I stared at her, and suddenly my rage went from me. She was right. No one would believe a yarn like that. I shouldn’t have told her. I should have tried to have held on to what little respect and feeling she had had for me. It was too late now.
“Okay, forget it. Forget everything. You’ll need money. We’ll split what I got from Boyd. If you think you can look after yourself, go ahead and look after yourself.”
“I wouldn’t touch a nickel of yours. I despise you. Sit over there. If you make one suspicious move you’ll get it.”
“All right, if that’s how you feel. Do you think I give a damn?”
“Sit over there and keep quiet.”
I sat over there and kept quiet. Nothing seemed to matter at the moment. If the cops had walked in I’d have welcomed them.
She picked up the two bags in one hand. The .25 still covered me.
“I’m taking the car as far as the dirt road. If you want it, you’ll find it there.”
“Take it to hell and go with it!” I said, and turned my back on her.
The door slammed. I just sat there, feeling like hell. After a few minutes I heard the car start up. I ran to the door and looked out. The Buick was bumping over the grass towards the distant cart track. I could see her at the wheel. Her head was held high and there was a defiant tilt to her chin.
“Veda!”
She didn’t look back. I don’t know if she heard me, but I didn’t call again. The Buick gathered speed. I watched it for a long time until it was a tiny moving speck against the slope of the hills. When it disappeared I returned to the shack.
It was still early, not yet seven o’clock, and there was no heat in the sun. I felt cold. My first move was to the whisky bottle. As I picked it up I remembered it had been like this with every woman I’d known. As soon as they had walked out on me, I’d fly to the bottle. Well, it wasn’t going to be like that this time. I was through with making a dope of myself over a woman. I balanced the bottle in my hand. The label called it an aristocratic liquor, and it was, but that didn’t stop me. I threw the bottle across the room. It smashed against the wall and whisky sprayed over the floor and glass flew around like shrapnel.
I told myself I was going to cut Veda out of my life; and I meant it. I had a job to do. I was going after Gorman. I had money and a lot of rude health. I was tired of being chased by the cops. I was going after Gorman and I’d get him, providing the cops didn’t get Veda first. If they caught her, she’d talk. She wouldn’t bother to shield me now. I was sure of that. There was no time to waste.
I went into the inner room, packed my bag and had a last look round. There was plenty of evidence that we’d stayed here, but I had no time to cover our tracks. If anyone found the shack they’d know right off that it had been used as a hide-out, and it wouldn’t take long to guess who’d used it. Well, no one had found it up to now; maybe no one would find it when I’d gone.
There was nothing belonging to Veda, except the faint smell of her perfume. I was sentimental enough to look carefully in the hope of finding a memento, but I didn’t.
She had said she’d leave the Buick near the dirt road. The sooner I got down there the better. I’d have to risk driving the car to Mick’s place. There was nothing else for it. With a little luck, and knowing how dumb the Santa Medina cops were, I’d get through without being spotted.
And that’s how it worked out. I found the car a quarter of a mile from the dirt road, out of sight behind some trees. As I got in, I smelt her perfume. It gave me an odd, lonely feeling, but I nudged it out of my mind. She had left the ignition key in the glove compartment. I always thought she had a tidy mind. Driving along the Altadena road I caught myself staring at every woman I passed; none of them was Veda.
At Altadena I went into a drug store and put through a call to Mick. No one looked at me. No one started running. When Mick came on the line he sounded as if he’d just woken up. I told him I was coming in, that I didn’t think anyone would recognize me, and I was calling myself Frank Dexter.
“Can you get Lu to meet me with a car at the second crossroads? It’ll be safer if he handled the Buick.”
Mick said he’d fix it.
“I’ll be waiting for you Got the frail with you?”
“I’m on my own.”
He grunted and hung up. He was never a guy to ask questions: action first and talk after. It was a good policy.
Lu was sitting in the Cadillac when I arrived at the crossroads. He waved and smiled and seemed glad to see me.
“Still tired of life?” he asked, as he got into the Buick. “I thought you were in sunny Mexico by now. Where’s the blue-eyed babe? Don’t tell me you ditched her?”
“We parted,” I said shortly. “You’d better get going. This car’s hot.”
I drove the Cadillac into Santa Medina and the first person I saw was O’Readen. He was climbing the steps to Police Headquarters. He looked old and stooped and wasn’t smiling. He didn’t see me. It was odd running into him like that, but I didn’t bat an eyelid. I had taken a good look at myself in the mirror before leaving the shack. If I couldn’t recognize myself, how could he?
“I’m looking for Casy,” I said to the guard on the door when I arrived at Mick’s place. “The name’s Dexter.”
“Go right in. He’s waiting for you.”
Mick wasn’t taking any chances. The guard was new. I hadn’t seen him before, and he took no interest in me.
It was too early for anyone to be around. A couple of cleaners were in the bar, but after a casual glance at me, they went on with their work. I pushed open Mick’s door, glanced in. Mick was pacing up and down, his hands in his pockets, a dead cigar clamped between his teeth. He looked up, scowled at me.
“Beat it. Who told you to come in?”
“You did,” I said, and closed the door behind me.
He came over and grabbed my hand.
“That damned moustache! You look like a dago. Dammit, I’m glad to see you. Sit down. What the hell are you doing here? Why aren’t you in Mexico?”
“I’m back to find Brett’s killer. I think I know who he is. Look, Mick, I was crazy to run away. My place is here. I’m going to find Brett’s killer and I’m going to collect the reward.”
“You’re crazy! Redfern’s still looking for you. O’Readen has given up, but not Redfern. San Luis Beach is as hot as a stove. If you stick your nose in there you’ll get burned.”
“Give me a hand with this, Mick, and we’ll split the reward. It’s worth thirty grand. What do you say?”
“I’ll help you for nothing. I have all the money I can use.”
“No one has. You’ll do it for fifteen grand or I’ll count you out.”
“We haven’t got it yet. What do you want me to do?”
“I figure it’s Gorman. He knew I was going out to Brett’s place. I want to find out where he was when Brett was shot. If he hasn’t a cast-iron alibi — and he won’t have — I’ll call on him and beat the truth out of him.”
“Watch out. From what I hear that boy’s tough.”
“I’ll take care of him.”
“Well, all right.” He paced up and down. “I’ll turn Lu on to it. Okay?”
“Fine.”
He telephoned for Lu, but he hadn’t come in.
“He’s ditching the car,” I said.
“Tell him I want him as soon as he shows up,” Mick said into the receiver and hung up.
They didn’t trace the gun that shot Brett, did they?”
“Yesit was his.”
“Brett’s?”
“That’s right.”
I slid further down in the chair.
“Brett’s? That’s odd.”
“Why odd?”
“Odd Brett’s killer got hold of it. Almost looks as if Brett knew him. I wonder if Brett knew Gorman? You get what I’m driving at, don’t you? If the gun was Brett’s you can bet he was carrying it in case I started any tricks. He was expecting me, and he was taking c
are I didn’t double-cross him. Maybe he had the gun lying on the desk where he could reach it if he wanted it. His killer must have known him to have got close enough to grab the gun. See what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll have to find out if Gorman knew Brett. Gorman fixed up for Veda to do her act at Brett’s house, but I doubt if he fixed it with Brett personally: He’d work through Brett’s secretary.” Then I remembered the fair girl who had burst into the room as I was making my getaway. “Did they ever say who the girl was? The one who found Brett, and saw me? She was a blonde; a looker.”
“Sheila — Sheila — I forget: She was to be the future Mrs. Brett.”
Was she? Can’t you remember her name?”
“I’ve kept the cuttings: I’ll turn it up.”
While he was pawing through a mass of cuttings, I thought about the gun: I couldn’t imagine Brett letting Gorman get close enough to grab it. This was a disturbing thought. Of course Brett might have been off his guard, but it didn’t seem likely; not a smartie like Brett. The time factor was important, too. I reckoned it took about ten to fifteen minutes, no more, for the guard to escort me to the steps, for me to fool around looking for the compact, to the moment I’d heard the shot. In that time the murderer had to lull Brett’s suspicions to let him grab the gun, shoot him, take the money and beat it. Fast work — unless . . . Suppose, I said to myself, Gorman didn’t kill him. Suppose the future Mrs. Brett had done it. She could have gone into Brett’s room and picked up the gun without giving him the jitters. But why should she? Unless they’d fallen out and she knew I was on my way up and this was as good a way of picking up twenty-five grand as another.
“Sheila Kendrick,” Mick said, and tossed the cutting over to me. “That’s the name.”
There was a photograph of her: she looked cute in a Jantzen swim suit; not that she wouldn’t have looked cuter without it. There wasn’t much about her. She came from San Francisco; would have been the future Mrs. Brett had Brett lived; had been a dancer in the successful musical I Spy Strangers, and had won a couple of beauty prizes.
I threw the cutting on the desk as Lu came in.
Mick told him what was wanted.
“Get after him, and if he has an alibi, check it, and when I say check it, I mean check it. There’s five hundred bucks in this for you if you make a job of it.”
Lu fluttered his eyelashes.
“And find out if he knew Brett personally. That’s important,” I said.
“Don’t worry, dear,” Lu said, and sniffed at his cornflower. “I can use five hundred. I’ll make a job of this.”
“He kills me,” I said when he had gone.
“He kills most people, but he’s smart.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do now until he comes back. I don’t want to get in your way, Mick. Shall I wait in your hideout?”
“No; stick around. No one comes here unless I say so. Make yourself at home. You’re not in the way.” He offered me a cigar, but I wasn’t feeling festive enough. “What happened to the frail?” He had been wanting to ask that question ever since I had arrived. Now his curiosity got the better of him.
“We parted.”
“You did? Well, that surprises me. I thought you and she—” He broke off and grinned. “But I guess I’m talking too much.”
“That’s all right. You know it is. We had a week together, but it didn’t work out.” I wasn’t telling anyone about Max, not even Mick.
“You never know with women.” He shook his head. “And she was a swell looker, too. Shows you, doesn’t it? You can’t tell by looks. I knew a twist once who was magazine cover stuff; but she was no good: colder than an iceberg. Then there was a dame who had a face like a hangover, and a figure like two planks nailed together.” He rolled his eyes. “But was she hot!”
I groped in my hip pocket for my cigarette-case and found Max’s wallet instead. I’d forgotten about it, and while I listened to Mick talking about the women he’d known – always a favourite subject of his – I thumbed through the contents of the wallet. There was a five-dollar bill, a couple of “bus tickets, a letter from his mother, and three obscene photographs. I tossed the pictures over to Mick. On the back of the letter was a pencilled scrawl that brought me to my feet.
I remembered the untidy handwriting of the letter Max had left under his pillow. This note was in the same fist.
It ran:
For Alma from Verne; “A man’s best friend is his wife.”
I felt in my vest pocket and took out the card Brett had given me. The same words. I stood thinking. Two guys write the same dozen words and get themselves knocked off. Did it mean anything? Was I missing anything?
I felt Mick’s eyes on my face.
“What’s biting you?”
“I don’t know . . . nothing, maybe.”
I folded the letter and put it and the card in my pocket.
“Getting kind of cagey, aren’t you?”
I grinned at him.
“I guess so. Once a dick, always a dick. I’m sorry, Mick. I don’t think it’s anything.”
He shrugged.
“Play it the way you like. I’m here if you want me.”
Lu got back late in the afternoon. I was jittery by that time, and when he came in I grabbed him.
“Well? How did you get on?”
He shook his head.
“He’s in the clear. He didn’t shoot Brett. He was at the Casino all the evening. There’re a hundred witnesses who saw him. He didn’t leave until two o’clock.”
“Any chance that he sneaked out and came back again?”
“Not a chance. He was playing roulette and never left the table. I’ve checked until I’m dizzy. He didn’t shoot Brett, and he didn’t know Brett either. He’s never even spoken to him.”
Well, that seemed to be that.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE HOT evening sunshine came through the slats in the venetian blinds and made a pattern on the carpet. The pattern, from where I was sitting, looked like the bars of a prison cell, and added an incentive to my thoughts. I was alone in Mick’s office, and had been alone for the past hour. The office door was locked, and I had no fear of interruptions. I sat in the desk chair; a cigarette burned forgotten in my fingers, a glass of whisky stood neglected on the desk while I exercised my brain until it creaked.
Gorman hadn’t shot Brett. Well, someone had, and it was up to me if I was to save my neck to find out who that someone was. I had already sent Lu out to check Boyd’s alibi, but that was routine. I didn’t believe Boyd was the killer. He had no motive. Whoever had killed Brett had wanted money. Well, if it wasn’t Boyd who else was there to suspect? Sheila Kendrick, the future Mrs. Brett? A possibility. One of Brett’s servants? One of the guards? Or Mr. or Miss X, the unknown? I didn’t know.
Already I had decided the quickest way to arrive at a solution was to begin at the beginning; to ignore anything that was a guess and to concentrate only on facts. If I didn’t hurry and find the killer, the police would find me, and then that would be that.
What facts had I? Not many: Brett knew the killer, otherwise the killer wouldn’t have got near Brett’s gun. The motive for the killing was the twenty-five grand. Then there was the mysterious twelve words that had interested Max as well as Brett: For Alma from Verne: “A man’s best friend is his wife.” What did that mean? Did it play a part in Brett’s death? Why had Max also scribbled the words down? Who were Verne and Alma?
Finger-nails tapped on the door. Mick’s voice called softly. I pushed back my chair, opened the door, let him in and locked the door again.
“How’s it going?”
“It’s not,” I said. “My brain feels as if it’s walked miles.”
“What are you working on?”
“I’m waiting for Lu. He’s digging into Boyd’s alibi. It’s a waste of time, but I’m checking everything. You never know. Here, take a look at this.” I tossed over Brett’s card. “Make anything o
f it?”
He frowned at the words, then shook his head.
“Means nothing to me. Some code, do you think? I wouldn’t say a man’s best friend’s his wife, would you? I thought a man’s best friend’s his dog.”
“Don’t be such a damned cynic. Its the kind of sentiment a guy would have engraved on a wedding ring, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about a guy who is in love with his wife. That’s something you wouldn’t understand.”
“I guess not.” He ran stubby fingers through his hair, frowned again at the words. “How does this figure in the set-up?”
“Brett gave me his card. He wanted me to telephone him. I found that on the back, and it’s got me puzzled.”
Mick shrugged.
“What the hell? Why should it have anything to do with his death?”
“I have a hunch that it has. It must mean something, and I can’t afford to pass anything up. If I could find out who Verne and Alma are it might help. But how do I do that?”
Mick thought, shook his head.
“Well, there are the Baillies of course, but it wouldn’t be them. A guy like Brett wouldn’t know the Baillies.”
“You mean Verne Baillie, the bank bandit?”
“That’s who I mean, but it’s a shot in the dark. It couldn’t be him.”
“No.” I reached for a cigarette, paused and frowned, then lit up. “He had a wife, Alma didn’t he?”
“That’s right. That’s why I thought of them.”
“It couldn’t be them. Brett wouldn’t mix with bank bandits. That doesn’t make sense. Besides, they’re dead, aren’t they?”
“Yeah. Verne was killed by the Feds a couple of years ago. Alma was killed in a car crash a year later.”
I calmed down.
“You know, for a moment I thought we had something. It’s a coincidence though, isn’t it? You’re sure they’re both dead?”
“I guess so. Anyway, Lu will tell you more about them. Hewas friendly with Verne.”
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