She didn’t argue, but she held the pace. I twisted around to keep an eye on the rear through the window, and stayed that way clear to Fifty-seventh Street. We rolled down the cobbled ramp and a block south turned left on Fifty-sixth Street, had a green light at Eleventh Avenue, and went through. A little short of Tenth Avenue we turned in to the curb and stopped. Lila reached for the handbrake and gave it a yank.
“Let’s hear it,” I said. “Enough to go on. Is Uncle Dan a gambler?”
“No.” Her face turned to me. “I’m trembling. Look, my hand’s trembling. I’m afraid of him.”
“Then what is he?”
“He runs a drugstore. He owns it. That’s where we’re going to see him. I know what Helen thinks — she thinks I should have told, but I couldn’t. My father and mother died when I was just a kid, and Uncle Dan has been good to me — as good as he could. If it hadn’t been for him I’d have been brought up in an orphans’ home. Of course Bill wanted to tell Art Kinney last night, but he didn’t on account of me, and that’s why he’s not telling the cops.”
“Maybe he is telling them, or soon will.”
She shook her head. “I know Bill. We decided we wouldn’t tell, and that settled it. Uncle Dan made me promise we wouldn’t tell before he said what he wanted.”
I grunted. “Even so he was crowding his luck, telling you two about the program before signing you up. If he explained the idea of doping the Beebright, why—”
“But he didn’t! He didn’t say how it was to be done, he just said there was an easy way of doing it. He didn’t tell us what it was; he didn’t get that far, because Bill said nothing doing, as I knew he would.”
I eyed her. “You sure of that? He might have told Bill and not you.”
“He couldn’t. I was there with them all the time. Certainly I’m sure.”
“This was last night?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Around eight o’clock. We had dinner early with Helen and Walt Goidell, and when we got home Uncle Dan was there waiting for us.”
“Where’s home?”
“Our apartment on Seventy-ninth Street. He spoke to me alone first, and then insisted I had to ask Bill.”
“And Bill turned him down flat?”
“Of course he did!”
“Bill didn’t see him alone later?”
“Of course not!”
“All right, don’t bite. I need to know. Now what?”
“We’re going to see him. We’re going to tell him that we have to tell the cops, and we’re going to try to get him to come along. That’s why I wanted you with me, because I’m afraid of him — I mean I’m afraid he’ll talk me out of it. But they’ve got to know that Bill was asked to fix the game and he wouldn’t. If it’s hard on Uncle Dan that’s too bad, but I can’t help it; I’m for Bill. I’m for Bill all the way.”
I was making myself look at her, for discipline. I was having the normal male impulses at the sight and sound of a good-looking girl in trouble, and they were worse than normal because I was partly responsible. I had given her the impression that the cops were about set to take her Bill on the big one, which was an exaggeration. I hadn’t mentioned that one reason they were keeping him was his recent reactions to the interest Nick Ferrone had shown in her, which of course had no bearing on anyone’s attempt to fix a ball game. True, she had been in a mess before I had got to her, but I had shoved her in deeper. What she needed now was understanding and sympathy and comforting, and since her friend Helen had deserted her I was all she had. Which was I, a man or a detective?
Looking at her, I spoke. “Okay,” I said, “let’s go see Uncle Dan.”
The engine was running. She released the handbrake, fed gas, and we rolled. Three minutes got us to Eighth Avenue, where we turned downtown. The dash clock said five past eleven, and my wristwatch agreed. The traffic was heavy in both directions, and she got in the right lane and crawled along. Two blocks down she pulled in at the curb, where there was plenty of space, set the brake, turned off the lights, killed the engine, and removed the key and put it in her bag.
“There it is.” She pointed. “Gale’s Pharmacy.”
It was ten paces down. There were neons in the window, but otherwise it looked drab.
“We’ll probably get a ticket for parking,” I told her.
She said she didn’t care. I got out and held the door, and she joined me on the sidewalk. She put a hand on my arm.
“You’re staying right with me,” she stated.
“Absolutely,” I assured her. “I’m good with uncles.”
As we crossed to the entrance and went inside I was feeling not fully dressed. I have a routine habit of wearing a gun when I’m on a case involving people who may go to extremes, but, as I said, I do not go armed to ball games. However, at first sight of Daniel Gale I did not put him in that category. His drugstore was so narrow that a fat man would have had to squeeze to make the passage between the soda fountain stools and the central showcases, and that made it look long, but it wasn’t. Five or six customers were on the stools, and the jerk was busy. A chorus boy was inspecting himself in the mirror of the weight machine. At the cosmetics counter on the other side, the left, a woman was being waited on by a little guy with a pale tight-skinned face and rimless specs who needed a shave.
“That’s him,” Lila whispered to me.
We stood. Uncle Dan, concentrating on the customer, hadn’t seen us. Finally she made her choice and, as he tore off paper to wrap the purchase, his eyes lifted and got Lila. Also he got me, beside her. He froze. He held it, rigid, for four seconds, then came to, went on with the little wrapping job, and was handed a bill by the customer. While he was at the cash register Lila and I crossed to the counter. As he handed the woman her change Lila spoke.
“Uncle Dan, I’ve got to tell you—”
She stopped because he was gone. Without speaking, he turned and made for the rear and disappeared behind a partition, and a door closed. I didn’t like it, but didn’t want to start a commotion by hurdling the counter, so I stepped to the end and circled, and on to the door that had closed, and turned the knob. It was locked. There I was, out at first, unless I was prepared to smash the door in.
The soda jerk called, “Hey, Mac, come out of that!”
“It’s all right,” Lila told him. “I’m his niece. He’s my Uncle Dan — I mean Mr. Gale is.”
“I never saw you before, lady.”
“I never saw you either. How long have you been here?”
“I been here two months, and long enough. Leave me be your uncle, huh? You, Mac, come out here where you belong! Whose uncle are you?”
A couple of the fountain customers gave him his laugh. A man coming in from the street in a hurry approached and called to me, “Gimme some aspirin!” The door I was standing by popped open, and Uncle Dan was there, against me in the close quarters.
“Aspirin!” the man demanded.
“Henry!” Gale called.
“Right here!” the soda jerk called back.
“Wait on the gentleman. Take over for a while; I’ll be busy. Come here, Lila, will you?”
Lila moved, circled the end of the counter into the narrow aisle, and approached us. There wasn’t room enough to be gallant and let her pass, and I followed Gale through the door into the back room ahead of her. It was small, and the stacks of shipping cartons and other objects took most of what space there was. The rows of shelves were crammed with packaged merchandise, except those along the right wall, which held labeled bottles. Gale stopped near the door, and I went on by, and so did Lila.
“We don’t want to be disturbed,” Gale said, and bolted the door.