where she works, and her home address. It also has the story she told me about what happened last Tuesday evening. You can get her to make an affidavit if it’s important.”
“You didn’t ask her about making an affidavit, did you?”
“No, I just got the information. I didn’t even let her know that I was trying to get that information. I just drew it out of her.”
“That’s swell. I’m glad you didn’t tell her it was important.”
“We figure our job is to get information, not to give it.”
“Capital!” he exclaimed. “Lam, you’re all right. That’s fine.”
He folded the report, put it in the pocket of his sport coat, shook hands once more all around, and walked out.
Bertha beamed at me. “You’re crazy as a loon,” she said. “And sometimes I could kill you, but you sure as hell do bring home the bacon.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That was fast work, Donald, lover. How did you do it?”
I said, “I followed the paper trail.”
“What do you mean, the paper trail?”
“I followed the clues that had very carefully been left for me to follow.”
Bertha started to say something, then suddenly blinked her hard little glittering eyes and said, “Say that again, Donald.”
I said, “I followed the clues that had been carefully left for me to follow.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said.”
“Who left the clues?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Are you trying to get temperamental with me now?”
“No, not at all,” I said, “but why not think it out for yourself?”
“How come?”
I said, “Well, take the story of John Carver Billings the Second. You’ll remember he told about picking up these two girls who had just arrived in Hollywood on their vacation.”
“Yes.”
I said, “That was Tuesday night. He came to see us yesterday. Today is Saturday.”
“Well?”
“I found a label off a prescription box in the drawer in the motor court. I went to San Francisco and called on the girl. She said she’d just got back the night before and had gone to work yesterday morning.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?”
I said, “According to her story they left San Francisco Monday evening at five o’clock. They drove as far as Salinas, stayed there that night, then drove down to Hollywood the next day. They went directly to a cocktail parlor. Billings picked them up. They went to the motor court. That was Tuesday night. They checked out Wednesday morning and went to another motor court. They were there Wednesday night. Then, early Thursday morning, they left to return to San Francisco. They got to San Francisco late Thursday night and the girls started working again yesterday.”
“So what?”
“Hell of a vacation, wasn’t it?”
Bertha said, “Lots of people have to take short vacations. They can’t get away for longer periods.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Bertha demanded.
I said, “Suppose you had four days that you could take as a vacation, and you wanted to go to Los Angeles; what would you do?”
“I’d go to Los Angeles,” Bertha said. “Dammit, come to the point.”
I said, “You’d arrange your vacation so it started on Monday or so it ended on Saturday, or both. You’d leave on Saturday morning — or Saturday noon — if you had to work Saturday morning. You’d have all Saturday afternoon and Sunday added to your vacation. You wouldn’t work Monday, then leave Monday night and get back Thursday night so you could go to work Friday.”
Bertha thought that over. “Slice me for an onion,” she said, half to herself.
“Moreover,” I said, “as soon as this girl had me spotted as a detective who was trying to pump her about that particular trip, I quit talking about it and pretended I wasn’t going to do any more talking. For a minute she got in a panic, being afraid she wasn’t going to collect the bonus that had been guaranteed to her for handing me that story. She must have thought I was a hell of a detective. She damn near had to ask me to take her out to dinner. She almost dragged me up to her apartment. She fell all over herself seeing that I got the proper information.”
“Well, you got it,” Bertha said, “and we got the money. What is there for us to worry about?”
“I hate to be played for a sucker.”
“We got three hundred bucks out of that bird when he came in yesterday morning. We got five hundred bucks out of him this morning. That’s eight hundred dollars for a two-day case. And if they want to play Big Bertha for a sucker to the tune of four hundred bucks a day they can move right in.”
Bertha banged her jeweled hand down on the desk by way of emphasis.
“Okay by me,” I told her, got up and started for the door.
“Say,” Bertha said, as I had my hand on the knob, “do you suppose that whole damned alibi is faked, Donald?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “You’ve got the money. What more do you want?”
Bertha said, “Wait a minute, lover. This may not be so good.”
I said, “What’s wrong about it?”
“If there’s anything phony about it, that bastard paid out eight hundred dollars just for the privilege of having us fronting for an alibi that could be phony as hell.”
“Well,” I told her, “you said you didn’t mind being played for a sucker at four hundred dollars a day. You’d better put two hundred dollars into a sinking fund.”
“What for?”
“To buy a bail bond with,” I said, and went out.
I turned my car into the driveway on the Sepulveda Motor Court.
The manager looked up as I entered the office. Her eyes became angry. “What kind of a shenanigan were you trying to work on me?”
“Nothing,” I said.
She said, “You rent a double cottage and are in there for about fifteen minutes. If it was going to be something like that, why didn’t you have the decency to at least tell me when you were pulling out so I could have rented the apartment last night?”
“I didn’t want you to rent it. I paid you enough for it, didn’t I?”
“That’s neither here nor there. If you weren’t going to use it—”
I said, “Let’s quit beating around the bush and suppose you tell me what you know about the people who were in there Tuesday night.”
“Suppose I don’t. I don’t discuss my guests.”
“It
She looked up at me and then said, thoughtfully, “So that’s what it is. It’s a wonder I didn’t realize it before.”
“That’s what it is.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to see the registration for Tuesday night, and I want to talk with you.”
“Is this the law?”
