The Paul Cain Omnibus (48 page)

“Goddamn!” he said brokenly. “Goddamn, it’s beautiful!”

Granquist stared at Kells and then she leaned back in the chair and her eyes were very frightened. She said: “I didn’t do it.” She leaned back hard in the chair and closed her eyes tightly. She said, “I didn’t do it,” over and over again.

Kells’ laughter finally wore itself out. He wiped his eyes with the handkerchief and then he looked up at Beery. “Well,” he said, “why the hell don’t you get on the phone? You’ve got the scoop of the season.”

He leaned back and smiled at the ceiling, improvised headlines: “Boss Bellmann Bumped Off by Beauty. Pillar of Church Meets Maker. Politician—let’s see—Politician Plugged as Prowler by Light Lady.”

He stood up and crossed quickly to Beery, emphasized his words with a long white finger against Beery’s chest. “Here’s a pip! Reformer Foiled in Rape. Killer says: ‘I shot to save my honor, the priceless inheritance of American Womanhood.’”

Beery went to the telephone. He said: “We’ve been a Bellmann paper—I’ll have to talk to the Old Man.”

“You goddamned idiot!
No
paper can afford to soft-pedal a thing like this. Can’t you see that without an editorial?” Beery nodded in a faraway way, dialed a number. He asked for a Mister Crane, and when Crane had answered, said: “This is Beery. Bellmann has been shot by a jane, in her apartment, in Hollywood…. Uh-huh, very dead.”

He grinned up at Kells, listened to an evident explosion at the other end of the line. “We’ll have to give it everything, Mister Crane,” he went on. “It’s open and shut—there isn’t any out…. Okay, switch me to Thompson—I’ll give it to him.”

Granquist got up and went unsteadily to the door. She put her hand on the knob and then seemed to remember that the door was locked. She looked at the key but didn’t touch it. She turned and went into the dinette, took a nearly empty bottle out of the cupboard and came back and sat down.

Beery asked: “What’s your name, sister?”

Granquist was trying to get the cork out of the bottle. She didn’t say anything or look up.

Kells said: “Granquist.” He looked at her for a moment, then went over to the window, turned his head slightly towards Beery: “Miss Granquist.”

Beery said, “Hello, Tom,” spoke into the telephone in a low, even monotone.

Kells turned from the window and crossed slowly to Granquist. He sat down on the arm of her chair and took the bottle out of her hands and took out the cork. He got up and went into the dinette and poured the whiskey into a glass and brought it back to her. He sat down again on the arm of the chair. “Don’t take it so big, baby,” he said very softly and quietly. “You’ve got a perfect case. The jury’ll give you roses and a vote of thanks on the ‘for honor’ angle—and it’s the swellest thing that could happen for Fenner’s machine—it’s the difference between Bellmann’s administration and a brand-new one.”

“I didn’t do it, Gerry.” She looked up at him and her eyes were dull, hurt. “I didn’t do it! I left the snaps and stuff in the office downstairs when I went out—the bag was a gag….”

Kells said: “I knew they weren’t in the bag—you left it in the chair when you went into the bathroom.”

She nodded. She wasn’t listening to him. She had things to say. “I ran back here when I left Fenner’s. I picked up the stuff at the office—had to wait till the manager got the combination to the safe out of his apartment. Then I came up here to wait for you.”

She drank, put the glass on the floor. She turned, inclined her head toward Bellmann. “He was like that—he must have come here for the pictures—he’d been through my things….”

Kells said: “Never mind, baby—it’s a setup.”

“I didn’t do it!” She beat her fist on the arm of the chair. Her eyes were suddenly wild.

Kells stood up.

Beery finished his report, hung up the receiver. He said: “Now I better call the station.”

“Wait a minute.” Kells looked down at Granquist and his face was white, hard. “Listen!” he emphasized the word with one violent finger. “You be nice. You play this the way I say and you’ll be out in a month, with the managers throwing vaudeville contracts at you. Maybe I can even get you out on bail.”

He turned abruptly and went to the door, turned the key. “Or”—he jerked his head towards the door, looked at the little watch on the inside of his wrist—“there’s a Frisco bus out Cahuenga in about six minutes. You can make it—and ruin your case.”

Outside, sultry thunder rumbled and rain whipped against the windows. Kells slid a note off the sheaf in his breast pocket, went over and handed it to her. It was a thousand-dollar note.

She looked at it dully, slowly stood up. Then she stuffed the note into the pocket of her suit and went quickly to the chair where Kells had thrown her coat.

Kells said: “Give me the Bellmann stuff.”

Beery was staring open-mouthed at Kells. “God! Gerry, you can’t do this,” he said. “I told Tommy we had the girl….”

“She escaped.”

Granquist put on her coat. She looked at Kells and her eyes were soft, wet. She went to him and took a heavy manila envelope out of her pocket, handed it to him. She stood a moment looking up at him and then she turned and went to the door. She put her hand on the knob and turned it, and then took her hand away from the knob and held it up to her face. She stood like that for a little while and then she said “All right,” very low.

She said, “All right,” again, very low and distinctly, and turned from the door and went back to the big chair and sat down.

Kells said: “Okay, Shep.”

About ten minutes later Beery got up and let Captain Hayes of the Hollywood Division in. There were two plainclothes men and an assistant coroner following close behind him.

The assistant coroner examined Bellmann’s body and looked up in a little while and said: “Instantaneous—two wounds, probably .32 caliber—one touched the heart.” He stood up. “Dead about twenty minutes.”

Hayes picked up the gun from where Kells had replaced it under the table, examined it, wrapped it carefully.

Kells smiled at him. “Old school,” he said, “along with silencers and dictaphones. Nowadays they wear gloves.”

Hayes said: “What’s your name?”

Beery said: “Oh, I’m sorry—I thought you knew each other. This is Gerry Kells…Captain Hayes.”

“What were you doing here?” Hayes was a heavily built man with bright brown eyes. He spoke very rapidly.

“Shep and I came up to call on my girlfriend here”—Kells indicated Granquist who was still sitting with her coat on, staring at them all in turn, expressionlessly. “We found it just the way you see it.”

Hayes glanced at Beery, who nodded. Hayes spoke to Granquist. “Is that right, Miss?”

She looked up at him blankly for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“That’ll be about all, I guess.” Hayes looked at Kells. “You still at the Lancaster?” Kells nodded.

“You can always reach me through Shep.”

Hayes said, “Come on, Miss.”

Granquist got up and went into the dressing room and packed a few things in a small traveling bag.

One of the plainclothesmen opened the door, let two ambulance men in. They put Bellmann’s body on a stretcher and carried it out.

Kells leaned against the doorframe of the dressing room, watched Granquist. “I’ll be down in the morning with an attorney,” he said. “In the meantime, keep quiet.”

She nodded vaguely and closed the bag, came out of the dressing-room. She said: “Let’s go.”

The manager of the apartment house was in the corridor with one of the Filipino bellboys, a reporter from the Journal and a guest.

The manager was wringing his hands. “I can’t understand it—no one heard the shots,” he said.

One of the plainclothesmen looked superiorly at the manager. He said, “The thunder covered the shots.”

They all went down the corridor except Beery and Kells. Beery said, “So long,” to the captain.

The manager stayed behind a moment. “I’ll close up Miss Granquist’s apartment.”

Kells said: “Never mind—I’ll bring the key down.”

The manager was doubtful.

Kells looked very stern. He whispered: “Special investigator.” He and Beery went back into the apartment.

Beery called his paper again with additional information: “…. Captain Hayes made the arrest…. And don’t forget—the
Chronicle
is always first with the latest….” He hung up, lighted a new cigarette from the butt of another. “From now on,” he said, “I’m going to follow you around and phone in the story of my life, from day to day.”

Kells asked: “Are you giving it an extra?”

“Sure. It’s on the presses now—be on the streets in a little while.”

“That’s dandy.”

Kells went into the kitchen, switched on the light. He looked out the kitchen window and then he went to a tall cupboard—the kind of cupboard where brooms are kept in a modern apartment—opened the door.

Fenner came out, blinking in the bright light. He said: “I would have had”—he swallowed—“would have had to come out in another minute. I nearly smothered.”

“That’s too bad.”

Beery stood in the doorway. He said: “For the love of God!”

Fenner went into the living room and sat down. He was breathing hard.

Kells strolled in behind him and sat down across the room, facing him.

Fenner took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his mouth and forehead. He said: “I followed her as you suggested, and when she went in through the lobby, I came up the side stair intending to meet her up here.”

Kells smiled gently, nodded.

“I didn’t want to be seen following her through the lobby, you know.”

“No.”

Beery was still standing in the kitchen doorway, staring bewilderedly at Fenner.

“I knocked but she hadn’t come up yet,” Fenner went on, “so I opened the door—it was unlocked—and came in.”

Kells said: “The door was unlocked?”

Fenner nodded. “In a few minutes I heard her coming up the hall and she was talking to a man. I went into the kitchen, of course, and she and Bellmann came in. They were arguing about something. Bellmann went into the bathroom I think, and then I heard the two shots during one of the peals of thunder. I didn’t know what to do—and then when I was about to come out and see what had happened, you knocked at the door.”

Fenner paused, took a long breath. “I didn’t know it was you, of course, so I hid in the cupboard.”

Kells said: “Oh.”

“I thought it would be better if I didn’t get mixed up in a thing of this kind, anyway.”

Kells said, “Oh,” again. Then he looked up at Beery. “Sit down, Shep,” he said. “I want to tell you a story.”

Beery sat down near the door.

Kells stretched one long leg over the arm of his chair, made himself as comfortable as possible. “This afternoon I told Mister Fenner”—he inclined his head towards Fenner in one slow emphatic movement—“that I knew a gal who had some very hot political info that she wanted to sell.”

Beery nodded almost imperceptibly.

“He was interested and asked me to send her to his hotel tonight. I had a talk with her, and the stuff sounded so good that I got interested too—took her to Fenner’s myself.”

Fenner was extremely uncomfortable. He looked at Kells and dabbed at his forehead; his lips were bent into a faint forced smile.

“We offered the information—information of great political value—to Mister Fenner at a very fair price,” Kells went on. “He agreed to it and called the manager of his hotel and asked him to bring up an envelope containing a large amount in cash”

Kells turned his eyes slowly from Beery to Fenner. “When the manager came in a couple of benders came in with him. They’d been waiting in the next apartment, listening across the airshaft to find out what they had to heist—it was supposed to look like Rose’s stick-up—or Bellmann’s….”

Fenner stood up.

Kells said: “But it was Mister Fenner’s. Mister Fenner wanted to eat his cake and have crumbs in his bed, too.”

Fenner took two steps forward. His eyes were flashing. He said: “That’s a lie, sir—a tissue of falsehood!”

Kells spoke very softly, enunciating each word carefully, distinctly: “Sit down, you dirty son of a bitch.”

Fenner straightened, glared at Kells. He half turned towards the door.

Kells got up and took three slow steps, then two swiftly, crashed his fist into Fenner’s face. There was a sickening crackly noise and Fenner fell down very hard.

Kells jerked him up and pushed him back into the chair. Kells’ face was worried, solicitous. He said very low—almost whispered: “Sit still.”

Then he went back to his chair and sat down.

“He’s been overacting all evening.” Kells inclined his head towards Fenner. “One of the boys sapped the manager. They fanned me and made a pass for Granquist’s handbag. She tossed it out the window; I smacked one of them and the other one went after the bag. Granquist faked going after the bag too, and I sent Fenner after her, figuring that the stuff wasn’t in the bag and that she’d come back here and that the three of us would get together here for another little talk.”

Fenner was pressing himself back into the corner of the chair. He was holding his hands to his bloody face and moaning a little.

“When I sent Fenner after Granquist,” Kells went on, “I gave him a gun—one of the boys’. He was so excited about getting to the bag, or keeping G. in sight, that he forgot to frisk the manager for his big dough.”

Kells took the yellow envelope out of his pocket. “So I got it.” He leaned forward, pressed the edges of the envelope and a little packet of cigar coupons fell out on the floor.

“Almost enough to get a package of razor blades.”

Beery grinned.

Kells said: “Granquist headed over here, so Fenner knew that the bag had been a stall, followed her. When she came in past the office, he ducked up the side way and, figuring that she had come right up, knocked at her door.”

Beery said: “How did he know which apartment was hers?”

“He had us tailed from my hotel early this evening. His man got her number from the mailboxes in the lobby, gave it to him before we got to his place tonight.”

Beery nodded.

Kells said: “Am I boring you?”

“Yes. Bore me some more.”