Kept Women Can’t Quit

Bertha sat silent for a while, then the thought of the money was too much for her. “Fifty... thousand... dollars,” she said. “My God, Donald, you had the money in your hands! We could have got a fifteen-thousand-dollar reward. Why the hell did you let it slip through your fingers?”

“There’s an angle I can’t figure,” I said. “There was a leak somewhere. Standley Downer knew Hazel had been in here.”

Bertha said, “That Hazel Downer! I’m going to start working on her!”

“You leave her to me,” I said. “She has confidence in me and—”

“Confidence in you!” Bertha screamed. “She’s twisting you around her finger like a sap. She bats those eyelashes at you and smiles and crosses her legs and shows you a lot of nylon stocking and you just get down on the carpet and roll over.

“Dammit, can’t you get any sense through your head? Don’t you know women well enough to know that a man never gets to first base with a woman unless she’s sized him up first, put the bat in his hand and given him a slow, easy pitch that’s good for a safe hit? That babe has been twisting you right around her finger. Now, tell me the rest of the bad news.”

I shook my head. “I’m doing this, Bertha.”

“You’re doing it?” she screamed. “Look what you’ve done! You’ve got the agency in bad, you’ve got Sellers on the warpath, you’re going to get yourself accused of murder and you damn well may get yourself convicted, for all I know. And, in the meantime, you’ve let fifty grand slip through your fingers. If you don’t tell the truth you’re licked and if you do tell the truth Frank Sellers is going to throw the book at you... and then you have the crust to stand there and tell me to leave things to you... And with professional killers on your tail for high-grading the swag!”

“I’m going to work on this Hazel babe down here. You get the hell back to San Francisco and don’t let me see that smug-looking face of yours until you’ve brought back the fifty grand.”

“Suppose,” I said, “that Evelyn Ellis is the answer? What then?”

“Would you recognize that babe who followed you into the camera store?”

“I might,” I said, “but I’m not certain. I doubt it. All I know is, she was young and easy on the eyes and smartly dressed.”

“Now look,” Bertha said, “she hung around there all the time you were there, is that right?”

“Yes, but she kept her back turned all the time.”

“She was there when you went out?”

“Yes.”

“You had to walk past her going to the door?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you remember what she smelled like?” Bertha said. “A woman like that would have a little scent on and—”

I shook my head. “I can’t remember.”

“All right. I’ll tell you one thing you can do,” Bertha said. “You find out some way to get a picture of this Evelyn Ellis.”

“I’ve got pictures of her,” I said. “Pictures in a bathing suit, pictures in a ball gown, pictures in the near-nude and—”

“God almighty!” Bertha screamed at me. “Do I have to tell you how to be a detective? Take those damn pictures and beat it up to San Francisco. Go to that Jap photograph store. Find the man who was waiting on this babe, show him those pictures and ask him if that was the woman who was in there looking at cameras. If she’s the same one you wire me and I’ll come up and work her over. A good-looking leg and you’re putty in their hands. Let ’em try showing me leg and I’ll turn ’em over my knee. Now, for the love of Mike, get started before Sergeant Sellers gets wise and throws you in the clink.”

I said, “Bertha, either I’m getting so I think like you or you’re getting so you think like me, because that’s exactly what I was planning to do.”

“Well, get started,” Bertha yelled. “Don’t stand there telling me that we’re seeing eye to eye for a change. My God, you’ve got me where I’m going to lose my license and you’re just standing around here yakkity-yakking.”

I started for the door.

I didn’t dare to tell her the Japanese camera company had taken the publicity pictures of Evelyn Ellis. It was just as Bertha had said, I’d played myself for a sucker.

Chapter 6

The jet plane deposited me in San Francisco at seven-thirty P.M. I’d had a couple of complimentary glasses of champagne and a dinner. I took a taxi to the Palace Hotel, then did a little doubling around.

If they were following me it was such an artistic job I couldn’t detect it.

When I had my back trail cleared I went to the Caltonia Hotel, went up to Room 751 without being announced and knocked.

After a moment I heard motion behind the door, a sort of rustling cautious motion and then a woman’s voice saying, “Who is it?”

“Open up,” I said gruffly.

“Who is it?” she asked, and this time there was a note of alarm in her voice.

“Oh, for the love of Pete!” I said. “You should know my voice by this time. Open up.”

I heard the bolt turn and the door opened.

“I’m sorry, Inspector,” she said. “I didn’t recognize your voice the first time. I—”

She did a double-take and started to close the door.

I pushed a foot against the door, then a shoulder, and came on in.

“You — who are you?”