O’Hara whipped up the tempo of his stride, lengthened it. When he got to the cluster of lights, they proved to be a drive-in-market, a liquor store, a drugstore. He went into the drugstore, put both hands on the marble counter of the fountain to hold himself up.
He said hoarsely to the pimply-faced soda jerker, “Coffee.”
“Coffee?”
“Black and hot.”
He drank three cups of bitter, scalding fluid. Sweat popped out on his forehead. His head began to clear, the fuzzy feeling left his muscles. He bought a tube of salve to smear the cigarette burn on his hand, tossed change on the counter, went toward the front door.
When he got within five feet of the door he stopped. A light tan sedan that he had seen before was swinging into the space in front of the drive-in market. O’Hara spun, went back past the soda fountain fast.
Passing it, he said, “Back door?”
The pimply-faced soda jerker pointed dumbly toward a door marked: Prescription Department. O’Hara went through that door, past a startled man in a white coat and out a rear door. He skirted the long, dark wall of the building, crossed a vacant lot and came out on the boulevard a block west.
He walked for three blocks, keeping an eye over his shoulder. He didn’t see the tan sedan. A cab came swishing through the wet toward town and O’Hara angled into the street, waved an arm, yelled. The cab slowed, made a U-turn and came back.
Climbing in, O’Hara said, “Club Barcelona.”
Rain was coming down in a fine drizzle that dewed O’Hara’s face as he plodded, heavy-footed, down the block on the opposite side from the club. From under the brim of his hat, he checked parked cars the length of the block and didn’t find his coupé and Tony Ames.
He checked again to make sure and then stood for five minutes in front of a darkened real estate office, his hands sunk deep in his coat pockets, his shoulders hunched. His face was sour, uneasy. He wasn’t too much worried. She’d probably seen Shuford carting him away and, herself, had gone to see what could be done about unjamming him. But he wasn’t entirely unworried. Peculiar things had been happening around the Barcelona and he’d have felt better if he’d known just where she was. Once he moved as though to cross the street to the Barcelona and then changed his mind. He looked perplexed, was perplexed.
He didn’t want to barge in half cocked; wanted to go straight to the man who’d drugged him.
He thought he was shaping up a fairly clear picture of things. Those letters of Davenport’s spelled blackmail and Johnny Lawton had stumbled onto the plot, been blasted out of its road for his pains. It hadn’t been obvious at first who, besides Inez Dana, was involved but the loaded drinks looked like the tip off on that. Kerr had suggested the drinks, undoubtedly had needled them when he left his office to summon Inez Dana.
The one thing that messed up the picture was the shot that been fired in Inez Dana’s apartment while Johnny Lawton was in there alone. Even that might be cleared up if he could get somebody to talking. The letters ought to start Homer A. Davenport talking in a hurry. However, he’d have to corner Davenport alone, not in the Barcelona.
At ten minutes after nine Inez Dana came out of the Barcelona. She stood for a moment under the arched sign, looking up and down the street. Then she set off, away from the boulevard, nice legs setting silk folds of her raincoat swaying, a small bag in her right hand swinging with her stride. O’Hara chewed his upper lip a moment, watching her speculatively. Then he turned, began to follow her, keeping well back and across the street from her.
She walked steadily, swiftly, looked around only once. At the first corner she turned to her right, went east along a lonesome, gloomy side street. There was a car line three blocks away in that direction. O’Hara increased his pace, got well ahead of her in the darkness. When he was a block ahead, he crossed the street and turned back.
There was a lonely blob of street light on a tall pole at the car stop. It pointed vague fingers through the darkness, and one of them touched the figure of Inez Dana coming toward him.
O’Hara bore down on her, saw her slow and hesitate. He walked faster. She stopped and turned and O’Hara made the last ten feet fast.
He got a hand on her arm, said, “Wait a minute, Miss Dana.”
She was frightened, trembling. She breathed, “You!”
“Me, your old pal.”
Even in the dim light, her face was beautiful, appealing with its wide panic-stricken brown eyes, the round O of moist lips. He could see the sleek curve of her bosom palpitating under her raincoat. It left him cold, untouched; but a small corner of his mind wondered if perhaps he hadn’t been all wrong from the start, if perhaps Johnny Lawton hadn’t gone overboard about this ensemble of curves and eyes.
They stood there a moment. Her voice was stronger when she said, “What do you want?”
“Answers to some questions. The right answers.”
She was silent but she seemed less frightened than she had been. O’Hara reached down with his free hand, took the grip from her. She clung to it for a moment, let it go under his stronger tug. He said, “Why not let me carry it? Always a gent, Miss Dana, no matter who it hurts.”
He started her back toward the boulevard firmly, not roughly.
“Where are you taking me?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. Give me time.” He smiled down at her without humor. “But it’ll be some place where we can talk. And where you’ll have to postpone your notion to lam, to get out from under. That’s the idea you had, isn’t it?”
Inez Dana snapped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And what makes you think I’ll go with you?”
O’Hara made his voice velvety. “Just one thing — because I’ll smack the daylights out of you if you don’t. I’ve never tried that on a woman before but I’ve seen a lot of movies lately and the way the heroes smack the ladies around has given me ideas.”
She tried to wrench her arm away and O’Hara bit down with his fingers.
Her voice shook a little when she said, “You’re hurting me!”
“That, you female tornado,” O’Hara said, “was for nothing at all. So be nice.”
Privately, he wondered what he would do if she got difficult; but for half a block she trotted along beside him.
Then she said, “I can’t walk so fast. Please!”
He slowed down a little and she said in a ghost of a voice, “If I were to tell you something, would you—”
“Would I what?”
“I’m frightened, terribly frightened. You d-don’t know the terrible danger I’m in. There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell ever since that horrible moment but if I do—” She shuddered walked closer to him, lifted her face piteously. “No, no, I can’t. I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die.”
O’Hara said earnestly, “Forget it, Miss Dana. If you’ve got the sort of information I think you have, you can spill it and nobody will so much as make faces at you. Blane’s a pig headed, hard-to-convince copper but a swell guy to have on your side. And the Tribune, too, will take plenty care of you. Now tell me, Johnny Lawton didn’t commit suicide, did he?”
They stopped, facing each other. She looked up at him, breathed, “You’re sure you’ll protect me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then I’ll show you something.” She began to fumble at the buttons that held the silk raincoat snug across her breasts and O’Hara let go his hold on her arm. “I was running away from that h-horrible place with its—”