Too Many Crooks (3 page)

"That sonofabitch," Dane said. He repeated it about eight times, as if no other words had yet been invented.

Feet slapped on the walk as somebody ran toward us from the front of the house. "Here come his pals," I said. "Cool off, Em."

I leaned back against the side of the house, the gun pointed at the spot where the man or men would appear. A man came rushing around the side of the house and skidded to a stop as he spotted Smith's unconscious form. He was a tall skinny guy with a bald spot in the middle of his head and a gun in the middle of his right hand. Another guy, shorter, came running up right behind him, also lugging a gun. They both must have heard the report of my .38 and maybe figured the war was on. Well, it was.

I pointed the Colt at the tall guy and said, "Hey!"

He spun around with his right hand coming up, and then he saw the gun in my fist aimed at his nose, and he stared at the gun as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. I didn't have to say anything else. His fingers opened, and a big .45 automatic clanked on the walk. The other guy was standing with his left side toward me, his head twisted around. He looked at my gun and blinked, still gripping his own automatic solidly, as if he were debating his next move.

I said pleasantly, "I think I'll shoot you," and he stopped debating. His gun joined Skinny's.

"Hey," Skinny said. "He's kilt Renner."

"I don't think so," I said. "Haven't killed any of you, yet. Now, you two boys pick him up and all of you come up here in the corner of the porch, nice and quiet."

They grabbed Smith, or Renner, and grunted as they carried him up. Dane went around gathering guns, then came back and said, "I'm going to phone Betty. She'll want to know about this."

"Call the cops while you're at it."

He went inside. Looking at Skinny, I said, "You be spokesman, since Renner isn't talking. Who are you guys working for, and what the hell's your angle?"

Skinny shook his head. "We just drove Renner out here. I don't know what he wanted. You shot him."

"Uh-huh. I asked him a question and he went dumb on me." I pointed the .38 at his nose again, and it still fascinated him, but he didn't say any more. Neither did the smaller guy, and all my other questions got blank stares. Dane came back onto the porch just as Renner moaned and stirred slightly. In another few minutes, I heard tires screech out front, and farther away the sound of a siren. A brown Ford coupé pulled up behind my Cad and somebody got out. High heels clicked rapidly on the walk and a girl came trotting around the corner and up onto the porch.

Now, some gals can trot up four steps onto a porch and vibrate nowhere; this gal was not one of those. She was about five-three or -four and dressed in a gray suit so severely cut that it made any accurate appraisal of her figure impossible but even so, it was apparent that she vibrated in the proper wave length. And no matter what was under the suit, the face was definitely worth looking at. It was an odd face, arresting, darkly tanned and smooth, softly framed by dark hair with a healthy sheen and highlights burned into it by the sun. Behind black-rimmed glasses, slightly harlequin, her eyes were an extremely light brown, almost beige. High cheekbones, one eyebrow arched higher than the other, and slightly protruding lips gave her features a piquant, kind of roguish appearance.

She said, "What's going on?"

Dane said, "That big son— fellow knocked me down and Shell plugged him neater than a whistle. You should have seen him, Betty. Knocked the guy right over the rail there."

Betty glanced at me, lips pressed together. She didn't say anything, but she wasn't smiling. Somehow I'd expected her to give me a wide grin. I was grinning at her widely enough.

Dane briefed her on what had happened and she made rapid notes on a small pad. The siren drew closer, then stopped moaning in front of the house. In a moment, two police officers joined the party. Both were uniformed, one a heavy sergeant in his early or middle thirties, the other a slim, lean-faced patrolman about twenty-five.

They both came up onto the porch and the sergeant said, "What the hell's going on? Dane, you phone in?"

He was a large-framed man, but it looked like mostly fat instead of muscle on his body. His face was flabby and there were dark circles under his eyes. He sounded as if he were used to asking questions from behind a bright light. The other officer, though younger and slimmer, looked as if he'd spent a bad night too. He leaned indolently against the porch railing, staring blankly, his police revolver held loosely in his hand. If I could have chosen any two cops, I'd have chosen two others.

Dane nodded, and I told the sergeant what had happened. They introduced themselves as Detective Sergeant Carver and Patrolman Blake. The younger guy, Blake, put handcuffs on the two uninjured men while Carver examined Renner's shoulder. I finished telling Sergeant Carver the whole story, including what seemed to be behind the deal, and he stood up.

"You say this guy was about to slug Dane?"

"That's right. All I know about it is what I told you. Can't be much doubt that it was the start of a little muscle, though, to make Dane buckle under on the sale."

He shrugged. "Just tell me what happened, will you, chum? I'll figure it out." Then he leaned over Renner, who was sitting up now with his left hand pressed to his right shoulder, blood staining his fingers. "All right," Carver said. "What was the idea, chum?"

Renner glared into the cop's face, then at me, looking as if he were going to spit, but he said nothing. Carver repeated his question, and when he got no answer, he slapped Renner hard across the face, back and forth. He did it suddenly, brutally, casually. He said, "I asked you a question, chum."

Renner only glared some more, and Carver said, "We'll find out at headquarters," then jerked him around, twisted his arms behind him, and put handcuffs on his wrists. Blood seeped from the shoulder wound.

I opened my mouth to say something, but Betty spoke from beside me. "Want this in my story, Carver? Sergeant Carver, in a typical display—"

He stood up and faced her. "Just what the hell are you doing here, anyway?" He looked at Dane. "You call her before you called us?"

"I called her right afterward," Dane said. "Any law against it?"

Carver shrugged. He and the other officer gathered up all the loose guns and herded the three men out to the police car, then Carver came back and walked up to me. He flipped open a small black notebook and poised a stubby pencil over it. "You're a detective, huh?"

"That's right." I showed him my credentials.

He said, "What you doing here?"

I frowned. "What's that got to do with this?"

He grinned slightly. "I wouldn't know till I asked, would I? Don't get hard with me, chum."

Dane said, "I asked him down, Carver, as my guest. He was here when those guys showed up. Good thing he was."

Carver said to me, "OK, so the guy was about to club Dane. You had to shoot him? No other way you could stop him?"

This character was beginning to get under my skin. I matched his unpleasant tone. "No other way. There wasn't time."

"Let's see your gun."

I'd stuck the .38 back in its holster, but I took it out and handed it to him. He broke it open, looked at it, then gave it back to me. "You want to be careful with that, chum. Don't get too handy with it. Here in Seacliff we don't like people going around shooting people."

"That so? I could have let the ape bust Dane's skull open, instead."

"You know what I mean, chum."

"I'm not sure I do. And the name's Scott."

He grinned, then looked at Dane. "You gonna sign a complaint?"

"I will," I said. "Incidentally, it wouldn't surprise me if at least one of those guys has done heavy time. Maybe all of them are ex-cons. And they were all carrying guns, so—"

"So that's a felony. You wouldn't be telling me my job, would you?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Sergeant!" I stopped. A few more minutes of this and I'd be ready to belt him, cop or no cop. I said, "You want that complaint signed now?"

"Any time. Any time today. Just be sure one of you comes down."

He seemed to have all the information he wanted, and he walked off the porch and around the corner, saying over his shoulder. "Take it easy with that Special. Like I said, we don't like tough men in Seacliff."

I turned and blinked at Dane and the girl, who was leaning against the door now. "What's eating him?"

Dane said, "He's like that all the time. You know, the world's against him. Other one, too, except he's quieter. Around here they're called the Brothers. Not related, though, just together all the time."

Betty said, "Mr. Scott, now that the police are gone, tell me. Was it absolutely necessary that you shoot that man?" She stared at me from behind the harlequin glasses, a kind of congealed expression on her otherwise lovely face.

I said, "Well, for— How many times do I have to—"

Dane interrupted. "Relax, both of you. If Shell hadn't moved fast, Betty, I might have got my head busted open."

She smiled at him, and she was really very attractive when her face lost some of its efficient, lady-executive look. She said to me, "I'm sorry, Mr. Scott. It's just that I see nothing admirable in gunplay."

"A misnomer, honey. We weren't playing. But neither do I see anything admirable in it." I grinned at her. "So let's be friends, huh?"

The smile faded slowly, but she kept looking at me. "Yes, of course. I . . ." she stopped.

There was a kind of strained aura about her, as if she were nervous or embarrassed. But then, I thought it isn't every day a young gal sees guys bleeding on porches and guns cluttering up the view.

She said, "I'd better get back to the office." She darted a quick look at Dane, then walked rapidly down the steps and out of sight. I heard the car drive away.

"I meant to tell you more about Betty, Shell." Dane was frowning. "Didn't have time. She was engaged to a soldier who was killed in Korea. That was a year and a half ago, but she took it hard. Hasn't had much, if anything, to do with men since then. And she's got what amounts to a phobia against guns, any kind of violence. Not healthy, but you can't talk her out of it. Not with words, anyway. She'll just have to get over it herself. Hell of a note, though."

He was quiet for a moment, then said, "Well, what do you think of my wild guesses now?"

"Not quite so wild."

He glanced at his watch. "I want you to meet Baron and Miss Manning. We're late."

I'd heard of Lilith Manning, or at least of
the
Mannings. The name was a kind of local Rockefeller or Morgan, the ultimate in Seacliff society. The elder Mannings, now dead, had been immensely wealthy, and had left much of their property to the city: the Manning Memorial Hospital, the public beach Dane had mentioned, an auditorium, even a museum building.

Besides the property bequeathed to Seacliff, a lot of other land and buildings had been left in the control of the Lilith Manning Foundation, a Delaware corporation that the elder Mannings had set up before their deaths. It was a charitable organization, and Dane, I knew was one of its directors.

"Lilith's funny, Shell," Dane said as we drove along. "Educated in private schools back east, never liked Seacliff for some reason. She's spent most of her time around New York or abroad. But, as I told you, she's here now. I met her for the first time a few days ago, when Baron and I had lunch at her place to talk this mess over. Took something like this to get her back here, I guess."

"You said they've both been approached about selling, just as you were. What's to keep them from doing it? You say this Manning gal doesn't like Seacliff."

He said, "In the first place, they've been offered only about half what their property's worth. But I've been worried about that angle myself, Shell. I'm not so much afraid of Baron's selling out. This is his home here, and he's an important man locally, active in civic organizations, member of the bar association, also on the board of directors of the Manning Foundation with me. Besides, he's a fine man with a lot of backbone, and he's just as anxious to keep mobsters out as I am. Miss Manning, at least so far, says she wouldn't think of selling out to this Seaco group. I don't know what she'd do, though, if they upped their price. Easier to put pressure on a woman, too." He was quiet for a moment, then he said slowly, "You know, if they should both sell to Seaco, I'd be almost the only one left with any sizable amount of property. Those crooks would have practically all of it. How does that sound, Shell? A city owned by mobsters?"

"I guess it's the next logical step for the hoods, Em."

He said soberly, "If it could happen in Seacliff, it could happen anyplace else. Anyplace."

The Manning home—or rather estate—was three or four miles out of town and about half a mile from the sea. The huge house sat by itself on the side of a hill, just off Vincent Street, a white monstrosity like a scar against the green, tree-covered hillside. We drove into the curving driveway fronting the house. There was a lot of green lawn in front, shaggy, not tended recently, and the house could have used a coat of paint.

I said, "Place looks a bit decayed, Em."

"Nobody lives here, really. Lilith's only been back a few days. Caretaker comes around every week or so, but it looks like he's a little behind. Oh, there's Baron."

I had parked in an extension of the drive alongside the house and cut the motor. Now I saw a tall man walking toward us from the rear of the house. He waved, then came up alongside the car and said to Dane, "Hello, Emmett. We'd almost given you up."

I got out of the car and walked around it as Dane said, "We had a little delay. Tell you about it in a minute. Clyde, this is Shell Scott."

Baron turned, extending his hand as I came up. "How do you do, Mr. Scott? Glad to have you join us."

He was about forty-five, with neatly combed hair starting to gray, a good-looking man with regular, somewhat fleshy features and blue eyes. He was broad-shouldered, but a little thick through the middle.

Dane asked, "Lilith in the house?"