The Tough Guys

"Relax, doll. I'm beginning to get ideas. You just sit tight, hear?"

"I can't. Oh, please, Cat, do something."

"I will, baby," I said. "I will."

I hung up and stared at the phone a moment. A lot had fallen into place, now it was time to play the calculated hunches. I made a collect call to the coast and got Marty Sinclair and gave him the dope I wanted. I told him to push it and reach me anytime at night at the motel if he had to, otherwise I'd call him back tomorrow.

Then I went home. I parked the car, opened the door, walked in and flipped on the light. She was laying there naked as a jaybird on my bed with her clothes strewn all over the floor and a cigarette burning in her fingers.

I said, "How'd you get in here, Irish?"

"Told the desk clerk I was your wife." She held up her hand with the rings on it. "He simply looked at this and thought you'd appreciate the surprise. Do you?"

"Love it. You don't mourn long, do you?"

"Hardly a minute, Mr. Bannerman."

I looked at her sharply and she caught it.

"Cat Cay Bannerman," she said. "The desk clerk told me that too. Like you said, you are big. But you didn't know Chuck in the Marines, did you?"

"No."

"Then you must have come to see me."

"Right."

"Why?"

"I was checking out a motive for your husband's murder. A good nympho can get a lot of guys killed. I wanted to see how well you knew Rudy Bannerman."

"And I told you."

I put it to her bluntly. "There was somebody else . . . not Sanders. You were seen with him several times."

"Mr. Bannerman, there have been many others."

"This one was there often. Late."

Irish Maloney wouldn't have made a dime playing poker. She frowned, thought a moment and said, "There was Arthur Sears. I liked him."

"What was he like?"

"Good-looking, money, big fancy Buick, treated a woman real nice. He was in love with me." She grinned and squirmed on the bed. "He wanted me to leave Chuck and go away with him. He said he'd do anything for me and he meant it too. I like that, men wanting to do all those things for me."

"Why didn't you go?"

"And have Chuck slap me silly? Besides, he didn't have that kind of money. When I go, I want to go first class. That takes the big kind. He knew what I meant."

I walked over and sat down, stretching out my legs. Irish tensed herself and spread out all across the bed, her eyes languid, watching every move I made. "Why aren't you working tonight?" I asked her.

"Because I was waiting for you. Petey told me where you stayed. I told you I was coming to get you."

"Maybe I'll toss you out on your can."

"You won't."

"Why not?"

"You want me too, that's why." She reached her arms out. "Come, man."

I didn't want to, but it had been too long. I made all the mental excuses, then I got up and went over to her. She was big and voluptuous and ready and I was there. And ready too. And I found out why any man could get a crazy desire for someone like her, even if he was Rudy Bannerman.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I got up before she was awake, showered and left a note for her to get home and I'd see her later, then I went out and phoned Petey Salvo. It hadn't taken the big guy long to pinpoint Gage and Matteau. They were both staying at the Orange House on Main Street and had spent the night before making the rounds of the clubs winding up at the Cherokee doing nothing more than having a few drinks and watching the action at the tables. About two o'clock Gage had gotten pretty jumpy and Matteau had taken him out. Petey had the idea Gage was a hophead and had to go somewhere to mainline one and he didn't know how right he was. He was all for going down and nailing the pair in their hotel but I vetoed it and told him to hang on until I pulled the cork myself.

At the restaurant I picked up the latest piece of news. Guy Sanders was on his way back to Culver City and the trial date had been set. Time was running out on the sucker.

Hank Feathers was still in bed when I got there. Waking him up wasn't easy and he came out of the pad swearing up a storm. I even made the coffee and it wasn't until he had two of them down that he began to act normal. He was sore because he had to spend a couple of hours with Lieutenant Travers going over my history and couldn't find one thing to say except that he knew my old man, I was a Bannerman and that was it. I wasn't about to fill him in all the way and he knew it.

He said, "You sure raised hell downtown, son."

"It's about time somebody did."

"Fine, fine, but they dragged me in. When a Bannerman yells around here everybody jumps. You put the needle into Travers about those two guys and he's got the lines burning all over the state. You know the pitch?"

"Suppose you tell me."

"For six years the Syndicate has been trying to move in here. They got a few places started but the state pushed them out. So now they got a toehold again. Matteau's filed as a resident and even though they know he's tied up with a bunch in Chicago they can't prove it or do a damn thing about it. He's got power behind him and it moves all the way to the Capitol. Brother, this town's got trouble."

"So stick around and get a good story. You still ready to step on toes?"

"Bannermans'?"

"Anybody's."

"I'm a reporter, son. Somebody steps out of line, it's news and I get it printed. What have you got going?"

"Throw a monkey wrench into the Sanders thing. Make it look like a trial of political expediency. Hit the D.A. and get the paper to press for a full investigation . . . anything to delay the trial. Give it enough coverage so they won't be able to get a jury that hasn't read or heard about it. Can you do that?"

"Sure, but I may get canned and I'm almost at retirement age."

"Take a chance."

"Boy, do I live dangerously."

"Don't we all," I said.

Petey Salvo got me into the Cherokee Club before anyone was there and I headed for the kitchen. He dug around in the cutlery drawers a few minutes pulling out every form of knife they had there until he had a sample spread out on the butcher's block of every one. Most were of the common variety, there was one I picked up and scrutinized carefully before I put it in my inside pocket wrapped in a napkin.

"What're you gonna do with that?" Petey asked me.

"Give it to the police surgeon who examined Chuck's wound."

"The guy said he got it with a stiletto."

"Look at the steak knives, friend. They're specialty numbers and might do it. Instead of tossing the murder weapon away, suppose a killer simply put it back in service. A check shows nothing gone, a weapon was available, and what happens?"

"You got me," he said. "What?"

"A killer gets away with murder."

Because I was a Bannerman, Dr. Anthony Wember was willing to make the comparison. He was skeptical, but had to admit there was a possibility that the knife I offered might have inflicted the wound. He couldn't be certain because of the peculiar nature of the cutting and puncturing combination in Maloney's chest, but it was a