“I still think we should go there. Once we’re inside I doubt that anything will happen.”
Her look seemed to say, “What do we do until we get inside?” but she agreed and I hailed a cab even though it was an easy walk.
Thirty
As it turned out, Bogie’s was a good place for us to talk. Ginger might have been scared, but that didn’t do anything to damage her appetite. Luckily we made it just before the kitchen closed, and by the time Alison brought our food, we were virtually the last ones in the dining area.
“Will you be needing anything else?” Alison asked.
I looked past her to make sure there was still coffee on, and then said, “I don’t think so, Alison. Thanks. I’m sorry if we kept you.”
“You didn’t keep me,” she said, and walked away, untying her apron.
“Sorry,” Ginger said.
“About what?”
“She’s your girl, isn’t she?”
“Alison?” I asked, surprised. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“The way she’s been looking at me.”
“It’s your imagination.”
She shrugged and said, “If you say so. The food is really good here.”
She had almost decimated her plate of lasagna, so I pushed mine across the table and said, “Help yourself.”
“Mmm, thanks.”
She polished that off, along with the basket of bread and breadsticks, and then I got up and poured us two cups of coffee, waving away Billy’s help. He was behind the bar and busy enough with the late drinkers.
“Can we talk now?” I asked, setting her coffee in front of her. “I didn’t want to talk while you ate.”
“That would have been okay,” she said. “Nothing ever seems to ruin my appetite. If I didn’t exercise I’d be as fat as a house.”
I took out Cross’s book and put it on the table between us, and she stared at it as if it had sprouted spider’s legs.
“Ginger, do you have any idea what the letters next to each name stand for?”
“Why, is it important?”
“Actually, I guess not,” I said. It was something I was very curious about, but it really wasn’t all that important.
She shook her head and said, “No, I don’t. I’ve never seen the book before today, and I only heard about it from Fallon last night.”
“All right,” I said. I picked up the book and put it back in my pocket, because it seemed to disconcert her. I wasn’t completely convinced that she was telling the truth about it.
“Ginger, I need to find out some things about Cross.”
“But he’s dead.”
“I know, but I’m trying to find out who killed him, and I think if I can do that I’ll find out who killed Melanie, as well.”
“I don’t know that much about him.”
“Then why did you want to talk to me?”
“I wanted to talk about Brown!”
“What about him?”
“I’m afraid of him.”
“Because he’s violent?”
“He’s the one who . . . who recruited us, Fallon and me. Brown thinks he’s hot shit with women and when he tried to hit on me I wasn’t having any.”
“But Fallon was different, huh?”
“I told you once before, she’s got strange taste in men.”
“You also said that about Melanie, if I remember correctly.”
“She seemed to respond to him, too.”
That made it a stronger likelihood that Melanie had also been used in some blue movies.
“This is starting to look more and more as if the same person killed both of them.”
Her eyes widened and she said, “Do you think it was Brown?”
“I’m not jumping to conclusions, Ginger, but he does seem like the best bet, especially considering how they died.”
“What about the man they arrested for killing Cross?”
“I think maybe he just happened along at the wrong time.”
“You mean Brown framed him?”
“I mean somebody framed him,” I said, correcting her. “When was the last time you saw Brown?”
“Fallon saw him last night.”
“Yes, I saw him last night, too, when he brought her home. The police are looking for him to question him, and they don’t seem to have had much luck. Is she seeing him willingly?”
“She was, but now I think she’s just afraid of him.”
“Do you think she knows where he is, or how to get in touch with him?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to ask her.”
“Do you think she’d tell you?”
“She’s really afraid of Brown.”
“What if we guarantee her protection?”
“Who’s we?”
“I was thinking about the police.”
“Fallon won’t talk to the police, Jack. She’s been busted a few times and she doesn’t like cops.”
“Busted for what?”
“Possession—small stuff,” she was quick to add, “but enough to get her arrested. She also got arrested a couple of times for . . . hooking, but she hasn’t done that in a long time.”
“Is that how you got involved in the movie business, Ginger? Brown recruited Fallon, and Fallon recruited you?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, we’re friends. There was a few bucks in it and she didn’t really want to do it without me.”
It occurred to me all of a sudden what the letters in the book probably referred to, and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before. I decided not to bring the book up again, though. Not just then.
“Maybe we should go and talk to Fallon, Ginger. Just the two of us with no cops. Maybe you can get her to talk to me.”
“She’s really afraid of Brown,” she said again.
“How afraid of Brown are you?”
She shrugged and said, “I’m here, ain’t I? I guess we can give it a try.”
When Ginger went to the phone to call home and see if Fallon was there yet, Billy came over to the table.
“I know,” I said before he could speak, “you’re kicking us out, right?”
“The way that girl eats? I was just going to ask you to bring her here every night.”
“If I did that I’d starve.”
Ginger came back to the table and I introduced her to Billy. She complimented him on the food and he asked, “Would you like a drink on the house before you go?”
“Why yes, I would. Thank you.”
She ordered a screwdriver and when Billy went to get it she said, “He’s very nice.”
“Yes, he is.”
“What about Fallon?”
“She’s not home yet. The fellas probably wanted to go for something to eat.”
“Listen, Ginger, were Greg Foster and the others ever—”
“Involved with Alan Cross?”
“Right.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, “in fact, they didn’t like him very much.”
“Did they know—”
“They didn’t know what he was doing, and they didn’t know what . . . we were doing. They just figured that we were both interested in the same guy—”
“So then neither one of you is involved with any of the three of them?”
“Well . . . Fallon says she slept with Greg once, but it just never worked out. I think he still has a thing for her, but that’s just my opinion. She says I’m crazy.”
Billy brought Ginger her screwdriver and we stayed just long enough for her to finish it.
“Let’s go back to your apartment anyway,” I suggested, “we can be there when she gets back.”
“What if the guys come up with her?” she asked, standing up.
“I don’t think they’ll be surprised to see me there, do you?”
Fallon still had not come home by the time we arrived and Ginger started to look worried.
“What could happen?” I asked. “She’s with three brown belts in karate, and is a brown belt
herself. Besides, why should something happen?”
“I don’t know, it’s just that two people I knew have been killed already, and my mother always said that things like that happen in threes.”
“Do you have any coffee?” I asked, just to change the subject. Mothers will never know how the things they say stay with their children.
“I’ll make a pot. Is decaffeinated all right?”
“Fine.”
Ginger made the coffee, gave me a cup, and continued to putter around the small kitchenette looking for things to do that would keep her from looking at the clock.
She was putting a pot away when a key sounded in the lock and the door opened. Ginger turned violently, dropping the pot with a loud bang, and shouted at Fallon.
“Where have you been?”
“What—” Fallon started, and then stopped short when she saw me.
“We’ve been worried sick!”
Fallon looked at me and I said, “She’s been worried sick. I’ve gone a few rounds with you, remember?”
“What kind of an act did you two think you were putting on?” she demanded, planting her hands on her hips.
“I thought it went over quite well,” I said, looking at Ginger. “Didn’t you, dear?”
“Oh, shut up!” Fallon said, slamming the door. “Is that coffee I smell?”
“Yes,” Ginger said. “Do you want a cup?”
“Is it that decaffeinated shit?”
“Yes.”
“Oh well, I’ll have a cup anyway . . . after he leaves.”
“I’m not planning on leaving just yet,” I said, holding up my cup of coffee. “I haven’t finished my cup, for one.”
“And for two?”
I stood up and said, “For two, we have to talk.”
“We’ve talked . . . and more.”
“Well, this time I think we’ll just talk, thank you,” I said, and she frowned.
“What are you two babbling about?” Ginger asked, handing Fallon a cup of coffee.
“The last time we talked Fallon turned it into a sparring session,” I said. Anything more than that she could hear about from Fallon—if indeed they hadn’t already discussed it. Judging from what Ginger had told me about her, Fallon wasn’t the type who balked at kissing and telling.
“What is it you want?” Fallon demanded.
“I told you, I want to talk.”
“About what?”
“He wants to talk about Brown, Fal,” Ginger said, “and I think you should talk to him.”
“That’s nonsense—”
“Stop being afraid of him.”
“And that’s more nonsense,” Fallon said, putting her cup down on a coffee table with a bang, spilling a small portion of it.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she said then, “and I’d appreciate it if you’d be gone when I came out.”
She stalked into the next room. Ginger cleaned up the spill and then said, “I’ll talk to her. Don’t leave.”
“I’m not.”
Ginger went after her roommate and I could hear the sounds of their discussion even over the sound of the shower. Abruptly, when the water was turned off, the talking stopped, and Ginger came back into the room.
“I think she’ll talk,” she said, and went into the kitchenette.
A few moments later Fallon came out wearing a terrycloth robe belted at the waist, and using a towel to dry her hair.
“Ginger thinks I should talk to you,” she said, sitting on the other end of the couch. “She says you think that Brown killed Cross and Melanie.”
“I said it was a possibility.”
“What do the police think?”
“The police are treating it as two separate cases. With Cross they think they’ve got their man. With Melanie’s case, they’re groping, but they are looking for Brown.”
“To arrest him?”
“To question him.”
“Then they haven’t found a connection between the two murders?”
“Not that I know of, but then they aren’t in the habit of confiding in private detectives.”
She stopped rubbing her hair with the towel and held it in her lap.
“Can you see Brown as a killer, Fallon?” I asked.
“He’s mean enough,” she said without hesitation, “and strong enough.”
“Why did he go after me that night, when you called me at Bogie’s?”
“Why does he go after anyone? He gets mad.”
“What did I do to get him mad?”
“You smiled at me and Ginger, or we smiled at you. It could have been either, take your pick.”
“Does he think he owns you?”
“He doesn’t own me,” Ginger said. “I wouldn’t let him touch me.”
Fallon grinned a bit and said, “Ginger doesn’t approve of some of my friends.”
“Really? What about Melanie?”
“What about her?” Fallon asked with a frown.
“What kind of men friends did she have?”
“How would I know?”
“Did Brown go after her?”
“I wouldn’t know that, either.”
I decided to let that drop. A woman will talk about a lot of things before she’ll talk about her own jealousies.
“Fallon, I want to talk to Brown. Do you know where he is?”
“No,” she said immediately. “Ever since the police talked to him he hasn’t gone back to his apartment.”
“And you don’t know where he’s staying?”
“No.”
“Excuse me for asking, but where have you two been . . .”
“In hotels, but we haven’t . . . seen each other all that much lately.”
“Do you want to see him?”
“No.”
“If you did would you know how to get in touch with him?”
“No,” she said, but this time it was preceded by a small moment of hesitation.
“Fallon,” Ginger said.
“All right,” she said. “He gave me a number, but it’s an answering service.”
“An answering service?” What would he be doing with an answering service? Would he go to that expense just so Fallon could call him when she wanted to?
“Fallon, has Brown taken over Cross’s business?”
Fallon threw Ginger a look, and the chunky girl shrugged.
“Who’s he been dealing with? Who was Cross in business with?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know anything about that end of the business.”
I looked at Ginger and she said, “Neither do I.”
“Ginger knows less about it than I do,” Fallon said. “I’m sorry I ever got you into it, Gin.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ginger said. She walked over to where Fallon was sitting and rested her hip against the arm of the couch, putting her arm around her friend’s shoulder. When Fallon leaned her head against Ginger’s breast a new thought leapt into my head, and I wondered about their relationship. I also thought again about the letters in Cross’s book. More and more I had the feeling that I had that part of the mystery figured out.
“Fallon, if Brown calls you, will you call me? Or if you should think of anything?”
Ginger patted her friend’s shoulder and Fallon said, “Yes, all right. I’ll call you.”
I stood up and started for the door, and after I had gone through I wished there were some way I could look back into the room without them knowing.
I felt like a man in a trenchcoat looking for a dirty movie.
Thirty-One
I was at Hocus’s office early the next morning, coffee in hand, including Sanka for his partner, Wright, who had an ulcer.
“When are you going to have that fixed?” I asked Wright while handing him the coffee.
Abruptly he dropped his hand away from his belly, which he had been unconsciously massaging, and said, “Have what fixed?”
“Never mind. When is your erstwhile partner going to get here?”
&
nbsp; “Now,” he said, looking past me.
“Making your own hours?” I asked Hocus as he grabbed the coffee from me on the way to his desk.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said. “It’s an experiment in the department. What do you want?”
“I want to talk—check that. I want to have a dialogue about both the Cross and Saberhagen cases.”
“Did you hear that?” Hocus called to his partner. “The shamus wants to have a dialogue.”
“I heard,” Wright said, frowning and rubbing his stomach.
“I hope you have something to offer—” Hocus said, “besides coffee, I mean.”
“I do.”
“What?”
“Information.”
“About whom?”
“Cross, Melanie Saberhagen, Brown—take your pick.”
Hocus tore the top off his coffee container and said, “So start at the top and work your way down.”
“I want a guarantee first.”
“Of what?”
“If I say anything in the next ten minutes that makes one bit of sense to you, I’d like you to go to bat for Wood with Vadala.”
“That’s your deal?”
“That’s it.”
“Sounds like I can’t lose.”
“Then I have your guarantee?”
He peered at me over the rim of the container and said, “What’s the catch?”
“For Christ’s sake—”
“Okay, okay, you have my guarantee. Shoot.”
“Did you know that Cross was financing, casting, and probably putting together blue movies?”
“What?”
“And that he was a student at the institute and as such knew Melanie Saberhagen?”
“What?”
“And that he knew Brown and was in business with Brown, who recruited talent for his movies?”
“What? What?” Hocus said, sitting straight up in his chair. For a moment I thought he was putting me on, but then I realized that I had just given him three bits of information that really were new.
“Hocus, this establishes a connection between the Cross case and the Saberhagen case, and casts some doubt as to the guilt of Knock Wood Lee!”
“Whoa, son,” Hocus said, holding up his hand like a traffic cop. “Don’t get carried away.”
“What do you mean?”
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