Deej Recommends: Default with Doom

ByCleve F. Adams

Cleve F. Adams was one of the lesser-known founders of the hard boiled school of writing. I’m not entirely sure why, because, as this story shows, he was very good at it. But he didn’t gain the literary respectability that Hammett, and later Chandler, did, and he died in 1949, just as the paperback was about to revolutionize American reading habits. (Though he did have at least a little bit of an afterlife in the paperback market, partly thanks to his friend Robert Leslie Bellem — another crack writer of detective tales — who revised and expanded at least one Adams novel that got published in the mid-1950s.)

This story features a private eye named Mike Shane. As far as I can tell, this was a one-off character for Adams. (The character/brand Michael Shayne came a couple years later, from the typewriter of a different author, Brett Halliday.) While Adams had a number of series characters, apparently this one didn’t spark his interest past this story.

He may not be remembered much by others, but any time I see the name Cleve F. Adams, I know I’m in for a good read.

Default with Doom

Cleve F. Adams

Shane had no business mixing in the case. He knew that, even as he cut the radio and spun the coupe around in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard. They could kill all the columnists in the world, and it would be okay with Shane; he wouldn’t lift a finger, only—well, there was Martha. She was this d’Arcy mug’s secretary. D’Arcy’s murder might just happen to spell trouble for Martha.

Shane stopped and fortified himself with a couple of slugs of rye against seeing Martha. The six months weren’t up, but what the hell? Maybe she wouldn’t mind. Maybe she’d even be glad to see him, and, anyway, there was the murder.

It was raining a little, not hard, when he jack-knifed his long legs under the wheel again. The tires made sucking sounds and the asphalt felt slippery, greasy. The Legion fights were just letting out. Must be after eleven, Shane guessed. He didn’t know for sure because he never bothered to wind the clock on the dash. His strap watch wasn’t running, either.

He swung left on La Brea, right again onto Sunset. Presently he parked across from the big house on Wedgewood Terrace. There were a lot of cars around, police cars mostly, and an ambulance. The driver and a white-coated interne sat on the lip of a marble fountain in the middle of the lawn, apparently oblivious to the rain. They could have sat in the ambulance just as well.

Shane mentioned this to them as he went by. They said they liked to sit in the rain. He pumped long legs up the drive and onto the veranda. Five legmen on the police beat surrounded him. He was a head taller than any of them and they had to lean backward to see his face. They seemed to feel pretty bad about Guy d’Arcy. A newspaperman, one of their own brothers, that sort of thing.

Shane grinned. Not a man there was making forty a week; d’Arcy’s take had run into the thousands. Shane’s grin was a little lop-sided, the wide mouth turning up at one side only. His big nose was put on crooked too; waggishly, with a distinct cant toward the more optimistic side of his mouth. His eyes were very tired. He told the boys he didn’t know anything, went inside. Cops were everywhere, but nobody tried to stop him so he went down the long hall to a lighted door at the rear.

A girl came out of the door, stumbling a little, with her hands pushed out in front of her as if she couldn’t see very well and was feeling her way. She had been crying. She was tall, for a girl. The top of her head fitted nicely under Shane’s chin when her arms caved against his chest. She pushed at him, and when he didn’t move, she stepped back, peered up at his face.

“Hello, Michael,” she said without inflection.

He said, very low: “Martha, honey, I had to come. What’ve they been doing to you?”

“Accusing me of murder, mostly,” she said. “Give me a handkerchief, Michael.”

He fished one from the pocket of the shabby trench coat, held it out awkwardly. She dabbed at her eyes, blew her nose quite loudly, almost like a man. That was one of the things Shane liked about Martha Young. No hysterics, lots of character. He said again: “I had to come, Martha. You don’t mind?”

She looked at him. “What? Oh, no, I don’t mind, Michael, only the answer is still the same.” She suddenly made up her mind about something. “Michael, do you suppose you could find Jim?”

“Jim?”

“Jim d’Arcy, Guy’s son.”

***

Something went out of Shane’s eyes. He said, “Oh,” rather absently, took off his hat and shook rain from it. “So he ran out on you. Left you holding the sack.”

She clutched his arms fiercely, “Shane, it isn’t what you think. He didn’t do it, I tell you. I had to admit that he had a quarrel with his father—the housekeeper would have told them, anway—but he didn’t kill him. He couldn’t have.”

Shane said: “No, of course not, Martha,”’ but his voice was flat, without conviction. He put on his hat again, said: “Well, I’ll tell ’em it wasn’t you, anyway.” He left her there, went into the room, ducking his head a little because he rarely found a door that was high enough.

The men in the room all looked at him. All except Guy d’Arcy. He was staring at the ceiling, not seeing it. They’d taken the knife out of his heart now. It lay on the desk, matching the blotter and the rest of the set. The blood on the blade was turning brown, ugly.

Captain Udell said: “Hello, shamus. Who let you in?” He was a beefy man with tiny ruptured veins in his cheeks and nose. He had a short, gray-brown mustache that bristled when he talked, and amber eyes, like a cat’s. He didn’t like Shane very well. That made them even.

Shane’s eyes looked sleepy. “I’m a friend of the family, sort of. I’m supposed to tell you that neither the girl nor Jim d’Arcy did the job.”

Udell snarled. “Oh, yeah? Well, it’ll take more than your tell, shamus. Might help some if you could turn up this d’Arcy mug, though.” His pale eyes roved over the roomful of dicks. “He seems to be missing, don’t he, boys? Missing right after a fight with his old man. Funny, huh?”

Nobody laughed, though. Shane said: “What’s so funny about it?”

Udell chuckled nastily. “We just found the will. The old man left most of his dough to the kid, but a nice slice goes to Martha Young, too. Plenty of motive for either of ’em right there. Besides, the girl was playin’ both ends against the middle. The old man was making passes at her and so was the son. I understand that’s what the quarrel was about.”

Shane folded slowly into a chair. He looked tired all over now; tired and very thin. Even the faded trench coat, cinched tight about his middle, didn’t make him look any thicker.

Udell stood over him suddenly, menacingly: “Where’s Jim d’Arcy, Shane?”

“I wouldn’t know, skipper, and that’s a fact.” Shane looked at Guy d’Arcy. He was a little disappointed in d’Arcy, even as a corpse. He watched them take the body out; watched the pudgy little deputy examiner put his things away, and the photographers and the print men and precinct dicks. Udell kept shooting glances at him from under beetling brows, but didn’t say anything. He would later, though. Shane knew Udell.

There was a dictaphone beside the desk. Shane looked at it, saw that it contained no record. A quizzical wrinkle gathered between his eyes, Slowly he got to his feet, ambled across the room, stepped into the little office where Martha worked,

The wrinkle dissolved from Shane’s brow as he closed the door softly behind him. In two lazy strides he was at Martha’s desk, bending over the duplicate dictaphone. This one had a record in it.

He put on the headset, played the record back—d’ Arcy’s column for tomorrow, evidently. The needle came to a paragraph more outspoken than any of the others. Shane’s eyes got sleepier than ever.

He took off the headphones, got up. Lazily, he walked out of the little room.

***

Out in the hall he found Martha trying to soothe the housekeeper. The housekeeper had been crying, too. Udell couldn’t seem to convict anybody of murder unless he made them cry first. It was sort of a routine with Udell.

Shane said: “Could I talk to you a minute, Martha?”

She’d got control of herself now. She gave the woman a last pat on the shoulder, led the way into the living room.

Shane said: “Tell me about it.” He had to bend a little, at the knees, to look deep into her eyes.

“There isn’t much to tell,” she said wearily. “They found my fingerprints on the knife, and Jim’s too, by comparison with some of his personal things. His not being here makes him the logical suspect, though they haven’t quite given me up. Seems the—killer held the knife thumb forward or something and I didn’t do it to suit them.”

“No,” said Shane, “you wouldn’t. Only experienced hands know how to hold a knife. This Jim fella—he ever fool around with knives much?”

She looked startled. Sudden fear erept into her eyes, but she answered honestly enough. “I think so, Michael. That is, he used to when he was younger. Did tricks with them, and—and things.”

Shane said, “Ummmm,” and wandered about the room.

She came to him then, stood very close. The perfume from her hair was like incense. “Michael, you must find him. Help him get away. If you need money—”

He pushed her from him roughly. “There isn’t that much money, Martha. I don’t like the guy, anyway. Killing the old man is bad enough, but leaving you to take the rap is worse.”

She said, low: “If the answer was ‘yes,’ Michael? Would you then?”

Slow red crept into his cheeks, “Like that, huh? Martyred for love. Well, the hell with it. I don’t want any part of it.” He swung toward the door, halted as Udell came in.

Udell said: “What goes on here?”

Shane said: “By me, skipper.”

“Well, keep it that way,” said Udell nastily. He jabbed a thick finger at the girl. “And don’t you go gettin’ any funny ideas, either. You’re not in the clear by a long shot, but I’m not taking you in till we pick up your boss’s son. I’ll just leave a man to kind of keep an eye on you.” He followed Shane down the long hall. “Friend of the family, eh? So what?”

“So I think I’ll go out and lift a few,” said Shane. “Nice night for it.” He shivered a little, turned his coat collar up. It was raining harder now. The ambulance and the white-coated interne were gone, and so were a lot of the cops. Shane got in the coupe.

***

He stopped at the first night spot he came to, had a couple more ryes. They didn’t help much. It was pretty cold, or maybe it was the look in Martha’s eyes when he left. In Marchetti’s club, a half hour later, some perverse humor made him remember the record he’d heard back there in Guy d’Arcy’s office. He climbed carpeted stairs to the mezzanine, knocked on a door marked “Private.”

Marchetti himself opened the door. “Oh, you!”

“In person,” said Shane amiably, and wandered in. He hummed a little, slightly off key, added lyrics of his own to a few bars: “Is it true what they say about Gino?”

Marchetti was a round man. Everything about him looked round and his tailor hadn’t been able to do much about it. His face looked like pie dough with a couple of raisins stuck in it for eyes. You weren’t conscious of his mouth, it was so small.

He said: “Well, w’at do they say about me?”

Shane took his time. He swung a long leg over a corner of the desk, helped himself to a cigarette. He was ready for a fight with some one, and it might as well be Gino Marchetti. Besides, he was curious.

“They say that you and Mrs. Wentworth Lowden are just like that.” He held up two fingers. “They say, in fact, that it isn’t really Gino who makes the rackets go round and round, but a well-known society dowager.”

“Who says that?” The raisin eyes glowed a little; otherwise, the face remained the same. “Who you theenk would say things like those?”

“I dunno,” said Shane carelessly. “Be interesting to look into the rumor, though, if a guy had time.” He listened to the music floating up from the supper room below.

Marchetti didn’t say anything for a while. Short legs carried him around the black and chromium office. He took things up with his fat, pudgy hands, put them down again. Presently he wound up at Shane’s side. The raisin eyes and tiny, pursed mouth looked a little anxious.

“Shane,” he said without a trace of his affected accent, “Shane, you look kind of seedy. You wouldn’t be needing money, would you?”

Shane’s eyes got crinkly. “There isn’t that much money, Gino. Not if I was interested and had the time.”

“But you haven’t the time?”

“No,” said Shane, making up his mind that he’d been a heel about Martha. And, anyway, it wasn’t any fun baiting Marchetti. “No, Gino, I haven’t the time. I gotta find a guy named d’Arcy. You haven’t seen him tonight, have you?”

“Guy d’Arcy, the columnist?”

“No, his son Jim.”

Marchetti said no, he hadn’t seen Jim d’Arcy. “He comes in here once in a while, though. Quite a boy, I hear.” He poured two drinks, a long one for Shane, a shorter one for himself. “Well, here’s a long and useful life, copper.”

“For both of us,” said Shane, wiping his lips. “Goodnight, Gino.” He went down the carpeted stairs and out to his battered coupe. There was a clock on the ornamental light post on the corner, It said twelve:forty.

***

Shane had been in nine more places by one:thirty. Nine places meant nine drinks to Shane, but it hadn’t even begun to show. It never did. People wondered about that; the same people who liked him but said he was a hard guy to figure. In the last place, Pop Haggerty’s, he got word of Jim d’Arcy.

D’Arcy had come in around eleven, Pop said. Looked all hotted up over something. Had three or four quick ones and then went out again. It was about this time that Shane realized he was being tailed. He’d been seeing that same face in nearly all the mirrors. He went along the bar, very steadily, to the guy the face belonged to.

“Do I know you, Dark and Handsome?”

The guy was dark, but he wasn’t handsome. Plenty big, though. Almost as tall as Shane and three times as wide. He was drinking ginger ale, straight, and he had a gold tooth which gleamed at Shane through the pale liquid. He put his glass down.

“No, you don’t know me, fella. You don’t know me and you don’t wanna know me. I’m poison to some guys.”

Shane looked at the ginger ale bottle. He said, “Punk,” with a sort of hopeful expression, but the guy didn’t want to make anything out of it, so Shane went out into the rain again.

There wasn’t any attendant in the lot next door, not many cars. Shane went crunching over wet gravel, counting the cars subconsciously, Seemed like too many cars for the number of customers in Pop’s, even if they were all singles. He peered into a couple of the cars, not looking for anything in particular, but just because he liked to know things, especially when mildly drunk.

He had to light a match to look into the fifth car, because the dashlight wouldn’t turn on. Something wet and shiny was smeared on the rim of the steering wheel. Shane touched his finger to it, smelled the finger. The shiny stuff was blood. He lit another match and jooked at the registration. It was Jim d’Arcy’s car.

Gravel rattled behind him, and he spun, going for the gun under his arm. The gorilla with the gold tooth chopped downward. Shane hadn’t seen the gun in the guy’s hand, but he felt it. His hat might as well have been tissue paper for all the good it did: He tried to grapple, but his arms couldn’t find anything to hold on to, and then the guy hit him again. He folded slowly, sort of in sections, before he finally sprawled out, full length, on the gravel.

By and by it seemed he was riding on a camel, or maybe it was one of the old Catalina boats with the channel rougher than usual. He opened his eyes and discovered he wasn’t riding at all. He was in a car, but the car wasn’t going anywhere. What was making his head bob like that was a guy shaking him by the shoulders. He looked at the guy and it wasn’t the ginger-ale guzzler with the gold tooth. It was somebody else; somebody Shane had never seen before; a little mug with a screwed-up weasel face and hard little shoe-button eyes.

Shane coughed, “All right, you can stop now,” and then he gagged a little, and Weasel-face yelped, “Hey, not in here!” and dragged Shane out of the car like a wet hawser.

***

After a while Shane felt a little better. It was very dark, but it had stopped raining. There was a monotonous creaking and groaning going on and at first Shane thought it was his own head. Then he smelled the oil. This was a section of the old La Brea field and a few antiquated pumpers were still grinding it out. Off to his left shone the lights of Wilshire’s Miracle Mile. He could see these even though he was flat on the ground. He could also see the little guy’s feet, only they weren’t close enough for him to reach,

Weasel-face said, very bored: “Okay, lug, if you’re all through. You showed signs of comin’ to life, and I didn’t have nothing to tie you with, so I thought I’d better stop. You’ll hafta do the drivin’.”

“Don’t apologize,” Shane said. “It’s quite all right.”’ He rolled over in the mud, felt for his gun. It was gone. The little guy had one, though. He prodded Shane into the car with it, slid in after him, and the gun buried itself in Shane’s ribs as if it had found a permanent home. Shane switched the lights on. It was still Jim d’Arcy’s car.

“Where to, maestro?”

“Just drive,” said the little guy. “I’ll tell you as we go along.”

Shane went over to Wilshire. “Left,” said the little guy. Shane turned left. He thought of asking what it was all about, decided it wouldn’t do much good. This mug looked as if he might have a sense of humor, but it might be the wrong kind, and Shane’s head was still kind of woozy. He wondered why he was still alive, why the little guy hadn’t drilled him back there in the La Brea field. That would have been a nice quiet place.

So the answer was that somebody didn’t want him dead. At least, not right away. Now, why do you suppose that was? Because Shane had something that somebody else wanted? He couldn’t think of anything. Fact, it was pretty hard to think at all. He took a chance on the little guy’s sense of humor. “What happened to the heavy with the gold headlight?”

“He had a date, copper.” This very wearily, but the gun in Shane’s ribs wasn’t weary.

Shane studied the little guy obliquely. “I could stand a smoke, fella. Mind?”

“Not if you got one of your own. I need my hands, and speakin’ of hands, you better keep at least one on the wheel where I can see it.”

Shane fumbled a soggy cigarette from his right pocket, stuck it in his mouth and pretended he couldn’t find a match. There was a lighter on the dash, so Shane leaned over the little guy’s lap and got the lighter. His bent head snapped back, caught the little guy under the chin. The gun went off. Flame streaked along Shane’s belly and the left hand window dissolved. Shane’s head had had about all it could stand for awhile, though. It swelled up till the car wasn’t big enough to hold it, and then it and the car and the whole world exploded together.

It seemed there were two cars and two light standards and two streets, and they were all painted red. No, that wasn’t right. It was blood running down over Shane’s eyes that made everything look red. He wiped the blood away with a sleeve of the trench coat. The two cars, etc., became one car and one light pole, but they weren’t separate. It would take a wrecking truck to separate them.

Shane looked at the little guy. His head looked funny, as though it had been put on crooked. Shane tried to straighten it, and it wobbled loosely. The little guy wouldn’t be using his head any more.

There were a couple of cars slowing up on the other side of the street, and down the boulevard a ways the ruby eye of a prowl car made a path for the siren. Shane went through the hood’s pocket, picking up the gun on the seat and faded down an alley. Somebody yelled at him to stop, and a woman screamed shrilly, but Shane didn’t wait. His legs felt rubbery, boneless, but he kept lifting his feet and putting them down again till he made it across to Pico. He sat down on the curb and waited for a cruising Yellow to show. One did, finally, and he got in, giving the address of his apartment.

***

He found the lobby empty and he was glad of that, because if he looked half as bad as he felt, he wouldn’t want even the clerk to see him. The automatic lift carried him up to the fourth, and he fitted his key into the lock without too much trouble; but before he twisted it, he took the little guy’s gun out of his pocket and bent an ear to the door panel. He couldn’t hear anything. Standing to one side, he pushed the door inward. Nothing happened. He reached in and switched the lights on.

Captain Udell was sitting in Shane’s favorite chair. He had a police positive trained on Shane’s flat middle and the look in his blood-shot eyes said he was aching to use it. There was another guy behind the door. Shane could hear him breathing.

Udell said: “Put the rod away, Shane. Put it away and come in. We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

Shane put the gun in the pocket of the trench coat. The guy behind the door closed it. He was a Hollywood dick, big, carefully dressed. He had a slight cast in one eye, and it gave him a sort of waggish look. Shane went over to the bar against the wall and studied his face in the mirror while he poured himself a drink. They must have kicked him around a little after conking him back there at Pop’s Place. He still didn’t know why.

The drink made him shudder. He must have left the lining of his stomach back there in the oil field.

Udell got up and came over and took the gun out of Shane’s pocket. He looked at it, tossed it to the other dick. “Same caliber, Whitey.”

Whitey said, yes, it was the same caliber, and stared hard at Shane who asked, quite casually: “Well, what am I supposed to have done now?”

Udell lifted a huge fist, thought better of it. “Nope, I haven’t the heart, even on a cop killer. Clean yourself up, shamus, and then we’re taking a ride.”

“So I’m a cop killer. Life’s fondest ambition realized at last.” Shane wondered which cop he was supposed to have killed. “Well, well, that calls for a bath.” He wobbled into the bathroom, and the dick, Whitey, came and watched him run water into the tub. “Such privacy,” Shane said. He pointed to the one small window. “Look, copper, I’m practically a shadow of my former self, but I’m not that thin. Would you mind very much getting the hell out of here?”

He closed the door, sat on the edge of the tub while he took off his shoes, The hot water helped a lot. Towelling, he thought of the stuff from the little guy’s pockets, and got it out of the trench coat. Nothing that told him anything there.

He got into fresh underwear, shirt and socks, but he had to go through the living room to find another suit. Neither Udell nor Whitey said anything, just watched him climb into his trousers as if he were some new kind of worm. Shane was knotting his tie when the telephone rang.

Udell said: “Never mind, I’ll take it,” and lifted the phone. He listened without saying much, and Shane knew the call was from headquarters.

Shane said: “Nice of me to let you use my place for an office.” Udell got up and came over. He was shaking, holding himself in with an effort. The little ruptured veins in his nose and cheeks were purple instead of red, and his small eyes were congested.

“Shane, the department has let you horse around pretty much as you pleased. I don’t know why. But you’re through now, washed up, you hear me? You’re sweet on this Martha Young dame. You were out to the house tonight, found her in a jam. You couldn’t get her away while we were there, but you came back later and took a chance with the guard I left. He tried to stop you, and you let him have it. All right, we’ve got you, but that doesn’t solve the d’Arey kill. We want Jim d’Arcy and the girl.”

***

Shane put his glass down very carefully. “I see. It wouldn’t do any good if I told you I didn’t kill the cop; that I don’t know where either the girl or d’Arcy are?”

“Not a damned bit of good!” Udell brandished a meaty fist under Shane’s nose. “That call I just got was about a guy with a broken neck in a car that belongs to Jim d’Arcy. The guy was only a cheap hood. Maybe he’s responsible for the way your face looks, maybe it was the cop, but we’ve got you tied in with that car. Couple of witnesses saw you lamming.”

“All right,” Shane said, “I admit I was in the car. I even admit I broke the guy’s neck. He and a big mug with a gold headlight started pushing me around, I don’t know why.”

Udell cursed him. “By damn, I’ve a notion to beat it out of you right here!” He measured Shane’s length, nodded at the dick. Shane was pretty sure he couldn’t take them both; not after the shellacking he’d already had. He sidled toward the bathroom door as the two started closing in.

He said, “Now, wait a minute. I gotta get some tape on my chin,” and got inside. Udell came in right on his heels, and Shane dropped to his knees, got the skipper by the legs and tossed him over his shoulder into the tub. There was a tremendous splash. Water hit the ceiliag, showered down on Shane. Udell wallowed over on his back, bellowing. The other dick stuck his head through the door. Shane hit the head with a soggy bath towel. His feet slipped on the wet tile and he fell flat as the dick got the towel out of his eyes. The dick was still holding the little hood’s gun. He lifted it, squeezed the trigger just as Shane yanked his legs out from under him.

The slug crashed the ceiling light. The guy’s head bounced up and Shane pushed it down again, hard, got the gun, rolled over. Udell, coming out of the tub like a water buffalo, missed him and sprawled flat on top of the dick. Shane tapped him, just once, with the gun. Udell and the dick were both out cold.

It was quite a job to slide them both into the bathroom, but he got it done finally and, reversing the key, locked the door. After that he went to a closet and got another trench coat, exactly like the first, just as shabby, only it didn’t have any mud on it. He put this on, found another hat down among the shoes and put that on. Udell and Whitey were making quite a racket in the bath now.

Shane went out into the hall and closed the door. The two old maids who lived across the hall were shrieking bloody murder. He could still hear them when he got down to the alley. It was raining again. He had to walk four blocks before he found a box to phone for a taxi. Waiting there in the shadows, he watched three prowl cars converge on the apartment house, go away again. The taxi came and he gave the man the address of Pop’s Place on Sunset. Inside, he lifted his feet to the seat, folded long arms around bony knees and tried to concentrate. It was pretty hard, concentrating, when you didn’t know exactly what to concentrate on, and when your head ached like seven elephants had stepped on it, and your stomach was sandpapered raw inside. Not to mention the bullet furrow on the outside from the little guy’s gun.

Let’s see, now. Young Jim d’Arcy knifed his old man; he was a wiz with a knife and the guy that did the job had certainly known what it was all about. Thumb forward along the half and jab upward. Martha, or somebody who didn’t have the savvy, would have held it thumb backward and struck down. Okay, so Jim d’Arcy did it. The gal knew he did it. She’d stayed, though, hoping to cover him.

But she didn’t know where he had lammed to. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have asked Shane to find him. Shane sat up at the thought. Of course! He, Shane, had said he wouldn’t help; wouldn’t have any part of it. So Martha had tried to find Jim d’Arcy, herself. The cop on guard had tried to stop her and she’d—

Shane cursed. He could see Martha, intent on doing something, pretty worried, and some big flat-foot trying to give her an argument. Hell of a mess, this. The fact that there was more than likely a general alarm out for Shane himself didn’t worry him much. He grinned a little, thinking of Captain Udell having apoplexy back there in the bathroom. And that brought him to the little guy with the big gun, and the beppo with the gold headlight. They didn’t fit, somehow. Shane floundered around in a mental fog, trying to make them fit, and finally arrived at a very funny conclusion. It was so funny that he chuckled aloud, and the driver turned around and scowled at him for putting his feet on the upholstery.

***

They pulled up in front of Pop’s Place, and it was still open, but there weren’t any customers. “Drive on by,” Shane said. He looked over the parking lot as they went past, saw his own car and another, probably the bartender’s. He got out, paid off, and walked back on the opposite side of the street. The barkeep was beginning to turn off the lights. That meant three o’clock.

Shane crossed over, opened the door. “Wait a minute, Jerry. I want to use the phone. And mix me up something hot, something with a coupla eggs in it, huh?”

Jerry’s eyes popped. “Jeez, Shane! Jeez, don’t you know you’re hot? Cops’ve been drillin’ around ever since you left. They’re lookin’ for you, fella.”

Shane said: “Thanks. Put plenty of bourbon in it, Jerry.” He folded himself into the booth, closed the door, and dialed the Tribune. The paper had been on the streets for hours, but this was quicker. When he came out of the booth he was whistling between his teeth. Not because he was particularly happy, but because certain things like the little guy and the big guy and the dead copper and so on were beginning to fit. He held the steaming mug in both hands so they’d get warm, too.

Jerry kept looking at him, and looking out of the window, and muttering to himself.

Shane said: “The big yegg that drinks his ginger ale straight. Know him, Jerry?”

Jerry didn’t, He went on mopping up behind the bar and wishing Shane would get the hell out. A car nosed into the curb. Shane saw the insignia on the door panel and went out the back way just as the two harness bulls came in the front. He could hear Jerry trying to stall them. He must remember to do something nice for Jerry sometime. Loping around the corner of the building, he got his car started and away before the cops found out they were being stalled.

***

The d’Arcy house looked about the same. You’d never know that a great columnist and a not-so-great dick had met death there in the last three or four hours. The street lights only made the shadows seem blacker, and giant pepper trees had dripped rain and berries till the pavement was slushy under the trees. Shane drove around the block, looking for a possible stake-out. There wasn’t any. He parked under a tree, mounted the porch and rang the bell. He didn’t have to wait long. The porch light winked on, and the housekeeper opened the door on a chain. She looked lumpy in a too big flannel robe, and her eyes were puffy-red.

Shane took off his hat so she could see him better. “I’m Shane,” he said. “You remember me?” She looked at him dully, as if she didn’t, and he added: “I’m Martha’s friend, and Jim d’Arcy’s. I was here last night.”

She bobbed her head. “I remember, but they’re not here. Nobody’s here but me.”

He tried again: “Look, you’d like to help Martha and Jim, wouldn’t you?”

Something flickered in the dull eyes. He couldn’t tell what it was, but decided he might as well call it hope as anything. He had to get inside and he couldn’t very well just barge in, not while the chain was on the door, so he said: “Well, that’s just fine then. You want to help them, I want to help them. Two of the world’s greatest little helpers, working together for the commonweal.” She didn’t think he was funny, so he scowled at her. “How’s about undoing that chain?”

“You mean you want in?”

“That’s the general idea, lady. I’ve got to have a look at one or two items in d’Arcy’s office, and maybe Martha’s, before I know just how helpful you and I are going to be.”

She undid the chain, fastened it very earefully again, and then padded felt-soled slippers down the hall after him. He went into d’Arcy’s office, looked all through the desk without finding what he was after, went down the hall to Martha’s more business-like office. There was a steel filing cabinet against the wall, another smaller one on Martha’s desk, Invariably, down in the lower left hand corner of the carbons, he found Martha’s initials bracketed with Guy d’Arcy’s. But again he didn’t find what he was looking for. Maybe the Tribune had been right, after all, and that thought was discouraging.

So, being Shane, he grinned cheerfully, if somewhat lopsidedly, and went back to d’Arcy’s study. Funny, he’d left the lights on in there and now they were off. The air was fresher, too. Thinking the housekeeper had doused the lights, he reached in for the switch. Flame laced the darkness and something hot plucked at an ear lobe. He sprawled flat as gun-roar caromed crazily around the room. He got out the little guy’s gun and squeezed lead out of it. There was a yelp, a couple more shots. Shane squeezed more lead at the flashes. Glass tinkled behind drawn drapes. It was darker than the inside of a whale in the room, light out in the hall, and Shane knew if he stood up he’d make a swell target. Still, he wasn’t getting anywhere this way. He wondered where the housekeeper was. By rights, she ought to be yelping her head off, and he hadn’t heard a peep out of her.

He tilted his gun up from the floor, held it wide, and took another shot, sort of exploring the unknown. There wasn’t any answer, so he wiggled along on his belly till he was all in the room, doubled over and reached for the wall switch. The lights came on. Save for himself, the room was empty. The drapes over the windows billowed gently and he went over and whipped them apart. The guy, whoever he was, was gone. There was only a little spatter of blood on the sill to show that he’d ever been there.

***

Shane went looking for the housekeeper. She was a huddle of blue flannel on the polished floor of the hall, and Shane thought at first that she’d only fainted. Then he saw the slowly-spreading stain up near the top of the bathrobe and was afraid she’d stopped one of the slugs meant for him. Then he saw that her slippers were wet, and lifting his eyes, found the door chain hanging straight down. There was a gun in the pocket of the blue flannel robe. It was still hot and there were three empty shells.

So there hadn’t been any guy. The woman had let him go down the hall alone, had then gone out the front door and around to the windows so she could pot him from darkness while he was outlined against the light. That way, she’d have an alibi in case she missed. Not very confident with a gun, apparently, and shy of tackling him inside with the breaks even. Funny, maybe this dumpy old woman had even knifed d’Arcy.

Shane found her pulse strong. He pulled the robe down from her shoulder. The wound was clean, high up. Shane decided it was shock, mostly, that had keeled her over as she got back inside the hall. He felt kind of quivery, looking at her. He had never shot a woman before.

He sat there, hunkered down on his haunches, wondering what to do about her. He could wait and take a chance on making her talk, or he could leave and check on his hunch. The hunch was stronger than ever now. With all this killing going on, and seemingly everybody in town hooked into it, time was apt to be pretty important. Besides, some of the neighbors would have called the law by now. Shane didn’t want any cops underfoot. He reached for his gun, and somebody said: “Leave it lay, mug!”

The big guy with the gold headlight was standing in the front door. He had two guns. Shane looked at him, looked at the dumpy woman on the floor beside him. Except for the gold tooth there was quite a resemblance. The guy came down the hall and kicked Shane in the side and stood glooming down at the woman.

Shane grunted from the kick, but the phenomenon was so amazing that he had to say, “Your mother, huh?” and that brought on another kick. The big guy had pale eyes, and Shane thought of a leopard he’d once shot, only this time it was the leopard who was going to do the shooting. The guy was trying to make up his mind. Wrinkles of indecision creased his low forehead, and Shane could almost approximate the mental processes. Would there be time to lug both Shane and the old lady out? There wouldn’t. The two guns cut down on Shane. His own was at least three feet away. He couldn’t make it, and he knew he couldn’t, and then the acute discomfort under his hip resolved itself into the woman’s gun.

He flattened and rolled as the two guns blasted above him. A slug meant for his chest, caught him in the shoulder and then, somehow, his fingers hooked the gun under him. He fired, and the flame of his own shot seared his lean belly. He squeezed the trigger again and nothing happened. The rod was empty. Well, this is it, he thought, and looked up to face it.

Surprised, he saw the two guns falling out of the big guy’s hands. He couldn’t have done all that with one slug. And then the guy’s knees started buckling and, looking higher, Shane saw the hole in the mug’s jaw. There didn’t seem to be any top to the head, though, and on account of the blood Shane couldn’t even see the gold tooth any more.

***

It was a very messy job frisking the guy, and when he got all through Shane didn’t know any more than he’d known before. The woman slept through it all. He got up and wobbled out the front door as the first siren swung into the street. A man across the way was leaning out of a second story window. He had a night-cap on, and he kept yelling: “Halt, there! Halt, or I’ll fire!”

Shane couldn’t see that the guy had anything to fire with; both the flailing fists were empty, so he didn’t halt. The guy changed the record to: “There he goes! There he goes!”

Shane slammed the coupe door, cursing guys who didn’t mind their own business. Especially guys that wore nightcaps. Driving one-handed because his left arm was numb and so was most of his left side, he tore down the street. The siren couldn’t make up its mind whether to stop at the house or chase Shane. It finally came on, and Shane wasted a perfectly good fifteen minutes losing it. He then went to an all-night drug store, looked up an address in the phone book, bought a roll of bandage and a quart bottle of rye. The label said it was good stuff. He drove on till he found a nice comfortable shadow, drank some of the whiskey, poured some on a wad of gauze and plugged up the hole in his shoulder. When he got through with that his teeth ached from biting down so hard.

He took another drink, for luck, and stoppered the bottle very carefully. Mustn’t lose any. The way he felt, he could tell he was going to need every drop. He drove out to the address on Carthay Circle, and it was one of those places they call town estates. It occupied most of a city block. A high iron fence surrounded acres of heavily-shrubbed, terraced lawn; and there was a swimming pool and a tennis court. Ornamental lights, placed strategically about the grounds, told Shane all this, but for the moment he was more interested in the gates.

They weren’t locked, so he opened them and drove up the curving drive till he was under the porte cochere. Even the coupe lowered its throaty rumble as though shrinking in upon itself amid such splendor. None of the windows showed light; there was none behind the ground glass door panel, either. That meant that everybody was in for the night.

Shane pushed the button, leaning on it heavily and keeping his finger there till the door glowed yellow. The door opened on a chain, and a voice, dead with sleep and just a trifle irritated, said: “Who is it, please?”

Shane said: “Telegram.”

The guy unhooked the chain, and Shane kneed the door inward. He closed the door behind him. The butler was on the floor where the door had hurled him, both hands nursing a bumped nose. He eyed the gun in Shane’s fist, opened his mouth, like a fish.

Shane made a suggestive gesture. “If you’re thinking about yelling, I wouldn’t.”

The man closed his mouth, opened it again immediately, but he didn’t yell He mumbled, sort of piteously, “This—this is most unusual!” There was outraged dignity and righteous indignation and horrible fear all mixed up in his voice. He got to his feet. He’d pulled on trousers over his pajamas, but the braces were hanging about his hips and it kept both hands busy holding the trousers up. He mumbled again: “Most unusual!”

“I know,” Shane said sympathetically. “Like our California weather, Now, look, fella, I’m sorry about the nose, and I don’t want to hurt you any more if I can help it. See what I mean?”

The guy was smart. He got the idea right away.

Shane said: “Swell. Now which is Mrs. Lowden’s suite?”

Fish-face opened his mouth, wide this time, and there was stark horror in the bulgy eyes. “You—you’re not going to harm the mistress!”

“I may.” Shane was getting pretty tired now. He couldn’t waste much more time on this mug. “I asked you which room?”

“S-s-second floor, front, right!”

“Thank you,” Shane said. “Now turn around and go right on holding your pants up till you’re inside that coat closet under the stairs.” He stuck the gun in the butler’s back and marched him into the closet. “Now,” he said, “just make yourself at home, and don’t yell, and maybe somebody will come and let you out after a while.” He shut the door and locked it. There wasn’t a sound anywhere in the house.

***

Thick carpet muffled his steps as he climbed. He had to put his gun in his pocket, and hold on to the bannister with his good hand to make it, though. In spite of the plug, the blood kept trickling down his left leg and was slowly filling his shoe. He opened the door of the front room, A woman’s voice asked: “Is that you, Jessup? Who was at the door?” A night light glowed.

Shane reached in, found the wall switch. The great crystal chandelier in the ceiling burst into scintillating light. He stood there in the doorway, swaying slightly. “No,” he said, “it isn’t Jessup.”

The woman in the bed gave a little choked scream, and Shane took out his gun unhurriedly and pointed it at her. It was a big bed, with a white satin canopy over it. The whole room was done in white and off-shades of white, and the white rug was so deep you felt like you were sinking to your ankles. Shane hoped he wouldn’t get any blood on it.

The woman just lay back against the pillows, mouth open slightly, but not saying anything, watching Shane and the gun with a sort of unbelieving fascination. She had a chin strap on and the flesh bulged around it, like wattles, but her hair was still black. Dyed, maybe. The jewels on her fingers caught the light from the chandelier in a million refractions.

Shane went over to the great bed, sat on the edge of it. He laid the hand with the gun on top of the satin coverlet so that the muzzle pointed at her fat throat. He could hold it steadier that way. There was a little blood on the hand. The woman’s eyes rolled up in her head when she saw the blood.

He said: “I’m Shane. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, though. Does it?”

Her whisper, no, barely reached him. The wattles quivered like jelly.

He said: “Mrs. Lowden, I haven’t much time, so you must pay very careful attention to what I say, believing that I mean every word. There have been several men killed tonight over a matter which seems rather silly. The matter originally concerned yourself and Gino Marchetti. It now concerns me, and is no longer silly. I intend to kill you, here and now, unless you can stop Gino.”

She got her voice back then, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Shane said: “I’m pretty sure you do know what I mean, but if you don’t, I’ll just have to kill you anyway.”

She must have believed him then. Perhaps he believed himself. The veil of cunning dropped from her eyes for an instant and stark fear showed. Fat, beringed fists clutching her throat, she gasped, “What do you want me to do?”

“Call Gino Marchetti.”

She reached for the white phone on the night stand, jerked the tasselled bell-cord instead. Far below a bell jangled.

***

Shane didn’t move. He said: “The butler can’t come, Mrs. Lowden.”

She spat at him. And then, very slowly, hoping against hope that he was wrong, she began dialing a number. The bell rang for a long time at the other end. Shane could hear it. Presently the bell stopped ringing and a voice answered.

“Marchetti!” she jittered. “Marchetti, there is a man here who is going to kill me if I don’t stop you. Stop you what? What have you been doing?” The voice rattled, and she said: “Shane, I think. Of course he means it, you fool! He looks like he’s already killed a dozen!” She looked at Shane. “What do you want?”

Shane said: “Ask him if d’Arcy and the girl are still alive. Tell him that if they aren’t, I’ll look him up after I finish you.” The gun in his hand kept jumping nervously, making little satin waves in the shimmering satin. He couldn’t seem to control it.

The woman shivered. She spoke into the phone again, listened, relayed the message to Shane. D’Arcy and the girl were still alive. “What do you want done with them?”

Shane thought: I can’t make it with her, and even if I did, Marchetti would find some way to cross me. He said: “Tell him to put d’Arcy and Martha in a cab and send them here. He can tell the girl I’m waiting for her. As soon as I know they’re safe, you and he can take a powder, or do anything else you want. Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal,” said Mrs. Lowden. She spoke into the phone, crisply now. “I’ve made a deal, Marchetti. Turn them loose.”

After that, they just sat and watched each other while the gun kept doing tricks on the counterpane. Out in the street, a car door slammed, and feet came up the drive, a man’s and a girl’s. To the woman in the bed Shane said: “I’m going to get up now, but I’m not leaving the room, Slide down under the covers please.”

“You’re—you won’t shoot me if I do?”

“I won’t shoot you if you do.”

Her eyes hated him, but she believed. She disappeared, like a turtle, and Shane piled pillows on top of her. He backed to the windows, swept the hangings aside and called out: “Upstairs, Martha. Where you see the lights.”

“Coming, Michael!” Lots of character in that voice, Shane thought. No silly questions, just: “Coming, Michael!” Lots of character in the girl, too. Shane wished he had a little. He watched the lump in the middle of the great bed. It didn’t move till Martha and d’Arcy came in.

Martha flew to Shane. “Michael, you’re hurt!”

“A little,” he admitted. “Nothing serious, Martha.” He pushed her from him, looked at d’Arcy. “Anybody follow you here?”

D’Arcy said no, they hadn’t been followed, and Gino Marchetti said, “You’re mistaken,” and fired from the doorway. The slug took Shane’s hat off. He sat down, quite suddenly, as if he had been pushed, and propped his gun on a knee. Marchetti dodged behind Martha, and d’Arcy, unarmed, made a flying tackle for Marchetti’s legs.

He got them. Marchetti belted him on the head with the gun, and the gun was all Shane could see beyond Martha, so he shot at that. The gun went flying, and Martha dropped to the floor. Shane got up, started for Marchetti, and the round man’s hand flashed up and around to the back of his neck. It came out with a knife. The blade twinkled reflections from the crystal chandelier, twinkled its flight clear across the room.

Shane fell down again, and the woman in the bed stopped screaming. Shane pumped slugs at Marchetti till there weren’t any more, and Gino Marchetti lay like a great round ball on the white rug. Too bad about the rug, Shane thought. It was going to get stained, after all.

***

Grinning shame-facedly, d’Arcy got up. “Stout fella, Shane. You, I mean, not Marchetti.” He bent over Martha, and Shane wobbled up to see why Mrs. Wentworth Lowden had stopped screaming. The knife in her breast winked at Shane. Mrs. Lowden didn’t know the knife was in her breast. She never would, now.

There was a lot of noise out in the hall, and Shane got a dizzy, panoramic view of white faces and nighties and things, and then they all melted away to make room for Captain Udell. He puffed in as if he’d run all the way from Hollywood, and the veins in his nose and cheeks were a sort of magenta, now. He came and stood spraddle-legged over Shane in the white chair.

“Okay, shamus, spill it fast before I forget how sick you look.”

“I’ll make a deal,” said Shane. “You tell me first.”

He thought Udell was going to have a stroke. So did Martha. She came and stood beside Shane, protectively, but she didn’t say anything. Udell growled: “Okay, okay. We got to d’Arcy’s housekeeper, and when she found her so-and-so of a son was dead, she broke down and admitted he worked for Marchetti. I beat it out to Gino’s, saw him sneaking out, and tailed him here.”

Shane smiled. “All right, it’s all yours, copper. You can have all the glory, if any. I’ve got what I want. Seems Guy d’Arcy stumbled into a connection between the lady over there in the bed, and Gino Marchetti. They were partners. They owned a string of big-time gambling houses. Really big. She knew everybody, went everywhere, and I can see where her position in society would make her invaluable to a smart guy like Gino. She shilled the rich suckers in and Gino fleeced them. Only thing is, her value would cease the minute a breath of suspicion touched her. People would begin to remember how she’d suggested a friendly fling at roulette several times. And they’d also remember losing several nice chunks of cash.

“Well, d’Arcy was going to put more than a breath of suspicion in his column. He knew, and Marchetti knew that he knew, so Gino had to stop him. Gino got out to the house just in time to hear the last of the quarrel between father and son. When young d’Arcy beat it, Marchetti went in, probably through the windows, though the housekeeper may have let him in. D’Arcy had the column transcription and the carbon on his desk. And that column spilled the works.

“Marchetti jabbed d’Arcy with the paper knife, lammed with the script. Then he got to thinking it would be a swell idea to pick up young d’Arcy. It was possible he, too, might know what was in the script, and even if he didn’t, his absence would point him out as the killer.”

Jim d’Arcy nodded. “All straight, so far. I was wild when I left dad, started out on a bender. They knocked me on the head as I was leaving Pop’s Place. I don’t know what became of my car, though.”

Shane said: “Your car won’t be much good any more. I wrecked it for you. Last I saw of it, it was all mixed up with a lamp post.”

Udell snorted. “Save it, save it.”

Shane could see the skipper was still sore, so he said, “Uh, well, I’m sorry about the bath tub and all, but when you told me they’d got Martha—well, you see how it is, huh?”

Udell made sour noises in his throat.

Shane said: “Yes. Well, guys had been pushing me around all night, and I couldn’t see why until they grabbed Martha. I wasn’t sure she’d been grabbed, of course. She might have run out. But I remembered mentioning to Marchetti that I’d heard about him and Mrs. Wentworth Lowden; also that I was looking for Jim d’Arcy. Maybe that was the reason I’d been tailed. I called the Tribune, and they said they’d never got the script from d’Arcy; said he’d been killed before he wrote it, which wasn’t possible because I’d heard the stuff on his dictaphone.”

Udell said: “His dictaphone was empty.”

“His was,” Shane said, “but the duplicate machine in Martha’s office held a record of the column.”

“Why you—”

“Now, skipper,” Shane said, wagging a long finger, “let’s not start bickering again.”

***

Martha smiled down at Shane. “Smart boy, Michael. I typed that column, put it on his desk before ten o’clock, but I kind of forgot it after that.”

Shane went on in a weary voice. He was tired—so tired he could have keeled over right there. “Gino thought he had everything till he discovered Martha’s initials down at the bottom of the pages. Then he knew the stuff had been dictated. He sent the guy with the gold headlight after Martha, and it would have been all right, seeing the guy’s mother was the housekeeper, only he ran into the dick. Goldie let the dick have it.

“So they got Martha. I imagine she told them the stuff was on a record, too, so back came Goldie after the record, Meantime, his old lady knew I was working for d’Arcy and Martha, and that meant I was inimical to her darling son’s interests, so damned if even she didn’t take a shot at me.”

Udell’s mustache bristled, but he wasn’t mad any more. Only interested in the clean-up now. “Okay, okay,” he said briskly, “but why come after the Lowden dame?”

“Because I figured her as the head; because I didn’t think I was big enough to take Gino and all his little playmates in his own territory. This way, I could make a deal, and I did.” He bobbed his head, carefully, toward the dowager in the white satin bed. “‘It’s a deal,’ she said, and I think she meant it, only she was trying to deal for Marchetti too, and that’s the thanks he gave her. It was meant for me, but her luck must have run out.”

Shane grinned his crooked grin at Udell, and tried to keep his eyes away from Martha and d’Arcy. He wished Martha had looked at him like that, just once. And then she was looking at Shane, and it was a different look, but clear-eyed, unafraid. She was coming over to him now, ready to pay off as she’d said she would, and he liked her for that. Lots of character.

She helped him get to his feet, steadied him with her hands. “It’s a deal, Michael. The answer is yes.”

He pushed her away and nearly fell down. D’Arcy came over then, and Shane executed a swell grin for them both. “It’s a deal, yea, but it’s between you and d’Arcy, Martha. If I remember rightly, I said the hell with it.” His voice sounded kind of mushy and it felt like there was a frog in his throat, so he sneered at Marchetti, way down there on the white rug, and went down the stairs into the rain. Seemed like the damn rain would never stop, but there was enough rye left in the bottle to wash the lump out of his throat, anyway.