Extra Kill - Dell Shannon (14 page)

"That he wasn't," said Laidlaw
thoughtfully.

"But that wasn't any of my business. The guy
didn't like it, but he paid up. I didn't need a blueprint to figure
he'd been a regular here on account of the deal with Whalen, and the
blonde didn't have a glimmer of that, thought he was just free with
his money, and naturally he didn't want to look cheap in front of
her. Anyway, he paid up and out he goes, and that was the only time I
ever laid eyes on him. And can't say I'm sorry. But I was kind of
curious, and so I got Bob Trimming—that's our regular cashier—in
and asked him about it. I didn't get an awful lot out of him, to make
sense. You see, the boys, well, they'd got kind of used to the
manager acting nasty with them, and catching 'em out for little
things all the time, see, and besides—well, now you tell the gent
what you know, Johnny."

"Now just as it happened," said Laidlaw
leisurely—he sat with arms folded across his chest, at magnificent
ease, and spoke serenely—"I'd seen that fellow in here, but
I'd never waited on him until that night. When he started to kick up
the row, Bob called me in on it because I could back up the check,
you see. And later on Mr. Stuart asked me to sound Bob out, see if he
knew any more about it, as he might talk more openly to me. And I
might say I was curious about it too, and I did. Bob's pretty
close-mouthed anyway, he doesn't tell all he knows just to be
talking, and he'd kept quiet on this, for one reason, because Mr.
Whalen isn't a man you'd want to get across. But he knows I don't go
talking much either, and he told me the whole thing. I realize,
Lieutenant, that all this is hearsay and won't do you any good as
evidence, but maybe you'll be interested anyway. What Bob said was
this. This fellow came in here quite a bit, once a week at least and
sometimes a lot oftener, and he never paid out anything but the
tips—and he wasn't a very good tipper. The customer doesn't pay the
waiters, as you know, but the cashier out there in the lobby. Bob's
on duty, eight to closing time, six nights a week, so he was in a
position to see what happened every time this customer came in. The
first time he saw the fellow, there was a check for eighteen
something, and Mr. Whalen's name signed across it. The customer just
tossed it onto the desk and said, ‘That's O.K.,' or something like
that. Well, Bob wasn't going to take a chance that way, and he called
Mr. Whalen. I might add that the fellow had a blonde with him that
night too, whether the same one or not I couldn't say, but she'd
stepped into the powder room. Mr. Whalen said to Bob, ‘Oh, yes,
that's 0.K. on the house'—but he didn't look as if he liked saying
it, so Bob says. And later on that night, after we closed, Bob asked
him how to cancel out that check for the accounts, and Mr. Whalen
made up the cash out of his own pocket. Well, I don't want to drag
this out too long—"

"You're not boring me," Mendoza told him.

"—But the point was, every time this customer
came in the same thing happened, and it ran into quite a little money
Mr. Whalen was paying out to make up the tabs for the accounts. Now,
about six weeks before Mr. Whalen was fired, one night Bob wanted to
make a phone call on his break, and he slipped into the phone booth
in the lobby, as there wasn't a customer in it at the time. You
notice where it is?—well, it's down a little corridor toward the
men's room, past the check stand—and as he was standing there in
the booth, out of sight, you know, sorting out a dime for the call,
he heard Mr. Whalen talking to this customer. The customer had just
come out of the men's room, and maybe Mr. Whalen was waiting for him.
Anyway, Mr. Whalen was mad, and told him he'd got to stop coming in
here so often, fun was fun but he couldn't afford it. And the
customer just laughed and said Mr. Whalen surely didn't mind standing
a few drinks to an old pal now and then, it was cheap at the price
when it meant Mr. Whalen's job, because he didn't figure Mr. Whalen
would like his boss to know about that taxi he'd done back in
Pennsy."

Mendoza uttered a little exclamation. "Are you
quoting this Bob, or were those the actual words?"

“
That's what Bob heard, Lieutenant. Neither of us
knew exactly what the fellow might have meant, but it sounded like a
threat, which is why it stayed in Bob's mind. In fact, several things
that were said sounded like double talk to both of us, and thinking
it over I came to the conclusion they must be criminal or
professional slang of some sort. The customer told Mr. Whalen not to
be such a ringtail, for one thing. And Mr. Whalen said back at him
that two could fill in that game, maybe the customer wouldn't like
his boss to know he'd done a sleep as a cadet—”

"Ah," said Mendoza pleasedly. "Which
doesn't surprise me. Yes, go on."

"—And the customer laughed again and said he
didn't give a damn, it'd make no difference to him. There was a
little more argument, and finally Mr. Whalen got to sounding really
desperate, so Bob said, and he said to the customer he'd better not
play so deep—meaning, I take it, not to drop in so often for a free
ride—if he wasn't looking for a South Gate discharge."

"
Lindo, muy linda
,
oh, very pretty," said Mendoza. "This I like. And?"

"That's about all, Lieutenant. Reason Bob
remembered it, you see, was that it sounded a little nasty, threats
and so on. Nobody liked Mr. Whalen much, and it didn't come as a
surprise when he got fired. And so, as you've heard, the next time
the customer dropped in, Bob was going to make him pay, and there was
this row. Well, when I'd heard all this, I thought Mr. Stuart ought
to know it—"

"And as you can see," said Stuart, "what
the hell, it was water under the bridge, and I knew damn well the
guy'd never come back again—which he didn't. None of my business
what he had on Whalen. But just now, when you come in asking
questions, Johnny thought I'd better hear about it, because by all
this, both Whalen and this other guy, whoever he is, might be mixed
up with some funny characters—if you see what I mean. No offense,
Lieutenant, I hope—"

"No offense," said Mendoza. He was looking
rather amused. "I suppose neither of you would know Whalen's
whereabouts now? . . . No, I couldn't expect it. But you've been very
helpful, thanks. I may want formal statements from both of you and
this Bob."

"Any time, sir," said Laidlaw. "Glad
to oblige you."

"Oh, sure," said Stuart, "not that I'd
like to have to testify or anything, don't look so good in this
business, snitching on a customer, whatever kind, but I guess it's up
to all of us to help the law when we can. I suppose you can't tell us
what this is all about."

"I'm not just a hundred percent sure myself
yet,” said Mendoza. They left Mr. Stuart brooding over the
possibility of occupying the witness stand, and Laidlaw gazing
serenely at the office ceiling.

In the car, before he switched on lights or ignition,
Mendoza suddenly pulled Alison into his arms and spent several
minutes kissing her thoroughly. "Well, and what prompted that?"
she asked breathlessly. "You always say a car, of all places—"

"Just general exuberance. I got so much more
than I expected, and I think there's more to come yet."

"I see. You seemed to know what those two had
been talking about—was it criminal slang? And is a translation fit
for my ladylike ears?"

Mendoza laughed. "Yes to both questions.
Twelvetrees said to this Whalen that he didn't think Whalen's boss
would like hearing that Whalen had done a five-to-fifteen
stretch-that's a taxi—back in Pennsylvania. To which Whalen
retorted that maybe Twelvetrees wouldn't like it known he'd done one
year—that's a sleep—for enticing minors to enter houses of
prostitution—that's what a cadet does. And later on Twelvetrees
told him not to be such an old grouch, that's a ringtail. But one of
the interesting things is that last reported remark of Whalen's, when
he said Twelvetrees had better take it easy unless he was looking for
a South Gate discharge. That's what the cons call it when a man dies,
in or out of jail."

"Oh, I see. So maybe this Whalen is the one."

"Maybe, maybe. No, it
doesn't surprise me that Twelvetrees had done time—not much, and he
wasn't deep in yet—it's on the cards he was smart enough, after one
experience, to intend staying inside the law, in one of the rackets
that isn't illegal. But a man's past has a way of catching him up
sometimes .... " He let that trail off, and Alison, knowing his
silences, forbore to interrupt his thoughts.

* * *

It was two in the morning when he eased the
Facel-Vega into the curb just past the entrance to the Voodoo Club's
parking lot. The lot was emptying rapidly, the last customer just
chased out. He locked the car and walked up through the lot to the
narrow space directly behind li the buildings which would be reserved
for employees' parking.

There were eight cars nosed in there. He peered in
the drivers' windows, one by one, with his pencil flash; the fifth
one down, a six-year-old Ford two-door, had its registration card
wrapped around the steering post, old style, and the name on it was
John S. Laidlaw. Mendoza leaned on the fender and lit a cigarette.

He had smoked that and another one—retreating to
cover half a dozen times as men came out to their cars—before the
rear door, thirty feet away, opened to silhouette briefly a big broad
figure he thought was his quarry. The man came down toward the Ford
jingling his keys and whistling The St. Louis Blues under his breath.

Mendoza had no desire for any violent exercise, and
when the man was ten feet off he stepped out of the shadow of the car
to show himself. Laidlaw checked for one moment and then laughed very
softly.

"You had me scared there a minute, Lieutenant,
thinking I'd slipped up on something," he said just above a
whisper. "So I didn't put it across you."

"For a few minutes," said Mendoza. "Who
belongs to the Buick?" It was the only other car left in the
lot.

"Stuart. He won't be out for a while, he's
working on the books."

"
Muy bien
,
then we can talk here." They got into the car; in the little
flare of the match Laidlaw lit for their cigarettes they looked at
each other. "Fox knows fox," said Mendoza dryly. "Though
you put up a nice front. But aren't you getting on a bit for a
medical student?"

"Yes, that one won't do much longer. Just second
cover anyway."

"I liked the artistic way this nice honest
well-brought-up young fellow puzzled over that talk and finally made
it out pro slang. It was about then I pinned you down in my own
mind—if we stick to the slang—as a gazer,
no
es verdad
? I suppose you figured to do me a
good turn—having spotted me—by handing it to me on a platter.
Many thanks."

"Tell you the truth, I'd be just as happy not to
have you city boys sniffing around here too long or too close, which
was the main reason. And I've got no credentials on me, on this job."

"Never mind. I've had enough to do with you Feds
that I know lamb from wolf. What is it, dope or illegal liquor?"

"Some of both. I've been sitting on it for a
year waiting for the real big boy—this is a drop, and a good safe
one. We've left it that way."

"Whalen in it?"

"As a very minor errand boy. He did that stretch
for armed robbery with violence—that's his style—a small timer."

"Well, your business doesn't come into mine, I
don't think, so I won't ask you any questions about that—"

"Which is just as well," said Laidlaw
imperturbably, "because I wouldn't answer them."

"Naturally. The customer who was getting his
tabs picked up by Whalen is now dead, and I am, you can appreciate,
interested in the fact that Whalen threatened him with a South Gate
discharge."

"Is that a fact?" said Laidlaw.
"Interesting. I see that. Now I'll open up enough to say this,
Lieutenant. Obviously the customer didn't know what was going on
here—in the way of my business—or that Whalen was in it, or he
wouldn't have thought telling the tale about Whalen's past could get
him fired. But it could have, indeed. Without giving you details, the
owner is innocent as day, and so is Stuart. It's quite possible that
Whalen was afraid his real bosses wouldn't like it much that someone
knew about him, and also there's this aspect: he had a pretty good
job a little higher in the organization than he'd been before, and
that was largely due to his ostensible job as manager here. He wanted
to protect that. It annoyed the boys operating the drop, just a
little when he got fired. They've sized up Stuart since, and
prudently refrained from sounding him out."

"Yes, I saw some of that—if Whalen's nominal
boss wouldn't have cared, Whalen would never have picked up those
tabs. Nice genteel way to blackmail somebody, wasn't it? No vulgar
cash changing hands."

"So it was," agreed Laidlaw. "You
understand that we weren't more than casually interested in Whalen as
one of the boys, there wasn't any reason to follow up his private
troubles with this fellow, as it was pretty clear that one was
outside this particular racket. So you probably know more about your
corpse than I do."

"Not as much as I'd like. What I came back for
principally was to ask if you know where Whalen is."