“I know a Nels Jorgensen.”
“Some people have all the luck. This one's named Christian. He's a honey. That's Mamma—divorces a lunatic and marries a gigolo.” Her eyes became wet. She caught her breath in a sob and asked: “What am I going to do, Nick?” Her voice was a frightened child's.
I put an arm around her and made what I hoped were comforting sounds. She cried on my lapel. The telephone beside the bed began to ring. In the next room Rise and Shine was coming through the radio. My glass was empty. I said: “Walk out on them.”
She sobbed again. “You can't walk out on yourself.”
“Maybe I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Please don't tease me,” she said humbly.
Nora, coming in to answer the telephone, looked questioningly at me. I made a face at her over the girl's head.
When Nora said “Hello” into the telephone, the girl stepped quickly back away from me and blushed. “I— I'm sorry,” she stammered, “I didn't—”
Nora smiled sympathetically at her. I said: “Don't be a dope.” The girl found her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes with it.
Nora spoke into the telephone: “Yes . . . I'll see if he's in. Who's calling, please?” She put a hand over the mouthpiece and addressed me: “It's a man named Norman, Do you want to talk to him?”
I said I didn't know and took the telephone. “Hello.”
A somewhat harsh voice said: “Mr. Charles? . . . Mr. Charles, I understand that you were formerly connected with the Trans-American Detective Agency.”
“Who is this?” I asked.
“My name is Albert Norman, Mr. Charles, which probably means nothing to you, but I would like to lay a proposition before you. I am sure you will—”
“What kind of a proposition?”
“I can't discuss it over the phone, Mr. Charles, but if you will give me half an hour of your time, I can promise—”
“Sorry,” I said. “I'm pretty busy and—”
“But, Mr. Charles, this is—” Then there was a loud noise: it could have been a shot or something falling or anything else that would make a loud noise. I said, “Hello,” a couple of times, got no answer, and hung up.
Nora had Dorothy over in front of a looking-glass soothing her with powder and rouge. I said, “A guy selling insurance,” and went into the living-room for a drink.
Some more people had come in. I spoke to them. Harrison Quinn left the sofa where he had been sitting with Margot Innes and said: “Now ping-pong.” Asta jumped up and punched me in the belly with her front feet. I shut off the radio and poured myself a cocktail. The man whose name I had not caught was saying: “Comes the revolution and we'll all be lined up against the wall—first thing.” He seemed to think it was a good idea.
Quinn came over to refill his glass. He looked towards the bedroom door. “Where'd you find the little blonde?”
“Used to bounce it on my knee.”
“Which knee?” he asked. “Could I touch it?”
Nora and Dorothy came out of the bedroom. I saw an afternoon paper an the radio and picked it up. Headlines said:
JULIA WOLF ONCE RACKETEER'S GIRL;
ARTHUR NUNHEIM IDENTIFIES BODY;
WYNANT STILL MISSING
Nora, at my elbow, spoke in a low voice'. “I asked her to have dinner with us. Be nice to the child”—Nora was twenty-six—“she's all upset.”
“Whatever you say.” I turned around. Dorothy, across the room, was laughing at something Quinn was telling her. “But if you get mixed up in people's troubles, don't expect me to kiss you where you're hurt.”
“I won't. You're a sweet old fool. Don't read that here now.” She took the newspaper away from me and stuck it out of sight behind the radio.
5
Nora could not sleep that night. She read Chaliapin's memoirs until I began to doze and then woke me up by asking: “Are you asleep?”
I said I was.
She lit a cigarette for me, one for herself. “Don't you ever think you'd like to go back to detecting once in a while just for the fun of it? You know, when something special comes up, like the Lindb—”
“Darling,” I said, “my guess is that Wynant killed her, and the police'll catch him without my help. Anyway, it's nothing in my life.”
“I didn't mean just that, but—”
“But besides I haven't the time: I'm too busy trying to see that you don't lose any of the money I married you for.” I kissed her. “Don't you think maybe a drink would help you to sleep?”
“No, thanks.”
“Maybe it would if I took one.” When I brought my Scotch and soda back to bed, she was frowning into space. I said: “She's cute, but she's cuckoo. She wouldn't be his daughter if she wasn't. You can't tell how much of what she says is what she thinks and you can't tell how much of what she thinks ever really happened. I like her, but I think you're letting—”
“I'm not sure I like her,” Nora said thoughtfully, “she's probably a little bastard, but if a quarter of what she told us is true, she's in a tough spot.”
“There's nothing I can do to help her.”
“She thinks you can.”
“And so do you, which shows that no matter what you think, you can always get somebody else to go along with you.”
Nora sighed. “I wish you were sober enough to talk to.” She leaned over to take a sip of my drink. “I'll give you your Christmas present now if you'll give me mine.”
I shook my head. “At breakfast.”
“But it's Christmas now.”
“Breakfast.”
“Whatever you're giving me,” she said, “I hope I don't like it.”
“You'll have to keep them anyway, because the man at the Aquarium said he positively wouldn't take them back. He said they'd already bitten the tails off the—”
“It wouldn't hurt you any to find out if you can help her, would it? She's got so much confidence in you, Nicky.”
“Everybody trusts Greeks.”
“Please.”
“You just want to poke your nose into things that—”
“I meant to ask you: did his wife know the Wolf girl was his mistress?”
“I don't know. She didn't like her.”
“What's the wife like?”
“I don't know—a woman.”
“Good-looking?”
“Used to be very.”
“She old?”
