"Yes, sir," I said. "Warfel must have got a scriptwriter over from Hollywood to do the screenplay. It was good typecasting, but the sinister pug-type didn't shoot Annette O'Leary and the heartless starlet-type didn't set her up for it, even though they were both eager to claim the glory. No, sir, I have no idea how Warfel got them to cooperate. They aren't saying. But guys like that have ways of applying pressure."
I watched the two faces as I said it. McConnell's features remained impassive, but Beverly's eyes widened and darkened a bit as if at a frightening memory.
"What was the tip-off? Well, no one thing exactly, sir, except that Warfel looked like a man putting on an act and overdoing it, casually inviting me to spill blood all over his bedroom carpet, for God's sake! And McConnell was willing enough to confess to murder-maybe a little too willing-but when he heard that the girl had been roughed up before she was shot, he was jolted just like any black man accused of manhandling a white girl would be. He hadn't expected that, and he wasn't braced for it… Just a minute, sir."
McConnell had taken an angry step forward. "You're just playing Sherlock Holmes, man!" he snapped. "What do you know about black men and white girls?"
I regarded him without affection. The name he had called me, back at the pistol range, didn't bother me greatly, but the attitude it illustrated did. I don't like people who think tolerance is a one-way street. If Mr. McConnell wanted his origins treated with respect by me, he could damn well treat mine the same way, and keep his loaded racial terms to himself.
"I don't know too much," I said, "but you did react, amigo, and you didn't know how to handle that big pistol that was supposed to be your pride and joy. You may have shot lots of people with other guns, but not with that one or anything like it, and that's what killed Annette O'Leary. Maybe I got the right answer for the wrong reasons, but I got it, didn't I?"
I waited. He was silent. The girl known locally as Charlie spoke a soft command and he stepped back into the doorway. I addressed myself to the telephone once more, watching Beverly as I talked.
"The Blame girl clinched it, of course," I said. "They kept hinting at some mysterious female Annette had been mistaken for, but she was supposed to be a great big secret. I had a hunch, however, that if the whole performance was as phony as I'd begun to suspect, and if I gave them half a chance, they'd actually be happy to drop their red-haired mystery woman into my lap to support their fairy tale-which was exactly what they did, with melodramatic trimmings. Just how many times have we used the ancient gag of roughing up an agent to make him, or her, look good to the other side, sir? And how many times have we had it used on us? Well, chalk up one more occasion, for the record."
I looked at the girl and saw that she was tense, waiting for something. I could guess what it was. She was waiting for the humiliation of having me describe, in front of everybody, her abortive attempt at seduction.
I grinned at her, and went on: "Five will get you twenty, sir, that if we check back on her carefully, we'll find she was a ravishing blonde, or a sultry brunette, who couldn't possibly have been mistaken for our redhead or vice versa, until sometime this morning, many hours after the shooting… What about it, Miss Blaine?"
She hesitated. Then she nodded minutely. It was her way of thanking me for sparing her embarrassment, not that I really needed confirmation. Her hairdo had been just too pretty-too bright and soft and beautiful-for a girl who was supposed to have spent the past twenty-four hours on the run; her clothes too, if you discounted the minor damage incurred in the struggle staged for my benefit. For instance, nobody keeps a white turtleneck immaculate, particularly around the collar, for a hectic day and night in the City of Smog.
It had been a good idea, but Warfel or whoever had thought it up had been careless about the details. Maybe he'd counted on the fact that when people confess to being involved with murder, the tendency is to accept their stories without too much skepticism.
I looked from the girl, silent, to McConnell, whose expression said he wasn't talking either. I said into the phone: "No, sir, they're not volunteering any information. Warfel's got them in his pocket. Anyway, there's not much chance he told them anything important. They probably don't know enough to make it worth offering asylum or protection or any other kind of a deal. They're just a couple of expendable red herrings… Yes, sir, I'll turn them loose as soon as I'm through here. Warfel may not like them very much, now that his elaborate scheme has flopped, but they'll just have to take their chances. As you say, it's not worth tangling with the mob for nothing. Organized crime is the F.B.I.'s business, not ours."
It didn't work. At least it didn't work immediately. The threat of being turned out on the street, unprotected against syndicate vengeance, didn't bring either of them rushing forward to trade valuable information in exchange for a safe place to stay. I nodded to Charlie Devlin, and she led them away. When the door had closed, I turned back to the phone.
"Okay, sir, I'm alone," I said. "I just wanted them to hear that much of the conversation. I hoped it might persuade them to give us a little help, but either they actually don't know anything worth telling, or Warfel scares them more than I do."
"So I gathered." Mac hesitated, far away on the other side of the continent, and asked with professional caution: "What is the status of your telephone?"
"Our friends assure me that the room and phone are safe as Fort Knox."
"Indeed? Such confidence is touching. But they do seem to be giving you adequate cooperation."
"Yes, sir," I said. "Reluctant but adequate."
"This Mr. Warfel apparently put on quite a show for you. Can you suggest a motive?"
"Yes, sir," I said, "but first I'd like to drop a few names and descriptions into the hopper. I presume you're already digging up what's known on Warfel himself-there should be plenty-but he had two tough gents in his immediate mйnage when I saw him, one called Jake and the other nameless. There was also a lousy driver he called Willy, and a guy sitting in the lounge in my motel reading a paper. Then there's a slinky blonde called Roberta Prince, Warfel's current house pet. She's either a dancer or an acrobat or both. Also Lionel McConnell, known as Arthur Brown, known as The Basher; and of course the imitation redhead. And you might as well check out my lady colleague while you're at it, the girl they seem to have assigned to me here, Miss Charlotte Devlin, called Charlie for short…
He pounced on that. "Do you suspect this Miss Devlin? Of what?"
"Of nothing, really," I said. "But the Blaine girl was kind of surprised to see her. Maybe she was just surprised at seeing a woman-that's what I figured at first-but maybe she had some reason for being surprised to see that particular woman. If so, I'd like to know why Anyway, if I'm going to be working with Devlin, I'd kind of like to know what her record looks like. I mean, what can I count on her for and what can't I? And has she been doing any work recently that brought her in contact with the Warfel mйnage? I mean, maybe her people had some reason for assigning her to me other than pure friendship and cooperation. Could they have an interest in Warfel that might conflict with ours?"
"That would be difficult to determine at this point, since we don't know exactly what our interest is," Mac said slowly. "Very well, I'll try to investigate, although it will be ticklish business. Give me what you have on the rest and I'll set the machinery in motion…" It took a little while for me to describe all the individuals concerned for the tape recorder some three thousand miles away When I was through, Mac said, "Now what, exactly, are your ideas about Warfel?"