“Okay.” Nolan had taken out his notebook and pencil, but he had trouble concentrating on anything but the girl. She was wearing a white net gown with a billowing skirt, and her finely molded shoulders were bare. Her skin was lightly tanned, and he had never seen anyone in his life who looked so shining and lovely and clean. Her brown hair was brushed down sleekly, the ends curved back in a soft roll, and her gray eyes were clear and direct.
“I left them right here on the dressing table while I was doing a number,” she said, crossing her legs.
“And when you came back they were gone?”
“That’s right. I didn’t want to bother the police about it, but Jim insisted.” She laughed. “I was afraid you’d just come over and scold me for being careless.”
“Jim was right,” Nolan had said heavily.
She was swinging one sandaled foot idly, and he noticed the fine slim bones at her ankle and the brightly polished nails. He pretended to write something in his note book, but his fingers were stiff and awkward.
She told him then that she had discharged a maid a few days ago, and gave him her name and address. Nolan made a note of that, and then got a description of the jewelry.
She had put out her hand and smiled when he stood up. “Thanks so much for bothering about this. It’s really my fault, I know, but I’d still love to get my brooch back.”
“I’ll do my best,” he had said.
He had stood there a moment, holding her slim warm hand, and returning her smile awkwardly; and he had been very conscious of his unpressed clothes.
Later that night he had called her from the District. His heart had pounded a bit harder when he heard her voice.
“This is Nolan, Barny Nolan, the detective who was over to see you a while back. I was wondering, could you have a cup of coffee with me when you finish up tonight?”
“Well—” She had hesitated a moment. “Is it about the jewelry?”
“No, it’s not.” He had cursed himself for saying that; but there had been nothing to do but plunge on. “No, I just wanted to see you again,” he’d said.
Nolan had thought that a bumbling, stupid approach. He had no way of knowing it was a perfect one.
“Why, yes, of course,” she’d said, a trifle surprised. “Supposing you meet me in the little bar about three-thirty. Will that be all right?”
“Fine, that will be fine.”
He had met her and they had gone to Benny the Bum’s for a late steak, and when he had looked across the table at her and listened to her chatting cheerfully about her work, he was almost unable to believe that it was actually happening.
And that was how it had begun. There had been more late dinners, a few drives through the park, and eventually Nolan had faced the delightful fact that she liked him. She must, he had reasoned, or she wouldn’t pay any attention to him at all. She had known he was just a cop from the start, but that hadn’t made any difference.
He had chased down her brooch for her by trailing the discharged maid to Baltimore on his day off; and when he had tossed it onto the table one night when they were having dinner, she had let out a cry of delight and hugged his hand in both of hers.
Then Nolan had run into the brute laws of economics. There was fifteen dollars alimony, living expenses, and Linda, to be taken care of on forty-eight dollars a week. No matter how he sliced it, there wasn’t enough.
He had begun to stew over that problem most of his waking moments. There were detectives and patrolmen, he knew, who managed side jobs, and some even had their own businesses. One owned a gas station, another a bar, and some peddled jewelry or made-to-order clothes. But Nolan didn’t want to get involved with something that would take up all his time. He needed money, in a healthy lump sum, and fast.
His resentment toward the politicians and racket men had grown violently during that time. He saw them, night after night, sitting around nightclubs and taprooms, heard them talking about big days at the track, watched them pick up fifty-dollar dinner checks, listened to their stories of money, women, vacations.
One night he had got drunk and slugged a bookie who had offered to buy him a drink. That was all he’d ever got: a drink, a pat on the back. He had jerked the little man off the floor, and slapped him across the face with the back of his hand.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he yelled and stormed out the door.
He could have got into trouble over that if the bookie had lodged a complaint. But the man had wanted no trouble with cops, and particularly with a wild cop like Nolan. Nolan wasn’t aware of it, but he was regarded with a curious respect by certain elements in town. They thought him honest, for one thing, because he never had his hand out; but their respect was based on his record, which was bloody and vicious. No one wanted to bother a man as potentially explosive as Barny Nolan.
The Simbas immaculate bartender cleared his throat gently.
“Another drink, Mr. Nolan?”
Nolan glanced at him, coming back to the present unwillingly. “Yeah, I’ll have another,” he said.
He sipped that drink and watched Linda, now singing her last song. She stood with her hands at her sides, her small head tipped slightly back and sang casually, carelessly, and even the waiters stopped moving around and listened.
Nolan smiled at her, savoring the drink and the moment. And then his thoughts plunged off on a tangent to Dave Fiest. What the hell made him think of Dave Fiest? Dave Fiest and Linda were related in a curious, irrelevant way, he decided. Because of Linda, he had killed Dave. And seeing Linda reminded him of that, made him think of Dave...
He’d met Dave Fiest at a bar in Camden, New Jersey, about two months ago. Dave had been fanning himself with a Panama hat, he’d nodded to Nolan and bought him a drink. Nolan remembered the suit Dave had worn, a beautiful, light-weight gabardine with hand-stitched lapels; and when Dave had waved for drinks, he’d seen the flash of gold cuff links and a diamond ring.
“What’ll be?” Dave had said.
“Beer, I guess.”
“Oh, come on. Have a shot.”
“Okay.”
Nolan shook his head irritably, tried to concentrate on Linda’s singing. Why in the name of God was he dredging up this stuff for? What did it matter what Dave had said, and what he’d answered, at a chance meeting three months ago in Camden?
“I understand you’re working downtown now,” Dave said. “Like it better being close to the money?”
“It makes no difference to me.”
“Don’t be a humorist. Berle’s got that racket tied up.” Dave had said that as he’d paid for the drinks. He had noticed Nolan’s eyes on his roll. He had held it up, grinning: “My favorite shade of green, Barny me boy.”
“You travel loaded, don’t you?”
“Well, I need capital close at hand. Five thousand’s about the minimum I need to keep in business.”
They’d had one more drink and Barny had drifted off...
Nolan watched Linda again, frowning. That had been when he decided to kill Dave Fiest. Nolan knew nothing about making money, but he knew a lot about killing. He had been killing people for quite some time now, and there were no moral hurdles to take in deciding to kill Dave Fiest.
And so in his stolid and unimaginative way he had prepared a plan. It had no fancy stuff in it, no triggered alibis, no involved time-table. All he’d done was wait outside a certain taproom a few nights in a row, until Dave Fiest had walked out alone...
Linda finished her last song and the applause was generous and genuine. She smiled her thanks and left the stage. Nolan ordered another drink and watched her make her way through the tables toward the small barroom.
A tall young man in a dinner jacket stood up, said something to her and smiled. He had a blond crew-cut and his teeth were very white in his tanned face.