Gat Heat (14 page)

“I knew it.”

“They're stuffed with pimientos.”

“You're kidding.”

“You haven't really told me yet. Would you like one?”

“I sure would. Probably I shouldn't, but—”

“Fine, I'll be right back, Shell.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the kitchen.”

“What for?”

“To get the ice.”

“You've got to be kidding.”

“I don't understand.”

“I think you're way ahead of me, at that.”

“Well, I
have
to get some ice. You want it cold, don't you?”

“Cold?” I said. “Cold? Well, wouldn't that frost you?”

“It
has
to be cold. Otherwise it's no good.”

“You know, I'm swinging around to the idea that the world's going to hell. If this is what we've come to—”

“You just sit there and let me take care of everything.”

“O.K.”

“I'll be back with yours in a minute.”

“You mean yours, don't you?”

“Do you like it sweet or dry?”

“What kind of dumb question is that?”

“Well, people are all different, Ask any bartender.”

“I will not ask a bartender.”

“Some people like theirs stirred a lot, and some don't like them stirred at all.”

“The world is going—”

“And some even like them shaken with cracked ice.”

“Yeah. Sure. Pretty quick I'll believe anything.”

“Personally, I like mine very dry, and only stirred three or four times.”

“Well, I'll see you around, Angelica. I've got a case out there somewhere, Duty calls—”

“Oh, Shell—have
one
drink, first. Just
one
martini. And I truly do have something to tell you about last night.”

“Say that again.”

“I truly do have something to tell—”

“No, that first part.” I swung my head in a 180-degree arc for a few seconds, then I said, “Never mind. Just a moment.”

I got up and walked back toward the stone barbecue, stopped at the portable bar, opened its little door. There I found several bottles; I selected a quart of gin and a bottle of vermouth, which I looked at long and hard. “Uh-huh,” I said to myself. “How about that?” I said to myself.

Then I went back and sat down and said, “Well, better get cracking, Angelica. Round up that ice, hey?”

A few minutes later we were sipping delicious, cold martinis and nibbling big, fat, green, pimiento-stuffed olives, and Angelica was saying, “There, that's better. Shall I tell you about last night now?”

“Sure. I'd be fascinated. Lots of fun, huh?”

“I was with Mr. Halstead. Not my husband. Because, well …”

“He was at his office?”

“No, he was, oo, talking to Mrs. Warren. Anyway, I was with George when we heard a car coming up the road. We could see the glow from its lights, too. Right then George got this phone call.”

“What phone call?”

“The one I'm telling you about.”

“Yeah. O.K.”

“We were, oo—there's a phone outside, near the pool, you see. It's got a long cord on it. It rang, and George got up and started swearing.”

I didn't say anything. I knew there must be more.

“Then he answered the phone and talked a minute or so, very softly. I couldn't hear what he was saying. But I was quite a distance off, anyway, over in the dichondra. While he was talking, the car went around to the front of the house. The pool and all is behind the house, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, when he came back, George just wasn't the same man.”

“How do you mean?”

“He had his eyebrows pulled way down and was kind of beating his teeth together—he looked quite disturbed.”

“I'll bet he did.”

“He said he had to talk to a man—the one who'd just driven up in the car. That was what the phone call was about.”

“Do you know who called?”

“George didn't say. But he said he'd settle it as soon as he could. I asked him if we ought to go and hide or something. He said there wasn't time, but when he went inside he'd turn the lights out in the garden area and pool, so nobody could—so it would be dark. Then he wrapped a towel around himself and went into the house, and I only saw him once more after that. I went inside to get an apple.”

“Do all you people eat apples? I mean, is there some special—”

“I just wanted something to put on my stomach.”

“You put apples on your stomach? What good does that do?”

“I wanted something to eat. We all eat lots of fruit and vegetables. They're very good for you.”

“Yeah? How about meat? My blood needs lots of … well, blood, I guess. So I eat lots of rare—”

“I'm trying to tell you about George.”

“That's right. When did you see him again?”

“After I got the apple I went back outside and was standing near the door, in the dark, when George walked down the hall from the front room and went up the stairs with a man—the one who'd driven up in the car, it must have been.”

“You saw the guy, then?”

“Only a glimpse.”

“What did he look like?”

“Just a man, rather heavy, heavy-set. Not as tall as George.” She shook her head. “I don't really remember, and I didn't notice much. I'd probably know him if I saw him again, but I can't describe him.”

“They were going upstairs? What's up there besides Mr. Halstead's den?”

“A television room and four bedrooms. That's all.”

“They must have been going to his den, then. Mr.Halstead called me from there, I think. That's where I was supposed to meet him, anyway. You didn't see him—or the other man—after that?”

“No.”

“This guy, was he anybody you'd seen before?”

“No, not ever. He was …” She lowered the heavy lashes over her eyes, thinking. “I don't know. I just didn't like his looks. After a while somebody turned the lights back on. That was only a little while before you arrived.”

I thought about it. This was a very fortunate break—assuming it was true—Angelica would recognize the man if she saw him again. She might even be able to pick him out from a bunch of mug shots. That meant the big break could come merely from picking out the right mug shots.

And I had some mug shots in mind.

So I said, “Well, thanks for the info—and the martini. Stupendous olives, by the way. But I guess I've got to go now.”

“You do? No time for another drink or anything?”

“No time even for a drink. I've got to get down to the Police Building in L.A. But I might be back later with some pictures for you to look at.”

“Oh?” she said, suspiciously, I thought. “What kind of pictures?”

“Police shots of some unsavory characters. Hoodlums and ex-cons, that sort of thing.”

“I see. When will you be back?”

“I'll phone first, but it'll probably take me a couple of hours, maybe more.”

“My husband should be home by then,” she said. “From the office. Won't that be nice?”

“That,” I said, “will be dandy.”

I told Angelica she needn't show me to the door, I'd just walk around the side of the house to the front. I figured I'd jump into the Cad, visit the L.A.P.D., and return, and maybe wrap up the case in a jiffy.

That's what I thought.

Wrong again.

It was quite a while before I even got the Cad. And when I finally did, I no longer desired to drive downtown for those mug shots.

12

It was a narrow path alongside the house, cool and green, rank with grasses and small shrubs. I ducked my head beneath an overhanging branch and stepped out onto the lawn in front of the house.

My Cad was at the curb a few yards away on my right, and as I glanced toward it my gaze took in the street, other houses, a car parked nearly a block away against the far curb. It was a dark sedan, a Dodge Polara.

I tossed my eyes around the area, swung my head left fast.

I saw him then. But he'd seen me first. He already had a gun in his hand.

I went down fast and hard, one knee pounding a shallow depression in the grass, slapping my hand to the Colt under my coat. There was a sudden shout—“Lookout, Skiko!”—from behind me. From the right side of the house. Not from the little man my eyes were on. As my knee hit the lawn he let go a shot at me, high, close but high.

I squeezed the Colt's trigger twice and missed the man both times. Even so, he spun around and jumped out of sight between the house next to the Bersudians' and the one beyond it.

I dived forward, skidded on the lawn and rolled as another gun blasted. When I came up the man firing at me—the second man—was a blur in my sight, not clear, but clear enough for me to know the sonofabitch was trying to kill me.

I snapped one shot at him in a hurry, more to jar him, shake his aim, than in a real attempt to hit him. But I aimed the last two slugs. And got him. Twice.

He'd fired again, maybe several times, before I hit him. I don't know; you don't count them when they're coming at you. He staggered, but didn't go down. The gun in his hand wavered away from me, but then he pulled it slowly back to point at my head.

At least it seemed to me that he moved slowly, but probably it was fast. I was still on my knees, bracing one hand against the lawn, right arm extended before me, and when I squeezed the Colt's trigger again it took a long time for the hammer to fall on an empty cartridge.

I saw the queer puff of powder and heat from the bore of his gun and simultaneously felt the blow on the side of my head. It seemed a tremendous blow, a shock that should have torn my head off, more an explosion inside my skull than an impact from without. But I was still conscious, aware of sunlight splashing green lawn, painting brilliant color on a lone hibiscus blossom blooming against the house. A red hibiscus, moving against the pink stucco.

It kept moving. House and earth and sky were moving. I felt a feathery touch aainst my left side, knew I'd toppled over, was lying against the grass. But I didn't go out, didn't lose consciousness.

I was still functioning, clutching grass in my fingers. I'd dropped the Colt. Then I was on my hands and knees trying to move toward the man near me. Even with my brain slowed, dulled, stunned, I knew I couldn't get away. It was toward him, or just wait for it.

I got my head up, vision blurred. But I could see the bastard. Thirty feet away, facing me. Still on his feet. But his arm had dropped to his side, and he was swaying. He didn't let go of the gun even then, but it hung in a relaxing hand as he took one slow step toward me, then another. His foot was in the air for the third step when he slanted forward and fell slowly and loosely, outstretched leg bending beneath him like a limb of rubber.

He thudded audibly against the grass, rolled over onto his back. He kicked his right leg forward three times, rapidly, like a man pumping brakes, then was still.

When I managed to find my gun and get to my feet I half expected the other little guy to be cracking down on me again. But he wasn't in sight. I couldn't hear him.

I moved unsteadily to the spot where I'd last seen him. By then the front door of the adjacent house was open and a young woman was looking out, mouth open and eyes wide. She saw me and jumped back, slamming the door. My head was beginning to throb, but my vision was clearer.

The man—Skiko was his name, I guessed; that's what the other one had yelled at him—wasn't in view between the houses. Undoubtedly it was just as well. I'd fired two slugs at him and three at, and into, the man before the house. Plus, earlier, one past Jimmy Violet's ears. Six—including that extra one I'd slipped into the revolver this morning.

So it was a good thing I'd had all six chambers filled; but they were empty now. The Colt Special wasn't a gun any longer. At best it was a rock. O.K., I'd go after the bastard with a rock.

But he hadn't waited around. He was not, apparently, a man with much stomach for getting shot at. Which didn't surprise me. I've known too many hoods.

Then I went back in front of the Bersudians' pink house. A siren was thin in the air, getting closer. The man on the grass still lay sprawled on his back, staring past the sun.

Near him, out colder than a frozen halibut, lay Angelica Bersudian.

She'd fainted and fallen with something of a jolt, no doubt. Angelica lay on her side, smooth curve of ample hip accentuated by the splash of colored cloth, one swelling breast completely free of the bikini bra.

I bent, pulled the cloth up over the bulging bareness, left her lying there, stepped near the dead man. He was dead all right.

I hadn't known who he was when returning his fire, hadn't recognized him. But I recognized him now. I knew this boy.

He was Stub Corey.

I felt a warm trickle on my leg. There was a pretty good gouge in my thigh, a couple inches above my knee. But even with my head slowly revolving as well, I was in fair shape—especially compared to Corey.

I tied a handkerchief around my leg, and waited for Angelica.

About ten seconds before the police car pulled up behind my Cad siren scowling softly, she came to.

I helped her sit up.

She sat silently, eyes dull with shock and even more sleepy-looking than usual, then she glanced at the body on the lawn.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn't think I was tailed here. They probably cruised around till they spotted my car—or maybe they guessed I was coming here. I should have made sure, I guess, but—”

She interrupted me. Pointing at the dead guy, she said, “That's the man.”

“What?”

“That's the man I saw last night. With George.”

The police car had stopped before the house. An officer was opening the right-hand door, looking at us, the three of us.