Читать книгу Savage City - John Glasby - Страница 5

CHAPTER ONE

THE RED EDGE OF TERROR

The downtown quarter of Los Angeles was no fancy place on that particular November evening. Overhead, there was a thin slice of moon showing above the wavering fog, and somewhere in the distance, coming closer, a siren was wailing like a lost soul in some private hell. Beside me, Dawn Grahame handled the big Mercury easily, slipping in and out of the heavy night traffic, heading into the industrial suburbs. Whatever was storming through her mind at that moment, didn’t show on her face.

She rounded a long curve. The brilliant lights appeared one after the other through the fog, tinged with green haloes. Through the window, I caught a glimpse of a floodlit panorama of neon-embroidered bars, interspersed with the occasional filling station, a blur of figures on the sidewalks, hazed by the swirling fog.

My watch said nine-thirty. Less than twenty minutes since that call from Harry Grenville. It hadn’t told me much, but he was that kind of a guy, saying little over the phone, as if he believed that everyone was tapping it. As a Federal man, he had come up against this too often in the past to forget it altogether.

We slid between a couple of parked trucks into a narrow street. There was another long block ahead of us, filled with darkness, a filling station at the far end where the street opened out into another dingy thoroughfare, but everything was locked up for the night, in darkness.

I wondered why Grenville had sounded so urgent over the phone. A matter of life and death, he had said. It didn’t make sense, but then there were so many things in Los Angeles, or any other big American city for that matter, which didn’t add up.

‘There,’ said Dawn suddenly. She slowed the car, pointed through the windscreen.

I stared ahead. A single light shone halfway along the drab street. Nearby, a couple of tattered ‘For Rent’ signs swung limply in the fog from one of the buildings. The doors and windows hung with peeling strips of paint. In the street itself, three cars were clustered near the edge of the sidewalk where the solitary lamp threw a circle of diffuse yellow light through the murk.

Dawn stopped the car, switched off the ignition, and got out. I followed. A new set of thoughts popped up inside my brain and began nibbling at the edges. I figured there had been an accident of some kind here, but why had Grenville sounded so worried—and more to the point, what had it got to do with me? I started looking for Grenville, and spotted him inside a cluster of cops. They turned as I walked up to them with Dawn on my heels. One of the cops threw me a funny glance. He looked cynical and politely surprised. I could guess that he was puzzled.

Maybe he even knew who I was, and was trying to figure out in his well-organised mind what a guy like Johnny Merak was doing on a job like this.

‘Glad you got here, Johnny.’ A brief smile from Grenville, a tight-lipped smile that scarcely twisted the corners of his mouth. ‘Something I thought you ought to be in on from the beginning. You may be one of the few men who can help us.’

I shrugged my shoulders. I still didn’t see where I fitted in, but it figured that, with a guy like Grenville, who knew all the angles, there had to be a reason for it somewhere, and I was content to bide my time.

‘Something wrong, Harry?’

‘Plenty. It isn’t nice, so if—’ He threw a quick, appraising look at Dawn.

She caught the implication behind it immediately, nodded, and stepped back a couple of paces. Then Harry Grenville moved aside and I saw, for the first time, what lay on the sidewalk behind him.

She lay half across the sidewalk with her head lying in the gutter. It needed only one look to see that she was dead, very dead. I went forward, knelt down on one knee. She was the kind of woman a man would have noticed, would have glanced at for a second time, mostly because of her eyes. The rest of her face wasn’t particularly beautiful, too sharply-angled and aloof, but her eyes had once been dark and deep and full of life and vitality. Eyes which could easily have become kindled into a warmth which might have turned into a fire.

Now they were empty and glazed and fixed, staring at something high over my head, at the moon, or at the fog—or just at death, it was hard to tell. A tall woman with slender legs and slender arms, a simple red-and-white checked dress beneath the belted coat. There was blood on the front of the dress and it didn’t need an expert to tell that there were at least half a dozen .38 slugs in her body, fired from pretty close range.

I got to my feet. My lighter flamed in my hand as I lit the cigarette.

Then I turned to Grenville. There must have been a question on my face, for he said quickly, ‘So a dame gets herself bumped off and you still can’t figure the angle for me bringing you into it.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’m merely playing a hunch this time, Johnny. Sure, I know that thousands of dames and guys get themselves killed in Los Angeles every year, and we never hear about most of them. But this one is different.’

‘How different?’

‘That’s what I want to know. It looks like a gang killing to me, but there’s no motive so far.’

‘You know who she is?’

‘We’ve checked. Her name was Lomer, Caroline Lomer. Lived in some place a couple of blocks from here. It would have been easy for anybody who wanted to murder her to get the lowdown on her movements.’

‘Sounds like a thousand other dames,’ I said. ‘I don’t see the connection.’

‘You might as well know everything, Johnny.’ The other sounded tired; as if he had run up against something which was a little beyond him. ‘We had a call from this woman three days ago. At least, the local precinct did. She was scared. Somebody—she didn’t say who—wanted to kill her. She asked for protection.’

‘If she got it, it doesn’t look as if it did her much good,’ I remarked. I saw the tall, burly cop move forward as if to say something, then he obviously thought better of it and kept quiet.

‘We checked on her from the start.’ Grenville even sounded slightly amused. ‘For all we knew, she might have been a screwball. There are plenty of them around here with a persecution mania. Nobody knew much about her. It didn’t figure at all. There was no doubt that she was scared of something. But we found nothing to tie her in with any of the gangs.’

‘I see,’ I said. I didn’t, for at the moment, there were too many loose ends lying around waiting to be tied up. Too many unknowns, one body too many, and six slugs which couldn’t be explained.

‘We want you in on this case because of—well, your background. You know the Underworld, Johnny. You know how it operates, you know its methods, probably better than any other man outside of the Organisation. I’m convinced myself this isn’t just another slaying like the thousands of others we come across. There’s something here that doesn’t fit, and by God, I intend to find out what it is.’

‘O.K. Harry,’ I said. ‘Count me in. But if it doesn’t turn out that way, don’t blame me.’

‘I won’t, Johnny.’ He was looking straight at me, trying to see my face in the light of the street lamp. ‘How do you figure on beginning?’

‘At the moment, I’ve no idea,’ I said honestly. The whole affair was still a little crazy, mixed-up. A woman died with six slugs in her body in a backstreet of downtown Los Angeles—so what? It had happened before, a countless number of times, and it would happen again. But if a man like Harry Grenville believed that there was something more than an ordinary slaying here, then who was I to doubt him? Far too often, in the past, he had been right with these hunches of his. It wouldn’t hurt, anyway, if I strung along with him, at least for the time being.

Besides, I knew exactly how the Underworld worked, how it was nurtured. It was a vast, spider-like thing squatting in the heart of the city, its tentacles spread throughout the whole of the surrounding territory. There wasn’t a single spot where a man would be able to hide if the Organisation wanted him dead. This tremendous octopus was fed and swollen by the fears and intimidation of little men. The fast cars without lights that struck without warning, leaving a huddled body in the middle of the street. The pathetic corpses which were brought to the surface from the river. The broken, spiritless creatures who existed in the twilight world of the backstreets, kidneys ruptured by carefully wielded hoses which left no mark outside. Or the bullets fired from close range on the sidewalk with no witnesses but the slayer and the victim.

This could be the same. There was nothing to prove it either way at the moment, apart from Grenville’s hunch. I threw another look down at the body on the sidewalk. A pretty figure and a face which had once been pleasant and full of life; but not now. Now, something had been wiped out of it, and the face had that look of surprise and shock and fear which told only too plainly that in the second before she had died, she had known who her killer was, had known that death was there, inevitable and frightening.

I walked back into the ring of cops. I could feel their eyes on me, wondering—who the hell is this guy Johnny Merak, ex-crook turned private detective? But if there was any suspicion in their eyes, it didn’t register. I stood looking at Dawn for a long moment and I knew that the same thought was in her mind as was in mine. It had all started again. The lonely fight against the Underworld, the big boys, the ruthless men who posed on the outside as decent, law-abiding citizens of the community. But on the inside, away from the publicity, they dabbled in the dirtiest work there was. Blackmail and murder came high on their list. Graft and corruption a close second. Only they didn’t do this dirty work themselves. They had the hired gunmen, the grafters, the fixer to do it for them. They merely gave the orders, and sat back in the middle of the web and watched the drama played out to their liking.

If the order went out that someone had to die; then they died. Very few were as lucky as I had been, to get out of that web of vice and treachery and death, and still remain alive and in one piece. Most who tried it ended up as drunks and physical wrecks after the hoodlums had worked them over for laughs.

No—it was easy to see how Caroline Lomer could have died. But proving it would be a difficult matter—and discovering who did it, whose hand was at the back of the killing, more difficult still.

‘You’re going to try to find out who did it, Johnny.’ Dawn’s voice was soft and husky. It wasn’t a question.

I nodded. ‘I said I was through with all of the dirty stuff a long time ago. I promised myself then, that if there was ever anything I could do to get back at them, to break them, I’d do it. Maybe this is another chance.’

‘You might not be so lucky this time, Johnny.’ Still no question of trying to get me to back out.

‘I know, Dawn. But now that I feel clean again, I want to keep it that way. I wouldn’t if I backed out of this deal.’

‘All right, Johnny. I’d rather see you die trying than quit. But there’s nowhere for you to start.’

I climbed back into the Mercury while she slipped in behind the wheel. The light still shone on the crumpled body lying near the gutter and I couldn’t get the look in that kid’s eyes out of my mind. The little thoughts were having another scamper around my brain as I sat there, while Dawn slipped in behind the wheel. The more I thought about it, the more odd this whole set-up seemed. There wasn’t such a thing as a motive-less murder; and if the Underworld did have any part in it, even if they had only sanctioned the murder, as seemed possible, the motive was there somewhere if it could only be found. Maybe it was buried under a mountain of useless facts. Maybe it was there, staring me in the face, in the middle of that cluster of cops, if I could only see it.

Harry Grenville came over and peered into the window. His granite-like face was in shadow.

‘What do you think, Johnny?’

‘It could be what you think,’ I said after a pause. ‘Whoever killed her picked a quiet spot for the murder. That means they did know her movements, and I’m pretty sure she knew who shot her. If this was a mob killing, it oughtn’t to be too difficult to find out.’

‘That going to be your first move, Johnny?’ Quiet concern in the other’s voice, but I guessed it was more than that. He wanted to know my movements just to keep a check on me, to know where I’d be if he wanted to get in touch with me fast.

‘There’s nothing I can do tonight,’ I said. ‘Whoever did it will be miles away by now. You could question the folk in the neighbourhood, but I reckon you’ll get very little out of them. Once they get it into their heads that this is a mob slaying, they’ll close up like clams. You won’t be able to prise any information out of them with a whip.’

‘I guess you’re right. I’ll have the body taken to the mortuary once the rest of the boys are finished. Where can I get in touch with you tomorrow if anything turns up?’

‘Difficult to say. If I have to go after information, I could be anywhere. Maybe I’d better call you. Noon.’

‘O.K., Johnny. But watch yourself. I’ve a hunch you’re right in this hunch.’

‘Then play it smart. And if you need any help, I’ll do everything I can. You know that.’

‘Sure. I’ll be seeing you.’

He stepped back onto the sidewalk as the car moved away from the kerb. Dawn drove silently through the flowing traffic. The fog was lowering and I couldn’t see the moon. It was difficult to see the lights along the fronts of the bars and the all-night cinemas.

Caroline Lomer. I tried to make guesses at what could have happened. Haunted by fear, scared stiff of something she couldn’t fight, something she couldn’t live with any longer, she had gone to the police, asking for protection, demanding security, searching for a way out of her fear. Thinking about her, I realised that we had been possibly two of a kind. Only I had been a little more fortunate. I had escaped from the rackets with a whole skin. She had died trying.

Don’t kid yourself either way, Merak. These men are killers. They know you from the old days. They also know that if anybody can smash them, you can. Do you think they’re going to give you the chance again? It’s a good life you’ve got now. You’ve earned it, so why throw it away? If this is an Underworld killing, if the Organisation is at the back of it, you don’t stand the ghost of a chance going through with it.

I pushed the thoughts away into the back of my mind and glanced through the windscreen. We were nearly there. Another couple of blocks to the Office. Dawn began to edge the Mercury in towards the kerb when the other car, without headlights, came screeching around the corner some thirty yards away, leaping towards us out of the fog. For the first time in my life, I was thankful for the days spent in the web of the Underworld. The mere fact that the car carried no headlights was enough to start a chain reaction inside my brain which transferred itself automatically to my body.

There was an outlet road some ten yards ahead on the same side. I thrust Dawn to one side, felt her fall away from me against the door with a little scream of surprise blended with realisation on her lips. Her fingers slipped instinctively from the wheel and I grabbed it in the split second before the oncoming car hit the middle of the road, steadied, then headed straight for us.

I knocked Dawn’s foot off the pedal, swung the wheel sharply, violently. We were moving much too fast to take that corner safely, but it was our only chance if we wanted to stay alive. Tyres screeched thinly in protest. The other car, a big black Cadillac was almost on top of us. He must have guessed at my intention for he was half turning as I hit the corner and slewed into it in a sideswipe. The headlights of the Mercury glared brilliantly, brightening the curve to the side street. It was a narrow, almost right-angled curve. The car began to swerve to one side, skidding violently.

Dawn screamed again, pulled herself against me as I thrust her head down, beneath the edge of the windscreen with my right elbow, twisted in the seat. We hit the centre of the road and the car lurched as we made the turn. The wheels hit the far kerb and for one wild instant, the car tilted and threatened to go over onto its side.

Then, miraculously, it straightened. My hands were hard on the wheel as I fought desperately for control. From behind me, I heard a harsh stuttering and the side mirror vanished in a splintering of glass. Something smacked against the side of the windscreen and everything blurred as the glass splintered and cracked under the shattering impact of the slug.

The car bounced again, less violently this time, and I eased my foot down on the brake. We went across the sidewalk, came to rest against the wall of the nearby building. We were hurled into the wheel and dash, but not too badly.

Fighting for breath, I pushed myself upright, threw a swift glance at Dawn.

Slowly, she lifted herself and stared up at me.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I think so, Johnny, that was a mad thing to do.’

‘I know. But it was the only thing to do. Those hoodlums meant business. When they figured they couldn’t ram us, they took a couple of shots at us. That slug must have missed us by a couple of inches, no more.’

‘But why, Johnny?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? It answers a lot of questions that have been worrying me. Now at least, I know where I stand. I know what I’ve got to face.’

‘They know that you’re in on this particular deal, and they’re afraid. That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘I guess so. It all adds up. Only I didn’t figure they’d try anything so soon. There must have been somebody there who saw me and figured why I was there. They’d know Grenville, what kind of a guy he is.’

There was silence for a minute. I knew what she was thinking. I wondered what she would say next, and when she said it, I felt no surprise.

‘Whichever way you want to play it, Johnny, it’s all right by me.’ The warmth was back in her voice and it did funny little things to me, even with the aches and bruises in my shook up body. I grinned back at her. Suddenly, for no reason at all, I felt on top of the world again. Some of the old exhilaration was back again, the challenge. I forgot for a long moment about what might lie ahead for us, a lot of trouble and a lot of regrets.

I opened the door. It seemed to take all of the strength I had to push it open and clamber out. There wasn’t a sound from the other street. The hoodlums could have stopped their car, switched off the engine, and be creeping up on me with silenced revolvers at that very moment. Only some half-remembered instinct told me that they hadn’t, that they were no longer around. They wouldn’t bother to hang around to see if they had finished us off. If they hadn’t, there would be plenty of other times to try. I’d be around until then. That was one thing they could be sure of.

Dawn got out and stood swaying a little. I walked round and took a quick look at the car. It had been badly scratched on the one side, but it was still in a fit shape to take us to where we wanted to go.

‘Let’s get back to the Office, Dawn,’ I said. I looked at my watch.

‘I’m kind of shaky.’

‘I’ll drive.’

‘Do you think they’ll come back tonight, Johnny?’

‘Not tonight. That’s their pitch finished for the time being. They’ll figure on something else for the next try, something a little more sophisticated. That was a mug’s game to try with anybody who knows their methods. They’ll think up something real good for the next time.’

A new set of aches popped out of my limbs as I eased myself behind the wheel, switched on the ignition again. The car was warm-hearted, responded almost instantly. Gently, I eased her away from the kerb, straightened her up. Everything seemed to be in good working order.

Back in the Office, with the curtains drawn across the windows, Dawn fixed a couple of drinks. She was shaken, but doing her best not to show it.

Maybe, I thought watching her, she’s already regretting telling me to go through with this deal. But she’ll never show it, never let me know it.

I drained my glass and lit a cigarette. Inwardly, I wondered whether to ring Grenville and tell him what had happened. It would prove his theory to the hilt, and he might like to know it; but on the other hand, he might try to make a move, to push things, and that could be fatal, especially as far as Johnny Merak, and possibly Dawn Grahame, were concerned.

No, it would be better to play this thing alone, at least for the time being. It still didn’t make a lot of sense. Sure, I knew now that the big boys were in on the deal, but why pick on some dame like Caroline Lomer unless she knew a lot more than was good for her and intended to spill it all to the cops. That would have been a good enough reason for them to want her out of the way. But even that idea didn’t quite figure right.

Damn it all, I thought fiercely, there had to be an answer to this somewhere. Do something, Merak. Don’t just sit there thinking about these things. Somewhere out there in the teeming city was somebody who knew the right answers to the questions. Find him and get them out of him.

I stubbed out the cigarette. I knew that Dawn was watching me in silence, wondering what was going on in my brain. The big trouble was that it was hard to forget that I had once been in the rackets myself. Then, if I needed any information, I merely had to beat it out of the guy concerned. A quick ride, the once-over, and you had everything you wanted to know. Now—well, it wasn’t quite as simple. True, Harry Grenville often turned a blind eye to what went on, provided it stopped short of actual murder. But you usually had to go about things in a more discreet way, although the rules were still unchanged for the other side.

I remembered the bullets that had smashed through the windscreen of the car close to my head only a brief time before, and wondered what fresh plan was being built up against me, and by whom. The Underworld was a vast thing with a lot of men pulling the strings.

Maybe even now, the killer was squatting in a black web of vice and murder, waiting to strike again, planning ahead, preparing to commit a further murder to wipe out any lead I might find. At the moment, I was completely lost, stumbling around in the dark.

Dawn went out to fix some food and I sat in silence, trying to think things out. Trouble had a habit of following me around, and I didn’t want any of it to brush off onto her if I could possibly help it. By now, the word seemed to have got around that Johnny Merak was nosing into everyone else’s business, private and otherwise, and I doubted whether many people would be really sorry if I departed the world quite suddenly with a slug in my brain. Nobody that is, except for Dawn Grahame, and possibly Harry Grenville. Maybe it was because of this that I was intent of keeping myself alive and seeing things through to the bitter end.

The phone shrilled, breaking in on my thoughts. I picked it up after a moment’s pause. It could have been the guy who had tried to kill me, ringing up to find out if I was still alive.

‘Johnny Merak?’ The voice was harsh and metallic.

‘That’s right,’ I said.

A pause, and then: ‘I think you and I ought to have a little talk, Merak. It’s important.’

‘I don’t usually make a point of talking to anybody I don’t know and who doesn’t give his name.’

‘It concerns the murder of Caroline Lomer,’ went on the voice in my ear.

‘Go on.’

‘I understand that you are on the case. I also happen to know that somebody tried to fix it for you permanently tonight.’

‘You seem to know quite a lot.’

‘I make it my business to know a lot of things, Mister Merak.’ There was a sardonic chuckle in the voice as if the other was secretly amused. ‘Sometimes, I find it pays dividends.’

‘It could also be dangerous.’

‘Perhaps. But like you, I’m an expert in taking chances.’ For a moment, there was only the humming of the wires, then the other went on. ‘I still think you ought to see me, Mister Merak. Shall we say tomorrow morning, nine o’clock, at the Golden Horseshoe?’

‘And I suppose I’d walk into a couple of your hired gunmen and get a bellyful of slugs for my trouble,’ I said sarcastically.

‘I guess that’s a chance you’ll have to take.’ The phone clicked, the line went dead.

I replaced the receiver in its cradle and sat back in my chair. Dawn came into the room, looked at me curiously.

‘I thought I heard the phone,’ she said quietly.

‘You did,’ I nodded. ‘Some guy who wouldn’t give his name. Wanted to meet me at nine tomorrow. Said he had information for me about tonight’s murder.’

‘Are you going?’

‘I’m not sure. It sounds too much like a trap to me. After they failed tonight, it’s just the sort of thing they might try. On the other hand, it may be genuine, and he didn’t want to give his name for fear of retaliation.’

‘It sounds like a trap.’

‘I know. That’s what I’m afraid of. At the moment, I’m trying to figure some way of getting around it if it is. I suppose I could call Grenville and tell him what’s happened. He might be able to figure a way of watching the place in case of trouble, and I could take this—’ I picked up the Luger, checked its buttered smoothness, then replaced it in my pocket ‘—only I’m afraid that if I did that, this guy, whoever he is, might smell a rat and he wouldn’t turn up. That could destroy the only lead I’ve got.’

The multitude of thoughts had a fine chance to run around my brain as I ate the meal Dawn had prepared; but deep down inside, I knew that the outcome was certain. That I would go down there alone and see this man, take the chance on it being a trap. Somehow, I thought fiercely, this game was becoming a little more complex and dangerous than I had figured at the beginning.