Alice got to her feet. She said in an unsteady voice, “For God's sake, keep Sam out of this.”
Duffy said, “I'm sorry, honey.” He felt a sudden tenderness for her. “I'm just shooting off my mouth. I'm just wild. A no-good out of work. Forget it, will you?”
She looked at him for several seconds. “You're going through with this, I know,” she said. “You're going to hurt people and you're going to get hurt. Just to satisfy a little pride, a little ego in you. I can't stop you. When you're tired of this, come and see us. But stay away until you've got it out of your system. I've loved you a lot in the past; don't make me hate you ever, will you?”
She patted his hand that rested on the table, then she walked out of the room. Duffy stood looking at the closed door. Then once more he took off his coat, went over and shot the bolt on the door, kicked off his shoes, and lay down on the bed. He reached up and turned off the light.
In the dark, he lay for a long time thinking. Then he said in a low voice, “Some nice hot place with plenty of yellow sand. With sky a real blue and just you and me.” He put out his hand to the empty pillow at his side and let his fingers lightly touch the cool linen.
The room felt suddenly cold and empty.
CHAPTER XIV
EDWIN ENGLISH WAS a tall, thick-set guy, with a round fleshy face, blue-white hair, and cold, fishy eyes. He sat at a big flat-top desk, a cigar burning slowly in his short white fingers, staring with blank eyes at Duffy.
He sat there for maybe twenty minutes listening to Duffy talk. He examined with no sign of interest the note-book Duffy threw on to the desk. Then he put the cigar back in his mouth and half-closed his eyes. He sat there for some time looking through Duffy at something hanging on the wall behind Duffy's head.
Duffy was satisfied that he had told him everything, concisely and clearly. He thought he had made a swell job of it.
English took the cigar out of his mouth and tapped the top of the desk with a well-manicured finger-nail. “I could turn you up for a murder rap, it seems,” he said.
Duffy grinned mirthlessly. “Ain't you working from the wrong angle?” he said. “You ain't got to worry about me. It's your daughter that you gotta concentrate on.”
English said, “I'm always concentrating on my daughter.”
Duffy nodded. “Sure, but not half as hard as you gotta work now. Look, suppose you let me handle this?”
English said, “You'll be picked up by the police No, I don't think you would be any good.”
Duffy got to his feet. He still carried the thin smile on his mouth. “Well, well,” he said, “I guessed you'd feel like that. If you think I'm taking the rap for her, you got it all wrong. I'm going right down to headquarters and I'm going to squawk so loud you'll hear it right up here.”
English said, “You haven't got any proof.”
Duffy shrugged. “That's what you think,” he said. “I've got enough evidence to get that jane fried three times over.
English raised his hand. “Wait,” he said. “Perhaps we can think up something.”
Duffy came back to the desk. He leant over and stared hard into English's eyes. “You're playing it wrong. Can't you see how they'd Fall over themselves to get Annabel indicted for a first-degree murder rap? They're snapping round your heels already, English, and you know it. One false move from you, and you're out. Your policy ain't popular. I don't like it myself. Let me tell you, it's a goddam awful policy with a daughter like yours around.”
English pushed his chair back and stood up. Just for a second Duffy saw the fishy eyes look uneasy, then they went bland again. Duffy grinned to himself. He knew he had slipped in a hot one.
“What do you propose?” English said.
“Cool the cops off me, for a start. You can do it. Once I've got protection, I can go after Morgan and run him out. I can pick up Annabel and get her into a nut-house... that's the place for her.”
English brooded. “You've got to have more than protection. You want money and you want help.”.
Duffy said, “Gilroy's mob's backing me.”
“Gilroy? Yes, I know him. He's all right, but he's not big enough.”
Duffy sat on the edge of the desk. “With me around, he'll be big enough.”
“And money?”
“Suppose you put up some dough? It's worth a lot to fix this mess, ain't it?”
English walked to the door. “We'll see about that,” he said. “Suppose you come down to headquarters and we'll talk things over with the right man.”
Duffy looked at him hard. He shook his head. “You gotta fix that,” he said. “This is too important to me to risk a double-cross. I'd look a grand mug walking into headquarters, if you were losing your grip.”
English shrugged. “You have a strange way of expressing yourself,” he said. “But have it your own way. I'll ring you.”
Duffy looked at the clock on the desk. It was just after eleven o'clock. “I'll do the ringing. I'll come through after one o'clock, I'll expect to get moving right away by then.”
English nodded, then, as if a thought had struck him, he said, “Where's Annabel now?”
Duffy shrugged. “The last time I saw her, she was telling a little nance to shoot me in the guts. You've got a grand daughter, ain't you?”
Leaving English, Duffy picked up the Buick and drove slowly back to the Bronx. He left the car at the garage and then went to his room.
He sent the thin man out to get the newspapers. While he was waiting for them he mixed himself a strong Scotch and lit a cigarette. He let his mind wander as he sat there, but he kept coming back to Olga. He could see her lying naked with the dagger in her breast. He tried to think of other things, but his mind kept switching back to that picture.
He was glad when the thin man came in and dumped several tabloids on the table. Duffy gave him some small change. Then he went through the papers carefully. When he had finished them, he sat back and lit another cigarette. There was nothing in any of the papers about Gleason's murder.
He got up, went to the telephone and dialled Annabel's number. He sat for a minute or so listening to the buzz, and then hung up. Well, anyway, she had skipped all right.
Then he wandered about the room, thinking. He wondered if Morgan's gang had wiped her out and got rid of both bodies. He thought that was an idea, but he couldn't do anything about that for the moment.