“All right,” I said to Esther Clarde, “you win. Where do we go?”
“I’ll sneak out to the cloakroom first,” she said. “I’ll be waiting. Don’t try any funny stuff. In case you’re interested, there isn’t any back way out.”
“Why should I want to get away from a good-looking girl like you?”
She laughed, and then after a moment said softly, “Well, why should you?”
I stuck around long enough to put a few bets on the roulette table. I couldn’t lay off the double O. I never even got a smell. Parker was all wrapped up with the brunette. Once he gave a guilty start and started looking around. I heard the brunette say something about the restroom, then slip a bare arm around his shoulder and whisper in his ear. He laughed.
I went out to the cloakroom. Esther Clarde was waiting for me. “Got a car?” she asked. “Or do we ride in taxis?”
“Taxis,” I said.
“All right, let’s go.”
“Any particular place?”
“I think I’ll go to your apartment.”
“I’d rather go to yours.”
She looked at me for a minute, then shrugged her shoulders and said, “Why not?”
“Your friend, Mr. Parker, won’t show up, will he?”
“My friend, Mr. Parker,” she said grimly, “is taken care of for the evening, thank you.”
She gave the address of her apartment to the cab driver. It took about ten minutes to get there. It was her apartment, all right. Her name was on the bell marker, and she used her key and went up. Well, after all, as she’d said, why not? I knew where she worked. I could have found out all about her. The newspapers had carried her picture and an interview with her describing the man who had asked her the questions about Ringold. She had nothing to fear from me.
On the other hand, I was in it, right up to my necktie. It wasn’t a bad apartment. One look told me she didn’t keep it from the profits she made out of running the cigar stand at a second-rate hotel.
She slipped off her coat, told me to sit down, brought out cigarettes, asked me if I wanted some Scotch, and sat down on the sofa beside me. We lit cigarettes, and she sidled over to lean against me. I could see the gleam of light on her neck and shoulders, the seductive look in her blue eyes; and the hair that was like raveled hemp brushed against my cheek. “You and I,” she said, “are going to be good friends.”
“Yes?”
“Yes,” she said, “because the girl who went up to see Jed Ringold—the one you were following—was Alta Ashbury.”
And then she snuggled up against me affectionately.
“Who,” I asked, with a perfectly blank face, “is Alta Ashbury?”
“The woman you were following.”
I shook my head, and said, “My business was with Ringold.”
She twisted around so that she could keep looking at my face. Then she said slowly, “Well, it doesn’t make any difference in one way. It’s information that I can’t use myself—directly. I’d rather work with you than with anyone else I know,” and then added with a little laugh, “because I can keep you straight.”
“That isn’t telling me who Alta Ashbury is. Was she his woman?”
I could see the blonde thinking things over, trying to decide how much to tell me.
“Was she?” I insisted.
She tried a counteroffensive. “What did you want with Ringold?”
“I wanted to see him on a business matter.”
“What?”
“Somebody had told me that he could tell me how to beat the Blue Sky Act. I’m a promoter. I had something I wanted to promote.”
“So you went in to see him?”
“Not me. I got the adjoining room.”
“And bored a hole in the door?”
“Yes.”
“And looked and listened?”
“Yes.”
“What did you see?”
I shook my head.
She got mad then. “Listen,” she said, “you’re either the damnedest fool I’ve ever seen, or the coolest. How did you know I couldn’t call the cops when you didn’t slip me that two hundred under the table?”
“I didn’t.”
“You’d better get along with me. Do you know what’d happen if I took down that telephone receiver and called the cops? For God’s sake, be your age and snap out of it.” I tried to blow a smoke ring.
She got to her feet and started toward the telephone. Her lips were clamped tightly, and her eyes were full of fire.
“Go ahead and call them,” I said. “I was getting ready to call them myself.”
“Yes, you were.”
I said, “Of course, I was. Don’t you get the sketch?”
“What do you mean?”
“I was sitting in that adjoining room with my eye glued to the hole in the door,” I said. “The murderer had picked the lock about half an hour before I went in. He’d pried the molding loose, fixed the lock, gone back into the room, put the molding back into place, waited for a propitious moment, then unlocked the door, stepped into the little alcove, and went into the bathroom.”
“That’s what you say.”
“You forget one thing, sister.”
“What’s that?”
“I saw the murderer. I’m the only one who did. I know who it was—Ringold had a talk with the girl. He gave her some papers. She gave him a check. He put it in his right-hand coat pocket. After she went out, he started for the bathroom. I didn’t know this other person was in the bathroom, but I’d found the communicating door was unlocked on my side, and I’d locked it when I bored the hole. The murderer knew Ringold was going to come to the bathroom, and tried to slip back into four-twenty-one. The door was locked. I was in there. The person on the other side of the door was trapped.”
“What did you do?” she asked, barely breathing.
“I was a damned fool,” I said. “I should have taken up the telephone, called the lobby, and told them to block the exit, and telephone for the cops. I was rattled. I didn’t think of it. I twisted the bolt on the communicating door jerked it open. I followed the murderer out as far as the corridor. I stood in the doorway and looked up and down the corridor. Then I went over to the elevator and got off at the second floor. When the squawk started, I went out.”
“A sweet story,” she said, and then after a moment’s thought added, “By God, it is a sweet story—But you’ll never make the cops believe it.”
I smiled patronizingly at her. “You forget,” I said, “that I saw the murderer.”
Her reaction was as fast as though someone had shot an electric current into the seat of the chair. “Who was it?” she asked.
I laughed at her and blew another smoke ring. Or tried to.
She crossed the room and sat down. She crossed her knees, held the left knee in interlaced fingers. The thing didn’t make sense to her, and she didn’t know what to do about it. She’d look at me, then down at the toe of her shoe. The skirt of her evening gown got in her way. She started to pull it up, then got up, walked into the bedroom, and took it off. She didn’t close the bedroom door. After a minute or two she came out wearing a black velveteen housecoat. She came over again and sat down beside me. “Well,” she said. “I don’t know as it changes the situation a hell of a lot. I need someone to handle the Ashbury angle. You look like a good guy. I don’t know what there is about you that makes me trust you—sight unseen, so to speak. Who are you, anyway? What’s your name?”
I shook my head.
“Listen, you, you’re not going to get out of here until you give me your name, and I mean your name. I’m going to see your driving license, your identification cards, take your fingerprints—or I’m going over to your apartment, find out where you live, and all about you. So get that straight.”
I pointed to the door. “When I get damn good and ready, I’m going to walk right out of that door.”
“I’ll rat on you.”
“And where will that leave you with your swell shake
down with Alta Ashurst?”
“Ashbury,” she said.
“All right, have it your own way.”
She said, “What’s your real moniker?”
“John Smith.”
“You’re a liar.”
I laughed.
She tried a little wheedling. “All right, John.” She twisted around, drew up her knees, and slid over across my lap so she was lying on one elbow, looking alluringly up into my face.
“Listen, John, you’ve got sense. You and I could team up and make something out of this.”
I didn’t look at her eyes. The color of her hair kept fascinating me.
“Are you in or not?”
“If it’s blackmail, I’m out. That’s out of my line.”
“Phooey,” she said. “I’m going to let you in on the ground floor. Then you and I are going to make some dough.”
“Just what have you got on Alta Ashbury?”
When she opened her mouth, I suddenly put my hand over it. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
She stared at me. “What’s eating you?”
“I’m on the other side of the fence,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Listen, sweetheart, I can’t do it. I’m not that much of a heel. You’re not kidding me a damn bit. You were in on the whole play. Jed Ringold got those checks from Aka Ashbury. He turned them over to you to take up here to the Atlee Amusement Corporation. You gave the boys here a slice, had a little stick to your fingers, turned the rest of it back to Ringold, and Ringold passed it on to the higher ups—or the lower downs whichever you want to call them.
“Now, I’m going to tell you something. You’re done, finished, all washed up. Make a move against Alta Ashbury, and you’ll be on the inside looking out.”
She straightened up and sat looking at me. “Well, of all the damn nuts,” she said.
“All right, sister, I’ve told you.”
“You sure as hell have—you big boob.”
I said, “I’ll have another one of your cigarettes if you don’t mind.”
She gave me the cigarette case and said, “Well, strike me down. If that ain’t something-I guess I’m going nuts. I see you go into a hotel, the cops start looking for you, I run into you, I ditch a date, bring you up here, and spill my guts to you without finding out who the hell you are or anything about it. I suppose you’re a private dick working for Alta Ashbury— No, you’d be more apt to be hired by the old man.”
I lit the cigarette.
“But what’s the idea of being such a dope? Why didn’t you let me go ahead turning myself inside out, pretend you were going to work with me, pump me for information, and then throw the hooks into me?”
I looked at her and said, “Kid, I’ll be damned if I know,” and it was the truth.
She said, “You could still be the one who bumped Jed Ringold.”
“I could be.”
“I could put you in a spot on that.”
“Think so?”
“I know so.”
I said, “There’s the telephone.”
Her eyes narrowed. She said, “And then you could drag me into it, show perhaps that my motives weren’t so pure, and— Oh, hell, what’s the use?”
“What do we do next?” I asked.
“We have a damn good stiff drink. When I think of what you could have done to me and didn’t— Dammit, I just can’t figure you. You aren’t dumb. You’re smarter than greased chain lightning. You figured the play and called the signals, and then when I was rushing into the trap, you turned me back. Well, we live and learn. What do you want in your Scotch? Soda or water?”
“Got any Scotch?” I asked.
“Some.”
I said, “I’ve got an expense account.”
“Well now, ain’t that something!”
“Got a dealer who can deliver this hour of the night?”
“I’ll say I have.”
“All right,” I said, “call him. Tell him to send up half a case of Scotch.”
“Listen, you aren’t kidding me?”
I shook my head, opened my wallet, pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, and casually tossed it over to the table. “That’s what my boss would call squandering money.”
She ordered the Scotch, hung up the phone, and said, “May as well drink up mine while we’re waiting for that to come.”
She poured out stiff drinks. There was soda in the icebox.
She said, “Don’t let me get drunk, John.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll get on a crying jag. It’s been a long time since anyone gave me a fair break. What makes me sore is that you didn’t give it to me because I’m me, but because you’re you. You’re just made goofy. There’s something about you that can’t— Kiss me.”
I kissed her.
“To hell with that stuff,” she said. “Really kiss me.” Fifteen minutes later, the kid came up with the half case of Scotch.
I showed up at Ashbury’s place about two o’clock in the morning. I still couldn’t get that girl’s hair out of my mind. I thought of that strand of the hangman’s rope every time I thought of the way the light glinted along those blond tresses.
Chapter Seven
AT BREAKFAST I asked Mr. Ashbury what he knew about Amalgamated Smelters Mines and Minerals. I said I had a friend—a man by the name of Fischler who had an office in the Commons Building and had inherited a wad of dough. He wanted something to put it in and was the type that liked to gamble. I’d suggested a good mining stock.
Bob spoke up and said, “Why not keep it all in the family?”
I looked at him in surprise. “It’s an idea at that.”
“What’s his address?”
“Six-twenty-two Commons Building.”
“I’ll have a salesman call on him.”
“Do,” I said.
Ashbury asked Bob if he’d heard anything more from the police about what they were doing on the Ringold murder. Bob said the police had checked up on Ringold, had come to the conclusion that it was a gambling kill, and were checking back on Ringold’s associates, hoping to find someone who would answer the description of the man who had been seen leaving Ringold’s room after the murder.
After breakfast Bob got me off to one side and asked me some more about Fischler, wanted to know about how much money he was going to inherit, and about how much I thought he wanted to invest. I told him he was getting two inheritances. He’d already received some small amount, but would get over a hundred thousand before the end of the month. I asked Bob how his company was coming along, and he said, “Fine. Things look better and better every day.”
He dusted out, and Ashbury looked at me over the tops of his glasses as though he were getting ready to say something; then he checked himself, cleared his throat a couple of times, and finally said, “Donald, if you need a few thousand more for expenses, don’t hesitate to ask for it.”
“I won’t,” I said.
Alta showed up in a housecoat and made signals that she wanted to see me. I pretended not to notice and told Ashbury that I’d go out as far as the garage with him.
Once out in the garage I told him I didn’t want to talk, which relieved him a lot, but did want to ride uptown with him.
He kept his eyes on the road and his mouth shut. I could see there were lots of things he wanted to ask—but he couldn’t think of a single question to which he wasn’t afraid to hear the answer. Twice he thought of something he wanted to say, sucked in a quick breath, hesitated with she first word trembling on his lips, exhaled, and settled down to driving the crate.
It wasn’t until we were in the business district that he managed to get a question he thought was safe. He said, “Where can I drop you, Donald?”
“Oh, any place along here.”
He started to say something else, changed his mind, turned to the right, went a couple of blocks out of his way, and pulled up in front of the Commons Building. “How will this do?” h
e asked.
“This,” I said, “will be just swell,” and got out.
Ashbury drove away in a hurry, and I went up to the sixth floor, and took a look at the sign on six-twenty-two. It looked all right. I opened the door and went in. Elsie Brand was hammering away on the typewriter.
I said, “For God’s sake, you’re just a front here. You don’t need to pretend there’s that much business going on.”
She quit typing and looked up at me.
“The people who are coming in,” I said, “think that I’m a chap who inherited money. They don’t think I made it out of the business, so you don’t have to spread it on that thick.”
She said, “Bertha Cool gave me a lot of letters to write, told me I could take them up here, and do the work—”
“On what stationery?” I interrupted, and leaned over her shoulder to take a look at the letter that was in the typewriter.
“On her stationery,” she said. “She told me I could—” I ripped the letter out of the typewriter, handed it to Elsie, and said, “Put it in the drawer. Keep it out of sight. Keep all of that stationery out of sight. When you go out to lunch, take the damn stuff out of the office and keep it out. Tell Bertha Cool I said so.”
Elsie looked up at me with the twinkle of a smile. She said, “I can remember when you first came to work.”
“What about it?”
“I figured you’d last just about forty-eight hours. I thought Bertha Cool would ride you to death. That’s why all of her other detectives walked out on her. And now, you’re the one who’s giving orders.”
“I’m going to make this order stick,” I said.
“I know you are. That’s what makes it so interesting. You don’t stand up and argue with Bertha. You don’t knuckle under to her. You just go ahead in your own sweet way, and the first thing anyone knows Bertha is muttering and grumbling, but tagging along after you and doing just what you tell her to.”
“Bertha’s all right when you get to understand her.”
“You mean when she gets to understand you. Trying to get friendly with her is like playing tag with a steam roller—the first thing you know, you’re flattened out.”
“Are you,” I asked, “all flattened out?”
She looked at me and said, “Yes.”
Gold Comes in Bricks Page 9
