Solomon's Vineyard (18 page)

“Come on,” Pug said. “Or I'll bump you right here.”

Ginger started to go with him. I pulled her back. “Start shooting,” I
said. “You got a swell audience.”

The crowd was beginning to leave. I heard the noise of the motors
being started. I saw the punk over Pug's shoulder. I grabbed Pug and
threw him down just as the punk fired. I heard the bullet whine. Pug
caught me and pulled me down. We wrestled on the ground. I hit Pug and
broke away. One of Pug's men jumped the punk and took away the pistol.
He slapped the punk's face. I got oil the ground. “Leave him alone,” I
said to the hoodlum. He pointed the pistol at my stomach. “Don't get
tough.” The people by the hearse had heard the shot. They were looking
back at us. Pug got oil the ground and began to brush the dirt of! his
coat. I helped him. The people thought he had fallen and turned away.
“Bring the kid here,” Pug said.

They brought him. He cried and struggled with the men. “Damn you,” he
said. “What's the idea, kid?” Pug asked. I said: “He thinks you killed
his sister.” Pug went to the punk. “You got me wrong,” he said. “Carmel
was a swell doll. Would I be bringing her roses if I'd killed her?”

I said to the punk: “You better pay the minister. We'll have a talk
later.” I gave him a twenty. He threw it on the ground.

“Why did you pull him down?”

I picked the bill up and gave it to him again. “Go pay the minister.”

Ginger said: “Come on.”

They started to go away, the punk looking bewildered, but the hoodlum
with the pistol stopped them. “How about it, Pug?”

“Let 'em go.”

They went towards the hearse. Pug scowled at me. “I don't get it,
pal.”

“The punk thinks you killed his sister.”

“No. Why didn't you let him plug me?”

“I'm your friend.”

Pug said: “That's a laugh.” He scowled at me. “I want to talk to
you.”

He moved his head towards some graves further up the hill. I followed
him. The two bodyguards stayed by Carmel's grave. The rain was nearly
over. It was raining under a blue sky now. We stopped by a tombstone
with an angel cut on it. I saw green apples on a tree below us.

Pug said: “Anyway, thanks for what you did.”

“Forget it.”

“Yeah? If I do can you think of any other reason why I shouldn't bump
you oil?”

“The Princess.”

“The hell with her,” Pug said. “She's trying to muscle me out.”

“No,” I said. “You got her wrong.”

“Don't give me that.”

“She couldn't muscle you or anybody out. She doesn't run the
Vineyard.”

“Who does, then?”

“McGee.” Pug looked blank, and I added: “The lawyer.”

Pug said: “Crap.”

“Okay. Don't believe me. But McGee's got it in for you. He didn't
like the shooting at Papas's. And killin' Carmel.”

“Who told you this?”

“I used to work for McGee ... up to yesterday.”

“Either you're a liar or you . . .”

“Do you want me to prove McGee runs the Vineyard?”

Pug scowled. Then he said: “If you can.”

“All right. First I'll show you he owns
Tony's
place. And
The Ship.
And the house where Carmel worked. And the
Silver
Grove.
And the
Arkady.”

“The Vineyard owns them,” Pug said.

“You wouldn't bet on that, would you?”

Pug squinted at me doubtfully. “Why'd you quit McGee if he's Mr.
Big?”

“I'll show you that, too.”

We rode back with Ginger. Pug drove and Ginger sat in the middle. The
bodyguards followed in the other car. We made the hundred miles in an
hour and twenty minutes. We killed two chickens, a road-runner, a
chipmunk and a black-and-white dog. I didn't think Pug was going to be
able to stop the coupe in Paulton, we went so fast, but he did, right
in front of the County Building.

“Where are those records?”

“Second floor.”

“You wait here, baby,” Pug said to Ginger.

She didn't know what was going on. I winked at her, but she looked
scared. We went up the stone steps and into the building. The old clerk
got out the papers for us. Pug scowled when he saw McGee listed as the
owner of all the places I asked for. He named some more: the
Savoy
Ballroom,
the
Beachcombers, The Hut, Cecil's Grill.
McGee
owned them, too.

At the Arkady I had Pug come in with inc. “Any calls for me?” I asked
the clerk.

The clerk saw Pug, and for once he didn't giggle- “There's a
long-distance call from Kansas City, Mr. Craven.”

While we waited for the call, I told Pug about the guy McGee had
hired to tail me. The clerk put the call on an extension in the
manager's office. I picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“Well, I've done what you told me, Mr. Craven.”

“Listen, Kansas City,” I said; “there's a fella here I want you to
tell what you told me last night. Who paid you, and what he wanted you
to do. Wait a second.”

I gave the phone to Pug. He listened, asked a couple of questions and
then turned to me. “Anything you want to say?”

“Tell him I'm mailing the other half of the bill.”

Pug told him and hung up.

“Now you get the idea,” I said.

Pug said: “You were trying to muscle in on McGee, weren't you?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe hell, fatty. Why else would he try to run you out of town?”

“All right,” I said. “But remember he's going to do the same to you.”

“Oh, no, he's not.”

“I'll tell you one thing,” I said. “McGee has a library with french
windows. It's in the back of his house.”

Pug scowled at me.

“If anybody should want to ... see him, he works there every night
until one.”

Pug gave me a deadpan stare and then went out of the hotel and got in
Ginger's car and drove away. I said to the clerk: “If there're any more
calls, I'll be back in half an hour.”

Chief of Police Piper was drumming on his oak desk with my card. “Sit
down,” he said. He didn't look up. His round face was tired, and most
of the red had gone out of the skin. There were purple veins on his
cheeks. I sat down.

He hit the table with my card again, then stared at it. “We don't
like private dicks in Paulton,” he said, raising his eyes. He blinked
at me. He was thinking he'd seen me before. “No.”

“No.” He watched me. “What can I do for you?” He said it like he
wanted to know so he could refuse. I said: “It's more what I can do for
you, chief.”

“One of those smart ones, eh?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, go ahead.” He was still curious about my face, but he was
tired. “What can you do for me?”

“A couple of things,” I said. “How would you like to have another
high-class murder in town?” His mouth came open. “What do you mean?”

“It'd be your bucket, wouldn't it?”

“Now look here . . .”

“You're in a jam,” I said. “They're after you because Waterman was
killed. Isn't that so?” His face began to get red.

“And if there's another big killing, you'll be out.” I let this sink
in, and then said: “And some people will be asking if Pug Banta was
really in jail the night of the Papas shooting.”

“Pug
was
in jail.” The chief made a pretty feeble attempt to
roar. “Anybody who says different . . .”

“All right. He was. But some people are saying . . .”

“I can prove it.”

“So long as you're chief of police, you can.”

He thought this over.

“Somebody's going to try to bump off McGee,” I said.

“The lawyer?”

“Either tonight, or some night soon.” I told him about the library,
and how McGee worked in it late at night. I told him that I'd overheard
a couple of men talking about it while I was in the can at Jazzland. I
figured I was overworking the gag about hearing things in the can, but
I couldn't think of a better story. I said I didn't know who the men
were, and that I didn't hear why they wanted to kill him.

“We'll have to warn McGee,” the chief said.

“I wouldn't.”

“Why?”

“McGee'll give it away. Then you'd never catch the guys. Look, here's
the best way. Put a couple of good men in the yard. Then, when they try
for McGee, you can grab 'em red-handed.”

The idea appealed to him, but he still thought he'd better warn
McGee. He hadn't any right to take a chance with him that way, he said.
Better to let the killers go than have McGee in danger.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You got a friend named Carmel?”

He nodded before he thought.

“You mean to say,” I said, “you
had
a friend.”

“Why? What's . . .?”

“Day before yesterday Pug Banta said he wanted to see her, didn't
he?”

The chief began to look scared. “You know a hell of a lot, don't
you?”

“Pug had you call her,” I went on. “Then he met her for you.”

I paused. The chief didn't say anything.

“They buried her this morning,” I said.

“My God, no!”

I kept letting him have it. “Her body was found outside a town called
Valley. She'd been beaten to death.”

All the colour had gone out of his face. The veins on his jowls
looked green. His eyes were half closed.

I said: “One more thing about McGee.”

He looked at me.

“Pug Banta's going to kill him.” I got out of the chair. “And if
anyone's interested in getting rid of Pug, the place to do it would be
McGee's back yard.”

He sat at the desk, watched me walk to the door. At the last second
he jumped up and trotted after me. He caught my sleeve. “Was she really
beaten?”

“Her jaw was shattered, both arms were broken . . .”

“Oh, God! The poor kid!” He tugged my sleeve again. “Say! How do you
know this?”

“Her brother called me,” I said. “We're old friends. He had to have
some dough to bury her.”

“Oh, God!” he said.

“Well, so long, chief.”

He didn't answer. When I reached the stairs I looked back. He was
still standing in the door. I went out of the station into the street.
I felt good. Now I had things moving.

NEWSBOYS SELLING an extra in the street outside the hotel woke me up
the next morning. I looked at my watch. It was nine o'clock. I
telephoned down for breakfast and a bottle of rye.

“Send along one of those extras, too,” I told the clerk.

Charles, the Negro, brought the stuff up. I took a shower, drank half
a glass of whisky neat and then looked at the extra. Brother, did I get
a rear! The headline said: THOMAS McGEE MURDERED. And a subhead said
Pug Banta was being held for the job. I sat down on the bed and read
the story.

It seemed, the story said, one of Chief Piper's squads had noticed a
man lurking around McGee's house. The squad had followed the man (Pug
Banta) around to the back, but before they could grab him he shot and
killed McGee through one of the french windows in McGee's library.
McGee never knew what hit him. The cops then jumped Banta before he had
time to move and dragged him off to the station. So far he had refused
to say why he'd done the job.

I poured and drank another half glass of whisky. My plan had sort of
back-fired, but I didn't know. Maybe it was just as good this way. At
least McGee and Pug were out of the road. I lifted the napkin oil the
breakfast tray and then I got the phone.

“Goddam it,” I told the clerk; “I ordered six double lamb chops, not
those lousy single ones.”

He said he would send up six more right away.

About one o'clock a telegram came. It said:

Arrive Paulton four p.m. Will cut your heart out if you haven't got
Penelope.

Grayson.

I had four neat whiskies and a rare steak for lunch, and then I rode
out to the Vineyard on the street-car. I sat next to a fat lady with a
basket of staples from the A & P, and continued with my thinking. I had
a funny feeling that I was close to something, but I was damned if I
could tell what it was. I wondered if I had been right about McGee. He
had tried to scare me out of town. And he'd known there'll been a
robbery at the Vineyard. Yeah, I'd been right. I wondered if he had
killed Oke.

“Pardon me.”

“Huh?”

“This is where I get off.”

“Oh.” I let the fat lady and the basket by.

What I'd been hired for, though, was to get Penelope Grayson out. The
telegram had reminded me of that. Just thinking about her gave me a
sick-empty feeling in my belly. Those damned graves! And that kid
Tabith.nl And this was the night of the Ceremony of the Bride. I
thought again, what a phony idea; the Ceremony of the Bride. Hut there
was nothing phony about those graves. Jesus! I thought, if only there
was an honest DA in the county. I wondered what I would say to Grayson.
I wondered why I was so worried. I thought at heart I must be a pretty
honest bastard.

I went into the Vineyard by the back way. I rolled my knuckles on the
door, and the Princess let me in. She looked cool and pretty.

“Honey, did you bring the money?”

“Yes.”

“Hand it over.”

“I don't know as I ought to.”

“Yes, you had, honey. You're in trouble. They got an idea you broke
into the vault.”

“So McGee told me.”

She held out a hand. “Do you want to be caught with the money on
you?”

“What about you?”

“They don't suspect me, honey.”

I went over and had a drink of the brandy. Then I sat on the divan.
“How'd McGee find out?”

“I told him.”

“What the hell!”

She sat down beside me and put her hand on my knee. “I had to ... he
knew it anyway.”

“How?”

“Well,” she said, “one time we discussed breaking into the vault.”

“You and McGee?”

She smiled at me. I thought, well, I was right about McGee. I said:
“So you worked with him?”

“I still do,” she said.

Then I got it. She didn't know he was dead! I wondered why nobody had
told her. I decided to stall her.