“Okay, Jack.”
I went back along the black driveway. He stood there scratching his chin.
6
I drove along the block looking for a place to park so that I could run up to the office for a moment before going on downtown.
A chauffeur-driven Packard edged out from the curb in front of a cigar store about thirty feet from the entrance to my building. I slid into the space, locked the car and stepped out. It was only then that I noticed the car in front of which I had parked was a familiar-looking sand-colored coupe. It didn’t have to be the same one. There were thousands of them. Nobody was in it. Nobody was near it that wore a cocoa straw hat with a brown and yellow band.
I went around to the street side and looked at the steering post. No license holder. I wrote the license plate number down on the back of an envelope, just in case, and went on into my building. He wasn’t in the lobby, or in the corridor upstairs.
I went into the office, looked on the floor for mail, didn’t find any, bought myself a short drink out of the office bottle and left. I didn’t have any time to spare to get downtown before three o’clock.
The sand-colored coupe was still parked, still empty. I got into mine and started up and moved out into the traffic stream.
I was below Sunset on Vine before he picked me up. I kept on going, grinning, and wondering where he had hid. Perhaps in the car parked behind his own. I hadn’t thought of that.
I drove south to Third and all the way downtown on Third. The sand-colored coupe kept half a block behind me all the way. I moved over to Seventh and Grand, parked near Seventh and Olive, stopped to buy cigarettes I didn’t need, and then walked east along Seventh without looking behind me. At Spring I went into the Hotel Metropole, strolled over to the big horseshoe cigar counter to light one of my cigarettes and then sat down in one of the old brown leather chairs in the lobby.
A blond man in a brown suit, dark glasses and the now familiar hat came into the lobby and moved unobtrusively among the potted palms and the stucco arches to the cigar counter. He bought a package of cigarettes and broke it open standing there, using the time to lean his back against the counter and give the lobby the benefit of his eagle eye.
He picked up his change and went over and sat down with his back to a pillar. He tipped his hat down over his dark glasses and seemed to go to sleep with an unlighted cigarette between his lips.
I got up and wandered over and dropped into the chair beside him. I looked at him sideways. He didn’t move. Seen at close quarters his face seemed young and pink and plump and the blond beard on his chin was very carelessly shaved. Behind the dark glasses his eyelashes flicked up and down rapidly. A hand on his knee tightened and pulled the cloth into wrinkles. There was a wart on his cheek just below the right eyelid.
I struck a match and held the flame to his cigarette. “Light?”
“Oh—thanks,” he said, very surprised. He drew breath in until the cigarette tip glowed. I shook the match out, tossed it into the sand jar at my elbow and waited. He looked at me sideways several times before he spoke.
“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before? Over on Dresden Avenue in Pasadena. This morning.”
I could see his cheeks get pinker than they had been. He sighed.
“I must be lousy,” he said.
“Boy, you stink,” I agreed.
“Maybe it’s the hat,” he said.
“The hat helps,” I said. “But you don’t really need it.”
“It’s a pretty tough dollar in this town,” he said sadly. “You can’t do it on foot, you ruin yourself with taxi fares if you use taxis, and if you use your own car, it’s always where you can’t get to it fast enough. You have to stay too close.”
“But you don’t have to climb in a guy’s pocket,” I said. “Did you want something with me or are you just practicing?”
“I figured I’d find out if you were smart enough to be worth talking to.”
“I’m very smart,” I said. “It would be a shame not to talk to me.”
He looked carefully around back of his chair and on both sides of where we were sitting and then drew a small, pigskin wallet out. He handed me a nice fresh card from it. It read: George Anson Phillips. Confidential Investigations. 212 Senger Building, 1924 North Wilcox Avenue, Hollywood. A Glenview telephone number. In the upper left hand corner there was an open eye with an eyebrow arched in surprise and very long eyelashes.
“You can’t do that,” I said, pointing to the eye. “That’s the Pinkerton’s. You’ll be stealing their business.”
“Oh hell,” he said, “what little I get wouldn’t bother them.” I snapped the card on my fingernail and bit down hard on my teeth and slipped the card into my pocket.
“You want one of mine—or have you completed your file on me?”
“Oh, I know all about you,” he said. “I was a deputy at Ventura the time you were working on the Gregson case.”
Gregson was a con man from Oklahoma City who was followed all over the United States for two years by one of his victims until he got so jittery that he shot up a service station attendant who mistook him for an acquaintance. It seemed a long time ago to me.
I said: “Go on from there.”
“I remembered your name when I saw it on your registration this a.m. So when I lost you on the way into town I just looked you up. I was going to come in and talk, but it would have been a violation of confidence. This way I kind of can’t help myself.”
