The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (46 page)

“As the family’s lawyer you are in the perfect position to help us. We know Dwight Harley and his wife are in Bermuda. They’ve left here one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in negotiable securities. If we took them, we’d get maybe thirty thousand dollars from a fence. But you can get their full value.

“You take these bonds, turn them into cash, and bring it here; I want you to work fast. I may add, that you’ll be watched.”

“What assurance do I have,” Houston demanded, “that you will release the girls after you get the money?”

“Because we have no reason to add murder to this. If we get the money, we leave, and the girls remain here.”

“All right.” Houston stood up. “Since I have no choice in the matter. I can handle the bonds. But I wish you’d allow me to communicate with Harley.”

“Nothing doing.” The reply was sharp. “You can handle this. I’m sure you’ve done transactions for him before.”

Crouched there by the steps, I stiffened slightly. That voice. I knew it from somewhere.

What Houston didn’t know was that murder was already tied in with this deal, and what I knew was that those thugs would never leave the girls alive when they left.

Nor, the chances were, would Houston make it either.

“What’s your part in this, Hiesel?” Houston demanded, as he rose from the table.

The criminal lawyer shrugged. “The same as yours, Houston. These men knew of me. They simply got me to contact you. I don’t know the girls. Nor do I know Harley, but I’ve no desire to see the girls or Harley killed over a few paltry dollars.”

“And some of those paltry dollars,” Houston replied sharply, “will no doubt find their way into your pockets.”

He turned and walked to a door to the outside, and Hiesel followed him.

As they reached the door, I glanced back through the archway into the library where they had talked.

A man was standing there, and he was looking right at me.

The gun in his hand was very large, and I knew his face as well as I knew my own.

It was a round, moonlike face, pink and healthy. There were almost no eyebrows, and the mouth was peculiarly flat. When he smiled, he looked cherubic and pleasant. When his mouth closed and his eyes hardened, he looked merciless and brutal.

He was an underworld character known as Candy Chuck Marvin.

“So,” he said, “we’ve a guest.” And he added, as I got up and walked out into the open, “Long time no see, Morgan.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It has been a long time. I haven’t seen you since the Redden mob was wiped out. As I remember, you took a powder at just about that time.”

“That’s right.” He gestured me into the library. The fourth man, the hoodlum in the gray plaid suit, had a gun, too. “And where are the boys who wiped out the Redden mob now?”

I
T TOOK ME
a minute to get it. “Where are they? Why, let’s see.” I scowled, trying to recall. “Salter was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Pete Maron hung himself, or something. Lew Fischer and Joey Spats got into an argument over a card game and shot it out, both killed. I guess they are all dead.”

“That’s right. They are.” Candy Chuck smiled at me. “Odd coincidence, isn’t it? Fortunately, Pete Maron was light. That hook held his weight. I wasn’t sure that it would when I first hung the rope over it. Salter was easy. It’s simple enough to run a man down. And it’s not too difficult a matter to fake a ‘gun battle.’ I pay my debts, Morgan.”

I smiled at him. Candy Chuck Marvin was cunning, without any mercy, and killing meant nothing to him.

He had been convicted once, when a boy. After that, nobody ever found any witnesses.

“But this time there’s going to be a change,” I said. “You’re turning those girls loose.”

He laughed. “Am I?” He sat down on the corner of the desk and looked at me. “Morgan, I’ve found one of those setups I used to dream about. The boys pulled the Madison Tool payroll job, and they were on the lam. They came to me for a place to hole up. Then I got to talking with the little Harley girl on a train. It was perfect, see? Her parents gone, all the servants on vacations. The two girls were going to Atlanta—on a surprise visit. All we had to do was take them off the train at the next stop, return here and move in, a safe hideout for at least thirty days.”

“Looked good, didn’t it?” I said. “Until Blubber Puss followed the girl out of that bar.”

His eyes hardened. “Was that you who beat up on Buckley? I might have known it.” Then he nodded. “Yes,” he said ruefully, “that was the bad part. We’ve got the sixty grand the boys lifted on the payroll, but it’s hot money. Using it would be a dead giveaway. There was a little money on the girls, but my boys eat. So I sent the babe out with Buckley in order to pick up some cash.”

“Winding up,” I said dryly, “by knocking off Seagram.”

“You know about that?” He looked at me thoughtfully. “You know too much.”

Right then I wouldn’t have sold my chances of getting out of this mess for a plugged nickel.

I wasn’t kidding myself any about Candy Chuck. Take the wiping out of those killers back East. Nobody had ever tumbled that those killings weren’t just like they looked—accident, suicide, and gunfight. Candy Chuck knew all the answers.

“There’s no end to it,” I told him. “You got in a bind and let Seagram learn too much. So you knocked him off. That got the police stirred up. Now you’ve got me on your hands. Are you going to knock me off, too? Don’t you see? It just leads from one to another. You got sixty grand in hot money, and for all the good it does you now, you might as well have none. You’ve got a lawyer with a lot of bonds, but you haven’t any cash to work with. The trouble with you, Marvin, is that you figure it all your way. Just like when you were so sure I’d throw that Williams fight because you threatened me.”

Candy Chuck Marvin’s eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened. “You’d have been smart to let me forget that,” he said. “I dropped ten grand on that fight.”

“You’re not the kind of guy who forgets anything,” I said. “And you’re in the spot, not me.”

This hoodlum with the rod is standing by taking it all in. Most of my talk has been as much for his benefit as for Candy Chuck’s. I knew Marvin liked to hear himself tell how smart he was. I knew he would keep on talking. The longer he talked, the better chance I had for a break. One was all I wanted, brother, just one!

The hoodlum was beginning to shift his feet in a worried fashion. He was getting ideas. After all, he and his pals were right in the middle of a strange city, the cops were on their trail, they didn’t have any money, and they were trusting to Marvin to pull rabbits out of a hat.

Marvin was good. He had hostages. He was living in one of the biggest, finest homes in the city, the last place anybody would look. Tarrant Houston wouldn’t peep for fear of getting the girls killed. Nobody was around to interfere, and soon Houston would be cashing in a lot of bonds.

“Think of your men, Marvin,” I said. I turned to the hood. “What do you think will happen to you guys if the cops move in? You guys get sold down the river. You take the rap, and the smart boy here has his pretty lawyer to get him out of it. If you ask me, you guys are just losing time from your getaway to let Marvin use you for a fast take—if it works.”

“Shut up.” Marvin was on his feet.

“Y’know, the guy’s got somethin’.”

The voice was a new one and we all turned. I jumped inside my skin. Whit Dyer had a rep like Dillinger’s. He was no smart Joe, but he had a nickel’s worth of brains, a fast gun hand, and courage enough for three.

“I never did like this setup,” Dyer went on.

“Don’t pay any attention!” Marvin snapped. “Where would you be, Dyer, if I hadn’t brought you here?”

“Search me,” Dyer admitted. “But not being here might be good. After all, there’s just one way in and out of this yard, as you know. One way in, one way out. If they block those, we’re stuck.”

Then I saw something. Little things jump to your mind in a spot like that. There was a side window and the gate that led to the street looked right on it. A car was coming along that street. If it turned the corner this way, the lights would—

“Look out!” I shouted.

The car turned and the lights flashed in the window. Nerves were tense and my yell and the sudden flash did it. I hit the floor and snaked out that snub-nosed .38.

Whit Dyer took a quick step back and tripped on the rug. Somebody yelled and I saw a leg and let go a shot at it. Then I rolled over and hit my feet, running.

I made the stairs two at a time and was halfway up before Marvin made the door. They still hadn’t figured out where that sudden flash of light had come from and for all they knew the place was alive with coppers.

Dyer rolled over and tried a quick shot at me, but I snapped one back and put a hole in the floor an inch from his head. Candy Chuck steadied himself and I knew if he ever got me in his sights, I was a dead pigeon. I jumped upward and somehow got hold of the railing at the top of the stairs. I threw myself out of the way just as his bullet whipped by. Then I was running.

I had to get the girls out of there. Skating to a stop, I grabbed the knob on their door, but it was locked. One look at the door told me there wasn’t time to bust it, so I fired at an angle against the lock and then with a heave the door came open.

“Quick!” I said. “This way!”

The Harley girls caught on fast. They didn’t waste any time. I shoved them into the room through which I’d entered.

“Get out onto that tree,” I whispered. “You’ve got to! If you can get down without being seen, hide in the shrubbery.”

Dyer and Greer were coming up the steps. They were careful. I had that gun and they didn’t know how much ammo I had. Actually, it was half empty, but I also had the .380, which was a better gun, and two extra clips for it.

Backing around the corner of the hall, I caught a glimpse of movement on the stairs and fired. Greer fell and started rolling downstairs. In the suddenly silent house, you could hear his body thump, thump, thump from step to step.

Could the shots be heard on the street? I didn’t know. But I did know the house probably had walls a foot thick.

The back stairs. The idea hit me like an axe. There would be another way up, it was that kind of house. But by this time, Blubber Dozen and his skinny friend had been relieved of their guard duty and were coming inside. So that way was cut off.

I was on a long interior balcony from which rooms opened on two sides. The main stairway came up one side, but the railings partially cut off my view of it. I knew I had to get away somehow, but fast, before Dozen and his friend found me.

The hallway was hung with paintings and there were a lot of queer ornaments and art objects standing around. Down beyond me was an old chest of heavy wood and against the wall an Egyptian mummy case.

You didn’t need to slug me with a ball bat. I grabbed the lid of that upright mummy case and pulled it open. It was empty, and I stepped in and pulled the lid as near shut as I could and still breathe. Inside the case smelled like a dead Egyptian or something; maybe this one had been embalmed in garlic.

Someone called, “Look out, Ed! He’s in the hall!” Then Blubber Puss answered, “Must’ve ducked into a room. He ain’t in sight.”

Heavy footsteps came along, and I saw a dark shadow pass the crack I was keeping open. That was Dozen. But it was Whit Dyer’s voice I heard now.

“I don’t like this,” Dyer muttered. “He got Greer.”

“He did?” Dozen’s voice spoke back. “Whit, I don’t like this either. This place will be hotter than a firecracker. Let’s take the geetus and blow!”

“Maybe that’s the smart thing. I was thinkin’, though, if Marvin gets his dough from that mouthpiece of Harley’s, he figures on keeping it. I’m for knocking Marvin off and taking the jack.”

Honor among thieves? Not so’s you’d notice it! They moved off and I opened the lid just a little wider. And I stepped right into Skinny.

His jaw dropped open so far you could have put a bottle of Pepsi-Cola in edgewise, and he backed up, gulping. I guess he figured the dead was coming to life. He was so startled that I slapped his gun arm away with my left and lowered the boom on his chin with my right.

He went down like he’d been dropped off the Chrysler Tower, but his finger tightened on the trigger and a shot went off.

Somebody yelled down the line and I heard feet beating up the stairs. Those feet were coming toward me.

Grabbing up Skinny’s gun, I opened up. I wasn’t shooting at anything, just making the boys nervous. I let them have four rounds and then started off down the hall running full tilt. I was almost at its end when the roof seemed to fall in. I took about three steps and then passed out cold.

W
HEN
I
CAME
out of it, I was lying on the floor in the library and Candy Chuck was sitting over me with a rod. I tried to move, but he had tied my hands behind me and wrapped me up with a couple of yards of clothesline. By craning my neck, I could see that Dyer, Skinny, and Dozen were also in the room.

“Don’t squirm,” Candy Chuck said politely. “Just rest easy.” Then his face tightened and he leaned over and began slapping me. When he stopped, his face was a snarl.

“Where’s the babes?” he said.

“What babes?” I asked innocently. “I thought you had ’em.”

“Don’t give me that,” he said. “You hid them someplace. Now give, or I’m going to see how long it’ll take to burn your foot off.”

He would, too.

“Don’t do it,” I say. “I can’t stand the smell of burning flesh. Reminds me of a guy I saw get it in the hot seat, once. You should be interested in that. It won’t—”

He booted me in the ribs, and it hurt.

I stopped. I had no yen to get kicked around, and there was a chance he hadn’t found my .380. No normal frisk would turn it up. Yet he might kick it, and then he
would
find it. Those ropes weren’t bothering me. I had an idea that given a few minutes alone, I could shed them like last year’s blonde.

“Listen, sport,” I said, and I was addressing Dyer, Skinny, and Dozen, as well as Candy Chuck. Skinny I noticed had a knot on his head where he had hit the deck, and his jaw was swollen. “Why don’t you boys play it smart and drag it out of here with the dough you got?”