because you knew Bill did, and why. Then of course they'll refigure the murder and get a new answer--that Ferrone found out that Bill had doped the drinks, and Bill killed him. They'll start on Bill all over again, and if they--' 'Stop it!' She was hoarse. 'For God's sake!' 'I was only saying, if they--' The redhead put in, leaning to the steer243 ing wheel and sticking out her chin. 'How dumb can you get?' she demanded. 'It's not a ques--' 'Phooey! You say you know girls! Do you ktiow baseball girls? I'm one! I'm Helen Goidell^ Walt's wife. I would have liked to slap Lila this afternoon, sitting there gloating, niuch as I love her, but I'm not a sap like you! She's not married to the Giants, she's inarried to Bill! Lew Baker had batted two-thirty-two in the first six games of the series, and he had made two errors and had three bases stolen on him, and still they wouldn't give Bill a chance! Lila had sat through those six games praying to see Bill walk out, and not once! What did she care about the series or the difference between winner's and loser's take? She wanted to see Bill in it! And look at Baker this afternoon! If he had been doped, all right, but Lila didn't know it then! What you know about girls, you nitwit!' She was blazing. I did not blaze back. '1'Hi still willing to learn,' I said, not belligerently- 'Is she right, Mrs. Moyse?'
'Yes. ))
'Then I am too, on the main point? You were pleased to see the Giants losing?' 'I said she was right.' 244 'Yeah. Then I've still got a problem. If I accept your version and go and report to Wolfe accordingly, he'll accept it too. Whether you think I know girls or not, he does. So that's some responsibility for me. What if you're a lot smoother and trickier than I think you are? Your husband is suspected of murder, and they're still working on him. What if he's guilty and they could squeeze out of you what they need to hook him? Of course eventually they'll get to you and either squeeze it out or not, but how will I look if they do? That's my problem. Have you any suggestions?' Lila had none. She wasn't looking at me. She sat with her head lowered, apparently gazing at her hands, which were clasped together. 'You sound almost human,' Helen Goidell said. 'That's deceptive,' I told her. 'I turn it on and off. If I thought she had something Mr. Wolfe could use I'd stop at nothing, even hair-pulling. But at the moment I really don't think she has. I think she's pure and innocent and wholesome. Her husband is another matter. For her sake, I hope he wiggles out of it somehow, but I'm not taking any bets. The cops seem to like him, 245 and I know cops as well as I do girls.' I removed my foot from the car frame. 'So long, and so forth.' I turned to go. 'Wait a minute.' It was Lila, I turned back. Her head was up. 'Is this straight?' she asked. 'Is what straight?' 'You're going to tell Mr. Wolfe you're satisfied about me?' 'Well. Satisfied is quite a word. I'm going to tell him I have bought your explanation of your happiness at the game--or rather, Mrs. Goidell's.' 'You could be a liar.' 'Not only could be, I often am, but not at the moment.' She regarded me. 'Shake hands with me.' I raised a paw. Her hand was cold, but her grip was firm, and in four seconds our temperatures had equalized. She let go. 'Maybe you can tell me about Bill,' she said. 'They don't really think he killed Nick Ferrone, do they?' 'They think maybe he did.' 'I know he didn't.' 'Good for you. But you weren't there, so you don't have a vote.' She nodded. She was being hard and 246 practical. 'Are they going to arrest him? Will they really charge him with murder?' 'I can't say. They may have decided while we've been talking. They know the wholetown will be rooting for someone to be locked up, and Bill is the leading candidate.' 'Then I've got to do something. I wish I knew what he's telling them. Do you know?' 'Only that he's denying he knows anything about it. He says he left the clubhouse after the others had gone because he went back to the locker room to change to other shoes.' She shook her head. 'I don't mean that. I mean whether he told them--' She stopped. 'No. I know he didn't. He wouldn't. He knows something, and I know it too, about a man trying to fix that game. Only he wouldn't tell, on account of me. I have to go and see someone. Will you come along?' 'To see who?' 'I'll tell you on the way. Will you come?' 'Where to?' 'In the Fifties. Eighth Avenue.' Helen Goidell blurted, 'For God's sake, Lila, do you know what you're saying?' If Lila replied I missed it, for I was on my way around the car. It had taken me no pan of a second to decide. This sounded 247 like something. It was a little headstrong to dash off with a damsel, leaving Wolfe up there with mass-production sandwiches, warm beer, and his one measly little fact he was saving up, but this might be really hot. By the time I got around to the other door Helen had it open and was getting out. Her feet on the ground, she turned to speak. 'I don't want any part of this, Lila. I do not! I wish to God I'd gone with Walt instead of staying with you!' Lila was trying to get a word in, but Helen wasn't interested. She turned and trotted off toward the gate and the street. I climbed in and pulled the door shut. 'She'll tell Walt,' Lila said. I nodded. 'Yeah. But does she know where we're going?' 'No.' 'Then let's go.' She started the engine, levered to reverse, and backed the car. 'To hell with friends,' she said, apparently to herself. 6 Under ordinary circumstances she was probably a pretty good driver, but that night 248 wasn't ordinary for her. As we swung right into 155th Street, there was a little click at my side as we grazed the fender of a stopped car. Rolling up the grade of Coogan's Bluff, we slipped between two taxis, clearing by an inch, and both hackmen yelled at her. Stopping for a light at the crest, she turned her head and spoke. 'It's my Uncle Clan. His name is Gale. He came last night and asked me--' She fed gas and we shot forward, but a car heading uptown and squeezing the light was suddenly there smack in our path. With a lightning reflex her foot hit the brake, the other car zipped by with at least a foot to spare, she fed gas again, and the Curds jerked forward. I asked her, 'Taking the West Side Highway?'
'Yes, it's quicker.' 'It will be if you make it. Just concentrate on that and let the details wait.' She got to the highway without any actual contact with other vehicles, darted across to the left lane, and stepped on it,, The speedometer said fifty-five when she spoke again. 'If I go ahead and tell you, I can't change my mind. He wanted me to persuade Bill to 249 fix the game. He said he'd give us ten thousand dollars. I didn't even want to tell Bill, but he insisted, so I did. I knew what Bill would say--' She broke off to do some expert weaving, swerving to the middle lane, then on to the right, then a sprint, then swinging to the middle again just ahead of a tan convertible, and so back to the left again in front of a couple of cars that had slowed her down to under fifty. 'Look,' I told her, 'you could gain up to two minutes this way with luck, but getting stopped and getting a ticket would take at least ten. You're driving--okay, but don't try to talk too. You're not that good. Hold it till we're parked.' She didn't argue, but she held the pace. I twisted around to keep an eye on the rear through the window, and stayed that way clear to Fifty-seventh Street. We rolled down the cobbled ramp and a block south turned left on Fifty-sixth Street, had a green light at Eleventh Avenue, and went through. A little short of Tenth Avenue we turned in to the curb and stopped. Lila reached for the handbrake and gave it a yank. 'Let's hear it,' I said. 'Enough to go on. Is Uncle Clan a gambler?' 250 'No.' Her face turned to me. 'I'm trembling. Look, my hand's trembling. I'm afraid of him.' 'Then what is he?' 'He runs a drugstore. He owns it. That's where we're going to see him. I know what Helen thinks--she thinks I should have told, but I couldn't. My father and mother died when I was just a kid, and Uncle Clan has been good to me--as good as he could. If it hadn't been for him I'd have been brought up in an orphans' home. Of course Bill wanted to tell Art Kinney last night, but he didn't on account of me, and that's why he's not telling the cops.' 'Maybe he is telling them, or soon will.' She shook her head. 'I know Bill. We decided we wouldn't tell, and that settled it. Uncle Clan made me promise we wouldn't tell before he said what he wanted.' I grunted. 'Even so he was crowding his luck, telling you two about the program before signing you up. If he explained the idea of doping the Beebright, why--' 'But he didn't! He didn't say how it was to be done, he just said there was an easy way of doing it. He didn't tell us what it was; he didn't get that far, because Bill said nothing doing, as I knew he would.' 251 I eyed her. 'You sure of that? He might have told Bill and not you.' 'He couldn't. I was there with them all the time. Certainly I'm sure.' 'This was last night?' 'Yes.' 'What time?' 'Around eight o'clock. We had dinner early with Helen and Walt Goidell, and when we got home Uncle Clan was there waiting for us.' 'Where's home?' 'Our apartment on Seventy-ninth Street. He spoke to me alone first, and then insisted I had to ask Bill.' 'And Bill turned him down flat?' 'Of course he did!' 'Bill didn't see him alone later?' 'Of course not!' 'All right, don't bite. I need to know. Now what?' 'We're going to see him. We're going to tell him that we have to tell the cops, and we're going to try to get him to come along. That's why I wanted you with me, because I'm afraid of him--I mean I'm afraid he'll talk me out of it. But they've got to know that Bill was asked to fix the game and he wouldn't. If it's hard on Uncle Clan that's 252 too bad, but I can't help it; I'm for Bill. I'm for Bill all the way.' I was making myself look at her, for discipline. I was having the normal male impulses at the sight and sound of a goodlooking girl in trouble, and they were worse than normal because I was partly responsible. I had given her the impression that the cops were about set to take her Bill on the big one, which was an exaggeration. I hadn't mentioned that one reason they were keeping him was his recent reactions to the interest Nick Ferrone had shown in her, which of course had no bearing on anyone's attempt to fix a ball game. True, she had been in a mess before I had got to her, but I had shoved her in deeper. What she needed now was understanding and sympathy and comforting, and since her friend Helen had deserted her I was all she had. Which was I, a man or a detective? Looking at her, I spoke.
