It was a lot of talk. It took too damn much out of me. I said, "Where's Dari?"
The doctor was hesitant until I grabbed his arm. When he looked up his face was drained of color. "She went after Ruth."
My fingers tightened and he winced. "I put Ruth . . . to bed. What I gave her didn't hold. She got up and left. The next morning, Dari left too."
"What are you talking about . . .
"You took a big dosage, son. That was yesterday. You've been out all this time."
It was like being hit in the stomach. I stood up and pulled on my jacket. The doctor said, "They're all over town. They're waiting for you."
"Good," I said. "Where's Sonny Holmes?"
"In the kitchen."
From Sonny's face, I knew he had heard everything we had said. I asked him, "You know how to get to the lake without going through town?"
Sonny had changed. He seemed older. "There's a way. We can take the old ice-cart trail to the lake."
I grinned at the doctor and handed him a card. "Call that number and ask for Artie. You tell him the whole thing, but tell him to get his tail up here in a hurry. I'm going to cut Dari out of this deal, doc." The look on his face stopped me.
"She's gone," he said. "She went up there as guest. . . . She said something about Ruth Gleason saying they wanted girls. She had a gun in her pocketbook. She said it was yours. Kelly . . . she went up there to kill Simpson! She went alone. She said she knew how she could do it. . ."
And that was a whole day ago.
Sonny was waiting. We used his car. My rented truck was gone. Ruth Gleason had taken it and the silenced gun I had used was in it.
Mort Steiger said, "I was waiting for you."
"No fishing, pop," I told him.
"I know what you're going to do. I knew it all along. Somebody had to. You looked like the only one who could and who wanted to."
I turned to Sonny. "Call the doc, kid. See if he got through to my friend."
Mort held out his hand and stopped him. "No use trying. The phones are all out. The jeep from the hill run into a pole down by the station and it'll be two days before a repair crew gets here."
"Sonny," I said, "you get back to Captain Cox. You tell him I'm going inside and to get there with all he has. Tell him they're my orders."
Mort spit out the stub of a cigar. "I figured you right, I did. You're a cop, ain't you?"
I looked at him and grinned. My boat was still there where I had left it. The sun was sinking.
The guy on the dock died easily and quietly. He tried to go for his gun when he saw me and I took him with one sudden stroke. The one at the end in the neat gray suit who looked so incongruous holding a shotgun went just as easily.
An eighth of a mile ahead, the roof of the house showed above the trees. When I reached the main building I went in through the back. It was dark enough now so that I could take advantage of shadows. Above me the house was brilliantly lit. There was noise and laughter and the sound of music and women's voices and the heavier voices of men.
There could only be a single direct line to the target. I nailed a girl in toreador pants trying to get ice out of the freezer. She had been around a long time, maybe not in years, but in time you can't measure on a calendar. She knew she was standing an inch from dying and when I said, "Where is Simpson?" she didn't try to cry out or lie or anything else.
She simply said, "The top floor," and waited for what she knew I'd do to her. I sat her in a chair, her feet tucked under her. For an hour she'd be that way, passed out to any who noticed her.
It was another 20 minutes before I had the complete layout of the downstairs.
What got me was the atmosphere of the place. It was too damn gay. It took a while, but I finally got it. The work had been done, the decisions made, and now it was time to relax.
My stomach went cold and I was afraid of what I was going to find.
It didn't take any time to reach the top floor. Up here you couldn't hear the voices nor get the heavy smell of cigar smoke. I stood on the landing looking toward the far end where the corridor opened on to two doors. To the left could be only small rooms because the corridor was so near the side of the building. To the right, I thought, must be almost a duplicate of the big room downstairs.
And there I was. What could I do about it? Nothing.
The gun in my back said nothing.
Lennie Weaver said, "Hello, jerk."
Behind Lennie somebody said, "Who is he, Len?"
"A small-time punk who's been trying to get ahead in the business for quite a while now. He didn't know what he was bucking." The gun nudged me again. "Keep going, punk. Last door on your left. You open it, you go in, you move easy, or that's it."
The guy said, "What's he doing here?"
I heard Lennie laugh. "He's nuts. Remember what he pulled on Nat and me? They'll try anything to get big time. He's the fink who ran with Benny Quick and turned him in to the fuzz."
We came to the door and went inside and stood there until the tremendously fat man at the desk finished writing. When he looked up, Lennie said, "Mr. Simpson, here's the guy who was causing all the trouble in town."
And there was Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson who only went as far as his middle name in this operation. Mr. Simpson by his right name, everybody would know. They would remember the recent election conventions or recall the five percenters and the political scandals a regime ago. Hell, everybody would know Mr. Simpson by his whole name.
The fleshy moon face was blank. The eyes blinked and the mouth said, "You know who he is?"
"Sure." Lennie's laugh was grating. "Al Braddock. Like Benny Quick said, he picked up something someplace and tried to build into it. He wouldn't have sounded off, Mr. Simpson. He'd want any in with us for himself. Besides, who'd play along? They know what happens."
"What shall we do with him, Mr. Simpson?" Lennie asked.
Simpson almost smiled. "Why just kill him, Lennie," he said and went back to the account book.
It was to be a quiet affair, my death. My hands were tied behind me and I was walked to the yard behind the building.
"Why does a punk like you want in for?" Lennie asked. "How come you treat life the way you do?"
"The dame, pal," I said. "I got a yen for a dame."
"Who?" His voice was unbelieving.
"Dari Dahl. She inside?"
"You are crazy, buddy," he told me. "Real nuts. In ten minutes that beautiful broad of yours goes into her act and when she's done she'll never be the same. She'll make a cool grand up there, but man, she's had it. I know the kind it makes and the kind it breaks. That mouse of yours won't have enough spunk left to puke when she walks out of there." He laughed again. "If she walks. She may get a ride back to the lights, if she wants to avoid her friends. A guy up there is willing to take second smacks on her anytime."
"Too bad," I said. "If it's over, it's over. Like your two friends down at the lake."
Lennie said, "What?"
"I knocked off two guys by the lake."
The little guy got the point quickly. "Hell, he didn't come in over the wall, Len. He came by the path. Jeeze, if the boss knows about that, he'll fry. The whole end is open, if he's right."
But Lennie wasn't going to be taken. "Knock it off, Moe. We'll find him out. We'll go down that way. If he's right or wrong, we'll still fix him. Hell, it could even be fun. We'll drown the bastard."
"You watch it, Len; this guy's smart."
"Not with two guns in his back and his hands tied, he's not." His mouth twisted. "Walk, punk."
Time, time. Any time, every time. Time was life. Time was Dari. If you had time, you could think and plan and
