Gat Heat (6 page)

“All right. Hospitals and morgues?”

“Might check the morgue. Don't waste time on the hospitals for now.”

“It's an unusual name. That might help. Where will you be, Shell, if you're not in the car?”

“I'm not sure at the moment. Keep trying the Cad—I'll call again if I'm going to be gone for a while.” I paused. “Hazel, you
must
be kidding.”

She pulled the plug.

It took her half an hour.

During that time I stopped at the Norvue, but didn't learn anything more. None of the people I talked to had an address for the Whists, and the name Walles didn't mean a thing to any of them. From there I drove on out Sunset to Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Hotel. I didn't find my quarry, but I did at least pick up the scent.

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Walles had occupied a suite at the hotel for five months, and had checked out two months previously. More precisely, three days less than two months.

Clearly, just about the time of the Rileys' luncheon there with the “Whists.”

It was becoming interesting.

Especially since—if the Whists were also the Walleses—they'd been paying for a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel even while living, at least part of the time, in the Norvue.

When the attendant brought my car I climbed in and let it roll down the curving drive to its end, stopped and waited to swing into the traffic on Sunset.

I'd noticed the guy standing at the right edge of the drive, lighting a cigarette. But what the hell, he was just a guy lighting a cigarette. At least he was then. But not when, as I gawked to my left eyeing the traffic stream, he opened the Cad's door and slipped onto the seat.

Then he was a small, thin-faced and thin-lipped guy with a history of youthful chicken pox mapped topographically on his young-old face and a heavy gun in his right fist—the usual gun, the big one, the cliché gun, a Colt .45 automatic. Cliché, maybe, but not comical. They can just about cut a man in two.

And I knew Kestel—that was the creep's name, Lester Kestel, commonly called Bingo for some reason I never took the trouble to discover—had cut up a few.

He pulled the Cad's door shut with his free hand, and I felt my breath stop as I waited for the moment to take him—or to try to take him.

He saw my eyes flick from the automatic to his face, and said quietly, “You better look behind you, Scott.”

6

Something in Kestel's tone carried conviction. Merely his gun carried conviction, but it wasn't likely he'd have been standing there alone without a car nearby. A car and somebody at the wheel. Even before I looked I heard the soft swish of brakes being pressed and the faint sound of springs creaking.

A heavy black sedan, a new Lincoln, had pulled up on my left in the driveway. A hook-nosed, meaty-faced man was at the wheel; another guy sat on the driver's right, looking at me through the open window. I couldn't see all of his gun, only about an inch of the barrel and the fat round doohickey screwed over the muzzle. It was a silenced heat, a dumb-gat.

I looked back at Kestel. “Yeah, that big one of yours would make a lot of noise, wouldn't it?”

“Prob'ly hurt our ears,” he said.

“What the hell is this?”

“Questions, questions,” he said. “Grab a left into Sunset.”

I looked back at the Lincoln. I didn't recognize the driver, but I knew the short, thick, square-faced sonofabitch smiling at me over his silenced pistol.

“Hello, Stub,” I said. “I kind of hoped the worms had got you by now.”

His smile didn't change. But it hadn't been much of a smile to begin with. He had an eyetooth out on the left of his smile. Stub Corey could afford to pay a dentist for repairs to his chops, too. I guess he was just a slob. Hell, I know he was a slob. Anyhow, that eyetooth had been missing, to my knowledge, for two years.

That was how long it had been since I'd had anything to do with these guys. More than that. Even then we hadn't tangled head-on, hadn't shot at each other or even pounded on each other. I'd tagged one of their friends on a grand larceny rap and he was, so far as I knew, still doing his bit at Q.

He'd been a minor cog in the group to which Stub and Bingo belonged, not much loss, and there'd been no real friction generated. Just a lot of words, a few threats from the boys. Of course, it hadn't made them love me more.

I turned back to Kestel. “How's Jimmy these days?”

“Mr. Violet to you, Scott.”

“Mr. Manure to me,” I said. That's a loose translation of a most unpalatable comment, but when with hoods you talk the hoods' lingo, the language they understand.

He turned the gun's muzzle away from me, and let me look at its flat side. “One more crack and you get it in the teeth, Scott.”

Most likely he meant it. But if he swung that heater at me I was going to pop him. And very likely get shot in the back of the head. Nonetheless I was going to pop him.

“Sunset,” he said.

I put the car in gear, eased down on the gas pedal and took a left, rolling along close to the divider in the middle of the road.

“Right lane for now,” Kestel said.

It was O.K. with me. For the moment, at least. I wanted a little time to think. I eased into the right lane, wondering what the hell. Why were these creeps and musclemen hard-boiling me—after all this time?

Also, how had they happened to pick me up here at the Beverly Hills Hotel? Tipped by somebody? Or on my tail for a while? I didn't expect Bingo to tell me all of that, but maybe he'd tell me a little.

“Nice morning for a drive,” I said. “Where we going?”

“Questions, questions. But it ain't no secret. Don't worry. We ain't gonna kill you.”

“I'm glad to hear it.”

“Not unless you get jerky. But I like the way you're taking it, Scott. Just tool along nice and easy like this, and we won't kill you.”

“Bag the bigmouth, Bingo. You should know by now it doesn't impress me. If it's no secret, tell me where the hell we're going.”

“Jimmy wants a little gab with you.”

“So why didn't he call up and ask me?”

“You wouldn't of come.”

“Yeah, you're right. I'd come to his funeral, but that's the only—Don't do it, Bingo.”

It was pretty close. He'd hauled the gun back, and maybe was going to swing it. Maybe. He wasn't quite right in the head. Anyway, he didn't.

“So Jimmy Violet wants to see me, huh?” I said. “What about?”

“He'll tell you.”

I saw the amber light start glowing on the dashboard. I did not, however, reach for the phone. Not just then.

First I said, “Let me tell you something, Bingo. I never had any reason to build a real gripe against you. Not before today. But you have now earned a spot near the top of my list.”

“I just wet my pants.”

“Hell, if the smell's a clue, it happened before you got in the car.”

He started swearing in a high-pitched voice that got even higher. He was burning, on the edge—which was where I wanted him. On it, not over it.

“Hold it,” I said. “Look at that, Bingo.” I moved a hand—slowly—and pointed at the phone light.

Breath hissed between his teeth, but he didn't say anything. He really wasn't right at all in the head.

“You know what this is, Bingo? It's a phone. Radio-telephone, under the dash.”

“So what?”

“So I'd better answer it.”

“In a pig's rear end, you'll answer it.”

“Listen, try to use your brains just once today. I know who the call's from, I've been expecting it. It's from my secretary—not really my secretary, but Hazel Green, the gal on the switchboard in the Hamilton.”

He hissed a little more. “So? So what?”

“Use your conk, you saphead.” I stretched it a little. “She knows I'm in the car—knows I'm
driving
the car, for that matter. If I don't answer she'll also know something's wrong. She'll know I've got trouble, or somebody else is driving the heap—”

“Shut up, lemme think.”

“That'll be the day. If I don't answer she'll sure as hell tip the fuzz—”

“Shut up.”

“O.K.” I grinned at him. “If that's the way you want it, Bingo.”

He wavered for maybe three seconds, then said, “Answer it.” As I reached for the phone he added, “But make it fast.
Fast
, you get it? One wrong crack and she'll hear the shot herself.”

I put the phone against my ear. “Hello.”

“Shell, I got it. Edward Walles, a home on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills.” She gave me the number—clear up at the north end of Beverly, barely inside the city limits—then went on, “I checked the utility companies. Do you realize they've got electricity, and gas, and hot and cold running water in Beverly Hills?”

“Yes.”

“So it's their home. In the name of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Walles.”

“Fine,” I said. “And thank you, Miss Green.”

Then I hung up and looked at Bingo. “O.K.? That suit you?”

He was squinting his eyes, and his hand was so tight around the gun's butt that his knuckles were bloodless, but he said, “Sounded O.K. Yeah … O.K.”

I'd figured it would sound O.K. to him. Bingo would certainly know I didn't have a personal secretary, and he probably knew there was a gal on the switchboard in the Hamilton. He might even know her name was Hazel.

But he wouldn't know about the way we usually yacked on the phone.

And very likely he didn't know her last name was not Green.

Bingo liked it that I was driving carefully, and slowly. Well, I like it too—now. So I continued to drive carefully, and even slowed down a little more. The slower the better from here on, as far as I was concerned.

“Jimmy still at the same place?” I asked Bingo.

“What's it to you?”

“Just making conversation.”

“Well, don't. We'll be there soon enough.”

“He put piranhas in that lake yet?”

“What's perahnus?”

“Little fish. You go swimming with piranhas, and they eat you up. Eat you alive.”

“You're sure full of it, Scott. Jimmy didn't do nothing to the lake. It's like it always was. What's it to you? You planning to swim in and see him?” He laughed.

“I'm not planning to go at all.”

He laughed at that, too. “You're going,” he said.

One police car had passed us so far, traveling in the opposite direction on Sunset. The driver had taken a long look at my car—the sky-blue Cad convertible is pretty well known in the L.A.-Hollywood area. The radio car didn't turn around or come after us, but it was a start.

We drove into the Strip, past the swank nightclubs and restaurants, the small shops, hole-in-the-wall cafés and strip joints, the black Lincoln behind us all the way. But there seemed to be more police cars passing us now, in both directions. And a plainclothes car was a few yards ahead in the left lane. I knew it was a plainclothes car because I'd recognized two of the men—the four men—inside it.

The outcome was only a matter of time. What I didn't know was whether my getting shot in the stomach would be part of the outcome. My stomach—that's where Bingo held the .45 pointed with a sort of what-the-hell air. I suppose from his point of view, what the hell, it was my stomach.

We were still on Sunset, but from the talk of piranhas and the lake and such I figured Jimmy Violet was living at the same place where he and his crumby pals had been hanging out two years ago. That was in a big dump on several acres well up into the hills between Hollywood and North Hollywood, less than a mile off Laurel Canyon Boulevard. So I figured we'd soon be turning north, probably on Laurel Canyon. I was right. Bingo directed me, and I signaled well in advance just in case anybody was interested.

Well, there was lots of interest. It happened about a minute after we started up Laurel Canyon. The plainclothes car was still in front of my Cad, and it slowed to a stop. At the same time a black and white cruiser appeared a block ahead, coming this way. The black Lincoln was still right behind us, but there also seemed to be an unusual amount of traffic on this stretch of road, especially back there behind us.

“Hey, whatthehell,” Bingo said as I came to a stop.

“You want me to crash into that heap?” I asked him.

“I don't want you should stop.”

“O.K., wait'll I put the wings on, and we'll fly over—”

“Don't do nothin', that's a cop … Oh-oh.”

You wouldn't believe how fast it happened. At least, Bingo didn't believe it. He just about had time for one more “Whatthehell,” and then there were cops all over the place.

All four officers in the plainclothes car had poured out and were on their way back toward us, but the black and white cruiser had already braked to a stop on my left and, at the same time, a man yanked open the Cad's right-hand door.

Bingo jerked his head around, but before his chops had moved an inch I'd grabbed the .45 with my right hand and then swung my left in an increasingly speedy arc, which ended with a most satisfactory
chuncck
on the side of his jaw. Satisfactory. but not as lethal as I'd have liked, since I didn't really have opportunity to set myself and plant my feet, but it addled him. He didn't go clear out, but he slumped down in the corner and said, “Buh,” or something like that. Then he shook his head slowly and said, “Whuh.”

“The black Linc behind us,” I told the guy who'd yanked open the door.

He shook his head. I glanced back and saw a plainclothes car, a black and white cruiser, and two motorcycles around the Lincoln. There were cops—and guns—everywhere you looked. I guess there were at least a dozen policemen, and I figured that was approximately the right number.

Stub Corey and the driver were getting out of the Lincoln, leaning forward with their hands on its top as the officer shook them down.