Bare Trap (16 page)

“Not if I see him first.” He pulled the blonde down, covered her mouth with his. After a moment, she pushed him back, kissed him lightly, slid out of his arms.

“If only you had happened ten years ago.” She grinned at him crookedly. “I know you would have loved Miss Chenango County of 1940.”

“Where the hell
is
Chenango County?”

The blonde stuck her tongue out at him and walked around the desk. “You’re a detective. You find out.” She slid into her chair, grinned up at him. “Anything else on your mind, as if I didn’t know?”

“So you think your boss was messing around with Terry, eh?” he resumed. “Maybe they’re hiding out together?”

The blonde considered it, shook her head. “Not a chance. Richards really hates her insides. I never did get the whole picture but he was pretty bitter when he tossed her off the lot.”

“This dough he owed Yale, this gambling debt. Is Richards much of a plunger?” He brought out a pack of cigarettes, lit two, passed one to the girl.

She took a deep drag, let the smokes dribble lazily from half-parted lips. “He hasn’t done any gambling at all that I know of in the past few years.”

“How about before?”

“You couldn’t prove it by me. He never took me to Yale’s place or any of the other game rooms.”

“Funny.”

“Why?”

“Half the charge a slob like Richards gets out of knowing a dish like you is to parade her around to make the yokels drool. What better place than a joint like Yale’s where all the movie gang congregates?”

Margy shrugged. “Maybe he figured the divine Terry was better for parading purposes.”

“At sixteen?”

The blonde puzzled over it, shook her head. “You’re driving at something, Johnny, but you’re over my head like a sheet in a motor court raid. What do you really want to know?”

“I stumbled on something yesterday, Margy. If I’m right, neither Richards nor the kid owed Stanley money for gambling losses.”

“But you said yourself — ”

Liddell nodded. “There were IOU’s. I saw them. But suppose Yale and Terry were working a badger game. She puts the suckers on the spot, he puts the shake on. They sign the IOU’s to get off the hook, and he collects them as gambling losses. How about it?”

Margy caught her lower lip between her teeth, worried it for a second, shook her head. “Not Richards. What would he have to lose?”

“About twenty years. Don’t forget Terry was under age at that time. The expression in my circles is San Quentin quail.”

The blonde’s eyes widened. “I see what you mean.”

“Buy it?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible.”

“Okay. Then, let’s work on the assumption that that’s what happened. Richards and the kid were only two of the suckers. I want to have a talk with some of the others.”

The blonde shook her head. “What others?”

“Know a character named Carter Sales?”

“Who doesn’t? He’s the hottest thing in the studio.” She leaned forward, her eyes wide. “You don’t mean him, too?”

“I don’t know,” Liddell admitted. “I want to have a talk with him. That’s where you come in. I want to know where to reach him.”

The blonde leaned back in her chair, shook her head. “No can do, Johnny. His address is on the restricted file.”

“But it’s on file?”

“I couldn’t get it for you, Johnny.” The blonde shook her head firmly. “There’d be murder around here.”

“There already has been. I’m just trying to see to it that there’s no more of it.”

She continued to shake her head, but without conviction. “I can’t.”

“Everybody connected with the lot has to file their address in case of emergency. Right?”

“Yes, but-”

“Baby, this is an emergency. Shad Reilly’s dead, and for all we know so are Richards and Terry. If they’re not, they’re liable to be unless I can get to them damn soon.”

“There must be another way,” the blonde wailed.

Liddell shook his head. “Without him I’m up against a stone wall. The only other leads are out of circulation. There’s just a chance he may know something that will break that stone wall. I’ve got to have it.”

“They’ll trace it to me,” she protested weakly.

“How would they? If I’m right, Sales won’t be doing any talking. Nobody will even know I was there.”

Margy wavered. “Suppose you’re wrong. Suppose he doesn’t even know Terry or Yale? How can you be sure?”

Liddell grinned wryly. “You can take my word for it, baby. Carter Sales knows both Yale Stanley and Terry Devine. You’ll have to take my word for it.”

The blonde wet her lips with the tip of a pink tongue. “I have a feeling I’m going to hate myself in the morning, but if you say so.” She opened an oversized purse that sat on the corner of the desk, fumbled in its depths, and came up with a small ring of keys. She fitted one of the keys to a small lock on the bottom drawer of the desk.

The steel-lined drawer rolled out easily. She reached in,
brought out a small index card file. “Only two people have a key to that drawer,” she pointed out wryly, “and Richards isn’t around. So if this goes wrong, you know whose lap it’s going to be sitting in.” She opened the file, picked out a small card, handed it to Liddell. “He lives out in Bel-Air. About a half-hour drive.”

Liddell nodded, copied down the address on the back of an envelope. “Stop worrying, baby. Carter Sales isn’t going to make any beef.”

The blonde returned the card to the file, locked it in the drawer. “You’ll let me know how you make out?”

“It may be awfully late.”

The blonde took a deep puff on the cigarette, blew the smoke at him in a long feathery stream. “It won’t be too late.”

I
T HAD GOTTEN UNBEARABLY HOT
after the heavy rain of the night before. Johnny Liddell, who had insisted on a convertible at the Drive-Yourself agency, wondered now whether a hard top wouldn’t have helped to ward off the merciless scorching of the sun. The open top and rolled-down windows didn’t help much because even the breeze was warm; it felt as if it had been blown out of one of those driers they use in a barbershop.

He drove through the Strip to Beverly Hills, headed through until he came to the foothills, then swung north to Bel-Air. Already the air seemed cooler as he headed the car down the long tree-lined roads, past the high walls and big gates of the estates that ranged back beyond sight.

Carter Sales’s place was identified only by the sedate number 12 on the sidewalkless lawn that extended beyond
the walls to the road. Two huge stone pillars supported a pair of wrought-iron gates. He checked the address against the penciled notation he had made in Richards’s office, swung the car wide, and headed it for the iron gates.

A wizened little man, his face the color of well-polished leather, wearing a pair of worn jeans and no shirt, walked up to the gate and looked out. “Want somebody, mister?” he called in a cracked voice.

“Carter’s expecting me,” Liddell called back.

The old man scratched at his head with fingers stained by the gardening he’d been doing, and shrugged. He walked over to the gate, unlatched it, swung it back. “Didn’t tell me nothing about expecting company,” the old man grumbled. “You sure he’s expecting you?”

Liddell drove in and stopped by the old man. “Do I look like the type to be collecting Carter Sales’s autograph?”

The old man considered it a very funny remark. He opened his mouth in a delighted whoop, laughed until his eyes watered. “You don’t at that,” he admitted. He watched Liddell drive up the curving driveway, then closed the gates behind him. He was still chuckling as Liddell disappeared around the bend leading to the house.

The house itself was set on a nine- or ten-acre plot, up on a knoll that overlooked the rolling country beyond. It was an aggressively modern ranch type done in stucco and mahogany, sprawling over what looked to be about a half an acre. Huge picture windows reflected the sun and were counteracted by a clump of magnolias that spilled a wide area of cool-looking shade over the southern end of the house.

Liddell drove the convertible to a small graveled parking-lot near the four-car garage, got out, stretched his legs, looked around. There was no sign of life around the place.

He walked over to the ponderous, studded door and leaned against a small bell set into the jamb. He could hear it ringing someplace inside, but nobody came to answer. After a moment he rang again. This time he got action.

The door swung open, and he was face to face with a man who topped him by a few inches, whose broad tapering shoulders seemed to balance precariously on the slimness of his waist and hips. He wore his thick blond hair long on the sides, plastered back against his head. On top it was a mass of tight curls. The almost feminine perfection of his features was marred by a frown of annoyance. He was Carter Sales.

“What’s on your mind, mister?” he asked.

“Like to talk to you for a few minutes, Sales.”

The frown deepened. “How did you get in here?”

Liddell’s eyes widened. “Drove in,” he said innocently. “It’d be a helluva hike from the station.”

Sales didn’t think it was funny. “Never mind the funny remarks. How’d you get by the gates?”

“Told the old guy you wanted to see me.”

Carter Sales’s full upper lip curled. “Well, I don’t.”

“You just think you don’t, pal. Me, I think you want to see me awful bad. That is, unless you want to go back to whatever you were doing before you fell into this racket.”

The movie star’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”

Liddell wiped his forehead with the side of his hand. “It’s too hot out here to talk. Besides, what I’ve got to say ought to be private — for your sake.”

Sales pushed the door open, stepped aside. “It better be good,” he warned. He watched as Liddell walked past into the dim cool of what was apparently a den.

“Nice place you got,” Liddell told him.

Sales slammed the door and stalked into the den. “Let’s cut the small talk. Who are you and what do you want?”

Liddell shrugged, tossed his hat on a low-slung library chair. “Name’s Liddell. I’m a private detective.”

“What do you want here?” The movie star’s voice was less belligerent, more cautious.

“Conversation.”

“About what?”

“Terry Devine.”

The prettiness of the blond man’s face disappeared.
Hard lines joined his nostrils with the ends of his mouth, hard lumps formed on his jaw as he clenched his teeth. “Get out.”

“Did you know Terry has disappeared?”

“Get out, I told you.” The big man moved toward Liddell, his shoulders hunched, his fists clenched.

“Look, pal, the cameras are off. Be a big boy, will you? You’re on a spot and I may be able to help you get off it.”

Sales caught him by the lapels and started shoving him toward the door. Liddell threw his arms upward and out, broke the hold. He caught the bigger man by the shirt, pulled him toward him, throwing him off balance, then he shoved. Sales rocketed backward, hit a low table, fell over, and hit the floor with a thud.

“Not very hospitable, are you?” Liddell growled. “This is no shake and I’m not here representing Terry Devine. I told you I want conversation and that’s all I want.”

Sales sat on the floor, shook his head to clear it, glared murderously at the private detective. “You won’t get away with this,” he murmured. “Not twice, you won’t.”

“Maybe not. Let me put it this way. Either I get the conversation or a couple of feature writers I know get a yarn that’ll curl every bobby socks in the country. What’ve you got to lose by listening?”

Carter Sales started to his feet with an oath, didn’t manage to make it. “You might even be able to take me,” Liddell conceded, “but it won’t do your profile any good and it’ll surer than hell wash up your career. If I let you up, will you get smart and listen?” He stood over the bigger man out of reach of his arms, close enough to keep him off balance.

“Listen to what?” Sales growled.

“Now you’re being smart.” Liddell reached down, helped the movie star to his feet. “I told you there’s no shake involved. I want some help, and I’m willing to do you a favor along the line.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Look, pal. I don’t care what your personal habits are
and what kind of a jam you’ve gotten yourself in. It just so happens that in doing a job for a client I can do you a good turn. And there’s no price tag on it.”

Sales glared at him sullenly.

“I’ve stumbled on a shakedown racket being pulled in this town. You’re one of the suckers. I need some details.”

“So I just sit down and bare my little heart. That it?”

Liddell shook his head. “I don’t need that kind of details. Suppose I tell you what I know, then you can figure whether or not I’m fishing.” He pointed to a chair. “Okay to sit down?” When Sales gave no answer, he dropped into one of the low chairs and looked up at the man towering over him. “You got sucked into a badger game with Terry Devine, had to sign a batch of IOU’s for Yale Stanley to get off the hook. You balked at paying off and two of Yale’s boys persuaded you it was smart to pay. Right?”

The angry scowl on the blond man’s face answered the question. “You said Terry had disappeared. That right?”

Liddell nodded. “It’s on the streets. There was a killing in her place last night. A little hood named Duke fielded a couple of forty-five slugs with his belly, got indigestion from them. He’s at the Las Caminas morgue and Terry is nowhere to be found.”

“Served the little bastard right,” Sales muttered from clenched teeth. “But what’s that got to do with me?”

“I want to find Terry and through her Yale Stanley. He’s wanted for questioning in the murder of a client of mine.”

“Who’s the client?”

“Shad Reilly.”

Sales nodded, walked over to a liquor cabinet, poured a couple of drinks, brought one to Liddell. “Sorry I tried to rough you up.” He set his glass down on the low table, brushed himself off. “Not that it did me much good,” he admitted ruefully. “Where do I come in?”

Liddell tasted the liquor approvingly. “I figure Terry took you someplace to set up the frame, maybe someplace Yale used as a hideaway.” He looked at the actor, drew no response. “Maybe that’s where they’re holed in.”