I rolled a cigarette around in my fingers and lowered my voice. «Remember the Leander pearls?»
His smile was slow, a little bored. «I’m not likely to forget them. They cost this company one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I was a cocky young adjuster then.»
I said: «I’ve got an idea. It may be all haywire. It very likely is. But I’d like to try it out. Is your twenty-five grand reward still good?»
He chuckled. «Twenty grand, Marlowe. We spent the difference ourselves. You’re wasting time.»
«It’s my time. Twenty it is then. How much cooperation can I get?»
«What kind of co-operation?»
«Can I have a letter identifying me to your other branches? In case I have to go out of the state. In case I need kind words from some local law.»
«Which way out of the state?»
I smiled at him. He tapped his cigar on the edge of a tray and smiled back. Neither of our smiles was honest.
«No letter,» he said. «New York wouldn’t stand for it. We have our own tie-up. But all the co-operation you can use, under the hat. And the twenty grand, if you click. Of course you won’t.»
I lit my cigarette and leaned back, puffed smoke at the ceiling.
«No? Why not? You never got those marbles. They existed, didn’t they?»
«Darn right they existed. And if they still do, they belong to us. But two hundred grand doesn’t get buried for twenty years — and then get dug up.»
«All right. It’s still my own time.»
He knocked a little ash off his cigar and looked down his eyes at me. «I like your front,» he said, «even if you are crazy. But we’re a large organization. Suppose I have you covered from now on. What then?»
«I lose. I’ll know I’m covered. I’m too long in the game to miss that. I’ll quit, give up what I know to the law, and go home.»
«Why would you do that?»
I leaned forward over the desk again. «Because,» I said slowly, «the guy that had the lead got bumped off today.»
«Oh — oh,» Lutin rubbed his nose.
«I didn’t bump him off,» I added.
We didn’t talk any more for a little while. Then Lutin said: «You don’t want any letter. You wouldn’t even carry it. And after your telling me that you know damn well I won’t dare give it you.»
I stood up, grinned, started for the door. He got up himself, very fast, ran around the desk and put his small neat hand on my arm.
«Listen, I know you’re crazy, but if you do get anything, bring it in through our boys. We need the advertising.»
«What the hell do you think I live on?» I growled.
«Twenty-five grand.»
«I thought it was twenty.»
«Twenty-five. And you’re still crazy. Sype never had those pearls. If he had, he’d have made some kind of terms with us many years ago.»
«Okey,» I said. «You’ve had plenty of time to make up your mind.»
We shook hands, grinned at each other like a couple of wise boys who know they’re not kidding anybody, but won’t give up trying.
It was a quarter to five when I got back to the office. I had a couple of short drinks and stuffed a pipe and sat down to interview my brains. The phone rang.
A woman’s voice said: «Marlowe?» It was a small, tight, cold voice. I didn’t know it.
«Yeah.»
«Better see Rush Madder. Know him?»
«No,» I lied. «Why should I see him?»
There was a sudden tinkling, icy-cold laugh on the wire. «On account of a guy had sore feet,» the voice said.
The phone clicked. I put my end of it aside, struck a match and stared at the wall until the flame burned my fingers.
Rush Madder was a shyster in the Quorn Building. An ambulance chaser, a small-time fixer, an alibi builder-upper, anything that smelled a little and paid a little more. I hadn’t heard of him in connection with any big operations like burning people’s feet.
FOUR
It was getting toward quitting time on lower Spring Street. Taxis were dawdling close to the curb, stenographers were getting an early start home, streetcars were clogging up, and traffic cops were preventing people from making perfectly legal right turns.
The Quorn Building was a narrow front, the color of dried mustard, with a large case of false teeth in the entrance. The directory held the names of painless dentists, people who teach you how to become a letter carrier, just names, and numbers without any names, Rush Madder, Attorney-at-Law, was in Room 619.
I got out of a jolting open-cage elevator, looked at a dirty spittoon on a dirty rubber mat, walked down a corridor that smelled of butts, and tried the knob below the frosted glass panel of 619. The door was locked, I knocked.
A shadow came against the glass and the door was pulled back with a squeak. I was looking at a thick-set man with a soft round chin, heavy black eyebrows, an oily complexion and a Charlie Chan mustache that made his face look fatter than it was.
He put out a couple of nicotined fingers. «Well, well, the old dog catcher himself. The eye that never forgets. Marlowe is the name, I believe?»
I stepped inside and waited for the door to squeak shut. A bare carpetless room paved in brown linoleum, a flat desk and a rolltop at right angles to it, a big green safe that looked as fireproof as a delicatessen bag, two filing cases, three chairs, a built-in closet and washbowl in the corner by the door.
«Well, well, sit down,» Madder said. «Glad to see you.» He fussed around behind his desk and adjusted a burst-out seat cushion, sat on it. «Nice of you to drop around. Business?»
I sat down and put a cigarette between my teeth and looked at him. I didn’t say a word. I watched him start to sweat. It started up in his hair. Then he grabbed a pencil and made marks on his blotter. Then he looked at mc with a quick darting glance, down at his blotter again. He talked — to the blotter.
«Any ideas?» he asked softly.
«About what?»
He didn’t look at me. «About how we could do a little business together. Say, in stones.»
«Who was the wren?» I asked.
«Huh? What wren?» He still didnt look at me.
«The one that phoned me.»
«Did somebody phone you?»
I reached for his telephone, which was the old-fashioned gallows type. I lifted off the receiver and started to dial the number of Police Headquarters, very slowly. I knew he would know that number about as well as he knew his hat.
He reached over and pushed the hook down. «Now, listen,» he complained. «You’re too fast. What you calling copper for?»
I said slowly: «They want to talk to you. On account of you know a broad that knows a man had sore feet.»
«Does it have to be that way?» His collar was too tight now. He yanked at it.
«Not from my side. But if you think I’m going to sit here and let you play with my reflexes, it does.»
Madder opened a flat tin of cigarettes and pushed one past his lips with a sound like somebody gutting a fish. His hand shook.
«All right,» he said thickly. «All right. Don’t get sore.»
«Just stop trying to count clouds with me,» I growled. «Talk sense. If you’ve’ got a job for me, it’s probably too dirty for me to touch. But I’ll at least listen.»
He nodded. He was comfortable now. He knew I was bluffing. He puffed a pale swirl of smoke and watched it float up.
«That’s all right,» he said evenly. «I play dumb myself once in a while. The thing is we’re wise. Carol saw you go to the house and leave it again. No law came.»
«Carol?»
«Carol Donovan. Friend of mine. She called you up.»
I nodded. «Go ahead.»