Have Gat—Will Travel (3 page)

"Oh, shut up," I said.

Wham! She had less control than Chuck. She brought a hand up and really clobbered me with it. She actually knocked me backward, but it might have been all right even then except that my foot banged into something. I landed on the end of my spine with a crash that jarred the whole house.

Then I saw what had tripped me. Or rather, the two things. Somehow, Ratface's short pal had got behind me and was down on all fours, and Chuck still had his leg poked out and was laughing fit to kill. For a second I sprawled on the floor with a big hot gripe growing bigger, then I planted my foot on Shorty's behind and shoved. He skidded forward and his face banged the carpet as I jumped to my feet, burning. The blonde and all the kids were laughing right along with Chuck, and as I got to my feet the laughter subsided slightly.

But Shorty rolled over and stood up, rubbed his face — and then laughed loudly at me, a noise with no mirth or merriment in it, just a rhythmic ha-ha-ha at the top of his lungs. Other kids caught on, picked it up. In seconds they were all looking at me, chanting their laughter in unison. It was strange, frightening, to look at the now unsmiling faces, hear the perversion of laughter from twenty throats. It was a savage sound, like the grunting of animals; a twisted, stupid exhibition that sent a shiver up my spine.

The blonde was still getting a large charge out of me. I was good for lots of laughs. But only her laughter seemed to have honest merriment in it. I suppose I did look a bit quaint standing there slobbering at them. She bent over and laughed so hard that the bag slipped from her shoulder and hit the floor, making as loud a noise when it landed as I had. She either carried a chunk of lead in there or a gun. Chuck had sweet playmates.

Chuck tapped me on the shoulder. I looked at him, and he wasn't smiling. "Eight," he said.

I started to crack wise, but when he got to nine I walked toward the door. The punks were massed in front of me, and if they hadn't moved I was mad enough to throw a few of them through the ceiling, even if it wouldn't have been wise. But they stepped slowly aside, still going ha-ha, and I walked past them trying to look everywhere at once. I thought I was going to make it to the door without any trouble, but suddenly somebody planted a foot on my behind and shoved hard.

It sent me stumbling up against the door and I spun around as I reached it. It had been Shorty, naturally, getting even. He didn't know it, but we were a long way from being even. I stared at the kids as the laughter slowed and stopped, and it took all my self-control and what little sense I had left to keep from jumping them and making pulp out of a few of them. I had already taken more from these little hoodlums than I'd have taken from an equal number of big thugs, and the longer I stared at them the bigger they looked. Just before they looked big enough for me to pull out my gun and shoot five of them, I made myself open the door and go outside.

A crescent moon was hidden behind scudding clouds and it looked like rain, but the chill air did little to cool me off. I tried to calm myself, thinking, as I walked back to the Cad. I hadn't actually learned a hell of a lot — except that the kids weren't just punks, but dangerous punks. Chuck's face had jumped around when I showed him Pam's picture, but he could hardly be blamed for looking a bit sick. I'd wanted to push him off balance, so I'd played a dirty trick on him; I'd handed him the morgue shot.

And right then I remembered where I'd seen him before. Maybe it was because I was thinking about him and Pam at the same time, but I remembered seeing him in a picture in the album Mr. Franklin had shown me. It had been on one of the last pages of the book; a group snapshot taken when Pam had gone to a picnic — in Elysian Park. Half a block up the street past my car was a small cocktail lounge. I went inside, found a phone booth in back and dialed Mr. Franklin's number. He answered.

"Mr. Franklin, this is Shell Scott.
Do you know the names of the fellows your daughter went out with?"

"Why . . . yes, most all of them. Have you learned anything?"

"Not for sure. Did Pam ever mention a Chuck Dorr?"

"No. I've never heard the name."

"Look in the back of the photograph album for a snap taken at Elysian Park on a picnic. What's the date under it?"

He was gone for half a minute, then he said, "That was on the sixteenth of last month. She —" His voice broke.

I said quickly. "She know all these people?"

"She went there with her boy friend and another couple; they were to meet some others. She didn't know them all."

I told him I was just guessing, stabbing around, but I'd let him know if anything came up. Then I called Samson.

"Sam, the Franklin girl's diary still on your desk?"

"Yeah. What you want? And how's it going?"

I gave him a rundown on the party. "They're a mean bunch all right. That diary — what does it say for the night of the sixteenth, last month?"

In a minute he had read two or three lines that didn't interest me, the words Pam had written sounding strange in his gruff voice, then, "Divine time at the park. Both OW and JM asked me to the Junior-Senior Prom. Who'll I go with? OW, I think. He's a dream! But I don't think I'd even have gone to the picnic if I'd known anybody like CD would be there. I finally had to just ignore him, he was so fresh. I don't like older men anyway — and he's so hairy. Tomorrow I'll see OW and tell him I'll go with him." Sam paused. "That's all of it."

"The OW must be Orin West. CD is Chuck Dorr."

He said slowly, "You sure?"

"Positive." I told him about the photo in the album.

He said, "We haven't gone over it that close yet. It's getting tighter around Dorr, isn't it? How'd he impress you?"

"He's a rough baby. Doesn't seem like a dim brain, though. If he's psycho, he acts pretty normal."

"So did the mad killers Heirens and Robert Irwin. Looks as if we'll have to keep after the bunch, Shell. Do it the hard way."

"What do you mean?"

"Orin West just died. Never opened his mouth."

It wasn't just Pam now, I was thinking; it was two nice kids. Sam interrupted my thoughts by saying almost the same thing, then, "Nobody knows yet if there were others before this. And there'll be more if we don't get him. This one worries me."

That was the worst part, the frightening part. Even worse than the thought of Pam in the morgue was the thought of her killer, and others like him, walking the streets, meeting more Pams. They look like anybody else when they sit across from you in a restaurant or next to you in a darkened theater; they look like anybody else when they pass you on the street. You can't look behind their normal eyes into their abnormal minds to see the twisted desires, the strange, savage hungers.

"We've got to get this one," Samson said. "And we haven't got enough. You know the rules of evidence, Shell. We've got to get him good or they dismiss the case."

He talked a little longer. I knew what he wanted; he just didn't want to ask me, I could feel the hair move at the back of my neck, and my throat was a little drier when I said, "I like Dorr for it, too, Sam. He's either in it or knows about it. I'll try it again. I'll work on Dorr, and this time I'll really let him have it."

"Well . . . go ahead, Shell. Tell him anything. If he's the one, he'll be like jelly inside by now. But it's got to be right, boy. He's got to bust wide open or we lose him — and he won't bust easy."

"Yeah, Sam." My throat was good and dry. "I'll tell you the truth, pal. I'd like about a dozen big cops along."

He chuckled softly. "You'll be all right, Shell."

"Yeah," I said. "Sure." I hung up and walked back to the clubhouse.

I
really didn't want to go back in there at all. I stopped in front of the door, put the .38 into my coat pocket, and kept my hand on it as I rang the bell.

Ratface looked out at me; I brushed past him and stopped just inside the room. Heads jerked around, eyes narrowed and I heard voices, "Well, he's askin' for it." Ratface started the ha-ha and the others took it up automatically.

I grabbed Ratface and yanked him to me, damn near lifting him off his feet. I put my face close to his. "Listen, you little fleeper, bag your head. Chop it! I've had all of you I can take."

His face got red and he put his hand on his hip.

"Go ahead," I said. "I'll lay you over my knee and let your punk friends laugh at that."

The door of the side room opened and Chuck was glaring at me. Even from where I stood I could see his jaw muscles bouncing around. The room got quiet. I shoved Ratface away from me hard enough to send him halfway across the room, then walked to Chuck, stopped near him where I could watch him and the kids at the same time.

He said coldly, slowly, "I told you to blow, Slewfoot."

"You told me a lot of things, friend."

His eyes narrowed. Lipstick stained his mouth. In the room behind him I could see the blonde sitting on a divan. I'd half expected a naked woman running around in there, but she was fully clothed — as fully clothed as she could be in that dress. Her lipstick was smeared, that was all.

Most of the kids were on their feet now, near me. They looked at me, then watched Chuck, waiting for the word. Chuck stepped toward me with his hand curling into a fist.

"I wouldn't," I said. My hand was still on the gun in my coat pocket, and with the other hand I flipped back the lapel of my coat, let him see the empty holster.

He stopped fast, glanced at my pocket, then at the kids. Finally he jerked his head toward the room behind him and said to me, "Get in here." He backed into the room and I followed him, slamming the door shut behind me.

He asked me, "What's this chatter?"

"You know what it is. The Franklin girl — Pam. You said you didn't know her. I know you did."

He looked at the blonde, "Beat it, Lucille."

"Chuckie! Well, I like that. I sure like that! Ain't I your girl? Huh, Chuckie?" This gal made me slightly ill, but a jealous blonde might help. She kept going, "You got nothin' you don't want me to hear, do you?"

"I told you to beat it," he said.

"What's the matter, Chuck?" I asked him. "She right? Maybe you don't want her to hear this."

He shrugged, staring at me.

"Elysian Park," I said. He just kept looking at me. "Picnic on the sixteenth. That's one time."

"So I saw her. So what? You think I'm about to say so to a lousy slewfoot when there's so much heat in the papers? I got my reasons, and they're not your business."

"I know your reasons. You read the papers, Chuck, so you know about the young guy that got killed." I grinned. "Only he didn't get killed. He's in the hospital. Talking."

All that happened was that he paused a moment, then seemed to get angrier. "I don't know what you're driving at."

The blonde, Lucille, stood near us now. "You stupid man," she twanged. "You're talking about the girl that got raped." She said it like two words: rape-ed. "My golly, why you askin' Chuckie for? Why'n't you ask me already?"

Her hands were on her hips, and if she had still been wearing her shoulder bag, she'd have been quite a sight; but the bag was on the couch. Even so, she was something to see.

"What does that mean?" I said.

"I'm not so dumb; you're bullyin' Chuckie about it, ain't you? Well, Chuckie and me, we was together last night. Ain't that right, honey?"

He hesitated, then said, "That's right, sweetheart." He looked at me. "You satisfied? Or do you want to land on your butt again?" Lucille giggled.

If Lucille were telling the truth, Chuck had a tasty alibi — but I was almost sure she was lying. For one thing, Samson had told me Chuck couldn't account for his time between eight and ten.

I said, "How, about, say, from eight to ten last night?"

"Oh, stop it, snooper. I'm gonna —"

He didn't get to tell me what he was going to do, because Lucille said, "Eight to ten? Six to twelve, you mean." She squeezed Chuck's arm and said, "Chuckie was with me, I told ya." She glared at me with a very unpleasant look on her painted face. "You want details already?"

Chuck opened the door and jerked his head. Half a dozen of the young guys walked over and stood in the doorway. I suddenly felt hemmed in, even with the gun in my pocket. I had a hunch I was leaving, one way or another — but I wanted to talk to the blonde. Alone. I wanted to ask her more about last night, and a fat roll of dollars might help her tell the truth. She acted like a gal you could buy almost anything from.

Chuck said, "Out, Slewfoot." Then he turned and spoke to the kids, "You want to take him, pallies?" The nasty rumble from them meant they'd like that very much.

While Chuck's back was to me, I caught the platinum blonde's eye, jerked my head toward the front of the house. Her eyes got puzzled. I turned as Chuck grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the door, toward the kids waiting for me.

They were waiting — and ready. I saw a couple of knives, some brass knucks, and one kid, my pal Shorty, held a chunk of pipe. I slammed a foot on the floor, stumbled, but caught my balance and jerked out the .38. When I'd first come into this place I'd been leery about pulling a gun on a bunch of kids; I wasn't any longer.

The nearest punk was only a couple of feet away and I pointed the gun at his belly, ready to use if I had to. He must have realized it, because he backed up in a hurry, banging into the kids behind him. "All of you, back — and fast," I said. I looked at Chuck. "Tell them to move, Chuckie."

He looked from me to the kids and I pointed the gun at him. It was quiet enough now so that he heard me cock the hammer, and when he still hesitated, I lifted the gun barrel over his head and fired a shot into the ceiling. The roar was a violent sound in the small room and the smell of burned powder hung in the air. The kids moved back from the doorway.

"Go on, Chuck," I said. "I'll put the next one lower if I have to. Out ahead of me."

He glared for half a second, face dark, then jerked his head and went through the door into the front room, followed by the blonde. I went after them and kept the gun pointed at Chuck. "One funny move, Chuck — from anybody — and you get it first. After you, your pals get it. And, believe me, I'll enjoy it."