“Yes.”
“And you told Sylvia where to drive?”
“Yes. She wanted to know where to get a good motor court. I told her I’d try and get one for her.”
“And you picked this court out on Sepulveda?”
“We passed up a couple that had a sign ‘No Vacancy’ but this one had a vacancy sign.”
“You went in there?”
“Yes, we drove in.”
“Who went to the office?”
“I did.”
“And you registered?”
“Yes.”
“How did you register?”
“I can’t remember the name I thought of.”
“Why didn’t you use your own name?”
He looked at me scornfully and said, “You’re a hell of a detective. Would you have used your name under the circumstances?”
“When it came to putting down the make and license number of the automobile what did you do?”
“There,” he said with a burst of feeling, “is where I made the mistake. Instead of going out and getting the license number of their automobile I just made up one out of my head.”
“And the person who was running the motor court didn’t go out to check it?”
“Of course not. If you look reasonably respectable they never go out to check the license number. Sometimes they just check the make of the automobile and that’s all.”
“What make of car was it?”
“A Ford.”
“And you registered it as a Ford?”
“Yes. Why all the third degree? If you don’t want the case give me back my retainer and I’ll be on my way.”
Bertha Cool’s eyes glittered. “Don’t be silly. My partner is simply trying to get the facts of the case so we can help you.”
“It sounds to me as though he’s cross-examining me.”
“He doesn’t mean anything by it,” Bertha said. “Donald will locate these girls for you. He’s good.”
“He’d better be,” Billings said sullenly.
“Is there anything else,” I asked, “that you can tell us that will help?”
“Not a thing.”
“The address of the motor court?”
“I gave it to Mrs. Cool.”
“What was the number of your cabin at the court?”
“I can’t remember the number, but it was the one on the right at the far corner. I think it was Number Five.”
I said, “Okay. We’ll see what we can do.”
Billings said, “Remember that if you find these women there’s to be a five-hundred-dollar bonus.”
I said, “That bonus business doesn’t conform to the rules of ethics that are laid down for the operation of a private detective agency.”
“Why not?” Billings asked.
“It makes it too much like operating on a contingency fee. They don’t like it.”
“Who doesn’t like it?”
“The people who issue the licenses.”
“All right,” he said to Bertha, “you find the girls and I’ll donate five hundred dollars to your favorite charity.”
“Are you nuts?” Bertha asked.
“What do you mean?”
“My favorite charity,” Bertha told him, “is
“Your partner says contingency fees are out.”
Bertha snorted.
“Well, no one’s going to tell anyone about it,” Billings said, “unless
“It’s okay by me,” Bertha said.
I said, “I’d prefer to have it on a basis that—”
“You haven’t found the girls yet,” Billings interrupted. “Now get this straight. I want an alibi for that night. The only way I can get it is to find these girls. I want affidavits. I’ve made my proposition. I’ve given you all of the information that I have. I’m not accustomed to having my word questioned.”
He glared at me, arose stiffly, and walked out.
Bertha looked at me angrily. “You damn near upset the applecart.”
“Provided there is any applecart.”
She tapped the cash drawer. “There’s three hundred dollars in there. That makes it an applecart.”
I said, “Then we’d better start looking for the rotten apples.”
“There aren’t any.”
I said, “His story stinks.”
“What do you mean?”
I said, “Two girls drive down from San Francisco, they want to look over Hollywood, and see if they can find a movie star dining out somewhere.”
“So what? That’s exactly what two women
I said, “They’d driven down from San Francisco. The first thing they’d do would be to take a bath, unpack their suitcases, hook up a portable iron, run it over their clothes, freshen up with make-up, and
“You don’t know that they made it all in one day.”
“All right, suppose they made it in two days. The idea that they’d have driven from San Luis Obispo or Bakersfield, or any other place, parked their car, and gone directly to a night club without stopping to make themselves as attractive as possible, stinks.”
Bertha blinked her eyes over that one. “Perhaps they did all that but lied to Billings because they didn’t want him to know where they were staying.”
I said, “Their suitcases must have been in the car, according to Billings’s statement.”
Bertha sat there in her squeaking swivel chair, her fingers drumming nervously on the top of the desk, making the light scintillate from the diamonds with which she had loaded her fingers. “For the love of Pete,” she said, “get out and get on the job. What the hell do you think this partnership is, anyway? A debating society or a detective agency?”
“I was simply pointing out the obvious.”
“Well, don’t point it out to me,” Bertha yelled. “Go find those two women. The five-hundred-bucks bonus is the obvious in this case as far as I’m concerned!”
“Did you,” I asked, “get a description?”
She tore a sheet of paper from a pad on her desk and literally threw it at me. “There are all the facts,” she said. “My God, why did I ever get a partner like you? Some son of a bitch with money comes in and you start antagonizing him. And a five-hundred-dollar bonus, too.”
I said, “I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you to ask him who John Carver Billings the First might have been?”
Bertha screamed, “What the hell do I care who he is, just so John Carver Billings the Second has money? Three hundred dollars in cold, hard cash. No check, mind you. Cash.”
