I filled the sherry glass up again and drained it in one gulp. It was a beautiful day, a real dilly. My face cracked into a smile that was followed by a short rumble of pleasure.
Once more Velda said, ?It
I lit another cigarette and pushed my hat back on my head. ?You?ll never know how real funny it actually is, kid. You see, only one bullet killed Chester Wheeler. I always carry six in the clip and when Pat emptied it out there were only four of them.?
Velda was watching me with the tip of her tongue clenched between her teeth. There wasn?t any kitten- softness about her now. She was big and she was lovely, with the kind of curves that made you want to turn around and have another look. The lush fullness of her lips had tightened into the faintest kind of snarl and her eyes were the carnivorous eyes you could expect to see in the jungle watching you from behind a clump of bushes.
I said it slowly. ?If you had that gun in your hand pointed at somebody?s belly, could you pull the trigger and stand ready to pull it again if you had to??
She pulled her tongue back and let her teeth close together. ?I wouldn?t have to pull it twice. Not now I wouldn?t.?
She was watching me as I walked across the office. I looked over my shoulder and waved so-long, then closed the door fast. She still hadn?t bothered to pull her dress back down, and like I said, I wasn?t taking any chances.
Someday she wasn?t going to get so smart with me. Or maybe she would.
Chapter Two
The papers were full of it that night. The tabloids had me splashed all over the front pages and part of the middle section. The same guys that hung on my tail when they had wanted a story took me apart at the seams in their columns. Only one bothered to be sentimental about it. He wrote me an epitaph. In rhyme. The D.A. was probably laughing his head off.
In another hour he?d be crying in his beer, the jerk.
I finished off an early supper and stacked the dishes in the sink. They could wait. For fifteen minutes I steamed under a shower until my skin turned pink, then suffered under a cold spray for a few seconds before I stepped out and let a puddle spread around my feet. When I finished shaving I climbed into a freshly pressed suit and transferred a few hundred bucks from the top drawer to my wallet.
I took a look in the mirror and snorted. I could have been a man of distinction except for my face and the loose space in my jacket that was supposed to fit around a rod. That at least I could fix. I strapped on a mighty empty holster to fill out the space under my arm and felt better about it. I looked in the mirror again and grimaced. It was a hell of a shame that I wasn?t handsome.
Last night was a vague shadow with only a few bright spots, but before I started to backtrack there was something I wanted to do. It was just past seven o?clock when I found a parking place near the hotel that had caused all the trouble. It was one of those old-fashioned places that catered to even older-fashioned people
and no fooling around. Single girls couldn?t even register there unless they were over eighty. Before I went in I snapped the back off my watch, pushed out the works and dropped it in my shirt pocket.
The desk clerk wasn?t glad to see me. His hand started for the telephone, stopped, then descended on the desk bell three times, loud and clear. When a burly-shouldered individual who kept the lobby free of loiterers appeared the clerk looked a little better. At least his shaking stopped.
There wasn?t any need to identify myself. ?I lost the works out of my watch last night. I want ?em back.?
?But . . . the room hasn?t been cleaned yet,? he blurted.
?I want ?em now,? I repeated. I held out a thick, hairy wrist and tapped the empty case. The burly guy peered over my shoulder interestedly.
?But . . .?
?Now.?
The house dick said, ?I?ll go up with ?im and we can look for it, George.?
Evidently the clerk was glad to have his decisions made for him, because he handed over the keys and seemed happy at last.
?This way.? The dick nudged me with his elbow and I followed him. In the elevator he stood with his hands behind his back and glared at the ceiling. He came out of it at the fourth floor to usher me down the hall where he put the key in the lock of number 402.
Nothing had changed. The blood was still on the floor, the beds unmade and the white powder sprinkled liberally around. The dick stood at the door with his arms crossed and kept his eyes on me while I poked around under the furniture.
I went through the room from top to bottom, taking my time about it. The dick got impatient and began tapping his fingernails against the wall. When there was no place left to look the dick said, ?It ain?t here. Come on.?
?Who?s been here since the cops left??
?Nobody, feller, not even the cleaning girls. Let?s get going. You probably lost that watch in a bar somewhere.?
I didn?t answer him. I had flipped back the covers of the bed I slept in and saw the hole right in the edge of the mattress. The slug had entered the stuffing right near the top and another inch higher and I would have been singing tenor and forgetting about shaving.
Mattress filling can stop a slug like a steel plate and it couldn?t
have gone in very far, but when I probed the hole with my forefinger all I felt was horsehair and coil springs. The bullet was gone. Someone had beaten me to it. Beaten me to a couple of things . . . the empty shell case was gone too.
I put on a real bright act when I made like I found my watch works under the covers. I held it up for the guy to see then shoved it back in the case. He grunted. ?All right, all right. Let?s get moving.? I gave him what was supposed to be a smile of gratitude and walked out. He stuck with me all the way down and was even standing in the doorway to see me go down the street to my car.
Before long he was going to catch all kinds of hell.
So would the desk clerk when the cops got wise to the fact that Chester Wheeler was no more of a suicide than I was. My late friend of the night before had been very neatly murdered.
And I was due for a little bit of hell myself.
I found a saloon with an empty parking place right out in front and threw a buck on the bar. When my beer came I took a nickel from the change and squeezed into a phone booth down the end. It was late, but Pat wasn?t a guy to leave his office until things were cleaned up and I was lucky this time.
I said, ?Michael Q. Citizen, speaking.?
He laughed into the receiver. ?How?s the grocery business??
?Booming, Pat, really booming. I have a large order for some freshly murdered meat.?
?What?s that??
?Just a figure of speech.?
Oh.?
?By the way, how clear am I on the Wheeler death??
I could almost see the puzzled frown on his face . . . ?As far as I can see you can?t be held for anything. Why??
?Just curious. Look, the boys in blue were in that room a long time before I came back to the land of the living. Did they poke around much??
?No, I don?t think so. It was pretty obvious what happened.?
?They take anything out with them??
?The body,? he said, ?your gun, a shell casing, and Wheeler?s personal belongings.?
?That was all??
?Uh-huh.?
I paused a moment, then; ?Don?t suicides generally leave a note, Pat??
?Generally, yes. That happens when they?re sober and there isn?t a witness. If they?ve thought about it awhile
