'Just at this time Rudy gets examined by a specialist. The specialist tells him that the only chance he's got if he wants to live even for another year is to come down and live in a place like this where the climate's right.
'Well, you can bet I didn't feel so good when I discovered that Granworth had practically grabbed off every bean that Rudy had in the world, so I reckoned I'd go along to New York and have a show-down with this Granworth Aymes. I reckoned this wasn't going to be too difficult because Granworth had always been trying to make play for me but I wasn't falling for it - I didn't like his style, at least not so's you'd notice it.
'I go along to New York, and I saw Granworth Aymes on the 10th January, two days before he committed suicide, and I told him straight that I had heard that he'd made a lot of money playing the market. I told him that unless he cashed in good and quick I wasn't going to waste any more time talking, I was going to the District Attorney and I was going to stick him behind the bars for defrauding Rudy over the last two years.
'Granworth had a look at me and he knew that I meant it. He told me to come back next morning. He said he'd give me the money. On the morning of the 11th January I went and saw him at his office and he gave me 200,000 dollars' worth of those Registered Bonds. He also told me to tell nobody about it because these were the bonds that he'd made over to his wife, that he'd got them out of the safe deposit where they were being kept for her, and that as they were bearer bonds anybody could cash them. I gave him a receipt for them and that's the money that Rudy and I came down here on. That's the money we're living on now.
'And if Granworth Aymes bumped himself off the day afterwards then I reckon it was because he had a showdown with his wife. I reckon she'd found that the bonds were gone and made it hot for him, or maybe' - she says sorta soft, 'maybe Henrietta got annoyed. I reckon I'd get annoyed if he'd done me out of two hundred grand. Maybe she slugged him, you never know.'
I whistle.
'Well, well, well,' I say. 'So that's the way it goes, hey? It looks like we've got this job cleaned up. So Henrietta, findin' that the bonds are gone, thinks that Granworth has got rid of 'em somewhere else an' promptly gets somebody to make her a new lot.'
I give myself another cigarette.
'Listen, Paulette,' I say. 'Is there anybody who could confirm this story? I mean the part about Granworth Aymes makin' a sucker outa Rudy an' gettin' all that money off him?'
'Surely,' she says, 'Burdell can. He knows all about it. He knew what Aymes was doing, but he was only a secretary. It wasn't his business to butt in.'
'OK,' I say. 'I get it. It looks like this Henrietta Aymes is a pretty cute number,' I say. 'I don't reckon that there's any doubt that she bumped Granworth. All right. Now maybe I can get ahead. By the way, Paulette,' I go on. 'Did you say that this husband of yours, Rudy, is around here with some doctor? Where's this Zoni?'
'It's about forty miles away,' she says, 'and if you go and see Rudy and ask him any questions, go easy with him. The doctor, Madrales, says the poor guy's only got about another eight or nine weeks to go, and I don't want him worried too much.'
I get up and put my arm around her shoulder.
'Don't you worry, Paulette,' I say. 'I'll go easy with him. I don't want to ask him anythin' much. I just wanta confirm that stuff you told me about Aymes takin' him for the dough.'
She is standin' pretty close to me an' I can see some tears come into her eyes. I feel pretty sorry for Paulette, because after all even if she is kickin' around with this Luis Daredo, what's a dame to do? I reckon she has to do somethin' to keep her mind off the fact that her husband is slowly handin' in his checks.
She sighs.
'Life can be tough,' she says. 'Listen, Lemmy, go get yourself another drink. I'll be back in a minute. I got to ring Daredo, that guy's doing some business for me-I'm thinking of buying this place and he's fixing it-and I don't want to get in bad with him.'
'OK,' I say.
She goes outa the room an' I mix myself another highball an' go back to the veranda. Standin' there drinkin' it, it looks as if I am beginnin' to make some sense outa this case after all. One thing is stickin' out a foot an' that is that Henrietta found out that the original bonds - the real ones-was gone. She gets herself a phoney lot made an' she gets out to Palm Springs an' thinks she stands a chance of changin' 'em there. That's how it looks to me. I have just finished my drink when Paulette comes back. She comes straight up to me an' she puts her hands on my shoulders an' she looks straight into my eyes.
'You know, Lemmy,' she says, 'a woman has a tough time. I reckon I've had one. A girl has only got to make one mistake an' she pays plenty for it. Mine was in marrying Rudy. He was always a weakling and I guess I was sorry for him. If I'd have married a man like you,' she says, 'things might have been very different.'
She comes a little closer to me.
'When you've got this job finished, Lemmy,' she says, 'if ever you're tired or you need a rest, you'll always find me down here an' I'll be glad to see you.'
'That's swell, Paulette,' I say. 'That's a little matter I'll take up with you pretty soon. In the meantime I got to get this job finished, so I reckon I'll go over to Zoni an' have a few words with Rudy, an' I won't even be tough with him.'
'All right, Lemmy,' she says, an' I can see that her eyes are full of tears. 'You get along and see Rudy and you can give him my love. Just don't say anything about you finding me with Luis Daredo tonight. I wouldn't want Rudy to get any ideas about my getting around with good-looking Mexicanos.'
She tells me the way to get to this Zoni, an' she stands in the doorway watchin' me as I drive off.
Me - I am doing a little more thinkin'. I am wonderin' why she couldn'ta waited until we finished talkin' before she put that call through to Daredo.
I reckon that I am a sort of suspicious guy. An' I reckon that this Paulette fell for me too easy. She is certainly a swell number but she can still play me for a mug if she feels that way.
But I ain't such a sucker. Just when a dame thinks I'm fallin' - well, I usually ain't!
CHAPTER 10
I DRtVB along pretty slow for two reasons. First of all the night ain't so bright as it could be an' the road I am on is not so hot neither. Second I am turnin' over in my mind the stuff that this Paulette dame has handed out, an' it is sure one helluva story.
Maybe it's true because believe me no dame with as much sense as Paulette has got is goin' to spin a lotta hooey about takin' two hundred grand off a guy like Granworth Aymes unless she was surely entitled to it.
An' I feel pretty sorry for the husband - Rudy Benito. I get a picture of him all right. I can just imagine him stringin' along with Paulette, playin' second fiddle to her all the time an' knowin' that he had got TB an' that it was goin' to get him in the long run. I can sorta see this guy suddenly findin' out that Granworth has taken him for plenty an' gettin' good an' excited about it an' knowin' that maybe the amount of time that he'd got to stick around before he was due for a casket depended on whether he could get the dough out of Granworth.
But there is something that I cannot get an' it is this: What the hell was Paulette doin' all that time while Ayrnes was swindlin' Rudy out of his dough? What was a fly dame like that doin' stickin' around an' not gettin' wise to it?
An' then I get another big idea. Supposin' that Paulette was wise to it. Supposin' that she was stuck on Aymes an' knew that he was takin' Rudy for the dough an' didn't do anything about it. Then, all of a sudden she hears that Rudy is goin' to die unless he can get away some place where the climate is right an' have a doctor stickin' around all the time. An' she feels that she ain't been so hot. She feels that she has gotta do something to try an' put it right. Just at this time Aymes makes a killn' on the stock market an' Paulette weighs in an' tells him that unless he cashes in she is goin' to blow what he has been doin' to the cops.
Ain't that just the sorta thing that a dame would do? Wouldn't it be like a dame to make a sucker out of her
