Which was, I thought, exactly what Mike himself was proposing to do. I didn’t point out the irony of his indignation. I said, “Where do you figure to start looking?”
“Have we got a deal?”
“Let’s put it like this. We’ll work together. If and when we find the money we can decide what’s to be done with it. If it looks like we can guarantee our own safety by turning the money over to Madonna, then I’d suggest it’s better to be alive and broke than dead and rich.”
“That’d have to be a hell of a guarantee.”
“If we can work it out that way, will you go for it?”
He scowled. “If it’s the only way, hell yes. Have I got a choice?”
“All right. We’ve got a deal.”
He nodded. “Okay. Then the first thing you do is check out the Judy Dodson bird. She was still with Aiello when I left last night. Look, the reason I can’t do it myself, I got to stay out of sight. They might take a notion to haul me in any time. You’ve at least got forty-eight hours and they’ll probably keep their hands off you that long, just to see if you can come up with something.”
“Any other ideas if the girl doesn’t pan out?”
“One or two,” he said. “For instance, Frank Colclough and Stanley Raiford.”
I looked at him. He had uttered two prominent political names. Frank Colclough, the county supervisor, was a political kingmaker who bossed the county machine. Stanley Raiford, the ex-governor, had been in the news lately, making hard-knuckled speeches that sounded very much like the noises made by a man running for office. It was rumored he was about to throw his hat in the ring and run for the Senate against the aging incumbent.
Mike said, “There were money packages in the safe with their names on them.”
“Packages for what?”
“You’d have to find that out yourself. I don’t know. The money wasn’t payoffs, I know that much. The bag money doesn’t get listed like that in the safe. So it was something else, not bribe cash. But it had Colclough’s and Raiford’s names on it. Private money, probably, that Aiello was keeping as a favor to them. There were some others, but those are the only two names I remember.”
I scowled. They were leads but they didn’t sound very good. But at least it was a place to start.
Mike said, “I’m going to have to stay under cover. If it wasn’t for Jo I wouldn’t trust you, but I figure she’ll look out for my rights if you get any fancy ideas.”
It was a strange thing for him to say. I had no way of disproving the idea that he and Joanne had set the whole thing up, using me as their patsy; no way except the knowledge that it didn’t fit with Joanne’s character for a minute.
“All right,” I said. “You sit tight.” I turned to go.
He stopped me. “How about my gun?”
I studied him, then handed the gun to him. He stuck it in his waistband. He said, “I may not stay here, but I’ll get in touch.”
I said, “If I need to find you, where do I look?”
“Here. Then the Mariache Bar on South Tenth. An old buddy of mine owns it, he’s not in the mob. I’ll leave word for you with him if I have to move. His name’s Maldonado.”
I nodded and went.
Chapter Five
Mike Farrell, I thought as I drove away, was a vexing character. If I’d still been a cop, and if I’d had time and facilities, I’d have taken him downtown, booked him as a material witness and sweated him a while to find out how much of his story was true.
I took back streets to get out of Las Palmas, found a phone booth in a shopping center and called the Executive Lodge. I asked for Mrs. Chittenden and when I heard Joanne’s voice I said, “Me. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, but I think our secret is out. Just after you left, I went to get some newspapers and a paperback, and a man saw me in the lobby.”
So that was how Madonna had found her—pure blind luck, and all of it bad. I said, “You recognized him?”
“I think so. What’s more important, I think he recognized me.”
“Is he hanging around?”
“He may be. If he is, he’s being discreet—I haven’t been pestered since I came back to the room.”
“Okay,” I said. “You’ve got my gun, you may as well just stay put a little while.”
“Simon, how is—”
“It going? We’re in trouble up to the hairline. Sit tight and I’ll see you in a little while. Have room service send you a sandwich.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then get loaded,” I said. “Keep the door locked and keep the gun handy, right?”
She said dismally, “All right, Simon,” and I hung up with a vivid tactile image of the rich warm tone of her flesh, the flash of her eyes.
Either way, I had to take a risk. If I tried to spirit her away and hide her someplace else, I’d probably have to ditch a tail and that would make Madonna angry. This way, leaving her where she was, he might get the idea we weren’t ducking out on him. It might persuade him to keep his word and give me free rein at least for a little while.
I looked up Dodson, Judy, in the phone book, found a number listed under Dodson, Judith, and let it ring eleven times. No answer. After a minute’s thought I looked up the Atomic Bar and when the bartender answered I said, “Is Phoebe there?”
“Who wants to know?”
“A friend. Tell her Simon says.”
“Tell her what?”
“Simon says.”
“Christ,” he said, and then: “Hang on, I’ll see if she’s here.”
There was some background noise and then Phoebe Willits’ whisky baritone voice roared out of the receiver at me:
“Simon, you bastard.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’d have to check that with Dad and Mom and they’re not here right now. Phoebe, I’m looking for a girl.”
“Isn’t everybody? Listen, you son of a bitch, if I wasn’t old and fat and ugly, somebody’d be looking for me, too.”
“Nonsense. You know you’re beautiful.” In the eyes of, say, a bull moose; I didn’t state that part out loud but she got the inference. I said, “The girl’s name is Judy Dodson and she was seen now and then with Sal Aiello. I tried her listed phone but nobody’s home.”
“She doesn’t work for me,” Phoebe said. “You working on the Aiello murder, Simon? I thought you quit the flat-feet.”
“I did. It’s personal.”
“Personal, sure. Hang on a minute, Simon, I’ve got a couple of my girls here, I’ll ask them.” I waited three minutes. Phoebe was the prototype for all the whisky-madam movies ever made; she was a lusty type, more character actress than madam. She worked a string of girls out of the Atomic Bar, which was a joint barely one step up from the pavement; she was devoted to espionage—a fact known not only to the police, who used her as an informant, but also to all the crooks, who played the game with her by allowing her to overhear harmless bits of information. She adored the game—maybe it gave her a sense of importance.
She barked into the phone in her parade-ground voice: “Big fluffy blonde girl?”
“I guess so. I haven’t seen her.”
“I’m told a girl like that works at the Moulin Rouge, Judy something. That help?”
“I hope so.”
“Simon?”
“Unh.”
“You sound like you’re in trouble. Anything I can do?”
“No,” I said, “but I love you. Thanks much. So long, Phoebe.” I hung up and went to the Jeep and drove north through a Mexican slum. It was a littered adobe neighborhood where the kids on the streets watched you go by with big blank eyes and studied contempt; they grew up quickly down here. Anything and everything was for sale, you only had to know where to go and what name to ask for. I’d driven a prowl car beat here for six months and now, driving through, I saw familiar faces. One or two nodded with reserve; the others pretended I was a stranger.