The Tough Guys Page 16

  When we got settled I said, “You did the story the night Maloney got killed at the Cherokee, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, two columns. There wasn’t anything to say.”

  “Run through it, will you?”

  He watched me over the coffee cup. “Damn if you aren’t your old man all over again. Get a nut in your head and you can’t shake it loose.”

  “Well?”

  Hank put the cup down and spread his hands. “Nothing. The guy was lying there dead with a knife hole in his chest. No scuffle, no nothing.”

  “Motive?”

  “He had a five hundred buck watch some drunken clown gave him and a hundred eighty some odd bucks in his pocket. It wasn’t robbery. He must have known the guy and didn’t expect a shiv.”

  “Could have been something else.”

  “Oh?”

  “Maybe he just wasn’t afraid of him. He didn’t expect the knife, but he wasn’t scared.”

  “The cops had that angle too.” He sipped his coffee again. “Not me though. I’d say it came as a complete surprise.”

  “Why?”

  “He had a pack of club matches in one hand. There was a single unstruck match lying near the body. I’d say he was going to light a cigarette for somebody he knew when he got it in under the arms.”

  “The police reach the same conclusion?”

  “Nope. Where he was were a lot of butts and some loose ones that fell out of his pocket. He always carried them loose. They say he was going to light his own and the guy caught him in that position.”

  I nodded, thought it through and finished my coffee. “I’d like a list of people who were there that night.”

  “Sure, check out two hundred reputable citizens and see what you can find. I tried it. What are you after anyway?”

  “Something named Bannerman,” I said. “Rudy Bannerman.”

  Hank Feathers grinned and leaned back into the chair. “Why didn’t you ask it? He was plastered. He had just dropped fifteen G’s in the casino and got loaded at the bar. When the cops came they found him in the men’s room locked in a toilet sick as a pig. He had puked his ears off and sobered up pretty fast… enough to get himself out of there in a hurry, but he couldn’t have raised a burp far less than a knife.”

  “The cops ever find the weapon?” I asked him.

  “Not likely. The police surgeon said it was made by a stiletto with a six inch blade three quarters of an inch wide at the base. With all the water around here to throw it into there’s little chance of finding it. Whoever killed him had plenty of time to dump the knife… Maloney was dead twenty minutes before anybody knew about it.”

  “Nicely set up.”

  “Wasn’t it though? Now you got something on your mind, boy. Get with it. I’ll feed you, but let’s you feed me too.”

  “Feel up to stepping on toes?”

  “Son, that’s my life.”

  “Okay, see if Irish Maloney ever had anything to do with Rudy Bannerman.”

  “Brother!”

  “He had a picture of her in his room. Care to try it?”

  “You just bought it, son. I hope you don’t get hurt.”

  “I’ve been hurt all I’ll ever be, Hank.”

  The Bannerman name carried a lot of weight. There was only one family of them in Culver City and whoever bore it was set apart as a special person to be considered in a unique fashion. And like all families who occupied that niche, little was unknown about them no matter what it was. From the docks to the country clubs, they knew my old man and liked him, but the rest were another breed entirely.

  They knew about the bastard Bannerman too, but as long as he was part of old Max he was right and it was the in I needed. It hadn’t taken long for word to get around once I planted the seed. All they wanted to know was that I was a Bannerman and I had plans.

  I hit three of the largest realtors, sat through cocktails twice and a lunch and came up with a talker when I found Simon Helm and got the idea across that I was back looking to establish a moderate smokeless industry somewhere in the area. After a few drinks he showed me the maps, pointed out suitable locations, let me digest his thoughts and settled down to the general discussions that precede any deal.

  Vance Colby’s name had to come up. Helm asked me bluntly why I didn’t go through my prospective cousin-in-law to make a buy and just as bluntly I said I didn’t like him.

  “Well,” Helm said, “I’m afraid a lot of us share your opinion.” He let out a short laugh. “Not that he’s greedy or crooked… I’m afraid he’s a little too shrewd for us country folks. For the little while he’s been here he’s made some big deals.”

  “It figures.”

  “Now he’s got the property adjacent to the new city marina. You know what that means?”

  “Prime land,” I said.

  “Even better. If anyone puts up a club there the expense of a water landing is saved, it’s cheap filled property in the best spot around with the advantage of having access to all major highways.”

  “That’s an expensive project.”

  “His commission will be enormous. It would be better still if he did it himself.”

  “That’s a multi-million dollar project.”

  “It can be financed,” he said.

  “Is he that big?”

  “No,” Simon Helm said slyly, “but with Bannerman money behind him it could be done. Quite a coup.”

  “I’ll take it the hard way.”

  He nodded energetically. “I don’t blame you. Now, when would you like to look at the properties?”

  “In a day or two. I have them spotted and I’ll drive out myself. If I make a decision I’ll contact you.”

  “A pleasure, Mr. Bannerman. I’m happy you came to me.”

  “So am I, Mr. Helm.”

  Right after supper I called Petey Salvo and asked him if he could stop by my motel before he went to the club. He said he’d be there by eight and didn’t ask any questions. I drove back, had a hot shower, shaved and took out the .45 and went through the ritual of cleaning it, then laid it on the table while I pulled on my clothes.

  It was just seven forty-five when the knock came on my door and I opened it hanging onto my pants, figuring Petey was early.

  This time I figured wrong. The two of them came in easy with Popeye Gage leveling a snub nosed Banker’s Special at my gut and his eyes lit up like a neon sign. Behind him was Carl Matteau and the smile he wore was one of total pleasure because this kind of business was his kind of business and he enjoyed every minute of it.

  “Back,” he said. “Real quiet, guy.”

  I wasn’t about to argue with the gun. All I could do was toss the towel I had in my hand on the table to cover up the .45 laying there and hope they didn’t catch the act. That much I got away with if it could do any good. The only other thing I could do was pull the scared act and button up my pants just to be doing anything and Popeye Gage grinned through his swollen mouth and let me have the side of the gun across the temple.

  Before he moved I saw it coming and rolled enough to miss most of it, but it slammed me back against the bed and I hit the floor face down. Matteau said, “More, Pop-eye.”

  He worked me hard then, his feet catching my ribs and my arms, but only once did he land one on my head and then he nearly tore my scalp off. He was laughing and sucking air hard to get the boot into me and every time he did all I could think of was how hard I was going to step on his face when my time came. He stopped for a few seconds and I made the mistake of turning my head. When I did the butt end of the gun smashed down on the back of my skull like a sledge hammer and I felt my chin and mouth bite into the floor and the ebb and flow of unconsciousness that never quite came. All I had was that terrible pounding inside my brain and the complete inability to move any part of my body.

  But Carl knew when I was all there again. He said, “Talk up, wise guy.”

  “Should I make him?” Popeye said.

  “No, he’ll do it hi
mself.”

  I dragged myself away from the bed, tried to sit up and tasted the salty taste of blood in my mouth.

  “Nobody pulls the kind of crap you did and gets away with it,” Carl told me slowly. “Now let’s hear it.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t get any words out.

  “You don’t belong here. Why, punk?”

  “I…lived here.”

  “Sure. So why’d you come back?”

  “Vacation. I was… going east.”

  “Let me…”

  “Shut up, Popeye. This guy’s a punk. Look at him. Take a look at his face, all beat up. He packs a rod, he’s got nothing behind him so he’s a punk. He comes back to put the bite on the family like any punk will do only now he gets no bite. He gets wise with me and he gets nothing except his face all smashed in or a bullet in his belly if he tries to play it smart. See his car? Six years old. You checked his duds… all junk. Someplace he’s a small time punk, a cheap hood and these mugs we deal with the same old way, right, Bannerman?”

  “Look…”

  It was almost time for Petey to show. I hoped he’d know how to play it.

  “Out,” Matteau said. “Tonight you leave. You stay one more day and you get buried here.”

  I was going to tell him to drop dead when he nodded to Popeye Gage and the gun came down again. This time there was no intermediate darkness. It was all nice and black and peaceful and didn’t hurt a bit until I woke up.

  And that was when Petey Salvo was shaking me. He was twenty minutes late. I was half naked and he was slopping off the blood and holding a wet towel to the cut on my head making noises like the second in the corner of a losing fighter.

  I said, “Hi, Petey.”

  “What the hell happened to you? The door was open so I came in thinkin’ you was sacked out and you’re all over blood. You have a party going?”

  I sat up, got to my feet and squatted on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, I had a surprise party from a couple of goons.”

  “Then come on, man, we’ll nail ’em. You know who they were?”

  “I know.”

  “So where do we go?”

  “No place, pal.”

  He took the towel away and looked at me, his face puzzled. “You just gonna take it like that?”

  I shook my head and it hurt. “No.”

  “So let’s go then.”

  I pushed his hand away. “Let it be, buddy. I’ve had the treatment before. It proves a point right now and when the time comes I’ll lay those pigs out all the way.”

  “How come you got took?”

  “I thought it was you.”

  “Shit.” He seemed embarrassed. “If I didn’t get inna argument with the old lady I coulda been here.”

  “Forget it. In a way I’m glad it happened. The guys who took me should have knocked me off. Only now they hand me walking papers and expect me to move out.” I looked up at the huge hulk of the guy and grinned. “They got the wrong Bannerman. I’m the bastard, remember?”

  “Hell, I know you ain’t chicken. I just don’t like that stuff. Why you take it anyway?”

  “Because it ties in with Maloney’s murder, kid. I want the one who did it and why. So stop sweating. This Cat got nine lives.”

  “Sure. How many did you use up already?”

  “About seven,” I said.

  It took another scalding hot shower and a bruising rub-down by Petey to get me back in shape, but when it was over all I had was a small headache and a bunch of bruises. Then we got in the two cars and he did what I asked him to do.

  He took me over to see Irish Maloney to introduce me as an old buddy who heard his friend was dead and came by to pay his respects to the widow.

  It was a small house with a small garden and a two year old car in the garage halfway down Center Drive. It wasn’t much, but all the signs were there of a guy who tried to make the best of what he had in every way and I knew what Chuck Maloney really felt about his wife.

  On the stage she was sensational, but meeting her stretched out on a chaise under a sun lamp was another thing. Oh, she had the lumps in the right places, the hippy curves and the full breasts that modern culture demands, the sensuous look that comes from Max Factor this, but there were other things that took her down all the way. Clever lighting could take years off her, but up close you could see the years closing in, the tiny wrinkles around the eyes and the beginning of the flesh getting slack and the striations on the upper parts of her thighs where the skin had stretched sometime when she ate her way out of the burlecue circuit.

  Yet inside her mind she was still twenty years old and all men were at her feet and she was able to prove it nightly at the Cherokee and forget that sheer professionalism and the help of electricians could put her across.

  Petey said, “This here’s my friend, Cat.” He looked at me and conveniently forgot my last name. “Cat Cay. He was Chuck’s friend too. He just wanted to talk, so I’ll leave you guys alone. I got to get to the club. You got another hour yet, Irish.”

  I got the full treatment when Petey left; the way she sat up, took off the sun glasses and doubled her legs under her to make sure I got the full benefit of everything she had to show. The shorts were tight and showed the voluptuous V of her belly and deliberately low enough to show where she had shaved to fit into her costume. She leaned over to make me a drink from the decanter on the table, curving herself so I would be impressed by the way the halter held her breasts high and firm, pushing out over the top so the nipples were almost exposed.

  Too many times I had gone the route before and knew the action so I could afford to ignore the invitation and when I took the drink and sat down opposite her I let her see my eyes and read my face until she knew I was what I was, but couldn’t quite understand it.

  I said, “Sorry about Chuck. He was a good friend. We were in the Marines together.”

  She lifted her glass, toasted me with a silent kiss. “That’s how it goes.”

  “No remorse?”

  “He was a little man.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He got himself killed, didn’t he? This guy Sanders…”

  She didn’t let me finish. “Sanders was a nothing too. He couldn’t kill a fly. All he was scared of was being put back in the pen.” Irish Maloney downed the drink in three fast gulps and set the glass down.

  “He wasn’t a Rudy Bannerman?”

  “Who?”

  “Rudy.”

  “Him?” she said, “A nothing. Strictly nothing. A boy in long pants. He’s good for a goose when nobody’s watching and nothing more.” She smiled at me, loose and wanting. “What kind of man are you, Mr. Cay?”

  “Big,” I said.

  “Not if you were Chuck’s friend. He never had big friends.”

  “In the Marines he had.”

  “Then come here and show me.”

  She reached her hand down and a zipper made that funny sound and the shorts were suddenly hanging loose down one side. She smiled again, her mouth wet and waiting and she leaned back watching me.

  I stood up. “Thanks for the offer, honey, but like I said, Chuck was my friend. There should be a period of mourning.”

  I thought she’d get mad. They usually do, but not her. She giggled, blinked her eyes and made a mouth at me. “Ohoo, you got to be a big man to say no.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  The giggle again. Then she hooked her thumbs in the hem of the shorts, stripped them off in one swift motion, held them high overhead and let them fall to the floor. She let herself fall back into the chaise-longue in a classic position, still smiling, knowing damn well what was happening to me. “Now say no.” Her voice was husky with the beat in it.

  “No,” I said.

  I walked to the door, opened it and turned around. She hadn’t changed position or stopped smiling. Before I could find the right words Irish Maloney said, “I’m coming to get you, big man.”

  “I’m not hard to find,” I told h
er.

  When I was in the Ford and on the way back to town I knew one thing. I had found a good motive for murder. The thing was, how did it tie in with Gage and Matteau being involved with the Bannermans? There was one way to find out.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I walked around the house and went in the back way where Annie was cleaning up in the kitchen. When I tapped on the door her head jerked up, birdlike, and she put the tray of dirty glasses in the sink and minced to the porch, nicked the light on and peered out into the dark. “Yes…who is it?”

  “Cat, honey. Open up.”

  She smiled happily, pulled the latch and I stepped inside. “My word, boy, what are you doing coming in the back way? You are a Bannerman.”

  “Hell, Annie, it’s the only way I was ever allowed in the house anyway. You forget?”

  “Well you don’t have to do that now.”

  “This time I did,” I said. “I want to talk to you before I see them.”

  Her mouth seemed to tighten up and she half turned away. “If you don’t mind… I’m… only an employee. Please…”

  “In the pig’s neck. You were the only old lady I ever had. If it hadn’t been for you and Anita they would have starved me out long before I left. The Bannermans don’t have room for a bastard in their great halls of luxury.” I put my arm around her and led the way to the breakfast niche and sat down opposite her.

  “Look, honey. Nothing goes on around here that you don’t know. You have eyes like an eagle and ears like a rabbit and there isn’t a keyhole or pinprick in a wall you haven’t peeked through. Any secrets this family have, you have too, even if you do keep them locked behind sealed lips. That’s well appreciated if it’s for the good, but right now something is wrong and there’s big trouble going on…”

  “You… can only make it worse.”

  “Do you know about it?”

  She hesitated, then her eyes dropped in front of my gaze. “Yes,” she said simply.

  “So what’s the pitch.”

  “I… don’t think I should tell you.”

  “I can find out the hard way, Annie. The trouble might get worse then.”

  She fidgeted with the salt shaker on the table a moment, then looked up. “It’s Rudy,” she said. “He killed the attendant at the Cherokee Club.”