Hardiman glanced aside at the girl’s enigmatic features. “All this talk about Leslie Young is absurd,” he protested. “I don’t even know the man.”
“I’m quite sure he was murdered to prevent him from keeping that appointment.”
It was dark, and the overhead globes lighted the faces of the trio clearly. It was like having the front seat at an absorbing play.
“There’s some mystery here,” Hardiman exclaimed impatiently.
Jerry Burke laughed shortly and knocked out his pipe. “That makes two of us, Mr. Hardiman. You might clear up one angle by explaining how you were able to sit here unconcernedly while a woman was screaming bloody murder out an upstairs window.”
“We were assured by a servant that it was a family affair and there was nothing we could do,” Hardiman told him stiffly.
“It’s a screwy household,” Burke muttered. “Perhaps after I’ve been around a few days I won’t pay any attention to such minor matters either.”
Michaela smiled. She looked more like a naive child than an adventuress when she smiled. “It is nice that we will be protected by a policeman. But I am bored with too much talk and I think I will go inside where there is not so much protection.”
She got up and glanced at Pasqual. He followed her into the house as though she had ordered him to heel. Burke looked after them, shaking his head.
Hardiman leaned forward and asked: “How long is this farce going to continue?”
“Until I learn why Michaela O’Toole invited Leslie Young to meet with you and Dwight at the Hacienda del Torro. You could help by telling me why you and Dwight were there.”
“So far as I know the meeting was arranged simply to provide a place for us to meet Senor Rodriguez without causing public comment.”
“For what purpose?”
“I leave that to your imagination,” Hardiman countered urbanely.
There was the purr of a powerful motor climbing the concrete drive to the house. Burke stood up.
“That will be Dwight’s limousine bringing Senor Rodriguez safely away from a patriotic Mexican mob. You’re playing with fire when you connive at what they regard as treachery. Mexicans take their politics lots more seriously than you in Washington are accustomed to. The deal you and Rodriguez are cooking up contains enough dynamite to cause a dozen murders. Think that over while pulling your dollar diplomacy coups.” He got up and strolled toward the house.
Hardiman followed him after a moment of indecision.
Laura set her empty glass down. “Jerry Burke is going to have plenty of trouble digging any facts out of this gang.”
“You haven’t been such a hell of a big help,” I reminded her. “You were the last person to see Young alive. Exactly what did he tell you about Michaela’s letter... and about the telephoned threat?”
“Not very much.” She appeared to be honestly striving to remember. “He just laughed at the threat. You didn’t know Leslie, did you? He was the perfect fictional soldier of fortune. He’d been shot at so often that one more threat against his life meant less than nothing to him. The only way he could explain the note was the possible connection between the writer and his old buddy, Mike O’Toole, of Mexico and points south.”
“Michaela’s father, according to Burke’s information.”
She nodded, frowning. “That’s what doesn’t add up at all. The Mike O’Toole Leslie used to know was an out and out Communist. His daughter is supposed to have followed along in his footsteps, yet here she is conniving with a couple of political scavengers to put one over on her own country. Her connection with this oil fix simply doesn’t make sense.”
“There’s enough money involved to make sense out of anything.”
“You don’t believe that,” Laura told me quickly. “It’s impossible for an idealist like you to be convincingly cynical.”
She was leaning against me looking up at the night. My arm went about her as though it belonged there. She relaxed against it with a little sigh, closing her eyes. Her parted lips were stained the same vivid red they had been the first time I saw her... the same vivid red that was on Leslie Young’s mouth when he died.
I’ve never been an impressionable fool about women. I’ve always been able to take them or leave them alone.
I knew it couldn’t be that way with me and Laura Yates. I either had to hate her, or... God help me... love her. Either way, I was lost.
I was bending closer over her and she lay quietly against me. Had her kiss betrayed Young to his death?
I got up suddenly and she slumped back against the seat, lifting her lashes and watching me with wary eyes.
I lit a cigarette with trembling fingers and muttered something about getting home to Nip and Tuck.
She didn’t say anything.
She was sitting there slumped back against the seat as I walked blindly down the driveway to the road where I might bum a ride as far as the street car line. I forgot about Burke and about the case and about the book I was going to write.
There was room for only one thought in my mind, and it drummed at me relentlessly.
I had to get away from her... before I couldn’t get myself away from her.
14
My telephone was jangling when I let myself in the front door of my house almost an hour later. Nip and Tuck waggled a furious welcome but I took time for just one pat and to let them out for a run before hurrying to the telephone.
Chief Jelcoe’s voice rasped over the wire: “Baker? Do you know where Burke is hiding out?”
I said, “Yes,” and waited.
“Where can I reach him?” Jelcoe sputtered. “I’ve been phoning all over the city. He might at least get in touch with his office every now and then.”
“I’ll see that he gets any message you want to give him.” I didn’t know whether Burke wanted Jelcoe to know where he was, so I played safe.
Jelcoe sputtered a few puny curses over the wire but I didn’t help him any. He wound up by saying:
“There is an important confidential message for him from Washington. Evidently in reply to some query he sent out this morning, though it doesn’t make much sense to me.”
“Send it out to my place by messenger,” I suggested. “I’ll see that it reaches Burke at once.”
“I certainly would like to know what he’s doing on the Young case... if anything.” Jelcoe sounded aggrieved.
“He’s making progress,” I told him, and couldn’t resist adding: “Have you arrested Mrs. Young yet?”
“Not yet. But I’m convinced she lied to us about the pistol being stolen by the party she named. I made a thorough search of her apartment this afternoon and found nothing. But I believe the Yates woman will bear watching.”
I mumbled something, then asked him: “What public effect did the Free Press story have?”
“There’s hell to pay down here. Our switchboard is clogged with calls from citizens demanding to know what action Burke is taking. The Mexican quarter is seething with bands of Young Nationalists calling for a public demonstration against any secret settlement of oil claims. Is Burke doing anything, for Chrissake?”
“He was drinking a Tom Collins the last time I saw him,” I chuckled, and hung up before Jelcoe had a chance to get started again.
Then I looked up the number of the Dwight residence and called it. After a long wait, I got Burke on the wire and he sounded relieved to hear my voice:
“I’ve tried to call your house twice, Asa. Why the devil did you run out on me?”
“You forget I’m a family man. My dogs are well-trained, but I can’t leave them locked up in the house indefinitely.”