“I gathered that you did,” I said, motioning my hand in the general direction of the casino.
“Find everything all right?”
“Very much so.”
“Anything you want, just ask for it. Tell the boys who you are, and the place is yours.”
“I didn’t intend to take advantage of you,” I said, “but I have one request.”
“What is it?”
“I may want to borrow one of your men.”
The smile left his face. It was as expressionless as though he had just drawn a pat flush in a poker game. “Which one?”
“Louie Hazen.”
His eyes softened, then he smiled, and, after a moment, laughed outright. “What do you want to do?” he asked. “Assassinate him?”
“No. I might have some use for him. Would it inconvenience you if I harrowed him for a while?”
“Good God, no! Take him with my compliments. I’ll give you a quitclaim deed.”
“I would, of course, pay his wages while he was—”
“Nothing of the sort. I’ll give him a thirty-day layoff from duties and keep him on the payroll. Thirty days be long enough for you?”
“A week should be long enough.”
“Take him for as long as you want. The poor devil. I, hate to fire him, but — well, you know what he is. He’s inoffensive and good-natured enough, but completely punch drunk. I suppose he’ll get me into serious trouble if I keep him on here. I hate to just turn him loose. As a matter of fact, Lam, you’d be doing me a favor if you’d take him off my hands for a while. I’m going to try and find something else for him.”
“You haven’t had him long, have you?”
“Hell, no. I don’t owe him anything. I should throw him out, but I can’t do it. There’s something about him that gets you. He’s like a stray puppy coming around and wagging his tail, being so friendly and eager that you haven’t the heart to kick him back down into the alley where he belongs. He’d be all right out on a ranch somewhere, and it might do him good, but he’s permanently punch drunk. They pounded him enough so they jarred his brains out of plumb, got him so he thinks on the bias. When do you want him?”
“I may want him right away.”
“As soon as he comes in, have him come up here and I’ll tell him. What do you want him for, or is it any of my business?”
I met his inquisitive eyes. “I want him,” I said, “to teach me how to box.”
“He’s yours,” Breckenridge said, but he was no longer smiling, and his eyes were squinted in concentration as I shook hands and walked out of the office.
Chapter Eleven
My first knock on the door of apartment 2-A was a gentle, insistent tapping.
A woman’s voice called, “Yes? Who is it, please?”
She seemed trying to keep the fright out of her voice.
I said nothing, waited nearly twenty seconds, then knocked again, this time more insistently. The voice sounded from close to the door. “Who is it?” A note of panic had crept into the voice now.
I still didn’t say anything, just waited — waited a good thirty-five seconds. Then knocked again, this time louder than before.
“Who—” Her voice broke.
I was raising my hand to knock for the fourth time when I heard the sound of a key in the lock, and the door opened a few inches. My shoulder pushed it the rest of the way. Helen Framley gave ground before me as I entered the room and walked toward her. Her face was chalk white. Her hand was on her throat.
“Well?” I asked.
“Close — close the door, Donald.”
I half turned, stabbed at the edge of the door with the toe of my shoe, and slammed it shut.
“Well?” I asked.
“Sit down, Donald. My God, don’t look at me like that!”
I sat down, took a package of cigarettes from my pocket, offered her one, took one myself, and held out a match.
She touched my hand in guiding the flame to her cigarette. I could feel her arm trembling. The tips of her fingers were cold.
“How did you find me?”
“Easy.”
“No. It couldn’t have been.”
“You forget I’m a detective.”
“I don’t care if you’re the whole police force. It wasn’t easy. I’ve been around enough to know how to take care of myself when I’m in a jam.”
“All right, what difference does it make whether it was easy or hard? I found you, didn’t I?”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to hear your story.”
“I haven’t any.”
“That’s too bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“The police won’t like it.”
“Donald, you’re not going to — you’re not going to rat!”
“The police will find you.”
“No. They won’t.”
I just smiled, and I made it as superior as I could.
“The police haven’t a thing in the world on me.”
“Except that the murdered man was living with you in your apartment, and—”
“He wasn’t living with me!”
“He spent most of his time there, didn’t he?”
“Some of it, but he wasn’t — wasn’t living with me.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Of course not,” she said. “I don’t take a notary public to bed with me.”
I took the cigarette from my lips, and yawned.
“Donald, what’s come over you? You don’t think I killed him, do you?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Someone did.”
“And he had it coming to him, too, if you ask me.”
“The police would be interested in that statement.”
“Well, the police wouldn’t hear anything out of me. Do you think I’d squeal?”
“Probably not.”
“You can bet your bottom dollar I won’t.”
“Got an alibi?”
“For what time?”
“Oh, around ten minutes to nine to about nine-twenty.”
“No.”
“Tough luck.”
“Donald, listen to me. How did you find me? I thought this was absolutely airtight.”
“Easy.”
“Well, how?”
“That’s a professional secret.”
“I suppose you’d like to see me get a first-degree rap?”
“No. Believe it or not, I came to help you.”
Some of the haunted, hunted expression left her eyes. “You’re a brick.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too easy to trace you.”
“I didn’t think they’d ever find me — not in a thousand years.”
“They’d find you in a thousand minutes.”
“What were you going to suggest?”
“I could get you out of town.”
“How?”
“It’s a secret.”
“All right, what’s your price?”
“I want to know what happened.”
“Do you really want to take me out of town, Donald?”
“I’d do it for a consideration.”
“You’re a funny boy.”
“I want something.”
“What?”
“Information.”
“That all?”
“Yes.”
She pouted. “I don’t believe I ever knew a man exactly!ike you. Tell me, are the police looking for me?”
“What do you think?”
“Why don’t they get busy and find the real murderer?”
“They’re looking for clues.”
“Well, what am I going to do? Shake clues out of my sleeves, pull some out of the tops of my stockings, put ’em on a silver platter, and say, ‘Here, Mr. Copper.’ ”
“That’s between you and the police. If you don’t tell what you know, it might put you in a serious position. You were the last one to see Harry Beegan alive.”
“I was not. I broke up with him right after the fight.”
“You ran away with him.”