“I didn’t know I was dealing with a cop.”
“I was a cop,” she said. “Not any more.”
“Then give me back my .38. It cost me seventy dollars.”
“First tell me, what’s your interest in my husband? Who hired you?”
“Nick, your brother-in-law. He called me in Los Angeles today, said he needed a bodyguard for a week. Didn’t Harry tell you?”
She didn’t answer.
“By the time I got to Nick, he didn’t need a bodyguard, or anything. But I thought I’d stick around and see what I could find out about his death. He was a client, after all.”
“You should pick your clients more carefully.”
“What about picking brothers-in-law?”
She shook her head stiffly. The hair that escaped from under her hat was almost white. “I’m not responsible for Nick or anything about him. Harry is my responsibility. I met him in line of duty and I straightened him out, understand? I tore him loose from Detroit and the rackets, and I brought him out here. I couldn’t cut him off from his brother entirely. But he hasn’t been in trouble since I married him. Not once.”
“Until now.”
“Harry isn’t in trouble now.”
“Not yet. Not officially.”
“What do you mean?”
“Give me my gun, and put yours down. I can’t talk into iron.”
She hesitated, a grim and anxious woman under pressure. I wondered what quirk of fate or psychology had married her to a hood, and decided it must have been love. Only love would send a woman across a dark street to face down an unknown gunman. Mrs. Nemo was horsefaced and aging and not pretty, but she had courage.
She handed me my gun. Its butt was soothing to the palm of my hand. I dropped it into my pocket. A gang of Negro boys at loose ends went by in the street, hooting and whistling purposelessly.
She leaned towards me, almost as tall as I was. Her voice was a low sibilance forced between her teeth:
“Harry had nothing to do with his brother’s death. You’re crazy if you think so.”
“What makes you so sure, Mrs. Nemo?”
“Harry couldn’t, that’s all. I know Harry, I can read him like a book. Even if he had the guts, which he hasn’t, he wouldn’t dare to think of killing Nick. Nick was his older brother, understand, the successful one in the family.” Her voice rasped contemptuously. “In spite of everything I could do or say, Harry worshiped Nick right up to the end.”
“Those brotherly feelings sometimes cut two ways. And Harry had a lot to gain.”
“Not a cent. Nothing.”
“He’s Nick’s heir, isn’t he?”
“Not as long as he stays married to me. I wouldn’t let him touch a cent of Nick Nemo’s filthy money. Is that clear?”
“It’s clear to me. But is it clear to Harry?”
“I made it clear to him, many times. Anyway, this is ridiculous. Harry wouldn’t lay a finger on that precious brother of his.”
“Maybe he didn’t do it himself. He could have had it done for him. I know he’s covering for somebody.”
“Who?”
“A blonde girl left the house after we arrived. She got away in a cherry-colored convertible. Harry recognized her.”
“A cherry-colored convertible?”
“Yes. Does that mean something to you?”
“No. Nothing in particular. She must have been one of Nick’s girls. He always had girls.”
“Why would Harry cover for her?”
“What do you mean, cover for her?”
“She left a leopardskin coat behind. Harry hid it, and paid me not to tell the police.”
“Harry did that?”
“Unless I’m having delusions.”
“Maybe you are at that. If you think that Harry paid that girl to shoot Nick, or had anything–”
“I know. Don’t say it. I’m crazy.”
Mrs. Nemo laid a thin hand on my arm. “Anyway, lay off Harry. Please. I have a hard enough time handling him as it is. He’s worse than my first husband. The first one was a drunk, believe it or not.” She glanced at the lighted cottage across the street, and I saw one half of her bitter smile. “I wonder what makes a woman go for the lame ducks the way I did.”
“I wouldn’t know, Mrs. Nemo. Okay, I lay off Harry.”
But I had no intention of laying off Harry. When she went back to her cottage, I walked around three-quarters of the block and took up a new position in the doorway of a dry-cleaning establishment. This time I didn’t smoke. I didn’t even move, except to look at my watch from time to time.
Around eleven o’clock, the lights went out behind the blinds in the Nemo cottage. Shortly before midnight the front door opened and Harry slipped out. He looked up and down the street and began to walk. He passed within six feet of my dark doorway, hustling along in a kind of furtive shuffle.
Working very cautiously, at a distance, I tailed him downtown. He disappeared into the lighted cavern of an all-night garage. He came out of the garage a few minutes later, driving a prewar Chevrolet.
My money also talked to the attendant. I drew a prewar Buick which would still do seventy-five. I proved that it would, as soon as I hit the highway. I reached the entrance to Nick Nemo’s private lane in time to see Harry’s lights approaching the dark ranch house.
I cut my lights and parked at the roadside a hundred yards below the entrance to the lane, and facing it. The Chevrolet reappeared in a few minutes. Harry was still alone in the front seat. I followed it blind as far as the highway before I risked my lights. Then down the highway to the edge of town.
In the middle of the motel and drive-in district he turned off onto a side road and in under a neon sign which spelled out TRAILER COURT across the darkness. The trailers stood along the bank of a dry creek. The Chevrolet stopped in front of one of them, which had a light in the window. Harry got out with a spotted bundle under his arm. He knocked on the door of the trailer.
I U-turned at the next corner and put in more waiting time. The Chevrolet rolled out under the neon sign and turned towards the highway. I let it go.
Leaving my car, I walked along the creek bank to the lighted trailer. The windows were curtained. The cerise convertible was parked on its far side. I tapped on the aluminum door.
“Harry?” a girl’s voice said. “Is that you, Harry?”
I muttered something indistinguishable. The door opened, and the yellow-haired girl looked out. She was very young, but her round blue eyes were heavy and sick with hangover, or remorse. She had on a nylon slip, nothing else.
“What is this?”
She tried to shut the door. I held it open.
“Get away from here. Leave me alone. I’ll scream.”
“All right. Scream.”
She opened her mouth. No sound came out. She closed her mouth again. It was small and fleshy and defiant. “Who are you? Law?”
“Close enough. I’m coming in.”
“Come in then, damn you. I got nothing to hide.”
“I can see that.”
I brushed in past her. There were dead Martinis on her breath. The little room was a jumble of feminine clothes, silk and cashmere and tweed and gossamer nylon, some of them flung on the floor, others hung up to dry. The leopardskin coat lay on the bunk bed, staring with innumerable bold eyes. She picked it up and covered her shoulders with it. Unconsciously, her nervous hands began to pick the wood chips out of the fur. I said:
“Harry did you a favor, didn’t he?”
“Maybe he did.”
“Have you been doing any favors for Harry?”
“Such as?”
“Such as knocking off his brother.”
“You’re way off the beam, mister. I was very fond of Uncle Nick.”
“Why run out on the killing then?”
“I panicked,” she said. “It would happen to any girl. I was asleep when he got it, see, passed out if you want the truth. I heard the gun go off. It woke me up, but it took me quite a while to bring myself to and sober up enough to put my clothes on. By the time I made it to the bedroom window, Harry was back, with some guy.” She peered into my face. “Were you the guy?”