The Tough Guys

I said, "Joe, this story has two ends. One in New York and one here. It's an old story and I've been in it since the beginning. I want in on it at the end. The story is big enough for a couple of papers, but I'm not doing it for the sake of a news scoop. I've been a patsy long enough. There are a lot of eyes I'd like to have look my way again. Until now I haven't realized how much I'd like to have my integrity restored and proven."

"I have something to show you." He slid a folder across the desk. "File on Massley. Most of it's local. What was this thing he had about dames?"

"Beats me. He didn't take to anybody except his nurse."

"You're not kidding. You know he had three assault charges brought against him by three different housekeepers?"

"When he was in the lung?"

"On two occasions, when he was out of it for the few minutes necessary, he took the time to belt one woman with an ashtray and hit the other with a bottle of rubbing alcohol. After all the verbal abuse they took from Rhino that finished it. Both of them dropped the charges after an out-of-court settlement."

"Who was the third?"

"A newspaper woman. She was outside his window with a camera and he fired right through the window at her."

"What's your point?"

"It's an old story. He's had charges like these flung at him a dozen times. Anything there?"

I shrugged, took another small pull at the drink and pushed it away from me. It was no trouble to do it at all. "Nothing I can touch at the moment. It's a peculiar facet of his personality I found out about back home. Why this interest?"

"Because on everything else he was clean. Massley apparently went to every extent to keep in the background. He was legal, at least on the surface. He ran a neat, efficient organization and let as little trouble touch him as possible. Then this stuff pops up. He's gone after more dames with his hands or anything available than you can count. Each time he has to go out of his way to clear the deal with a handful of dough."

"So he hates dames."

"Not his nurse."

"There is always the exception," I said. I stood up and pushed the phone at him. "Call the airport and see who you know. I want a flight out."

He made a tight face. "The cops are going to want to talk to you."

"You talk for me."

"You're the one with the story. What can I say?"

"Maybe something about how peculiar it was that the doctor who signed Massley's death certificate and the mortician who embalmed him died in a supposed accident together right after the funeral that was held for a bag of sand. Hell, they ought to be glad they got the two who creamed Lafarge."

"That's one story they'll want everything on."

"Guardian of a buried sandbag," I told him. "As long as nobody dug the coffin up, Rhino was safe someplace. Those hoods who jumped me got the idea real fast and didn't want the information spread around. If you didn't show up, Lafarge and I would have filled that hole and if they handled it right nobody would have been wised up."

The DC8B landed short, slowed up on its brakes and turned into the first taxi strip. As it swung onto the apron I saw them, the unmistakables, men stamped by their jobs. The pair of two-tone patrol cars would not have been the giveaway, if they hadn't backed up the black sedan with the small mid-roof antenna.

Cops. Liaison between Phoenix and New York must have been excellent.

Cal Porter wasn't taking any chances on me running off with a hatful of information that could make him governor. At least I should have expected it. You don't keep murder quiet. At least not too inexpensively.

The cop met me at the foot of the ramp, took my arm, and tried to steer me. I said, "Lay off."

For a second it looked like he was going to have fun, then Cal Porter was there, smiling pleasantly just in case, another plainclothesman behind him. "Phoenix called, Rocca."

"It's what I expected, Porter."

The cop nudged me. "Say mister."

I gave him the old two words and turned to the D.A. "Lay off me, Porter. Treat me like a slob and it's going to look like you fell through the crapper. I'm past being pushed, especially by you. From now on you stay on the safe side, not me. You pulled the cork eight years ago, but it won't happen now." I looked around at the nice assemblage, well-trained and efficient, all there to do it the way the book said, no matter what it cost anybody else.

I said, "You got one stinking chance to play it smart, Porter. I won't give you two at all. If you spoke to Phoenix, you know there's a press working on my side this time without a publisher like Gates who let his men get thrown to the dogs."

"Maybe you know that I got time working for me and, if I don't talk, then you'll look like the most stupid idiot that ever faced a court and, brother, will I call the names out. In fact, come to think of it, you haven't got a damn thing to say at all. Not a god damn thing. So toss me in the slammer and I'll wait it out. I'll wait until it's over with, then shove it into you and break it off."

The plainclothesman said, "Want me to calm him down, Mr. Porter?"

Cal was white. His nostrils were pinched and turning green from pressure, but he shook his head. He waved his hand absently at the cops. "You men go back. Mr. Rocca here will go with me." He let the rage seep out of his face slowly. "That all right with you, Mr. Rocca?"

"Certainly, Mr. Porter," I said. "Has Dan filled you in on the details?"

"He has. Now we'll see what you have to say, Mr. Rocca."

We met Dan Litvak in Rooney's. He was alone in a booth, the ashtray littered with souvenirs of his wait. His face was carefully expressionless, but I knew what he was thinking. When Cal Porter sat down opposite him, he said, "You didn't play it wisely, Cal."

"So I learned. Maybe I can still smarten up."

Dan glanced up, thought about it, and smiled slowly. He reached in his pocket and took out a folded sheaf of papers covered with his own type of shorthand. "Between Cal and me, we have that information on Elena Harris."

I tried to keep the quaver out of my voice when I told him to spill it.

"Elena Harris booked passage for Rio two weeks after Rhino died."

"Supposedly died," I cut in.

He nodded. "Supposedly. She has been in Rio since and has been the constant companion of an unidentified gentleman known only as Richard Castor. This man joined her about the time she arrived and until a few months ago . . . well, you know how it gets."

"Yeah . . . sure."

"So Castor dropped out of sight. Meantime the Harris woman has been cutting a wide swath through local Latin society. She's a blonde and they go for blondes there, especially the ones with class."

"And Castor . . ."

"At this point, is missing," Dan said.

"No history at all?"

Dan shrugged. "All this came over the phone, but he had a beard, was distinguished, and had plenty of loot. The only trouble he got into was when he had a brawl with a couple of women. He beat both of them up pretty badly."

"Rhino," I said quietly. "It's him."

Cal Porter tapped the table with his fingers. "We caught the business with the women too." His fingers stopped the tapping and he looked at me. "Are you ready to talk?"

"In a minute. What's with Mannie Waller?"

"We can't locate him . . . yet. Several of his men are under surveillance and all his known hangouts are covered." He paused, coughed into his hand, and said, "He's pretty big now."

"How big?"

"Outsized. We didn't realize to what extent until we went to town on him. Mannie Waller, for all his crassness, is probably the Syndicate's Mr. Big. Since Appalachian they've played it plenty cute."

"And he disappeared right after I opened Rhino's grave."

"Apparently."

"The call got through then."

"That's right. Now supposing, since we're all in this nice informal atmosphere, you say what's on your mind. If I didn't feel like you had a possibility of being right, and on top of that, that it could have been me who sent you away for seven years on a bum rap, you wouldn't be getting this opportunity to make me look like a fool. And if Dan didn't go along with you, I don't think I would have either. But now you're getting your chance. Just lay it out so we can see what it is."

I sat back, put the pieces together the way it looked best and gave them the picture.

"Before I was sent up I made a project out of Rhino Massley, intending to get hold of the documented evidence that determined his position inside the organization he ran and the outside loot to go with it. You know what happened. I took too big a bite. Rhino managed a neatly set-up frame and I took a dive behind bars. And with me gone Rhino was riding high . . . nobody big enough to push or cut him out. He had it made, but then came a time when he wanted out of the organization and things like this just don't happen unless you kick off."

"Buddy Rhino met Elena Harris and fell like a ton of bricks. She had showgirl looks, was educated, had everything Rhino ever wanted, and he went off the deep end. She had one other thing, too. She was a nurse, and this could have given him the idea. He cooked up a way to get out of the mob, without a sword hanging over his neck, and open up a new life for himself."

"So he fakes this polio thing. He went through the whole iron lung act because who the hell would think anybody would fake that? Suicide or murder maybe, but never anything like that. He even waited until a storm cut the power on the lung to make it look real. His nurse couldn't get the auxiliary power started in time."

"The doctor was fixed, of course. So was the mortician. They both thought they were made for life for their part in it and in a way they were. Rhino bumped them himself and made it look like an accident. He even managed to hold still in a casket for some photos and made it look good."

"He was the Syndicate paymaster and he had a bundle. He was supposed to keep it well hidden, so when he died suddenly and the bank was never uncovered, the mob simply felt that he had done his job a little too well, discounted the loss, and started fresh. At that point Rhino and Elena took off for Rio, he under an assumed name and properly disguised."

I paused there and waited. Dan was doodling idly on the edge of paper. Cal Porter said, "It's making sense. Go on."

"Now I speculate. Rio was a little too rich. Elena got out of hand. Those millionaires down there have an income at least. All of Rhino's loot was going out. It wouldn't take too many bad turns of the card to have that happen. Finally Rhino was wiped out and Elena wasn't holding still for it. She dumped Rhino for somebody else and the big act was all for nothing."

I could feel the scowl on Porter's face as he reached for the events and tried to sift them.

I said, "But to get back . . . Rhino's original hold on the mob itself and its outside agencies was his 'black bundle,' the stuff that could crucify plenty of big ones in and out of government. If it were a buried secret like the mob presumed the money to be, everything was all right."

"After all, during the time Rhino was gone it never turned up and it could be counted as being out of existence. In a way, it was almost like that. He had that hidden well . . . it had gone with his ex-wife so completely nobody could run it down. Then one day the ex-wife died and it came out quite inadvertently who she was and the mob was onto a new lead. There was the possibility that Rhino had separated the money and his 'package,' leaving the latter where it was accessible yet hidden."

"The mob couldn't afford not to follow up this idea. They suspected that Rhino's black bundle could have been among her effects. The survivor was Rhino's daughter, Terry, and as such inherited. The mob watched and waited and when Terry suddenly came to New York, they thought they had it pinned down. . . . Terry Massley had Rhino's stuff and was coming in to make a sale. Like father, like daughter, they figured. They laid for her, most likely figuring to make her talk, or if she wouldn't, knock her off and conduct a search themselves. By coincidence, I got involved."

The D.A.'s face seemed frozen. "By sheer coincidence," he repeated.

"Drop dead," I said.

"This coincidence is pretty farfetched," Porter remarked sourly. "This black bundle of Massley's was the invisible factor in Rocca's trial. Now suddenly by coincidence the girl runs into him."

Dan laughed. "You know what you should call this coincidence, Cal?"

Reluctantly, Porter asked, "What?"

"Luck. It's going to make you governor."

Then it was my turn. "That is," I said, "if I don't squawk about that bum rap I took back there."

The knuckles of Porter's fingers showed white. "I'm not making any deals. All I want to do is play it right."

"Me too, Mr. Porter, me too. I want it right. It's just that I have something coming to me for those seven years and I intend to get it."

"We'll talk about it. What do you want?"

"Legwork. You have everything going for you, so you might be able to get L.A. to process Rhino's ex-wife's effects. She left something behind that hasn't been uncovered and we have to find it first."

Porter scribbled something on a pad and nodded. I waved for the waiter, told him to bring a phone, and dialed the Enfield Hotel. After a minute the operator informed me that Terry wasn't in her room. I hung up scowling and Dan wanted to know what the matter was. "Terry's not around. She wasn't there when I called from Phoenix."

"You know how dames are."

"I told her to stay put."

"For two days? You're nuts. She's around the hotel someplace. Have her paged."

"No," I said, "I'm going up there myself. I don't want to broadcast anything." I looked at Cal Porter. "Okay with you . . . or did Phoenix put a hold order on me?"

For the first time Cal let a smile show. "They would have liked to. In fact, over somebody's protestations out there, they suggested it. You stirred up a big one."

"You'll do the stirring if you can get somebody to really shake down the late Mrs. Massley's effects out there."

Dan flipped another cigarette into his mouth. "And what do I do, boss man?" he grinned.

"More legwork. See if you can get anybody to identify Richard Castor as having shipped out of Rio bound for the States. I doubt if he would have traveled first class."

Both of them were watching me closely now.

I said, "I think Rhino Massley slipped back here intending to pick up his old documents in order to finance another bankroll to buy Elena Harris back with. I think it was Massley who contacted Terry, knowing that somewhere in her mother's effects was his big hope."

Porter nodded curtly. "There's only one hole."

We both waited for it.

"Rhino's got a crazy fixation against women. Then suddenly he's all gone over this Harris girl?"

It was something that had bothered me too, but I dismissed it with the only thing I could think of. "There's an exception to every rule, Mr. Porter. Meanwhile, it's the only line of reasoning we have."

I let them think about it, told them I'd call back later and walked out.

The maid was a short, doughty old woman, and she was certain about it. She didn't quibble or hedge and the fin I had given her hadn't bought a story. The girl in my room who had registered in as my wife wasn't there and hadn't been all day. Previously she wouldn't let anyone in, even to make up the room. Twice the day before, room service had brought in a tray, but that was all. However, this morning when the maid had tried the door with her master key since there was no Do Not Disturb sign out and the door was not locked from inside, she went in, cleaned up, and went out.

Then, for some oblique reason of her own, she asked, "Your wife, was it?" and when I nodded curtly she made a universal grimace, the superior smile of those who know. She thought, too, she knew why the fin and why my questions and said quickly, "She gave quite a party, mister, I'll say that. There were cigar butts around and the room was all pulled apart."

I said thanks and let it drop there. I couldn't have said more because my throat was tight with a cold fear. I went back inside and opened the drawers of the dresser. Her things were there, carelessly thrown around, showing all the signs of having been hurriedly searched. Deliberately, I checked every spot in the room, but the things I was looking for, her mother's personal effects, weren't there.

Terry was gone. Why? There had been men here. Why? Yet, I knew some of these things. Like the men. It's surprising how great a force the unlawful comprise. They had men to do the legwork, money to buy pieces of knowledge, experience to follow up the slightest detail. And they had a motive. Mannie Waller's men had been here, all right. I let the picture of it run through my mind, then it stopped being quite so grim. They were here and left, but not with Terry, otherwise there would have been no cigar butts or careless searches.

I picked up the phone, settled the whole thing on my lap, and lifted the receiver. And even as I was giving the desk clerk Dan Litvak's number I saw the note. She had stuck it under the phone base itself and all that time it had stayed there, hidden until now. Very simply it read:

Darling, I was contacted at the Sherman and the arrangement is almost the same as before. This time I was to carry mother's personal items in the identifying suitcase, but rather than that I'm leaving them in your hole in the wall. Don't worry. I'll be all right. Love you.

Terry.

The idiot? What the hell gets into women that they think they can walk head-on into men playing guns and walk right out again! My hands shook so that I could hardly hold the phone and when Dan finally came on the same shake was back in my voice.

I said, "Terry's gone. Rhino made his contact."

"You sure it was Rhino?"

"That's what I'm calling for. You have anything on Castor?"

"Not yet. Now what about Terry?"

I gave him the picture quickly as far as I saw it. "Suppose I pass this on to Cal. He'll want to go all-out on it."

"Go to it. I'll see if I can find Terry."

"How?"

"She said the arrangements were almost the same as before. Rhino is someplace in my neighborhood and she's to meet him there. There's nobody I don't know around home plate and, if Terry has been there, somebody would have spotted her. If she goes through with this contact and comes out of it, she'll try to reach me either here or at my pad on the street. Give me two hours and we'll all meet at my place. Got that?"

"Yeah, but how about you taking some help along."

"No dice, kid. A team would be spotted too fast. Me those people will talk to. Anybody else, nix. And if they think I'm working with cops they'll clam up on me, too. We have to play it like this."

"Okay then. If that's how you call it. See you later. Watch it."

I said I would and hung up.

Once it began, night came on with a desperate rush. Over the city the belly-rumbling of the storm to the west closed the shops early.

I had walked the street from Seventh to the river, then back again, questioning those who would know if anyone would, asking them, in turn, to question others. Yes, Terry had been seen, all right, by two persons next to my own building. She came to my place, stayed a few minutes, and left. Where she went to, or where she was now, nobody could tell me.

There wasn't any sense going to my apartment now. All she did was leave those meaningless things of her mother's in my trick closet, the hole in the wall she first hid in. How long ago? Years . . . months? It hardly seemed like days.

So I kept on asking, people in doorways, the paperman on the corner, the kids, the hack drivers waiting just off the avenues. They were nice, they were sympathetic, but they couldn't help.

And when the rain started I turned up my collar and gave up. Inside me I had that terrible disjointed feeling that comes with a hangover and your nervous signals get all crossed until you're ready to scream with despair. I walked back to my apartment, went in, closed the door and reached to switch on the light.

I needn't have bothered. Somebody else did it for me.

Mannie Waller, fat and ugly-looking, squatting on the couch, said, "We only had to wait, wise guy. Sooner or later you'd come back to your hole in the wall, all right." The three with him just smiled. Big smiles.

He glanced around, his nose wrinkled in disgust. I followed his eyes, looking at the wreckage of the place, the broken chairs, the upturned drawers, the litter from the pillow and mattress. I couldn't help grinning, though. It was a lousy joke, but still a joke. Mannie was thinking about the wrong hole in the wall.

What a sucker I turned out to be. Sure, Mannie had seen Terry's note. He had even left it there for me to see too, and if I had, I would have come roaring over like a white knight and been roasted in my own armor. The cleaning woman in the hotel had probably covered up Terry's note inadvertently, and I had assumed that only I saw it.

"It's funny?" Mannie asked. "Show him it ain't funny, Ruby."

I tried to cover up but I wasn't quick enough. A gun barrel raked the back of my scalp and I went down on my knees with the sticky warmth of blood soaking into my collar.

"Where is it, wise guy?"

"Like . . . what . . ."

Mannie nodded sagely. "I spell it out just once. What the kid has. The stuff. Rhino's stuff. She left it here."

My breath was coming in hard. The guy called Ruby nudged me with a toe and said, "Another one, Mannie?"

I shook my head. "Wait: I'll . . . tell you."

"Give him a minute, Ruby."

How long? How long did I have? I managed to get a foot under me and poised there breathing deeply, in a runner's stance. The blood from my head ran down and dripped off my chin making it look better still. Then when I had milked it as long as I could I came off the floor with a wild shriek stinging my own ears.

My fist caught Mannie flush in the face and I felt bone and teeth go into a splintery mess. The one beside him reached for me as I turned and I almost put my foot through his genitals. Someone swung a gun again and missed, smashing it into my shoulder. My entire side went numb, my knees collapsed, and even on the way down the fists and the feet started their torture. I rolled on one side, gagging on the blood in my mouth, the sudden retching clearing my head, and for one second I cursed myself for a damn fool because all that time I had Lafarge's gun stuck under my belt and never thought to use it.

But thinking of it then was enough. The one hand under me snaked it out of its own volition and when I rolled over my face was exposed and the one called Ruby laughed and brought his foot back to kick it off.

Then I pulled the trigger and it was Ruby's face that disappeared and the last thing I saw was his hat flying toward the ceiling as his head exploded. A foot shocked me almost senseless and my eyes closed.

Mannie's voice was far away, a horrible mumbling, swearing at the other two. Dimly, I heard one say, "How the hell could we know?"

"You jerks," Mannie sobbed. "I should kill you. Look at Ruby."

"Who figures him for rods, Mannie. Hell, Mannie . . ."

"Shut up. You take care of him. Right now, you hear? Then we blow. You get yours later, you jerks!"

"Sure, Mannie, sure." The metallic click of the hammer of a gun coming back was louder than all the other sounds. It was like a crashing cymbal stroke next to my ear. The guy said, "I'll put him in cold storage, good, Mannie."

Too late the warmth of knowledge reached me. Too late, from those few words, did the answer stand out, stark and simple. Too late did I finally understand the reasoning of a woman, untrained in the devious, thinking only in her natural manner. How much blood, how many dead, how much more to go because the entire affair was overly simplified?

I could feel myself trying to withdraw from what was coming, my brain pleading for a numbed body to move, to hide. But the body could do neither. The brain heard the smashing thunder of the shots and with a terrible effort forced the body to twitch, to feel out the pain.

There were more rolling thunders and loud voices and again the brain cried out to move . . . MOVE! When I did hands went under me, sat me up, and a voice I knew was Dan's said, "Phil! Phil! You all right?"

My eyes came open, focused, and I nodded.

Behind him was Cal Porter and two plainclothesmen, each with a gun in his hand. Cal had gone white and I knew he was ready to be sick. Ruby was dead where I had shot him, two more sprawled out lifelessly across him. Mannie was blubbering insanely on the couch, his eyes huge and wild, his voice trying to come through a swollen mass of flesh that was his mouth.

Dan said, "What happened . . . but don't talk if you're hurt."

"I'm . . . okay." I pointed to the closet and told Porter to open it. He found the catch, swung the door out, and picked up the box from the floor. He found the wallet, emptied it into his hands and looked at me.

I said, "Receipts for clothes . . . in cold storage. Look at . . . the date. They've been there for . . . years."

"Go on."

"Rhino's wife . . . hid the stuff there. A damn woman's . . . trick. Get to a phone. Check on it . . . and you'll be governor, Mr. Porter."

Dan hoisted me to my feet. "I have to call this story in. We can't keep it quiet now." He looked at the door and nodded. The crowd had already gathered, staring, gasping, speculating. The two cops were having a job keeping them out.

I said, "A favor, friend. I hate to make you share your scoop, but you know my buddy in Phoenix?"

"Okay," Dan laughed. "He'll get it the same time."

Porter had gotten his color back. He seemed different now, the softness gone from his face, the old determination back again. "Where's the nearest phone?"

"Store on the corner."

"I'll check this out." He smiled gently, trying for a degree of friendliness. "I have a feeling, you know what I mean?"

"I know. The stuff will be there." I put my hand on his arm. "Look," I told him. "No hard feelings. Things go wrong sometimes."

Outside a siren wailed, stopped in front of the buildings, and two uniformed cops came in with guns drawn. Porter gave Mannie over to them, left instructions with the others, and he turned to me with a final wave.

I went out in the hall behind him. The cops had squeezed everybody out the front door and were standing there waving them off. The little Gomez boy didn't bother coming in that way. He came up through the cellar and said very softly from behind me, "Meestair Phil?"

I turned around. "Oh, hello, kid."

"You look for the nice lady. Pretty lady with black hair? She who was here?"

My mouth was suddenly dry and I nodded.

"I see something, Meestair Phil. I don't tell nobody before. I no want trouble."

"What was it, kid?"

"You know Leavy's store?"

"Sure."

"By the side an alley?"

I nodded, remembering the place. "It was boarded up."

"No. Not boards. Somebody take down soon ago."

"Okay, no boards."

The kid looked around as though he were fearful of being overheard. "Thees pretty lady. She has bag." He stretched his hands apart showing me how big it was. "Like so. She walk down street and man come out. Thees man he very mad and he pull her inside. I hear her yell."

Without knowing it I had the kid by the shoulder shaking him. "Damn it, what happened?"

Sudden fear came into his eyes and he stiffened. I let him go, forced a smile and waited. He shrugged, swallowed, and said, "I do not go in there, Meestair Phil. I no want trouble."

"No trouble, kid." I reached in my pocket and took out a bill. The kid clutched at it like a miracle come true, grinned broadly, and darted off toward the darkness of the cellar. I walked back to the room where the bodies were, found Lafarge's .45 on the floor and shoved it back under my belt. Then I went out the way the kid had gone out, past the cops, the curious, onto a street whose occupants were all clustered in front of one building.

It was raining again, the dehydrated smells of the city being activated again into a foul soup of human essence. I walked through it to the corner, thinking of how Terry had run across this same street into the same room where so much had happened only minutes ago. And now there were only a few steps left.

Like the Gomez kid said, the boards weren't there anymore. I went through the gap into the blackness of an alley, my hands touching the rough brick of the building walls on either side of me. I walked slowly, feeling for debris with my feet, not knowing where I was or where I was going, knowing only that some place this alley ended and there I would find Terry.

Alive, if I weren't too late.

The alley was longer than I expected. Twice I felt the steel grilling from cellar windows under my feet and tried them, but they were rusted shut and impossible to budge. The litter of years, cans and papers and junk thrown off rooftops was thick, but curiously enough not scattered underfoot. It was as though a path had been kicked through the stuff.

That's how I knew when I reached the end of the path. A knee-high pile of garbage stopped me and when I felt the walls, in the one on my left I touched a door.

I had the .45 in my fist when I shoved it open. Unexpectedly it swung soundlessly and I stepped inside, my guts half ready to stop a bullet. My eyes were well-adjusted to the darkness and I could see as well as sense the incredible pile of junk that filled the room. It was an old storeroom of some kind, long unused. Very faintly a yellow tinge showed me the way, a path between stacked crates. I walked quietly, carefully, followed the bend in the aisle to the other door through whose time-grimed window came the pale glow of a lamp.

Inside there was the rhythmic clap of flesh on flesh and the steady cursing of a deep-chested voice saying vile things over and over again.

The door was locked. Momentarily. I kicked the damn thing open and went in with a roar and in that small fraction of time saw Terry, bloody and bruised in the chair, her eyes open without seeing and the face of Rhino Massley coming at me with a hoarse yell of maniacal fury.

I should have shot him then. I shouldn't have waited. I shouldn't have let all the pent-up things boil out of my mind into my fists because he slammed into me and the gun flew out of my hand to the floor and Rhino was on top of me clawing for my throat.

There was nothing left in me, nothing at all. I was a complete fool, dead weak from the terrible things that happened to me at the apartment and I couldn't tear him off.

If Terry hadn't moaned softly then, he would have killed me. Instead he cursed her with a hiss, climbed off me, and took a step toward the table. When he turned around, he had a gun in his hand, his eyes lit up so that the white showed all around the iris and I realized that Massley was mad, completely mad.

I looked up at him, my breath coming in great sucking gasps.

"You're part of this, aren't you?" he said.

Instead of answering him I lifted my hand and pointed to Terry. "She's . . . your daughter. You did that to . . . your daughter?"

His teeth shone in the yellow light, lips bared so that his face was a lined mask of hate. "I have no daughter. Somewhere I have a son. A son. A son."

I shook my head. "Terry is . . . ."

"Terry is my son!" he shouted. "Somewhere I have a son. Damn them all. Damn all women for what they are. I have only a son, do you understand! She left me a son and named him Terry. It was he who should have carried that suitcase. Damn you both! Damn you and that woman there. What have you done with him?"

He was quieter this time, a little more rational for the moment. "You know what it is I want, otherwise you wouldn't be here."

I let my head drop with a nod of assent.

"Do you tell me or do I simply kill you and look for myself. It won't be too hard to do."

"Let her go," I whispered.

He shrugged. "Why not? She really doesn't matter."

"My apartment. Down the street. Third house from the corner. Downstairs left apartment."

"I see." He looked toward Terry, smiling peculiarly. She was breathing heavily, a trickle of blood running from her nose, but now her eyes were closed. Without looking at me, knowing I was too far away to be able to do a thing, he said, "You like this . . . woman?"

Once again, I nodded dumbly, sensing full well what he was going to do. He still watched Terry, still smiled that terrible way. And while he watched I moved my eyes and saw the .45 where it had fallen and sobbed deeply and let myself collapse again.

When I got up this time Rhino Massley was smiling, the gun in his hand pointed at Terry's head and to me he said, "Then watch her die."

I let him smile for the last time and squeezed the trigger of the .45 and watched it cave in his chest. The gun he held went off into the ceiling then flew out of his hand, but I didn't let that stop me. I disintegrated Rhino's face into a crazy welter of bits and pieces and when the last slug was gone threw the empty rod at his body and stood there yelling my head off with a panic that lasted only a minute.

The soft cry of Terry's voice spun me around. She was sitting up, the shock of the gunshots jerking her into consciousness, eyes wide with terror and one hand over her mouth covering a soundless scream.

I took her in my arms, cradled her, and let her bury her face against me. Outside I could hear the whistles and the yells and voices shouting directions.

I said, "It's all right, baby, it's all over now."

"Phil?" It was a child's question, asking for a touch of security.

"It's me, kitten. He won't hurt you ever again. It's all right." I kissed her gently, softly, knowing that now she was hurt. Later I would tell her what happened. Not all of it, nor would anyone else. There was no reason for any to know. As far as the world was concerned, Rhino was buried back there in Phoenix. Cal Porter would see to that. What he had to work with now gave him a lever big enough to pull it off or even jack himself into the big chair in Albany. It would be an easy story to tell. Simple. Rhino Massley's black bundle had been found. Certain hoods tried to beat the law to it and were killed.

She opened her eyes, drew back, and looked at me. She smiled through the pain she felt and touched my face. Across the room she could see the huddled lump of Massley.

"That man, Phil. He wasn't my father." Her voice had a note of surety.

"You're right, Terry. He was just another hood. He had a gimmick he thought could get you to lead him to something. He's dead."

"But my father . . . ?"

"He died a long time ago, sugar. You never knew him."

I kissed her again. "Let's go home," I said.

And we did.

THE BASTARD BANNERMAN

CHAPTER ONE

I let the old Ford drift over the hill so I could see the sweep of the Bannerman estate nestling in the cove of the bay with the light of the full moon throwing shadows from the tall pines and making the columns of the mansion stand clear like a skeletal hand.

The hedgerow inside the fieldstone wall that surrounded the place had outgrown it by six feet since I had seen it last and as I eased past the huge brick posts that had once supported a handmade wrought-iron gate I could see what time and negligence had done to it. The gates were still there, but propped open, the posts ripped loose from the brick.

At no time did I have any intention of stopping by. Cutting off the main east-west highway onto 242 was an act of curiosity more than nostalgia, but when a guy lives the first twelve years of his life in a place before he gets the boot into the wild world outside, it's a natural thing to want to see if his old home had as many scars as he did.

Through the break in the tree line I could see the lights on downstairs. I grinned to myself, braked the Ford, backed up and turned in the drive and followed the curve of it up to the house.

What a damn fool I am, I thought. Do I shake hands or slap somebody's tail for them? This was no prodigal son returning and if I expected a happy homecoming I was blowing smoke all the way.

But what the hell, that was all twenty-three years ago, two wars ago, a lifetime ago and when curiosity gets the better of you, go to it. Like the old man used to say before he died though, just remember what it did to the cat. Then he'd laugh because that was my name. C. C., for Cat Cay Bannerman.

Now I knew the joke. Cat Cay was where I was conceived and born, only out of wedlock. The girl died an hour after I showed up and the old man brought me home with his name and a stigma the rest of the family couldn't live with.

The bar sinister. The bastard Bannerman. To be raised with the bar dexter class in wealth and tradition, but always on the tail end out of sight so the blight on the family escutcheon wouldn't be seen by the more genteel folk.

I parked behind the two other cars, walked up the broad flight of steps to the porch and pulled the bell cord. It had an electrical device now and chimed somewhere inside. When that happened the voices that seemed a little too loud suddenly stopped and when the door opened I looked at the tiny old lady that used to make me jelly sandwiches when I was locked in my room and tell me everything was going to be all right and I said, "Hello, Annie."

She stiffened automatically, looked up at me over her glasses, annoyed. "Yes?" Her voice was thin now, and quavered a little.

I bent down and kissed her cheek. It was quick and she didn't have time to pull away, but her mouth opened in a gasp of indignation. Before she could speak I said, "It's been a long time, Annie. Don't you remember the one you called your pussy cat?"

Her eyebrows went up slowly as memories returned. She reached out, touched my face, shaking her head in disbelief. "Cat. My little Cat Cay."

I lifted her right off her feet, held her up and squeezed her a little. The two-day-old beard was rough against her cheek and she squealed with a little sob of pleasure until I put her down. "I don't believe it," she told me. "So many years. You're so . . . so big now. Come in, Cat, come in, come in."

"You haven't changed, Annie. You still smell of apple pie and furniture polish."

She closed the door, took my arm with fragile fingers, stepped back and looked at me closely. "Yes, it's you all right . . . the broken nose Rudy gave you, the scar where you fell out of the tree . . . your father's eyes."

But at the same time she was looking at the well-worn black suit and the battered porkpie hat and in her mind I was still the left over, the one who didn't fit or belong, who had always been a convenient whipping boy for Rudy and his brother Theodore, the family scapegoat who took the blame and punishment for everything two cousins did and had to cut out at twelve.

"Where's the clan?" I asked her.

Her eyes darted toward the pair of oak doors that led to the library. "Cat . . . do you think you should . . ."

"Why not, old girl? No hard feelings on my part. What happened is over and I'm not going to be around long enough to get any rumors started. Besides, there's not one thing I want from this bunch of Bannermans. By myself I do okay and no squawks. I'm only passing through."

She was going to say something else, stopped herself and pointed to the doors. "They're all . . . inside there." There was a peculiar edge to her voice, but she was still the family housekeeper and didn't intrude in the closed circle of affairs.

I patted her shoulder, pushed down the two great brass handles and swung the doors open. For one second I had that cold feeling like I used to get when I was told to report and knew what was going to happen. Uncle Miles would be pacing the floor in his whipcord breeches, slapping his leg with the riding crop while he listened to Rudy and Teddy lie about who let the bay mare eat herself to death from the feed bin, or who fired the old cabin out back. I'd know the crop was for me with long hours in the dark attic bedroom and a week of doing backbreaking man-chores to follow until I was allowed the company of the family again. I remembered the way old MacCauley hated to assign the jobs, but he had his orders from Miles and he'd try to take the load off my back, knowing he'd be fired if he was caught. If my old man had been alive he would have knocked his brother's ass off for doing it. But pop had died. He went under a frozen lake to get Rudy who had fallen through, caught pneumonia and a week later was dead.

But it wasn't the same now. Uncle Miles was a skinny, frightened old man who sat behind a desk with a tight face that was all bluster and fear and Rudy and Ted, a couple of pudgy boy-men with faces showing the signs of dissipation and easy living. Neither one of them had much hair left and their faces were pink and soft looking. Ted, who always was the lesser of the two, fidgeted with his hands at a corner of the desk while Rudy stood there pompously with his hands on his hips and his tongue licking his thick lips nervously.

There was a third one I didn't know who was relaxed in a chair with his legs crossed, smoking, an angular guy with thick, black hair and a pointed widow's peak above a face that was strong and handsome.

The other two I did know. One was Carl Matteau, the other Popeye Gage and they were Syndicate boys from Chicago and they both had amused, tolerant expressions on their faces.

Every head in the room swiveled my way when I walked in but there wasn't a sign of recognition on any of them. Miles and his two sons threw a quick look at the pair of hoods, wondering if I were part of them, but when Carl Matteau shrugged they knew I wasn't and Uncle Miles came halfway out of his chair with his face flushed in anger at the intrusion.

"Just what is the meaning of this!" he demanded.

I grinned at him, slow and deliberately. "A social call, Uncle. I came to pay my respects to the family. Relax."

It was Rudy who recognized me first. Something happened to his breath. It seemed to stick in his throat. "Cat," he said. "Cat Cay!"

"Hello, Punk." I walked over to him, stood there looking down at his eyes, knowing what he saw scared him stiff. He started to hold out his hand and I slapped him across the mouth.

Teddy never moved for a few moments, then skittered behind the desk. "Are . . . are you crazy?" he managed to get out.

"Sure, kid." I laughed and watched Miles let go the arms of the chair and sink down into the padded seat. He looked even smaller than before.

All he could say was, "It can't be. It can't be you."

But it was and he knew it.

The one sitting behind me, the good-looking one, came out of his chair very casually, strode over to the desk and stared at me with eyes as cold as my own. He was as big as I was, but only in height, but he had the kind of build you couldn't trust. A lot of those angular guys could be like whips. "Do you mind explaining who you are?"

I pushed him a little. "You first, buddy."

He rolled with the nudge. "Vance Colby. I happen to be engaged to Anita Bannerman."

Anita! Damn, I had almost forgotten about her. The distant cousin who was ten to my twelve, fair headed and frail who used to follow me around like a puppy. She was another who had sneaked me sandwiches and milk when they had my back against the wall. Cute little kid. She had met me by the gate the night I ran away and kissed me goodbye and ran back to the house crying her eyes out.

"Well, how about that," I said.

"That doesn't explain you."

"I'm a Bannerman, buddy. The bastard Bannerman. You should have heard of me. Max, my old man, and Miles here were brothers. I used to live here."

"So." That was all he said. He nodded as if he knew the whole story and turned to look at Uncle Miles. The old man seemed to be in a stupor.

For some reason the whole thing got funny. Everything was out of focus and there was a charge in the air that you could feel on your skin. I said, "Well, I didn't expect any fatted calf killed for me, but I sure didn't think the clan would be so far on their heels they'd entertain a couple of bums like these two here." I turned around and looked at Matteau and Gage.

It was Gage who started to move until Matteau tapped his arm. "Easy, boy," he said to me.

I walked over to him, gave him one stiff shot in the chops and when he folded I laid one on the back of his neck that piled him into the rug. When Gage reached for the gun I jammed the barrel of the .45 in his mouth and felt teeth snap and saw the blood spill down his chin and the wide eyes of a guy who had just made one hell of a big mistake. He hit the wall, came off it knowing what was going to happen and too late to stop it: I let him have the gunsight across his jaw that laid the flesh open and he went down on top of Matteau with a soft whimper and stayed there.

All you could hear was the terrified silence. It was a noise in itself. I said, "Don't anybody ever call me boy," and I looked at the three other Bannermans whomever knew any other name for me.

She didn't call me boy though. From the doorway where she had seen the whole thing start and end she half whispered, "Cat!"

My love, my little love, only now she wasn't small and frail. Darkly blonde still, but luscious and beautiful with those same deep purple eyes and a mouth that had given me my first kiss. Her breasts accentuated the womanliness of her, dipping into a pert waist and swelling into thighs and calves that were the ultimate in sensuous beauty.

"Hello, Anita," I said.

Even the pair on the floor, the blood or the gun in my fist couldn't stop the headlong rush she made into my arms and hold back the tears. I laughed, grabbed her close a moment and held her back so I could look at her. "I'll be damned," I said, "How you've changed."

Through eyes that were wet and streaking mascara she looked at me. "Cat . . . where did you come from? You were supposed to be dead. Oh, Cat, all these years and you never wrote . . . we never heard a thing. Why didn't . . ."

"I never left anything here, kid." I tilted her chin up with my hand. "Except you. I wanted to take you along but I couldn't have made it then."

"Anita!" Vance Colby was snubbing his cigarette out in an ashtray. He was the only one who seemed calm enough to speak up.

"At ease, friend. We're sort of kissin' cousins. Take it easy until we've said our hellos."

She seemed to see the others then. Like them there was a tension that came back over her, and eyes that were happy, clouded, and her finger bit into my arm. "Please . . . can we go outside . . . and talk?"

I looked at Colby and felt a smile twist my mouth. I put the gun back and said, "Mind?"

"Not at all."

I pointed toward Gage and Matteau. "Better sober up your friends."

CHAPTER TWO

The summerhouse had always been a place where we could find each other and we went there now. She sat in one of the big wicker chairs and I perched on the railing and said, "Okay, honey, spill it. What's going on here?"

"Cat . . . nothing. Really, I . . ."

"Since when do a pair of hoods sit in the Bannerman mansion? Grandpop or my old man would have thrown them through the nearest window and there was a time when Miles wouldn't let anybody in the front door who wasn't listed in the social register. So what gives, honey?"

"You . . . you knew those two, didn't you?"

"Sure I did. They're Syndicate men they call 'watchers.' They come in while an operation is being set up with Syndicate money to make sure it gets spent right."

"How did you know them?"

"Why?"

"You . . . had a gun."

"So I'm in the same business, that's why, but don't worry about it. What's the score here?"

"I can't tell you," she said simply.

"Swell, so I'll find out myself."

Even in the darkness I could see her hands tighten into hard knots. "Please don't."

"I'm the curious type. Maybe I can stick something up Rudy's tail. He did it to me often enough."

"They're . . . not like they used to be."

"Neither am I, chicken. Now, do you explain?"

"No."

I slid off the rail and stood in front of her. "So tell me and I'll blow," I said. "I don't want anything from those creeps."

Anita shook her head slowly, not wanting to look at me. "I'm afraid, Cat. They did . . . too much to you. Nobody can forget what they did. But please . . . don't make it worse."

"You make it sound interesting." I reached out, lifted her to her feet and put my arms around her. I tried to make it casual, a thing that cousins might do, but it didn't quite work that way. My fingers kneaded the firm structure of her back, my palms pressed her close and some crazy thing went through my head and down through my body and was happening to her too. She said something I couldn't hear because my face was buried in the fragrance of her hair, then my mouth was tasting her and feeling the wild response and fiery dart of her tongue and I had to shove her away with arms that wanted to shake.

"Cat . . . I waited. I never believed what they said . . . about you being dead. The night you left I told you I'd wait."

"We were just kids, honey."

"You said you'd come back for me."

And I remembered. It was why I had turned off the road into the driveway.

"I'm too late, kid."

Her eyes, were misty and she leaned her face against my chest. "I know. It can't be changed." She looked up at me. "Take me back, Cat . . . please?"

I left her at the door without bothering to go in. The black Caddie that had been in front of my Ford was gone now, the Buick still there. I got in the car, turned the engine over and drove out the way I had come. Culver City was six miles east and I had nine days before I had to do the job in New York and get back to the coast.

Outside of town I stopped at a second rate motel, put down nine bucks and signed the register. I said I didn't need a receipt, got the key, the guy didn't even bother to look at the name and never commented on it, so I drove down to my room.

After a shower I lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling wondering just how badly I'd like to plaster Rudy and Ted all over their palatial mansion. I laughed at the thought because now it was ridiculous. I could take them both with one hand. I would have settled for a swift kick in the tail or a belt in the puss, dumped old Miles in the cistern out back and called it square.

Except that now a new note was added. The boys from Chicago were on the inside and the fun might be too much to miss out on.

I got up at seven A.M., grabbed breakfast downtown and at eight-thirty when I knew I'd get my party, made a call. Marty Sinclair came on the line with a gruff hello and I said, "Cat Bannerman."

"You in New York?"

"No, Culver City. I'm going to stick around a while."

"You and them crazy broads! When . . ."

"Come on, Marty. I used to live here."

"So why the call?"

"I don't know . . . something cute here we might tie in with. Look, work it easy, but see if you have a line into the local situation."

"Hell, man, Culver City is wide open. Gambling is legal, the horses are out of season but . . ."

"Can you do it?"

"Sure. Take ten minutes."

I gave him the number of the phone booth. "Call me back in fifteen."

He was right on the dot. Fifteen minutes later I knew of a Sid LaMont, had his address and was on the way.

Five sixty one River Street was a sleezy building on the end of a line of apartments with a painted sign advertising a popular beer facing the water. On the ground floor was a printing jobber, a top floor with smashed windows, which put Sidney LaMont right in the middle.

The guy who answered the door was about thirty but looked fifty. He came up to my shoulders, peering at me with a ratty little face, hands fiddling with a dirty undershirt. These guys I knew how to handle without wasting time so I just pushed him back in the room and watched the sweat start forming on his forehead.

They always try a little bull at first. He said, "Look, mister . . . don't you come bustin' in here and . . ."

"Shut up." I didn't have to say any more. When I pulled out the handkerchief and wiped my nose he saw the .45 in the hip holster, swallowed hard and backed into a chair.

"Mac . . . I'm clean, see. I paid my freight. Ask Forbes, he'll tell you. What kind of stuff is this? I'm nickels and dimes. Last week I clear sixty bucks. I don't bother nobody. I . . ."

"Shut up."

I gave him the full treatment, going around the room, just looking until I was satisfied, then pulled up a straight backed chair, turned it around and sat down facing him. His face was wringing wet. So was his undershirt.

"Bannerman," I said. "What do you know about them?"

He seemed genuinely bewildered. "Them? Jeez, Mac, I . . ."

"Quick."

The side of his mouth twitched. "You . . . you cops?"

For a full five seconds I just stared at him until his eyes couldn't meet mine at all any more. "I'm not from Culver City," I told him.

Between my face and where the gun was he couldn't keep his eyes still. He said, "So they're big wheels. Live west of here. Hell, I . . ." I started to move my hands and he held up his for me to wait. "Okay, they're real fancy stiffs. You think I meet them? The two kids are always traveling with some hot tomatoes from the clubs and they blow the dough like it's water. The old one's a crap shooter and his brother likes the wheel. So what else do you want? They got the money, let 'em spend it."

I sat without speaking another minute and let him sweat some more, then I got up and walked to the door. I turned around and said, "What do I look like?"

He got the message. "Man, I never seen you in my life."

"Remember that," I said.

There were five major clubs in town all located on the bay side. None of them were open for business, but somebody was in each one and when I told them I was checking on customer credit they weren't a bit backward about obliging me. I mentioned the Bannermans and all I got was a fat okay. They were big spenders and had been for a long time. They paid their bills and could get credit any time they wanted. They weren't big winners, though. Like any habitual players against the house they wound up in the red, but at least they enjoyed the pleasure of laying it out.

But I could still see the gates hanging off their hinges and picture the worn spots in the oriental rug in the library and it didn't make sense. There was just too much pride and tradition behind the Bannermans to let the old homestead run down.

I never knew what the financial setup was. My old man's father had piled up the loot during the gold rush trade. He had made a find, exploited it as far as he could, then sold out to a company. He had split the pile down the middle between Miles and Max, but the old man wasn't one for investments when he could hightail it around the world chasing wine, women and song. Max had me and Miles nursed his dough. And that's how it goes. The snag in the picture was the gaming tables because you can always spend it faster than you can make it and the signs were that the Bannermans weren't what they had been.

I had gone through all the spots where you can usually pick up a word or two without coming out with a single thing at all. At a quarter to four I tried the public library on State Street, found all the recent issues of the Culver Sentinel and started scanning through them.

In two weeks there were five mentions of the Bannermans, all in connection with some civic project or social function, but not a squib about them in the traffic violation column. Three weeks back the headlines were having a ball because there were four rape cases, a hit-and-run that killed two prominent local citizens, a murder in the parking lot of the Cherokee Club and a raid by the Treasury Department men on a narcotics setup in town. The rapes and the narcotics angle were solved, three teenage kids were being held for the hit-and-run and the parking lot murder was still up in the air. The dead man there was the lot attendant who had been fooling around with a friend's wife and the husband was being sought after. He was an ex con who had done time for second-degree murder and had blown town the night of the killing.

Past that the Bannermans came up again, but only in the society columns. There was one half page of notes and pictures devoted to the engagement of one Anita Bannerman to Vance Colby, a prominent realtor who had settled in Culver City some year and a half before.

When the library closed I went up the hill to Placer Street where the Culver Sentinel still turned out the only paper in town and walked in the bar in the next block, sat down and ordered a beer. A few minutes after five-thirty the place started filling up with thirsty types and it wasn't hard to pick out the news hawks in the crowd. But one was a guy I remembered well. He was a little weatherbeaten guy who had lost one ear when he and the old man had sailed the Turia II with a load of Canadian booze on board and the Coast Guard hard behind shooting with everything they had. The old man lost the boat and Hank Feathers had lost an ear and I had heard them laugh over the story many a time.

I waited until Feathers squeezed into what seemed to be a customary spot and ordered a drink, then I moved up behind him. I said, "If it isn't Vincent Van Gogh himself."

He put the drink down slowly, craned around and looked at me with the two meanest eyes I ever saw. Old as he was, there was a peculiar stance about him that said he was ready to travel no matter who it was. I grinned at him and the slitted eyes lost some of their meanness.

"That's what you get for sticking your head out a porthole," I said.

"Damn you, kid, only one man ever knew about that."

"And he liked to call you Van Gogh too didn't he?"

"Okay, son, who are you?"

"The bastard Bannerman. The old man used to tell you lies about my mother."

"Cat Cay! I'll be hanged." His face went into a broad, wrinkled smile and he held out his hand. "Yep, you got his eyes all right. And son, they weren't lies about your mother. I saw her. She was something." He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the bar. "Come on, drink up. Damn if we haven't got something to talk about. What the hell you doing here? I heard you were dead."

"Passing through, that's all."

"See the family?"

"Briefly."

"All slobs. Idle rich and they stink. The girl's okay, but the boys and the old man the world can do without. They got too many people in their pockets."

"Come on, Hank, who could they control?"

He took a pull of the drink and set the glass down. "It's not control exactly, it's just that they've been here long enough to know where the bodies are buried and can play the angles. The old man wants a bit in the paper . . . he gets a bit in the paper. He wants opening night tickets to the Civic Theater, he gets them. He wants his name out of the paper, he gets that."

"When does he want to be ignored?"

"Ha. Like when Theodore wrapped up two cars in a drunken driving spree and later when his old man had a statutory rape thing squashed for him and like when they interrogated everybody at the Cherokee Club after the attendant was killed. But not Rudy. He went home and no mention of him when everybody was listed in black and white. The power of social position, my boy, especially when wives try to climb the white ladder to the blue book and politicians need an in through an exclusive club in the state capital." He stopped and laughed. "But how about you? Where the hell have you been?"

I shrugged it off. "Ran away at twelve, tied in with a family of migrant bean pickers until they all died of the flu, latched on to a rancher in Texas who made sure I went to school, joined the Army . . . hell, I've been through the mill."

"You look it, son, you sure do." He cocked his head then, gave me a kind of sidewise look, his eyes studying my face intently and he said, "Damn if you don't look familiar. You do anything important?"

"I stayed alive."

"Well, you look familiar."

"I look like the old man, Hank."

He nodded slowly and finished his beer. "Yeah, I guess that's it, all right. Come on, have another beer."

"No thanks, I have to shove off. Look, I'll see you before I go."

"You better boy, or I'll come after you. Where you staying?"

I told him the name of the motel, threw some change on the bar, shook hands and walked out to the Ford. Things were looking up. The Bannermans weren't as pure as driven snow after all.

CHAPTER THREE

I had my own contact in Chicago and located Sam Reed who operated a horse parlor two blocks off The Loop. I told him to get me a rundown on what Matteau and Gage were doing in Culver City and after the usual stalling he told me he would. That is, if he could. I wasn't worried about it. One word to the right people and his tail would be in a sling so he'd be in there pitching to get off the hook.

Then I ate supper and drove back out to the estate.

Annie was like a little bird that night, chirping and flitting around me. She had baked all the goodies I used to like and made me try some of everything before I could get out of the kitchen. Miles, Rudy and Teddy had stayed in town attending to business, but Anita was upstairs in her room.

I tapped on the door, went in when she called and smiled at the lovely doll brushing her hair in front of the mirror. She spun, grinned and opened her arms so I could squeeze her right and said, "I've been waiting to see you all day."

"I've been busy, honey." I held her off and looked at her. "If I knew you were going to turn out like this I never would have left."

It was the wrong thing to say. The smile left her face and those great purple eyes were tinged with that funny sadness again. "Please, Cat."

I nodded. "Okay, kitten, I understand." I let her go.

"Vance has been good to me. It . . . hasn't been easy."

"Sure. But I just don't have to like it."

"I think you'll like him, Cat. He's respectable, dependable . . . and he's done so much."

"Like what?"

She turned back to the mirror, refusing to meet my eyes. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Fine, honey, one word and no more. Whether he's a nice joe or not in your book, he isn't in mine. Anybody who would tolerate those hoods in this house is scratching me the wrong way. So it's your business and I'm not going to interfere, but something is screwy around here and when I go I'll know about it. What I do about it is another thing."

The brush stopped its motion, then she jerked it through her hair and threw it down on the dressing table. Without looking at me she said, "It isn't like when you left, Cat. They're my family. They're all I have. Please don't do anything."

I switched the subject. "You have a date tonight?"

"No . . . Vance is going to stay in town on business. Some property he's involved with."

"Then suppose we just drop the subject, take in a club, listen to some music, see a show and dance. How about it?"

Her smile was like music. "All right, Cat. I'll be ready in fifteen minutes."

"I'll be downstairs."

But I didn't go downstairs. I went along the balcony to Miles' room and pushed the door open. I took five minutes to shake down his place and wasted each one. He was a clothes hog, had expensive taste and had nothing tucked away that pointed to trouble.

Teddy's taste was a little more flamboyant. He had a gun rack on the wall with two shotguns, a rifle and six pistols. There must have been a dozen framed pictures of broads placed around, each professional studio shots of the show-girl types, each signed with endearing bits of garbage to their wonderful Teddy who had probably kept them in mink coats.

It was Rudy who was the image of his old man. The conservative type who liked the big-business front. I went through his closet, and desk and the dresser drawers, again coming up with the big zero. His bookshelves were lined with the latest novels, predominately historical, and a set of legal tomes, just the thing any clean-cut American boy would have around. The only thing out of place was an eight-by-ten photo of a well-stacked brunette in a stage bikini and it wasn't signed. The back was tacky with rubber cement and he had probably swiped it from a display somewhere. At least he showed an interest in broads. I put the picture back and went downstairs to wait for Anita.

She was right on time, her dress a simple black thing that seemed to overflow with her, setting the dark blonde of her hair off to perfection. Just watching her come down those stairs made my stomach go hard and for a few seconds I felt all empty inside and cursed myself for having let the years go by. She had waited. Damn it, she had waited and when I came it was too late!

"Ready?" she asked me.

"Uh-huh. Where to?"

"Well, you said a club . . ."

"Tonight the best. After that it's peanut butter sandwiches."

"The Cherokee is the best."

"Let's go then."

About five miles northeast the shoreline jutted out into a peninsula an eighth of a mile long. Right at the tip the lights from a low, modern building fanned out into the dock area and batteries of spotlights lit up the parking site. Flanking the roadway on either side all the way in were tennis courts, pitch-'n-putt links and two swimming pools. At the very end a sedate neon sign read, Cherokee Club.

Anita said, "How did you know where to go? This has only been up three years."

I didn't tell her I'd been there before checking out the Bannerman credit. "Heard about it in town when I was finding out how much things have changed."

The house was full, and had it not been for Anita I never would even have made the parking lot. Every car there was one of the top three and just as the kid attendant was going to brush me off and catch himself a paste in the mouth, a big guy in a tux came over, saw her and waved the kid away. He threw up a grin and a salute, said, "Sorry, Miss Bannennan, the guy's new here."

"He take the place of the one who got shot?" I said.

"Yeah, and gettin' help ain't easy these days. Punk kids is all you get these days." He stopped and thought a moment. "The other one was knifed, not shot," he added as an afterthought. "Drive up to the door. I'll put your car in Miss Bannerman's usual place."

I slipped the Ford in gear and headed toward the building. "Pretty nice having your own slot. You come here often?"

"Only with Vance. He enjoys the atmosphere."

"He gamble too?"

Anita looked at me sharply, but my face showed nothing. "Very seldom. He's on the conservative side. He prefers investments."

"Good boy."

Inside we got the same preferential treatment from the doorman and headwaiter alike. Before we could be shown to a table a heavyset guy with close-cropped iron gray hair came up smiling, bowed to Anita and gave me a single look wondering where the hell I came from. She introduced him as the owner, Leslie Douglas and when he heard I was another Bannerman the same smile he had for her he gave to me. Old suit or not, if I were a Bannerman I had to be loaded, I guess.

The dining room lay like a horseshoe around a dance floor, butting a stage where an eight-piece band played quiet music. There were two bars, one catering only to the men, with the casino area taking up the entire second floor. The layout was professional. Not the loose Vegas or Reno attitude that would take anybody's nickel, but more on the Monte Carlo style, catering to a single class. Big Money. I felt as much at home as a cat in a dog kennel.

For two hours we drank, talked and danced. For two hours we were those kids again laughing about the things that had happened because now they were pathetically funny. For two hours I lied to her about all those years in between then and now because I didn't want her to know. And for two hours we were in love like nothing before and we knew it.

But there was nothing we could do about it. She had the Bannerman pride of honesty and I had the sense to keep my mouth shut even though I felt like exploding.

At five minutes to midnight she excused herself to go to the powder room and I waved for another drink. Before it came I saw the big guy edging over to my table, smiling and talking to the others on the way until he reached me. His nose had been broken, he had one twisted ear and under his clothes you knew there were great chunks of muscle that could hurt you bad if he wanted to.

He nodded at an empty chair and said, "Mind?"

"No, sit down. Want a drink!"

"Thanks. I'm on duty."

"Bouncing?"

His shoulders moved in a massive shrug. "It ain't really necessary. I just speak to 'em generally."

"That's the only way."

The guy was getting to something. He waited until I had the drink and leaned back languidly. "You got a rod on you, ain't you?"

"Sure," I said, "but it ain't really necessary. I just speak to 'em generally."

The frown broke into a hoarse laugh and he shook his head. "Like my kid says, you're cool, man."

"Got to be in this business."

"Ain't why I came though. Les told me you was a Bannerman. That right?"

"Sad, but true."

"Couldn't be old Cat Cay Bannerman, could it?"

I looked at him, trying to get his point. I nodded.

"Maybe you don't remember me. I got my face busted up in the ring, but I was different when I was a kid. Petey Salvo's the name. We went to the Ringdale school together."

I let out a laugh and stuck out my hand. "I'll be damned," I said. "Woppo Salvo, the kid who got his head stuck in the fence posts."

"You remember that?" he grinned.

"Hell, yes, like I remember the times you and me had it out in the lots for something or other. It's been a long time."

"Too long." He let his eyes go over my face. "You do some fighting?"

"Some."

"You look it. Stupid racket. How long you gonna be around?"

"Few days, maybe."

"Suppose we get together some time? Plenty things changed around here. You want to meet anybody, let me know."

"Good idea."

Petey Salvo shuffled the chair back and got ready to leave. "When I first saw you come in here I thought I recognized you from somewhere. Guys I get to know are the ones shouldn't be here so I was gonna heave you until Les give me the nod. Then I figured you was like a bodyguard to Miss Bannerman."

"She need one?"

"Her? Hell, she's the only decent one. It's those kids who are bums. The night Chuck Maloney got knifed and everyone got questioned he paid off to get hustled out of here and didn't even get his name in the papers."

I picked up my glass. "Maybe he stuck him."

"Yeah, that'll be the day. Maloney was an ex-marine and had thirty-one fights in the ring and when that powderpuff can close in on him I'll eat his shoes. He's strictly yellow, you know that. I saw a dame beat the hell out of him one night." He stood up and held out his hand again. "I'm around all the time. Look me up."

"Sure will, Petey."

"Stay for the next show. Real specialty number. Chuck Maloney's wife is doing a strip. Les gave her the job to kinda help things along for her. She used to do a circuit in the east and swings pretty good."

"I'll catch it."

Anita came back then, saw Petey leaving and said, "Company?"

"We used to go to school together, Ringdale P. S. where the Bannermans joined the hoi polloi to have the democratic flavor infused into their veins."

The lights dimmed then and a spot hit the dance floor. From the band came a sharp chord that was sustained until the M.C. came out with a hand mike and got everyone's attention. His announcement was brief . . . the Cherokee Club was about to offer its feature attraction for the evening, a blazing redhead who had set fire to stages all over the country and was persuaded to visit the club for a two week showing. And introducing, Irish Maloney and her drumbeat rhythm!

The bongos and the base started their beat, were joined by a single clarinet and out of the wings came the redhead. She was good, no doubt about that. She had crazy muscular control of every part of her body and could start a ripple going in her thighs that worked its way up her belly to her breasts and undulate back down again. She stayed there working the perimeter of the floor with her body inches away from gaping eyes for a full half hour until the drums gave out and she ran off in a wild burst of applause from everyone in the room.

She was interesting, all right . . . but the most interesting part was that she was the same doll whose picture I had seen in Rudy's room, only then the red hair had photographed brunette.

Anita said, "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

"I like you better. Ready to go?"

"Whenever you are."

I paid the tab, got her coat for her, said good night to Leslie Douglas on the way out and picked up the Ford myself. The kid in charge didn't seem anxious to tool anything less than a Caddie.

At the house I walked her to the door, turned her around and said, "Thanks for the night, honey."

She was crying. "Cat . . ."

"Look, I know. I know the reasons and the answers."

"Why does it have to be like this?"

"Because there's no other way. At least you're a real Bannerman. I'm still the bastard, remember."

"Please don't say that."

"Why fight the truth? There are two ends to the family . . . stay with the big one."

There was a funny light in her eyes when she said it. "I may at that."

Petey Salvo came out at three-thirty when the casino was empty. We drove a couple of miles to a drive in, ordered hamburgers and coffee and after a few minutes of old times I got to the point. "Petey . . . what's with this Maloney dish?"

"Ah, come on Cat, lay off her. She gave Chuck enough trouble. You don't want none of it."

"Who says I do?"

"Well, more guys get a stiff one for that broad than any I ever saw. She was always runnin' and Chuck was always belting some punk who went after her. She drove him nuts."

"Look . . . what about that guy the cops are after?"

"Him . . . Sanders? So he tried making a play for her and Chuck nailed him. He did it a couple more times and Chuck did the same thing. But the broad kept the guy coming back. She liked to see the action, that's what I think. Chuck should never've taken her out of show biz. He was better off without her."

"Rudy Bannerman."

"What about him?"

"He ever try for any of that?"

Petey bit into a hamburger and scowled. "You crazy? Chuck would've mangled him."

"So did he?"

"Ah, everybody tried one time or another. She used to hang around the tables a lot and you know how it goes. That Rudy makes like he's a wheel to all the dames and feels good when they play up to him, but he knew what would happen. Anyway, he's a damn drunk."

"So?"

"So when he gets loaded he's no good. I heard a couple of the kids he had out laughing about the guy. He's . . . he's . . . what's the word?"

"Impotent?"

"Yeah. No balls. Nothin' much else either. The dames laugh at him. Big guy and he falls apart in bed and bawls." He finished the other hamburger and washed it down with the coffee. "What you getting to anyway?"

"A little matter of blackmail, I think. I'm beginning to get ideas about how Maloney was killed."

"Well, if you find out, let me know first. Him and me were buddies."

CHAPTER FOUR

The first thing in the morning I called through to Chicago and got Sam Reed. In a hushed voice that always sounded scared when he was passing out a line he told me he had checked through on Popeye Gage and Carl Matteau and found out they were sent to Culver City ten days ago along with a bagman carrying a hundred grand that was going to set up an operation. The bagman came back, Gage and Matteau stayed to make sure Syndicate dough was spent like it was supposed to be. The only odd note was that although Popeye Gage was one of the "watchers," Matteau had come up in the organization the last few years and didn't take assignments like this unless he had a going interest in things. The word was that whatever the operation was to be, Matteau would run it. He was overseeing his product personally. The other bit was that Popeye had become a junkie and was pretty damn dangerous.

I told Sam thanks, said I'd return the favor and gave him the name of my motel in case anything else came up. He told me he would and broke the connection. Ordinarily Sam was closemouthed and it hurt him to get squeezed.

After breakfast I found out where Hank Feathers lived, got him out of the sack cussing up a storm until he knew it was me, then got invited over for coffee.

Hank lived alone in a small house outside of town. The old man and he used to laugh about their escapades with the women, but Hank never seemed to stick to one long enough to make it permanent. The place was small enough for him to take care of and served as a second office when necessary, and offered all the comforts a bachelor type could need.

When we got settled I said, "You did the story the night Maloney got killed at the Cherokee, didn't you?"

"Yeah, two columns. There wasn't anything to say."

"Run through it, will you?"

He watched me over the coffee cup. "Damn if you aren't your old man all over again. Get a nut in your head and you can't shake it loose."

"Well?"

Hank put the cup down and spread his hands. "Nothing. The guy was lying there dead with a knife hole in his chest. No scuffle, no nothing."

"Motive?"

"He had a five-hundred-buck watch some drunken clown gave him and a hundred eighty some odd bucks in his pocket. It wasn't robbery. He must have known the guy and didn't expect a shiv."

"Could have been something else."

"Oh?"

"Maybe he just wasn't afraid of him. He didn't expect the knife, but he wasn't scared."

"The cops had that angle too." He sipped his coffee again. "Not me though. I'd say it came as a complete surprise."

"Why?"

"He had a pack of club matches in one hand. There was a single unstruck match lying near the body. I'd say he was going to light a cigarette for somebody he knew when he got it in under the arms."

"The police reach the same conclusion?"

"Nope. Where he was were a lot of butts and some loose ones that fell out of his pocket. He always carried them loose. They say he was going to light his own and the guy caught him in that position."

I nodded, thought it through and finished my coffee. "I'd like a list of people who were there that night."

"Sure, check out two hundred reputable citizens and see what you can find. I tried it. What are you after anyway?"

"Something named Bannerman," I said. "Rudy Bannerman."

Hank Feathers grinned and leaned back into the chair. "Why didn't you ask it? He was plastered. He had just dropped fifteen Gs in the casino and got loaded at the bar. When the cops came they found him in the men's room locked in a toilet sick as a pig. He had puked his ears off and sobered up pretty fast . . . enough to get himself out of there in a hurry, but he couldn't have raised a burp far less than a knife."

"The cops ever find the weapon?" I asked him.

"Not likely. The police surgeon said it was made by a stiletto with a six inch blade three quarters of an inch wide at the base. With all the water around here to throw it into there's little chance of finding it. Whoever killed him had plenty of time to dump the knife . . . Maloney was dead twenty minutes before anybody knew about it."

"Nicely set up."

"Wasn't it though? Now you got something on your mind, boy. Get with it. I'll feed you, but let's you feed me too."

"Feel up to stepping on toes?"

"Son, that's my life."

"Okay, see if Irish Maloney ever had anything to do with Rudy Bannerman."

"Brother!"

"He had a picture of her in his room. Care to try it!"

"You just bought it, son. I hope you don't get hurt."

"I've been hurt all I'll ever be, Hank."

The Bannerman name carried a lot of weight. There was only one family of them in Culver City and whoever bore it was set apart as a special person to be considered in a unique fashion. And like all families who occupied that niche, little was unknown about them no matter what it was. From the docks to the country clubs, they knew my old man and liked him, but the rest were another breed entirely.

They knew about the bastard Bannerman too, but as long as he was part of old Max he was right and it was the in I needed. It hadn't taken long for word to get around once I planted the seed. All they wanted to know was that I was a Bannerman and I had plans.

I hit three of the largest realtors, sat through cocktails twice and a lunch and came up with a talker when I found Simon Helm and got the idea across that I was back looking to establish a moderate smokeless industry somewhere in the area. After a few drinks he showed me the maps, pointed out suitable locations, let me digest his thoughts and settled down to the general discussions that precede any deal.

Vance Colby's name had to come up. Helm asked me bluntly why I didn't go through my prospective cousin-in-law to make a buy and just as bluntly I said I didn't like him.

"Well," Helm said, "I'm afraid a lot of us share your opinion." He let out a short laugh. "Not that he's greedy or crooked . . . I'm afraid he's a little too shrewd for us country folks. For the little while he's been here he's made some big deals."

"It figures."

"Now he's got the property adjacent to the new city marina. You know what that means?"

"Prime land," I said.

"Even better. If anyone puts up a club there the expense of a water landing is saved, it's cheap filled property in the best spot around with the advantage of having access to all major highways."

"That's an expensive project."

"His commission will be enormous. It would be better still if he did it himself."

"That's a multi-million dollar project."

"It can be financed," he said.

"Is he that big?"

"No," Simon Helm said slyly, "but with Bannerman money behind him it could be done. Quite a coup."

"I'll take it the hard way."

He nodded energetically. "I don't blame you. Now, when would you like to look at the properties?"

"In a day or two. I have them spotted and I'll drive out myself. If I make a decision I'll contact you."

"A pleasure, Mr. Bannerman. I'm happy you came to me."

"So am I, Mr. Helm."

Right after supper I called Petey Salvo and asked him if he could stop by my motel before he went to the club. He said he'd be there by eight and didn't ask any questions. I drove back, had a hot shower, shaved and took out the .45 and went through the ritual of cleaning it, then laid it on the table while I pulled on my clothes.

It was just seven forty-five when the knock came on my door and I opened it hanging onto my pants, figuring Petey was early.

This time I figured wrong. The two of them came in easy with Popeye Gage leveling a snub nosed Banker's Special at my gut and his eyes lit up like a neon sign. Behind him was Carl Matteau and the smile he wore was one of total pleasure because this kind of business was his kind of business and he enjoyed every minute of it.

"Back," he said. "Real quiet, guy."

I wasn't about to argue with the gun. All I could do was toss the towel I had in my hand on the table to cover up the .45 laying there and hope they didn't catch the act. That much I got away with if it could do any good. The only other thing I could do was pull the scared act and button up my pants just to be doing anything and Popeye Gage grinned through his swollen mouth and let me have the side of the gun across the temple.

Before he moved I saw it coming and rolled enough to miss most of it, but it slammed me back against the bed and I hit the floor facedown. Matteau said, "More, Popeye."

He worked me hard then, his feet catching my ribs and my arms, but only once did he land one on my head and then he nearly tore my scalp off. He was laughing and sucking air hard to get the boot into me and every time he did all I could think of was how hard I was going to step on his face when my turn came. He stopped for a few seconds and I made the mistake of turning my head. When I did the butt end of the gun smashed down on the back of my skull like a sledgehammer and I felt my chin and mouth bite into the floor and the ebb and flow of unconsciousness that never quite came. All I had was that terrible pounding inside my brain and the complete inability to move any part of my body.

But Carl knew when I was all there again. He said, "Talk up, wise guy."

"Should I make him?" Popeye said.

"No, he'll do it himself."

I dragged myself away from the bed, tried to sit up and tasted the salty taste of blood in my mouth.

"Nobody pulls the kind of crap you did and gets away with it," Carl told me slowly. "Now let's hear it."

I shook my head. I couldn't get any words out.

"You don't belong here. Why, punk?"

"I . . . lived here."

"Sure. So why'd you come back?"

"Vacation. I was . . . going east."

"Let me . . ."

"Shut up, Popeye. This guy's a punk. Look at him. Take a look at his face, all beat up. He packs a rod, he's got nothing behind him so he's a punk. He comes back to put the bite on the family like any punk will do only now he gets no bite. He gets wise with me and he gets nothing except his face all smashed in or a bullet in his belly if he tries to play it smart. See his car? Six years old. You checked his duds . . . all junk. Someplace he's a small time punk, a cheap hood and these mugs we deal with the same old way, right, Bannerman?"

"Look . . ."

It was almost time for Petey to show. I hoped he'd know how to play it.

"Out," Matteau said. "Tonight you leave. You stay one more day and you get buried here."

I was going to tell him to drop dead when he nodded to Popeye Gage and the gun came down again. This time there was no intermediate darkness. It was all nice and black and peaceful and didn't hurt a bit until I woke up.

And that was when Petey Salvo was shaking me. He was twenty minutes late. I was half naked and he was slopping off the blood and holding a wet towel to the cut on my head making noises like the second in the corner of a losing fighter.

I said, "Hi, Petey."

"What the hell happened to you? The door was open so I came in thinkin' you was sacked out and you're all over blood. You have a party going?"

I sat up, got to my feet and squatted on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, I had a surprise party from a couple of goons."

"Then come on, man, we'll nail 'em. You know who they were?"

"I know."

"So where do we go?"

"No place, pal."

He took the towel away and looked at me, his face puzzled. "You just gonna take it like that?"

I shook my head and it hurt. "No."

"So let's go then."

I pushed his hand away. "Let it be, buddy. I've had the treatment before. It proves a point right now and when the time comes I'll lay those pigs out all the way."

"How come you got took?"

"I thought it was you."

"Shit." He seemed embarrassed. "If I didn't get inna argument with the old lady I coulda been here."

"Forget it. In a way I'm glad it happened. The guys who took me should have knocked me off. Only now they hand me walking papers and expect me to move out." I looked up at the huge hulk of the guy and grinned. "They got the wrong Bannerman. I'm the bastard, remember?"

"Hell, I know you ain't chicken. I just don't like that stuff. Why you take it anyway?"

"Because it ties in with Maloney's murder, kid. I want the one who did it and why. So stop sweating. This Cat got nine lives."

"Sure. How many did you use up already?"

"About seven," I said.

It took another scalding-hot shower and a bruising rubdown by Petey to get me back in shape, but when it was over all I had was a small headache and a bunch of bruises. Then we got in the two cars and he did what I asked him to do.

He took me over to see Irish Maloney to introduce me as an old buddy who heard his friend was dead and came by to pay his respects to the widow.

It was a small house with a small garden and a two-year-old car in the garage halfway down Center Drive. It wasn't much, but all the signs were there of a guy who tried to make the best of what he had in every way and I knew what Chuck Maloney really felt about his wife.

On the stage she was sensational, but meeting her stretched out on a chaise under a sun lamp was another thing. Oh, she had the lumps in the right places, the hippy curves and the full breasts that modern culture demands, the sensuous look that comes from Max Factor tins, but there were other things that took her down all the way. Clever lighting could take years off her, but up close you could see the years closing in, the tiny wrinkles around the eyes and the beginning of the flesh getting slack and the striations on the upper parts of her thighs where the skin had stretched sometime when she ate her way out of the burlecue circuit.

Yet inside her mind she was still twenty years old and all men were at her feet and she was able to prove it nightly at the Cherokee and forget that sheer professionalism and the help of electricians could put her across.

Petey said, "This here's my friend, Cat." He looked at me and conveniently forgot my last name. "Cat Cay. He was Chuck's friend too. He just wanted to talk, so I'll leave you guys alone. I got to get to the club. You got another hour yet, Irish."

I got the full treatment when Petey left; the way she sat up, took off the sunglasses and doubled her legs under her to make sure I got the full benefit of everything she had to show. The shorts were tight and showed the voluptuous V of her belly and deliberately low enough to show where she had shaved to fit into her costume. She leaned over to make me a drink from the decanter on the table, curving herself so I would be impressed by the way the halter held her breasts high and firm, pushing out over the top so the nipples were almost exposed.

Too many times I had gone the route before and knew the action so I could afford to ignore the invitation and when I took the drink and sat down opposite her I let her see my eyes and read my face until she knew I was what I was, but couldn't quite understand it.

I said, "Sorry about Chuck. He was a good friend. We were in the Marines together."

She lifted her glass, toasted me with a silent kiss. "That's how it goes."

"No remorse?"

"He was a little man."

"I don't know."

"He got himself killed, didn't he? This guy Sanders . . ."

She didn't let me finish. "Sanders was a nothing too. He couldn't kill a fly. All he was scared of was being put back in the pen." Irish Maloney downed the drink in three fast gulps and set the glass down.

"He wasn't a Rudy Bannerman?"

"Who?"

"Rudy."

"Him?" she said, "A nothing. Strictly nothing. A boy in long pants. He's good for a goose when nobody's watching and nothing more." She smiled at me, loose and wanting. "What kind of man are you, Mr. Cay?"

"Big," I said.

"Not if you were Chuck's friend. He never had big friends."

"In the Marines he had."

"Then come here and show me."

She reached her hand down and a zipper made that funny sound and the shorts were suddenly hanging loose down one side. She smiled again, her mouth wet and waiting and she leaned back watching me.

I stood up. "Thanks for the offer, honey, but like I said, Chuck was my friend. There should be a period of mourning."

I thought she'd get mad. They usually do, but not her. She giggled, blinked her eyes and made a mouth at me. "Ohoo, you got to be a big man to say no."

"Not necessarily."

The giggle again. Then she hooked her thumbs in the hem of the shorts, stripped them off in one swift motion, held them high overhead and let them fall to the floor. She let herself fall back into the chaise longue in a classic position, still smiling, knowing damn well what was happening to me. "Now say no." Her voice was husky with the beat in it.

"No," I said.

I walked to the door, opened it and turned around. She hadn't changed position or stopped smiling. Before I could find the right words Irish Maloney said, "I'm coming to get you, big man."

"I'm not hard to find," I told her.

When I was in the Ford and on the way back to town I knew one thing. I had found a good motive for murder. The thing was, how did it tie in with Gage and Matteau being involved with the Bannermans? There was one way to find out.

CHAPTER FIVE

I walked around the house and went in the back way where Annie was cleaning up in the kitchen. When I tapped on the door her head jerked up, birdlike, and she put the tray of dirty glasses in the sink and minced to the porch, flicked the light on and peered out into the dark. "Yes . . . who is it?"

"Cat, honey. Open up."

She smiled happily, pulled the latch and I stepped inside. "My word, boy, what are you doing coming in the back way? You are a Bannerman."

"Hell, Annie, it's the only way I was ever allowed in the house anyway. You forget?"

"Well you don't have to do that now."

"This time I did," I said. "I want to talk to you before I see them."

Her mouth seemed to tighten up and she half turned away. "If you don't mind . . . I'm . . . only an employee. Please . . ."

"In the pig's neck. You were the only old lady I ever had. If it hadn't been for you and Anita they would have starved me out long before I left. The Bannermans don't have room for a bastard in their great halls of luxury." I put my arm around her and led the way to the breakfast niche and sat down opposite her.

"Look, honey. Nothing goes on around here that you don't know. You have eyes like an eagle and ears like a rabbit and there isn't a keyhole or pinprick in a wall you haven't peeked through. Any secrets this family have, you have too, even if you do keep them locked behind sealed lips. That's well appreciated if it's for the good, but right now something is wrong and there's big trouble going on . . ."

"You . . . can only make it worse."

"Do you know about it?"

She hesitated, then her eyes dropped in front of my gaze. "Yes," she said simply.

"So what's the pitch."

"I . . . don't think I should tell you."

"I can find out the hard way, Annie. The trouble might get worse then."

She fidgeted with the salt shaker on the table a moment, then looked up. "It's Rudy," she said. "He killed the attendant at the Cherokee Club."

"What?"

She nodded. "It's true. He was drunk and he gets mean when he's drunk and doesn't get his own way. He . . . went to get his car and the attendant thought he had too much to drink to drive and wouldn't get the car and Rudy . . . went back inside . . . and got the knife . . . and stabbed him."

I reached over and grabbed the fragile hand. "Who says so, Annie?"

"Those two men . . . they were there. They had just driven up."

The picture began to form then. "So they picked up the knife after Rudy ran for it and they got the thing with his fingerprints all over it," I stated.

"Yes."

"What does Rudy say about it?"

She shook her head sadly. "He doesn't remember a thing. He was drunk and sick. He can't remember anything."

"And now they want money, is that it?"

"Yes . . . I think so. I . . . really don't know."

"Everybody inside?"

"They're waiting for Vance. Yes, they're inside."

I got up, gave her hand a squeeze and told her not to worry. Then I went out the kitchen, through the hall into the library where the clan was gathered looking like they were waiting for a bomb to hit.

From the expression on their faces, when they saw me, they saw the bomb coming. Old Uncle Miles grabbed the arms of the chair and his face turned white. Rudy, who had been pacing the floor with his hands behind his back, suddenly became too flaccid to stand and tried to look nonchalant as he settled on the arm of the chair Teddy was cowering in.

Only Anita seemed genuinely glad to see me, her smile erasing the worry look as she left the couch to come across the room with her hand out. I knew what she was thinking, all right; she could steer me out of there before I churned things up. But even she wasn't going to stop what I was going to do.

I hooked my arm under hers and went to the desk where Miles was glowering at me and sat on the edge. Everybody had something to say, but nobody wanted to speak. I looked at chubby cousin Rudy and said, "Hear you're sweating a murder charge, cousin."

That was the bomb going off. You could hear the hiss of breath, the sucking sounds, the sudden jerking movements as the words hit them. All Anita did was tighten her hand on mine and look down at the floor.

"How . . . did you find out?"

Over my shoulder I said, "Easy, Uncle. I just asked around. I saw Gage and Matteau here and put two and two together. To me they add up. Dear cousin Rudy's got his ass in a sling he can't get out of and it's about time it happened. I'm happy for one thing though . . . I'm here to see it. And it doesn't only hit the fat slob, it breaks down to Teddy and you too, Miles. You'll never hold your heads up around here again. From now on you'll be the joke of the community and when they strap old killer Rudy there in the chair the Bannerman family comes to a screaming halt."

Rudy looked like he'd get sick. Miles kept swallowing hard, his scrawny chest gulping air.

"And me, Cat?" Anita asked.

"You're going to be a Colby, honey. You won't be wearing the Bannerman name."

"Do you think he'll have me?"

"Does he know about this?"

"Yes, he does. He's helping all he can."

"How?"

She glanced at Miles, wondering whether to tell me or not, then made the decision for herself. "He's tried to make a settlement with those men. He's threatened them and everything else, but they can't be moved. They . . . want an awful lot of money."

"How much?"

Rudy broke in, his voice weak. "See here, Anita . . ."

"Shut up, Rudy," I said. He did, and fast. "Go on, Anita."

"A . . . million dollars."

I let out a soft, slow whistle. "Well, it looks like Rudy's making a real dent in the family budget. What are you going to do about it?"

They all tried to look at each other at once. I caught the exchange and grinned at them. Finally Miles croaked, "We'll see that . . . it is paid, not that it is any of your affair."

"And what happens?" I slid off the desk, turned around and leaned on it and faced Miles down. "Rudy gets off the hook and the Sanders guy eventually gets nailed by the cops. He's got a prison record and a possible motive for killing Maloney. He's got no alibi and he loused things up by taking off when he heard of the killing. There's no murder weapon for evidence and the jury thinks it has a solid case and gives him the black verdict and the guy gets the chair. How are the Bannermans going to feel then when they know one of their own is responsible for the death of two people now and the real killer is inside their own house?"

Rudy did get sick then. He let out a soft moan, grabbed his stomach and ran from the room.

Miles said, "What are you . . . thinking of?"

I straightened up and glanced around the room. "I don't know. I sure got an ax over your heads now. You beat me to the ground when I wasn't old enough to fight back and now I might have some fun."

"Oh, Cat. . . ." Anita's eyes were bright with tears. She looked at Miles first, then Teddy and at Rudy who came back with a face as white as snow. "Don't do that to them . . . they're such . . . such nothings anyway."

I nodded, "Don't feel sorry for them sugar, maybe I can instill some character in them. Maybe Rudy will get an urge of integrity and decide to come clean."

One look at Rudy made that a joke. Rudy wasn't going to confess to anything.

I had something else to tell them they would like to have heard, but the entrance of Vance Colby stopped that. He strode into the library as if it were his own, immediately sensed the situation and said directly to Anita in an accusing tone. "You told him."

She let go my arm. "He found out by himself."

"And may I ask what this matter has to do with you?"

"If you're looking for a smack in the chops you're going about it the right way, buddy."

His smile was hard and the curious glint in his eyes painted the picture nicely. The casual way he walked up didn't hide the sudden bunching of muscles under his coat. He said, "Am I?"

And before he could start the judo chop I belted him in the damn mouth so hard the skin of my knuckles split on his teeth and he rolled twice before the couch stopped him and he looked up at me with a face full of hate as big as your hat. He was one of those overconfident types who had put in too many hours in a gym wearing a Jap toga and practicing un-American fighting and he forgot about a straight right to the kisser. Hell, I'd had it out with dozens of these types before. "The next time I may shoot you, Vance."

I pushed my coat back to get at a handkerchief for my hand and let him see the .45. He didn't answer. He kept both hands to his mouth and tried to sit up.

"Aren't you going to help him, Anita?"

"No," she said solemnly, "I knew what he was going to do. I've seen him do it before. I think Vance needed that lesson. He can get up by himself."

Very gently, I leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Thanks, kitten." I took her arm and started out the library. At the front door I said, "Look, I'd sooner see them sweat than start trouble, but don't you get involved in this mess. That Maloney kill is still wide open and there's no statute of limitations on murder. There's something fishy going on here and I'm going to dig it out. I want you to do me a favor."

"What, Cat?"

"Let me know what they plan to do. Everything, okay?"

"Okay, darling." She frowned at what she said, then smiled softly. She reached up and touched my face. "I can trust you."

"You won't get hurt," I told her. I kissed her mouth and the tip of her nose, but it wasn't enough. She was back there in my arms again for one fierce moment and it was us, just us and no one else. I knew my fingers were hurting her arms and I pushed her away feeling my heart smashing against my ribs.

"We'll make it, baby."

"No . . . we never can. I wish . . . but we can't."

I left her like that and went out to the car. At any time now the stuff was going to hit the fan.

At the motel I told the clerk at the desk I'd be around a little while yet, paid the bill up to date and went to my room. I double locked the door, shoved the .45 under my pillow, showered and flaked out with the radio playing softly in my ear.

Popeye Gage and Carl Matteau. They came to town behind a bagman who carried a hundred grand and it could be it was to set up an operation for Matteau. Luck played into their hands when they saw Maloney killed and picked up the evidence. His original investment had now increased tenfold if he pulled it off.

I reached to switch the radio off when the late news came on from the local station and the first item the announcer read off was that Guy Sanders, prime suspect in the Chuck Maloney murder, had been picked up in Seattle, Washington and arrangements were being made for his extradition.

CHAPTER SIX

The morning papers had it all laid out. There was a full statement from the D.A. who claimed there was no doubt concerning Sanders's guilt and felt certain a confession could be obtained after an interrogation. He rehashed the details of the crime and stated that Sanders would be brought to trial as soon as feasible.

On the inside pages an editorial went through it again, crying out the need for justice and lauding the D.A. for his attitude concerning the affair. It looked like Sanders had had it. As far as the city was concerned, the investigation was over. Only the prosecution remained.

After I got dressed and ate I drove around for two hours checking out the properties Simon Helm had suggested to me, jotting down quick notes so I could have an intelligent though phoney conversation with him. When I finished it was a little after ten A.M. and I got to his office just as he was coming in.

For the kind of deal he was hoping to set up with me he was willing to forego all other engagements and took me back into his office with orders to his secretary not to disturb us. She had coffee ready, set us up and left.

"Now, Mr. Bannerman, how did you like the sites I pointed out?"

"Only two have possibilities," I said. "The old Witworth estate and the Flagler Hill section. However, they both lack one essential . . . a water table sufficient to my needs."

"How would you know about that?" he asked with a degree of surprise.

"When you know how to ask questions you get some great answers. It's my business."

"Well, I heard this rumor, but never gave it a thought. My, we have to find something else quickly."

"I'll tell you what I have in mind."

"Oh?"

"You'll have to investigate the deal . . . but it'll all be a matter of public record anyway. Check out that property my future cousin-in-law has next to the proposed city marina."

"But Mr. Bannerman . . ."

"For my purposes it's ideal. The building will be modern, handsome, the Industry smokeless, the access highways are at hand . . . a railroad siding can be extended from the Tompson works and the benefits to the city will be far greater than that of another gambling casino."

"But . . ."

"No buts, Mr. Helm. If you don't want to handle it there are others."

He couldn't fight that attitude. He shrugged and drank his coffee. "Very well, I'll see how far things have gone. However, if it is not possible . . ."

"Then I'll have to take something else," I finished for him. "How long will it take?"

He glanced at the clock on the wall. "If I get to it right away . . . perhaps this afternoon."

I got up and reached for my hat. "I'll be back later."

"Certainly, Mr. Bannerman," he said, rolling his tongue around the name.

Hank Feathers didn't reach his office until a little before noon. I whistled out the window of the car and he came plodding across the street all grin and crinkly eyes and got in beside me.

"Step on any toes?" I asked him.

"Well now, son, I don't know yet. I got up around the Maloney place and funny enough I know quite a few people up there. One of our printers has a place two houses away and a garrulous wife. Anyway, after due poking around I came up with a lot of answers."

"Gossip or answers?"

"You do the separating," Hank said. "This Maloney woman has quite a neighborhood reputation. She made no bones about her conduct, rather enjoying the Madame Pompadour concept. She had plenty of visitors, plenty."

"Anybody special?"

"Don't jump the gun, son," he smiled, holding up his hands. "Rudy Bannerman was positively identified having tried to gain admittance on two occasions, both times while he was crocked. One, during an afternoon, he was seen for better than an hour in her back yard while she was sunbathing. The whole thing was observed and though he was well tempted by that lovely dish, he stoutheartedly left before the husband returned."

"Good for him."

"The suspect Guy Sanders made several surreptitious trips to visit Irish and twice was seen with her in a neighborhood bar. It's enough to hang him."

"They'll sure try it."

"But here's the interesting note. From a couple of very nosey sources, one an old lady given to staying up late and the other our printer's wife who has some odd habits including insomnia, I learn that there was one fairly common visitor to the Maloney household when the husband was on the late shift at the Cherokee Club."

"Any description?"

"Very little. He was always dressed in a suit or topcoat, wore a hat and moved fast. Generally he drove up, apparently at a specified time and she came out, joined him in the car and they drove away."

"Car?"

"What old dame can identify a new car at night? It was a dark one, that's all. They suspect that he was Sanders."

"Great. What do you think?"

Hank shrugged, looked at me and said, "The guy was thin . . . so is Sanders. Rudy Bannerman is chubby. At least it wasn't him. Anything else you want me to get in trouble over?"

"I'll think of something."

He opened the door and stepped but, then remembered something and said, "By the way, I bumped into a guy who wants to see you very badly. A friend of your old man's."

"Who?"

"George P. Wilkenson, the family solicitor."

"Wilkenson? Damn, he must be ninety years old."

"Ninety-three. He's still active. Anyway, I told him you were back and he said it was urgent you get up and see him. He lives back in the past these days and can still chew your ears off. He and your old man were great fishing buddies."

"I'll say hello before I leave," I said. "And hey . . . who's a cop you can trust? Somebody with a gold badge."

"Try Lieutenant Travers. Tell him I recommended him."

I waved so-long, drove back downtown and cut over to the Municipal Building that housed the First Precinct and went in and asked for Lieutenant Travers. The desk sergeant made the call, told me to go on back and gave me directions.

Travers was pretty young as Lieutenants go, but he had all the little earmarks that stamped him as a professional law enforcement officer. Tough when he had to be, smart always, cute when necessary and suspicious eternally. He gave me one of those long slow up-and-down looks when I walked in, was ready enough with a handshake and an invitation to sit down and had I not left the .45 and the speed rig in the car he would have spotted it and shaken me down on the spot. He caught the name, but it didn't cut any ice with him at all.

"Related to the Bannerman family locally?" He held out a pack of butts and I shook my head.

"In a way. I'm a bastard." His eyes jumped up. "A real one . . . born out of wedlock and all that crap."

He sucked on his cigarette. "Yeah, I've heard that story. Now, what can I do for you?"

"I've recognized two Chicago hoodlums in this town, Lieutenant. One is Popeye Gage and the other Carl Matteau."

Travers watched me, swung slowly in his chair a few times and said, "I know they're here, but how did you recognize them, Mr. Bannerman?"

I had to grin. "Got in a little deal in Chicago once and they were pointed out as Syndicate men. They both have records and I thought you might like to know about it."

"Uh-huh." He took another big drag on the butt and laid it down. "We appreciate your being civic-minded, but there's nothing we can do. Is there a complaint you'd like to lodge?"

"Nope, but since I'm considering relocating back here I don't want any Syndicate people moving in on any business I have in mind."

"Then don't worry about it, Mr. Bannerman. Unfortunately, in any state that has legalized gambling, there is a certain amount of outside interference and an influx of off-color characters. In this case, Matteau is clean and has applied for a gambling license although his location is not specified. Knowing local politics, I'd say he'll have it accepted. Nevertheless, he'll be well investigated and will comply with all state and local laws."

I eased out of the chair and said, "Thanks, Lieutenant. It's nice to know we're all safe from the criminal element."

For some reason he gave me a funny look, his eyes slitted almost shut and grinned right across his face. "It's nice to be appreciated, Mr. Bastard Bannerman."

I laughed at him, threw a wave and went back to my car. Fifteen minutes later I parked in the rear of the Bannerman Building on Main Street and took the elevator up to Rudy's office where the receptionist told me she was sorry, but nobody could see Mr. Bannerman without an appointment.

When I said I was Cat Bannerman and she had no choice she reached for the intercom until I switched it off and she took one look at my face and thought it better to head for the ladies' room.

My chubby cousin had a nice setup. All the accoutrements for the idle rich. A mahogany desk, antique furniture, a well organized bar, golf clubs stacked in the corner with parlor-putting devices in a rack on the wall, a couch under a row of book shelves, a stereo hi-fi set and TV built into the walls and that was the order of business.

Except for Rudy Bannerman. He was stretched out on the couch with a wet towel across his forehead and when he saw me he pulled the towel off and sat up with an expression of pure fear on his face.

"Hello, Cousin," I said. I toed a chair in close to the couch and sat down. "You're shook, cousin. You're thinking of what it feels to be a killer. You're going through the pain of relief because they finally caught up with Guy Sanders."

"Cat . . ." He licked his lips nervously.

"I'll tell you, cousin, but first I want some answers. Talk back or hand me any crap and I'll slap you silly. We're not kids anymore. You're not a few years older and twenty pounds heavier where it counts. Now you're older and a pig and I can tear your ears off."

He couldn't take it. He flopped back on the couch reaching for the towel. I said, "You had a picture of Irish Maloney in your room. Where did you get it?"

"I . . . from the display at the Club."

"Why?"

He came up from the couch, his face livid. "I don't have to put up with this! I'm going to call the police. I'm . . ."

"Knock it off."

Rudy looked like he was going to have some kind of attack. He came apart in little pieces until his round body began to heave with jerky sobs and once again he went back into the contour of the couch and stayed there.

"I asked you a question. If you want the police, they can ask it."

"She . . . was nice."

"How often did you see her?"

"She didn't want to see me. I was a Bannerman and that tramp . . ."

"How often, Rudy?"

"A . . . few times, that's all. She . . . she didn't like me."

"I wonder why."

"She didn't have to say the things she did."

"How did you kill him, Rudy?"

His head rolled toward the wall. "I don't remember. I was . . . drunk. Sick."

"When did they put the bite on you?"

"Who?"

"Gage and Matteau. When did they make their offer?" I asked him.

"Two days later. They . . . went to father. He had Vance see them. There was nothing we could do. Nothing at all." His voice trailed off to a whisper.

"When do they want the dough, Rudy?"

He was on his side now, not able to look at me at all. He was like a baby in bed, seeking the comfort of crib and covers. "Saturday," he got out.

Three days from now. To get a million bucks up meant a lot of converting and it wasn't going to be easy and here was this slob sitting on his tail crying. Whatever stocks and properties were going into the pot for this little venture must be damn negotiable to be taken so lightly. In this day of taxes and paperwork a million bucks to line a hood's pockets wasn't easy to lay hold of. Taxes alone on that kind of loot would be enormous.

"Who's handling the arrangements, Rudy?"

"Vance . . . he's doing everything."

"Why him?"

"Father is . . . sick. He gave Vance our power of attorney."

I climbed out of the chair and started towards the door. This time Rudy turned over when he heard me leaving. The pathos on his face was disgusting. "What're you . . . going to do, Cat?"

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe I'll turn you in and watch you burn."

Petey Salvo lived in the house he had been born in. There was a kid in a carriage, a couple more under school age tearing the flowerbeds up and a twelve-year-old boy sick in bed with a cold. The others were in their classrooms and Petey was trying to grab a bite and argue with his wife at the same time.

At least I got him off the hook in a hurry. A Bannerman coming to visit the Salvos was the biggest day in her life and when he introduced me the busty doll in the pink housecoat with a headful of curlers almost broke a track record getting into the bedroom to get herself straightened out and when she came back she looked at her husband with a totally different look in her eyes and I knew from then on things were going to be different around there. Petey caught the bit too and winked at me over his coffee cup and told her to blow with a voice of authority and like a dutiful wife she left bowing and scraping like I was the baron of Bannerman Estates. Luckily, he didn't mention I was the bastard one.

He shoved some biscuits my way and I buttered up. "How're your contacts around town, Petey?"

"Like what?"

"Two hoods are in from Chi. I want them located." I gave him their names and descriptions and he took them down in his head.

"No trouble. Maybe need a day."

"Too long."

"So I put out the word and we grab 'em. These the same ones hit you in the motel?"

"That's right."

"I thought so. I was wondering when you was gonna move in. You never let yourself get took before."

"I had a reason, Petey."

"Figured that too. How do you want to work it?"

"Just get 'em spotted. I'll do the rest."

"Like hell, Cat. If this ties in with Chuck I want part of it."

"You'll get cut in, buddy. I have a feeling I'm going to need you."

"You'll buzz me in a coupla hours. I'll see what I can do, okay?"

"Got it."

Simon Helm had had visions of money dangled before his eyes. He was waiting for me with photostats of the records he had accumulated and all the additional information he had picked up. He pulled a chair out for me, got behind the desk and swung the folder around for me to view his massive efforts in my behalf. "There it is, Mr. Bannerman, but I'm afraid it's all too late. Vance Colby picked up the option on that property for ninety thousand dollars. The option to be exercised within three months. The property alone is worth in the vicinity of a quarter million and his proposed installation will go a half million, at least. At this point I don't know if he is acting for himself, or another party, but in view of his past and knowing his method of operation, I'd say he was simply first man in a deal. You understand?"

"I get the picture. The property is out, right?"

"Definitely. The money has changed hands. The option has been signed. I'm afraid you'll have to consider other properties."

I shoved my hat back and wiped my face. "Guess I'll have to. I'll take a run out and look at the other places tomorrow. Sorry to put you to all the trouble."

"No trouble at all, Mr. Bannerman. Take your time and if you need any help, just call on me."

"Thanks, Mr. Helm, I will. Count on it."

I got gas down the corner and put in a call to the house. Annie answered and when I asked for Anita, put her on. I said, "Cat, honey."

"Where are you?"

"In town. You have any news?"

When she spoke her voice was hushed. "Uncle Miles is in his room with Teddy. They've had people here all day and didn't want me around. That one man was here too."

"The older guy, Matteau?"

"That's the one." Very softly she said, "Cat . . . what's happening?"

"Trouble, baby. Where's Vance?"

"He just left. It was . . . terrible. They won't back down. They want all that money and . . ."

"Don't worry about it, Anita."

"I heard that . . . that . . . Matteau tell Vance . . . if he didn't get everybody straightened out somebody else would get killed. He's vicious. Cat . . . please help us, please. Vance is doing all he can, converting all his properties to help Uncle Miles. Cat, I'm frightened."

"Relax, doll. I'm beginning to get ideas. You just sit tight, hear?"

"I can't. Oh, please, Cat, do something."

"I will, baby," I said. "I will."

I hung up and stared at the phone a moment. A lot had fallen into place, now it was time to play the calculated hunches. I made a collect call to the coast and got Marty Sinclair and gave him the dope I wanted. I told him to push it and reach me anytime at night at the motel if he had to, otherwise I'd call him back tomorrow.

Then I went home. I parked the car, opened the door, walked in and flipped on the light. She was laying there naked as a jaybird on my bed with her clothes strewn all over the floor and a cigarette burning in her fingers.

I said, "How'd you get in here, Irish?"

"Told the desk clerk I was your wife." She held up her hand with the rings on it. "He simply looked at this and thought you'd appreciate the surprise. Do you?"

"Love it. You don't mourn long, do you?"

"Hardly a minute, Mr. Bannerman."

I looked at her sharply and she caught it.

"Cat Cay Bannerman," she said. "The desk clerk told me that too. Like you said, you are big. But you didn't know Chuck in the Marines, did you?"

"No."

"Then you must have come to see me."

"Right."

"Why?"

"I was checking out a motive for your husband's murder. A good nympho can get a lot of guys killed. I wanted to see how well you knew Rudy Bannerman."

"And I told you."

I put it to her bluntly. "There was somebody else . . . not Sanders. You were seen with him several times."

"Mr. Bannerman, there have been many others."

"This one was there often. Late."

Irish Maloney wouldn't have made a dime playing poker. She frowned, thought a moment and said, "There was Arthur Sears. I liked him."

"What was he like?"

"Good-looking, money, big fancy Buick, treated a woman real nice. He was in love with me." She grinned and squirmed on the bed. "He wanted me to leave Chuck and go away with him. He said he'd do anything for me and he meant it too. I like that, men wanting to do all those things for me."

"Why didn't you go?"

"And have Chuck slap me silly? Besides, he didn't have that kind of money. When I go, I want to go first class. That takes the big kind. He knew what I meant."

I walked over and sat down, stretching out my legs. Irish tensed herself and spread out all across the bed, her eyes languid, watching every move I made. "Why aren't you working tonight?" I asked her.

"Because I was waiting for you. Petey told me where you stayed. I told you I was coming to get you."

"Maybe I'll toss you out on your can."

"You won't."

"Why not?"

"You want me too, that's why." She reached her arms out. "Come, man."

I didn't want to, but it had been too long. I made all the mental excuses, then I got up and went over to her. She was big and voluptuous and ready and I was there. And ready too. And I found out why any man could get a crazy desire for someone like her, even if he was Rudy Bannerman.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I got up before she was awake, showered and left a note for her to get home and I'd see her later, then I went out and phoned Petey Salvo. It hadn't taken the big guy long to pinpoint Gage and Matteau. They were both staying at the Orange House on Main Street and had spent the night before making the rounds of the clubs winding up at the Cherokee doing nothing more than having a few drinks and watching the action at the tables. About two o'clock Gage had gotten pretty jumpy and Matteau had taken him out. Petey had the idea Gage was a hophead and had to go somewhere to mainline one and he didn't know how right he was. He was all for going down and nailing the pair in their hotel but I vetoed it and told him to hang on until I pulled the cork myself.

At the restaurant I picked up the latest piece of news. Guy Sanders was on his way back to Culver City and the trial date had been set. Time was running out on the sucker.

Hank Feathers was still in bed when I got there. Waking him up wasn't easy and he came out of the pad swearing up a storm. I even made the coffee and it wasn't until he had two of them down that he began to act normal. He was sore because he had to spend a couple of hours with Lieutenant Travers going over my history and couldn't find one thing to say except that he knew my old man, I was a Bannerman and that was it. I wasn't about to fill him in all the way and he knew it.

He said, "You sure raised hell downtown, son."

"It's about time somebody did."

"Fine, fine, but they dragged me in. When a Bannerman yells around here everybody jumps. You put the needle into Travers about those two guys and he's got the lines burning all over the state. You know the pitch?"

"Suppose you tell me."

"For six years the Syndicate has been trying to move in here. They got a few places started but the state pushed them out. So now they got a toehold again. Matteau's filed as a resident and even though they know he's tied up with a bunch in Chicago they can't prove it or do a damn thing about it. He's got power behind him and it moves all the way to the Capitol. Brother, this town's got trouble."

"So stick around and get a good story. You still ready to step on toes?"

"Bannermans'?"

"Anybody's."

"I'm a reporter, son. Somebody steps out of line, it's news and I get it printed. What have you got going?"

"Throw a monkey wrench into the Sanders thing. Make it look like a trial of political expediency. Hit the D.A. and get the paper to press for a full investigation . . . anything to delay the trial. Give it enough coverage so they won't be able to get a jury that hasn't read or heard about it. Can you do that?"

"Sure, but I may get canned and I'm almost at retirement age."

"Take a chance."

"Boy, do I live dangerously."

"Don't we all," I said.

Petey Salvo got me into the Cherokee Club before anyone was there and I headed for the kitchen. He dug around in the cutlery drawers a few minutes pulling out every form of knife they had there until he had a sample spread out on the butcher's block of every one. Most were of the common variety, there was one I picked up and scrutinized carefully before I put it in my inside pocket wrapped in a napkin.

"What're you gonna do with that?" Petey asked me.

"Give it to the police surgeon who examined Chuck's wound."

"The guy said he got it with a stiletto."

"Look at the steak knives, friend. They're specialty numbers and might do it. Instead of tossing the murder weapon away, suppose a killer simply put it back in service. A check shows nothing gone, a weapon was available, and what happens?"

"You got me," he said. "What?"

"A killer gets away with murder."

Because I was a Bannerman, Dr. Anthony Wember was willing to make the comparison. He was skeptical, but had to admit there was a possibility that the knife I offered might have inflicted the wound. He couldn't be certain because of the peculiar nature of the cutting and puncturing combination in Maloney's chest, but it was a thought and he would consider it. He had gone to great lengths to establish the nature of the weapon and a stiletto type it was; pointed, sharp along one length at least, straight blade with a rising center. He seemed to think both edges had been ground, but again, it was speculation. The doctor said he'd check it again to be sure and would make the information available.

At least to a Bannerman.

When we left it was time to do the other thing. Petey was all smiles when we got to the Orange House because he knew the ropes and how to work it and got a pimply-faced kid in a bellboy's uniform to get the key we wanted. I knocked while he stayed out of the way and when Popeye Gage opened the door he wasn't a bit worried because he had a gun in his fist and said, "Hey Carl, look who we got. The punk's back and asking for it."

Matteau looked up from his paper, put it down and stood up with a grin wreathing his face. "Couldn't take a lesson, could you, boy?"

"I told you not to call me that." I started toward him fast.

"Hold it," Gage said. He walked up behind me and let me feel the muzzle of the rod. I maneuvered them just right so I had them with their backs to the door and they didn't hear Petey come in and never knew he was in the room until he slammed their heads together with an unearthly crack that put them unconscious on the floor for an hour.

But it took us that long to shake the place down. We came up with three .38s, a half a case of booze and forty-two hundred bucks in cash, but that was all.

Popeye Gage was the first one to open his eyes. He saw Petey leaning over him and tried to fake it, but the act didn't hold. Petey dragged him to his feet and held him up against his chest and you never saw fear in a guy's eyes before unless you saw his.

I said, "Put him in the chair, Petey. We have something special for him."

"Let me give him something special, Cat."

"Save it for the other one. I know what will make this one talk."

Petey threw Popeye halfway across the room into an overstuffed chair and the punk cringed there shivering because he found something that didn't play out the way he thought it would and he was almost ready to hurt.

Carl Matteau wasn't quite so easy. He had gone the route before too and decided to take it cursing and swearing all the way, but no matter what Petey did to him he wasn't about to spill his guts. I was figuring on that and let him go through the rough stuff until the blood ran down his chin and his eyes were rolling in their sockets and said, "We want the knife, Carl. What do we do to get it?"

"Go screw yourself."

I hit him myself this time. I laid one on him that sent him out of the seat to the wall and he sat there on the floor glowering at me.

"You hit the wrong one, buddy. You're in a trap now."

He said two words.

Petey gave him one then and he went out cold.

Over in the corner Popeye Gage started to whimper. Petey said, "They done it, right?"

"They didn't done it," I told him. "They were just part of it."

"I'll kill 'em if you want, Cat. We can dump . . ."

"No killing, Petey. Don't involve yourself."

"Chuck was my friend."

"So we'll stick them. Only don't let's take a fall, okay?"

"You're calling it, Cat."

I went over to Gage and stood there looking at him for a minute. I said to Petey, "You know a place where we can put this one? Someplace where he can't be heard and nobody can hear him scream?"

"There's the smokehouse behind your place, remember?"

Remember? Damn right I remembered. I had taken enough beatings from Miles there often enough when Rudy and Teddy had made me take lumps.

"That should do it."

Popeye knew what I was getting at. He could see a couple of days going by without pumping a few shots of the big H into his veins and knew what would happen. His mouth worked until the words came out. "Look, I don't know nothing. I don't . . ."

"It's only what the others don't know, little man. That's what counts. They'll all think Carl clued you in, so sweat. Sweat hard," I said.

We left Carl Matteau like that and drove six miles back to the Bannerman place and locked Popeye in the smokehouse. He went quietly because Petey laid a short one on his jaw and left him on a pile of sawdust. When he woke up he'd be screaming for a shot and would be ready to say anything if we'd get him a fix.

I had Petey wait in the car and took the back door route to the house again. Annie had a ready smile, her hands and clothes white with flour. She told me Rudy had come home sick yesterday and was still in bed. Cousin Teddy left town on some mission and Uncle Miles was in the library with Vance Colby.

Rather than push on in, I stood there, listening to the heated voice coming from inside. The oak doors were too thick to transmit the words but it was Vance Colby that was doing the demanding and Uncle Miles aquiescing little by little. When their discussion came to an end I pulled back, let Vance Colby through without him seeing me, and after he was out and in his car I went inside to where Miles was hunched up behind his desk, his face looking like he had just been whipped.

"Hello, Uncle."

"I don't think you and I have anything to discuss."

"No?"

It wasn't what I said. It was the way I said it. His mouth started to hang open and I saw his hands shake. "What . . . do you mean?"

We did have something to discuss, all right, but I didn't know what it was. As long as he thought I did he was on the hook, not me. "I got the picture pretty well laid out," I told him, a grin on my face.

Miles looked like he was going to die right there. He'd make a lousy poker player too. He'd said enough with his face to show me not to push any further so I let out a chuckle and walked out of the room.

Anita was just coming down the stairs, saw me and hurried, both hands reaching for mine. Her voice was soft as she said, "Cat, Cat caught the rat." When we were kids and she said that I used to chase her until I caught her and held her down squealing and kicking making like I was going to feed her a worm. It had been a great game.

"Hi, beautiful. Busy today?"

"Well, Vance . . ."

"He just left."

A frown creased her forehead. "That's funny. He didn't call me."

"Big business."

I walked toward the kitchen with her, my arm circling her waist. She fitted up against me unconsciously, her thigh rubbing mine. "He's been like that for a month now. He's . . . changed."

"Feel like doing a little touring with me?"

"Where, Cat?"

"Just around. I have some stops to make."

"Okay," she smiled happily, "let me get my jacket."

On the way to town I checked in the office of the motel to see if I had any calls. There were two, one from Sam Reed in Chicago and the other from Hank Feathers. I put the one through to Chicago first and got Sam at his place just as he was about to leave.

"Cat," he said, "I got a little more on Matteau. Guy I know pretty well used to work with him and when I got around to asking about him he let loose some odds and ends."

"Let's have them."

"The Syndicate didn't just move in down there. They were approached by somebody with a deal. They never would have touched the area after all the trouble they had the last time, but this deal looked solid and they went for it. Seems legit and Matteau is going to head it up. If it swings the Syndicate will get in good, but it's got to be legit. They can handle things once they're established. Now, that do you any good?"

"It makes sense, Sam. Thanks for calling."

"No trouble. Like I said, I'll be wanting a favor someday."

"You'll get it."

I held down the cutoff bar, let it up and gave the operator the out of town number for Hank Feathers. He was in a hotel a hundred miles away on an assignment they threw at him the last minute and had tried to locate me earlier and couldn't. I said, "What's up, doc?"

"Something you'll have to run down personally. The printer at the paper . . . the one who lives near Irish Maloney . . . well, his wife forgot to tell me something. One of her constant visitors backed into a parked car one night and never left a calling card. Minor damage, but she just happened to be coming home, saw the accident and took his license number and stuck it under the windshield wiper of the car he bumped."

"A neighborhood car?"

"Can't say. She didn't keep a record. She was just indignant about him running off."

"When did it happen?"

"A couple of weeks ago."

"Good deal. I'll see what I can do."

"One more thing . . . will you get over and see old man Wilkenson? He's bugging me on the hour. Get him off my back. So he'll yak for a couple hours about the old days, but then it's over."

"Yeah, sure. See you when you get back."

"Two, three days. No more."

Anita looked at me curiously when I got back in the car. "Are we going someplace?"

I nodded. "Making house calls. You're going to see an insurance investigator at work. At least I hope everybody thinks so."

"Why?"

"Because all this trouble the Bannermans are in has an answer and it's not the one you think it is."

"I thought you didn't care about them."

"I don't baby, not one damn bit. Only you. If it touches you then I'm involved too. As long as you're wearing the Bannerman name it's going to stay clean one way or another. I told you . . . there's not one thing I want from them. I was out a long time ago. I'm the bastard Bannerman, I never had anything and never wanted anything. In a way I'm lucky. What I never had I don't miss. I can work things out for myself and although I don't eat high off the hog I manage to keep my stomach full. I'm free and clear because I don't own enough to get into debt over. Don't think there weren't times when I envied Rudy and Teddy all they had. I used to hate their guts because they had it all and took what little I had away too. But it's over now and that's it. For you I'm pushing, no other reason."

"I love you, Cat. I shouldn't say it, but I do. I always have."

"I know, kitten."

"Cat . . . there's nothing I can do. It's . . . it's too late."

"Is it?" My voice felt tight and funny. I let the clutch in and pulled away.

We took the area a block at a time and rang doorbells, going back to the empty places until we caught someone home. We didn't have a bit of luck tracing the car until six thirty when I had about four houses to go. A woman came by with an armload of groceries, saw me getting into the car and stopped me. I had used a fake name all along and almost didn't hear her when she said, "Oh . . . Mr. Wells . . ."

Anita pointed past me. "She's calling you, Cat."

"Yes?" I remembered her from one of the first calls.

"I was mentioning your visit to my husband when he came home. Well, it wasn't our car, but a friend of his who was staying overnight. He found his car damaged in the morning with the man's license number on his windshield."

"That's just fine, ma'am. We'd like to settle the matter as soon as possible, so if you can give me his name I'll get right to him."

"Certainly." She shifted her packages. "Jack Jenner . . . and he lives on Third Avenue North. He's in the book."

"Thank you. This has been a great help."

At the first pay station I stopped, looked up Jenner in the phone book and dialed his number. He seemed surprised to hear from me because so far he hadn't done anything about the incident. He read the license number out to me, I told him to process it as quickly as he could, thanked him and hung up.

One crack in the wall. That's all you need. There's always a chink somewhere that is the weakest point and can bring the whole structure down in ruins.

Anita said, "Have you found it?"

"Almost. There's a shadow figure in the picture and when the light hits we'll know for sure. Let's go back to my motel. I want to clean up and we can eat."

"I was supposed to see Vance. He'll . . ."

"He can wait. A kissin' cousin has some rights, hasn't he?"

"Uh-huh," she laughed, "but he'll be mad."

"What he needs is another poke in the mouth."

"He'll never forgive you for what you did to him."

"Tough. He was asking for it."

She nodded, not looking at me. "He's . . . always been like that. He had to fight his way up, you know . . . supported himself at school, started small in business and made everything the difficult way."

"What's new about that, kid? Someday I'll tell you my story."

I swung in at the motel and killed the engine. I opened the door, got one foot out when I saw the other car that was already nosed out start to move. The lights were off and if the top hadn't crossed the lights of the office I would have missed it. I yelled, "Down!" and gave Anita a shove that sent her on her back on the ground through the door on her side.

The blast of the gun came on top of the winking yellow light from the muzzle and a bullet smashed into the dashboard over my head sending glass fragments all over the place. I pulled the .45, thumbed the hammer back and let two go toward the car that was swerving in the gravel and heading back to town. From the angle I had to shoot I knew damn well that I had missed him, but they weren't sticking around for a shootout. There could always be a second time.

I got Anita to her feet and inside as people came pouring out of their rooms. The clerk was shaking like a leaf, knocking on my door trying to find out what happened. I told him everything was all right . . . it was an attempted stickup that didn't come off and nobody got hurt.

But I was wrong. He had called the police the minute he heard the shots and Lieutenant Travers himself answered the call. He came in with a uniformed sergeant, closed the door and stood there with his hands behind his back. "Mr. Bannerman . . . I assume you have a reasonable explanation for the shooting."

I told him the stickup story and he didn't go for it.

His smile was pretty grim. "You know," he said, "I've had about enough of the Bannerman crap. They think they can get away with anything in this town and most of the times they can. I've been read off too often by my superiors who were under pressure and took too much lip from cheap politicians too many times. I think this time I'll nail me a Bannerman." His smile got colder with each word. "We had a complaint that you carry a gun. This so?"

There was no sense denying it. I nodded toward the chair where it lay under my coat.

Travers said, "Get it, Fred."

I knew what was coming next and started to get dressed. When I finished he said, "Let's go. All the talking you can do at headquarters with witnesses and someone to take your statement." He looked at Anita. "You too, miss."

CHAPTER EIGHT

They sat us down around a table, my gun laying there in the middle and Travers looking pleased with himself. He had given Anita the opportunity to make a phone call and she got Vance Colby. He was on the way over.

In the meantime I made small talk, got the point across that I'd like some representation myself and after Travers thought it over he told the sergeant to plug in the phone. I got Wilkenson's name out of the book, told him who I was and where I was and asked him to get over fast. He was too excited to talk, but said he'd be there as quickly as possible.

For a ninety-three year old man he did a good job. He made it in five minutes. I hadn't seen him in twenty-five years and it looked as if he hadn't aged a bit. He was tall, topped with a bushy white head of hair, a manner that was positive and honest and it was easy to see why George P. Wilkenson was the most respected counselor in the state.

We shook hands and his grip was firm. I was ready for a lot of gab, then got fooled there too. He asked Travers if he could speak to me alone for a few minutes and Travers was glad to grant him the courtesy. From his expression I knew what he was thinking . . . it would take a lot of talking to get me off the hook and it wasn't about to happen.

The tiny room we sat in stunk of stale sweat and cigar smoke and the edge of the table was notched with cigarette burns. I had seen too many of these rooms to enjoy being in one again. Wilkenson threw his briefcase on the table, pulled out a sheaf of papers and thrust them toward me, fanning them out so I could see the signature lines he had marked off.

"Cat," he said, "your father trusted me, so did your grandfather. Do you?"

"Why not?"

"Very well then." He held out a pen. "Sign where indicated."

I wrote my name in about twenty places, handed the pen back and stacked the papers together. "What was that all about?"

"Did you ever know the details of your grandfather's will?"

I made a noncommittal gesture with my hands. "He split it with my old man and Miles, didn't he?"

"Up to a point, yes. There were certain other provisions. After their death the unspent capital would go to their children. If the children die, the remainder would go to the other brother or his children."

"So?"

"The final provision was this. Your grandfather knew your father's habits. It was his idea that his children might inherit his casual attitude of neglect and fail to claim the money. In that event, if the capital belonging to the deceased brother was not claimed by his children within thirty years, the others took possession. That time period is up . . . this Saturday. Tomorrow."

I still didn't get it. "Okay, so I inherit a hundred percent of nothing. Why all the business. The old man blew his load in a hurry. I hope he had fun."

"Ah, that's the point, son. He didn't. He was footloose enough, but his material possessions were very few. The fun he had didn't cost much at all. When he died he left quite a few million dollars intact. After taxes you stand to inherit at least two of them."

I felt my fingers bite the edge of the table and without realizing it I was on my feet. "What?"

Wilkenson nodded slowly. "That's why the urgency of having you sign the claim."

Now the picture was laid out from all angles. I asked the next question. "Where do Miles and his kids come in."

"Nowhere, I'm afraid. They have gone through every cent they ever had. You are the only wealthy Bannerman left."

"Damn!"

"But there's one clause that may disrupt everything, son. It has me worried. You stand to face a very serious charge."

"What about it?"

"Your grandfather was a peculiarly virtuous old man. He was honest and law abiding to the extreme. He specified in the will that if any of the inheritors should ever be held and booked by the police on a criminal charge, and found guilty, they were to be cut off immediately and the money transferred to the others."

No wonder the Bannermans were so fussy about keeping out of trouble. Buy anything or anybody, as long as the cost was less than the eventual one.

"Lieutenant Travers intends to book you. Carrying concealed weapons is a criminal charge."

"You let me take care of that," I said.

He shook his massive head. "I'm afraid he can't be bought."

"You let me take care of that," I repeated.

Wilkenson studied me a moment regretfully. He had done his duty, fulfilled his commitment, and now there was nothing more to do except make out more papers. I grinned at him, tight and nasty. "Don't count me out. Not yet. First do me a favor."

"If I can."

"Get hold of Petey Salvo." I gave him a list of places where he could be located. "Tell him to get Carl Matteau and keep him with Gage until . . ." I looked at my watch, ". . . eleven o'clock tonight, then bring them to the Bannerman place. We'll be waiting."

He frowned at me. "But . . ."

"Just do it, okay?"

"Very well."

"Good. Now beat it. Don't let any of the others see you."

The sergeant took me back to the other room and there the clan was gathered; Miles, Rudy, Teddy and Vance. Anita had pulled away from him and looked at me anxiously when I came in and I didn't let my expression change at all. Except for Anita, they didn't seem a bit unhappy at all.

Vance said to Travers, "Now, sir, if it's all right with you, I would like to take Miss Bannerman home. It's been very trying for her."

The cop nodded agreement. "I know where to find her."

"Will there be any charges?"

"Oh, I don't think so," he said pleasantly. "She'll be a witness, naturally but as an innocent bystander. The one I want is right here." He pointed a long finger at me. I sat down and didn't look at them, but I managed a wink of confidence at Anita. She forced a smile, but her eyes were wet.

"Go on home, honey," I said. "It's not all that bad." When they had gone Travers sat back, satisfied with himself, and said, "Now let's get to your statement."

I reached in my pocket and pulled out the license number I had gotten from the Jenner guy. "In the interests of harmonious relationships . . . and justice, how about finding out who owns the car that goes with this plate number."

He picked the slip from my fingers. "What kind of a game is this?"

"Do it, then I'll tell you. You might get a promotion out of it."

Travers was a guy who enjoyed games. Besides, he couldn't understand my attitude. It had something to do with the way he smiled at me the last time.

He called the sergeant in, told him to run it through, then sat there saying nothing, idly tapping a pencil on the desk. I played the game with him for fifteen minutes until the sergeant came back with a card, handed it to Travers who looked at it, not getting what it meant, then handed it to me.

I said, "Touché. You get your promotion."

Then we had a little talk.

When it was over I picked up my gun, put it on and told Travers to follow me back to the Bannerman place with his sergeant and went out to the Ford.

Ten forty-five. The lights were on downstairs in the library and when I went in I could hear their voices. No longer were they tense . . . there was an air of relief and jocularity there now. Only Anita didn't have a drink in her hand and Vance Colby was standing in front of the desk like the old master himself, overshadowing Miles who held down his usual position. Rudy and Teddy were toasting each other and both were half stiff already.

They sobered up pretty fast when I came in. Their faces got a flat, sour look and Miles suddenly looked pale. Only Vance regained his composure. "We hardly expected to see you here."

"I guess you didn't." I walked over to Anita and sat on the arm of her chair. Her hand reached for mine, squeezed it and she bit her lip to keep from crying.

Then I played the time game on them, just sitting there silently. At eleven on the dot Petey Salvo came through the door holding Gage and Matteau by their necks. Matteau had taken a beating somewhere along the line and Popeye Gage was in the first stages of narcotics withdrawal. All he wanted was a fix and would do anything to get it while he had the chance. Later, when the cramps hit him, he wouldn't be able to.

"Pretty," I said. "Nice company the Bannermans keep."

Rudy had to sit down. I wouldn't let him. "On your feet, slob," I told him. "I want you to hear this standing up. I'm going to make you happy and sad all at once and I want to see what happens when I do."

"See here . . ." Vance started to say.

I waved a finger at him. "Not you, boy. You stay very, very quiet while I tell a story."

I said, "It started because this was a wide open state with legalized gambling and plenty of money to be made without too much work if the right deal could be swung. One man saw how he could do it. Cousin Rudy here made a sucker play for a ripe nympho named Irish Maloney and even if he didn't make out he established a motive for what was to come. The guy who spotted the move came into the family through a back door, knew what he was going to set up and made a contact with the Chicago Syndicate to borrow enough money to get his project rolling."

"The next step was easy. At the right time, when Rudy was drunk and sick, he got him to a toilet where he passed out, went outside and killed Chuck Maloney with a steak knife from the club, put the knife back, then had the Syndicate men put the word through that they had seen Rudy make the hit and that they had the evidence. But all this while there was no evidence."

"Then came the hitch . . . the money demand was going to fall through and how that must have shook up our killer. The Bannermans didn't have any loot left! Ah . . . but in a way, there was. Very shortly they were going to inherit my share of the wealth if I didn't claim it and there was little chance I would, so the killer was safe. A few more days and he'd have it made."

"Imagine how he felt when I showed up? Brother, he liked to've browned out. The point was . . . he had spent the Syndicate money on initial expenses and unless he got his hands on the Bannerman money he couldn't carry it through and he knew damn well the Syndicate wouldn't stand for the loss without getting something in return. Like his life."

"So our boy tried to have me roughed up and scared out by Gage and Matteau. They didn't want me dead . . . just out of town long enough for the thirty-year time period to expire. It didn't work. Now he got panicky. He even went as far as taking a shot at me himself. When that didn't work there was one other gimmick he had ready. He knew the details of the will and sent in a complaint that I carried a gun, a formidable charge if he could make it stick and one that would put my dough back in the hands of the other Bannermans. And three of them went for it. You know, I'm beginning to wonder just who the real bastard Bannermans are around here."

"Now our killer is really in a sweat because he doesn't know where I stand or what the next play is. He knows I have it locked but doesn't know how and has to hear me out to figure his next move."

"Funny how I found out about it. Real careless of him. He got the original idea because he liked the same dame Rudy liked and when he saw her under the phoney name of Arthur Sears she bragged about her men and up came the name of Rudy Bannerman . . . and an ex con called Sanders. When they interrogate Sanders he'll tell them an anonymous call told him about Chuck's murder and that he's to be the first grabbed and the guy panicked. I bet that night he had even gotten drunk with some unknown guy and was carried home where he couldn't prove an alibi. But . . . that will come out later."

"Anyway, our Arthur Sears made a bad move. He backed into a car and drove off. An indignant dame saw it and grabbed his number. Only the number didn't belong to any Arthur Sears. The name that went with it was Vance Colby."

The glass dropped from his hands and he took an uncertain step back against the desk and stood there clutching it. Anita had me so tightly I couldn't move my arm, but it was my left one and didn't matter I could still draw and fire with my right.

"The dirty part was that you didn't give a damn about Anita, Vance. She wasn't your type. When your history gets checked out we'll find that out. All you wanted was the Bannerman money and when you had it you would have dumped her fast. Nice, dirty thinking."

From the doorway Carl Matteau was watching Colby with a face that was a hard mask. I said, "You have several choices, Vance. You probably have that gun on you that you shot at me with today. Move toward it and I'll kill you right where you stand. I'll put a .45 between your horns that will rip off the back of your head and spatter the old man there with more brains and blood than he already has."

"The second choice, Colby. You go out the back way and run for it. You'll have the cops on your back all the way, but it won't be them you'll be worrying about. It'll be the Syndicate boys because when Matteau here passes the word along a contract goes out on you and it will be worse than anything the cops can do to you."

"Third choice, killer. Outside the front door is a police car. You can get in, go downtown with Lieutenant Travers and hope the courts will give you life rather than the chair."

"Fourth choice is to brazen it out and if you look at Petey Salvo's face you'll see what can happen. Chuck Maloney was his friend and Petey will go all the way for his buddies, dead or alive."

Vance Colby was dead white. There was no arrogance left in him now at all. He was a terrified animal with death facing him on all sides and all he could do was take the least of the evils. Very slowly he turned, looked at the open doors of the library to the hall beyond and started walking. He had company. Travers was back there and had heard it all. They went outside together and I heard the car start up and saw the red light on the top start to wink before they cleared the driveway.

I stood up and took Anita's hand. At the moment it was past her ability to comprehend, but soon she would see it. All she knew was that somehow she suddenly belonged to me and me to her and the world was ours at last. The two little Bannermans who never meant anything because the others loomed too large and too powerful.

They weren't that way now. I said, "You're broke, cousins. You'll have to sweat for it now. You can have the house and the property but it'll make you even broker so you'll have to think fast. Personally, I don't think you'll survive long and you can blame it on yourselves. I want nothing you ever had and I'm taking what was mine and you tried to steal. You have to live with yourselves and it won't be easy, and while you do you can be thinking that the Bastard Bannerman wasn't the real bastard . . . it was you, the others. You're all bastards. I'm taking Anita out of here and I'll provide for Annie. I don't think she wants any part of you anymore."

I pulled Anita toward the door and turned around. Rudy and Teddy had to sit down. It was too much for them. "Adios, Cousins and Uncle." I said. "Work hard and earn lots of money."

The night was clean, the sky peppered with stars and the road a moonlit ribbon heading east. She sat next to me as close as she could get and the radio played softly while I tooled along at an even sixty. Since we got married back there she had hardly spoken and I kept waiting for her to ask me.

She finally did. Curiosity, a trait of the Bannermans who bore the Cat label.

"That Lieutenant Travers . . . he let you go. What happened?"

"Nothing. I just told him who I was and where I was going. He checked on it."

"Are we going there now?"

"Uh-huh."

"Can you tell me?"

I looked at her and laughed. "It may interfere with our honeymoon, but it might be exciting at that. I'm picking up an escaped prisoner in New York and driving him back to the coast."

Amazement was written all over her. "But I thought you . . . you . . ."

"Police, doll. I was going east on a vacation and they let me have the assignment to save expenses."

"Oh, Cat . . ."

"Now I'll be like that millionaire cop on the TV show. Should be fun." I patted her leg and she snuggled up against me, warm and soft. "We'll have the honeymoon when we get back," I said.