The Fatal Foursome Page 9

  “That could have been Randolph,” Liddell mused. “He’d been out on a binge, sobered up and called Goodman for money or a car. Goodman found out where he was and sicked Cookie Russo on him. Cookie’s boys faked the accident and Randolph turns up dead in an auto accident. It may not be good, but it might sound awful loud to a jury.”

  “But why should Russo do it?”

  “Plenty of reasons. Goodman owed him dough, for one. The best way to get his dough was to see to it that Goodman laid his hands on some. Then, with that on Goodman, Russo had a soft touch for the rest of his life. He could bleed Goodman dry.”

  The girl’s face was white, and she shivered as though she were cold. “I’m scared, Liddell.”

  “What of?”

  “I don’t know. Everybody connected with Goodman seems to be getting theirs. I—I’m afraid I’m next. Maybe they think I know something. I don’t, Liddell. I swear I don’t.” She asked for another cigarette, lighted it with shaking fingers. “Even Goodman’s wife feels it. She’s keeping on that gorilla Goodman hired—for all the good he did him.”

  “Marty Mann, you mean? What about him, Blondie?”

  The girl picked a fleck of tobacco off the tip of her tongue with one of her long, shellacked nails. “Goodman got him about a week ago. He stuck close to him all the time. When Goodman was out with a dame, Marty would be waiting out front. If Goodman was alone, Marty would be within calling distance.”

  Johnny Liddell nodded. “He hadn’t been in the office the morning Goodman got killed?”

  She shook her head. “No. He was at Goodman’s house. Any time Goodman had an important conference, he’d set it late enough so that none of us would be in the office. I guess that night he sent Marty out to the house to wait for him. Anyway, when I called Goodman’s place, Marty answered the phone.”

  “Well, that one does double duty. It alibis Marty and Mrs. Goodman at the same time.” He reached down without invitation, refilled his glass with bourbon, helped the girl to scotch. “Did you know Mrs. Goodman was on the junk?”

  “Cocaine, you mean? Yes, I knew it.” the girl answered. “Goodman did that to her. He liked to destroy things and people, especially when they were strong-willed and independent. So that’s the way he went about destroying her.”

  Liddell took a sip of water, followed it with the bourbon. “You mean to tell me that even though Mrs. Goodman was a hophead, a movie pash like Randolph played around with her?”

  “You’d have to know them to understand.” The harsh note that had crept into the girl’s voice had faded out and was almost tender. “Randolph was no good, never had been. But Mrs. Goodman mothered him. I guess she was the first one ever to be nice to him. He went for her.” She shrugged. “Things like that happen.”

  Liddell pulled himself up from his chair, walked out into the kitchenette. He refilled his water glass, brought it back, and poured half into the girl’s tumbler. She looked tired.

  “This has been a pretty tough deal for you, hasn’t it?” he asked.

  The girl nodded. Liddell hoisted a thigh onto the arm of her chair, ran his fingers lightly through her hair.

  “How come a gal with all you’ve got on the ball wastes her time behind a typewriter?”

  She studied his face for a moment, then smiled. The smile stopped dead below her eyes. They were wary. “I haven’t exactly wasted my time. This hideout look like it?”

  Liddell looked around the patently expensive room. “You never made this pounding a typewriter—at least not the way you pound it.”

  Anger glared from her eyes for a second, then they were shielded by dropped lids. “So?”

  “Who put the money up?” Liddell asked harshly. “It was Goodman, wasn’t it?”

  The girl broke away from his arm, stood up.

  “Get out.” She was shaking with anger.

  “Don’t get so hurt, sugar,” Johnny said. “I’m not just sticking my nose into this mess for vicarious thrills. The guy I’m after is a murderer. I’ve got to know these things.”

  “What things?”

  Liddell stood up. “Why was Goodman paying for your apartment?”

  “Maybe he didn’t always have his mind on business. Or in your book am I so hard to take?”

  “Not hard to take, but hard to make—unless I miss my guess. That case-hardened act you put on doesn’t fool me, Blondie. What did you have on Goodman?”

  The girl picked up her glass, refilled it. “Nothing.”

  “Okay. Then why were you working for him? Not because you could type or be a secretary. Why?”

  “I wanted to be near him. To watch him, if you must know.”

  Johnny Liddell sighed. “Now we’re getting down to cases. Why did you want to watch him?”

  “On account of what he was doing to his wife.” She drank the scotch, sank back into the chair. “I told him that I would kill him if anything ever happened to her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Alice Goodman is…. my sister. You wouldn’t think it to see her now, but she was wonderful once. Full of life and fire. He did this to her. He did it deliberately. I wanted to make sure he couldn’t hurt her any more.”

  “Did you kill him, Blondie?”

  The girl looked up. “No. I didn’t kill him. I should have, but I didn’t. When I realized he was dead, I was afraid Alice had done it. But she hadn’t. She hadn’t left the house, Marty said.” She blew her nose softly. “Liddell, don’t judge her by what she is now. Try to see as I see her—the way she was before Goodman got his hooks into her.”

  Liddell sat on the arm of the chair. “Did Goodman know who you were?”

  “Yes. I told him. I told him I’d kill him if he didn’t leave my sister alone. He thought I was fooling, and one night at the office, he tried to make me.” The hard look came back. “I fought him and got away. I came home here, got a gun and went back after him.” She paused, took a deep breath. “He had already gone. The next morning I told him I’d kill him the next time he laid a hand on me. He started to laugh and I pulled out the gun. He never bothered me after that.”

  “Where’s the gun?”

  She indicated a breakfront desk in the corner. “Top drawer.” She watched without comment as Liddell went over to the desk, opened the drawer, and took out a revolver.

  “A .38, eh?” He spun the cylinder, noted no shells had been fired, smelled the barrel. “Goodman was shot with a .38 by someone he knew well enough to let get close to him. That wouldn’t be Cookie Russo, but it might be you.”

  “It wasn’t me. It should have been, maybe. But it wasn’t me.”

  Liddell dropped the gun into his jacket pocket. “It’ll have to be checked against the slugs they took out of Goodman and Moreno.”

  “Check it against anything you like. That gun hasn’t been fired since I bought it.”

  Johnny wandered aimlessly around the room. “You know you should have told all this to the police, don’t you?” he asked.

  “What good could it do? I didn’t kill Goodman, neither did my sister. It would only drag her name through the mud, and God knows she’s been through enough already!”

  The detective nodded. “Okay, Blondie. I’ll buy that.” He stopped his wandering, stood over her. “One more point. You said Goodman made a pass at you one night. Then you came home, got your gun and went back after him. How late at night?”

  “About eleven.”

  “Weren’t you afraid that the building people would see you and put the finger on you the next morning?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t have to go up through the front of the building. Goodman had keys made for the freight entrance around the side. As I told you, he sometimes had conferences with people who didn’t want to be seen. He always gave them keys to that back entrance.”

  “His wife had one of those keys?”

  “Why do you keep harping on Alice? She didn’t have a key, and she didn’t do it, I tell you.” She got out of the chair, stood face to fac
e with the detective. Her voice lost its edge. “Alice didn’t do it. Believe me, Liddell.” She took a step nearer. Her eyes were half closed and the blond hair, where he had rumpled it, hung down over her shoulders in a metallic gold cascade. Her lips were only a few inches from his.

  “Stay here, Johnny,” she said huskily. “Don’t leave me. I—I’m afraid.”

  He held her away from him. “I can’t, sugar. There’s a guy I’ve got to see. Cookie Russo.”

  “No, don’t, Johnny.” Her voice was urgent. “Stay away from him. You can’t do any good. Goodman is dead, so are Mona Varden and Moreno. Why should you be next? Don’t go.”

  Her arms slid around his neck, held him tight. Her lips crushed against his. Again he thrust her back.

  “I’ve got to go, Blondie. You may think it’s a gag saying you’re afraid. But unless I can lay that killer by the heels, you are in real danger.”

  The girl’s eyes fell. “It—it’s not a gag, Liddell. I want you to stay. I—I’ve never asked anybody to stay before. But I want you to stay.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve got to finish this job now, Blondie.”

  She looked him squarely in the eye. “You’ll come back, Johnny?”

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  CHAPTER TEN

  JOHNNY LIDDELL’S CAB rolled to a stop at the canopied entrance of the Chateau Chance. It was a converted private estate that got a heavy play from the movie crowd. The grounds consisted of about ten acres of water frontage overlooking the Pacific and were surrounded on three sides by a high wall of native stone and cement.

  A gaudily uniformed doorman opened the cab door. Liddell tossed the driver a bill, got out and loped up the steps of the house, turned right into what was now the barroom. He hit the bar for two quick bourbons, was pleasantly surprised to note that the liquor tasted like the brand name on the bottle.

  “Hear a guy can get a ride for his money here,” Liddell said.

  The white-jacketed man behind the stick shrugged. “I just tend the bar here, sir.” Surreptitiously he signaled one of the floor men. A man in a tuxedo that fitted too snugly across the hips and showed signs of ample and expert padding across the shoulders approached.

  “Can I help you, sir?” he asked.

  Johnny nodded. “Friends of mine in town told me I could play a little roulette out this way. Toni Belden of the Dispatch, for one. Know her?”

  The man in the tuxedo smiled politely. “Of course, sir. Any friend of Miss Beiden’s is very welcome here!” He indicated a cleverly disguised door at the back of the room. “Would you mind speaking to the gentleman over there, sir? Explain that you are our guest tonight.”

  The detective nodded, slid off his bar stool, made his way to the rear. The door was guarded by a tuxedoed floor man with a flattened nose. He stared coldly at Liddell for a moment, then broke into a wide-mouthed grin. “Say, I make you. You’re the private eye that cracked that Cameron case.” His voice was a guttural croak. “Remember me?”

  “Sure, Mushky. I thought I recognized you. Been a long time.”

  Mushky grinned happily. “Sure has. What are you doing out here, Liddell?”

  Johnny Liddell shrugged. “I got a couple of loose bucks that feel ambitious. Game hot tonight?”

  “Want to see how the other half lives, eh?” Mushky cast a cautious eye around, dropped his voice. “Stay off the blackjack and roulette. Sucker stuff. The crap table’s nearest thing to leveling in the joint.” He pushed on a section of the door frame and a panel slid open. Two eyes regarded them from within. “It’s okay, Harry. This here’s Johnny Liddell. Let him in.”

  The panel slid shut, and after a second the door swung open. Liddell slipped a folded five into Mushky’s ham-like hand, and entered. He found himself in a little vestibule that had no lights. As soon as the door to the barroom had closed behind him, another door leading to the gambling room opened.

  A low buzz of conversation spiced with the click of roulette wheels came to him. A dozen or more people were huddled around a large roulette layout in the center of the room while on the side a hot crap game was in operation. The bird cages and the slot machines lining the walls were getting a moderately small play.

  Johnny walked over to the cashier’s cage, dropped a fifty. He received three red chips and four whites. In fifteen minutes he had run it up to twelve reds and six whites and in an hour he had lost the whole works.

  Liddell wandered away from the roulette table, stopped to watch the crap game for a few minutes, played a few quarters in the slot machine. Beyond the slot machines, a corridor opened into a hall. At the far end, Liddell could make out a door marked Private. A tall, thin man in a tuxedo lounged outside. Johnny walked down the hall, found his way barricaded.

  “You’re off your course, chum,” the thin man told him humorlessly. “It’s on the other side of the house. It says Men on it.”

  “I’m looking for Cookie Russo. He wants to see me.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “Johnny Liddell.”

  The thin man pulled a typewritten list from his breast pocket, studied it laboriously, then looked up with hard, expressionless eyes. “Cookie don’t want to see you, chum. Beat it.”

  Liddell didn’t move. “He don’t know it, but he wants to see me bad. Try him. Tell him it’s about Goodman, about a telephone call the afternoon before Goodman was croaked.”

  The thin man stared at him for a second, then grunted. “This better not be a gag, mister. I ain’t got much sense of humor.” He turned, gave a code knock against the metal door marked Private. From deep inside a buzzer sounded, and the door opened, swallowing up the thin man. In a moment he was back.

  “Inside,” he said in the same fiat, expressionless tone.

  Johnny Liddell preceded him into the office. He heard the door click alter him, then felt a sharp jab in the small of his back.

  “That’s far enough,” the thin man growled from behind him.

  Cookie Russo sat behind a highly polished desk. He was anything but what Johnny Liddell had pictured him to be. He was thin, dapper. His hair, beginning to show signs of thinning at the temples, was light and wavy. He wore a heavy gold identification bracelet and had the habit of fumbling with the points of the fine Irish linen handkerchief he wore in his breast pocket.

  “Is he light?” Cookie asked the thin man.

  Liddell felt the man expertly fan him, come up with the .45 from his shoulder holster, and Blondie’s .38 from his jacket pocket. The thin man slid both guns across the desk to Cookie.

  “Okay, Jake,” Cookie instructed. “You can wait outside.”

  The thin man faded, and the door clicked behind him. Liddell dropped into a large red leather overstuffed chair across the desk from Cookie Russo. “Name’s Johnny Liddell,” he said.

  Russo looked over the guns, opened his drawer, dropped them in. “Guns make me nervous,” he explained. “Particularly when somebody else has them.” He opened a silver chased humidor and held it out. Liddell took two cigars, stuck one in his pocket.

  “That’s for the fifty I lost on the wheel.”

  Cookie smiled. “Anybody who plays roulette should expect to lose.” He waited while Liddell bit the end off his cigar and lighted it. “You said something about Goodman, Mr. Liddell?”

  Johnny exhaled twin streams of smoke. “I was just interested to know why you told the police you hadn’t heard from Goodman in weeks when you were talking to him the afternoon before he was killed.”

  “So the blonde did talk, eh?” He spoke as though it were a matter of no consequence. “That’s too bad.”

  “All according to how you look at it, Russo,” Johnny countered. “The way I look at it, it would be bad, awful bad, if anything happened to that blonde now. I might have to come visiting again, and then when you took my gun away, it would be piece by piece—slug by slug, that is.”

  Cookie considered the statement carefully, failed to be impressed. “You talk big, Liddell,�
� he admitted. “You’re not police?”

  “Private,” Johnny told him. “Acme in New York. Working on the Goodman deal.” He took a deep drag on the cigar. “Like that, there’s no need for the cops to know about that call. Unless it’s got something to do with the killing.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Could be,” Johnny replied. “There’s a Scandinavian in this deal some place, Russo, and I’ve got a sneaking hunch it’s you.”

  Cookie Russo touched the tips of his handkerchief. “That’s kind of careless talk, isn’t it; seeing as how you’re here and there’s no telling what could happen to you before you got out of here?” He stuck a cigar in the corner of his mouth. “If you get out of here,” he added.

  Johnny Liddell hung one leg over the arm of the chair. “Let’s stop telling each other how tough we are, Russo,” he suggested. “I’m ready to trade. I got some stuff on you that might make this town too hot for you. It’s none of my business. All I want from you is straight answers.”

  Cookie Russo lighted his cigar and stared at the ceiling. “Such as?”

  “This telephone call you made. Did it have anything to do with Harvey Randolph?”

  “Could be!” the gambler admitted.

  Johnny nodded. “I suppose you know that Randolph was killed less than eight hours after you made that call. Goodman was hard up for dough. He owed you plenty. Randolph’s death made it possible for you to get that dough.”

  The gambler smoked silently. “You think I handled the Randolph bump-off for the dough Goodman owed me? Why should I?” He leaned across the desk toward Liddell. “But even if I did, why should I kill Goodman? Now I’ll never get my fifty grand.”

  “That what he owed you?”

  Without answering, Russo opened the top drawer of his desk, took out a small key ring. He selected one key, got up, walked to an oil painting on the far wall. Under it was a small safe that opened to the key. He fumbled in the interior for a moment, came up with a bundle of papers held together with a rubber band. He tossed them to Johnny Liddell. They were IOU’s in varying amounts covering a period of over a year.