Collection 1983 - The Hills Of Homicide (v5.0) Page 9

  “If you’re lyin’,” Kip said, “I’ll come lookin’ for you!”

  “If you do, you’d better pack a heater! I’ll have one!”

  Kip took up his battered hat and put it on his head, then retrieved his gun as he was going out and thrust it into his shoulder holster.

  He stepped outside and looked around. He had been in a shanty in the country. Where town was he did not know. Where—

  The shot sounded an instant after he heard the angry whip of a bullet past his ear. As he dropped, he heard the roar of a motor. Instantly, he was on his feet, gun in hand, running to the road. He was just in time to see a car whip around a corner and vanish up the highway. Without a glance back, he started after it, walking over the rutted country road.

  On the highway, he shoved the gun back in its holster and straightened his clothing. Pulling his tie around, he drew the knot back into place and stuffed his shirt back into his pants. Gingerly, he felt of his face. One eye was swollen, and there was blood on his face from a cut on his scalp. Wiping it away with his handkerchief, he started up the road. He had gone but a short distance when a car swung alongside him.

  “Want a lift?” a cheery voice sang out.

  He got in gratefully, and the driver stared at him. He was a big, sandy-haired man with a jovial face.

  “What happened to you? Accident?”

  “Not really. It was done on purpose.”

  “Lucky I happened along. You’re in no shape to walk. Better get into town and file a report.” He drove on a little way. “What happened? Holdup?”

  “Not exactly. I’m a private detective.”

  “Oh? On a case, huh? I don’t think I’d care for that kind of work.”

  The car picked up speed. Kip laid his head back. Suddenly, he was very tired. He nodded a little, felt the car begin to climb.

  The man at the wheel continued to talk, his voice droning along, talking of crimes and murders and movies about them. Kip, half asleep, replied in monosyllables. Through the drone of talk, the question slipped into his consciousness even as he answered, and for a startled moment, his head still hanging on his chest, the question and answer came back to him.

  “Who are you working for?” the driver had asked.

  And mumbling, only half awake, he had said, “Helen Whitson.”

  As realization hit him, his head came up with a jerk, and he stared into the malevolent blue eyes of the big man at the wheel. He saw the gun coming up. With a yell, he struck it aside with his left hand, and his right almost automatically pushed down on the door handle. The next instant, he was sprawling in the road.

  He staggered to his feet, grabbing for his own gun. The holster was empty. His gun must have fallen out when he spilled into the road. A gun bellowed, and he staggered and went over the bank just as the man fired again.

  How far he fell, he did not know, but it was all of thirty feet of rolling, bumping, and falling. He brought up with a jolt, hearing a trickle of gravel and falling rock. Then he saw the shadow of the big man on the edge of the road. In a minute, he would be coming down. The shape disappeared, and he heard the man fumbling in his glove compartment.

  A flashlight! He was getting a flashlight!

  Kip staggered to his feet, slipping between two clumps of brush just as the light stabbed the darkness. Catlike, he moved away. Every step was agony, for he seemed to have hurt one ankle in the fall. His skull was throbbing with waves of pain. He forced himself to move, to keep going.

  Now he heard the trickle of gravel as the man came down the steep bank. Stepping lightly, favoring the wounded ankle, he eased away through the brush, careful to make no sound. Somewhere he could hear water falling, and there was a loom of cliffs. The big man was not using the flashlight now but was stalking him as a hunter stalks game.

  Kip crouched, listening, like a wounded animal. Then he felt a loose tree limb at his feet. Gently, he placed it in the crotch of a low bush so it stuck out across the way the hunter was coming. Feeling around, he found a rock the size of his fist.

  Footsteps drew nearer, cautious steps and heavy breathing. Listening, Kip gained confidence. The man was no woodsman. Pain wracked his head, and his tongue felt clumsily at his split and swollen lips.

  Carefully, soundlessly, Kip moved back. The other man did what he hoped. He walked forward, blundered into the limb, and tripped, losing his balance. Kip swung the rock, and it hit, but not on the man’s head. The gun fired, the shot missing, and Kip hobbled away.

  He reached the creek and followed it down. Ahead of him, a house loomed. He heard someone speaking from the porch. “That sounded like a shot. Right up the canyon!”

  He waited; then, after a long time, a car’s motor started up. Kip started for the house in a staggering run. He stumbled up to the porch and banged on the door.

  A tall, fine-looking man with gray hair opened it. “Got to get into town and quick! There’s going to be a murder if I don’t!”

  Giving the man’s wife Helen Whitson’s number to call, he got into the car.

  All the way into town he knotted his hands together, staring at the road. He had been back up one of the canyons. Which one or how far, he did not know. He needed several minutes to show the man identification and to get him to drive him into town. It had taken more effort to get the man to lend him a gun.

  However, the older man could drive, and did. Whining and wheeling around curves and down the streets, he finally leveled out on the street where Helen Whitson lived. As they turned the corner, Kip saw the car parked in front of the house. The house was dark.

  “Let me out here and go for the police!”

  Moving like a ghost despite the injured ankle, Kip crossed the lawn and moved up to the house. The front door was closed. He slipped around to the side where he found a door standing open. He got inside, and as he eased up three steps, he heard a gasp and saw a glimmer of light.

  “Hello, Helen!” a man’s voice said.

  “You, Henry!”

  “Yes, Helen, it has been a long time. Too bad you could not let well enough alone. If your husband hadn’t been such an honest fool, I could not have tricked him as I did. And this detective of yours is a blunderer!”

  “Where is Morgan? What have you done to him?”

  “I’ve killed him, I believe. Anyway, with you dead, I’ll feel safer. I was afraid this might happen so I have plans to disappear again, if necessary. But first I must kill you.”

  Kip Morgan had reached the door, turning into it gradually. Helen’s eyes found him, but she permitted no flicker of expression to warn Willard. Then a board creaked, and Willard turned. Before he could fire, Kip knocked the gun from his hand, then handed his own to Helen.

  “I want you,” Morgan said, “for the chair!”

  The big man lunged for him, but Kip hit him left and right in the face. The man squealed like a stuck pig and stumbled back, his face bloody. Morgan walked in and hit him three times. Desperately, the big man pawed to get him off, and Kip jerked him away from the bed and hit him again.

  A siren cut the night with a slash of sound, and almost in the instant they heard it, the car was slithering to a stop outside.

  Helen pulled her robe around her, her face pale. Kip Morgan picked up Willard and shoved him against the wall. Hatred blazed in his eyes, but what strength there had been four years before had been sapped by easy living. The door opened, and two plainclothes detectives entered, followed by some uniformed officers.

  The first one stopped abruptly. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  “Lieutenant Brady, isn’t it?” Kip said. “This man is Henry Willard, and there is a murder rap hanging over him from New Jersey. Also, a fifty-thousand-dollar payroll robbery!”

  “Willard? This man is James Howard Kendall. He owns the Mario Dine & Dance spot and about a dozen other things around town. Known him since he was a kid. I was just a couple of years older than he was.”

  “He went back East, took the name Willard, and—
”

  “Brady,” Willard interrupted, “this is a case of mistaken identity. You know me perfectly well. Take this man in. I want to prefer charges of assault and battery. I’ll be in first thing in the morning.”

  “You’ll leave over my dead body!” Kip declared. He turned to Brady. “He told Mrs. Whitson that he had already made plans to disappear again if need be.”

  “Morgan, I’ve known Mr. Kendall for years, now—”

  “Ask him what he is doing in this house. Ask him how he came to drive up here in the night and enter a dark house.”

  Kendall hesitated only a moment. “Brady, I met this girl only tonight, made a date with her. This is an attempt at a badger game.”

  “Mighty strange,” the gray-haired man who had driven Kip to town interrupted. “Might strange way to run a badger game. This man”—he indicated Kip—“staggered onto my porch half beaten to death and asked me to rush him to town to prevent a murder. It was he who sent me for the police. This house was dark when he started for it.”

  “All you will need are his fingerprints,” Kip said. “This man murdered a payroll guard, changed clothes with the murdered man. Then he took the money and came back here and went into business with the proceeds from the robbery.”

  “Ah? Maybe you’ve got something, Morgan. We always wondered how he came into that money.”

  Kendall wheeled and leaped for the window, hurling himself through it, shattering it on impact. He had made but two jumps when Morgan swept up the gun and fired. The man fell, sprawling.

  “You’ve killed him!” Brady said.

  “No, just a broken leg. He’s all yours.”

  As the police left, Kip turned to Helen Whitson. “You did it! I knew you could! And you’ve earned that five thousand dollars!”

  “It’s a nice sum.” He looked at her again. “When are you leaving?”

  “I’ve got to go back to New York for Bobby.”

  “Don’t go yet.” He took her by the shoulders. “In a couple of days, my lips won’t be so swollen. They aren’t right for kissing a girl now, but—”

  “But I’ll bet you could,” she suggested, “if you tried!”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  * * *

  WITH DEATH IN HIS CORNER

  Kip Morgan’s mother took a fancy to the writing of Rudyard Kipling and named her son after that great author of adventure tales. Kip is always a direct-action man who likes to bull right into the middle of things. Nobody puts the arm on him and gets away with it.

  Following his debut in DEAD MAN’S TRAIL, Kip builds his reputation for being a young and hungry professional operator, but WITH DEATH IN HIS CORNER is an example of the way Kip got many of his cases: by helping out a friend. During his boxing days he had a knack for getting his fellow fighters out of trouble, and it was only natural that many of those same gentlemen called on Kip when they continued to get into difficulties long after their days in the ring. Kip always heeded their call, even though the results were frequently far more punishing than any of them ever faced as prizefighters.

  WITH DEATH IN HIS CORNER

  * * *

  THE GHOST OF a mustache haunted his upper lip, and soft blond hair rolled back from a high white brow in a delicately artificial wave. He walked toward me with a quick, pleased smile. “A table, sir? Right this way.”

  There was a small half-circle bar at one end of the place and a square of dance floor about the size of two army blankets.

  On a dais about two feet above the dance floor a lackadaisical orchestra played desultory music. Three women and two men sat at the bar and several of the tables were occupied. From the way the three women turned their heads to look, I knew all were hoping for a pickup. I wasn’t.

  A popeyed waiter in a too-tight tux bustled over, polishing a small tray suggestively. Ordering a bourbon and soda, I asked, “Where’s Rocky Garzo?”

  The question stopped him as if he’d been slugged in the wind, and he turned his head as if he were afraid of what he would see.

  “I don’t know him,” he said too hastily. “I never heard of the guy.”

  He was gone toward the bar before I could ask anything further, but come what may, I knew I’d started the ball rolling. Not only did the waiter know Garzo, but he knew something was wrong. One look at his face had been enough. The man was scared.

  He must have tipped a sign to the tall headwaiter, because when he returned with my drink, the blond guy was with him.

  “You were asking for someone?” There was a slight edge to his voice, and the welcome sign was gone from his eyes. “What was the name again?”

  “Garzo,” I said, “Rocky Garzo. He used to be a fighter.”

  “I don’t believe I know him,” he replied. “I don’t meet many fighters.”

  “Possibly not, but it is odd you haven’t met him. He used to work here.”

  “Here?” His voice shrilled a little, then steadied down. He was worried; that was obvious. Whatever trouble Garzo was in it must be serious. “You’re mistaken, I believe. He did not work here.”

  “Apparently, you and Social Security don’t agree,” I commented. “They assured me he worked here, at least until a day or so ago.”

  He did not like that, and he did not like me. “Well”—his tone showed his impatience—“I can’t keep up with all the help. I hope you find him.”

  “Oh, don’t worry! I will! I will!”

  He could not get away fast enough, seeming to wish as much distance between us as possible. All Rocky’s letter had said was that he was in trouble and needed help, and Rocky was not one to ask for help unless he needed it desperately.

  It began to look as if my hunch was right. Also, I did not like the way they were refusing to admit Garzo had even been around. I am not one to be irritated by small things, but I was beginning not to like what was happening. All I wanted was to know where Rocky was and what was wrong, if anything.

  Rocky Garzo was a boy who had been around. A quiet Italian from the wrong side of the tracks, but a simple-hearted, friendly sort who could really fight. He wanted no trouble with anyone and, except as a youngster, never had a fight in his life he didn’t get paid for. I’ve heard men call him everything they could think of, and he would just walk away. But when the chips were down, Rocky could really throw them. Back in the days when—Well, he fought the best of them.

  The fleshpots got him. He was a kid who never had anything until he got into big money in the fight game, and he liked the good food, flashy women, and clothes. His money just sort of dribbled away, and the easy life softened him up. Then the boys began to tag him with the hard ones. It was Jimmy Hartman who wound him up with the flashiest right hand on the Coast.

  He quit then. He went to waiting on tables. He was a fast-moving, deft-handed man with an easy smile. He quit drinking, and the result was he was doing all right until something went wrong here at the Crystal Palace.

  There was a pretty girl sitting at the table next to mine. She was with a bald-headed guy who was well along in his cups. She was young and shaped to be annoyed, if you get what I mean. The new look didn’t keep the boys from giving her the old looks. Not with the set of fixtures she had.

  All of a sudden, she is talking to me. She is talking without turning her head. “You’d better take it out of here,” she said. “These boys play rough, even for you, Kip Morgan!”

  “What’s the catch?” I didn’t turn my head, either. “Can’t a guy even ask for his friends?”

  “Not that one. He’s hotter than a firecracker, and I don’t mean with the law. Meet me at the Silver Plate in a half hour or so and I’ll ditch this dope and tell you about it.”

  This place was not getting me anywhere. The waiter was pointedly ignoring my empty glass, and in such places as this they usually take it out of your hand before you can put it down. I took a gander at Algy or whatever his name was and saw him talking with a hefty lad at the door. This character had bouncer written all over him and looked like a mome
nt of fun. I hadn’t bounced a bouncer in some time.

  As I passed them, I grinned at Algy. “I’ll be back,” I said. “I like to ask questions.”

  This was the cue the bouncer needed. He walked over, menace in his every move. “You’ve been here too long an’ too much.” He made his voice ugly. “We don’t want you here no more! Get out an’ stay out!”

  “Well, I’ll be swiped by a truck!” I said. “Pete Farber!”

  “Huh?” He blinked at me. “Who are you, huh?”

  “Why, Pete! You mean you don’t remember? Of course, our acquaintance was brief, and you couldn’t see very well through all that blood. I had just hung that eyebrow down over your right eye and had you set for the payoff. Naturally, you didn’t see me later because I was home in bed before they brought you out of it.”

  “Huh?” Then awareness came, and his eyes hardened but grew wary also. He did have a memory, after all. “Kip Morgan!” he said. “Sure, it’s Kip Morgan.”

  “Right, and if you’ll recall, Rocky Garzo and I teamed up in the old days. He was going down, but I was coming up, but we were pals. Well, I am a man who remembers his friends, and I am getting curious about this stalling I am getting.”

  “Play it smart,” Farber said, “and get out while you’re all in one piece. This is too big for you. Also”—he moved closer—“I got no reason to like you. I’d as soon bust you as not.”

  “That made me smile. “Pete, what makes you think you could do something now you couldn’t do six years ago? You’re fatter now, Pete, and slower. If you want a repeat on that job at the Olympic, just start something.”

  Pete Farber’s next remark stopped me cold.

  “You beat me,” he said, “but you dropped a duke to Ben Altman. Well, you just forget Garzo, because Altman’s still a winner.”

  When I got outside that one puzzled me. What was the connection between Ben Altman, formerly a top-ranking light heavyweight, and Garzo?