The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

On the floor Manners was breathing a lot better.

I said, “Can you hold these guys a minute or two, Sue?”

She looked scornful. “Do you think I’m a sissy?”

I got water from the bathroom, slopped some in Manners’ face. He opened his eyes. I looked at Kirkwood for the first time in minutes. He’d turned around from the window and was watching me with his eyes sunk deep in his head.

There was a bedroom off the living-room. I started through the room like a northeast gale but I didn’t have to go far. The Woodring letters and my gun were in a suit-case under the bed. I stuck the gun in my pocket and, with the other two guns loading me down, I felt like an armory. I went back into the living-room and handed the letters to Kirkwood.

I said, “How much were they asking for them?”

He put the letters in his pocket without looking at them, said dully, “Thanks, but they — This isn’t all; there’s something else they know.”

I got it. “You wouldn’t be meaning something like a New York indictment?”

He didn’t answer but he didn’t have to. I looked at Morris and Harry Lake. I said, “Where did you guys get that information?”

Lake’s licorice-drop eyes sparkled hatred at me. He snarled, “You dicks aren’t the only guys that find out things.”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Morris said swiftly. “They haven’t got a damn thing on us if you’ll just keep that big mouth shut.”

“Just like that,” I said. “I suppose I didn’t have some letters and a gun swiped from me last night and I suppose I didn’t just find ’em here?”

Morris’ eyes were opaque and crafty. He said stubbornly, “I don’t know anything about any letters or any gun.”

“You’ll remember about them,” I said, “when we turn you over to the cops and lay everything in their laps.”

There was a little laugh. It was Sue. She said, “You’re not really that dumb, are you, Kerry? International is being paid to keep Kirkwood and Mrs. Woodring out of a scandal, not shove them in. We’d be earning our money in a big way, telling the cops about letters and indictments and so on.”

She was right. I said, “Yeah,” and scowled at Lake and Skip Morris. “But,” I said, “murder is murder, after all. We can’t turn these guys loose.”

“We don’t have to,” Sue said quietly. “All that’s necessary is to show that they had another reason and a lot better one than blackmail to have killed Levy. The blackmail was just pin money.”

Maybe I sounded skeptical. “And I suppose you can show that?”

“I think so. Unless I’m very wrong. We’ll know soon, as soon as it will take to get all our friends here out to Doctor Sivaja’s — or Levy’s — cult place.”

Kirkwood was looking very unhappy. He said, “But, Miss Jordan, I’d better not. If this gets into the papers—”

“I think you’d better,” Sue said firmly. “Just in case. And don’t worry, there’ll be no reporters there.”

Manners had been on his feet for a couple of minutes. He was leaning against a shiny walnut radio cabinet, looking pretty shaky. Now he stood away from the radio and took three steps in the direction of Harry Lake. His right moved fast and slammed Lake in the face. The punch didn’t seem to have been thrown very hard but there was a sound of bone snapping and cartilage smashing and Lake went down as though he had been tapped with a mallet. His broken nose was broken all over again and covered half his face.

Manners slipped brass knuckles off his right hand and dropped them in his pocket. He grinned with his battered face and said, “That makes me feel a lot better.”