Wild Town (6 page)

Well, it was like Ford had said. A good tough house-dick at the Hanlon saved work for him and his deputies.
But that wasn’t true. Nothing had happened at the Hanlon thus far that required any great amount of toughness or muscular activity.

So? Well, so nothing. Perhaps things had just been unusually quiet so far. Or, well, maybe Ford had just been doing him a favor in a way that would be easy for him to accept. That last didn’t seem very likely, but…

Ford was a grafter, a crook. And Joyce Hanlon was obviously pretty low-down. The two of them were both money-hungry. And if they were looking for a guy to pull a murder, what could be more natural than to pick someone who’d—?

Bugs let out a disgusted snort, a sound filled with forced disbelief. He told himself that just because Ollie Westbrook was acting screwy was no excuse for him to do so. Ford and Joyce knew that he was on the level. He’d made it damned clear that he was, and that he intended to stay that way. And if they’d actually been looking for a killer, he wouldn’t have got the job.

That was that. Poor Ollie had just been grasping at straws, saying the first thing that popped into his mind.

Bugs slipped on his shoulder holster, with its .38 Police Special. Then, putting on his hat and coat, he left the room.

He was supposed to make a complete tour of the hotel at least once a night. Tonight, as he sometimes did, he decided to make part of it before eating, and the rest afterwards.

Since he was here, he did his own floor first, walking the main hall and the two wing corridors. Then, mounting the two flights of steps to the fourteenth—the top—floor, he began working his way downward.

To save doubling back on his tracks, he descended the east-wing steps on one floor, those on the west wing the next. In this fashion, he arrived some twenty minutes later on the eleventh floor…at the room of the auditor, Dudley.

He had been thinking about Westbrook, meanwhile. Worrying about him. Fretting himself into a state of stricken conscience. He’d acted like a heel, he decided. Just turned the little man down flat without a crumb of comfort. Naturally, he couldn’t go to the lengths that Westbrook had suggested, but there was every chance in the world that they wouldn’t be necessary. Westbrook was too rattled to think straight, to suggest anything but threats and violence. Whereas, if the auditor actually was a thief, he might easily knuckle under to a few firm words.

At any rate, Bugs thought, there was no harm in trying. And he certainly owed it to Westbrook to make the try.

So, impulsively, without stopping to listen at the door—and, God, how he was to regret that later!—he knocked briskly.

There was silence. The kind of silence that follows the sudden cessation of sound. Bugs waited a moment, and knocked again.

Still silence. Then, a sudden creak and rattle, the brisk chatter of the bathroom shower. And Dudley’s irritated voice.

“Yeah? Who is it?”

“McKenna,” Bugs said. “I want to see you.”

“This time of night? What the hell, Bugs?”

Bugs didn’t say anything. Dudley muttered something and turned the key in the lock, stepping into the bathroom as Bugs entered. “Be right with you,” he called sourly. “Just as soon as I dry off, and get…”

He slammed the door, cutting off the last of the sentence. Bugs went on through the entrance areaway and sat down. Except for the moonlight drifting through the window drapes, the room lay in darkness. The bed was rumpled as though slept in. Dudley’s clothes were flung over a chair. Or, rather, part of them were. The trousers, with the belt half-pulled out of them, lay on the floor in an untidy heap.

Bugs looked at them, frowning unconsciously. That was funny. Dudley was kind of a lady’s man. A real dude about his clothes. It was strange that he’d drop them on the floor in a wad, as strange, say, as his getting out of bed in the middle of the night to take a bath…

The bathroom door opened. A figure darted past him suddenly. Dudley, his hair rumpled, naked save for the towel tied around his middle. He snatched up the trousers, clawed frantically at the inside surface of the belt. He dropped them again and turned on Bugs, eyes glittering in the darkness, teeth bared in an animal-like grimace.

“All right,” he hissed. “Let’s have it, you son-of-a-bitch!”

“Huh?” Bugs scrambled from his chair. “What the hell are you—”

“It’s mine. You can’t prove that it isn’t. I know the law, see, and you either fork it over or—
or by God, I’ll kill you!
”

The words came out in a rush. He came at Bugs with a rush. And hell, he was a set-up for Bugs, a flabby, wild-swinging punk like that.

Bugs side-stepped expertly, effortlessly. As the auditor shot past him, he chopped his hand against the back of his neck. “Now, simmer down,” he warned, turning. “I don’t know what—what—”

He stopped talking. There was no one to talk to. There were only the soles of Dudley’s bare feet on the window sill…and then they were no longer there. They had slid over it, following his body through the fluttering drapes.

Into the eleven-story void of space.

T
ed Gusick set down his load of baggage and turned to the cross, dyspeptic-looking guest. In hushed, funereal tones, he advised the gentleman that the house doctor was on call at all times, and that the corner drugstore had twenty-four-hour prescription service.

“Of course, you may be all right here,” he said on a note of hopeful worriment. “A lot of people—the really rugged types, you know—it hardly bothers ’em at all. But if you
should
feel yourself getting sick…”

The man stared at him nervously. He asked worried questions. Dolefully, Ted declined to reply.

“I guess I’ve said too much already, sir. After all, I’ve got a big family to support, and if I lost my job…” He hesitated, then threw in the clincher. “Probably I wouldn’t have said anything at all if you hadn’t been double-rated. That was just a little more than I could take. To charge you a double rate for a room like this, this room above
all
rooms…”

“What? That clerk charged me double, you said?” Anger was added to the man’s nervousness. “What’s all this about, anyway? What’s wrong with this room?”

Ted wouldn’t tell him. He just couldn’t, as much as he wanted to and felt that he should. He was just scraping by, see, and he was too old to get another job. And—

“Oh, thank you, sir,” he said smoothly, pocketing the guest’s five-dollar tip. “Now, don’t let on that I told you, but they call this the dead room. I guess it’s something in the wallpaper, know what I mean? Arsenic or something like that. Anyway, practically everyone that stays in it gets sick as a dog, and quite a few of ’em have died. So if you’ll take my advice…”

He left as the guest was acting on his advice; i.e., he had Leslie Eaton, the clerk, on the phone, and was demanding another room…“a decent room, by God,” he concluded furiously. “And don’t try to gyp me on the price either.”

Thoroughly bewildered, the clerk agreed to a transfer. Ted accepted another key from him, moved the gentleman to a room less desirable than the first one, and collected a tip of another dollar.

The next guest to arrive was flushed faced, jaundiced of eye. After considerable sly coaxing, and a ten-dollar tip, Ted revealed to him that there were indeed a great many “girls” in the hotel.

“The clerk’s got a whole stable of ’em. Some of the hottest babes you ever laid eyes on. Now, don’t let on that I told you because he gets kind of embarrassed about it. But just tell him you know damned well he’s got ’em—you been hearing about it all over Texas—and that if he don’t come across, the old crap’s going to fly…”

The gentleman licked his lips. He reached for the telephone, and Ted made his exit. Arriving at the elevator bank, he found Ed waiting for him.

“Let’s have your passkey.” His brother spoke impatiently. “Old man Reimers just came in fried to the gills.”

“Forget him. If he’s really fried, he hasn’t got any dough left.”

“Says who? How the hell do you know so much? Give me that key or I’ll paste you one!”

Ted stepped into the car. He pulled the door shut, gesturing his brother into silence. “No key,” he said. “I got rid of it. I dropped in on Dudley a while ago, and after I made the hit…”

He named the figure he had hit for. Ed let out an admiring whistle. “Dudley, for Christ’s sake! Must have tapped the till, don’t y’suppose? How’d you ever get wise that he was carrying heavy?”

“Didn’t.” Ted shrugged modestly. “Didn’t even know it was his room until I got inside. Well, I knew, sure, but I wasn’t even thinking about whose room it was. I heard the shower running as I passed by, and I could tell by the sound that the bathroom door was closed. So naturally I paid him a fast visit.”

“Naturally.” Ed opened the door at the lobby floor. “A chance like that, you don’t get every day…Well, what d’you know”—he chuckled dryly. “So Dudley gets cleaned while he’s getting clean!”

“I figure that isn’t all he got. I wouldn’t say for sure but I got a hunch there was someone in the bathroom with him. It kind of figures, see? Otherwise, he’d’ve had the door open. You have it closed with the shower on, and you practically get drowned in the steam.”

Ed nodded wisely. Entertaining a lady guest in the bathroom, with the water running, was one of the very oldest of tricks. It was poor for neatness, as the saying was, but perfect for secrecy.

Ted returned to the front office and went behind the key rack. Seating himself in the open window of the air well, he lighted a cigarette; relaxed, grinning, as he listened to Eaton’s high-pitched voice. He was talking to that ruddy-faced guy, apparently, the last one that registered. And the guy obviously—as Ted had advised him—was refusing to take no for an answer.

“…you listen to me, sir! I do not have any girls! I do NOT!…Well, I don’t care…All I’ve got to say is that they’re just a bunch of nasty old liars, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves and—What? What? Don’t you talk to me that way, thir!”—excitement was bringing out Eaton’s lisp. “I thimply will not lithen one more minute to thith—thith—”

He banged up the telephone. Chuckling softly, Ted flicked his cigarette out the window. And then, as his eyes followed its course to the bottom of the shaft, he emitted a startled curse.

He sat staring downward for a moment. His stomach churning queasily, a faint chill gripping his hard wiry body. But he had seen suicides before—leapers, like this one. And Dudley, thief and chiseler that he was bound to be, was certainly no great loss to the world.

Ted slid from the window sill and lighted another cigarette. He dropped it to the floor, emerged from behind the key rack, and joined Eaton in the room-desk cage. The clerk was still indignant from his talk with the ruddy-faced man. He told Ted about it, his voice cracking and squeaking, announcing his conviction that the gentleman was plain raving mad.

Ted nodded soberly. “It’s this weather,” he said. “You take a night like this, if people got any mental weakness at all, they blow their lids like bedbugs.”

Eaton giggled cautiously. “Oh, you! What’s so different about the weather tonight?”

“You ain’t noticed?” Ted shook his head. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t. But if you were an old-time hotel man, you’d know this was nut weather. The kind of night when people go sailing out their windows like airplanes.”

“Oh, sure!” Eaton giggled again. “Now, what are you up to, you crazy thing?”

“No kid, kid. Why, I’ll lay you ten to one we have a suicide tonight.”

Eaton laughed ecstatically. Ted took him by the elbow, led him to the air-well window and pointed.

The clerk looked out. He fainted. Leaving him lying on the floor, Ted picked up the telephone.

He called Westbrook’s room first. There was no answer, which was as he had expected, since, by this time of night, the manager would be pretty thoroughly anaesthetized with alcohol.

Ted jiggled the receiver hook, and called Bugs McKenna.

W
hen Bugs thought about that night later, everything seemed to move in the hazy yet well-defined grooves of a dream. He had committed murder, yet he had not committed it. It was something of the moment, something that would have no meaning once the moment was gone. Similarly, he was in dire danger, yet none at all. The means for extricating himself were ridiculously obvious: as easily and immediately accessible as those in a clumsily constructed story.

Even after Lou Ford came on the scene—entered the dream—there was no rift in the smooth haziness. Ford, in fact, proved its happy culmination…A suicide, huh? Well, now, wasn’t that somethin’! Must’ve been an awful nice fella too, y’know, gettin’ hisself all cleaned up before he did it…

Ford wasn’t at all suspicious. He had no reason to be—and almost every reason not to be—and Bugs was sure that he wasn’t. Later, within a few brief days—But that was later.

Taking things as they happened:

Bugs stared at the still-fluttering curtains of the window, and a black and terrible sickness engulfed him. He had killed Dudley. For the second time in his life, he had killed a man. He hadn’t meant to; it was an accident. But he had done it, and for a moment he wanted to die himself.

The moment passed. The blackness and the sickness went away. Fear gripped him, shook him back into his senses. Shattering his regrets before they were fully formed.

Dudley was no good. Dudley had brought about his own death. He had betrayed Westbrook, a man who had befriended him, and indirectly the betrayal had cost him his life.

As to what had happened to the money that Dudley had stolen, and which he apparently believed had been stolen from him, Bugs did no thinking at all about that. Not at the time, he didn’t. He simply got out of the room fast, as soon as he had ascertained that the hall was clear. He was out the door almost as soon as Dudley was out the window. Racing up the stairs. Bursting into his own room, and picking up the telephone. Speaking with a yawn in his voice:

“McKenna. Guess I fell asleep again after you called me. What time is it?…That late, huh? Well, maybe you better try Mrs. Hanlon for me anyhow.”

She had been asleep, she said; and she was a little slow about answering the telephone. Bugs apologized for waking her up, and she said it was okay but she hadn’t really wanted to see him about anything important, so why didn’t he give her a ring tomorrow? Bugs said he would, and they hung up.

So that took care of that. He hadn’t left his room at the time of Dudley’s death. Or, at least, he had been in his room at the approximate time of that death. Of course, the body might not be discovered immediately, or even for hours. And if it wasn’t, his alibi would be worthless or at least seriously weakened.

But again, before he could feel any real sense of danger, a solution presented itself. Nothing was required but to leave his room immediately and proceed straight to the elevators. That gave him three witnesses instead of two. It proved—in the absence of contrary evidence—that he had gone downstairs within seconds after his second awakening.

Oh, it wasn’t perfect, naturally. No alibi ever is. But it would take a finger to upset this one, and a finger was conspicuously absent. No one had seen him go to Dudley’s room, no one had seen him leave. And so, necessarily, no one could say that he had been there.

Ed Gusick greeted him unctuously. Bugs responded with his usually monosyllabic grunt, and got out of the car at the mezzanine. It was close to one o’clock now, and Rosalie Vara was absent; having her dinner in the kitchen, Bugs guessed. He walked down the mezz’ to its far end, descended the staircase there to the lobby, and, turning to his left, entered the coffee shop.

It was a popular place, the one really good restaurant in town. And even at this hour, many of the tables and most of the counter stools were in use. Looking things over, automatically, Bugs glanced at a table in a far corner of the room, a table occupied by a taffy-haired young woman and a grinning, satanic-looking young man.

Bugs gulped, and his heart did a hop-skip. Ducking his head, he started for his usual stool at the end of the counter. But Lou Ford had already seen him.

“Hey, Bugs…McKenna!” He stood up and beckoned insistently. “Come on over!”

Bugs scowled and shook his head. Ford repeated his invitation at a shout. “Come on, fella! Don’t be so skitterish. Got a friend here that wants to meet you!”

Bugs joined them; there was nothing else to do. Blushing, he mumbled an acknowledgement of Ford’s jovial introduction to Amy Standish. Without raising his eyes, he gave his order to the waitress. He felt like his face was on fire. He felt like he was smothering. Practically all women affected him that way until he got to know them, but none had done so to the extent that Amy Standish did.

He heard an amused chuckle from Ford. Angrily, tossing the menu aside, he forced himself to look up.

Amy was smiling at him gently, her small round chin resting in the palm of her hand. “You mustn’t mind him, Mr. McKenna”—she inclined her head toward the deputy. “He’s just naturally ornery.”

Bugs tried to smile back at her. He said he agreed with her in spades.

“Well, don’t you mind, anyhow. We’re friends now, so there’s nothing to feel shy or awkward about.”

“W-well…well, thanks,” Bugs stammered. “I mean—”

“Heck, he ain’t shy,” Ford drawled. “He’s just embarrassed. That’s right, ain’t it, Bugs? You’re just embarrassed about that day you come up to the house and busted in without knockin’?”

“Shut up!” Bugs snarled. “I—if you don’t shut up, I’ll—”

“Yeah? What’s the matter? I say somethin’ wrong?”

Bugs glowered at him. Amy looked curiously from one man to another.

“What
is
the matter?” she said. “You may as well tell me, Lou, now that you’ve started to. I—No, Mr. McKenna. I’m sure this concerns me, and I want to hear what it is.”

Ford grinned at Bugs. He spread his hands easily. “Why, it wasn’t nothin’, really. All I was going to say was that Bugs seen you in your birthday suit.”

“Did he?” Amy looked at him steadily.

“Didn’t have a stitch on that I could see,” Ford said, “and I sure could have seen any, close as I was. Yes, sir, you went skittering out into the hallway, naked as a jaybird. Stood there puttin’ on your underclothes while you was chewin’ me out.”

“Yes? Well, go on. You’re surely not going to stop there, are you?”

Ford drawled that yes, he guessed he would stop there. “Probably ain’t a real fittin’ thing to talk about at table,” he added, with unapologetic apology. “Kind of looks like I maybe already sort of spoiled Bugs’s dinner.”

Amy turned away from him. Seemingly, at least for the moment, he ceased to exist for her.

“Well?” she said. “Well, Mr. McKenna?” Her voice was quiet, too quiet. Her gaze too steady. “Well?” she repeated. “We—”

“Sounds like a deep subject,” remarked Lou Ford. “Yes, sir, I’d say that was a plumb deep subject, and that’s a fact.”

Bugs suddenly shoved back his plate. He shoved back his chair and stood up. And Amy smiled at him mistily and also stood. She seemed to have been waiting for him to make the move. He took her arm, and they started for the door.

“Hey, wait a minute, now,” Ford called after them. “Where y’all rushing off to?” But he didn’t sound like he actually cared, only sardonically amused. And they continued on across the restaurant and out the door to the sidewalk.

Bugs had paid down on an old coupe out of his last salary check, and it was parked a few doors down the street. He helped her into it and drove her home. Her house was a companion piece to Ford’s—was, in fact, in the same block as his. And, as in his case, it had been her parents’ home, and their parents’ before them. They were both old family, Lou Ford and Amy Standish. The last survivors of two old families. Bugs considered that fact, taking another look at her in his mind’s eye, and he decided that she must be older than he orginally thought. Around thirty maybe. Maybe as old as thirty-one.

He stopped the car. She smiled at him softly, spoke as though answering a question and making an explanation.

“I’ll be thirty my next birthday,” she said. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never gone with anyone but Lou. What would you do in my place?”

“What would I…”

“Considering my age and my background. Considering that there is a very limited number of eligible men in a place like this.”

Bugs didn’t see what she was driving at. Or, perhaps, he didn’t care to admit that he saw it. He was pretty broad-minded, understand—by his own admission. And he’d fallen for this Amy Standish the moment he saw her. But falling for her, liking and wanting her, was one thing, and something else was something else. And he’d already had one chuck of second-hand goods.

“I guess I ought to be getting back to the job,” he said uncomfortably. “Am I—can I see you again?”

“I don’t know—Mac? Is it all right to call you that? I don’t care for Bugs.”

“I don’t either, and Mac’s fine. Well, how about it—Amy?”

“As I was saying, I don’t know, Mac. I’m not sure that you should…No, it isn’t that”—she anticipated him. “Lou has told me quite a bit about you, your past, and that isn’t a factor at all. It’s just that—that—”

“You think Lou might not like it?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t tell you. But”—she smiled with sudden brightness, head tilted playfully to one side—“There’s one thing I am sure of. Very sure of. In fact there are several things. I’m sure I like you a lot, and I’m sure you’ve got the kindest-looking eyes I’ve ever seen, and I’m sure”—she kissed him lightly on the mouth—“I’ve been wanting to do that for the last thirty minutes.”

She laughed and scampered out of the car. She turned her head back through the window. “And another thing. I’m sure you ask a great many questions on short acquaintance.”

And then she was crying. The laughter had changed suddenly to tears.

Weeping, she fled up the walk to the house.

Bugs kicked open the door, called a question after her.

“Y-yes!” she stopped and whirled around. “Why shouldn’t you see me? Why shouldn’t anyone, everyone? Why—why—”

She started running again. Bugs let her go. After all, he was going to have this Dudley matter to deal with tonight. And he’d damned well better keep his mind on it until it was safely wrapped up. And, aside from that, well…

Well?

He cursed, cursing himself and Lou Ford with equal venom. Feeling frustrated, his mind churning with confusion, he drove back to the hotel.

Ford was loitering in front of the entrance, one boot heel hooked back against the bricks, one of his thin black cigars in the corner of his mouth. He slouched out to the curb as Bugs climbed out of his car.

“You’re bein’ paged,” he announced. “Looks like you got a suicide on your hands.”

“A suicide?” Bugs managed a satisfactory start. “Who was it? How did it happen?”

“Joyce Hanlon. Drank herself a cup of poison. Guess she heard about you bein’ with Amy and it plumb broke her heart.”

He nodded soberly, very long of face. Then, as Bugs gaped at him, he laughed and slapped the big man on the back. “Just jokin’ with you, fella; doubt if they’s anything on the market that would make a dent in Joyce.”

“Very funny,” Bugs snapped. “Look, has there actually been a suicide, or—”

“Oh, sure, there’s been one all right. Sure looks like one anyway. Man name of—Well, let’s see if you can guess. Three guesses, and if you hit it right I’ll give you a see-gar.”

“Never mind, goddammit.” Bugs started for the entrance. “Of all the—!”

“You mean you don’t like see-gars?” Ford easily joined stride with him. “Well, seein’ as you’re so impatient-like, it was a fella named Dudley, Alec Dudley. You know him, I reckon?”

“Sure, I know him; he’s the Hanlon’s auditor. I don’t mean I was well-acquainted with him, but—”

“Uh-huh. Then, you wouldn’t have any idea why he’d kill himself? Don’t know of any trouble he was in, or whether he was feelin’ dee-spondent or anything like that?”

“No.”

“Well, let’s see what we can find out.” Ford linked arms with him companionably. “Been waitin’ for you to come back before I did any investigatin’. Me, I’m a great hand for observin’ pro-to-col, as the sayin’ is. Guess you might call it my greatest vice and my strongest virtue…”

They made the investigation together—if such a casual asking of questions and looking-about could be called an investigation. Then, an ambulance having removed Dudley’s body, they stood once more at the entrance of the hotel.

Bugs didn’t want to be there; not with Ford, at least. He wanted to be alone, to relax his taut nerves, to sort out his thoughts about Amy Standish. But the deputy held him as if by an invisible magnet. He didn’t have anything to say. He simply rambled on and on, with his usual drawling, rube-ish chit-chat, until Bugs was on the point of crawling out of his own skin.

And then Ford broke off suddenly, staring at Bugs out of shrewd, narrowly amused eyes. “Ain’t you got some work to do?” he inquired, his voice soft-hard. “Hadn’t you maybe ought to be gettin’ at it?”

Bugs said he had. He added curtly that he couldn’t very well work while he was standing around listening to a lot of goddamned nonsense.

Ford nodded equably. He took the cigar from his mouth, and examined the tip. And then, swiftly, he looked up, his gaze striking into Bugs’s face like a blow.

“Why listen to it, then?” he said. “Why not just say good-night or go to hell, and turn around and walk off? You’re all paid up with the law. You got a clean conscience—I reckon. So what’s the answer? What are you afraid of? Why put up with me a minute more than you care to?”

Bugs looked down at the walk, not answering him. He couldn’t. He couldn’t put his feelings into words, nor, naturally, would he have dared to if he could have. He was guilty, technically guilty of at least manslaughter. There was a growing impression in his mind that he had been given his job for a sinister purpose, and that tacitly he had agreed to that purpose. So he could be held by Ford, forced to bend to him. And Ford knew it, and he was making him admit it.