The Paul Cain Omnibus (50 page)

The change man picked up Kells’ two hundred-dollar bills, tossed them down beside Dickinson’s bet.

Dickinson grinned. He said: “Bet it.”

Kells took a thousand-dollar note from his breast pocket, put it down behind the line. Dickinson said: “Better lay off—I’m right….”

“Get down on the bill.” Kells smiled faintly, narrowly.

“Goddamned if I won’t.” Dickinson counted his money on the table and the money in his hand: “Four hundred, six, eight, nine, a thousand, thousand one hundred and thirty. Tap me.”

The tall young man said: “Hurry up, gentlemen—you’re holding up the game.”

Several men wandered over from the other table. The little man holding the dice box said: “Jesus! I don’t want….”

Kells was counting out the additional hundred and thirty dollars.

Dickinson said: “Roll.”

“Eleven—the winner.”

The change man picked up Kells’ money, cut off a twenty for the house, threw the rest down in front of Dickinson.

The little man raked in the few dollars he had won for himself, walked away.

The dice man picked up the box.

Kells said: “Got enough?”

“Hell, no! I’ll bet it all on my own roll.” Dickinson held out his hand for the box.

“Make it snappy, boys.” The tall young man frowned, nodded briefly at Kells.

Dickinson was checking up on the amount. He said: “Two thousand, two hundred and forty….”

Kells put three thousand-dollar notes behind the line. The dice man threw a dozen or more glittering red dice on the table; Dickinson carefully picked out two.

“Get down your bets, men…. A new shooter…. We take big ones and little ones…. Come, don’t come, hard way, and in the field…. Bet ’em either way….”

Dickinson was shaking the box gently, tenderly, near his ear. He rolled.

“Three—that’s a bad one….”

Kells picked up his three notes, and the change man raked up the bills in front of Dickinson, counted them into a stack, cut off one and handed the rest to Kells.

“Next man…. Get down on the next lucky shooter, boys….”

Kells folded the bills and stuck them into his pocket.

Dickinson looked at the tall young man. He said: “Let me take five hundred, Les.”

The young man didn’t look at him, but turned and walked over to the other table. Kells gestured with his head and went over to a round green-covered table out of the circle of light. Dickinson followed him. They sat down.

Kells said: “Can you get the paper out by tomorrow morning?”

Dickinson was fumbling through his pockets, brought out a dark brown pint bottle. He took out the cork, held the bottle towards Kells. He said, “Wha’ for?”

Kells shook his head, but Dickinson shoved the bottle into his hands. Kells took a drink, handed it back.

“Bellmann was fogged tonight and I want to give it a big spread.”

“The hell you say.” Dickinson stared blankly at Kells. “Well, wha’ d’ y’ know about that!” Then he seemed to remember Kells’ question. “Sure.”

Kells said: “Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute. Let’s have another drink.”

They drank.

Dickinson said: “Listen. Wha’d’y’ think happened tonight? Somebody called me up and offered me ten grand, cold turkey, to ditch L.D.”

“Ditch him, how?”

“I don’t know. They said all I had to do was gum up the works some way so that the paper wouldn’t come out. They said I’d get five in cash in the mail tomorrow, and the rest after the primaries.

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Listen, sister, L.D. Fenner’s been a goddamned good friend to me.’ I said—”

Kells said: “Sister?”

“Yeah. It was a broad.”

They got up and went through the semidarkness to the little room, out and downstairs to the street. It was raining very hard. Dickinson said he had a car, and Kells paid off the cab, and they went into the vacant lot alongside the building.

Dickinson’s car was a Ford coupé; he finally found his keys and opened the door.

Then a bright spotlight was switched on in a car at the curb. There was a sharp choked roar and something bit into Kells’ leg, into his side.

Dickinson stumbled, fell down on his knees on the running board; his face and the upper part of his body sagged forward to the floor of the car. He lay still.

Kells lay down in the mud beside the car and drew up his knees and he could taste blood in his mouth. His teeth were sunk savagely, deeply into his lower lip and there were jagged wires of pain in his brain, jagged wires in his side.

He knew it had been a shotgun, and he lay in the mud with rain whipping his face and wondered if Dickinson was dead. He waited for the gun to cough again.

Then the spotlight went out and Kells could hear the car being shifted into gear; he twisted his head a little and saw it pass through the light near the corner—a black touring car with the side curtains drawn—a Cadillac.

He crawled up onto the running board of the Ford and shook Dickinson a little, and then he steadily, painfully, pushed Dickinson up into the car—slowly.

He pressed the knob that unlocked the opposite door, and limped around the car and crawled into the driver’s seat. He could feel blood on his side; blood pounded through his head, his eyes. He pried the keys out of Dickinson’s hand and started the motor.

Dickinson was an inert heap beside him. He groaned, coughed in a curious dry way.

Kells said: “All right, boy. We’ll fix it up in a minute.”

Dickinson coughed again in the curious way that was like a laugh. He tried to sit up, fell forward and his head banged against the windshield. Kells pulled him back into the seat and drove out of the lot, turned east on Santa Monica.

Dickinson tried to say something, groped with one hand in the side pocket. He finally gave it up, managed to gasp: “Gun—here.”

Kells said: “Sit still.”

They went down Santa Monica Boulevard very fast, turned north on La Brea. Kells stopped halfway up the block and felt in Dickinson’s pocket for the bottle; but it had been broken, the pocket was full of wet glass.

They went up La Brea to Franklin, over Franklin to Cahuenga, up Cahuenga and Iris to Cullen’s house.

Kells’ side and leg had become numb. He got out of the car as quickly as be could, limped up the steps. Cullen answered the first ring. He stood in the doorway, looking elaborately disgusted, said: “Again?”

Kells said: “Give me a hand, Willie. Hurry up.” He started back down the steps.

“No! God damn you and your jams!”

Kells turned and stared at Cullen expressionlessly, and then he went on down the steps. Cullen followed him, muttering, and they got Dickinson out of the car, carried him up into the house.

Cullen was breathing heavily. He asked: “Why the hell don’t you take him to the Receiving Hospital?”

“I’ve been mixed up in five shootings in the last thirty-two hours.” Kells went to the telephone, grinned over his shoulder at Cullen. “It’s like old times—one more, and they’ll hang me on principle.”

“Haven’t you got any other friends? This place was lousy with coppers
yesterday
.”

“Wha’s the matter, darling?”

Kells and Cullen turned, looked at the stairway. Eileen, Cullen’s girl, was standing halfway down. She swayed back and forth, put her hand unsteadily on the banister. She was very drunk. She was naked.

She drawled: “Hello, Gerry.”

Cullen said: “Go back upstairs and put on your clothes, slut!” He said it very loudly.

Kells laughed. He said: “Call Doc Janis, will you, Willie?” He limped to the door, looked down at his torn, muddy, bloodstained clothes. “Loan me a coat, Willie,” he said. “I’ll get wet.”

A black touring car with the side curtains drawn was parked in the reserved space in front of the Manhattan. Kells had been about to park across the street; he slowed down and blinked at it. The engine was running and there was a man at the wheel. It was a Cadillac.

He stepped on the throttle, careened around the corner, parked in front of the library. He jumped out and took the revolver out of the side pocket, slipped it into the pocket of Cullen’s big coat; he turned up the deep collar and hurried painfully back across the street, down an alley to a service entrance of the hotel.

The boy in the elevator said: “Well, I guess I was right. I guess it’s going to rain all night.” Kells said: “Uh-huh.”

“Tch tch tch.” The boy shook his head sadly.

“Has Mister Fenner had any visitors since I left?”

“No, sir—I don’t think so. Not many people in and out tonight. There was three gentlemen went up to nine a little while ago. They was drunk, I guess.”

He slid the door open. “Ten, sir.”

Kells said: “Thank you.”

He listened at the door of ten-sixteen, heard no sound. He rang the bell and stood close to the wall with the revolver in his hand. The inner hallway was narrow—the door would have to be opened at least halfway before he could be seen.

It opened almost at once, slowly. A yellow-white face took form in the darkness, and Kells stepped into the doorway. He held the revolver belly-high in front of him. The yellow-white face faded backwards as Kells went in until it was the black outline of a man’s head against the orange light of the living room, until it was the figure of a short Latin standing with his back against the wall at one side of the door, his arms stretched out.

Beyond him, Fenner and Beery kneeled on the floor, their faces to the wall. On the other side of the room, O’Donnell stood with a great blue automatic leveled at Kells’ chest. O’Donnell was bareheaded and a white bulge of gauze and cotton was plastered across his scalp. His mouth was open and he breathed through it slowly, audibly. Except for the sharp sound of O’Donnell’s breathing, it was entirely still.

Kells said: “I’ll bet I can shoot faster than you, Adenoids.”

O’Donnell didn’t say anything. His pale eyes glittered in a sick face, and the big automatic was dull and steady in his fat pink hand.

Fenner leaned forward, put his head against the wall. Beery turned slowly and looked at Kells. The Mexican was motionless, bright-eyed.

Then Beery said, “Look out!” and something dull and terrible crashed against the back of Kells’ head, there was dull and terrible blackness. It was filled with thunder and smothering blue, something hot and alive pulsed in Kells’ hand. He fell.

There was a light that hurt his eyes very much, even when they were closed. Someone was throwing water in his face. He said: “Stop that, goddamn it—you’re getting me wet!”

Beery said: “Shh—easy.”

Kells opened his eyes a little. “The place is backwards.”

“This is the one next door, the one across the airshaft, where Fenner’s stick-up men were stashed. Fenner had the key.” Beery spoke very quietly.

“God! My head. How did I get in here?”

Beery said: “Papa carried you.” He stood up and went to the door for a minute, came back and sat down. “And what a piece of business! You were out on your feet—absolutely cold—squeezed that iron, one, two, three, four, five, six—like that. One in the wall about six inches above my head, five in baby-face.”

“That was O’Donnell.” Kells closed his eyes and moved his head a little. “Then I fell down.” He opened his eyes.

Beery nodded.

“Who hit me?”

“Rose.”

Kells looked interested. “What with—a piano?”

“A vase….”

“Vahze.” Beery said: “A vase—a big one out of the bedroom. I don’t think he had a gun.”

“Would you mind beginning at the beginning?” Kells closed his eyes.

“After you left, Fenner and Gowdy sat there like a couple bumps on a log, afraid to crack in front of me.”

Kells nodded carefully, held his head in his hands.

“After a while, Gowdy got bored and went home—he lives around the corner. I was sucking up a lot of red-eye, having a swell time. Then, about five minutes before you got here, the bell rang and Fenner went to the door, backed in with Rose and O’Donnell and the spiggoty. O’Donnell and the spick were snowed to the eyes. Rose said, ‘What did Kells get from the gal that bumped Bellmann, and where is it?’ Fenner went into a nose dive—he was scared wet, anyway. They made us get down on the floor—”

Kells laughed. He said: “You looked like a couple communicants.”

“—and Rose frisked both of us and started tearing up the furniture. Some way or other, I got the idea that whether he found what he was looking for or not, we weren’t going to tell about it afterwards.”

Beery paused, lighted a cigarette, went on quietly: “Rose was sore as hell, and O’Donnell and the greaser were licking their chops for blood. The greaser kept fingering a chiv in his belt—you know: the old noiseless ear-to-ear gag.”

Kells said: “Maybe. They popped Dickinson and me outside Ansel’s. If they’re that far in the open, they’d want to get Fenner too.”

“And Beery—the innocent bystander….”

“I doubt it, though, Shep. I don’t think Rose would have come along if it was a kill.”

“Well, anyway—he’d gotten around to the bedroom when you rang. He switched out the light and waited in there in the dark. You came in and went into your Wild West act with baby-face, and Rose came out behind you and took a bead on your skull with the vase—vahze. Then he and the greaser scrammed—quick.”

Kells reached suddenly into his inside pocket, then took his hand out, sighed. “Didn’t he fan me?”

“No. I grabbed O’Donnell’s gun when he fell—anyway, I think Rose was too scared to think about that.”

Kells said: “Go on.”

Beery looked immensely superior. “Well, the old rapid-fire Beery brain got to work. I figured that you had to be gotten out of there quick, and I remembered what you’d said about this place next door. Fenner was about to go into his fit. I got the key from him and talked about thirty seconds’ worth of sense, and carried you in here—and the gun.” He nodded at the revolver on the couch beside Kells. “Where’s Fenner now?”

“Over at the Station, filing murder charges against Rose and the greaser.”

Kells said: “That’s swell.”

“The housedick and a bunch of coppers and a lot of neighbors who had heard the barrage got here at about the same time. It was the fastest police action I’ve ever seen; must have been one of the radio cars. I listened through the airshaft. Fenner had pulled himself together and told a beautiful story about Rose and O’Donnell and the Mex crashing in, and O’Donnell getting rubbed in a fight with Rose.”