Ричард Деминг - She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow

Drawing back the hammer of the thirty-eight, he centered the muzzle on Ross’ chest.

“It isn’t loaded,” Ross said.

There was a sharp click, Cord looked surprised, then both Mott and Hatton started to bring up their guns. Ross’ hand snapped forward and the derringer appeared in it as though he had plucked it out of the air. His thumb drew back the hammer as it slid into his palm and he squeezed the trigger.

The shot caught George Mott in the Adam’s apple, driving him backward through the open bedroom doorway.

Ross was falling sidewise even as he fired, and his left hand was sliding into his pocket to pluck out two more shells. Bull Hatton’s forty-five boomed and the slug cut air where the gambler had been standing an instant before. Then the derringer sounded again, a little round hole appeared in Hatton’s forehead and he toppled over backward into the kitchen.

Whitey Cord dropped the empty thirty-eight and clawed at his left armpit. Ross bounced to one knee, snapped open the derringer, ejected the spent shells and was thumbing new ones into the twin breeches as Cord’s hand reappeared with a forty-five automatic in it. The derringer clicked shut as the forty-five swung toward Ross. It was leveled at the gambler when the miniature gun cracked twice more in rapid succession.

The automatic sagged in Cord’s grip; he took an uncertain step toward Ross and pitched forward on his face.

Ross picked at the knot in the shoelace tied to the metal ring of the derringer’s butt, loosened it and felt the elastic tape slide back up his sleeve.

Walking into the bedroom, he drew out his handkerchief, carefully wiped the gun and tossed it on the bed.

The bathroom door was closed and there was no sound from beyond it. Christine-Vanita was waiting for the all-clear signal before she came out.

Ross’ gun harness was lying on the dresser. Slipping it on, he returned to the front room to pick up his thirty-eight, loaded it and thrust it into his holster.

He found his coat and tie hanging in the closet. When he had put them on, he knocked on the bathroom door.

“Is it all over?” the woman’s voice asked fearfully.

“Yeah,” Ross growled in a husky voice.

The lock clicked, the door opened and she stepped out. Her face drained of all color when Ross grinned at her sardonically. Her hand flew to her throat when she saw George Mott lying on his back in the bedroom doorway, his eyes staring vacantly upward and his throat a blob of crimson. Then she gasped when she saw the body of Whitey Cord lying beyond Mott’s in the front room.

“Beanhead is laid out in the kitchen,” Ross informed her.

She gazed at him in terror. “He made me,” she whispered. “He would have killed me if I hadn’t done as he said.”

“Sure, Vanita,” he said reassuringly. “I understand.”

Her eyes widened. “You know who I am?”

He merely grinned at her. “That’s the gun which killed all of them,” he said, pointing to the derringer on the bed. “If the cops ever get hold of it, they’ll trace it to a pawnshop where, according to the gun register, it was bought by a woman giving her name as Mrs. Christine Franklin and her address as Stowe Point. The pawnshop proprietor has a detailed description of you and is prepared to pick you out at a showup.”

She was staring at him unbelievingly. “You knew the whole plan,” she said in a bare whisper.

“Of course,” he told her cheerfully. “Your love pats weren’t thorough enough. I had the derringer up my sleeve. You’d better dispose of it. You’d also better dispose of the bodies, because I doubt that you could explain them to the police. It wouldn’t do you any good to tell the truth, because the gun would make you out a liar and you could never convince them that I’ve been here.

“Within thirty minutes I’ll be at a chicken farm where three reputable witnesses of a type the cops believe will be willing to testify that I spent the whole evening there. I suggest you phone some of your gangster friends in Chicago and have them catch the next plane here to help you dispose of the bodies. Unless you’re afraid they might not believe your story either and would hold your responsible for the death of your lover.”

“They’d kill me,” she said in a nearly inaudible voice. “You do have a problem,” he agreed. “Maybe you can find a spade around here somewhere. I’ll leave you to work things out your own way.”

Walking into the front room, he lifted the two glasses from the cocktail table and polished their exteriors with his handkerchief. Skirting the dead George Mott, she followed to watch him.

“In the remote event that you call the cops and try to convince them of the real story, I don’t want to leave any proof that I was here,” he explained.

Going into the kitchen, he replaced the bottles he had brought in their paper bag, wiped off a couple of spots he recalled touching in the kitchen and returned to the front room carrying the sack. He glanced around contemplatively.

“I’m sure I didn’t leave fingerprints anywhere else during either visit,” he said. “Except on the door latch.”

He went over to the door, carefully wiped the latch and opened it with his handkerchief over his hand. Wiping the outer knob, he smiled back at the woman, stepped outside and pulled it closed with his handkerchief over the knob.

Back in town, he stopped at a drugstore and phoned Bix Lawson’s penthouse. When he got the racket boss on the phone, he said, “Evening, Bix. Get you out of bed?”

After a moment of silence, Lawson growled, “You’re getting cuter every day, Clancy. That was real cute, parking those dummies in front of police headquarters.”

“You guessed it was me who did that?” Ross said in pretended awe. “I suppose your mouthpiece explained everything to the cops.”

“You suppose wrong,” Lawson said shortly. “Dummies that stupid can hoe their own rows. What do you want?”

“Missing any other boys?”

There was another period of silence, then Lawson said heavily, “You just call up to gloat?”

“To extend sympathy,” Ross said. “Must be tough lying awake wondering what happened to a couple of your key men and thinking maybe you could vanish the same way.”

Lawson said nothing.

Ross said, “I’ve got some news for you, Bix.” “What?”

“Whitey Cord just dropped dead.”

After another silence, the racketeer asked, “How?”

“Seems his girl friend shot him at a cottage out at Stowe Point. She must have gone berserk, because she knocked off George Mott and Bull Hatton, too. It’ll probably never come out in the papers, though. I have an idea she’ll arrange for the bodies to disappear. Change the picture any?”

For a long time there was no sound except Lawson’s breathing. Then he said slowly, “I guess it takes your cloakroom girl off the hook. She was only a threat to Whitey. If he’s really dead, the Syndicate won’t care a hoot about her.”

“He’s cold as a carp,” Ross assured him. “So it’s your move.”

Silence fell again. Finally Lawson said, “I never wanted this war, Clancy. I was pushed into it by Whitey. I’ll call it even if you will.”

“Then you can go back to just one bodyguard,” the gambler said. “We’re quits.”

Hanging up, he went back out to the Cadillac and headed for the Tobins’ chicken farm.