The Paul Cain Omnibus (43 page)

Kells stooped and scooped up the gun.

There was a wide double door at one side of the room, leading to a bedroom, and beyond, directly across the bedroom, there was another door leading to a bath. It opened and a very blonde woman stuck her head out. She called: “What’s the matter, Jack?”

Kells could see her reflected indistinctly in one of the mirrors of the wide double door. He and O’Donnell were out of her line of vision.

Rose said: “Nothing, honey.” He tipped the bottle, poured a drink.

“Is Lou here yet?” She raised her voice above the sound of water running in the tub.

“No.” The blonde woman closed the door. O’Donnell sat up and took out a handkerchief and held it over his nose.

Kells said: “Now….” Rose shook his head slowly. “I’ve got about a hundred an’ ten.”

Kells rubbed the corner of one of his eyes with his middle finger. He said: “All right, Jakie. I want you to call the shop, and I want you to say ‘Hello, Frank?,’ and if it isn’t Frank I want you to wait till Frank comes to the phone, and then I want you to say ‘Bring three thousand dollars over to the hotel right away.’ Then I want you to hang up. Have you got it?”

Rose picked up the glass and drank. “There isn’t more than four hundred dollars at the store,” he said. “It’s all down on the Joanna—for the opening.”

Kells looked at him steadily for a little while. Then he said, “All right. Get your hat.”

Rose hesitated a moment, looked down at O’Donnell, then walked over to a chair near the bedroom door and picked up his hat.

Kells said: “Now, Jakie, back into the bedroom.” Kells transferred the automatic to his left hand, took hold of the back of O’Donnell’s collar with his right. “Pardon me, Mister O’Donnell,” he said.

He dragged O’Donnell across the floor to the bedroom door—keeping Rose in front of him—across the bedroom floor to the bathroom. He opened the bathroom door, jerked O’Donnell to his feet and shoved him inside. The blonde woman screamed once. Then Kells took the key from the inside of the door, slammed the door, cutting the sound of the blonde woman’s second scream to a thin cry, locked it.

Rose was standing at the foot of one of the twin beds. The dark skin was drawn very tightly over his jaw muscles. He looked very sick.

Kells put the key in his pocket. He grinned, said: “Come on.”

They walked together to the outer door of the suite. Kells lifted one point of his vest, stuck the automatic inside the waistband of his trousers. He let his belt out a notch or so until the gun nestled as comfortably and as securely as possible beneath his ribs. Then he pulled the point of his vest down over the butt. It made only a slight bulge against the narrowness of his waist. He said: “Jakie, have you any idea how fast I can get this tool out, and how well I can use it?”

Rose didn’t say anything. He ran the fingers of one hand down over the left side of his face and looked at the floor.

Kells went on: “I’ve been framed for one caper today and I don’t intend to be framed for another. The next one’ll be
bona fide
—and I’d just as soon it’d be you, and I’d just as soon it’d be in the lobby of the Biltmore as any place else.” He opened the door and switched out the light. “Let’s go.”

They went down in the elevator, out through the Galleria to Fifth Street and up the south side of the street to Grand. They walked up the steep hill to the car.

Kells said: “You’d better drive Jakie. I haven’t got a license.”

Rose said he didn’t have a license either.

Kells laughed quietly. “You’re in the big city now,” he said.

Rose drove. They went up Grand to Tenth, over Tenth to Main. When they turned into Main, headed south, Kells twisted around in the seat until he was almost facing Rose. Kells’ hands were lying idly in his lap. He said: “Who shot Doc?”

Rose turned his head for a second, smiled sarcastically. “President Hoover.”

Kells licked his lips. “Who shot Doc, Jakie?”

Rose kept his eyes straight ahead. He turned his long chin a fraction of an inch towards Kells, spoke gently, barely moving his mouth: “Perry and the D.A. and all the papers say you did. That’s good enough for me.”

Kells chuckled. He said: “Step on it. Your boyfriend from Kansas City isn’t going to stay locked up forever.” He watched the needle of the speedometer quiver from twenty-five to thirty-five, “That’ll do.” They went out Main to Slauson, east to Truck Boulevard, south. Kells said: “You’re a swell driver, Jakie. You should’ve stayed in the hack racket back in Brooklyn.” He looked at the slowly darkening sky and went on, as if to himself: “There must be a very tricky inside on this play. The rake-off on all the boats together wouldn’t be worth all his finagling—shootings and pineapples and what have you.” He turned slowly, soft-eyed, towards Rose. “What’s it all about?”

Rose was silent. He twisted his lips up at the corners.

They neared the P & O wharf where the Joanna motor launches tied up. Kells said: “You look a lot more comfortable now that you’re getting near the home grounds. But remember, Jakie—one word out of turn, one wrong move, and you get it right in the belly. I’m just dippy enough to do it. I get awfully mad when a goose tries to run out on me.”

They left the car in a parking station, walked down the wharf. It was too early for customers. A few crap and blackjack dealers, waiters, one floor-man, whom Kells knew slightly, were lounging about the small waiting room, waiting for the first boat to leave. They all stopped talking when Kells and Rose went into the waiting room.

The floor-man said, “Hello, boss,” to Rose, nodded to Kells.

Rose said: “Let’s go.”

The man who owned the launches came out of his little office. He said: “Mickey ain’t here yet. He makes the first trip.”

Rose looked away from him, said: “Take us out yourself.”

The man nodded doubtfully, locked the office door and went out towards the small float where the four boats that ran to the Joanna were tied up. The dealers and waiters got up and followed him. The floor-man lingered behind. He acted like he wanted to talk to Rose.

Kells took Rose’s arm. “Let’s go over here a minute, first,” he said.

They crossed the wharf to where one of the Eaglet launches was moored at the foot of a short gangway. A big red-faced man was working on the engine.

Kells called to him: “Has Rainey gone aboard yet?”

The man straightened up, nodded. “He went out about six o’clock.”

Kells said: “You go out now and tell Rainey that Kells sent you. Tell him that I’m going aboard the Joanna to collect some money. Tell him to send some of the boys with you, and you come back and circle around the Joanna until I hail you to pick me up. Got it?”

The red-faced man said: “Yes, sir—but we’re expecting quite a crowd tonight—and one of the boats is out of commission.”

Kells said: “That’s all right. One boat can handle the crowd. This is important.” He grinned at Rose. “Isn’t it, Jakie?”

Rose smiled with his mouth; his eyes were very cold and faraway.

The red-faced man said: “All right, Mister Kells.” He spun the crank, and when the engine was running he put the big steel cover over it, cast off his lines and went to the wheel.

Kells and Rose went across the wharf and down onto the float and aboard the
Joanna’s
launch. A helper cast off the lines and the launch stood out through the narrows, down the bay.

Darkness came over the water swiftly.

They rounded the breakwater, headed towards a distant twinkling light. One of the dealers talked in a low voice to the man at the wheel; two of the waiters chattered to each other in Italian. The others were silent.

In the thirty-five or forty minutes that it took to come up to the
Joanna
, the wind freshened, and the launch slid up and down over the long, smooth swells. The lights of the Joanna came out of the darkness through a thin ribbon of fog.

Kells walked up the gangway a step behind and a little to the left of Rose. Several seamen and hangers-on stood at the rail, stared at them. They crossed the cabaret that had been built across the upper deck, went down a wide red-carpeted stairway to the principal gambling room. It ran the width and nearly the length of the ship. Dozens of green-covered tables lined the walls: blackjack, chuck-a-luck, faro, roulette, crap. Two dealers were removing the canvas cover from one of the big roulette tables.

They turned at the bottom of the stairs and went aft to a wide, white bulkhead. There were three doors in the bulkhead, and the middle one was ajar. They went in.

Swanstrom sat in a tilted swivel chair at a large rolltop desk. Swanstrom had been Doc Haardt’s house manager; he was a very fat man with big brown eyes, a slow and eager smile. A black and white kitten was curled up on his lap.

The swivel chair creaked as he swung heavily forward and stood up. He put the kitten on the desk. He said: “How are ya, Jack?”

Rose nodded abstractedly, cleared his throat. “This is Mister Kells…Mister Swanstrom.”

Swanstrom opened his mouth. He held out his hand towards Kells and looked at the door. Kells had stopped just inside the door; he half turned and closed it, pressed the little brass knob and the spring lock clicked. He stood looking at Rose, Swanstrom, the room.

There was a blue-shaded drop light hanging from the center of the ceiling and another over the desk. There was a big, old-fashioned safe against one wall, and beside it there was a short ladder leading up to a narrow shoulder-height platform that ran across all the bulkhead—the one through which they had entered. The bulkhead above the platform was lined with sheet iron and there was a two-inch slit running across it at about the height of a medium-sized man’s eyes. There were two .30-30 rifles on the platform, leaning against the wall. There was another narrow door back of the desk.

Rose went to the desk and sat down. He took a gray leather key case out of his pocket and unlocked one of the desk drawers. He slid the drawer open and took out a cigar box and opened it. He took out a sheaf of hundred-dollar notes, slid the rubber band off onto two fingers and counted out twenty-four. He put the rest back in the box, the box back in the drawer, locked it. He counted the money again and held it out towards Kells. “Now, if you’ll give me a receipt…” he said.

Kells took the money and tucked it into his inside breast pocket. He said: “Sure. Write it out.” His face was hard and expressionless.

Rose scribbled a few words on a piece of paper and Kells went to the desk and leaned over and signed it.

Swanstrom was still standing in the middle of the room looking self-consciously at Kells, a meaningless smile curving his mouth. He said: “Well, I guess I better go up and see if everything’s ready for the first load.”

Kells said: “We’ll all go.”

There was silence for a moment and then a new thin voice said: “Please lock your hands together back of your neck.”

Kells slowly turned his head and looked at the narrow white door behind the desk. It had been opened about three inches and the slim blue barrel of a heavy-caliber revolver was stuck through the opening. As he watched, the door swung open a little farther and he saw a little dark man standing in the dimness of the passageway. The little man was leaning against the wall of the passageway and holding the revolver pointed at Kells’ chest and smiling through thick-lensed glasses.

Kells put his hands back of his neck.

Rose came around the desk and took the automatic out of Kells’ belt. He held it by the barrel and swung it swiftly back and then forward at Kells’ head. Kells moved his hand enough to take most of the butt of the automatic on his knuckles, and bent his knees and grabbed Rose’s arm. Then he fell backwards, pulling Rose down with him.

The little man came into the room quickly and kicked the side of Kells’ head very hard. Kells relaxed his grip on Rose and Rose stood up. He brushed himself off and went over and kicked Kells’ head and face several times. His face was dark and composed and he was breathing hard. He kicked Kells very carefully, drawing his foot back and aiming, and then kicking very accurately and hard.

The kitten jumped off the desk and went to Kells’ bloody head and sniffed delicately. Kells could feel the kitten’s warm breath. Then everything got dark and he couldn’t feel anything any more.

There was very dim yellow light coming from somewhere. There were voices, too. One of them was O’Donnell’s voice but it was from too far away to make out the words. Then the voices went away.

Kells moved his shoulder an inch at a time and turned his head slowly. It felt as if it would fall in several pieces. He closed his eyes and moved his head slowly and very carefully. Then he opened his eyes. The yellow light was coming through a partially open door at the other end of a long dark storeroom. Kells could dimly see cases piled along the sides. He could see a man sitting on one of the cases, silhouetted against the pale light.

The man stood up and came over and looked down at him. Kells closed his eyes and lay very still, and the man walked back and sat down and put his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. There was thin jazz music coming from somewhere above, and the man tapped his foot in time.

Kells watched him for a long time; then the man got up and came over again and lighted a match and held it down near his face. Then he went away through the door and closed it behind him. In the moment that the door was open, Kells saw that the room was very big, and rounded at the end opposite the door—following the line of the ship’s stern. There were hundreds of cases piled along the sides. Then the door closed and there was darkness.

Kells got up slowly, holding his head between his hands. He took out a handkerchief and tried to wipe some of the dried blood from his face. He went swiftly to the door. It was locked. He leaned against the bulkhead, and sharp buzzing hammers pounded inside his skull. In a little while he heard the man coming back. He stood flat against the bulkhead just inside the door, and when the man came in Kells slid one arm around his neck and pulled it tight with his other hand. The man’s curse was cut to a faint gurgle; they fell down and rolled about the deck. Kells kept his arm pressed tightly against the man’s throat, and after a time he stopped struggling, went limp. Kells lay panting beside him for a few minutes without releasing his hold and then, when he was sure that the man was unconscious, got up. He stooped and fumbled in the man’s pockets, found a box of matches and a small woven-leather blackjack.