“You mean you want me to start on some job tonight?”
“No, no, Mr. Moon. I merely want your commitment. I have to phone Mexico City at six A.M. and let them know I have an agent on the way or the whole deal falls through. But you wouldn’t actually have to leave until noon tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch and amended, “Or rather noon today.”
“You want me to go to Mexico City?”
“Yes. I’m willing to pay a thousand dollars plus expenses, and the job won’t require more than ten days. But first I’d better explain just what the job involves.”
I looked at him expressionlessly for a moment. Then I said, “Don’t strain your imagination, Mr. Friday. I’m sure you’ve thought up a nice convincing reason to send me to Mexico City, but I’m also sure that with your organization you could snap your fingers and any one of a hundred capable men would jump to do whatever needed doing down there. You don’t have to hire an investigator whose record you haven’t even had time to check. Let’s cut through all the preliminaries and get to the real point. For some reason you’d like me out of town for ten days and are willing to pay me to leave. Right?”
It was his turn to examine me expressionlessly. Finally his heavy face broke into a rueful grin. “You’re more intelligent than I thought, Mr. Moon. Also a good deal blunter. I’ll be just as blunt. Does a ten-day vacation with all expenses paid, plus a hundred dollars a day, appeal to you?”
“Naturally. But I’d have to know why.”
Slowly he shook his head. “We aren’t going to be that blunt.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “The first time you looked at me with any particular interest tonight was when Madeline Strong asked if I weren’t a private detective and suggested she might want to engage my services. As soon afterward as you could find me, you want me to leave town. The logical deduction is that you want to make sure I don’t go to work for Miss Strong. Why?”
Friday’s face had turned expressionless again. “I don’t plan to discuss any reasons with you, Mr. Moon. It’s a simple take-it-or-leave-it proposition.”
“I’ll leave it,” I said.
“Suppose we make the amount two thousand?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. When you reach a million I might begin to waver, but for anything short of that, it wouldn’t be worth it to me to go around with an unsatisfied curiosity. Up till now I wasn’t particularly curious to hear what Miss Strong had to say, but now I can hardly wait until morning.”
Friday finished his drink and set down his glass. “There are other methods I have found effective in bringing men around to my point of view, Mr. Moon.”
I said flatly, “Is that a threat, you two-bit punk?”
Max Furtell was on his feet before I finished speaking. With a remarkably fast bound for so big a man he was across the room and had jerked me to my feet by the shirt front.
I suspect all he intended was to pull my nose within an inch of his and advise me to speak more respectfully to his boss. But I have an aversion to being jerked around, even by men who outweigh me sixty pounds. I came erect without resistance, but I didn’t stop my forward motion where Max wanted me to.
Instead I smashed my left elbow into his jaw and, when he released his hold on my shirt front, followed up with my right elbow.
Max took three involuntary steps backward, stopped and blinked his eyes. Anyone with less than a cast-iron jaw would have fallen flat on his face after those blows, but all they did to Max was make him look momentarily dazed. He started back at me.
“Max!” Ed Friday said in a sharp voice.
The big man halted instantly, but continued to glower at me.
“This is ridiculous,” Friday said in a ponderous tone. “I didn’t bring you here to beat Mr. Moon up, Max. Apologize for attacking him.”
Without changing expression Max said tonelessly, “I’m sorry I touched the punk.”
To me Friday said, “I can see this visit was a mistake, Mr. Moon. Shall we forget it took place?”
And motioning his bodyguard to follow, he walked out without even awaiting an answer.
Chapter Seven
The morning after Friday’s visit I got up at my normal rising hour of noon, showered, shaved and was diving into a plate of eggs and sausage when the door buzzer sounded. When I opened the door, I discovered my caller was Madeline Strong.
“Well!” I greeted her enthusiastically. “Nothing sharpens my appetite like a beautiful redhead across the breakfast table. Come in and have some sausage and eggs.”
“You will be looking at a blonde across the breakfast table while the redhead sits in a corner,” a firm voice said from beyond my range of vision. Then Fausta stepped into sight from where she had been standing to one side of the door.
In spite of her threat to make Madeline sit in a corner, Fausta allowed her a place at the breakfast table. Discreetly the girl chose one side, leaving the spot across from me to Fausta. Neither accepted my offer of sausage and eggs, Fausta rather condescendingly informing me they had breakfasted four hours ago, but they did take coffee while I finished my breakfast.
When I was finished, Fausta said, “This is a business call, Manny. Madeline wants you to work for her.”
“On something connected with last night?” I asked.
Fausta looked at Madeline and the redhead said, “I didn’t know what to do or who to turn to, Mr. Moon. I suppose I shouldn’t have dragged Fausta into this. I guess I should have come alone. I phoned Fausta this morning because she’s always been so... well, understanding. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered her. I really only know her from dining at El Patio, but there wasn’t anyone else I could turn to for moral support. You see, my parents are both dead, and since my brother Lloyd was killed last November...”
“Whoa!” I cut in, realizing from the increasing rapidity with which she spoke that she was wound as tight as a watch spring, and unless I cut her off, she was going to take just as long as a watch to run down. “Fausta has the run of this place. She pops in and out whenever the mood strikes her. Let’s leave out the explanation of why she’s with you and get on to your problem. What do you want me to do?”
She took a deep breath. “Get Tom out of jail.”
“Tom!
“Tom Henry. The fellow whose pipe was found on the lawn. They arrested him for Walter’s murder.”
“I see,” I said. “Did he do it?”
Madeline’s eyes flashed. “Of course he didn’t do it. Tom wouldn’t shoot anyone.”
“Then you don’t need me,” I said. “Contrary to popular belief, the police hardly ever frame innocent people. If he’s innocent, they’ll turn him loose.”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Moon. They found the gun that killed Walter in Tom’s workshop.”
“Oh.” I looked at her curiously. “Then what makes you think he didn’t do the shooting?”
Fausta answered for her. “She is in love with the boy, my thickheaded Romeo. And women in love have faith. They are not fickle like men, who will throw a woman to the dogs at the first whisper of suspicion.”
“All right,” I said to Madeline. “You’re in love with him, so naturally he is innocent. Tell me the details.”
It developed that there were no details beyond what she had already told me. Apparently Warren Day had arrested the boy the previous night; and this morning when he was allowed his one five-minute phone call, he had called Madeline instead of a lawyer. It seemed to me that in five minutes he could have gotten across more information than the bare facts that the police had located the murder gun in his workshop and he was in jail, but after reflection I realized that a young couple in love might easily spend most of the five minutes assuring each other of their mutual love before getting down to less important business such as murder. Then I thought of something else.