The last thing I took was a clean collar of his, rolled it up small, and put it in my handbag. Then I edged over and fished his key holder out of his vest-pocket. He had an awful lot of them, but only three Yales. I stepped outside and found out which was the one to our place, and that left only two. One probably to his office at the gambling club, and the other one to her place. I detached both of them and took them with me.
I eased the door closed after me, and then I hot-footed it down to the street, scared up a cab, and gave Alma’s address. I hadn’t been out this early in the morning since I was a good girl in love with an honest guy.
I had the driver let me off on the corner instead of right outside the door. It wasn’t such a hot place. None of the trimmings. No doorman, nothing. I could tell Buck hadn’t picked it for her. Still, he already had the key. She’d been afraid to refuse it to him, I guess. Just like I’d been before Gordon had his “accident.”
The door key opened the street door too. The mail slot said 3-A. I walked up a couple of flights of stairs and found the door, a little to the left. I didn’t knock. I knew there was no one in there to hear me any more. The key I’d taken from Buck worked the door without any trouble, and I closed it quietly after me with a back-hand motion. The lights had been left on.
She had it nice inside. But she was spoiling the looks of it, even though she was a pretty little thing, lying slopped all over the floor like that.
I looked down at her. “Cheer up, kid,” I said softly. “He’ll get it hung on him, don’t worry.”
I went in to her dressing table, rummaged, and got out her lipstick. It was waterproof rouge. I took it back to where she was, bent down by her, lifted her head, and reddened up her mouth plenty. When I’d put it on so thick that it was practically caked on her, I picked up her hand and closed her fingers tight around the lipstick holder.
“Just so the dicks’ll know what you were trying to tell them,” I murmured to her. “If they don’t think it funny that a girl dying from a slug takes time out to rouge her lips, they oughta be out shoving street cleaners’ tea wagons around. Now spread yourself on this.” I unrolled his clean collar, held it out straight by both ends, and pressed it hard against her smeared mouth. The print came out perfect, a complete cupid’s bow.
“They’ll check the rouge, they’ll check the shape of your mouth. Oh, they’ll know,” I promised her softly. I rolled the collar up carefully again, put a little tissue paper around it so it wouldn’t blur, put it back in my handbag.
“Now just so they’ll know what to look for it on...” I said. I went over to the table and picked up a big glossy magazine lying there. I thumbed through the ads until I came to a full-page men’s collar ad, with a handsome he-model illustrating it. “Here you go,” I said. I held that against her mouth, so that the print came out on the collar in the photograph just about where it had on Buck’s. Then I dropped the mag on the floor near her, open at that particular page.
“Now if the cops are any good at all, that oughta bring them around where I live sooner or later — without me having to be filled full of buckshot for it either.” I looked back at her from the door, saluted her sadly. “Take it easy, Toots. And the next time you live, marry your Frank Rogers fast and don’t fool around with dynamite.”
I had my hand on the door knob ready to leave when I heard someone outside in the hall. A sort of tiptoey tread, the kind you notice all the quicker just because it’s trying not to be heard. I knew it was Louie, with his little gun all neatly fingerprinted now by Rogers. Louie must have come up through the basement, because I had Buck’s key. I got good and scared. I didn’t stop to think what a wonderful break I’d just had; if I’d left a minute sooner I’d have run into him head-on on the stairs. Or if he’d shown up a minute later. I was all right where I was. He was too yellow to come in here, and he didn’t have the key anyway.
The sound of his tiptoeing went down the hall to the back. There was a muffled clunk from a tin bucket, then his steps came back again, passed the door where I was holding my breath, and faded out down the stairs.
I gave him all the time he needed to get out of the building. Then I let myself out, closed her door, and went up there to the end of the hall. There was a fire-ax clamped to the wall, and there was a red fire-bucket on the floor under it. The gun was lying at the bottom of it.
I’d seen Buck clean his often enough. He always used a piece of chamois or kidskin. Of course this was different; this was to get prints off, but I figured the same thing would work. I took one of my own gloves, from my handbag, to it. That, and my breath, and — what a lady spits with. I worked until there couldn’t have been anything left on it. Then I laid it down again inside the pail.
I took a couple of swabs at the outside door knob too, just for luck, before I left. Not that I was particularly worried about myself, but just not to cloud the issue. The whole job must have taken about five, six minutes. Then I went downstairs and out of the building, and stood there for a half-minute outside the street door — like a fool, but the way anyone’s apt to do. Sort of taking a deep breath after finishing something. It was still early but it was good and light by now.
You know how you can feel it when anyone’s looking at you hard, even from a distance? Something pulled my head around in the opposite direction, and there was a figure in a light gray suit down at the next corner, on the other side of the street, sizing me up for all he was worth. It was Louie, same suit he’d just had on up at our place; he’d just come out of a cigar store that he’d gone into either to buy smokes or to report his success back to Buck over the wire.
My first thought was, “Take it easy. He can’t tell who you are from that far off.” Then I looked down at myself and I saw those checker-board black and white squares all over me. “Oh, Lord!” I gasped, and I stepped down from the doorway fast and went up the other way.
The steady way he’d been staring told me he already had a hunch it was me. And I knew what the next step would be. He’d phone back to Buck fast to see if I was there or not.
I jumped into the first cab I saw and I almost shook the driver by the shoulders to get some speed out of him. “Fast!” I kept whimpering. “Fast! I’ve got to beat a phone call.”
“I don’t see how it can be done,” he said.
I didn’t either, but it had to be. If Louie had only wasted time tailing me around to where I’d hopped the cab... If he’d only run out of nickels...
But if he’d already phoned Buck the first time and woken him up, then what was the use of all this? I was already finished. I threw something at the driver, I think it was a fin for a six-bit ride, and I never got up to a third floor so fast before or after.
It was ringing away, I could hear it right through the door while I was trying to get it open. And of course I would drop, the key on the floor in my hurry and have to dredge for it. I don’t know how I did it but finally I was in and had the damned thing at my mouth and ear, just as Buck came up for air in the other room and growled, “Are you gonna get a move on and shut that damn thing up or d’ya want a ride on the end of my foot?”
It was Louie, all right. “Who’s that — Mae?” he said. He acted surprised I was there. So was I.
“Sure, who else?” I couldn’t say much, I was too winded.
“I got three wrong numbers in a row, can y’imagine?” I thanked God and the Telephone Company. “I coulda sworn I seen you down on Seventy-second Street just now.”
“Whaddya think I do, walk in my sleep?”
“Well, this dame beat it away fast.”