The swath which R. Parke Woll was now cutting through the City of the Angels would have attracted no special notice in the twenties; in the fearful forties it rang out like laughter in church. He was easy to follow: his absence had been requested from two hotels but he had settled down into a routine where he carried his sleeping quarters in his elbow. A small but alert band of rats and weasels were furnishing him moral support in his journey--a journey which Pat caught up with at two a.m. in Conk's Old Fashioned Bar.
Conk's Bar was haughtier than its name, boasting cigarette girls and a doorman-bouncer named Smith who had once stayed a full hour with Tarzan White. Mr Smith was an embittered man who expressed himself by goosing the patrons on their way in and out and this was Pat's introduction. When he recovered himself he discovered R. Parke Woll in a mixed company around a table, and sauntered up with an air of surprise.
'Hello, good looking,' he said to Woll. 'Remember me--Pat Hobby?'
R. Parke Woll brought him with difficulty into focus, turning his head first on one side then on the other, letting it sink, snap up and then lash forward like a cobra taking a candid snapshot. Evidently it recorded for he said:
'Pat Hobby! Sit down and wha'll you have. Genlemen, this is Pat Hobby--best left-handed writer in Hollywood. Pat h'are you?'
Pat sat down, amid suspicious looks from a dozen predatory eyes. Was Pat an old friend sent to get the playwright home?
Pat saw this and waited until a half-hour later when he found himself alone with Woll in the washroom.
'Listen Parke, Banizon is having you followed,' he said. 'I don't know why he's doing it. Louie at the studio tipped me off.'
'You don't know why?' cried Parke. 'Well, I know why. I got something he wants--that's why!'
'You owe him money?'
'Owe him money. Why that--he owes me money! He owes me for three long, hard conferences--I outlined a whole damn picture for him.' His vague finger tapped his forehead in several places. 'What he wants is in here.'
An hour passed at the turbulent orgiastic table. Pat waited--and then inevitably in the slow, limited cycle of the lush, Woll's mind returned to the subject.
'The funny thing is I told him who put the shell in the trunk and why. And then the Master Mind forgot.'
Pat had an inspiration.
'But his secretary remembered.'
'She did?' Woll was flabbergasted. 'Secretary--don't remember secretary.'
'She came in,' ventured Pat uneasily.
'Well then by God he's got to pay me or I'll sue him.'
'Banizon says he's got a better idea.'
'The hell he has. My idea was a pip. Listen--'
He spoke for two minutes.
'You like it?' he demanded. He looked at Pat for applause--then he must have seen something in Pat's eye that he was not intended to see. 'Why you little skunk,' he cried. 'You've talked to Banizon--he sent you here.'
Pat rose and tore like a rabbit for the door. He would have been out into the street before Woll could overtake him had it not been for the intervention of Mr Smith, the doorman.
'Where you going?' he demanded, catching Pat by his lapels.
'Hold him!' cried Woll, coming up. He aimed a blow at Pat which missed and landed full in Mr Smith's mouth.
It has been mentioned that Mr Smith was an embittered as well as a powerful man. He dropped Pat, picked up R. Parke Woll by crotch and shoulder, held him high and then in one gigantic pound brought his body down against the floor. Three minutes later Woll was dead.
