«Why were you trying to meet this Joseph Coates?»
«I was going to buy something he stole from me, of course. Something that’s valuable in the ordinary way too. Almost fifteen thousand dollars. The man I loved gave it to me. He’s dead. There! He’s dead! He died in a burning plane. Now, go back and tell my husband that, you slimy little rat!»
«I’m not little and I’m not a rat,» I said.
«You’re still slimy. And don’t bother about telling my husband. I’ll tell him myself. He probably knows anyway.»
I grinned. «That’s smart. Just what was I supposed to find out?»
She grabbed her glass and finished what was left of her drink. «So he thinks I’m meeting Joseph. Well, perhaps I was. But not to make love. Not with a chauffeur. Not with a bum I picked off the front step and gave a job to. I don’t have to dig down that far, if I want to play around.»
«Lady,» I said, «you don’t indeed.»
«Now, I’m going,» she said. «You just try and stop me.» She snatched the pearl-handled gun out of her bag. I didn’t move.
«Why, you nasty little string of nothing,» she stormed. «How do I know you’re a private detective at all? You might be a crook. This card you gave me doesn’t mean anything. Anybody can have cards printed.»
«Sure,» I said. «And I suppose I’m smart enough to live here two years because you were going to move in today so I could blackmail you for not meeting a man named Joseph Coates who was bumped off across the street under the name of Waldo. Have you got the money to buy this something that cost fifteen grand?»
«Oh! You think you’ll hold me up, I suppose!»
«Oh!» I mimicked her, «I’m a stick-up artist now, am I? Lady, will you please either put that gun away or take the safety catch off? It hurts my professional feelings to see a nice gun made a monkey of that way.»
«You’re a full portion of what I don’t like,» she said. «Get out of my way.»
I didn’t move. She didn’t move. We were both sitting down — and not even close to each other.
«Let me in on one secret before you go,» I pleaded. «What in hell did you take the apartment down on the floor below for? Just to meet a guy down on the street?»
«Stop being silly,» she snapped. «I didn’t. I lied. It’s his apartment.»
«Joseph Coates’?»
She nodded sharply.
«Does my description of Waldo sound like Joseph Coates?»
She nodded sharply again.
«All right. That’s one fact learned at last. Don’t you realize Waldo described your clothes before he was shot — when he was looking for you — that the description was passed on to the police — that the police don’t know who Waldo is — and are looking for somebody in those clothes to help tell them? Don’t you get that much?»
The gun suddenly started to shake in her hand. She looked down at it, sort of vacantly, and slowly put it back in her bag.
«I’m a fool,» she whispered, «to be even talking to you.» She stared at me for a long time, then pulled in a deep breath. «He told me where he was staying. He didn’t seem afraid. I guess blackmailers are like that. He was to meet me on the street, but I was late. It was full of police when I got here. So I went back and sat in my car for a while. Then I came up to Joseph’s apartment and knocked. Then I went back to my car and waited again. I came up here three times in all. The last time I walked up a flight to take the elevator. I had already been seen twice on the third floor. I met you. That’s all.»
«You said something about a husband,» I grunted. «Where is he?»
«He’s at a meeting.»
«Oh, a meeting,» I said, nastily.
«My husband’s a very important man. He has lots of meetings. He’s a hydroelectric engineer. He’s been all over the world. I’d have you know —»
«Skip it,» I said. «I’ll take him to lunch some day and have him tell me himself. Whatever Joseph had on you is dead stock now. Like Joseph.»
«He’s really dead?» she whispered. «Really?»
«He’s dead,» I said. «Dead, dead, dead. Lady, he’s dead.»
She believed it at last. I hadn’t thought she ever would somehow. In the silence, the elevator stopped at my floor.
I heard steps coming down the hall. We all have hunches. I put my finger to my lips. She didn’t move now. Her face had a frozen look. Her big blue eyes were as black as the shadows below them. The hot wind boomed against the shut windows. Windows have to be shut when a Santa Ana blows, heat or no heat.
The steps that came down the hall were the casual ordinary steps of one man. But they stopped outside my door, and somebody knocked.
I pointed to the dressing room behind the wall bed. She stood up without a sound, her bag clenched against her side. I pointed again, to her glass. She lifted it swiftly, slid across the carpet, through the door, drew the door quietly shut after her.
I didn’t know just what I was going to all this trouble for.
The knocking sounded again. The backs of my hands were wet. I creaked my chair and stood up and made a loud yawning sound. Then I went over and opened the door — without a gun. That was a mistake.
THREE
I didn’t know him at first. Perhaps for the opposite reason Waldo hadn’t seemed to know him. He’d had a hat on all the time over at the cocktail bar and he didn’t have one on now. His hair ended completely and exactly where his hat would start. Above that line was hard white sweatless skin almost as glaring as scar tissue. He wasn’t just twenty years older. He was a different man.
But I knew the gun he was holding, the .22 target automatic with the big front sight. And I knew his eyes. Bright, brittle, shallow eyes like the eyes of a lizard.
He was alone. He put the gun against my face very lightly and said between his teeth: «Yeah, me. Let’s go on in.»
I backed in just far enough and stopped. Just the way he would want me to, so he could shut the door without moving much. I knew from his eyes that he would want me to do just that.
I wasn’t scared. I was paralyzed.
When he had the door shut he backed me some more, slowly, until there was something against the back of my legs. His eyes looked into mine.
«That’s a card table,» he said. «Some goon here plays chess. You?»
I swallowed. «I don’t exactly play it. I just fool around.»
«That means two,» he said with a kind of hoarse softness, as if some cop had hit him across the windpipe with a blackjack once, in a third-degree session.
«It’s a problem,» I said. «Not a game. Look at the pieces.»
«I wouldn’t know.»
«Well, I’m alone,» I said, and my voice shook just enough.
«It don’t make any difference,» he said. «I’m washed up anyway. Some nose puts the bulls on me tomorrow, next week, what the hell? I just didn’t like your map, pal. And that smugfaced pansy in the bar coat that played left tackle for Fordham or something. To hell with guys like you guys.»
I didn’t speak or move. The big front sight raked my cheek lightly almost caressingly. The man smiled.
«It’s kind of good business too,» he said. «Just in case. An old con like me don’t make good prints, all I got against me is two witnesses. The hell with it.»
«What did Waldo do to you?» I tried to make it sound as if I wanted to know, instead of just not wanting to shake too hard.
«Stooled on a bank job in Michigan and got me four years. Got himself a nolle prosse. Four years in Michigan ain’t no summer cruise. They make you be good in them lifer states.»
«How’d you know he’d come in there?» I croaked.
«I didn’t. Oh yeah, I was lookin’ for him. I was wanting to see him all right. I got a flash of him on the street night before last but I lost him. Up to then I wasn’t lookin’ for him. Then I was. A cute guy, Waldo. How is he?»