“I’ll watch it but I think you’re wrong. It’s for somebody else or it maybe isn’t a stake.”
She said: “Mister, I’ve run too many spots not to know a stake-out when it’s put on my place. That’s what it is; I’m telling you.”
I said: “Thanks.”
“You ought to thank Macintosh. That’s why I’m telling you.”
“He’s quite a guy.”
“You know what he’s after?”
“No.”
She gave me a sharp look, started to say something and then stopped. Then she asked: “You a Sam?”
“No. Private cop. Didn’t Macintosh tell you?”
“He don’t tell me things. He don’t have to, most of the time. I find ’em out from other people.”
“I’m after nothing that will bother this place.”
“Mac wouldn’t have sent you here if you were. I run a straight place. I don’t care a damn how much company a man has or a girl has. I don’t care if the girl is hustling or if the guy has the girl on a spot hustling for him. Get me right. That’s their business. If a girl is fool enough to work for a man it’s her hard luck. But I don’t go for what Mac’s working on.”
I asked: “What’s that?” without much hope of getting an answer.
She snapped back: “Dope and girls together. Half the guys that have got a girl in this town have put ’em on the dope. He’s on that. I don’t go for that.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said, and wondered why she was so bitter about that one particular nasty phase of the girl racket. It was a surprise; I didn’t think there was much she couldn’t stomach. She was that smart and hard about it. She said, and her voice sounded funny:
“I had a girl myself. Sixteen. I was living down the state then. I had her in school, in Sacramento, and sent her dough there. I didn’t want her to know what I was doing, if you get it.”
I said I got it.
“Well, she got tied up with a guy. A pimp and a dope head. He put her to work after he put her on the junk. Now d’ya start to understand?”
“I’m beginning to.”
“He brought her to the same town Mac was Marshal in. The guy stuck her with a knife and Mac killed him. He resisted arrest, according to Mac. Mac’s working special on this now. I’m for him on it.”
“I don’t blame you.”
She started to turn away, got as far as the door and stopped. She said, over her shoulder: “I don’t spill my guts like this often. It... it just happens today is her birthday. It’s kind of got me down.”
“Where is she now?”
She turned around then. “She’s back in Sacramento with another dope-head. Still working. She’s twenty-four now. Today. I... I can’t do anything about it; if she hasn’t got that man she’ll have one as bad. I... I...”
She whirled and went out of the room and I could hear her running down the hall toward her own room. I began to see plenty of reason why Macintosh and Kirby were playing along with me. It began to tie together a bit more. Gino Kucci was in the picture a bit more, for one thing. He was the high-riding pimp type. Crandall could be either the lawyer for the bunch that was handling dope and girls or he could be the deal proper. Macintosh would be a Government man, probably working some lone-wolf angle and not getting definite evidence that would tie in the big boys. Kirby could be after the same thing; I knew he didn’t mind a rough town but that he wanted a clean town. The business I was on might tie in with the other and give them something that would stand in court.
It was an explanation that would fit, but it didn’t make allowance for the dead French girl in any way, shape, or form. It did offer a possible explanation for the shooting at me angle. The operators might have some notion I was on that; coming from the City and all. I went back to the room and thought it over, right from the start.
And decided none of it held together... and that none of it would until the French girl’s murder was explained.
Lester called me about three that afternoon. He said: “I’m at the hotel. Joey Free just was here. He wants to see you. He said Wendel was held under a thousand dollar peace bond and that he put it up. There were no charges filed against you or Wendel and Joey says that he doesn’t think there will be any. I’ve just talked with him.”
“Where is he now?”
“In his room, with Wendel.”
“Now listen, Lester. Go down there and hold him there. Wendel, I mean. Don’t let him go out with Joey. Not if you have to hit him on the head with something.”
Lester said: “Gee, I don’t want to do that.”
“My Lord! Don’t take things the way I say ’em. I mean keep him there for sure. Now hurry.”
“And then what, Shean.”
“Call me back as soon as anything happens.”
I hung up and clicked the receiver until I got the operator. I gave her the station house number, asked for Kirby, and got him. And then said:
“Is Macintosh there?”
He said: “Yeah! Who’s talking?”
“Connell.”
“He’s right here.”
Macintosh drawled into the phone: “Hello!” and I said: “Look, mister. Wendel’s up at the hotel. Can you get him and hold him in jail? Can you charge him with something he can’t bail out on tonight?”
“I suppose I could,” he said.
“Can you do it and keep it quiet?”
This was harder. It took him longer to answer. He said: “I guess I could take him to Carson City. It’s Federal there, and they could hold him for investigation and not book him in a hurry. Why?”
“Will you do it now? Right away. I’ll tell you about it when you get back.”
“I guess I can. It’s that fast, hunh?”
“I’m afraid it might be.”
He said, with the drawl gone: “Okey, fella. I’m on my way down there. D’ya want me to take his pal, too?”
“No. But if you can get Wendel by himself and pick him without his pal knowing it, it would be that much better.”
“You afraid of his pal?”
I said: “Will you get going? His pal goes out and lushes and would talk. Let it go at that; just hurry.”
He hung up the phone. I got the operator again, got the hotel and got my fool client, and it was a relief. I stalled him with: “This is Connell. What happened?”
He said stiffly: “Free got me out, of course. I understand you didn’t want him to do this.”
“I wasn’t anxious about it. That’s true.”
“So I understand. I’ll say now, Connell, I don’t like the way you’re handling this. I suggest we meet and talk this over. The three of us. You, Free, and myself. There’s too many strange things happening here to please me.”
I figured Macintosh would be at least half way there by then. I said: “You hired me to do something and it’s turned out to be something entirely different. I’m doing the best I can for you; why not work with me.”
He sounded stubborn. “There’s too much going on that I don’t understand.”
“We’re even. Six-two, and even. There’s too much going on that I don’t understand. But it’s starting to work out I can tell you that. Did Crandall talk to you?”
“For a moment. He said that he didn’t blame me for my action; that it was natural for me to want to speak with my wife. That she was very upset about the entire matter but didn’t want to press charges against me, though she has that right. That although you and I broke into his house, he feels the same way about it. He insisted on the peace bond as a matter of routine is all. He was very friendly.”