Amos Walker: The Complete Story Collection (17 page)

A little chill chased the whisky-warmth up my spine, like a drop of cold water running uphill. “How come?”

“No reason. Except the Denver Police fished a floater out of the South Platte this morning, with two holes in the back of its skull. We got the Telex two hours ago. The stiff fits Bliss’s description down to the scar on his chin.”

I struck a match, cracking the long silence, and touched the flame to a Winston. Gritch watched me. He said:

“Dunked stiffs surface after three days. That puts him in the river just about the time Dickerson and Cole and their boy Phil noticed him missing.”

“Meaning?” I flipped the dead match into the ashtray on the desk and cocked a hip up on one corner, blowing smoke out my nostrils.

“Meaning maybe yesterday’s try on Dickerson, if that’s what it was, wasn’t a backyard job after all. Meaning maybe the same guy that dusted Bliss dusted Eccles. Meaning that seeing as how the two hits were a thousand miles apart and seeing as how the guy that did it didn’t leave tracks either time, he’s pro after all.”

“Slugs match up?”

He shook his fair head without taking his eyes off my face. “Nothing on that yet. But they won’t. Major leaguers never use the same piece twice. What I want to know—”

“You said they didn’t take their pieces away with them either.”

“What I want to know,” he went on, “is how it happens I come here looking to talk to you and your client about Eccles’ being a mechanic’s job and find a list of mechanics all typed up nice and neat before I’m here five minutes.”

“Just touching all bases,” I said. “Like you. You didn’t send a flyer to Denver looking for some local nut that doesn’t like loud music. “

“That’s it, huh.”

I said it was. He sipped more scotch, made a face, rubbed a spot at the arch of his ribcage, and set the glass down. I never knew a cop that didn’t have something wrong with his back or his stomach. He said, “Well, I got to talk to Carol Greene.”

“I’ll set up a meet. What makes it Bliss and Eccles were connected?”

“Nothing. But if it’s Dickerson this guy was after, he’s a worse shot than I ever heard of.”

“Why make the bodyguards targets?”

“That’s what I want to ask the Greene woman.” He got up, rubbing the spot. The hound’s-tooth overcoat he had on was missing a few teeth. “Set it up. Today. I get off at eight.”

“How’d Dickerson do last night?”

He opened the door to the outer office. “Capacity crowd. But he don’t have the stuff he had when the wife was a fan. When no one shot at him they left disappointed.”

He went out. I listened to the hallway door hiss shut behind him against the pressure of the pneumatic device. Thinking.

I finished the cigarette and pulled the telephone over and dialed Carol’s number. She answered on the third ring.

“Lieutenant Gritch wants to talk to you,” I told her, after the preliminaries. “You’re better off seeing him at Headquarters. That way you can leave when you want to.”

“I already talked to him once. What is it this time?” Her tone was slurred. I’d forgotten she was an alcoholic. I told her about Bliss. After a pause she said, “Ned never mentioned him. I’d know if they ever did business.”

“Tell Gritch that.”

“You got anything yet?”

“A shadow of a daydream of an idea. I’ll let you know. Take a cab to Dearborn.”

Next I got the Denver P.I. on the telephone. He said he was still working on the description I’d given him of Henry Bliss. I told him that was all wrapped up and I’d send him a check. Then I called Barry Stackpole.

“That list all right?” he asked.

“A little out of date, according to the cops. I may not need it. Who’s on the entertainment desk today?”

“Jed Dutt. I still get my Teacher’s, right?”

“If you switch me over to Dutt I’ll even throw in a bottle of tonic water.”

“Don’t be blasphemous.” He put me on hold.

“Dutt,” announced a rusty old wheeze thirty seconds later.

“My name’s Walker,” I said. “I’m investigating the attempt on Billy Dickerson’s life yesterday. I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Very funny,” I said.

“Sorry. “

I asked him the question. His answer was the first time I got more than one word out of him. I thanked him and broke the connection. The telephone rang while my hand was still on the receiver. It was the man from the union.

“I’m still working on it,” I told him. “No money changed hands today.”

He said, “Keep an eye on him. He isn’t swallowing it or burying it in the basement. I made some inquiries and found out the house across the street is for rent. Maybe you ought to move in.”

“Round-the-clock surveillance costs money.”

“Name a figure.”

I named one. He said, “Can you move in tomorrow?”

I said that was short notice. He said, “Your retainer buys us that right. Shall I make the rental arrangements?”

“I’ll let you know,” I said.

I smoked a cigarette, looking at the blonde in the bikini on the calendar on the wall opposite the desk. Then I ground out the stub and made one more call. It took a while. When it was finished I got up and unpegged my hat and coat. Before going out I got the Smith & Wesson out of my top drawer of the desk and checked it for cartridges and snapped the holster onto the back of my belt under my jacket. I hate forcing a case.

No cops stopped me on my way into the Royal Tower this time, no one was waiting to frisk me when I stepped off the elevator on the third floor. I felt neglected. I rapped on 306.

“What do you want?”

I grinned at Phil. There was no reflection at all in his flat dark eyes. The automatic pistol was a growth in his fist.

“This is for the grown-ups,” I said. “Any around?”

“You got a lot of smart mouth.”

“That makes one of us.”

“Phil, who is it?”

The voice was Martin Cole’s. It sounded rushed and breathless.146

“That snooper,” answered Phil, his eyes still on me.

“Tell him to come back later.”

“You heard.” The man with the gun smiled without opening his lips, like a cat.

A sudden scuffling noise erupted from inside the room. Someone grunted. A lamp was turned over with a thud, slinging lariats of shadow up one wall. Phil turned his head and I chopped downward with the edge of my left hand, striking his wrist at the break. He cursed and the gun dropped from his grip. When he stooped to catch it I brought my right fist scooping up, catching him on the point of the chin and closing his mouth with a loud clop. I stepped back to give him room to fall. He used it.

I got the automatic out from under his unconscious body and stepped over him holding it in my sore right hand. I’d barked the knuckles on his obelisk jaw. It was a wasted entrance. Nobody was paying me any attention.

Billy Dickerson, naked but for a pair of blue jockey shorts with his pale belly hanging over top, was on his knees on the floor astraddle a scarcely more dapper-looking Martin Cole. The manager’s tailored jacket was torn and his neatly styled hair hung cockeyed over his left ear. It was the first I knew he wore a wig. Dickerson was holding a shiny steel straight razor a foot from Cole’s throat and Cole had both hands on the singer’s wrist trying to keep it there. Dicker-son’s eyes bulged and his lips were skinned back from long white teeth in a depraved rictus. His breath whistled. Through his own teeth Cole said, “Phil, give me a hand.”

Phil wasn’t listening. I took two steps forward and swept the butt of the automatic across the base of Dickerson’s skull. The singer whimpered and sagged. Falling, the edge of the razor nicked Cole’s cheek. It bled.

A floor lamp had been toppled against a chair. I straightened it and adjusted the shade.

“Most people watch television at this time of evening,” I said.

The manager paused in the midst of pushing himself free to look at me. Automatically a hand went up and righted his wig. Then he finished rolling the singer’s body off his and got up on his knees, listening with head cocked. A drop of blood landed on Dickerson’s naked chest with a plop. The manager sat back on his heels,. “He’s breathing. You hit him damn hard.”

“Pistol-whipping isn’t an exact science. What happened?”

“D.T.’s. Bad trip. Maybe a combination of the two. He usually doesn’t get this violent. When he does, Phil’s usually there to get a grip on him and tie him up till it’s over.” He glanced toward the man lying in the open doorway. “Jeez, what’d you do, kill him?”

“It’d take more than an uppercut to do that. How long’s he been like this?”

“Who, Billy? Couple of years. The last few months, though, he’s been getting worse. The drugs pump him up for his performances, the booze brings him back down afterwards. But lately it’s been affecting his music.”

“Not just lately,” I said. “It’s been doing that for the past year anyway. That’s how long attendance at his concerts has been falling off, according to the entertainment writer I spoke to at the
News. “

He had picked up his tinted eyeglasses from the floor and was polishing them with a clean corner of the silk handkerchief he had been using to staunch the trickle of blood from his cut cheek. He stopped polishing and put them on. “Your friend’s mistaken. We’re sold out.”

“They came to see if history would repeat itself and someone would make a new try on Dickerson. Just as you hoped they would.”

“Explain.”

“First get your hands away from your body.”

He smiled. The expression reminded me of Phil’s cat’s-grin. “If I were armed, do you think I’d have wrestled Billy for that razor barehanded?”

“You would have. He’s too valuable to kill. Get ‘em up.”

He raised his hands to shoulder level. I unholstered my .38 and put the nine-millimeter in my topcoat pocket. Go with the weapon you know.

“There was no hit man,” I said, “no attempt on your boy’s life. The man you intended to get killed got killed. It was going to be Henry Bliss, but in Denver something went wrong and you had to dump him without trumpets. What did he do, find out what you had planned for him and threaten to go to the law?”

He was still smiling. “You’re out of it, Walker. If there was no hit man, who killed Ned Eccles?”

“I’m coming to that. You’ve got a lot of money tied up in Dick-erson, but he’s depreciating property. I’m guessing, but I’d say a man with your expensive tastes has a lot of debts, maybe to some people it’s not advisable to have a lot of debts with. So you figured to squeeze one more good season out of your client and get out from under. Attempted assassination is box office. A body gives it that authentic touch. After disposing of Bliss you shopped around. I looked pretty good. Security isn’t my specialty, my reflexes might not be embarrassingly fast. Also I’m single, with no attachments, no one to demand too thorough an investigation into my death. But I turned you down. Ned Eccles wasn’t as good. He was married. But his marriage was sour—you’d have found that out through questioning, as keeping secrets was not one of Ned’s specialties—and being an experienced shield he’d have been looking for trouble from outside, not from his employers.

“I called Art Cradshaw a little while ago. That was a mistake, Cole, saying he recommended me. He wasted some of my time being evasive, but when he found out I wasn’t dunning him for what he owes me he was willing to talk. He remembered especially how pleased you were to learn I have no family.”

Dickerson stirred and groaned. His manager ignored him. Cole wasn’t smiling now. I went on.

“What’d you do, promise to cut Phil in on the increased revenue, or just pay him a flat fee to ventilate the bodyguard?”

“Now I know you’re out of it. If Phil shot him, where’s the gun? His is a nine-millimeter. Eccles was shot with a thirty-eight.”

“You were right in front of the service elevator. One of you stepped inside and ditched it. Probably Phil, who was more reliable than Dickerson and tall enough to push open one of the panels on top of the car and stash it there. The cops had no reason to look there, because they were after a phantom hit man who made his escape through the back door.”

“You’re just talking, Walker. None of it’s any good.”

“The gun is,” I said. “I think you have it hidden somewhere in this suite. The cops will find it. They’ve been sticking too close to you since the shooting for you to have had a chance to get rid of it. Until now, that is. Where are they?”

“I pulled them off.”

The voice was new. I jumped and swung around, bringing the gun with me. I was pointing it at Lieutenant Gritch. He was holding his own service revolver at hip level. Phil lay quietly as ever on the floor between us.

“Put it away,” Gritch said patiently. “I don’t want to add threatening a police officer to the charge of interfering in an official investigation. Too much paperwork.”

I leathered the Smith & Wesson. “You pulled them off why?”

“To give Cole and Scabarda here breathing space. I didn’t have enough to get a warrant to search the suite. I had a plainclothes detail in the lobby and near the back entrance ready to follow them until they tried to ditch the piece. Imagine my surprise when one of my men called in to say he saw you going up to the third floor.”

“You knew?”

He said, “I’m a detective. You private guys forget that sometimes. I had to think who stood the most to gain from two dead bodyguards. What tipped you?”

“Cole’s story of what happened downstairs. Ned Eccles wouldn’t have stopped a bullet meant for his mother. But it didn’t mean anything until you said what you did in my office about Dickerson’s fans paying to see him get killed.”

“Yeah, that’s when it hit me too.”

“Couple of Sherlocks,” I said.

And then the muzzle of Gritch’s revolver flamed and the report shook the room and if there had been a mirror handy I’d have seen my hair turn white in that instant. The wind of his bullet plucked at my coat. Someone grunted and I turned again and looked at Cole kneeling on the floor, gripping his bloody right wrist in his left and. A small automatic gleamed on the carpet between him and Billy Dickerson, the King of Country Rock.

“Circus shooting,” Gritch said, disgusted. “If my captain asks, I was aiming for the chest. I got suspended once for getting fancy. Oh, your client’s waiting out in the parking lot, shamus. I was questioning her when the call came in. Couldn’t talk her out of going. Three sheets to the wind she’s still one tough broad. You’d better see her before she comes up here.”