far away. ‘The day he switched rooms he paid a week’s rent on the new one, and then walked out and didn’t come back. The next day two men who’d visited him once before moved in.’
Two days later Crystal had just started down the back stairway to the alley after she had finished work, about four o’clock, when there was a tremendous racket from the front of the building.
‘It sounded like many auto backfires very close together, with a heavier, sort of booming sound, too. Then it stopped and the door of Mr Lundin’s room flew open and the two men ran out.’
The man in front was about twenty-five and carried a tommy gun. The second man was heavily built, and dark, and had a shotgun. She was slammed up against the wall by the man with the tommy gun. The second man ran by her, then a dozen steps below her stopped and said, ‘Hey!’
‘That was when I saw his face clearly for the first time.’ Her hands were twisting in her lap like warring animals. ‘Twice I had seen him out at the Harlem Inn. He…’ Her cheeks began to burn. ‘Both times he… used me. He did not pay like the others.’
‘And he recognized you on the stairs.’
‘Yes. He pointed the shotgun at me and pulled the triggers, first one and then the other. I heard two clicks. He cursed and turned around and ran after the first man. They climbed out the ground-floor window into the alley.’
She had run to her cheap Chinatown rooming house, got her money from under the mattress, and caught the first train leaving Chicago. It was going to Minneapolis so that was where she went. She stayed there until one icy night a car tried to run her down. She went to Detroit. The restaurant where she worked as a waitress was bombed when she should have been there, but had been off sick. She finally returned to San Francisco where the mob had few connections, and went to work for Molly as a maid.
‘And you never knew what happened in the rooming house. Was it right across State Street from Holy Name Cathedral?’
Crystal shrugged. ‘There was a church there. I do not know what it was called.’
‘Sure not. But you recognized the man on the stairs. Was it the man who owned the Harlem Inn? The one they call Big Al?’
She said, barely above a whisper, ‘Yes.’
‘The Scarface himself,’ said Hammett. ‘No wonder they keep trying to kill you! You saw him thirty seconds after Hymie Weiss was rubbed out in front of his headquarters at 738 North State Street. You can finger Al Capone for murder!’
28
H ammett lit his fifth cigarette of the day and flopped open the newspaper that Moms had slammed down on the counter in front of him. His hand stopped moving with his first cup of coffee halfway to his mouth.
BOOTLEGGER SHOT — GUNNED ON STREET WHILE LEAVING SPEAKEASY
Gunfire rocked the foot of Mission Street last night. Dominic Pronzini, 32, owner of the Cote d’Or Club (popularly known as Dom’s Dump), died in the 3 A.M. blasts by an unknown assassin.
He was skipping down the story when his eyes were caught by a boldface box announcement.
LATE DEVELOPMENT
Mayor Brendan McKenna has called a meeting of press reporters at 10 o’clock this morning for what his office termed ‘an important announcement.’
‘They’re trying to bring their gang warfare to San Francisco,’ thundered McKenna in his marvelous orator’s voice. ‘Well, gentlemen, I’m here to tell you it isn’t going to succeed!’
The red-carpeted reception room was jammed with reporters crowding the mayor’s huge cherry-wood desk. Hammett hung back on the fringes. He’d tried to get Jimmy Wright at the Townsend Hotel and had failed; it was a good bet he’d be here to listen to the mayor.
‘Are you stating as a fact, Mr Mayor,’ demanded a reporter from the Examiner, ‘that Dominic Pronzini’s death was a gangland slaying?’
‘Both the district attorney and I feel this is the case.’ McKenna began dramatically marking off his points with his fingers. ‘Dominic Pronzini was murdered with a shotgun. The shotgun is a classical gangland weapon. Less than twenty-four hours ago, a woman and her son were murdered up in Marin County with a shotgun. Less than two weeks ago, a rumrunner in Dominic Pronzini’s employ, named Egan Tokzek, was slain in a gun battle with police. That woman murdered in Marin was’ — he paused to tighten the suspense — ‘Egan Tokzek’s sister, gentlemen.’
The newsmen began frantically scribbling in their notebooks. Hammett felt his sleeve tugged. He and the fat little op, Jimmy Wright, worked their way from the crowd toward the door. Behind them, McKenna was overriding the reporters’ questions.
Hammett closed the door on the oratory. He and Wright had the hallway to themselves.
‘Your little plot didn’t come off too well,’ said the op.
‘It worked in my story.’
‘Yeah.’ He looked thoughtfully at Hammett. ‘Only this ain’t a story.’
But Hammett had realized there was an ill-concealed excitement in the stocky detective which owed nothing to the botched events on the other side of the Golden Gate.
‘You’ve got something else for me?’
‘Boyd Mulligan made some calls after you left his office.’
‘Gimme,’ said Hammett.
Owen Lynch was dressed in a conservative three-button silk-stripe worsted with a white neckband shirt and a fresh dressy Norfolk collar. The links of his gold watch chain glittered across his vest.
‘I gather you don’t think much of Bren’s theory concerning the killings.’
‘It stinks. Better get him in here, so I only have to say it once,’ said Hammett.
He smoked quietly in his chair after Lynch departed, his face keeping his secrets.
McKenna came through the door first, his jaw rather belligerent and his breath rich with brandy. Only his eyes betrayed the anxiety apparent in the worried face of Lynch behind him.
‘Hammett,’ said the mayor coolly.
The detective stood up.
The mayor said, ‘I understand you disagree with me about the mobs trying to move into our city.’
‘I don’t. The facts do. When I talked with Molly Farr last Sunday, I was convinced that-’
‘Molly Farr! But she… the DA is looking all over for…’
‘He’s looking. I found.’ Hammett stopped at an ashtray to stub out his cigarette butt. He rousted his pockets for the pack, and stuck a new one, unlit, in his mouth. ‘I’m not saying just where because I know my investigators aren’t going to get any cooperation at all from the police department, only as much cooperation from the DA as the reform committee can pressure him into giving, and exactly as much backing from this office as it cares to give. Therefore-’
‘I told you we were with you all the way on this investigation.’
Hammett jerked a thumb at the mayor. ‘Did you tell him?’
He went on before either man could speak.
‘Those highbinders who busted up Pronzini’s place were my boys — which shoots hell out of part of your gangster scenario, Mr Mayor.’ Hammett’s grin was tight, almost unpleasant. ‘They scared Pronzini enough so he spilled some things. Enough so I now believe Vic died in Pronzini’s back room, and that the man who killed him went there through the Mulligans. So I threw a scare into Boyd-’
‘What good would that do?’ asked Lynch.
‘Jimmy Wright’s boys now have a tap on the Mulligan phone. Griff would be smart enough to expect this, but not Boyd. I wanted to see who he called for help when his uncle wasn’t around. In light of the fact that Pronzini was rubbed last night, that phone call gets damned important.’
He paused to light a cigarette. The pause grew. McKenna tossed off his brandy in a single convulsive gesture. Hammett handed to Lynch the transcript carbon Jimmy Wright had given him.
