It was a silly little gun, a toy, and I might have laughed. Only Moose Lundgren had been killed with a .22.
“Mr. Every wasn’t finished talking to you, Mr. Jones.”
Val Every nodded his head toward one of the overstuffed chairs. “Sit down — Jones.”
I went over and sat down, trying to look more casual than I felt. I hadn’t brought a gun in with me. My .38 was locked in the glove compartment of the Dusy. It had been parked there for some time, and I wondered if there was a parking limit. The damnedest things went through my mind.
Val Every rubbed his hands together and then studied the palms. He expelled his breath, and looked at me. “Miss Harlin worked for me. I took a personal interest in her career, you understand. Lot of people getting mixed up in this lately.”
He stopped and I waited.
“Including the cops,” he went on. “They were just up at my place. Two of them. One named Devine. I forget the big guy’s name. I’ll have to fumigate the place, now. I haven’t had any trouble with the law for a long time. You tell them about me?”
“I told them what Lundgren had told me. I don’t want any trouble with the law, either. I usually tell them all I can.”
“Once a cop, always a cop,” Every said.
I made no comment.
“You’re pretty solid with the boys downtown, aren’t you, Jones?”
“We get along. I know most of them, the ones that matter, anyway.”
“You and the Chief, huh?”
I said nothing.
“O.K.,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble with the law, not right now. And I don’t want any trouble with you, not tonight. But stay out of my business, Jones. Keep your nose clean.”
“I’ll continue to look for Miss Harlin,” I told him. “So long as my client wants me to. When she tells me to quit, I’ll—”
“She?” Every said quickly. “You said ‘she.’ It’s a woman?”
Quiet, again. Every looked over at Stone-eyes, and back at me.
I cursed myself silently. I said: “No. I didn’t say ‘she’.”
He was smiling. “Never mind. That’s all for now, Jones.” He tamed to Stone-eyes. “When you go out, tell Judy I want to see her.”
Stone-eyes walked with me to the door. I stopped, while he opened it. I said: “That Lundgren was killed with a twenty-two. You’d better have a good story, when the time comes.”
“Wait,” Every said.
I turned and waited. He had risen, and was walking towards me. Stone-eyes closed the door quietly. The gun was again in his hand.
Every came close enough to breathe in my face. “Lundgren was killed with a twenty-two? How’d you know?”
“I found him. I was with the cops all day.”
Every looked at his boy. There was no expression in the gray eyes that looked back at him. “You know where I was, boss. You were with me, all the time.”
“Not all the time.”
“This guy’s a cop, boss. This is what he wants. They’d rather lie than eat.”
“If you guys can read,” I said, “it’ll be in tonight’s late edition. Or whatever they call the sheet that’s on the stands now. If you want me to hang around, I’d just as soon do it in the bar. That’s good rye out there.”
“A comedian,” Stone-eyes said. “We’ll tell you where to wait, gumshoe.”
Every said: “Wait out in the bar.”
Left them and went out into the bar. There was a bulky, well-fed-looking man sitting on a bar stool, drinking a beer. I didn’t need to see his face to tell it was Glen Harvey. His suits are even cheaper than mine, and fit worse.
He grinned when he saw me. “Have a drink on the taxpayers,” he said. “This all goes on the swindle sheet.”
Stone-eyes came out and walked down along the bar to where Judy Meredith was still sitting. She followed him back to the room.
“Whose idea was this?” I asked Glen. “You don’t look any more like a cop than if you were wearing the blue. What do you hope to get out of this, except a hangover?”
“On beer?” Glen said. “I’m just sitting here. It’s Devine’s idea, and Devine’s my boss, and you hadn’t oughta run him down. If he wants me to sit here and drink beer, I will.”
The bartender, not Jim, came over, and I ordered rye.
“You should have a tuxedo,” I said, to Glen.
“I’m no waiter,” Glen said. “I’m a guest.” He sipped his beer. “You know, that Moose Lundgren didn’t have enough to get buried on. And not a relative. They’re planting him in Potter’s Field tomorrow, Jonesy.”
The cold ground, I thought. Deep and cold and all alone. The violin was back, crying in its throaty way, making the bartenders look unhappy again.
“That fiddler gives me the willies,” Glen said.
Miss Judy Meredith, that lovely gal, would now be hearing the riot act. And from a joker like Every, There was no logic in love.
Judy came out after a few minutes looking no less happy than when she had gone in. She came directly over to where I was sitting, and climbed onto the adjacent stool.
Glen lifted his eyebrows, and coughed quietly, but I ignored him.
Judy said quietly: “Your friend’s from headquarters, isn’t he?”
“You’d have to ask him,” I said.
“Val,” she told me, “is burning out a bearing. He’s not fit company for man or beast.”
“Wait’ll he sees the papers,” I said. “You’d better find a place to hide, after that.”
She ordered a rye and water. She said: “Mr. Every won’t mind. He just said I could have one or two.”
He went to get it, and she turned to me. “What’s in the papers?”
“Lundgren was killed with a twenty-two,” I said.
“So—”
“So that’s what his boy carries, the little round man with the slate eyes.”
“Don’t others, too? Is that so unusual?”
“It’s very unusual. At least, among torpedoes.”
The man in white set her drink down in front of her. Glen coughed again, and I looked over at him, and then looked away.
“Do we have to stay here?” Judy asked. “We could get drunk anyplace, though it might cost you a little more.”
“Every wants me to wait,” I said.
“Oh. Then — you are working for him?”
“Let’s go,” I said. “Let’s find some place where the lights are dim, and the music soft. Let’s go some place and dance.”
“I’ll get my coat,” she said.
She left the bar. Glen said: “You’re rude. You know that, I guess. You should be more familiar with Emily Post.”
“She knows you’re a cop,” I told him. “I didn’t want her to get the idea we were too thick.”
He made no comment. He looked at me as — though I had just crawled out from under a stone, and then looked away.
Judy came with her coat, and we left. The doorman looked surprised when he saw me leave with the boss’s girl, but he made no comment.
We went to the Grotto, a fairly quiet spot on 41st, where the band is more concerned with danceable rhythms than trick arrangements, where there isn’t any floor show.
We danced and talked and drank. We didn’t get drunk. We didn’t talk about Every, or Flame or Stone-eyes.
About eleven-thirty, we left, and drove out the drive, way out beyond Brown Deer, beyond the hills, to the bay. There, on a high point, overlooking the water, I parked.
I was aware of her, you can bet. I was ready to sign on the dotted at the moment. But I just lit us a pair of cigarettes, and turned on the radio, and we sat, looking out at the water.
There wasn’t much conversation, and what there was I can’t remember now. All I remember is the perfume she wore, and the way her voice seemed to match the quiet of the night.