Paul Cain: Fast One

Rose made a meaningless gesture.

Kells had straightened up. He was examining the nail of his index-finger. “I came out here a few months ago with two grand and I’ve given it a pretty good ride. I’ve got a nice little joint at the Ambassador, with a built-in bar; I’ve got a swell bunch of telephone numbers and several thousand friends in the bank. It’s a lot more fun guessing the name of a pony than guessing what the name of the next stranger I’m supposed to have shot will be. I’m having a lot of fun. I don’t want any part of anything.”

Rose stood up. “Okay.”

Kells said: “So long, Jakie.” He turned and went through the door, out through the large room, through the cigar store to the street. He walked up to Seventh and got into a cab. When they passed the big clock on the Dyas corner it was twenty minutes past three.

The desk clerk gave Kells several letters, and a message: Mr. Dave Perry called at 2:35, and again at 3:25. Asked that you call him or come to his home. Important.

Kells went to his room and put in a call to Perry. He mixed a drink and read the letters while a telephone operator called him twice to say the line was busy. When she called again, he said, “Let it go,” went down and got into another cab. He told the driver: “Corner of Cherokee and Hollywood Boulevard.”

Perry lived in a kind of penthouse on top of the Virginia Apartments. Kells climbed the narrow stair to the roof, knocked at the unsheathed fire door; he knocked again, then turned the knob, pushed the door open.

The room filled with crashing sound. Kells dropped on one knee, just inside, slammed the door shut. A strip of sunlight came in through two tall windows and yellowed the rug. Doc Haardt was lying on his back, half in, half out of the strip of sun. There was a round bluish mark on one side of his-throat, and, as Kells watched, it grew larger, red.

Ruth Perry sat on a low couch against one wall and looked at Haardt’s body. A door slammed some place toward the back of the house. Kells got up and turned the key in the door through which he had entered, crossed quickly and stood above the body.

Haardt had been a big loose-joweled Dutchman with a mouthful of gold. His dead face looked as if he were about to drawl: “Well... I’ll tell you...” A small automatic lay on the floor near his feet.

Ruth Perry stood up and started to scream. Kells put one hand on the back of her neck, the other over her mouth. She took a step forward, put her arms around his body. She looked up at him and he took his hand away from her mouth.

“Darling! I thought he was going to get you.” She spoke very rapidly. Her face was twisted with fear. “He was here an hour. He made Dave call you...”

Kells patted her cheek. “Who, baby?”

“I don’t know.” She was coming around. “A nance. A little guy with glasses.”

Kells inclined his head toward Haardt’s body, asked: “What about Doc?”

“He came up about two-thirty... Said he had to see you and didn’t want to go to the hotel. Dave called you and left word. Then about an hour ago that little son of a bitch walked in and told us all to sit down on the floor...”

Someone pounded heavily on the door.

They tiptoed across to a small, curtained archway that led to the dining room. Just inside the archway Dave Perry lay on his stomach.

Ruth Perry said: “The little guy slugged Dave when he made a pass for the phone, after he called you. He came to, a while ago, and the little guy let him have it again. What a boy!”

Someone pounded on the door again and the sound of loud voices came through faintly.

Kells said: “I’m a cinch for this one if they find me here. That’s what the plant was for.” He nodded toward the door. “Can they get around to the kitchen?”

“Not unless they go down and come up the fire escape. That’s the way our boy friend went.”

“I’ll go the other way.” Kells went swiftly to Haardt’s body, knelt and pick up the automatic. “I’ll take this along to make your story good. Stick to it, except the calls to me and the reason Doc was here.”

Ruth Perry nodded. Her eyes were shiny with excitement.

Kells said: “I’ll see what I can get on the pansy — and try to talk a little sense to the telephone girl at the hotel and the cab driver that hauled me here.”

The pounding on the door was almost continuous. Someone put a heavy shoulder to it, the hinges creaked.

Kells started toward the bedroom, then turned and came back. She tilted her mouth up to him and he kissed her. “Don’t let this lug husband of yours talk,” he said — jerked his head down at Dave Perry — “and maybe you’d better go into a swoon to alibi not answering the door. Let ’em bust it in.

“My God, Gerry! I’m too excited to faint.”

Kells kissed her again, lightly. He brought one arm up stiffly, swiftly from his side; the palm down, the fist loosely clinched. His knuckles smacked sharply against her chin. He caught her body in his arms, went into the living room and laid her gently on the floor. Then he took out his handkerchief, carefully wiped the little automatic, and put it on the floor midway between Haardt, Perry and Ruth Perry.

He went into the bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom. He raised the window and squeezed through to a narrow ledge. He was screened from the street by part of the building next door, and from the alley by a tree that spread over the back yard of the apartment house. A few feet along the ledge he felt with his foot for a steel rung, found it, swung down to the next, across a short space to the sill of an open corridor-window of the next-door building.

He walked down the corridor, down several flights of stairs and out a rear door of the building. Down a kind of alley he went through a wooden gate into a bungalow court and through to Whitley and walked north.

Cullen’s house was on the northeastern slope of Whitley Heights, a little way off Cahuenga. He answered the fourth ring, stood in the doorway blinking at Kells. “Well, stranger. Long time no see.”

Cullen was a heavily built man of about forty-five. He had a round pale face, a blue chin and blue-black hair. He was naked except for a pair of yellow silk pajama-trousers; a full-rigged ship was elaborately tattooed across his wide chest.

Kells said: “H’are ya, Willie,” went past Cullen into the room. He sat down in a deep leather chair, took off his Panama hat and ran his fingers through red, faintly graying hair.

Cullen went into the kitchen and came back with tall glasses, a bowl of ice and a squat bottle.

Kells said: “Well, Willie—”

Cullen held up his hand. “Wait. Don’t tell me. Make me guess.” He closed his eyes, went through the motions of mystic communion, then opened his eyes, sat down and poured two drinks. “You’re in another jam,” he said.

Kells twisted his mouth into a wholly mirthless smile, nodded. “You’re a genius, Willie.” He sipped his drink, leaned back.

Cullen sat down.

Kells said: “You know Max Hesse pretty well. You’ve been out to his house in Flintridge.” Sure.

“Do you know what Dave Perry looks like?”

“No.”

Kells put his glass down. “A little patent-leather, pop-eyed guy with a waxed mustache. Wears gray silk shirts with tricky brocaded stripes. Used to run a string of trucks down from Frisco — had some kind of warehouse connection up there. Stood a bad rap on some forged Liberty Bonds about a year ago and went broke beating it. Married Grant Fay’s sister when he was on top.”

“I’ve seen her,” Cullen said. “Nice dish.”

“You’ve never seen Dave at Hesse’s?”

Cullen shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“All right. It wouldn’t mean a hell of a lot, anyway.” Kells picked up his glass, drained it, stood up. “I want to use the phone.”