The Paul Cain Omnibus (44 page)

He went swiftly to the door and into a narrow L-shaped room where unused chairs, stools, tables were stacked against the walls. There was a hatchway and a steep sloped stair leading down to another compartment. Kells went silently down.

There was a paper-shaded light over a flat desk and there were two bunks. A man in overalls was snoring in one. There was a watertight door in one wall and Kells went through it to a dark passageway that led forward along the ship’s side.

About thirty feet along the passageway, he stepped on something soft, yielding; he lighted a match and held it down to the drained face of the little man who had said “Please lock your hands together back of your neck.” There was a dark stain high on the front of his shirt; the heavy blue revolver was gripped in his outstretched hand. He was breathing.

Kells pried the revolver out of the little man’s hand and stood up. He balanced the revolver across his fingers and a kind of soft insanity came into his eyes. He shook out the match and went back along the dark passageway, through the compartment where the overalled man was sleeping, up to the L-shaped storeroom. In the far end of the L there was another narrow door. Kells swung it open softly. Swanstrom was sitting at the desk with his back to the door. Another man, a spare, thin-haired consumptive-looking man, was sitting on a chair on the platform, one of the .30-30s across his knees. He looked at Kells and he looked at the big blue revolver in Kells’ hand and he put the .30-30 down on the platform.

Swanstrom swung around and opened his mouth, and then he smiled as if he was very tired.

Kells said: “Twenty-four hundred, and goddamned quick.”

A thin moan of saxophones came down to them from somewhere above.

Swanstrom inclined his head towards the desk. He said, still with the tired smile: “I ain’t got a key.”

The other door opened and Rose and O’Donnell came inside. They stood still for perhaps five seconds; O’Donnell was almost directly behind Rose. He closed the door and then he reached for the lightswitch on the bulkhead. Kells squeezed the big Colt. O’Donnell fell forward to his hands and knees, shook his head slowly from side to side, sank down and forward onto his face.

Most of Kells’ face was dark with dried blood. His eyes were glazed, insane. He said: “Anybody else?”

He swayed. He moved slowly towards Rose. Swanstrom was staring at O’Donnell; Swanstrom stood up, and in the same instant someone knocked heavily on the door, the knob was rattled. Someone shouted outside. Kells moved toward Rose. His cold eyes and the slim blue barrel of the revolver were focused on Rose’s belt buckle.

Rose licked his full lower lip, and sweat glistened on his dark forehead. He put one hand into his inside pocket and took out the folded sheaf of hundred-dollar notes, held them towards Kells.

Kells took them and nodded. He grinned, and the grin was a terrible thing on his bloody face. He backed slowly, carefully to the door through which he had entered. He said, “First man through gets one in the guts,” backed out and closed the door.

He went swiftly to the hatchway, down. The man who had been asleep had gone. Kells went through the passageway to the little man, lighted a match and saw that he was conscious. His eyes were open and he smiled up at the flare of the match and kicked viciously at Kells’ knee.

Kells said: “Now, now—Garbo.”

He gripped the little man by the collar and dragged him along the passageway. There was sudden faint light at the after end and he waited until a shadow came into the light, shot at it, once, twice. The sound was like thunder in the narrow space.

They went on laboriously, Kells dragging the little man, the little man cursing him softly, savagely. The after end of the passageway was dark now. Kells sucked in breath sharply. There was acrid smoke in the darkness; something more than the smell of black powder. It was like burning wood. Kells pressed his body against the bulkhead and risked another match.

A little way ahead there was a large rectangular port in the ship’s side, another on the inboard side of the passageway. It was evidently a coaling port. The match flickered out and Kells edged forward, felt in the darkness for the big iron clamps which held the port closed. They were stiff from disuse but he strained and tugged until all but one were unscrewed, laid back. The last he hammered with the butt of the revolver until it gave; thrust all his weight against the plate. It creaked, slowly swung outward.

The sea was black, oily. The fog had thinned a little and the ship rolled lazily on a long, even ground-swell. Far to the left, Kells could see yellow sky over Long Beach, and to the right a distant winking light that might be the Eaglet. There was no sign of the launch.

Then he heard shouting and the sound of people running on the deck above him. He waited, listened, looked at the sea. The black water reddened; Kells leaned far out of the port and saw a long tongue of flame astern. As he watched, the water and the sky brightened. All the after quarter of the ship was afire.

When he again looked forward, a launch had rounded the bow, was idling about two hundred yards off.

Kells stopped, put the revolver down, and took hold of the little man’s shoulders. “Pull yourself together, baby,” he said. “We’re going bye-bye.”

He lifted limp, dead weight, saw that the little man was again unconscious.

Kells untied and kicked off his shoes. He took out the revolver and fired twice into the red darkness. By the mounting glow from astern he thought he saw a white hand raised; the launch swung towards him in a wide circle.

He put the sheaf of crisp bills into his hip pocket, buttoned the flap. He took off his coat and threw it into the sea. He picked the little man up in his arms, got him somehow through the port, and dropped him. Then Kells stood on the lower edge of the port, took a deep breath, dived. There was darkness and the shock of cold water.

He came to the surface a few yards from the little man, reached him in two long strokes and hooked one hand under his armpit. The shock had revived him; he struggled feebly.

Kells grunted, “Take it easy,” and swam towards the launch.

The red-faced man whom Kells had talked to on the wharf leaned over the gunwale; together they hoisted the little man aboard. Then the red-faced man helped Kells. He had been alone on the launch. He went to the wheel.

Kells took off his trousers and wrung them out. He said: “How come you’re alone?”

The red-faced man put his wheel hard over, spat high into the wind. “Rainey said for you to go chase yourself,” he said. “I went back to the wharf and then I got to worrying, so I come out by myself.”

Kells squatted beside the little man, looked back at the Joanna. Her after third was an up and down pillar of flame.

“Looks like a fire to me,” he said. He looked down at the white, drawn face. “You’ve been playing with matches.”

The little man smiled.

“It’s a fire, sure enough.” The red-faced man touched the throttle. Then he added: “There ain’t much of a crowd. They’ll all have a lifeboat apiece.” He chuckled to himself. “You’re pretty wet,” he said. “Where do you want to go?”

Kells said: “
Eaglet
.” He put on his pants.

Rainey sat in a big chair behind a desk. He was a very big, powerfully muscled man with straight black hair, a straight nose, and empty ice-gray eyes.

There was a woman. She sat at one side of the desk with a large glass in her hand. She was very drunk, but in a masculine way.

Kells stood across from Rainey. His expression was not pleasant. He said: “What’s it all about? Were you trying to get me killed?”

Rainey said: “Why not?”

The woman giggled softly.

Rainey turned his head without changing his blank expression, looked at the little man who had been carried into the cabin, laid on a couch. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

The woman said: “Nemo Kastner of K.C.—little Nemo, the chorus boys’ friend.”

Kells looked at the woman. She was blonde, but darkly, warmly. Her mouth was very red without a great deal of rouge, and her eyes were shadowed and deep. She was a tall woman with very interesting curves.

Rainey said: “This is Miss Granquist.”

Kells nodded shortly. He took a bottle and a glass from the desk, went to the little man.

Fay got up and went to one of the ports. He looked out at the
Joanna
, a spur of fire against the horizon. “Beautiful!” he said—“beautiful!” Then he turned and went over to where Kells knelt over little Kastner.

Kells held a glass of whiskey to Kastner’s mouth. Kastner drank as if he wanted it very much.

Kells looked up at Rainey. He dipped his head towards Kastner and said: “This is the young fella who rubbed Doc.”

Rainey twisted his mouth to a slow sneer. His eyes dulled. He said: “You
shot
Doc, you son of a bitch—and tried to hang it on Ruth.” Kells stood up slowly.

Kastner laughed quietly, carefully, as though it hurt his chest. “God almighty!” he said. “What a bunch of suckers.”

Kells and Rainey stood looking at one another for a little while.

Then the woman said: “You’d better get a doctor for his nibs.” She was sitting with her elbows on the desk, holding her face tightly between her hands.

Kastner shook his head. He laughed again as though moved by some secret, uncontrollable mirth. There was a little blood on his mouth.

Kells said: “You want a drink.” He poured more whiskey into the glass and sat down beside Kastner.

“What a bunch of suckers!” Kastner looked at the glass of whiskey. He looked at, and through, Kells. “Rose called Eddie O’Donnell and me after you left him this afternoon. He said Dave Perry had called while you were there and told him that Doc was at the joint in Hollywood waiting for you….”

Kells held the glass to Kastner’s mouth. He drank, closed his eyes for a moment, went on: “Perry knew that Rose was going to have Doc bumped—and he knew that Rose wanted to frame it on you. Only he’d figured on doing it on the boat. It looked like a good play.”

Kells said: “Why me?”

Kastner coughed and held one hand very tightly against his chest. “Rose thinks you’re a wrong guy to be on somebody else’s side—and he wanted to tie it up to Rainey.”

Kastner’s dark, near-sighted eyes wandered for a moment to Rainey. “Rose figures on airing everybody he ain’t sure of—he’s got a list. That’s why he sent for Eddie and me. He wants to move in on the whole town—him and Dave Perry and Reilly.”

Kastner stopped, closed his eyes. Then he went on with his eyes closed: “Doc was in their way, and besides, Rose wanted the boat for himself.”

Kells poured more whiskey into the glass. He said: “The Joanna came out tonight; how did they get the load?”

Kastner said: “She came out
last
night, and they worked all night transferring cargo from a couple schooners—twelve hundred cases. The play was to run it in, three cases to a launch, each trip. They’ve got a swell Federal connection at the wharf; the point was to get it by the cutters.”

Kastner coughed again. “That’s about all,” he said.

Rainey went back to the desk, sat down. Kells held the glass of whiskey toward Kastner, but Kastner shook his head. Kells drank a little of it.

Kastner went on listlessly: “Eddie and me went to Perry’s and I busted in and waited for you. Doc was scared. That’s the reason he’d wanted to see you: he had some kind of an in on what Rose was going to do and wanted help. He was scared pea green.”

Kells grinned at Rainey.

Kastner twisted on the couch. Then, suddenly, he spoke rapidly, as if he wanted to say a great many things all at once: “Eddie waited down on the street to give me a buzz on the downstairs bell when you started up. Rose had called Reilly and he was all set with three men to make the pinch—two in front and one in the alley.”

Kells asked, “How come you sapped Dave?”

“He was putting on an act for the girl so she wouldn’t think he was in on it. He got too realistic.”

Kells looked at Rainey and spoke to Kastner: “I thought Reilly was L.D.’s man.”

“He
was
. He was L.D.’s spot in the Police Department until Rose started selling him big ideas.” Kastner’s face was growing very white.

Kells said: “There’ll be a doctor here in a little while; I sent the launch ashore for one.” Then he walked to a port and looked out at the slowly lightening sky. He spoke without turning: “Reilly’s the Lou that Rose and O’Donnell were waiting for at the hotel….”

“And he’s the Lou they were waiting for on the boat—so they could let you have it resisting arrest—make it legal.”

Kells went over to the desk. Rainey was abstractedly playing with a little penknife; the woman still sat with her face between her hands.

Kells turned his head toward Kastner, asked very casually: “Who popped you?”

Kastner smiled a little. He said: “I don’t remember.”

The woman laughed. She put her hands on the table and threw her head back and laughed very loudly.

Kastner looked at her and there was something inexpressibly cold and brittle in his eyes.

Kells bent over the desk and took up a pen and wrote a few words on a piece of paper. He took the paper and the pen over to Kastner. He said, “It’ll make things a lot simpler if you sign this.”

The little man glanced at the paper and looked up at Kells. He said: “Nuts.” He grinned at Kells, and then his face tightened and he died.

Kells and Rainey sat at a table in Rainey’s apartment in Long Beach. The woman, Granquist, was asleep in a big chair. It was about eight-thirty, and outside it was gray and hot.

Kells said: “That’s the way it’ll have to be. None of us is worth a nickel as a witness.”

Rainey sipped his coffee and sat still for a little while, then he got up and went to the telephone and called Long Distance. He asked for a number in Los Angeles. He said: “Hello. This is Grant Rainey. I want to talk to L.D.…” There was a pause, and then he said: “Wake him up.”

He waited a little while and then he said, “Hello, L.D.…There’s a friend of mine here with an idea….”

Rainey gestured and Kells got up and went to the phone. He said: “This is Kells…Reilly is double-crossing you. He and Jack Rose aim to take over the town. They’re importing a lot of boys from the East, and you’re on the wrong side of their list….”