Shell Scott: Kill The Clown Part 4

I swore. I wouldn't find Heigman now. Because I did indeed know who Papa Ryan was. He was a short, thick ape with a pockmarked face and muscles like the hawsers used for tying s.h.i.+ps to docks. He was immensely strong in body, but paralyzed from the neck up, and his idea of a practical joke was encasing your tootsies in quick-hardening cement and then taking you for a swim. "Race you to the beach," he'd say jovially, dropping you off the boat.

Fortunately, Papa was as close as Siamese twins to another ungentle character named Shadow - who got that monicker because the boys claimed he was so thin he didn't cast a shadow until five o'clock in the afternoon - the same Shadow very chummy with my informant, Pinky. Both Shadow and Papa Ryan worked for Frank Quinn, so I could understand how Pinky was able to give me info I hadn't been able to get from anyone else.

"My telling you this," Pinky said, "won't hurt Papa none, since n.o.body'll ever be able to prove nothing. I'd guess Heigman's in solution somewhere between here and Catalina. But you'll forget I told it to you, naturally."

"Naturally. You sure about this, Pinky? It's important."

"h.e.l.l, I didn't see him do it. But I got the word he handled it. That's all I know, Scott."

"Handled it for Quinn?"

"That part wasn't mentioned. It was just talk, you know, boys cutting up old touches, telling a few jokes."

I could imagine the jokes. Like how funny the bubbles were, coming up through the deep green sea. And how soon they stopped.

Pinky had no more to tell me. When I went out the door into the afternoon suns.h.i.+ne, he was waving a hand at the bartender.

At five-thirty that Sunday afternoon I sat at the desk in my office, having a meal of sandwiches and milk and using the phone. Except for the information I'd got from Pinky, the rest of the day had been a bust. I knew a little about the two local men Pinky had named. John Porter was a minor city official, Ira Semmelwein was president of the Golden Coast Insurance Company, and owner of a couple office buildings on Hope Street. Each of the men had a spotless reputation.

If I'd simply been out to get Quinn, I would have been more than satisfied with the information I'd been able to get so far. But this was late Sunday afternoon, and Wednesday morning Ross Miller would start breathing cyanide. I'd picked up a lot of miscellaneous info, but there was nothing that would stop an execution - it was all conjecture, hearsay, probability and logic; there wasn't a shred of usable, courtroom-type proof about any of it. I had decided that, with so little time remaining, it would take a miracle for me to have even a chance of clearing Ross.

And at five-thirty p.m. I got it.

The phone rang. I grabbed it and said h.e.l.lo, and a woman's voice said, "Is this Sh.e.l.l Scott?"

"Yes."

"Are you alone?"

"I'm alone - you can talk, if that's what you mean."

"I know you've been looking into the murder of Casey Flagg. And the trial. You'd like to send Frank Quinn to prison for it, wouldn't you?"

I sat up straight in my swivel chair, gripping the phone hard. "I would."

"Then we're partners. Because so would I. Frank did it, all right."

"Who is this?" The voice was vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. "Lolita?"

"No, this isn't Lolita. This is Mrs. Frank Quinn."

Five.

Thirty minutes later I parked the Cad in a lot half a block from Fifth Street and started walking toward The Lantern, a bar and grill where I'd enjoyed many bourbon-and-waters and orders of rare prime ribs. I was well known there, and it was a most unlikely spot in which to be shot in the back, which was why I had chosen it.

I didn't see any suspicious characters, or out-of-place loungers as I walked down the alley behind The Lantern. I went in through the kitchen, saying a quiet h.e.l.lo to Luigi, the perspiring chef. At the swinging doors leading from the kitchen into the club I paused and looked over the club's interior, but nothing seemed out of place.

I was early, purposely. Ten minutes after my arrival, Mrs. Quinn came in the front door. She was alone. She spoke to the headwaiter, then went to one of the curtained booths on my left. I waited five minutes, but n.o.body else came in after her. Then I walked to the booth.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Scott," she said.

"h.e.l.lo again." I sat down across the table from her and said, "We meet under strange circ.u.mstances."

"Never mind the small talk." She was all business. "I suppose you're willing to stick your neck out if you can get enough on my husband to send him to prison."

"My neck's out about as far as it can get now. Your husband's already tried to kill me once."

"I know. I was on an extension and heard him call Davey and Grant before you even left the house Sat.u.r.day. He said for them to blast you on the Freeway, a few miles from the house." She reeled that out casually, as if it were relatively unimportant, then went on, "I got a good look at you, but I thought it was the last time I'd see you alive. Then when Davey came in babbling that he'd left Grant stiff in the car, I decided you were my man."

"That's good. I guess. Your man for what?" The charm had rubbed off this gal long ago, and whatever rubbed it off had just kept on rubbing, but if she could help me get to Quinn, I could do without charm.

"My husband's throwing a party Tuesday night out at our place. Lot of his friends are invited to celebrate."

"What does it have to do with me? I'm no friend of his."

"It's a costume ball. You know, you come as your favorite history character. Or a dream. Or suppressed desire - anything. You know, Frank likes to do things big - spare no expense and all that."

"Good old Frank."

"Yeah. The pig. Anyway, they'll be wearing masks and all, so you should be able to get into the house with a mask on, huh?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Have to wear a mask, all right." She shook her head. "With that face, maybe you ought to wear two masks."

She was a fine one to talk about faces. I said, "Look, this is interesting as can be, but I've a few questions: One, what good will it do me - and you - if I get into the party?; two, how do I know I won't be shot in the back of the head if I go within eight miles of your husband's fortress?; three, how come you claim that you're willing to finger your own husband - "

"Forget the number-three question. That's my business. I just want Frank sent to college and figure you're the man who can arrange it. A nice life sentence would suit me. The pig. As for the rest of it . . ." She paused, fumbling in a handbag the size of a briefcase, pulled out a white envelope and handed it to me.

While I was opening the envelope and taking an engraved card out of it, Mrs. Quinn said, "There's a floor safe under the desk in Frank's room - that crummy red and black mausoleum you were in. n.o.body in the world knows the combination to the safe but Frank. Not even me. Not even his wife. How do you like that?"

I shrugged. The engraved card was an invitation stating that, "You are cordially invited" and so on. The date was Tuesday night, October 31, at eight p.m., and the address was Frank Quinn's. The invitation didn't look like something that could have been dreamed up and produced on the spur of the moment. But it didn't feel right to me.

I said, "You mentioned this was a party to celebrate - celebrate what? And why a costume party? Tuesday night seems like a peculiar - "

"There's a couple reasons. For one, the brawl is set to last all night, until at least ten o'clock the next morning. And something kind of important to Frank is happening then."

For a second or two I didn't get it. The next morning would be November first. And at ten a.m. on the first, Ross Miller was to be executed. I guess, for a monster like Quinn, that was something to celebrate.

Mrs. Quinn was looking at me. "Well, don't throw up," she said cheerfully. "It just works out that way. Tuesday night is Halloween, see?"

I blinked. "It is?" It had been a long time since I'd rung doorbells and played trick or treat, and I hadn't realized the witching night was so near. But she was right: Tuesday night was October 31, Halloween.

She said, "It just worked out great that way."

"Yeah. Great. What about this safe?"

"Well, there's enough in it to hang a dozen big stuffed s.h.i.+rts in L.A., see? But more important, I know there's some things that would stick Frank good. He keeps it because it helps hold some other guys in line. You get it?" She talked like a man. But, then, she looked like a man.

"I get it."

"Some of the stuff in there isn't no good to Frank, but he's fixed it so all the junk in that safe goes to his executor - you know, when he dies - and it'll ruin some men Frank hates. He hates hard, that man. It would ruin Frank, too, see; but he won't care when he's dead. You get it? Just plain meanness, that's all."

"Yeah. So?"

"Well, what more do you want? All you got to do is go into the safe and drag out all the papers and whatever is in there and you got Frank tied up good. With any luck, you'll have enough to save your boy's skin. That Ross character."

She stopped and glared at me as if I'd just started eating soup with my fork. I said, "Yes, ma'am. All I have to do is rip open the safe with my bare hands and get the papers and walk out with sixteen bullet holes and three knives in my back, bite my way through the fence you've got - "

"Oh, knock it. I thought you had a lot of moxie or I wouldn't have come here. I'll see that the safe's open at nine p.m., on the nose. If you can get in, then you should be able to get out under your own power. How you do it, that's up to you. I brought you an invitation - and n.o.body, but n.o.body, gets in without an invitation. There's exactly a hundred men coming, and there's only a hundred invitations, so n.o.body, but n.o.body, crashes the party. Them invited can bring their wives and dames if they want, but that's all. It's set up very careful like that, since some of the boys has a little heat on them."

A little heat. Such as warrants for first-degree homicide, robbing banks, blowing up citizens with bombs, dope pus.h.i.+ng. It didn't sound exactly like the kind of ball I was dying to attend.

She went on, "Since there's no extra invitations, I had to get this one from - " She bit off what she'd started to say. I had the feeling it was somebody's name, but after a moment she went on, " - one of the boys. So he won't be able to be at the party; you'll be at it instead of him." She paused. "That's about all I can do. What more do you want?"

I sighed. "That's enough, I guess. But I confess to a little puzzlement. Why you're doing this, for example. And how you plan to have the safe open."

"As for the safe, I'll have a diamond necklace Frank keeps in the safe - he'll give it to me Tuesday sometime, I'll decide I don't want to wear it, just before nine, and he'll naturally put it back in the safe. So, the safe will be open. From there it's up to you - I don't care if you shoot the pig in the - "

She told me where to shoot him, but I merely shuddered invisibly at the thought of such a thing happening to me and asked her again why she was telling me all this. Mrs. Quinn merely repeated that it was none of my business.

"This could be a somewhat involved way," I said, "to get me out there where I could be shot."

"You'll be shot if they lay eyes on you, all right. And I can understand why you're suspicious. But you'll just have to take my word for it. Or forget the whole thing. I can figure out another way to get rid of Frank without killing him. But I thought I'd be doing you a favor - and getting a good man on my side at the same time." She paused, then added, "And to tell you the truth, I could maybe ask a friend of mine to do this job - but he might get shot. I don't really care much if you get shot. Frank's already trying to kill you, so what've you got to lose? This way you got a chance to stick him and save your neck - and maybe that Ross guy's - all at the same time. Well, do you want to try it or not?"

"If it comes to that, I'll give it a try. But first tell me a couple things."

She looked at her wrist.w.a.tch. "Make it snappy."

"Maybe you can prove right now whether or not you're on the level with me."

"Try me."

"When you phoned earlier, you said your husband killed Casey Flagg. Can you prove it?"

"No, and you can't prove it either. But he did it. Maybe you don't know it, but Casey handled certain jobs for Frank."

"Bagman - yeah, I know it."

She seemed surprised, but went on, "Well, Casey was in trouble with the government, which hit him for a pile of back taxes they said he owed, and had to pay or they'd send him to the can. Handling all that money of Frank's every month, Casey started holding out some of it, I guess so he could pay off the government grab." She paused and c.o.c.ked her head on one side, as if she'd just thought of something striking. "It's almost like the government's in the same business Frank's in, huh? Isn't that funny?"

"There's nothing funny about it."

"Yeah. Well, it would have been better for Casey if he'd just gone to the federal jug. Because when Frank found out what Casey was pulling he hit all four walls and the ceiling."

"How did he find out?"

"One of the boys wrote Frank a letter - figured he was being short-changed or something, I don't know all the ins and outs of it. Anyways, Frank must've figured right away it had to be Casey who was breaking it off in him, and he stormed right over to the Whitestone, the way I get it. Actually - " there was that momentary hesitation again, "actually, one of the boys told me most of this. Anyhow, Frank collared Casey there in the Whitestone, and in the middle of the beef he shot him - Frank's got a wild temper."

"So he has."

"That's what caused all the trouble, because Frank didn't plan it like he ordinary would. Just flipped and shot the s...o...b.. Then he had to work pretty fast to fix everything."

"Did the chap who told you about this actually see Frank shoot Flagg?"

"Hardly. Frank went up to the penthouse alone. But you don't have to see Frank blast a guy to know Frank done it. For one thing, he took one of his own guns along, and it was that gun found by the body. I know personally he had to get to that p.a.w.nbroker, what's his name? - "

"Heigman."

"Yeah, Heigman. He used to be a fence Frank did business with in the old days. So Frank had that on him, but he muscled him around a little that same night, and paid him off too, to make sure he'd tell the right story when the time come."

"Which he did. What about Weiss?"

"He'd done a few jobs for Frank from time to time. Frank just put a little more pressure on him and made him swear at the trial that Miller was the only one went up to the penthouse that night."

"How'd Miller happen to be there?"

"Frank called him, naturally. Pretended to be Casey and the kid ran right over. By then Frank had called the fuzz. After that argument Ross and Casey had, the kid was a perfect patsy - once Frank fixed the rest of it."

"He sure fixed it. What about Lolita Lopez?"

"I don't know nothing about her. She was at the trial is all I know."

"If Quinn was shooting holes in Casey Flagg, he couldn't have been in her apartment. So what's he got on her?"

"I told you, I don't know nothing about that end."

"O.K. Do you know if Quinn had anything to do with Weiss' death?"

"Search me," she said. "I heard Chester kicked off, but Frank didn't say a thing to me. Did Frank have something to do with it?"

"I'm really not sure. I suppose you know he had Heigman knocked off."

"No kidding. First I heard about it. Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned. Old Heigman. How about that? That lousy Frank didn't say a word to me. The pig doesn't tell me much of anything about his business any more."

She said that some of her statements would probably be supported by papers in that floor safe of Quinn's; she wasn't sure. "But there's all kinds of slop in it," she went on. "Starting with whatever give him the boost up four years back, clear on to right now."