I refreshed his recollection. “You were playing tag with me last night.”
Suddenly his face lit up. He grinned, and the grin showed a gap where a couple of teeth had been knocked out on the left side of his upper jaw. “Well, well, well,” he said, “so that’s the way it is! Come on up and have a chair.”
He stood to one side and thrust out his hand.
I shook hands with him. The grip made my bones ache. “Get your car back all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said.
He said, “We put some petrol in the crock and found out where you kept it. I put it down in the regular stall so it would be there for you this morning. I had to leave the keys in it, but I didn’t think anyone would steal it.”
“No, it was there, all right.”
“What did you do with my car?”
“Left it parked down by a tram track. I figured you’d report it as stolen.”
He frowned a little at that and said, “You must think I’m a bum sport. Hell, I wouldn’t have done that to you.”
He led the way to his apartment.
I said, “I tried to call you up, but no one answered. I got the number, Waverly 9-8765.”
“The hell you did! How?”
“Oh I have ways of getting that sort of information.”
He laughed. “It’s a public phone down at the end of the hall. Usually you can’t ring in on it unless someone happens to be in the booth, but the apartment house manager has the apartment right next to it. She’s a good scout. If she’s up and around she’ll answer and then call whoever is wanted to the phone. If she isn’t up, she’ll let it ring.”
“What would you have done if you’d caught me last night?” I asked.
He grinned and said, “I’d have massaged you with a bundle of fives. Maybe changed the contours of your face a little bit, depending on whether you were difficult or not.”
“And what are you going to do this morning?”
“Hell, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. How about it? I’ve been reading the papers in bed and now I’m damn hungry.”
“I’ve just had three breakfasts and two extra cups of coffee on top of all that.”
“Well, stick around and make yourself at home. I may have to get an okay before I let you go. You seem like a good egg at that.”
“What was the trouble last night?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t,” I told him.
“Well, you should.”
He moved around with easy grace. He put on a pot of coffee, stuck his head in the bedroom door and yelled, “Hi, Babe.”
A woman’s sleepy voice called, “Who is it?”
“You’ll never guess,” Lowry said. “Get decent and come on out.”
I heard the sound of feet on the floor. The bedroom door opened. A cute little redhead stood on the threshold. She was wearing a bathrobe that evidently was one of Sam Lowry’s. She had the sleeves turned up some six or eight inches. The bathrobe was wrapped around her once and a half and hung down on the floor. It made her seem unusually small.
“Take a look at him,” Lowry said. “This is the guy that slipped a fast one over on us last night, the one we lost in the freight cars.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the redhead said. “And he comes around this morning?”
“Sure.”
“What’s he want?”
“Damned if I know. Get your teeth clean, honey, and wash the sleep out of your eyes. We’ll have some breakfast and talk it over.”
She said, “Okay,” and slammed the door. A moment later I heard water running in the bathroom.
“Cute kid,” Lowry said.
“She is, for a fact.”
“Hell, you haven’t seen her. Wait until she comes out from under that bathrobe. Nice disposition too. Cute little devil. Cute as they make ’em. How do you want your eggs?”
“I’ve had three breakfasts, thanks.”
“That’s right. You said you had. I have to eat good breakfasts. It takes food to keep me going. She’s a cute kid, but she’s not much on cooking.”
“Why don’t you teach her?”
“Oh, I will after a while, but I don’t mind.”
He unwrapped some sliced ham, tossed it in a frying pan, put the frying pan on the gas plate, and said, “I have to hand it to you. You’re a fast thinker.”
“Not so fast,” I said. “I was lucky.”
“I laid myself wide open,” he admitted. “It was a damn fool thing to do. I never thought of you pulling a stunt like that. Where were you? Under the rods?”
“That’s right. Under the rods on the freight car.”
“Cripes, but you think fast. Just the way you run out of petrol with a glimpse of my headlights in your rearview mirror and you were wise. You must have made a dash for it the minute your car stopped.”
“What did you want?”
“Hell, you know what I wanted. I wanted the pictures, and I wanted to beat you up a little bit. Just enough to teach you that it isn’t wise to stick your nose into things that are none of your damned business.”
“Why?”
“Well, now,” he said, adjusting the flame under the frying pan to just the right height, “that’s a matter of professional ethics. You’d better talk that over with someone else.”
“I’d like to talk it over with you. Why did Bob Elgin tell you to work me over?”
“Now, don’t make any cracks, buddy. It’s early in the morning and I haven’t had my breakfast and I’d hate to work you over on an empty stomach.”
I said, “It’s okay by me. I’ve got what I wanted.”
“I figured you would have by this time or you wouldn’t have shown up here. You aren’t that foolish. In fact, you’re smart. What did you want that stuff for?”
“I’m investigating an insurance matter.”
“What does the photograph of a couple of cheaters have to do with insurance?”
“It might have a lot.”
“Well, you can tell me about it while I’m eating.”
The ham started to sizzle, and he turned it with a fork. The bathroom door opened and the redhead came out. She was wearing tight-fitting slacks and a sweater.
“See,” Lowry said proudly, “what did I tell you?”
I nodded.
“You take over cooking the ham, honey,” Lowry said. “I’ll take a crack at the bathroom.”
She walked over to the gas plate, smiled at me, then turned her back and readjusted the flame under the frying pan.
Lowry called over his shoulder, “You don’t need to touch that fire. It’s just right the way it is.”
She didn’t pay any attention to him, but bent over so she could look at the flame under the frying pan.
“See what I told you?” Lowry called from the bathroom door. “It’s a swell figure. Look at her bending over!”
“Oh, you!” she said in a voice that showed she wasn’t in the least displeased.
Lowry closed the bathroom door.
She got the flame to suit her, then turned around and smiled at me. “You’re nice,” she said.
“I try to be,” I told her.
She said, “I’m glad we didn’t find you last night. Sometimes Sam gets too rough. He doesn’t know how strong he really is.”
“I can imagine,” I told her.
She smoothed the sweater down, caught my eye and smiled. “What’s the weather like outside?”
“Nice.”
“Sunshine?”
“Not a cloud.”
“Going to be hot?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Take a look at that table,” she said, showing me a fine-looking, highly polished table that looked out of place in the apartment. “Isn’t that a peach?”
“It certainly is.”
“Sam got that for a birthday present for me. It’s myrtle wood from Oregon. I bet you never saw anything so slick.”
“I never did.”
She spread a thick pad on it, then put on a table-cloth. “You’re company,” she explained smiling. “You’re going to get to eat breakfast off of it.”