I mopped my forehead with a handkerchief.
There was a knock at the door.
Mrs. Chester looked at me in dismay. “Were you expecting somebody — at this hour?”
I said, “You called, and if you called, somebody else could.”
She said, “I could hide somewhere. How about in that closet?”
I shook my head. “I’m not hiding you. This may be the police for all I know. They’re looking everywhere for you, Mrs. Chester.”
She said, “Remember, Donald, when I smell money I have to keep sniffing. That’s my nature.”
I strode over and opened the door.
The woman who had been seated next to me on the plane was standing there with a smile.
“Hello, Donald,” she said seductively, and moved on into the room, then stopped as she saw Mrs. Chester standing with one hand on the door leading to the bathroom.
“Well, well, well,” she said. “What’s this?”
I said, “May I ask what you’re doing here? More fortune-telling?”
“More fortune-telling, Donald,” she said. “I got worried about you and I thought that perhaps it was time you and I had a nice long talk — but who is this woman?”
“She is a woman I barely know,” I said. “She dropped in wanting something and I’ve already given her the advice she wants.”
I nodded to the door.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Chester said, and started out.
Mrs. Badger moved between her and the door, “Just a minute,” she said.
Mrs. Chester stopped and looked at her and then looked at me.
Mrs. Badger’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, oh,” she said, “I’m beginning to get a picture, a very, very beautiful picture.”
There was a tense silence in the room.
I said, “You may jump to a lot of false conclusions, Mrs... Minny.”
She looked at me and said, “You are smart, aren’t you?”
I said nothing.
She said, “You started to call me by my right name. I should have known you’d run me to earth in time. But, by the same token, Donald, I think I hold a few trump cards myself. In fact, I think I’ve got enough trumps now to make a grand slam.”
She said almost musically, “This officer from Los Angeles was after you because you’d hidden a woman who was mixed up in a hit-and-run suit. You wouldn’t tell him where she was. You said you didn’t know.
“Now, I heard just enough while I was listening outside the door to let me know that I’m getting in on something pretty juicy. I think that I’m going to get my hooks into something I’ve always wanted.”
She turned to Mrs. Chester and said, “I believe he called you Mrs. Chester.”
Mrs. Chester glanced at me helplessly.
“And,” Minny went on, “you wanted money. You said your nose could smell money. Well, dearie, if you’ve got a good nose and can smell money, you just come right along with me, because you and I are going to do some smelling together.”
Mrs. Chester’s face lit up. “You aren’t turning me over to the cops?”
Minny laughed and said, “You’re my ace in the hole, dearie. That nose of yours has finally smelled the way to money, lots of money.”
“You’ve got it?” Mrs. Chester asked.
“I’m going to get it,” Minny said. “You and I are going to get it together.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Mrs. Chester said.
“Bless your soul, you don’t have to. You just need to tell me the whole story, just put your cards on the table,” Mrs. Badger said. “When you finish talking, I’ll pick the trumps and start trumping everything in sight. Then we’ll have money, lots of money.”
“Twenty thousand dollars?” Mrs. Chester asked.
Minny laughed. “A hundred thousand for your share if you do exactly as I tell you.”
Mrs. Chester’s face lit into a beatific smile. “Darling,” she said, “I had a feeling of panic when you walked in, and then right away this nose of mine began to twitch. I think we’re on the right track now. Where do we go?”
“Where we can talk,” Minny said, “and where you can meet with my attorney.”
“Is he a good lawyer?” Mrs. Chester asked.
“The best.”
“Can he keep me out of trouble in Los Angeles?”
Minny laughed and said, “You’re in Nevada now. This attorney of mine has all the political pull in the world. If you don’t waive extradition, you can stay in Nevada as long as you live, provided you haven’t committed a murder in California.”
“It wasn’t a murder,” Mrs. Chester said. “It was... well, sort of a fraud.”
Minny laughed. “Come on, dearie,” she said. “I want you to meet a good lawyer and then we’ll do a little talking.”
She held the door open and smiled at me. “Goodnight, Donald,” she said.
The door slammed.
The closet door opened. Elsie, looking white and frightened, came out and said, “Is that what you expected?”
“That,” I told her, “was not what I expected.”
“What we do now?” Elsie asked.
“Now,” I said, “you go into that bedroom, take the tape recorder and your notebook, lock the connecting door, and go to bed. Don’t open up either the connecting door or your outside door for anything or anyone other than me, and make absolutely certain I’m the one at the door before you open.”
“Where are you going, Donald?”
“I’m going out and start picking up pieces,” I said.
“Pieces?” she asked.
“The shattered pieces of my career, Elsie.”
She came to me then and put her arms around me. “Donald, is it serious?”
“It’s so damned serious that I don’t like to think about it,” I said. “Sergeant Sellers has probably got what he wants. I’ve botched up a case and, taken by and large, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
She stood on her tiptoes then to kiss me. “Donald,” she said, after a moment, “remember that you have me and my faith in you. We’ll come out on top of the heap yet.”
“Well, we’re sure at the bottom now,” I told her. “But thanks for your support.”
This time I kissed her. It was a long, lingering kiss.
“Do you have to go, Donald?” she asked.
“That,” I told her, “is the understatement of the week. I have to go now and I have to go fast.”
She stood watching me wistfully as I dashed out of the door, slamming it behind me.
Chapter 16
From the nearest public phone booth I called the night number Essex had given me.
His voice sounded sleepy.
“Wake up,” I said. “The fat’s in the fire.”
“What do you mean?”
I said, “Minerva is on the warpath. She’s grabbed every trump in the deck.”
“Damn it, Lam,” he said, irritably, “I told you to keep away from her and—”
“I kept away from her,” I said. “She was the one who picked up my trail and ran me down.”
“Well, you don’t have to talk to her.”
“It isn’t anything I’ll say,” I told him. “It’s what Mrs. Chester’s saying.”
“What Mrs... WHO? Who did you say?”
“I said Mrs. Chester.”
“She’s in Mexico.”
“That’s what you think. She came to try and blackmail me, and Minny moved in on the deal.”
“Where is Mrs. Chester now?”
“Talking with Minerva Badger and Minerva Badger’s attorney,” I said.
“Oh, my God,” he said, in a voice that was almost a wail. Then after a moment, he said, “That’s the end of the line, we’re ruined.”