I did an Indian act going through the trees. When I got close, I dropped my raincoat on the grass behind some shrubbery and laid down on it where I could watch the house.

There was a distant mutter of thunder, growing off among the clouds like a sleepy man you’re trying to wake but who doesn’t want to get up.

The house was big and the yard was beautiful. A drive made a big circle among the trees. Another drive went past the house to a four-car garage. One of the cars was in front of the house. Another one, facing out, stood beside it. The last car had a Chicago license—an Illinois plate with the town name-strip above it.

There were two lighted windows on the ground floor, and I could see another on the second floor, a window opposite a giant tree with a limb that leaned very, very near.

Suddenly, a match flared. It was so sudden I ducked. In the glow of the match, as the guy lighted his cigarette, I could see Blubber Puss. His nose was taped up, and there were two strips of adhesive tape on his cheekbones. His lips were swollen considerably beyond their normal size.

Blubber Puss was standing there in the darkness. He looked like he had been there quite a while.

Footsteps on the gravel made me turn my head. Another man, skinny and stooped, was walking idly along the drive. He stopped close to Blubber, and I could hear the low murmur of their voices without being able to distinguish a word.

After a minute, they parted and began walking off in opposite directions. I waited, watching them go. I took a quick gander at the luminous dial of my wristwatch. After almost ten minutes, I saw Skinny come into sight ahead, his feet crunching along the gravel, and then Blubber Puss came into sight. This time they were closer to me when they met.

“This standin’ watch is killin’ me,” Skinny growled. “What’s the boss figure is goin’ to happen anyway? We’re not hot in this town.”

“That’s what you say.” Blubber’s mouth shaped the words poorly. “You suppose they won’t have word out all over the country? Then knockin’ off that kid was a tough break. Why’d he have to stick his nose into it?”

“That’s what comes of not havin’ any dough,” Skinny said. “We had to make a raise. What easier way to do it?”

“Well,” Blubber said, with satisfaction, “we’ll get plenty out of this before we’re done. Gettin’ in here was a break, too. Nobody’d think to look here.”

“We better keep movin’,” Skinny suggested. “The boss might come out and see us loafin’ on the job. Anyway, it’s near time for our relief.”

The two walked on, in their respective ways. I stared after them trying to make sense from what I’d heard. One thing was sure. A relief for these two meant that at least two more men, aside from the mysterious boss, were inside. At the very least that made me one against five. It was too many, this late in the evening, especially when I hadn’t eaten any dinner.

The ground-floor window looked tempting, but I decided against it. I’d not have time for much of a look before Skinny and Blubber would be back around, and the chances of being seen were too great. I didn’t care to start playing cops and robbers with real bullets until I knew what the setup was.

Picking up my coat, I slid back into the bushes and weaved my way toward that tall tree. A leafy branch should offer a way into one of the upper rooms. It didn’t seem like so desperate a chance as going for the ground-floor window.

A few drops of rain began to fall, but this was no time to be thinking of that. I looped my raincoat through my belt and went up that tree. From a position near the bole, my feet on the big limb, I could see into a window.

There were two people in the room. One of them was the doll who wore the diamonds. The other was a younger girl, not over twelve years old. While I was looking, the door opened and a guy came in with a tray. He put it down, made some crack to the girl, and she just looked at him. I could see her eyes, and the warmth in their expression would have killed an Eskimo.

Maybe I’m dumb. Maybe you’d get the idea sooner than me. But only now was it beginning to make sense; the girls were prisoners in what was probably their own home.

The babe who wore the ice that night had been working as a plant. She may have been forced to do it while they held her sister here. Maybe there were others of the family in there, too.

Who this bunch were and how they got here did not matter now. The thing that mattered was to get those two girls out of there, and now. Once they were safe, then we could get to Mooney and spread the whole thing in his lap.

The trouble was I knew how these boys operated. Randolph Seagram, lying back there on the floor with a knife sticking out of him, was evidence enough. They were playing for keeps, and they weren’t pulling any punches. Nobody had rubber teeth in this setup.

Nevertheless, I seemed to be cutting myself in. And that was the big question. After all, I wasn’t any private dick. There was no payoff if I was successful and at least one of those guys in that house had reason enough to hate my insides. I could get down out of this tree, go back over the wall, make a call to Mooney, and then go home and get a good night’s sleep.

I had a good notion to do it. It was the smart thing to do. Except for one consideration.

This was a tough mob. Maybe they had left the doll alone up to now. It looked as if they had. But there was no reason why they should any longer. They might decide to blow and knock off the babes when they left. They might decide to do worse. And they might make that decision within the next ten minutes.

I am still thinking like that when I hear one of the boys down below running. He’s heading toward the gate. Another car comes in and swings up under my tree. Two men get out, one of them carrying a briefcase.

“Something’s going down,” I tell myself, “something interesting.” See? That explains it. I’m just a nosy guy. Curious.

There was a dark window a little to the left of the one to the girls’ room. Working out on the limb…I was out on a limb in more ways than one. I swung down to the ledge of the dark window. It was a French window, opening on a little, imitation balcony.

With my knife blade, I got it open and stepped down in the room.

For a moment I hesitated, getting my bearings. Then I felt my way through the room to the door.

The hallway was dark, too, and I made my way along it to the stairs, then down. I could see light coming from the crack of a door that was not quite closed and could hear the low murmur of voices.

Four men were inside. That scared me. There were two men outside, and two who had just arrived. Counting the three whom I already knew to be inside and the two who had just arrived, there should now have been five in the room.

That meant that there was another guy loose in the house.

Crouching near the foot of the stairs, I peered into the room and listened. I could see three men. One of them was a hoodlum, or I don’t know the type when I see one. The other two were the ones who had come in the car, and I got the shock of my life.

The nearer of the pair, sitting sideways to me, was Ford Hiesel, a famous criminal lawyer, a man who had freed more genuine murderers than any two living men. The man facing me across the table was another famous attorney, Tarrant Houston, elderly, brilliant, and a man who had for a time been a judge and was now director of some of the biggest corporations on the Coast. The fourth man, the one I couldn’t see, was speaking.

“You have no choice, Mr. Houston. If you attempt to notify the police, the girls will be killed. Their safety lies in your doing just what you are told.