The pictures. Those beautiful canvases by the Old Masters. They were worth a million as they stood and they had another million dollars? worth behind them. I grabbed the one with the two nudes playing in the forest and lifted it from the hook. It came away easily and I had what I was looking for.
On the other side a hole had been cut into the wall and I saw the little seascape in its frame on the other side. The shore line and the sky were opaque under the paint, but where the glass had been silvered you could see everything that went on in the room.
What a blackmail setup that was! One-way glass set above a bed! Oh, brother!
It took me about ten seconds to locate the camera Anton used. It was a fancy affair that would take shots without missing a single detail of expression. It had been tucked in a cabinet along with a tripod whose legs were still set at the proper level to focus the camera into the bedroom.
I threw it all on the floor and hauled out everything else that was in that cabinet. I was looking for pictures, direct evidence that would be hanging evidence. Something that would give me the big excuse when I pumped a slug into his guts.
It was simple as hell now, as simple as it could ever get. Anton Lipsek was using some of the girls to bait the big boys into the bedroom. He took pictures that set him up for life. It was the best kind of blackmail I could think of. The public could excuse anything else, but coarse infidelity, no.
Even Chester Wheeler fitted it. He was money, big money. He was in town alone and a little bit drunk. He walked into the trap, but he made one mistake that cost him his life. He recognized the girl. He recognized her as a girl that went to school with his daughter. The girl got scared and told Anton so Anton had to see to it that Wheeler died. But the girl was still scared and eloped, grabbing the first guy who was handy. She did fine until the killer caught up with her again and didn?t take any chances with her getting so scared she
Yeah, it all was so simple now. Even Marion. Anton was afraid of me. The papers had it down that I was a cop and my ticket had been lifted. If I had never shown my face around neither Jean nor Marion would have died, but it was too late to think of that now. Anton made Marion pick up the story and say she was the one who went out with Wheeler, but she gave it an innocent touch that couldn?t be tracked down. It should have stopped there.
What happened? Did Marion get too big for her pants and want a pay-off for the story she told? Sure, why not? She was in this thing. When those pictures turned up her face would be there. All she could lose would be her character and her job, but if she had something on somebody too, she didn?t stand to lose a thing. So she died. Pretty? You bet your life it was!
I started to grin and my breath came fast through my teeth. Even right back to the beginning it checked. It didn?t start from the night Wheeler died, it started a few days before, long enough to give the killer time to register in the hotel and take Wheeler at a convenient moment. I was just there by accident. I was a witness who didn?t matter because I was out cold, and if I had been anybody else but me it made the killing so much the better. Whiskey-drunk and out like alight with no memory of what happened. The cops would have tagged me and I would have tagged myself.
All the killer forgot was my habit of keeping that .45 loaded with six shots. He took back the extra slug and shell case and overlooked that one little item. If the killer had had sense enough to go through my pockets he would have found a handful of loose shells and replaced that one bullet that went into the mattress.
But it only takes one mistake to hang a guy. Just one. He made it.
The killer must have been scared witless when he found out I was a cop. He must have known I?d been looking to get my ticket back, and he must have gone even further . . . he?d want to know what I was like. He?d check old papers and court records and ask questions, then he?d
I started to laugh and I couldn?t stop. I pulled the Luger out and checked it again when it didn?t need it. This time I pulled the trigger off half cock and let it sit all the way back ready to nudge a copper-covered slug out of the barrel and into a killer?s face.
It was later than ever, late enough to make my blood turn cold as ice. I had to make myself stop thinking. I couldn?t look for those pictures and think too.
If ever a room got torn apart, this was it. I ripped and I smashed and I tore looking for those damn photographs and there wasn?t a damn thing to see except some unexposed plates. I pulled the room apart like Humpty Dumpty and started on the darkroom when I heard the steps outside.
They came from the hall that led into the good apartment, the one with the bedrooms. The key turned in the lock and the door opened. For one second I had a glimpse of Anton?s face, a pale
face suddenly gone stark white, then the door slammed shut and the feet pounded down the stairs.
I could have killed myself for leaving the lights on when they had been out!
My coat caught on the sink and ripped. It caught again when I crawled through the hole in the partition. I ripped it loose and felt it tear clear up to the collar. I screamed my rage and took plaster and lath with me when I burst through.
Damn that son-of-a-bitch, he was getting away! I twisted the lock and tumbled into the hall without bothering to close the door. I heard feet slamming on the stairs and the downstairs door smash shut. I started down the steps and fell. I ran and fell again and managed to reach the bottom without breaking any bones. All over my body were spots that would wait until later to hurt, raw spots that stuck to my clothes with my own blood.
My gun was in my hand when I ran out on the street and it was nothing more than a useless weight because Anton?s car was screaming up the street toward the intersection.
How important can a guy get? What does he have to do to please the fates that hamstring him_ every inch of the way? I saw the red dot of -his tail-light swing to the right as a cruising cab cut him off. I heard the grinding of metal and the shouts of the drivers and Anton Lipsek was up on the sidewalk trying to back off.
It was too far to run, too much of a chance to take. I wheeled and dashed into the alleyway that passed between the buildings and leaped for the fence at the end and pulled myself over. I climbed in my car and turned the key, felt the motor cough and catch, and I said a prayer that the snow under the wheels would hold long enough for me to get away.
The fates laughed a little and gave me a push. I pulled away from the curb and sped down the street. Just as I turned the corner Anton drove across the sidewalk and back into the street while the cab driver ran after him waving his arms and yelling at the top of his lungs. I had to lean on my horn to get him out of the way.
Anton must have heard the horn because he stepped on the gas and the big, fat sedan he was using leaped ahead like it had a rocket on it. That sedan was the same one that was used as a gun platform when I was shot at on Thirty-third Street. Rainey. I hoped he was burning in hell where he belonged. He did the shooting while Anton drove.
I was glad to see the snow now. It had driven the cars into garages and the cabs to the curbs. The streets were long funnels of white stretched out under the lights. I was catching up to him and he stepped down harder on the pedal. Red lights blinked on and were ignored. The sedan started to skid, came out of it safely and tore ahead.
Now he could get scared. Good acid scared. He could sit there behind the wheel with the spit drooling out of the corner of his mouth and wonder why he couldn?t get away. He would curse that big, fat sedan and ask it why the hell it couldn?t shake an old rattletrap like mine. Anton could curse and he?d never know about the oversized engine under my hood. I was only fifty yards away and coming closer.
The sedan tried to make a turn, yawed into a skid and slammed against the curb. It seemed to come out of it for a moment and my stomach suddenly turned sour because I knew I?d never make it if I tried too. This time the fates laughed again and gave me Anton. They gave me Anton with a terrible crash that threw the sedan into the wall of a building and left it upside down on the sidewalk like a squashed bug.
I drove my heel into the brake and did a complete circle in the street. I backed up and stopped in the middle of the road and ran to the sedan with my gun out.
I put the gun back and grunted some obscene words. Anton was dead. His neck was topped with a bloody pulp that used to be a head. All that was left were his eyes and they weren?t where they were supposed to be. The
