The gun watched me while I got one out and touched the blood on my face.
“A two-bit peeper,” Menendez said slowly, “figures he can make a monkey out of Mendy Menendez. He can get me laughed at. He can get me the big razzoo—me, Menendez. I ought to use a knife on you, cheapie. I ought to cut you into slices of raw meat.”
“Lennox was your pal,” I said, and watched his eyes, “He got dead. He got buried like a dog without even a name over the dirt where they put his body. And I had a little something to do with proving him innocent. So that makes you look bad, huh? He saved your life and he lost his, and that didn’t mean a thing to you. All that means anything to you is playing the big shot. You didn’t give a hoot in hell for anybody but yourself. You’re not big, you’re just loud.”
His face froze and he swung his arm back to slug me a third time and this time with the power behind it. His arm was still going back when I took a half step forward and kicked him in the pit of the stomach.
I didn’t think, I didn’t plan, I didn’t figure my chances or whether I had any. I just got enough of his yap and I ached and bled and maybe I was just a little punch drunk by this time.
He jackknifed, gasping, and the gun fell out of his hand. He groped for it wildly making strained sounds deep in his throat. I put a knee into his face. He screeched.
The man in the chair laughed. That staggered me. Then he stood up and the gun in his hand came up with him.
“Don’t kill him,” he said mildly. “We want to use him for live bait.”
Then there was movement in the shadows of the hall and Ohls came through the door, blank-eyed, expressionless and utterly calm. He looked down at Menendez. Menendez was kneeling with his head on the floor.
“Soft,” Ohls said. “Soft as mush.”
“He’s not soft,” I said. “He’s hurt. Any man can be hurt. Was Big Willie Magoon soft?”
Ohls looked at me. The other man looked at me. The tough Mex at the door hadn’t made a sound.
“Take that goddamn cigarette out of your face,” I snarled at Ohls. “Either smoke it or leave it alone. I’m sick of watching you. I’m sick of you, period. I’m sick of cops.”
He looked surprised. Then he grinned.
“That was a plant, kiddo,” he said cheerfully. “You hurt bad? Did the nasty mans hit your facey-wacey? Well for my money you had it coming and it was damn useful that you had.” He looked down at Mendy. Mendy had his knees under him. He was climbing out of a well, a few inches at a time. He breathed gaspingly.
“What a talkative lad he is,” Ohls said, “when he doesn’t have three shysters with him to button his lip.”
He jerked Menendez to his feet. Mendy’s nose was bleeding. He fumbled the handkerchief out of his white dinner jacket and held it to his nose. He said no word.
“You got crossed up, sweetheart,” Ohls told him carefully. “I ain’t grieving a whole lot over Magoon. He had it coming. But he was a cop and punks like you lay off cops—always and forever.”
Menendez lowered the handkerchief and looked at Ohls. He looked at me. He looked at the man who had been sitting in the chair. He turned slowly and looked at the tough Mex by the door. They all looked at him. There was nothing in their faces. Then a knife shot into view from nowhere and Mendy lunged for Ohls. Ohls side-stepped and took him by the throat with one hand and chopped the knife out of his hand with ease, almost indifferently. Ohls spread his feet and straightened his back and bent his legs slightly and lifted Menendez clear off the floor with one hand holding his neck. He walked him across the floor and pinned him against the wall. He let him down, but didn’t let go of his throat.
“Touch me with one finger and I’ll kill you,” Ohls said. “One finger.” Then he dropped his hands.
Mendy smiled at him scornfully, looked at his handkerchief, and refolded it to hide the blood. He held it to his nose again. He looked down at the gun he had used to hit me. The man from the chair said loosely: “Not loaded, even if you could grab it.”
“A cross,” Mendy said to Ohls. “I heard you the first time.”
“You ordered three muscles,” Ohls said. “What you got was three deputies from Nevada. Somebody in Vegas don’t like the way you forget to clear with them. The somebody wants to talk to you. You can go along with the deputies or you can go downtown with me and get hung on the back of the door by a pair of handcuffs. There’s a couple of boys down there would like to see you close up.”
“God help Nevada,” Mendy said quietly, looking around again at the tough Mex by the door. Then he crossed himself quickly and walked out of the front door. The tough Mex followed him. Then the other one, the dried out desert type, picked up the gun and the knife and went out too. He shut the door. Ohls waited motionless. There was a sound of doors banging shut, then a car went off into the night.
“You sure those mugs were deputies?” I asked Ohls.
He turned as if surprised to see me there. “They had stars,” he said shortly.
“Nice work. Bernie. Very nice. Think he’ll get to Vegas alive, you coldhearted son of a bitch?”
I went to the bathroom and ran cold water and held a soaked towel against my throbbing cheek. I looked at myself in the glass. The cheek was puffed out of shape and bluish and there were jagged wounds on it from the force of the gun barrel hitting against the cheekbone. There was a discoloration under my left eye too. I wasn’t going to be beautiful for a few days.
Then Ohls’ reflection showed behind me in the mirror. He was rolling his damn unlighted cigarette along his lips, like a cat teasing a half-dead mouse, trying to get it to run away just once more.
“Next time don’t try to outguess the cops,” he said gruffly. “You think we let you steal that photostat just for laughs? We had a hunch Mendy would come gunning for you. We put it up to Starr cold. We told him we couldn’t stop gambling in the county, but we could make it tough enough to cut way into the take. No mobster beats up a cop, not even a bad cop, and gets away with it in our territory. Starr convinced us he had nothing to do with it, that the outfit was sore about it and Menendez was going to get told. So when Mendy called for a squad of out of town hard boys to come and give you the treatment, Starr sent him three guys he knew, in one of his own cars, at his
