McHugh, page 11
“You should have opened it first,” McHugh said when the glass had stopped falling.
Kline struggled with himself. Finally he went and sat in his chair and opened the center drawer in his desk. He took out a night stick and placed it carefully in the center of the desk blotter.
“McHugh, I want you to listen to me. Either you are going to be nice or I am going to show you how I played the bass drum for dear old St. Francis High.” He hefted the stick. “I used to beat the bejesus out of it. Now…”
There was a rap on the door, and a uniformed officer stuck his head into the office. His eyes took in the shattered window as he said, “Inspector, there’s a wastebasket full of fire out in the street. It’s got your name on it—”
“Scram,” Kline shouted. “Give, McHugh.”
McHugh shrugged. “Not much to give, really. I went to have a talk with Willie Waddle. He was trying hard to buy that Pierce from Stover, and I wanted to know why. Jug and Mickey tried to stop me, and I guess there was a little rumpus. Well, Mickey ran in to tell Willie I was there, and Willie got nervous and shot him. To be honest, I think it was an accident, and the best you could pin on him would be manslaughter.”
“You saw this?”
“I did.”
“Jug Benich was there too?”
“His carcass was. He had been beat over the head with the familiar blunt instrument. I think Willie told him I gunned Mickey.”
“A fungo bat is a blunt instrument,” Kline growled as he reached for the phone.
“What’s the call?”
“I’ll have that pair picked up on suspicion of murder. And if you give me any more static, you go in as a material witness.”
“Hold it! That’s just what I don’t want.”
“Oh?” Kline’s finger rested on the dial. “Just what might you want?”
“Let me tell you the rest. After this little hassle, I got picked up by a pair of messenger boys driving a panel truck. They took me to a lodge meeting. Hale and Orland were there, but I couldn’t figure which was the high potentate. Also Willie Waddle and Jug Benich. In an oblique sort of way, some interesting talk was had.”
“Yeah?” Kline cradled the phone.
“Willie had spilled part of his guts to me after Mickey got it. Admitted he was putting a lot of pressure on Stover to get that car and admitted he was acting for Hale. Hale and Orland wanted very much to know why I was hunting Stover. Well, we horsed each other around, and the way it came-out, there’s some definite tie-in between that heap and the gold robbery. Orland all but admitted Gordo Nuss was working for him when he got his throat opened.”
“Oh, hell,” Kline muttered. “This is the Homicide Division, McHugh. I got enough to worry about here without tangling in the FBI’s affairs. You could fill a phone book with the names of people Orland et al have some connection with. The only obvious thing to tie Stover to a kill is that the stiff was found in his girl’s apartment. When we find him, he’ll be asked about that”
“You might have to get a spirit medium to translate.”
“Oh? Give me the rest of it.”
“Again, it’s not in your department,” McHugh told him. “But I took a trip south yesterday. One of the heist crew was the chauffeur of the lady who owned that Pierce-Arrow at the time. He had the car, but so far I don’t know if it was used in the stickup. I doubt it—too conspicuous. Also, Johnny Stover bought a second Pierce right after he left town. He put two new tires on it. He then rented a garage and dismembered the thing. For what purpose, deponent knoweth not”
“Detail, McHugh.”
McHugh took an envelope from his pocket and tossed it on the desk. “Copy of a report I made up for Foote. Just to show him I’m the cooperative type.”
“The needling type, you mean.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Back to the gold standard. Why is Stover going to get himself killed? Presuming anybody can find him to kill him, which I am beginning to doubt.”
“First you have to presume there’s some link between the car and the holdup, and that whatever it is it tells where the gold went. Second, you consider the fact Stover took the car completely apart when he rebuilt it, and from this you assume he found whatever it is Orland wants. At the time it may have meant nothing. But the wagon happens to get written up in a car magazine. Somehow Orland sees the layout He naturally wants the car back, but he’s broke.”
“Was broke. He draws five hundred a week now.”
“Because he went to Banker Hale and sold him this pig in a poke. Willie Waddle is sent out to negotiate, but Stover isn’t ready to sell, partly because he’s got a commitment to show the car on a teevee show. Comes pressure from the guys in the black hats and the offers keep getting bigger and bigger. Now, Stover’s no dummy. He wonders why, he asks around and he finds out who’s behind the thing. The guy’s got a hell of a research library at home, and I imagine he did a little research on Orland, and heard about the stickup. Orland probably thought the car went to the boneyard years ago, but now he knows different, and here’s his chance to get up where the tall dogs are walking again.
“Stover digs up whatever it was with X marking the spot. He goes there, finds loot and right away has a new set of problems. One—possession of gold is illegal—how do you dump eight hundred pounds of it? Two—how do you stay alive while so doing, and forever after, amen?”
“Well, that’s a hell of a good question,” Kline said. “Considering the odds, I don’t think he can do it.”
“Neither do I, but Stover doesn’t know the odds.”
“So? What the hell do you want us to do? Get the Chronicle to print the odds in the Sporting Green?”
“Either pick up Orland and Hale and Willie Waddle and everybody else you can think of, or leave them all alone, but with full-time shadows. Grabbing Willie and Jug might just make the others lay low.”
“Charging them with what?”
“You’re the cop. Onanism, if you can’t think of anything better.”
“That’s a dirty word.”
“It’s in the dictionary.”
Kline leaned back in his chair until the springs protested. He studied the dirt patterns on the ceiling and finally said, “How long?”
“I think three days might do it. I’m almost sine.” McHugh was taking a chance that the Dutchman’s three-day reservation for Bud Chapman’s airplane was tied in. “I can’t tell you why.”
“You’re in no position not to.”
“Sorry,” McHugh said flatly. “The answer involves a Federal agency whose operations are officially top secret”
Breath whistled through pursed lips. “Must be nice to be invisible. Like being God or somebody. Okay-it’ll be a shadow job.”
“Good enough.” McHugh got up again. “There’s other fish to fry. I better get the skillet greased.”
“Whoa, hoss, back up,” Kline said quickly. “Why is Willie likely to get his?”
“Willie goofed his original assignment, which was bad. Then when I put a little heat on him he talked. As they say in the teevees, Willie knows too much.”
Inspector Kline was nodding silent agreement as McHugh went out.
Nick Foote tapped his right index finger on the typewritten pages and said, “This is very interesting, McHugh. Well done. I never felt it go in.”
“What?” McHugh asked in injured innocence.
“The shaft.” Foote said grimly. “I expect some sensation when you break it off.”
“You’re hurting before you’re hit,” McHugh retorted. “There are three copies of that. You have one, Inspector Kline has another and I have the third. You know I’m working this one on my own. So far, I’ve committed burglary and assault and failed to report a slaying to the proper authorities. Plus all manner of moral turpitude in registering at a motel with two women under a phony name and conning the Navy out of a free airplane ride and impersonating an officer. Nothing would embarrass my boss more than to get an official report on this.”
“That so?” Foote said doubtfully.
“You better believe it,” McHugh retorted. “Now give a little. What have you been able to build on it?”
“Not much. We’ve only had a couple of hours.” Foote referred to some handwritten notes. “The L. A. district office had a talk with your Mrs. Allaire and the prelim report clears her. The house where the guys who pulled that job were knocked off is less than a mile from the one the Allaires had at Laguna. The boys are down there knocking on walls now and going over the grounds with mine detectors. No results.
“The Monterey County lads talked with the tire shop and got no more than you did. They went to see this Tomasini and that poor bastard’s had the course.”
“Huh?” McHugh sat up straight. “Why?”
“Over nothing. The poor bastard happens to be making grappa. Comes now the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax boys from Treasury and bust his cooker and run him up.” “Chicken,” McHugh fumed. “It’s good grappa. I’ll see if I can squash it. Who the hell invited the T-men anyway?”
“I’m afraid we did,” Foote admitted. “That gold happened to belong to the Treasury. We all got to get along.”
“Yeah. It’s still chicken.” McHugh lighted a cigarette. “Trouble with some outfits, they give the guys a rule book to read and they read the damned things.”
“We hauled the pieces of that Pierce away.”
“What in the hell for?”
“We’re going to put it back together again.”
McHugh shook his head in despair. He envied people who could take time with abstractions.
“We do that and look over what we got, then we might know why Stover took it apart,” Foote said defensively. “Mind if I use your phone?”
“Help yourself. Want me to leave the room?”
“Lord, no.” McHugh began to dial. “I’m just going to call Loris and ask her to lunch. Whenever I think I’m going crazy, she manages to talk me out of it”
Between bites of a top sirloin that was nearly three inches thick, McHugh swigged beer from a bottle and asked Loris, “Nadine all set up?”
Loris dropped her eyes to the abalone on her plate. She spread red sauce on it before saying, “Yes. I took her car out there.”
“So what’s the matter?”
Her face flushed, and she chewed silently before answering. “I’m thinking about what you said yesterday—about wondering if maybe she’d heard from Johnny and was keeping it from us.”
“So she has.” McHugh glowered. Hundreds of people, himself included, were looking for Stover. He’d contacted Nadine, and she’d said nothing. And, dammit, this was all on account, of her in the first place.
“I didn’t say that,” Loris replied in a low voice. “I came out and asked her and she denied it.”
“When was that?”
“Early. I went over right after you left the apartment.” Sudden fury was burned on her face, and she shut her eyes tight.
“Sweetheart,” McHugh said tenderly. “Out with it.”
“McHugh, I didn’t know whether to wring her neck or cry on her shoulder. I did the nosy female bit as soon as I walked in. She was in the john being sick, so I poked around the kitchen and the bedroom closets and that sort of thing. Know what I saw? Nothing.”
“Nothing?” McHugh echoed blankly. He decided Loris would get to the point when she was ready and hacked off another chunk of steak.
“I know my little sister’s habits. Whenever she moves, why, three hours later you’d think she’d been living in the place for months. Food stocked, clothes put away, records and books and whatever all in their proper places. This time, nothing. Unless you call a jar of instant coffee, half a pineapple, a tin of rolled herring and a jar of pickles something. None of the things I know were salvaged from the other apartment were there. Her clothes were still in her luggage.”
“Maybe she was tired. Maybe the rest of her stuff just hasn’t got there yet.”
“McHugh…” The tone was the one Loris had used on the few occasions when he’d seen her explode. He reached across the table, caught her hands and squeezed them. She trembled and controlled herself. “All right. I can finish. I called the moving people. They said her things were in storage. I also quizzed the manager of the place. He said Nadine is only taking the place for a month. She’d told me she was signing a year’s lease.”
“Do tell.” McHugh could feel his face reddening. “It adds up to her being ready to skip out quick.” He pushed the remainder of his steak away. There was no appetite left. He rubbed his fingers over his hair and said, “Sweetheart—Nadine just wouldn’t do this. Not to you, to me. She’s too fine a gal, and she knows we’re involved only because of her. After what’s gone on, I just can’t see her taking off with Stover, which is the only logical conclusion. Sure, she might be gone on the guy enough to let him tell his tale to her first, but she’d go with us. I know it! No reason—”
“Oh God…”Loris put her fork down. “McHugh, there is a reason. It’s pretty bad.”
“Oh?” He waited.
“I told you she was in the can sick when I got there. I told you what there was in the way of food. I’m female, and I jump to nasty conclusions. I got the old family doc on the phone and turned him every way but loose.”
McHugh was holding his knife. With complete detachment he looked at it and saw that the piece of stainless steel had been bent almost double by the pressure of his fingers.
“She’s pregnant,” he said.
Loris nodded.
“I’ll kill the bastard.”
Chapter 11
McHugh cursed in Italian and Spanish, and, when he found himself fouling the tenses up, he switched to Slovenian, where grammar is secondary to vulgarity. His voice never lifted above a whisper.
“McHugh…be quiet.” Loris took a cigarette from her case and waited for a light. “It isn’t pleasant, but Nadine isn’t a child, either. She’s a woman; it takes two people to make that mistake.”
“God damn it, if they’re the right two people, it’s no mistake at all.” He held a match.
“What would be your idea of the right two people, dear darling?”
“Holy—You. Me,” he said finally, exasperated.
She chuckled softly, and the color brightened in her cheeks momentarily. “Oh? The way we live? Dear heart, don’t think for a minute that I don’t love, or that I ever have any idea you’d leave me for one of the other women I know you collide with from time to time. I just never know when you grab that attaché case whether I’ll ever see you again. That’s the way the rules are.”
“So?” He bit the word off.
“I’m for it…I’ll just take you up on that little offer.” She twisted suddenly. “Unless you want to withdraw it.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean.”
Eyes narrowing, she said, “Just that I don’t want you to regret something you said without thinking. There have never been any strings, McHugh. I don’t want to tie any on you.”
“You couldn’t sweetheart. You couldn’t.” He stood, peeled money from his wallet and put it on the table. “And you should know by now I never say anything I nave say thought about.”
Her mouth seemed to spread, become fuller. “Are you taking me home now?”
“Home, hell.” Blood pounded in his temples as he looked at her. “There’s a hotel two doors down. It’s a dump, but it’s got beds.”
His fingers bruised her arm as they went out. McHugh knew the front desk man. He whistled through his teeth, caught the key that was tossed without breaking stride and steered Loris into the elevator. There was no operator. He experimented with the controls. The cage shot down, shuddered to a halt and reversed itself. He looked at the tag on the key, stopped at the sixth floor and led her into the hallway.
“McHugh—the elevator…”
“Let the bastard walk up and get it,” he snapped. “He’s got nothing else to do anyway.” He rammed the key into a door, twisted it, pushed her inside and slammed the door.
She stumbled. A high-heeled shoe fell off, and she fell across the bed. Her eyes were wide and wild, her cheeks flushed.
“McHugh—“ There was fear and fury and need in the word.
Buttons popped from his shirt. “That’s a nice dress. Silk. Or it looks like silk.” His voice was hoarse. “I’d hate like hell to tear it.”
She rolled off the bed, fingers moving. The dress split open down the front and dropped. He moved toward her as she reached back for the snap of the sheer bra.
“You’re slow. His hands moved, and there was a shredding of cloth. She shuddered and threw herself against him as the big fingers slid over the curve of her hip, caught at fragile lace, tore with violence again.
Her legs parted and locked around him, and they fell on the bed.
McHugh thought later he had tried to hurt her; but she met violence with violence, and in the end it had been his voice that filled the room in a sobbing half scream. He touched the stripes of fire on his back and looked, dazed, at the smear of blood on his fingertips while she put her mouth again to the place on his shoulder where blood was seeping from the marks of her teeth. The touch of her tongue had turned from a spear of flame to something cool and gentle and healing.
For the first time, there were no cigarettes, no words after. They dressed in silence and walked along the corridor slowly—the big man with the beat-up face and blood beginning to stain the shirt that was short of buttons, and the tall blonde woman who moved with languid grace. Their hands were clasped, and, with the elevator gone, they walked down the six flights of stairs.
There were telephone numbers to be called when McHugh walked into The Door. He did not want to talk to Bud Chapman or to Nick Foote. He was feeling male and sentimental, and he wanted to lie in the big bed in the apartment with Loris and hold her gently in his big arms. He was even thinking that, when a man gets past thirty-five, it is high time he quit banging around the world and inciting to riot. He called Bud Chapman first.
