Seven Slayers

Red 71

Shane pressed the button beneath the neat red 71. Then he leaned close against the building and tilted his head a little and looked up at the thick yellow-black sky. Rain swept in great uneven and diagonal sheets across the dark street, churned the dark puddle at his feet. The street-light at the corner swung, creaked in the wind.

Light came suddenly through a slit in the door, the door was opened. Shane went into a narrow heavily carpeted hallway. He took off his dark soft hat, shook it back and forth, handed it to the man who had opened the door.

He said: “Hi, Nick. How is it?”

Nick said: “It is very bad weather — and business is very bad.”

Nick was short, very broad. It was not fat broadness, but muscled, powerful. His shoulders sloped heavily to long curving arms, big white hands. His neck was thick and white and his face was broad and so white that his long black hair looked like a cap. He hung Shane’s hat on one of a long row of numbered pegs, helped him with his coat, hung it beside the hat.

He stared at Shane reproachfully. “He has been waiting for you a long time,” he said.

Shane said: “Uh-huh,” absently, went back along the hallway and up a flight of narrow stairs. At the top he turned into another hallway, crossed it diagonally to an open double doorway.

The room was large, dimly lighted. Perhaps fifteen or eighteen people, mostly in twos or threes, sat at certain of the little round white covered tables. Three more, a woman and two men, stood at the aluminum bar that ran across one corner.

Shane stood in the doorway a moment, then crossed the room to where Rigas sat waiting for him at a table against the far wall. Several people looked up, nodded or spoke as he passed; he sat down across the table from Rigas, said: “Bacardi,” to the hovering waiter.

Rigas folded his paper, leaned forward with his elbows on the table and smiled.

“You are late, my friend.” He put up one hand and rubbed one side of his pale blue jaw. Shane nodded slightly. He said: “I’ve been pretty busy.” Rigas was Greek. His long rectangular face was deeply lined; his eyes were small, dark, wide-set; his mouth was a pale upward-curved gash. He was in dinner clothes. He said: “Things are good with you— Yes?” Shane shrugged. “Fair.”

“Things are very bad here.” Rigas picked up his cocktail, sipped it, leaned back. Shane waited.

“Very bad,” Rigas went on. “They have raised our protection overhead more than fifty per cent.”

The waiter lifted Shane’s cocktail from the tray with a broad flourish, put it on the table in front of him. Shane looked at it, then up at Rigas, said: “Well...”

Rigas was silent. He stared at the tablecloth, with his thin lips stuck out in an expression of deep concentration.

Shane tasted his cocktail, laughed a little. “You know damned well,” he said, “that I’m not going to put another dime into this place.” He put down his glass and stared morosely at Rigas. “And you know that I can’t do anything about your protection arrangement. That’s your business.” Rigas nodded sadly without looking up. “I know — I know.”

Shane sipped his drink, waited.

Rigas finally looked up, spoke hesitantly: “Lorain — Lorain is going to get a divorce.”

Shane smiled, said: “That’s a break.”

Rigas nodded slowly. “Yes.” He spoke very slowly, deliberately: “Yes — that is a break for all of us.”

Shane leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, put one hand down slowly, palm up. He stared at Rigas and his face was hard, his eyes were very cold. He said: “You made that kind of a crack once before — remember?”

Rigas didn’t speak. He gazed wide-eyed, expressionlessly at Shane’s tie.

“Remember what happened?” Shane went on.

Rigas didn’t speak, or move.

Shane relaxed suddenly. He leaned back, glanced around, smiled faintly.

“I back this joint,” he said, “because I thought you might make it go. I don’t like you — never have — but I like Lorain, have liked her ever since we were kids together. I thought she was an awful chump when she married you and I told her so.”

He sipped his cocktail, widened his smile. “She told me what a great guy you were,” he went on, “an’ she stuck to it, even after you’d dropped all your dough, and hers. Then she told me you wanted to take over this place, an’ I came in on it, laid fifteen grand on the line.”

Rigas moved uncomfortably in his chair, glanced swiftly around the room.

“Since then,” Shane went on, “I’ve chunked in somewhere around five more...”

Rigas interrupted: “We’ve got nearly twelve thousand dollars’ worth of stock.” He made a wide gesture.

“What for?” Shane curved his mouth to a pleasant sneer. “So you can be knocked over, and keep the enforcement boys in vintage wines for a couple of months.”

Rigas shrugged elaborately, turned half away. “I cannot talk to you,” he said. “You fly off the handle...”

“No.” Shane smiled. “You can talk to me all you like, Charley — and I don’t fly off the handle — and I’m not squawking. But don’t make any more cracks about Lorain and me. Whatever I’ve done for you I’ve done for her — because I like her. Like her. Can you get that through that thick spick skull of yours? I wouldn’t want her if she was a dime a dozen — an’ I don’t like that raised eyebrow stuff. It sounds like pimp.”

Rigas’ face turned dull red. His eyes were very sharp and bright. He stood up, spoke very softly, breathlessly, as if it was hard for him to get all the words out: “Let’s go upstairs, Dick.”

Shane got up and they crossed the room together, went out through the double door.

On the third floor they crossed an identical hallway, Rigas unlocked a tall gray door and they went into another large room. There were two large round tables, each with a green-shaded drop-light over it. There were eight men at one of the tables, seven at the other; Rigas and Shane crossed the room to another tall gray door.

The stud dealer and two players looked up from the nearest table, one of the players said: “H’ are yah, Charley?” Then Rigas opened the tall door and they went into a little room that was furnished as an office.

Rigas pressed the light switch, closed the door and stood with his back to it for a moment. His hands were in his coat pockets.

Shane sat down on the edge of the desk. Rigas crossed to the desk slowly and when he was near Shane he jerked his right hand out of his pocket suddenly and swung a thin-bladed knife up at Shane’s throat.

Shane moved a little to one side, grabbed Rigas’ arm near the elbow with one open hand; the knife ripped up crosswise across the lapel of his coat. At the same time he brought his right knee up hard against Rigas’ stomach. Rigas grunted and one of his knees gave way and he slumped down slowly, sidewise to the floor. The knife clattered on the glass desk-top.

As Shane slid off the desk, stood over Rigas, the door opened and a very tall, very spare man came a little way into the room.

Shane glanced at the man and then he looked down at Rigas and his eyes were almost closed, his mouth was a thin hard line. Rigas groaned and held his hands tight against his stomach, his chin tight against his chest.

Shane looked up at the tall man, said: “You’d better not let this brother of yours play with knives. He’s liable to put somebody’s eye out.” He spoke with his teeth together. The tall man stared blandly at Rigas. Shane went past the tall man, to the door, went out and across the big room. All of the men at the tables were looking at him; all of them were very quiet. Two men were standing up at the nearest table.

Shane went out and closed the door behind him, went swiftly down two flights. He found his hat and coat and put them on. Nick came up from the basement as he was knotting his scarf.

Nick said: “Shall I get you a cab, Mister Shane?” Shane shook his head. He slid the big bolt and opened the door and went out into the driving rain. He walked to Madison Avenue, got into a cab and said: “Valmouth — on Forty-Ninth.” It was five minutes after eight.

Shane’s rooms at the Valmouth were on the eighteenth floor. He stood at one of the wide windows and looked down through the swirling, beating rain to Fiftieth Street.

After a little while he went into the bathroom, turned off the water that was roaring into the tub, slipped off his robe.

Someone knocked at the outer door and he called: “Come in,” looked into the long mirror in the bathroom door that reflected part of the living room. A waiter with a wide oval tray opened the door, came in and put the tray down on a low table.

Shane said: “There’s some change on the telephone stand.” He kicked off his slippers and stepped into the tub.

In five minutes he was out, had put on a long dark-green robe, slippers, and was sitting at the low table cutting a thick T-bone steak into dark pink squares.

As he poured coffee the phone buzzed; he leaned side-wise, picked it up, said: “Hello.” Then he said: “Mister Shane is not in... She’s on the way up!... What the hell did you let her start up for?...”

He slammed the phone down, went swiftly to the door and turned the bolt. He stood near the door a moment, then shrugged slightly, turned the bolt back and went slowly back and sat down.

Lorain Rigas was slender, dark. Her black eyes slanted upward a little at the corners, her mouth was full, deeply red, generous. She wore a dark close-fitting raincoat, a small suede hat. She closed the door and stood with her back to it.

Shane said: “Coffee?”

She shook her head. She said: “Charley called me up this afternoon and said he was going to give me the divorce-that he wouldn’t fight it.”

“That’s fine.” Shane put two lumps of sugar in a spoon, held it in the coffee and intently watched the sugar crumble, disappear. “So what?”

She came over and sat down near him. She unbuttoned her coat, crossed her slim silken legs, took a cigarette out of a tiny silver case and lighted it.

She said: “So you’ve got to help me locate Del before he gets to Charley.”

Shane sipped his coffee, waited.

“Del started drinking last night,” she went on, “an’ he kept it up this morning. He went out about eleven, and some time around one, Jack Kenny called up an’ told me that Del was over at his joint — roaring drunk, and howling for Charley’s blood. He gets that way every time he gets boiled — crazy jealous about Charley and me.”

She leaned back and blew a thin cone of smoke at the ceiling. “I told Jack to let him drink himself under the table, or lock him up, or something — an’ in a little while Jack called back and said everything was all right — that Del had passed out.”

Shane was smiling a little. He got up and went to the central table and took a long green-black cigar from a humidor, clipped it, lighted it. Then he went back and sat down.

The girl leaned forward. “About three o’clock,” she said, “the Eastman Agency — that’s the outfit I’ve had tailing Charley for evidence — called up and said they’d located the apartment house up on the West Side where Charley’s been living with the McLean woman...”

Shane said: “How long have they been on the case?”

“Three days — an’ Charley’s ducked them until today — they traced a phone call or something.”

Shane nodded, poured more coffee into the little cup.

Lorain Rigas mashed out her cigarette. “I told Eastman to keep his boys on the apartment until they spotted Charley going in — then I figured on going over tonight and crashing in with a load of witnesses — but in a little while Charley calls me and says everything’s okay, that he’ll give me the divorce any time, any place, and so on.”

Shane said: “You’ve had a busy day.”

“Uh-huh.” She reached over and picked up the cup of coffee, sipped a little. “I didn’t call Eastman back — I figure on going through with it the way I intended to — get the evidence an’ the affidavits an’ what not. Then if Charley changes his mind...” She put the cup back on the tray, leaned back and lighted another cigarette. “But we’ve got to find Del.”

Shane said: “I thought he was cold at Kenny’s.”

She shook her head, smiled. “I called Kenny to see how Del was, and Del was gone. He came to and started where he left off — stole a gun out of Jack’s trunk, and went out the back way. I don’t think he’d really go through with it, but he goes nuts when he gets enough red-eye under his belt...”

Shane was leaning far back in the deep chair, staring vacantly at the ceiling. He said: “If you think Del would really make a pass at Charley—” He puffed at the cigar, finished slowly: “You don’t seem quite as excited about it as you should be.”

“What the hell’s the use getting excited?” She stood up. “It’s a cinch they won’t let Del into 71 — an’ he wouldn’t wait outside for Charley — not when he’s drunk. He gets big ideas about face to face and man to man when he’s drunk. I know Del.”

“Then what are you worrying about?” Shane looked up at her, smiled gently. “He’s probably at home waiting for you.”

“No — I just called up.” She went over to the window.

Shane looked at her back. He said: “You’re pretty crazy about Del — aren’t you?”

She nodded without turning.

Shane put his cigar down, reached for the phone. “Where do you think we ought to start?”

She turned, cocked her head a little to one side and looked at him sleepily. “If I knew where we ought to start, Dick,” she said, “I wouldn’t have had to bother you. You’ve known Del for years — you know the screwy way his mind works as well as I do — and you know the places. Where would he go, do you think, looking for Charley — besides 71?”

Shane picked up the phone, stared at it a little while, put it down. He got up, said: “I’m going to put on some clothes,” and went into the bedroom.

Lorain Rigas sat down near the window. She pushed the small suede hat back off her forehead, leaned back and closed her eyes.

When Shane came in, knotting his tie, she was lying very still. He stood over her a moment, looking out the window. Then he finished his tie and looked down at her and put one hand out tentatively, touched her forehead with his fingers. She opened her eyes and looked up at him expressionlessly for a little while; he turned and went to the chair where he had thrown his coat, put it on.

The phone buzzed a second after Shane had closed and locked the door. He swore under his breath, fished in his pockets. The girl leaned against the wall of the corridor, smiled at his futile efforts to find the key.

The phone buzzed insistently.

He finally found the key, unlocked the door hurriedly, and went to the phone. Lorain Rigas leaned against the frame of the open door.

Shane said: “Hello... Put him on...” He stood, holding the phone, looking at the girl; spoke again into the phone: “Hello, Bill — Yeah — Yeah — What the hell for...?” Then he was silent a while with the receiver at his ear. Finally he said: “Okay, Bill — thanks.” Hung up slowly.

He sat down, gestured with his head for the girl to come in and close the door. She closed the door and stood with her back to it, staring at him questioningly.

He said: “Charley was shot to death in the Montecito Apartments on West Eighty-Second, some time around eight-thirty tonight.”

Lorain Rigas put her hand out slowly, blindly a little way. Her eyes were entirely blank. She went slowly, unsteadily to a chair, sank into it.

Shane said: “They’re holding the McLean gal — an’ they’ve found out that Charley and I had an argument this evening — they want to talk to me. They’re on the way over to pick me up.”

He glanced at his watch. It was nine-forty. He got up and went to the table, took a cigar from the humidor, lighted it. Then he went to the window and stared out into the darkness.

“One — base of brain. One — slightly lower — shattered cervical.” The autopsy surgeon straightened, tossed the glittering instrument into a sterilizer and skinned off his rubber gloves. He glanced at Shane, turned and started towards the door.

Sergeant Gill and an intern turned the body over.

Gill said: “Rigas?” looked up at Shane.

Shane nodded.

Gill spread a partially filled-out form on the examining table near Rigas’ feet, took a stub of pencil from his pocket and added several lines to the form. Then he folded it and put it in his pocket and said: “Let’s go back upstairs.”

Shane followed him out of the room that smelled of ether and of death; they went down a long corridor to an elevator.

On the third floor they left the elevator and crossed the hall diagonally to the open door of a large office, went in. A tall, paunched man with a bony, purplish face turned from the window, went to a swivel chair behind the broad desk and sat down.

He said: “How come you stopped by tonight, Dick?” He leaned back, squinted across the desk at Shane.

Shane shrugged, sat down sidewise on the edge of the desk. “Wanted to say hello to all my buddies.”

“You’re a damned liar!” The tall man spoke quietly, impersonally. “A couple of my men were on the way over to pick you up when you showed up, here. You were tipped, an’ I want to know who it was — it don’t make so much difference about you, but that kind of thing is bad for the department.”

Shane was smiling at Gill. He turned his head to look down at the tall man silently. Finally he said: “What are you going to do, Ed — hold me?”

The tall man said: “Who tipped you to the pinch?”

Shane stood up, faced the tall man squarely. He said: “So it’s a pinch?” He turned and started towards the door, spoke over his shoulder to Gill: “Come on, Sarge.”

“Come here, you bastard!”

Shane turned. His expression was not pleasant. He took two short, slow steps back towards the desk.

The tall man was grinning. He drawled: “You’re hard to get along with — ain’t you!”

Shane didn’t answer. He stood with one foot a little in advance of the other and stared at the tall man from under the brim of his dark soft hat. The flesh around his eyes and mouth was very tightly drawn.

The tall man moved his grin from Shane to Gill. He said: “See if you can find that Eastman Op.”

Gill went out of the room hurriedly.

The tall man swung a little in the chair, turned his head to look out the window. His manner when he spoke was casual, forced:

“The McLean girl killed Rigas.”

Shane did not move or speak.

“What did you and him fight about tonight?” The tall man turned to look at Shane. His hands were folded over his broad stomach and he clicked his thumbnails nervously.

Shane cleared his throat. He said huskily: “Am I under arrest?”

“No. But we’ve got enough to held you on suspicion. You’ve sunk a lot of dough in Rigas’ joint and so far as we know you ain’t taken much out. Tonight you had an argument...”

The tall man unclasped his hands and leaned forward, put his arms on the desk. “Why don’t you help us get this thing right instead of being so damned fidgety?” He twisted his darkly florid face to a wry smile.

Shane said: “Rigas and I had an argument about money — I left his place at eight o’clock and I was in my hotel at a quarter after. I was there until I came here.” He went forward again to the desk. “I can get a half-dozen people at the hotel to swear to that.”

The tall man made a wide and elaborate gesture of deprecation. “Hell, Dick, we know you didn’t do it — and it’s almost a natural for McLean. Only we thought you might help us clean up the loose ends.”

Shane shook his head slowly, emphatically.

Sergeant Gill came in with an undersized blond youth in a shiny blue-serge suit.

The young man went to the desk, nodded at Shane, said: “H’ are you, Cap?” to the tall man.

The tall man was looking at Shane. He said: “This man” — he jerked his head at the youth — “works for Eastman. He was on an evidence job for Mrs. Rigas and went in with the patrolman when Rigas was shot...”

“Yes, sir,” the youth interrupted. “The telephone operator come running out screaming bloody murder an’ the copper come running down from the corner an’ we both went upstairs” — he paused, caught his breath — “an’ there was this guy Rigas, half in the bedroom and half out-, an’ dead as a doornail... The gun was on the floor, and this dame, McLean, was in pyjamas, yelling that she didn’t do it.”

The tall man said: “Yes — you told us all that before.”

“I know — only I’m telling him.” The youth smiled at Shane.

Shane sat down again on the edge of the desk. He looked from the youth to the tall man, asked: “What does McLean say?”

“She’s got a whole raft of stories.”

The tall man spat carefully into a big brass cuspidor beside the desk. “The best one is that she was asleep and didn’t wake up till she heard the shots — and then she turned on the lights an’ there he was, on the floor in the doorway. The outer door to the apartment was unlocked-had been unlocked all evening. She says she always left it that way when he was out because he was always losing his key, an’ then he could come in without waking her up.”

Shane said: “What was she doing in bed at eight-thirty?”

“Bad headache.”

Sergeant Gill took a .38 automatic from the drawer of a steel cabinet, handed it to Shane. “No fingerprints,” he said — “dean as a whistle.”

Shane looked at the gun, put it down on the desk.

The tall man looked at the youth and at Gill, then bobbed his head meaningly towards the door. They both went out. The youth said: “So long, Cap — so long, Mister Shane.” Gill closed the door behind him.

Shane was smiling.

The tall man said: “Rigas’ wife had these Eastman dicks on his tail — she got anything to do with this?”

“Why?” Shane shrugged. “She wanted a divorce.”

“How long they been having trouble?”

“Don’t know.”

The tall man stood up, stuck his hands in his pockets and went to the window. He spoke over his shoulder: “Didn’t you and her used to be pretty good friends?”

Shane didn’t answer. His face was entirely expressionless.

The tall man turned and looked at him and then he said: “Well — I guess that’s all.”

They went out together.

In the corridor Shane made a vague motion with his hand, said: “Be seeing you,” went down two flights of stairs and out the door to the street. He stood in the wide arch of the entrance, out of the rain, looked up and down the street for a cab. There was one in front of a drugstore six or seven doors up from the Police Station; he whistled, finally walked swiftly up to it through the blinding rain.

As he got in, the youth in the shiny blue-serge suit came out of the drugstore, scuttled across the sidewalk and climbed in beside him, sat down.

The driver turned around and said: “Where to?”

Shane said: “Wait a minute.”

The youth leaned back, put his hand confidentially on Shane’s shoulder. He said: “Tell him to drive around the block. I got something to tell you.”

The driver looked at Shane, Shane nodded. They swung out from the curb.

The youth said: “I seen Mrs. Rigas about a half a block from the place uptown where Rigas was killed, about ten minutes before we found him.”

Shane didn’t say anything. He rubbed the side of his face with one hand, glanced at his watch, nodded.

“I was coming back from the delicatessen on the corner, where I got a bite to eat. She was going the same way, on the other side of the street. I wasn’t sure it was her at first — I only seen her once when she came in to see Mister Eastman — but there was a car coming down the street and its headlights were pretty bright and I was pretty sure it was her.”

Shane said: “Pretty sure.”

“Aw hell — it was her.” The youth took a soggy cigarette out of his pocket, lighted it.

“Where did she go?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. It was raining so damned hard — and the wind was blowing — when I got to our car, that was parked across the street from the Montecito, she’d disappeared.” The youth shook his head slowly. “I told my partner about it. He said I was probably wrong, because if it was her she would have called up the office and found out how to spot us, because she would be wanting us to go in with her. He went on down to the corner to get something to eat, an’ I sat in the car an’ figured that I probably had been wrong, an’ then in a few minutes I heard the shots an’ the telephone operator come running out.”

Shane said: “Did you see Rigas go in?”

The youth shook his head. “No — an’ my partner swears he didn’t go in while he was on watch. He must’ve gone in the back way.”

Shane took a cigar out of a blue leather case, bit off the end, lighted it. “And you say you were figuring you were wrong about thinking you’d seen her?”

The youth laughed. “Yeah — that’s what I figured then. But that ain’t what I figure now.”

“Why not?”

“Because I pride myself, Mister Shane, on being able to look at a dame what is supposed to have just bumped a guy off, an’ knowing whether she did it or not. That’s why I’m in the business.” He turned his head and looked very seriously at Shane.

Shane smiled faintly in the darkness.

The youth said: “It wasn’t McLean.” He said it very positively.

Shane said: “Why didn’t you tell the Captain about this?”

“Christ! We got to protect our clients.”

The cab stopped in front of the drugstore, the driver turned around and looked at Shane questioningly.

Shane blew out a great cloud of gray-blue smoke, glanced at the youth, said: “Where do you want to go?”

“This is oke for me.” The youth leaned forward, put his hand on the inside handle of the door. Then he paused, turned his head slightly towards Shane.

“I’m in a spot, Mister Shane. My wife’s sick — an’ I took an awful beating on the races the other day, trying to get enough jack for an operation...”

Shane said: “Does anybody besides your partner know about Mrs. Rigas?”

The youth shook his head.

Shane tipped his hat back on his head, drew two fingers across his forehead, said: “I’ll see what I can do about it. Where do you live?”

The youth took a card out of his pocket, took out a thin silver pencil and wrote something on it. He handed the card to Shane, said, “So long,” and got out of the cab and ran across the sidewalk to the drugstore.

Shane said: “Downtown.”

On Twelfth Street, a little way off Sixth Avenue, Shane rapped on the glass, the cab swung to the curb. He told the driver to wait, got out and went down a narrow passageway between two buildings to a green wooden door with a dim electric light above it. He opened the door, knocked on another heavier door set at an angle to the first. It was opened after a little while and he went down four wide steps to a long and narrow room with a bar along one side.

There were seven or eight men at the bar, two white-aproned men behind it: a squat and swarthy Italian and a heavily built Irishman.

Shane went to the far end of the room, leaned on the bar and spoke to the Italian: “What’ve you got that’s best?”

The Italian put a bottle of brandy and a glass on the bar in front of him: Shane took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket, held the glass up to the light, wiped it carefully. He poured a drink, tasted it.

He said: “That’s lousy — give me a glass of beer.”

The Italian picked up the glass of brandy, drank it, put the bottle away and drew a glass of beer. He skimmed off the foam, put the tall glass on the bar.

He said: “Seventy-five cents.”

Shane put a dollar bill on the bar, asked: “Kenny around?”

The Italian shook his head.

Shane said: “Where’s the phone?”

The Italian inclined his head towards a narrow door back of Shane. Shane went into the booth and called the Valmouth, asked for Miss Johnson. When the connection had been made, he said: “Hello, Lorain — what room are you in?... All right, stay there until I get back — don’t go out for anything — anybody... I’m down at Jack Kenny’s... Tell you when I see you... Uh-huh... G’bye...” He hung up and went back to the bar.

The Italian and the Irishman were talking together. The Irishman came down to Shane and said: “Jack’s upstairs, asleep. Wha’d you want to see him about?”

“You’d better wake him up — I want to tell him how to keep out of the can.” Shane tasted the beer, said: “That’s lousy — give me a glass of water.”

The Irishman looked at him suspiciously for a minute, put a glass of water on the bar, went to the door at the end of the room. He said: “Who’ll I say it is?”

“Shane.”

The Irishman disappeared through the door.

He was back in a little while, said: “You can go on up — it’s the open door at the top of the stairs.”

Shane went back and through the door, across a dark, airless hallway. He lighted a match and found the bottom of the stair, went up. There was a door ajar at the top of the stair through which faint light came, he shoved it open, went in.

Jack Kenny was big and round and bald. He was sitting deep in a worn and battered wicker armchair. He was very drunk.

There was another man, lying face down across the dirty, unmade bed. He was snoring loudly, occasionally exhaled in a long sighing whistle.

Kenny lifted his chin from his chest, lifted bleary eyes to Shane. He said: “Hi, boy?”

Shane asked: “What kind of a rod did you give Del Corey?”

Kenny opened his eyes wide, grinned. He leaned heavily forward, then back, stretched luxuriously.

“I didn’t give him any — the louse stole it.”

Shane waited.

Kenny was suddenly serious. He said: “What the hell you talking about?”

Shane said: “Charley Rigas was killed tonight with a .38 Smith & Wesson automatic — the safety was knocked off, an’ the number on the barrel started with four six six two.

Kenny stood up suddenly, unsteadily.

Shane said: “I thought you might like to know.” He turned and started towards the door.

Kenny said: “Wait a minute.”

Shane stopped in the doorway, turned.

All the color had gone out of Kenny’s bloated, florid face, leaving it pasty, yellow-white.

He said: “You sure?” He went unsteadily to a little table in the room, picked up an empty bottle, held it up to the light, threw it into a corner.

Shane nodded, said: “Pretty damned dumb for Del to get so steamed up about Lorain an’ Charley that he killed Charley — huh? Lorain’s been washed up with Charley for months — an’ Del ought to’ve known about it if anybody did...”

Kenny said: “He wasn’t worrying about Lorain. It was that little cigarette gal — Thelma, or Selma, or something — that works for Charley. Del’s been two-timing Lorain with her for the last couple weeks. That’s what he was shooting off his mouth about this afternoon — he had some kind of office on her an’ Charley.”

Kenny went to a dresser and opened a drawer and took out a bottle of whiskey.

Shane said: “Oh.”

He went out and down the dark stair, out to the bar. The glass of beer and the glass of water were on the bar where he had left them. He picked up the glass of water, tasted it, said: “That’s lousy,” and went out through the front door and the passageway to the cab.

It was a few minutes before eleven when Shane got out of the cab, paid off the driver and went into the Valmouth. The clerk gave him a note that a Mister Arthur had telephoned, would call again in the morning.

Shane went up to his rooms, sat down with his coat and hat on and picked up the telephone.

He said: “Listen, baby — tell the girl that relieves you in the morning that when Mister Arthur calls, I’m out of the city — won’t be back for a couple months. He wants to sell me some insurance.”

He hung up, looked up the number of 71 in his little black book, called it. A strange voice answered. Shane said: “Is Nick there?... Is Pedro there?... Never mind — what I want to know is what’s Thelma’s last name? Thelma, the cigarette girl?... Uh-huh — Never mind who I am—

I’m one of your best customers... Uh-huh... How do you spell it?... B-u-r-r... You haven’t got her telephone number, have you?”... The receiver clicked, Shane smiled, hung up.

He found Thelma Burr’s address in the telephone directory: a number on West Seventy-Fourth, off Riverside Drive. He got up and went to the table and took several cigars from the humidor, put all but one of them in the blue leather case. He lighted the cigar and stood a little while at one of the windows, staring at the tiny lights in the buildings uptown. Gusts of rain beat against the window and he shuddered suddenly, involuntarily.

He went to a cabinet and took out a square brown bottle, a glass, poured himself a stiff drink. Then he went out, downstairs to the sixteenth floor. He knocked several times at the door of 1611, but there was no answer. He went to the elevator, down to the lobby.

The night clerk said: “That’s right, sir — 1611, but I think Miss Johnson went out shortly before you came in.”

Shane went to the house phone, spoke to the operator: “Did Miss Johnson get any calls after I talked to her around ten-thirty?... Right after I called — huh?... Thanks.”

He went out to a cab, gave the driver the number on Seventy-Fourth Street.

It turned out to be a narrow, five-story apartment house on the north side of the street. Shane told the driver to wait and went up steps, through a heavy door into a dark hall. There were mailboxes on each side of the hall; he lighted a match and started on the left side. The second from the last box on the left bore a name scrawled in pencil that interested him: N. Manos — the apartment number was 414. He went on to the right side of the hall, found the name and the number he was looking for, went up narrow creaking steps to the third floor.

There was no answer at 312.

After a little while, Shane went back downstairs. He stood in the darkness of the hall for several minutes. Then he went back up to the fourth floor, knocked at 414. There was no answer there either. He tried the door, found it to be locked, went back down to 312.

He stood in the dim light of the hallway a while with his ear close to the door. He heard the outside door downstairs open and close, voices. He went halfway down the stair, waited until the voices had gone away down the corridor on the first floor, went back to the door of 312 and tried several keys in the lock. The sixth key he tried turned almost all the way; he took held of the knob, lifted and pushed, forcing the key at the same time. The lock clicked, gave way, the door swung open.

Shane went into the darkness, closed the door and lighted a match. He found the light switch, pressed it. A floor lamp with a colorful and tasteless batik shade; a smaller table lamp with a black silk handkerchief thrown over it, lighted. The globes were deep amber; the light of the two lamps was barely sufficient to see the brightly papered walls, the mass of furniture in the room. Shane picked his way to the table, jerked the black handkerchief off the table lamp; then there was a little more light.

There was a man on his knees on the floor, against a couch at one end of the little room. The upper part of his body was belly down on the couch and his arms hung limply, ridiculously to the floor; the back of his skull was caved in and the white brightly flowered couch-cover beneath his head and shoulders was dark red, shiny.

Shane went to him and squatted down and looked at the gashed and bloody side of his face. It was Del Corey.

Shane stood up and crossed the room to an ajar door, pushed it open with his foot. The light over the wash basin was on, covered with several layers of pink silk; the light was very dim.

Thelma Burr was lying on her back on the floor. Her green crepe de chine nightgown was torn, stained. There were black marks on her throat, her breast; her face was puffy, a bruised discolored mask, and her mouth and one cheek were brown-black with iodine. There was a heavy pewter candlestick a little way from one outstretched hand.

Shane knelt, braced his elbow on the edge of the bathtub and held his ear close to her chest. Her heart was beating faintly.

He stood up swiftly, went out of the bathroom, went to the door. He took out his handkerchief, wiped off the light switch carefully, snapped the lights out. Then he went out and locked the door, wiped the knob, put the key in his pocket and went downstairs, out and across the street to the cab.

The driver jerked his head towards another lone cab halfway down the block. “That hack come up right after we got here,” he said. “Nobody got out or nothing. Maybe it’s a tail.” He stared sharply at Shane.

Shane said: “Probably.”... He glanced carelessly at the other cab. “You can make yourself a fin if you can get me to the nearest telephone, and then over to 71 East Fifty — in five minutes.”

The driver pointed across the street, said: “Garage over there — they ought to have a phone.”

Shane ran across to the garage, found a phone and called Central Station, asked for Bill Hay worth. When Hayworth answered, he said: “There’s a stiff and a prospective in apartment 312 at — West Seventy-Fourth. Hurry up — the girl’s not quite gone. Call you later.” He ran out to the waiting cab, climbed in, leaned back and clipped and lighted a cigar, watched the other cab through the rear window. They went over to the Drive, down two blocks, turned east. Shane thought for a while that the other cab wasn’t following, but after they’d gone several blocks on Seventy-Second he saw it again. They cut down Broadway to Columbus Circle, across Fifty-Ninth.

In front of 71, Shane jumped out of the cab, said: “That’s swell — wait,” went swiftly across the sidewalk and pressed the button beneath the red number.

The slit opened, a voice that Shane did not know whispered: “What is it you want?”

Shane said: “In.” He stuck his face in the thin shaft of light that came through the slit.

The door was opened and Shane went into the narrow hallway. The man who had let him in was about fifty-five — a slight, thin-faced man with white hair combed straight back from high forehead. He closed the door, bolted it.

Nick was standing behind and a little to one side of the slight man. He held a blunt blue automatic steadily in his right hand. His chin was on his chest and he stared at Shane narrowly through thick, bushy brows. He jerked his head up suddenly, sharply, said: “Put your hands up, you son of a bitch!”

Shane smiled slowly, raised his hands slowly as high as his shoulders.

A bell tinkled faintly above the door, the slight white-haired man opened the slit and looked out, closed the slit and opened the door. Another man whom Shane recognized as one of the stud dealers came in. The slight man closed the door.

Nick jerked his head up again, said: “Upstairs.” He put the automatic in the pocket of his dinner coat, the muzzle held the cloth out stiff.

Shane turned and went slowly up the stairs, and Nick and the man who followed him in came up behind him. The slight man stayed at the door.

On the second floor, Shane put his hands down as he passed the double-door into the big room, glanced in. There were three people, a man and two women, in earnest and drunken conversation at one of the corner tables. There was a couple at a table against the far wall. With the exception of these and a waiter and the man behind the bar, the room was deserted.

Shane spoke over his shoulder to Nick: “Swell crowd.”

Nick took two or three rapid steps, took the automatic out of his pocket and jabbed it against Shane’s back, hard. Shane put his hands up again and went up the second flight to the third floor. Nick and the other man followed him. He stopped at the top of the stair, leaned against the balustrade. Nick went past him and knocked at the tall gray door. It was opened in a little while and the three of them went into the room.

Pedro Rigas, Charley’s brother, was sitting on one of the big round tables, swinging his feet back and forth. He was very tall and spare and his face was dark, handsome, his features sharply cut.

There was a plump young man with rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes, shingled sand-colored hair, on a straight cane-bottomed chair near Pedro. His legs were crossed and he leaned on one elbow on the table. There was a heavy nickeled revolver on the table near his elbow. He stared at Shane with interest.

Lorain Rigas was sitting on a worn imitation-leather couch against one wall. She was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her hands over her eyes. She had taken off the small suede hat, her dull black hair curved in damp arabesques over her white forehead and throat and hands.

The little Eastman operative was half sitting, half lying on the floor against the wall near the couch. His face was a pulpy mass of bruised, beaten flesh; one arm was up, half covering the lower part of his face, the other was propped in the angle of the floor and wall. He was sobbing quietly, his body shook.

Pedro Rigas looked at the dealer who had come in with Shane and Nick, nodded towards Shane, asked: “You bring him in?”

Nick said: “He came in — by himself.” He grinned mirthlessly at Shane.

Shane was staring sleepily at Lorain Rigas.

She lifted her face, looked at him helplessly. “Somebody called up a little while after I talked to you,” she said — “said it was the night clerk — said you were waiting for me out in front of the hotel. I went down and they smacked me into a cab, brought me over here.”

Shane nodded slightly.

She turned her eyes towards the Eastman man on the floor. “He was here,” she went on, “an’ they were beating hell out of him. I don’t know where they picked him up.”

Shane said: “Probably at the Station, after he talked to me. They’ve been tailing me all night — since I left the hotel to go over an’ talk to the captain. That’s how they knew you were at the hotel — they saw you come in around nine — an’ they got the fake Johnson name from the register.”

Pedro Rigas was smiling coldly at Shane, swinging his feet back and forth nervously.

He said: “One of you two,” — he jerked his head towards the girl — “killed Charley. I find out pretty soon which one — or by God I kill you both.”

Shane had put his hands down. He held them in front of him and looked down at them, stroked the back of one with the palm of the other. Then he looked up at the rosy-cheeked young man, questioned Rigas: “Executioner?” He smiled slightly, sarcastically.

Lorain Rigas stood up suddenly, faced Pedro. She said: “You fool! Can’t you get it through that nut of yours that Del killed Charley? Dear God!” — she made a hopeless gesture. “Read the papers — the gun they found was the one Del swiped from Jack Kenny this afternoon. Jack’ll verify that.”

Pedro’s face was cold and hard and expressionless when he looked at her. “What were you doing up there?”

“I told you!” she almost screamed. “I went to warn Charley that Del was after him! I heard the shots when I was halfway upstairs — got out.”

Shane was looking at Lorain Rigas and there was a dim mocking glitter in his eyes.

She glanced at him, said: “I didn’t tell you about that, Dick, because I was afraid you’d get ideas. You wouldn’t trust your own mother across the street, you know.”

Shane nodded gently, slowly.

He turned to Pedro. “Where do I come in?” he said. “I went from here to the hotel — an’ I was there till about a quarter of ten...”

The dealer, who was still standing near the door, spoke for the first time: “No. After you left here, you didn’t get to the hotel till about ten minutes of nine. I found that out from a friend of mine — a bellhop.”

Lorain Rigas looked from the dealer to Shane. Her eyes were wide, surprised. She said: “My God!”

Pedro stopped swinging his feet suddenly. He said: “Where did you go after you left here?” He was staring at Shane and his eyes were thin heavily fringed slits.

Shane was silent a moment. Then he reached slowly, deliberately towards his inside pocket, smiled at Lorain Rigas, said: “May I smoke?”

Pedro stood up suddenly.

The rosy-cheeked youth stood up, too. The revolver glistened in his hand and he went swiftly to Shane, patted his pockets, his hips, felt under his arms. He finished, stepped back a pace.

Shane took out the blue case, took out a cigar and lighted it.

It was silent except for the choked sobbing of the little Eastman man.

Nick came suddenly forward, took Shane by the shoulder, shook him. Nick said: “You answer Pedro when he asks you a question.”

Shane turned slowly and frowned at Nick. He looked down at Nick’s hand on his shoulder, said slowly: “Take your hand off me, you you son of a bitch!” He looked back at Pedro. “Ask Nick where he went tonight.”

Pedro jerked his head impatiently.

Shane took the cigar out of his mouth, said: “Did you know that Thelma — downstairs — is Nick’s gal?” He hesitated a moment, glanced swiftly at Nick. “an’ did you know that Charley’s been playing around with her?”

Pedro was staring at Nick. His mouth was a little open.

Shane went on: “Nick knew it...”

He whirled suddenly and smashed his left fist down hard on Nick’s broad forearm, grabbed for the automatic with his right hand. The automatic fell, clattered on the floor. Shane and Nick and the rosy-cheeked young man all dived for it, but the young man was a little faster; he stood up grinning widely, murderously — a gun in each hand.

Pedro said: “Go on.”

Shane didn’t say anything. He was looking at Nick and his eyes were bright, interested — he was smiling a little.

Pedro snapped at the dealer: “Go downstairs an’ send Mario up — you stay at the door.”

The dealer went out and closed the door.

They were all very quiet. Nick was staring at the automatic in the young man’s hand and there was a very silly, far-away expression on his face. Shane was watching Nick like a vivisectionist about to make the crucial incision. Lorain Rigas was sitting down again on the couch with her hands over her eyes.

Pedro only waited, looked at the floor.

The door opened and the slight, white-haired man came in.

Pedro said: “What time did Nick go out tonight?”

The slight man looked at Nick bewilderedly. He cleared his throat, said: “Nick went out right after Charley went home. He said there wasn’t any business anyway, an’ he wanted to go to a picture-show, an’ would I take the door for a while. He came back some time around nine...”

Pedro said: “All right — go on back downstairs.”

The slight man gestured with one hand. “You seen me on the door when you went out right after we heard about Charley,” he said. “Wasn’t it all right for me to be on the door?”

“Sure.” Pedro was looking at Nick. “Sure — only I thought Nick was down in the basement or something — I didn’t know he’d gone out.”

The slight man shrugged and went out and closed the door.

Shane said evenly: “Nick had a hunch that Charley was going to Thelma’s. He didn’t follow Charley, but he jumped in a cab, probably, an went to her place. He didn’t find Charley — but he found Del Corey.”

Lorain Rigas put her hands down and looked up at Shane. Her face was drawn, white.

“That’s what Del went there for,” Shane went on — “expecting to find Charley. Del’s been making a big play for Thelma — an’ he knew about Charley and her — was cockeyed an’ burnt up an’ aimed to rub Charley.” Shane was watching Nick narrowly. “Thelma must’ve calmed Del down — Nick found them there...” Shane turned his eyes towards Lorain Rigas. “... And caved in Del’s head.”

Lorain Rigas stood up, screamed.

Pedro crossed to her swiftly, put one hand over her mouth, the other on her back, pushed her back down on the couch gently.

Shane said: “Then Nick beat the hell out of Thelma, made her admit that Charley had been in the woodpile, too, damn’ near killed her.”

He was looking at Nick again.

“He dragged what was left of her into the bathroom and poured some iodine on her mouth, an’ put the candlestick that he’d smacked Del with in her hands so it would look like she’d killed Del an’ then committed suicide.”

Nick turned to stare at Shane vacantly.

Shane was puffing out great clouds of blue-gray smoke, seemed to be enjoying himself hugely.

“She wasn’t quite dead, though,” he went on. He glanced at his watch. “The law ought to be over there by now — getting her testimony.”

Pedro said: “Hurry up.”

Shane shrugged. “Nick took the gun that Del got from Jack Kenny, jumped up to Charley’s. He knew he was in a good spot to let Charley have it because Charley and I had that argument tonight — an’ it’d look like me — or he could make it look like me. Charley evidently stopped some place on the way home — Nick got there first and either stuck Charley up in the corridor and took him into the apartment to kill him, or sneaked in — the door was unlocked — and waited in the dark. Then he went out the back way — the way Charley came in — and came back down here.”

Pedro went to the door, turned to Shane, said: “You and the lady go.”

Shane gestured towards the Eastman man. “What about him?”

“We’ll fix him up — give him some money. It is too bad.” Pedro smiled, opened the door.

Shane looked at Nick. Nick’s face was pasty, yellow, still wore the silly, far-away expression.

Lorain Rigas stood up and took up her hat and went to Shane.

They went together to the door, out into the hallway. Pedro leaned over the balustrade, called down to the little man at the outside door: “Okay.”

Shane and the girl went downstairs, past the doors of the dark and empty barroom, down to the street floor.

The slight, white-haired man and the dealer were whispering together. The slight man opened the door for them, said: “Good night — come again.”

They went out and got into the cab.

Shane said: “Valmouth.”

It had stopped raining for the moment, but the streets were still black and glistening and slippery.

He tossed the cigar out through the narrow space of open window, leaned back, said: “Am I a swell dick? — or am I a swell dick?”

Lorain Rigas didn’t answer. Her elbow was on the armrest, her chin in her hand. She stared out the window blankly.

“You’re not very appreciative.” Shane smiled to himself, was silent a little while.

The light held them up at Fifth Avenue. Theater traffic was heavy in spite of the weather.

Shane said: “The only thing I’m not quite sure about is whether you went to Charley’s to warn him — or whether you’d heard about Del and Thelma — thought that the day Del was yelping about shooting Charley, in front of witnesses, was a swell time for you to shoot Charley yourself.”

She did not answer.

As the cab curved into Sixth Avenue, she said: “Where did you go after you left 71 — before you went back to the hotel?”

Shane laughed. “That lousy alibi held up with the captain,” he said. “He didn’t question it.” He unbuttoned the top button of his topcoat, took something wrapped in tissue paper out of his inside pocket. “You know what a sucker I am for auction sales?”

She nodded.

He unfolded the tissue paper and took out a platinum-mounted diamond ring. The stone was large, pure white, very beautiful.

He said: “Pip?”

She nodded again.

He put the ring back in the tissue paper, folded it, put it back in his pocket.

The cab slid to the curb in front of the Valmouth.

Shane said: “Where you going?”

She shook her head.

He said: “You keep the cab.” He pressed a bill into her hand, said: “This’ll take care of it — why don’t you take a nice long ride?”

He brushed her forehead lightly with his lips and got out of the cab and went into the hotel.