“I changed my mind. You can have that autograph.”
“Miss Foster!”
“Polly, to you. I came home and had a couple drinks here all by my lonesome. Now I’m Polly.” Her voice was slurred, low. “Been thinking about you, you know that? Want to ’pologize again.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“Want to. In person. ’Bout that autograph—how’s for you coming out and picking it up?”
“Well—”
She laughed. “I know. Old one-track mind. Wants his information. All right. Told you I been thinking, didn’t I? Thinking, drinking. Lonesome. Come on out.”
“You say you’re alone?”
“Just little old me. Don’t be scared. Won’t bite you. Not hard, anyway.” She laughed again. “You’re too smart. You guessed, didn’t you? When you said maybe I went back. Well, you’re right. I did go back. Saw somebody, too. You come out, maybe I’ll tell you all about it. If you’re nice.”
“I’ll come out,” I said. “Leaving this minute.”
“Good. Hurry up. I’ll be waiting.”
I went out.
She hadn’t lied. She’d autographed the menu. And she was waiting, waiting for me with her lips kissing the signature. From the way she sat there with her head resting on the table, you’d think Polly Foster had hung up the receiver and passed right out. There was only one little detail which made me think differently...
The bullet in her back.
“All right,” said Al Thompson. “This is for the record.”
Leaving out Bannock, I gave it to him straight: about going after a story, seeing Trent, interviewing Polly Foster at Chasen’s, coming home, getting the call.
“What time did you get out here?”
“Eleven. Few minutes before. I parked in the drive. You saw my car when you came in. Rang the bell. No answer. I went around the side.”
“Why? You figure on busting in?”
“Of course not. But I told you, she’d been drinking. I had a hunch maybe she was sick, or passed out. So I looked through the window and I saw her with her head down on the table.”
“Could you tell she’d been shot?”
“No. I thought I was right, she’d passed out.”
“So you went in anyway. Why?”
“I explained that before. I glanced down and noticed the window was open. I couldn’t walk away and leave her like that—after all, she’d invited me.” I paused and stared at him. “This is straight, Thompson.”
“Nobody said it wasn’t. Keep going.”
“That’s all. I went in, walked over to her, and then I saw she was dead. Didn’t touch anything. Came right to the phone and called you.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“Where?”
“Downtown. You’ll have to tell it all over again, you know that. This time we’ll want your signature.”
“All right.”
We left. Thompson wasn’t in charge. A man named Bruce was running the show. I didn’t envy him the job. In a little while the press would be there, and the studio people, and there’d be a devil of a mess.
There’d be a devil of a mess in tomorrow’s papers, too, but I wasn’t worried about that. I had my own mess to consider.
Thompson considered it for me in the car going down. “So you couldn’t take my advice, eh?” he mused. “Had to get that story. Well, you’ve got one now, all right. And I just hope for your sake that it holds up.”
“It’ll hold,” I said.
“How come you’re living in a hotel?” he asked me. “Give up the apartment?”
“Neighbors. Objected to my typing late at night. Got a few rush assignments I had to get out in a hurry, so I decided to take a room for a week or so.”
“Why not use your office?”
“They lock the building at nine.”
“Couldn’t you get a key?”
“Never thought of it. There’s no law against moving into a hotel, is there?”
“All depends.”
“On what?”
“On what the boys turn up in your room.”
“They won’t find anything.”
“They’ll try, though.”
“Damn!” I said.
“What’s wrong now?”
“Just happened to remember. I left half a pint of good liquor up there.”
“This isn’t funny, Clayburn. We’re inclined to take our murders seriously, you know. And knocking off a name like Polly Foster is a very serious matter. Which reminds me. That autograph on the menu—what did you say was the name of the girl you were getting it for?”
“I didn’t say. I don’t know her name. She works in Bannock’s office. Harry Bannock, the agent.”
“Heard of him. But how come she knew about your date with Foster?”
“I told you. I went to Bannock because he’s got an in with the studio. Asked him to get me a pass. Instead, he arranged this dinner date. I got to kidding with his girl, and promised her an autograph.”
“I see.”
“You can ask Bannock if you like.”
“Thanks.” Thompson nodded. “I was planning on doing just that. With or without your permission.”
“Look,” I said. “I’m trying to be nice, you know. I haven’t made any trouble.”
“Oh, you haven’t, eh? You just blew the lid off the Ryan case all over again, and piled a new killing on top of it. And you haven’t made any trouble.”
“You think the two cases tie together, too, then?”
“I’m not thinking out loud right now,” Thompson said. “Let’s get this over with, first.”
We got it over with.
There’s no sense dragging anybody else along on that part of the trip. It was bad enough for me, what with statements and questioning and more statements, and a call to Joe Fileen, my attorney. Coffee, cigarettes, and then another quiz show.
They held me forty-eight hours. No, fifty-eight, counting the first night. I saw everybody and his brother, including the little guy at the liquor store who sold me the pint. And the man on the desk at the hotel, who—believe it or not— remembered me leaving to go out to Polly Foster’s place.
So that gave me an alibi, of a sort. Except that I
But they couldn’t find a gun, and they couldn’t find a motive. They looked. I don’t know where they searched for the gun, but I know where they pried for a motive. Right inside my skull, that’s where. Working in batteries, in relays.
I’m not complaining. Thompson was my friend, and the rest of them were doing a job, a job they had to do, with the pressure bearing down on them from the D.A.’s office and the newspapers and public opinion.
There was plenty of the latter around, although I didn’t see any papers until after the second day. Headline stuff, this Polly Foster slaying. Headline, front page, feature story, even editorial stuff. And me, right in the middle. In the middle of the yarn, in the middle of a ring of fugitives from
They were looking for a candidate for the Grand Jury, and they were looking hard. They dragged up
