Roy Carroll - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 4, April, 1953

The Bamboo Room was crowded when I stepped inside. I made a complete check of the place, but there was no Danny Jenkins and no Lois. I went to the bar and ordered beer. When it came, I motioned the bartender close to me. He was not the same one who had been on duty during the afternoon when I had met Evelyn Lanier.

“You know Danny Jenkins, don’t you?” I asked.

He nodded. “Sure.”

“Have they been in here tonight?”

“Yeah. You. just missed them. They ain’t been gone more than fifteen minutes.”

“How long were they here?”

“They were here when I came on duty. That was at six.” He looked at me. “Why?”

“Did they leave, or did either one of them leave, say for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then come back?”

He shook his head. “Not that I saw. What’s this all about?”

It had been a wild try, but that’s all I had: wild tries. Wild tries, and an hour to do what I could for Charley Boxer.

“Sorry to bother you, friend,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Listen!” he said. “What the hell is up?”

But I wasn’t interested in his questions.

I started back toward the West Indian Hotel. And all at once it hit me. I knew damn well who had killed Evelyn Lanier.

I asked the clerk at the desk for Mr. Cannon’s room number, but I didn’t wait for the elevator. I had to knock for fully half a minute before the door opened.

“I’d like to talk to you, Mr. Cannon,” I told him.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Drake.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“Let’s not be nasty,” I said. “Do you invite me in, or do I just simply come in?”

He thought about that a moment, and I pushed him in.

He closed the door slowly and I could see those hot lights coming into his eyes, the same ones I’d seen in the bar. He was wearing a sport coat and slacks, and there was no bulge beneath his arm or on his hip. I had expected him to be heeled.

“All right,” he said softly. “This better be good. If it isn’t, I’m going to have some fun with your face.”

“It’s good,” I said. “Real good. I know you killed Evelyn Lanier.”

He looked at me, and for a long moment his eyes were absolutely empty of any expression whatever. No hot lights, no anything.

“Killed?” he said.

“Killed,” I said. “Killed by you.” I glanced around, and I saw what I had been almost certain I would see. On the dresser stood a pair of binoculars.

Still his face was utterly blank. “Evelyn’s dead?”

“Very dead, Mr. Cannon. She threw you over, and you brooded about it, but you didn’t do anything about it until tonight.”

The hot lights were coming back. “I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to pull,” he said.

“Just hold it,” I told him. “You were sitting over here stewing in your own juices, and then you did what you probably do a lot. You took those binoculars off the dresser and looked over into Evelyn’s room. It’s a straight shoot across the court.”

“Jesus,” he whispered. “How crazy can you get?”

“You saw her show Charley Boxer some money. You heard her tell him exactly how much she had.”

“You’re just crazy enough to be amusing,” he said. “Tell me, pal — how in hell could I hear her tell him anything? That room’s eighty feet away.”

“The point is, you understood because you can read lips. Charley told me you’d had a head wound in the war and that it left you deaf for a couple of years. That’s long enough to learn to read lips.”

Cannon moved two short steps toward me.

“Easy does it,” I told him. “You hated her for what she’d done to you, and when you read her lips and knew she had ten thousand dollars in cash—” I shrugged “— well, it was just too much for you. You went over and got even with her, and got ten thousand dollars for your trouble besides.”

He took another step toward me. “One thing, friend. One little thing. How the hell can you prove this?”

“There’ll be people you’ve known in the past who’ll swear to the fact that you can read lips,” I said. “And those binoculars over there will — be focused exactly right.”

“And you call that proof?”

“There’s something else,” I said. “You mailed a letter tonight. If I had ten thousand dollars of my own, I’d bet every dime of it that that letter contains Evelyn’s ten thousand dollars. It’s an old trick, mailing money to yourself in care of general delivery in some other town. They’ll search that mail box, Cannon — and when they do, you’re a cooked goose.”

He was fast, but not fast enough. His left hand stabbed down beneath the pillow on his bed and came up with a snub-nosed revolver that was spitting bullets as fast as he could trigger. But I was a professional, and he was not. He kept pulling the trigger, but his gun was doing him no good, because my first slug had caught him squarely in the stomach and he was in no condition to do anything more than scream and fire blindly in my general direction.

I stepped in close and knocked the gun from his hand. Then he started to fall, and I caught him beneath the arms and eased him over on the bed. I’m no revenger, and I don’t try to mete out justice. It hurt me to shoot a man in the belly, and I wished to hell I’d had another split second to aim and wing him instead.

Van was a mighty smart guy. A little maneuvering, a little luck, and he was into a soft, easy life.

She was a cute kid and I hated to do this to her, but it had to be. I couldn’t fool around. I gave it to her straight, told her I couldn’t afford to get married, didn’t want to get married and that I wasn’t paying for any operation, either. Those things cost two — three hundred bucks, today. I didn’t have that kind of money. I told her, too, that if she tried to put the pressure on me, I’d just take off, fast. I didn’t have to hang around this town.

It was while she was putting on the big sob act that I figured an out for her. I told her to shut up for a minute and then I said: “Vera, listen. I think I’ve got it figured what you can do.”

She cut off the tears fast, but her big, brown eyes stayed full and glittery as she looked at me. “What is it, Van?”

“It’s simple,” I told her. “You know the boss is nuts about you, don’t you? Absolutely nuts. So when he hears you and I have busted up, he’ll ask you for a date. You give it to him. And you keep on giving it to him. Not only the dates.”

She sniffled and dabbed at her nose with a little wad of handkerchief. Those cowlike eyes stared at me dumbly. She said: “Go out with Mr. Owen? I... I don’t think I understand, Van.”

“You don’t understand.” I went over to the dresser mirror and started combing my hair. I knew Vera was watching me, thinking what nice curly hair I had, and how handsome I was, and big, like a college football player. I knew that because she was always telling me. It got monotonous.

“What do you want me to do?” I said. “Draw you a blueprint? After a few dates the dumb old slob will want you to marry him. Okay, you marry him. Your troubles are over.”

I turned away from the mirror and she was sitting very stiff in the chair, her usually round, pretty face looking drawn and shocked. “Van,” she said. “Do you know what you’re saying? I... I can’t marry someone I don’t even love. Especially a fat man old enough to be my father. Van, what do you think I am?”

I didn’t tell her.