“And Servo?”
He let out a gummy chuckle. “Ever hear of honest cops? We got some here. Guy by the name of Lindsey.”
“I know him,” I said.
“So he keeps after Servo. Likes to know who his contacts is, you know?”
“Yeah, Who are they?”
“For ten bucks I should stick my neck out? Mister, for a hunnert I don’t even know nuthin’. For five maybe I could scare up something.”
“If you’re dead you can’t spend five hundred any better than ten.”
His eyes glittered at me. “No, but with five I could clear outa this trap. Me fer the country, see? Can’t make no dough around here.”
“Got anything worth five hundred?”
The glitter disappeared and he shook his head. “Well, I ain’t even got anythin’ worth ten. I’m only kidding myself. It’s a long time since I seen any company and I felt like talking, you know?”
I leaned back in the chair and stretched out my legs. Time wasn’t that important. Talk, that was what I wanted. Small talk. Big talk. After five years talk was all you had to go by anyway. I said, “How long has Servo been here?”
The guy seemed to relax somewhere. Maybe he felt the way I felt and knew how interesting the subject was. “Oh, he been here almost ever since he came. Spent a fortune getting his place redecorated. You oughta see the chippy he got up there.”
“I did.”
I saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. He leaned forward in his chair tensely. “Yeah... how was she?”
“Bare. She wanted to play. I didn’t.”
He swallowed again. A vein throbbed in his neck. “Cripes, what a dame! I go up there to fix a tap and she don’t have nothin’ on. You know what she did? I start uncorking the nut and alla time she’s talking to me sexy so my hands can hardly hold that damn wrench, then when I’m not looking she grabs a ball-peen hammer outo my kit and...”
“What about his other women?”
His eyes lost their glaze. He stared at me, blinked and sat back, chewing on his lip. “He always got good lookers.”
“Remember any of ’em?”
“Sure. Remember ’em all. This one is best.”
I shook out another butt and lit it, thinking through the smoke. “A long time ago he had one named Vera West. Remember her?” When he didn’t answer right away I said, “Well?”
He was flexing the muscles in his arms, his face tight. “Mac,” he told me slowly, “I don’t know you from nobody, but she’s one dame I don’t talk about.”
I didn’t waste time offering him another bill. I just kept it friendly and said, “Don’t blame you. She was okay. I don’t want that kind of dope about her.”
“Yer damn right she was okay. So she was always plenty high. She was one of them party girls or something, but even a looker gotta live. She was still okay and knocked Servo off’n his high horse plenty. Hell, I heard him plenty of times tryin’ to get her to shack up there. She gives him the business. Lenny, he likes the treatment so he keeps her around. Maybe he gets tired of the easy stuff. But like I said, she was okay. Time I got clipped by the car she gimme a transfusion. Hardly knew me at all, but she gimme blood.”
“She’s disappeared.”
“So I hear,” he said sourly. “I hope she had sense to get a roll together and blow this dump. That’s what she did, I think.”
I let another trailer of smoke drift toward the ceiling. “Servo didn’t like that, huh?”
“He was pretty burned about it. Hell, he got another one in fast enough. They last awhile then he kicks ’em out. That redhead upstairs must be pretty good. She’s sticking around. She got a temper, that one. Oughta hear her work Lenny over. She makes him jump.”
“What she’s got anybody’d jump for,” I said.
“Not that kind of jump, pally. She’s boss up there. Like a wife, you know?”
“Happens after awhile,” I said. I got up, stretched and stubbed my butt out in an ash tray. “Maybe I’ll drop in again sometime. If you think you have anything worth five hundred bucks, keep it under your hat until I see you.”
“Sure.” He walked me as far as the door and opened it. “There was a fight up there last night,” he said.
I stopped and looked down at him. “The dame?”
“No. Him and some other guy. They tried to keep it quiet, but I heard ’em. I was up on the roof.”
“What went on?”
“Beats me. He got air-conditioning and all the windows stays closed. I heard ’em yelling at each other, but I couldn’t catch none of it. They was plenty sore.”
“Know who it was?”
“Just know one was Servo. He did most of the yelling.”
“Oh.” I thought it over, tacked it down in the facts-to-be-remembered department and thanked the guy. He gave me another gummy grin and let me out.
For a while I stood outside the building looking at the long slanting shadows on the street. I finished a cigarette and had another, but they didn’t do much good. I tried to think, to figure angles, to put things together, but nothing clicked in place.
Try walking in a town sometime. Try picking up pieces that are five years old. Try finding a girl named Vera West without tipping your hand to the whole population, I thought.
So far it had been great. I got beat up, shot at, slapped a hood around and almost seduced. It hadn’t been a bad beginning. At least I knew how important I was.
Or the real Johnny.
He was so damned important he either had to be run out of town or killed quick. But why? Damn it, why run him out of town, if he could have been bumped to start with? That much was clear. It was better to have him run for it than dead. But why, damn it, why?
Did he run from Minnow’s murder or the two hundred grand? Either one was a good excuse, but which one.
I threw the butt in the gutter and walked down the street. Maybe it would have been better if I had stayed with old gummy. At least the guy had wanted to talk. If I had talked it out maybe I could have thought of something.
I turned in at a drugstore and went back to the phone booth. I tried to call Logan and couldn’t get him. The next nickel got me the bus station and Nick. He got all jumpy again when I told him it was me.
He said, “What’re you doing? You’re all right, aren’t you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m trying to think. You got any time to spare?”
“Sure, plenty. Nothing’s due in for an hour. You had me pretty worried, boy. Wendy called and said you wouldn’t stay at her place.”
“How is blondie?”
“Fine. She sure was sore at you.”
“Too bad.” Then I thought of it. I said, “I’m coming down to the station. How about calling her for me. Think she’d come?”
“Yeah...” he slowed up a bit and added, “sure, she won’t be leaving for Louie’s for a while.”
Now I had something to do. It was something I could chew on while a cab hauled me down to the station. I could pass it around in my mind and it made better sense each time. Nick and Blondie. They were right there on the end of the receiving line when I came to town. The very front end. They said hello and patted me on the back. They played it sweet and low and not long after somebody was pumping a slug in my direction.
The cabbie skidded his wheels in the gravel outside the station, marked something on a report sheet and held his hand out. I put a buck in it and climbed out.
Both of them were inside the office. The window was closed, the little radio was blaring away and there was a steaming container of coffee on the table. Nick shut the door behind me, locked it and pumped my hand.
And over by the wall there was Wendy. Blondie. Beautiful blonde Wendy with the lovely legs and round hillocks that tried to peek out of the dress. She was a good-looking twist if you didn’t get too close. She was smiling and shrugging out of a light trench coat and the motion shoved her breasts out for inspection. It didn’t take a second look to see that if she had anything on under the white blouse it must have been painted on with a brush. The skirt part of the ensemble was too tight around the hips, but it was designed that way. There was the suggestion of a rumba in every motion she made and for good measure a slit ran up the side seam to let the flash of nylon show through, and if you looked hard enough the slippery sheen of skin above where the nylon ended.