I took a couple of deep breaths and looked down at my hands. I straightened out the fingers slowly. Then I stood up. I didn’t say anything.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked timidly, making a little circle on the desk with the point of a finger.
“I ought to slap your face off,” I said. “And quit acting innocent. Or it mightn’t be your face I’d slap.”
Her breath caught with a jerk. “Why, how dare you!”
“You used that line,” I said. “You used it too often. Shut up and get the hell out of here. Do you think I enjoy being scared to death? Oh—there’s this.” I yanked a drawer open, got out her twenty dollars and threw them down in front of her. “Take this money away. Endow a hospital or a research laboratory with it. It makes me nervous having it around.”
Her hand reached automatically for the money. Her eyes behind the cheaters were round and wondering. “Goodness,” she said, assembling her handbag with a nice dignity. “I’m sure I didn’t know you scared that easy. I thought you were tough.”
“That’s just an act,” I growled, moving around the desk. She leaned back in her chair away from me. “I’m only tough with little girls like you that don’t let their fingernails grow too long. I’m all mush inside.” I took hold of her arm and yanked her to her feet. Her head went back. Her lips parted. I was hell with the women that day.
“But you will find Orrin for me, won’t you?” she whispered. “It was all a lie. Everything I’ve told you was a lie. He didn’t call me up. I—I don’t know anything.”
“Perfume,” I said sniffing. “Why, you little darling. You put perfume behind your ears—and all for me!”
She nodded her little chin half an inch. Her eyes were melting. “Take my glasses off,” she whispered, “Philip. I don’t mind if you take a little whiskey once in a while. Really I don’t.”
Our faces were about six inches apart. I was afraid to take her glasses off. I might have socked her on the nose.
“Yes,” I said in a voice that sounded like Orson Welles with his mouth full of crackers. “I’ll find him for you, honey, if he’s still alive. And for free. Not a dime of expense involved. I only ask one thing.”
“What, Philip?” she asked softly and opened her lips a little wider.
“Who was the black sheep in your family?”
She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me. She stared at me stony-faced.
“You said Orrin wasn’t the black sheep in your family. Remember? With a very peculiar emphasis. And when you mentioned your sister Leila, you sort of passed on quickly as if the subject was distasteful.”
“I—I don’t remember saying anything like that,” she said very slowly.
“So I was wondering,” I said. “What name does your sister Leila use in pictures?”
“Pictures?” she sounded vague. “Oh you mean motion pictures? Why I never said she was in pictures. I never said anything about her like that.”
I gave her my big homely lopsided grin. She suddenly flew into a rage.
“Mind your own business about my sister Leila,” she spit at me. “You leave my sister Leila out of your dirty remarks.”
“What dirty remarks?” I asked. “Or should I try to guess?”
“All you think about is liquor and women,” she screamed. “I hate you!” She rushed to the door and yanked it open and went out. She practically ran down the hall.
I went back around my desk and slumped into the chair. A very strange little girl. Very strange indeed. After a while the phone started ringing again, as it would. On the fourth ring I leaned my head on my hand and groped for it, fumbled it to my face.
“Utter McKinley Funeral Parlors,” I said.
A female voice said: “Wha-a-t?” and went off into a shriek of laughter. That one was a riot at the police smoker in 1921. What a wit. Like a hummingbird’s beak. I put the lights out and went home.
16
Eight-forty-five the next morning found me parked a couple of doors from the Bay City Camera Shop, breakfasted and peaceful and reading the local paper through a pair of sunglasses. I had already chewed my way through the Los Angeles paper, which contained no item about ice picks in the Van Nuys or any other hotel. Not even MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN DOWNTOWN HOTEL, with no names or weapons specified. The Bay City News wasn’t too busy to write up a murder. They put it on the first page, right next to the price of meat.
LOCAL MAN FOUND STABBED
IN IDAHO STREET ROOMING HOUSE
An anonymous telephone call late yesterday sent police speeding to an address on Idaho Street opposite the Seamans and Lansing Company’s lumber yard. Entering the unlocked door of his apartment, officers found Lester B. Clausen, 45, manager of the rooming house, dead on the couch. Clausen had been stabbed in the neck with an ice pick which was still in his body. After a preliminary examination, Coroner Frank L. Crowdy announced that Clausen had been drinking heavily and may have been unconscious at the time of his death. No signs of struggle were observed by the police.
Detective Lieutenant Moses Maglashan immediately took charge and questioned tenants of the rooming house on their return from work, but no light has so far been thrown on the circumstances of the crime. Interviewed by this reporter, Coroner Crowdy stated that Clausen’s death might have been suicide but that the position of the wound made this unlikely. Examination of the rooming house register disclosed that a page had recently been torn out. Lieutenant Maglashan, after questioning the tenants at length, stated that a thick-set middle-aged man with brown hair and heavy features had been noticed in the hallway of the rooming house on several occasions, but that none of the tenants knew his name or occupation. After carefully checking all rooms, Maglashan further gave it as
