Occasion ... for Disaster
climbed in and the car retreated down to the road. It started off
smoothly and they went back toward the lobby. The little man chatted
incessantly and Malone tried not to listen. But there was nothing else
to do except watch the gun-toting "guides" as the car passed them, and
the sight was making him nervous.
"You want anything--special," the driver said, giving Malone a blow in
the ribs that was apparently meant to be subtle, "you just ask for
Murray. Got it?"
"I've got it," Malone said wearily.
"You just pick up the little phone and you ask for Murray," the driver
said. "Maybe you want something a little out of the ordinary--get what
I mean?" Malone moved aside, but not fast enough, and Murray's stone
elbow caught him again. "Something special, extra-nice. For my
friends, pal. You want to be a friend of mine?"
Assurances that friendship with Murray was Malone's dearest ambition
in life managed to fend off further blows until the car pulled to a
stop in the lobby. "Cab's outside, Mr. Malone," Murray said. "You
remember me--hey?"
"I will never, never forget you," Malone said fervently, and got out
in a hurry. He found the cab and the driver, a heavy-set man with a
face that looked as if, somewhere along the line, it had run into a
Waring Blendor and barely escaped, swiveled around to look at him as
he got in.
"Where to, Mac?" he asked sourly.
Malone shrugged. "Center of town," he said. "A nice big newsstand."
The cabbie blinked. "A what?" he said.
"Newsstand," Malone said pleasantly. "All right with you?"
"Everybody's a little crazy, I guess," the cabbie said. "But why do I
always get the real nuts?" He started the cab with a savage jerk and
Malone was carried along the road at dizzying speed. They managed to
make ten blocks before the cab squealed to a stop. Malone peered out
and saw a nice selection of sawhorses piled up in the road, guarded by
two men with guns. The men were dressed in police uniforms and the
cabby, staring at them, uttered one brief and impolite word.
"What's going on?" Malone said.
"Roadblock," the cabbie said. "Thing's going to stay here until Hell
freezes over. Not that they need it. Hell, I passed it on the way in
but I figured they'd take it down pretty quick."
"Roadblock?" Malone said. "What for?"
The cabbie shrugged eloquently. "Who knows?" he said. "You ask
questions, you might get answers you don't like. I don't ask
questions, I live longer."
"But--"
The cops, meanwhile, had advanced toward the car. One of them looked
in. "Who's the passenger?" he said.
The cabbie swore again. "You want me to take loyalty oaths from
people?" he said. "You want to ruin my business? I got a passenger,
how do I know who he is? Maybe he's the Lone Ranger."
"Don't get funny," the cop said. His partner had gone around to the
back of the car.
"What's this, the trunk again?" the cabbie said. "You think maybe I'm
smuggling in showgirls from the edge of town?"
"Ha, ha," the cop said distinctly. "One more joke and it's thirty
days, buster. Just keep cool and nothing will happen."
"Nothing, he calls it," the cabbie said dismally. But he stayed silent
until the second cop came back to rejoin his partner.
"Clean," he said.
"Here, too, I guess," the first cop said, and looked in again. "You,"
he said to Malone. "You a tourist?"
"That's right," Malone said. "Kenneth J. Malone, at the Great
Universal. Arrived this afternoon. What's happening here, officer?"
"I'm asking questions," the cop said. "You're answering them. Outside
of that, you don't have to know a thing." He looked very tough and
official. Malone didn't say anything else.
After a few more seconds they went back to their positions and the
cabbie started the car again. Ten yards past the roadblock he turned
around and looked at Malone. "It's the sheriff's office every time,"
he said. "Now, you take a State cop, he's O.K. because what does he
care? He's got other things to worry about, he don't have to bear down
on hard-working cabbies."
"Sure," Malone said helpfully.
"And the city police--they're right here in the city, they're O.K. I
know them, they know me, nothing goes wrong. Get what I mean?"
"The sheriff's office is the worst, though?" Malone said.
"The worst is nothing compared to those boys," the cabbie said.
"Believe me, every time they can make life tough for a cabbie, they do
it. It's hatred, that's what it is. They hate cabbies. That's the
sheriff's office for you."
"Tough," Malone said. "But the roadblock--what _was_ it for, anyhow?"
The cabbie looked back at the road, avoided an oncoming car with a
casual sweep of the wheel, and sighed gustily. "Mister," he said, "you
don't ask questions, I don't give out answers. Fair?"
There was, after all, nothing else to say. "Fair," Malone told him,
and rode the rest of the way in total silence.
* * * * *
Buying the papers in Las Vegas took more time than Malone had
bargained for. He had to hunt from store to store to get a good,
representative selection, and there were crowds almost everywhere
playing the omnipresent slot-machines. The whir of the machines and
the low undertones and whispers of the bettors combined in the air to
make what Malone considered the single most depressing sound he had
ever heard. It sounded like a factory, old, broken-down and unwanted,
that was geared only to the production of cigarette butts and old
cellophane, ready-crumpled for throwing away. Malone pushed through
the crowds as fast as possible, but nearly an hour had gone by when he
had all his papers and hailed another cab to get him back to the
hotel.
This time, the cabbie had a smiling, shining face. He looked like
Pollyanna, after eight or ten shots at the middleweight title. Malone
beamed right back at him and got in. "Great Universal," he said.
"Hey, that's a nice place," the cabbie said heartily, as they started
off. "I heard there was a couple TV stars there last week and they got
drunk and had a fight. You see that?"
"Just arrived this afternoon," Malone said. "Sorry."
"Oh, don't worry," the cabbie assured him. "Something's always going
on at the Universal. I hear they posted a lot of guards there, just
waiting for something to come up now. Something about some shooting,
but I didn't get the straight story yet. That true?"
"Far as I know," Malone said. "There's a lot of strange things
happening lately, aren't there?"
"Lots," the cabbie said eagerly. He meandered slowly around a couple
of bright-red convertibles. "A guy owned the _Last Stand_, he killed
himself with a gun today. It's in the papers. Listen, Mister, funny
things happen all the time around here. I remember last week there was
a lady in my cab, nice old bat, looked like she wouldn't take off an
earring in public, not among strangers. You know the type. Well, sir,
she asked me to take her on to the Golden Palace, and that's a fair
ride. So on the way down, she--"
Fascinated as he was by the unreeling story of the shy old bat, Malone
interrupted. "I hear there's a roadblock up now, and they're searching
all the cars. Know anything about that?"
The cabbie nodded violently. "Sure, Mister," he said. "Now, it's funny
you should ask. I hit the block once today and I was saying to myself,
I'll bet somebody's going to ask me about this. So when I was in town
I talked around with Si Deeds ... you know Si? Oh, no, you just
arrived today ... anyhow, I figured Si would know."
"And did he?" Malone said.
"Not a thing," the cabbie said. Malone sighed disgustedly and the
cabbie went on: "So I went over and talked to Bob Grindell. I figured,
there was action, Bob would know. And guess what?"
"He didn't know either," Malone said tiredly.
"Bob?" the cabbie said. "Say, Mister, you must be new here for sure,
if you say Bob wouldn't know what was going on. Why, Bob knows more
about this town than guys lived in it twice as long, I'll tell you.
Believe me, he knows."
"And what did he say?" Malone asked.
The cabbie paused. "About what?" he said.
"About the roadblock," Malone said distinctly.
"Oh," the cabbie said. "That. Well, that was a funny thing and no
mistake. There was this fight, see? And Shellenberger got in the
middle of it, see? So when he was dead they had to set up this
roadblock."
Malone restrained himself with some difficulty. "What fight?" he said.
"And who's Shellenberger? And how did he get in the way?"
"Mister," the cabbie said, "you must be new here."
"A remarkable guess," Malone said.
The cabbie nodded. "Sure must be," he said. "Gus Shellenberger's lived
here over ten years now. I drove him around many's the time. Remember
when he used to go out to this motel out on the outskirts there; there
was this doll he was interested in but it never came to much. He said
she wasn't right for his career, you know how guys like that are, they
got to be careful all the time. Never hit the papers or anything--I
mean with the doll and all--but people get to know things. You know.
So with this doll--"
"How long ago did all this happen?" Malone asked.
"The doll?" the cabbie said. "Oh, five-six years. Maybe seven. I
remember it was the year I got a new cab, business was pretty good,
you know. Seven, I guess. Garage made me a price, you know, I had to
be an idiot to turn it down? A nice price. Well, George Lamel who owns
the place, he's an old friend, you know? I did him some favors so he
gives me a nice price. Well, this new cab--"
"Can we get back to the present for a little while?" Malone said.
"There was this fight, and your friend Gus Shellenberger got involved
in it somehow--"
"Oh, that," the cabbie said. "Oh, sure. Well, there was a kind of
chase. Some sheriff's officers were looking for an escaped convict,
and they were chasing him and doing some shooting. And Shellenberger,
he got in the way and got shot accidentally. The criminal, he got
away. But it's kind of a mess, because--"
A loud chorus of sirens effectively stopped all conversation. Two cars
stamped with the insignia of the sheriff's office came into sight and
streaked past, headed for Las Vegas.
"Because Shellenberger was State's attorney, after all," the cabbie
said. "It's not like just anybody got killed."
"And the roadblock?" Malone said.
"For the criminal, I guess," the cabbie said.
Malone nodded heavily. The whole thing smelled rather loudly, he
thought. The "accident" wasn't very plausible to start with. And a
search for an escaped criminal that didn't even involve checking
identification of strangers like Malone wasn't much of a search. The
cops knew who they were looking for.
And Shellenberger hadn't been killed by accident.
The roadblock was down, he noticed. The sheriff's office cars had
apparently carried the cheerful cops back to Las Vegas. Maybe they'd
found their man, Malone thought, and maybe they just didn't care any
more.
"Wouldn't a State's attorney live in Carson City?" he asked after a
while.
"Not old Gus Shellenberger," the cabbie said. "Many's the time I
talked with him and he said he loved this old town. Loved it. Like an
old friend. Why, he used to say to me--"
At that point the Great Universal hove into view. Malone felt
extraordinarily grateful to see it.
* * * * *
He went to his room with the bundle of papers in his hand and locked
himself in. He lit a fresh cigar and started through the papers. Las
Vegas was the one on top, and he gave it a quick going-over. Sure
enough, the suicide of the Golden Palace owner was on page one, along
with a lot of other local news.
_Mayor Resigns Under Council Pressure_, one headline read. On page 3
another story was headlined: _County Attorney Indicted by Grand Jury