Dames Don’t Care (24 page)

He slumps over the desk. At the same minute I come into action with the Luger. I let Fernandez have it. I give him two right through the pump.

He falls off the chair sideways. I go an' stand over him. Behind me I can hear Periera still whimperin'. Fernandez looks up at me an' starts talkin'. There is a little stream of blood runnin' outa the side of his mouth. He is still grinnin'. He looks like hell.

"Nuts, copper," he says. "You ain't goin' to fry me. You ain't...

He fades out.

Periera is lyin' quiet. I reckon he's got his too. When I look at him I see that I am right. His eyes are glazin' over.

I look around at Fernandez. He is lyin' sorta twisted up on the floor with his eyes starin' up at the ceilin'.

An' there they are - just two big guys who thought they could beat the rap. Two mugs who thought they could kick around an' do what they wanted. Fernandez, a big, cheap walloper with nothin' but some muscles an' a gun, an' Periera, a dirty little dago, trailin' along behind him. An' they always finish the same way. Either they get it like these two have got it or they finish up in the chair, scared stiff, talkin' about their mothers.

These guys make me feel sick.

I step over Periera an' grab the telephone. I call Metts. Pretty soon he comes on the line.

"Hey- hey, Metts," I tell him. "I am speakin' to you from the local morgue -because that's what it looks like. I have gotta coupla stiffs out here an' I reckon that you might collect 'em before mornin'."

I tell him what has happened. He ain't surprised much. He says that he reckons that Fernandez saved me a lotta trouble by gunnin' Periera an' gettin' himself bumped.

I ask him how things are at his end. He says that everything is swell. Henrietta is stickin' around talkin' things over with Maloney an' tryin' to figure out just what the hell I am playin' at. Maloney is so sleepy that he can't keep his eyes open an' Metts is playin' solitaire by himself.

"Swell," I tell him. "Now there's just one little thing that you can do for me. Get one of your boys to get around an' dig up a casket for Sagers. They got him buried around here an' I would like to collect what's left of him an' put him some place that is proper. If you got a mortician handy just get him goin'."

"OK, Lemmy," he says. "I'll say you're a fast worker. Listen, just how long have we gotta stick up around here. Don't you ever want any sleep?"

"Keep goin'," I say. "This little game is just about endin'. I gotta get over to Henrietta's place an' do a little bitta gumshoem' around there, an' then I reckon that I am through out here. I reckon that I'll be back at your place inside forty minutes. Say, Metts, just how is my little friend Paulette?"

"She's all right," he says. "She is just about as happy as a cat with toothache. I went an' saw her down at the jail half an hour ago. She is givin' my woman warden a helluva lotta trouble. She says she wants a lawyer an' I've fixed one for her first thing in the mornin'. Last thing I heard about her was that she had turned in the walkin' up an' down game an' was lyin' down. Maybe she's asleep."

"Right," I tell him. "Now listen, Metts, an' I gotta hunch that this is goin' to be the last thing that I'm goin' to ask you to do for me. In half an hour's time you wake Paulette up. Get her up outa that jail an' bring her to the sittin' room in your house. If she gets funny stick some steel bracelets on her. But don't let her meet Henrietta or Maloney or anybody until I get around. Then when I get back I reckon we'll sew this business up."

"Okey doke," he says. "I'll have it all set for you. So long, Lemmy."

I hang up the receiver. I go over to the side table an' give myself a drink. Then I light a cigarette an' take a deep drag on it. It tastes good to me.

Then I straighten things up a bit. I get hold of Fernandez an' stick him back in the chair, an' I lay out Periera as best as I can. I pick up a piece of adhesive tape that I find on the desk an' I go over to the door an' take a last look at these two near-mobsters.

Then I switch off the light and scram out. I lock the door behind me and seal it in two or three places with the tape to keep guys out before Metts gets his coroner to work.

Then I stand on the balcony an' look down at the dance floor. The moonlight is comm' through makin' the place fulla shadows.

The Hacienda looks bum. It looks as bum as any place like that looks when the floor ain't filled with dancin' guys an' the band ain't playin' - when there ain't any swell dames doin' their stuff.

The moon makes this dump look sorta tawdry.

I go downstairs an' out by the back way, an' I ease along to the place where I have left the car.

It is a swell night, but I am feelin' good. As I start up the car I realise that I am plenty tired. I step on it an' make for the little rancho where Henrietta lives.

When I get there I bang on the door. Nobody answers so I reckon that the hired girl who looks after Henrietta has gone off some place. Maybe she's scared at bein' alone in the dark.

I get the door open an' I go up to Henrietta's room. When I get inside I can sniff the perfume she uses - Carnation - I always did like Carnation. Right there in front of me is the row of shoes with here an' there a silver buckle or some ornament shinin' in the moonlight. Slung across a chair - just like it was before - is Henrietta's wrap.

I tellya I am sorta pleased at bein' in this room. I am one of them guys who believes that rooms can tell you plenty about the people who live in 'em. I take a pull at myself because I reckon that I am beginnin' to get sentimental an' bein' that way ain't a stong suit of mine - you're tellin' me!

I get to work. I start casin' this room good an' proper. I go over every inch of it but I can't find what I'm lookin' for until, just when I am givin' up hope, I find it.

I open a clothes cupboard that is in the corner. I find a leather lettercase. I open it an' inside I find a bunch of letters. I go through 'em until I find one written by Granworth Aymes. It is a year-old letter an' it looks as if Henrietta has kept it because it has got a library list in it-a list of books that Aymes wanted her to get for him.

I take this over to the light an' I read it. Then I put it in my pocket an' I sit down in the chair that has got the wrap on it an' I do a little thinkin'.

After a bit I get up an' I scram. I lock the rancho door an' get in the car an' start back for Palm Springs.

I have got this job in the bag. Findin' that letter from Aymes has just about sewed it up. I am a tough sorta guy but I have a feelin' that I wanta be ill.

Why? Well, I have handled some lousy cases in my time, an' I have seen some sweet set-ups. I been bustin' around playin' against the mobs ever since there have been mobsters an' there ain't much for me to learn.

But believe it or not this job is the lousiest, dirtiest bit of mayhem that's ever happened my way. It's so tough that it would make a hard-boiled murderer hand in his shootin' irons an' look around for the local prayer meetin'.

I woulda liked to have seen Fernandez fried. That guy oughta got the chair, an' I'm sorry I hadta shoot him. But before I'm through with this job, three-four other people are goin' to take that little walk that runs from the death house to the chair an' when they take it I'm goin' to have a big drink an' celebrate.

I start singin' Cactus Lizzie. It sorta takes the taste outa my mouth.

CHAPTER 14

SHOW-DOWN

I
LOOK at 'em.

I am in the chair behind Metts' desk in his sittin' room. It is twenty minutes to four. Metts is in a big armchair in the corner smokin' his pipe an' lookin' as if this sorta meetin' was just nothin'. Henrietta is sittin' with Maloney on a big sofa on the right of the room, an' Paulette is in a chair on the other side smilin' a sorta wise little smile just as if we was all nuts except her.

Everything is very quiet. An' the room is kinda restful because Metts has turned the main light off an' there is only an electric standard lite in the comer behind Paulette. The light is fallin' on her face an' makin' her look sweller than ever.

I tell you dames are funny things. Take a look at this Paulette. Here she is, a swell dame with a swell figure, good looks, poise an' personality, but she can't play along like an ordinary dame. She has to go around raisin' hells bells.

I often wonder what it is that starts a dame off like this. I wonder what bug gets into 'em an' turns 'em into trouble-starters, because I never yet knew a crook or a bitta dirty work that some dame wasn't at the bottom of, an' I reckon that the French guy who said 'cherchez Ia femme' knew his onions. An' I reckon every case I have ever handled has boiled down in the long run to 'cherchez la femme'. But maybe that's what makes life so interestin'.

I look at 'em all an' I grin.

"Well, people," I say, "here is what they call the end of the story. I reckon that I am bein' a bit irregular in havin' this meetin' right now, an' without havin' Paulette's lawyer around. But you don't have to worry, Paulette, I ain't goin' to ask you any questions an' I ain't goin' to ask you for any statement. What you are goin' to do or what you ain't goin' to do is just up to you.

I look over at Henrietta.

"Honey," I tell her. "You have had the worst sorta deal. I reckon that I have had to make things tough for you, but the way I played it was the only way that it woulda worked. The day I had you down here at the Police Station an' grilled you about the clothes you was wearin' that night when you went to New York from Connecticut, was an act. It was an act that I put on for the benefit of Fernandez an' Periera. I was goin' to Mexico an' I had to do somethin' that was goin' to make 'em think that the case was all closed up, that you was the woman I was goin' to pinch for killin' Aymes.

"The same sorta thing had to happen earlier tonight when I pinched you for Aymes' murder. I hadta make them two guys believe that I had the case complete against you, an' that I was goin' to take them to New York as witnesses. I did this because I knew that if they knew they hadta leave the Hacienda in the mornin' the first thing they would do would be to clean up the counterfeitin' plant. I knew that plant was around there somewhere but I just hadta make 'em show me where it was an' that was the way I picked to do it. I'm sorry, lady, but by the time I'm through I reckon you'll understand."

Henrietta gives me a little smile.

"It's all right, Lemmy," she says. "I'm sorry I was rude. I might have guessed that you were much too clever to suspect me of murder."

"Swell," I tell her. "Well people, I reckon I'm goin' to do a lotta talkin', an' I reckon I want you to listen durn carefully to what I'm sayin'. Especially you, Paulette, because you gotta realise that this an' that are goin' to make one helluva difference to you. I told you just now that this meetin'is pretty well out of order from a legal angle; but I'm havin' it for your benefit. When you hear what I gotta say you can go back to the can an' think it over, an' you can also think over just what you're gonna tell that lawyer of yours in the mornin'.

"OK. Here we go: Fernandez an' Periera are dead. Periera squealed on Fernandez an' Fernandez shot him. I croaked Fernandez an' that's that. Both these guys was tied up with the Granworth Aymes counterfeitin' an' the guy who was behind the counterfeitin' an' responsible for it was Granworth Aymes.

"Granworth Aymes had gotta great idea. He was supposed to be a gambler playin' the stock market. Well he did-some-times. When things was good OK, an' when they wasn't, well he reckoned that he could keep goin' by counterfeitin'. This Hacienda Altmira - the place that he built an' mortgaged over to Periera - was the place where the phoney stuff was made an' was it a good scheme? He started off by getting Periera to make phoney money because it was easy to get it inta circulation up in the card room. People who have drunk plenty ain't liable to examine the bills they won or got in change, an' most of the guys who used to play at the Hacienda Altmira was birds of passage. If somebody come along who was livin' in Palm Springs I reckon they'd lay off handin' him any phoney dough. It was when they got a mug that they issued him out with this fake money.

"You remember, Metts, you told me the first night I was here that you found some guy who'd been banged over the head out on the desert not far from the Hacienda? Remember you told me that you thought that this guy had got his up in the card room. Well, I reckon you was right. I reckon this was one of the few guys who'd been given some phoney dough an' made a song an' dance about it. So they croaked him. Altogether this idea of usin' the Hacienda as a place for workin' off this counterfeit on people was swell. They got away with it easy.

"It wasn't until afterwards that they started to make phoney stock an' bond certificates an' I'll tell you why they done this later on.

"This mob was well organised. Aymes was the head of it an Langdon Burdell, the butler at the apartment, Fernandez the chauffeur and Marie Dubuinet the maid, was all in it. Periera was responsible for runnin' the Hacienda an' makin' the phoney stuff. I reckon they been gettin' away with this game for a helluva time.

"OK. Well now I'm goin' to tell you why they started makin' phoney stock an' bond certificates an' transfers, an' I'm goin' to tell you why they made that two hundred thousand dollars' worth of Registered US Dollar Bonds, the stuff that was planted on Henrietta here. It's a swell story an' the dame responsible for it is sittin' right here with us now."

I grin over at Paulette. She looks back at me an' gives me a horse laugh. She is still fightin' fit an' don't give a durn for anything.

"I gotta apologise to you too, Paulette," I tell her "I gotta apologise to you for bringin' you back here on a charge of kuhn' Granworth Aymes. You didn't kill him, but just at the time it looked like the easiest thing for me to do. Right now you are just bein' held on a charge of accessory to counterfeitin', but I don't want you to get too pleased with yourself. Just wait nice an' patient till I get finished, an' then you can laugh as much as you like.