The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (53 page)

Footsteps across the floor, then a low exclamation. “Somebody’s been here! I never left those clothes like that!”

“Ah, nuts! How do you remember? Who would prowl a dump like this?”

“Somebody’s been here, I say! I’m going to look around!”

Morgan was fairly trapped, and he knew it.

They would be coming up the steps in a minute, and he had no chance of getting across that wide floor and opening the window, then climbing down between the walls. Even if the boards did not creak, the time needed for opening and closing the window and the risk of their hearing his feet scraping on the brick wall were too much. He glanced up toward the third floor. Swiftly, he mounted the steps to that unknown floor.

Whatever was going on there was shrewdly and efficiently handled and, at the first hint of official interest, would quiet down so fast that no clue would be left. There were few enough as it was.

Meanwhile, he was working fast. There was a window, and he eased it up. Down was impossible…but up?

He glanced up. The edge of the roof was there, only a few feet away and somewhat higher. Scrambling to the sill, his back against the window, he hesitated an instant, then jumped out and up.

It was a wild, desperate gamble; if he fell and broke a leg or was in any way disabled, they would find him and kill him.

He jumped, his fingers clawed for the edge of the parapet on the roof opposite, and caught hold. His toes scraped the wall, then he pulled himself up and swung his feet over the parapet just as the blond man reached the window. For a startled instant, their eyes met, and then he was up and running across the roof. He heard the sharp bark of a pistol shot, but the man could only shoot at where Morgan had been.

Crossing the roof, he looked down at the next one. Only a few feet. He dropped to that roof opposite, but this time he did not run. There was a narrow space there, and he could go down as he had come up. Bracing his back against one side, his feet against the other, he worked his way swiftly down.

He was almost down when he heard running feet on the roof above. Somehow, by a trap door, no doubt, they had reached the roof. “Where’d he go?” The voice was low but penetrating in the silence.

“Across the roofs! Where else! Let him go or we’ll have the cops on us!”

“Let’s get out of here!”

Dropping to the alley, Kip Morgan brushed himself off and walked to his car, almost a block away. He had barely seated himself when he saw a light gray coupé whisk by. The man nearest him was the blond man, and they did not see him.

Starting his car, he let the gray car get a start, then followed. Habitually, he went bareheaded, but in the car he kept an assortment of hats to be used on just such tailing jobs. He pulled on a wide-brimmed fedora, tilting the brim down.

The gray car swung into Wilshire and started along the boulevard. It was very late, and there was little traffic. Holding his position as long as he dared, he came abreast only one lane away, and passing, turned left and off the street. When he picked them up again, he was wearing a cap and had his lights on dim. Moreover, his car now had a double taillight showing. He had rigged the light himself.

Shortly after reaching Beverly Hills, the gray car turned right, and Kip pulled to the curb, switched hats again, and turned his lights on bright. As the other car pulled up to the curb, he went by, going fast. Turning the corner, he pulled up and parked, then walked back to the corner, pausing in the darkness by a hedge and the trunk of a jacaranda tree.

Another car pulled up and stopped as the two men started across the street. A man and a woman got out. The blond man called out, “Mr. Villani? I got to see you!”

The man was tall and heavily built. He wore evening clothes, and as Morgan slipped nearer, staying in the shadows, he could hear the irritation in the man’s voice. “All right, Gus, just a minute.”

He turned to the girl he was with. “Would you mind going on in, Marilyn? I’ll be right there.”

The girl’s face turned toward the light, and Kip’s pulse jumped.
It was Marilyn Marcy!

Drawing deeper into the shadows, he chewed his lip, scowling. This just did not make sense.

The two men had come up to Villani, who was speaking. “Gus? How many times have I warned you never to come near me? You know how to get in touch.”

Gus’s voice was low in protest. “But boss! This is bad! That Morgan guy, he’s been into the warehouse!”

“Inside?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know for sure if it was him, but I think it was.”

“It was him,” the dark man added. “He got away and we had only a glimpse.”

Morgan waited, hoping to see Villani’s face. This was the boss, the man he had wanted to locate, and he knew Marilyn Marcy.

A low-voiced colloquy followed, but Morgan could hear nothing but the murmur of their voices. “All right, Vinson. Stay with him. We want no failure this time.”

The two men started back to their car, and he started to follow them, then decided nothing would be gained. Rather, he wanted to know what was going on there.

As the gray car drove away, Morgan walked past the house into which Villani and Marilyn had disappeared, noting several other cars were parked outside. He went on down to the corner, crossed to a telephone booth and checked for Villani. It was there, the right name, the right address.

George
Villani!

Marilyn had a date with George. That tied in, but what did it mean? If she was double-crossing Morgan, what could she hope to gain by it? On the other hand, suppose she did not know? That could be the way these crooks found out about Richards and about him as well. She had simply told her boyfriend.

Morgan walked back to his car, then stopped short, his mouth dry and his stomach gone hollow. The thin, dark man, Vinson, was standing by the tree, and he had a gun in his hand. “Hello, Morgan! Looks like we’re going to get together, after all!”

He gestured. “Nice rig you got here—the hats and all. You had us fooled.”

“Then what made you stop?” Kip asked pleasantly.

“Your car. It looked familiar, and it was like one we saw when we left the warehouse. For luck we had a look. You shouldn’t leave your registration on the steering post.”

“Well, so here we are.” Morgan could not see the blond man, and that worried him. He had an idea that Gus was the tough one. This guy thought he was tough, and might be, but it was Gus who worried him. “You’d better put that rod away before somebody sees it.”

“There’s nobody around.” Vinson liked that. He clearly thought he had the casual tough guy act down pat. “You’ve been getting in my hair, Morgan. We don’t like guys who get in our hair.”

Kip shrugged, and the gun tilted a little. This guy was hair-triggered, and that might be both good and bad. “Getting in people’s hair is my business. Where’s Tom Marcy?”

“Marcy?” The question surprised Vinson. “I never heard of anybody named Marcy. What’s the angle?”

“Why, I am looking for him. That’s my job.” Morgan was alert and very curious. Obviously, the name surprised Vinson and puzzled him.

Vinson frowned. “I don’t get it, pal. We figured you for a—” He paused, catching himself on the word. “We had you figured for the fuzz.”

“Look,” Morgan protested, “there’s something screwy about this. I am looking for Marcy. If you don’t know him we’ve no business together. Let’s forget it. You go your way, and I’ll go mine, and everybody’ll be happy.”

“Are you nuts? We’re takin’ you someplace where we can ask some questions, and we’ll get answers.” His eyes flickered. “Here comes—”

Morgan moved, swinging down and across with his left hand. He slapped the gun aside and came up under the barrel with his right, missed the grab, but followed through with the butt of his palm under Vinson’s chin. The gangster’s heels flipped up, and he went down hard, the gun flying from his hand.

From behind him Kip heard running feet, and he threw himself over a hedge, sprinting across the lawn. He ducked behind a huge old tree, grabbed a heavy limb, and pulled himself up. Almost at once, both men rushed on by.

Motionless in the tree, scarcely daring to breathe, he waited. “You fool!” Gus was saying. “You should have shot him!”

He heard them searching through the brush, but the branches above seemed never to occur to them. Nearby, a dog began to bark, and a light went on in a house. With a mutter of angry voices, the two men headed for their car. He heard it start.

Leaning back against the tree trunk, he waited. There was the chance it had been some other car starting or that they had driven but a short distance and were waiting, watching. He was in no hurry now. He had plenty to think about.

George Villani was the boss. In whatever was going on, he was the man who gave the orders and did the planning. When a serious problem came up, they had immediately gone to him. And George Villani was dating Marilyn Marcy.

The whys of that he did not know, but it seemed obvious that through him the killers had learned of Vin Richards, and it must have been Marilyn who told him Morgan was holed up in that hotel.

He lowered himself to the grass, waited an instant to see if he was unobserved, then went along the hedge to the alley.

His car could wait until daylight. If they were watching, and he returned now, they would kill him without hesitation. Once in the alley near the street, he paused.

Marilyn was still next door, and he could hear the sounds of music and laughter from the house. A small party was in progress.

He hesitated, half in the notion of crashing the party, but his shirt was rumpled, and his clothes were dusty from crawling through old buildings. Crossing several streets, he caught a cab and returned to his apartment. For this night the room at the hotel would stay empty.

As he considered the situation, he became convinced Tom Marcy must have come upon some hint of danger threatening his sister. Perhaps he had established a connection between Villani and the disappearances of Day and Russell. Only that seemed a logical explanation for his sudden breaking of old habits and his subsequent investigations. The danger of his sister marrying a murderer had started his interest in the warehouse and the street of missing men.

Back in his apartment he took off his shoes and sat on the edge of the bed. The next day would be soon enough, but at that time he would have to bear down. He must discover why those men had vanished and what had become of Tom Marcy.

He slept, dreaming a dream of flames, of a scream in the night, of—

He awakened suddenly. Vinson was standing over him, and Gus was standing with his back to the door, and they both had guns. He started to sit up, and Vinson hit him a full swing with a boot he had picked up. The blow caught him on the temple, and something exploded in his brain. He lunged to get off the bed, and another blow hit him. His feet tangled in the bedclothes, and he fell sprawling, taking another blow as he fell.

W
HEN HE REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS
, he was lying on his face in the back of a van or delivery truck, and the first thing his eyes recognized was a shoe toe inches from his face. Closing his eyes, he lay still, pain throbbing in his skull.

Somehow they had traced him and gained access to his room without awakening him. Knocked out, he had been loaded in the truck and was being taken…where?

Listening, he decided by the lack of traffic sounds and the unbroken rate of speed that they were on a highway.

“What did he say to do with him?” Vinson was asking.

“Hold him. The boss needs to talk to him. He wants to know has he talked to anybody.”

Tentatively, Kip tested his muscles. His hands were tightly bound. He relaxed, letting the hammers on his skull pound away. Suddenly, the truck made an abrupt turn, and the road became rough. A gravel road and badly corrugated. The truck dipped several times, then began to climb in slow switchbacks, higher and higher.

The air was clear and cool. The truck made another turn, ran on for a short distance, and then came to a stop. Morgan let his muscles relax completely.

“Haul him out,” Vinson said. “I’ll light up.”

Gus opened the doors from within, dropped to the ground, then grabbed Morgan’s ankles and jerked him to the ground. He hit the road with a thump, and it had been all he could do to keep from crying out when his head bumped on the tailboard, then the ground. Gus grabbed him by the shirtfront and dragged him to a dugout where he opened the door and threw him down the steps into darkness. The door closed, the hasp dropped into place, and he was alone.

For what seemed a long time, he lay still; the throbbing in his head became a great sea of pain where wave after wave broke over him. His head felt enormous, and every move generated new agony. Through it, fear clawed its way, tearing with angry fingers at his consciousness.

They would come back, Vinson and Gus. The only way to escape torture and even death was to endure the pain now while he had freedom from their watching eyes.

He lunged, bucking with his bound body, then rolling over three times until he found himself against a tier of boxes or crates. Hunching himself to a sitting position, he began sawing his wrists at the sharp edge of the box. In his desperation, he jerked too far, and the edge scraped his wrist. Wildly, he fought to cut loose the ropes that bound him.

He struggled on. The close confines of the dugout made him pant, and sweat soaked his shirt and ran into his eyes. His muscles grew heavy with weariness, but he fought on, to no avail. So intent was he that he failed to hear the approaching footsteps, failed to hear the opening door. Not until the light flashed in his eyes did he look up….

“Finally woke up, did you?” Gus walked over and jerked him away from the boxes. “Tryin’ to escape?” Gus booted him in the ribs.

With a knife, he slashed the ropes that bound Kip’s ankles, then jerked him up. Morgan’s feet felt heavy, as though he wore diving boots. Gus put a hand between his shoulder blades and pushed him toward the door, and Morgan reached it in a stumbling run. The light of the flash shot past him, revealing the edge of a wash not fifty feet away.