Black Mask Detective (Vol. 34, No. 3 — May 1950)

The glamorous bubble of Hollywood’s hottest night-spot was smashed to scandalous smithereens when its playboy owner mysteriously disappeared — and left bouncer Pete Sheffold to pick up the homicidal pieces.

Chapter One No Body to Bury

Now, in the left-over glow of the dead afternoon, the Street no longer glittered. The long black limousines and chrome-plated convertibles held no radiance of their own. The modernistic facades of the night clubs, such as Julian’s, seemed sober and almost real. In the stony glare of the Hollywood sun they had resembled propped-up movie sets. An hour from now their lights would gleam, like heated zircons and fake rubies, across a velvet strip of night. But for a little hour this might have been any street.

Even the people looked very nearly like real people, Pete Sheffold thought as he neared the end of his two-mile walk along the Street. Such as the girl standing in front of Julian’s. Under the sun, her blonde hair would have been improbable. Now the purple after-glow had softened even the tense, artificial brightness of her smile.

A flash of emotion across her face revealed she had been waiting for him. She would have had no difficulty in picking him out of the crowd. He was a huge man, Pete Sheffold, almost a giant. Four inches over six feet he stood, and he weighed nearly two hundred and forty pounds. But unlike most large men past their early youth, there was no fat on him. He was simply big. When the girl slipped between him and the entrance of Julian’s, she seemed as fragile as spun glass.

“Can you give me a minute, Mr. Sheffold?” The brightness was apparent now. A blue coat was draped over her shoulders and she carried a big red purse. “I’m Laurel Owens.”

“What did you want, Laurel?” His voice was grave and not impolite.

She smiled the slow counterfeit Hollywood smile, as empty as yesterday’s vows. “Five years ago I wanted your autograph. I saw you play, Mr. Sheffold, and I’ve always thought you were the greatest halfback who ever lived.”

“I was a fullback,” Sheffold said, without emphasis. “And it was seven years ago.”

The smile faded away. “All right,” she said quietly. “The wrong approach... It’s about a job, of course. I’m a singer.”

“You want to see Julian Mena for that,” Sheffold told her. “Or Mr. Bannerman. I’m just the bouncer here.”

“I know that. But I was told—” She looked up at him quickly. Her eyes were deep blue and not yet too wise. Her mouth under the thick lipstick was vulnerable. Scrape off the artfully applied make-up, Sheffold thought, and she was still a nice girl from the Mid-West. “I mean,” she said, “Mr. Mena won’t see me — and Mr. Bannerman never seems to be around anymore.”

People were beginning to notice that, Pete Sheffold thought. Next came the rumors.

“Everybody says you’re very close to Mr. Mena. If you’d just put in a word for me... All I ask is a chance to sing for him.”

Sheffold’s dark eyes were thoughtful. “How long have you been in Hollywood?”

“Nearly a year.”

“No picture work?”

She shook her head. “No work, period.”

“Why don’t you go back home? Forget about it. Maybe you’d never get a job here. And even if you did, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

Her face was stiff, her chin up. She held the red purse between them like a shield.

“You wouldn’t like yourself then,” he said gently. “Take my word for it. I’ve been on the Strip for nearly seven years. The price is too high.”

“The sympathetic approach!” Her mouth curled. “Well, maybe I have too much pride and too little money to go home. So help a girl out — she might be grateful.”

Sheffold pushed her aside with a hand that was amazingly gentle for one so huge. He unlocked the massive, copper-riveted door. Without looking at her, he said, “Julian comes into the bar every night at exactly twelve o’clock. The cheapest drink here is eighty-five cents. If you have the price, you could be there when he came in.”

“I do have eighty-five cents,” she said quietly. “Thanks a lot. I won’t forget it.” Her footsteps started away.

“Laurel,” he called, still not turning around. The steps came back. “You don’t owe me any thanks,” he said, and went inside.

The empty, shrouded tables were the corpses of last night’s gaiety, and the echo of silent, bitter laughter was still there for ears that could hear it. In the dimness the silver and blue appointments were drab gray. It was as glamorous as a garret.

A lonesome bartender pointed a plastic swizzle-stick at one of the blue leather banquettes. “For you, Pete.”

A man in a pin-stripe suit lounged there. He had a gray triangular face like an old satyr. His eyes were tired, but he was possessed with a nervous energy that never gave him rest.

“Sit down,” he invited. “I’m Lee Krell. Been meaning to get around to you. I figure a guy in your job must pick up a lot of interesting news. I’ll give you five bucks for every item I can print. You know the type of stuff.”

Sheffold shook his head. “I’ve never read your column.”

“Everybody else has,” Krell said without rancor. He leaned forward. “I’ll give you the general idea. What’s this about Julian’s partner?”

Sheffold’s face was blank. “Bannerman?”

“I hear he hasn’t shown for a week. Not here, not at his apartment, not any place.” Krell watched him intently. “A guy like Bannerman doesn’t just blow away. What’s the story — a doll?”

“Why don’t you ask Julian?”

“Julian has been asked.” Krell smiled wanly. “He won’t talk about it. That’s indicative. Now his bouncer dummies up. That’s corroboration. You see?”

“I’ve often wondered how it worked. Is this why you get so many things wrong in your column?”

Krell grinned sardonically. “I thought you’d never read it.”

“Not after the first one,” Sheffold said. He got up and walked away. It won’t be long now, he thought, now the keyhole boys are on to it.

He went through the gleaming kitchen and out to the empty asphalt lot at the rear of the club. Jerry Sims, the parking attendant, grinned and unbuttoned his smock. Sheffold got a football from a locker. Without a word he walked to the far end of the parking lot.

Jerry’s grin died. He shrugged, but his face was worried as he passed the ball back and forth.

They tossed the ball till darkness closed in and the lights around the parking lot came on. Sheffold’s shirt was glued to his tremendous chest with perspiration. Beads of it clung to his coal-black eyebrows. A dull throbbing pain had begun to beat along his spine. He watched Jerry put the smock back on.

“Did you date that girl — Laurel?” he asked suddenly.

Jerry flushed. “So that’s what’s been eating you! Hell, I was only trying to be a good guy.”

“You tried too hard,” Sheffold said evenly. “But she just didn’t know enough about football. You haven’t answered my question.”

“She threw me for a loss,” Jerry grinned. “So I took five bucks for my trouble.”

“It was her last five.” That wouldn’t make any difference to a sharpshooter, Sheffold said in a low voice, “Don’t talk about me again. To anybody. If Julian isn’t paying you enough money, see Lee Krell.”

“Hell,” Jerry laughed wisely, “I’ve been handing him stuff for a year! You know, I think he’d really up the rate to find out what happened to Bannerman.”

Sheffold watched lights blossom along the street.

“We could split a ten spot, Pete.”

“It was Bannerman who gave you this job,” Sheffold said softly. “How much would you take to sell out a real friend?”

“I got four bucks for it once,” Jerry retorted. “But I was new on the Strip then. Today I know an angle when I see one.”

“That’s what an education will do for you.”

Sheffold went back into the club. There was no one around to witness his labored progress up the stairs to the second floor. Every evening he endured the same agony with grim acceptance, as of some empty, pagan ritual. It was not simply the endless struggle against flabbiness but a refusal to concede that even a mutilated spinal column could be a flaw in his vast strength. He was a giant; therefore invincible.

At the door to Julian’s private office he paused a moment to iron away the pain creases in his dark face. It was a secret he would not share even with Julian. And of all the fans of that fullback sensation of seven years ago, only Julian had remembered when a broken back had snatched Pete Sheffold from public attention. So that, with his education unfinished, pro-football a hollow dream, and his name-value lost in the glare of a new season’s crop of sensational backfielders, Sheffold had accepted the only job offered to him. He became a bouncer in Julian’s.

A half dozen ledgers were open on Julian Mena’s desk. He was a swarthy, brown-eyed man with hair that was thick and gray at the aides, thin and black on top. He wore horn-rimmed glasses in the privacy of his office, and occasionally confessed he had stomach ulcers. That alone was enough to kill all the humor in a man, but Sheffold had known him before he had ulcers. Nothing could be funny when there was always a dark tomorrow to be faced; and even a daily horoscope was of little comfort.

The green-shaded lamp poured a white glare down on the desk. Sheffold waited silently just outside the rim of light. Presently, without looking up, Julian said, “If you have something to say, Pete, come out with it.”

“A girl named Laurel Owens. She’s been trying to see you. She needs a job.”

“Lots of people need jobs,” Julian said impatiently. “Last month it was a hat-check girl. I can’t hire them all.”

Julian had hired someone that time because the regular check-room girl had quietly walked off during a busy night.

That had been three days after Bannerman was last seen. But Sheffold had already discounted any connection. Alyce Rowland had not been Bannerman’s type. She’d been a chemical blonde with too much figure and too little brains. And there was the other side of it: the check-room girl here earned more money over a long period than Julian did. Alyce had not been the type to throw that up for any man. And yet there had to be some answer...

Pete Sheffold said, “This girl is a singer.”

“Damn it all, Pete, I’ve got a singer!”

“You can listen to her,” Sheffold said. He gave the impression that he could stand there forever. “Will you talk to her tonight?”

“I pay you to be a bouncer, Pete,” Julian said icily, “not an employment agency. Let this girl get her own job.”

Sheffold’s voice was negligent. “She couldn’t get to see you. And Bannerman hasn’t been around since the first of the month.”

Julian sat utterly motionless but his eyes crept sideways. There was no life in his voice now. “All right, Pete. Tell her I’ll see her. But I can’t use two singers.” He pulled one of the ledgers toward himself and pretended to concentrate on it.

Sheffold asked softly, “How much did he get away with?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about now,” Julian snapped. “Bannerman is taking a rest, Pete. He’s — out of town. And these,” he gestured with sudden anger at the ledgers, “are for my income tax! Harley Bannerman is not an embezzler, Pete. Is there anything else bothering you?”

“Yes,” Sheffold said in a low voice. “Mind if I use your shower?”

“You use it every night. Now don’t get sore at me,” Julian said, almost pleading.

Sheffold walked to the door of the private bathroom and stood there while he took off his damp shirt. His back ached dismally. “This girl Laurel knows Bannerman’s not around. The hired help have been buzzing for a week. And now Lee Krell is sniffing at it. I’ve been on the Strip long enough to know one thing — when something smells as bad as this, somebody didn’t bury a body deep enough.”

Julian jerked around in his chair. “That’s a damn nice figure of speech!”

“I hope that’s all it is,” Sheffold told him soberly.

Chapter Two Chloroform with Curve

Julian’s had come to life. It had warmth now and music, and the glittering people were there. Laughter, not yet silent nor bitter, sparkled like champagne. It wouldn’t turn to vinegar until the chilled dark hours before dawn. And for the people on the Street that was as far away as the future.

By the ten o’clock floorshow at least a dozen people had stopped Pete Sheffold to inquire about Harley Bannerman. A dozen women. Bannerman was that kind: the handsome, not quite young juvenile; the lady killer, a greater attraction for some than the liquor or the food or the floor show. Julian Mena was the harried businessman; Bannerman the charm boy.

A hand fell lightly on Sheffold’s arm. Another one, he thought, and knew instantly this was different.

Her name was Rhoda Richards and she was a beautiful woman in a city where beauty was the lowest rate of exchange. Hair that was deep red and full of mysterious highlights hung to her shoulders, scorning any style dictate. Her eyes, green and faintly slanted, held secret laughter and a promise so hidden it was impossible to know what that promise was. Her dress was the color of wet seaweed with a neckline that plunged. Her exquisite shoulders were bare. She could have been a great star. Instead she was married to a wealthy man who was never seen in night clubs...

“I’ll buy you a drink,” she said. “In the bar.”

Sheffold followed her to a quiet corner and motioned the bartender. In Julian’s the bartenders didn’t need to be told what a favorite customer drank. Pete Sheffold drank ginger ale in a shot-glass.

“Give me a cigarette,” Rhoda Richards ordered. She was being cool and unreachable and yet when she steadied the light Sheffold held for her, her hands, white and graceful as calla lilies, were feverish. But not all the tension was in her. Her nearness would affect men of greater reserve than Pete Sheffold. One didn’t have to like chloroform to be affected by it. “I don’t believe I know your name.”

“Pete Sheffold.” But a bouncer didn’t really rate a name.

“I want to cash a check.” She was used to lying and did it glibly, proficiently. “I’d rather not ask Julian. Please get Harley Bannerman for me.”

“Mr. Bannerman hasn’t been in yet tonight.” It was the stock answer; the one he’d given all evening. “I’m sure there’ll be no difficulty with one of your checks, Mrs. Richards.”

The drinks came. She ignored hers. Pete Sheffold relieved a dry throat with a sip of his ginger ale.

“I want to see Harley.” Her voice was brittle. “If he isn’t here, you know where to find him. Don’t keep me waiting!”

Sheffold said nothing. A remote apprehension was building up in his stomach. If Bannerman’s disappearance was connected with a woman, this should have been the one. She was the latest, so late that even Pete Sheffold hadn’t realized it until now. The repressed, frightened emotion gave her away.

Julian had denied Bannerman was an embezzler. What was left?

An expression of incredulity had crossed her face. “You won’t tell me!”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You won’t tell me!” Her hand, no longer calla-like, banged the bar-top venomously. “You — hulking moron! A trained gorilla! And you sit there and refuse to tell me!”

Sheffold put a huge hand over her fist. His unsmiling eyes were fixed on her face. “Don’t say things like that, Mrs. Richards,” he said softly. “You know I couldn’t hit a lady and I’d lose my job if I threw you out. But I can sit here and crush your hand without anybody realizing it.”

She tried to pull away but she was impotent against his tremendous strength.

“You’d have to wear it in a cast,” he said, in a remote voice. “And you wouldn’t like that. Once I had my back in a cast for eight months, and I know about those things. It’s not much fun.”

“Don’t—” she gasped. “Please!”

His hand relaxed slowly, and his head tilted back and then snapped forward like a man who has almost drowsed off. His voice changed suddenly. “If there is another woman, where would they go?”

She cradled the tortured hand. “I don’t know. Perhaps — there’s a cottage above Franklin Canyon. He — goes there sometimes. Why do you want to know?”

“Julian is worried,” Sheffold said. “Somebody should tell Bannerman that Julian is worried.” He laid a gentle finger on her hand. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I wish I hadn’t done that.”

Her head came up. Her mouth was still tormented. “I seemed to have underestimated you, Sheffold. If you like, I can drive you up the canyon in my car.”

He nodded. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

He started through the bar toward the stairs, and then veered off as Laurel Owens entered from the street. She knew how to dress and to wear makeup. She was sophisticated and glittering now, in a gold-flaked white dress. She belonged here. Pete Sheffold wondered how wrong he’d been. This was not a girl from the Mid-West.

“Hello,” she said. Her smile at least seemed honest. “I came a little early. I wanted to see you.”

“It’s all right,” he said curtly. “Save your eighty-five cents. Julian is going to talk to you.” Her smile was collapsing at the corners as he pushed past her and went upstairs and looked into the office.

Julian still sat at his desk, running an electric shaver over his swarthy cheeks before his midnight descent into his gilded deadfall.

“I’m taking a customer home,” Sheffold said carefully. If Julian read into it that the customer was drunk, it was his own doing. “Mrs. Malcolm Richards.”

Julian nodded indifferently; nothing to indicate he might know about her and Bannerman. He shut off the shaver as Sheffold started to close the door. “Pete — do you think I should call the police?”

Sheffold turned back, his hand still on the doorknob. “Not yet. Not tonight. Is that what you wanted me to say?”

“Yes,” Julian said gratefully. “Thanks, Pete.”

It was the closest he would bring himself to putting his need for help into words. Sheffold looked at him for a long second and what passed for a smile flitted over his lips. Then he closed the door quietly.

Down in the parking lot, Jerry Sims had just brought up Rhoda Richards’ green convertible. He tossed the keys to Sheffold and his eyes were bright and wise.

“Sucker,” he whispered. “Would you still be high-hat if I told you the ante’s up to half of fifty bucks?”

Bannerman’s cottage sat on the prow of a hill, remote, silent and disowned in the white moonlight. The windows were dark. The odor of sage brush was illicit perfume. A loop of driveway encircled the house, widening in front into a parking area. A tree toad objected shrilly as Sheffold stopped the convertible, and then subsided. The distant murmur of the city was audible only if the hearing reached out for it. Nothing, really, penetrated the stillness.

Sheffold mounted the steps, knocked, waited and knocked again. “Mr. Bannerman!” His voice weighted heavily on the silence. “It’s Pete. I have to talk to you.”

The night held its breath, and then let it go again. Far off to the left on a taller mountain an airplane beacon winked a red eye at the moon.

Sheffold said impassively, “Give me your key.”

Her hesitation was almost imperceptible, a reflex action. Then she fumbled in a gold-mesh evening bag and handed it to him.

Sheffold opened the door and clicked on a light switch. Trapped, fetid air escaped past him into the night. There had been no ventilation in there for too long. The room was large, luxurious in its furnishings, uninhabited. Two doors, one opening on to the kitchen, the other a bedroom.

Rhoda said, in a muted voice, “There’s no one. You can see that from here.”

Sheffold crossed the room. The bedroom was empty; the bed hadn’t been made up. He glanced into the kitchen. There was a sink full of dirty dishes, and under that, a garbage can that had needed emptying days ago. Somebody had opened a lot of canned goods, mostly soups. There was a row of empty bottles on the floor.

Sheffold, restless, went back to the bedroom and through it to the bath. Outside, a car’s motor growled around a steep hairpin turn.

He couldn’t find a light switch but he didn’t need it. A window framed a square of immaculate night sky with a tinfoil moon pasted in the center, and pale light gleamed without warmth on white tile. Dirty towels were heaped in the bath tub. Beyond that was a stall shower with a thick glass door.

Sheffold stared at the opaque door while he counted slowly to ten. Rhoda, behind him, tried to push past to see what held his attention, but she couldn’t move his bulk. Presently Sheffold moved across the room till he stood beside the window facing the shower. One of the faucets hadn’t been turned off tightly enough and it bleeped monotonously behind the glass. With his elbow he eased the door open.

“Is there—?” Rhoda’s voice was thin as a breath. “He’s not—”

Sheffold reached in and tightened the faucet absently. He shook his head. The shower, damp and sour, was empty. Rhoda’s hand went to her temple and she swayed.

Sheffold turned toward her just as the glass in the window exploded inward and fiery pain danced along the side of his head. Rhoda screamed once, a brief, smothered sound. The sharp, dry report was a half-beat behind.

Sheffold tumbled forward to his knees, out of range. Something warm and sticky trickled down the side of his face. Mistily he saw Rhoda topple over and wondered how the same shot could have struck her too. He didn’t think there had been more than one.

He shook his head roughly and some of the mist floated away from his eyes. He said sharply, as Rhoda’s form moved toward him in the darkness, “Stay down! Don’t make a target.”

“Oh, Lord,” she sobbed. “I thought you were dead. What happened? In the name of heaven, what was it?”

“Ambush,” he said dryly.

It was flying glass from the window, he decided, that had gashed his head. The shot had missed him completely. Without straightening, he reached into the bathtub and found a towel and daubed at the blood.

Outside, the tree toad was piping its outrage. There was no other sound. A long five minutes crawled away before Sheffold said, “We can’t stay here all night. I think he’s gone anyhow.”

“It was meant for me,” Rhoda said drearily. “He was shooting at me.”

He put an edge in his voice. “You’re over-estimating yourself now. Bannerman doesn’t shoot discarded girl friends. He just says good-by.” Sheffold pushed past her into the lighted living room.

“Then who was it?”

Sheffold didn’t speak. They had left the front door open, and a man was leaning against the jamb, a gun held carelessly in his hand. He was medium-sized, but short-coupled and tough, suspicious as an alley-cat — in a two-hundred-dollar suit.

His blond hair was smooth and shiny. Probably he could still get by with shaving twice a week. It was almost a baby-face but ferocious as a baby’s could never be. He studied Rhoda and Sheffold lazily, his pale eyes an open insult.

“Maybe I was wrong,” he said thinly. The gun made a languid gesture about the room. “Cosy. Very cosy. It isn’t quite what I expected to find.”

Sheffold’s eyes were as empty as a sleepwalker’s.

“I followed you here, you know,” the gunman told him. “From Julian’s. It was no trick.”

“Danny Pantera,” Sheffold said abruptly, as if coming awake. “I thought I knew you.”

At his side Rhoda made a brief, startled movement. Everybody on the Strip knew the name, if not the face. It was the coming name in the rackets. Young and tough, a little more ruthless than the present order of hoodlums, he would soon be top man, if a tendency to be trigger-happy didn’t short-circuit a promising career.

“And you’re Bannerman’s strong-arm boy,” Pantera returned easily. “Now if you’ll introduce me to the lady, we’ll all get cosy.”

Sheffold didn’t speak. Rhoda studied the polish on her nails.

A slow flush tinged the fair skin of Pantera’s face, writing his thoughts there. Nice people weren’t introduced to the Danny Panteras. Even power and money and two-hundred-dollar suits would never let him forget completely what he was — what he had always been. And he’d become a proud, bitter young man.

“Throw that purse here,” he barked through thinned lips.

Rhoda disdainfully tossed her evening bag on the coffee table. She knew how to handle most men, and Pantera was one of them. His eyes murderous, he snapped open the bag and spilled the contents.

He found a card that bore her name and address. “Mrs. Malcolm Richards,” he read aloud in a voice that was a leer. His lips moved silently over the address and he shot a quick, almost startled, look at her. “Brentwood!”

Wealth and position, those were the things the address meant to him. He was impressed. “So now, where’s Bannerman?”

Sheffold shrugged one shoulder. “Not here. You wouldn’t have expected him to stay around when you started shooting.”

Pantera’s eyes wrinkled at the outer corners.

“Says which?”

“You were taking quite a chance throwing a bullet into a dark room. Or was that the idea?”

“Somebody shot at you?” His eyes were slightly shocked. “Not me,” he said fervently. “You think I’m crazy? This gun hasn’t been fired. Not tonight. You can tell that by smelling it.” He put the barrel to his own nose and sniffed it himself. “Not this gun!”

Rhoda said: “Then it was Harley! A nice subtle way of telling me that it’s over.”

“Now this thing is beginning to add up.” Pantera looked at Rhoda. “So you knew all about this little hideaway, eh? You came looking for Bannerman and brought the bouncer along just, for laughs. Or for the rough stuff, maybe.” He shook his head in wonderment and repeated, “Brentwood.”

“It wasn’t Bannerman,” Sheffold stated. “I identified myself before we came in and that shot came too close to have been only a warning. Somebody didn’t care what it hit.”

“Look!” Pantera growled. “I don’t know what gives here, but I don’t like it. Harley Bannerman owes me dough. Quite a lot of dough. And in case you hadn’t heard, nobody makes a patsy out of Danny Pantera.”

“Your petty little economics bore me,” Rhoda said icily. “And so do you.”

Pantera smiled suddenly. “Don’t try to swank me, sister. Let’s see how you like these apples. Either Bannerman pays off or I’ll be coming out to Brentwood. Maybe somebody out there will take care of it.”

Rhoda’s white skin had a gray look. The threat had shaken her.

“And for you, big moose, if I had fired that shot, you wouldn’t be around now. And not just because you’re a big target. Remember that!” He made a cynical gesture of good-by with the gun and walked out. A car motor throbbed quietly and then the silence overpowered it.

“So now we know,” Rhoda said. “He’s hiding from Pantera. But where?”

“There was a hat-check girl,” Sheffold said. “She dropped out of sight three days after Bannerman turned up missing — quit in the middle of checking a hat. I thought of her but I couldn’t buy it. She didn’t have enough class for him. But if it was just a hideout—”

Rhoda said bitterly, “He could have come here. No one knew about this place. Instead, he went to her.”

“Does that surprise you?” Sheffold asked. “You know the guy.”

“Yes, I know him,” she said wearily. “He’s a rat. Are you going to see him?”

He nodded. “Alone.”

“Then tell him something for me. Tell him to pay his debts. I don’t want Pantera coming around to my place. My husband is a broadminded man but he wouldn’t understand this. I don’t care how Harley handles it but tell him to keep me out of it.”

Sheffold regarded her somberly. “If he could have paid off, why would he have run away? And if you’re thinking Julian will bail him out — don’t count on it. Understand this, Mrs. Richards: You’re a good customer — maybe you’re a fine person, too, I don’t know. But you don’t mean anything to me. And you don’t mean that much to Julian. So if it comes to a choice as to who gets hurt — protect yourself, because I won’t protect you.”

She snapped out the light and her voice was husky and all the arrogance oddly missing. “You seem less like a bouncer all the time,” she said thoughtfully. “As soon as this is over — let’s have another long talk.”

Like chloroform, Pete Sheffold thought. It takes more for some, but anybody can get enough to go under. The Street got everybody, sooner or later; even invincibles...

Chapter Three Red-Hot Tomato

It was now two o’clock in the morning. Julians had closed, but an inner restiveness kept Pete Sheffold from going home.

The reason for Bannerman’s absence was clear now, and his whereabouts reasonably assumed. But the whole explanation had the thin, unsatisfying feel of being far too simple. All evening Sheffold had known an alien dread, most strongly felt in the cottage on the hill. Clairvoyance was not a quality usually associated with a man so big, and Sheffold did not consider it that. But in that moment before he’d opened the stall shower he’d been overwhelmed with the conviction that Bannerman was dead.

Now he had to verify, with no further delay, that Bannerman was really hiding out in Alyce Rowland’s West Hollywood apartment. He’d gotten the address from Julian’s desk, and now, standing in the apartment house foyer, he swore with weary frustration. The outer door was locked for the night and there was no night bell. From the brass mailboxes, set in imitation Florentine tile, he knew Alyce’s apartment was number 21. But that was all he knew.

A man got out of a parked car on the far side of the street and briskly crossed over. As he came up the steps his eyes flicked casually at Sheffold. He was thin and fair and he wore a black double-breasted suit and a finely-knit black sweater with a turtle neck.

“Forget your key, mister?”

Sheffold nodded, saying nothing.

The man reached for the door, looked again at Sheffold, doubt in his eyes. “No offense, mister, but what apartment are you in? Kind of late, you know, to be letting in people who have — forgotten keys.”

“Apartment 20,” Sheffold said, expressionlessly. “I’m staying with friends. The Zimmermans.”

The man shot him a sharp look, stooped quickly and read the name on the mail box for apartment 20.

“Okay, mister.” His laugh was short and insincere. “Just being careful.”

He unlocked the door, let Sheffold precede him. They went upstairs together. The building seemed to breathe quietly and evenly like an old man asleep. Halfway down the second-floor hall Sheffold pulled up. “I know the way.”

“Sure... sure,” the man agreed hastily. “I live right down this way myself.”

Sheffold waited, watching him; he held the offensive now. The man was in the position of proving his own right to be there. Reluctantly he went on, stopped before a door, fumbled for a long moment for his key.

He got it into the lock and turned it just as Sheffold, moving with amazing speed and timing, stepped close behind. His great chest crowded the smaller man on into the apartment. As he heeled the door closed, Sheffold’s eyes caught the tarnished brass numerals. This was apartment 21.

Alyce Rowland, wearing a wraparound camel hair coat, appeared from a back room. She was carrying an overnight bag. There was a dark track on each side of the part in her blonde hair as if she hadn’t been to her hairdressers recently. Her pretty, mediocre face was lean with fright.

“Chick — what is it? Who—?”

“Pete Sheffold, Alyce,” Sheffold said in a quiet voice. “Were you going — or coming?”

“Pete?” Her face cleared; she was not afraid of the big and silent — therefore stupid — bouncer from Julian’s. “Late call, Pete.”

“People like us,” Sheffold observed, looking at the bag, “keep strange hours.”

Chick said nervously, “I saw him acting funny out in front. I came over to give him a pitch and he pulled a quickie on me. You know him, baby?”

“Where’s Bannerman, Alyce?” Sheffold asked.

“Bannerman?” Her acting was bad enough to keep her a hat-check girl forever. “I don’t get you.”

“He’s been under cover somewhere for ten days. A trigger named Danny Pantera has the heat on him.” Sheffold looked toward the back room. “Tell him to come on out.”

“I don’t think,” Chick said loudly, “I like the implication, mister. Alyce is my girl. Do you think she’s going to have some guy in the closet with me around?”

“It could be a business deal,” Sheffold conceded. That aspect hadn’t occurred to him before. “You don’t have to play cagey. I work for the guy’s partner.”

“Bannerman isn’t here, Pete.” Alyce’s tone was for hulking, not-too-bright people. “I haven’t seen him since I... I left Julian’s.”

“You got a lot of the hats mixed up that night,” Sheffold said remotely. “It caused a lot of confusion among the patrons. Was that to give you a few minutes cover?”

“Of course not. I quit because I—” Her words lapsed into the general silence of the room for want of a logical reason for throwing away a profitable Job. Even with a moron you had to stay logical.

“Mister,” Chick said ominously, “I think I’m going to work up a big dislike for you. Suppose you get the hell out of here.”

He had a small nickel-plated gun in his hand. His narrow, pallid face was molded in a menacing expression.

“I saw Danny Pantera’s gun tonight.” Sheffold’s voice was far away. “It was bigger than that one. And somebody else almost shot me in the head.”

He turned his back on Chick. Then, without looking, he swung backhanded. Like a steel hook his fingers locked on Chick’s frail wrist. He jerked up and back, and the smaller man emitted high, nasal squeals of pain. Sheffold turned, almost leisurely, and lifted the gun out of a grip that had gone limp.

And then Alyce hit him with the overnight bag. She couldn’t swing it as high as his head and the bag slammed against his shoulder and sprung open. Feminine underclothes spilled at his feet. Sheffold stepped carefully away from the tangle of silk. He weighed the gun in his palm thoughtfully.

Chick was clutching his wrist and flexing the fingers. He said, as if in final rebuttal, “The damn thing ain’t loaded anyway.”

Sheffold’s voice was a quiet monotone. “Bannerman, where is he? Don’t make me have to hurt somebody.”

Chick sighed. “Okay,” he said wearily. “I’m just a little guy. You can bounce me around till I have to talk. So let’s get it over with.”

“Chick—” Alyce whispered — “no!”

“It’s all right, baby. We got nothing to hide.” Chick sat on a low divan and put his hands on his knee caps. “Sure Bannerman was here — once. He drove Alyce home after work. Two weeks ago.”

“Ten days,” Sheffold said. “That’s when he dropped out of sight.”

Chick shrugged. “Look, I’m telling you the way it was. If it don’t help none, I can’t change it. Two weeks ago he gave her a lift home. Then he wanted to come up for a drink. He seemed like a nice guy and he was her boss and... well, what could she do?”

Sheffold said nothing. Alyce was beginning to unfreeze.

“Maybe you know him,” Chick went on. “The kind he was, I mean. He gave her a bad time, mister.” He looked at Alyce. “I’m sorry, baby, but it’s got to come out.”

She turned her face away. “Whatever you say, Chick.”

“We’re getting married one of these days,” Chick told Sheffold. “A guy likes having his girl pushed around! He likes that a lot. I made her tell me, and then I went looking for Mr. Harley Bannerman. I’m not a big guy like you, but I went looking. But I never laid a hand on him. Boy, did he weasel! Let’s not have trouble, he says. Maybe we can square this. How much would it take, he asks.”

Alyce was watching Chick with fascinated eyes.

“I didn’t want money. But how can you hit a guy who crawls!”

“So you shook him down.”

Chick leaned back and his face got menacing again. “I don’t like that kind of talk, mister. But if you want to call it a shakedown, okay. Sure, I set a price. I made it good — hoping he’d get sore and I could go to work on him. I told him, I says, ‘You can’t buy me off. You got nothing I want. But if a mink coat will make Alyce feel better — okay.’ ”

“I didn’t want Chick to get into trouble,” Alyce said suddenly. “I took the coat.”

“Twenty-five hundred bucks he gave me,” Chick cut in. “Cash. That was the night she quit her job. He gave me the dough and said get her out of his club, and I said, ‘Mister, that’s good enough for me.’ So I phone and tell her to drop everything.” He flexed his fingers and winced. “That’s how it reads, mister. We don’t know any more than that.”

“The night Alyce quit,” Sheffold said — that had been three days after he was last seen — “where did you meet him?”

“In a bar on Melrose.” Chick lit a cigarette and drew deeply as if it had been a trying few minutes. “He had the money for Alyce. I never saw him again after that — and I’m sure I don’t want to.”

Sheffold walked around the room; it was too small for him. The heaviness in his stomach persisted.

Alyce began to stuff her lingerie back into the overnight bag.

“Where were you going at this hour?” Sheffold asked suddenly.

Chick’s cigarette stuck to his dry lip and left a white fleck of paper there when he pulled it loose. “We were going out. I’m just a little guy, mister. I ain’t tough like you. You got the story out of me, didn’t you? Well, so will the cops if they try hard enough. And maybe they’ll make something out of that little business deal with Bannerman.”

“The police aren’t in this,” Sheffold said.

“They will be!” Chick crunched out his half-smoked cigarette. “I got a few pipelines in this town. I happen to know the Daily Star is going to break the story in the morning.”

Sheffold’s eyes were alert. “What story?”

“On Bannerman. He’s been snatched,” Chick said. “The Star says they’re asking seventy-five grand. That’s big-time stuff, mister. I’m just a little guy.”

“You’re a dime-a-dozen grifter,” Sheffold said.

The meaning of Julian’s ledgers was plain now; the club would fold under a seventy-five thousand dollar rap. Maybe there were other jobs for bouncers, but what was left for Julian? The waiting was over, though; it would break fast now. Like a once-solid structure collapsing. Outside in the cinder-gray light of the false dawn, the Street waited to tally one more broken dream...

The ringing of his phone pulled Sheffold awake. It was nearly two p.m. He sat up and fought the pull of sleep until his head began to clear. He hadn’t been able to reach Julian last night. Stumbling a little, for he slept with the nearstupor of a big man, he crossed to the phone.

“Sheffold?” It was a woman’s voice, familiar enough but not for this early. “I want to speak to Pete Sheffold.”

“Speaking,” he mumbled.

“This is Rhoda Richards, Sheffold. Have you seen a paper today? Harley is being held for ransom!”

“I know,” Sheffold said. “Seventy-five thousand. Julian can’t pay it.”

There was an edge of panic in Rhoda’s voice. “Sheffold, listen to me! Pantera phoned my husband this morning and made a lot of insinuations. He knows Harley can’t pay the ransom and him too. You’ve got to do something!”

“Why me?” Sheffold asked. “I can’t help you. I told you last night.”

“Sheffold, please!” She sounded as if she’d been crying. “You’ve got to talk to my husband. Pantera doesn’t know anything about Harley and me. Except last night. You’ve got to tell Malcolm it was you who knew about the cottage. You’ve got to say I just drove you up there.” Her voice went on, shrill and uncontrolled in Sheffold’s ear.

“All right,” Sheffold cut in wearily. “Put him on. I’ll lie for you. Once, no more.”

“We’ll come over,” she said eagerly. “Malcolm will believe you if he sees you.”

“I’ll be at Julian’s in two hours,” he said and hung up. He felt very tired.

Chapter Four Blackmail Boulevard

Julian was studying his daily horoscope when Sheffold walked in. Automatically he slipped off the horn-rimmed glasses, saw who it was, and put them on again. He tried for a smile and couldn’t quite make it.

“How long have you known?” Sheffold’s voice held a faint reproach. “You should have told me. Maybe I could have done something.”

Julian made a wide, hopeless gesture. “What could you have done, Pete?”

“Bannerman has a hideaway up Franklin Canyon. They were either holding him up there, or they had a man staked out. Why, I don’t know. You didn’t tell what the score was, so I blundered in.”

“What... what happened?” Julian’s swarthy face had a washed-out appearance.

“They went out the back door, I guess. Down the side of the hill. If I’d known what it was about, I might have broken it up. Maybe it isn’t too late.”

“Yes. Yes, it is too late. They want the money tonight. If I call in the police they’ll kill him. They’re sore now because the papers got it — I don’t know how it all got out.” He took the glasses off again and passed a hand over his eyes. “I can’t take that chance, Pete. If anything happened to Harley because I... no, I’ll pay them off.”

Sheffold’s face showed blank but his eyes were soft with pity. “Any idea who engineered it?”

“No. But they’re well organized, Pete. They held him a week before even communicating with me. They’re tough and dangerous and sure of themselves. It’s a mob, I’m sure.”

“Not Pantera’s,” Sheffold said slowly. “At least I don’t think so. He showed up at the cottage last night, says he followed me. He claims Bannerman owed him a lot of money.”

Julian stared at Sheffold.

“Let me take a crack at them. I can make the pay-off and—”

“No, Pete, I’ve got to do it their way. I told the police the same thing. Somebody will phone me tonight with final instructions.” His hand fell on the horoscope. “It’s not an auspicious day, Pete. Don’t make it worse.”

“Even if it ruins you?”

Julian made the same wide gesture. “Harley is my partner. And my friend. What can I do — till I know he’s safe?”

“Nothing,” Pete Sheffold said, and his voice was gentle. “I’ll be careful.”

Julian smiled faintly. “Thanks, Pete. I knew you’d understand.”

Sheffold went downstairs and through the kitchen to the parking lot. Jerry Sims was already there, sitting on a box, reading an afternoon extra. When he saw Sheffold he grinned and started unbuttoning the smock. Sheffold waited till the smock was off his shoulders and then he caught the front of it in an iron grip, pulling it tight so that it bound Jerry’s arms like a straight-jacket. Without effort he lifted the youth up on his toes and backed him into the passageway leading to the kitchen.

“Cut it out!” Jerry tried to squirm. “Quit the clowning, Pete! What’s the big idea?”

“Fifty bucks,” Sheffold’s tone was almost thoughtful. “Krell only offered me five.”

Jerry’s eyes shifted away from Sheffold’s gaze. “Aw, that was just a gag.”

“It was Krell who broke the story. He had all the details right. There was only one person who knew all that — Julian — and he wouldn’t tell even me. How did a weasel like you get a hold of it?”

“Pete, I tell you I didn’t!” Jerry’s voice was soothing, persuasive. “You got it all wrong. I don’t know anything about it.”

Sheffold said, “I’m not expected to think around here. I’m just the guy with the muscle. I get paid to crack skulls and throw drunks out into the gutter. Is that the way it’s got to be, Jerry?”

Jerry’s eyes were terror-stricken. “No — no! Pete, I’m your friend. You know me, Pete — we’re buddies! You wouldn’t hurt me. I’ll give you half.”

“Talk the gorilla out of it,” Sheffold said bleakly. His hand twisted the front of the smock, pulling it tight as rope across Jerry’s chest. “Go on, Jerry. Reason with me.”

Jerry’s breath came in agonized gusts. “Stop, Pete, I’ll tell you.”

Sheffold untwisted his hand slightly.

“The phone.” Jerry pointed frantically at the outdoor telephone set in a box on the wall. “I listened in. You know Julian — he’s always worrying that somebody will steal his club away. He’s got all the house phones fixed so he can listen in. But it works both ways. That’s how I get all my inside tips.”

“You heard the kidnappers call him?”

Jerry nodded violently. “Sure. I didn’t hear it all. Just enough to piece it together. And that’s the truth, Pete, honest. Let me go.”

“Not yet,” Sheffold said. “They’re going to call again tonight. They’ll tell Julian where to take the money. You’re going to listen in on that, Jerry. Then you’re coming to me. Just me, understand. Not Lee Krell, or anybody else. Have you got that?”

“Sure, Pete, sure. You can depend on me. You know that.”

Sheffold let go of the smock. His eyes were hard and bitter. “Play the angles on this, Jerry, and you’re finished.”

Jerry shuddered. “Yeah, Pete. I understand.”

Rhoda Richards’ green convertible drove into the parking lot. The top was down and the afternoon sun struck fire on her dark red hair. Beside her was a tall, very brown man, thin as a steel rod. His grizzled brown hair was clipped short to minimize the amount of gray. His nose was thin and aristocratic, and his mouth a straight line.

“Darling,” Rhoda said nervously, “this is Pete Sheffold. The man I was telling you about.”

“You’re the bouncer here?” Richards’ voice leaped at Sheffold. “What do you know about this man Pantera?”

“He’s a racketeer. A real tough boy.”

Richards’ light blue eyes blinked. “I’m pretty tough myself. Where does he think he gets off, trying to extort money from me!”

“He’s bluffing,” Sheffold said quietly. “He knows Bannerman’s reputation with women and he’s trying to cash in on all this publicity of the kidnapping by threatening to smear your wife. It doesn’t mean anything. It could have been any prominent woman. Because Mrs. Richards drove up to Bannerman’s love-nest, as a favor to me, Pantera is trying to make you believe she’d been there before.”

“I see,” Richards’ voice was still uncompromising. He was the type who had to be convinced. Sheffold could envision him bounding around a tennis court in shorts, skinny, sinewy, bronzed by the sun. He’d play with a grim concentration, not for the satisfaction of the game but to prove that he was a man among men.

Perhaps for the same reason he had married a young woman and a beautiful one and then must continue to reassure himself that it wasn’t wealth and position that had won her, but his own masculine attraction.

To a man like this, Sheffold thought, there could be no greater or more fatal stab than the possibility of his wife’s infidelity. “Perhaps I can make you a proposition. If you’ll take this pest out of my hair, I’ll pay you—”

“No,” Sheffold said in a low voice. “I don’t hire myself out for strong-man stuff. If you want Pantera worked over, you’ll have to get someone else.”

“I see,” Richards repeated, contempt in his eyes now. It was a losing fight even to compete with ordinary men; the contrast between himself and Sheffold was insurmountable. But giant or not, his gaze said Sheffold was yellow.

He said aloud, “Then I’ll handle him myself. My family has been here since the hacienda days, Mr. Sheffold. It is a question of pride with me. I will pay extortion money to no man on earth.”

Sheffold shrugged, said nothing.

“Of course you won’t, darling,” Rhoda assured him. The look she threw to Sheffold was full of thanks. She made a U-turn and drove back out into the flow of traffic on the Strip.

Sheffold went back into the club. Julian was sitting at a table listening to Laurel Owens sing to the accompaniment of a piano. He motioned Sheffold over.

“She’s your protegé,” he said, in a lack-lustre tone. “Listen to her and let me know what you think. I’ll be upstairs.”

Laurel’s gaze followed Julian as he left the room but finished the song. Sheffold sat and listened, his face utterly blank. When she came over to the table he stood up and held a chair for her.

“Hello,” she said, trying to smile. “My audience seems to have walked out on me. Was I that bad?”

“No,” Sheffold said. “You can sing. I’ll tell him.”

She said eagerly, “Do you think he’ll give me a job?”

“I don’t know — maybe a little later on.”

“Later?” Her eyes were worried. “I need a job now... What do you think I should do?”

He shrugged. “Why ask me?”

“Please,” she said. “You’ve been very kind. If you aren’t my friend, you wouldn’t have helped me this much. I need your advice.”

“All right,” he said harshly. “I’ll tell you. Wash that stuff off your face and let your hair grow in its natural color. Then get on the first train out and go home. Get off the Strip, Laurel, before you’re tainted too.”

Her face seemed to freeze except for the quivering of her chin.

“It’ll get you, sooner or later,” Sheffold said. “It gets everybody. Success is a religion in this town, and its cross is the dollar sign. You can’t be a halfway convert. There’s no such thing as a little success. You can’t take a little and stop because once you stop, somebody else, more ruthless, will club you to death to take what you have.”

He looked away from her but his voice went on. “You give a little here, and a little there. One more compromise every day. It doesn’t hurt much that way. When it’s too late you find out what it was you were trading in — your soul!”

Laurel stood up. “It’s nice of you to worry about me,” she said stiffly. “I appreciate your interest. Now I suppose you’ll tell Julian Mena I can’t sing. Go ahead, rearrange my life for me. You can always tell yourself it was your duty. I’d be more grateful, except it happens to be my life!”

Pete Sheffold said woodenly, “Go on upstairs. First office to the right. Tell Julian I sent you. He’ll give you a job if he can make room.”

She didn’t move; she stood there looking down at his dark head.

“Pete.” She put a hand under his jaw and made him look up at her. “I’m sorry... Why don’t you get away? You think you can’t be hurt because you’re too strong. But you’re wrong. This town is getting you and you don’t know it.” She took her hand away. “I... thanks, Pete. Thanks a lot.”

He sat there looking at nothing until her footsteps faded out, going upstairs. He was still sitting there when Jerry Sims came in, his face pulled tight with emotion.

“Some time tonight,” he whispered. “I didn’t get it all but he’s to drive along the sea road near the big rocks south of Palos Verdes.”

“Do you know where that is?”

Jerry nodded, swallowed, and went on: “There is a bus stop and cafe where the sea road comes into the highway. The rocks are about a mile from the intersection. That’s all I heard. I was busy and missed a little of it. I didn’t get the time. What are you going to do, Pete?”

“Get me a car,” Sheffold told him. “Have it ready in twenty minutes. And keep it under your hat. Understand?”

Jerry gave him the okay sign and slipped away...

Chapter Five Kidnap Trail

The sea road beyond Palos Verdes was a narrow, forgotten lane with a thin crust of asphalt, the only remaining evidence of some real-estate agent’s dream. It followed the curve of ocean with a swiftly falling bank and a strip of beach on one side, and ugly tenacious weeds creeping in on the other. The asphalt had worn away at the edges and it was full of great holes, so that, secluded as it was, even couples shunned it.

At the all-night cafe situated at the intersection with Palos Verdes Drive, Sheffold had asked directions of the proprietor. There was only one way in, he was told, and the high rocks were over a mile down the road.

Now, driving without lights, Sheffold let the car ease along almost silently. An overcast had rolled in from the ocean, swallowing the moon and, Sheffold reasoned, he could see as easily as he could be seen. At what he estimated was half the distance to the rocks, he stopped the car and went the rest of the way on foot. He moved lightly, on the balls of his feet, the sound effectively muffled by the tired crash of the breakers on the shore.

Only now did it occur to Sheffold that he was not armed, but the thought caused him little concern. His confidence in his great physical strength was such that he didn’t consider it a disadvantage. He had no plan as he approached the rocks, and this did not disturb him either. He would deal with whatever situation arose.

The rocks were fully twenty feet high, vaguely resembling old-fashioned loaves of bread, set on end, and not more than the width of two cars apart. A car had been driven off the asphalt and was parked on the hard-packed ground between the rocks. From where Sheffold crouched twenty feet down the road, there seemed to be no one in the car.

It was not Julian’s car and there was no way of knowing if he had been here yet. Sheffold waited a long ten minutes, listening to the ancient sound of the sea, and breathing clean salt air into his lungs. There was no other sound; nothing in that weirdly limited, dark world stirred.

Sheffold closed in on the car like a charging line-man, light and swift and practically noiseless. He came up on the driver’s side, big hands ready to jerk the door open and take advantage of any surprise. There was still no movement...

But the car wasn’t empty. The same heavy sense of dread Sheffold had experienced in Bannerman’s cottage closed in swiftly. And this time it was not imagination.

He was there, the same Harley Bannerman, handsome, aging, and characteristically marked about his mouth with lipstick. Without caution now, Sheffold turned on the ceiling light and his eyes were somber as he leaned into the ear to study Julian’s partner.

He’d been shot in the right temple slightly to one side about where a suicide would do the job. But there was no gun. There was an expression of utter astonishment frozen on his face. It might have been, Sheffold thought, that Bannerman had been shot from the side and had only a flash of warning that death was leaping at him.

He’d been shot in the act of being surprised. Living, there had been nothing left that could surprise him.

Sheffold touched the body. The warmth of it startled him. It was possible that only the crash and fall of the surf had hidden the sound of the shot from Sheffold’s hearing. Bannerman had been dead only minutes.

Sheffold straightened. As he did, he understood the sense of shock Bannerman had experienced. There was a sudden frantic rush as of great wings batting the night, and the sound of something swishing toward Sheffold’s head. There was no question of escaping the blow. He took it, giving with the force of it, hoping it would not knock him out.

For even then it did not occur to Sheffold that he was not a match for his assailant, as long as he retained consciousness. The blow drove him forward against the car, his forehead smashing the frame of the window, and it was that as much as anything that dissipated his wits and his reflexes, so that he never had a chance from there on. He heard, rather than felt, the blows thudding on his head, as if he’d pulled his awareness away, and his skull was as lifeless and impersonal as an artificial limb.

He was still hearing the crash of the weapon against his head long after consciousness had slipped away as effortlessly as his assailant. And even later, when he came back to full knowledge of his position, he could still hear it. Only then did he realize it was the methodical drum-beat of the surf he was hearing.

He was lying on the harsh, gritty earth beside the car. The night sky was still concealed by the overcast. Painfully he rose and looked, with eyes that were remote and brooding, at the lipstick that was smeared on the dead man’s cooling face...

Midnight. He’d been unconscious nearly an hour, and it had taken him the rest of the time to drive to Brentwood. Rhoda Richards answered the door after Sheffold had rung for nearly five minutes. She had not been asleep. She wore a satin housecoat that swept the floor. The startling green eyes were fixed and blank.

Sheffold pushed past her into the house. “Bannerman is dead,” he said flatly. “He’s in his car on a lonely stretch of road beyond Palos Verdes.”

“Yes,” she said, with utterly no life in her voice. “There was a news flash on the radio a few minutes ago.”

“I didn’t report it,” Sheffold said. “It was someone else. The police will really rock me for that. But there’s something phony about the whole situation.”

“Is there?” It was doubtful that she even heard him.

“A lot of little things are wrong,” he said, his voice harsh now. “But mostly because there was a woman involved. Bannerman had been kissing her only minutes before he was shot. You don’t make love to your kidnapper, you know.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know for sure.” She was looking into a blank distance, disinterested.

Sheffold took her slender shoulders in his hands, shook her like a doll. “Don’t you understand what I’m telling you? Bannerman is dead!”

She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. “Pantera was here. He came to see Malcolm.” She was talking in a hypnotic monotone. “He had pictures. He said they were Harley and me. It was a lie, of course. I know that — but what difference does it make?”

Sheffold was silent now. The weight of apprehension pulled at his stomach. His head ached dully, throbbing off beat to the grinding pain in his back.

“It was Harley all right. And some woman. Pantera claimed it was me, and Malcolm believed him.” She lifted dead eyes to look at him again. “He wanted to believe it.”

“What did he do?” Sheffold asked quietly.

“He went out. He got directions to Harley’s Canyon place and said he was going there to find out. He had to know.” She lifted her beautiful white hands in a gesture that would have been theatrical, except she was utterly unaware of it. “I don’t know whether he found anything or not. I suppose he did — a handkerchief, my cigarette case — it doesn’t matter.”

Sheffold’s face was tense. “What time did he leave and how long was he gone?”

“He left about nine,” she said wearily. “He got back twenty-minutes ago.”

“Did you leave?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t out all evening. The servants will tell you that.”

Sheffold said, “If your husband was unaccounted for during the last three hours he might have killed Bannerman. I don’t know how he made contact—”

“You’d better go,” Rhoda said suddenly. “The police will be coming here soon.”

“I want to see your husband.”

“See him?” She laughed, a horrible insane laugh. “You fool. Don’t you understand yet? He’s dead. His precious family pride couldn’t stand the disgrace. He shot himself ten minutes ago.”

She was still laughing hysterically when Sheffold walked out.

Forty minutes later he pulled up in front of Alyce Rowland’s apartment. He didn’t have any hopes that she would still be there. But some woman had been in the murder car with Bannerman tonight and she was the only other possibility his aching brain could think of.

The front door wasn’t locked this time. A little tug of caution pulled at Sheffold as he charged in. The door should have been locked this late. A thick-bodied man with a long cigar in his mouth leaned against the newel post at the foot of the stairs. One hand was hidden in his side pocket; the other fell heavily on Sheffold’s arm. “Where you going, buddy?”

Sheffold stopped, and his face was rigid. “Take your hand off me,” he said in a low voice.

“You weren’t sort of going up to Apartment 21, were you maybe? I sort of wouldn’t, if I was you.”

“Why wouldn’t you, if you were me?” Sheffold asked softly.

The man grinned past his cigar. “Because Danny said I was sort of to keep an eye out for a big bouncer-type guy and if he did some buttin’ in I was to sort of discourage him.”

He made the mistake of bringing the gun out of his pocket. He had an earnest confidence in the persuasive power of a gun. A bulge in a side pocket could be anything. A gun was a gun. He never got it clear of the pocket. Sheffold hit him on the corner of the jaw with a fist that hadn’t moved a foot. There was a sound like rotten wood snapping. The man didn’t even stagger. The punch stiffened every muscle and joint and when he fell, it was like a bag of old bones collapsing to the floor within its own orbit.

Sheffold went up the stairs, and with the length of hall to give him momentum, hit the flimsy door with his shoulder. Wood splintered as the lock pulled away. Sheffold righted himself into a crouch.

Pantera was standing spread-legged over Alyce Rowland as she huddled on the floor. The shoulder of her dress ripped, and there were red splotches on her face. Pantera, rigid, looked up, hands away from his body and tensed to grab for a gun.

“Stay right there,” Sheffold whispered. “I could clip you before you get it. Two hundred and forty pounds across your legs could snap ’em in two.”

Pantera didn’t move a muscle. Sheffold moved forward, catlike, and lifted Pantera’s gun out of a shoulder clip. Then he pushed the racketeer away and lifted Alyce to her feet.

“What is it?” he asked. “Where’s Chick?”

“Gone,” she said, dully. “One travels faster than two. I came back here. There was no place else to go.”

Sheffold looked at Pantera. “You’ve been a busy boy tonight. The shake-down on Richards has backfired. He isn’t going to buy!”

Pantera shrugged. “Says who?”

“It wasn’t Mrs. Richards in the pictures,” Sheffold continued. “It was someone else. Who?”

Pantera shrugged again and kept silent. Sheffold said, barely above a whisper, “You’re all alone up here, Pantera. And maybe you’re a very tough man, but not in this league. Who was the woman in the picture?”

Pantera jerked his shiny blond head at Alyce. “It was cutie,” he said sullenly. “She and that little grifter Chick had set Bannerman up for a shakedown. But they lost their nerve and brought the stuff to me. I figured Bannerman would pay at least fifty grand for it. I bought it for twenty. They didn’t tell me Bannerman had dropped out of sight. They thought they had me for a patsy. Me!”

Silent fury shook him. He was a proud man with a strong sense of inferiority. He couldn’t be a great man in his own eyes when two small-time crooks could make a sucker out of him. “I’m out twenty grand,” he said, more quietly. “Somebody is going to pay. Bannerman, Richards, this little tramp. I don’t care who.”

Sheffold looked at Alyce. “Pack that bag again. You’re getting out.”

“It’s packed!” she said. She ran into the bedroom and returned immediately, carrying the bag. The camel’s-hair coat was draped over her shoulders. “Let’s go, Pete.”

At the door Sheffold said, “It’s nothing to me, Pantera, but you’d better pull in your horns. You’ll be lucky if you get off losing only twenty thousand. Bannerman was murdered tonight. Then there’s Richards — he shot himself. Maybe you’re clean on both counts. But some ambitious young cop might not know your reputation and hang it on you.”

Then he followed Alyce out and down the stairs. The man he had hit was crawling across the lobby like a dog with a broken back. He didn’t seem to know them as they went past him.

In the borrowed car, Sheffold said without expression, “Tell me the rest of it, Alyce. You and Bannerman.”

“It was Chick’s idea,” she said defensively. “He figured Bannerman would be good for a squeeze. When you came to see us, Chick made up that whole story just while he sat there. Lord, what a talker he was. A no-good, sneaking rat,” she added, “but he could con you right out of your dentures.”

“How much did you ask for?”

“Ten grand. And Bannerman agreed to it. He wanted a couple of days to raise the dough, he said. That’s when he took a powder. We didn’t know where he was, or what he was up to. That’s why we unloaded on Pantera — for double. But that little rat Chick lost his nerve. He was always a small-timer. He grabbed the twenty grand and blew. Say,” she demanded, “is that true? About Bannerman being dead?”

Sheffold nodded. For the first time he was beginning to doubt his own abilities. Over the years his confidence in himself had built up in direct proportion to the general belief that he was a simple-minded giant. It had become an unquestioning belief that he was almost infallible. Now he was stopped cold by the complexity of Bannerman’s kidnapping and murder.

“Pete,” Alyce said in a soft voice. “You’re going to help me get out of town, aren’t you? I got to have money. Chick didn’t leave twenty dollars. But you’ll help me, won’t you, honey?”

“I suppose,” Sheffold said, “that I can’t let you get murdered. I’ll get you a couple of hundred from Julian — if he hasn’t fired me for not staying on the job.”

“Tell him all charities are deductible,” Alyce said.

“Even if the charity is at the point of a gun?” Sheffold asked her ironically.

“Sure,” Alyce’s voice was flip. “You can deduct for theft, too.”

Sheffold stared ahead for a long minute. “So you can,” he said thoughtfully. “I’d forgotten that.”

Chapter Six Street of Broken Dreams

Julian was sitting at his desk, staring at something no one else would ever be able to see. He didn’t even react enough to remove his glasses when the door opened. After a long moment his eyes lifted and focused at Sheffold. “He’s dead, Pete,” he said in a voice that was like very old parchment. “Murdered. They found him in his car.”

“I heard,” Sheffold said.

“I paid them ransom just as they demanded. Why did they have to kill him?”

“I don’t know,” Sheffold said. “The rest of it I understand. But not the killing.”

“Seventy-five thousand dollars,” Julian mumbled. “We’ll have to close the club for a while. A week or two. But we’ll reopen, Pete.”

Sheffold waited silently beyond the rim of light from the desk lamp.

Julian’s shoulders moved and he collected his thoughts. “What is it, Pete? What’s on your mind?”

“Will you write something for me?”

Julian nodded and picked up the desk pen as if the request were perfectly normal. He pulled a sheet of paper from the drawer. “All right, Pete.”

Pete Sheffold said: “Write this: In full possession of my faculties and without duress, I make the following statement: I killed Harley Bannerman tonight on the sea road south of Palos Verdes.”

The pen scratched across the paper, paused once, went on scratching.

“The reasons for my act were as follows: Bannerman was being subjected to an extortion attempt, first by a former hat-check girl, Alyce Rowland, and her accomplice, a man known as Chick — last name unknown — and later by Danny Pantera. In order to raise the money to pay off the extortionists, Bannerman planned his own kidnapping. He disappeared, using a cottage owned by himself as a hideaway. The only other person who knew of this cottage was a woman named Mrs. Malcolm Richards, who had no knowledge of the fake kidnapping.”

The pen was silent now, but Sheffold went on talking as though he had not noticed.

“Mrs. Richards went to the cottage on the suspicion that Bannerman was there. Bannerman managed to slip out the back door, and after firing a random shot to pin down any pursuit, he escaped down the side of the hill. I did not, at this point, know of Bannerman’s real need for the money. I cooperated because half of the seventy-five thousand dollars of supposed ransom was to be mine. It could be deducted from the fund set aside to pay my income tax, since money lost through theft is deductible.”

“Pete—” Julian said. “You don’t have to continue.”

“Yes,” Sheffold said. “It’s the only way... Write this too: While it has no direct connection with Bannerman’s murder, his disappearance set in motion certain events which led to Mrs. Richards being blackmailed by Danny Pantera. Because of this, her husband committed suicide, and I am morally responsible.”

Sheffold went into Julian’s private bathroom and ran water into a plastic glass and drank it. When he returned, Julian had not moved an inch.

“After his near exposure at the cottage,” he went on in a dead voice, “Bannerman was on foot, and scared. He phoned here and insisted a car be brought to him on the sea road. This could also be used as part of the kidnapping scheme, involving the pay-off. Part of this conversation was overheard by the parking lot attendant. I took a car to him, but for reasons of my own. I shot him in the head. I anticipated that suspicion would fall on the nonexistent kidnappers.”

Julian looked down at his hands. “I want you to know the rest of it, Pete. I was afraid for the club. That’s why I killed him. We were operating so close to the red we could have gone under. The seventy-five thousand would have been a buffer, but when you told me this afternoon about the extortion, I knew I’d never have any peace as long as he was here. But I never planned it. Bannerman put the idea in my head. When you went up to his cottage, he thought I’d sent you to kill him. He could see that it was made-to-order.”

Sheffold said nothing.

“When he phoned early this evening,” Julian went on quietly, “he accused me of it. He wanted the car, but he insisted I leave it for him and go away. Instead I hid in the turtle-back and I shot him.”

“I didn’t hear the shot,” Sheffold said. “And I was awfully close. I nearly caught you. So you hit me and ran.”

“I’m sorry, Pete,” Julian said. “Sorry for everything... If you had just stayed out of it! You were my friend, Pete.”

“Yes, we were friends!” Sheffold’s voice was suddenly harsh. “So you sent me out for Bannerman when all the time you were thinking ‘big stupid Pete will never find anything!’ ”

Without haste, Julian opened the desk drawer again. His hand came up with a small, black gun. “I’m not going to let you turn me in, Pete. I want your word you’ll forget what you know.”

Sheffold stared at the gun with eyes like a hurt animal. He didn’t speak.

“Pete!” Julian’s voice rose. “Don’t make me have to kill your!”

“You gave me a job seven years ago when everybody else forgot.” Sheffold was talking only to himself now. “I owed you a lot for that. Anything that was good for you I would have done. But I won’t fix a murder for you.”

“Then I’ll kill you!”

The corners of his mouth were white. “I guess you would,” Sheffold admitted slowly. “I didn’t think of that. All I thought of was what you might do to yourself if the ransom ruined you. So today I jimmied your gun.”

Quietly Julian put it away. He seemed vaguely relieved.

“I guess,” he said, “I will call my lawyer.”

Sheffold walked to the door, then turned. “You gave that girl a job, didn’t you? Laurel—”

“Yes.” He didn’t look at Sheffold. “She’s downstairs now.”

Sheffold closed the door and went down the stairs. It was after closing now, and Laurel waited alone, in a banquette in a far, dark corner.

Sheffold sat down beside her. “You wouldn’t listen,” he said. “There was no recrimination in his words, only an ineffable sadness. How do you like yourself? How high is the price now? Was it worth murder, Laurel?”

Laurel sat motionless.

“Bannerman was frightened,” Sheffold said. “He wouldn’t let Julian come near him. So he had to be decoyed. That’s the way it happened, wasn’t it?”

She nodded, but she couldn’t speak.

“Julian told him he would have you drive the car out there. Bannerman didn’t know you, but all Julian had to do was give a description. Bannerman would do the rest.”

“Oh, Pete,” she sobbed. “It was terrible. He was like a madman. He tried to kiss me. I got away and ran. Then I heard the shot. I didn’t know where it came from — I still don’t. I went back to the car. He was dead. And there was no one around.”

“He was hiding in the turtle-back,” Sheffold told her.

“I ran down the road,” Laurel said. “I thought I’d lose my mind! I don’t remember how I got to the bus stop.”

She put a hand on his wrist. “Pete — you were right. The price is too high. I’ll go home now if it isn’t too late — with the police I mean.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Julian didn’t mention you to me, so he’ll cover you.”

“I’ll have dreams,” she whispered. “The rest of my life. I’ll see him there, dead, and my lipstick on his face!”

“Go home, Laurel. You’ll be all right. And some day you’ll forget.”

She stood up quickly, then hesitated. “What about you, Pete?”

“I’ll have to stay till the bitter end.” He didn’t look at her. “I’m a material witness — against my best friend!”

“Thanks for all you’ve done. I always seem to be saying that, don’t I?” She bent suddenly and pressed her cheek against his hair. “Good-bye, Pete.”

Sheffold called, “Laurel.” The footsteps came back. “Where’s your home?”

“Agler, Illinois. It’s a nice little town. Pete, you’d like it.”

“Maybe I would,” he agreed. “One of these days I might come through.”

“I won’t be a blonde then,” she said, in a voice so low he could hardly hear it. “Maybe you won’t know me.”

He smiled at her. “Honey,” he said gently, “I’ll always know you.”