“Hey — where you going?” demanded Pink, alarmed.
“I don’t know!”
Val ducked down the emergency stairway, preceded Indian-wise by Pink, who flailed through the crowd in the lobby and executed a feint by loudly warning Mibs Austin, who was barricaded behind the switchboard, to keep her mouth shut or he would break her neck, and then challenging every newspaperman in Los Angeles to a fist-fight.
He won his desire, en masse; and while Mibs shrieked encouragement to her red-haired gladiator and the lone policeman on duty prudently backed into the elevator, Val escaped unnoticed through the side-exit of the La Salle.
She almost stripped the gears of Rhys’s sedan getting away from the curb.
A long time later she became conscious of the fact that the sedan was bowling along the Ocean Speedway, near Malibu Beach, the spangled Pacific glittering in the sunshine to her left and the stinging breeze lifting her hair.
The taffy sand, the chunky Santa Monica Mountains, the paintbox blue of the ocean, the salt smell and white road and warming sun did something to her; and after a while she felt quieted and comfortable, like a child dozing in its mother’s lap.
Back there, in the haze-covered city, Rhys gripped gray bars, the papers whooped it up in an orgiastic war-dance, Walter sat steeped in some mysterious liquid agony of his own fermentation. But here, by the sea, in the sun, one could think things out, point by point, and reach serene, reasonable conclusions.
Oxnard slipped by, the flat white miniature Mexico of Ventura, the grove-splashed orange country where occasional fruit glowed in the trees, yellow sapphires imbedded in crushed green velvet.
Valerie drew a deep breath.
At Santa Barbara she headed for the hills. And when she got to the top she stopped the car and got out and slipped into the silence and coolness of the old Mission. She was there a long time.
Later, feeling hungry, she drove down into the sunny Spanish town and consumed enchiladas.
When she returned to Hollywood, in the late evening, she felt regenerated. She knew exactly what she had to do.
The Wednesday morning papers bellowed news. Inspector Glücke had decided, after a long conference with District Attorney Van Every, the Chief of Police, the Chief of Staff, and the Chief of Detectives, to charge Rhys Jardin with the premeditated murder of Solomon Spaeth.
Val drove the ten miles into downtown Los Angeles and left her sedan in a parking lot on Hill Street, near First. It was only a few steps to the City Jail. But she did not go that way. Instead, she walked southeast, crossed Broadway, turned south on Spring, and stopped before a grimy building. She hesitated only a moment. Then she went in.
The elevator deposited her on the fifth floor, and she said firmly to the reception clerk: “I want to see the managing editor.”
“Who wants to see him?”
“Valerie Jardin.”
The clerk said: “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” and babbled into the telephone. Ten seconds later the door opened and Fitzgerald said eagerly: “Come on in, Val. Come in!”
Fitz led the way with hungry strides through the city room. Inquisitive eyes followed Val’s progress through the room. But Val did not care; her lips were compressed. One man, sitting over a drawing board in a far corner, got half out of his chair and then sank down again, gripping a stick of charcoal nervously and adjusting his green eyeshade. Val suppressed a start and walked on. Walter back at work! She did not glance his way again.
Fitz slammed the door of his office. “Sit down, Val. Cigaret? Drink? Tough about the old man. What’s on your mind?”
“Fitz,” said Val, sitting down and clasping her hands, “how much money have you?”
“Me?” The Irishman stared. “I’m busted — Ohippi. Do you need dough? Maybe I can scare up a few C’s—”
“I didn’t come here for that.” Valerie looked him in the eye. “Fitz, I want a job.”
Fitz rubbed his black jowls. “Look, Val, if you’re broke, why—”
Val said with a faint smile: “I’m a special sort of person right now, isn’t that so?”
“What’s the point?”
“Daughter of a famous man charged with a front-page murder?”
Fitz got out of his chair and, still rubbing his face, went to the dust-streaked window. When he turned around his bird’s-nest brows almost completely concealed his eyes.
“I’m listening,” he said, sitting down again.
Val smiled once more. Fitz was a little transparent. A nerve near his right eye was jumping.
“I couldn’t write a news story, but you’ve got plenty of people who can. On the other hand, I can give you information you’d never get without my help.”
Fitz flipped a switch on his communicator. “Bill. I don’t want to be disturbed.” He sat back. “I’m still listening.”
“Well, I’m the daughter of the accused. The byline alone will sell papers.”
Fitz grinned. “Oh, you want a byline, too?”
“Second, I’ll be able to predict the defense before it comes out in court.”
“Yes,” said Fitz. “You certainly will.”
“Third, I’ll have inside information no other paper in town could possibly dig out. Where it won’t hurt my father, you’ll have an exclusive story.”
Fitzgerald began to play with a paper-knife.
“And last, you can play up the human-interest angle — rich gal loses all her money, goes to work in defense of accused father.” Fitz leaned forward toward his communicator again. “Wait a minute, darling,” said Val. “I’m no philanthropist. I’m proposing to do something that nauseates me. It’s going to take a lot of money to cure that nausea.”
“Oh,” said the Irishman. “All right, how much?”
Val said bravely: “A thousand dollars a yarn.”
“Hey!” growled Fitz.
“I need lots of money, Fitz. If you won’t give it to me, some other paper will.”
“Have a heart, Val — a story a day! This thing may drag on for months.”
Val rose, “I know what you’re thinking. They’ve got pop dead to rights, no sensational news angle can come out of the case, it will be cut-and-dried, the usual story of a guilty man brought to trial. If you think that, Fitz, you’re a long way off.”
“What d’ye mean?”
“Do you believe pop’s guilty?”
“Sure not,” said Fitz soothingly. “Sit down, Val.”
“I tell you he isn’t.”
“Sure he isn’t.”
“I know he isn’t!”
Val walked to the door. Fitz shot out of his chair and ran to head her off.
“Don’t be so damned hasty! You mean you’ve got information—”
“I mean,” said Val, “that I have a clue that will lead to the real criminal, Friend Scrooge.”
“You have?” shouted Fitz. “Look, Val mavourneen, come here and sit down again. What is it? Tell old Fitz. After all, I’m an old friend of your father’s—”
“Do I get my thousand a story?”
“Sure!”
“You’ll let me work my own way?”
“Anything you want!”
“No questions asked, and I work alone?”
“That’s not fair. How do I know you’re not sandbagging me? How do I know—”
“Take it or leave it, Mr. Fitzgerald.”
“You’ve got the instincts of an Apache!”
“Goodbye,” said Val, turning again to go.
“For God’s sake, hold it, will you? Listen, Val, you haven’t any experience. You may get into trouble.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Val sweetly.
“Or you may ruin a great story. Let me assign one of my men to double up with you. How’s that? Then I’ll be protected, and so will you.”