She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow

Chapter XXI

“Police headquarters,” a gruff voice said in his ear. “Sergeant O’Brien.”

“This is Clancy Ross,” the gambler said. “I want to report my car stolen.”

“Oh, hello, Clancy. We already got something on that. Hold on. Lieutenant Redfern has been trying to reach you for a couple of hours.”

There was a wait, then Niles Redfern’s voice said, “Clancy? Where are you?”

“Home.”

“You haven’t been. I’ve been phoning there since before eight.”

“I pull the plug out of the jack when I take a nap,” the gambler said smoothly.

“Yeah? Well, I don’t think you’ve been napping. What’s been going on over there?”

“What do you mean?”

“A little after seven we got a report of heavy gunfire coming from the alley behind your place. When a squad car got there, there wasn’t a sign of anything. But in cruising the area they found a Lincoln all shot to hell parked on the next street. A check with DMV turned up that it’s yours.”

“Parked on what next street?” Ross asked.

“Elm. Just behind your club. What’s the story?”

“You know as much as I do, Lieutenant. I just called in to report the car stolen.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Redfern said, “That’s a pretty old gag, reporting a car stolen after it’s been in an accident.”

“Oh, was it in an accident? When you said it was all shot to hell, I thought you meant by bullets.”

“You know damn well what happened to it,” the lieutenant growled. “But I can see you aren’t going to confide in me. I can’t offhand think of any charges to bring against you. Want us to tow in the car?”

“I’ll phone a garage to come get it. But you can call off your stakeout.”

“How’d you know it was staked out?” Redfern inquired quickly.

“I know how you operate,” Ross said, and hung up.

After phoning a garage and making arrangements for the Lincoln to be picked up, he stripped and took a shower.

Ross prepared carefully for his date, but his preparations were a little odd. Before putting on his shirt, he buckled around his right arm, just below the elbow, the three-inch-wide leather strap the shoemaker had made for him. Threading the shoestring at the end of the elastic tape through the small metal ring at the base of the derringer’s butt, he tied it with a fisherman’s knot. When he held his hand to his side, the muzzle of the derringer hung about three inches above his wrist.

He chose a shirt with wide French cuffs and clasped the cuffs together with gold cufflinks. When he had slipped it on, buttoned it, and had slipped the tails into his trousers, he looked in the mirror. Even when he examined the reflection of his right arm closely, he could detect no evidence of the contrivance strapped under the sleeve.

For a moment he stood with his arms hanging loose at his sides. Then, suddenly, he snapped up his hand as though pointing a gun. He felt the elastic stretch and, as if by sleight of hand, the derringer was gripped in his palm.

Breaking the gun, he slipped a shell into each chamber and let it slide back up his sleeve again. He counted out four extra shells from the cartridge box and dropped them in the left side pocket of his trousers.

He unloaded his thirty-eight before slipping into his regular gun harness and dropped the shells into his right-hand trouser pocket. Then he pulled his suit coat over the harness and was ready for his date.

In the kitchen he found a paper bag, carried it into the front room, and loaded it with a fifth of Scotch, a quart of bourbon and a fifth of soda from the bar. He took the elevator downstairs and let himself out the back way.

The light over the back door was still out. Ross doubted that there would be any more moves by Bix Lawson that night, but his habit of anticipating possibilities made him decide he wanted the rear to be lighted when he returned later that night. Pulling a covered trash can over to the doorway, he stood on it and turned the bulb. As he suspected, it had merely been loosened. The light went on.

Jumping down off the trash can, he pushed it back to its former place.

He exercised another bit of caution before climbing into the Cadillac. Though he had been inside no more than a half-hour, and he really didn’t expect the car to have been tampered with, he lifted the hood and carefully examined the wiring system with a pencil flashlight. Finding no bombs connected to the starter, he slammed the hood and slipped behind the wheel.

Both acts were examples of what the gambler considered his habitual carefulness, but what was really no more than chronic alertness. His unloading of his thirty-eight before strapping it on had been another instinctive preparation for a rather remote possibility. Since he expected to be parted from the gun at some time during the evening, he saw no point in furnishing his enemies with an additional weapon which might be turned against him.

Nobody but the gambler himself would have considered any of these actions cautious, though. A truly cautious man wouldn’t have been heading into what he was certain could be nothing but a trap. He would have stayed home and gone to bed.

Ross took Lakeview Drive to Halfway Junction, just as he had the night he drove the woman who called herself Christine Franklin to the cottage, but when he turned off on the gravel road which circled the lake, he headed north instead of south. Muskie Lake was only about a half mile wide at its broadest point and about two miles long. He drove clear around it in order to approach Stowe Point from a direction opposite to the one by which he would be expected.

The gravel road hugged the shoreline of the lake at a distance varying from a dozen feet to not more than fifty. When he reached the tip of Stowe Point, he drove alongside a boarded-up cottage and cut his engine and lights. Christine Franklin-Vanita Bell’s cottage was only about a hundred yards beyond the tip of the point.

The overcast sky made it difficult even to see the road, but he could make out the cottage in the distance by the subdued light glowing from its front windows. He groped his way along the road, probing the darkness alongside each cottage he passed.

At the third cottage this side of Christine-Vanita’s he found what he was looking for. As the building’s windows were boarded up, it obviously was unoccupied, but a new Ford was parked next to it on the side away from her cottage.

He risked his pencil flashlight to examine the windshield. As he had expected, it bore the sticker of a car-rental service.

He had been reasonably certain that Bix Lawson knew nothing about this trap, but now he was sure. Local hoods would have used their own car. Only gunmen flying in from out of town would find it necessary to rent a car.

He moved on to check the remaining two cottages this side of Christine’s, but found no more concealed cars. Satisfied that whatever force he had to face couldn’t be larger than a single carload, he retraced his way to the parked Cadillac and drove back around the lake the way he had come.

When he approached the cottage from the other direction and pulled up alongside it to park, he saw, even before he got inside, that the woman had set the scene for romance. The only light was a subdued glow from the front windows, indicating that only the low-watt bulb she used as a night light was on.

Hearing the car drive up, Christine-Vanita opened the door as he was lifting the paper sack from the front seat.

“I’d almost given you up,” she called. “It’s a quarter to eleven.”

“I’m only fifteen minutes late,” he said as he neared the door. “I said ten or ten-thirty.”

She wore the same filmy blue negligée she had donned on his previous visit. She remained standing squarely in the doorway as he approached, so that the dimly lighted lamp behind her would silhouette her body and let him see that she wore nothing beneath it. At the last instant she stepped aside to let him enter.

Like the lazy flick of a whip, his gaze swept the room in one comprehensive glance. As before, the bedroom door was closed and the darkened kitchen door stood open.

“Supplies,” he said, hefting the sack and heading immediately for the kitchen.

He knew by the way she turned her back to him to shoot home the door bolt that nothing was going to happen immediately. Nevertheless he cradled the sack in his left arm in order to leave his right hand free when he entered the kitchen and flicked on the overhead light.

The kitchen was empty, unless someone was concealed in the pantry. As he opened the bottles and began to mix drinks, he kept one eye on the pantry door.

The woman had come to the kitchen doorway and stood watching him mix drinks. Under the bright overhead light her dark blue negligée became almost transparent and he could clearly see the whiteness of her body beneath it. The plump roundness of her bosom and the darker circles of her nipples beneath the filmy material would have heated his blood under normal circumstances, but as things were the sight of her near nakedness did nothing to him.

He had no intention of letting her suspect his coldness, however. When he finished making the drinks, he carried both glasses over, handed her one and deliberately ran his gaze up and down her body.

“That outfit becomes you,” he said admiringly.

“Thank you, sir.”

Taking his free hand, she led him over to the rustic sofa. When he seated himself next to her, she shifted closer to press her thigh intimately against his. She smiled at him over the top of her glass.

“Bumps,” she said.

He clinked his glass against hers and took a sip. Raising hers to her lips, she tilted it and let the liquid flow steadily down her throat until the glass was empty.

When she set it down on the cocktail table before them, he said, “My, you must have been thirsty.”

“Just shamelessly eager to get past the preliminaries,” she said, rubbing her shoulder against his and looking up at him invitingly.

He took another sip of his drink and set it down. Instantly her arms crept about his neck and her lips raised to his.

He knew it wasn’t a very romantic thing to do, but he didn’t close his eyes for the kiss. He kept one on the bedroom door and the other on the open door to the kitchen. But after a few moments, because he knew it would be expected of him, he began to let one hand roam. Slipping it into the opening of the negligée, he cupped a plump breast and gently massaged its tip with his thumb and forefinger.

“O-o-h,” she breathed against his lips. “If you only knew what that does to me.”

He doubted that, this time, it did anything, for her flesh remained cool to his touch and the nipple remained soft between his fingers. On his previous visit, with no gunmen lurking in the other room to distract her attention, he was sure her passion had been genuine even though at the time she was deliberately setting him up for a subsequent trap.

But tonight there was no convulsive pressing of her body against his, no squirming as though she couldn’t stand what he was doing to her. Even the long drawn out “O-o-h” had a theatrical ring to it.

Slipping from his arms, she stood up. “You’re too formally dressed, Clancy. Let me hang up your coat.”

Obediently he came to his feet, slipped off the coat and handed it to her.

“Get comfortable by taking off your tie, too,” she suggested.

Loosening the tie, he stripped it off, handed it to her and unbuttoned his collar.

“Be right back,” she said, carrying the garments into the bedroom and closing the door behind her.

When she came out again, he had lighted a cigarette. She frowned at the gun under his arm.

“You going to make love to me wearing that?” she asked.

“I guess I don’t need it here,” he said with a smile. Slipping out of the harness, he carried it over to the mantel.

Immediately she went over and picked it up. “I’ll hang it in the closet with your coat,” she said, and disappeared into the bedroom again.

When the bedroom door re-opened this time, Ross expected a man to appear with a gun in his hand. But to his surprise only the smiling woman emerged and pulled the door closed behind her. Returning to the couch, she patted the cushion next to her invitingly.

Tossing his cigarette into the fireplace, he resumed his seat next to her.

When she moved into his arms, he understood the reason for the delay in fireworks. Whitey Cord, or whichever of his minions had set this trap, believed in taking no chances whatever. Gluing her lips to his and writhing her body against him, her hands moved here and there over him in pretended caresses. Actually, he realized, she was making sure that he carried no additional concealed weapons.

Her busy hands paused momentarily when she felt the outline of the cartridges in his trouser pockets, but she must have decided that they were bunched keys, or at least weren’t any kind of weapon, for they quickly moved on. She touched every pocket, ran her hands over his legs and, by pretending to massage his back, checked the complete girth of his belt to make sure nothing in the way of a weapon was thrust into it.

Fortunately it didn’t occur to her to feel the inner sides of his forearms.

Deciding to act out his role of unsuspecting patsy all the way, he started to slip the negligée down over her shoulders. As it parted to bare her full breasts, she wriggled from his arms and jumped to her feet, pulling the filmy garment around her again.

He had been wondering what excuse she intended to make in order to leave him alone and get out of the line of fire when the proper moment came. Since last time he had lifted her bodily and carried her into the bedroom, it must have occurred to her that he might do it again, and she would hardly want to be cradled in his arms when the shooting started.

Her solution to the problem was ingenious but hardly romantic. He almost burst out laughing when she circumvented all possibility of being swept up and carried off to the bedroom by announcing, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Abruptly she turned, ran to the bedroom door and disappeared inside, closing it behind her. Ross moved over near the fireplace and stood facing the bedroom door, one eye on the kitchen door.

Some moments passed before the bedroom door suddenly swung wide open: A pale, powerfully built man with graying hair emerged. In his hand he held a leveled thirty-eight which Ross recognized as his own. Behind him towered the tall, thin figure of George Mott. The bodyguard held a forty-five automatic, but the muzzle drooped downward.

Because the thirty-eight was pointed straight at him, Ross could see into the chambers of the cylinder. He was pleased to see that the pale man hadn’t checked the gun, for it was still empty.

Exposing teeth in a humorless grin, the pale man said, “Hello, sucker. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble.”

“You must be Whitey Cord,” the gambler said calmly. “I thought you might show up in person.” He turned his attention to George Mott. “Aren’t you pushing your luck, George? I told you that you were dead if you ever came back this way.”

Mott stared at the gambler, a little taken aback at his seeming total lack of fear.

The voices were a signal for the burly Bull Hatton to appear in the kitchen doorway. He, too, was armed with a forty-five automatic.

“If it isn’t Beanhead,” Ross said. “You’re pushing your luck, too.”

Hatton was starting to bring up his automatic when Cord said sharply, “I’ll handle this personally.”

The muzzle of the forty-five dropped toward the floor.

“Like you handled Carl Vegas personally?” Ross inquired.

Whitey Cord’s eyes glittered. “Like I handle everybody who gives me a hard time. You get it with your own gun, sucker.”

Drawing back the hammer of the thirty-eight, he centered the muzzle on Ross’ chest.

“It isn’t loaded,” Ross said.

There was a sharp click, Cord looked surprised, then both Mott and Hatton started to bring up their guns. Ross’ hand snapped forward and the derringer appeared in it as though he had plucked it out of the air. His thumb drew back the hammer as it slid into his palm and he squeezed the trigger.

The shot caught George Mott in the Adam’s apple, driving him backward through the open bedroom doorway.

Ross was falling sidewise even as he fired, and his left hand was sliding into his pocket to pluck out two more shells. Bull Hatton’s forty-five boomed and the slug cut air where the gambler had been standing an instant before. Then the derringer sounded again, a little round hole appeared in Hatton’s forehead and he toppled over backward into the kitchen.

Whitey Cord dropped the empty thirty-eight and clawed at his left armpit. Ross bounced to one knee, snapped open the derringer, ejected the spent shells and was thumbing new ones into the twin breeches as Cord’s hand reappeared with a forty-five automatic in it. The derringer clicked shut as the forty-five swung toward Ross. It was leveled at the gambler when the miniature gun cracked twice more in rapid succession.

The automatic sagged in Cord’s grip; he took an uncertain step toward Ross and pitched forward on his face.

Ross picked at the knot in the shoelace tied to the metal ring of the derringer’s butt, loosened it and felt the elastic tape slide back up his sleeve.

Walking into the bedroom, he drew out his handkerchief, carefully wiped the gun and tossed it on the bed.

The bathroom door was closed and there was no sound from beyond it. Christine-Vanita was waiting for the all-clear signal before she came out.

Ross’ gun harness was lying on the dresser. Slipping it on, he returned to the front room to pick up his thirty-eight, loaded it and thrust it into his holster.

He found his coat and tie hanging in the closet. When he had put them on, he knocked on the bathroom door.

“Is it all over?” the woman’s voice asked fearfully.

“Yeah,” Ross growled in a husky voice.

The lock clicked, the door opened and she stepped out. Her face drained of all color when Ross grinned at her sardonically. Her hand flew to her throat when she saw George Mott lying on his back in the bedroom doorway, his eyes staring vacantly upward and his throat a blob of crimson. Then she gasped when she saw the body of Whitey Cord lying beyond Mott’s in the front room.

“Beanhead is laid out in the kitchen,” Ross informed her.

She gazed at him in terror. “He made me,” she whispered. “He would have killed me if I hadn’t done as he said.”

“Sure, Vanita,” he said reassuringly. “I understand.”

Her eyes widened. “You know who I am?”

He merely grinned at her. “That’s the gun which killed all of them,” he said, pointing to the derringer on the bed. “If the cops ever get hold of it, they’ll trace it to a pawnshop where, according to the gun register, it was bought by a woman giving her name as Mrs. Christine Franklin and her address as Stowe Point. The pawnshop proprietor has a detailed description of you and is prepared to pick you out at a showup.”

She was staring at him unbelievingly. “You knew the whole plan,” she said in a bare whisper.

“Of course,” he told her cheerfully. “Your love pats weren’t thorough enough. I had the derringer up my sleeve. You’d better dispose of it. You’d also better dispose of the bodies, because I doubt that you could explain them to the police. It wouldn’t do you any good to tell the truth, because the gun would make you out a liar and you could never convince them that I’ve been here.

“Within thirty minutes I’ll be at a chicken farm where three reputable witnesses of a type the cops believe will be willing to testify that I spent the whole evening there. I suggest you phone some of your gangster friends in Chicago and have them catch the next plane here to help you dispose of the bodies. Unless you’re afraid they might not believe your story either and would hold your responsible for the death of your lover.”

“They’d kill me,” she said in a nearly inaudible voice. “You do have a problem,” he agreed. “Maybe you can find a spade around here somewhere. I’ll leave you to work things out your own way.”

Walking into the front room, he lifted the two glasses from the cocktail table and polished their exteriors with his handkerchief. Skirting the dead George Mott, she followed to watch him.

“In the remote event that you call the cops and try to convince them of the real story, I don’t want to leave any proof that I was here,” he explained.

Going into the kitchen, he replaced the bottles he had brought in their paper bag, wiped off a couple of spots he recalled touching in the kitchen and returned to the front room carrying the sack. He glanced around contemplatively.

“I’m sure I didn’t leave fingerprints anywhere else during either visit,” he said. “Except on the door latch.”

He went over to the door, carefully wiped the latch and opened it with his handkerchief over his hand. Wiping the outer knob, he smiled back at the woman, stepped outside and pulled it closed with his handkerchief over the knob.

Back in town, he stopped at a drugstore and phoned Bix Lawson’s penthouse. When he got the racket boss on the phone, he said, “Evening, Bix. Get you out of bed?”

After a moment of silence, Lawson growled, “You’re getting cuter every day, Clancy. That was real cute, parking those dummies in front of police headquarters.”

“You guessed it was me who did that?” Ross said in pretended awe. “I suppose your mouthpiece explained everything to the cops.”

“You suppose wrong,” Lawson said shortly. “Dummies that stupid can hoe their own rows. What do you want?”

“Missing any other boys?”

There was another period of silence, then Lawson said heavily, “You just call up to gloat?”

“To extend sympathy,” Ross said. “Must be tough lying awake wondering what happened to a couple of your key men and thinking maybe you could vanish the same way.”

Lawson said nothing.

Ross said, “I’ve got some news for you, Bix.” “What?”

“Whitey Cord just dropped dead.”

After another silence, the racketeer asked, “How?”

“Seems his girl friend shot him at a cottage out at Stowe Point. She must have gone berserk, because she knocked off George Mott and Bull Hatton, too. It’ll probably never come out in the papers, though. I have an idea she’ll arrange for the bodies to disappear. Change the picture any?”

For a long time there was no sound except Lawson’s breathing. Then he said slowly, “I guess it takes your cloakroom girl off the hook. She was only a threat to Whitey. If he’s really dead, the Syndicate won’t care a hoot about her.”

“He’s cold as a carp,” Ross assured him. “So it’s your move.”

Silence fell again. Finally Lawson said, “I never wanted this war, Clancy. I was pushed into it by Whitey. I’ll call it even if you will.”

“Then you can go back to just one bodyguard,” the gambler said. “We’re quits.”

Hanging up, he went back out to the Cadillac and headed for the Tobins’ chicken farm.