Killer Take All Page 5

  "You," I said. "You're too damn young to be in a place like this. This late. Why don't you go home? Live a while before you start committing suicide."

  Her young eyes sparkled in the subdued light. "You're crazy, Mr. Berlin. Just like Laddy said."

  "You know me too." I looked away, a cold sensation creeping in me for no reason. "I'm getting used to it. Every place I go I'm a celebrity instead of a stranger. What the hell kind of a place is this?"

  "Oh, you're notorious. Everyone is talking about the big war that might start between the gamblers now that you're .here." She grinned, twisted on the chair. "Isn't it exciting? And Laddy works for you."

  "What's with you and that jerk Layton?"

  "Don't say that, Mr. Berlin." She frowned, then brightened. Layton had finished his turn and was making his way toward our table through the solid wall of applause. He'd made an impression here, all right. "Over here, Laddy," the girl called. She turned to me, whispered, "He came in the drugstore where I work early this evening. I was simply devastated. And when he asked me to meet him here, I almost died."

  I grunted. The waitress came and left and Laddy Layton joined us at the table. That focused attention and everyone began waving at me. Layton greeted the girl like a returning Marine. Then he slid into a vacant chair, grinned at me.

  "Hi, boss," he said. "I see you've met Carla—Carla Teacher. Isn't she a doll?"

  "She will be when she grows up," I said.

  Layton laughed. "He's a prude, honey. Hear him?"

  Laddy was young and handsome in a slim, red-lipped, black-haired way. His chin was good and he wasn't skinny. He had an irritating way of seeming to look at the part in your hair when he talked.

  Carla was too overcome to speak. Laddy put an arm around her, turned to me.

  "You made a good deal, Berlin. When you hired me. I'll kill these yokels. They dig me, kid."

  "That's what you're getting paid for. You want a drink?"

  He ignored me, turned to the girl. His slim, manicured hand slid up the girl's bare arm, fingers working. He breathed audibly into her ear and she turned a bright crimson. Her eyes opened wide. Layton kissed her, tugged her dress away at the neck and ran a greedy tongue over the creamy skin of her neck. Carla shuddered and leaned against him. Her eyelids dropped and showed faintly luminous, her cherry lips sagged full and moist.

  Layton said, "Umm, darling, you taste so good."

  They acted like no one was within miles of them, mugging like mad. Layton kissed and fondled the kid, laughing and teasing her. He was having a ball; she was running into something she'd probably never experienced before. "Hell of a show, huh?" a voice said.

  Mickey System stood behind me. I was grateful for the interruption. In another minute I might have broken another cardinal Berlin rule—never butt into anybody's business for any reason whatever.

  "How'd you do with the system?" I asked.

  His shined cheeks sagged and he raised an eyebrow. "You know, it's a damn funny thing. I don't understand it. I had it made and all of a sudden, boom! I'm losing. Little by little."

  A waitress came and we ordered. I was getting warm again, my belly unknotting and the smoky blue rising in my head. It felt good. Better than thinking.

  "Listen," Mickey said. The eyes were dark now, hard. "I don't know what's going on, but I've felt a couple of rumbles tonight. Something's in the air. And you seem to be right in the middle of it."

  "What the hell for?"

  He shook his head. "Look, Carter and O'Rourke have been feuding for years. Now I understand they've set up a meeting of all of the operators for day after tomorrow. Including Dan Gurion. I don't know whether he knows it yet or not. It's just a rumble, like I said. But you be careful. A lot of people are edgy. And when people are edgy, things happen."

  "Like what? What're you trying to say, Mickey?"

  "I've said it, man."

  He leaned back, turned on the grin. But it didn't fool me any more. This guy had a hard core. I recognized it, having spent most of my life with people just like him. Good hustlers look like rubes and when one as rubish as Mickey System comes along, look out.

  He got up and left before I could figure out what to say to him. Everyone talked about an Association, but nobody knew anything about it. I decided I'd have no peace until I had it all straight. Only one way to do that—go see Donetti. When I'd resolved to see him the next day I felt better. I could even watch Layton corrupt the eager young soda clerk without losing the supper I hadn't eaten.

  "Hi, Johnny." Bev ran a hand around my neck.

  "Hello, doll. Everything all right?"

  She shrugged. "Dan's real happy with you. But he's suspicious. I tried to tell him you didn't have anything to do with Donetti."

  "I don't care what he thinks."

  "You loaded, Johnny?"

  I grinned up at her. She put her lips close to my ear. "What's with this bit?" Her eyes fastened on Layton and Carla. They'd gotten to where the girl's dress had been pulled away far enough to expose one swelling, young breast almost entirely. "If you're the chaperone, you're doing a lousy job."

  "None of my business," I said. I got up, steadied myself. Layton looked up. "Powder my nose," I said to him. "Why don't you take the kid home?"

  His eyes, moist and shining, narrowed. "Why don't you mind your own business, Berlin?"

  I shrugged, got away from there. Dan Gurion high-balled me as I passed his table, but I kept going. I ran cold water over my wrists, washed my face. The cold water helped. Then I combed my hair, taking plenty of time. If Messner wanted to see me badly enough, he'd wait. When I got back to the main room, the chilly dealer still hadn't shown and my table was empty.

  The girl Carla was gone. I missed her. Like I'd lost a ten-dollar bill I wasn't sure I'd had in the first place. Layton was singing again. He winked at me from the stand. I sat, got a Camel going.

  And the building shook.

  Layton trailed off flatly. The buzz of conversation and the noises from the crap table in the back room stopped abruptly, like someone had pulled a switch. When the wrenching jar shuddered through the room the rafters sifted dust and all movement ceased. A car horn began to blow outside. For just an instant there was no sound at all except the mournful, sustained blast of the auto horn.

  I was closest to the door and I went out of it like a bookie in a vice raid. Nobody got out before me. The bar entrance was on the other side of the building. I didn't think of it then, but later it became important and I'm damned sure I went through that door before anyone else did.

  I noticed the fog. I noticed the chill that had crept from the sea and the wet asphalt stretching past the club on

  Then I saw the car.

  A green Cadillac, its nose crumpled against the frame building, a man hanging half out of the window on the driver's side. Carla stood beside the car, her mouth crammed full of shaking fingers. For just a moment it didn't register. I saw the man. I saw Carla. The scene was lewdly illuminated by the stripping of red neon running around the eaves of the building. Then I saw the blood.

  Marino Donetti lay slumped over the sill of the Cad's window, clutching a gun in one small hand. His neck was a mess of blood and he looked like a man overdue for dying. I jumped off the porch, ran to the car. The little man had a look of fierce concentration on his face. His lips moved. The girl stood frozen. I saw that half of Donetti's neck had been shot away. He should have been dead.

  As I reached the car he twisted in the window, made a supreme effort to speak. I caught a sibilant flow of words before a gout of blood rushed over his lips, splattered the shining door. He was dead, slumped against the wheel. The horn blasted and continued to blow.

  One arm hung from the window, the gun still clutched. Dark blood dripped from the knuckles to the wet clay of the parking lot. The girl began to scream.

  Somebody behind me said, "Holy Christ!" over the sound of the car horn.

  I reached for the wailing girl, slapped her sharply. She stopped screa
ming, began crying with her mouth wide open to the foggy night. I shot a glance over my shoulder while holding the girl against me. Mickey System jumped from the porch, came at a run. Beside him, Ford Messner, for once shaken out of his deadly calm, strode. His white eyebrows twisted to match the creases in his cheeks at the sight of the dark head lolling messily over the car window.

  Mickey said, "Donetti! For Chrissake!"

  I took one arm from the girl, spun the little dice hustler. "Call somebody, Mickey. Everybody. Meat wagon, fuzz. And hurry."

  Then the people boiled out of the building and everything got all mixed up. A woman began wailing, higher than the horn sound and someone slapped her too. I pulled Carla away from the car, tried to comfort her. Messner stuck right with me. Somebody reached in the car, pulled Donetti off the horn button.

  The quiet was like a blow.

  I said, "Ford, you hear what this guy said before he checked out?"

  The man looked at me for a moment without speaking. His face had regained its accustomed blankness; the eyes looked like two pearl onions in a white creme de menthe frappe.

  "What he said?"

  "Yes, what Donetti said. Just before he died I thought he said something. But I didn't catch what it was. Did you?"

  He shook his head. "I came out behind Mickey. Ask him."

  I looked at him. "It's not important."

  The girl in my arms tried to get away. I held her, patted her head. She looked up at me and never have I seen such stark and absolute fear in a human expression. Her eyes were wild and rolling.

  "Let me go, let me go!" she whispered. "Please let me go"

  Dry sobs racked her. I could feel every tense line of her. The sobs were wrenching and powerful, like getting hit in the belly with a pool cue.

  "Easy, honey. Nobody's going to hurt you. I promise. Tell me something, Carla. Did you hear Donetti say anything?"

  She tried to break away from me again. Now she was crying in earnest.

  "Carla!" I shook her. "Did you hear what he said? You were closer than I was. You must have heard."

  "No! I didn't hear anything! Nothing. Oh, nothing!"

  She pulled away, looked at me as if she didn't know who I could possibly be. I tried to hold her, but she swallowed a sob and tore herself out of my encircling arms with a furious burst of strength. A hand gripped my arm when I would have followed. She ran around the building toward the rear of the club, the red light dying her tanned legs and honey hair to a blood red.

  Messner had my arm. He let go when I spun around. "Let her go," he said. "She's shook. Let her wipe her eyes or something."

  "But I wanted to find out—"

  "You're no cop," the dealer said. He jerked his chin toward the door. "This guy'll take care of what has to be done. You better get a story ready yourself."

  An authoritative voice began steadying the crowd. It was the big gun who'd been with Fran Cole. He pushed people right and left, striding toward the car and the still-settling corpse.

  "All right, everybody." His voice was big as he was. Broad and sun-burned and very competent looking. "Let's get together on this."

  The rumble died a little. The big man stopped beside me, spared me a piercing glance, then turned back to the crowd.

  "God damn it, I said everybody!" he yelled. "Get the hell back inside! All of you."

  I didn't move. Neither did Messner. But the others began drifting back into the club, craning necks, morbidly curious at the same time they were repelled by the sight. Inside someone dropped a coin in the juke and ribald sound blasted out into the gray night.

  "Everybody," the big man said, pushing Condi Capucho with a huge hand. "You all know me. I'm in charge till the Chief gets here."

  Fran Cole broke away from the crowd at the door, ran toward me. Her eyes were wide and frightened and she ran with long strides, like a boy. At each step her thigh threatened to tear the white skirt. She got almost to me, stopped abruptly.

  "Johnny. Johnny, did you see—"

  "Easy, honey." I put out a hand. "What's the rush? You go back in and take care of that little kid, that Carla. She's scared blue."

  The girl's eyes ran over my face, skipping, searching. She pulled me away from the car, the ugly sight of Donetti still leaning out the window.

  "Johnny, did you—" She stopped, bit her full underlip. "What I mean is— Oh, Christ! I don't know what I mean. Tell me something, damn it!"

  I grinned at her. A little sick, but a grin. "I didn't kill him, honey. What for?"

  "Good." Her eyes dropped and suddenly she seemed to realize she was standing very close to me. I liked it. But she moved back. "I got caught inside. Someone said Donetti was... dead. And that you were there. I—"

  The big guy was still trying to get things under control. He had Mickey System and one of the dealers from the club helping him herd the curious.

  "Inside, inside." His big voice was sharp in the chill night. "Harley, you watch the back. Nobody goes out at all. Got that?"

  "Means us too, I guess," I said.

  She nodded.

  "Just a minute, Berlin."

  The big guy was talking to me. Fran must have told him my name. But then everybody in the God-damn state knew my name. I pulled away from the girl, started toward him.

  "Johnny," Fran said, walking with me, "this is George French. An old friend. He's—"

  "Detective-Lieutenant George French," he said. The red neon accentuated the high color of his face. He was broad all over, this guy; he had thick brown hair growing far down over his forehead. "I've been hearing quite a bit about a guy named Berlin lately. Now you find a body. Me and you should talk, I think. What do you think?"

  "I think—"

  "I don't care what you think," he said. He looked at Fran a long time, then at me. She stood there, shivering slightly in the thin dress, her fine face haloed by the mist and the reflected light. Finally he growled, "Get over there by the building. I'll get to you. You," he said to Fran, "get inside."

  "George, I want to explain about—"

  "Get inside, Fran," he said.

  French didn't get to me until after the rest of the cops arrived. They sirened into the lot, slid to slewing halts among the parked cars. Orders crackled. Blue coats and white coats ran here and there; flash bulbs smoked and popped. Just like the big time. I stood against the wall and smoked one cigarette after another. There was a watery, loose feeling in my stomach.

  The lieutenant barked orders to cover exits, photograph and dust the murder car, get names and pre-check alibis. He knew his business. He detailed a bunch of harness bulls to beat the bushes in an ever-widening perimeter till they found the spot where the shooting had occurred. It was obvious even to me that Donetti hadn't been shot in the parking lot. And that he hadn't driven far with a hole the size of a pencil in one of the main veins of his neck.

  "Find the marks of a car, walk careful. Real careful. Look for footprints. It's muddy so you'll find some." He turned to me. "What size shoe you wear, hard guy?"

  "Ten," I said. "But—"

  French was roaring after the departing squad. "Ten, the man says. First clubfoot ruins a print I'll personally guarantee he walks the docks till his ass barnacles!"

  He turned to me with a hard smile that had nothing to do with his narrowed eyes. He grabbed my arm, steered me toward a police car standing there with its red light glowing.

  "Tell me something, slicker," he said tightly. "Talk and just keep talking till you get me out of the notion I'm in right now."

  Chapter 7

  In the police car, me in the front seat and Lieutenant French sharing the other with a little black notebook, we talked. Or rather I talked. He contributed occasional grunts and wry snorts. He began by operating on the premise that I was an out-of-town hooligan sent by the syndicate to wipe out Donetti. I finally got him talked out of that.

  I'd been hard-pressed to explain my motives to him. Why, after coming on the town by accident in the fog, hadn't I just kept on goi
ng? And further, why was I traveling in the first place? A cop is eternally a cop. It isn't nearly enough that you tell them what, they always want to know why. And sometimes a guy just doesn't know why. Could I tell him a leggy redhead named Charlene had made it uncomfortable for me in Nevada and I'd left rather than hassle with her? Could I tell him about the ugly streak born early into little Johnny Twenty-Two at the orphanage—the hard necessity to get back at whomever harmed him or threatened to? No, of course I couldn't. Any more than I had ever been able to discuss those things, the chaff of an early life I'd been running for years to forget.

  "You left the room," French said. His wide eyes lifted from the book on his knee. "You said you went to the— what'd you call it?"

  "The doniker. But look, Lieutenant—"

  "Men's room," the lieutenant said and shrugged. "Okay. What time was it? When you made your trip?"

  I said, "It must have been about ten minutes or so before the Cad hit the building. But I was inside when that happened. Anyone can tell you. I just got sick of seeing that Layton mess with this young kid, see, and I got up before I stuck my nose where it didn't belong. So I went to the don —men's room. When I got back, they'd gone. I sat there a while, not very long. And then boom! The joint began to shake."

  French grunted. "All right, tell me again."

  "Everything, for Christ's sake?"

  He stuck a crumpled butt in his slash of a mouth, fired it with my lighter and shook his head.

  "Just the part about what you saw when you came out the door. And what you thought Donetti said."

  I sighed and reached over the seat back for one of my cigarettes. I got it lit, and settled in the front seat, sitting crossways, one leg drawn up on the seat.

  "It's funny. I can close my eyes right now and see it all again. Like it was suspended in my memory, frozen there. I jumped out the door as soon as the car hit. The mist had just begun to settle and the spotlights on the poles had the parking area pretty well lit. And the neon around the roof. I remember thinking what a pattern the combination of light made on the kid's dress, on her face. That's what I saw first, the kid. Carla. She was standing there right by the Cad's front fender, both hands up to her face. Her eyes were as big as five-dollar chips."