Chapter 15 Chapter 15 The Inn at Cedar Hill
Just after noon, I was woken up by a call from Mickey Linehan.
"Here we are," he said. "Where's the Welcome Committee?"
"I'm probably looking for a rope. Come to the hotel after storing your luggage, Room 537. Be careful not to be seen by others when you come."
I was already dressed when they arrived.
Mickey Linehan was a big fool with drooping shoulders and a limp body that seemed to have lost all its joints.He has protruding ears like red wings, and a round red face with a stupidly meaningless smirk. He looks like a comedian-in fact, he used to be.
Dick Frye was a half-grown Canadian with a grumpy expression.He wears heels to add height, perfumes his handkerchiefs, and says as little as he can.
These are two excellent detectives.
"How did the old guy arrange work for you?" I asked after everyone was seated. "Old Guy" was the manager of the San Francisco bureau of the Continental Detective Agency, as he was called, because he always had a good smile on his face whenever he sent us on dangerous suicidal missions.He is a gentle and polite elder, but his heart is not much kinder than the rope in the executioner's hand.According to legend in the society, even in July, he can spit ice picks from his mouth.
"He doesn't seem to know exactly what's going on," Mickey said. "Just that you sent a telegram asking for backup. He said he hasn't heard from you in days."
"It seems that he has to wait another two days. What do you know about Bosheng City?"
Dick shook his head, and Mickey said, "I just know people call it Drug Town, and it seems like it deserves the name."
I tell them what I've learned and what I've done so far.Three-quarters of the way through the story, the phone rings.
Dinah Bland's lazy voice came over the phone: "Hi, how's your wrist?"
"Just a burn. What do you think of the explosion in the cell?"
"It's not my fault," she said, "I did my best. Noonan couldn't keep an eye on him, that's his fault. I'm going downtown this afternoon to buy a hat, and thought I'd stop by and see you, if you're around." "
"What time is it?"
"Well, around three o'clock."
"Okay, I'll wait for you. I'll prepare the two hundred dollars and ten cents I owe you."
"It's a deal," she said. "That's why I came to you. Goodbye."
I sat back in my chair and continued my story.
I had just finished when Mickey Linehan whistled and said, "That's why you don't dare send the report back. If the old man knew what you're up to, he wouldn't help you, would he?"
"I don't have to report the nerve-wracking details if things work out my way," I said. "Yes, detective agencies have rules and regulations, but when you're out on errands, you should try to do them as well as you can. No matter who Bring ethics into drug town and wait to see it rot and rust. Reports are not made for such nasty details. Anyway, I don't want you two sending anything without giving me a look Back to San Francisco."
"What case do you want us to work on?" Mickey asked.
"I want you to take Finn Pete, and Dick to take Lu Yard. You can do it my way - play it by ear. I think those two will find a way to get Noonan to let the Whisperer go, but I don't Know what Noonan will do. The man is cunning as hell and has sworn to get justice for his brother's death."
"After I've got this old Finn," Mickey said, "what am I going to do with him? I don't mean to exaggerate my stupidity, but it's just astronomy to me. I know what it's all about. , but I don't understand what you have done, what is your purpose, and what do you want to do now, how do you do it?"
"You can start by following him. I have to find an opportunity to break into them -- Pete and Yard, Yard and Noonan, Pete and Noonan, Pete and Thaler, or Yad and Thaler. If we do a good job of disrupting - breaking their bond - they risk stabbing each other in the back and doing the work for us. The split between Thaler and Noonan is a start, but if we don't If you take advantage of the situation and push the boat with the current, your efforts will be in vain.
"I can keep buying information from Dinah Bland. But whatever you get, don't go to court. The courts are theirs, and the courts are too slow for us. I've gotten into some Well, as soon as the old man sniffs something—San Francisco isn't far enough off his nose—he'll grab the phone for an explanation. I'll have to cover the details with the results, so the evidence won't help, we'll have to It's dynamite."
"What about our venerable client, Mr. Elihu Wilson?" asked Mickey. "What are you going to do with him--or with him?"
"Kill him, or force him to support us, it's all the same. Mickey, you'd better go to the Peason Hotel; Dick, you'd better go to the National Hotel. Separate operations. Also, if you don't want to see me get fired, you'd better intervene before the old man Closed the matter before. Also, you'd better write down what I say next."
I gave them the names, faces and addresses of everyone involved - Elihu Wilson, his secretary Stanley Lewis, Dinah Brand, Dan Rolfe, Noonan, the Whisperer Max Thaler, Whisperer's right and left hand - Jawless Jerry, Mrs Donna Wilson, Donna Wilson's ex-secretary, Lewis' daughter, and Dinah's radical ex-boyfriend Bill Quint.
"Okay, let's do it!" I said, "Stop naively thinking that there are laws to follow in drug towns, and the laws are up to you to make."
Mickey said I'd be surprised to see how well he could do without the law.Dick said "goodbye" and they left.
After breakfast I went to City Hall. Noonan's green eyes were tired, he seemed to have been up all night, and his face was pale.But the handshake was still warm, and the voice and manner also revealed the habitual enthusiasm. After exchanging pleasantries, I asked, "Any news about the Whisperer?" "I think I have some clues." He looked at the clock on the wall, then at the phone on the table, "I'm waiting for news that will come anytime. Please sit down." "Who else got away?" "Only Jerry Hooper and Tony Agosti are left, and the rest are brought back. Jerry's the Whisperer's lackey, and the Italian is his henchman—he's the one who went to Ike the night of the fight. The bastard who stabbed Bush in the back." "Are there any Whisperers' lackeys in there?" "Nope. We only got three, and Buck Wallace, the guy you shot, he's in the hospital." The director looked at the clock on the wall again, and then at his watch. It was exactly two o'clock.He looked down at the phone, which rang.He grabbed it and said, "I'm Nuonan... good... good... good... yes." He pushed the phone aside and rang a row of pearly buttons on the desk, instantly filling the office with detectives. "Cedar Hill Inn," he said, "Baze, take all your men and come with me. Terry, storm Broadway and take that kennel from behind. Call the traffic police brothers along the way, and the more people As many as possible. Duffy, take your men to Union Street by detour from the old mine road. McGraw is in charge of guarding the headquarters. Get all the people you can find and let them follow. Attack!" He grabbed his hat and went out after the detectives, turning his fat shoulders to me and saying, "Come on, man! It's going to be a killing spree." I followed him to the police garage where half a dozen cars rumbled.The chief sat in the passenger seat, and I sat in the back with four detectives. The detectives piled into the cars, and machine guns, copious amounts of rifles and riot guns, and bags of ammunition were handed out. The chief's car took the lead, and the body bumped violently, making the teeth of the people in the car chatter.We almost hit the garage door, and then the car slanted across the sidewalk with two or three pedestrians, bounced into the road, and almost hit a truck, the same distance as the garage door.Then the car blared its siren and sped out of King Street. Panicked cars rushed left and right to make way for us, completely ignoring traffic rules.It was fun. I looked back and saw another police car following, and a third turning onto Broadway.Noonan, smoking an unlit cigar, said to the driver, "Pat, give me more power." Pat led us around a coupe driven by a terrified woman and squeezed it into the gap between the streetcar and the laundry delivery van.The gap is so tight that we probably wouldn't be able to get out if our car hadn't been polished and waxed.Afterwards, he said: "Very good, but the brakes are not very effective." "Fine," said the detective with the gray mustache sitting to my left, sounding insincere. Once out of the city center there wasn't much traffic to bother us, but the roads were pretty bad.We had a comfortable half-hour drive - sitting in someone's lap any time we had the opportunity.The last ten minutes were full of hills, undulating enough to make us forget what Pat had said earlier about the brakes. Eventually we came to a gate with a battered neon sign that presumably had flashed "Cedar Hills Inn" before the bulb broke.The roadside hotel was twenty feet from the gate, a low, wooden building painted musty green and surrounded by rubbish.The front door and windows were closed, but the curtains were not drawn. We followed Noonan out of the car.The car following us came around the bend, slid up next to our car, and unloaded its full load of men and weapons. Noonan gave a loud command. Three police officers went around to the left, right and rear of the small building.Three others stayed at the gate—one with a machine gun.Everyone else made their way to the house through cans, glass bottles, and old newspapers from previous lives. The gray-bearded detective sitting next to me was holding a red axe.We walked quickly up the porch. The sound and the light of the fire emanated from under a window at the same time. The greybearded detective fell to the ground, the ax beneath his body. The rest fled in all directions. Noonan and I hid in a gutter on the road side of the hotel.The ditch was deep enough, and the outer embankment high enough, that we could stand almost upright without fear of being a target. The chief was very excited. "What luck!" he said joyfully. "Here he is! My God, there he is!" "That shot was fired along the ledge," I said. "Well done." "We'll take it, though," he said cheerfully. "We've got to clean up this dump. Duffy should be coming the other way by now, and Terry Sean will catch him any minute now. Hey, Donell!" he yelled at a guy who was hiding behind a rock and snooping around, "Go back and tell Duffy and Sean to surround this place as soon as we get there and shoot whatever you want. Where's Kimble?" Snooper points to a tree in the distance with his thumb.From the gutter where we are, only the upper half can be seen. "Tell him, you can set up the mill for grinding." Noonan ordered, "Low down and go out from the front, and do what you should do. It's as simple as cutting cheese." The snooper walks away. Noonan climbed up and down the ditch, and from time to time he ventured to poke his head out to check the surrounding situation, and occasionally shouted or gestured to his subordinates.Then he came and squatted beside me, handed me a cigar, and lit another for himself. "It's all right," he said triumphantly. "The Whisperer has no chance. He's dead." The machine gun next to the tree fired.Hesitating at first, he fired eight or ten tentative shots.Noonan grinned and exhaled a smoke ring.At this moment the machine gun began to work hard, spewing out iron pellets like a small death factory.Noonan exhaled another smoke ring and said, "Absolutely no problem." I echoed.We leaned against the pit wall and smoked for a while.A little further off there was the sound of another machine gun firing, then a third.Rifles, pistols, and shotguns are added one after another.Noonan nodded in satisfaction and said, "Five minutes will give him a taste of hell." Five minutes passed, and I suggested going up to see what was going on.I pushed him to the ground first, and then climbed up neatly. The hotel was as bleak and deserted as before, only more dilapidated.There were no gunshots coming from inside, only continuous shooting. "What do you think?" Noonan asked. "If there's a basement in there, maybe a mouse will survive." "Well, we can deal with that later." He took a whistle from his pocket, made a lot of noise, and waved his fat arms.The gunfire started to subside and we had to wait for the order to spread around every corner. Then we slam the door open. The first floor was already ankle-flooded with wine.The wine boxes and barrels placed on top of each other are full of bullet holes, and the wine is still gurgling out. The smell of the strong liquor was dizzying, and we waded around to find four dead bodies, none alive.All four were dark-skinned foreigners in work uniforms.Two of them had been beaten to pieces. Noonan said, "Leave them alone, go out." His voice sounded cheerful, but when the light of a flashlight happened to flash past his eyes, they were tinged with utter terror. We walked out happily.I hesitated before slipping an unbroken bottle of wine labeled "Emperor" into my pocket. By the gate, a police officer in a khaki uniform jumped off his motorcycle and yelled at us: "The First National Bank has been robbed!" Noonan cursed viciously and roared, "He's messing with us, you bloody bastard! Go back to the city! Everyone!" Except for the few of us who were in the same car as the director, everyone rushed to their cars.Two of them carried the fallen detective. Noonan squinted at me and said, "This guy is tough and smart." I said "um", shrugged, and walked slowly towards his car, the driver was already sitting in the driver's seat.Standing with my back to the house, I spoke to Pat, but couldn't remember what was said.We were joined by Noonan and other officers shortly after. Just before we turned the corner and disappeared, a small flame peeped out from the open hotel door.
Notes:
After breakfast I went to City Hall. Noonan's green eyes were tired, he seemed to have been up all night, and his face was pale.But the handshake was still warm, and the voice and manner also revealed the habitual enthusiasm. After exchanging pleasantries, I asked, "Any news about the Whisperer?" "I think I have some clues." He looked at the clock on the wall, then at the phone on the table, "I'm waiting for news that will come anytime. Please sit down." "Who else got away?" "Only Jerry Hooper and Tony Agosti are left, and the rest are brought back. Jerry's the Whisperer's lackey, and the Italian is his henchman—he's the one who went to Ike the night of the fight. The bastard who stabbed Bush in the back." "Are there any Whisperers' lackeys in there?" "Nope. We only got three, and Buck Wallace, the guy you shot, he's in the hospital." The director looked at the clock on the wall again, and then at his watch. It was exactly two o'clock.He looked down at the phone, which rang.He grabbed it and said, "I'm Nuonan... good... good... good... yes." He pushed the phone aside and rang a row of pearly buttons on the desk, instantly filling the office with detectives. "Cedar Hill Inn," he said, "Baze, take all your men and come with me. Terry, storm Broadway and take that kennel from behind. Call the traffic police brothers along the way, and the more people As many as possible. Duffy, take your men to Union Street by detour from the old mine road. McGraw is in charge of guarding the headquarters. Get all the people you can find and let them follow. Attack!" He grabbed his hat and went out after the detectives, turning his fat shoulders to me and saying, "Come on, man! It's going to be a killing spree." I followed him to the police garage where half a dozen cars rumbled.The chief sat in the passenger seat, and I sat in the back with four detectives. The detectives piled into the cars, and machine guns, copious amounts of rifles and riot guns, and bags of ammunition were handed out. The chief's car took the lead, and the body bumped violently, making the teeth of the people in the car chatter.We almost hit the garage door, and then the car slanted across the sidewalk with two or three pedestrians, bounced into the road, and almost hit a truck, the same distance as the garage door.Then the car blared its siren and sped out of King Street. Panicked cars rushed left and right to make way for us, completely ignoring traffic rules.It was fun. I looked back and saw another police car following, and a third turning onto Broadway.Noonan, smoking an unlit cigar, said to the driver, "Pat, give me more power." Pat led us around a coupe driven by a terrified woman and squeezed it into the gap between the streetcar and the laundry delivery van.The gap is so tight that we probably wouldn't be able to get out if our car hadn't been polished and waxed.Afterwards, he said: "Very good, but the brakes are not very effective." "Fine," said the detective with the gray mustache sitting to my left, sounding insincere. Once out of the city center there wasn't much traffic to bother us, but the roads were pretty bad.We had a comfortable half-hour drive - sitting in someone's lap any time we had the opportunity.The last ten minutes were full of hills, undulating enough to make us forget what Pat had said earlier about the brakes. Eventually we came to a gate with a battered neon sign that presumably had flashed "Cedar Hills Inn" before the bulb broke.The roadside hotel was twenty feet from the gate, a low, wooden building painted musty green and surrounded by rubbish.The front door and windows were closed, but the curtains were not drawn. We followed Noonan out of the car.The car following us came around the bend, slid up next to our car, and unloaded its full load of men and weapons. Noonan gave a loud command. Three police officers went around to the left, right and rear of the small building.Three others stayed at the gate—one with a machine gun.Everyone else made their way to the house through cans, glass bottles, and old newspapers from previous lives. The gray-bearded detective sitting next to me was holding a red axe.We walked quickly up the porch. The sound and the light of the fire emanated from under a window at the same time. The greybearded detective fell to the ground, the ax beneath his body. The rest fled in all directions. Noonan and I hid in a gutter on the road side of the hotel.The ditch was deep enough, and the outer embankment high enough, that we could stand almost upright without fear of being a target. The chief was very excited. "What luck!" he said joyfully. "Here he is! My God, there he is!" "That shot was fired along the ledge," I said. "Well done." "We'll take it, though," he said cheerfully. "We've got to clean up this dump. Duffy should be coming the other way by now, and Terry Sean will catch him any minute now. Hey, Donell!" he yelled at a guy who was hiding behind a rock and snooping around, "Go back and tell Duffy and Sean to surround this place as soon as we get there and shoot whatever you want. Where's Kimble?" Snooper points to a tree in the distance with his thumb.From the gutter where we are, only the upper half can be seen. "Tell him, you can set up the mill for grinding." Noonan ordered, "Low down and go out from the front, and do what you should do. It's as simple as cutting cheese." The snooper walks away. Noonan climbed up and down the ditch, and from time to time he ventured to poke his head out to check the surrounding situation, and occasionally shouted or gestured to his subordinates.Then he came and squatted beside me, handed me a cigar, and lit another for himself. "It's all right," he said triumphantly. "The Whisperer has no chance. He's dead." The machine gun next to the tree fired.Hesitating at first, he fired eight or ten tentative shots.Noonan grinned and exhaled a smoke ring.At this moment the machine gun began to work hard, spewing out iron pellets like a small death factory.Noonan exhaled another smoke ring and said, "Absolutely no problem." I echoed.We leaned against the pit wall and smoked for a while.A little further off there was the sound of another machine gun firing, then a third.Rifles, pistols, and shotguns are added one after another.Noonan nodded in satisfaction and said, "Five minutes will give him a taste of hell." Five minutes passed, and I suggested going up to see what was going on.I pushed him to the ground first, and then climbed up neatly. The hotel was as bleak and deserted as before, only more dilapidated.There were no gunshots coming from inside, only continuous shooting. "What do you think?" Noonan asked. "If there's a basement in there, maybe a mouse will survive." "Well, we can deal with that later." He took a whistle from his pocket, made a lot of noise, and waved his fat arms.The gunfire started to subside and we had to wait for the order to spread around every corner. Then we slam the door open. The first floor was already ankle-flooded with wine.The wine boxes and barrels placed on top of each other are full of bullet holes, and the wine is still gurgling out. The smell of the strong liquor was dizzying, and we waded around to find four dead bodies, none alive.All four were dark-skinned foreigners in work uniforms.Two of them had been beaten to pieces. Noonan said, "Leave them alone, go out." His voice sounded cheerful, but when the light of a flashlight happened to flash past his eyes, they were tinged with utter terror. We walked out happily.I hesitated before slipping an unbroken bottle of wine labeled "Emperor" into my pocket. By the gate, a police officer in a khaki uniform jumped off his motorcycle and yelled at us: "The First National Bank has been robbed!" Noonan cursed viciously and roared, "He's messing with us, you bloody bastard! Go back to the city! Everyone!" Except for the few of us who were in the same car as the director, everyone rushed to their cars.Two of them carried the fallen detective. Noonan squinted at me and said, "This guy is tough and smart." I said "um", shrugged, and walked slowly towards his car, the driver was already sitting in the driver's seat.Standing with my back to the house, I spoke to Pat, but couldn't remember what was said.We were joined by Noonan and other officers shortly after. Just before we turned the corner and disappeared, a small flame peeped out from the open hotel door.
Notes: