The Lonesome Badger

13

The office door was pushed open and Charlton Temple entered. He beamed at Otis Beagle. “Mr. Beagle, good morning.”

“Good morning to you, Mr. Temple. Mmm, I don’t believe you’ve met Joe Peel. One of my operators, Mr. Temple.”

Temple gave Peel a curt nod. “I was wondering, Mr. Beagle, if I might have a word with you, a private word.”

“Speak freely, Mr. Temple. Mr. Peel is my very best man. As a matter of fact, he’s been working on your case.”

“Ah!” Temple finally deigned to give Peel his attention. “And what have you found out?”

Peel looked at Beagle. The big man shrugged. “She’s dead.” Peel said bluntly.

“Dead?” echoed Temple.

“Don’t you read the papers?”

Temple stared at Peel a moment, then suddenly his face broke and he inhaled sharply. “That girl last night— I... I thought she looked familiar. But the newspaper said her name was — Sawyer, or something like that.”

“Names,” said Beagle.

“And that ain’t all,” Peel added darkly. “Her husband was knocked off, too.”

“Her husband!” cried Temple. “But I... I am her husband.”

“Then your name must be Dave Corey,” said Peel.

“Corey? You mean the... the gangster who was killed the day before yesterday?”

“Corey and Susan were working the badger game together,” Otis Beagle put in blithely. “Tell him what happened, Joe.”

“The badger game happened, that’s what.”

“You mean they tried it on you?” Charlton Temple asked. “How much did they ask you for?”

Joe Peel suddenly frowned. He looked at Otis Beagle, then inhaled lightly. “Five hundred.”

Beagle took it from there. “Which I’m afraid we’ll have to add onto your bill.”

Temple nodded automatically, then caught himself. “One moment. Corey was found dead the day before yesterday, but I did not engage you until yesterday.” Temple regarded Beagle suspiciously. “What are you trying to pull?”

Beagle discovered phlegm in his throat and cleared it noisily. “Excuse me. Now, what were you saying?”

“I asked you what you’re trying to pull?”

Peel said, through his teeth, “The price of pigeons has gone up!”

“What in the world have pigeons got to do with all this?”

Then Beagle took Peel’s cue and his suaveness was gone. He was big and cold and hard. “Joe means that you hired us for suckers, Temple. You’re a good-for-nothing crook and all you want out of us is to finger your victim for you.”

Charlton Temple took a quick step back so he could face both Beagle and Peel. “Now, let’s not get tough about this.”

“You told me yourself that you and your wife were working the badger game,” snapped Beagle. “Your wife ran out on you and you hired us to find her for you so you could give her what she got—”

“That’s a lie!” screamed Temple. “She was already dead when I came here.”

“And you knew it,” Peel snarled. “You knew it because you’re the bird who knocked her off. But you needed a pigeon to take the rap for you. That’s why you came here yesterday with your fistful of hundred-dollar bills.”

“I didn’t know she was dead!” cried Temple. “I read it in the paper this morning. They said she had been dead twenty-four hours when they found her, which would mean—”

“Precisely,” said Beagle savagely. “She was killed sixteen hours before you came in here...”

“She was a no-good, two-timing...” Temple choked and, shuddering, donned his gentleman’s mask once more. “All right, I don’t give a damn about her. She got what she deserved. But I didn’t kill her. Maybe I would have if I’d caught up with her. But” — he shrugged — “I’ll tell you the truth, Beagle.”

“Think you can?” sneered Peel.

Temple indicated Peel with his thumb. “Are you his boss or does he give you the orders?”

Beagle growled and signaled Peel to desist for the moment. He said, “Shoot, Temple.”

“Just find me Seymour Case, that’s all I ask.”

“Have you looked at the body of Dave Corey?”

“Corey isn’t Case. Case is an older man.”

“How old?” asked Peel.

“He’d be in his late fifties now. The last time I saw him he was pretty bald—”

“How bald?”

“Oh, not altogether. He had a little fringe of hair around the side.” Beagle and Peel exchanged glances. Temple went on, “I can tell you this much. He was a promoter of some kind. Bought and sold oil leases, mining properties...”

“Phony?” asked Beagle.

“Oh, no. At least, not that I know of. He was worth a lot of money.” He grimaced. “I... I checked up on him a little.”

“Then how come you only nicked him for five hundred?”

“Did I say five hundred? It might have been a little more than that.”

“How much more?”

“I don’t see what difference that makes...”

Beagle looked at Charlton Temple with hostile eyes. “Just why do you want to find Seymour Case? And don’t give me that crap about your wanting to make restitution.”

“That’s the truth, so help me...”

Peel made a raucous sound with his mouth. “You wouldn’t know the truth if it came up and bit you.”

Temple became indignant. “See here, I don’t have to take this abuse. I gave you five hundred dollars yesterday to do a job and you haven’t done it. Either you give me back my money or—”

“Or what?” Beagle asked truculently.

“Or else.”

“You and who else?”

“I’ll put it this way,” Temple said thinly. “There’s another five hundred the moment you find Seymour Case.”

Beagle’s eyes became slits. “Five hundred — cash?”

Peel cried out, “You can’t, Otis!”

“Why can’t I?”

“You’ve got to draw the line somewhere. That... that would be murder...”

Beagle grunted and turned his piggish eyes back on Temple. “Just why do you want to find Case?”

“I told you. I want to make restitution.”

“Suppose I made the restitution for you?”

“That won’t do. I want to — to give it to him in person.”

“No, Otis!” yelled Peel.

But Beagle had come to a decision. “This is the easiest five hundred dollars I ever made...”

“You mean you know where I can find Case?”

“Yes.”

“The money,” cried Temple eagerly, “it’s yours the minute I lay eyes on him.”

“Let me see the money.”

Temple edged back. “When I see Seymour Case.”

“You’ll see him. I give you my word.”

Temple lost his patience. “Let’s not go through that pukka sahib routine again. I wouldn’t trust you any farther than I could throw you.”

“You’ve got five hundred in cash?”

Temple tapped his right breast where his wallet reposed in his inside pocket. “The moment I lay eyes on Seymour Case.”

“Joe,” said Beagle, “go with him—”

“What’s the matter with you?” snarled Peel.

“I can’t. You know very well that wouldn’t work.”

“But it’s all right for me to finger a pigeon for a gunsel who’s already knocked off two people?”

“Aren’t you being a little ridiculous?” Temple asked. “Do I look like a gunsel?”

“You know what the word means.”

“Who doesn’t? I tell you no harm will come to Seymour Case...”

“Ah, hell!” exclaimed Peel “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

Beagle held up a cautioning finger. “The five hundred, Joe. Get that from him the moment...” He caught up a pencil and scribbled on a pad. “Here’s the address.”

“I know it,” Peel began, then stopped.

Beagle tore off the slip of paper and handed it to Peel. On it was written, “Stick with S. Don’t let him out of your sight afterwards.”

Peel crumpled up the slip and threw it at Beagle. He jerked his head toward the door. Temple followed him.

Down on the street, Peel signaled a taxicab and he and Temple got in. “Wilshire,” Peel told the cabby. “Wilshire and Doheny.”

As the cab started off Temple relaxed and said casually, “What was on that slip of paper he gave you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” sneered Peel.

“I don’t have to talk if you don’t,” said Temple testily.

Peel settled himself back as far from Temple as possible, folded his arms and stared ahead stonily.

Fifteen minutes later the cab pulled up on the comer of Doheny and Wilshire. Peel got out and stood aside deliberately, his hands in his pockets. Temple paid the meter charge and added a half-dollar tip, but he was not pleased about it.

“Now where?” he asked.

“Follow me.”

Peel started swiftly down Wilshire, with Temple hurrying to keep up with him. They walked a block, crossed a street. Ahead was a tall office building. They were fifty feet from it when Peel stopped. He threw out an arm to halt Temple.

“All right,” he said, “give me the five hundred!”

“What?”

“There’s your man,” Peel said.

Thaddeus Smallwood and Linda Meadows were crossing the sidewalk to a Cadillac convertible that stood at the curb.

Peel said, “The man getting in the car.”

Temple’s eyes were focused on Smallwood and Linda. They were threatening to bulge from his forehead. His mouth was slightly open and as Peel watched, his tongue came out and moistened his lips.

“The dough,” Peel said harshly. “Give it to me.”

Temple actually blinked as he pulled his thoughts together. “That,” he said slowly, “is not Seymour Case.”

Peel grabbed his arm. “Don’t give me that!”

Temple jerked his arm free of Peel’s grip. “I know Seymour Case when I see him — and that isn’t Seymour Case.”

“You’re lying,” snarled Peel.

“I’ve had enough of you,” exclaimed Temple. “And you haven’t heard the last of this. Here — taxi!”

A cab was pulling up and Temple hurried toward it. Peel hesitated. He was of half a mind to pile into the cab after Temple and have it out with him. But while he was debating it, Temple got into the cab.

Peel shot a look ahead. Smallwood and Linda were already in the Cadillac convertible and Smallwood was starting the motor. Across the street, a taxi was parked at the curb. Peel suddenly darted out into Wilshire Boulevard, narrowly dodged a speeding Ford and tore up to the curb.

He whipped open the door, jumped in and pointed across the street.

“Follow the Caddy!”

The cabby exclaimed, “They re headed the wrong way.”

“Make a U-turn.”

“I got a ticket for that only yesterday.”

“I’ll pay the fine,” snapped Peel.

The driver shifted, stepped on the gas pedal and made a screeching U-turn. The taxi roared down the street, a block behind the Cadillac convertible.

“Don’t get too close to them,” Peel cautioned.

“I know how to do this,” retorted the cabby. “I see it in the movies all the time,” He grunted. “Your wife?”

“Girl,” replied Peel.

The Cadillac, with the taxi following, turned north on Doheny and cut across to Sunset Boulevard. Near the end of Sunset Strip, the convertible turned into the parking lot of the Denmark Club, a favorite Hollywood restaurant.

Peel paid off his taxicab a half block away, walked down to the Denmark Club. He thought of staying outside while Smallwood and Linda had their lunch inside, but the odor of ham and eggs assailed his nostrils and he went in.