WILSHIRE BOULEVARD WAS DESERTED as Johnny Liddell tooled the hired convertible down past the blank faces of the closed shops. He headed out through Beverly Hills, bore east after he had passed the last cluster of shops. After a few miles the road started climbing, and the wind that came down from the hills was dry with the taste of the desert. He felt his shirt beginning to stick to him, wished he had stayed under the shower a little longer. He pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road, slipped out of his jacket and shoulder harness. He laid the gun on the seat, covered it with his coat.
About an hour out he passed the big gas station with the twisting metal foil indicated on the map Mendle had given him. He slowed the car down, watched for the sharp turnoff from the state road. When he came to it, it was so poorly marked and so overgrown that he almost rode past.
He braked the car to a stop, threw it into reverse, then swung onto the narrow, poorly paved road. It wound through a double row of trees that blocked out the fields beyond. He kept careful check on the speedometer, watched until it showed exactly four and two-tenths miles since he had left the state road.
He stopped the car again, consulted the map under the dash light. Yale Stanley’s place was halfway up the next slope, set back about a quarter of a mile from the road. He decided to leave the car, go the rest of the way on foot. He doused the lights, put up the top on the car. Then, shrugging into his shoulder harness, he covered it with his jacket. He tugged the .45 from its holster, checked it. Then, hugging the side of the road, he melted into the darker shadows and headed for the branch-off that led to Stanley’s place.
The perspiration was running down his back in rivulets when he finally came in sight of the lodge. It was a sprawling rural lodge with a wide porch, fieldstone cemented foundation, done in wavy hemlock clapboard with a huge towering fieldstone fireplace. Liddell crouched in the shadow of the underbrush, cased the building. There were no lights, no sign of life. He crouched there in the shadows for what seemed like hours, could only have been seconds. There was no sound other than the rustle of leaves and the peculiar song of some night-singing insect. Still he saw no evidence of life in the lodge.
He crouched low, and taking as much advantage of the underbrush and shrubbery as possible, he started toward the house. Every few feet he stopped, straining his ears and eyes against the wall of darkness that separated him from the lodge.
Suddenly, he stopped, all senses alert. Subconsciously he was aware of an alien sound, the sound of a twig snapped, a stone dislodged. He slid his hand under his jacket, felt the reassuring cold steel of the .45, pulled it out. He crouched in the shadow of the shrubbery, listened intently.
Then he heard it again. It was the sound of quick footsteps behind him. He was far too late in swinging around. There was a hissing roar of sound. He tried to spin, to fall away from what was coming. It hummed like an angry bumblebee, exploded on the side of his head with the blinding brilliance of a flare. The .45 slipped from his limp fingers, clattered to the ground. There was another swish, another display of pyrotechnics in the back of his skull, and he went to his knees.
Liddell tried to still the roaring in his ears, fought his way to his feet. He tried to lash out, but his arms were leaden, useless. He stumbled forward, his knees folded under him, and the ground rushed up, hit him in the face.
• • •
The sound of voices penetrating the fog that swirled through his brain persuaded Liddell that he was still alive. His head spun and his senses reeled sickeningly. The voices were no more than a rasping cacophony of sound that grated on his nerves. He tried to separate the words, but they were like heavy liquid, all run together, making no sense, having no meaning, merely rasping on his nerves.
He struggled to get his eyes open, but the black pit that had enveloped him yawned again. A sharp ache started behind his ear, seared its way through his brain, came to rest in the back of his eyes, blinding him. He moved his head and nausea enveloped him. The blackness flowed closer and the voices receded to a distant whisper. He tried to cry out, but it came out of his throat as no more than a hollow groan.
His next snatch of consciousness came with the sickening sensation of motion. He had the feeling of being suspended in air, bouncing jerkily through space in nerve-shattering bounds. Above him he could see a patch of sky, an occasional limb of a tree. He tried weakly to squirm, but his feet and arms seemed gripped in a vise.
Struggling only brought back the nausea, and the sky and tree branches above dissolved into a bright smear of lights and vivid colors. Once again, the blackness flowed over Liddell, erasing all consciousness.
It seemed as though endless time must have passed when consciousness again came knocking at his skull. He awakened to a rough hand shaking his shoulder. He groaned hollowly, opened his eyes, stared stupidly into a face distinguished by a badly scrambled nose.
“It’s the fairy prince, Sleeping Beauty,” Maxie growled at him. “It’s time to wake up. Or am I suppose to kiss you — with this?” He waved a leather-thonged sap under Liddell’s nose.
The private detective tried to focus his eyes, but had difficulty in keeping them from rolling back into his head. When he finally got them under control, he could make out Yale Stanley standing behind Maxie.
They were in what appeared to be the living-room of a rustic lodge. The walls were paneled with random-width pine, a huge fieldstone fireplace took up most of one wall. Above the exposed beams red and blue Mexican serapes added color to the room. He rolled his eyes back to the man leaning over him.
“What’s the matter, peeper?” Maxie sneered. “Can’t you take it?”
Liddell made a stab at a grin but succeeded only in twisting his face into an ugly grimace. “I must be getting old,” he gasped.
Yale Stanley caught Maxie by the shoulder, pulled him aside, stepped in front of Liddell. He wasn’t as dapper as the last time the private detective had seen him — in his office at the Dude Ranch. His carefully shellacked hair now showed signs of being mussed, and there were blue-black bristles glinting from his chin and upper lip.
“Keep on being as nosy as you are and you won’t get much older, Liddell,” the gambler growled. “How’d you find us here?”
“I read tea leaves.”
The gambler’s thin lips spread back from his teeth. “A tough guy, eh?” He slashed out with the flat of his hand, slammed Liddell’s head backward. “The way I hear it you’ll be doing all your communicating by Ouija board, tough guy. How’d you get here?”
Liddell lay on his back on the floor, breathing heavily through his mouth. His eyes were closed.
Stanley stepped closer, bent down over him. He kicked him in the ribs lightly, kept kicking until Liddell opened his eyes. “You didn’t answer my question, Liddell.”
Liddell shook his head weakly.
“Let me have a crack at it, Yale. I got ways of making bashful guys open up. I open them up real wide,” Maxie promised.
“Not yet. I want him to be able to talk.” The gambler stood over Liddell, looked down at him.
“I owe him plenty, Yale,” the broken-nosed man snarled.
“Okay, okay. I’ll give him to you for Christmas. Just don’t break him into pieces before I’m done with him.” He nodded down at Liddell. “Get him up in a chair.”
Maxie glowered at the gambler, tried to outstare him, dropped his eyes. He growled deep in his chest, reached over, caught Liddell by the lapels, dragged him to his feet, and dumped him into a chair.
Liddell looked around, saw Eddie Richards for the first time.
The fat man sat slumped in a chair at the far side of the fireplace. His arms hung down at his sides, and his big head drooped on his chest, spilling his chins over his collar. Black, dried blood ran down the side of his face from an open cut over his eye and became matted in the heavy growth of beard on his jowls. His overripe lips had been mashed to a pulp; spilled blood stained his shirt front.
“He was stubborn, too,” Stanley growled.
Liddell looked away from the fat man to the gambler. “He dead?”
Stanley looked over at the unconscious man, spat. “Not yet. But he will be if he doesn’t stop trying to outsmart me.” He looked back at Liddell, scowled. “How deep are you in this frame, shamus?”
“What frame?”
Stanley’s open palm snapped the private detective’s head back again. “Don’t answer my questions with questions, Liddell.”
Maxie shuffled over. “Let me soften him up for you, Yale. He’s still a tough guy. Let me soften him up,” he pleaded. His beady little eyes looked inflamed, his thick lips slobbered. “I got it coming to me.”
“Don’t get overanxious, Maxie,” Liddell spat at him. “Your pal Duke had it coming to him, too, and I saw to it that he got it.”
Maxie started for the private detective, was pushed back by Yale Stanley. “Cut it out, I told you, Maxie,” Stanley ordered. He waited until the goon relaxed, then turned to Liddell. “I heard about the Duke. So it was you, eh? That’s another score we’ve got to settle.”
Liddell stared at him, offered no answer.
“What were you doing in the broad’s apartment?”
When Liddell showed no signs of answering, Stanley slashed his open palm across his face again.
“What were you doing there?”
“Getting the evidence to send your pal in Lulu Barry’s office to jail.”
Stanley’s eyes grew bleak. “Busy little fellow, aren’t you?” His eyes glowered at Liddell from behind triangular-shaped pouches. “Who else knows about it?”
“Lulu Barry. Mendy. Benny Cardell.”
“You’re lying.”
Liddell shrugged. “Okay, so I’m lying. How the hell do you think I knew where you were?”
“Who else was there when you talked to Mendy?”
“A couple of guns from Chicago. Estes and a guy named Ryan.” He grinned crookedly at the worried frown on the gambler’s face. “The Syndicate sent them in to take care of you.”
Stanley turned his back on Liddell, walked over to a table, poured himself a drink, glowered at the private detective over the rim of the glass.
“Don’t listen to him, Yale. He’s lying,” Maxie growled.
Stanley shook his head. “Estes was in town tonight. He called to tip me off that Liddell was on his way out here.” He set the glass down hard, raked his fingers through his hair.
Liddell grunted. “You’re a funny operator. Here they got a call out for you for murder and all you’re worried about is a two-bit gun like Estes.”
“I can beat the murder rap because I didn’t kill the kid. But if my number’s up with the Syndicate, that I can’t beat.” Stanley jammed his fists into his jacket pocket, paced the room. He stopped pacing in front of Liddell, jabbed his finger at him. “You know damn well I didn’t kill that kid. It’s a frame and I’m not standing still for it.”
Liddell fumbled through his pockets, came up with a cigarette. “If you didn’t, who did?”
“That rat.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the unconscious Richards. “He had that babe of his in the office call me and tell me to get out to the old country club. When I get there, the kid was dead. He was hiding in an inside room; you were calling the cops. All set to put the finger on me.”
Liddell wiped his mouth with the side of his hand, stuck the cigarette between his lips. “Where were you when the cops got there?”
“Not too far away.” Stanley twisted his lips in what passed for a smile. “Far enough.”
Liddell lit his cigarette, filled his lungs with smoke, let it dribble out slowly, soothingly. “What’d you run away for, Yale?”
“You think I’m crazy? I know a setup when I see one. That fat slob wants the kid out of the way, knocks him off, and has me there as a ready-made fall guy when the cops arrive. Only it didn’t work out that way.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you think I’m going to do? I’m going to work him over until he’s ready to go to the cops and admit it was a frame-up.”
Liddell touched the sore spot behind his ear, winced. “I don’t know anything about any frame-up. All I know is I was hired to find the kid and when I did find him he was dead. I went to call the cops and Richards was gone when I got back.”
The gambler stuck his face down near Liddell’s, bared his teeth. He slammed the cigarette from between the private detective’s lips with a sweep of his hand. “You’re a liar. You were in it with him. You were all set to finger me for the cops.” The soft voice had risen to an angry shout. “Weren’t you?”
Liddell was aware that Maxie had shuffled into position at his side, stood licking his thick lips expectantly. “You’re wrong, Yale. I wasn’t in on any frame. I don’t think they could make it stick.”
Some of the wildness drained out of the gambler’s face. “Why not?”
Liddell shrugged. “You didn’t have any reason. The kid owed you fifty grand — at least you had his paper for that much. Killing him would only mean you were out that dough. You wouldn’t kill him.”
The gambler stared at him, rubbed the back of his hand over the bristles on his chin thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s right. Anybody could see that. I’d be out that fifty gees by killing him. Why would I want to go and do a thing like that?”
“But we’ve got to give them a killer in your place, Yale,” Liddell told him. “One they can pin it on.”
Stanley whirled to Richards. He walked over to the fat man, kicked him in the ankle. “Here’s your killer. He didn’t want the kid to pay me the dough he owed me. He killed him to get all the dough.” Richards groaned, stirred. His discolored eyelids flickered, the cruelly smashed lips twitched. Stanley kicked him again, the fat man’s eyes rolled in their sockets. He stared at the gambler blankly. “Wake up, you fat slob and talk, or I’ll fix it so’s you’ll never talk again,” Stanley growled.
The fat man rolled his head weakly. “I didn’t set you up, Yale. I never did it.”
Stanley slashed out with the flat of his hand, knocked the fat man’s head to the side. “You killed him, didn’t you? You killed the kid?”
Richards shook his head, the chins wabbling crazily. “Why would I kill him?” His beady little eyes filled with tears. “He was my kid. I brought him up. Why would I kill him?”
Liddell pulled himself painfully from his chair and staggered over. “Richards, it’s Liddell. Can you hear me? Liddell.”
The black marbles rolled behind their discolored pouches, focused blearily on Liddell. “Tell him, Liddell. I didn’t kill the kid. Tell him.”
“You could have, Richards. You could have killed him before you picked me up. You could have framed Stanley by calling him to go out there.”
Bubbles formed in the corners of the smashed lips. “Why? Why should I kill him? I did everything for that kid. Everything I’d do for my own kid.” He rolled his head helplessly, blubbered. “I didn’t kill him.”
“You were afraid you’d have to get up the fifty thousand he owed me, Richards. You couldn’t bear to see him pay off. You-”
“I don’t have fifty thousand, Stanley. I’m broke. Dead broke.”
Liddell caught him by the shoulder, shook it. “That’s why you did it, isn’t it, Richards? You used up the kid’s dough. You were afraid of what would happen when — ”
“The kid had no dough. Not a dime,” the fat man blubbered.
“What happened to it?”
Richards shook his head. “There never was any. Wally Reilly died broke. I carried the kid out of my own pocket.”
“You’re lying,” Stanley screamed. “Why would you do that?”
“Wally was my friend. He didn’t leave a dime. Not a dime.” His eyes rolled upward. “I didn’t want the kid to know his old man was a failure. I didn’t want anyone to know. I gave the kid everything to make it look like Wally had taken care of his own kid.” The fat man took a gasping breath, shuddered. “Wally was my friend, and — ” The big head dropped, rolled helplessly, the chins spilling out on his chest.