I wasn't going to leave it so Sachetti could come back and take her away from me, though. I was going to do it so he would be put in a spot. Police are hard to fool, but Lola would never be quite sure he hadn't done it. And of course if he did one, so far as she was concerned he probably did the other.
My next day at the finance company, I put through a lot of routine stuff, sent the file clerk out on an errand, and took out the folder on Sachetti. I slipped it in my desk. In that folder was a key to his car. In our finance company, just to avoid trouble in case of a repossess, we make every borrower deposit the key to his car along with the other papers on his loan, and of course Sachetti had had to do the same. That was back in the winter when he took out the loan on his car. I slipped the key out of its envelope, and when I went out to lunch I had a duplicate made. When I got back I sent the file clerk on another errand, put the original key back in its envelope, and returned the folder to the file. That was what I wanted. I had the key to his car, and nobody there even knew I had the folder out of the file.
Next I had to get hold of Phyllis, but I didn't dare ring her. I had to wait till she called. I sat around the house three nights, and the fourth night the phone rang.
"Phyllis, I've got to see you."
"It's about time."
"You know the reason I haven't. Now get this. We've got to meet, to go over things in connection with this suit-and after that, I don't think we have anything to fear."
"Can we meet? I thought you said-"
"That's right. They've been watching you. But I found out something today. They've cut down the detail assigned to you to one shift, and he goes off at eleven."
"What's that?"
"They did have three men assigned to you, in shifts, but they weren't finding out very much, so they thought they'd cut down the expense, and now they've only got one. He goes on in the afternoon, and goes off at eleven o'clock, unless there's something to hold him. We'll have to meet after that."
"All right. Then come up to the house-"
"Oh no, we can't take a chance like that. But we can meet. Tomorrow night, around midnight, you sneak out. Take the car and sneak out. If anybody drops in in the evening, get rid of them well before eleven o'clock. Get rid of them, turn out all lights, have the place looking like you had gone to bed well before this man goes off. So he'll have no suspicions whatever."
The reason for that was that if Sachetti was going to be with her the next night, I wanted him to be well out of there and home in bed, long before I was to meet her. I had to have his car, and I didn't want the connections to be so close I had to wait. The rest of it was all hooey, about the one shift I mean. I wanted her to think she could meet me safely. As to whether they had one shift on her, or three, or six, I didn't know and I didn't care. If somebody followed her, so much the better, for what I had to do. They'd have to move fast to catch me, and if they saw her deliberately knocked off, why that would be just that much more Mr. Sachetti would have to explain when they caught up with him.
"Lights out by eleven."
"Lights out, the cat out, and the place locked up."
"All right, where do I meet you?"
"Meet me in Griffith Park, a couple of hundred yards up Riverside from Los Feliz. I'll be parked there, and we'll take a ride, and talk it over. Don't park on Los Feliz. Park in among the trees, in the little glade near the bridge. Park where I can see you, and walk over."
"In between the two streets?"
"That's it. Make it twelve-thirty sharp. I'll be a minute or two ahead of time, so you can hop right in and you won't have to wait."
"Twelve-thirty, two hundred yards up Riverside."
"That's right. Close your garage door when you come out, so anybody passing won't notice the car's out."
"I'll be there, Walter."
"Oh, and one other thing. I traded my car in since I saw you. I've got another one." I told her the make. "It's a small dark blue coupe. You can't miss it."
"A blue coupe?"
"Yes."
"That's funny."
I knew why it was funny. She'd been riding around in a blue coupe for the last month, the same one if she only knew it, but I didn't tumble. "Yeah, I guess it's funny at that, me driving around in that oil can, but the big car was costing too much. I had a chance for a deal on this one, so I took it."
"It's the funniest thing I ever heard."
"Why?"
"Oh-nothing. Tomorrow night at twelve-thirty."
"Twelve-thirty."
"I'm just dying to see you."
"Same here."
"Well-I had something to talk to you about, but I'll let it wait till tomorrow. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
When she hung up I got the paper and checked the shows in town. There was a downtown theatre that had a midnight show, and the bill was to hold over the whole week. That was what I wanted. I drove down there. It was about ten-thirty when I got in, and I sat in the balcony, so I wouldn't be seen by the downstairs ushers. I watched the show close, and paid attention to the gags, because it was to be part of my alibi next night that I had been there. In the last sequence of the feature I saw an actor I knew. He played the part of a waiter, and I had once sold him a hunk of life insurance, $7,000 for an endowment policy, all paid up when he bought it. His name was Jack Christolf. That helped me. I stayed till the show was out, and looked at my watch. It was 12:48.
Next day around lunch time I called up Jack Christolf. They said he was at the studio and I caught him there. "I hear you knocked them for a loop in this new one, 'Gun Play'."
"I didn't do bad. Did you see it?"
"No, I want to catch it. Where's it playing?"
He named five theatres. He knew them all. "I'm going to drop in on it the very first chance I get. Well say old man, how about another little piece of life insurance? Something to do with all this dough you're making."
"I don't know. I don't know. To tell you the truth, I might be interested. Yes, I might."
"When can I see you?"
"Well, I'm busy this week. I don't finish up here till Friday, and I thought I would go away for a rest over the week-end. But next week, any time."
"How about at night?"
"Well, we might do that."
"How about tomorrow night?"
"I tell you. Ring me home tomorrow night, around dinner time, some time around seven o'clock. I'll let you know then. If I can make it, I'll be glad to see you."
That would be why I went to that particular picture tonight, that I had to talk to this actor tomorrow night, and I wanted to see his picture, so I could talk about it and make him feel good.
About four o'clock I drove up through Griffith Park, and checked it over close, what I was going to do. I picked a spot for my car, and a spot for Sachetti's car. They weren't far apart, but the spot for my car was close to one end of the bridle path, where they ride horses in the daytime. It winds all over the hills there, but right above this place it comes out on the automobile road up above. I mean, up high in the hills. This park, they call it a park, but it's really a scenic drive, up high above Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, for people in cars, and a hilly ride for people on horses. People on foot don't go there much. What I was going to do was let her get in and then start up the hill. When I came to one of those platforms where the road is graded to a little flat place so people can park and look over the valley, I was going to pull in, and say something about parking there, so we could talk. Only I wasn't going to park. The car was accidentally on purpose, going to roll over the edge, and I was going to jump. As soon as I jumped I was going to dive into the bridle path, race on down to my car, and drive home. From where I was going to park Sachetti's car to where I was going to run her over the edge was about two miles, by road. But by bridle path it was only a hundred yards, on account of the road winding all through the hills for an easy grade, and the bridle path being almost straight up and down. Less than a minute after the crash, before even a crowd could get there, I would be away and gone.