“Go on.” My voice sounded strange in the blankness. The shape turned its face to the back wall of my mind. “Who was he jealous of?”
“Some lawyer, a guy called Siphon, something like that. I could look it up.”
“Don’t bother. The name is Seifel.”
He slanted a wise look at me. “Johnson didn’t make any accusations. He said he just wanted to know, one way or the other. The doubt was killing him, he said. It always is.”
“Did you settle his doubts?”
“I thought I did. Now I’m not so sure. Lemp was the one who handled it, see. As a matter of fact, he asked me to put him on the case, he seemed to be interested in it. I was busy myself on a studio job, and so were my other operators. I sent him down to Pacific Point. He watched the Johnson dame for four or five days. This was in November. He reported nothing there. Mrs. Johnson saw the legal eagle a couple of times but there was always a third party present, Johnson or the guy’s mother. I’m no jackaclass="underline" I told Johnson he was wasting his money.”
“But now you’re not so sure.”
I tried to keep emotion out of my voice, but Bourke had a delicate ear for that sort of thing. “Don’t get mad at me. I got enough people mad at me already.” He raised his bent right arm as if to ward off a series of looping left hooks. “Okay, so you like the lady. Look at the thing dispassionately. I know now, I didn’t know then, Lemp’s reports aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Even if he caught them in flagrante, he wouldn’t report it to me. He saw a chance for something bigger there: he must have been planning this snatch since November, maybe before I assigned him to the case. So he wouldn’t do anything to precipitate trouble in the family. Would he?”
“I’d like to see his report.”
Bourke pulled open a drawer in a filing-cabinet. He riffled through the papers in the drawer, casually at first, then more and more intently. “It isn’t here. Lemp must have lifted it before he left.”
“You’re sure?”
“Look for yourself. This is all there is.” He showed me a record of payment: Abel Johnson, Pacific Point, $125.00, for services rendered. “Forest is going to like this, very much.”
He collapsed in the swivel chair and lifted a blue revolver from the middle drawer of the desk. Absently, he twirled the loaded chamber with his forefinger:
“Russian roulette, anyone?”
“Put it away,” I said.
“R.K.O.” He replaced the gun in the drawer. “Don’t mind me, Howard. I was just kidding. I’m a great kidder.”
“This is no time for comedy. If you know something more than you’ve told me, you’d better let me have it”
“Such as?”
“Where Molly Fawn lived. I think you knew her pretty well at one time. It’s possible you still do.”
“You’re wrong, you couldn’t be wronger.” His face was expressionless, but below the edge of the desk his hands were wrestling quietly with each other. “I haven’t seen that little twist since December.”
“Where did you see her?”
He countered with a question: “Is she involved in this snatch?”
“She’s involved with Lemp, and he’s the key man in it. I shouldn’t have to tell you this: your only chance of keeping yourself clear is to talk and talk some more.”
His right hand bent his left hand backward onto his knee and vanquished it. “I visited her a couple of times in her apartment. She probably isn’t there any more, but maybe she left a forwarding address. Anyway, you can try it. It’s in West Hollywood.” He gave me the address, and instructions for finding it.
“Thanks, Bourke. But why the long delay in spilling it?”
“I think she’s San Quentin quail.” He slapped himself across the eyes with his open left palm. “I must be nuts, I know what I ought to do every time, and half the time I can’t do it. Maybe I’m just another bum.”
I left him.
chapter 15
The apartment was over an attached garage on a quiet rundown residential street. Its windows were dark, but there were lights and sounds in the adjoining house. It was a white frame bungalow whose lines aspired, rather feebly, to Colonial. The sounds inside were radio voices. When I rang the front-door bell, the voices were cut off suddenly, and soft slow footsteps approached the door.
The door was opened about four inches, on a chain. Spectacled eyes looked down a long female nose at me. A disapproving mouth said: “You’ve interrupted my favorite program. You’d think I had the right to some peace. What is it you want?”
“I’m sorry. The matter is urgent. I’m trying to find a girl who calls herself Molly Fawn.”
Her disapproval hardened, descending over her long face like an icecap. “I know nothing whatever about her. If you’re another one of her worthless friends–”
“I’m a probation officer,” I said, before she could close the door. “I’m investigating a very serious case.”
The icecap thawed perceptibly. Something that might have been pleasure glinted behind the spectacles. “Is she in trouble? I told that girl that she was heading for trouble, with her carryings-on. Why, when I was her age, I wasn’t allowed to speak to a man. Father was strict with we girls–”
“May I come in?”
She unhooked the chain and opened the door another foot, just wide enough for me to squeeze through. “Promise you won’t notice the condition of the house.”
The house was very clean, and preternaturally neat, like a barracks awaiting inspection. But everything in it was old: the carpeting, the furniture, even the outdated calendar in the hallway. The air in the living-room was stale and heavy, laden with an odor like musty spice. A faded motto on the wall above a closed upright piano stated: “The smoke ascends as lightly from the cottage hearth as from the haughty palace.”
She said, when she saw me reading it: “A great truth, isn’t it? Would you like to sit down, Mr.–?”
“Cross, Howard Cross.”
“I am Miss Hilda Trenton. Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Cross.”
We sat in facing platform-rockers in front of the old cabinet radio. It was still lighted and humming like a repressed desire. Miss Trenton leaned towards me, sharp elbows on sharp knees: “What has she done?”
“I’m trying to find out. I take it she doesn’t live here any more.”
“She was only here for a month or so, and I can tell you I wouldn’t rent her the apartment again if she came to me on bended knee.” She smiled grimly. “Of course she won’t. She left owing a week’s rent – decamped one day while I was at work without a by-your-leave. I was glad to see her go, to tell you the truth. I have a very nice young couple in the apartment now.”
“When did she leave?”
“It was early in January, I don’t remember the exact date.”
“And naturally she didn’t give you a forwarding address.”
“I should say not. She still owes me eighteen dollars. I was foolish to trust her, even for a single week. Molly was full of stories, how her ship was due to come in any day. She was going to get a movie job and be a star and pay me double for waiting. Or else she was going to get married to a wonderful young man.” She sniffed. “No decent young man would marry her.”
“Why not?”
“She was morally loose, that’s why. I saw her company, masculine company, at all hours of the day and night. It’s a good thing she left when she did. I was thinking about evicting her.” She patted the thin gray hair on top of her head. “But I let my charitable impulses get the better of me. I’m always doing that, Mr. Cross. People take advantage of it. It’s my great vice.”