“A sort of no interest loan on my part, you mean.”
“It’s been done successfully before, I imagine. More often not enough.”
“I see.” I dropped my hands to my lap and tilted back on the chair. “You couldn’t noise your suspicions around very far either, could you?”
He knew what I was getting at. The red crept up in his face again and he shook his head. “Actually, it didn’t occur to me until I returned home and thought it over. It was too nebulous a thing to bring out without absolute proof. I forgot it until I was, ah, approached by this young lady. I realize that I never should have said anything, but under the circumstances it couldn’t be helped. She made what I took to be a veiled threat if I ever mentioned the subject to anyone after that.”
“Why bring it up now?”
Mr. Donahue seemed to be a little pained. “Because I’ve had a nagging worry about the matter ever since and I’ll be damned glad to see it come out in the open.”
My chest coughed up a laugh that startled him. “Don’t worry about it then,” I said. “A lot of things will be out in the open before long, but you won’t be dragged into it. You can forget the blonde too. She’s going to have more on her mind than trying to shaft you.”
“You... know who she is?”
“Yeah, I know who, but I don’t know where. She’ll turn up.”
I let the chair down and stood up. He shook hands again but without as much force as the last time. I caught him looking down at the phone once so just before I left I said, “You can make up your own mind about it, but you’ll do better if you keep this little visit under your hat too.” He licked his lips. “And if you’re interested enough, read the Lyncastle News.”
At three-thirty I got back to Lyncastle. I put the car in the garage and went in the house. Wendy wasn’t there and no sign that she had been there earlier. I tried the bus station and somebody on duty said Mr. Henderson had taken the afternoon off. No, he didn’t know where to locate him.
The next call went to the Circus Bar and over all the background noises I finally got it across that I wanted Alan Logan. The guy on the other end yelled back that he wasn’t there and hung up. I tried his office.
A girl answered the call and I said, “Alan Logan, please.”
“I’m sorry, but he isn’t here.”
“Know where I can find him?”
“No I don’t. We’ve been looking for him all day ourselves. He hasn’t called in at all. Perhaps you can suggest...”
I hated like hell putting him on the spot with his office by telling them he was out somewhere on a bat so I said, “Last I saw of him he was on a story. I’m calling because he had some information up there for me. It was from New York, a memo from a Mr. Whitman.”
“Oh, yes. It’s here on his desk.”
“Could you read it off to me?”
I heard whatever it was crackle in her hand. “Gee... I don’t know. We’re not supposed to...”
“It’s okay. It was some personal information I needed.”
“Well...” The paper made a tearing noise and crackled again when she unfolded it. “It isn’t much. It says, ‘Gracie Harlan and Harlan, Incorporated identical.’ It’s signed, ‘Whit.’ ”
“Thanks,” I said. I hung up and stood there playing with the phone. The blank spaces were filling in gradually. There was a little more sense to it now. The cover was coming off the picture, but I had to be sure of what I saw.
I went downstairs and backed the car out again. Someplace across town would be another piece of the puzzle picture.
It was just like the first time, quiet, with the overtones of “The Moonlight Sonata” drifting through the door. She even had on the dress with the tassel. I said, “Hello, Venus.”
Her eyes made one quick sweep of the street. “Get in here, man!” She said it with an urgency in her voice that made me hop. I slid in the door, shut it and watched her lock it.
“Alone?”
“I haven’t been.”
“What’s the score?”
“Servo’s boys. They’ve been here off and on ever since you left. What the devil have you been doing?”
“Plenty. Where are they now?”
“I don’t know. They left, but they’ll be back again.” She fumbled for a cigarette on the table. “The police have been here too. Oh, not the local police. These were feds.”
“Yeah?”
“Things are popping in town. The City Council convened and passed an all-out resolution to find you.” She pulled on the cigarette and walked to the window. When she was satisfied nobody was watching she tugged the curtains together. “I sent a couple of girls out to see what was going on. They made good contacts.”
“Nice. Spill it.”
“George Wilson, Johnny McBride, whoever you are... those federal boys decided you have been in back of everything that went on in this town. You financed Servo’s operations for the sheer hell of it and when things got too quiet to suit you, you went off on a spree of your own. You’re back because things outside of Lyncastle got too hot for you. They even tagged you with a long scientific name that means you’re chronically antisocial ever since you came back from the war.”
“So I’m the big wheel,” I mused. “I’m the guy they want from here to Washington. That doesn’t count in Lenny Servo.”
Her eyes narrowed cautiously. “He has a personal score to settle. I know all about it. But there’s more than that. There’s a rumor that he’s been splitting the take with you all along the line and now he’ll be glad to see you under wraps so he can have the whole works.”
“Rumors. They have to start someplace.”
She nodded. “You’ve been flush ever since you came to town.”
“That I have, kid. Rumors are funny that way; there’s always an element of truth in them. A little thought will blow a hole in it though.”
“How?”
“If I’m behind Servo and I get picked up isn’t it logical that I cut Lenny in on half the guilt as well as half the take?”
The cigarette went down another notch. Her face lost the cautious expression and became blank. “Who are you, man?”
I smiled at her and let it go at that. I said, “Once you said you had a picture to show me. Did you ever find it?”
Without answering she got up and left the room. She was back a couple of minutes later with a wrinkled display-size photo that had evidently been stored away for quite a while. She handed it to me and sat down.
There was a fresh pencil mark around the girl she wanted me to see. Her name was Harlan. She was incorporated. I had seen a later picture of her not so long ago. She was a waitress who worked in the ABC diner outside of town and had committed suicide because her roommate had been killed. Before she came to Lyncastle she had worked a con game in New York. She had served time.
Now I knew. Or at least had a good idea.
I handed the picture back to Venus. “Mind if I use your phone?”
“Go ahead.”
It was getting so I could remember the numbers now. I tried Logan’s office first. He wasn’t there. Wendy wasn’t home and Nick still wasn’t at the station. The next number was the police station and somebody answered. I asked for Lindsey and he was put on.
“Captain Lindsey speaking.”
“Johnny, friend.”
His breath got loud in my ear. “Go ahead.” He said it through his teeth.
“What about that letter?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t fit. I found the envelope and that was all. Not a thing anyplace.”
“It’s around.”
His voice was a hoarse rasp. “McBride, I think you’re stalling. You won’t get out of this town alive if you are.”