Free Long Live the Dead by Hugh B. Cave Page B

reaching every nerve-end.
    Mr. Buttons—dead! But Mr. Buttons had never in his short span of life done harm to anyone. He’d been a cheerful, affectionate ball of fluff, bouncing around and spilling sunshine. Now he was dead, and he had died the hard way, in torment.
    “I guess,” Hanley muttered, “you tried to keep the guy out. I guess that’s what happened.”
    He sat and thought about it, and the thoughts were ugly, twisting his face and hands. About ten minutes passed before the real meat of the thing exploded in his laboring brain. Then he telescoped out of his chair, strode across the room and picked up the ash-stand.
    The fingerprints on that ash-stand were good ones. He caught them with powder, lifted them on celluloid and transferred them to a stiff sheet of white paper. With the paper safely cached in his wallet, he hurried out of the house and drove downtown to Headquarters.
    H alf an hour later he parked his car in front of the Corsair Club. It was close to eleven o’clock then, and the Corsair’s early floor show was in full swing. A dozen scantily clad girls danced on the rectangle of gleaming floor, and the band brewed music. Hanley, feeling queerly undressed in streetclothes, followed a roundabout route to Louis Zapelli’s office.
    The door was closed, locked. A waiter, passing, indifferently, listened to Hanley’s question and supposed Zapelli was upstairs.
    Pooch Hanley found Zapelli at a crap table. “Like to talk to you,” he said, and Zapelli nodded.
    Zapelli’s private talk-chamber was at the end of a short hall, where the noise from the gaming-room did not penetrate. He closed the door, stared unsmilingly at Hanley, and said, “Well?”
    “The night Paul White was murdered, Zapelli, he had a talk with you and told you he was going over to the Palace to lay down the law to Jake Doonan. Is that right?”
    “That is right.”
    “He went out about ten o’clock, and you thought no more of it. You were busy around here. In fact, you forgot about him until you heard he’d been killed.”
    “That,” Zapelli said quietly, easing himself into the chair behind the desk, “is correct.”
    “Zapelli, you’re holding out on me!”
    “You mean I’m lying?”
    “I mean this, Zapelli: Just as soon as I began to get warm on this case, the D.A. pulled me off it. He suspended me. He figured the suspension would keep me out of circulation, and when he found out I’d been hired privately to continue the investigation, he offered me my job back—on condition that I drop the case. I turned him down, Zapelli. And do you know what happened then?”
    “No,” Zapelli said.
    “The D.A.’s son tried to gun me.”
    Motionless behind the desk, Zapelli allowed his face to register amazement. “Gun you?” he whispered.
    “So,” declared Hanley, still on his feet despite the pain in his shoulder, “the D.A.’s son holds cards in this game somewhere. He didn’t gun me for target practice. There are two ends to this alley, Zapelli—Doonan’s place and the Corsair Club. Russell Innman never hung his hat in Doonan’s place. He was here that night. So …”
    Zapelli leaned forward, put his elbows on the desk and pushed his pink lips apart with the tip of his tongue. “I like you, Hanley,” he said. “You’re a fine fellow—sometimes. Take a tip and forget all this foolishness. Take your job back on Innman’s terms, and I’ll see that the kid apologizes for trying to gun you.”
    Hanley’s laugh was low and ugly. He was thinking of Mr. Buttons.
    “You see, it’s this way,” Zapelli said, leaning back again. “The kid is a pretty good friend of mine, and—”
    Pooch Hanley had been expecting it and was ready for it. When Zapelli’s right hand slid down below the level of the desk top, Hanley’s own right hand streaked to a coat pocket.
    “Sure you like me,” Hanley said. Sarcasm dripped from his voice.
    Zapelli shrugged, put his hands on the desk again. His gaze remained glued on