A dead man lay on the floor near the printing press. He had been shot. A small blue-red hole showed in the exact centre of his forehead.
Ed. Killeano knelt on the floor against the far wall. His fat face was yellow and glistening with fear. His pudgy hands were shoulder high, and his eyes started from his head like long stalked toadstools. Clairbold, the intrepid private investigator, complete with his cocoacoloured trick hat, stood over him, a Colt .45 in his small hand.
"Take him away," Killeano screamed at us as we came in. "Make him put that gun down."
Hoskiss and I walked over.
"Hello, Fatso," I said. "Don't you like our young friend?" I touched Clairbold on his shoulder. "What are you doing here, bright eyes?"
"Call him off!" Killeano shrieked. "Get that gun away!"
Clairbold lowered the gun, cleared his throat apologetically. "I'm glad you've come, Mr. Cain," he said. "I was wondering what I should do with this—er—man."
Hoskiss ran his fingers through his hair. "Who's this guy?" he asked blankly.
"The greatest private dick since Philo Vance," I said.
Killeano made a sudden dive across the desk, reached for a sheet of paper. Hoskiss flung him back.
"Take it easy," he said. "Park your truss until I can get around to you."
Killeano snarled at him, wrung his hands.
Clairbold picked up the sheet of paper, blushed, shuffled his feet.
"I have a statement here," he said, handing me the paper. "It completely clears you, Mr. Cain. This man admits that Bat Thompson killed Herrick, Giles and Brodey, acting on his orders. They knew about the forgery plant. Killeano also admits he is responsible for issuing forged currency. I think you'll find it in order."
Dazed, I read the statement. It was a beautifully worded confession. Silently I handed it to Hoskiss who read it, said, "For God's sake!"
"I deny every word of it," Killeano babbled. "He was going to shoot me!"
"How did you persuade him to write this?" I asked Clairbold.
He fingered his tie nervously.
"I really don't understand it myself, Mr. Cain," he said, puzzled. "I think perhaps he was
frightened my gun wasn't safe." He shook his head. "He could be right because it went off unexpectedly when that man rushed in." He waved his hand at the body by the printing plant. "Killeano thought I might shoot him accidentally. He was quite mistaken, of course, but when I suggested he might care to make a statement he seemed most anxious to do so."
I looked at Hoskiss, who burst out laughing.
"Look," I said to Clairbold, "you don't kid me. You're not half as dumb as you act. Son, you have a great future before you."
He blushed. "Well, Mr. Cain, it's nice of you to say so. I've been trained to appear rather simple. The Ohio School of Detection has taught me that criminals underrate people who act dumb."
I dug Hoskiss in the ribs. "You might get somewhere if you took that course," I said. "Look what it's done for this lad." Then I nodded at Killeano. "Your prisoner, buddy, and it's our job to get him out of here."
"Forget it," Speratza snarled from the door. "Stick up your hands or I'll blast the lot of you."
We turned.
Speratza was covering us from the door with a Thompson. His face was white, his eyes vicious.
I had laid my .38 on the desk as I read Killeano's statement. I calculated the distance, decided it was too far.
Killeano made another rush, tried to grab the statement, but Hoskiss flung him off.
A gun exploded at my side. Speratza dropped the Thompson, swayed. A blue-red hole appeared in the centre of his forehead. He crashed to the floor.
"I don't believe this gun is safe," Clairbold muttered, staring at the smoking Colt, but there was a satisfied gleam in his eyes that told me he was kidding.
I fell into Hoskiss's arms.
"For the love of Mike," I babbled hysterically, "he learned to shoot like that through the mail."
8
On the face of it, it looked as if the show was over. I left the tidying up to Hoskiss. I wish now I had done it myself because they let Bat Thompson slide through their fingers. They threw a drag-net around Paradise Palms, but when they hauled it in, everyone who mattered was in it except Bat.
It worried me at first, but after thinking it over I decided that Bat by himself wasn't a danger. He hadn't the brains to think up trouble, and he was as near moronic as made no difference. But I would have liked to have seen him behind bars. The Feds were pretty sure that he had got away. It spoilt their case, since he was the guy who had bumped off Herrick, Giles and Brodey.
Killeano got twenty-five years. Speratza and Flaggerty were dead. Juan Gomez had been killed by one of the Federal officers in the fight outside 46 Waterside.
Once I was sure that Bat wasn't in town, I asked Tim to fetch Miss Wonderly from Key West.
We were now in Palm Beach Hotel, trying to decide our future.
I sat on the balcony and looked at the green ocean. Only this time I didn't have any presentiment of trouble. She sat on the balustrade.
"All right," I said, after I had heard her argument. "I'll get a job. I'll go respectable if that's what you really want."
Her eyes were full of questions.
"But I want you to be happy too," she said. "If you don't think you could settle down . . ."
"I can try, can't I ?" I said. "The thing to do is for you and me to get married. Then I'll have to settle down."
And that's how we fixed it.
Four days later we were married. Hetty, Tim, Jed Davis, Clairbold (the boy wonder), and Hoskiss turned up at the wedding. It was quite an affair.
We decided to spend our honeymoon at Paradise Palms because the others didn't want us to go elsewhere. They were pretty good to us, but at the end of the week I decided, if I was going to get a job, I'd better start looking for one. We packed our bags and arranged air passage to New York.
On our last night at Paradise Palms we threw a party that the staff of the hotel still talk about. Hoskiss brought with him six of his hard-drinking G-men. He announced at the beginning of dinner that Clairbold had entered the Federal Service. Clairbold finished up under the table. I guess he was getting beyond his Ohio School of Detection course by now.
After our guests had gone, we went up to our bedroom. It was around two o'clock in the morning. We were undressing in the bedroom when the telephone rang.
I told Clair—she wasn't Miss Wonderly any more—I'd answer it.
I went into the sitting-room, took off the receiver.
The line crackled, hummed. A woman's voice said, "Chester Cain?"
I said it was, wondering where I had heard the voice before.
"This is Lois Spence," the woman said.
"Hello," I said, wondering what she wanted. I had forgotten about her.
There was a lot of noise on the line. It crackled, popped and buzzed.
"Listen, you heel," she said, her voice indistinct, far away. "You tricked Juan, and it was through you he was killed. Don't think you're going to get away with it. I pay off old debts, so does Bat. Remember him? He's right by my side. We're coming after you, Cain. We'll find you wherever you are. You and your floozie, and we'll fix you both."
The line went dead. I replaced the receiver, frowned. Spiders' legs ran down my neck.
"Who was it?" Clair called.
"A wrong number," I said, and went back to the bedroom.
Chapter Six
PAY OFF
1
A PACKARD sedan swished to a standstill before one of the air towers. I glanced through the office window to satisfy myself that Bones, the negro help, was on the job. He was there all right. I watched him fussing around the car, gave him full marks for his enthusiasm, returned to work.
I still got a big bang out of seeing a customer arrive although I had now been running the service station for three months. It was a good buy, and after spending money on it, I had already doubled the business the previous owner had got out of it.
Clair had been startled when I had told her I intended to buy a service station. She thought I was planning to get a job with a big company in New York. So I was, but after that 'phone call from Lois Spence I had changed my mind.
I guessed Lois had found out that I had reservations for an air passage to New York, and would follow me there. I decided to duck out of sight. If I had been on my own I'd have waited for them, but Clair complicated things. I couldn't be with her every minute of the day, and they wouldn't have had much difficulty in handling her if they ever caught up with her.
So I cancelled the air passage, told Clair I wanted to go into the motor business, and pulled out of Paradise Palms in the Buick for a long haul to California.
I found what I was looking for on the Carmel-San Simeon Highway, within easy reach of San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was a small, bright well-kept station, and the owner was only giving up through ill-health.
It had four pumps, ten thousand gallons of storage, oil lube tanks, two air and water towers, and a good bit of waste land for extra buildings. The thing that really decided us was the house that went with the business. It was only a few yards from the service station, and it had a nice little garden. The house itself was cute, and Clair fell for it the moment she saw it. I fell for it too because she would be close to me all the time, and until I was sure we had lost Lois and Bat that was the way I wanted it.
I began to make alterations to the service station as soon as we moved in. I had it painted red and white. Even the pavements of the driveways were divided into red and white squares. I had a big sign hoisted on the roof which read: THE SQUARE SERVICE STATION.
Clair nearly died laughing when she saw the sign, but I knew it was the kind of thing that pulled in suckers.
I added two more air and water towers. Mechanics put in a new type of hydraulic hoist and a complete high-pressure greasing outfit. Near the rest-room building, startling under its new coat of paint and shining inside with added luxuries, was erected a steel shed to house car-washing and polishing equipment.
I hired Bones and a couple of youths to help, and business went ahead with a bang.
One of the youths, Bradley, was a pretty smart mechanic, and I knew most things about the inside of a car. We didn't reckon to take on any big repair jobs, but we could handle the day-today adjustments that came in; but once we did handle three cars that got involved in a smash.
All day long cars kept coming in, and I was on the jump from six in the morning to seven at night. I fixed up a night shift as I found I was turning away business by closing down at seven. I got an old man and a youth to handle the night trade, which wasn't heavy, but kept coming, three or four cars an hour.
I had just finished checking the accounts and I found I'd cleared nine hundred dollars after three months' work. I ran over to the house to let Clair know we weren't broke yet.
I found her in the kitchen, a cook-book in her hand, a puzzled expression in her eyes.
She found the job of being a housewife tougher than I found my new job. She had started off with little or no knowledge of how to run a house, how to cook, but she wouldn't hire a help. She said she wanted to learn to be useful, and it was time she knew how to cook anyway. I didn't dissuade her, reckoning that after a while she'd get tired of it and throw in her hand. But she didn't. For the first two or three weeks we ate some pretty awful meals. I have a cast-iron stomach so I didn't complain, and after a while the meals got better; now they were pretty good, and improving all the time.
She kept the house like a new pin, and I finally persuaded her to let one of the youths do the rough work, but the rest of it she continued to do herself.
Hi, honey," I said, breezing into the kitchen. "I've just audited the books. We're nine hundred
bucks to the good: that's clear profit, and we don't owe a cent."
She turned, laid down the cook-book, laughed at me.
"I believe you're really crazy about your old gas station," she said. "And after all those threats about not settling down."
I put my arm round her. "I've been too busy to realize that this is settling down. I've never worked so hard in my life. I had the idea that when a guy settled down, he parked his fanny, and let moss grow over him. I guess I was wrong."
"Don't say fanny," she reproved. "It's vulgar."
I grinned at her. "Let's run into San Francisco tonight, and paint the town red," I said. "It's time you and I stepped out. We've been working now three months without a break. How about it?"
Her eyes lit up. "Yes, let's do that," she said, throwing her arms round my neck. "Can you get off early?"
"If we leave just before seven it'll be time enough. Going to put on your glad rags?"
"Of course, and so are you. It's time I saw you in something better than those awful old overalls."
The station buzzer sounded. That told me Bones had someone out front whom he couldn't handle.
"A little trouble," I said, kissing Clair. "See how important I am? The moment I turn my back—–"
She pushed me out of the kitchen.
"Run away," she said, "or you won't have any lunch."
I beat it back to the station.
There was trouble all right. A big Cadillac had hit the concrete wall of the driveway. Its fender had been pushed in and the bumper was buckled. It was a swell-looking car, and it hurt me to see the damage.
Bones was standing by. His usually smiling face was shiny and dismayed. He rolled his eyes at me as I came up.