going past his office door. Ansom kept on typing. When he heard the elevator whine again, taking Jones to the next floor, he switched off the recorder, put the reel of tape into one of his desk drawers, turned off the light and after locking up his office, he went down to the street.
Fay Lawley sat alone in the bar of the Cha-Cha Club nursing a whisky and soda. She was disgruntled. She had been sitting alone now for the past hour and no man had as yet approached her. She wasn't pleased when she saw Beryl Horsey, wearing a mink stole and diamond ear-rings come in, look around, spot her and with a wave of her hand come over.
Beryl was Joe Duncan's girl friend and she had known Fay longer than Fay cared to remember.
'Hello there ... all alone?' Beryl asked.
'Waiting for someone,' Fay said shortly. 'How's tricks? Have one with me?'
'Can't stop. I'm expecting Joe.' Beryl looked at Fay, screwing up, her large violet coloured eyes. 'Don't see you around with Johnny Anson any more. You two fallen out or something?'
Fay grimaced. 'Who wants to go around with a cheap punk like him?' she said shrugging. 'Can't even afford these days to buy a girl a drink.'
Beryl lifted her painted eyebrows.
'Hey! Hey! Who's been kidding you? He's come into money, darling. He paid Joe all his debts ... a thousand and something. He's in the money.' She smiled. 'Maybe he's found someone else. I've got to fly.'
She flicked painted nails along her mink stole, smiled and was gone.
Fay sat sipping her drink, a sudden vicious expression on her over-painted, coarse face.
A thousand dollars! Where could Anson have raised that land of money? He never did have any money!
Fay finished her drink and stood up.
He'd had his fun with her. Now, if he had money, she was suddenly determined to have some of it. If he thought he could brush her off that easy, he had another think coming.
She left the bar and started down the street towards the nearest taxi rank.
A fat, elderly man moved into her path.
'Hello, baby,' he said and closed one eyelid. 'I'm looking for a naughty girl. Have I found one?'
Fay hesitated, then she flashed on her hard, brilliant smile. There was time to fix that rat Anson: a bird in the hand, she thought as she said, 'Hello sweetheart. You and I must have the same ideas.'
Sailor Hogan woke with a start. The telephone bell was ringing. Cursing, he half sat up on his big double bed. By his side was a redheaded, over developed teenager whom Hogan had picked up at the afternoon dance at the Blue Slipper club. She too had come awake and was staring owlishly at Hogan as he snatched up the receiver.
'Yeah? Who is it?'
'Jerry ... it's Meg.'
His battle-scarred face showed angry impatience.
'You woke me up ... what's the fire about?' he snarled.
'He's going to fix it,' Meg said breathlessly. 'I must see you, Jerry.'
Hogan suddenly became fully awake.
'He's really got it fixed?' he asked, sitting bolt upright. 'For when?'
'This is Friday. He'll be here with the final plan on Thursday night. I must see you before then.'
'You'll see me,' Hogan said. 'I'll be along tomorrow,' and he hung up.
The redhead said peevishly, 'Who's she? Who are you seeing?'
Hogan flopped back on his pillow. Although he had plenty of stamina, he was surprised to find that this teenager had exhausted him.
'That was my mother,' he said. 'What's eating you? A guy has to see his mother once in a while, doesn't he?' He reached out and grabbed her.
'I didn't know you had a mother,' she said, her fingers digging into the thick muscles of his back.
'That's a nice thing to say,' Hogan said, grinning. 'How do you think I got here without a mother?'
The girl suddenly cried out and her long nailed fingers began to scar Hogan's back.
Patty Shaw came into Maddox's office. She paused in the doorway when she saw Maddox was glaring at a policy he was holding in his hands.
'If you're busy, I'll come back,' she said.
Maddox dropped the policy on his desk, made a grimace of disgust, then reached for a cigarette.
'What is it?'
'Here's the Barlowe report from the Tracing Agency,' Patty said. 'Do you want to look at it now?'
'Barlowe?' Maddox frowned, then his face cleared. 'Yeah ... the gardener. Sure I want to look at it now. You looked at it?'
'It'll interest you,' Patty said and laid the file on his desk. 'Not the husband ... he's just the run of the mill, but the wife ... oh, la! la!'
Maddox picked up the file.
'What does that mean ... oh, la! la! ?'
'You'll see,' Patty said, and swished her way out of the room.
Maddox lit another cigarette, pushed back his chair and began to read the neatly typed dossier.
Chapter 7
On Thursday morning, Anson called in at an electrical store in Lambsville and bought a time switch clock. He asked the salesman to show him how it worked.
'This is designed,' the salesman explained, 'to turn on any piece of electrical equipment at any required time. It also turns the equipment off at any required time. For example, if you want a radio programme that comes on at ten o'clock, you set the hand of the clock to ten and the radio will automatically come on at this time.'
Anson said he wanted the clock to boil water for his morning coffee.
'It's the perfect thing,' the salesman said, 'I use one myself.'
At lunch time, Anson went to the Marlborough restaurant. As he entered the bar, he ran into Jeff Frisbee, a reporter on the Pru Town Gazette.
'Hi, John,' Frisbee said. 'Have one with me?'
Anson said he would have a Scotch. While they were waiting for the drinks to be set up, Anson asked Frisbee if he was lunching.
'I haven't the time,' Frisbee said. 'I have two murders in my hair and the old man expects me to write something about them every day. I'm running myself ragged trying to find something to write about.'
'The Chief of Police doesn't seem to be getting anywhere,' Anson said, saluting Frisbee with his glass before drinking.
'This maniac ... still no trace of him?'
'No, but the Chief is a wily bird. He may not be giving any secrets away. He told me that he/is convinced the heistman who killed Patrol Officer Sanquist was an out-of-towner, but he's convinced this maniac is a local man.'
'What makes him think that?' Anson asked.
'He figures no one but a local man would know Glyn Hill. It's way off the beaten track. No passing motorist would ever find it.'
'A man as bald as an egg shouldn't be so hard to find.'
'That's a fact, but the Chief isn't a hundred per cent sure the girl was right when she said the guy was bald. She was in a hell of a panic. Could be he had white hair or very fair hair and he looked bald to her in the moonlight.'
'Well, I guess it isn't too tough to check every blond or white headed man in the district and find out what he was doing at the time of the lolling,' Anson said.
Frisbee, whose hair was as black as a raven's wing, looked at Anson's blond hair and grinned.
'Just what were you doing at the time?'
