Nightmare Town: Stories (55 page)

The district attorney got down on the ground, saying: “Good evening, gentlemen.” Indicating the red-moustached man, he said to Guild: “This is deputy sheriff King, Mr. Guild. Mr. Guild,” he explained, “is working with me.”

The deputy sheriff nodded, looking the dark man up and down. “Yes,” he said, “I been hearing about him. Howdy, Mr. Guild.”

Guild’s nod included Hopkins and King,

“No sign of Fremont yet?” Boyer asked.

“No.”

Guild spoke: “Is Mrs. Hopkins still up?”

“Yes, sir,” her husband said, “she’s doing some sewing.”

The four men went indoors.

Mrs. Hopkins, sitting in a rocking-chair hemming an unbleached linen handkerchief, started to rise, but sank back in her chair with a “How do you do” when Boyer said: “Don’t get up. We’ll find chairs.”

Guild did not sit down. Standing by the door, he lit a cigarette while the others were finding seats. Then he addressed the Hopkinses: “You told us it was around three o’clock yesterday afternoon that Columbia Forrest got back from the city.”

“Oh, no, sir!” The woman dropped her sewing on her knees. “Or at least we never meant to say anything like that. We meant to say it was around three o’clock when we heard them – him – quarrelling. You can ask Mr. Callaghan what time it was when I called him up and -“

“I’m asking you,” Guild said in a pleasant tone. “Was she here when you got back from the village – from buying the suit – at two-twenty?”

The woman peered nervously through her spectacles at him. “Well, yes, sir, she was, if that’s what time it was. I thought it was later, Mr. Gould, but if you say that’s what time it was I guess you know, but she’d only just got home.”

“How do you know that?”

“She said so. She called downstairs to know if it was us coming in and she said she’d just that minute got home.”

“Was there a telegram under the door when you came in?”

The Hopkinses looked at each other in surprise and shook their heads. “No, there was not,” the man said.

“Was he here?”

“Mr. Wynant?”

“Yes. Was he here when you got home?”

“Yes. I – I think he was.”

“Do you know?”

“Well, it” – she looked appealingly at her husband – “he was here when we heard them fighting not much after that, so he must’ve been -“

“Or did he come in after you got back?”

“No – we didn’t see him come in.”

“Hear him?”

She shook her head certainly. “No, sir.”

“Was his car here when you got back?”

The woman started to say yes, stopped midway, and looked questioningly at her husband. His round face was uncomfortably confused. “We -we didn’t notice,” she stammered.

“Would you have heard him if he’d driven up while you were here?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Gould. I think – I don’t know. If I was in the kitchen with the water running and Willie – Mr. Hopkins that is – don’t hear any too good anyway. Maybe we -“

Guild turned his back to her and addressed the district attorney. “There’s no sense to their story. If I were you I’d throw them in the can and charge them with the murder.”

Boyer gaped. Hopkins’s face went yellow. His wife leaned over her sewing and began to cry. King stared at the dark man as at some curio seen for the first time.

The district attorney was the first to speak. “But – but why?”

“You don’t believe them, do you?” Guild asked in an amused tone.

“I don’t know. I -“

“If it was up to me I’d do it,” Guild said good-naturedly, “but if you want to wait till we locate Wynant, all right. I want to get some more specimens of Wynant’s and the girl’s handwriting.” He turned back to the Hopkinses and asked casually: “Who was Laura Porter?”

The name seemed to mean nothing to them. Hopkins shook his head dumbly. His wife did not stop crying.

“I didn’t think you knew,” Guild said. “Let’s go up and get those scratch samples, Boyer.”

The district attorney’s face, as he went upstairs with Guild, was a theatre where anxiety played. He stared at the dark man with troubled, pleading eyes. “I – I wish you’d tell me why you think Wynant didn’t do it,” he said in a wheedling voice, “and why you think Ray and the Hopkinses are mixed up in it.” He made a despairing gesture with his hands. “What do you really think, Guild? Do you really suspect these people or are you -?” His face flushed under the dark man’s steady, unreadable gaze and he lowered his eyes.

“I suspect everybody,” Guild said in a voice that was devoid of feeling. “Where were you between two and three o’clock yesterday afternoon?”

Boyer jumped and a look of fear came into his young face. Then he laughed sheepishly and said: “Well, I suppose you’re right. I want you to understand, Guild, that I keep asking you things not because I think you’re off on the wrong track, but because I think you know so much more about this kind of thing than I do.”

Guild was in San Francisco by two o’clock in the morning. He went straight to the Manchu.

Elsa Fremont was singing when he stepped out of the elevator. She was wearing a taffeta gown – snug of bodice, billowy of skirt – whereon great red roses were printed against a chalky blue background, with two rhinestone buckles holding a puffy sash in place. The song she sang had a recurring line, ‘Boom, chisel, chisel!’

When she finished her second encore she started toward Guild’s table, but two men and a woman at an intervening table stopped her, and it was then ten minutes or more before she joined him. Her eyes were dark, her face and voice nervous. “Did you find Charley?”

Guild, on his feet, said: “No. He didn’t go up to Hell Bend.”

She sat down twisting her wrist-scarf, nibbling her lip, frowning.

The dark man sat down, asking: “Did you think he’d gone there?”

She jerked her head up indignantly. “I told you I did. Don’t you ever believe anything that anybody tells you?”

“Sometimes I do and am wrong,” Guild said. He tapped a cigarette on the table. “Wherever he’s gone, he’s got a new car and an all-day start.”

She put her hands on the table suddenly, palms up in a suppliant gesture. “But why should he want to go anywhere else?”

Guild was looking at her hands. “I don’t know, but he did.” He bent his head further over her hands as if studying their lines. “Is Frank Kearny here now and can I talk to him?”

She uttered a brief throaty laugh. “Yes.” Letting her hands lie as they were on the table, she turned her head and caught a passing waiter’s attention. “Lee, ask Frank to come here.” She looked at the dark man again, somewhat curiously. “I told him you wanted to see him. Was that all right?”

He was still studying her palms. “Oh, yes, sure,” he said good-naturedly. “That would give him time to think.”

She laughed again and took her hands off the table.

A man came to the table. He was a full six feet tall, but the width of his shoulders made him seem less than that. His face was broad and flat, his eyes small, his lips wide and thick, and when he smiled he displayed crooked teeth set apart. His age could have been anything between thirty-five and forty-five.

“Frank, this is Mr. Guild,” Elsa Fremont said.

Kearny threw his right hand out with practiced heartiness. “Glad to know you, Guild.”

They shook hands and Kearny sat down with them. The orchestra was playing
Love Is Like That
for dancers.

“Do you know Laura Porter?” Guild asked Kearny.

The proprietor shook his ugly head. “Never heard of her. Elsa asked me.”

“Did you know Columbia Forrest?”

“No. All I know is she’s the girl that got clipped up there in Whitfield County and I only know that from the papers and from Elsa.”

“Know Wynant?”

“No, and if somebody saw him coming in here all I got to say is that if lots of people I don’t know didn’t come in here I couldn’t stay in business.”

“That’s all right,” Guild said pleasantly, “but here’s the thing: when Columbia Forrest opened a bank-account seven months ago under the name of Laura Porter you were one of the references she gave the bank.”

Kearny’s grin was undisturbed. “That might be, right enough,” he said, “but that still don’t mean I know her.” He put out a long arm and stopped a waiter. “Tell Sing to give you that bottle and bring ginger ale set-ups.” He turned his attention to Guild again. “Look it, Guild. I’m running a joint. Suppose some guy from the Hall or the Municipal Building that can do me good or bad, or some guy that spends with me, comes to me and says he’s got a friend – or a broad – that’s hunting a job or wants to open some kind of account or get a bond, and can they use my name? Well, what the hell! It happens all the time.”

Guild nodded. “Sure. Well, who asked you to O.K. Laura Porter?”

“Seven months ago?” Kearny scoffed. “A swell chance I got of remembering! Maybe I didn’t even hear her name then.”

“Maybe you did. Try to remember.”

“No good,” Kearny insisted. “I tried when Elsa first told me about you wanting to see me.”

Guild said: “The other name she gave was Wynant’s. Does that help?”

“No. I don’t know him, don’t know anybody that knows him.”

“Charley Fremont knows him.”

Kearny moved his wide shoulders carelessly. “I didn’t know that,” he said.

The waiter came, gave the proprietor a dark quart bottle, put glasses of cracked ice on the table, and began to open bottles of ginger ale.

Elsa Fremont said: “I told you I didn’t think Frank knew anything about any of them.”

“You did,” the dark man said, “and now he’s told me.” He made his face solemnly thoughtful. “I’m glad he didn’t contradict you.”

Elsa stared at him while Kearny put whisky and the waiter ginger ale into the glasses.

The proprietor, patting the stopper into the bottle again, asked: “Is it your idea this fellow Wynant’s still hanging around San Francisco?”

Elsa said in a low, hoarse voice: “I’m scared! He tried to shoot Charley before. Where” – she put a hand on the dark man’s wrist – “where is Charley?”

Before Guild could reply Kearny was saying to her: “It might help if you’d do some singing now and then for all that dough you’re getting.” He watched her walk out on the dance-floor and said to Guild: “The kid’s worried. Think anything happened to Charley? Or did he have reasons to scrarn?”

“You people should ask me things,” Guild said and drank.

The proprietor picked up his glass. “People can waste a lot of time,” he said reflectively, “once they get the idea that people that don’t know anything do.” He tilted his glass abruptly, emptying most of its contents into his throat, set the glass down, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You sent a friend of mine over a couple of months ago – Deep Ying.”

“I remember,” Guild said. “He was the fattest of the
three boo how day
who tried to spread their tong war out to include sticking up a Japanese bank.”

“There was likely a tong angle to it, guns stashed there or something.”

The dark man said, “Maybe,” indifferently and drank again.

Kearny said: “His brother’s here now.”

Some of Guild’s indifference went away. “Was he in on the job too?”

The proprietor laughed. “No,” he said, “but you never can tell how close brothers are and I thought you’d like to know.”

The dark man seemed to weigh this statement carefully. Then he said: “In that case maybe you ought to point him out to me.”

“Sure.” Kearny stood up grinning, raised a hand, and sat down.

Elsa Fremont was singing
Kitty From Kansas City.

A plump Chinese with a round, smooth, merry face came between tables to their table. He was perhaps forty years old, of less than medium stature, and though his gray suit was of good quality it did not fit him. He halted beside Kearny and said: “How you do, Frank.”

The proprietor said: “Mr. Guild, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Deep Kee.”

“I’m your friend, you bet you.” The Chinese, smiling broadly, ducked his head vigorously at both men.

Guild said: “Kearny tells me you’re Deep Ying’s brother.”

“You bet you.” Deep Kee’s eyes twinkled merrily. “I hear about you, Mr. Guild. Number-one detective. You catch ‘em my brother. You play trick on ‘em. You bet you.”

Guild nodded and said solemnly: “No play trick on ‘em, no catch ‘em. You bet you.”

The Chinese laughed heartily.

Kearny said: “Sit down and have a drink.”

Deep Kee sat down beaming on Guild, who was lighting a cigarette, while the proprietor brought his bottle from beneath the table.

A woman at the next table, behind Guild, was saying oratorically: “I can always tell when I’m getting swacked because the skin gets tight across my forehead, but it don’t ever do me any good because by that time I’m too swacked to care whether I’m getting swacked or not.”