The Simple Art of Murder Page 5

  Two men were in the big office. Chief of Detectives Tod McKim sat behind a heavy desk, looked at Delaguerra hard-eyed as he came in. He was a big, loose man who had gone saggy. He had a long, petulantly melancholy face. One of his eyes was not quite straight in his head.

  The man who sat in a round-backed chair at the end of the desk was dandyishly dressed, wore spats. A pearl-gray hat and gray gloves and an ebony cane lay beside him on another chair. He had a shock of soft white hair and a handsome dissipated face kept pink by constant massaging. He smiled at Delaguerra, looked vaguely amused and ironical, smoked a cigarette in a long amber holder.

  Delaguerra sat down opposite McKim. Then he looked at the white-haired man briefly and said: “Good evening, Commissioner.”

  Commisioner Drew nodded offhandedly, didn’t speak.

  McKim leaned forward and clasped blunt, nail-chewed fingers on the shiny desk top. He said quietly: “Took your time reporting back. Find anything?”

  Delaguerra stared at him, a level expressionless stare.

  “I wasn’t meant to—except maybe a doe carcass in the back of my car.”

  Nothing changed in McKim’s face. Not a muscle of it moved. Drew dragged a pink and polished fingernail across the front of his throat and made a tearing sound with his tongue and teeth.

  “That’s no crack to be makin’ at your boss, lad.”

  Delaguerra kept on looking at McKim, waited. McKim spoke slowly, sadly: “You’ve got a good record, Delaguerra. Your grandfather was one of the best sheriffs this county ever had. You’ve blown a lot of dirt on it today. You’re charged with violating game laws, interfering with a Toluca County officer in the performance of his duty, and resisting arrest. Got anything to say to all that?”

  Delaguerra said tonelessly: “Is there a tag out for me?”

  McKim shook his head very slowly. “It’s a department charge. There’s no formal complaint. Lack of evidence, I guess.” He smiled dryly, without humor.

  Delaguerra said quietly: “In that case I guess you’ll want my badge.”

  McKim nodded, silent. Drew said: “You’re a little quick on the trigger. Just a shade fast on the snap-up.”

  Delaguerra took his badge out, rubbed it on his sleeve, looked at it, pushed it across the smooth wood of the desk.

  “Okey, Chief,” he said very softly. “My blood is Spanish, pure Spanish. Not nigger-Mex and not Yaqui-Mex. My grandfather would have handled a situation like this with fewer words and more powder smoke, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s funny. I’ve been deliberately framed into this spot because I was a close friend of Donegan Marr once. You know and I know that never counted for anything on the job. The Commissioner and his political backers may not feel so sure.”

  Drew stood up suddenly. “By God, you’ll not talk like that to me,” he yelped.

  Delaguerra smiled slowly. He said nothing, didn’t look towards Drew at all. Drew sat down again, scowling, breathing hard.

  After a moment McKim scooped the badge into the middle drawer of his desk and got to his feet.

  “You’re suspended for a board, Delaguerra. Keep in touch with me.” He went out of the room quickly, by the inner door, without looking back.

  Delaguerra pushed his chair back and straightened his hat on his head. Drew cleared his throat, assumed a conciliatory smile and said: “Maybe I was a little hasty myself. The Irish in me. Have no hard feelings. The lesson you’re learning is something we’ve all had to learn. Might I give you a word of advice?”

  Delaguerra stood up, smiled at him, a small dry smile that moved the corners of his mouth and left the rest of his face wooden.

  “I know what it is, Commissioner. Lay off the Marr case.”

  Drew laughed, good-humored again. “Not exactly. There isn’t any Marr case. Imlay has admitted the shooting through his attorney, claiming self-defense. He’s to surrender in the morning. No, my advice was something else. Go back to Toluca County and tell the warden you’re sorry. I think that’s all that’s needed. You might try it and see.”

  Delaguerra moved quietly to the corridor and opened it. Then he looked back with a sudden flashing grin that showed all his white teeth.

  “I know a crook when I see one, Commissioner. He’s been paid for his trouble already.”

  He went out. Drew watched the door close shut with a faint whoosh, a dry click. His face was stiff with rage. His pink skin had turned a doughy gray. His hand shook furiously, holding the amber holder, and ash fell on the knee of his immaculate knife-edged trousers.

  “By God,” he said rigidly, in the silence, “you may be a damn-smooth Spaniard. You may be smooth as plate glass—but you’re a hell of a lot easier to poke a hole through!”

  He rose, awkward with anger, brushed the ashes from his trousers carefully and reached a hand out for hat and cane. The manicured fingers of the hand were trembling.

  EIGHT

  Newton Street, between Third and Fourth, was a block of cheap clothing stores, pawnshops, arcades of slot machines, mean hotels in front of which furtive-eyed men slid words delicately along their cigarettes, without moving their lips. Midway of the block a jutting wooden sign on a canopy said, STOLL’S BILLIARD PARLORS. Steps went down from the sidewalk edge. Delaguerra went down the steps.

  It was almost dark in the front of the poolroom. The tables were sheeted, the cues racked in rigid lines. But there was light far at the back, hard white light against which clustered heads and shoulders were silhouetted. There was noise, wrangling, shouting of odds. Delaguerra went towards the light.

  Suddenly, as if at a signal, the noise stopped and out of the silence came the sharp click of balls, the dull thud of cue ball against cushion after cushion, the final click of a three-bank carom. Then the noise flared up again.

  Delaguerra stopped beside a sheeted table and got a ten-dollar bill from his wallet, got a small gummed label from a pocket in the wallet. He wrote on it: “Where is Joe?” pasted it to the bill, folded the bill in four. He went on to the fringe of the crowd and inched his way through until he was close to the table.

  A tall, pale man with an impassive face and neatly parted brown hair was chalking a cue, studying the set-up on the table. He leaned over, bridged with strong white fingers. The betting ring noise dropped like a stone. The tall man made a smooth, effortless three-cushion shot.

  A chubby-faced man on a high stool intoned: “Forty for Chill. Eight’s the break.”

  The tall man chalked his cue again, looked around idly. His eyes passed over Delaguerra without sign. Delaguerra stepped closer to him, said: “Back yourself, Max? Five-spot against the next shot.”

  The tall man nodded. “Take it.”

  Delaguerra put the folded bill on the edge of the table. A youth in a striped shirt reached for it. Max Chill blocked him off without seeming to, tucked the bill in a pocket of is vest, said tonelessly: “Five bet,” and bent to make another shot.

  It was a clean crisscross at the top of the table, a hairline shot. There was a lot of applause. The tail man handed his cue to his helper in the striped shirt, said: “Time out. I got to go a place.”

  He went back through the shadows, through a door marked MEN. Delaguerra lit a cigarette, looked around at the usual Newton Street riffraff. Max Chill’s opponent, another tall, pale, impassive man, stood beside the marker and talked to him without looking at him. Near them, alone and supercilious, a very good-looking Filipino in a smart tan suit was puffing at a chocolate-colored cigarette.

  Max Chill came back to the table, reached for his cue, chalked it. He reached a hand into his vest, said lazily: “Owe you five, buddy,” passed a folded bill to Delaguerra.

  He made three caroms in a row, almost without stopping. The marker said: “Forty-four for Chill. Twelve’s the break.”

  Two men detached themselves from the edge of the crowd, started towards the entrance. Delaguerra fell in behind them, followed them among the sheeted tables to the foot of the steps. He stopped there, unfolded the bill in
his hand, read the address scribbled on the label under his question. He crumpled the bill in his hand, started it towards his pocket.

  Something hard poked into his back. A twangy voice like a plucked banjo string said: “Help a guy out, huh?”

  Delaguerra’s nostrils quivered, got sharp. He looked up the steps at the legs of the two men ahead, at the reflected glare of street lights.

  “Okey,” the twangy voice said grimly.

  Delaguerra dropped sidewise, twisting in the air. He shot a snakelike arm back. His hand grabbed an ankle as he fell. A swept gun missed his head, cracked the point of his shoulder and sent a dart of pain down his left arm. There was hard, hot breathing. Something without force slammed his straw hat. There was a thin tearing snarl close to him. He rolled, twisted the ankle, tucked a knee under him and lunged up. He was on his feet, catlike, lithe. He threw the ankle away from him, hard.

  The Filipino in the tan suit hit the floor with his back. A gun wobbled up. Delaguerra kicked it out of a small brown hand and it skidded under a table. The Filipino lay still on his back, his head straining up, his snap-brim hat still glued to his oily hair.

  At the back of the poolroom the three-cushion match went on peacefully. If anyone noticed the scuffling sound, at least no one moved to investigate. Delaguerra jerked a thonged black-jack from his hip pocket, bent over. The Filipino’s tight brown face cringed.

  “Got lots to learn. On the feet, baby.”

  Delaguerra’s voice was chilled but casual. The dark man scrambled up, lifted his arms, then his left hand snaked for his right shoulder. The blackjack knocked it down, with a careless flip of Delaguerra’s wrist. The brown man screamed thinly, like a hungry kitten.

  Delaguerra shrugged. His mouth moved in a sardonic grin.

  “Stick-up, huh? Okey, yellowpuss, some other time. I’m busy now. Dust!”

  The Filipino slid back among the tables, crouched down. Delaguerra shifted the blackjack to his left hand, shot his right to a gun butt. He stood for a moment like that, watching the Filipino’s eyes. Then he turned and went quickly up the steps, out of sight.

  The brown man darted forward along the wall, crept under the table for his gun.

  NINE

  Joey Chill, who jerked the door open, held a short, worn gun without a foresight. He was a small man, hardbitten, with a tight, worried face. He needed a shave and a clean shirt. A harsh animal smell came out of the room behind him.

  He lowered the gun, grinned sourly, stepped back into the room.

  “Okey, copper. Took your sweet time gettin’ here.”

  Delaguerra went in and shut the door. He pushed his straw hat far back on his wiry hair, and looked at Joey Chill without any expression. He said: “Am I supposed to remember the address of every punk in town? I had to get it from Max.”

  The small man growled something and went and lay down on the bed, shoved his gun under the pillow. He clasped his hands behind his head and blinked at the ceiling.

  “Got a C note on you, copper?”

  Delaguerra jerked a straight chair in front of the bed and straddled it. He got his bulldog pipe out, filled it slowly, looking with distaste at the shut window, the chipped enamel of the bed frame, the dirty, tumbled bedclothes, the wash bowl in the corner with two smeared towels hung over it, the bare dresser with half a bottle of gin planked on top of the Gideon Bible.

  “Holed up?” he inquired, without much interest.

  “I’m hot, copper. I mean I’m hot. I got something see. It’s worth a C note.”

  Delaguerra put his pouch away slowly, indifferently, held a lighted match to his pipe, puffed with exasperating leisure. The small man on the bed fidgeted, watching him with sidelong looks. Delaguerra said slowly: “You’re a good stoolie, Joey. I’ll always say that for you. But a hundred bucks is important money to a copper.”

  “Worth it, guy. If you like the Marr killing well enough to want to break it right.”

  Delaguerra’s eyes got steady and very cold. His teeth clamped on the pipe stem. He spoke very quietly, very grimly.

  “I’ll listen, Joey. I’ll pay if it’s worth it. It better be right, though.”

  The small man rolled over on his elbow. “Know who the girl was with Imlay in those pajama-pajama snaps?’

  “Know her name,” Delaguerra said evenly. “I haven’t seen the pictures.”

  “Stella La Motte’s a hoofer name. Real name Stella Chill. My kid sister.”

  Delaguerra folded his arms on the back of the chair. “That’s nice,” he said. “Go on.”

  “She framed him, copper. Framed him for a few bindles of heroin from a slant-eyed Flip.”

  “Flip?” Delaguerra spoke the word swiftly, harshly. His face was tense now.

  “Yeah, a little brown brother. A looker, a neat dresser, a snow peddler. A goddamn dodo. Name, Toribo. They call him the Caliente Kid. He had a place across the hail from Stella. He got to feedin’ her the stuff. Then he works her into the frame. She puts heavy drops in Imlay’s liquor and he passes out. She lets the Flip in to shoot pictures with a Minny camera. Cute, huh? . . . And then, just like a broad, she gets sorry and spills the whole thing to Max and me.”

  Delaguerra nodded, silent, almost rigid.

  The little man grinned sharply, showed his small teeth. “What do I do? I take a plant on the Flip. I live in his shadow, copper. And after a while I tail him bang into Dave Aage’s skyline apartment in the Vendome . . . I guess that rates a yard.”

  Delaguerra nodded slowly, shook a little ash into the palm of his hand and blew it off. “Who else knows this?”

  “Max. He’ll back me up, if you handle him right. Only he don’t want any part of it. He don’t play those games. He gave Stella dough to leave town and signed off. Because those boys are tough.”

  “Max couldn’t know where you followed the Filipino to, Joey.”

  The small man sat up sharply, swung his feet to the floor. His face got sullen.

  “I’m not kidding you, copper. I never have.”

  Delaguerra said quietly, “I believe you, Joey. I’d like more proof, though. What do you make of it?”

  The little man snorted. “Hell, it sticks up so hard it hurts. Either the Flip’s working for Masters and Aage before or he makes a deal with them after he gets the snaps. Then Marr gets the pictures and it’s a cinch he don’t get them unless they say so and he don’t know they had them. lmlay was running for judge, on their ticket. Okey, he’s their punk, but he’s still a punk. It happens he’s a guy who drinks and has a nasty temper. That’s known.”

  Delaguerra’s eyes glistened a little. The rest of his face was like carved wood. The pipe in his mouth was as motionless as though set in cement.

  Joey Chill went on, with his sharp little grin: “So they deal the big one. They get the pictures to Marr without Marr’s knowing where they came from. Then Imlay gets tipped off who has them, what they are, that Marr is set to put the squeeze on him. What would a guy like Imlay do? He’d go hunting, copper—and Big John Masters and his sidekick would eat the ducks.”

  “Or the venison,” Delaguerra said absently.

  “Huh? Well, does it rate?”

  Delaguerra reached for his wallet, shook the money out of it, counted some bills on his knee. He rolled them into a tight wad and flipped them on to the bed.

  “I’d like a line to Stella pretty well, Joey. How about it?”

  The small man stuffed the money in his shirt pocket, shook his head. “No can do. You might try Max again. I think she’s left town, and me, I’m doin’ that too, now I’ve got the scratch. Because those boys are tough like I said—and maybe I didn’t tail so good . . . Because some mugg’s been tailin’ me.” He stood up, yawned, added: “Snort of gin?”

  Delaguerra shook his head, watched the little man go over to the dresser and lift the gin bottle, pour a big dose into a thick glass. He drained the glass, started to put it down.

  Glass tinkled at the window. There was a sound like the loose slap of a
glove. A small piece of the window glass dropped to the bare stained wood beyond the carpet, almost at Joey Chill’s feet.

  The little man stood quite motionless for two or three seconds. Then the glass fell from his hand, bounced and rolled against the wall. Then his legs gave. He went down on his side, slowly, roiled slowly over on his back.

  Blood began to move sluggishly down his cheek from a hole over his left eye. It moved faster. The hole got large and red. Joey Chill’s eyes looked blankly at the ceiling, as if those things no longer concerned him at all.

  Delaguerra slipped quietly down out of the chair to his hands and knees. He crawled along the side of the bed, over to the wall by the window, reached out from there and groped inside Joey Chill’s shirt. He held fingers against his heart for a little while, took them away, shook his head. He squatted down low, took his hat off, and pushed his head up very carefully until he could see over a lower corner of the window.

  He looked at the high blank wail of a storage warehouse, across an alley. There were scattered windows in it, high up, none of them lighted. Delaguerra pulled his head down again, said quietly, under his breath: “Silenced rifle, maybe. And very sweet shooting.”

  His hand went forward again, diffidently, took the little roll of bills from Joey Chill’s shirt. He went back along the wail to the door, still crouched, reached up and got the key from the door, opened it, straightened and stepped through quickly, locked the door from the outside.

  He went along a dirty corridor and down four flights of steps to a narrow lobby. The lobby was empty, There was a desk and a bell on it, no one behind it. Delaguerra stood behind the plate-glass street door and looked across the street at a frame rooming house where a couple of old men rocked on the porch, smoking. They looked very peaceful. He watched them for a couple of minutes.