She frowned, smoking nervously now. “Are you really sure, Mike?”
“I’m sure.”
“Well…”
She looked dubious, but decided to take the chance. “I saw Bill Evans there-from Chicago?”
“Yeah? Who else?”
“Miami Bull.”
I whistled at that. Those two guys were the biggest of the big in gambling circles. When they sat in a game, it was for tens of thousands. If that was the kind of crowd that played at her “parties,” Sharron Wesley had cleaned up.
“Do you know a local Sidon cop named Dekkert?”
Marion laughed gaily. “ That big phony? Ha! Last time I was out there, he spent the whole darn night putting the make on me, or anyway trying to. Can you beat that?”
“Tell me more.”
She sat forward, dishing the dirt. It’s in a dame’s blood. “He took me out in the back and walked me to the beach. He said he was worried about something he saw my date do, and wanted a private word. We passed a clump of bushes and he tried to throw me down to drag me in there.”
“The damn rape-happy slob…”
“Oh, it was funny! I got my hands on a rock and bashed him in the puss. He went out like a light. Was he burned up! When he crawled back in half an hour later, he couldn’t look at me the rest of the night without going red as a monkey’s rear-end. And he had a mouse under his eye big enough to put in your pocket and feed cheese to.”
It was pretty funny, the way she put it. Dekkert must have felt like a dope to be pushed over by a young broad like Marion. Trying to force himself on a kid, well, that was one more score to settle with the bastard.
I said, “Who was Dekkert around there? Not a customer surely.”
“No! He was the bouncer at Sharron’s. At least that’s what he told me. He never bounced anybody that I saw. The out-of-town big shots, like Evans and Miami Bull, they all carried rods anyway, and I don’t think Dekkert could have pushed them very far.”
“How do you know they packed rods? They didn’t go around with their coats off, did they?”
She grinned at me, the real girl under the sex kitten facade in full evidence now. “Listen, Mister Man, I’ve been around punks so long that a hood with a rod on his hip, or under his arm, couldn’t hide it from me even if it were small enough to be a watch fob.”
That made me laugh.
She pointed with her cigarette. “Like that rod under your left shoulder. It must be a big one. I always figured you for a big gun, Mike.”
So we were back to that routine again. Full circle.
I stood. “Okay, thanks, Marion, you told me enough for one night. And I appreciate it. Maybe after I’ve dug into this thing a little deeper, I’ll drop back and see you again.”
She leaped to her feet, eyes flaring. “You mean you’re going?”
“Sure. I got what I came for.” I slapped my hat on and walked to the door.
She grabbed my arm and spun me around. “You can’t leave yet!”
“Why?” I let my eyes laugh at her.
“You didn’t even try. We didn’t even get started. And you promised.”
“I don’t remember promising you anything, kiddo.”
“All that talk about skipping the preliminaries! You talked real big! You-”
Before she could finish that thought, I reached up and gripped her dressing gown at the neck, then gave it a vicious yank. The light material of the wrapper ripped like paper. I tossed it away like a used tissue and had a look at my handiwork.
She stood there stark naked, her eyes glowing like hot coals, her mouth open with surprise. I looked her over coolly. She did have a lovely body.
“Nice,” I admitted. “Still… nothing that unusual.”
I pulled a ten spot from my pocket and stuck it in her hand. “That’s for the gown. Maybe you better get a housecoat next time. It’ll save you catching a cold.”
When I closed the door, a vase smacked against the wood and smashed into fragments. I usually had to know a girl a lot better before the pottery started flying. Maybe next time she wouldn’t try so hard, and we really could have a little fun.
I walked to the corner intending to catch a cab back to the garage where I’d left the heap, then on impulse stopped by a drugstore and slipped into a phone booth.
After three tries I got Pat, at home this time.
“Hello, buddy. Mike again.”
“Mike, I figured you’d be back in Sidon by now.”
“I’m about to head that way. But some things have happened since I saw you this afternoon.”
“You do lead an eventful life.”
I filled him in on the two thugs who’d been rifling my office, and the ensuing scuffle.
He didn’t even bother telling me I should have reported it. But he did ask, “Could you identify either of them?”
“By their clothes maybe, but the lights were out and the blinds closed. Their faces were a blur. Does this qualify as connecting the Sidon case to the city?”
He snorted a laugh. “Like there aren’t three dozen hoods in this town with other reasons for shaking down your office.”
“Okay, then, how about this? I have a little more information for you on the late Sharron Wesley.”
“Do you now?”
“These names do anything for you? Miami Bull and Bill Evans-from Chicago? They’ve been sitting in out at the Wesley casino.”
A long, low whistle came over the wires. “Party girl Sharron was running a pretty high-rolling operation. This is more than just rich kids and dilettantes throwing some loose change around.”
“Sure as hell is. The take out there on any given weekend had to be plenty high. Look, I need to get back to Sidon. If you want me at all, call that hotel.”
“Got it. Should have something for you in a day or so.”
“Good. See you.”
Sunday night, cabs were scarce but I finally snagged one, and had it head over to the garage near the Hackard Building to pick up my heap. The cab rolled through a nighttime city cool and calm with twinkles of light and touches of neon giving it a soothing, dreamy quality.
But I knew the statistics.
Somebody would be getting killed out there, right now.
I wanted to get back to Sidon before midnight if I could. Luckily, the roads were empty. Under a star-studded sky so clear and so deep a blue Hollywood might have had a hand in it, I stepped it up to seventy, then eighty, flying through darkness, chasing my own bright headlights.
The miles rolled by. I stopped once at a dog wagon and had a bite to eat before I went on. It was eleven-thirty when I saw Sidon up ahead, its lights reduced to a small swarm of fireflies. In less than a minute, I hit the outskirts.
I rolled the buggy into a corner of the parking lot behind the hotel and hustled into the lobby, anxious to sit down with Velda and catch each other up. From the crowd that sat around, you would think it was maybe seven at night and the town was enjoying a mid-summer boom.
One of the loungers spotted me and yelled, “ Here he is!”
A half dozen guys came running, dragging scratch pads from their pockets. Finally the reporters had caught up to me, shouting questions.
“What have you got, Mike?”
“How about the lowdown?”
“Michael, these city hicks are clammed up tight!”
I spoke to the knot of men around me. “Nothing much, fellers. Sorry, but I haven’t really gone to work yet. Still in the prelim phase.”
“Cut it, Mike, it’s all over town that somebody took a shot at you!”
That stopped me cold.
“Where did you get that from?” I asked them.
A little chunky guy from the Chronicle spoke up. “It’s just a rumor around town, but I got in to see the local doctor…”
Had Doc Moody sold me out?
“…and he told me about that potshot, Mike, and I told the boys, but how the town folk found out, hell, that’s no fault of mine. That good-looking secretary of yours told us to pipe down until you came back, and we did. So what’s the story?”
I thought it over.