Gat Heat (12 page)

Then once more the sigh, “Ohh-hh,” and her face paled as I watched.

It was odd that I could notice so many things about her in those few seconds. It was a very short time. Ten seconds maybe, all told, before she was gone, before she turned and pushed almost blindly through the men and women behind us.

But I noticed that her eyes were hazel, dotted with tiny flecks of gray; that her skin was smooth as still water; and that she wore no makeup except lipstick and darkness on her lashes.

When she turned, suddenly, pushed past me and away, I watched her move, tall and slim, limber and lithe. She moved with the natural grace of a slim tree swaying in warm winds, a tree laden with ripe, heavy fruit. I would not forget that face; and I would remember the way she moved.

But what the hell, I wondered, had sent her into the small fit?

I looked down at the man before me. The attendants had the stretcher next to him now, and were preparing to lift him onto it. Another police car was sliding to a stop and I heard two car doors slam, one after another, then the splat of feet on pavement as somebody ran this way.

I recognized the injured man—dead man, it looked like. Hell, he had to be dead. I could clearly see the side of his skull now, a great ugly wound there in his white hair. Not to mention the holes in his back.

I looked at that white hair again. I'd got it by then, I think.

He was a big guy, a man named Porter who'd taken an office in the Hamilton only a couple of weeks ago, a C.P.A. with a wife and a couple of kids. He was over fifty, more than twenty years past my thirty, but he did look quite a bit like me—from the back. Mainly, I guess, it was the white hair, cut fairly short. And the size of him.

And of course, he'd been going into the Hamilton Building. His body lay only a yard short of the entrance, blood spilled next to, and from, his head.

As I looked down at him, Captain Samson ran up, bent over the body. He must have been one of the men trotting over here from that last police car.

“Hey, Sam,” I said.

He was looking at the dead man's face. So he must have known it wasn't me. But his head snapped around, as if somebody had socked his chin a good one; and he stared at me as he rose to his feet.

His face was white, not its usual healthy pink. And he appeared to have aged a bit, but not more than a hundred years.

“You sonofabitch,” he said—right out in front of all those people. “You—you scared hell out of me.”

I stepped over next to him, let a hand flop on his shoulder. “I'm a little spooked myself, old buddy,” I said. “You know who the guy is, Sam?”

He shook his head.

I told him and he stepped to the nearest police car, radioed the info in.

When he came back he said, “I thought it was you, you damn fool.” He was still mad at me.

“So did somebody else, Sam.”

He looked toward the body now being lifted into the back of the ambulance. I could just see the dead man's shoulders and head.

Samson got out a black cigar, lit it, clamped his strong teeth on it, big jaw wiggling. About half a minute of that and the cigar would be on the cement, and he'd be chewing tobacco.

“Like who?” he said—then glanced around and added, “Skip that.”

Too many ears around, and we couldn't know who all of them belonged to. Sam knew there would be plainclothes men mingling with the crowd, listening to comments from the interested citizens, some of whom just might be more interested than the average casual bystander.

They'd report to Sam a little later, but in the meantime we knew a few things. Sam filled me in when we got back to the Police Building and were in his office.

I did, by the way, before leaving the Hamilton Building, make sure little Hazel knew I was not dead, and gave her a big and unmistakably enthusiastic kiss—despite her squeals and gentle fist-flailing protests. And left, smiling at her parting comment: “But I was a
virgin!
”

In Sam's office he said, “What we've got so far, throwing out the witnesses who think it was seven men in a tank”—there are always some of those, in any investigation—“is this. Two men, not on foot, in a pale-colored sedan, maybe blue, maybe brown. They pulled up at the curb, lifted the hood—like trouble, you know, had to stop.”

I nodded.

“Nobody knows what happened until the shots were fired. Probably when they spotted Porter one of the men put the hood down, driver started the car; they were all ready to go. Four slugs hit Porter in the back, one in the neck, two in the head. That's not all that were fired; we figure maybe two full clips. Automatics, .45 caliber. Most likely they breezed a few blocks and switched to another car. Clean, no descriptions worth a damn. Who knew you were going to show up at your office about two o'clock?”

“What makes you think somebody knew?”

“Two things. One's Porter. He looks enough like you. I thought it was you.”

“What's the second thing?”

“I got a phone call. Tell you about it in a minute. Somebody did know you were going to show.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah. Only I don't know who.” I told him about the call to Hazel earlier, setting up the two o'clock appointment, then said “Phones are busy today. Who rang you?”

“Man, kind of whispery voice, rough, like whiskey-rough. He decided not to give me his name and address.”

“What'd he say?”

Sam squinted, thinking back. “Like this. ‘Hey, Papa, Shell Scott just got shot at the Hamilton. Shot and killed. That grab you, Papa?' Then he hung up, with more noise than necessary.” Sam rubbed his ear, remembering.

“Wonder why in hell the guy would phone you?”

“Rub it in. Punks are getting pretty cocky these days. Might be that's all of it—or some guy who hates my guts.”

“Not very fond of mine, either, I'd guess.”

“Maybe he doesn't hate anybody's guts. Just hates cops, part of the stick-the-fuzz routine. S.o.p., Shell, the kookie climate.”

“Yeah, maybe. What time did the call come in?”

Sam glanced at a pad on his desk. “Man didn't lose anything by tipping me. It was five after two when he reached me. Maybe a minute before the first call came in to the complaint board.”

“Uh-huh. That would have been right after the shooting. When your caller figured I was good and dead. Could be the guy was close enough to hear the shots—maybe even see Porter go down.”

Sam rubbed his head. “Haven't had anything like this, not downtown, for a hell of a time. They must have wanted you bad enough to take the big chance. But …” He paused. “If we were going to pick them up on the streets, something should have come in.”

It was true. They would have switched cars, maybe a couple of times by now. Or they might be in a hotel room, strolling on the streets, sitting in a bar somewhere. Probably raising a toast to the memory of the late, unlamented Shell Scott.

I sat quietly for a minute, thinking.

“Well,” I said finally, “right at first I thought maybe there was a slim chance they were after Porter instead of me. But the call you got chalks that off. And that was a hood job. Pro, or damn good amateurs, anyway. Only hoods I've been chumming around with lately is the Jimmy Violet collection of creeps.”

“Yeah. I talked to Lieutenant Peterson an hour ago. I think he'd give his pension to get those punks good—Hollywood Division gets most of the action, and trouble, with that bunch.”

“Those three didn't spend much time in the clutches of the law, did they?”

“Hell, no,” Sam said. Not with rancor, not even wearily. I suppose he was getting used to it by now.

“What's Jimmy up to out there these days?” I asked him.

“Nothing we can prove. And even if we could—” he waved a big hand. “Oh, he's still in prostitution; got some call girls on the string. Still gets a rakeoff from the union he headed before he was sent up.

“He's still able to swing sweetheart contracts, and help call off a threatened strike from time to time. Enough to pick up pocket money. But we think he's worked into narcotics in the four years since he got out of San Quentin. Nothing solid, no evidence. Just the picture the ID gets.”

I'd gone through the Intelligence Division's file on Violet myself. Aside from the things Samson had mentioned, he seemed to have tried his hand at virtually anything that might mean fast and easy money. He'd picked up several new ideas during the three years he'd spent in Q, apparently.

I said, “Well, two guys in the blue or brown sedan. Add your friendly caller, who had to be part of the play in advance. So that's three, at least. Probably more. Which starts adding up to an organization. I popped Jimmy on his beak yesterday, but—”

“You what?”

“I biffed him a pretty good one on the nose.”

“Why the hell did you do that?”

“It seemed like a splendid idea at the time. He was getting pretty bad-mouth with me. And breathing on me, besides.”

“Will you never learn—”

“Look, so I clobbered him a little. I don't think even Jimmy would send two or three wipers after me for that—not for that alone. Oh, he'd
want
to, but if you ask me, he'd need something else, another reason.”

“You could be wrong, too.”

“I guess it's possible.”

We talked about the Halstead killing for a couple of minutes. There was nothing new, nothing of much value, at least. I told Sam about finding Ed Walles; hit a few highspots in my activity of the day.

When I finished he glanced at his watch. “Guess we missed 'em.”

“There'll be another time.”

He looked at me, sharp brown eyes steady on mine. I suppose he was thinking of Porter, prone on the cement with his head open.

As a matter of fact, I thought of it every once in a while myself.

11

I went in the same gate, through the same lovely garden, over the same white gravel path.

It was broad daylight this time, but the difference was more than merely the difference between day and night. It was very quiet. Only the hum of the pool pump broke the stillness, and the water swirled gently, clear and blue.

Mrs. Halstead was expecting me.

She was waiting for me at the back door, looking quite pretty if a bit tired, sunlight saucy on her strawberry-blonde hair and the full-curved figure covered by a loose-fitting white shift. We didn't go inside, but instead sat side by side on a small, padded bench resting on a few square yards of fluffy green dichondra; two weeping willows and a clump of tall queen palms were filtering the sunlight.

I didn't like bothering Mrs. Halstead so soon after her husband's death. But she was my client, after all. Even more important, she had not leveled with me. Maybe she'd leveled in the parts she'd told me, but Mrs. George Halstead had sure left a lot unsaid. Of course, I didn't really blame her.

It was sure as hell time, however, for
all
the facts to come out. And if I had to be just a little rough on Mrs. Halstead, then that's how it was going to be.

So I started by telling her of the recent scene in front of the Hamilton Building. I made the telling reasonably detailed, and attempted to draw a colorfully graphic picture for her.

I wound it up, “Last I saw of Porter—who was, as I have indicated, supposed to be me—was when they were putting him into the ambulance. Just before they got him in it, his head jiggled off the edge of the stretcher, and a piece of his brain fell onto the street.”

She closed her big, cool, green eyes, and swayed, just a little.

“Why … why are you telling me this?”

“Because that was supposed to be my piece of brain, and I haven't got any pieces to spare. At least, not like that. And it's very possible, if not probable, that I'll get stupendously killed unless people start telling me all the little things which might help keep me alive.”

“I don't understand.”

“Keep listening. I mean I may buy it like Porter if people keep holding out on me. The way you've held out on me.”

“I've told you everything—”

“When's the last time you heard from Jimmy Violet?”

“Jimmy … who?”

It was a hundred to one she wouldn't have answered like that if she'd ever heard of the guy. Not “Who did you say?” not even “Jimmy
who
?” Just questioning, slightly puzzled.

She shook her head. “Did you say Jimmy Violet? Like the color?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head again. “Goodness, no,” she said. “Who is he?”

“A hood. Never mind. Maybe there's no connection.”

Mrs. Halstead seemed preoccupied. She folded her hands in her lap, rolled the green eyes toward me. “Have you found out anything yet, Mr. Scott? Do you have any idea who killed George?”

“Not so far. You might say the middle of the picture's still fuzzy, but I'm getting developments around the edges. Like, I finally figured out what Mr. Pryer meant last night when he said the Whists and Rileys dropped out. I thought he meant they came by, dropped out here for a while during the evening. I didn't realize he meant they'd dropped out of the club.”

The flush was slow, but unmistakable. It would have been clearly evident from a distance of ten yards. The pink rose from her neck over her face and disappeared up past her hairline. If she'd been as bare as when I first saw her in her bedroom, I might have been able to watch the color rise from her toes clear up to her face.

“Club?” she said. After a considerable silence.

“Yeah. Sex club, swap club, health club; I don't know what the hell you call it. So the Rileys and Whists turned in their … well, whatever. Membership cards? Name's not Whist, by the way—it's Walles. That ring any bells? And who else is in the group besides those who were here last night? Other than the Kents and Nelsons mentioned last night, I mean.”