Paul Cain - The Paul Cain Omnibus

Kells said: “Give me a hand, Willie. Hurry up.” He started back down the steps.

“No! God damn you and your jams!”

Kells turned and stared at Cullen expressionlessly, and then he went on down the steps. Cullen followed him, muttering, and they got Dickinson out of the car, carried him up into the house.

Cullen was breathing heavily. He asked: “Why the hell don’t you take him to the Receiving Hospital?”

“I’ve been mixed up in five shootings in the last thirty-two hours.” Kells went to the telephone, grinned over his shoulder at Cullen. “It’s like old times — one more, and they’ll hang me on principle.”

“Haven’t you got any other friends? This place was lousy with coppers yesterday .”

“Wha’s the matter, darling?”

Kells and Cullen turned, looked at the stairway. Eileen, Cullen’s girl, was standing halfway down. She swayed back and forth, put her hand unsteadily on the banister. She was very drunk. She was naked.

She drawled: “Hello, Gerry.”

Cullen said: “Go back upstairs and put on your clothes, slut!” He said it very loudly.

Kells laughed. He said: “Call Doc Janis, will you, Willie?” He limped to the door, looked down at his torn, muddy, bloodstained clothes. “Loan me a coat, Willie,” he said. “I’ll get wet.”

A black touring car with the side curtains drawn was parked in the reserved space in front of the Manhattan. Kells had been about to park across the street; he slowed down and blinked at it. The engine was running and there was a man at the wheel. It was a Cadillac.

He stepped on the throttle, careened around the corner, parked in front of the library. He jumped out and took the revolver out of the side pocket, slipped it into the pocket of Cullen’s big coat; he turned up the deep collar and hurried painfully back across the street, down an alley to a service entrance of the hotel.

The boy in the elevator said: “Well, I guess I was right. I guess it’s going to rain all night.” Kells said: “Uh-huh.”

“Tch tch tch.” The boy shook his head sadly.

“Has Mister Fenner had any visitors since I left?”

“No, sir — I don’t think so. Not many people in and out tonight. There was three gentlemen went up to nine a little while ago. They was drunk, I guess.”

He slid the door open. “Ten, sir.”

Kells said: “Thank you.”

He listened at the door of ten-sixteen, heard no sound. He rang the bell and stood close to the wall with the revolver in his hand. The inner hallway was narrow — the door would have to be opened at least halfway before he could be seen.

It opened almost at once, slowly. A yellow-white face took form in the darkness, and Kells stepped into the doorway. He held the revolver belly-high in front of him. The yellow-white face faded backwards as Kells went in until it was the black outline of a man’s head against the orange light of the living room, until it was the figure of a short Latin standing with his back against the wall at one side of the door, his arms stretched out.

Beyond him, Fenner and Beery kneeled on the floor, their faces to the wall. On the other side of the room, O’Donnell stood with a great blue automatic leveled at Kells’ chest. O’Donnell was bareheaded and a white bulge of gauze and cotton was plastered across his scalp. His mouth was open and he breathed through it slowly, audibly. Except for the sharp sound of O’Donnell’s breathing, it was entirely still.

Kells said: “I’ll bet I can shoot faster than you, Adenoids.”

O’Donnell didn’t say anything. His pale eyes glittered in a sick face, and the big automatic was dull and steady in his fat pink hand.

Fenner leaned forward, put his head against the wall. Beery turned slowly and looked at Kells. The Mexican was motionless, bright-eyed.

Then Beery said, “Look out!” and something dull and terrible crashed against the back of Kells’ head, there was dull and terrible blackness. It was filled with thunder and smothering blue, something hot and alive pulsed in Kells’ hand. He fell.

There was a light that hurt his eyes very much, even when they were closed. Someone was throwing water in his face. He said: “Stop that, goddamn it — you’re getting me wet!”

Beery said: “Shh — easy.”

Kells opened his eyes a little. “The place is backwards.”

“This is the one next door, the one across the airshaft, where Fenner’s stick-up men were stashed. Fenner had the key.” Beery spoke very quietly.

“God! My head. How did I get in here?”

Beery said: “Papa carried you.” He stood up and went to the door for a minute, came back and sat down. “And what a piece of business! You were out on your feet — absolutely cold — squeezed that iron, one, two, three, four, five, six — like that. One in the wall about six inches above my head, five in baby-face.”

“That was O’Donnell.” Kells closed his eyes and moved his head a little. “Then I fell down.” He opened his eyes.

Beery nodded.

“Who hit me?”

“Rose.”

Kells looked interested. “What with — a piano?”

“A vase...”

“Vahze.” Beery said: “A vase — a big one out of the bedroom. I don’t think he had a gun.”

“Would you mind beginning at the beginning?” Kells closed his eyes.

“After you left, Fenner and Gowdy sat there like a couple bumps on a log, afraid to crack in front of me.”

Kells nodded carefully, held his head in his hands.

“After a while, Gowdy got bored and went home — he lives around the corner. I was sucking up a lot of red-eye, having a swell time. Then, about five minutes before you got here, the bell rang and Fenner went to the door, backed in with Rose and O’Donnell and the spiggoty. O’Donnell and the spick were snowed to the eyes. Rose said, ‘What did Kells get from the gal that bumped Bellmann, and where is it?’ Fenner went into a nose dive — he was scared wet, anyway. They made us get down on the floor—”

Kells laughed. He said: “You looked like a couple communicants.”

“—and Rose frisked both of us and started tearing up the furniture. Some way or other, I got the idea that whether he found what he was looking for or not, we weren’t going to tell about it afterwards.”

Beery paused, lighted a cigarette, went on quietly: “Rose was sore as hell, and O’Donnell and the greaser were licking their chops for blood. The greaser kept fingering a chiv in his belt — you know: the old noiseless ear-to-ear gag.”

Kells said: “Maybe. They popped Dickinson and me outside Ansel’s. If they’re that far in the open, they’d want to get Fenner too.”

“And Beery — the innocent bystander...”

“I doubt it, though, Shep. I don’t think Rose would have come along if it was a kill.”

“Well, anyway — he’d gotten around to the bedroom when you rang. He switched out the light and waited in there in the dark. You came in and went into your Wild West act with baby-face, and Rose came out behind you and took a bead on your skull with the vase — vahze. Then he and the greaser scrammed — quick.”

Kells reached suddenly into his inside pocket, then took his hand out, sighed. “Didn’t he fan me?”

“No. I grabbed O’Donnell’s gun when he fell — anyway, I think Rose was too scared to think about that.”

Kells said: “Go on.”

Beery looked immensely superior. “Well, the old rapid-fire Beery brain got to work. I figured that you had to be gotten out of there quick, and I remembered what you’d said about this place next door. Fenner was about to go into his fit. I got the key from him and talked about thirty seconds’ worth of sense, and carried you in here — and the gun.” He nodded at the revolver on the couch beside Kells. “Where’s Fenner now?”