«Uh-huh. Where did she go from here.»
«She took a hack to the depot. You use nice likker, Mr. Dalmas.»
«Excuse me. Help yourself.» When he had I said: «Remember anything about her? She have any visitors?»
«No, sir. But I do recall something. A tall, good-lookin’ jasper. She didn’t seem pleased to see him.»
«Ah.» I took another photo out of my pocket and showed it to him. He studied that carefully also.
«This don’t look quite so much like her. But I’m sure it’s the gentleman I spoke of.»
He picked up both photos again and held them side by side. He looked a little puzzled. «Yes, sir. That’s him all right,» he said.
«You’re an accommodating guy,» I said. «You’d remember almost anything, wouldn’t you?»
«I don’t get you, sir.»
«Take another drink. I owe you four bucks. That’s five in all. It’s not worth it. You hops are always trying to pull some gag.»
He took a very small one and balanced it in his hand, his yellow face puckered. «I do the best I can,» he said stiffly. He drank his drink, put the glass down silently and moved to the door. «You can keep your goddam money,» he said. He took the dollar out of his watch pocket and threw it on the floor. «To hell with you, you —» he said softly.
He went out.
I picked up the two photos and held them side by side and scowled at them. After a long moment an icy finger touched my spine. It had touched it once before, very briefly, but I had shaken off the feeling. It came back now to stay.
I went to the tiny desk and got an envelope and put a fivedollar bill in it and sealed it and wrote «Les» on it. I put my clothes on and my bottle on my hip and picked up my overnight bag and left the room.
Down in the lobby the redhead jumped at me. Les stayed back by a pillar, his arms folded, silent. I went to the desk and asked for my bill.
«Anything wrong, sir?» The clerk looked troubled.
I paid the bill and walked out to my car and then turned and went back to the desk. I gave the clerk the envelope with the five in it. «Give this to the Texas boy, Les. He’s mad at me, but he’ll get over it.»
I made Glendale before 2 a. m. and looked around for a place where I could phone. I found an all-night garage.
I got out dimes and nickels, and dialed the operator and got Melton’s number in Beverly Hills. His voice, when it finally came over the wire, didn’t sound very sleepy.
«Sorry to call at this hour,» I said, «but you told me to. I traced Mrs. Melton to San Bernardino and to the depot there.»
«We knew that already,» he said crossly.
«Well, it pays to be sure. Haines’ cabin has been searched. Nothing much found. If you thought he knew where Mrs. Melton —»
«I don’t know what I thought,» he broke in sharply. «After what you told me I thought the place ought to be searched. Is that all you have to report?»
«No.» I hesitated a little. «I’ve had a bad dream. I dreamed there was a woman’s bag in a chair in that Chester Lane house this morning. It was pretty dark in there from the trees and I forgot to remove it.»
«What color bag?» His voice was as stiff as a clam shell.
«Dark blue — maybe black. The light was bad.»
«You’d better go back and get it,» he snapped.
«Why?»
«That’s what I’m paying you five hundred dollars for — among other things.»
«There’s a limit to what I have to do for five hundred bucks — even if I had them.»
He swore. «Listen, fella. I owe you a lot, but this is up to you and you can’t let me down.»
«Well, there might be a flock of cops on the front step. And then again the place might be quiet as a pet flea. Either way I don’t like it. I’ve had enough of that house.»
There was a deep silence from Melton’s end. I took a long breath and gave him some more: «What’s more, I think you know where you wife is, Melton. Goodwin ran into her in the hotel in San Bernardino. He had a check of hers a few days ago. You met Goodwin on the street. You helped him get the check cashed, indirectly. I think you know. I think you just hired me to backtrack over her trail and see that it was properly covered.»
There was more heavy silence from him. When he spoke again it was in a small, chastened voice. «You win, Dalmas. Yeah — it was blackmail all right, on that check business. But I don’t know where she is. That’s straight. And that bag has to be got. How would seven hundred and fifty sound to you?»
«Better. When do I get it?»
«Tonight, if you’ll take a check. I can’t make better than eighty dollars in cash before tomorrow.»
I hesitated again. I knew by the feel of my face that I was grinning. «Okay,» I said at last. «It’s a deal. I’ll get the bag unless there’s a flock of johns there.»
«Where are you now?» He almost whistled with relief.
«Azusa. It’ll take me about an hour to get there,» I lied.
«Step on it,» he said. «You’llfind me a good guy to play ball with. You’re in this pretty deep yourself, fella.»
«I’m used to jams,» I said, and hung up.
SEVEN
A PAIR OF FALL GUYS
I drove back to Chevy Chase Boulevard and along it to the foot of Chester Lane where I dimmed my lights and turned in. I drove quickly up around the curve to the new house across from Goodwin’s place. There was no sign of life around it, no cars in front, no sign of a stakeout that I could spot. That was a chance I had to take, like another and worse one I was taking.
I drove into the driveway of the house and got out and lifted up the unlocked swing-up garage door. I put my car inside, lowered the door and snaked back across the street as if Indians were after me. I used all the cover of Goodwin’s trees to the back yard and put myself behind the biggest of them there. I sat down on the ground and allowed myself a sip from my pint of rye.
Time passed, with a deadly slowness. I expected company, but I didn’t know how soon. It came sooner than I expected.
In about fifteen minutes a car came up Chester Lane and I caught a faint glisten of it between the trees, along the side of the house. It was running without lights. I liked that. A shadow moved without sound at the corner of the house. It was a small shadow, a foot shorter than Melton’s would have been. He couldn’t have driven from Beverly Hills in that time anyway.
Then the shadow was at the back door, the back door opened, and the shadow vanished through it into deeper darkness. The door closed silently. I got up on my feet and sneaked across the soft, moist grass. I stepped silently into Mr. Goodwin’s porch and from there into his kitchen. I stood still, listening hard. There was no sound, no light beyond me. I took the gun out from under my arm and squeezed the butt down at my side. I breathed shallowly, from the top of my lungs. Then a funny thing happened. A crack of light appeared suddenly under the swing door to the dining room. The shadow had turned the lights up. Careless shadow! I walked across the kitchen and pushed the swing door open and left it that way. The light poured into the alcove dining room from beyond the living-room arch. I went that way, carelessly — much too carelessly. I stepped past the arch.
A voice at my elbow said: «Drop it — and keep on walking.» I looked at her. She was small, pretty after a fashion, and her gun pointed at my side very steadily.
«You’re not clever,» she said. «Are you?»
I opened my hand and let the gun fall. I walked four steps beyond it and turned.
«No,» I said.
The woman said nothing more. She moved away, circling a little, leaving the gun on the floor. She circled until she faced me. I looked past her at the corner chair with the footstool. White buck shoes still rested on the footstool. Mr. Lance Goodwin still sat negligently in the chair, with his left hand on the wide brocaded arm and his right trailing to the small gun on the floor. The last blood drop had frozen on his chin. It looked black and hard and permanent. His face had a waxy look now.