THE UNEXPECTED CORPSE

Somehow I had always known that if she got in a bad spot, she would call on me, just as I knew that I would never turn her down. Maybe it was because I had encouraged her in the old days when being an actress was only a dream she’d had.

Well, it was a dream that had matured and developed until she was there, rising to greater heights with every picture, with every play. It was never news to me when she scored a success. Somehow, there had never been any doubt in my mind.

When my phone rang, I’d just come in. A few of the boys and I had been getting around to some nightspots, and when I came in and tossed my raincoat over a chair, the telephone was ringing its heart out.

It was Ruth. It had been six months since I’d seen her, and I hadn’t even known she knew my number; it wasn’t in the book.

“Can you come over, Jim? I’m in trouble! Awful trouble!”

Sometimes she tended to dramatize things, but there was something in her voice that warned me she wasn’t kidding.

“Sure,” I told her. “Just relax. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Light rain was falling and it was quiet outside. A few late searchlights probed the empty sky, and my tires sang on the pavement. I took backstreets because for all I knew, the cops might be having another shakedown of cars, and I didn’t want to be stopped. Not that it would mean anything, I wasn’t carrying a gun even though I had a permit, but I wanted to avoid delay.

She opened the door quickly when I knocked. The idea that it might be someone else never seemed to enter her head. She was wearing an evening gown, but she looked so much like a frightened little girl that it seemed like old times again.

“What’s the trouble?” I asked her.

“There’s a … there’s a dead man in there!” She indicated the door to what I surmised was the bedroom.

“A dead man?” Of all the things it might have been, this was one I’d never imagined. I put her aside and went in, careful to avoid touching anything.

The guy was lying on the bed, one leg and one arm dangling over the side. He was dead all right, deader than a mackerel.

My guess would have put him at fifty years old. He might have been a few years younger. He was slim, dapper, and wore a closely clipped gray mustache. His eyes were wide open and blue. There was an amethyst ring on his left hand. Carefully, I felt his pockets. His billfold was still full of money. I didn’t count how much, after I saw it was plenty. The label of his suit said that his name was Lawrence Craine.

The name rang a bell somewhere, but I couldn’t place it. Spotting a little blood on his shoulder, I saw he had been stabbed behind the collarbone. In such a stab, most of the blood flows into the lungs. That must have been the case, for there was very little blood. At a rough guess, the guy was five-ten or -eleven. He must have weighed a hundred sixty or thereabouts.

Ruth, I still called her that although she was known professionally as Sue Shannon, was sitting as I’d left her, white as death and her eyes big enough and dark enough to drown in.

“Well, tell me about it,” I suggested. “Tell me how well you knew him, what he was to you, and what he was doing here.”

She had always listened to me. I suspected she had been in love with me once. I know I had with her. However, it was more than that, for we were friends, we understood each other. She tried to answer my questions now, and though her voice shook a little, I could see she was trying to keep herself from getting hysterical.

“His name is Larry Craine. I don’t know what he does except that he seems to have a good deal of money. I’ve met him several times out on the Strip or at the homes of friends. He seemed to know everyone.

“He had found out something about me, something I didn’t want anyone to know. He was going to tell, if I didn’t pay him. It would have made a very bad story and it was the sort that people would tell around. It would have ruined me.

“I didn’t think he would do it, and told him I didn’t think so. He laughed at me, and gave me until tonight to pay him. I don’t know how he got here or how he got in. I went out at eight o’clock with Roger Gentry, but we quarreled and he disappeared. After a while, Davis and Nita Claren drove me home. Then I found him.”

“You haven’t called the police?”

“The police?” Her eyes were wide and frightened. “Do I have to? I thought that you could hush it up.”

“Listen, honey,” I said dryly, “this man is dead! And he’s been murdered. The police always seem to be interested in such cases.”

“But not here! The body I mean, couldn’t you take it someplace else? In stories they do those things.”

“I know. But it wouldn’t work.” I picked up the phone and when I got Homicide, I asked for Reardon, praying he would be in. He was.

“Reardon? Got one for you, and a very touchy case. In the apartment of a friend of mine.” I explained briefly, and she stood at my elbow, waiting.

When I hung up, I turned around. “Kid,” I warned her, “you’re going to have a bad time, so take it standing. The body is here, and if they find out about this blackmail, they’ve got a motive.”

When the squad car pulled into the drive, I was standing there with my arms around her and she was crying. Over her shoulder, I was looking at the wall and thinking, and not about her. I was thinking about this guy Craine. I couldn’t make myself think Ruth had done it.

However, there was a chance, even if a slim one. Ruthie, well, she was an impractical girl, and always seemed somewhat vague. But underneath was a will that would move mountains. It wasn’t on the surface, but it was there.

Also, she knew a man could be killed in just that way. She knew it because I remembered telling her once when we were talking about some detective stories we’d both read.

Reardon came in and with him were Doc Spates, the medical examiner, a detective named Nick Tanner, a police photographer, and a couple of tired harness bulls.

Sue, I decided to stick to calling her Sue as everyone else would, gave him the story, looking at him out of those big, wistful eyes. Those eyes worked on nearly everyone. Apparently, they hadn’t worked on Larry Craine. I doubted if they would work on Reardon who, when it comes to murder, is a pretty cold-blooded fish.

He rolled his cigar in his cheek and listened; he also looked carefully around the room. Reardon was a good man. He would know plenty about this girl before he gotl through looking the place over.

When she finished, he looked at me. “Where do figure in this, Jim? What would she be needing with a private eye?”

“That wasn’t it. We knew each other back in Wisconsin long before she ever came out here. Whenever she got in trouble, she always called me.”

“Whenever…”

He looked at me sadly, letting the implication hang. I didn’t tell him any more but I knew he would find out eventually. Reardon was thorough. Slow, painstaking, but thorough.

Doc Spates came in, closing up his bag. “Dead about two hours. That’s pretty rough, of course. Whoever did it, knew what he was doing. One straight, hard thrust. No stabbing around. No other cuts or bruises.”

Reardon nodded, chewing his cigar. “Could a woman do it?”

Spates fussed with his bag. “Why not? It doesn’t take much strength.”

Sue’s face was stiff and white and her fingers tightened on my arm. Suddenly I was scared. What sort of a fool’s chance I was building my hopes on I don’t know, but all of a sudden they went out of me like air from a pricked balloon, and there I stood. Right then I knew I was going to have to get busy, and I was going to have to work fast.

Just then Tanner came in. He looked at me and his eyes were questioning. He was holding up an ice pick.

“Doc,” he said as Spates reached the door. “Could this have done it?”

“Could be.” Spates shrugged. “Something long, thin, and narrow. Have to examine it further before I can tell exactly. Any blood on it?”

“A little,” Tanner said. “Close against the handle. But it’s been washed!”

Reardon was elaborately casual when he turned around. “You do this?” he asked her.

She shook her head. Twice she tried to speak before she could get it out. “No, I wouldn’t … couldn’t … kill anyone!”

To look at her the idea seemed preposterous. Reardon was half convinced, but I, knowing her as I did, knew that deep inside she had something that was hard and ready.

“Listen,” I said, “let me call Davis Claren and have him come over and pick up Sue. She’ll be at his place when you want her.”

He looked at me thoughtfully, then nodded. After I’d phoned and come back into the room, I saw he had slumped down on the divan and was sitting there, chewing that un-lighted cigar. Sue was sitting in a chair staring at him, white and still. I could see she was near the breaking point and was barely holding herself together.

Only after she had gone off with her friends did he look up at me. “How about you? You do it?”

“Me?” I demanded. “Why would I kill the guy? I never knew him!”

“You knew her,” he stated flatly. “She looks like she has

a lot of trust in you. Maybe she called on you for help.I Maybe she called on you before the guy was dead instead| of after.”

“Bosh.” That was the only answer I had to that one.

When he finally let me go, I beat it down to my car. It was after four in the morning, and there was little I couldl do. It felt cold and lonely in my apartment. I stripped of my clothes and tumbled into bed.

The telephone jolted me out of it. It was Taggart. I should have known it would be him. He was Sue’s boss and, as executives went in Hollywood, he was all right. That meant he was basically honest but he wouldn’t ever get caught making a statement that couldn’t be interpreted at least three different ways. And if the winds of studio politics changed, he’d cut Sue loose like a sail in a storm.

“Sue tells me she called you,” he barked. “Well, what have you got?”

“Nothing yet,” I told him. “Give me time.”

“There isn’t any time. The D.A. thinks she did it. He’s all hopped up against the Industry, anyway. I’m sending a man over to your office at eight with a thousand dollars. Consider that a retainer!” Bang; he hung up the phone.

It was a quarter to eight. I rolled out of bed, into the shower, into my clothes, and through a session with an electric razor so fast that it seemed like one continuous movement. And then, when I was putting the razor away, the name of Larry Craine clicked in my mind.

A week ago, or probably two, I’d been standing in front of a hotel on Vine Street talking to Joe. Joe was a cab starter who knew everybody around. With us was standing a man, a stranger to me, some mug from back East. He spoke up suddenly, and nodded across toward the Derby.

“I’ll be damned, that’s Larry Craine!” said the man. “What’s he doing out here?”

“I think he lives here,” Joe said.

“He didn’t when I knew him!” The fellow growled.

With the thousand dollars in my pocket, I started hunting for Joe. I’d never known his last name, but I got it pretty quick when I looked at a cabbie over a five-dollar bill. It was Joe McCready and he lived out in Burbank.

There were other things to do first, and I did a lot of them on a pay phone. Meanwhile, I was thinking, and when I finally got to Joe, he hesitated only a minute, then shrugged.

“You’re a pal of mine,” he said, “or I’d say nothing. This lug who spotted Larry Craine follows the horses. I think he makes book, but I wouldn’t know about that. He doesn’t do any business around the corner.”

“What do you know about Larry Craine?”

“Nothing. Doesn’t drink very much, gets around a lot, and seems to know a lot of people. Mostly, he hangs around on the edge of things, spends pretty free when there’s a crowd around, but tips like he never carried anything but nickels.”

Joe looked up at me. “You watch yourself. This guy we were talkin’ to, his name is Pete Ravallo. He plays around with some pretty fast company.”

He did have Craine’s address. I think Joe McCready knew half the addresses and telephone numbers in that part of town. He never talked much, but he listened a lot, and he never forgot anything. My detective agency couldn’t have done the business it did without elevator boys, cab starters, newsboys, porters, and bellhops.

That was how I got into Craine’s apartment. I went around there and saw Paddy. Paddy had been a doorman in that apartment house for five years. We used to talk about the fights and football games, sitting on the stoop, just the two of us.

“The police have been there,” Paddy advised, “but they didn’t stay long. I can get y’ in, but remember, if y’ get caught, it’s on your own y’ are!”

This Craine had done all right by himself. I could see that the minute I looked around. I took a quick gander at the desk, but not with any confidence. The cops would have headed for the desk right away, and Reardon was a smart fellow. So was Tanner, for that matter. I headed for the clothes closet.

He must have had twenty-five suits and half that many sport coats, all a bit loud for my taste. I started at one end and began going through them, not missing a pocket. Also, as I went along, I checked the labels. He had three suits from New Orleans. They were all pretty shabby and showed much wear. They were stuck back in a corner of the closet out of the way.

The others were all comparatively new, and all made in Hollywood or Beverly Hills. At first that didn’t make much of an impression, but it hit me suddenly as I was going through the fourteenth suit, or about there. Larry Craine had been short of money in New Orleans but he had been very flush in Hollywood. What happened to put his hands on a lot of money, and fast?

When I hit the last suit in line, I had netted just three ticket stubs and twenty-one cents in money. The last suit was the payoff. When I opened the coat, I saw right away that I’d jumped to a false conclusion. Here was one suit, bought ready-made, in Dallas.

In the inside coat pocket, I found an airline envelope, and in it, the receipt for one passenger from Dallas to Los Angeles via American Airlines. Also, there was a stub, the * sort of thing given to you after a street photographer takes your picture. If you want the snapped picture, you can get it and more of them if you wish, if you want to pay a modest sum of money. Craine hadn’t been interested.

Pocketing the two articles, I slipped out the back way and let Paddy know I was gone. He looked relieved when he saw me off.

“Nick Tanner just went up,” he said.

“Thanks, Paddy,” I told him.

I walked around in front and saw Reardon standing by the squad car. Putting my hands in my pockets, I strolled up to him.

“Hi,” I said. “How’s it going?”

His eyes were shrewd as he studied me. “Not so good for Miss Shannon,” he said carefully. “That ice pick did the job, all right. Doc Spates will swear to it. We found blood close up against the handle where it wasn’t washed carefully. It’s the same type as his blood.

“Also,” he added, “we checked on her. She left that party she was at with Gentry and the Clarens early, about three hours before it was over, which would make it along about ten-thirty. She was gone for all of thirty to forty-five minutes. In other words, she had time to leave the party, go home, kill this guy, and get back to the party.”

“You don’t believe that!” I exclaimed.

He shrugged and took a cigar from his pocket. “It isn’t what I believe, it’s what the district attorney can make the jury believe. Something you want to think about.” He looked up at me from under his eyebrows as he bit off the end of the cigar. “The D.A. is ambitious. A big Hollywood murder trial would give him lots of publicity. The only thing that would make him happier would be a basement full of communists!”

“Yeah.” I could see it all right, I could see him riding right to the governor’s chair on a deal like that. Or into the Senate. “One thing, Reardon. If she had done it, wouldn’t she have had the Clarens come in with her to help her find the body? That would be the smart stunt. And she’s actress enough to carry it off.”

“I know.” He struck a match and lit the cigar, then grinned sardonically at me. “But she’s actress enough to fool you, too!”

Was she? I wasn’t so sure. I’d known her a long time. Maybe you never really know anyone. And murder is something that comes much too easily sometimes.

“Reardon,” I said, “don’t pinch Sue. Hold off on it until I can work on it.”

He shrugged. “I can’t. The D.A.”s already convinced. He wants an arrest. We haven’t another lead of any kind. We shook his apartment down, we made inquiries all over town. We don’t have another suspect.”

“We’ve been buddies a long time,” I pleaded. “Give her forty-eight hours. Taggart’s retained me on this case, and I think I’ve got something.”

“Taggart has, eh?” He looked at me thoughtfully. “Don’t give me a runaround, now. The district attorney thinks he has a line on it himself. It seems Craine’s done some talking around town. He thinks he’s got a motive, though he’s not saying what it is yet.”

“Two days?”

“All right. But then we’re going ahead with what we’ve got. I’ll give you until … let’s see, this is Monday … you’ve got until Wednesday morning.”

Sue was waiting for me when I got there. She was a beautiful woman, even as tight and strained as she was.

“Is it true? Are they going to arrest me?”

“I hope not.” I sat down abruptly. “I’d let them arrest me if I could.”

“No, you won’t.” I looked up and her eyes were sharp and hard. “You came into this because I asked you, and I won’t have that happen.”

It was the first time I’d seen her show her anger, although I knew she had it. It surprised me, and I sat back and looked at her and I guess my surprise must have shown because she said, defensively, “Don’t you talk that way. That’s going too far!”

“Well you’ve got to help me. Just what did Craine want from you?”

“Money.” She shrugged. “He told me he wanted ten percent of all I made from now on. He said he had been broke for the last time, that now that he had money he was always going to have money no matter what it cost.”

“Did you talk to him many times?”

“Three times. He had some letters. There was nothing bad in them, but the way he read them made them sound pretty bad. It wasn’t only that. He knew some stories that I don’t want told, about my uncle.”

I knew all about that, and could understand.

“But that wasn’t all. He told me I had to give him information about other people out here. About Mr. Taggart, for instance, and some of the others. He was very pleased with himself. He obviously was sure he had a very good plan worked out.”

“Does Taggart know about this?”

“No one does. You’re the only one I’ve told. The only one I will tell.”

“Did Craine ever hint about how he got this money he had?”

“Well, not exactly. He told me I needn’t think I could evade the issue because he was desperate. He told me there wasn’t anything he would hesitate to do. He said once, I’ve already gone as far as I can go, so you know what to expect if you try to double-cross me.” ”

When she left, I offered the best reassurances I could dig out of a mind that was running pretty low on hope. Reardon was careful, and if he couldn’t find anything on Larry Craine, there was small chance I could. My only angle was one that had been stirring in the back of my mind all the time.

Where did Larry Craine get his money? He had been living in Hollywood for several months. He lived well and spent a good bit. That meant that wherever he had come into money, it had been plenty.

To cover all the bases I sent off a wire to an agency in New Orleans.

My next move was a shot in the dark. There was only one person I knew of who had known Craine before he came to Hollywood. I was going to see Pete Ravallo.

He was in a hotel on Ivar, and it didn’t take me but two hours and twenty dollars to find him. I rapped on the door to his room, and he opened it a crack. His eyes studied me, and I could see he vaguely remembered my face.

“What’d you want?” he demanded. He was a big guy, and his voice was harsh. “Conversation,” I said.

He sized me up a minute, then let the door open and I walked in. He waved me to a seat and poured himself a drink. There was a gun in a shoulder holster hanging over a chair back. He didn’t offer me a drink, and he didn’t look very pleased.

“All right,” he said. “Spill it!”

“I’m a private shamus and I’m investigating the murder of Lawrence Craine.”

You could have dropped a feather. His eyes were small and dark and as he looked at me they got still smaller and still darker.

“So you come to me?” he demanded.

I shrugged. “One night down on the street, I heard you say something about knowing him in New Orleans. Maybe you could give me a line on the guy.”

He studied me. Somehow, I felt sure, there was a tie-up, a tie-up that went a lot further than a casual meeting. Ravallo had been too pleased at seeing Craine. Pleased, and almost triumphant.

“I don’t know anything about the guy,” he said. “Only that he used to be around the tracks down there. I knew him by sight like I knew fifty others. He used to put down a bet once in a while.”

“Seen him since he’s been here?” I asked carefully. Ravallo’s face tightened and his eyes got mean. “Listen,” he said. “Don’t try to pin that job on me, see? You get to nosing in my business and you’ll wind up wearing a concrete block on your feet! I don’t like cops. I like private coppers a lot less, and I like you still less than that! So get up and get out!”

“Okay.” I got up. “You’d better tell me what you can, because otherwise I’m going back to New Orleans … and Dallas!”

“Wait a minute,” he said. He went over behind me to the phone and spun the dial.

“Come on over here,” he said into the phone. “I’ve got a problem.”

The hair on the back of my neck suddenly felt prickly and I turned in time to see the sap descending. I threw up an arm, catching him above the elbow. I grabbed his wrist and jerked him forward into the back of the chair, then I lunged forward, hit the carpet with my knees, and, turning, stood up.

Pete Ravallo threw the chair out of his way and came toward me; his voice was cold. “I told you, and now I’m going to show you!” He cocked his arm and swung again.

It was a bad thing for him to do. I hit his arm with my open palm and at the same time I knocked his arm over, I slugged him in the stomach with my left.

He doubled up, and I smacked him again, but the big lug could take it, and he charged me, head down. Isidestepped quickly, tripped over a suitcase, and hit the floor all in one piece. The next thing I knew I got the wind booted out of me and before I could get my hands up, he slugged me five or six times and I was helpless.

He slammed me back against the wall with one hand and then swung the blackjack. He brought it down over my skull, and as everything faded out, I heard him snarling: “Now get lost, or I’ll kill you!”

When I came out of it, I was lying in a linen closet off the hall. I struggled to my feet and swayed drunkenly, trying to get my head clear and get moving. I got out in the hall and straightened my clothes. My face felt stiff and sore, and when I put my hand up to my head, I found blood was caked in my hair and on the side of my face. Then I cleaned myself up as best I could and got out.

It was after eleven, and there was a plane leaving for Oklahoma City at about twelve-thirty. When it took off, I was on it. And the next morning, Tuesday morning, I was standing, quite a bit worse for wear, in front of the Dallas Morning News.

When a crook comes into a lot of money, it usually makes headlines. What I had learned so far was ample assurance that what had happened had happened near here. I went to the files of the paper and got busy.

It took me some time, but when I had covered almost two months, I found what I was looking for. It was not a big item, and was well down on an inside page. If I had not been covering it with care, I would never have found the piece at all.

MURDERED MAN BELIEVED GANG VICTIM

Police today announced they had identified the body of the murdered man found in a ditch several miles south of the city. He proved to be Giuseppe Ravallo a notorious racketeer from Newark, NJ. Ravallo, who did two terms in the New Jersey State Prison for
larceny and assault with a deadly weapon, was reported to have come here recently from New Orleans where he had been implicated in a race-fixing plot.

Ravallo was said to have come to town as the advance man for eastern racketeers determined to move into the area. He was reported, by several local officials whom he approached, to be carrying a considerable amount of money. No money was found on the body. Ravallo had been shot three times in the back and once in the head by a .38-caliber pistol.

So there it was. Just like that, and no wonder Pete Ravallo had wanted to keep me out of the case!

The photo coupon was still in my pocket. At the photographers shop it took me only a few minutes to get. it. When I had the picture, I took one look and headed for the airport.

In Los Angeles there was a few minutes’ wait to claim my luggage, and then I turned toward a cab. I turned, but that was all. A man had moved up beside me. He was small and pasty-faced, and his eyes were wide and strange. There was nothing small about the feel of the cannon he put in my ribs.

“Come on!” he said. “That car over there!” There are times for bravery. There are also times when bravery is a kind of insanity. Tonight, within limits, I was

perfectly sane. I walked along to the car and saw the thick neck of a mug behind the wheel, and then I was getting in and looking at Pete Ravallo. There were a lot of people I would rather have seen.

“I can’t place the face,” I said brightly, “but the breath smells familiar!”

“Be smart!” Ravallo said. “Go ahead and be smart while you got the chance!”

The car was rolling, and Pasty Face was still nudging me with the artillery.

“Listen, chum!” I suggested. “Move the gun. I’m not going anyplace!”

Pasty Face chuckled. “Oh, yes, you are! You got some things to learn.”

We drove on, and eventually wound around in the hills along a road I finally decided was Mulholland Drive. It was a nice place to dispose of a body. I’d probably wind up as part of a real estate plot and be subdivided. In fact, I had a pretty good idea the subdividing was planned for right quick.

When the car pulled in at the edge of the dark road, I knew this was it.

“Get out!”

Ravallo let Pasty Face unload first, and then he put his foot in my back and shoved.

Maybe Pasty Face was supposed to trip me. Maybe Ravallo didn’t realize we were so close to the canyon, but that shove with his foot was all I needed. I took it, ducked the guy with the gun, and plunged off into the darkness.

It wasn’t a sheer drop. It was a steep slide off into the dark, brush-filled depths of a canyon whose sides were scattered with boulders. I must have run all of twenty feet in gigantic steps before I lost balance and sprawled, headfirst into the brush.

Behind me a shot rang out, and then I heard Ravallo swear.

“After him, you idiots! Get him!”

Kicking my feet over, I fell on the downhill side of the bush and flame stabbed the night behind me, but I wasn’t waiting. This was no time to stand on ceremony and I was not going to take a chance on their missing me in the darkness of that narrow canyon. I rolled over, scrambled to my feet, and lunged downhill.

Then I tripped over something and sprawled headlong.. A flashlight stabbed the darkness. That was a different story, and I lay still, feeling for what I’d tripped over. It was a thick branch wedged between the sprawling roots of some brush. Carefully, I worked it loose.

Somebody was coming nearer. I lay quiet, waiting and balancing my club. Then I saw him, and he must have moved quietly for he was within two feet of my head!

He took a step and I stuck my club between his feet. He took a header and started to swear. That was all I needed, for I smacked down with that club. It hit him right over the noggin and I scrambled up his frame and wrenched the gun from his hand.

“Stan?” Ravallo called.

I balanced the gun and wet my lips. There were two of them, but I was through running.

I cocked the gun and squared my feet, breaking a small branch in the process.

He fired, but I had been moving even as I realized I’d given away my position. I hit the dirt a half-dozen feet away. My own pistol stabbed flame and he fired back. I got a mouthful of sand and backed up hurriedly. But Pete Ravallo wasn’t happy. I heard him whispering hoarsely, and then heard a slight sound downhill from me.

I turned, and Ravallo’s gun stabbed out of the dark and something struck me a blow on the shoulder. My gun went clattering among the stones, and I knew from Ravallo’s shout that he knew what had happened.

Crouching like a trapped animal, I stared into the blackness right and left. There was no use hunting for the gun. The noise I would make would give them all they needed to shoot at, and Pete Ravallo was doing too well at shooting in the dark.

Fighting desperately for silence I backed up, then turned and worked my way cautiously back through the brush, parting it with my hands, and putting each foot down carefully so as not to scuff any stones or gravel.

I was in total darkness when I heard the sound of heavy breathing, and close by. It was a cinch this couldn’t be Pete Ravallo, so it must be the thick-necked mug. I waited, and heard a slight sound. I could barely see the dim outline of a face. Putting everything I had into it, I threw my left!

Beggar’s luck was with me and it smashed on flesh

and he went sliding down the gravel bank behind him. Instantly, flame stabbed the night. One bullet whiffed close by, and then I began to run. I was lighter than Pete, and my arm was throbbing with agony that seemed to be eased by the movement even as pressure seems to ease an aching tooth. I lunged at that hill and, fighting with both feet and my one good hand, started to scramble back for the top.

Ravallo must have hesitated a moment or two, trying to locate his driver. I was uphill from him anyway, and by the time he started I had a lead of at least forty yards and was pulling away fast. He tried one more shot, then held his fire. A light came on in a distant house.

Tearing my lungs out gasping for air, I scrambled over the top into the road. The car was sitting there, with the-motor running, but I’d no thought of getting away. He still had shells, probably an extra clip, too. I twisted into the driver’s seat and threw the car into gear and pointed it down the embankment. There was one sickening moment when the car teetered, and then I half jumped, half fell out of the door.

In that wild, fleeting instant as the car plunged headfirst downhill, I caught a glimpse of Pete Ravallo.

The gangster was full in the glare of the headlights, and even as I looked, he threw up his arms and screamed wildly, insanely into the night! And then all I could hear was the crashing tumble of the car going over and over to the bottom of the canyon.

For what seemed a long time I lay there in the road, then crawled to my feet. I felt weak and sick and the world was spinning around so I had to brace myself to stand. I was like that when I heard the whine of a siren and saw a car roll up and stop. There were other sirens farther off.

Reardon was in the third car to arrive. He ran to me.

“What happened? Where’s Ravallo?”

I gestured toward the canyon. “How’d you know about him?”

While several officers scrambled down into the canyon, he helped me to the car and ripped off my coat.

“Joe McCready,” Reardon said. “He knew you’d gone to Dallas, and he heard the cabbies say that Ravallo was watching the airport. So, I wired Dallas to see if they knew anything about Craine or Ravallo. The paper told me that you found a story about Giuseppe Ravallo’s body. So I had some boys watching Pete at this end while we tried to piece the thing together.

“They had gone for coffee and were just getting back when they saw Ravallo’s car pulling away. A few minutes’ checking and they found you’d come in on the plane. We thought we’d lost you until we got a report of some shooting up this way.”

Between growls at the pain of my shoulder, I explained what had happened. There were still gaps to fill in, but it seemed Ravallo had been trying to find out who killed his brother.

“He either had a hunch Craine had done it for the money Giuseppe was carrying, or just happened to see him and realized he was flush. That would be all he would need to put two and two together. However he arrived at the solution, he was right.”

Fishing in my coat pocket, I got out the snapshot. It was a picture of Giuseppe Ravallo, bearing a strong resemblance to Pete, sitting at a table with Larry Craine.

“Maybe Craine left New Orleans with Ravallo, and maybe he followed him. Anyway, when Craine left New Orleans he was broke, then he hit Dallas and soon had plenty of money. He bought a suit of clothes there, then came on here and started living high and fast. Ravallo was back behind him, dead.”

My arm was throbbing painfully, but I had to finish the story and get the thing straightened out.

“Pete must have tailed him to Sue’s apartment, maybe one of those goons down there in the canyon was with. him. He probably didn’t know where he was going and cared less. He saw his chance and took it. Pete seems the vendetta type. He would think first of revenge, and the money would come second. Her car evidently drove up before he had the money. Or maybe he didn’t even try to get it.”

Reardon nodded. “That’s a place for us to start. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the D.A.” He grinned at me. “But when you took off to Dallas, you had me sweating!”

All the way back to town, I nursed my shoulder and was glad to get to the hospital. The painkillers put me under and I dreamed that I was dying in a dark canyon under the crushing weight of a car.

When I fought my way back to life after a long sleep, it was morning and Sue Shannon was sitting there by the bed. I looked up at her thoughtfully.

“What?” she asked.

“I thought I was dying in a dream … and then I woke up and thought I’d gone to heaven.”

She smiled.

“I was wondering if I’d have to wait until you found another corpse before I saw you again?” I asked.

“Not if you like a good meal and know of a quiet restaurant where we can get one.”

My eyes absorbed her beauty again and I thought heaven could wait, living would do for now.