The Mountain Cat

Chapter 7

At The Haven gambling parlors in the old Sammis Building on Halley Street, which, in a halfhearted sort of way, opened for business before noon, the awning was left down until the sun’s angle had passed beyond the perpendicular of the building line. Around three o’clock an employee in shirt sleeves emerged from the door with a crank in his hand. Before applying the crank and winding up the awning, he directed a look of appraisal at a man who stood near the door, in a niche between two stone pilasters. There was nothing extraordinary about the man — middle-aged, shoulders a little stooped — though he differed from the normal by having two strips of adhesive tape extending down his right cheekbone from under the brim of his hat, and by possessing a mustache of a quite unusual color, almost a fawn. The employee, having finished his task, glanced sharply at the man again and then disappeared inside.

In a few minutes the door opened again and the assistant manager of The Haven stepped out. With his habitual deadpan for a face, he went directly to the man in the niche and inquired, “You taking a census, brother?”

The man grunted and said, “I’m looking for a friend.”

“You must be pretty short on friends, with all the looking you’ve done. You were here when I came, nearly four hours ago, and you’re still here. Why don’t you try some other spot a while?”

“I’m doing no harm. The sidewalk is public property.”

“So it is. What does your friend look like?”

The man with the mustache shook his head. The assistant manager eyed him a moment, then turned and strolled down the sidewalk some thirty paces until he met a policeman in uniform. They exchanged nods and the assistant manager asked, “Have you seen that bird with the handlebars taking root in front of my place?”

“Sure I’ve seen him. All day. He says he’s looking for a friend.”

“How about advising him to go look somewhere else?”

“I suppose I could.” The cop grinned. “What’s the matter, you afraid he’s a G-man with a line on that two bits somebody lost?”

The deadpan didn’t respond to the grin. “I just don’t like it how patient he is. With Jackson murdered upstairs last night, the place has had enough of the wrong kind of advertising. One reason I asked, I thought maybe he was a gumshoe working on the murder.”

The cop shook his head. “Not a member of this club. He don’t look ferocious. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

The assistant manager, accepting that assurance, retraced his steps, re-entered The Haven and resumed his duties in the service of society. The cop sauntered after him, keeping close to the buildings for shade, approached the man in the niche and inquired casually, “Your friend show up yet?”

“Not yet. Thanks.”

The cop sauntered on.

Thirty minutes later, when the little disturbance occurred, the cop was across the street listening to a man cussing at a flat tire and therefore missed the preamble of the brief climax to the man’s long vigil. It was all over in no time at all. The man with the mustache suddenly and abruptly left his niche, moving to intercept a husky-looking young man, rather shabbily dressed, who, coming along the sidewalk from the north, had altered his course with the evident intention of entering The Haven.

The man with the mustache, blocking the young man’s path, said urgently, “I want a talk with you, young fellow. There’ll be a reward in it. Now don’t start—”

The young man shied back, ready, it appeared, to bolt. The man with the mustache sprang and seized his arm, getting a good grip. The young man’s right fist swung and landed square on the other’s jaw. The man with the mustache dropped to the concrete, rolling, and his assailant leaped back, wheeled and scooted like a deer down the sidewalk, nearly knocking a woman over, swerving to disappear into a narrow alley forty feet away.

Passersby collected and one of them stooped to give the fallen man a hand. Disregarding it, he scrambled to his feet, looked around with glassy eyes, and demanded, “Where is he? Which way did he go?”

A dozen voices answered him at once. The cop, having trotted across the street, took him by the elbow and observed sarcastically, “A swell friend that was you were looking for. Come along with me.”

“He got away! I’ve got to catch him!”

“We’ll catch one at a time, starting with you. Come along.”

“You damned fool!” The man grimaced, worked his jaw, and grimaced again. “You know me! I’m Quinby Pellett!”

“Yeah? Where’d you get the lip grass?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” The man took hold of his mustache and gave it a jerk, and it was gone. “Which way did he go, damn it? I have to find him!”

“He’s out in the sagebrush by now.” The cop had released the elbow, but he looked neither sympathetic nor amused. “What’s the idea of the handmade tassel? — Hey, wait a minute, where you going?”

“None of your business! Turn loose of me! I’m going to see Frank Phelan.”

“Okay. Come on, folks, let us by, open up there! I think I’d better go along, Mr. Pellett. If you happened to run across any more friends of yours on the way, you might not make it.”

Quinby Pellett offered no objection as the policeman climbed in beside him on the seat of his dilapidated coupé, parked around the corner on Garfield Street. He got into the channel of the traffic stream and drove with the apparent assumption that he was an ambulance.

“You know, I could give you a ticket anyway, sitting right here,” the cop observed.

Pellett stopped working his jaw long enough to grunt.

They went to the police station, and were informed that the chief was out and might be at the courthouse. Upon Pellett’s refusal to converse with the lieutenant in charge, a phone call to the courthouse got the information that Phelan was there in the sheriff’s office, so they returned to the coupé and drove to the courthouse, missing fenders by inches on the way. They tramped down the dim basement corridor. The man in the anteroom told them the chief and the sheriff were busy and they would have to wait; then, obviously impressed by Pellett’s violent reaction, used the phone, nodded toward the rear, and told them to go on in.

Bill Tuttle was seated at his desk. Two men who looked like detectives, which was what they were, stood at the opposite side of the desk. Phelan, in a chair not far from Tuttle, frowning at the newcomers as they entered, spoke:

“Hello, Quin. What’s on your mind?”

The cop put in, “First I think I ought to tell you, Chief. He’s been standing all day in front of The Haven, wearing a phony mustache, looking for a friend, he said—”

“Go on and chew the rag while he digs himself a hole,” Pellett said bitterly.

“Spill it, Quin, we’re busy. Who’s digging a hole?”

“A man I tried to collar. By this time he’s to hell and gone for the hills.”

“Not him,” said the cop scornfully. “That bum wouldn’t get more than a mile from a pavement—”

“What bum?”

“The one that socked you. Al Rowley, his name is.”

Pellett gaped. “Do you mean to say you know him?”

“Sure I know him. He’s one of those—”

“Then find him! Get him!”

“That wouldn’t be—”

“Get him, damn it!”

“Keep your shirt on, Quin.” Phelan sounded impatient. “If the boys know him they can get him. Then what do they do with him?”

Pellett went to a chair and sat. “Listen, Frank. I’ll tell you about it. But first tell them to get that man. Have you ever known me to take a fool hen for a grouse? Tell them to get him.”

Phelan turned. “Who is he, Tom?”

“His name’s Al Rowley,” said the cop. “He came in with that carnival last year, the one that busted, and he’s been hanging around ever since, mostly at one of the joints on Bucket Street. Every once in a while he gets ahold of a buck, I don’t know how, and makes a deposit at The Haven.”

“Do the boys all know him by sight?”

“Sure, he’s one of our most prominent citizens.”

Phelan requested Tuttle’s phone, got it, called the station and asked for the lieutenant in charge. After a few concise but thorough instructions, he hung up and shoved the phone back and turned to Pellett.

“All right, Quin, they’ll get him. Now spill it. What’s he done besides sock you?”

“He stole my niece’s bag from her car yesterday afternoon.”

Bill Tuttle jerked into a stare. Everybody stared. The cop said involuntarily, “Ouch!” Phelan demanded, “This bum — stole her bag? Delia Brand’s bag?”

“Yes.”

“The one with the gun and the cartridges in it?”

“Yes.”

The sheriff broke in, snapping, “How do you know he did?”

“I saw him.”

“You saw him take it?”

“Yes.”

“You saw him take it and you didn’t mention anything about it here this morning?”

“Nobody here seemed to give a damn about anything I might say this morning. You were all so sure of what you had you didn’t want anything more from anybody. Besides, all I could do was describe him, I didn’t know who he was, and what good is a description?”

“So instead of telling us you went and planted yourself—”

“Wait a minute, Bill.” Phelan reached for the phone again, and called the station. In a moment he spoke: “Mac? Frank. That order I just gave you about a bum named Al Rowley. Make it hot. Put every man you can get on it. I want him and no mistake, and quick. And take him good. It may be murder.”

As Phelan hung up, the sheriff barked at Pellett, “Is that the idea? That this bum stole the bag with the gun in it and murdered Jackson?”

“No. He couldn’t have, because I took the bag away from him.”

“You did what?”

“I caught him stealing the bag from her car and I took it.”

“What did you do with it? — Wait a minute.” The sheriff included the two detectives and the cop in a look. “You fellows go out front and wait there. The three of you. And keep your traps shut. Understand?”

They said they did, with evident reluctance, and marched out. The sheriff leaned back and sighed heavily.

Phelan said, “Maybe we ought to get this the way it happened. In order. This is quite a — quite a surprise.”

“It’s all of that.” Tuttle fastened his eyes on Pellett and demanded, “What did you do with the bag?”

Pellett shook his head. “I think Frank’s right. You ought to have it in the order it happened. In the first place, my niece came to see me yesterday afternoon—”

“What for?”

“It doesn’t matter what for. It had nothing to do with killing Dan Jackson, you can be damn sure of that. The fact is, she wanted me to go with her to persuade Jackson not to fire Clara — my other niece. I told her it would be better if we didn’t go together, and that I had an appointment to call on him that afternoon on another matter and would speak to him about it then. Not long after she left my place, I left, to keep my appointment with Jackson. He had phoned that he wanted to consult me about some information he had got hold of regarding the death of my brother-in-law two years ago. While I was looking for a parking space on Halley Street I saw Delia’s car there. I had to park up ahead, and as I walked back I saw a man closing the door of Delia’s car with her bag in his hand. He didn’t look like a man she might have sent for it, so I confronted him and asked him if it was his bag. He said, ‘It’s not yours, is it?’ and I said, ‘No, it belongs to my niece, and so does that car.’ He said, ‘Then do me a favor and take it to her,’ and shoved it into my hand and walked off. He was so damn cool about it I just stared at his back.”

“You didn’t call a cop?”

“With the bag in my hand, what was there to tell a cop?”

“Did anybody see all that? Anyone stop to look at you?”

“Not that I know of.” Pellett was frowning.

“Okay. You’re standing there on the sidewalk holding the bag. Then what?”

“I started for Jackson’s office. I had intended to wait there by my niece’s car until she came out, because I didn’t want to interrupt her talk with Jackson, and I went to the corner and had a glass of beer. That took five minutes, maybe a little more. When I went back her car was still there, and it occurred to me she might have got through with Jackson and gone somewhere else nearby, so I went to the entrance there alongside The Haven, and went in and climbed the stairs. When I got nearly up, about two or three steps from the top, something hit me on the side of the head. I must have rolled all the way down. When I came to I was there at the bottom landing, and my niece and Jackson were standing there—”

“Company halt!” said Tuttle savagely. “I’ll stop you if I’ve heard it! And the bag was gone? Sure the bag was gone? Sure the bag was gone! And the ones who found you there unconscious were your niece, who is in a cell, and Jackson, who is dead!”

“That’s right.” Pellett raised his hand and rubbed the left side of his jaw, slowly and tenderly. “Look, Sheriff. Don’t figure on getting me sore. I knew what your attitude would be, and that’s why I went there and laid for that man in case he might show up. But while it was my niece and Jackson that found me, because they were in his office and heard me rolling downstairs, Jackson went to The Haven right away, to telephone, and someone from there came back with him. I think he’s the manager or the bouncer, because it was him that came out and spoke to me today. And before they helped me upstairs to Jackson’s office a police sergeant came, Gil Moffett, and a doctor. They decided I had been hit with a piece of ore out of that old bin up there; Jackson found it on the floor near the head of the stairs. I suppose Gil Moffett reported it; anyway, you can ask him. I had a little natural curiosity about who had tried to crack my skull open, and I phoned Gil at his house last night and he said they hadn’t found any tracks.”

Tuttle asked with a scowl, “Was it your theory that someone trailed you up and beaned you when you got to the top?”

“I didn’t have any theory. But he couldn’t have trailed me up and then got a piece of ore from that bin. He must have been already up there.”

“Yeah, I was expecting that. It was somebody already up there and so it was Jackson. Huh?”

“It couldn’t have been. My niece was in his office with him at the time I was hit.”

“That’s too bad. And the minute you came to, you looked around for the bag and it was gone.”

“No, I didn’t. I was groggy. After they got me up to Jackson’s office Gil Moffett helped me go through my pockets to see if anything was gone, but all I had that amounted to anything was my wallet with about sixty dollars in it and my driver’s license, and that was there, so I told Gil nothing had been taken. I was still dazed. Then a little later, when I was talking with Jackson, I remembered about the bag, and Jackson and I went to look for it, and it wasn’t there. We looked upstairs and down. It was gone.”

“Had Moffett and the doctor left before you missed the bag?”

“Yes, and my niece too. We were alone.”

“Did you see anybody or hear anything before you got hit?”

“Not a damn thing. It’s dark up there in that hall.”

The sheriff leaned back and gazed at him a while. Then he turned to the chief of police, still scowling. “How do you like it, Frank? Got any suggestions?”

Phelan slowly and reflectively shook his head. “I don’t know, Bill. We might go into details a little more.”

“Go ahead.”

Phelan did so. He wasn’t aggressively skeptical, as the sheriff had been, but he wanted to know; that was his tone as he questioned Quinby Pellett. He was painstaking; he covered, thoroughly, everything that happened up to the time that Pellett and Jackson had searched for the bag, but he found no discrepancy, and the only new fact he got was that Pellett thought it possible that the murder of Jackson was connected with the murder two years previously of Charlie Brand. Pellett could support that surmise only by saying that Jackson had summoned him to the office for the purpose of discussing a new angle on the Charlie Brand murder, and had shown him a piece of paper alleged to have been found in the cabin in the Silverside Hills where Brand had been killed; and since Jackson had been killed a few hours later, it seemed likely that there might be a connection. Asked what was on the piece of paper, Pellett couldn’t say; his head had been so befuddled from the blow he had got that they had postponed the rest of the discussion until the next day and, after the futile search for the bag, he had gone home. It was while they were on that that the phone rang, and Tuttle, after answering it, handed it across to Phelan.

The chief took it. “Yes, Mac? No! Good work! Where? Remind me to buy you a drink. No, let that go. Send them on over here with him and step on it.”

He hung up, looking pleased with himself. “Pretty good gang I’ve got, Bill. They’ve picked up Al Rowley.”

“Ha, they’ve got him!”

“They have, you know, Quin. Over on Bucket Street. They ought to be here in five minutes.”

“I’ll handle him,” Tuttle announced.

“You will like hell. My boys got him.”

“This is my office, Frank.”

“And a damn smelly office it is, Bill. This is my meat.”

“I’ll handle him. I’ll take him first.”

“Not if my voice holds out you won’t. And if you start trying, I’ll march him right back out and over to the station. It was me Pellett came to in the first place, wasn’t it? Didn’t he come here only because I was here?”

That argument, with ramifications, was still in progress when the arrival of the disputed booty was announced and Tuttle ordered that it be ushered in, including escort.

Quinby Pellett stood up and Phelan told him roughly, “Sit down, Quin. Your knees are shaky. And behave yourself.”

The escort, entering, proved to be two plain-clothes men and two in uniform. The booty, flanked on both sides, was, unmistakably, the friend Pellett had been looking for. He looked surly, somewhat scared, and a little bellicose.

“Sit him down,” Phelan ordered, and he was instructed into a chair. “Is that the man, Quin?”

“That’s him,” Pellett declared, without removing his eyes from the booty.

The sheriff barked, “Is your name Al Rowley?”

The chief of police jumped up and started for the door, calling, “Bring him along, boys, back to the station!”

The escort looked bewildered. The sheriff yelled, “Hey, you damn fool! All right, all right!”

Phelan turned on his heel, went and stood in front of the booty, glared down at him and stated a series of facts. “Your name is Al Rowley, you’re a vagrant and a bum. I can lock you up or toss you out on your ear or whatever I damn please, and about an hour ago Mr. Pellett here stopped you on the sidewalk in front of The Haven and you socked him in the jaw. Right?”

“I’m not a vag—”

“Oh, shut up! Did you hit Mr. Pellett?”

“Maybe, but I didn’t—”

“I said shut up! What did you hit him for?”

“He had no right stopping me like that—”

“How did he stop you?”

“He just got in front of me and stopped me.”

“Did he do you any violence?”

“No, he said something, I don’t know what, and when I stepped back he made a grab at me, and just on the impulse I lammed him.”

“And ran like hell. What were you scared of?”

“I wasn’t scared, it was just an impulse—”

“Some day you’ll get impulsed once too often. Take a look at Mr. Pellett. I said look at him! When you saw him today he was wearing a mustache, but the time before that he wasn’t. Did you recognize him today in spite of the mustache?”

“I didn’t recognize him at all. I never saw him before.”

“What about yesterday?”

“Yesterday? Whereabouts yesterday? Not that I remember.”

Phelan looked disgusted. “Oh, come off it, Rowley. We’ve got you. Three different people saw you take that bag from that car and then hand it to Pellett when he stopped you.”

“That’s a lie, chief. A damn lie. They’re all dirty liars.”

A low growl came from Quinby Pellett, and Phelan shook his head at him and then resumed, “Do you deny they saw you on that street?”

“I don’t know if they saw me, but nobody saw me take any bag from any car. If I was on the street and they saw me then they saw me. What street was it?”

“Shut up. Where were you yesterday?”

“Well, yesterday.” Rowley considered. “Let’s see. In the morning I managed to earn four bits—”

“How’d you earn it?”

“Oh, just working around—”

“Skip it. Where were you in the afternoon?”

“Well, in the afternoon I was tired and I took a little rest, and then I went for a walk and stopped in at The Haven and dropped the four bits, and then I came out and walked around some more and went back to my boarding house—”

“When you came out of The Haven what did you do first?”

“I walked.”

“Yeah. You walked to a car and saw a handbag there and lifted it, and Pellett stopped you and you handed it over—”

“Listen, Chief.” Rowley leaned forward and waggled a finger for emphasis. “I may be a vagrant and a bum, if that’s the terms you want to use. But I’m not a sneak thief. No, sir. Anybody that says they saw the kind of thing you described is a pure liar. I don’t include Mr. Pellett in that. He don’t look like a liar and I’ll apologize that I hit him. I’m willing to call it a mistake in identity. If he made a mistake—”

“Shut up! The people that saw you aren’t liars.”

“They are if they say they saw me take anything out of a car yesterday afternoon. In full daylight like that, right on the street? I will never in God’s world say anything except to say that they’re liars.”

That proved to be, in substance, all that could be coaxed or threatened out of him. After another twenty minutes of it Phelan offered him to the sheriff, but Tuttle said he was satisfied as it was. Quinby Pellett was permitted to do some questioning, but got nowhere.

Phelan had another try, but finally threw up his hands in disgust and told the escort, “Take him and throw him in the river!”

“My God,” Pellett protested, “you’re not going to turn him loose!”

“What can I hold him for? If we book him as a vag we just have to feed him.”

“He knocked me down, didn’t he? Didn’t he assault me? For God’s sake, don’t let him go!”

“Do you want to charge him with assault?”

“I do.”

Phelan nodded to the escort. “All right, boys. Take him over and assign him. Give him dried lizard for supper. Tell Mac, Pellett will sign a charge.”

They trooped out, much less eager than when they had entered. The chief of police sat down, looking weary and fed up. The sheriff rubbed his nose.

Pellett looked from one to the other, got tired of waiting and demanded, “Well? What about my niece? How could she have killed Jackson if her bag was stolen?”

“She couldn’t,” Phelan said, and seemed to be through.

“Well then?”

Phelan aimed a thumb at the sheriff. Tuttle heaved a sigh. “I’ll tell you, Pellett. That’s a good story you’ve got. Now what about it? Officially I’ll say this: we’re much obliged and we’ll investigate it thoroughly, all aspects of it, and form the best opinion we can. Unofficially, naturally you want to do everything you can to help your niece, and it’s too bad you haven’t got any corroboration at all for any of it that’s connected with the bag, since even the man that helped you look for it on the stairs is the one that was murdered, and I imagine the jury will feel about the same way.”

Pellett stood up, his teeth clenched. “You think I’m lying? You think I made it up?”

“I do,” said Tuttle. “Unofficially.”

“I don’t know, Quin,” said Phelan peevishly. “How the hell do I know?”

Pellett, his teeth still clenched, turned and left the room.

It was only a short walk to the new Sammis Building on Mountain Street and he went on foot. Arrived there, he took the elevator to the fourth floor, entered a door halfway down the corridor and told a young woman seated at a desk, “My name is Quinby Pellett. I’m Delia Brand’s uncle. I want to see Mr. Anson.”

She asked him to wait, and disappeared through another door. After a moment she came back and nodded to him. “Come this way, please.”

The following morning the citizens of Cody found on the front page of the Times-Star a display box which read:

It was a good likeness of Quinby Pellett.