Kells nodded carefully, held his head in his hands.
“After a while, Gowdy got bored and went home — he lives around the corner. I was sucking up a lot of red-eye, having a swell time. Then about five minutes before you got here the bell rang and Fenner went to the door, backed in with Rose and O’Donnell and the spiggoty. O’Donnell and the spick was snowed to the eyes. Rose said, ‘What did Kells get from that gal that bumped Bellmann, and where is it?’ Fenner went into a nose dive — he was scared wet, anyway. They made us get down on the floor—”
Kells laughed, said: “You looked like a couple communicants.”
“—and Rose frisked both of us and started tearing up the Furniture. Some way or other I got the idea that whether he found what he was looking for or not, we weren’t going to tell about it afterwards.”
Beery paused, lighted a cigaret, went on quietly: “Rose was sore as hell, and O’Donnell and the greaser were leaking C out of their ears. The greaser kept fingering a shiv in his belt — you know: the old noiseless ear-to-ear trick.”
Kells said: “Maybe. They popped Dickinson and me outside Ansel’s. If they’re that far in the open maybe they’d want to get Fenner too.”
“And Beery — the innocent bystander...”
“I doubt it, Shep. I don’t think Rose would have come along if it was a kill.”
“Well, anyway — he’d got around to the bedroom when you rang. He switched out the light and waited in there in the dark. You came in and went into your Wild West act with baby-face, and Rose came behind you and took a bead on your skull with the vase — vahze. Then he and the greaser scrammed — quick.”
Kells reached suddenly into his inside pocket, then took his hand out, sighed. “Didn’t he fan me?”