Collection 1983 - The Hills Of Homicide (v5.0) (22 page)

“You wouldn’t tell me if you knew he was coming,” Pete said, but there was doubt in his tone.

“Am I a damned fool? Do you think I want you guys swapping lead with me in the middle? You better take it on the lam while you can, but you turn Ellen loose and I’ll see you get your money.”

“What’s she to you?”

My answer was quick and a lie. “She’s my sister. Not that she’s proud of it.”

That made sense. “All right, but get this. She’s being watched by George Homan. He will kill her if he’s approached. If the police find her, he’ll kill her and skip. We’ve got a getaway all set.”

“What about your club?”

He shrugged. “I still owe money on it, and there’s fifteen to twenty thousand in that bag Sam’s got.”

He was moving, toward my bedroom door, I believed.

“All right, you get the dough and call me at home. I’ll tell you where to bring it. You’ve got until noon.”

We stood facing the wall, and I counted a slow one hundred, then lowered my hands a little. Nothing happened, so I turned around. Pete was gone.

Undoubtedly, he had been searching the apartment and retreated to the fire escape when he heard me at the door. A glance at my desk drawers and closet showed he had given the apartment a shaking down.

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 with her. 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 believe, 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.

Pete Merrano had been doing all right for himself. He lived in a picturesque house overlooking Sunset Strip. Leaving the cab in a few doors away, I walked up the hill. Skirting the house, I glimpsed a Filipino houseboy coming down the steps from the back door. Turning on the sprinkler 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 shirt-sleeve, 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 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 find Bradley, get the 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.”

Mooney gave me a sour smile. “You had a close shave in that car. We found it in Redondo shot full of holes.”

“You lost us?”

“Unfortunately. 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!”