I handed him the left-luggage receipt.
“Get that case and bring it back here.”
“What - now?”
“If you want to make twenty bucks.”
He looked at the receipt.
“I thought your name was Crosby,” he said, and gave me a quick, suspicious look.
I didn’t say anything. I folded the two bills and slid them into my pocket.
“I didn’t say anything,” he said hurriedly. “That wasn’t me talking.”
“Get that case and make it snappy.”
He went off as if fired from a gun.
While I waited I went over my meagre stock of information.
On the night of September 6th I had been driving a Buick convertible, registered in the
name of John Ricca, along a road seventy-five miles from Miami. With me was a girl:
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whether it had been Della or not I couldn’t say, Ricca knew who she was, but Riskin didn’t.
There had been a smash. Apparently I had lost control of the car, for there was no other car
involved. The girl had been killed, and I had been found unconscious five minutes later by a
speed-cop. There was some talk about a gun. It had her fingerprints on it, and for some reason
or other Riskin seemed to think the smash had been deliberate, making it murder.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. I had to find out who the girl was and why she
had a gun. I had to find out why I had lost control of the car.
Riskin had said I had an apartment on Franklin Boulevard, Lincoln Beach. I remembered
Della had said she and her husband were going to Lincoln Beach, and did I want to go with
them. It seemed in those forty-five missing days I had not only lived in Lincoln Beach, but I
had even set up a home there.
To judge by the suit I was wearing, and the fact I had owned a Buick, I must have got hold
of a lot of money. How had I done that in so short a time?
I switched my mind to the fat man, Ricca. He had given me a lot of obscure information.
According to him I was engaged to a girl called Ginny. Where had I met her and where was
she now?
I recalled what he had said. You’re the guy who killed Wertham and Reisner. Who were
they? Where have you hidden the money? he had asked. What money? You can walk out of
here and do what you damn well like. Why should I care? She was the one who cared. Who
was she? Why did she care?
I stretched out on the bed and smoked, staring up at the ceiling. There seemed no end to the
questions, but how was I to find the answers? I realized I wasn’t going to get far unless I had
money to help me. At the moment I had only a little over a hundred dollars. I couldn’t hope to
make a thorough investigation without a substantial sum of money. I was suddenly up against
a blank wall. Without money I was sunk. There could be no investigation. All I could do was
to sneak out of Miami as soon as my hundred dollars ran out and get somewhere where I
could lose myself.
I was still battering my brains out, trying to find a solution, when I heard Maddux coming
pounding down the passage. I just had time to slap on my hat to cover my shaven head when
he came in and dumped a big black pigskin suitcase on the bed.
“There you are, mister,” he said. “Jeepers! That weighs a ton.”
I was looking at the suitcase. As far as I knew I had never seen it before. There was a tie-on
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label hanging from the handle. It had my name on it, and it was written in my handwriting.
I tried the locks, but they didn’t budge. They were good, strong locks, and they’d need a lot
