«Sure. I’ll pop downstairs and put it in a safe-deposit box. You can hold one of the keys — and we’ll talk split later on. I think it would be a swell idea if Canales knew he had to see me, and still sweller if you hid out in a little hotel where I have a friend — at least until I nose around a bit.»
She nodded. I put my hat on and put the envelope inside my belt. I went out, telling her there was a gun in the top lefthand drawer, if she felt nervous.
When I got back she didn’t seem to have moved. But she said she had phoned Canales’ place and left a message for him she thought he would understand.
We went by rather devious ways to the Lorraine, at Brant and Avenue C. Nobody shot at us going over, and as far as I could see we were not trailed.
I shook hands with Jim Dolan, the day clerk at the Lorraine, with a twenty folded in my hand. He put his hand in his pocket and said he would be glad to see that «Miss Thompson» was not bothered.
I left. There was nothing in the noon paper about Lou Harger of the Hobart Arms.
SIX
The Hobart Arms was just another apartment house, in a block lined with them. It was six stories high and had a buff front. A lot of cars were parked at both curbs all along the block. I drove through slowly and looked things over. The neighborhood didn’t have the look of having been excited about anything in the immediate past. It was peaceful and sunny, and the parked cars had a settled look, as if they were right at home.
I circled into an alley with a high board fence on each side and a lot of flimsy garages cutting it. I parked beside one that had a For Rent sign and went between two garbage cans into the concrete yard of the Hobart Arms, along the side to the street. A man was putting golf clubs into the back of a coupe. In the lobby a Filipino was dragging a vacuum cleaner over the rug and a dark Jewess was writing at the switchboard.
I used the automatic elevator and prowled along an upper corridor to the last door on the left. I knocked, waited, knocked again, went in with Miss Glenn’s key.
Nobody was dead on the floor.
I looked at myself in the mirror that was the back of a pulldown bed, went across and looked out of a window. There was a ledge below that had once been a coping. It ran along to the fire escape. A blind man could have walked in. I didn’t notice anything like footmarks in the dust on it.
There was nothing in the dinette or kitchen except what belonged there. The bedroom had a cheerful carpet and painted gray walls. There was a lot of junk in the corner, around a wastebasket, and a broken comb on the dresser held a few strands of red hair. The closets were empty except for some gin bottles.
I went back to the living room, looked behind the wall bed, stood around for a minute, left the apartment.
The Filipino in the lobby had made about three yards with the vacuum cleaner. I leaned on the counter beside the switchboard.
«Miss Glenn?»
The dark Jewess said: «Five-two-four,» and made a check mark on the laundry list.
«She’s not in. Has she been in lately?»
She glanced up at me. «I haven’t noticed. What is it — a bill?»
I said I was just a friend, thanked her and went away. That established the fact that there had been no excitement in Miss Glenn’s apartment. I went back to the alley and the Marmon.
I hadn’t believed it quite the way Miss Glenn told it anyhow.
I crossed Cordova, drove a block and stopped beside a forgotten drugstore that slept behind two giant pepper trees and a dusty, cluttered window. It had a single pay booth in the corner. An old man shuffled towards me wistfully, then went away when he saw what I wanted, lowered a pair of steel spectacles on to the end of his nose and sat down again with his newspaper.
I dropped my nickel, dialed, and a girl’s voice said: «Telegrayam!» with a tinny drawl. I asked for Von Ballin.
When I got him and he knew who it was. I could hear him clearing his throat. Then his voice came close to the phone and said very distinctly: «I’ve got something for you, but it’s bad. I’m sorry as all hell. Your friend Harger is in the morgue. We got a flash about ten minutes ago.»
I leaned against the wall of the booth and felt my eyes getting haggard. I said: «What else did you get?»
«Couple of radio cops picked him up in somebody’s front yard or something, in West Cimarron. He was shot through the heart. It happened last night, but for some reason they only just put out the identification.»
I said: «West Cimarron, huh? Well, that takes care of that. I’ll be in to see you.»
I thanked him and hung up, stood for a moment looking out through the glass at a middle-aged gray-haired man who had come into the store and was pawing over the magazine rack.
Then I dropped another nickel and dialed the Lorraine, asked for the clerk.
I said: «Get your girl to put me on to the redhead, will you, Jim?»
I got a cigarette out and lit it, puffed smoke at the glass of the door. The smoke flattened out against the glass and swirled about in the close air. Then the line clicked and the operator’s voice said: «Sorry, your party does not answer.»
«Give me Jim again,» I said. Then, when he answered, «Can you take time to run up and find out why she doesn’t answer the phone? Maybe she’s just being cagey.»
Jim said: «You bet. I’ll shoot right up with a key.»
Sweat was coming out all over me. I put the receiver down on a little shelf and jerked the booth door open. The grayhaired man looked up quickly from the magazines, then scowled and looked at his watch. Smoke poured out of the booth. After a moment I kicked the door shut and picked up the receiver again.
Jim’s voice seemed to come to me from a long way off. «She’s not here. Maybe she went for a walk.»
I said: «Yeah — or maybe it was a ride.»
I pronged the receiver and pushed on out of the booth. The gray-haired stranger slammed a magazine down so hard that it fell to the floor. He stooped to pick it up as I went past him. Then he straightened up just behind me and said quietly, but very firmly: «Keep the hands down, and quiet. Walk on out to your heap. This is business.»
Out of the corner of my eye I could see the old man peeking short-sightedly at us. But there wasn’t anything for him to see, even if he could see that far. Something prodded my back. It might have been a finger, but I didn’t think it was.
We went out of the store very peacefully.
A long gray car had stopped close behind the Marmon. Its rear door was open and a man with a square face and a crooked mouth was standing with one foot out on the running board. His right hand was behind him, inside the car.
My man’s voice said: «Get in your car and drive west. Take this first corner and go about twenty-five, not more.»
The narrow street was sunny and quiet and the pepper trees whispered. Traffic threshed by on Cordova a short block away. I shrugged, opened the door of my car and got under the wheel. The gray-haired man got in very quickly beside me, watching my hands. He swung his right hand around, with a snub-nosed gun in it.
«Careful getting your keys out, buddy.»
I was careful. As I stepped on the starter a car door slammed behind, there were rapid steps, and someone got into the back seat of the Marmon. I let in the clutch and drove around the corner. In the mirror I could see the gray car making the turn behind. Then it dropped back a little.
I drove west on a street that paralleled Cordova and when we had gone a block and a half a hand came down over my shoulder from behind and took my gun away from me. The gray-haired man rested his short revolver on his leg and felt me over carefully with his free hand. He leaned back satisfied.
«Okey. Drop over to the main drag and snap it up,» he said. «But that don’t mean trying to sideswipe a prowl car, if you lamp one… Or if you think it does, try it and see.»