Kept Women Can’t Quit

He called out something in Japanese to the man at the other end of the store who was waiting on the woman.

That man answered him without looking around.

I looked over at the counter. The young woman had her back turned toward me and was inspecting a camera. The Japanese assistant seemed annoyed that he was being interrupted in making a sale.

“All right,” I said. “You get it down there. Remember now, it’s important.”

I took the receipt which he gave me and walked out.

The woman was still looking at cameras. I tried to get a glimpse of her face but she wasn’t interested enough in me to even look up from the camera she was inspecting. She sure had a figure — from the back.

I went to a phone booth and called Elsie at the apartment.

“Hi, gorgeous!” I said. “How was the first night of the honeymoon?”

“Donald,” she said, “I won’t stay here unless you stay with me. I’m so frightened. I—”

“What happened?”

“Twice during the night the phone rang,” she said. “I picked up the receiver and before I could say hello a man’s voice said, ‘Tell Standley he has until ten o’clock tomorrow morning,’ and then before I could say anything the party hung up both times.”

I said, “All right, Elsie. Tell Mrs. Charlotte that I’ve been called to New York and want you to join me. Tell her she can have the perishable provisions. Call a cab. Load in your baggage and go to the office. Say you’ve been sick. Avoid talking with Bertha.”

“Oh Donald! I was hoping you’d get back here — I didn’t sleep a wink... Tell me, are you all right?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’m sitting pretty. Now listen, Elsie, at noon a certain party is going to call up — Abigail Smythe — and remember the y and the e.”

“Yes,” she said. “What do I do about that?”

“Now, this,” I told her, “is going to be tricky. You tell her to go to the airport in her car and be there at three o’clock this afternoon. Tell her to try to see that she isn’t followed, if possible.

“Tell her I’m arriving at three ten on United Air Lines. Tell her to find out if my flight is on time, bring her car up and put it in the three-minute parking zone. Tell her to unlock the trunk and raise the lid as though she had gone to get some baggage. That will give her all the time we’ll need. At precisely three twenty-five I’ll get a cab. I’ll give the cab driver the address but will fumble around with my notebook before I get the address for him. That will give her time to see just what cab I am taking. Tell her to follow the cab.

“No matter where the cab goes or what it does, she’s to follow the cab. She doesn’t need to be subtle about it. Just follow the cab. That’s all she needs to know and all she needs to do.

“You got that?”

“I’ve got it,” she said.

“Good girl,” I told her, and hung up.

I drove to the airport, turned in my rented car, caught the Los Angeles plane and disembarked right on time.

At three twenty-five I walked out to the sidewalk by the corner of the sun deck in front of the upstairs restaurant, looked around as though trying to orient myself, then went across to a taxicab, got inside and fumbled around with a notebook, pretending to look for an address.

After a moment the cab driver said, “Well, I’ll start and you can find the address while we’re moving.”

“It’s okay,” I said, “I know the general neighborhood, but I can’t recall the street and number. You’ll have to just follow instructions. I’ll tell you where to go.”

“Good enough,” he said.

The cab swung out into traffic and I settled back against the cushions. I didn’t look behind until after we had got out on the boulevard where there was some relatively open country. Then I saw a crossroad ahead and said to the cab driver, “Turn off to the right on this road.”

“This next one?”

“That’s the one.”

The cab driver said, “Okay,” pulled over to the right-hand lane of traffic and made a turn.

It wasn’t until after we had made the turn that I looked around.

Hazel Downer, in a sleek-looking sports job, was right behind us.

I had the cab driver drive along until I was certain no one else was following, then I said, “This isn’t the street after all. Turn around. We’ll have to go back. I guess it’s the next one.”

The cab driver made a U-turn.

Hazel made a U-turn right behind us. The cab driver said, “Hey, buddy, do you know you’re wearing a tail?”

“How come?” I asked.

“I don’t know. She’s been behind us ever since we left the airport.”

“Pull in to the curb,” I said. “I’ll take a look.”

“No rough stuff,” the cabbie warned.

“Sure,” I said. “Just find out how come, that’s all.”

The cab pulled in and stopped.

I walked back to Hazel, said, “Anybody been following you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Okay,” I said. “Wait here.”

I walked back to the cab and said, “That’s a coincidence! I didn’t recognize her. That’s a friend of the woman I was going to meet. She came down to the airport, saw that I didn’t recognize her and was about half-mad. She was going to let me run up a cab bill before she blew the horn and took me off the hook. How much is the meter?”

“Two ten,” he said.