Collection 1983 - The Hills Of Homicide (v5.0) (16 page)

“Sometimes, when they are busy, our breakfast and lunch business can be good. As for the late trade, there’s just enough to keep us open. We get some truck and cab drivers in here at all hours, and there’s always a few playing the pinball machines.”

Kip indicated the warehouse across the street. “Don’t they hire men once in a while? I saw an ad a few days ago for a handyman.”

“That place?” She shrugged. “It wouldn’t be your sort of work. Occasionally, they hire a wino or street bum, and not many of those. I imagine it’s just for cleaning up, or something, and they want cheap labor.

“There was a fellow who came in here a few times. I think he went to work over there. At least he waited around for a few days waiting for somebody to show up.”

“Did he actually get a job?”

“I believe so. He waited, but when they actually did show up he did not go over. Not for the longest time. He was like all of them, I guess, and really didn’t want work all that bad. He did finally go over there, I think.”

“He hasn’t been in since?”

“I haven’t seen him. But they haven’t been working over there, either. If they’ve been around at all, it was at night.”

“They work at night?”

“I don’t know about that, but one day I saw the shade was almost to the bottom, and the next day it was a little higher. Again, it was drawn to the bottom.”

Kip smiled and asked for a refill. A smart, observant girl.

“I’d make a bet the guy you speak of was the one I talked to. We were looking over the ads together.” Kip squinted his eyes as if trying to remember. “About forty? Forty-five, maybe? Medium height? Hair turning gray? Thin face?”

“That’s the one. He was very pleasant, but I think he’d been sick or something. He was very nice, but jittery, on edge, like. He was wearing a pin-striped suit, neatly pressed, and you don’t see that down here.”

So Marcy had been there, too? Kip sipped his coffee while she worked at the back bar doing some of her side work.

“What kind of business are they in?” He turned his side to the counter so he could look across the street. “I could use some work myself, although I’m not hurting.”

“You’ve got me. I have no idea what they do, although I see a light delivery truck, one of those panel jobs, once in a while. One of their men, too, comes in once in a while, but he doesn’t talk much. He’s a blond, stocky, Swedish type.”

Morgan glanced down the counter at the somnolent bum whose head was bowed over his coffee cup.

Through another cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie, they talked. Twice, truck drivers came in, had their coffee and departed, but Kip lingered, and the waitress seemed glad of the company.

They talked of movies, dancing, the latest songs, and a couple of news items.

The warehouse across the street was rarely busy, but occasionally they moved bulky boxes or rolls of carpet from the place in the evening or early morning. Some building firm, she guessed.

The bum got slowly to his feet and shuffled to the door. In the doorway, he paused, and his head turned slowly on his thin neck. For a moment, his eyes met Morgan’s. They were clear, sharp, and intelligent. Only a fleeting glimpse and then the man was outside. Kip got to his feet. How much had the man heard? Too much, that was sure. And he was no stewbum, no wino.

Kip walked to the door and stood looking after the bum, if such he was. The man was shuffling away, but he turned his head once and looked back. Kip was well inside the door and out of view. Obviously the man had paused in the door to get a good look at Morgan. He would remember him again.

The idea disturbed him. Of course, it might be only casual interest. Nevertheless there was a haunting familiarity about the man, a sort of half recognition that would not quite take shape.

There was no time to waste. The next step was obvious. He must find out what went on inside that warehouse, who the two men were who had been seen around and what was in the boxes or rolls of carpet they carried out. The last carried unpleasant connotations to Kip Morgan. More than ever, he was sure that Tom Marcy had been murdered.

Except for the narrow rectangle of light where the lunch counter was, all the buildings were blank and shadowed when Kip Morgan returned. Nor was there movement along the street, only the desolation and emptiness that comes to such streets after closing hours.

Like another of the derelicts adrift along neighboring streets, sleeping in doorways or alleys, Morgan slouched along the street, and at the corner above the warehouse, he turned and went along the back street to the alley. No one was in sight, so he stepped quickly into the alley and stopped still behind a telephone post.

He waited for the space of two minutes, and nobody appeared. Staying in the deeper shadows near the building Morgan went along to the loading dock at the back of the warehouse.

A street lamp threw a triangle of light into the far end of the alley, but otherwise it was in darkness. A rat scurried across the alley, its feet rustling on a piece of torn wrapping paper. Kip moved along the back of the building, listening. There was no sound from within. He tried the door and it was locked.

There was a platform and a large loading door, but the door was immovable. There were no windows on the lower floors, but when he reached the inner corner of the building he glanced up into the narrow space between the warehouse and the adjoining building and saw a second-story window that seemed to be open. The light was indistinct, but he decided to chance it.

Both walls were of brick and without ornamentation but to an experienced rock climber they offered no obstacle. Putting his back against the warehouse and his feet against the opposite building he began to work his way up. It needed but two or three minutes before he was seated on the sill of the warehouse window.

It was open but a few inches, propped there by an old putty knife. Hearing no sound he eased the window higher, stepped in, and returned the window to its former position. Crouching in the darkness, he listened.

Gradually, his ears sorted the sounds—the creaks and groans normal to an old building, the scurrying of rats—and his nostrils sorted the smell. There was a smell of tarpaper and of new lumber. Cautiously, he tried his pencil flash, keeping it away from windows.

He was in a barnlike room empty except for some new lumber, a couple of new packing cases, both open, and tools lying about.

Tiptoeing, he found the head of the stairs and went down. In the front office was an old-fashioned safe, a rolltop desk, and a couple of chairs. The room was dusty and showed no signs of recent use.

It was in the back office where he made his discovery, and it was little enough at first, for the lower floor aside from the front office was unfurnished and empty. And then he glimpsed a door standing open to a partitioned off room in a corner.

Inside was an old iron cot, a table, washstand, and chair. There was a stale smell of sweaty clothing and whisky. The bedding was rumpled. On the floor were several bottles.

Here someone had slept off a drunk, awakening to what? Or had he ever awakened? Or forfeited one kind of sleep for another? The heavy sleep of drunkenness, perhaps, for the silence of death?

Morgan shook his head irritably. What reason had he to believe these men dead? Was he not assuming too much?

He moved around. Kicking a rumpled pile of sacks, he disclosed
a blue, pin-striped suit!

Tom Marcy had worn such a suit when last seen! Dropping to his knees, Kip made a hasty search of the pockets, but they yielded nothing. He was straightening up when he heard movement from the alley entrance and a mutter of voices.

Dropping the clothing, he took one hasty glance around and darted for the stairway. He went up on his toes, swiftly and silently, then flattened against the wall, listening.

“Hey? Did you hear something?” The voice was low but distinct.

“I heard rats. This old place is full of them! Come on, let’s get that pile of junk out and burn it. If the boss found we’d left anything around, he’d have our hearts out. Where’d you leave it?”

“In the room. I’ll get it.”

Footsteps across the floor, then a low exclamation. “Somebody’s been here! I never left those clothes like that!”

“Ah, nuts! How do you remember? Who would prowl a dump like this?”

“Somebody’s been here, I say! I’m going to look around!”

They would be coming up the steps in a minute, and he had no chance of getting across that wide floor and opening the window, then climbing down between the walls. Even if the boards did not creak, the time needed for opening and closing the window and the risk of their hearing his feet scraping on the brick wall were too much. He glanced up toward the third floor. Swiftly, he mounted the steps to that unknown floor.

Morgan was fairly trapped, and he knew it. The weight of the .38 was reassuring, but he had no desire to shoot. A shot would bring the police and he had no right to be where he was.

Whatever was going on there was shrewdly and efficiently handled and, at the first hint of official interest, would quiet down so fast that no clue would be left. There were few enough as it was.

He could hear the two men stirring about down below. The blond man mumbling to himself, ignoring the protests of the taller, darker man. Twice, in the glow of their flashlights, Kip got a good look at them. Meanwhile, he was working fast. There was a window, and he eased it up. Down was impossible…but up?

He glanced up. The edge of the roof was there, only a few feet away and somewhat higher. Scrambling to the sill, his back against the window, he hesitated an instant, then jumped out and up.

It was a wild, desperate gamble, but the only alternative to a shootout, which he did not want. If he fell and broke a leg or was in any way disabled, they would find him and kill him.

He jumped, his fingers clawed for the edge of the parapet on the roof opposite, and caught hold. His toes scraped the wall, then he pulled himself up and swung his feet over the parapet just as the blond man reached the window. For a startled instant, their eyes met, and then he was up and running across the roof. He heard the sharp bark of a pistol shot, but the man could only shoot at where Morgan had been.

Crossing the roof, he looked down at the next one. Only a few feet. He dropped to that roof opposite, but this time he did not run. There was a narrow space there, and he could go down as he had come up. Bracing his back against one side, his feet against the other, he worked his way swiftly down.

He was almost down when he heard running feet on the roof above. Somehow, by a trap door, no doubt, they had reached the roof. “Where’d he go?” The voice was low but penetrating in the silence.

“Across the roofs! Where else! Let him go or we’ll have the cops on us!”

“Let’s get out of here!”

Dropping to the alley, Kip Morgan brushed himself off and walked to his car, almost a block away. He had barely seated himself when he saw a light gray coupé whisk by. The man nearest him was the blond man, and they did not see him.

Starting his car, he let the gray car get a start, then followed. Habitually, he went bareheaded, but in the car he kept an assortment of hats to be used on just such tailing jobs. He pulled on a wide-brimmed hat, tilting the brim down.

The gray car swung into Wilshire and started along the boulevard. It was very late, and there was little traffic. Holding his position as long as he dared, he came abreast only one lane away, and passing, turned left and off the street. When he picked them up again, he was wearing a cap and had his lights on dim. Moreover, his car now had a double taillight showing. He had rigged the car himself.

Shortly after reaching Beverly Hills, the gray car turned right, and Kip pulled to the curb, switched hats again, and turned his lights on bright. As the other car pulled up to the curb, he went by, going fast. Turning the corner, he pulled up and parked, then walked back to the corner, pausing in the darkness by a hedge and the trunk of a jacaranda tree.

Another car pulled up and stopped as the two men started across the street. A man and a woman got out. The blond man called out, “Mr. Villani? I got to see you!”

The man was tall and heavily built. He wore evening clothes, and as Morgan slipped nearer, staying in the shadows, he could hear the irritation in the man’s voice. “All right, Gus, just a minute.”

He turned to the girl he was with. “Would you mind going on in, Marilyn? I will follow in a minute.”

The girl’s face turned toward the light, and Kip’s pulse jumped.
It was Marilyn Marcy!

Drawing deeper into the shadows, he chewed his lip, scowling. This just did not make sense.

The two men had come up to Villani, who was speaking. “Gus? How many times have I warned you never to come near me? You know how to get in touch.”

Gus’s voice was low in protest. “But boss! This is bad news! That Morgan guy, he’s been into the warehouse!”

“Inside?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know for sure if it was him, but I think it was.”

“It was him,” the dark man added, “but he got away and we had only a glimpse of him.”

Morgan waited, hoping to see Villani’s face. This was the boss, the man he had wanted to locate, and he knew Marilyn Marcy.

A low-voiced colloquy followed, but Morgan could hear nothing but the murmur of their voices. “All right, Vinson. Stay with him. We want no failure this time.”

The two men started back to their car, and he started to follow them, then decided nothing would be gained. Rather, he wanted to know what was going on there.

As the gray car drove away, Morgan walked past the house into which Villani and Marilyn had disappeared, noting several other cars were parked outside. He went on down to the corner, crossed to a telephone booth and checked for Villani. It was there, the right name, the right address.

George
Villani!

Marilyn had a date with George. That tied in, but what did it mean? If she was double-crossing Morgan, what could she hope to gain by it? On the other hand, suppose she did not know? That could be the way these crooks found out about Richards and about him as well. She had simply told her boyfriend.