The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (58 page)

Pete Merrano was worried. His plan for a big cleanup had gone sour when somehow Bradley had realized what was happening and had gotten away with the money. He had put the snatch on Ellen, which had done him no good at all, because he couldn’t threaten Sam unless he could find him. Then I barged into the picture and messed everything up by nosing around in all the wrong places. Evidently, Ramsey had gotten cold feet, so they killed him when he wanted out. At least that was how I had it figured.

The next question was what to do now? I’d made a promise I could not back up because I had no idea where Sam was, and I believed Pete was telling the truth when he said George was watching Ellen. That left the situation a nasty one, yet there was, I believed, a way.

“Pat, I’m going to trust you. Get hold of Mooney and tell him what’s happened. Tell him I am following my inclinations, and he will know what to do.” Knowing Mooney, I could bet on that.

“All right,” she said reluctantly, “but be careful. Those boys aren’t playing for fun.”

She was telling
me
?

We parted, but when I glanced back she was watching me go. For a minute, I thought she looked worried, but that made no sense. My own car was still near Ramsey’s, if it hadn’t been towed away or stolen, so I hailed a cab.

P
ETE
M
ERRANO HAD BEEN
doing all right for himself, or, at least, that was the act. He lived in a picturesque house overlooking Sunset Strip. Leaving the cab a few doors away, I walked up the hill. Skirting the place, I glimpsed a Filipino houseboy coming down the steps from the back door. Turning on the sprinklers to water the lawn, he went around the house. As soon as his back was turned, I went into the house.

There was a pot of coffee on the range, so I took up a cup, filled it, and drank a couple of swallows, then started up the hall with the coffee in my left hand.

Harry was snoring on a divan in the living room, and Pete was sprawled across the bed with only his shoes and tie off.

The houseboy was working around the yard, so I cut a string from the venetian blinds and very cautiously slipped a loop over Harry’s extended ankles. Drawing it as tight as I dared, I tied it.

His gun in its shoulder holster lay on the floor, and with a toe I slid it back under the sofa. Picking up his handkerchief, I placed it within easy reach. Very gently, I took his wrist by the sleeve, lifted it, and placed it across his stomach. I’d just lifted the second to bring it into tying position when he opened his eyes.

By his breath, the glass, and bottle nearby, it was obvious he’d had more than a few drinks before passing out on the divan. His awakening could not have been pleasant. Not only was he awakening with a hangover, but with a man bending over him, he had every reason to believe he was dead or dying.

For one startled instant, he stared. Then his thoughts came into focus, and his mouth opened to yell. The instant he opened his mouth, I shoved the handkerchief into it. He choked, gagged, and grabbed at my wrist, but I jerked a hand free and gave him four stiff fingers in the windpipe.

Grabbing him by his pants at the hips, I jerked him up and flopped him over on his face. He struggled, but he was at least fifty pounds lighter than I and in no condition to put up much of a fight. With my knee in his back, I got a slip knot over one wrist, then the other. In less than a minute, he was bound and gagged.

Pete’s voice sounded from the bedroom. Goose flesh ran up my spine. “You sick again, Harry? For the luvva Mike, get into the bathroom! That carpet’s worth a fortune!”

Taking my knee from Harry’s back, I started for the bedroom, keeping out of line with the door. Merrano was muttering angrily, and I heard his feet on the floor, then his slippers. At the moment, I was thinking of Sam and Ellen and how he had planned to murder me by drowning. There was no mercy in me.

Merrano came through the door scratching his stomach and blinking sleep from his eyes, and I never gave him a chance. Grabbing his shirtsleeve, I jerked him toward me and whipped one into his belly. The blow was wicked and unexpected, and his mouth fell open, gasping for air, his eyes wide with panic. As he doubled up, I slapped one hand on the back of his head, pushing his face down to meet my upcoming knee.

That straightened him up, blood all over his face and his fingers clawing for his gun. Ignoring the reaching hand, I stepped closer and threw two punches to his chin. His knees sagged, and he hit the floor. Reaching over, I slid the gun from his pocket, then jerked him to his feet.

He was not out, but he had neither the wind nor the opportunity to yell. Grabbing him by the shirt collar, I stood him on his toes. “All right, buddy, you like to play rough. You started bouncing me around, and I don’t like it! Now where’s Ellen?”

He gasped; the blood running from his broken nose splashed on my wrist. He’d had no chance to assemble his thoughts. Pete Merrano was like all of his kind who live by fear and terror. When that failed, they’re backed into a corner. He had been sure he would win. He had still been sure when things started going against him because he simply believed he was too smart. He had forgotten the old adage that cops can make many mistakes, a crook need only make one.

Pete Merrano had made several, and he was realizing that all people can’t be scared.

“Where is she?” I insisted.

“Try and find out!” he said past swollen lips.

It was no time for games, so I slugged him in the belly again. “Look, boy,” I said, “if that woman’s been harmed, the gas chamber will be a picnic compared to what I do to you. Where is she?”

His eyes were insane with fury. “You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?” he sneered. “You think you can make
me
talk? Why, you—!”

He jerked away from me, and I let go. He took a roundhouse swing at me, and I stepped inside of it and hit him with both hands. The punches he’d taken before were kitten blows compared to those. The first smashed his lips into his teeth, which broke under the impact; the second lifted him out of his slippers. He hit the floor as though he’d been dropped off a roof. Jerking him to his feet, I backed him against the wall and began slapping him. I slapped him over and back, keeping my head inside his futile swings, and my slaps were heavy. His head must have been buzzing like a sawmill.

When I let up, there was desperation in what I could see of his eyes. “How does it feel to be on the wrong end of a slugging? You boys dish it out, but you can’t take it.

“Now where is she? I don’t like crooks. I don’t like double-crossers. I don’t like crooks who pick on women. I’m in good shape, Pete, and I can keep this up all day and all night. Three or four hours of it can get mighty tiresome.”

He glared at me, hating and scared. Then something else came into his eyes, and I knew he’d had an idea. “She’s at the club,” he said, “but you’ll never get her. You just get that money, and we’ll turn her loose.”

Shoving him back on the bed, I let go of him. “Get your coat,” I said. “We’ll go over there together.”

He did not like that, not a little bit, but my gun was in my hand, and he started for the door, glancing at Harry, still lying tied on the divan, as we passed.

We stopped the car a few doors from the club. There was nobody in sight. It was too early for the bar to be open, so I kept the gun in my pocket while Merrano fumbled with his keys.

It was all I could do to keep my eyes open. My muscles felt heavy, and I was dead tired. The long fight to escape from the cellar had taken it out of me, and all I’d needed to have weariness catch up with me was that ride in the car.

If Ellen was actually there, Homan would be watching over her, and that, I believed, was what Merrano was depending on. He was planning on my walking into Homan, and both of us knew what that would mean. George would ask no questions. He was trigger-happy and kill-crazy. Nor would Merrano’s presence stop him. If he figured he was due for arrest, he would willingly kill Merrano to get at me.

We started across the polished floor. It was shadowed and cool, the tables stacked with chairs, the piano ghostly in the vague light. We headed toward a door that led backstage from the orchestra’s dais. Pete went through the door ahead of me, and a girl screamed. I sprang aside, but not quite enough, for I caught a stunning blow on the skull from a blackjack. George Homan had been waiting right behind the door.

My .45 blasted a hole in the ceiling as I went down, but I was only stunned and shaken by the blow, not knocked out. Scrambling to my feet, I was just in time to see Homan grabbing for a sawed-off shotgun.

That was one time I shot before I thought. That shotgun and his eyes were like a trigger to my tired brain, and I got off three fast shots. Another shot rang out just as my first one sounded. I saw Homan jerk from the impact of the first bullet, smashing his right hand and wrist and going through to the body. The next two bullets caught him as he was falling. The other shot had come from a side door or somewhere.

Leaping over Homan’s body, I started after Merrano. Ellen Bradley was tied to a chair in the office, and Merrano was grabbing for a desk drawer behind her. Pete got his gun but chose not to fight and dove through a door in the corner behind some filing cabinets. His feet clattered on a stair, and I jumped past the filing cabinets and after him.

A dozen steps led down to a street door, and at the bottom, Merrano turned and snapped a hurried shot that missed by two feet; then he jerked the door open as my gun was coming into line. Outside, there was a shout, then a hammering of gunfire from the street.

Standing there gripping my gun, I waited, hesitant to leave Ellen tied and wondering what happened outside. Then the door was blocked by a shadow, and Mooney appeared. “Put it away, Kip,” he said. “Merrano ran into the boys. He’s bought it.”

“How did you get here?” I asked.

Two more men came through the door, and with them was Pat Mulrennan. Our eyes met for an instant, and I thought I saw relief there, but could not be sure. “Where does she fit in?” I asked.

“This is Sergeant Patricia Mulrennan,” Mooney said. “She’s been working undercover for us. She knew Ellen Bradley, so it was a big help to us.”

As he spoke, I began to untie Ellen, but scarcely had I begun when Sam Bradley came in and took the job from my hands. In a moment, they were in each other’s arms, laughing or crying, I couldn’t tell which.

“You were already on this case? You knew about Merrano?”

“We knew what was going on but had no evidence. It was your tip on the Ramsey killing that gave us a break. Ramsey was a small-time crook, not quite right in the head, but nobody in the service groups knew him as anything but a quiet ex-soldier, and that was usually the case. He had done time, however, and he worked with Pete on small jobs, but when Merrano put the snatch on Ellen Bradley, Ramsey got cold feet. He was going to talk to us, so they killed him.

“That gave us a direct lead because we knew who he had been working with. They killed him, but somehow Merrano found out Ramsey had written a letter to the D.A. telling him all he knew, so they came back to search the house for it. Then they ran into you.”

“In the meanwhile, Sam Bradley found out his wife wasn’t with her sister, so he came to us and filled us in. After you left Sergeant Mulrennan, she gave us the rest of the story.”

Suddenly, I remembered Harry and told Mooney. He ducked out to send men after him, and Ellen came over and said, “Thanks, Kip. Sam told me all you have done.”

Mooney had returned, and Pat was standing by the door when Edward Pollard walked in. He had taken three running steps before he saw Mooney and the other officers. The police cars had been at the side or in back, and he had missed them.

He stopped abruptly. From where I stood, he could not see me, and his eyes were on Mooney.

“It would seem I am a bit late, lieutenant, or is Mr. Merrano in? He asked me to represent him in a criminal case.”

“Merrano?” Mooney shook his head. “No, he’s out of trouble.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, nothing for me, then. I’ll be going. Good morning.”

As he turned, I was moving. That briefcase in the lawyer’s hands had begun to seem awfully heavy. He was walking rapidly for the front door when I ducked out the side, and I reached his car just as he did.

Mooney and others had followed, stopping on the walk while I confronted Pollard.

“Take your hand off the door!” he demanded. “I’ve no time to waste!”

“No, you haven’t, Ed, but in a few weeks you will have plenty of time. You’ll be doing time.

“I’ve got the card you left at Bradley’s, Ed. You were asking him to come down and walk right into a trap. That card should help to convict you, but I’ve a hunch we’ll find more in the briefcase.”

His eyes were desperate. “Get out of my way!”

Mooney had come up behind him. “Maybe we should have a look at the briefcase, Mr. Pollard.”

All the spirit went out of him. His face looked gray and old as he turned on Mooney. “Let me go, lieutenant. Let me go. I’ll pay. I’ll pay plenty.”

Mooney opened the briefcase and began leafing through the papers. “You should have thought of this before you planned to gyp a lot of vets out of their money.” He glanced up at me. “Morgan, unless I’m mistaken, this is the man who engineered the whole affair. From the looks of this, he was coming to settle up with Merrano.”

“Lieutenant, you work it out any way you like. I am going to buy Pat a drink as soon as she’s off duty, and then I’m going home and sleep for a week.”

“She’s off duty as of now,” Mooney said, but as we started to walk away, he called after us. “Sergeant? You’d better watch that guy! He’s a good man in the clinches!”

Pat laughed, and we kept going. In the clinches, I had an idea Pat could take care of herself.

The Hills of Homicide

T
he station wagon jolted over a rough place in the blacktop, and I opened my eyes and sat up. Nothing had changed. When you are in the desert, you are in the desert, and it looks it. We had been driving through the same sort of country when I fell asleep, the big mesa that shouldered against the skyline ahead being the only change.

“Ranagat’s right up ahead, about three, four miles.” Shanks, who was driving me, was a thin-faced little man who sat sideways in the seat and steered with his left hand on the wheel. “You won’t see the town until we get close.”

“Near that mesa?”

“Right up against it. Small town, about four hundred people when they’re all home. Being off the state highway, no tourists ever go there. Nothin’ to see, anyway.”

“No boot hill?” Nearly all of the little mining towns in this section have a boot hill, and from the look of them, shooting up your neighbors must have been the outstanding recreation in the old days.

“Oh, sure. Not many in this one, though. About fifteen or twenty with markers, but they buried most of them without any kind of a slab. This boot hill couldn’t hold a candle to Pioche. Over there they buried seventy-five before the first one died of natural causes.”

“Rough place.”

“You said it. Speakin’ of guys gettin’ killed, they had a murder in Ranagat the other night. Old fellow, got more money than you could shake a stick at.”

“Murder, you say?”

“Uh-huh. They don’t know who done it, yet, but you needn’t worry. Old Jerry will catch him. That’s Jerry Loftus, the sheriff. He’s a smart old coot, rustled a few cows himself in the old days. He can sling a gun, too. Don’t think he can’t. Not that he looks like much, but he could fool you.”

Shanks put a cigarette between his lips and lit it with a match cupped in his right hand. “Bitner, his name was. That’s the dead man, I mean.” He jerked his cigarette toward the mesa. “Lived up there.”

“On top?” From where I sat, the wall of sheer, burnt-red sandstone looked impossible to climb. “How’d he get up there?”

“From Ranagat. That’s the joker in this case, mister. Only one way up there, an’ that way is in plain sight of most of Ranagat, an’ goes right by old Johnny Holben’s door. Nobody could ever get up that trail without being seen by Johnny.

“The trail goes up through a cut in the rock, and believe me, it’s the only way to get on top. At a wide place in the cut, Johnny Holben has a cabin, an’ he’s a suspicious old coot. He built there to annoy Bitner because they had it in for each other. Used to be partners, one time. Prospected all this country together an’ then set up a company to work their mines. ‘Bitner and Holben,’ they called it. Things went fine for a while, an’ they made a mint of money. Then they had trouble an’ split up.”

“Holben kill him?”

“Some folks think so, but others say no. Bitner’s got him a niece, a right pretty girl named Karen. She came up here to see him, and two days after she gets here he gets murdered. A lot of folks figure that was a mighty funny thing, her being heiress to all that money, an’ everything.”

So there were two other suspects, anyway. That made three. Johnny Holben, Karen Bitner, and my client. “Know a guy named Caronna?”

“Blacky Caronna? Sure.” Shanks slanted a look at me out of those watchful, curious eyes. I knew he was trying to place me, but so far hadn’t an inkling. “You know him?”

“Heard of him.” It was no use telling Shanks what I had come for. I was here to get information, not give it.

“He’s a suspect, too. An’ in case you don’t know, mister, he’s not a nice playmate. I mean, you don’t get rough with him. Nobody out here knows much about him, an’ he’s lived in Ranagat for more than ten years, but he’s a bad man to fool with. If your business is with him, you better forget it unless it’s peaceful.”

“He’s a suspect, you say?”

“Sure. Him an’ old Bitner had a fight. An argument, that is. Bitner sure told him off, but nobody knows what it was about but Caronna; an’ Blacky just ain’t talkin’.

“Caronna is sort of a gambler. Seems to have plenty of money, an’ this place he built up here is the finest in town. Rarely has any visitors, an’ spends most of his time up there alone except when he’s playin’ poker.

“The boys found out what he was like when he first came out here. In these western towns they don’t take a man on face value, not even when he’s got a face like Blacky Caronna’s. Big Sam, a big miner, tangled with him. Sam would weigh about two-fifty, I guess, and all man. That’s only a shade more than Caronna.

“They went out behind The Sump, that’s a pool hall an’ saloon, an’ they had it out. Boy, was that a scrap! Prettiest I ever seen. They fought tooth an’ toenail for near thirty minutes, but that Caronna is the roughest, dirtiest fighter ever come down the pike. Sam was damn near killed.”

“Big guy, you say?”

“Uh-huh. Maybe an inch shorter than you, but wide as a barn door. And I mean a big barn! He’s a lot heavier than you, an’ never seems to get fat.” Shanks glanced at me. “What do you weigh? About one-eighty?”

“Two hundred even.”

“You don’t say? You must have it packed pretty solid. But don’t you have trouble with Caronna. You ain’t man enough for it.”

That made me remember what the boss said before I left. “His money is as good as anybody’s money, but don’t you get us into trouble. This Caronna is a tough customer, and plenty smart. He’s got a record as long as your arm, but he got out of the rackets with plenty of moola, and that took brains. You go over there and investigate that murder and clear him if you can. But watch him all the time. He’s just about as trustworthy as a hungry tiger.”

The station wagon rolled down the last incline into the street and rolled to a halt in front of a gray stone building with a weather-beaten sign across the front that said Hotel on one end and Restaurant on the other.

The one street of the town laid everything out before you for one glance. Two saloons, a garage, a blacksmith shop, three stores, and a café. There were two empty buildings, boarded up now, and beyond them another stone building that was a sheriff ’s office and jail in one piece.

Shanks dropped my bag into the street and reached out a hand. “That will be three bucks,” he said. He was displeased with me. All the way over I had listened, and he had no more idea who I was than the man in the moon.

Two thistle-chinned prospectors who looked as if they had trailed a burro all over the hills were sitting on the porch, chewing. Both of them glanced up and stared at me with idle curiosity.

The lobby was a long, dank room with a soot-blackened fireplace and four or five enormous black leather chairs and a settee, all looking as if they had come across the plains fifty or sixty years ago. On the wall was a mountain lion’s head that had been attacked by moths.

A clerk, who was probably no youngster when they opened the hotel in ’67, got up from a squeaky chair and shoved the register at me. I signed my name and, taking the key, went up the stairs. Inside the room I waited just long enough to take my .45 Colt out of the bag and shove it behind my belt under my shirt. Then I started for the sheriff ’s office. By the time I had gone the two blocks that comprised the full length of the street, everyone in town knew me by sight.

J
ERRY
L
OFTUS WAS
seated behind a rolltop desk with both feet on the desk and his thumbs hooked in the armholes of his vest. His white, narrow-brimmed hat was shoved back on his head, and his hair and mustache were as white as the hat. He wore cowboy boots, and a six-shooter in an open-top holster.

Flipping open my wallet, I laid it in front of him with my badge and credentials showing. He glanced down at them without moving a hand, then looked up at me.

“Private detective? Who sent for you?”

“Caronna.”

“He’s worried, then. What do you aim to do, son?”

“Look around. My orders are to investigate the crime, find evidence to clear him, and so get you off his back. From the sound of it”—I was fishing for information—“he didn’t seem to believe anybody around here would mind if he was sentenced or not. Guilty or not.”

“He’s right. Nothing against him myself. Plays a good hand of poker, pays when he loses, collects when he wins. Maybe he buys a little high-grade once in a while, but while the mine owners wish we would put a stop to it, we don’t figure that what gold ore a man can smuggle out of a mine is enough to worry about.

“All these holes around here strike pockets of rich ore from time to time. Most of the mines pay off pretty well, anyway, but when they strike that wire gold, the boys naturally get away with what they can.

“The mines all have a change room where the miners take off their diggin’ clothes, walk naked for their shower, then out on the other side for their street clothes, but men bein’ what they are, they find ways to get some out.

“Naturally, that means they have to have a buyer. Caronna seems to be the man. I don’t know that, but I never asked no questions, either.”

“Would you mind giving me the lowdown on this killing?”

“Not at all.” Loftus shifted his thumbs to his vest pockets. “Pull up a chair an’ set. No, not there. Move left a mite. Ain’t exactly safe to get between me an’ that spittoon.”

He chewed thoughtfully for a few minutes. “Murdered man is Jack Bitner, a cantankerous old cuss, wealthy as all get-out. Mine owner now, used to be a prospector. Hardheaded as a blind mule and rough as a chapped lip. Almost seventy, but fit to live twenty years more, ornery as he was. Lived up yonder on the mesa.”

Loftus chewed, spat, and continued. “Found dead Monday morning by his niece. Karen Bitner. Killed sometime Sunday night, seems like. Stabbed three times in the back with a knife while settin’ at the table.

“Only had two visitors Sunday night. Karen Bitner an’ Blacky Caronna. She went up to see the old man about five of the evenin’, claims she left him feelin’ right pert. Caronna headed up that way about eight, still light at that hour, an’ then says he changed his mind about seein’ the old man without a witness, an’ came back without ever gettin’ to the cabin.

“Only other possible suspect is Johnny Holben. Those two old roosters been spittin’ an’ snarlin’ for the last four years, an’ both of them made threats.

“Johnny lives on the trail to the mesa, an’ he’s got ears like a skittish rabbit an’ eyes like a cat. Johnny saw those two go up an’ he seen ’em come back, an’ he’ll take oath nobody else went up that trail. Any jury of folks from around Ranagat would take his word for it that a gopher couldn’t go up that trail without Johnny knowin’ it. As for himself, Johnny swears he ain’t been on the mesa in six years.

“All three had motives, all three had opportunity. Any one of the three could have done it if they got behind Bitner, an’ that’s what makes me suspect the girl. I don’t believe that suspicious old devil would let any man get behind him.”

“Caronna can’t clear the girl, then? If he had gone up to the house and found the old man alive, she’d be in the clear.”

“That’s right. But he says he didn’t go to the house, an’ we can’t prove it one way or another. The way it is, we’re stuck. If you can figure some way to catch the guilty man, you’d be a help.” Jerry Loftus rolled his quid in his jaws and glanced at me sharply. “You come up here to find evidence to prove Caronna innocent. What if you find something to prove him guilty?”

“My firm,” I said carefully, “only represents clients who are innocent. Naturally, we take the stand that they are innocent until proved guilty, but we will not conceal evidence if we believe it would clear anyone else. If we become convinced of a client’s guilt, we drop out of the case. However, a good deal of leeway is left to the operative. Naturally, we aren’t here to convict our clients.”

“I see.” Loftus was stirring that one around in his mind.

“Mind if I look around?”

“Not at all.” He took his feet down from the desk and got up. “In fact, I’ll go along. Johnny might not let you by unless I am with you.”

W
HEN WE STARTED
up the trail, it took me only a few minutes to understand that unless Johnny Holben was deaf as a post it would be impossible to get past his cabin without his knowledge. The trail was narrow, just two good steps from his door, and was of loose gravel.

Holben came to the door when we came alongside. He was a tall, lean old man with a lantern jaw and a handlebar mustache that would have been a dead ringer for the sheriff ’s except for being less tidy and more yellowed.

“Howdy, Loftus. Who’s the dude with you?”

“Detective. Caronna hired him to investigate the murder.”

“Huh! If Caronna hired him, he’s likely a thief himself.” Holben stepped back inside and slammed the door.

Loftus chuckled. “Almost as bad as Old Bitner. Wouldn’t think that old sidewinder was worth a cool half-million, would you. No? I guessed not. He is, though. Bitner was worth half again that much. That niece of his will get a nice piece of money.”

“Was she the only relative?”

“Matter of fact, no. There’s a nephew around somewheres. Big game hunter, importer of animals, an’ such as that. Hunts them for shows, I hear.”

“Heard from him?”

“Not yet. He’s out on the road with a circus of some kind. We wired their New York headquarters.”

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea to check and see where his show is playing.”

Loftus glanced at me. “Hadn’t thought of that. Reckon I’m gettin’ old. I’ll do that tonight.”

“Does the girl get all the money? Or does he get some?”

“Don’t know. The Bitner girl, she thinks she gets it. Says her uncle told her she would inherit everything. Seems like he had no use for that nephew. So far we haven’t seen the will, but we’ll have it open tomorrow.”

The path led along the flat top of the mesa over the sparse grass and through the scattered juniper for almost a half-mile. Then we saw the house.

It was built on the edge of the cliff. One side of the house was almost flush with the edge, and the back looked out over a natural rock basin that probably held water during the winter or fall, when it rained.