“Sure,” I said.
“How're you going to get her tonight?”
I told him we were taking the chief of police to the Vineyard in the evening. “We'll crack the place wide open.”
“Why haven't you done it before?”
“It's a long story.”
“I've got lots of time.”
“All right,” I said. I told him some of the story, mostly about Oke Johnson, McGee and Banta, but I didn't mention the Princess or the Ceremony of the Bride.
“Then McGee is the man who killed Johnson.”
“No,” I said.
“Then who?”
“If I'm right it'll be a goddam surprise to a lot of people.”
“You'd better tell me,” Grayson said.
“Later.”
His face got red, but he took it. He was plenty worried about the girl. I wondered how he'd gotten such a red face from drinking milk.
“The chief'll pick you up here at eleven-thirty, Mr. Gray-soh,” I said.
His eyes were flat and hard. “You'd better come through.
I got up. “I always come through.”
I left him to pay for the drinks. It never does to buy anything for a client.
I went upstairs and called the chief. “I was just going to call you,” he said.
“What for?”
“Pug wants to see you.”
I told him I'd be right over. I finished the rye and then I went down to the station. The chief was in his office.
“Listen,” I said. “Before I see Pug I want to tell you about a job we got to do tonight.”
I told him to get a dozen or so men around eleven-thirty and pick up Grayson and go to the Vineyard. There he was to surround the temple and wait for me to tell him what to do.
The chief's face was worried. “I don't know as I ought to fool around the Vineyard. Not without a warrant.”
“You'd better,” I said; “unless you want me to ask the Governor for some state troopers.”
He said, don't get sore. He said, hadn't we played ball before? I said: “Then you'll have Grayson and the men there around midnight?” He said he would.
“Okay,” I said. “Now where's Pug Banta?”
The jail smelled of unwashed toilets, and it was damp, like a cellar. A bulb burned in the corridor between the cells, making deep shadows. A cockroach as big as a half-dollar ran on the cement in front of us. I kicked at him and missed.
The chief said in an aggrieved voice: “I don't know why in hell he wants to see you.”
The turnkey clanged the metal gate behind us. I said: “Why didn't you bump him off?”
The chief swore so much I could hardly understand him. I gathered his men had double-crossed him. Instead of shooting Pug, they had grabbed him. I wanted to ask him why he hadn't been there, but I didn't. I knew the answer. “Well, he'll fry,” I said.
“I don't know,” the chief said mournfully. “I wish he was in some other jail.”
We came to a steel door, our shoes making a hollow sound on the cement. A couple of guys in a cell begged for cigarettes. In another cell a woman was weeping. “A drunk,” the chief said. The turnkey opened the door and we went into a room with two cells. One of the cells was empty and Pug Banta was in the other. “If it ain't my fat pal,” he said.
They hadn't touched him. I guess he was too important for them to beat up, even with a murder rap hanging over him. I knew the chief would have liked to, because of Carmel. If anybody needed a beating, Pug did.
Pug said: “You guys scram. I want to talk to fatso, my pal.”
Chief Piper glanced at me. “Go ahead,” I said. “I'll tell you if he says anything you ought to know.”
The chief went out with the turnkey. They locked the steel door behind them.
“So you double-crossed me?” I said: “What else did you expect?”
Pug stood with his hands over his head, holding to the bar. He looked like pictures of a gorilla. There was that same over-development of arms and shoulders and chest. All he needed was more hair.
“I got a couple of things to tell you,” he said. “Co ahead.”
“One of 'em is I'm going to get you when I'm sprung.” His voice was so deep in his throat I had to move
