I said, without turning my head, “You might just as well come on over and join the party, Sid.”
I heard quick motion behind me, sensed someone standing close to the back of my chair. “Get all your cards on the table, brother,” a man’s voice said.
“All of them that concern you are on the table.”
I turned around and looked at him then. It was the man in the plaid sport coat who had been playing the quarter machine, and I noticed now he had just the trace of a cauliflower on his right ear. He was uneasy — and dangerous.
“Sit down,” I told him, “and join the party. I’m not holding anything back.”
He said, “You happened to stumble into the Cactus Patch at a queer time tonight. Maybe it was just luck — and then—”
I said, “Don’t talk so loud. The woman in the next, apartment is curious.”
“I’ll say she is,” Miss Framley said.
The man in the plaid coat sat down. He said, “We’re not going to say anything for about five minutes. During those five minutes, you’re going to do a lot of talking.”
“There’ll be just about four minutes of silence then,” I said. “My name’s Donald Lam. I’m working for the B. Cool Detective Agency. I’m trying to locate Corla Burke. I have reason to believe Miss Framley knows where she is.”
His face twitched. “What you want to locate her for?”
“A client.”
“Ain’t you smart?”
“I’m not trying to be, but I’m not dumb enough to go around telling the names of our clients to anyone who happens to ask.”
He said, “Well, Miss Framley doesn’t have any idea where Corla Burke is ‘cause she don’t know any Corla Burke.”
“Why did Miss Framley send her a letter then?”
“She didn’t.”
“I know people who say she did — people who are in a position to know.”
“Well, they’re cockeyed. She didn’t send any letter.”
Miss Framley said, “I don’t even know who Corla Burke is. You’re the second person who’s asked me.”
Sid flashed her a quick glance. “Who was the first one?”
“An engineer out at the dam.”
His eyes glittered. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
“Why should I? I didn’t know what he was talking about even. He got the wrong number somewhere.” She turned ‘to me and said, “And I presume he’s the one who tipped you off, and that’s why you’re here.”
“What was this man’s name?” I asked.
“The one who asked me the first time?”
“Yes.”
She started to answer, then glanced at Sid Jannix, and hesitated perceptibly.
“Go on,” he said.
“I don’t know his name. He didn’t give it to me.”
“You’re lying.”
She flared up. “Why should I lie to you, you big baboon? My God, do you want to know every agent that comes to the door trying to sell a new vacuum sweeper?”
He turned to me and said, “What gave you the idea she’d written a letter?”
“Some people thought she had.”
“Who were they?”
“People who reported to the agency. The agency sent me out.”
“Who were the people?”
“You’d have to ask the agency.”
He said to Helen Framley, “But you didn’t write any letter?”
“No, of course not.”
He turned back to me. “What was that you called me — what name?”
“I don’t get you.”
“When I first came out, you said something—”
“Oh, I called you Sid.”
“Where’d you get that name?”
“Isn’t that your name?”
“No.”
“Pardon me, my mistake. What is it?”
“Harry Beegan.”
“Sorry.”
“Who told you to call me Sid?”
“I thought that was your name.”
He scowled at me, said slowly, “Get this straight. My name’s Harry Beegan. My nickname is Pug. I don’t want to be called by any other name.”
“Okay, that’s fine by me.”
He turned back to Helen Framley. There were lights in his eyes, little lights coming and going, like the reflection of sky in a mountain pool when the wind blows it into little ripples. “If I thought you was two-timin’ me,” he said, “I’d—”
“Get it out of your head once and for all,” she said, “that you can frighten me, and I’m not your slave. I’m living my own life. Ours is a business partnership, and that’s all.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“You heard me.”
He swung back to me. “I want to know some more about this client of yours.”
“You can ask Bertha Cool about that. She’s at the Sal Sagev Hotel.”
“That client here in town right now?”
“You’ll have to ask her about that.”
“I think,” he said, “I’m going to take quite an interest in that client of yours.”
“I wouldn’t,” I told him, “not after what Kleinsmidt told me about you.”
“Who’s Kleinsmidt?”
“The big cop who collared me at the blowoff.”
“How did you happen to horn in on that?”
“I didn’t. I walked in and won a jackpot.”
He said, “You weren’t dumb enough to tap a nickel machine when the ten-cent and two-bit machines were all ripe, were you?”
I said, “I had nickels so I played nickels.”
I saw that he was studying me with a puzzled look on his face.
“Did you take out a phoney rivet and leave it out?”
I said, “I don’t know about any phoney rivets. I put in nickels and didn’t win anything until a couple of cherries showed up. The next time I hit the jackpot right on the nose.”
“Then what?”
“Then the attendant moved over, and we started arguing.”
“Go on.”
“Then the manager showed up, and the law. The law was named Lieutenant William Kleinsmidt. They took me up to the office and turned me inside out.”
“Find anything?”
“A bunch of nickels and—”
“You know what I mean. Piano wire, drill, cups, or any of that stuff?”
The girl said, “Pug, I believe he’s on the outside.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Pug said without taking his eyes off of me. “What did they find?”
“They found,” I said, “that I’d hit Las Vegas a couple of hours ago on the plane. They found that I hadn’t been here before for six months, that I’m a private detective, that I’m employed by Bertha Cool, and that Bertha Cool was in the Sal Sagev Hotel waiting for me to make a report.”
Pug looked me over carefully. “Wouldn’t it be a scream,” he said, “if you were telling the truth?”
I said, “Kleinsmidt thought I was telling the truth.”
“He’s dumb.”
“And Breckenridge, the manager, thought I was telling the truth.”
“Do you mean to say you just blundered in there and didn’t know the machines were fixed?”
“The woman next door told me I could find Helen Framley hanging out around the slot machines at the Cactus Patch.”
They exchanged glances. Pug gave a low whistle.
“How did she know?” the girl asked.
“She said she’d seen you there several times as she walked past.”
“I wish she’d mind her own business for a change,” the girl said savagely. “She told you about Pug being in here, too, just now, didn’t she?”
I nodded, then said, “She didn’t have to. I knew he was in the closet.”
“Yes, you did,” Pug said derisively.
I said, “The chair was warm. The girl was smoking a cigarette. Her cigarette was in the ash tray over by that other chair. She leaves lipstick on the paper. The cigarette, in this ash tray didn’t have any lipstick.”