LITMIR.BIZ

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way. I bother you boys. Okay, so what? I make a living the same as you. Can’t I kid you a little[40] or are you that sensitive?”

      I grinned at him, and after a moment’s hesitation, he relaxed and grinned back. From then on we got along fine.

      Around lunch-time a cop brought us a meat pie and some beans which we ate. Patterson seemed to think the pie was pretty good, but then he was young and hungry. I toyed with mine and sent most of it back. After this so-called lunch, he got out a deck of cards and we played gin rummy for matches. After I had taken a whole box off him, I showed him how I was cheating him. This seemed to shock him until I offered to teach him how it was done. He made a very enthusiastic pupil.

      Around eight o’clock the same cop brought more meat pie and more beans. We ate the stuff because by now we were so goddam bored we would have eaten anything just for the hell of it. We played more gin rummy and he cheated so well he took a whole box of matches off me. Around midnight, the telephone bell rang. He picked up the receiver, listened, then said, “Yes, sir,” and hung up. “Lieutenant Retnick is ready for you now,” he said getting to his feet.

      We both felt the way people feel when the train at last steams out of the station and they can stop talking the way people talk when seeing people off at a station.

      We went down the corridor to Retnick’s office. Retnick was sitting at his desk. He looked tired and worried. He waved me to a chair and waved Patterson away. When Patterson had gone, I sat down.

      There was a long pause as we stared at each other.

      “You’re a lucky guy, Ryan,” he said eventually. “Okay, I didn’t think you killed her, but I was goddam sure the D.A. would have thought so if I’d turned you over to him. Now I can persuade him you didn’t do it. Consider yourself a lucky son-of-a-bitch.”

      I had been in this building for fifteen hours. There had been times when I had wondered if I had played my cards right. I had had moments of near-panic, but now hearing what he said, I relaxed, drawing in a deep breath. “So I’m lucky,” I said.

      “Yeah.” He slid down in his chair and groped for a cigar. Then realising he had a dead one between his teeth, he took it out, sneered at it and dropped it into the trash-basket. “I’ve had practically the whole of the force working on this thing for the past fourteen hours. We’ve turned up a witness who saw you in your car at two-thirty this morning on Connaught Boulevard. The witness happens to be an attorney who hates the D.A.’s guts and he had his wife with him. His evidence would blow a great big hole in any case the D.A. might have cooked up against you. So, okay, you didn’t kill her.”

      “Would it be nosey to ask if you have any idea who did kill her?”

      He offered me his cigar case: this time I could afford to refuse. As he put the case back in his pocket, he said, “It’s too early yet. Whoever he is, he’s played it neat. No clues: no nothing so far[41].”

      “Didn’t you get a line on the Chinese woman?”

      “Oh, sure, that wasn’t hard. There was nothing but the usual junk a woman carries in the handbag, but we got her spotted at the airport. She came from Hong Kong. Her name is Jo-An Jefferson. Believe it or not, she’s the daughter-in-law of J. Wilbur Jefferson, the oil millionaire. She married the son, Herman Jefferson, in Hong Kong about a year ago. He was recently killed in a car smash and she brought his body back for burial.”

      “Why?” I asked, staring at him.

      “Old man Jefferson wanted his son buried in the family vault. He paid this girl to come over with the body.”

      “What’s happened to the body?”

      “It was picked up at the airport by a mortician at seven o’clock this morning, acting on orders. It’s at his parlour waiting interment.”

      “You checked that?”

      He yawned, showing me half his false teeth.

      “Listen, shamus, you don’t have to tell me my job. I’ve seen the coffin and inspected the papers: everything’s in order. She flew in from Hong Kong, arriving here at one-thirty. She took a taxi from the airport to your office block. What beats me is why she came to see you immediately she arrived and how her killer knew she was coming to see you. What did she want with you?”

      “Yeah. If she was from Hong Kong, how would she know I existed?” I said.

      “Your idea she telephoned for an appointment around seven after you had left your office is out. She was in the air at that time. If she had written, you would have known about it.”

      I thought for a moment.

      “Suppose Hardwick met her at the airport? He called me from the airport at six. Suppose he waited for her to arrive and told her he was me. Suppose he went on ahead while she was clearing the coffin through the authorities and slipped the lock on the outer door. A lock isn’t too hard to slip and then waited for her to join him.”

      He didn’t seem to like this idea much: nor did I.

      “But what the hell did she want with you?” he demanded.

      “If we knew that we wouldn’t be asking each other questions. How about her luggage? Did you locate it?”

      “Yeah. She checked it in at the left-luggage office before leaving the airport: one small suitcase; nothing in it except a change of clothes, a small Buddha and some joss sticks. She certainly travelled light[42].”

      “Have you talked to old man Jefferson yet?”

      He pulled a face. “Yeah, I’ve talked to him. He acted as if he hated my guts. I think he does. That’s the hell of marrying into an influential family. My brother-in-law and Jefferson get along like I get along with a boil on my neck.”

      “Still it has its compensations,” I said.

      He fingered his pearl stick-pin.

      “Sometimes. Anyway, the old goat didn’t let his hair down. He said he wanted me to catch the man who had killed his daughter-in-law, otherwise there would be trouble.” He stroked his beaky nose. “He draws a lot of water in this city.[43] He could make trouble for me.”

      “He wasn’t helpful?”

      “He certainly wasn’t.”

      “How about the Express messenger who delivered the three hundred bucks to me? He could have seen the killer.”

      “Look, shamus, you’re not half the ball of fire you think you are. I checked on him: nothing. But this is interesting: the envelope containing the dough was handed in at four o’clock at the Express headquarters which as you know is across the way from you. None of the dim-witted clerks can remember who handed it in, but the instructions were to deliver it to you at six-fifteen.”

      “You checked Herron Corporation to see if Hardwick works there?”

      “Yeah. I’ve checked every goddam thing. He doesn’t work for them.” He yawned, stretched, then stood up. “I’m going to bed. Maybe tomorrow I’ll strike something. Right now I’ve had enough of it.”

      I got up too. “It was my gun that killed her?”

      “Yeah. No prints: nothing on the car. He’s a neat bird, but he’ll make a mistake… they always do.”

      “Some of them.”

      He looked sleepily at me.

      “I’ve done you a good turn[44], Ryan, you try to do me one. Any ideas you get, let me know. Right now I need ideas.”

      I said I wouldn’t forget him. I went down to where I had left my car and drove fast back to my apartment and to my bed.

      I got to the office the next morning soon after nine o’clock. I found a couple of newspaper men parked outside my door. They wanted

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