The Paul Cain Omnibus (24 page)

Brennan bobbed his head up and down. He was stirring sugar into his coffee.

Johnson turned at the door. “I forgot to tell you,” he said, “that I had a man at the depot when the Atlanta train came in. Antony was on it—he went to the Curson Hotel on Fifty-fifth.”

Brennan grunted “Uh-huh” over the edge of the coffee cup. Then he called after Johnson, who had opened the door: “Have somebody try to spot the place they took me after I was creased. Maybe it was next door to the Gateway or across the alley. Maybe you can pick up something there.”

Johnson nodded, went out and closed the door.

Brennan finished his coffee, put the cup back on the tray and leaned back against the pillows. He smiled at Renée.

She smiled back, raised the pencil again. “Ready, set, go… .”

At about a quarter of eleven Nick called.

Brennan had finished dictating the story; Renée was sitting at the broad desk typing it for a final okay. She looked up and watched Brennan grin into the telephone, grunt affirmatively.

He hung up finally; turned to her. “Nick says there isn’t anyone at the Glass Slipper who saw Harley there between five and seven. They say if he was there he was in his office and nobody can swear to that.”

She nodded, went on with her typing.

Somebody knocked at the door and Brennan called “Come in.” Renée said: “It’s locked I guess.” She got up and opened the door and Joice Colt came into the room.

She stood inside the door and stared dully at Renée and then moved her eyes slowly to Brennan.

Renée closed the door.

Joice Colt went across the room and stood with her hands on the foot of the bed looking down at Brennan. Her eyes were wide, opaque; her face dead white. She said: “Harley is dead.” Then her eyes went back in her head and she slumped down softly to the floor.

Brennan got up as swiftly as he could and knelt beside her, said: “Bring me the bottle of whiskey in the closet” over his shoulder to Renée. Renée brought the whiskey and Brennan poured some of it between Joice Colt’s pale clenched lips; with Renée’s help he lifted her and put her on the bed. After a minute or so she opened her eyes.

Brennan was leaning over her. He said: “Where? How? …”

There was no flicker of understanding in Joice Colt’s eyes; Brennan whispered “Harley” and very slowly intelligence and life came back into her face. She laughed a little.

Brennan poured a stiff drink and she took the glass, eagerly, drained it.

“They thought I was so full of weed I didn’t know where I was—I didn’t know what was going on” she said. “But I knew, I knew …” She spoke swiftly, huskily; she seemed to want to say everything at once. “I remember when you came in—an’ then the little fella started shooting an’ I saw you fall. Then it was dark and I could hear people crawling in the darkness and I could hear the Negro girl moaning and I thought she had been hit—but she was only scared.”

Renée was standing at the foot of the bed staring at Joice Colt; Brennan was sitting on the side of the bed in his pajamas and his bandaged head and bruised face were thrust towards Colt.

“Then after a while somebody said ‘He’s gone’ and they were talking about the man that came in with you, I think—and they turned on another light. You were bleeding terribly and I thought you were dead, and Sam Kerr was dead, and the Negro girl was still groaning—but she was only scared. Harley got up and he and the little fella looked at you and you were alive and the little fella put his gun down by your head, but Harley said ‘No.’ Then two Negroes came in and Harley told one of them—the big fat man—to pick you up and take you someplace, and he told the girl to go along …”

Brennan asked: “Take me where?”

“I don’t know—over to Cappy’s, or somewhere that sounded like that.” Joice Colt put her hands up and jerked off her small tightfitting hat. “Then Harley made me get up and took me downstairs an’ out the back way. His car was out there. He thought I was so full of the stuff that I didn’t know what it was all about. I was pretty high—but not
that
high.”

She paused, glanced at the bottle; Brennan poured her another drink.

“Harley drove over to the river,” she went on. “I guess his idea was to slug me an’ roll me in—he drove out on a little dark wharf an’ stopped the car.” She tilted the glass to her mouth, drank most of the whiskey. “An’ then a guy who’d been lying down on the floor in the back of the car got up and stuck a rod into the back of Harley’s neck an’ said: ‘Stick your hands up, you—an’ get out of the car.’ The guy got out behind him and walked him over to the edge of the wharf and I could hear them talking there, but I couldn’t make out what they said. Then there were two shots close together an’ the guy came running back to the car. He looked at me and I acted like I’d passed out—I’d been riding that way, slumped down in the seat, since Harley brought me out of the joint—and he figured I was out cold an’ hadn’t recognized him, I guess. He beat it back up the street.”

Brennan was leaning forward; his eyes were bright, interested. “Who?”

“Lou Antony.”

Brennan smiled thinly, stood up. He said: “You’re nuts—Antony didn’t get in town till this morning.”

She repeated: “Lou Antony. He looks like a skeleton—like he was awfully sick—but I’d know that face anywhere.” She finished her drink.

Brennan glanced at Renée, turned back. “Why, damn it, Joice—that doesn’t make sense… .”

Joice Colt said slowly: “Oh, yes, it does.”

Brennan was staring at her with wide bewildered eyes.

“Harley didn’t kill Barbara,” she went on, “Antony did. He beat Harley to it.”

Brennan sat down slowly in the chair beside the bed; he was smilingly slightly, mirthlessly, shaking his head slowly back and forth.

Joice Colt sat up and leaned against the head of the bed. “Harley called me late yesterday afternoon,” she said—“said he wanted to see me, to come over to his office at the Slipper. I went over about five-thirty. We had a few drinks an’ he hemmed and hawed about letting bygones be bygones and giving me a job and things like that. I couldn’t figure what it was all about an’ after a while I got suspicious, an’ while Harley was in the bathroom I scrammed out of the place. When I got back to the hotel an’ found Barbara dead I figured Harley for it right away. He’d called me over to the Slipper so I’d be out of the way, an’ at the same time establish his alibi while one of his hoods came up an’ did for Barbara. I told you I called him right away—I did, but at the Slipper, not at the hotel. He’d left the Slipper. I went downstairs, figuring I might catch him coming in, an’ I ran into you—”

Brennan interrupted suddenly: “Sure, sure—so what? Harley’s still it. He had one of his men kill her, even if he didn’t do the actual job himself… .”

She shook her head. “No. He planned for one of his boys to do it—Sam Kerr—but Kerr was too late. He went up about six o’clock, when he was sure I was safe at the Slipper. He wasn’t going to poison her—that isn’t the way Harley’s mind works—he was going to choke her or cave in her head or something gentle and quiet like that. Kerr was the kind of lad Harley would pick for a job like that. When he got there he knocked at Barbara’s door an’ there wasn’t any answer, an’ he’d been officed that we were practically living together so he went to my door, but there were voices inside—a man’s voice an’ Barbara’s voice—so he sat down on the back stairs to wait for the man to come out.”

Brennan said: “How the hell do you know all this?”

“This is the way I heard Kerr tell it to Harley—an’ this is the way it was.” She said it very emphatically.

Brennan reached for the bottle and a glass, poured himself a drink.

“In a little while the man came out,” she went on, “and went downstairs past Kerr. Kerr didn’t pay any particular attention to him—figured he was one of Barbara’s casual boyfriends—but he saw enough of him to describe him vaguely to Harley. It was Lou Antony.”

Brennan drank.

Renée had come around and was sitting on the foot of the bed. She said: “You might buy us all a drink.”

Brennan was frowning into space. He handed her a glass and the bottle.

“Kerr went back and knocked at the door,” Joice Colt went on. “Nobody answered an’ he finagled around with a couple of skeleton keys but it was no go—an’ pretty soon he heard the elevator stop at the floor an’ he ducked back down the stairway. He played hide an’ seek with the elevator that way for about ten minutes, working on the lock—and then I came back. He saw me go in, and come out in a couple minutes. He didn’t know what the hell to do—his orders were to knock Barbara off, an’ being a conscientious soul with a one-track mind, he was beginning to think about busting the door in when I came back up with you. He listened outside the door but couldn’t make much sense of what he could hear so he finally knocked at the door an’ came in and sapped you before he even noticed that Barbara was already stiff.”

Brennan asked softly: “What about the glass?”

“What glass?”

“The glass under the bed—the one that had the strychnine in it. It was smashed when I came to.”

She said: “If you had some angle figured out about that glass it was your own idea—you knocked the glass off the table an’ smashed it when you fell.”

Brennan smiled sourly, said: “God! I’m a swell sleuth!” Then he snapped: “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about being with Harley, when you took me up to the room?”

“I didn’t have time.” Joice Colt reached for a cigarette on the bed table, lighted it. “I was trying to figure the thing out by myself—find out where
I
got off… .”

“So what happened after Kerr slugged me?”

“I’m getting to that. Kerr saw that Barbara was dead an’ took it big. He evidently figured his best play was to take me along because he knew I could tie him up to Harley—an’ if I went into a good thorough disappearance it would look like I’d killed Barbara. I think he half figured that I’d killed her, anyway. He hustled me out an’ down the back stairs an’ out the service entrance. He kept close to me and had that rod in his pocket, shoved into my ribs. We got into a cab an’ went to his place over on Sixty-first an’ Lexington and he finally got Harley on the phone an’ told him what had happened. Harley told him to bring me to the joint uptown.”

Brennan was leaning back in the chair, staring bleakly at Joice Colt. He asked: “Who slipped you the reefers?”

“Kerr.” She smiled. “He smokes. I was awful jittery an’ he took pity on me, I guess.” She swung up to sit on the edge of the bed, facing Brennan. “We went uptown and met the fat nigger at the bar across the street from the Gateway, an’ they made me call you. Then they took me down to the Gateway and hustled me upstairs. The girl gave me some more weed—they figured I knew what was going to happen to me, I guess, an’ needed plenty anesthetic.” She put her hands up and patted her hair. “That’s all.”

Brennan got up and walked to the window, stood staring out into the rain. “Where’ve you been all night?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Riding around in a cab—trying to figure out what to do. Then I sat in a speakeasy down the street for a couple hours. Finally I called the
Eagle
to find out if they had any dope on you—I figured they’d put the chill on you uptown by this time. The telephone girl said you were home, so I took a chance on coming over.” She smiled wanly. “They’re dragging the city for me, according to the papers—I’m plenty hot. I get goose pimples every time I see a uniform. I—”

The phone rang. Joice Colt stiffened nervously, sucked in her breath sharply. Renée started to get up, but Brennan turned and went to the phone. He said: “Hello… . Mister Louis? I don’t know any Mister Louis—what does he want? … Personal? … Does he look like a bill collector? … Okay—tell him to wait. I’ll call you back.”

Brennan put the phone down and went back to the window. He stood there a little while and then he turned and went to the desk and picked up the sheaf of typewritten pages that Renée had finished. “Well—I guess I’m the chump in this deal,” he said. “Here’s the swellest story I ever turned in—almost turned in.” He sighed, shook his head. “I ride a hunch, an’ bet Johnnie my job—an’ my life—that I’m right. I make a sucker out of myself for Freberg an’ the Department an’ the whole damned town to give the horse laugh. I bloody near get myself killed—an’ all because I’m sap enough to go into a big sympathy act for a tomato like you.” He inched his head emphatically towards Joice Colt.

She smiled coldly. “An’ because you hated Harley,” she said. “An’ because you think those trick hunches of yours are straight from… .”

Brennan said, “Right,” very loudly. His expression was not pleasant. “I’ve played my hunches across the board since I was that high.” He held his hand at the height of his hip descriptively. “They’ve always worked out.” He patted his chest with his hand, went on very dramatically, very seriously: “If I can’t believe in my hunches, I can’t believe in myself!”

Joice Colt grinned broadly at Renée. “He’s delirious.”

Renée was smiling at Brennan. She said softly: “Listen, baby—the Antony slant is as good, or better, than Harley.” She glanced at her watch. “And we can just make it.” She got up and went to him, took the sheaf of pages from him and threw them into the wastebasket, sat down at the desk and put a sheet of paper into the typewriter.

There was a soft drumming of fingernails at the door. Brennan went to the door and opened it and there was a very thin man in a tightly belted dark raincoat standing there. His face was very thin, very gray; his dark eyes were sunken above sharp jutting cheekbones. Water dripped from the brim of his soft black hat, the bottom of his long raincoat.

He came into the room slowly. “I told the girl to announce me as Louis,” he said, “because I wanted to learn the number of your room before you had a chance to misunderstand my visit.” He spoke very precisely, with a trace of accent; his voice had the hollow toneless quality of a sick man. He smiled. “I am Antony.”

He stood quietly while Brennan closed the door. Renée and Joice Colt were staring at Antony with bright interested eyes.

Antony moved his smile from Renée to Joice to Brennan; he asked: “May I sit down?”