the papers, if you don't believe me. Somebody was afraid of what he was doing in connection with you.”
Feet made a noise on the stairs. The girl's eyes were on me. I stared right back at her. I wanted her to believe. “Do you understand what I've told you?” I asked.
Someone came into the room behind me. The girl said: “Yes, I understand.” I looked around.
It was the woman I'd seen at the station. The woman with the curves. She stopped by the door and stared at me. She had on a Russian-looking costume, too, only hers was scarlet, both the blouse and the skirt. And beside the others I'd seen, it looked like a number out of Hattie Carnegie's window. She was beautiful. She was surprised to see me, but she smiled, as though it was a pleasant surprise.
“I will go now,” Penelope Grayson said.
She glided out of the room. I said “Hello” to the Princess.
She smiled again and said “Hello.”
I went by her to the door, smelling her perfume. It made me think of black lace underwear. I wanted to stay and talk, but I had to get out before my pal behind the sofa began to moan. The Princess had blue eyes and her breasts pressed against the red silk. I smiled at her and walked down the front steps.
It was still and hot outside, and the sun was high in a clear sky. Sprinklers worked over beds of yellow flowers. I walked not too fast to the Chevy, passing several men in white blouses. The men paid no attention to me. I wondered what would happen to me if they got me before I left the grounds. A bunch of religious nuts like those might do anything. I climbed in the sedan and eased her along the gravel road. By the time I reached the street-car tracks outside the big gate, brother, I had sweated plenty, just thinking about being caught.
CHAPTER FIVE
I WENT up to my room at the Arkady and took off my clothes. I lay on the bed in a pair of shorts and poured myself a glass of bourbon. I drank the bourbon slowly, letting it coat my throat. I wondered if I'd been wrong in telling the girl about Oke's death. I didn't think so. I had to shock her; start her thinking. It was a thing the people at the Vineyard didn't want her to do. They were trying their best to stop her from it. I didn't know if they were doing it with drugs, or by hypnotism, or in some other way, but they were doing it. It was the way some of those places worked. Her uncle had said she was emotionally unbalanced. Those were the kind they liked to get hold of, especially when there was a pile of money too.
I decided I'd done the right thing, even though it meant I was going to have to play it the hard way. Now I was out in the open. No sulking around like Oke Johnson. I took another drink and telephoned down for the Negro. I was kind of glad to be playing it the way I was.
It all came back to something I'd figured out once about the detective business. There were two ways to go along: underground or on top. I never found out which was best. Underground you had the element of surprise on your side, but it was harder to move around. On top you went everywhere, taking cracks at everybody, and everybody taking cracks at you. You had to be tough to play it that way. Well, I was tough.
When the Negro came, I told him I wanted him to deliver a message for me.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“To that doll, Ginger.”
The Negro looked scared.
“Ask her if she'll cat with me tonight. I'll be in the bar at seven.”
The Negro got pop-eyed: “Mister,” he began.
I gave him five dollars. He shut up and left. I looked in the phone book. There was a Thomas McGee, lawyer, at 980 Main Street. The number was White 2368. The pixie clerk answered the phone and I gave him the number.
“I know that number,” he giggled. “McGee, the lawyer.”
“Jesus,” I said. “I thought it was the morgue.”
A woman answered the phone. I told her my name was Karl Craven. I said I'd like to see McGee after lunch.
“I'll see if Mr. McGee will be free,” she said. Then, after a pause: “Mr. McGee will see you at one-thirty, Mr. Craven.”
That was an hour away. I took a drink of bourbon and put on my green gabardine and went down to the coffee shop. I had the lunch with pork chops and mashed potatoes. I was about through when a young punk with a thin, pale face sat on the stool next to me. He ordered a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee. He glanced at me, but when I looked at him he turned away. I wondered if he was tailing me. I'd see when I went out.
I finished lunch and gave the girl a tip. The punk leaned towards me.
“A lady wants to see you,” he said.
“Huh?”
He looked frightened. “This afternoon. She s at 569 Green. Carmel Todd.”
“I don't know any Carmel Todd,” I said. He slid off the stool and put a fifty-cent piece on the counter and went out. He didn't look at me. I saw he hadn't eaten his sandwich. What the hell! I thought. I went out to the street, but he was gone. I went back and paid my bill and got a cab and went to McGee's office. It was on the fifth floor of a brick building. A girl sat at a desk in the reception-room. She had moist lips and watery brown eyes. I gave her my name. She simpered at me and went in an inner office.
From the looks of the reception-room I decided McGee wasn't so prosperous. The furniture consisted of three wicker chairs and a wicker table with tattered copies of the Rotarian on it. Near the entrance was the girl's table with a telephone and a typewriter. There was one picture on the brown wall: a sailing ship on a very blue ocean. On the floor was a grass rug. I sat in one of the chairs and looked at a Rotarian for January. After a while the girl came back and said Mr. McGee would see me.
The inner office was dark. Heavy curtains kept out the light. I could just see McGee standing behind his desk.
