He hurried back to his car and slammed out into New York’s evening traffic again.
Chapter Four
HAKE DERR lowered the telephone gently to its cradle. He stood without moving for a moment, thick shoulders hunched forward slightly, straining the seams of his carefully tailored tweed jacket. He had smooth, chubby features with a deep cleft in his chin that gave him a deceptive look of almost innocent boyishness. Until you looked into his eyes. They were neither innocent nor boyish. Nor were they cold or lifeless like Willie Sutra’s.
Hake Derr’s eyes were round and slightly protuberant. They were such a light gray as to appear almost white—an effect that was heightened by fragmentary brows so close to flesh color that they were practically invisible. The result was curious and somehow frightening.
You looked into Hake Derr’s eyes and saw mirrored there such depths of depravity that you shuddered involuntarily. They were old with sin and with hatred for his fellow men. More than mere hatred, for that can be clean; there was bitterness and revulsion that encompassed all of humanity.
Derr pursed his thick lips and made a faint sucking sound as though he tasted something good. This was it. Morgan Wayne had finally come into the open. So he was real. All those vague rumors that had come to Derr’s ears recently had a solid foundation.
Letty Hendrixon’s snatch had forced Wayne to make an overt move. It was all right now. There was no great hurry. Wayne would keep all right. Set up for the kill in Priscilla’s apartment. Those whispered words that had vibrated over the wire to Derr’s ear were assurance that Morgan Wayne would be with her for some little time, at least. “He’s there, all right. I’ll tell him you’ve already gone and—”
Yeah, Priscilla was all right. And smart, too. Pressing the mouthpiece hard against her chest while she lured Wayne in a passion-laden voice to take his time and pleasure with her after checking to be sure her lover wasn’t likely to interrupt for a few hours.
Sure. Priscilla was O.K. But was she as smart as he was thinking? A tiny doubt gnawed at Hake Derr’s mind. Did she know that trick about bone conduction sending words over the telephone when the instrument was smothered against your body?
Wait a minute now. Maybe not. It wasn’t common knowledge. If she hadn’t done it intentionally, it meant she was actually two-timing Derr instead of Wayne. It meant she was up there in bed with him right now—and liking it, goddamn it. Not setting him up for the kill, but painting a large pair of horns right on Hake Derr’s forehead.
That made a difference. One hell of a difference. Derr could accept and applaud the idea of a woman taking a man to bed with her to hold him until her lover could get there to handle the situation, but a wave of red-hot jealousy swept over him with the other thought. He didn’t mind how many men she had as a matter of business, but not, by God, for any other reason.
He turned away from the telephone slowly, and Al, who was lounging in the bedroom doorway after taking the call, caught a glimpse of that jealousy in the momentary spasm that contracted Derr’s face.
Al was slender and dark and foppish, and now he smirked knowingly. “That Gingham Gal! She really does go for you, Boss, but sometimes I get to wondering if you really do get it all.”
Ordinarily Hake Derr would have shrugged off the remark. But ordinarily he was sure he was getting it all. Now that tiny doubt was gnawing at him.
His smooth, boyish face was blandly impassive as he neared Al. He smiled faintly and said without rancor, “You shouldn’t ought to think dirty like that.” His left hand came out of his coat pocket with brass knuckles over the fingers and they smashed cruelly and without warning into the middle of Al’s grin. He staggered back with blood spurting from his mouth, choking over half a dozen front teeth driven back into his throat.
Derr brushed past him casually, explaining, “If you do think it, next time you won’t be so quick to say it.”
He stopped on the threshold of the small bedroom and dispassionately removed the knuckles and dropped them back into his pocket. It was an ordinary bedroom with the sort of furniture that comes with a rented house. The gray light of late afternoon came through a single window to illuminate the bed on which the girl lay.
She lay on her side with her face toward Derr, twisting and straining futilely against the belt buckled about her knees and the length of clothesline that bound her wrists behind her back. A bathroom sponge was jammed into her mouth for a gag, held in place by a soiled handkerchief bound around her head.
Disheveled dark hair was splayed about her face, and one brown eye blazed with anger at Derr and the other man in the room, who leaned negligently against the opposite wall, idly chewing on a matchstick and watching her struggles with the impersonal interest of a scientist observing an impaled specimen.
Her face was pale and thin and she looked like a sophomore in high school, but the breast that had escaped from the ripped print dress and lay exposed on the counterpane was as round and full as that of a mature woman.
The man leaning against the wall moved his head a fraction of an inch in her direction and spoke past the matchstick between his teeth. “Some nice stuff there, Chief. You want me and Al to unbuckle that belt?”
Derr said dispassionately, “She’s sixteen years old, you fool.”
“Hell of a build for sixteen.” Charlie straightened up and yawned. “Way she yammered at Al and me in the car ’fore we slapped that sponge in her mouth, she figgered we’d grabbed her for some sport and wasn’t fighting too hard to get away.”
Hake Derr moved forward two steps and looked down at the girl speculatively. Behind him, Al slunk into the room, retching and holding one hand over his mouth, talking around it fast and placatingly to the man who had just knocked half his teeth out:
“Charlie’s honest-to-God right, boss.” The words were slurred and slobbery in his eagerness to re-establish good will with Derr. “I swear she ripped that dress open herself to give us an eyeful. Lotsa these here society dames are like that,” he went on sagely. “I recollect one that usta chase Fatso Golan ’round the room and try to grab—”
“Shut up,” Derr said wearily over his shoulder. “Both you lame brains listen close. It was bad enough the way you messed this job by jumping the gun, but by God, if either one of you lays a finger on her while I’m gone, I’ll fix you so you’ll never do it again in all your lives. Get that?”
Charlie spat out the matchstick and said aggrievedly, “Hell, Boss. We was just thinkin’—”
Derr said coldly, “Don’t wear out what’s left of your brains by trying to think. This girl’s worth plenty, and she’s going to be delivered back home just like she was when you grabbed her.” He paused thoughtfully. “Either of you ever hear the name Morgan Wayne?”
“Sure,” Al said thickly from behind his palm. “Ginzo from out west, Chi or somewheres, they say’s casing around to move in on the racket. Been nosing around getting leads and talking to some of the boys.”
“From L.A.,” said Charlie positively. “I got it straight from Peewee Lampell. He’s a big shot out there, but with stuff getting tight from over the border, he figures on hornin’ in here.”
“No matter,” said Hake Derr curtly, “where he’s from or how he figures. He’s already horned in just this much too far.” He held his
