Paul Cain - The Paul Cain Omnibus

Taylor whimpered and put his arms up over his face. He tried to slide farther down in the seat, and Borg put his arm around his shoulders and held him erect.

“Where’s Rose?” Kells pursued relentlessly.

“I don’t know, Mister Kells... I swear to God I don’t know...” Taylor spoke into the cloth of his coat sleeve; the words were broken, sounded far away.

Borg pulled Taylor’s arms down from his face very gently, held his two hands in his lap with one of his hands, and swung his fist again.

Taylor struggled and freed one of his hands and put it over his bloody face. “I tell you I got orders that was supposed to come from Rose,” he panted — “but they was over the phone... I don’t know where they was from...”

They rode in silence for a little while, except for the sound of Taylor’s sobbing breath. Then they turned into a dirt road, darker, winding.

Kells said: “Where’s Rose?”

Taylor sobbed, mumbled unintelligibly.

Gilroy turned around and looked at Taylor with hurt, soft animal eyes. Then he looked at Kells, and Kells nodded. There was a little light from a covered globe on the dashboard. Gilroy kept looking at Kells until he nodded again and then Gilroy tapped Faber’s arm, and the car stopped, the headlights were switched off.

Kells took the big automatic out of a shoulder holster. He opened the door and put one foot out on the running board, and then spoke over his shoulder to Borg: “Bring him out here. We don’t want to mess up the car.”

Taylor screamed and Borg clapped his hand over his mouth — then Taylor was suddenly silent, limp. His eyes were wide and white and his lips moved.

Borg said, “Come on — come on,” and then he saw that Taylor couldn’t move and he put his arms around him and half shoved, half lifted him out of the door of the car. Taylor couldn’t straighten his legs. He put one foot on the running board and his knees gave way and he fell down in the road.

Gilroy got out on the other side. He said: “Ah’m goin’ to walk up the road a piece.” His voice trembled. He went into the darkness.

Taylor was moaning, threshing around in the dust.

Kells squatted beside him. Then he straightened up and spoke to Faber: “Pull up about thirty feet.” Faber looked surprised. He let the clutch in and the car moved forward a little ways. Kells squatted beside Taylor in the darkness again, waited. He held the automatic in his two hands, between his legs. The dim red glow of the taillight was around them.

Taylor rolled over on his back and tried to sit up. Kells helped him, held one hand on his shoulder. Taylor’s eyes were bulging; he looked blindly at the redness of the taillight, blindly at Kells — then he said very evenly, quietly: “He’s in Pedro — the Keystone Hotel...” Fear had worn itself out, had taken his strength and left him, curiously, entirely calm. He no longer trembled, and his voice was even, low. Only his eyes were wide, staring.

Kells called to Borg and they helped Taylor back to the car. They picked up Gilroy a little way ahead. He stared questioningly at Taylor, Kells.

Kells said: “He’s all right.”

They headed back towards town.

The night clerk of the Keystone in San Pedro remembered the gentlemen: the dark, good-looking Mister Gorman and the small and Latin Mister Ribera. They had checked in early yesterday morning, without baggage. They had made several long-distance calls to Los Angeles during the day, sent several wires. They had left about seven-thirty in the evening; no forwarding address.

It was a quarter after one. Kells checked his watch with the clock in the lobby, thanked the clerk and went out to the car. He got in and sat beside Borg, grunted: “No luck.”

They had taken Gilroy home — Faber had stayed with him.

Borg asked: “Where to?”

Kells sat a little while silently staring at nothing. He finally said: “Drive down towards Long Beach.”

Borg started the car and they went down the dark street slowly. The fog was very thick; street lights were vague yellow blobs in the darkness.

Kells had an idea, tapped Borg’s knee suddenly. “Have you ever been out to Rainey’s boat?”

Borg hadn’t. “I ain’t much of a gambler,” he said. “I went out to the Joanna D. once, before it burned up — with a broad.”

“Do you remember how to get to the P & O wharf?”

Borg said he thought so. They turned into the main highway south. After about a half hour, they turned off into what turned out to be a blind street. They tried the next one and had just about decided they were wrong again when Borg saw the big white P & O on the warehouse that ran out on the wharf. They parked the car and walked out to the waiting room.

Kells asked the man in the office if the big red-faced man who ran one of the launches to the Eaglet was around.

The man looked at his watch. “You mean Bernie, I guess,” he said. “He oughta be on his way back with a load of players.”

They sat down and waited.

Bernie laughed. He said: “You ain’t as wet as you were the last time I saw you.”

Kells shook his head. They walked together to the end of the wharf.

Kells asked: “You know Jack Rose when you see him?”

“Sure.”

“When did you see him last?”

Bernie tipped his cap back, scratched his nose. “Night before last,” he said, “when you and him went out to the Joanna. ”

“If you were wanted for murder in LA and wanted to get out of the country for a while, how would you do it?” Kells asked.

“God! I don’t know.” Bernie spat into the black water alongside the wharf. “I suppose I’d make a pass at Mexico.”

“If you were going by car you wouldn’t be coming through Pedro.”

“No.”

“But if you were going by boat?...”

Bernie said: “Hell, if I was going by boat I wouldn’t go all the way to Mexico. I’d go out and dig in on China Point.”

Kells sat down on a pile. “I’ve heard of it,” he said. “What’s it all about?”

“That’s God’s country.” Bernie grinned, stared through sheets of mist at the lights of the bay. “That’s the rum runners’ paradise. All the boys in the racket along the Coast hang out there. They come in from the mother ships — and the tender crews... I’ll bet there’s a million dollars’ worth of stuff on the’island. They steal it from each other to keep themselves entertained...”

“How long since you were there?”

“Couple years — but I hear about it. They got a swell knock-down drag-out café there now — the Red Barn.”

Kells said: “It isn’t outside Federal jurisdiction.”

“No. A cutter goes out and circles the island every month or so. But they pay off plenty — nobody ever bothers ’em.”

“That’s very interesting,” Kells stood up. “How would Rose get out there?”

Bernie shook his head. “A dozen ways. He’d probably get one of the boys who used to run players to the Joanna to take him out. It’s a two-hour trip in a fast boat.”

They walked back towards the waiting room.

Kells said: “It’s an awfully long chance. Do you suppose you could get a line on it from any of your friends?”

“I don’t think so. I know a couple fellas who worked for Rose and Haardt, but with Rose wanted, they wouldn’t open up.”

Bernie took out a knife and a plug of tobacco, whittled himself a fresh chew.

Kells said: “Try.”

“Okay.”

They went into the waiting room and Bernie went into the telephone booth.

Borg had found a funny paper. He looked up at Kells and said, “I’ll bet the guys that get up these things make a pile of jack — huh?”

Kells said they probably did.