Kept Women Can’t Quit

I started to put the key in the lock and then heard the phone ringing, steadily, insistently.

That was something I hadn’t counted on. If I answered and the police heard a man’s voice they’d know what had happened. If no one answered they’d wonder where the hell Hazel was and probably would put two and two together.

I dashed down the corridor, tapped gently on the door of my room.

Hazel, attired only in panties and bra, opened it, started to say something, then caught herself. I dragged her out in the corridor, handed her the key to her room. “Get down there fast,” I whispered. “The phone is ringing. They’re checking up on you. Tell them you were in the bathroom.”

“I’m half naked,” she whispered. “I slipped my dress off—”

“Get started,” I said, and gave her a slap on the behind as I opened the door to my room, tiptoed inside, coughed a couple of times, then yawned sleepily.

I went to the bathroom, washed the dirt of the fire escape off my hands, and was just returning when the door surreptitiously opened and Hazel came in.

I frowned at her.

She gestured toward the scanties she was wearing by way of explanation, walked over to the closet, took a dress from the hanger and stood looking at me, hesitating somewhat. Her eyes were sultry and inviting.

Abruptly the telephone shattered the silence of the room.

I let it ring five or six times, then went over and picked up the receiver and said sleepily, “Hello.”

Inspector Hobart’s voice said, “Hello, Lam. I guess I woke you up.”

“I suppose,” I said angrily, “you want some more ideas.”

“I thought you’d like to know,” Inspector Hobart said, “that down in Los Angeles, Dover C. Inman, proprietor of the Full Dinner Pail, has just made a confession to Sergeant Frank Sellers, admitting that he and Herbert Baxley were in partnership on that armored car deal.

“The two drivers of the car had got sweet on a couple of the babes who were car hopping and Inman put it up to them to get the keys out of the pockets of the driver and the guard. I don’t need to tell you how they did it, but Inman got the waxed impressions of the keys had duplicate keys made, and when the armored car stopped for coffee, Baxley pretended to be changing a tire. He had his car parked right in back of the armored truck. He knew that there was a shipment of one hundred thousand dollars in thousand dollar bills being sent to one of the banks on the order of Standley Downer. Downer wanted to get his money in the form of cash because he was planning on going bye-bye with Evelyn Ellis. Baxley had a tip from a friend of Evelyn’s.

“Under the circumstances, Frank Sellers is feeling pretty damn good. He’s even friendly toward you. He recovered all but six thousand dollars of the money. He’s vindicated his own name, solved the armored car case, and told me to tell you he always had been a friend of yours — that you exasperated him at times by your cocksure manner, but he thought you were, to use his own words, ‘one swell little bastard.’

“So,” Inspector Hobart said, “you’re out of quarantine, Lam. You can do anything you damn please. Incidentally, as you probably know, your little girl friend, Hazel, is registered in your hotel under the name of Hazel Bickley. She’s in Room 417, which is on your same floor. You might like to give her a ring.”

“She’s here?”

“That’s right.”

“You put her in here at this hotel?”

“She put herself there,” Inspector Hobart said. “I was baiting a trap. You were the bait. Her attorney kept ringing up and pestering for your release so we gave him a definite time. That was so he could have his client alerted and she could follow you. The officer who drove you out to the hotel certainly had to act dumb to keep from ‘discovering’ her tagging along. My God, the opinion you amateurs must have of cops!”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “If Frank Sellers recovered the loot from that armored car job, what the hell happened to the fifty grand I got?”

“That’s your hard luck, Lam,” he said. “Sergeant Sellers had a theft from an armored truck. He solved that. I’ve got a murder case. I haven’t solved that — not yet.

“You’ve lost fifty grand. You haven’t solved that, and my best guess is, you’re not going to.

“We’ve all got our troubles. All God’s chillun got troubles.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “Have you seen Evelyn Ellis within the last couple of hours?”

“Nope. We shook her room down, didn’t find anything, and she’s off the list — at least for the present. Now, in case you’re planning on any nocturnal confidential conferences — and you’ll notice I’m being very tactful — with your client, Hazel Clune, alias Hazel Doner, alias Hazel Bickley, I might warn you that the room you’re in is bugged. We’ve been having you under audible surveillance ever since you went in there. We even have a tape recording of your talk with Hazel.”

“The hell!” I said.