Shakedown (12 page)

“Deutscher’s in ’Frisco,” I said.

Moose smiled. “Is he, now? We know better than that, don’t we, Puma?”

The edges of everything seemed to get sharper. I could see the man in the Lincoln smoking calmly and I could hear the traffic noises a block down and see the pupils of Moose’s eyes.

His voice was quieter. “I’m not armed and neither is my buddy. We don’t want your money or your neck—just a few words with the man Little Phil sent me to.”

“And you don’t want to mention his name?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m not armed, either,” I said. “I’d feel better, armed.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

I went past him and unlocked the door. He didn’t move. I went into the dim living room, and he stayed out on the porch. The gun was in the bureau and I took it out of the holster a second and weighed it in my hand.

I was protected now, armed. I could very easily tell him to go to hell. That mention of Deutscher could have been a shot in the dark on his part, just waiting for a reaction. But I couldn’t be sure and if I showed any interest, that would be a giveaway. I couldn’t be sure, and I couldn’t ask.

I put the gun in the holster, and took off my jacket and strapped the holster on. My shirt was wet and sticking to me, though it wasn’t that hot out.

I was putting on the jacket again when Moose looked in the open doorway. “You can phone the law and tell them who you’re with, if you want to.”

Maybe it was a bluff, a way of making me feel safe about getting into that car with the two of them. And maybe he knew I wouldn’t holler copper because he knew about Deutscher.

Standing where I stood, I couldn’t know. And I figured he wasn’t bright enough to pull that colossal a bluff. I said, “I don’t need any law, now that I’ve got the .38.”

He nodded. “None of us are anxious to see cops. Not when there’s a buck to be made.”

He must have learned about Willi Clifford. Or the unnamed man must have heard about it, and they were all declaring themselves in. A buck to be made. That was the nub of it, and until they learned from me exactly how the buck was to be made, I was safe.

Once they learned, and discovered I wasn’t indispensable to the plan, my life wouldn’t be worth a nickel. But there’d be no muscle until then, I told myself. I figured Moose right enough on it, but the Mr. Big in the deal wasn’t thinking about the money to be made. He was thinking of his neck. That’s where I figured it wrong.

We went out, and I walked down the walk to the car, and the blond, round-faced man behind the wheel leaned over to open the front door on the curb side.

Moose said, “As long as you’re nervous, where would you like to sit, Joe?”

“I’m not nervous any more,” I said, “but it’s too hot for three in the front. I’ll sit in the back, alone.”

They didn’t seemed disturbed by that. Moose climbed into the front seat, and the blond punk started the motor. The car was at least twelve years old, one of the twelve cylinder jobs, but it ran as quietly as an electric fan.

It was a long ride, all the way to the Coast Highway and then north, toward Malibu. And then, this side of Malibu, we began to climb up a winding road into the hills on the right. This wasn’t exactly well populated country, but there were some big wheels who lived up here. And I did have the thirty-eight.

At the crest of one of the lower hills, there was a driveway leading into an eucalyptus grove and a low, redwood and stone house sprawled on the bulldozed, flat top. It was one of those houses that look inexpensive and simple until you come to buy or build one. The driveway circled and led around to the immense asphalt parking area at the side of the house.

They worked it very cute at this point. Moose opened the door on his side and slid out to open the rear door on the same side. He was smiling at me. “Here we are, boss.”

My attention was on him. I’d have to crouch, to duck through the low door, and neither of my arms would have any working area. It would be a perfect spot to catch a sucker punch, and Moose had the moxie to make it a one punch deal.

The fink in the front seat was out of my mind entirely. I kept my chin down, and my attention on Moose.

Keeping my chin down must have tilted my head about right for the man behind the wheel. I heard nothing as the sap caught me right above the left ear. I went down into the void still seeing Moose’s genial grin.

I came to in a knotty pine den. I was on a leather couch near a huge fieldstone fireplace, and I seemed to be alone in the room. A row of knee-high windows along the far wall revealed the coastline beyond Santa Barbara. This room was evidently on the steep side of the house; there would be a three-hundred-foot drop from those windows into the valley below. My head throbbed steadily and there was a pain running down into my left shoulder.

Suckered. By a punchy ex-pug, a former club fighter, a nothing. And why? Not because of the fight we’d had. Somebody else was involved in this. Moose couldn’t pay the taxes on a house like this.

My gun was gone, though the shoulder holster was still there. Somewhere in the house, a radio played, and I heard water running through a pipe. The water stopped, but the radio went on.

Stay out of trouble … Sure. Not in this town. Too many bastards hunting the angle, looking for a gravy train to climb on. Moose had had just enough Hollywood experience to learn how many ways there are to make a buck in this town.

My stomach growled, and nausea settled there. I kept my eyes on the calm, sun-bright coast line. Then, slowly, I swung my feet from the couch and sat up. For a while I sat there on the edge of the couch while my vision wavered. I hoped I’d get a chance at that blond punk before too long.

I stood up finally and went to the windows. I’d been right about the drop; far below I could see the bottom of the valley. This was the buttressed side of the house.

There was a single door leading to this room, and I guessed the room must be below the general level of the house. I tried the door, just on an off-chance, but it was locked. I went back to the couch as the throbbing started again in my head. I wondered how much time had passed and I wondered what this was all about.

It was plain enough now that it wasn’t just a talk they wanted. It was information, and they meant to get it. I’d been slugged outside because that particular situation had offered the best opportunity for it. They’d expected me to resist whenever the proposition was voiced. They’d put me in a spot where it wouldn’t be healthy to resist.

I heard footsteps on what must be stairs on the far side of the door. I lay down on the couch, again, and closed my eyes. I heard the door open and someone say, “He’s still out. That friend of yours hit him too hard, Moose.”

I opened my eyes and saw the tall, thin man standing there. His hair was gray-black, his eyes a cold blue. He looked down at me without saying a word. It was Jennings, Rickett’s attorney. It was the man who’d hired me for a day.

I didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything. Moose said, “He looks all right, now.”

I said to Moose, “Did you take my gun?”

He smiled at me and winked at Jennings.

Jennings said, “Where’s Josie Gonzales?”

I didn’t say a word.

Moose asked, “Want me to club him a few times?”

Jennings shook his head. “Joe will work with us. It’s his neck. What’s the pitch, Joe? Deutscher out of sight, Josie gone. And somebody telling the law that I was mishandling Rickett’s money. Who’s trying to get me, Joe?”

“The law,” I said, “for framing Rickett, I suppose. What’s it got to do with me?”

“I’m asking you that.”

“Nothing.”

“It’s the wrong time to be, Joe.”

I nodded. “I know it. Deutscher’s the man you want.”

“And where is he?”

They didn’t know.
… It kept going through my aching head.
They didn’t know. …

I said, “The police are looking for him in ’Frisco.”

“On whose tip?”

“I don’t know.”

He stared at me for seconds. Then, “Maybe you think I’m not in a position to try any rough stuff, but you’re wrong, Joe. If Josie ever ties me to the money that was paid to clear Rickett, and the law comes nosing into his account, I’m in trouble. I’m out of business, and facing a term in jail. I don’t propose to have either of those things happen.”

“The law must be nosing into the account, already,” I said.

He shook his head. “Rickett is satisfied with my handling of his money, so they can’t complain. And Rickett will continue to be satisfied with me as long as he knows I’m working on the outside to clear him. He’d overlook a lot to save his neck.”

“You frame him and then clear him, is that it?”

Jennings studied me. “I didn’t frame him. Target phoned him, threatened him.”

“Who suggested that to Target?”

“I’ll ask you that one, too.”

“I could guess,” I said. “A prominent man who happens to be standing in this room. If he was framed, he was framed at Little Phil’s, and here you are with Little Phil’s friend. How dumb do you think I am?”

Moose said quickly, “You got it wrong, Joe. I never saw Mr. Jennings until Little Phil told me he thought Mr. Jennings would know about you. He said you were working for Mr. Jennings.”

Jennings nodded. “Moose is just a lad who wants to earn a dollar. And wonders where you got all the money to fly so high these days.”

“I’m not flying high.”

Moose grinned at me. “If you ain’t rich, you’re the first guy like that who ever got in with that Roland dame.”

I said nothing.

Jennings said, “We don’t seem to be getting anywhere. I considered you smarter than that, Puma. I don’t like violence. I’m no sadist. But I intend to have the truth.”

“I’ve given you all the truth I know,” I said. “If the police find out I’m missing, this is one of the places they’re going to look for me.”

“Hardly. Very few people even know about this house of mine. I’ll give you twenty minutes, Joe. If you want to talk, holler. If you don’t intend to, Moose and his pal will still be back in twenty minutes.”

Jennings turned and headed for the door. Moose shook his head. “Get smart, Puma. What’s the point in being stubborn?”

“I’m telling it straight,” I said. “And remember one thing, Jelko. I’ve got a long memory.”

He nodded. “Me, too.”

They went out, and the door closed, and I went back to the windows overlooking the valley. There were climbing geraniums planted along the filled soil here, used to prevent erosion.

If Jennings hadn’t instigated Target’s threat, who had? Deutscher? No, if Deutscher was going to try blackmail, he’d try it directly. And there’d be no other motive for Deutscher; Target’s death wouldn’t help him any. Target had got his payment from me.

I wondered, now, if Rickett had really killed Target. That he’d been framed into killing him, if he had, I didn’t doubt. But maybe, drunk as he was and probably drugged, someone else had done the actual killing and left Rickett there to take the rap.

And why had Target phoned me? No wonder Jennings thought I was the key to it; I’d been tied up with Target, Deutscher, Josie, Little Phil and him, one way or another. If anybody knew what was going on, I should.

Typical Puma luck, on the verge of a really big deal, the biggest of my life, and the hangover of an old one has to throw me off stride. One thing they wouldn’t learn and that was the Clifford pitch. I’d been wrong about their interest in me; it had nothing to do with the Clifford steal. And they wouldn’t learn about it from me.

There wasn’t any story I could make up that would convince Jennings I was innocent in that Target murder. I’d been there with the law, and he knew it. But maybe, just maybe, I could make a deal with Moose, when he came back. He was a mug, working for wages, and I could offer him that. No grudge he might have for me would be more important than money. He wasn’t
that
dumb.

Then minutes went by as I looked out at the valley below. Then I made a search of every bit of furniture in the room, looking for a weapon. There wasn’t anything that even resembled a weapon, no chairs that weren’t upholstered, no table legs, no heavy metal lamps.

My stomach felt empty; there was some rubber in my knees. I went over to the couch and sat down. I was still sitting there when the door opened and Moose and the blond came in. Moose wasn’t smiling this time, and the blond’s face was blank as a sheet of glass. This was the first time I’d ever seen the blond on his feet, and he wasn’t tall. But he was wide and thick.

I didn’t get up. I said, “What’s your take in this, Moose?”

He shook his head. “Save your breath, unless you’ve got something important to say. I’m not for sale.”

“Why not? Jennings bought you, didn’t he?”

“Not with money alone. The man’s got influence. What have you got? Nothing.”

I stood up. “I’ve got plenty coming, big money. Use your head. Jennings will be in the clink within the week. And you can’t get away with this unless you kill me.”

He smiled, then. “We might do just that. And if we don’t, you aren’t going to call any law.”

“Get me a phone,” I said, “and I’ll call some law, right now.”

“Now,” he said. “Now, sure.
Now,
you’re a man.”

They were spreading, drifting apart, and I couldn’t watch both of them without turning back and forth. Then Moose came in quickly, and I gave him my attention. I threw a right hand at his chin.

Moose had been the decoy. He slipped the punch, and my hand was still stretched out when the blond came in from the side. He had the hand in both of his and my arm was suddenly behind me. He was strong. He’d come in like one of the Muscles’ Beach wrestlers, flat-footed and sure, and pain danced up from the elbow to the shoulder.

I tried to catch his face with the back of my head, but he’d been expecting that. I gasped as he gave my arm a warning twist. There wasn’t a sound but the heavy breathing of the man behind me. Moose stepped in and pumped a right and then a left to my gut.

He didn’t have all his moxie in either of them, but my breath caught in my throat and a limpness moved through my legs. Left, right, left, right, left, right—pulled punches, but adding up, and the room began to waver.