“Exactly. He must act. He must take the aggressive role. Within the law, naturally.”
“Naturally.”
“Even if some of the laws aren’t fair.”
“Which laws, for instance?”
Willett looked stubborn. “Never you mind.”
At the switchboard in the receiving room Greer was talking to Daley. “Where’s his car?”
“Half a block down on Garden Street, facing north, ’47 Lincoln, black sedan, plates 62X895.”
“Two tails should be enough. Goodfield’s not very bright and the woman is cocksure. I’ll drive my own car and Shaeffer can use that souped-up jalopy of his. Right?”
“Check.”
“Okay, hand over her stuff. I’ll take it to her. Oh yes, and tell Clyde he can come along for the ride.”
“Why?”
“I like to have a psychiatrist around. Then if I go nuts, I’ll be the first to know.”
“I should never have asked.”
“Next time, don’t,” Greer said. He had a better reason for wanting Frank to come along, but he didn’t tell Daley or even Frank himself.
Lora Dalloway was waiting to be released, her hands curled around the bars of the cell, her face peering out expectantly like a monkey’s. At some point in the past hour she had decided to switch roles, from the hard-boiled sophisticate to the sweet and wistful country girl.
Greer unlocked the door and swung it open. “All right, you can leave.”
“You mean I’m free?”
“Like a bird.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Gee, I just can’t thank—”
“Play it straight,” Greer said. “Here’s your stuff, wallet, key ring, wristwatch, and three dollars and eighty-seven cents in cash. Sign this receipt, please.”
“What name shall I sign?”
“How about Eleanor Roosevelt’s, just to make it more interesting?”
“You know damned well what I meant. I’ve been going under the name of Ada Murphy so I thought—”
“Sign your own name.”
“You don’t have to be so grumpy about it.” She signed the receipt, Lora Eloise Frances Dalloway, and handed it back to him. “Now what?”
“You can go through that door to my office where the faithful Willett awaits you.”
“It sounds too easy. What’s the catch?”
“No catch. I’d just like to know where you’re going, so I can get in touch with you if necessary.”
“I’m going home — that is, to the Goodfields’.”
“To resume your job?”
“That’s right.”
“Very magnanimous of Goodfield to take back a woman who just rooked him of three G’s.”
“He knows I didn’t mean it. It was an impulse.”
“A girlish impulse, in fact.”
“In fact, yes.”
“You’d better watch both the impulsiveness and the girlishness, Miss Dalloway. Neither is very becoming at your age.”
“Your cracks don’t bother me.” She went into his office, slamming the door behind her so violently that the walls shook.
Greer left by the side entrance. His car was parked about twenty yards behind the black Lincoln with the engine running and Frank in the front seat looking a little worried.
“Listen, Jim. It’s nearly eight o’clock.”
“I know it.” Greer got in behind the wheel. “So?”
“Miriam expected me home an hour ago.”
“Miriam’s a nice girl. How is she, by the way?”
“You asked me that before.”
“I did? Well, it just goes to show how my thoughts dwell with her. A very fine girl, Miriam, admirable.”
“Cut it out, will you?” Frank said. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must have some idea.”
“What are you so concerned about? For a solid week you’ve been horning in on this case, hanging around, getting in my hair. Now when the time comes for you to make yourself useful, you want to back out because you’re afraid you’ll catch hell from your wife.”
“How am I making myself useful?”
“You’ll see,” Greer said. “Here they come now.”
Lora and Willett came down the front steps of the building, Lora walking briskly and a little ahead of Willett like an older sister impatient with the slowness of her little brother. At the curb she paused to wait for him and the two of them stood silhouetted by the headlights of an approaching car. The car passed and they crossed the road and got into the black Lincoln.
It was obvious from the beginning that neither of them expected to be followed. The Lincoln went directly to its destination, a dilapidated two-story building on Third Street with a green neon sign across the entrance which said tersely, Food. Inside, a fat Mexican was sleeping at the counter, his right hand still holding a half-empty beer bottle.
Willett parked at a yellow curb and Lora Dalloway got out and walked swiftly around the side of the building and up an open flight of stairs that led to a narrow balcony circling the second story.
“Part of the place is the old Pico adobe,” Greer said. “The top was added later, converted into studios that are rented out to artists.”
“What kind of artists?”
“All kinds, mostly bad.”
Lora paused at one of the arched doors on the balcony and pounded on it with both fists. The door opened inward and a woman stood outlined in the lighted arch, an enormous woman with clipped grey hair. She wore green plaid slacks and a white turtleneck sweater and she had a cigarette tucked behind her left ear.
Lora went inside and the door closed, but not for long. Within a minute she came out again and hurried along the balcony and down the steps. Before she got into the Lincoln she looked carefully up and down the street as if it had occurred to her for the first time that someone might be following her. Her eyes slid past Greer’s car without hesitating.
“Think she spotted us?” Frank asked.
“If she did, she covered it up nicely.” The Lincoln pulled away from the curb and Greer followed. “Did you recognize the woman in the green plaid slacks?”
“I’ve seen her around.”
“Name’s Billy McKeon. Between gin bouts she makes puppets and paints scenery for the various little theatre groups.”
“What possible connection could she have with Mrs. Goodfield?”
“I’m hoping Lora Dalloway will tell us that.”
At the next stop light Willett braked the Lincoln, made a careful hand signal and turned right onto Anacapa Street.
Greer leaned back, relaxed and smiling.
“For cripe’s sake,” Lora said. “Can’t we go any faster?”
“I don’t like to drive fast. Besides, it’s against the law.”
“Against the law. You kill me, you really kill me.”
“I’d like to.” Willett made the statement without emotion of any kind. “I’d like to see you dead.”
“Don’t get nasty. I might get nasty right back at you, and then you’d never find her.”
“I don’t expect to anyway.”
“We’ll find her.”
“She could be five hundred miles away by this time.”
“Well, she isn’t,” Lora said crisply. “Billy McKeon saw her this morning.”
In the dim light of the dashboard Willett’s face had a luminous pallor. “Is she — was she all right?”
“Alive and kicking.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Certainly she was all right. She bummed some food and a package of cigarettes. She wanted to stay there but Billy wouldn’t let her. She’s superstitious.”
“Can the McKeon woman be trusted?”
“Trusted to do what?”
“Not to call the police.”
“Billy wouldn’t call the police if someone had a knife at her throat. Turn left at the next corner.”
Once again Willett made a careful signal before turning. “Didn’t she tell this McKeon woman anything, where she was going, when she’d be back?”