“Clyde Umney’s the lawyer who hired me to follow you—on instructions from a firm of attorneys in Washington, D.C. Helen Vermilyea is his secretary. Ross Goble is a Kansas City private eye who says he is trying to find Mitchell.” I described him to her.
Her face turned stony. “Mitchell? Why should he be interested in Larry?”
I stopped at the corner of Fourth and Grand for an old coot in a motorized wheel chair to make a left turn at four miles an hour. Esmeralda is full of the damn things.
“Why should he be looking for Larry Mitchell?” she asked bitterly. “Can’t anybody leave anybody else alone?”
“Don’t tell me anything,” I said. “Just keep on asking me questions to which I don’t know the answers. It’s good for my inferiority complex. I told you I had no more job. So why am I here? That’s easy. I’m groping for that five grand in traveler’s checks again.”
“Turn left at the next corner,” she said, “and we can go up into the hills. There’s a wonderful view from up there. And a lot of very fancy homes.”
“The hell with them,” I said.
“It’s also very quiet up there.” She picked a cigarette out of the pack clipped to the dash and lit it.
“That’s two in two days,” I said. “You’re hitting them hard. I counted your cigarettes last night too. And your matches. I went through your bag. I’m kind of snoopy when I get roped in on a phony like that one. Especially when the client passes out and leaves me holding the baby.”
She turned her head to stare at me. “It must have been the dope and the liquor,” she said. “I must have been a little off base.”
“Over at the Rancho Descansado you were in great shape. You were hard as nails. We were going to take off for Rio and live in luxury. Apparently also in sin. All I had to do was get rid of the body. What a letdown! No body.”
She was still staring at me, but I had to watch my driving. I made a boulevard stop and a left turn. I went along another dead-end street with old streetcar tracks still in the paving.
“Turn left up the hill at that sign. That’s the high school down there.”
“Who fired the gun and what at?”
She pressed her temples with the heels of her hands. “I guess
“The gun? It’s safe. Just in case your dream came true, I might have to produce it.”
We were climbing now. I set the pointer to hold the Olds in third. She watched that with interest. She looked around her at the pale leather seats and the gadgets.
“How can you afford an expensive car like this? You don’t make a lot of money, do you?”
“They’re all expensive nowadays, even the cheap ones. Fellow might as well have one that can travel. I read somewhere that a dick should always have a plain dark inconspicuous car that nobody would notice. The guy had never been to L.A. In L.A. to be conspicuous you would have to drive a flesh-pink Mercedes-Benz with a sun porch on the roof and three pretty girls sunbathing.”
She giggled.
“Also,” I labored the subject, “it’s good advertising. Maybe I dreamed I was going to Rio. I could sell it there for more than it set me back new. On a freighter it wouldn’t cost too much to ferry.”
She sighed. “Oh, stop teasing me about that. I don’t feel funny today.”
“Seen your boy friend around?”
She sat very still. “Larry?”
“You got others?”
“Well—you might have meant Clark Brandon, although I hardly know him. Larry was pretty drunk last night. No—I haven’t seen him. Perhaps he’s sleeping it off.”
“Doesn’t answer his phone.”
The road forked. One white line curved to the left. I kept straight on, for no particular reason. We passed some old Spanish houses built high on the slope and some very modern houses built downhill on the other side. The road passed these and made a wide turn to the right. The paving here looked new. The road ran out to a point of land and a turning circle. There were two big houses facing each other across the turning circle. They were loaded with glass brick and their seaward windows were green glass. The view was magnificent. I looked at it for all of three seconds. I stopped against the end curb and cut the motor and sat. We were about a thousand feet up and the whole town was spread out in front of us like a 45-degree air photo.
“He might be sick,” I said. “He might have gone out. He might even be dead.”
“I told you—” She began to shake. I took the stub of the cigarette away from her and put it in the ashtray. I ran the car windows up and put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her head down on my shoulder. She was limp, unresisting; but she still shook.
“You’re a comfortable man,” she said. “But don’t rush me.”
“There’s a pint in the glove compartment. Want a snort?”
“Yes.”
I got it out and managed to pull the metal strip loose with one hand and my teeth. I held the bottle between my knees and got the cap off. I held it to her lips. She sucked some in and shuddered. I recapped the pint and put it away.
“I hate drinking from the bottle,” she said.
