Two-I did the deed on my own, for revenge.'
Franks broke up the geometric pattern with his desk set by placing a pen perpendicular to a pencil.
'Is that a fact,' he said solemnly. 'I didn't know that.'
I grinned at him. 'Don't let it give you ideas. I ain't about to become the patsy for this smear.'
He gave me an owlish look. 'I can assure you, Thaxton-'
The inner door opened without a preliminary knock. May stood framed in the doorway for a moment, very dramatic looking in a silver skintight outfit. Like a redheaded shark, if you can imagine such a predatory creature.
'All right, May,' I said. 'Close the door and finish your entrance. You're on stage now.'
She didn't get mad, which was out of character for her. She closed the door and approached me with a little girlish look of appeal.
'Darling,' she said. 'I need your help.'
It was time to duck. I could hear the beautiful diamondback shaking its rattles. I took another try at making her mad.
'What is it? Another corpse you want moved?'
'Darling,' May said, 'that's really very funny. That's the one thing I always liked about you-your wonderful sense of humor.'
'Sit down, will you, May?' I said. 'You make me feel like a rabbit in a cornfield with a hawk hovering overhead.'
She was too nervous to sit down. She started to pace Franks' office. We both watched her. It was a beautiful thing to see. She had the body for it and the body had the rhythm. But I had seen it all before. I let Franks watch by himself. I took out a cigarette and rolled it between my fingers. Franks remembered his social manners and struck his desk lighter for me.
'Darling,' May said, 'you've heard what they're trying to do to me around here.' Her inflection said it wasn't a question.
'You mean murderwise?'
She came to roost by the arm of my chair and said 'Um' She took the cigarette out of my hand the same way she always used to do and started to take a drag. Then she hesitated and glanced at it and at me, as if wondering if I had something I should see a doctor about. I took my smoke back.
'Everybody thinks I murdered Rob,' she said. 'It's all over the lot. Every last mother's bastard out there-' she made a broad arm gesture encompassing Neverland- 'who takes my money is saying it!'
'Now, May,' Franks said soothingly. 'Not everyone.'
'Be quiet, Lloyd,' May snapped. She looked at me. 'Well, you can't deny it, can you, Thax?'
'Uh-uh. But you can't blame 'em either, May. You're a natural for it. Look at the motive. Money money money.'
She started pacing again, saying, 'But dammit, I didn't do it! Why should I? Rob gave me everything.'
'Uh-huh, but maybe you wanted everything except a sixty-year-old Irish husband. Maybe you wanted to marry some husky young buck who didn't have a dime and Cochrane said no divorce. Hell, I don't know.'
May came back to my chair with little red glints in her eyes.
'So that's what they're saying about me now, hm? The dirty-'
'May,' Franks said. 'Now, May.'
She whirled on him. 'Will you for godsake shut up, Lloyd! Will you just do that kind little thing for me, sweetie? I'm trying to talk to Thax.'
Franks' flaming expression seemed to say it wasn't fair of May to talk to him that way in front of an outsider. After all he was her business manager, wasn't he? He was just trying to be helpful and now May went and threw that kind of crap in his face.
'All I'm trying to say, May, is that it won't help us progress by losing our temper. We must remain rational and-'
'Rational!' May cried. 'My God, look what they're doing to me! Can't you understand? I'm being framed for murder! My knife, my earring, my husband. My God, I'm as good as convicted!'
I stood up and mashed out my cigarette on a desk tray.
'Well,' I said, 'this has been pleasant, but I'm supposed to be out on the lot earning the salary you good people pay me.'
May dropped her anger and switched back to feminine appeal.
'Darling-I really do need your help.'
'Mine?'
'Um. If I ever meant anything at all to you, sweetness, I only want you to do one little thing for me.'
I could have told her what she had meant to me but I decided I'd better not. I looked at her askance.
'What is the one little thing?'
'I want you to help me by not telling the law all about our private life. I mean back when we were married. I'm in deep enough, darling, without having all the gory details of the past thrown at me too.'
'Ferris already knows we were once married, May.'
She shook her head impatiently. 'I don't mean that. I mean, for example, that little incident in Decatur.'
That little incident in Decatur had damn near cost me my life. That was the night I caught Bill Duff and May making like Ferris' crossed fingers in Duff's trailer. The night Duff lost his eye-tooth. May and I had pitched a beauty when we got back to our own trailer, and then May had pitched a knife at me and thank God I had decided to sit down on the bed just as she did or I would have had a new hole where I didn't need one.
It was pretty plain that a story like that wouldn't do her present situation much good. I grinned at her.
'You mean you want me to withhold evidence?'
'No, no,' Franks said hurriedly. 'What you mistakenly call evidence isn't germane to Mr. Cochrane's death. It isn't relevant in any sense, except perhaps-'
'Except that it will give the DA a dandy chance to establish May's behavior pattern of throwing knives at her husbands,' I said.
Franks looked slightly annoyed. 'All Mrs. Cochrane is asking of you, Thaxton, is not to volunteer an old story like that if you don't have to. You see?'
'Uh-huh. Just a slight omission on my part.'
'Exactly. And-' he took time out to clear his throat- 'Mrs. Cochrane would of course be very appreciative. I- uh, understand you arrived here somewhat strapped for money?'
I cocked my head at him.
'You're offering me a shot at blackmail, Mr. Franks?'
'No,' he said. 'No no no. Please do not use that term, Thaxton. I had in mind a bonus. After all, you do work for Mrs. Cochrane, and-'
'Oh for godsake, Lloyd.' May looked disgusted. 'Thax wasn't born yesterday. He called it by its right name the first time.' She looked at me. 'Will you take it and keep your mouth shut?'
I was almost at the point of asking how much It was, exactly. But I backed off like an honorable little man.
'This may come as a jolt to you, sweetie,' I said to her. 'But the only money I'm going to take from you is what I earn on the lot. But don't sweat it. I won't tell Ferris you once tried to use me as a bull's-eye.' I winked at Franks. 'See you two very nice people later.'
May followed me to the door. When I got it open she leaned her lithe body against the edge and placed a silvertipped hand over one of mine. She looked up at me with her best, practiced, feline, look.
'Like Lloyd said, darling, I am very appreciative.' Her voice was pure cat's purr.
I glanced at her claws and drew my hand out and gave her a pat on the behind.
'Better save it for the jury sweetness,' I said. 'You just might need it.'
I went down the stairs with May's parting comment in my ear.
'Bastard.'
