It's likely.
Except, Gilbert added, when it's something big, you know, something they would like to've done.
I said again it was likely.
Mimi said: Don't be polite to Gil if he starts talking nonsense, Nick. His head's so cluttered up with reading. Get us another cocktail, darling.
He went over to get the shaker. Nora and Jorgensen were in a corner sorting phonograph records.
I said: I had a wire from Wynant today.
Mimi looked warily around the room, then leaned forward, and her voice was almost a whisper: What did he say?
Wanted me to find out who killed her. It was sent from Philadelphia this afternoon.
She was breathing heavily. Are you going to do it?
I shrugged. I turned it over to the police.
Gilbert came back with the shaker. Jorgensen and Nora had put Bach's Little Fugue on the phonograph. Mimi quickly drank her cocktail and had Gilbert pour her another.
He sat down and said: I want to ask you: can you tell dope-addicts by looking at them? He was trembling.
Very seldom. Why?
I was wondering. Even if they're confirmed addicts?
The further along they are, the better the chances of noticing that something's wrong, but you can't often be Sure it's dope.
Another thing, he said, Grass says when you're stabbed you only feel a sort of push at the time and it's not until afterwards that it begins to hurt. Is that so?
Yes, if you're stabbed reasonably hard with a reasonably sharp knife. A bullet's the same way: you only feel the blowand with a small-calibresteel-jacketed bullet not much of thatat first. The rest comes when the air gets to it.
Mimi drank her third cocktail and said: I think you're both being indecently gruesome, especially after what happened to Nick today. Do try to find Dorry, Gil. You must know some of her friends. Phone them. I suppose she'll be along presently, but I worry about her.
She's over at our place, I said.
At your place? Her surprise may have been genuine.
She came over this afternoon and asked if she could stay with us awhile.
She smiled tolerantly and shook her head. These youngsters! She stopped smiling. Awhile?
I nodded.
Gilbert, apparently waiting to ask me another question, showed no interest in this conversation between his mother and me.
Mimi smiled again and said: I'm sorry she's bothering you and your wife, but it's a relief to know she's there instead of off the Lord only knows where. She'll have finished her pouting by the time you get back. Send her along home, will you? She poured me a cocktail. You've been awfully nice to her.
I did not say anything.
Gilbert began: Mr. Charles, do criminalsI mean professional criminalsusually
Don't interrupt, Gil, Mimi said. You will send her along home, won't you? She was pleasant, but she was Dorothy's Queen of France.
She can stay if she wants. Nora likes her.
She shook a crooked finger at me. But I won't have you spoiling her like that. I suppose she told you all sorts of nonsense about me.
She did say something about a beating.
There you are, Mimi said complacently, as if that proved her point. No, you'll have to send her home, Nick.
I finished my cocktail.
Well? she asked.
She can stay with us if she wants, Mimi. We like having her.
That's ridiculous. Her place is at home. I want her here. Her voice was a little sharp. She's only a baby. You shouldn't encourage her foolish notions.
I'm not doing anything. If she wants to stay, she stays.
Anger was a very pretty thing in Mimi's blue eyes. She's my child and she's a minor. You've been very kind to her, but this isn't being kind to her or to me, and I won't have it. If you won't send her home, I'll take steps to bring her home. I'd rather not be disagreeable about it, butshe leaned forward and deliberately spaced her wordsshe's coming home.
I said: You don't want to pick a fight with me, Mimi.
She looked at me as if she were going to say I love you, and asked: Is that a threat?
All right, I said, have me arrested for kidnapping, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and mopery.
She said suddenly in a harsh enraged voice: And tell your wife to stop pawing my husband.
Nora, looking for another phonograph record with Jorgensen, had a hand on his sleeve. They turned to look at Mimi in surprise.
I said: Nora, Mrs. Jorgensen wants you to keep your hands off Mr. Jorgensen.
I'm awfully sorry. Nora smiled at Mimi, then looked at me, put a very artificial expression of concern on her face, and in a somewhat singsong voice, as if she were a schoolchild reciting a piece, said: Oh, Nick, you're pale. I'm sure you have exceeded your strength and will have a relapse. I'm sorry, Mrs. Jorgensen, but I think I should get him home and to bed right away. You will forgive us, won't you?
Mimi said she would. Everybody was the soul of politeness to everybody else. We went downstairs and got a taxicab.
Well, Nora said, so you talked yourself out of a dinner. What do you want to do now? Go home and eat with Dorothy?
I shook my head. I can do without Wynauts for a little while. Let's go to Max's: I'd like some snails.
Right. Did you find out anything?
Nothing.
She said meditatively: It's a shame that guy's so handsome.
What's he like?
Just a big doll. It's a shame.
We had dinner and went back to the Normandie. Dorothy was not there. I felt as if I had expected that.
Nora went through the rooms, called up the desk. No note, no message had been left for us.
So what? she asked.
It was not quite ten o'clock. Maybe nothing, I said. Maybe anything. My guess is she'll show up about three in the morning, tight, with a machine-gun she bought in Childs'.
Nora said: To hell with her. Get into pyjamas and lie down.
11
My side felt a lot better when Nora called me at noon the next day. My nice policeman wants to see you, she said. How do you feel?
Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober. I pushed Asta out of the way and got up.
Guild rose with a drink in his hand when I entered the living-room, and smiled all across his broad sandy face. Well, well, Mr. Charles, you look spry enough this morning.
I shook hands with him and said yes I felt pretty good, and we sat down.
He frowned good-naturedly. Just the same, you oughtn't've played that trick on me.
Trick?
Sure, running off to see people when I'd put off asking you questions to give you a chance to rest up. I kind of figured that ought to give me first call on you, as you might say.
I didn't think, I said. I'm sorry. See that wire I got from Wynant?
Uh-huh. We're running it out in Philly.
Now about that gun, I began, I
He stopped me. What gun? That ain't a gun any more. The firing pin's busted off, the guts are rusted and jammed. If anybody's fired it in six monthsor couldI'm the Pope of Rome. Don't let's waste any time talking about that piece of junk.
I laughed. That explains a lot. I took it away from a drunk who said he'd bought it in a speakeasy for twelve bucks. I believe him now.
Somebody'll sell him the City Hall one of these days. Man to man, Mr. Charles, are you working on the Wolf job or ain't you?
You saw the wire from Wynant.
I did. Then you ain't working for him. I'm still asking you.
I'm not a private detective any more. I'm not any kind of a detective.
I heard that. I'm still asking you.
All right. No.
He thought for a moment, said: Then let me put it another way: are you interested in the job?
I know the people, naturally I'm interested.
And that's all?