She had a dimple when she smiled. “I guess when the law recommends a guy.”
The girl had taken the tray off the other side of the prowl car. The prowl car backed out. Dave leaned out the window and said, “Don’t ever say we cops ain’t on cupid’s ball team, Mac. Have a good time, Red.”
She handed me my change from the ten. She looked a little shy. “I won’t be long, Mac.” She turned and hurried off.
There was nothing to do but head back to the car. George and Fish looked at me. Their faces were white. “Just what the hell do you think—” Fish started.
“Kindly cease being so loquacious,” I said firmly. “Why do things the hard way? I asked the officer to introduce me to the girl. He was glad to do it. I asked her for a date. She’s in changing to her street clothes.”
“You asked the cop to introduce you?” Fish asked weakly.
“Of course!”
“Brother!” George said softly.
“Mr. Fish, you will kindly sit up in front with George. I desire to be left alone here in back with the young lady.”
“Anything you say, Jumpy,” he murmured obediently. He got up in front.
My mind was racing, but I could find no solution, no adequate way to warn her. The police had left too quickly. My cheek still hurt where the oaf had pinched me.
In far too little time she came hurrying out to the car. She was very cute in a green dress with a wide white belt, a brown coat over her arm. I got out to hold the door for her, more than half tempted to grab her wrist and run for it. But there was too great a distance to run. A shot at me might find her by accident. I could not ask her to take such a serious risk.
I handed her in and climbed in after her. “That wasn’t much of an introduction, Mac,” she said, with laughter in her voice. “Gee, I’m crazy to date a stranger like this. I guess there has to be a first time.”
“My name isn’t Mac,” I said. “It’s... Omar.”
Fish turned around. “No wonder they call you Jumpy. Omar! What a handle! Don’t I get a knockdown too?”
“My name really is Pat,” she said. “Pat Kelly. Isn’t that an awful name?”
“I rather like it. Pat, meet Fish and George.”
“Hiya,” said Fish.
“Hiya,” said George.
“Where are we going, men?” Pat asked. There was a nervous note in her voice. I could see that she was not exactly impressed favorably by my companions. I did not find it within my power to blame her.
“To a very nice buffet supper,” I said, as comfortingly as I could.
She seemed quite composed as we drove to Mr. Artigan’s house. The gates shut behind the car. I took her up the steps and into the hallway. The party had disappeared as though it had never existed. Artigan stood, rubbing his hands and beaming at her. “Nice work, Jumpy,” he said.
“He did it smooth,” Fish said. “He just dated her. Boy, a smooth worker.”
Pat stared at Artigan, at Brenda’s ravaged face, at the two cold-eyed men who had accompanied Artigan to work that morning. She looked at Fish, then at George. Last of all she looked at me, fright in her eyes. She was white to the lips and she backed toward the door. Fish slid around her and closed the door.
“Relax, honey,” Artigan said softly.
“Who... who are you people?”
“Friends, I hope. We want to be your friends. I had you brought here for a reason. I sent those three men out to get you and bring you here, Miss Kelly.”
Pat turned her blue eyes on me again and gave me a look of such ineffiable contempt that I could almost feel my soul shrivel. “I’ve never been wronger about anyone,” she said.
“We’re quite prepared to be unpleasant if we must,” Mr. Artigan said.
The color came back into Pat’s face. “Stop talking like a cut-rate script, whoever you are. What do you want of me?”
Artigan flushed. “Don’t give me too much mouth. I’ll tell you why we want you. You have a sister named Prissy Thorpe. Prissy has something we want. This seems like a good way to get it from her.”
Pat looked puzzled for a moment. And then she laughed. “That’s good! That’s really good! Pris is going to be all overcome by sisterly love, eh? This is going to be worth it for the laughs, if nothing else.”
Artigan turned to Brenda. “Give her Dolly’s old room. Lock her in. Help her, Anderson.”
I tried to grasp Pat’s arm as we went up the stairs. She pulled away from me. “Dandy date this is,” she said.
Chapter Three
Escape to Nowhere
Dolly’s old room was large. It had a connecting bath. The windows had steel frames and very tiny sections that opened. Pat took cigarettes from her white purse, lit one, inhaled and blew the smoke out of her nose. She looked very like a small, infuriated dragon. “You’re the world’s prize stinker,” she said to me. “If you’d had any guts you’d have done it open and above-board — just yanked me into the car. But no, you have to sell me a bill of goods. I’m going to live to see you sitting in a gas chamber, Omar. That’s what they hand out for this little game, or didn’t you know?”
She was still talking as we closed the door and as Brenda locked it. I casually took the key out of her hand. “She’s my responsibility,” I said.
Brenda leered at me. “Come around when you want your face bandaged, sweetie.”
When I went back down Artigan was waiting for me. He took me into his study and asked me to sit down. He took a rather characterless abstraction in a grey frame off the wall and set it on the desk chair. His body masked the dial of the small safe. He swung the round door open, took something out, clunked it shut again and replaced the picture.
He tossed the two thick packets over to me. They landed on the corner of the desk in the muted glow of the desk lamp. They were packets of currency, each wrapped in a wide brown paper band on which had been written $5000, followed by the initials of a teller.
“That’s for tonight. If it works out you get the balance. If it doesn’t, we’ll double that after the Dermody job. Not bad for a few day’s work, eh?”
“All hundreds,” I said. It sounded like somebody else’s voice.
“You can have it in yards if you want,” he said, “but I don’t like ’em myself. Too many records of the serial numbers.”
“No, no. This is fine,” I said hastily. I picked them up and put them in the inside pocket of my suit coat. They made a large bulge.
“Fish told me how you worked it out, Anderson. Sort of risky, wasn’t it?”
I tried to laugh. It came out sounding like somebody breaking phonograph records. “Always attempt the unexpected,” I said.
“All this is pretty important to me, Anderson. I own the Artigan Construction Company. Everything was fine up to two years ago. I was getting the Pacific City paving jobs, sewers, everything. Then the Pardo outfit got greedy and formed their own company. A dummy outfit. K and D Construction. Now they’ve got the City Engineer writing the bid specifications in such a way that K and D is the only outfit qualified to submit a bid. I tried to raise hell with the City Attorney, but he’s one of Pardo’s boys too.”
All this was an astounding revelation to me. As so many other citizens, I had assumed that the criminal elements merely bribed police officials in order to continue their nefarious machinations. Now I was learning that chicanery extended through all departments of city government.
“But, hell,” he said, “this is small time stuff compared with Nicky’s operations. I’m probably boring you. Come on. We’ll go pay a call on Prissy.”
“But... but...”
He grinned at me and scooped the phone of his desk. He leaned back in the chair after dialing, the phone wedged between his jaw and shoulder to keep his hands free while he took a cigarette from his case and lit it.