"Ah, bugs! You know how I hate women."
I squeezed into the reception chair and picked up the paper from the table. I ruffled through it from back to front, and as I was going to lay it down I caught the picture on the front page. It was down there on the corner, bordered by some shots of the heavyweight fights from the night before. It was a picture of the redhead lying cuddled up and against the curbstone. She was dead. The caption read HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER KILLS, ESCAPES.
"The poor kid! Of all the rotten luck!"
"Who's that?" Velda asked me.
I shoved the paper over to her. "I was with that kid the other night. She was a street-walker and I bought her a coffee in a hash joint. Before I left I gave her some dough to get out of the business, and look what happened to her."
"Fine company you keep." Her tone was sarcastic.
I got sore. "Damn it, she was all right. She wasn't after me. I did her a favor and she was more grateful than most of the trash that call themselves people. The first time in a month of Sundays I've done anything half-way decent and this is the way it winds up.
"I'm sorry, Mike. I'm really sorry, honest." It was funny how she could spot it when I was telling the truth. She opened the paper and read the news item, frowning when she finished. "She wasn't identified. Did you know her name?"
"Hell, no. She was a redhead, so I called her Red. Let's see that." I went over the item myself. She was found in the street at half-past two. Apparently she had been there for some time before someone had sense enough to call the cop on the beat. A guy who had passed her twice as she lay there told the cop that he thought she was a drunk who had passed out. It was reasonable enough. Over there you find enough of them doing just that. But the curious part was the complete lack of identification on her.
When I folded the paper up I said, "Look, stick around a while; I have a little walking to do."
"That girl?"
"Yeah. Maybe I can help identify her some way. I don't know. Call Pat and tell him I'm on my way down."
"O.K., Mike."
I left the car where it was and took a cab over to the red-brick building where Pat Chambers held down his office. You want to see that guy. He's a Captain of Homicide and all cop, but you couldn't tell it to look at him. He was young and charged with knowledge and the ambition to go with it, the best example of efficiency I could think of. It isn't often that you see cops hobnobbing with private dicks, but Pat had the sense to know that I could touch a lot of places outside the reach of the law, and he could do plenty for me that I couldn't do for myself. What started out as a modest business arrangement turned into a solid friendship.
He met me over in the lab where he was running a ballistics test. "Hullo, Mike, what brings you around so early?"
"A problem, chum." I flipped the paper open in front of him and pointed to the picture. "This. Have you found out about her?"
Pat shook his head. "No... but I will. Come on in the office." He led me into the cubbyhole off the lab and nodded to a chair. While I fired a cig he called an extension number and was connected. He said, "This is Chambers. I want to find out if that girl who was killed by a hit-and-run driver last night has been identified." He listened a little bit, then frowned.
I waited until he hung up, then: "Anything?"
"Something unusual--dead of a broken neck. One of the boys didn't like the looks of it and they're holding the cause of death until a further exam is made. What have you?"
"Nothing. But I was with her the night before she was found dead."
"So?"
"So she was a tramp. I bought her a coffee in a hash house and we had a talk."
"Did she mention her name?"
"Nope, all I got out of her was 'Red.' It was appropriate enough."
Pat leaned back in his chair. "Well, we don't know who she is. She had on all new clothes, a new handbag with six dollars and change in it, and not a scar on her body to identify her. Not a single laundry mark either."
"I know. I gave her a hundred and fifty bucks to get dressed up and look for a decent job: Evidently she did."
"Getting big-hearted, aren't you?" He sounded like Velda, and I got mad.
"Damn it, Pat, don't you give me that stuff, too! Can't I play saint for five minutes without everyone getting smart about it? I've seen kids down on their luck before, probably a damn sight more than you have. You think anyone would give them a break? Like hell! They play 'em for all they can get and beat it. I liked the kid; does that make me a jerk? All right, she was a hustler, but she wasn't hustling for me and I did her a favor. Maybe she gets all wrapped up in a new dream and forgets to open her eyes when she's crossing the street, and look what happens. Any time I touch anything it gets killed!"
"Hey, wait up, Mike, don't jump me on it. I know how you feel... it's just that you seemed to be stepping out of character."
"Aw, I'm sorry, Pat. It's kind of got me loused up."
"At least you've given me something to go on. If she bought all new clothes we can trace them. If we're lucky we can pick up the old stuff and check them for laundry marks."
He told me to wait for him and took off down the corridor. I sat there for five minutes and fidgeted, and cursed people who let their kids run loose. A hell of a way to die. They just lower you into a hole and cover you up, with nobody around but the worms, and the worms don't cry. But Pat would find out who she was. He'd put a little effort behind the search and a pair of parents would turn up and wring themselves dry with grief. Not that it would do much good, but at least I'd feel better.
Pat came back looking sour. I guess I knew what was coming when he said, "They covered that angle downstairs. The sales clerks in the stores all said the same thing... she took her old clothes with her and wore the new ones."
"Then she must have left them at home."
"Uh-huh. She wasn't carrying them with her when she was found."
"Nope, I don't like that, either, Pat. When a girl buys a new outfit, she won't look at the old one, and what she had on when I met her was a year out of date. She probably chucked them somewhere."
Pat reached into his desk and came up with a notepad. "I think the best we can do is publish her picture and hope someone steps up with an identification. At the same time we'll get the bureau checking up in the neighborhood where you met her. Does that suit you?"
"Yeah. Can't do more than that, I guess."
He flipped the pages over but, before I could tell him where the hash house was, a lab technician in a white smock came in and handed over a report sheet. Pat glanced at it, then his eyes squinted and he looked at me strangely.
I didn't get it, so I stared back. Without a word he handed me the sheet and nodded to dismiss the technician. It was a report on Red. The information was the same that Pat had given me, but down at the bottom was somebody's scrawled notation. It said very clearly that although there was a good chance that death could have been accidental, the chance was just as good that she had been murdered. Her neck had been broken in a manner that could have been caused only by the most freakish accident.
For the first time since I'd known him, Pat took a typical cop's attitude. "A nice story you gave me, Mike. How much of it am I supposed to believe?" His voice was dripping with sarcasm.
"Go to hell, Pat!" I said it coldly, burning up inside.
I knew damn well what was going on in that official mind. Just because we had tangled tails on a couple of cases before, he thought I was pitching him a fast one. I got it off my chest in a hurry. "You used to be a nice guy, Pat," I said. "There was a time when we did each other favors and no questions asked. Did I ever dummy up a deal on you?"
He started to answer, but I cut him off. "Yeah, sure, we've crossed once or twice, but you always have the bull on me before we start. That's because you're a cop. I can't withhold information... all I can do is protect a client. Since when do you figure me to be putting the snear on you?"