Brett Halliday - Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

“Yeah. What’s the sense?” Liddell stared at the homicide man for a moment. “How do you figure it happened?”

Sullivan shrugged, walked heavily back to the desk, sank into his chair. “Probably he followed Bob out, caught up with him and started arguing. Maybe he clouted him and knocked him down. Then he ran over him.”

“The fender?”

“Okay, so it didn’t happen that way. He went looking for Bob with the car. Maybe he got this crazy idea when he picked Bob up with the headlights.” The homicide man snapped his finger. “Could have happened just like that.”

Liddell considered it, nodding. “Could have, at that.” He got up, stretched, yawned. “I’ll check back with you if there’s anything new on our end.”

“Where you going?”

“I think I’ll drop by Louis’s place and have a talk with that bartender.”

“How so?”

“I think I’ve got an idea who that call came from.”

Sullivan grinned. “Horton’s wife?”

Liddell nodded. “Yes, it figures.”

“Right. That even gives us the motive. George Horton must have recognized his wife’s voice, figured Bob was going to meet her and saw a way to get rid of his competition once and for all. And pick up a wad of insurance dough at the same time. Buy it?”

Liddell grinned. “It’s hard to resist.”

Johnny got to Louis’s place in about twenty minutes. It was an overcrowded, smoke-filled boîte three steps down from the sidewalk on Bellevois Street in the Village. Johnny Liddell descended the three steps, and stood in the doorway until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. A long bar ran the length of the room. It was almost filled with low talking leftovers from the cocktail hour, and overhead a thick pall of smoke stirred sluggishly in the draft of the open door.

Liddell found himself a place at the end of the bar, waved down the bartender and ordered a bourbon on the rocks. He watched while the man behind the bar made a production of tilting the bottle over the glass.

“You on until closing last night?” Liddell asked. He permitted the barman to see the denomination on the folded five he held between his fingers.

The bartender seemed to have difficulty pulling his eyes away from the bill. “Yeah, I closed up last night.”

“George Horton and his brother were in here until almost closing?”

“They were my last two customers.”

Liddell nodded. “George leave much after his brother?”

The barman scratched at his scalp with his index finger. “Seemed pretty much as if they left almost together. Don’t rightly recall. I was busy polishing glasses. One minute George was sitting here alone, the next minute he was gone.”

The bill changed hands, the bartender tucking it into his vest pocket.

“One more question. That telephone call Bob got. Did you recognize the voice?”

The bartender looked around, dropped his voice. “Look, I don’t want to start any trouble — especially since Bob’s dead. But I recognized that voice, all right.” He looked around again to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “It was Sally Horton.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I should know her voice well enough. She’s in here almost every day.”

He held up a hand to a patron at the other end of the bar who was demanding service. “Be right back.” He shuffled to the far end of the bar, drew a fresh glass of beer for the impatient customer, then returned to Johnny. “Whatever she told Bob sent him scuttling out of here. Poor guy! If he only knew what was waiting for him.”

Liddell looked up from his drink. “What do you mean by that?”

The bartender shrugged. “He was goin’ to his death, the way it worked out, wasn’t he?”

Liddell frowned, considering it. “I guess you could say that.”

The bartender suddenly reached over, lifted Liddell’s glass, and swabbed the bar dry with a damp cloth. “Talk of the devil, here she is now. Sally Horton.” The blonde stood in the entrance to the bar, conscious that she was the cynosure of all eyes. She wore a nile-green knitted suit that left little to the imagination, and her hair had been pulled back from her face to a bun that lay in the nape of her neck. Her face was still devoid of make-up except for the brilliant lipstick.

From where he sat, Liddell could almost see the start of surprise on the girl’s face when she recognized him. But she managed a forced smile and headed for him. Not too rapidly, though. Twice she stopped to exchange words with men at the bar.

Finally she snuggled in alongside him. “This is a surprise. Do you come here often?”

Liddell shook his head. “My first time.” He took two cigarettes from a pack, lit them, passed one to the girl. “How about you?”

She sucked a lungful of smoke from the butt, and let it dribble from half-parted lips. “I like the place. I’ve been dropping by on and off since before I was married.”

She looked around the boîte. “This is where I met George, matter of fact. I got the impression he was a big businessman from the way he’d spread money around. I soon found out differently. It was rent money.”

Without being asked, the bartender slid a perfectly white martini across the bar. “Thanks, Louis.” She winked. She tasted it, and smiled. “Louis is the only bartender I’d permit to make a martini for me.” She eyed Liddell over the rim of the glass. “You didn’t tell me what you’re doing here.”

Liddell pinched at his nostrils with thumb and forefinger. “You didn’t tell me you called Bob here last night?”

She sipped at her drink, avoiding his eyes. “Was that important?”

“That depends. It sent him running out of here. Like the bartender says, not knowing what was waiting for him.”

The girl swirled the liquid around in her glass. “I asked him if he had told George about the divorce.” She pouted. “He was almost as scared of George as I was. But he promised that last night he was going to tell him.”

“Why did he leave George right after the call?”

The blonde shrugged. “We’ll never know now, will we?”

Liddell took a long, deep drag on the cigarette, dropped it to the floor and crushed it out. “I wonder.” He drained his glass, set it back on the bar. “I’ll be seeing you again?”

“You know where I live.”

He nodded, brushed past her. He had scarcely reached the bar before she had moved over and was in animated conversation with another man at the bar.

For the next few hours, Johnny Liddell wandered throughout the neighborhood surrounding Louis’s place. He charted the one-way streets, canvassed the type of businesses, talked to the cops on the beat, to bellhops at the rundown hotel a few blocks down Bellevois Street from the entrance to the bar.

The following morning, he called Lieutenant Vince Sullivan at headquarters to ask for a meeting with George Horton present, at which time he would prove that Horton had been responsible for his brother’s death. The meeting was set for four o’clock.

George Horton was already in the lieutenant’s office when Johnny Liddell walked in. On his arm, he brought Sally Horton.

Horton still hadn’t shaved. His clothes were crumpled and he looked up with bloodshot eyes as his wife walked in, then glared from her to Liddell. “You haven’t wasted much time. Either of you.”

The blonde ignored him, but had the quick good sense to favor the lieutenant with a smile.

“Bring a chair for Mrs. Horton,” the lieutenant snapped at the uniformed officer on the door. While she was being seated, he turned to Liddell. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing anybody. What are you doing, selling tickets?”

“There are some points that Mrs. Horton can clear up. I thought it would be best to have her along.”