He nodded energetically. "I don't blame you. Now, when would you like to look at the properties?"
"In a day or two. I have them spotted and I'll drive out myself. If I make a decision I'll contact you."
"A pleasure, Mr. Bannerman. I'm happy you came to me."
"So am I, Mr. Helm."
Right after supper I called Petey Salvo and asked him if he could stop by my motel before he went to the club. He said he'd be there by eight and didn't ask any questions. I drove back, had a hot shower, shaved and took out the .45 and went through the ritual of cleaning it, then laid it on the table while I pulled on my clothes.
It was just seven forty-five when the knock came on my door and I opened it hanging onto my pants, figuring Petey was early.
This time I figured wrong. The two of them came in easy with Popeye Gage leveling a snub nosed Banker's Special at my gut and his eyes lit up like a neon sign. Behind him was Carl Matteau and the smile he wore was one of total pleasure because this kind of business was his kind of business and he enjoyed every minute of it.
"Back," he said. "Real quiet, guy."
I wasn't about to argue with the gun. All I could do was toss the towel I had in my hand on the table to cover up the .45 laying there and hope they didn't catch the act. That much I got away with if it could do any good. The only other thing I could do was pull the scared act and button up my pants just to be doing anything and Popeye Gage grinned through his swollen mouth and let me have the side of the gun across the temple.
Before he moved I saw it coming and rolled enough to miss most of it, but it slammed me back against the bed and I hit the floor facedown. Matteau said, "More, Popeye."
He worked me hard then, his feet catching my ribs and my arms, but only once did he land one on my head and then he nearly tore my scalp off. He was laughing and sucking air hard to get the boot into me and every time he did all I could think of was how hard I was going to step on his face when my turn came. He stopped for a few seconds and I made the mistake of turning my head. When I did the butt end of the gun smashed down on the back of my skull like a sledgehammer and I felt my chin and mouth bite into the floor and the ebb and flow of unconsciousness that never quite came. All I had was that terrible pounding inside my brain and the complete inability to move any part of my body.
But Carl knew when I was all there again. He said, "Talk up, wise guy."
"Should I make him?" Popeye said.
"No, he'll do it himself."
I dragged myself away from the bed, tried to sit up and tasted the salty taste of blood in my mouth.
"Nobody pulls the kind of crap you did and gets away with it," Carl told me slowly. "Now let's hear it."
I shook my head. I couldn't get any words out.
"You don't belong here. Why, punk?"
"I . . . lived here."
"Sure. So why'd you come back?"
"Vacation. I was . . . going east."
"Let me . . ."
"Shut up, Popeye. This guy's a punk. Look at him. Take a look at his face, all beat up. He packs a rod, he's got nothing behind him so he's a punk. He comes back to put the bite on the family like any punk will do only now he gets no bite. He gets wise with me and he gets nothing except his face all smashed in or a bullet in his belly if he tries to play it smart. See his car? Six years old. You checked his duds . . . all junk. Someplace he's a small time punk, a cheap hood and these mugs we deal with the same old way, right, Bannerman?"
"Look . . ."
It was almost time for Petey to show. I hoped he'd know how to play it.
"Out," Matteau said. "Tonight you leave. You stay one more day and you get buried here."
I was going to tell him to drop dead when he nodded to Popeye Gage and the gun came down again. This time there was no intermediate darkness. It was all nice and black and peaceful and didn't hurt a bit until I woke up.
And that was when Petey Salvo was shaking me. He was twenty minutes late. I was half naked and he was slopping off the blood and holding a wet towel to the cut on my head making noises like the second in the corner of a losing fighter.
I said, "Hi, Petey."
"What the hell happened to you? The door was open so I came in thinkin' you was sacked out and you're all over blood. You have a party going?"
I sat up, got to my feet and squatted on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, I had a surprise party from a couple of goons."
"Then come on, man, we'll nail 'em. You know who they were?"
"I know."
"So where do we go?"
"No place, pal."
He took the towel away and looked at me, his face puzzled. "You just gonna take it like that?"
I shook my head and it hurt. "No."
"So let's go then."
I pushed his hand away. "Let it be, buddy. I've had the treatment before. It proves a point right now and when the time comes I'll lay those pigs out all the way."
"How come you got took?"
"I thought it was you."
"Shit." He seemed embarrassed. "If I didn't get inna argument with the old lady I coulda been here."
"Forget it. In a way I'm glad it happened. The guys who took me should have knocked me off. Only now they hand me walking papers and expect me to move out." I looked up at the huge hulk of the guy and grinned. "They got the wrong Bannerman. I'm the bastard, remember?"
"Hell, I know you ain't chicken. I just don't like that stuff. Why you take it anyway?"
"Because it ties in with Maloney's murder, kid. I want the one who did it and why. So stop sweating. This Cat got nine lives."
"Sure. How many did you use up already?"
"About seven," I said.
It took another scalding-hot shower and a bruising rubdown by Petey to get me back in shape, but when it was over all I had was a small headache and a bunch of bruises. Then we got in the two cars and he did what I asked him to do.
He took me over to see Irish Maloney to introduce me as an old buddy who heard his friend was dead and came by to pay his respects to the widow.
It was a small house with a small garden and a two-year-old car in the garage halfway down Center Drive. It wasn't much, but all the signs were there of a guy who tried to make the best of what he had in every way and I knew what Chuck Maloney really felt about his wife.
On the stage she was sensational, but meeting her stretched out on a chaise under a sun lamp was another thing. Oh, she had the lumps in the right places, the hippy curves and the full breasts that modern culture demands, the sensuous look that comes from Max Factor tins, but there were other things that took her down all the way. Clever lighting could take years off her, but up close you could see the years closing in, the tiny wrinkles around the eyes and the beginning of the flesh getting slack and the striations on the upper parts of her thighs where the skin had stretched sometime when she ate her way out of the burlecue circuit.
Yet inside her mind she was still twenty years old and all men were at her feet and she was able to prove it nightly at the Cherokee and forget that sheer professionalism and the help of electricians could put her across.
Petey said, "This here's my friend, Cat." He looked at me and conveniently forgot my last name. "Cat Cay. He was Chuck's friend too. He just wanted to talk, so I'll leave you guys alone. I got to get to the club. You got another hour yet, Irish."
I got the full treatment when Petey left; the way she sat up, took off the sunglasses and doubled her legs under her to make sure I got the full benefit of everything she had to show. The shorts were tight and showed the voluptuous V of her belly and deliberately low enough to show where she had shaved to fit into her costume. She leaned over to make me a drink from the decanter on the table, curving herself so I would be impressed by the way
