“It’s hard to tell you how we work out’ there on Billinger Street. It’s something like — well, from all I can hear, it’s like Greenwich Village in New York used to be many, many years ago.”
“And Milton Calhoun fits into that picture?” I asked.
“He emphatically does not fit into that picture,” she said, “and that’s why I’m afraid of him. Milt wants to be received as a friend, but you know instinctively that he isn’t one of us. If I married him I’d be jerked out of the environment I love so well. We’d be on the French Riviera, or cruising in yachts. If I wanted to have friends visit me in that environment I’d be uncomfortable and so would they.
“Right now Milt tries hard to be one of the gang, despite the act he puts on he’s an outsider.”
“Do you mean he’s a hypocrite?” I asked.
“No, no, no, I’m afraid you don’t know what I mean. You don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you.
“Milt thinks that is a poor life. He would like to me from that life. That’s the way he thinks of it as a rescue. He would like to marry me when he becomes free and give me a big house and servants and a yacht and the stuff that still goes with extreme wealth.”
“And you don’t want it?”
“I don’t want any part of it, not the way I feel now. I like Milt. I’m tremendously fond of him. I could probably fall in love with him if I’d let myself, but I love this life that I’m living, this being just one jump ahead of landlord, this studying the magazines, the writer’s magazines, looking for tips on what can be sold and where can be sold.
“Sometimes I’m a little behind in the rent, sometimes I’ve even been short on postage, but I’m one of the gang. We all of us sort of pull together. It’s a great life and I like it.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “you’re getting the cart before horse.”
“What do you mean?”
“Perhaps you ought to rescue Calhoun.”
“Rescue him from what?”
“From the same thing he’s trying to rescue you from.”
“I don’t get it.”
“From the life he leads,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, then laughed. “He’d like that!”
“Here’s a guy with money running out of his ears. He puts in his day turning to the financial column of the papers, reading the stock listings, giving orders to his brokers, having all the accessories of wealth including a dissatisfied wife. You could save him from all that.”
“Yes,” she said, laughing. “I’ve even thought of that. Suppose I did marry him and had all the glittering embellishments of wealth. Pretty quick he’d be burying his nose in the financial page at breakfast and then hurrying away to give orders to his brokers. I’d be sitting there — I won’t say a bird in a gilded cage because it’s too damn much of a cliché, but you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” I said.
“Why not tell Calhoun that if he’ll cut himself off from his bank account and move down on Billinger Street, take up writing and support himself by his earnings, you’ll feel different about it?”
She laughed gleefully. “It would be a great gag at that. I’d like to see his face when I pull that on him.”
“And Hale?” I asked. “What about Hale?”
“Hale,” she said, “is one of the gang. He’s a friend.
“Good Lord, I run onto a chance to give him a real first-class article on dope smuggling. It’s something that a man has to do — a woman can’t do it.
“So I pass the tip on to Cole Hale and do everything I can to make the story jell.”
“And what will you get out of it?”
“It depends upon what Cole gets out of it. He’ll cut me in for a percentage.”
“And you’ll take it?”
She looked at me in surprise. “Sure, I’ll take it,” she said. “What do you think I’m doing this for?”
“I thought perhaps it was from a sense of devotion.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I like Cole, but I have a living to make just as he has a living to make.”
“So you’re in this thing together?”
She nodded.
“And in deep,” I said.
Again she nodded.
After a while she said, “You’re the one I don’t get... don’t get the sketch.”
I said, “I’m a private detective. I have loyalty to person who employs me. I don’t have all of the immunities that an attorney would have. As a result I have to protect myself and my client.
“For instance, I can’t hold out evidence on the police if the police demand that evidence, and I can’t conceal evidence and I can’t conceal evidence that would tend solve a case on which the police are working. If I did, I’d be in trouble.”
“But you’re concealing me.”
“No, I’m not,” I told her. “I’m just taking you where you’re not going to be disturbed by a lot of newspaper reporters.”
“Newspaper reporters?”
“That’s right. Have you seen the evening papers?”
“No, I guess I haven’t.”
“Well,” I said, “the evening papers are making a feature of the Los Angeles millionaire who was arrested for murder.”
“But he hasn’t said anything about me, has he?”
“He hasn’t said anything about you, but don’t underestimate the skill of the reporters.”
“But how could the reporters find anything that would lead to me from the fact that Milt Calhoun has arrested?”
“They’ll talk with Calhoun’s attorney,” I said. “His attorney will be very mysterious. He won’t mention names, but the name of Colburn Hale will be brought into the case. Then the reporters will start talking with Hale.”
“Do you think he will talk?” she asked.
“Do you think he’ll keep quiet?” I countered.
She thought that one over and said, “Then why don’t you spirit him away?”
“Because,” I told her, “Hale is a witness. He enters into the case. The police wouldn’t like it if a private detective spirited Hale away. And don’t get the idea that I’m spiriting you away. I’m just taking you to a place where you won’t be disturbed and where you can get a good rest.”
“All right, we’ll let it go at that,” she said, laughing.
We let it go at that.
By the time we got to El Golfo I felt that I knew Nanncie very well indeed and she was one nice kid. I could see her viewpoint. I didn’t know how long she’d have it. I knew that sooner or later some guy would sweep her off her feet and I knew that it might well be Milton Carling Calhoun once he learned the proper approach, but I didn’t think it was my duty as his private detective to give him the proper approach. It was up to him to find that out for himself.
We got into El Golfo in time to get two rooms in the motel I told Nanncie, “There’s a bus service out of here that you can take if you have to, but you won’t be hearing from me, you won’t be hearing from anybody, unless someone comes to get you.”
“And suppose someone comes to get me?”
“Then,” I told her, “you’ll have a nice long ride.”
“Will we have breakfast together in the—”
“I’ll be long gone by breakfast,” I told her. “I have work to do.”
I filled up the agency heap and took Nanncie over to the little restaurant café. It was late, but they still had some fried prawns and I saw the surprise on her face at the quality of food.
“Just watch that you don’t get fat,” I warned.
“What am I going to do for money?” she asked.
“How much do you have?”
“Damn little.”
I laughed and said, “You have no objection taking money from me which came from Milton Calhoun as expense money?”