I said, “You’re not going to like my next question.”
“What is it?”
I jerked my head toward the bathroom. “He ever been here before?”
She met my eyes. “Yes.”
“Social or sexual?”
“Neither.”
“No passes?”
“That wasn’t what he came for.”
“But he did make passes?”
“He tried an awkward clumsy approach, just to see if it would get him anywhere. He seemed almost relieved when he found out it wouldn’t.”
“What did he want?”
“Wanted to find out whether Rimley was doing a good enough business to stand for a boost in rent.”
“Did he find out anything?”
“Not a thing.”
I said, “Let’s go take another look at that body.”
“We aren’t supposed to touch it, are we, until...?”
“No,” I said.
We went back through the bedroom and into the bathroom. She was calmly practical now, with no trace of panic in her manner.
As well as I could without disturbing the body, I looked it over. Evidently he had been killed by a single hard blow on the left temple with some object that had left an oblong depressed fracture of the skull. I looked in the right-hand inside pocket of the coat. There was a billfold in there. It was filled with folding money, lots of it. I put it back. The side pocket on the left held a notebook. On the front page the words had been written in pen and ink, “Rufus Stanberry, 3271 Fulrose Avenue. In case of accident notify Archie Stanberry, 963 Malolo Avenue. My blood type is 4.” I closed the book, slipped it back in the pocket.
I saw an expensive wrist watch on his left wrist. I looked at the time. It was five thirty-seven.
I consulted my own watch.
The time was exactly six thirty-seven.
That did it. I backed away from the body as though it had had leprosy.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, watching me. “What’s wrong with the watch?”
“Nothing,” I said, and took her out to the other room. “It’s all right. We call the police now.”
7
The two officers from the radio prowl car who got there first to hold things in line until Homicide could arrive asked only a few sketchy questions. Then Homicide showed up and we told our stories. Nothing else happened for about an hour, then Sergeant Frank Sellers came strolling in, his hat on the back of his head, a soggy cigar half chewed to ribbons in the side of his mouth.
“Hello, Donald,” he said. “Damn glad to see you’re back.”
We shook hands. I introduced him to the girl.
They’d taken our stories down in shorthand. Sellers had evidently had a transcript and familiarized himself with it before he arrived on the scene.
He said, “Too bad that you had to come back and stick your nose into a murder case first rattle out of the box, Lam. As I gather it, you’re working on a case?”
He jerked his head toward Billy Prue. “Business or social?”
“Confidentially it’s a little of both. That’s not for the press — and it’s not for Bertha.”
He looked Billy Prue over, said, “Now, as I understand it, she parked her car down in front and went up to change her clothes.”
“That’s right,” she said in a low voice.
“You two were going out to dinner?”
I nodded.
“She didn’t know you well enough to invite you in,” Sellers said, “and she didn’t want to keep you waiting very long, so she was in a hurry?”
Billy Prue said, with a nervous little laugh, “I was undressing almost before I’d got through the door. I started for the bathroom and... and found that.”
“What did you do with your keys when you came in?” Sellers asked casually.
“Put them in my purse,” she said, “and dropped the purse on the table.”
“And when you ran out, what did you do — take the keys out of the purse?”
She met his eyes steadily. “Certainly not. I grabbed up the whole purse, tucked it under my arm and dashed out of the place. Then after I got Donald to come back with me, I opened my purse, took out my keys and unlocked the door.”
Sergeant Sellers heaved a weary sigh. “Well, folks, I guess that’s all. We may want to ask you some more questions later on. Guess you can go on out to dinner now.”
“Thanks,” I told him.
“How’s Bertha these days?”
“Seems to be the same as ever,” I said.
“Haven’t seen her for a while. Well, now that you’re back, I may see her more frequently.”
His grin was maliciously significant.
Billy Prue asked, “Are the... are the police through here?”
“Not yet,” Sellers said. “Don’t worry, everything will be all right. You’ve got your keys, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“All right, run along to dinner and have a good time.”
Sergeant Sellers stayed in the apartment, watched us from the doorway as we walked down the corridor to the automatic elevator.
“Well,” Billy Prue said with a sigh as we entered the elevator, “that’s that.”
I pushed the button for the ground floor. “No talking,” I warned.
The elevator rattled to a stop. A plain-clothes man on guard in the lower corridor passed us through with a nod. There was a uniformed officer on duty at the doorway. Billy Prue’s car was parked where we had left it. There was white dust on the steering wheel and the door catches where the police had gone over it for fingerprints. Aside from that, it was exactly as we had left it.
Without a word, I opened the door of the car. She got in with a swift all-of-a-sudden grace and with, a twist of her supple body, adjusted herself behind the steering wheel. I slid in the seat beside her and slammed the door shut.
We moved away from the curb.
“All right, sucker,” she said.
I didn’t say anything.
“You stuck your neck out,” she said. “You’re in it as deep as I am now, and you’ve got nothing further on me. You can’t say a word without getting yourself in bad.”
“So what?”
“So,” she said, “I do you the extreme courtesy of taking you back to where you left your automobile — that is, if you’re nice. Otherwise, I’d dump you out on the street.”
“Rather a hard-boiled attitude when I’ve stuck my neck out to help you, isn’t it?”
“That,” she said, “is what you get for being a sucker.”
I leaned back against the cushions, took a cigarette package from my pocket, shook out one. “Cigarette?” I asked.
“Not while I’m driving.”
I lit one and smoked, watching her profile.
Her eyes blinked rapidly two or three times. Then I saw a tear come out and trickle down her cheek.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
She drove the car with a certain savage carelessness at an increasing speed.
“Nothing.”
I kept on smoking.
She turned a corner. I saw we were headed for the Stanberry Building and apparently the Rimley Rendezvous.
“Change your mind about taking me back to where my car is?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you crying?”
She pulled into the curb, slammed the car to a stop, groped in her purse, pulled out some cleansing tissue and wiped her eyes. “You make me so damn mad,” she said.
“Why?”
“I wanted to see what you’d do. I pulled that gag on you that you’d been a sucker just to see what happened.”