Roger Torrey - 42 Days For Murder

He said, very confidently: “It’ll come out the way you want it to, Shean. I know that.”

“I wish I had your faith. Call me and tell me if anything happens. I don’t want Mard to let Wendel out of his sight for a minute, so you do the telephoning. Get it?”

“I could watch Wendel while Mard telephoned.”

“You do like I ask you to,” I said, and hung up before he had a chance to argue it. I said to Macintosh: “The kid fancies himself as a bodyguard. He’s a nice boy but he can’t see more than ten feet away from his nose. Mard has an idea what he’s facing and will have his eyes open.”

“Mard’s a pretty good guy. Hardly the man for the job he’s got.”

“He’ll do. He won’t let Wendel wander off into trouble and that’s all I’m asking of him. The kid thinks everything’s going to come out okey. He’s got faith.”

Macintosh said: “I think it is myself. So does Kirby.”

“I’ve got an idea why you’re playing along with me, but why is Kirby? I don’t quite get that.”

He said slowly: “I’ve known Kirb for fifteen years and worked with him, off and on, for over half of that. We’re friends. He’ll play it the way I ask him if he can possibly do it. I’ve asked him. He... ugh... he knows this is sort of a personal thing with me.”

“I understand.”

“So does Kirby. I’ll ask you just one thing. If there’s trouble, leave the Rucci brothers to me. Let me take care of them. You understand; Maude told me she got wordy with you.”

“I understand.”

“So does Kirby,” he said again.

Lester called about three in the afternoon and said that he was using a booth in the lobby because Wendell and Mard were in his room. Mard had told him to tell me that Crandall had gone to Carson City and taken Wendel out of jail. And that he’d stepped out and joined them and stuck like a leech to Wendel ever since. That Crandall had said he got Wendel out of jail because he wanted to talk settlement with him, but that he’d postponed the talk on the plea that he wanted to talk it over with Wendel first. I said: “It’s working. Did Crandall let Wendel talk to his wife?”

“No. Mard told me he’d asked Crandall to let them talk it over but that Crandall said she wouldn’t do it. That she never wanted to speak to her husband again.”

“That’s fine, Lester. Is Joey with them?”

“He was for a while but he went out to the Three C Club to get a few drinks. He said he had a twenty-eight-dollar start toward a drunk and didn’t want to lose his initial investment. That he would if he let what he had in him die out. I think he’s crazy.”

“Like a fox,” I said. “Keep sticking around.”

That was all for that time. The next call came at nine and I was getting worried for fear it wouldn’t. It was Lester, again, and he said: “Wendel wants to talk to you. Can you meet him here?”

“Where?”

“We’re still at the hotel. Mard and Wendel and I. Joey phoned once but hasn’t come back.”

I said to Macintosh: “The dope has made up his mind to pay off,” and to Lester: “Tell him I’ll be there about ten-thirty. That I can’t get there before.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Tell him it’s the finish. And for him not to take off on some screwy angle but to wait for me. And tell Mard to hold tighter than ever; it won’t be for long.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Okey, kid.”

Macintosh called Kirby then, and said: “Mac speaking. Listen. Take either one or two men and go down to the Golden Eagle and look it over. Look for Rucci’s men. Look for anybody that’s hanging around and looking suspicious. And then away we go.”

“Pick up anybody that looks bad? That it?” Kirby asked.

“That’s it. I mean do a first class job and really case the place. Crandall will have somebody down there waiting for Wendel and Mard to come out and I want them picked up. Now don’t miss. Then call us back if we’re not there by the time you’re through.”

“What’ll I do with whoever I pick up?”

“Hide ’em. Where Ziggy Hunter won’t be able to get ’em out. If you can, someplace where he won’t be able to talk to ’em.”

“Then what?”

“Then phone me. Get action, will you?”

Kirby said he’d get action.

We went out ready for trouble but didn’t find any. We hardly expected to, for that matter; we just weren’t taking unnecessary chances. We got in Macintosh’s sedan and went to the hotel and got there just as Kirby was coming out.

He wasn’t alone. He had two cops with him and three men besides the cops. There were no handcuffs but you could see the men were prisoners. Kirby got over to the side and said to us: “I got ’em. Two of ’em were up the hall, outside Wendell’s room. The other was in the lobby and I nailed him when we came in.”

“Crandall’s men?” I asked.

“Rucci’s. One of them used to tend bar for Rucci at the Rustic. Another used to be the bouncer at the Three C. The other just hangs around. You know what he is.”

Macintosh looked the third man over and said: “Yeah! Big May’s man, if you want to call him out of name. Anything on ’em?”

“Each of ’em had a gun. The pimp had a deck in the cuff of his pants.”

Macintosh said: “He’ll talk, then. Just as soon as he has to have a shot. We’ll meet you at the station. Sink these birds deep, Kirb, we’re going to want ’em.”

Kirby grinned and said he would and that he’d wait for us. And then Macintosh and I went upstairs.

I could hear Wendel before I got to his room. He was damned near shouting: “I don’t understand this. This is ridiculous, I tell you, Mard. This is the twentieth century; not the days of the old west. This is ridiculous.”

I could hear Mard’s soothing mumble and then I knocked on the door. Wendel threw it open, scowled all the more when he saw me, and snapped out:

“You’ve got a lot to explain, Connell. I’ve put up with these high-handed tactics of yours long enough.”

Macintosh and I went inside and I said: “I judge that Crandall gave you a line of crap. Isn’t that it?”

“He wants to talk with me about a settlement, if that’s what you mean.”

“Did he tell you why he got you out of jail?”

“Of course. I couldn’t well talk business while I was in jail. I understand that was your doing.”

“That’s right. You were safe there, weren’t you?”

“Mard has been telling me of this ridiculous theory of yours. I’m perfectly safe right here. Things like that don’t happen in this age, Connell.”

“That’s why Kirby just didn’t take three guys out of the hotel that were waiting for you to stick your nose out. It just didn’t happen.”

Mard asked: “Is that right?”

“Right.”

Mard said to Wendel: “You see. I tell you when the amount of money involved is as great as in this case, nothing is impossible.”

Wendel lost a lot of bluster. “Do you mean to say that three men were waiting in the hotel to murder me?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t think I’ll have to prove it.”

“What d’ya mean by that statement? Connell, I demand that you give me the facts in your possession.”

I said: “Oh nuts! You’d screw things up if I did. Let it work out; it will. Now I want you to go to the phone and get Crandall on the wire. Insist on one thing. An appointment for eleven-thirty tonight. Tell him you’ll be ready to discuss terms of settlement at that time. Make it at his office. If he objects to that hour, tell him you’re sick of the whole dirty mess and want to pay off and leave in the morning.”