“Uh-uh; I thought the same thing, but it seems the girl has a brother…”
“A big brother?” Peel’s enthusiasm, never great, diminished. “Something tells me I’m going to get a punch in the nose.”
“That’s the risk we take in this business.”
“We take?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, Otis. All I know is that you think up jobs where you get the money and I get a punch in the nose.”
The Lehigh Apartments were three blocks off Hollywood Boulevard, about halfway up a steep hill. The street was a quiet one, containing more homes than apartment houses.
At seven o’clock Joe Peel took up a post under a tree across the street from the entrance. He smoked four cigarettes before Wilbur Jolliffe climbed out of a taxi a half block down the street. Jolliffe paid the cabman, then came hurrying toward Peel. As he passed he gave him a sharp glance. Peel nodded reassuringly.
“Okay, Mr. Jolliffe!”
Jolliffe winced at the announcement of his name and headed for the entrance of the Lehigh Apartments. Joe Peel lit another cigarette and leaned against a small tree.
3
A car with red headlights came grinding up the hill, stopped at the curb in front of Joe Peel. He groaned, flipped away his cigarette and started downhill. But he was too late. A uniformed cop sprang out of the police car.
“Here, you!”
Joe Peel stopped. “What’s the trouble?”
“Put up your hands!”
“Now, wait a minute, pal…” Joe began.
The cop whipped out his gun and thrust it at Joe Peel. “Up, I said!”
Joe’s hands shot up. Then the second policeman came out of the police car. “Joe Peel!” he exclaimed.
“Rafferty!”
The first policemen lowered his revolver. “Know him?”
Rafferty showed his teeth in a wicked grin. “I’ll say I do. Remember the Miles Sackheim case?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“It was a couple of years ago. Well, Joe here, was mixed up in it…”
“Don’t let Otis Beagle hear you say that,” Joe Peel said.
Rafferty grunted. “That fat four-flusher. Some day I’ll catch him…” He brightened again. “Maybe this is it; what’re you doing here, Peel?”
“Minding my own business…”
“Don’t gimme that. We got a call from the station…”
“Who turned it in?”
“They didn’t say. But the report was you been loitering around here for the last hour…”
“Half hour.”
“Don’t quibble. What’re you doing here?”
“I was just going home.”
Rafferty caught Peel’s arm in a savage grip. “Do you want to spend the night in the bullpen?”
“Try it and see what’ll happen to you.”
The second policeman put away his revolver and brought out a blackjack. “Okay, Mike?”
Mike Rafferty hesitated, then shook his head. “No… not this time. He works for Otis Beagle.”
“The shamus?”
Rafferty nodded. “Beagle knows a few people. He’s crooked as all hell, but we haven’t been able to pin it on him. Not for keeps.”
“And you never will,” Peel said. Under his breath he added, “Until I put the finger on Otis.” Aloud, “Pleasant evening, isn’t it?”
Rafferty swore. “It was. But you’re not going to hang around here; I can assure you of that.”
“What would I want to hang around here for?” Joe Peel sniffed. “Go knock off some suckers making left turns.” He turned and began walking off.
The two policemen said some things and got back into their car. They made a U turn and followed Peel in low gear, until he turned the comer at the bottom of the street.
To be on the safe side, Joe Peel walked to Cahuenga, three blocks away, then circled back, around blocks, to the Lehigh Apartments. He lost a half hour and had no way of knowing whether Wilbur Jolliffe was still in the building.
He hesitated outside the apartment house, then finally entered. The gloomy lobby had once been fitted out with a desk for regular hotel service, but the service had been abandoned and the lobby was now vacant and poorly lighted. The light was a little brighter, however, over the battery of mailboxes and Peel went over and read the names.
Some of them had Mr. or Mrs. before the names and those he passed over. Some had complete given names, but none was Wilma. He therefore concentrated on the others and finally narrowed it down to two names:
W. Winters, 306
W. Huston, 504
One or the other of the W’s ought to be Wilma. He climbed up the badly carpeted stairs to the third floor and walked down a narrow corridor until he came to #306.
He pressed the door buzzer.
“Who is it?” a gruff female voice demanded from inside the apartment.
Peel made no reply. There was a moment of silence, then the voice inside the apartment called again. Peel still made no reply. The door was whipped open in his face and an enormous woman of about forty glowered down at Peel.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Uh, guess I must have the wrong apartment,” Joe Peel said. “I’m lookin’ for a Miss Smith. Gwendolyn Smith…”
“She ain’t here,” snapped the amazon and slammed the door in Joe’s face.
He whistled softly and climbed the stairs to the fifth floor. He rang the doorbell of apartment 504.
“Who is it?” asked a voice that caused him to brighten. Joe duplicated his strategy from the third floor. He made no reply. A chain rattled inside and the door was opened a couple of inches.
“Yes?”
Peel cleared his throat. “Mr. Jolliffe asked me to call…”
A face appeared in the narrow opening; enough of it to make Joe wonder how Wilbur Jolliffe did it. But the face was impassive — a touch on the hostile side. “Who’s Mr. Jolliffe?”
Not so good.
“Wilbur Jolliffe. You know — Wilbur—”
“Sorry, but I don’t know anyone named Wilbur.” The door started to go shut, but Joe Peel put his foot in the way.
“Maybe he’s giving you a phoney name sister. It’s the old guy I’m talking about. Catch on…”
The pressure of the door eased against Joe’s foot. He drew it back and the door was closed. But the chain inside was taken off and the door pulled opened again. Joe Peel entered the apartment. He took it in quickly — a room about twelve by fourteen with an in-a-door bed; a bathroom and dressing closet opening off the left and on the right a kitchen. But both the bathroom and the kitchen doors were closed.
The girl was about twenty-five, a fairly tall girl with chestnut hair, a pretty good face and a figure — well, the figure was it. She was wearing a dressing gown, which helped matters a lot.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” Joe Peel said.
The girl closed the door. “All right, I’m listening.”
Joe Peel seated himself in a armchair. “You’re Wilma Huston and you’ve got a… a friend named Wilbur Jolliffe. Shall we go on from there?”
“Let’s,” said the girl.
“Go ahead.”
“You go ahead.”
“Well, Wilbur’s got a wife. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Most men have wives.”
“I haven’t,” said Joe Peel.
“Care to leave your phone number?”
“I might do just that — after we get Wilbur’s business straightened out.”
“You’re his guardian, I presume?”
“In a kind of a way.” Joe Peel’s eyes focused upon the left shoulder of the girl’s dressing gown. It had slipped. Joe’s temperature went up two degrees. “What I was going to say, Wilbur’s married. And he ain’t the divorcing kind. Catch on?”
“Can’t say that I do,” replied Wilma Houston. She discovered that her dressing gown had slipped and hitched it up. But it didn’t stay up.