Lowry looked at me with eyes that glittered with cold suspicion. “What the hell do you mean, cut me out?”
“I just asked you.”
“How the hell do I know what he’d do?”
We sat silent. The redhead put water in the dish-pan. Both of us sat watching the lithe motions of the girl as she took the dishes from the panful of soapy water, rinsed them, and then put them on the draining board.
I looked at my wrist watch and said, “Damn it, it’s funny you haven’t heard from Elgin. I thought he was going to be here.”
“Did he say he’d be here?”
I said, “I gave him the whole dope and told him I needed a man who could hold up his end in case the going got tough. I told him what his cut would be. He gave me your name and address. I told him you’d tried to meet me before, and he laughed and said, ‘People whom you wanted to meet didn’t always want to meet you,’ or something like that. I’ve forgotten just what it was. I told him I was on my way up here. I certainly thought he’d either be here or get in touch with me.”
There was another period of silence.
I said, “You don’t suppose he could be giving us both a double-cross, do you?”
“Hell, I’m not his partner,” Lowry said. “I’m his bouncer.”
“You were supposed to be in on this deal.”
“How much did you say was involved?”
“Eighty thousand smackers.”
“How come?”
I said, “Take yesterday’s paper. Figure it out for yourself. Dover Fulton was found dead. If he committed suicide, his policies don’t pay off because they’re less than a year old. He gets nothing except a return of the first year’s premium. If he didn’t commit suicide the policies carry a double indemnity provision. The face of the policies is forty thousand, twice forty is eighty.”
“Eighty grand!” Lowry said, and licked his lips.
I said, “Our share of that would be around twenty grand. Your cut would give you a chance to get in business for yourself, and buy some swell clothes for the redhead. She could go in pictures if she had the right backing.”
“Do you think I could?” the girl asked.
Lowry said, angrily, “You just go ahead and talk to me about the deal, Lam. Don’t spend my money for me. I’ll do my own spending.”
The redhead said angrily, “I believe you would cut me out it.”
“Shut up, Babe,” he ordered. “I want to think.”
In the period of silence which followed we could hear the ticking of the cheap tin alarm lock. The redhead finished the dishes, and hung up the dish-towel.
I held out my coffee cup, and she refilled it with the thick, black coffee that was at the bottom of the percolator.
“Warm it up for him, Babe,” Lowry said.
“This is all right,” I told him. “I like it this way.”
I sat holding the cup of coffee over the table.
Abruptly Lowry said, “I’ve got to telephone Bob Elgin, honey.”
“You’re not going to leave me here alone with him.”
“Now look, kid, I’ll leave you the gun. You sit across the room, out of the way. If he makes a move, plug him. You’ve got every right in the world. He’s a murderer, the police are looking for him, and he’s trying to escape. If anything happens and you shoot, remember that I was going down the hall to telephone for the bulls.”
“I don’t want to be left alone with him.”
“It’s the only way,” Lowry said. “I’ve got to telephone.”
“Let me telephone.”
He laughed and said, “You know what Bob would say if he knew you were here.”
“Well, what are you going to do if he comes up?”
“You’re going to duck out the back way.”
“I’ll duck out now.”
“Not until after I put through that phone call. You’ve got to watch this guy.”
“I tell you I don’t want to be left alone with him.”
“Now look, honey, you sit over here right by the door to the hall. If he makes a move, you shoot. It isn’t as though I wouldn’t be right near here. I’m just going to be down at the end of the hall. I can hear you if you shoot! Heck, I can even hear you if you scream. I’ll be back in a jiffy. If you do shoot, don’t fumble around. Blow the bastard wide open.”
“I’d like to blow him wide open anyway,” she said, “When I think of that girl, with her cute figure, and — I tell you, it makes me sick to my stomach.”
I said to Lowry, “Of course, Bob may not have figured on cutting you in on the deal, but I thought he did.”
“He should,” Lowry said.
I said, “The way I figured the thing, Bob Elgin knew enough about this deal at the motor court. He knew who went out, and…”
“Say, wait a minute,” Lowry said, “you aren’t getting Bob wrong, are you? He runs a clean place down there. He doesn’t let any mobsters hang around the place. An occasional skirt can cut herself a piece of cake, but that’s as far as it goes.”
I said, “Well, he acted as though he knew all about this deal, and he said you and I could clean it up. Maybe I told him too much.”
“You take the gun, honey,” Lowry said. “I’m going to call Elgin.”
“You don’t have anything to call him about, not so far,” she said. “All you’ve heard is talk.”
I could see he was impressed by that. He settled back in his chair. “I guess the guy is a smooth liar, at that.”
I said, “What did you expect? Sleight-of-hand tricks, or television? I’m telling you.”
“Just what are you telling us, again?” she asked. “Why don’t you get down to brass tacks?”
I said, “Okay, I will. Tom Durham and Bob Elgin have a racket. I don’t know what’s in it for either of them, and I don’t care. I don’t know what Durham was playing for on this mix-up that goes back to the so-called suicide-pact Saturday night; but I do know that they’re in the picture somewhere. I have a chance for salvage, an opportunity to get a cut out of eighty grand. Bob Elgin was interested in it. He told me to come here — hell, I don’t know, he could be double-crossing all of us. I hate to sit here and take the rap.”
“You’re going to be sitting places for a long time,” Lowry said.
“Not if I can help it, but I’m not. I’m going to wrap up a cut of eighty grand and get out from under on this Hollister killing.”
“Are you trying to tell us you didn’t do that?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
Lowry said, “I’m going to call Bob, and that’s final. You take the gun, Babe.”
Lowry passed the gun over to the girl. She took up a position between me and the door.
“I’ll leave the door open,” Lowry said.
He looked the situation over, then nodded to the girl, and beat it through the door.
The girl sat there, the door half-open, the gun pointed at me. I could see the skin was white across her knuckles. “Don’t you make a move,” she said. “I believe I’d really like to pull the trigger, you filthy beast! And you looked so decent, too.”
I said, “I told you I didn’t have anything to do with that killing. It wasn’t a sex killing, anyway.”
“You had lipstick on your handkerchief.”
“She kissed me.”
“What were you doing in her bedroom?”
“Talking to her.”
“She wasn’t dressed.”
“She invited me in.”
“That sounds a likely story.”
I reached over to my coffee cup, let my hand slip, and tipped the coffee all over the table-cloth.
The instinctive reaction was too strong. She came up out of the chair like a shot. “You clumsy fool!” she said. “Put something under it, so it doesn’t reach the table.”