Authors: Max Allan Collins
“Yeah.”
“What’s the number?”
“CH7-2037. Why?”
“Is it bugged?”
“I don’t think so. Why would they bother checking up on me?”
“You got a point.” Nolan repeated the number to himself silently. “You’ll be hearing from me now and then, George.”
George looked pleadingly at Nolan. “Look, I don’t know anything. You aren’t gonna get any good out of hurting me. You . . . you aren’t gonna . . . do anything to me . . . are you?”
Nolan hunted for an ash tray, found one, stabbed out his cigarette. “I won’t touch you, George, unless you cross me. But finger me and you’re dead.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t. . . .”
“I should put a bullet in your head right now, when I think of it. You’re a bad risk.”
“Oh, no, you can’t. . . .”
“I can, and I have. I killed six men in the past eight years. Not to mention the ones I left wounded.”
“I never did anything to you, Nolan. . . .”
“Don’t sic anybody on me and we’ll get along fine. But you tell your brother about me, or that Elliot, or anyone else, and you’ll die wishing you hadn’t.”
“Nolan, I wouldn’t. . . .”
“Shut up. You don’t think I’m working alone, do you?”
“What?”
“I got three men watching you,” Nolan lied. “They’ll kill you the moment anybody puts a hand on me. So getting rid of me would only assure you of dying.”
George lay back on the bed and moaned. He looked like a beached whale, only whales didn’t sweat.
Nolan finished his whiskey and headed for the window.
3
THE NATIONAL ANTHEM
woke Nolan and he sat up on the bed and checked his watch. Quarter after twelve. He had returned to the Travel Nest after eating at the steak house across the way and watched television until it put him to sleep. Now he felt wide awake; and his shoulders, his back, felt tense.
He got out of the now-wrinkled tan suit and put on his black swim trunks. He grabbed up a pack of cigarettes and matches, draped a towel over his shoulders and headed down the hall.
The door leading into the pool was closed but not locked. A sign hung on it reading “Life Guard on Duty 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. The management cannot be responsible for after-hour swimmers. Swim only at your own risk. T. C. Barnes, Manager.”
It was a small pool, filling most of a small room. From the door to the pool was an area where people could stretch out beach towels and dump their belongings while swimming. Other than that initial area beyond the entrance, there was a scant three feet around the pool’s edge bordering it. Paintings of sea horses rode the blue walls, and the air hung thick with heat and chlorine.
He dove in the deep end and swam several laps and turned over on his back for a while; then he climbed out and dove off the little diving board at the far end of the pool.
Swimming on his back again, Nolan relaxed and enjoyed the warmth of the pool, the all-encompassing feeling of the water around him. Even in a thimble like this, Nolan got a sensation of freedom when swimming. It gave him room to reach out.
Several minutes later Nolan heard the door open. Another late swimmer, a young lady perhaps? That’d be nice, Nolan thought, floating on his back. Then his fantasy was over before it began when his ears reported heavy, plodding footsteps splashing in the dampness of the room.
“Everybody out of the pool,” a harsh voice grated. Nolan swam to one side, set his hands in the gutters and pushed himself out. He stood and looked at the intruders.
Two men, obviously local color. A Mutt and Jeff combination.
The short one, a pale, bloodless-looking specimen, owned the low voice. He wore a pink shirt with red pin-stripes, with a thin black tie loosened around the collar, and a gold sportcoat. His brown slacks were uncuffed and ended a little high over his white socks and brown shoes.
His companion was a tall and beefy dope who wore a grey business suit a size too small. His eyes were expressionless brown marbles under a sloping forehead; his features were hard and battered, his cheeks acned. His mouth, though, was surprisingly delicate, almost feminine.
The short one said, “Mr. Webb? You are Mr. Webb, I assume?” He had dark plastered-down hair with motorcycle sideburns to contrast his chalky complexion. A hick trying to look hip.
“I’m Webb. What do you want?”
The big ox nudged his partner’s shoulder and smirked. The smaller man, who seemed to think himself intelligent, smiled sneeringly at Nolan.
“Care to let me in on the joke?”
“You
are
the joke, Mr. Webb,” the short one said, then he and ox shared a round of laughter.
Nolan remained calm. This was a situation he could handle, but he was pissed with himself for allowing it to happen. Amateurs, damn it, he’d let amateurs catch up with him. And the maddening thing was he too had acted like an amateur, by coming unarmed for his impromptu late-night swim.
“Allow me to make an introduction,” the side-burned spokesman said. “I’m Dinneck. And my partner here is Tulip.”
“A rose by any other name,” Nolan said.
“Is he making fun of me, Dinneck?”
“Tulip, keep quiet, okay?”
“Okay.”
Dinneck smiled again, the smile of a guy who sells watches on a corner. He said, “Mr. Webb, we don’t want any trouble from you. All we want is answers.”
Nolan said, “Who sent you? George Franco?”
Dinneck nodded to Tulip, who removed his coat. Tulip’s chest was massive and his short-sleeved white shirt was banded by a leather strap which supported a shoulder holster cradling a .45. Tulip folded his muscular arms like a guard protecting a Sultan’s harem. There was an innocent smile planted on his bud of a mouth.
Dinneck said, “From now on, Mr. Webb, I’ll ask the questions.”
“Well ask, then,” Nolan snapped, leaning against the wall, still a good fifteen feet away from them. Voices echoed in here. “I don’t like standing here dripping wet.”
“Yeah,” Dinneck grinned. “You might catch your death.”
Tulip said, “Might catch his death,” and laughed to himself for a moment.
“Why don’t you just walk over here, Mr. Webb . . . slowly . . . and stand next to Tulip and me.”
Nolan shrugged and joined them, picked up his towel and began to dry off.
“Now, Mr. Webb, would you call it common for a journalist from Philadelphia to travel in the company of a thirty-eight caliber revolver?”
“You missed one, Dinneck. I carry two.”
“You also carry ammunition, don’t you? Does a reporter commonly hide a box of ammunition in the false bottom of his shaving kit?”
“You’re a sharp kid, Dinneck. Why does a sharp kid like you dress in the dark?”
Tulip said, “I think he’s a smart-ass.”
Dinneck nodded. “I think you’re right.” Dinneck backhanded Nolan and Nolan instinctively leveled Dinneck with a right cross to the mouth.
Dinneck pushed himself up off the slippery tile floor and touched his bloodied lips. His face turned a glowing red. He motioned to Tulip, who drew the .45.
Nolan said, “That’s a noisy gun, friend.”
Dinneck said, “What the hell’s a little noise between friends? Our car is just down the steps. We can pump a slug into you and be gone so fast your body’ll still be warm by the time we’re snug in bed.”
Nolan’s mouth formed his tight smile. “Together?”
Tulip slapped the .45 against the side of Nolan’s head. Nolan moved fast enough to lessen the blow, but fell back against the wall just the same, his head spinning. He wiped blood from his ear and thought bad thoughts.
Dinneck said, “We heard you were a newspaper reporter, Mr. Webb, is that right?”
“It’s a magazine, and go fuck yourself.”
Tulip started back toward Nolan with the .45 in hand and Nolan sent a fist flying into Tulip’s gentle mouth. Tulip yiped and clubbed Nolan with the .45 again and kicked him in the back as he went down. From the floor Nolan could see Tulip spitting out a tooth. Just then Dinneck kicked Nolan in the kidney and pain won him.
He opened his eyes a few seconds later and saw Dinneck standing above him, contemplating kicking him again. Nolan grabbed Dinneck by the right heel and heaved him, hard enough, he hoped, to land Dinneck on his tail bone, snap it and kill him. But Tulip was there to brace Dinneck’s fall, and train the .45 on Nolan’s head.
Nolan reached for his towel and, sitting in a puddle of pool water and his own blood, cleaned off his face while Dinneck spat questions.
“What were you nosing around the Big Seven for? What did Hal Davis tell you?”
Nolan said, “Ask Davis.”
Dinneck said, “He cut out. Last he was seen was talking to you. We checked his apartment and all his things were gone. His car, too. Didn’t even leave a forwarding address at the
Globe
. Why did you visit George Franco?”
“You want the truth?”
“Yeah, try the truth for a change.”
“I’m doing a story on the Chelsey hippie scene. For my magazine. I heard rumors that Franco was a racket boss peddling LSD to the college crowd.”
Dinneck and Tulip glanced at each other as if they almost believed Nolan’s story.
Dinneck said, “I can just about buy you as a reporter, Webb . . . just about, but not quite. I picture you more as a man running. That’s the way you travel, anyway. Or hunting, maybe. Which are you, Webb? Hunter or hunted?”
“Maybe I’m neither,” Nolan said. Or maybe both.
“Two .38’s. Half a dozen boxes of cartridges. Unmarked clothing, not a laundry mark or a label or anything. Rented car. No address beyond Earl Webb, Philadelphia, on the motel register. Not any one thing to identify you as a living human being.”
“So what?”
“So . . . so I begin to think you’re a dangerous man, Mr. Webb. And I don’t think your presence in Chelsey benefits my employers.”
Nolan said, “What do I get? Sunrise to get out of town?”
“You’re a man with a sense of humor, Mr. Webb. Maybe you’ll like this, just for laughs . . .”
Nolan rose up, his muscles tensed, his back arched like a cat’s.
“Tulip, toss me the .45 and we’ll give Mr. Webb here a swimming lesson.”
As the ox was handing the gun to Dinneck, Nolan snapped his towel in Dinneck’s face like a whip. It made a loud crack as it bit flesh. Dinneck clutched his face and screamed, “My eyes! My God, my eyes!”
The .45 skittered across the tile floor. Nolan leaped for it, grabbed it. He whirled and saw Tulip coming like a truck. He waited till the ox was a foot away, then smacked the barrel of the .45 across Tulip’s left temple. Tulip cried out softly and pitched backward, stumbling into the pool; he hit the water hard but got lucky and didn’t crack his head on the cement. Water geysered upon the big man’s impact. He wound up in the shallow section, the top half of him hanging over the side of the pool, semi-conscious, his petal-like mouth sucking for air.