a woman’s. Then a thin, low cackling laugh. Then what seemed to be a hard blow. Then silence.
I went back down the steps and through the trees to my car. I unlocked the trunk and got out a tire iron. I went back to my room as carefully as before—even more carefully. I listened again. Silence. Nothing. The quiet of the night. I reached out my pocket flash and flicked it once at the window, then slid away from the door. For several minutes nothing happened. Then the door opened a crack.
I hit it hard with my shoulder and smashed it wide open. The man stumbled back and then laughed. I saw the glint of his gun in the faint light. I smashed his wrist with the tire iron. He screamed. I smashed his other wrist. I heard the gun hit the floor.
I reached back and switched the lights on. I kicked the door shut.
He was a pale-faced redhead with dead eyes. His face was twisted with pain, but his eyes were still dead. Hurt as he was, he was still tough.
“You ain’t going to live long, boy,” he said.
“You’re not going to live at all. Get out of my way.”
He managed to laugh.
“You’ve still got legs,” I said. “Bend them at the knees and lie down—face down—that is, if you want a face.”
He tried to spit at me, but his throat choked. He slid down to his knees, holding his arms out. He was groaning now. Suddenly he crumpled. They’re so goddamn tough when they hold the stacked deck. And they never know any other kind of deck.
Goble was lying on the bed. His face was a mass of bruises and cuts. His nose was broken. He was unconscious and breathing as if half strangled.
The redhead was still out, and his gun lay on the floor near him. I wrestled his belt off and strapped his ankles together. Then I turned him over and went through his pockets. He had a wallet with $670 in it, a driver’s license in the name of Richard Harvest, and the address of a small hotel in San Diego. His pocketbook contained numbered checks on about twenty banks, a set of credit cards, but no gun permit.
I left him lying there and went down to the office. I pushed the button of the night bell, and kept on pushing it. After a while a figure came down through the dark. It was Jack in a bathrobe and pajamas. I still had the tire iron in my hand.
He looked startled. “Something the matter, Mr. Marlowe?”
“Oh, no. Just a hoodlum in my room waiting to kill me. Just another man beaten to pieces on my bed. Nothing the matter at all. Quite normal around here, perhaps.”
“I’ll call the police.”
“That would be awfully damn nice of you, Jack. As you see, I am still alive. You know what you ought to do with this place? Turn it into a pet hospital.”
He unlocked the door and went into the office. When I heard him talking to the police I went back to my room. The redhead had guts. He had managed to get into a sitting position against the wall. His eyes were still dead and his mouth was twisted into a grin. I went over to the bed. Goble’s eyes were open.
“I didn’t make it,” he whispered. “Wasn’t as good as I thought I was. Got out of my league.”
“The cops are on their way. How did it happen?”
“I walked into it. No complaints. This guy’s a life-taker. I’m lucky. I’m still breathing. Made me drive over here. He cooled me, tied me up, then he was gone for a while.”
“Somebody must have picked him up, Goble. There’s a rent car beside yours. If he had that over at the Casa, how did he get back there for it?”
Goble turned his head slowly and looked at me. “I thought I was a smart cookie. I learned different. All I want is back to Kansas City. The little guys can’t beat the big guys—not ever. I guess you saved my life.”
Then the police were there.
First two prowl car boys, nice cool-looking serious men in the always immaculate uniforms and the always deadpan faces. Then a big tough sergeant who said his name was Sergeant Holzminder, and that he was the cruising sergeant on the shift. He looked at the redhead and went over to the bed.
“Call the hospital,” he said briefly, over his shoulder.
One of the cops went out to the car. The sergeant bent down over Goble. “Want to tell me?”
“The redhead beat me up. He took my money. Stuck a gun into me at the Casa. Made me drive him here. Then he beat me up.”
“Why?”
Goble made a sighing sound and his head went lax on the pillow. Either he passed out again or faked it. The sergeant straightened up and turned to me. “What’s your story?”
“I haven’t any, Sergeant. The man on the bed had dinner with me tonight. We’d met a couple of times. He said he was a Kansas City PI. I never knew what he was doing here.”
“And this?” The sergeant made a loose motion towards the redhead, who was still grinning a sort of unnatural epileptic grin.
“I never saw him before. I don’t know anything about him, except that he was waiting for me with a gun.”
“That your tire iron?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
The other cop came back into the room and nodded to the sergeant. “On the way.”
