Outside, the rain had started again, harder this time. I looked each way, saw a couple of recognizable lights, grinned, and walked toward them.
Like a whore's is red, police lights have to be green, old-fashioned, and flyspecked. You knew from the sight of them what it's going to smell like inside. There's a man smell of wet wool, cigars, and sweat. There's a smell of wood, oiled-down dust; of stale coffee, and musty things long stored. On top of that, there's another smell a little more quiet, one of fear and shame that comes from the other people who aren't cops and who go down forever in the desk book.
I walked in and let Sergeant Vance stare at me like a snake and then said, "Where's your captain?"
"What do you want him for?"
The pair of young beat cops who had been standing in the corner moved in on the balls of their feet. They were all set to take me when the office door opened and Cox said, "Knock it off, Woody." He ran his eyes up and down me. "What do you want?"
I grinned at him, but it wasn't friendly at all. "You wanted my prints, remember? You said to stop by."
He flushed, then his jaw went hard. He came out of the doorway and faced me from three feet away. "You're a rough character, buddy. You think we don't know what to do with rough guys?"
And I gave it to him all the way. I said, "No, I don't think you know what to do with rough guys, Captain. I think you're all yak and nothing else."
Across his forehead, a small pulse beat steadily. But he held it in better than I thought he could. His voice was hard but restrained when he told the beat cop behind me, "Take his prints, Woody."
I gave him my name and address and stopped right there. If he wanted anything on me he could get it only after he booked me. I grinned at everybody again, left a bunch of stinking mad cops behind me, and went out into the fresh air.
It was 9 o'clock, too late for a show but not for a bar. I found one called JIMMIE'S with Jimmie himself at the bar and ordered a beer. Jimmie was a nice old guy and gassed with me.
When I finally got around to the Simpson place, he made a wry face and said, "Nobody ever saw the guy I know of. Not down here in town."
"How about the girls?"
He nodded. "You don't get much out of them. Simpson turns out to be either big or little, skinny or fat and you get the point. They don't talk it up any."
"So they don't talk about their boss. They get paid plenty, I hear."
"Hell, yes. Bonnie Ann and Grace Shaefer both sport minks and throw plenty of bucks around. Every once in a while I see Helen Allen in a new car. She comes through about once a month to see her folks. Used to be a nice kid. All of them were."
"Making money changed that?"
Jimmie shook his head, squinting. "No, but used to be they were plain hustlers and not high on anybody's list."
I asked, "You mean that's their job up there?"
His shrug was noncommittal. "They won't say. Some of them do secretarial work, answering phones and all that, because the switchboard operators here have talked to them often enough."
"If they're that interested, why doesn't somebody just ring Simpson's bell and ask?"
Jimmie gave a short laugh. "Besides the brush-off at the gate, who wants to spoil a good thing? Before that bunch leaves there'll be a bunch of money in this town, and off-season you don't kick out found loot. Then there's another angle. That boy's a big taxpayer. He's got connections where they count, as some busybodies found out. A few local do-gooders tried some snooping and wound up holding their behinds. Nobody goes to the cops, though I can't see them doing much about it. Cox is like a cat who's afraid of a mouse yet getting hungry enough so he knows he has to eat one or die. I think he figures if he eats one it'll be poisoned and he'll die, too."
He opened me another bottle and moved on down the bar to take care of a new customer. It was the nervous taxi driver who tried to steer me away from Pinewood in the first place. I was beginning to wish I had let him talk me into it.
He ordered a beer, too, said something about the weather, then confidentially told Jimmie, "Saw somebody tonight. Didn't recognize her at first, but it was Ruth Gleason."
I poured my glass full, making like I was concentrating on it. Ruth Gleason was the girl Mort Steiger told me ran off to New York the same time Flori Dahl did.
"You sure?" Jimmie asked him.
"Oughta know her, I guess. She's changed though. She's got on fancy clothes and all that, but her face is sure old looking. Wouldn't look at me. She kind of turned away when she saw me."
"Well what's she doing back here?"
"Who knows? She got in that blue ranchwagon from the hill place and drove off." He waved off another beer and went out.
Jimmie came back wiping his hands on his apron.
Bluntly, I said, "Mort told me about the Gleason kid, too."
He didn't question my tone. "Nice girl. She was up there a whole month. Hardly ever came down and when she did she wouldn't speak to anybody. Flori and she went in at the same time. Flori used to come to town occasionally and the way she changed was hard to believe."
"How?"
He waved his hands expressively. "Like you can't pin it down. Just changed. They wouldn't look at you or hardly speak. It was real queer."
"Didn't any of those kids have parents?"
"Flori's old man was dying and they had no mother. I think Flori took the job up there to help get her old man into the Humboldt Hospital. They got him there, but he died soon after. Cancer."
"That's only one," I pointed out.
"Ah, who can tell kids anyhow? They do what they please anyway. Sure, some of them had folks, but there's big money up there."
He popped the top from another bottle and passed it over. "On the house." He took a short one himself and we gave a silent toast and threw them down.
Then he said, "Better not do too much talking around town. This is a spooky place."
I grinned, paid off my tab, and waved him goodnight.
For a few minutes I stood under the awning watching the rain, then started back toward the center of town. I had crossed the street and almost reached the corner when the big Imperial came from my left, turned left, and stopped half a block up ahead of me. Unconsciously, I stepped into the darker shadows and walked faster.
Someone stepped out of the car, turned and pulled at another. They stood there together a moment and then I heard the unmistakable spasm of a sob.
I ran then, holding one hand tight against my ribs to muffle the fire that had started there. I was too late. They heard my feet pounding and the one by the car turned sharply, ducked inside, and slammed the door. The car pulled away silently and slowly as if nothing had happened.
But they left a beautiful young girl behind them. She was sobbing hysterically and started to collapse as I reached her.
She was a lovely brunette wrapped tightly in a white trench coat, her hair spilling wetly over her shoulders. She tried to shove me away while she hung on desperately to an oversize handbag and keep saying over and over, "No . . . please, no!"
I said, "Easy, kid," and pulled her to the porch steps of the nearest house. When I got her seated I tried to take her hand. She stopped sobbing then, jerked her hand, and held her pocketbook on the opposite side.
For a second the hysteria passed and she said, "Get out of here. Let me alone!"
"Relax, I'm . . ."
"There's nothing the matter with me," she nearly shouted. "Get out of here. Let me alone!"
She clenched her teeth on the last word with a crazy grimace and tried to stand up. But I was sitting on one edge of her coat and when she did the thing yanked open and half-pulled off her shoulder.