David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 4

All the things Ella had told me up in the hay loft were coming out now. I kept talking because I didn’t want to stop and give him a chance to do his own thinking. He was listening all right. And that was what I wanted. His mouth hung open goonishly now and his gun hand was down at his side.

“I didn’t force Ella to do anything she didn’t want to do. Lord knows how many others she’s had. She’s sick, Rudy. Sick for the want of thrills. She’d do anything to stir up a rumpus.”

A real out was hitting me now. It made me a little sick to think of it, but it was all I had. After all, it was my life that depended on it.

“That’s why she told you about what happened in the barn. She knew you’d come here to kill me. And after you’re finished with me she’ll tell you about the other guy, the one who made her pregnant.”

Sweat rolled down my face and some of it went into my mouth. Rudy’s head was swaying with disbelief, but my words were reaching him, digging into him cruelly.

“Want to know something else, Rudy? I’ll bet you anything that Ella is outside right now waiting to see what happens.”

I backed toward the window. “Bet she’s out there, Rudy. Take a look! She’s waiting for you to kill me, then the other guy. You know why? So all the dames in this burg will look at her as the gal Rudy Ferris knocked off two guys for. She’ll have what she wants. Recognition. Excitement. Plenty of it. And the other hayseeders around here will think she really has something because two men died for her. So they’ll make love to her, Rudy, while you’re sweating your brains out waiting for your turn in the electric chair.”

“No! It ain’t like that! You’re just trying to lie your way out of a bullet.”

“I am not. All you have to do is look outside. Go ahead, Rudy. Put the lights out and take a look.”

He motioned to me with his gun. “Get over by the window. Stand there so I can see you.”

I did as I was told, feeling sick to my stomach because of what I was doing. Rudy snapped off the wall switch and moved toward the window. He pushed the curtain aside just a crack. I took a look myself, and let out a sigh of relief.

In the lighted doorway of a store across the street, a bare leg swung back and forth. It was a woman’s leg. Ella’s. She was sitting on a stool just inside the door.

“What’d I tell you, Rudy?” I whispered. “She’s waiting to hear your gun go off. She sent you on the errand and now she wants to see that you carry it out.”

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “Pack your bag and get outa here!”

“Yeah, sure, Rudy.” It took me no more’n three minutes to shut my suitcase on a full load.

“So long, Rudy.”

He didn’t answer, nor turn his head away from the window. I squeezed hurriedly out of the door and then took the back stairs on the double down to the alley that circled the hotel. I wanted to get away from there, fast.

I was in the alley when I heard the shots. I counted six. I felt like throwing up. All the way to the bus station I kept trying to rid my brain of the promise I’d made Ella up in the loft. I’d promised to take her away from Leadsville that very night.

I told her to wait for me across the street from the hotel.

There must have been twenty cars in the drive when I got to the address in Malibu. I parked my Cad behind a new Lincoln convertible and walked to the front door of a two-story, hundred-thousand-dollar house as modern as now. A small fortune in rubber plants, ferns, bananas, hibiscus fronted the house and bordered the drive. From the sea’s edge fifty yards or so away I could hear the boom of surf, and the tangy bracing scent of the ocean was exhilarating in my nostrils.

This was a warm Sunday afternoon; Sheldon Scott, Investigations — my downtown L.A. office — was closed, and I was invited to a party. A Hawaiian party at that: luau, roast pig, the works. From behind the house somewhere I heard a happy squeal. A happy feminine squeal. Sounded like a good wild party. There was a lot of hellish yelling and whooping. At the top of six cement steps I found a buzzer on the right of the massive door, poked it as chimes went off to the tune of How Dry I Am .

I could hear somebody running toward the door. Sounded like somebody barefooted. “Oh, Johnny!” a gal yelled, “Here I come, Johnny!” There was the slap-slap of bare feet and then the door swung wide and a beautiful blonde babe holding a highball glass in her hand stood there framed in the doorway beaming at me.

She cried, “Where you been, Johnny?” and then she began staring at me curiously.

Well, that was nothing to what I was doing to her. Very softly, so softly that I am amazed she heard me, I said, “I’m not Johnny, I’m only Shell Scott, but don’t let that—”

Wham, the door slammed in my face. Feet went slap-slap back the way they’d come. What the hell, I leaned on the buzzer some more. Christ knew what I’d get next time. I was even thinking maybe I should yell, “Hey, Johnny’s here!” and stand back.

There weren’t any footsteps this time. The door opened and a guy about five feet, eight inches tall came outside and glared up at me. The guy was about thirty-five, wearing vivid swim trunks and carrying a highball glass. He was six inches shorter than I, but only about ten pounds under my 205. He was built like a .45 automatic, and he was loaded. “Johnny, huh?” he said thickly, then he dropped his highball glass onto the cement with a crash, and socked me on the chin with his right hand.

I was caught completely by surprise — to tell the truth, I’d been trying to peek around him and get another glimpse of that blonde — so I didn’t even have time to jerk my chin. He got me solidly and knocked me clear down those six steps onto the driveway. “The hell with you, Johnny,” he said.

The door slammed again. Behind him.

I started to get up, then changed my mind. Maybe it was time for a few cool thoughts. Everything was going around and around. That short guy packed a powerful punch, and though he hadn’t knocked me out, he’d made the afternoon a couple shades darker. I fumbled in my coat for cigarettes and my lighter, got a weed lit, and propped an elbow under me while I dragged smoke into my lungs.

The numbers above the massive door danced a little as I stared at them, but they were the right numbers. This was the right house. I shook my head and the ringing went away, everything stopped going around, settled down. It had been less than an hour ago that Dolly had phoned me from here and told me to fly out and bring my trunks, that there was one hell of a party going on. She had said, “Come on, Scotty boy, you come on out here ri’ now. Bes’ li’l ol’ party you ever did see. You got my pers’nal invitation.” And so on. Naturally I had dropped everything and headed for Malibu. She’d convinced me that I’d be welcome. Dolly had said she’d save me a drink and a kiss if I wanted them, and I wanted them. But maybe, I thought, Dolly had been out of her mind. Some welcome.

A girl’s voice near me said, “Boy! I thought I was drunk. Whoo. You better go home.”

“I just got here.” I glanced up and was surprised to find that the gal had walked clear up to within a foot of me. She was wearing a brief bathing suit and from this angle she didn’t look half bad. I decided that from any angle she wouldn’t look half bad. I couldn’t tell how tall she was, but she looked wonderful, and had long red hair and blue eyes.

“What are you doing down there on the ground?” she asked me.

“I’m resting, stupid.” I felt ugly.

She squatted on her heels and looked bleary-eyed at me. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Betty.”