He held the phone and looked at me as though checking things off. Once he grinned, and I knew that Bertha’s description would have the unmistakable salty tang that characterized all of her utterances.
“And you operate a detective agency in Los Angeles? Thanks very much, Mrs. Cool… No, he hasn’t done anything. I was just checking up, that’s all— Well, just a minute. Hold the phone.”
He clamped the palm of his right hand over the transmitter, looked up at the manager, and said, “It checks. She wants to talk with him.”
The manager heaved a weary sigh. “Put him on.”
The officer handed me the phone. The hard rubber was hot and moist where his big hand had been touching it. I said, “Hello.”
Bertha said, “What the hell have you done now?”
“Nothing.”
“Baloney!”
I said, “I got a line on our party.”
“Talked with her?”
“No.”
“Well, that isn’t going to get us any bonus.”
“I know. She wasn’t in.”
“Well, what the hell have you been doing?”
I said, “I’ve been out to see the other people. Then I went to see this party. She was out. I dropped in to a casino while I was waiting, and played the slot machine.”
“Did what?” Bertha screamed over the telephone.
“Played the slot machine.”
“What did you do that for?”
“Because this party that I’m looking for is supposed to hang around the slot machines in that joint.”
“Now you listen to me, Donald Lam,” Bertha yelled. “You don’t have to play slot machines in order to find a woman. The trouble with you—” Suddenly her voice changed. “How much did you play?”
“Nineteen nickels without even getting a smell. I didn’t even—”
She interrupted me. “And it serves you right. Don’t try to charge that as an expense. Whenever you do any gambling, it’s on your own. I’m not interested. You’re—”
“And then,” I interrupted, “I won three nickels with the last play.”
“And then shot the three nickels I suppose,” Bertha said sarcastically.
“And the last nickel,” I said, “hit the jackpot.”
There was silence. Then Bertha’s silky voice said, “How much did you win, lover?”
“I don’t know, because about that time the law came down on me. I’m supposed to have been milking the slot machines.”
“Now you listen to me, Donald Lam. You’re supposed to have brains. If you haven’t got brains enough to keep yourself out of jail, you’re fired. Can’t you realize that we have to work fast?”
“Sure,” I said, and hung up.
The manager looked at Lieutenant Kleinsmidt. “How does the description check, Bill?”
“It checks. She says he’s a pint-sized parcel of dynamite with the nerve of a prize fighter and a punch that wouldn’t jar a fly loose from a syrup jug — but he’s always trying.”
The manager heaved a sigh that seemed to come from his boot tops. “All right, Lam, how much?”
“For what?”
“For everything. A complete release.”
“I couldn’t set a price.”
“You’re crazy. You probably work for ten dollars a day. Fifty dollars would square everything. You—”
“You heard what Bertha told the officer.”
“I’ll make it a hundred, even money.”
I got up and smoothed my clothes down. The nickels in each of my side pockets sagged the cloth of the coat. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Harvey Breckenridge. I want you to understand, Lam, there’s nothing personal about this. When you’re running a place such as we run, we have to contend with—”
I shoved my right hand out at him. “All right, Mr. Breckenridge, no hard feelings. After all, it’s just a matter of business. I’ll have my lawyer get in touch with your lawyer.”
“Now listen, Lam, let’s be reasonable. There are slickers who go around the country milking the slot machines. They cost us thousands of dollars every year. We keep laying for them, but they’re damned hard to catch. Louie, this attendant of mine, came to me a week ago looking for a job. He said he knew all the gangs who are in the game. He was boxing champion in the Navy, and he’s a little too handy with his fists. He just lost his head, that’s all. I guess the guy’s slap-happy. Now, why not be reasonable and—”
“I’m the one that’s reasonable,” I said. “You’re the one that isn’t. I’ve been exposed to ridicule. I’ve been humiliated. Not only that, but you called up my employer and forced me to explain the circumstances to her. She’ll—”
“Oh, hell, take five hundred dollars in cash and sign a receipt and we’ll call it square.”
I said, “No hard feelings. It’s just a matter of business,” and started for the door.
He didn’t say anything.
At the door, I turned. “Understand, Breckenridge, I’m not trying to stick you. If I hadn’t been working on a case that was very important, I wouldn’t have cared so much. But you asked me my name in front of all those people.”
“That didn’t hurt you any.”
“The girl who was playing that dime machine was the one I was tailing. I’ll have a hell of a time doing anything with her now.”
That rang the bell. He said, “Hell,” with more disgust in his voice than I’ve heard since the Republicans lost the election. “Come back and sit down.”
I walked back and sat down. Lieutenant Kleinsmidt was staring at me. I said to Breckenridge, “The law’s in this, too.”
“What do you mean?” Kleinsmidt asked.
“You.”
“The hell I am. I won’t pay you a damn cent.”
“You’re in it just the same.”
“I was following instructions,” Kleinsmidt said.
“Whose?”
“His.” He jerked his head toward Breckenridge.
Breckenridge said, “How much, Lam?”
“Ten thousand or nothing. I’d prefer to have it nothing.”
They looked at me.
I said, “I may be here for a while. I may want some cooperation. You fellows made things hard for me while I was getting started. I just want you to understand that. You can make up for it later. That would be all I’d want.”
Breckenridge held his face in a poker mask. “You kidding us?”
“No. It’s on the square.”
Breckenridge pushed back his chair, shot his hand across the desk, and said, “That’s damn square, Lam. Shake.”
I shook hands. When Breckenridge released my hand, I saw Kleinsmidt’s big paw out in front of me. I shook it, too. It was moist and hot, and it had bone-crushing strength.
“Exactly what do you want?” Breckenridge asked.
“First,” I said, “I want to talk with Louie. I want to know what he knows about the girl who was playing the machines.”
Breckenridge said, “Personally, I think Louie is full of prunes. He drifted in here from San Francisco, telling me about how he’d worked in the resorts and knew all the gangs that were working on the slot machines. Evidently, he was a good man with his mitts in the Navy. That’s the trouble. They’ve jarred his brain loose from its moorings. He’s punch drunk.”
I rubbed my sore face. “He’s got a good wallop,” I admitted.
They laughed.
The manager picked up the interoffice phone, and said, “Send Louie back up here.”
Lieutenant Kleinsmidt said, “We meet lots of your kind who don’t want to co-operate. We don’t waste much time with them. You’re different. Anything you want, just ask for it. I’ll see that you get it.”
Louie came back in.
Breckenridge said, “Louie, this guy is one of the family. Give him anything he wants. All of his drinks are on the house. As far as you’re concerned, he owns the joint.”