Long Live the Dead (9 page)

“No,” Zapelli said.

“The D.A.’s son tried to gun me.”

Motionless behind the desk, Zapelli allowed his face to register amazement. “Gun you?” he whispered.

“So,” declared Hanley, still on his feet despite the pain in his shoulder, “the D.A.’s son holds cards in this game somewhere. He didn’t gun me for target practice. There are two ends to this alley, Zapelli—Doonan’s place and the Corsair Club. Russell Innman never hung his hat in Doonan’s place. He was here that night. So …”

Zapelli leaned forward, put his elbows on the desk and pushed his pink lips apart with the tip of his tongue. “I like you, Hanley,” he said. “You’re a fine fellow—sometimes. Take a tip and forget all this foolishness. Take your job back on Innman’s terms, and I’ll see that the kid apologizes for trying to gun you.”

Hanley’s laugh was low and ugly. He was thinking of Mr. Buttons.

“You see, it’s this way,” Zapelli said, leaning back again. “The kid is a pretty good friend of mine, and—”

Pooch Hanley had been expecting it and was ready for it. When Zapelli’s right hand slid down below the level of the desk top, Hanley’s own right hand streaked to a coat pocket.

“Sure you like me,” Hanley said. Sarcasm dripped from his voice.

Zapelli shrugged, put his hands on the desk again. His gaze remained glued on Hanley’s pocket, and Hanley’s fist stayed in the pocket.

“You’ve got me wrong, Hanley.”

“I’ve got you,” Hanley said acidly, “right where I want you, louse.”

“You think I killed White?”

“You’ll make a lot of money out of this joint, running it alone.”

“You’re in the wrong booth, Hanley. I didn’t kill White. The D.A.’s son did.”

Hanley took a step sidewise, leaned against the wall because his throbbing shoulder needed support, and said, “I’d like to hear about it, Zapelli.”

“The three of us,” Zapelli said, shrugging, “were right here in this room. The kid was a regular customer of ours; he owed us a big chunk of money and White was demanding payment. The kid was tight, so tight he could hardly stand. He got sore. He pulled a gun. He shot White twice. The first bullet went through White’s hip and gouged a chunk out of the desk here. The second stuck in his brain and killed him.”

“Well?”

“Well, I done some fast thinking, Hanley. With White dead, this joint was all mine. I didn’t have the political drag White had, and here was a chance to get a nice big load of it. With a stranglehold on the D.A.’s son, I could make the D.A. clean my shoes. See?”

Hanley saw and nodded. The gun in his hand was getting heavy, but he wanted to hear the whole story before escorting Zapelli to Headquarters. It was not going to be easy to walk Zapelli out of his fortress here, either.

“The kid,” Zapelli said, “was scared stiff when he realized what he’d done. I took the gun away from him and hustled him out of here and made arrangements to have him driven home. Then I hung around about half an hour until the coast was clear, and lugged White’s body out the back way. I dumped it in the alley and cooked up a story about how he went over to the Palace to see Doonan.

“And that’s how it all happened, hey?”

“That’s on the level. You can see now why the D.A. tried to haul you off the case, and why his son tried to gun you when you refused to take the hint.”

Hanley nodded. The story appeared to be solid and reasonable. It might have a gap or two, but apparently Zapelli knew all the answers.

“O.K.,” Hanley said. “Let’s go.”

Zapelli was grinning. It was an ugly, crooked grin. “Don’t be a sap,” he said. “You’re not taking me anywhere.”

Behind Hanley, the door was creaking open.

Pooch Hanley didn’t make the mistake of whirling. He had a gun in his hand and lifted it, aiming the muzzle at Zapelli’s face. Without shifting his gaze from that face, he said quietly, “No matter what happens, boys, I’ll still have enough left to take Louis with me. Louis wants to go on living—so take it easy.”

Zapelli turned pale. The gun frightened him and he cringed from it. Hanley took two steps forward and said grimly, “Get out of that chair!”

The fact that he knew what to do and did it swiftly probably saved Hanley from annihilation. Zapelli obeyed orders without realizing their significance. His henchmen were held back by bewilderment.

They could have murdered Hanley, but Hanley, before dying, would murder their boss.

Zapelli got out of the chair. Menaced by Hanley’s gun, he squirmed around the desk. Before he knew what had happened, he was standing between Hanley and the men who had entered.

Hanley, entrenched behind the desk, said softly, “Now order your gorillas out of here!”

Zapelli shot frantic glances to right and left, as if estimating his chances of escaping by lunging.A sidewise lunge might give his gorillas a chance to mow Hanley down. Evidently he considered the risk too great.

“Get out, boys,” he bleated. “Wait outside.”

“And close the door,” Hanley ordered.

There were four of them, all dressed in evening clothes. Apparently when not needed by Zapelli, they earned their keep by running the gambling devices. Zapelli had summoned them by pressing a bell-button under the desk.

Obeying orders, they filed out. The door clicked shut. Hanley said to Zapelli: “Come here!”

Zapelli swayed forward, pale and trembling.

“Seems to me you’re taking some mighty big risks to help out Russell Innman,” Hanley said.

“I need the kid on my side,” Zapelli mumbled. “With a hold on the D.A. I can turn this place into a gold mine.”

Hanley’s glance strayed to the door. It was the only door. In the corridor outside, Zapelli’s gunmen were undoubtedly cooking up a scheme to turn Pooch Hanley into a corpse. Time was short.

“We’re leaving, Zapelli.”

“But—”

Hanley’s fist swung from the hip and made crunching contact with Zapelli’s jaw. The jaw was brittle. A bone cracked, and a look of surprise ballooned over Zapelli’s features. Twice more the fist drove to its target. Zapelli collapsed.

A moment later Pooch Hanley opened the door and stepped into the corridor. Zapelli’s gunmen let him through because Zapelli’s unconscious body hung over Hanley’s right shoulder, his head drooping against the detective’s chest. The gun in Hanley’s right hand was jammed hard against the back of the gambler’s head, where the hair grew short. Hanley’s trigger finger was curled, ready to send a bullet crashing into the unconscious man’s skull.

Zapelli’s henchmen were helpless. If they opened fire, it meant certain death for Zapelli. When Hanley growled, “One side, muggs!” they fell back and kept their distance.

Straight through the gaming-room Hanley strode, and downstairs, and out the back way to the alley. By the time he got that far, his underclothes were sticky with sweat and his tongue was a thick, dry lump in his mouth.

His car was parked in front of the club. He left it there, walked to the Palace Bar and rapped on the rear door. A customer opened the door.

“Tell Molly Doonan to hustle out here. Tell her Pooch Hanley wants her.”

The fellow took one look at the gun and hastened to obey. In a moment, Molly was on the threshold, her eyes wide with questions.

“Your car here, Molly?” Hanley asked her.

She stared at Zapelli, got over her amazement and nodded. “It’s by the fence,” she said.

“Give me the keys,” Hanley said.

He dumped Zapelli on the front seat, slid behind the wheel and backed the machine into the alley.

Twenty minutes later, with Zapelli half-conscious and leaning against him, he stood on the veranda of the District Attorney’s house and thumbed the bell.

I
nnman’s house had been in darkness. A light glowed now behind the frosted glass of the door, and the door opened. “I’d like to see Mr. Innman,” Hanley said to the woman who stared at him

“Which Mr. Innman?” the housekeeper demanded.

“Both.”

Apparently thinking Zapelli was drunk, she cast a contemptuous glance his way and went to wake the Innman’s. Hanley said, “This way, mugg,” and assisted the staggering gambler into the living-room.

Russell and Kenneth Innman came over the threshold, both wearing bathrobes over bright-hued pajamas. Both gaped at Zapelli.

“What’s the meaning of this, Hanley?” the D.A. demanded tartly.

“Zapelli has something to tell you.”

The D.A. scowled. He had looked sleepy at first; now he was wide awake and bewildered. Pooch Hanley took charge of the situation, pushed Zapelli into a chair, and said softly, “O.K., Zapelli. Talk.”

“I got nothing to say,” the gambler muttered.

“You had plenty to say back there in your office, when you were stalling for a break. It was all about Paul White and Russell Innman and a murder. I’m sure the District Attorney would like to hear it. Talk!”

Zapelli took a long look at the D.A.’s son and shrugged his shoulders. The D.A.’s son watched him and turned pale.

Zapelli talked. There’d been an argument The D.A.’s son, drunk, had pulled a gun and shot Paul White, killing him instantly. Zapelli had the gun and the first bullet—the bullet which had passed through White’s hip and lodged in the desk—to prove it. Frankly, he’d been holding those bits of evidence because later they might come in handy. Later, if the cops got nasty about the way the Corsair Club was being run, Zapelli could wave those bits of death-chair evidence in front of the

D.A. and the cops would get their orders to go elsewhere.

“The gun,” Zapelli said, “is wrapped up in a handkerchief and locked in my safe. There’ll be fingerprints on it. The bullet won’t mean much, probably, but I guess the cops have the other bullet—the one that went into White’s brain—and I guess they can prove it came out of that gun, all right. Any ballistics expert can prove that. And with this kid’s fingerprints on the gun …”

The District Attorney’s face was a gray mask. Almost without breathing, he turned to gaze at his son.

The son hadn’t moved. Erect, he was gripping the back of an overstuffed chair. His skin was yellow. His eyes were bright and loaded with terror.

The D.A. said almost inaudibly: “Is this true?”

The kid nodded.

Pooch Hanley felt rotten. He had thought, before coming here, that the D.A. knew; that the kid had confessed and that father and son were working together to keep the thing hushed up. He knew better now. The D.A. was learning the truth for the first time, and it was like a rusty saw biting into the man’s heart.

Whimpering, the son took two faltering steps backward and collapsed on the arm of a chair. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he moaned; “So help me, I didn’t mean to! I was drunk, and there was an argument, and …”

Zapelli, calmly sucking on his cigarette, was again smiling his crooked smile. The D.A. looked at Hanley and said, “I owe you an apology, Hanley. I tried to keep you off this case. My son begged me to. He said Zapelli was a friend of his and would suffer from the publicity. I’m sorry.”

Hanley said gently, “You’ll owe me more than that in a minute,” and stepped toward Louis Zapelli. Standing wide-legged, he glared down into the gambler’s face.

“You had a lot to gain through White’s death, Zapelli.”

“Sure,” Zapelli said. “Could I help that?”

“No, I don’t suppose you could. There’s one point I’m not clear on, though. You say White was dead when you lugged him into the alley.”

“Sure he was dead. That bullet in the brain killed him on the spot.”

“That, Zapelli, is what the Medical Examiner says, too.”

The gambler spread his hands palms up. “So what?”

“So he wasn’t dead when you lugged him out to the alley, Zapelli. He wasn’t even dying. The kid shot him, and the bullet went through his hip. Undoubtedly it knocked him cold, but broken hips don’t kill a man.”

Zapelli straightened a bit in his chair and put his hands on his knees. The grin faded.

“The kid didn’t fire that second shot, Zapelli. You did.”

“You’re off your nut!”

“The kid fired one shot all right. You can prove that, Zapelli. You’ve got the gun, and the gun has fingerprints on it. But the second shot, Zapelli, was fired in the alley, after you carried Paul White out there. He was alive before that second shot. Dead men don’t grab handfuls of dirt and break their fingernails clawing at cobblestones. Dead men don’t scuff the toes of their shoes out, having convulsions. White was hurt, all right—he was in agony—but he was alive in that alley until you killed him, Zapelli!”

Zapelli pushed himself erect and made fists of his hands. “You’re a liar!” he bellowed. “You can’t frame me like that!” His face was the color of chalk and from the knees up he was trembling in every muscle. The explosion of words came with a spray of spittle.

The spray made Hanley step back. The door was only ten feet distant. Zapelli was a gambler.

Zapelli’s left hand sent the table crashing against Hanley’s legs. His right hand, clenched, split the side of the D.A.’s face and sent him reeling. Like a racing greyhound Zapelli sped toward the door.

Pooch Hanley raked a gun from his pocket and fired twice at the spot where the bullets would do the most good. Pooch Hanley was a marksman. Both slugs caught the fleeing murderer in the right knee, and Zapelli’s howl of agony was smothered by the crash of his hurtling body.

He was trying to get up when Hanley reached him. Blood from his shattered knee-cap was reddening the carpet.

Without compassion, Hanley jerked his wrists together and snapped cuffs on them.

The D.A. was pawing at Hanley’s shoulder. There were tears in the D.A.’s eyes. He was saying brokenly: “I’ll be indebted all my life, Hanley, all my life.”

Hanley led him back into the living-room where the son stood gaping, and said grimly: “There’s a little matter we can clear up right now, Mr. Innman. All this about Zapelli is just part of my job, but there’s something else.”

“Something else?”

“This son of yours tried to gun me. We’ll overlook that, because he didn’t succeed. But when he let himself into my house, a pal of mine named Mr. Buttons didn’t like his looks because he was wearing a uniform. Your son clubbed my pal to death with an ash-stand. There were fingerprints on the ashstand, and your son’s prints are in the volunteer file at Headquarters, so I checked up to make certain.”