I had one more lead.
Bob Elgin had called Waverly 9-8765. The address on the registration certificate of the car that had followed me the night before had been Sam Lowry, 968 Rippling Avenue.
It was about a hundred to one shot, but it paid off.
I looked Lowry up in the phone book. He didn’t have a phone. I checked on Waverly 9-8765. It was a public telephone in an apartment house, and the address was 968 Rippling Avenue.
I went over there. It was a last desperate chance and time was running out. When those two photographers woke up and read the morning paper they’d be almost certain to remember the address they’d given me. After that I’d have only as long as it took Frank Sellers to throw out a dragnet.
The Rippling Avenue address turned out to be a nondescript apartment house, and the cards showed Lowry had an apartment on the second floor.
I rang the bell.
It was quite a while before anything happened. Then a man’s voice called from the head of the stairs, “Who is it?”
“Message for you,” I called up.
The electric door catch buzzed the door open. I went on in and walked up the stairs.
The man who was standing at the head of the stairs was a well-put-together, broad-shouldered individual, somewhere around twenty-eight or twenty-nine. He looked thoroughly capable of taking care of himself under any circumstances. He had the thick neck which usually indicates a wrestler or fighter. His dark hair was tousled in uncombed disarray. He was wearing trousers, slippers and the upper part of a pair of pyjamas. His nose had been broken, and in healing had given his face a flattish, Mongolian appearance, but there was lazy good nature in his grin. “What’s the idea?” he asked.
I closed the door behind me and said, “I’m sorry if I got you up.”
“Oh, it’s all right. I usually get up around this time anyway. What’s the idea of all the commotion? Who’s the message from?”
“The message,” I said, “is from me.”
The good-natured grin faded from his lips. He stood with his feet apart, blocking the stairway. His shoulders settled into solid hostility. “I’m not sure I like that, buddy,” he said.
“The name,” I told him, “is Donald Lam.”
He puckered his forehead, trying to remember where he’d heard the name before.
I refreshed his recollection. “You were playing tag with me last night.”
Suddenly his face lit up. He grinned, and the grin showed a gap where a couple of teeth had been knocked out on the left side of his upper jaw. “Well, well, well,” he said, “so that’s the way it is! Come on up and have a chair.”
He stood to one side and thrust out his hand.
I shook hands with him. The grip made my bones ache. “Get your car back all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said.
He said, “We put some petrol in the crock and found out where you kept it. I put it down in the regular stall so it would be there for you this morning. I had to leave the keys in it, but I didn’t think anyone would steal it.”
“No, it was there, all right.”
“What did you do with my car?”
“Left it parked down by a tram track. I figured you’d report it as stolen.”
He frowned a little at that and said, “You must think I’m a bum sport. Hell, I wouldn’t have done that to you.”
He led the way to his apartment.
I said, “I tried to call you up, but no one answered. I got the number, Waverly 9-8765.”
“The hell you did! How?”
“Oh I have ways of getting that sort of information.”
He laughed. “It’s a public phone down at the end of the hall. Usually you can’t ring in on it unless someone happens to be in the booth, but the apartment house manager has the apartment right next to it. She’s a good scout. If she’s up and around she’ll answer and then call whoever is wanted to the phone. If she isn’t up, she’ll let it ring.”
“What would you have done if you’d caught me last night?” I asked.
He grinned and said, “I’d have massaged you with a bundle of fives. Maybe changed the contours of your face a little bit, depending on whether you were difficult or not.”
“And what are you going to do this morning?”
“Hell, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. How about it? I’ve been reading the papers in bed and now I’m damn hungry.”
“I’ve just had three breakfasts and two extra cups of coffee on top of all that.”
“Well, stick around and make yourself at home. I may have to get an okay before I let you go. You seem like a good egg at that.”
“What was the trouble last night?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t,” I told him.
“Well, you should.”
He moved around with easy grace. He put on a pot of coffee, stuck his head in the bedroom door and yelled, “Hi, Babe.”
A woman’s sleepy voice called, “Who is it?”
“You’ll never guess,” Lowry said. “Get decent and come on out.”
I heard the sound of feet on the floor. The bedroom door opened. A cute little redhead stood on the threshold. She was wearing a bathrobe that evidently was one of Sam Lowry’s. She had the sleeves turned up some six or eight inches. The bathrobe was wrapped around her once and a half and hung down on the floor. It made her seem unusually small.
“Take a look at him,” Lowry said. “This is the guy that slipped a fast one over on us last night, the one we lost in the freight cars.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the redhead said. “And he comes around this morning?”
“Sure.”
“What’s he want?”
“Damned if I know. Get your teeth clean, honey, and wash the sleep out of your eyes. We’ll have some breakfast and talk it over.”
She said, “Okay,” and slammed the door. A moment later I heard water running in the bathroom.
“Cute kid,” Lowry said.
“She is, for a fact.”
“Hell, you haven’t seen her. Wait until she comes out from under that bathrobe. Nice disposition too. Cute little devil. Cute as they make ’em. How do you want your eggs?”
“I’ve had three breakfasts, thanks.”
“That’s right. You said you had. I have to eat good breakfasts. It takes food to keep me going. She’s a cute kid, but she’s not much on cooking.”
“Why don’t you teach her?”
“Oh, I will after a while, but I don’t mind.”
He unwrapped some sliced ham, tossed it in a frying pan, put the frying pan on the gas plate, and said, “I have to hand it to you. You’re a fast thinker.”
“Not so fast,” I said. “I was lucky.”
“I laid myself wide open,” he admitted. “It was a damn fool thing to do. I never thought of you pulling a stunt like that. Where were you? Under the rods?”
“That’s right. Under the rods on the freight car.”
“Cripes, but you think fast. Just the way you run out of petrol with a glimpse of my headlights in your rearview mirror and you were wise. You must have made a dash for it the minute your car stopped.”
“What did you want?”
“Hell, you know what I wanted. I wanted the pictures, and I wanted to beat you up a little bit. Just enough to teach you that it isn’t wise to stick your nose into things that are none of your damned business.”
“Why?”
“Well, now,” he said, adjusting the flame under the frying pan to just the right height, “that’s a matter of professional ethics. You’d better talk that over with someone else.”
“I’d like to talk it over with you. Why did Bob Elgin tell you to work me over?”
“Now, don’t make any cracks, buddy. It’s early in the morning and I haven’t had my breakfast and I’d hate to work you over on an empty stomach.”
I said, “It’s okay by me. I’ve got what I wanted.”
“I figured you would have by this time or you wouldn’t have shown up here. You aren’t that foolish. In fact, you’re smart. What did you want that stuff for?”
“I’m investigating an insurance matter.”
“What does the photograph of a couple of cheaters have to do with insurance?”
“It might have a lot.”
“Well, you can tell me about it while I’m eating.”
The ham started to sizzle, and he turned it with a fork. The bathroom door opened and the redhead came out. She was wearing tight-fitting slacks and a sweater.
“See,” Lowry said proudly, “what did I tell you?”
I nodded.
“You take over cooking the ham, honey,” Lowry said. “I’ll take a crack at the bathroom.”
She walked over to the gas plate, smiled at me, then turned her back and readjusted the flame under the frying pan.
Lowry called over his shoulder, “You don’t need to touch that fire. It’s just right the way it is.”
She didn’t pay any attention to him, but bent over so she could look at the flame under the frying pan.
“See what I told you?” Lowry called from the bathroom door. “It’s a swell figure. Look at her bending over!”
“Oh, you!” she said in a voice that showed she wasn’t in the least displeased.
Lowry closed the bathroom door.
She got the flame to suit her, then turned around and smiled at me. “You’re nice,” she said.
“I try to be,” I told her.
She said, “I’m glad we didn’t find you last night. Sometimes Sam gets too rough. He doesn’t know how strong he really is.”
“I can imagine,” I told her.
She smoothed the sweater down, caught my eye and smiled. “What’s the weather like outside?”
“Nice.”
“Sunshine?”
“Not a cloud.”
“Going to be hot?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Take a look at that table,” she said, showing me a fine-looking, highly polished table that looked out of place in the apartment. “Isn’t that a peach?”
“It certainly is.”
“Sam got that for a birthday present for me. It’s myrtle wood from Oregon. I bet you never saw anything so slick.”
“I never did.”
She spread a thick pad on it, then put on a table-cloth. “You’re company,” she explained smiling. “You’re going to get to eat breakfast off of it.”
“That’s fine, only I’ve had…”
“I know, but you’ll have some coffee with us.”
I watched her moving around. She was a cute package and she knew it. She liked to have me watch her.
She said, “So you got what you wanted, all right?”
“Uh huh.”
“You were pretty smart, all right. Sam had to laugh when he realized what you’d done.”
She turned the ham once more. “How do you want your eggs?”
“None for me, thanks. I simply couldn’t eat a thing.”
The redhead said: “How about some news?”
I said, “I can get you a morning paper and…”
“Phooey! They’re too much trouble to read. Let’s listen.”
She went over and turned on the radio, catching a radio broadcast that had apparently been on the air some two or three minutes when she turned it on. “I’ll make it loud so Sam can hear in the bathroom,” she explained and twisted the dial which controlled the volume.
The announcer had finished with a discussion of the foreign situation, made a few comments on current labour troubles and then launched into local news.
It was a little set, but it had good reception, and the voice of the announcer came in very clearly as he said. “The latest bulletin on the murder of Lucille Hollister, who was stocking-strangled by a sex maniac last night is a tribute to the detective ability of Sergeant Frank Sellers of the Homicide Squad.
“Detective Sellers, playing a hunch, checked back on the activities of a private detective who was known to have been working on a case in which the Hollister girl had some undisclosed interest.”
“Only a few moments ago, police were able to announce with positive certainty that the murderer for whom they are looking was a private detective by the name of Donald Lam, who together with his partner, B. Cool, transacts business as a private investigator under the firm name of COOL & LAM. Not only did the sister of the murdered girl positively identify photographs of Donald Lam as those of the man whom she had seen in her bedroom yesterday night immediately after the commission of the murder, but finger-prints which were left on the cellophane cover of the book the intruder was reading have been positively identified as those of Donald Lam.”
“Moreover, the proprietor of a suburban motor court has now identified the dead girl as being a young woman who appeared with Donald Lam at the motor court, at a time when the detective registering under the name of Dover Fulton and wife, secured one of the cottages.”
“Sergeant Sellers modestly disclaimed credit for any unusual detective work. The break, he said, came when, checking the description of the murdered girl, he found that it tallied almost identically with the description that had been given of the young woman who had been registered at the motor court as Mrs. Dover Fulton. Knowing that this young woman had been associated with the private detective, Sergeant Sellers made a quick trip to the motor court, got the woman who ran the place to rush to the morgue, where she positively identified the body. Thereupon Sergeant Sellers immediately started checking with Rosalind Hart, sister of the murdered girl, for the purpose of ascertaining whether Donald Lam might have been the intruder whom she saw waiting in her bedroom.”
“In commenting on the motivation for the crime, Sergeant Sellers said today, ‘Lam has always been exceptionally brilliant, but there has been some suspicion as to whether he was entirely normal. His partner admitted that, while women seemed attracted to Lam, and almost invariably made advances, Lam was at times cold, to the point of indifference.’
“Police have not as yet prepared a description for broadcast, but on our next news programme, on the hour, we will assist the police by broadcasting a detailed description of the suspect. In the meantime police are alerting all radio cars and watching all exits from the city. Sellers feels positive that Lam will be apprehended within the next few hours. ‘However,’ he announced grimly, and I quote, ‘it is pretty well established that the man is now desperate, and unless he is surprised and overpowered there will probably be trouble when we try to make the arrest.’ ”
The voice of the announcer then started on another subject and the redhead calmly walked over and switched the radio off.
Sam Lowry came out of the bathroom, wiping lather off his face with a wet towel. “Well, now,” he said, “isn’t that something.”
I lit a cigarette.
“What do we do?” the redhead asked.
“You got a gun?” Lowry asked me.
“No,” I said.
“Are you guilty of the murder?”
“No.”
“How did you happen to leave your fingerprints there?”
“I’ll explain that when the proper time comes.”
“It’s a damn good time right now,” Lowry said.
He moved around so that he was between me and the door. “Sam Lowry,” the girl screamed, “don’t you get me in the line of fire! — you got your gun?”
“I don’t need a gun,” Lowry said.
I kept on puffing at the cigarette.
“I’m going to phone the cops,” the girl said.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Lowry told her. “Get smart, will you?”
“What’s the matter?”
Lowry said, “There’s going to be a reward for this bird if they don’t have him by tomorrow morning. Suppose he just vanishes slick and clean? You know what happens in these sex murders. Police start beating the drums, and the city puts up a reward.”
The redhead looked at me with loathing and said, “You look like such a normal chap. How in the world could you do that to a woman? What satisfaction do you get out of anything like...?”
“Shut up,” Lowry said, “I’m getting an idea. Stand up, Lam.”
He came towards me, treading lightly on the balls of his feet, his shoulders weaving. “Don’t try anything now, buddy,” he said. “Just don’t try anything. Just stand up and turn your back.”
I stood up and turned my back. He ran his hands over my clothes carefully and said. “What do you know about that, Babe? He’s telling the truth. The guy really hasn’t got a gun.”
I sat down in the chair.
“Don’t you leave that man alone with me for as much as one second!” the girl said.
Lowry nodded, surveying me appraisingly with eyes that glittered from over high cheek-bones which had been permanently swollen by the impact of fists during a pugilistic career.
I said, “I didn’t kill her.”
“I know,” Lowry said, grinning. “She kissed you and then, all of a sudden she was possessed by an overpowering impulse, and grabbed up one of her stockings, wrapped it round her neck and choked herself to death. You watched in horrid fascination, powerless to stop her. I know just how it was, buddy.”
The redhead said, “If you let that man even get close to me, Sam Lowry, I’ll kill you.”
“Don’t worry, Babe,” Lowry said, “he isn’t going to get close to you. Watch that ham. You’re burning the hell out of it.”
“You do your own cooking,” she said, “I can’t.”
“You go ahead and cook the ham,” he told her, “I’m going to keep an eye on this bird. If you don’t do a good job with that cooking, I’ll walk out and leave you two alone.”
The threat was enough. She grabbed a fork, lifted the ham out of the frying pan.
“Now pour in some water, some milk and a little thickening, and make some gravy,” Lowry said.
“I know how to make it. Heaven knows I have enough times.”
“Okay, I’m not going to argue about it. Just snap into it.”
The girl made the gravy. Lowry licked his thick lips, and said, “I think I can make something out of this, Lam.”
I said, “You hold me, and when you finally turn me in to get a reward I’ll tell the police all about how you kept me here.”
He laughed and said, “Your word isn’t going to be worth a damn now. You’ll be trying to tell the police you didn’t kill the girl, and your fingerprints will show all over the back of the book. The lipstick smears were all over your handkerchief. Anything you tell the police isn’t going to do you a damn bit of good. I can make a trade all right, and I think I can collect some dough.”
“Well, don’t think you’re going to leave me here with him,” the girl said, “I…”
“Shut up, Babe. I’ve got to do a little heavy thinking. What did you want those pictures for, Lam?”
“I was working on a case.”
“What kind of a case?”
“Oh, just one of those love-pact things! A murder and suicide.”
“That one out in the motor court?” the girl asked.
I nodded.
She was looking at me with wide, round eyes. She said, “This girl went out to the motor court with you, and you registered as husband and wife?”
“That’s what the police say.”
“You wanted to get her in there so you—” she said. “You wanted to get her close up and tie a stocking around her neck, and…”
“Shut up, Babe. Pour that gravy out, and rinse out the pan, then put some eggs in. Sure you don’t want any, Lam?”
I shook my head.
“Okay. Just four eggs, Babe.”
“I’m not hungry any more,” the girl said. “I feel sick to my stomach.”
“Get those eggs in the frying pan,” Lowry commanded, moving threateningly towards her.
She shut up and started cooking.
Lowry said, musingly, “This is going to take a little figuring.”
“If you think you’re going to move one step out of this apartment while he’s here, you’re crazy,” she said.
“That’s what’s bothering me,” Lowry admitted. “How I can swing this thing. I want to get hold of Bob Elgin, but — I don’t want him to find you here.”
There was silence for a while. Then Lowry said, “I could give you a gun, Babe. You could hold it on him. You could sit right there, and…”
“I tell you, I won’t be in this room with him when you’re not here. I don’t care how many guns you give me.” Lowry tried thinking things over.
I said, “You could tag along with me, Lowry, and make some dough.”
“How come?”
I said, “Why don’t you grow up? You don’t want to be a night-club bouncer all your life.”
“It ain’t what you want in this world that makes you fat. It’s what you get,” Lowry said.
“Perhaps you and I could get our heads together.”
The girl put breakfast on the table. Lowry started eating.
“You watch him,” Babe said indignantly to Lowry. “He’s smooth. You start making any kind of a deal with him and I walk out of your life so fast you just hear me whiz as I go through the door.”
“What’s the deal?” Lowry asked me.
I said, “There’s eighty thousand dollars’ insurance at stake. The insurance company would like to refund one year’s premium and be in the clear. It would hate like hell to be stuck for eighty thousand bucks.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Lowry interjected, shovelling ham into his mouth.
I said, “I’m going to stick them. I was working on that angle of the case. I went to see the girl, but she was dressing. She told me to wait in the other room while she got some clothes on. Someone followed me. I think it was you.”
“Not him,” the girl declared. “You can’t pull that stuff on us. I was with him every minute of the time from the time you stole our car. We had to flag a passing motorist, get some petrol for your car, drive it into town, and park it and then take a taxi out here.”
I said, “Somebody else knew about that address.”
“What address?”
“The girl’s address. The one that was murdered.”
He grinned and said, “You’ve got a nice story there. Let’s see how it goes. You got in the girl’s bedroom and she was dressing. Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“And she kissed you while she was undressed?”
I nodded.
“And then you were too modest to sit in the room while she was dressing, and she was too bashful to have you in there, so she sent you into her sister’s bedroom.”
“Believe it or not, that’s it,” I said.
He laughed. “What would you think of a girl like that, Babe?” he asked the redhead.
“Don’t drag me into this,” she declared. “When I think of the chances a girl takes! Gosh, to think of that poor kid!”
I said, “I’m going to change my mind and have some eggs after all. Don’t bother. I’ll cook them.”
I started to get up out of the chair.
“You sit right where you are,” Lowry said, “and don’t make a move. Babe, if he wants a couple of eggs, cook them for him.”
She pouted, and said, “I don’t want to cook for any sex killer. Why don’t you let him cook them himself?”
“He got hungry too suddenly,” Lowry said, his eyes cunning. “He wanted to do the cooking. Let him get hold of a frying pan full of hot grease and you know what could happen. He could fling that in my eyes and then what would happen to you?”
“Oh, oh!” she said.
I said, “Suspicious, aren’t you?”
“You’re damn right I’m suspicious,” Lowry grinned. “I’ve had one experience with you. You’re smart.”
The redhead got up and cooked a couple of eggs. I sat there and watched them sputtering in the frying pan. She didn’t make a good job of cooking them. There was too much crust on the bottom and there were lots of bubbles cooked into the sides so that it was a nasty mess swimming in grease.
“Take the pepper off the table, honey,” Lowry said.
“I want pepper on my eggs.”
“I’ll pepper the eggs,” Lowry said. “You get your hands on that pepper-shaker and you might find some way of unscrewing the top and getting a fistful of pepper.
“And don’t reach for that coffee,” he said, as I started to reach for the pot of hot coffee. “I’ll pour the coffee. No, I won’t either. Babe, you pour the coffee.”
Lowry moved his chair back a few feet, and said, “Don’t make a move, Lam. Don’t try any smart stuff. I’ll be right back.”
He stepped into the other room, leaving the door open, and a moment later came back carrying a revolver. “Now,” he said, “this will get you over any ideas you might have of throwing hot coffee in my eyes.”
I choked down the greasy eggs, had some toast and coffee. The coffee was fairly good, but I was having trouble with the food.
Lowry watched me eat, and laughed. He said, “You’re having to swallow twice with every mouthful.”
“What’s the idea?” I asked. “Are you trying to criticize Babe’s cooking? I don’t seem to stand much chance of getting along, no matter what I do.”
He watched me while I finished eating the eggs and sipped my second cup of coffee.
He said. “You sit right there in that chair. No matter what happens don’t move out of that chair. Do you understand?” I yawned, and said, “It suits me all right. I was going to give your wife a hand with the dishes.”
“His wife,” the redhead said, and then laughed.
“It’s okay, Babe. Let it ride,” Lowry said.
I said, “Why do you suppose I came up here this morning, Lowry?”
“I’m damned if I know.”
“I’ve made a deal with Elgin. There’s eighty grand involved. We only get a cut of it, but it’s a nice hunk of change at that. I guess Elgin will be along pretty quick — unless he intended to cut you out. He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
Lowry looked at me with eyes that glittered with cold suspicion. “What the hell do you mean, cut me out?”
“I just asked you.”
“How the hell do I know what he’d do?”
We sat silent. The redhead put water in the dish-pan. Both of us sat watching the lithe motions of the girl as she took the dishes from the panful of soapy water, rinsed them, and then put them on the draining board.
I looked at my wrist watch and said, “Damn it, it’s funny you haven’t heard from Elgin. I thought he was going to be here.”
“Did he say he’d be here?”
I said, “I gave him the whole dope and told him I needed a man who could hold up his end in case the going got tough. I told him what his cut would be. He gave me your name and address. I told him you’d tried to meet me before, and he laughed and said, ‘People whom you wanted to meet didn’t always want to meet you,’ or something like that. I’ve forgotten just what it was. I told him I was on my way up here. I certainly thought he’d either be here or get in touch with me.”
There was another period of silence.
I said, “You don’t suppose he could be giving us both a double-cross, do you?”
“Hell, I’m not his partner,” Lowry said. “I’m his bouncer.”
“You were supposed to be in on this deal.”
“How much did you say was involved?”
“Eighty thousand smackers.”
“How come?”
I said, “Take yesterday’s paper. Figure it out for yourself. Dover Fulton was found dead. If he committed suicide, his policies don’t pay off because they’re less than a year old. He gets nothing except a return of the first year’s premium. If he didn’t commit suicide the policies carry a double indemnity provision. The face of the policies is forty thousand, twice forty is eighty.”
“Eighty grand!” Lowry said, and licked his lips.
I said, “Our share of that would be around twenty grand. Your cut would give you a chance to get in business for yourself, and buy some swell clothes for the redhead. She could go in pictures if she had the right backing.”
“Do you think I could?” the girl asked.
Lowry said, angrily, “You just go ahead and talk to me about the deal, Lam. Don’t spend my money for me. I’ll do my own spending.”
The redhead said angrily, “I believe you would cut me out it.”
“Shut up, Babe,” he ordered. “I want to think.”
In the period of silence which followed we could hear the ticking of the cheap tin alarm lock. The redhead finished the dishes, and hung up the dish-towel.
I held out my coffee cup, and she refilled it with the thick, black coffee that was at the bottom of the percolator.
“Warm it up for him, Babe,” Lowry said.
“This is all right,” I told him. “I like it this way.”
I sat holding the cup of coffee over the table.
Abruptly Lowry said, “I’ve got to telephone Bob Elgin, honey.”
“You’re not going to leave me here alone with him.”
“Now look, kid, I’ll leave you the gun. You sit across the room, out of the way. If he makes a move, plug him. You’ve got every right in the world. He’s a murderer, the police are looking for him, and he’s trying to escape. If anything happens and you shoot, remember that I was going down the hall to telephone for the bulls.”
“I don’t want to be left alone with him.”
“It’s the only way,” Lowry said. “I’ve got to telephone.”
“Let me telephone.”
He laughed and said, “You know what Bob would say if he knew you were here.”
“Well, what are you going to do if he comes up?”
“You’re going to duck out the back way.”
“I’ll duck out now.”
“Not until after I put through that phone call. You’ve got to watch this guy.”
“I tell you I don’t want to be left alone with him.”
“Now look, honey, you sit over here right by the door to the hall. If he makes a move, you shoot. It isn’t as though I wouldn’t be right near here. I’m just going to be down at the end of the hall. I can hear you if you shoot! Heck, I can even hear you if you scream. I’ll be back in a jiffy. If you do shoot, don’t fumble around. Blow the bastard wide open.”
“I’d like to blow him wide open anyway,” she said, “When I think of that girl, with her cute figure, and — I tell you, it makes me sick to my stomach.”
I said to Lowry, “Of course, Bob may not have figured on cutting you in on the deal, but I thought he did.”
“He should,” Lowry said.
I said, “The way I figured the thing, Bob Elgin knew enough about this deal at the motor court. He knew who went out, and…”
“Say, wait a minute,” Lowry said, “you aren’t getting Bob wrong, are you? He runs a clean place down there. He doesn’t let any mobsters hang around the place. An occasional skirt can cut herself a piece of cake, but that’s as far as it goes.”
I said, “Well, he acted as though he knew all about this deal, and he said you and I could clean it up. Maybe I told him too much.”
“You take the gun, honey,” Lowry said. “I’m going to call Elgin.”
“You don’t have anything to call him about, not so far,” she said. “All you’ve heard is talk.”
I could see he was impressed by that. He settled back in his chair. “I guess the guy is a smooth liar, at that.”
I said, “What did you expect? Sleight-of-hand tricks, or television? I’m telling you.”
“Just what are you telling us, again?” she asked. “Why don’t you get down to brass tacks?”
I said, “Okay, I will. Tom Durham and Bob Elgin have a racket. I don’t know what’s in it for either of them, and I don’t care. I don’t know what Durham was playing for on this mix-up that goes back to the so-called suicide-pact Saturday night; but I do know that they’re in the picture somewhere. I have a chance for salvage, an opportunity to get a cut out of eighty grand. Bob Elgin was interested in it. He told me to come here — hell, I don’t know, he could be double-crossing all of us. I hate to sit here and take the rap.”
“You’re going to be sitting places for a long time,” Lowry said.
“Not if I can help it, but I’m not. I’m going to wrap up a cut of eighty grand and get out from under on this Hollister killing.”
“Are you trying to tell us you didn’t do that?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
Lowry said, “I’m going to call Bob, and that’s final. You take the gun, Babe.”
Lowry passed the gun over to the girl. She took up a position between me and the door.
“I’ll leave the door open,” Lowry said.
He looked the situation over, then nodded to the girl, and beat it through the door.
The girl sat there, the door half-open, the gun pointed at me. I could see the skin was white across her knuckles. “Don’t you make a move,” she said. “I believe I’d really like to pull the trigger, you filthy beast! And you looked so decent, too.”
I said, “I told you I didn’t have anything to do with that killing. It wasn’t a sex killing, anyway.”
“You had lipstick on your handkerchief.”
“She kissed me.”
“What were you doing in her bedroom?”
“Talking to her.”
“She wasn’t dressed.”
“She invited me in.”
“That sounds a likely story.”
I reached over to my coffee cup, let my hand slip, and tipped the coffee all over the table-cloth.
The instinctive reaction was too strong. She came up out of the chair like a shot. “You clumsy fool!” she said. “Put something under it, so it doesn’t reach the table.”
I took a handkerchief from my pocket, made futile attempts at sopping up the mess.
“No, no!” she said, underneath it! Quick! Before it reaches the table.”
She came flying across the room, and as she got on the other side of the table I tipped the whole thing over on top of her, reached across the tilted table-top, grabbed her gun wrist, twisted the arm, took the gun, and said, “Not a sound. Out the back way. Quick!”
She was so white the make-up showed as orange patches on each cheek.
“Down the back way,” I repeated, and then added, fiendishly, “Do you want a stocking tied around your little white neck, a nice stocking that would shut off the air? My, you’d look pretty choking to death, you…”
That did it. She started to scream. I clapped my hand over her mouth, and said, “One word out of you and I’ll wrap that stocking around your neck. Out the back way.”
She was trembling violently. I took my hand from her mouth, patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, and said, “Shucks, Babe, I haven’t the heart to go ahead and torture you this way. Take me out the back way. I didn’t know anything at all about that Hollister killing.”
“Don’t... Don’t choke me. I’ll do... anything. Anything you want. I…”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I never choked anybody in my life, but I want to be out of here fast, and I want to take you with me so you don’t run down the hall and tell Sam. Now let’s go.”
She led the way through a back door, into a screened back porch. We went down the first of the stairs, our feet echoing on the wood. I shoved the gun back under my coat.
Halfway down, I said, “You can go on back now, Babe. I’m sorry I had to play it this way, but I needed to get out. I hadn’t counted on that radio broadcast coming in just when it did.”
She said, “You aren’t going to... to take me with you… to do things... to choke me?”
I laughed, and said, “Forget it. Here, here’s the gun.” I broke the gun open, took the shells out, handed her the shells. “Don’t try shooting until you get the shells in,” I said, “and by that time you’ll have thought better of it. There’s no need attracting a lot of attention and getting your name in the papers. After all, Bob Elgin wouldn’t like it if he knew you were here. Good-bye, Babe.”
She hesitated a moment, then her lips twisted in a half-smile. “Good-bye,” she said, “I guess you’re — pretty damn smart — and a good egg, after all.”
I ran down the rest of the stairs. I looked back and saw she was holding the gun, still making no effort to load it.