“How much?”
“A couple of grand a month.”
“That sounds good.”
She said: “And when I've got my dough, honey, you can come along with me if you want.”
I poured the last of the decanter into the glasses. “How do you know I haven't got a wife and five brats?”
“I know.”
“Don't give me that mystery stuff.”
“You're a private dick,” she said. “You live at the Bellair Apartment Hotel in St Louis. Apartment 912. Your office is in the Hawthorne Building. You've been in business three years with a man named Johnson. Before that you were a strike-breaker in Detroit, working for a New York firm. Before that you worked for Burns and before that you were in the army. You've got three thousand dollars in the bank and you went to Notre Dame for two and a half years You...”
“My God!” I said. “It's like hearing your own obituary.”
She went for more brandy. I was shaken. It didn't seem possible. Even if they knew about Oke Johnson. They were smart, all right. Too smart. I wondered which one of them had killed Oke.
She came back with the brandy. I poured myself one and put it down. We sat in the divan.
“Did you know Johnson had been killed?” I asked.
“I read it in the paper.”
“Have you got any ideas about it?”
She touched my leg. “Come on, honey. Let's don't talk business.”
Her robe had fallen open a little. “What'll we talk about?”
“Do we have to talk?”
I put an arm around her and tried to kiss her lips. She wouldn't let me. Anywhere else, but not her lips. It was damn queer. I tried again, and we struggled. She began to pant.
“Hit me,” she said. “Hit me!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN I walked to the lane by the Vineyard road, Pug's car was gone. It meant he was getting tough again. But I was too tired to be scared. I caught the two o'clock inter-urban back to town. The motorman stared at me when I gave him my dime, but he didn't say anything. I took a seat in the back of the car and closed my eyes. I thought, Jesus, I'm tired! What a woman! I wasn't good for anything. I wouldn't be any good for days.
“Far as we go, buddy.”
It was the motorman, shaking me awake in the town square. I walked to the Arkady and dragged myself up the front steps. Incense almost strangled me as I walked across the lobby. Nobody was at the reception desk. A paper lay on the counter. There was a long story about the shooting. I read down the first column and found one new thing: Pug Banta had been questioned by the DA, but he had an alibi. It made me laugh. Chief Piper had provided it. He declared Pug had been in jail all night, on a speeding violation. “I arrested him myself,” he was quoted as saying.
That was a good one! I could see the chief arresting Pug. The clerk came to the desk. He was a new one.
“Anything for Craven?” I asked.
“Oh, yes.” He was a fat man with the bread-dough face of a night worker. “Someone in St Louis has been trying to get you.”
I told him to put the call in the phone booth. I lifted the receiver and said “Hello.” The operator said: “Here's your party, St Louis.”
“This is Grayson.”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Grayson.”
“What are you bastards doing down there?”
“We're making progress.”
“Baloney I They told me you and Johnson could deliver, but I've seen no signs of it.”
I took a long breath. He sounded as though he was going to fire us. I said: “We'll have her out in three days.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, that's better.” He was silent for a couple of seconds. “You need more money?”
“We could use some.”
“All right. I'll send a thousand down in the morning.”
He hung up. I came out of the booth. I rode up in the elevator with the fat clerk.
“Still hot,” he said.
