Kept Women Can’t Quit

“It depends. I’m not making any promises.”

I said, “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I had the fifty grand.”

“Then that story you fed Frank Sellers about this man, Inman, at the Full Dinner Pail having it was just a cock-and-bull story?”

“That wasn’t a cock-and-bull story,” I said. “I think Inman had it before I did.”

Hobart’s eyes narrowed. “All right,” he said. “Where did you get it?”

“I got it from Downer’s trunk.”

“And where did you get Downer’s trunk?”

“I picked it up at the railroad station.”

“Where is it now?”

I told him.

“Go on,” he said. “What happened to the fifty grand?”

I said, “Either one of two people have it.”

“Who?”

“Either Takahashi Kisarazu, who runs the camera store, or Evelyn Ellis.”

“What’s your reasoning?”

I said, “I bought a camera and some enlarging paper. I took some paper out of the box of enlarging paper. I don’t know how many sheets, probably fifteen or twenty. The camera store says they found seventeen sheets of paper under the counter so I’ll settle for seventeen.”

“And you put the money in there with the rest of the enlarging paper and closed the box?”

I nodded.

“How do you know the money wasn’t taken out in Los Angeles?”

“It was done by somebody in a camera store,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“Because when Sellers got into the package in Los Angeles the box of enlarging paper had the seals cut all right so I wouldn’t be suspicious, but it was a different box of paper. It was a full box. If it had been my box, seventeen sheets would have been missing.”

Hobart said, “All right, Lam, I think you’re coming clean. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll do some work on that Jap at the camera store.”

I shook my head.

“No?” he asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I want to be sure.”

“How are you going to get sure?”

“I don’t know, but I have an idea the murder of Downer was tied in with the loss of the fifty grand.”

“The murder is my meat,” Hobart said.

“You can have it. I want the money. You keep your meat. I’ll keep mine.”

“All right. What do you think happened?”

I said, “I think that Baxley had a partner in the Full Dinner Pail Drive-in. I think Baxley didn’t know the police were after him until after he’d made that telephone call and looked back over his shoulder. I think Baxley went to that drive-in and ordered the two hamburgers, one with onions and one without onions, so he’d have a good excuse to have them put in a paper sack. Then I think he sat there and ate the hamburgers slowly and leisurely so people could see him eating the hamburgers. I think that was all part of the plan. Then I think he took the fifty grand, which was the split of his partner, put it in the paper bag, threw the paper bag into the refuse can and drove off.

“I think that’s where Sellers made his first mistake. I think he should have pulled back the lid on that trash can and pulled out that paper bag. Then I think he should have tagged along after Baxley.”

“Then where did Downer get the fifty grand?”

“He got it from Baxley s accomplice,” I said, “and because there wasn’t any split, it means that he had to highjack it. If he’d shown up with twenty-five grand I’d have figured there were three partners in the job, that Baxley got half and the other two split another half for setting the thing up for him. Because Downer had fifty grand, it means it was a highjack.”

Inspector Hobart said, “I’ve got news for you, Lam.”

“What?”

“It didn’t work out that way and it isn’t going to be that way when we get the thing unscrambled.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Hobart said. “Call it a cop’s instinct if you want, but things just don’t come out that smooth. You’ve got a bright idea and that’s all it is, an idea.

“That’s the worst of you guys who single-shot. You play things as a lone wolf. You get an idea and you follow it through. You work out some ingenious solution and then you start playing that solution. The cops can’t afford to work that way. They have to go one step at a time. They can’t take short cuts. They plod along, picking out one thing and then another.”

“Okay. You work your way, I work my way,” I said.

“What else do you know?” Hobart asked.

I said, “There were things in that trunk that I couldn’t figure out — cards, books and things. Sellers has them now.”

Hobart said, “Tell me about these cards.”

“They consisted of strings of figures.” I pulled out my notebook. “Here’s one — O, O, five, one, three, six, four.”

Hobart reached out and took the book.

“Now then, take a look at the next one,” I said.

Hobart read out the figures. “Four, dash, five, dash, fifty-nine, dash, ten, dash, one, dash.”

“Take a look at the next line,” I said. “That ends in a plus sign.”

He read off the figures. “Eight, dash, five, dash, fifty-nine, dash, four, dash, one, with a plus at the end of it.

“Try one of your hunches on this stuff,” Hobart suggested.

I said, “I noticed a lot of the numbers on those cards ended with three, six, four.”

“Any ideas?”

“I’ve been thinking, particularly about that plus and minus.”