“This is Peggy Castle,” she said.
“Oh, yes, hello.” His voice was more cordial than she had expected.
“I have a lead on the Stella Lynn case.”
“Yeah, I know,” Nelson said. “You have lots of leads. You pulled the trigger on a lot of publicity, didn’t you?”
“Why, what do you mean?”
“Nice and dramatic,” he said. “It worked out a thousand percent. Grief-crazed husband stumbles into the morgue, tearfully claims the body of Stella Lynn, his wife. How the newspapers fell for that one! They just called me from the morgue.” He stopped talking, and Peggy said nothing.
“You there?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, why don’t you say something?”
“You’re doing the talking. I called you up to tell you something. When you get ready to listen let me know.”
He laughed. “All right, I’ll listen, but don’t think I was born yesterday just because you didn’t meet me until today. I’ve been around a while.”
“I’m quite certain you have,” Peggy said. “As I said, I have a lead in the Lynn case.”
“What is it this time?”
Peggy said, “Stella wanted Don Kimberly to meet her at the Royal Pheasant because she wanted to find out if it would be possible to negotiate for the return of the gems on that Garrison job.”
“What!” Nelson exclaimed.
“Bill Everett, Stella’s ex-boyfriend, was mixed up in that job. Now he’s got a fortune in gems and can’t fence them. You know what happens at a time like that. He wants to know whether he can make a deal with the insurance company.”
“Who’s this fellow you say pulled the job?”
“Bill Everett. He’s been in trouble before. He was picked up in Cofferville for the robbery of a service station.”
“Uh-huh, go ahead. What’s the pitch?”
“I have a date with him. He’s going to give me the lowdown. Now, if you wanted to cooperate—”
“I’m sorry, Miss Castle,” Nelson said. “You’re out of bounds. Cooperating with you doesn’t do anything except get your company off the hot stove and leave the Police Department holding the bag. If you have any chestnuts in the fire, just get yourself another cat’s-paw.”
“But don’t you want to recover—”
“I want to recover from a couple of bad blows below the belt,” Nelson said. “You don’t know whether Bushnell was legally married to Stella Lynn or not, but you’ve got the story nicely planted on the front page of every newspaper, together with pictures of the stricken husband. I don’t think I care about being a stalking horse. Where is this Bill Everett?”
“Find out, if you’re so damned smart,” she blazed, and slammed the receiver.
She drove rapidly to Elmore, followed it down toward Adams, eased the car to a stop, and waited.
Sitting there in the dark she experienced a feeling of complete loneliness. The motor of the car made sharp crackling noises as the metal cooled off. Five blocks behind her was a through highway. The sound of traffic, muted by distance, came to her ears.
A man walked by but seemed to take no notice of the car. He moved rapidly, heels pounding the pavement as if he were going somewhere in a hurry.
Peggy waited another five minutes. Suddenly she was conscious of a shadow at the right-rear fender of the car. Then the door on the right-hand side swung open. A man eased into the seat beside her and said, “Okay, wind her up.”
Peggy asked, “Are you—”
“Wind her up, I said,” the man told her. “Get the hell out of here. You want to get us both taken for a ride?”
Peggy started the motor and glided away from the curb. The man at her side swung around so he could look through the rear window, and carefully watched the street behind him.
“Turn right on Adams,” he said.
Peggy turned right.
“Left at the next intersection.”
Peggy followed instructions.
“Pick up a little speed,” he told her. “Don’t dawdle along. All right, now give it the gun and turn right at the next intersection... Okay, left again... Okay.”
At length the man eased back into a more comfortable position, ceased watching the road behind them, and fastened his eyes on Peggy. Peggy was conscious of a distinct feeling of disquiet, a peculiar apprehension. Suppose everything didn’t go right. Suppose...
“It’s your dime,” the man said. “Start talking.”
Peggy knew she had to draw him out. So far she had got by on bluff and surmise. Now she was going to need facts, and the man beside her was the only person from whom she could get those facts.
The man continued, “What’s the pitch? Let’s see who you are first. I’m Bill. Who are you?”
Peggy slipped her hand down the opening of her blouse, brought out the jeweled butterfly, held it so he could see it for a brief instant, then popped it back into her blouse.
“Hey, wait a minute,” he said, “where the hell did you get that?”
“Where do you suppose?”
“Here, pull into this next alley,” Bill said. “We’re going to have a showdown on this.”
She felt something prodding at her side, and, glancing down, saw the glint of light on blued steel.
“Get over there. Turn down that alley.” His shoe crushed her foot against the brake pedal.
With a little cry of pain she jerked her foot away. The car swerved. The gun jabbed hard into her ribs. “Turn down that alley!”
She bit her lip, fighting hack the pain in her foot, and turned down the alley.
Bill reached over and turned off the ignition switch. “Now, baby,” he said, “if you’re trying to pull a fast one, what’s going to happen to you isn’t—”
Abruptly the car was flooded with brilliance as a following car, running without lights, suddenly blazed its headlights on the parked car.
Bill shoved the gun under his coat. “If that’s a prowl car,” he warned, “and you make a squawk, I’ll kill you just as sure as—”
A figure jumped out of the car behind and came striding forward. A man’s sneering voice said, “Well, Bill, trying to cut yourself a piece of cake, eh?”
At the sound of that voice Peggy could see Bill’s face twist in a spasm of fear. He jerked his body around. “Butch!” he exclaimed, and then after a moment added, “Am I glad you’re here! I’ve caught a dame trying to pull a fast one on us.”
“Yeah. You look as though you’re glad to see us,” Butch said.
Another man came up on the other side of the car and stood at the open window on Peggy’s side. He was a tall cadaverous man with lips so thin that his mouth looked as though it might have been cut across his face with a razor blade.
The man Bill had addressed as Butch said, “Get in and take the wheel, Slim. Drive up to Bill’s place. Bill, you get in with us. I want to talk with you.”
Slim opened the door and slapped Peggy’s thigh with the back of his hand. “Move over, cutie.”
Butch opened the door on the right-hand side. “Come on, Bill.”
Bill said. “Sure, sure.” His voice was too full of cordiality. “I want to talk things over with you guys, but listen, I think this babe is maybe a private dick or something. She’s trying to pull a fast one.”
“Yeah,” Butch said. “We know all about this babe. Come on, get in, Bill. We’re going to take a nice little ride and have a nice little talk.”
Bill got out of the car. Peggy slid over on the seat, and Slim took the wheel.
“You’ll have to back out,” Butch said to Slim. “It’s a blind alley.”
“Okay.”
“You take the lead,” Butch went on. “If she makes any trouble, bean her.” He moved away with Bill in tow.