'So how do you figure It?' Jeff said. 'You're not standing around here for the fun of it.'
'You know I'm not, ... I'll tell you/' he said after a moment's pause. 'Have you ever been In the Westwind or any of those places in Vegas?'
'No.'
'But you've been in gambling casinos where they play roulette.'
'I've been In a couple.'
'Well, in our place the drinks are free to gamblers. If you're having a play at the wheel or the dice game the drinks are on the house and you can generally find one at your elbow if you're not too busy to turn around. It keeps the gamblers happy and there's an angle, too, because a guy—or a dame either for that matter—with a few shots under his belt sometimes gets to thinking bigger than he should. If he's going well he gets more confidence and if it's the other way he gets the courage to forget the percentages and try to get even.
'It don't always work out for us because sometimes you run into a guy who is practically stiff—that kind gets real lucky sometimes—and he's on a streak and he hasn't got sense enough to drag down. I've watched guys like that who couldn't hardly see, guys you practically have to hold on the stool, stagger away from the table with a week's profits. But it don't happen often. Mostly the liquor works for us.
'But what I'm sayin' about Dan Spencer is this. He's a moocher. He used to hang around the gambling rooms and move in on some lush and watch his chance. When he thought he could get away with it he'd cop a couple of chips. He had it worked out so it was pretty hard to catch him but he'd been thrown out of half the joints In town and sometimes he'd get roughed up. Word got around. Finally the paper gave him the bounce and he drifted. I
didn't know where he'd gone, or care, but what you say fits.
'Dan Spencer,' he said, 'is a scavenger. A hundred and twenty grand in cash is something he could smell a block and a half away. If he located it, and nobody was looking, and he thought he could get away with it, he'd grab it and run—if he didn't get scared to death thinking about it,'
He grunted softly, a disdainful sound. 'If you're trying to figure him for murder, forget it. But that money's around somewhere and I came a long way to collect. I may be grabbing at straws, but I'm going to go over Spencer's apartment like a vacuum cleaner and he's going to help. If you want to come you're invited.'
He stopped abruptly, stiffened slightly, and dropped his cigarette. 'Here he comes now,' he said. 'Let's go.'
Jeff saw the thin, stooped silhouette as it passed the front windows of the newspaper office. He still was not positive, but Webb seemed to be, and now he was moving a step behind the man from Las Vegas, slanting diagonally across the pavement to intercept Dan Spencer.
Webb seemed to make no noise as he walked and Jeff, not knowing just what might develop, found himself moving on the balls of his feet. He sidestepped a man who was walking uphill and then Webb moved farther ahead so that he could come alongside Spencer from the inside of the walk. When he was close he spoke softly.
'Hi, Danny boy,' he said. 'Keep moving!'
Spencer's thin form seemed to straighten as he hesitated; then he was walking again, but slowly, as though he lacked the strength to put one foot in front of the other. Without turning his shoulders, his head came round first one way to look at Jeff, and then the other.
'Come on, boy,' Webb said. 'Your feet are dragging. Feel this thing in your back? Know what it is?'
'It—if s a gun. Take it easy, Carl,' he pleaded, stuttering
now. He glanced round at Jeff and solicited his support. 'Tell him to take It easy, Mr, Lane. . . . I don't know what this is all about/' he said, a note o? rising hysteria in his voice.
'See that doorway up ahead/' Webb said. 'That wide one. We'll stop there and I'll tell you what it's all about, fm not going to start popping this thing in the street but I'd just as soon bend it over your head if you get noisy.'
He reached out and pulled Spencer to a stop, half spinning him about. 'This is fine/' he said. 'Do you know why I'm in town?'*
'No/' Spencer said, and then appealed again to Toff. 'What is this?'
'It's his idea/' Jeff said. 'He'll tell you.'
'You're a liar, Danny/' Webb said and poked the gun into Spencer's stomach hard enough to make him gasp. 'You knew about Grayson's caper in Vegas. You knew we'd keep looking for him no matter how long it took. You run into him down here and put the bite on him— Don't argue with me, Danny/' he said when Spencer started to protest. 'This much we know. And I say you knew Grayson was going to pay off in cash so he could go home, one hundred and twenty grand worth,'
'But jeez, Carl. You don t think-* 5
'Shut up!'' Webb said, his voice still soft. 'And don't look at Mr. Lane, Danny. He thinks probably you turned him in to the law. this afternoon and he don't like you any better than I do. Where do you live?'
'I got an apartment— '
'How do we get there, walk: or ride?'
'Ride, I guess/*
'O. K., we'll get a cab. You can pay for it. 0. K., Danny?**
'Sure, Carl. Sure.'
'That's the way, Danny. Always play it safe.'
THE APARTMENT house where Dan Spencer lived was somewhat larger than the building Julio Cordovez occupied but in the same sort of neighborhood and in the same section of the city. Paint was peeling from the walls of the foyer and there was an air of decay in the stuffy hallway as they started up the stairs and went along the second-floor corridor to a door near the rear.
Music with a Latin beat filtered into the hall from some near-by apartment and somewhere a child was crying. On the floor above, a door opened and the voices of a woman and a man rose in angry argument before the door slammed. Heavy footsteps thudded overhead to diminish briefly and then reappear as a man clumped down the stairs, swung round the landing, and continued on to the street.
'Come on, Danny/' Webb said as Spencer fumbled with his key. 'We haven't got all night.'
Spencer muttered some reply and then the door swung open and he reached inside to snap on a light. Jeff, the last man in, closed the door behind him and looked about a squarish room that was cluttered, untidy, and depressing. The furniture had a third-hand look, the thin rug was spotted and dirty, and the windows in one wall were stained to a degree that suggested that, in daylight, they could be no more than translucent. Webb voiced the thought that was in Jeffs mind.
'Jesus!' he said. 'What a dump.*'
'What do you expect?' Spencer said in injured tones. 'Rents are high in this town.'
'How much does it cost to keep clean?'
Spencer shifted his weight while Webb completed his sunpjy of the room and Jeff noticed that the reporter looked neater than usual. His sallow face had a sullen expression but he wore a dark suit that was fairly well pressed and the white shirt and striped tie were an improvement over the open-necked sport shirts Jeff had noticed before.
THow many rooms you got, Danny?' Webb asked.
'There's a bedroom in there' 7 —Spencer pointed to a small inner hall—'a bath, and a two-by-four kitchen.'
'O. K., I'll start here. Sit down, Danny. You can watch/*
'How about a drink first?'
'Not for me,' Webb glanced at Jeff and winked. 'You want something to settle your stomach?'
Jeff shook his head and eased down on a straight-backed chair near a table-desk whose edges had been charred into countless grooves by cigarettes which had burned too long unnoticed. Spencer sagged onto a couch with a frayed slipcover and the springs protested mildly under his weight
Then Webb was moving slowly about the room, inspecting first the closet near the door, which proved to be a catchall for many things that cluttered the fioor as well as the shelf above the hangers. This took about five minutes and when he faced the room again his hard-jawed face was glistening with perspiration. He took time to wipe it with the handkerchief in his breast pocket, sucked in a deep breath, and then came over to open the lone drawer of tie table-desk.
He pawed through the papers, envelopes, and bills. He lifted the cracked fabric cover of the portable
