The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (66 page)

The watchman jumped as if he’d been shot. He turned, his face white, and Ragan flashed his badge. “Gosh, Officer, you scared the daylights out of me! What’s going on?”

“Prowler reported on the fire escape of this building. I’m looking for him.”

Sergeant Casey came hurrying to the door. When he saw Ragan he slowed down. Casey was one of Ragan’s buddies, for this was a burglary detail. “Hi, Ragan! I didn’t know you were here!”

“Did you get him?”

“We didn’t, but Brooks almost did.”

“Al Brooks?” Ragan’s scalp tightened. What had Brooks been doing here? Tailing him? Ragan hadn’t thought they might put a tail on him, but Brooks was just the man to do it.

“He was on the street and saw somebody on the fire escape. He started up after him just as we drove up. Fellow got away, I guess.”

“Ain’t been nobody here,” the watchman said. “Only Mr. Bradford, and he left earlier.”

“What time was he here?” Ragan asked.

“Maybe eight o’clock. No later than that.”

Eight? It was now almost one
A.M
., and Keene had not been dead long when Ragan found him. Certainly no more than an hour, at a rough guess. His body hadn’t even been cold.

Al Brooks came around the corner with two patrol-car officers. He stopped abruptly when he saw Ragan. He was suddenly very careful. Ragan could see the change. “How are you, Joe? I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“I get around.” Ragan shook out a cigarette.

Casey interrupted. “We’d better go through the building, Joe, now that we’re here. The man might be hiding upstairs.”

“Good idea,” Ragan said. “Let’s go!”

Everything was tight and shipshape all the way to Keene’s office. Ragan was letting Casey and a couple of his boys precede him. It was his idea to let them find the body. It was Casey who did.

“Hey!” he called. “Dead man here!”

Ragan and Brooks came on the run. “Looks like suicide,” Brooks commented. “I doubt if this had anything to do with the prowler.”

“Doesn’t look like he even got in here,” Casey said.

“But the window’s op—” Brooks stared. The window was closed. “You know,” he said, “when I started up the fire escape, I’d have sworn this window was open.”

He returned to the body at the desk. “Looks like suicide,” he repeated. “The gun’s right where he dropped it.”

“Except that it wasn’t suicide,” Ragan said quietly. “And, Al, you’d better leave this one for homicide.” He smiled. “The autopsy will tell us for sure, but this man seems to have been stabbed before he was shot.”

“Where do you get that idea?” Brooks demanded.

“Look.” Ragan indicated a narrow slit in the shirt, just above the wound. “My guess is he was killed by the stab wound, then shot to make the bullet follow the stab wound. I’ll bet the gun belongs to Keene.”

Brooks looked around. “How did you know his name?”

“It’s on the door. Jacob Keene, attorney-at-law. We don’t actually know this is Keene, of course, but I’m betting it is.”

Brooks shut up, but the man was disturbed and he was angry. Al Brooks had a short fuse, and it was burning.

Ragan was doing some wondering. What about that prowler? What had become of him? He was carrying on a swift preliminary examination of the office, without disturbing anything, when Mark Stigler arrived. He glanced from Ragan to Brooks. “Lots of talent around,” he said. “What is it, murder or suicide?”

The slit in the material of the shirt was barely visible, but Ragan indicated it. “A clumsy attempt to cover up a murder,” Ragan commented.

“Could be,” Stigler agreed. “Seems kind of farfetched, though. Who was this guy?”

“From his files, he was a sort of shyster, handling a good many minor cases in the past, but he changed here lately, or seemed to. He’s semiretired, handling only a few legal affairs for various people.”

Stigler’s crew went to work while Stigler chewed on a toothpick, listened to the talk, and studied the situation. Al Brooks shoved his hat back on his head and took over.

He had been down on the street when he looked up and saw a prowler outside a window on the third floor. Just as he started up, he heard sirens and the patrol cars appeared. “And just about that time I ran into Joe Ragan. He was already here.”

Stigler glanced at Ragan. “How are you coming on the Burns job?”

“Good enough. I’ll have it in the bag by the end of the week.”

Stigler eyed him thoughtfully. “We’ve got a strong case against his wife. Brooks thinks she did it. She or somebody close to her.”

That meant Ragan, of course.

“Brooks doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Mary loved her husband, loved him in a way Brooks couldn’t even understand.”

Brooks’s laugh was unpleasant. “For your sake, I hope you are right, but Mary Burns is in this up to her neck, and there
might
just be somebody else involved!”

Ragan walked over to him. “Listen, Al, you do your job and we’ll do ours, but just be sure that if you try to pin anything on any friends of mine, you can prove your case. If you’ve got the goods, all right, but you start a frame and I’ll bust you wide open!”

“Cut it out, Ragan!” Stigler said sharply. “Any more talk like that and you’ll draw a suspension. I won’t have fighting on any job of mine.”

“Anyhow,” Brooks said quietly, “I don’t think you could do it.”

Ragan just looked at him. Someday he would have to take Brooks, and he would take him good. Until then he could wait.

Ragan repeated what little he had to Stigler, saying nothing about his previous entry. However, he lingered after Brooks had gone to add a few words.

“I talked to Keene,” he said, “and he was a cagey old bird. He gave me the impression that something was going on here that wasn’t strictly kosher. He was suspicious of some of the activities on this floor.”

“Suspicious? How? Of what?”

“That I don’t know, except that the office next to him seems to have been used rarely, and then at night. Although people did come to the door and drop envelopes through the slot.”

“So? There’s a law says somebody has to use an office because he pays rent?”

Ragan turned away, but Stigler stopped him. “Stay away from Al Brooks, do you hear?” Then, in a rare bit of confidence, he added, “I don’t like him any better than you do, but he’s been making points with the Commissioners.”

Ragan walked back to his car, approaching with care. From now on he must walk cautiously indeed. He was learning things, and he had a feeling it was realized. What he wanted now was to be away where he could think, if he could only—An idea came to him that was insane, and yet…

Where had Al Brooks come from? What was he doing in this area, at this hour? His explanation was clear and logical enough, yet a prowler had been on the fire escape, and when the spotlight came on, it had picked up Al Brooks.

Ragan considered that and a few other things about Al Brooks. He dressed better than any man on the force, drove a good car, and lived well. Ragan shook his head. He must be careful and not be influenced by his dislike for Brooks or by Brooks’s obvious dislike for him. And the man did have a good record with the department.

It was Al Brooks, however, who had first suggested that Mary Burns might have killed her husband. It was also Al Brooks who had reported seeing Mary coming out of a divorce lawyer’s office.

Now that he was thinking about it, a lot of ideas came to mind. Stopping his car at the curb in front of his apartment, Ragan got out and started for the door. There was a strange car parked at the curb a few doors away, and for some reason it disturbed him. He walked over to it. There was no one inside, and it was not locked. He looked at the registration on the steering column.
Valentine Lewis, 2234 Herald Place.

The name meant nothing to him. He turned away and walked to his private entrance and fitted the key into the lock. As he opened the door he was wondering what the blackmailer could have that would influence both Hazel Upton and Louella Chasen to start the divorce rumor, and if Brooks—

He stepped through the door, and the roof fell on him.

Wildly, grabbing out with both hands, Ragan fell to his knees. He had been slugged and he could not comprehend what was happening, then there was a smashing blow on his skull and he seemed to be slipping down a long slide into darkness.

When he fought his way out of it, he was lying on the floor and his head felt like a balloon. Gray light was filtering into the room. It must be daylight.

He lay still, trying to focus his thoughts. Then he got to his hands and knees, and then to his feet. He staggered to the sofa and sat down hard.

His skull was pounding as if an insane snare drummer were at work inside. His mouth felt sticky and full of cotton. He lifted his head and almost blacked out. Slowly he stared around the room. Nothing had been taken that he could see. He felt for his handkerchief and realized his pockets had been turned inside out.

Staggering to the door, he peered into the street. The strange car was gone.

“Val Lewis,” he muttered grimly, “if you aren’t guilty, you’d better have a mighty good story, and if you slugged me, God help you!”

Somehow he got out of his clothes and into a shower, and then tumbled into bed. His head was cut in two places from the blows, but what he wanted most was sleep.

It was well past noon when he was awakened by the telephone.

It was Angie. “Joe!” She sounded frightened and anxious. “What’s happened? Where are you?”

“I must be home. When the phone rang, I answered it. Where are you?”

“Where am I?” Her tone was angry. “Where would I be? Don’t you remember our luncheon date?”

“Frankly, I didn’t. I got slugged on the head last night, and—”

“At least,” she interrupted, “that’s an original excuse!”

“And true. I was visiting an office in the Upshaw Building, and then—”

Her gasp was audible. “Joe? Did you say the Upshaw Building?”

“That’s right.” Suddenly he remembered her visit there while he and Keene had watched. “Some people up there play rough, honey. A lawyer was murdered up there last night. He knew too much and was too curious about somebody named Bradford.”

She was silent. “The slugging,” he added, “happened after I got home. I think somebody wanted to find out if I’d carried anything away from that building.”

That idea had come to him while he was talking, but it made sense. What other reason was there? Thinking it over, it struck him as remarkable that he had not been killed out of hand. They had probably killed Ollie Burns for little more, or even for less.

She still did not speak, so he asked, “How’s Mary? Is she all right?”

“Joe!” She was astonished. “You didn’t know? She was arrested this morning. I believe it was Al Brooks.”

Brooks? Ragan’s grip tightened on the phone until his fist turned white. “All right, that does it. I’m going to blow everything loose now.”

“What are you going to do?” Her voice sounded anxious.

“Do? Their whole case is built on a bunch of lies and perjury. I know that Hazel Upton and Louella Chasen were forced into this by a blackmailer.”

“Joe, did you say a…blackmailer?”

“Yes, Angie, a blackmailer. The same people who hounded Alice Towne to death murdered Ollie Burns and Jacob Keene.”

“You mean you
know
all that? Can you prove it?”

“Maybe not right now, but I will, honey, I will!”

It was not until after he hung up that he realized he was still groggy from the blows on the head, and that he had talked too much. He was still suffering from the concussion, but he was mad, also. He had been a damned fool to say so much. After all, she had been blackmailed, too.

He dressed halfway and then went into the bathroom to shave.

His razor smoothed the beard from his face while he turned the case over in his mind. He decided to start with Val Lewis, then work his way to Hazel Upton and Louella Chasen. Also, he was going to talk with that luscious job Keene had for a secretary. And with the sharp-eyed lad who kept an eye on Bradford’s door.

For the next two hours Ragan was busy. He visited and questioned several people and spent time checking the files of the
Times.
Also, he visited the address that Valentine Lewis had.

The door was answered by a dyspeptic-looking blonde with the fading shadow of a black eye. She wore a flowered kimono that concealed little.

“I’m looking for Valentine Lewis.” Ragan spoke politely. “Is he in?”

“What do you want to see him for?”

“Veterans Administration,” Ragan said vaguely.

“That’s a lousy joke,” she replied coldly. “Val was in San Quentin during the war. Come again.”

“Police department.” Ragan flashed his badge and started to push by her.

She yelled, strident and angry. “You get out of here, copper! You got no search warrant!”

Ragan took one from his pocket. She didn’t get a chance to see more than the top of it, for it was just a form, partly filled out.

She stepped back and asked no more questions, muttering to herself. Ragan needed only a glance around to see that Lewis had enough guns to start World War III.

It was all he needed. He called headquarters and suggested they come down with a warrant for Val Lewis. Any recent ex-convict with a gun in his possession was on his way back to jail.

Blue Eyes stood there looking mean. “You think you’re smart, don’t you?”

“Whatever I am,” he said, “I am not foolish enough to buck the law.”

“No,” she said, sneering. “You’re just a dope. You cops aren’t smart enough to make any money, you just crab it for others.”

“You’ll have to be plenty smart if you go after Val,” she said venomously. “Tough, too. I’d like to see you try it!”

The police cars were arriving. “Lady,” Ragan said, “that is just what I am going to do. He works in the Upshaw Building, doesn’t he?”

Her surprise showed him he was right. “I am going to send you to headquarters, and then I’m going after your Val. In case you don’t know, he slugged me last night. Now it will be my turn.”

“Oh? So you’re Joe Ragan?” Her face stiffened, realizing she’d made a miscue. “I hope he burns you down!”