I looked at my watch.
It had been more than two hours since I’d left Louie.
I put a note on the steering-wheel, “Back in ten minutes. Don’t leave,” and went back to make some more telephone calls, plugging up a few loopholes I might have missed.
I came back and the note was still on the steering-wheel. There was no sign of Louie. I started the car and drove back out to the cabin. Helen had been sweeping. A handkerchief was tied around her hair for a dust cap. “Hello,” she said when I’d brought the groceries in. “What did you do with Louie?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“He went out to get the groceries. I told him to wait in the car when he came back, and to be sure and be there in half an hour. He wasn’t there. I waited over an hour longer, and then came out here.”
She took off her dust cap, put her broom in the corner, went into the bathroom, washed her hands, and when she came out, was rubbing some fragrant lotion into the skin.
She said, “This might be a good time to talk.”
“About what?”
“Lots of things.”
I sat down beside her on the little settee. She got up after a moment and moved over to a chair facing me. “I want to look at you,” she explained. “If you’re going to lie to me, I want to know it.”
“That doesn’t sound very encouraging.”
She said, “I like you.”
“Thanks.”
“I liked you from the first time I saw you.”
“Leading up to something?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Go ahead then.”
She said, “The orthodox technique for a nice young thing is to be very demure and, if you take an interest in her, lead you along very, very gently. I don’t do things that way. When I like someone, I go for them in a big way. When I don’t like ’em, I just don’t like ’em, and that’s all there is to it.”
I nodded.
“That first night out on the desert,” she said, “was about the happiest night I ever spent in my life. The second night was almost as good.”
“And now?” I asked.
“Now, I don’t like it.”
“Why?”
“I thought you were strong for me.”
“I am.”
“Phooey!” she said, with a little grimace. Then her eyes came up to mine. “It isn’t because of what I was doing — that slot-machine racket — that you cooled off toward me?”
“I didn’t cool off toward you. I like you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
She was silent for a few seconds, then she said, “Anyhow, being with Pug and working that machine racket, and having batted around on my own has made me feel that I’m on one side of the fence and the cops are on the other. There’s no particular reason I should feel that way except I’ve had a lot of shakedowns in my time, and particularly on the slot-machine racket. Once or twice, Pug would get caught. The slot-machine man would pretend he was going to make a complaint and prosecute. We always knew it was a bluff, but the cops would hold us on their own and shake us down for everything they could get before they’d turn us loose. Well, I got to looking at cops as being — well, just cops.”
I didn’t say anything.
She averted her eyes once more, studied her shoe tip. “All right, Donald,” she blurted at length, “if you think I know something about Pug’s murder, and if you thought you could make a play for me because I was strong for you, pretend that you’d quit the detective business, and get me to tell you what I knew that way — well, Donald,” she said, looking at me suddenly with the steady stare of slate-gray eyes, “I think I really could kill you if you’re taking me for that kind of a ride.”
I said, “I wouldn’t blame you.”
She kept studying me. “Going to say anything more?” I smiled and shook my head.
She got to her feet abruptly. “Damn you, I wish I knew what it was you do to me, but I’m just telling you — I still say you’re working on that case. Remember what I told you.”
“I will. Where do you suppose Louie is?”
“Darned if I know. Did you give him any money?”
“Yes.”
She said, “There’s something wrong with Louie.”
“What?”
“He’s slap-happy.”
“I knew that a long time ago.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Something else wrong with him?”
“I don’t know. It comes out of that condition of being slap-happy. They all get it sooner or later. I think Pug had some of it. It keeps them from seeing things the way you’d see them or the way I’d see them. Look, Donald, do you think that after a while, if you keep hanging around and I get nuts over you, I’ll spill everything I know?”
“I just hadn’t thought much about it.”
“Well, think about it now then.”
“All right, I will.”
“If you ever try to pump me about that, I’ll kill you. I — l’d not only hate you, but — but — but it would do something to me, Donald. It would jerk something out from under me. Please, Donald, give me a break on that. If that’s the play, let’s just call this little party off right now, and I can get over it — maybe. If I wait a few more days, I’ll never get over it.”
“Got any friends here?” I asked her.
“No.”
“Where would you go and what would you do?”
Her eyes grew hard. “Say, don’t you think you can frighten me with that line. Any time I need a man to live on, I’ll take an overdose of sleep medicine. I can walk out of here right now with nothing but my bare hands, and — well, I’ll get by, and I won’t sell myself, either.”
“What would you do?”
“I don’t know. I’d find something. How about it? Do I start?”
“Not as far as I’m concerned.”
She said, “I suppose you won’t open up.”
I said, “If you don’t want to tell me anything you know about what happened to Pug, I hope you never do.”
She came over to stand in front of me. “All right,” she said, “I’ll give it to you in words of one syllable. You can have anything you want out of me. You can ask me anything, and I’ll do it. And if you ask me what about Pug, and what do I know about the night he was bumped off, I — well, I’d probably rat, but the minute you asked me that question, I’d know why you’d been doing all this,” and she swept her hand in a gesture which included the auto camp. “And when I knew that you’d been doing it just to get me so, that I couldn’t say no to anything you’d ask — I’d be so sick inside, I could never feel clean or decent again, or think there was anything clean left in the world — ever. You got that straight?”
“Yes.”
“All right then. What do we do next?”
I said, “I guess we go uptown and see if we can locate Louie in any of the bars.”
She studied me a second or two, then burst out laughing, but there was a note of bitterness in her laughter.
I walked over to stand close to her. “Don’t you see,” I told her, “I don’t want anything I’m not entitled to.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Go on from there.”
“You’re right about one thing. I’m a detective. I’m working. It isn’t that I’m working for the B. Cool Agency. It’s that I’m working on a case. I’m trying to see that some other people get a fair deal. They’re depending on me, whether they know it or not. If I don’t do the job, I don’t think anyone else will.”
“And so you want me to tell you what I know about—”
“I don’t want you to tell me a damn thing,” I said. “I’m strong for you. I think you’re one of the nicest girls I’ve ever met. But I’d never have asked you to leave Las Vegas and come out with me if it hadn’t been a matter of business. I’m enjoying it. I’m happy. I like to be near you. I like the way you do things. I like everything about you. But I’m working on a job, and the reason I’m here with you is because it’s along the line I’m following to make a success of that job.”