Everybody Had A Gun Read Online Free PDF Page B

up more and more as a man I had to see, and maybe had to see damned soon. I thought back to the one evening I'd spent in the club. The setup was a little screwy, but similar to clubs I'd seen in San Francisco. An alley ran straight through the middle of the block, from Seventh Street down to Sixth Street, and you walked from Seventh about twenty feet down the alley to a door into an elevator on your right. You took the elevator down into the club, and the tourists loved it. The elevator crept slowly down, taking about a minute to go twenty feet below street level, and by the time it stopped, you thought you were a mile underground. Just a plain night club, no gambling or anything extraordinary, but it was an intimate place and seemed shut off from the rattle and bang of the city above you.
    It wasn't very well known because of its out-of-the-way location, and, as I remembered, the food service was among the worst in town—which was one reason I hadn't been back since that first time. But they'd had a red-hot floor show, and I looked approvingly at the dark-eyed, dark-haired girl opposite me on the couch. I remembered thinking on my first visit to the Pit that the star dancer was hot enough to be a fire hazard, and in a place like the Pit she was dangerous. As far as the public knew, at least, the only way in and out of that fire trap was the elevator. The place was designed more like a fortress than a night spot.
    I said, "Sader does own the Pit, doesn't he?"
    "Yes. Marty Sader. He owns the whole building, the building up above and the club underneath it."
    "Something else," I said, "if you don't mind. What do I call you?"
    "Mia. Forget the last name. It's Italian and you couldn't pronounce it." That ghost of a smile again.
    "Mia, when was the last time you saw Miss Gordon?"
    "I'm not sure of the hour. It was this morning. I was sleeping late, and Iris said she was going to pick up her check. She forgot it last night."
    "Check? From the Pit?"
    "Yes. Monday is our day off, so we get paid before we leave Sundays, and I guess Iris forgot her check. I think she called the club and then went down to get it this morning."
    "I see." I didn't really see, but I was getting a glimmering. I'd stuck the little pouch bag in my pocket when I'd left the car. Now I pulled it out and opened it. I took out the check I'd found in the bag.
    Mia was staring at the bag, and for the first time she looked worried. She was frowning and she asked me quickly, "Where did you get that? It looks like the new one Iris bought."
    "It is," I said. I figured I'd better tell her what had happened up till now. I ran over it in a hurry and finished, "No Iris around, but there was her bag. It had this address in it, and I hoped by coming here I could find some lead to where she might be."
    Mia got up from the couch and started walking slowly back and forth in front of me. I sighed. In a moment she sank down on the couch again, biting her full lower lip.
    I asked, "Any idea what's going on?"
    "None. I can't understand it. I wish I did know. I can't understand it at all."
    "No reason you can think of why anybody might want to kill her or—or the two of us?"
    She shook her head. "No. Why—why, it's simply fantastic!"
    "Yeah. Just fantastic enough to be fatal." I handed Mia the bag and check. "It looks like she got her check, all right. Here it is. You said today was your day off. That means the club's closed today?"
    "Yes. Every Monday."
    "Isn't that a little unusual?"
    "A little. Most places stay open all week, but I've worked at others that closed up one or even two days. Depends on the boss."
    That was true enough, and Marty probably wasn't worrying about the one day's take from the club. I thought a minute about what Mia had told me, then I said, "You say she forgot her check last night, then this morning she called the club—but it's closed."
    She frowned slightly, looking at me. "I hadn't thought about that. I was half asleep. Of course, Marty or