'You thought in the beginning. Then you found out. Something Alvarado did or said-something you saw there in the San Diego house-tipped you off.' McKinley sat down again and placed his elbows back on the desk.
'Knowing and proving are two different things. Suppose I gave you his name and address. You go there. You don't find anything. He won't talk…'
'That's our problem.'
'Is that a promise? Regardless of whether my tip works out, you'll get me that clean slate?'
'Oh, well, now,'-McKinley spread his hands-'you can't expect me to do that. You might give us any old name and address and- and-yeah,' said McKinley. 'Mmm-hmmm.'
He squirmed in his chair, looking down at some papers on his desk. Fumbling with them absently. Abruptly he looked up. 'It's Milt Vonderheim! Don't lie! I've got the proof!'
Toddy laughed. After a moment, McKinley grinned.
'It's a good thing you didn't tell me it was Vonderheim. I'd have known you were trying to throw a curve under me.'
'I'd pick a better goat than Milt,' Toddy said. 'Everyone knows that-'
'We know. I don't care about everyone. How would you go about landing this man, Kent?'
'Nothing's been in the papers about Alvarado or-?'
'Nothing yet. I don't know how long we can keep it quiet.'
'I'll need a few things. A gun, some money, a car. I'll need a few days. I've got to see some people.'
'Why?'
'To make sure,' said Toddy, evenly, 'that you don't have a tail on me. At the first sign of one, the whole deal's off.'
'Why? If you're on the square.'
Toddy explained. He was plausible, earnest, the soul of sincerity. If McKinley wouldn't believe this, he thought, he wouldn't believe anything.
'That's the way I'll handle it,' he concluded. 'He'll have a lot of dough. I'll go through the motions of taking it, highjacking him. Then I'll put him in the car and head for the country. Someplace, supposedly, where I can bump him off and hide his body.'
'That part I don't get. Why would you want to bump him off?'
'Because that's the way I'd have to feel about him. When a man's killed'-Toddy caught himself-'when a man's tried to kill you, you want to get back at him. He'll talk. He'll spill everything he knows in attempting to get off the hook.'
'Yeah. Maybe,' said McKinley.
'But I've got to be left alone. No tails. Nothing that might possibly lead him to think I was working with you… You see that, don't you? It's got to look like I'm giving you the double-cross. Otherwise, he won't talk and you'll never find out how he manages to get pounds of gold every week-you won't be able to prove that he has got it. And if you can't prove that-'
'But suppose,' said McKinley. 'Suppose you are giving us the double-cross?'
Toddy shrugged and leaned back in his chair. McKinley sat blinking, staring at him.
'I'd be crazy to do it,' he said, at last. 'I give you a car and a gun and a clear field with a man that's loaded with dough. I give a guy like you a setup like that. It doesn't make sense any way you look at it.'
He pressed a button on his desk and stood up. Toddy stood up also. It was all over. There was no use arguing.
'Only fifteen years in this game and I've gone crazy,' said McKinley. 'Chief, take this man back to jail and dress him out. I'll send over an order for his release.'
He said one other thing as Toddy headed for the door. Something that made Toddy very glad his back was turned: 'We'll spring your wife, too, Kent, as soon as you pull this off…'
23
After visiting a barber shop, Toddy went to a pawnshop- where he purchased a secondhand suitcase-a drugstore, a haberdashery, and a newsstand which sold back issues. Then he checked in at a hotel.
With deliberate slowness he unpacked the suitcase, the clean shirts, socks and underwear, the toilet articles, cigarettes and bottle of whiskey. He knew what the back-issue newspapers would tell him. He had seen an evening paper headline, BAIL RACKET PROBE LOOMS, but without that he would have known. Miracles didn't happen. Elaine couldn't be in jail.
Still, he didn't really
Only two of the papers carried the story; one gave it a paragraph, the other two. The latter paper also carried her picture, a small, blurred shot, taken several years ago. The former 'character actress' had surrendered at a suburban jail. She'd worn sunglasses and was 'apparently suffering from a severe cold.' Somebody was filling in for Elaine.
Toddy sighed and poured himself another drink. It was about as he'd figured it.
He ordered dinner and put in a call to Airedale. The bondsman arrived just as the waiter was departing.
His derby hat was pulled low over his eyes, and his doggish face was long with anxiety. His first act was to step to the window and draw the shade.
'Can't you smell that stuff, man?' he rasped. 'That's gas. It's driftin' all the way down from that little room in Sacramento!'
Toddy poured a glass of milk, handed it to him, and gestured to the bed. Airedale sat down, heavily, fanning himself with the derby.
'Where'd you go,' he said. 'And why ain't you still goin'?'
'Save it,' said Toddy, taking a bite of steak. 'Now tell me what happened.'
'Me? I tell you what happened?'
'They cracked down on your connections. You had to produce Elaine. Take it from there.'
'I go to your hotel and get ahold of lardass. We go up to your room. We can't raise no one, so we break in. You ain't there, Elaine ain't there. Period.'
'Comma,' said Toddy. 'How'd the room look? I mean was it torn up?'
'You ought to know… No,' Airedale added hastily, 'it wasn't.'
'There weren't any cops around? No detectives?'
'Just me and the house dick, but-'
'What time were you there?'
'Eleven-thirty, maybe twelve.'
'Oh,' said Toddy, 'I get it. You were there when…'
'When,' Airedale nodded. 'When Elaine was going up in smoke. Jesus, Toddy, did you have to draw a picture of it? Couldn't you have done it outside somewheres? You're up there raising hell-everyone in the joint hears her screamin'-and then-'
'That doesn't mean anything. She was always doing that.'
'She won't anymore,' said Airedale. 'I honest to Gawd don't get it, Toddy. Getting rid of the corpus delicti won't make you nothing. Not with that incinerator stack running right through your room.'
Toddy abruptly pushed aside his steak and poured a cup of coffee. 'I didn't kill her, Airedale. Let's get that straight. I didn't kill her.'
'Am I a cop?' said Airedale. 'I don't care what you did. I ain't even seen you. I ain't even telling
