Part 2 (1/2)

We chatted pleasantly for a few minutes, then she said, ”I'm pretty tired, Sh.e.l.l. Think I'll go to bed.”

”Oh?”

There must have been in my expression something of what flashed through my mind, because she smiled and added, ”So you'd better run along. I feel wretched, really.”

”Oh.” It had quite a different sound this time, even to my ears.

She walked to the door with me and outside, and as I turned toward her to say good night, she lifted her face and looked up at me, her lips parted, gleaming, and curved slightly upwards at the corners in what might have been the start of a smile. Might have been - but I would never know for sure, because I put my hand behind her, in the small of her back, and pulled her close against me.

She didn't resist, didn't pull away, and I saw her eyes close, lids falling heavily as her lips parted even more, and then those lips were on mine. On mine like melting lava, hot and wetly pulsing, curling, trembling. It could have been seconds or minutes later that she pressed her hands against my chest and pushed me away from her.

”Good night, Sh.e.l.l,” she said softly, and then she was gone. The door closed behind her.

I turned and walked to my car and got in, and if anybody nearby had been desirous of shooting me, that would have been the best possible time for it. I drove toward town with a silly smile on my still tingling lips, and it was only when I had practically reached the Civic Center in downtown L.A. that I thought about looking behind me.

But I made it to the Police Building with no trouble, and took the elevator to the third floor. As I walked into room 314, Homicide, Sam came in the door behind me.

Sam is my very good friend, Phil Samson, Captain of Homicide. He's a wide, hard man, with thick shoulders and big, heavy-knuckled hands. He looks a little like a tank made out of people, and he can hit a hoodlum harder with his brown eyes than most men can with a large stick.

We said h.e.l.lo and I asked him, ”What's the story on Chester Weiss, Sam?”

He nodded. ”I hear you were the one found the body.”

”Correct. He spilled some interesting items about Frank Quinn to a client of mine, one Doris Miller.” I filled him in on the high points, then briefed him on my trip to Quinn's and the Freeway excitement, while he nodded, grunted and knuckled his gray hair a time or two.

When I finished he said, ”Yeah. The gentleman you shot in the face - ”

”Was no gentleman.”

” - is in the morgue. Name of Arthur Hay Grant, known when alive as Turkey Grant.”

”Cold Turkey now. You found him, huh?”

Sam nodded. ”We picked up the gun off the Freeway, Thompson submachine gun, no prints, no numbers. Found Grant in the car up near Brush Canyon, no driver, no witnesses. Car had been wiped clean - it was registered in Grant's name. Criminalistics is still checking the car and gun.”

”And Weiss? I know, of course, who killed the man. But how did Quinn do it?”

”You know - of course, huh?” Sam shook his head. ”He died of a heart attack.”

”Sure. That's like saying death killed him. Come on, what really did him in?”

Samson sighed. ”I just told you. Heart attack. Nothing funny about it. We talked to his doctor - Weiss was under a physician's care, you know.”

”I heard.”

”He told us Weiss could have gone off any time. A year, month, today. So it was today. Last night, actually. Want to look at the Coroner's report?”

”Might as well.”

Sam got the report and gave it to me. I digested it. Or, rather, tried to. Medical language is like Esperanto spelled inside out, a secret doctor-language apparently designed to make falling hair sound like a ruptured bladder. But I managed to decipher enough to discover that the P.M. showed recent heart damage, arteries plugged up like sewer pipes, and the deceased had expired as the result of a ”coronary occlusion,” which sounds as if both his kidneys had exploded simultaneously, but which meant that Chester Weiss had, indeed, died of a heart attack.

”Well, nuts,” I said. ”So how come Quinn knew something had happened to Weiss?”

”Maybe he didn't - you've been wrong before. Or maybe he knew Weiss was dead. So what? That doesn't mean he killed him.”

”Well, it makes no difference now, anyway. That slob tried to kill me today, and if I keep on living I'm going to get the b.u.m.”

”Wish you luck,” Sam said. ”We'd like to get him ourselves.” He paused. ”Funny thing, here a few years ago this guy was a punk. Now if he gets into some kind of bind half a dozen respectable people stand up for him.”

”Yeah.” I thought about that. ”Sam when did you first hear of Quinn?”

”First we had to do with him was the time of the Prentice case. Four years ago, maybe a little more.”

That was the name - Prentice. It had been tickling my brain earlier, but I hadn't been able to pin it down. ”Raleigh Prentice, wasn't it?” I asked.

Sam nodded. ”Suicide. Quinn had an appointment to meet Prentice at his home that night. When Prentice put a bullet into his head, Quinn was parking his car out front.”

”Interesting. You sure it was suicide?”

”No question about it,” Sam said. ”His wife was in the hall outside her husband's study, and saw him pull the trigger. Went into hysterics right after - but she saw it, all right. I don't know what Quinn was doing there - we talked to him, of course, and he said Prentice had contacted him, asked him to come around that night.”

”Asked him, huh? Prentice leave a note?”

”No, nothing was found. Just left a mess in his study.”

”Wouldn't you expect a suicide to leave a suicide note, Sam?”

”Some do, some don't. But Quinn couldn't have killed Prentice himself, if that's what you're thinking. It was definitely established, by neighbors, that Quinn was outside when the shot was fired. He heard the shot himself, and heard Mrs. Prentice screaming, went inside the house and actually calmed her down. Helped her a lot, she said.”

”A big heart, that Quinn.”

Sam grunted. ”Quinn even called us from the house, reported the death. Last time he ever called the police, far as I know.” Sam got out one of his black cigars and stuck it, unlighted, into his mouth. ”What got me about the whole thing, Prentice was a respected businessman, worth a million bucks or more. Why would he have asked a punk gunman like Frank Quinn to come calling that night?”

”Are you sure he did? Or is that just Quinn's story?”

”Quinn's. But we can't ask Prentice.”

He started to say something else, but I held up a hand. A thought was buzzing faintly. ”Wasn't there something else around the same time, Sam? A friend of Prentice's . . .”

”Yeah, probably his best friend. Man named Schuyler, George Schuyler. He got himself killed right after - the next night I think.”

Now it came back to me. And Schuyler's death hadn't been a suicide. Not unless he'd been a very speedy contortionist. He'd been shot five times, including once in the back.

”He didn't have an appointment with Quinn, too, did he?”

Sam grinned. ”Not so far as we know, Sh.e.l.l. He probably didn't know he had an appointment with anybody.”

”n.o.body got caught for that one, huh?”