Читать книгу Death Smells of Cordite - Gordon Landsborough - Страница 6

CHAPTER TWO

Farran felt himself go as stiff as a tomcat scenting danger. And it felt, too, as though his hackles were risen on end. He looked at Joe, and looked and looked and went on looking. And back of his eyes his brain was spinning madly, trying to cope with a situation foreign to it.

Murder!

Because there was no gun in the dead man’s hand, no gun anywhere near it. And men can’t shoot holes in their temples like that without guns. Someone had done it for him.

Farran looked at the wastepaper basket on Joe’s foot. It looked comical, made the dead Joe look funny. For the first moment, that is. Afterwards it looked somehow obscene, certainly indecent.

And Farran saw how it was. Those two paces into the room had brought him in view of a part-opened drawer—the top left drawer of, presumably, the late Joe McMee’s desk. Inside Farran saw a gun—it looked like a Colt, probably a .45 service weapon.

Could be Joe had made a dive for that drawer, got it part-opened before the death bullet tore through his skull. And in making that dive, it looked as though Joe had stuck his foot into the basket—could be that basket had hindered him in going for his own gun, had delayed him just that vital fraction of time which had resulted in this. This—a scene over which only bells could toll.

Farran looked at a telephone on the desk. His blood was beginning to thaw out. He knew that a wise guy in a movie or the crime book of the month would walk out and solve the mystery; but he also knew that a wise guy in real life picked up the nearest telephone and bawled “Police” until the place was stiff with blue uniforms.

He was a wise guy in real life, Farran, so he went over to use that phone.

Then he felt—it was really too soft to hear—a movement and he jerked his head round so quickly he heard his neck crick.

There was a girl huddled against the wall not a yard to his left. He just hadn’t seen her because a corpse—especially the corpse of a man who had shared a blanket with you on a football bench—compels a whole lot of attention.

She was blonde and soft and young and probably pretty. But right now her face was whiter than the snows of Alaska, and her straining eyes were so big they looked as if something was shoving hard up behind them. There was an expression of dazed agony on that small, uptilted face.

Farran looked and realised that though those eyes were fixed roughly in his direction, they weren’t focusing. The girl was looking, but she wasn’t seeing much.

He forgot the phone for a minute. Afterwards he thought; “The heck, that’s just how it happens in a movie!” And then, of course, a big lug like Sydney Greenstreet smiles in at the doorway, beans you, and rings for the police. They find you with a gun in your hand and everyone says, “You done it, pal. Quit arguing, can’t yer?” All except the heroine. There’s always a heroine to believe—the heck, didn’t Hollywood build itself up on glamour?

But just at that moment Farran didn’t think any of that. He quite naturally went and bent over the girl. His voice demanded, “What’s happened? Who are you? Who killed Joe?” Like that. He was good at firing questions, even if unions no longer made it possible for the boss to fire employees.

And the girl just said nothing.

She couldn’t. Farran took a look behind her blonde head and decided the lump could have come from a bang against a wall. He was still so unprepared for criminal answers to problems that he didn’t think someone might have bent a rod over the head instead.

He took hold of her under her arms. She was wearing a thin, attractive summer dress. He lifted, and the head at first lolled back and he saw the bloodless lips part as a moan came through, and then pain brought the swift movement of life and her head came forward and erect again. He held her, though she was all weight in his arms, and her face went tight with the agony of returning consciousness, and she looked to be fighting a rising tide of sickness.

Farran stuck her on the desk, still holding her. His eyes were on that phone again. He rapped, “Sit up, can you? I’ve got some phoning to do.” Terse. There were a lot of women out at his plant on the edge of the desert; he was used to them about.

His words got through. The blonde made an effort, and sat swaying feebly holding the edge of the desk with hands that, unusual for L.A., didn’t have points to their fingers and colour on the nails. Her eyes were looking at Farran now, focusing.

Farran got the phone; put a call through to police. The girl listened. “Someone’s been killed.… Yeah, I know his name—Joe McMee, ex-F.B.I.” That’d bring ’em up in their chairs. Cops didn’t like death in the family, and G-men were cops. “I’ll wait,” he told them, and gave the address.

One minute later a prowl car must have got the radio and came screaming along the street outside. The L.A. cops weren’t slouches.

The blonde was recovering fast. The eyes weren’t out so much now. She was slim, her face was almost thin. A nice face. Nothing special about it, just—nice. And there weren’t many nice faces so near Hollywood; they were all too special for that.

She said, “It is real?” and there were tears rolling down her cheeks faster than rain at a barbeque.

He said, “About Joe? Getting shot?” He looked at the silent Joe, lying on his back with his foot inside the WPB. “Yeah, I guess it’s real.” And then he added, “The G-man got his. Poor Joe.” He didn’t get sentimental; he hadn’t been brought up to be that way. But he didn’t like to see a man who had been his friend lying like that. Killed. Murdered.

She went on weeping silently, her blue eyes caught on Farran’s, as if she felt she was anchoring on to a strength she badly needed at that moment. When she spoke it was through lips that were nearly without movement, so that Farran could hardly hear her.

“You knew Joe? Not many people knew he’d been a G-man.”

“Yeah. I knew Joe. We played football at college together.” He nearly added, “I played; he sat most of the time on the benches.” Not quite as good. But he refrained; it wasn’t necessary, and he had a vague idea it was even a bit irreverent.

The girl began to sway, and her eyes started to go a bit ga-ga. He caught her, steadied her, demanded, “Who’re you? Did you see it happen?”

She started to shake her head, then winced at a stab of pain. Her head began to droop forward as she spoke, so he kept hold of her. “I came in.” That slow, tired whisper. She’d had enough, that girl. Too much. “He was—just like that. Dead.” She was becoming heavier in his arms, her tired head almost touching his chest.

He asked again, “Who are you? Come on, who are you?” Demanding, because he had asked the question three times now, and he wasn’t used to asking a question more than once before getting an answer.

This time it came. Two words. “His…wife.…”

She was all weight when a police sergeant came shoving a face heavy with suspicion round the door. There was another cop with him, chewing. The sergeant tried shock tactics.

He looked at Joe with his foot in the basket, looked at Farran, holding Joe McMee’s unconscious widow. And he said, “You did it.” And it was no question.

Farran looked sour. Really sour. Sourer than most men ever get even once in their life. And when he came back with his answer, it zipped, tore holes into that fresh cop. “You say that again, and my attorney’ll go for your department for slander.”

He didn’t take talk from fresh guys, not even cops.

The sergeant got it, that this tall, lean, brown-faced hombre didn’t let wise guys go to play with him. He got more than that—that this jaw-jutting, brittle-eyed guy was someone, even in a state where there were a lot of someones.

The cop with the chew paused, said, “Dat guy’s Farran. Him with all them airplanes, Sarge.” Then went on chewing. And the accent wasn’t Californian. Strictly Brooklyn—or to stretch a point, maybe Yonkers. East Coast, not West. But a dumb cop at that, even if he bad recognised Farran.

The sergeant climbed down. “I said, ‘Who did it’?”

Farran grunted. The sergeant took a look round, then he did some grunting. “They’ll be along with an ambulance in a few minutes,” he said. “Homicide.” Then he took a long gander at the corpse, as if it fascinated him.

Farran watched them, thinking it might be interesting to see professionals at work, but they never did a thing. Then there was the sound of a lot of sirens down in the street below, and a few moments later the room became solid with men all doing a job.

Mrs. McMee came to life again with all the noise, but she was still pretty sick, and Farran found she was holding on to his arm very tightly for support. He sat up on the desk beside her and held her. After a time she realised what he was doing and he heard her say, “Thanks…I feel—bad.”

Farran looked over her shoulder at big Joe. He thought, “Now, what do you do in such situations?” He had to think things out, because when you are bred to millions it’s usually other people who have to be considerate. But he got an idea very soon.

“Look, you’d better get away from—him,” he told her. “I’ll take you out into the passage.” It wasn’t good for a girl to be sitting almost on top of a husband—deceased. He helped her off the desk and got her across the room.

The cop who chewed was leaning on the door. He said, “You don’t go out. Nobody goes out. I got orders.”

Farran stood there, holding the girl. “You fetch me the guy that gives those orders,” he told him toughly.

A police lieutenant came across. He was quite a pleasant guy. He’d been told who the girl was. “You want to get her out of this atmosphere, of course,” he said. “Yes, take her outside. There’s a settee along at the end by the elevator. I’ll come in a few minutes and get a statement from you.”

There were some nice cops, thought Farran, sitting by the whining elevator. Then he saw that the gum-chewer had lounged near and was watching them, and he thought, “Nice, but they don’t take chances where murder’s concerned.”

The girl started off by holding her head between her hands, and then she got a little better and sat up and looked at Farran.

He said, in that blunt way of his, “That was a shock to you. All that.” He didn’t soften his voice or try to express sympathy. It didn’t occur to him; he wasn’t built that way. Sometime later he realised a remarkable thing—that the girl didn’t want sentiment, didn’t want gestures of sympathy.

In some curious way she understood his manner at once—accepted it and appreciated it.

“Yes,” she said just now. “It was—a shock.” Her blue eyes were looking into immeasurable distances, all covering horror. They turned to Farran, looked at him. “You won’t leave me?” she whispered.

Farran looked away to consider the request. “That’s asking something, isn’t it?” he said at length. “Why me? Haven’t you got relatives or friends hereabouts?”

“Not here. In New York.” Her face was troubled. “That’s a long way, and—well, they’re not the kind to come distances.”

“So you’re on your own?”

“Now Joe’s gone—yes.”

She began to cry again. Farran thought it might be a feminine device, even if unconscious, to arouse his sympathy. All the same he didn’t think the worse of her for that, because he had imagination—men who design aircraft must have—and he could project himself some way into the appalling situation she so suddenly found herself in.

“I reckon at a time like this you do feel you’ve got to have someone around to talk to.” He told her who he was. “Farran. Russ Farran. I build planes. Good ones. I did,” he thought bitterly, remembering that strike picket at the gates of the mighty Farran works.

“I know about you. Joe mentioned you sometimes.” And then the lieutenant came and separated them and took individual statements. When that was done, and the police doctor had examined the girl’s head (to corroborate her story, that she bad fainted and struck her head in falling, Farran thought cynically), the police lieutenant told them they could go. He said it very pleasantly, but he also added that they shouldn’t leave the city boundaries, because he might want to contact them again at any time.

Farran took the girl down. When they went out into the white, late afternoon sunshine, it seemed to hit up from the sidewalk and sent the girl’s head spinning again, so he steered her into a café and ordered strong coffee for her. His theory was that strong coffee was good for a hangover; okay, what was the difference between a hangover and a bump on the head? Just one big pain in either case.

The coffee did her good, too. She looked at it, got the strong smell up her nostrils, and shuddered. She didn’t touch it, but she got over her giddiness pretty quickly, so it could have been the coffee smell that helped.

It wasn’t very crowded, but they couldn’t talk because the tables were on close, friendly terms with each other, and they didn’t want the fat guy back of them to hear what might be said.

So after a time they rose and walked out. The girl seemed to lead, as if running away from something. Farran came after her because he knew she needed watching until she could settle down again.

She turned and walked down towards the harbour road. The street was pretty quiet, but it was too hot in that white Californian sunshine for walking. Yet she seemed to want to walk.

Farran humoured her as far as the end of the street, where the busy harbour road intersection was, and then he took her arm and said, “You’ve got to pull yourself together. Lady, you’re almost sleepwalking now. I was on my way sailing, but I can find time to drop you off some place if you want me to.”

His brusque manner did her good, jolted her back to the present. She turned towards him, that white face too white to be pleasing, those blue eyes too big with shock to be attractive. And yet Russ Farran again had that feeling that she was a nice girl; there was some quality about her that appealed to him…something he didn’t usually notice in the butterflies who fluttered round his bachelor life.

He heard her whispered voice—“You tell me what to do. I can’t think. I’m still trying to work out something awful.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“I’m a widow.” Her slight shoulders shrugged. “A very new widow. I can’t get over the shock. What’s it going to mean to my life to be a widow? Without Joe. My Joe!”

He grabbed her quickly as she halted and swayed. Suddenly he was touched by the grief in her voice—here was one girl who loved her husband. He thought perhaps that was why he found her vaguely attractive to him; most of the girls he knew didn’t love their husbands if they had any, and wouldn’t love them when they got them. And “them” wasn’t a careless choice of word with the Lydia van Heusons in that part of America.

He soothed her down. Anyone watching him, as there was, would have looked at his rough, unpractised gestures in that light.

He patted her shoulder a few times, then stroked her back until he realised that was no thing to do to a lady. And all the time he was saying things like, “C’mon, you’ve got to keep living. Okay, make the best of it—just stop thinking for a coupla months and then let yourself wake up gradually.”

It did her good, again. If he had softened his voice and spoken sympathy she would have broken down, but as it was he gave her no opportunity to indulge in self-sympathy.

“Where shall I take you?” They were walking back towards his car. He thought, anyway, he wasn’t over-bothered about sailing. That was just to get his mind off the silent, nearly empty Farran works.

She shrugged her slim shoulders again. “I don’t know. Don’t care. I know I don’t want to go home for a while.” She looked quickly at him, pleading with her eyes for understanding. “It’s a little place—a two-roomed apartment. It’ll be—full of Joe. You know what I mean. Reminding me. And Joe was a—was a.…” She couldn’t end it.

“A fine guy.” Farran supplied the tail to the epitaph; it wasn’t inspired but it was sufficient. “Okay, keep away from your apartment for some time. Maybe don’t go back there again ever.” He thought for a moment. “I know a good place in the country—you know, flowers and fields and trees. It’d set you up again, maybe.”

She was looking across the road, shaking her blonde head slowly. “I don’t know where I want to go. I—I’m afraid of loneliness. We felt pretty lonely as it was, coming to this strange town. But without Joe—” She was near to breaking down.

It was a problem. Farran solved it. “Maybe you’d better move out to my place. We’ve hundreds of rooms. I suppose.” He wondered how she would get on with Elsa and the rest of the family, but decided it might work out all right. The family only gunned for him, Russ Farran, who had inherited the Farran Empire.

“That’s nice of you.” Her blue eyes were searching his face. “You’d do me good, you know, being near me.” It shook him a bit. She went on, “You don’t fuss and say the right things—the right things that right people say, that is. You—you brace me when you talk. I’d like to come out to your place. Won’t I be in the way, though?” There was a wistful uncertainty in her voice.

He spoke truthfully; he always did, which was why he had few friends, but they were very good ones. “Guess I’ll have work to do, but maybe I’ll be able to help with things.” He was wondering how girl-widows like this were able to cope with inquests and funerals and setting about the job of starting to live again. “You won’t see much of me, but Elsa—she’s my stepmother—can be quite friendly in her way.”

He started to reach out for the door handle, but the girl said, “Keep walking. I want to make—sure.”

It startled him, but he found himself going on up the street. He heard the girl say, “I learned a lot from Joe. He was a very smart G-man in his day.”

“We’ve passed my car,” he reminded her. At that she turned very quickly; he caught up with her and they went back to his car.

Then she told him they were being followed. She said it as though it was a shock to her.

Farran took a quick look along the sidewalk, but he didn’t see any tail or anyone who looked as though he could be tailing them. So he said so.

The girl said, “You’re not looking in the right places. No good tail ever walks behind you—only in movies. He’s always across the road from you. Look.”

She pointed to where a big guy with too much in his pants-seat was suddenly being interested in a ladies’ underwear display. A really big guy, who would have looked more at home staring at fight bills or a horseracing programme.

Farran helped her into his car and started up. “Why’s he tailing us?” He was an aircraft manufacturer, not a ’tec, and he didn’t know any of the answers. The girl didn’t know many, either.

She shrugged. Both were sneaking glances across the road out of their eye corners. As Farran pulled out, they saw the big guy whistle in a cab and come after them.

Farran went down towards the harbour, then turned south. If it came to a chase, he didn’t think that cab was going to hold him for long, not with this half-million bucks’ worth of metal beneath him.

But Farran wasn’t the kind to run away without knowing why he was doing it. He let the cab keep close behind until they came to a flower-ornamented roundabout in the suburbs. Then he gave it the gun and went round the circle at a dizzy speed. The taxi tried gallantly for a second, then fell rapidly behind. A quarter of a minute later and Farran was tailing the cab.

It gave the show away. Their tail knew now he had been spotted, but for a full half minute he didn’t know what to do, so the cab went on chasing madly round the roundabout with Farran hooting derisively ten yards in the rear. Finally the tail must have told the cabbie to pull out on to the Farranville road, and it cut across the thin traffic stream that hadn’t appreciated all this manoeuvring and crawled away.

Farran drove it into the side of the road and made it stop. The girl grabbed him as he started to climb out. “What are you going to do?”

“Bust his flat pan for him,” snarled Farran. “I don’t like being followed—not by apes like that.”

But she clung to him and her voice was urgent, “Be careful—don’t you see, this might be someone who shot Joe!”

That thought hadn’t occurred to him. He just wasn’t built for detective work, he decided.

He said, “Yeah, it’s an idea. But bustin’ up his face could still go into the programme.”

The big ape was taking the cab to bits in an effort to come quickly through the door. Farran was there right in front of him when he came out.

“I’m going to pretty up your profile unless you have a sound reason for tailing me,” Farran began, and his fist was hard back ready to start travelling.

The big ape looked at him from eyes that had been punched back a couple of inches into his thick skull. He mouthed, “I’m too big a boy ter start fightin’ with strangers,” and he pulled a gun on Farran.