Kept Women Can’t Quit

Inspector Hobart chuckled. “I can’t say I admire your taste in television programs, Lam. You were doing so much masterminding that I thought sure you’d tune in on these Hollywood private-eye programs. I hardly expected you to suffer through all the romantic agonies of a sickening love story on television, but damned if you didn’t stay with it. I—”

“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “You weren’t in the Caltonia Hotel? You didn’t go up to see Evelyn Ellis tonight?”

“No, not within the last two hours.”

I said, “Look, Inspector, do me a favor. It’ll take me about thirty-five minutes to get up to that hotel. Will you go up there with me?”

“Why?”

“I’ve got something hot.”

“Another one of your brilliant ideas?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, for your information,” he said, “I’m going home and then going to bed. I’m not going to go running around the city at night just because you have some brilliant ideas you want to tell me about.”

I said, “Inspector, this is important. Please—”

“Forget it,” he snapped. “You’ve had enough brain storms for one day.”

I said, “All right. Let me tell you something. Evelyn worked for the Mizukaido Importing Company. This was before she ever became Miss American Hardware. Carl Christopher, President of the Christopher, Crowder and Doyle Cutlery Company, fell for her. She used the contact to feather her own nest and also to sell a big order for the Mizukaido Importing Company, for which she probably got a commission. The big order, in case you’re interested, was the exclusive United States distributorship of the thin carving sets made of imported Swedish steel and with a synthetic plastic handle made to resemble onyx.

“Outside of the manager of the Japanese importing company she was the first person in the United States to have one of those carving knives. She took a sample up and sold Carl Christopher on them. Now then, do you want to—”

“Hell’s bells!” he said, and slammed up the telephone.

I turned to Hazel who was standing there sweetly seductive, holding the dress in one hand.

“Get it on, kid, get it on!” I yelled at her. “We’re fighting minutes. The sonofabitch is going to short cut me and go up to Evelyn’s room.”

I jiggled the phone until the desk answered and said, “Get me a taxi and get it quick.”

Chapter 11

I bribed the cab driver to hit the high spots. We pulled up in front of the hotel within twenty-two minutes of the time Inspector Hobart had hung up the telephone.

“Come on, Hazel,” I said, and holding her hand, we streaked through the door of the hotel over to the elevators and up to the seventh floor.

I hurried Hazel down to Evelyn Ellis’ room and tried the door.

It was unlocked.

I have never seen such wreckage as was in that room. Evelyn Ellis had a heavy flannel bathrobe wrapped around her, and was crying. The torn remnants of the fluffy negligee were scattered around the apartment. Evelyn had a right eye that was slowly swelling shut and she was frightened.

Big Bertha Cool stood in the middle of the floor, her arms akimbo, looking at the wreckage.

Inspector Hobart had been taking notes. He looked just a little dazed.

He looked up when I came in and didn’t seem the least surprised.

He looked like a man who couldn’t be surprised by anything anymore.

Bertha looked at me and said, “What the hell did you run out for? For God’s sake, don’t you know that old telephone gag? Some guy calls up and she says, ‘Why, yes, Inspector, come on up here.’ God Almighty, you went tearing out of here... That was just some buddy of hers wanting to come up here. He just called to find out if the coast was clear. The minute she said she had people with her the guy hung up in a panic. From where I was, I was able to hear the click on the line. She went on talking after he hung up and pulled all that Inspector Hobart stuff out of thin air just in order to scare you.”

I looked at Bertha and said, “What are you talking about? You have me mixed up with someone else. You remember our client, Bertha. This is Hazel.”

Hobart stared at Bertha, said, “You’re all wet, Mrs. Cool. Lam hasn’t been out of his room all night. We’ve had him under auditory surveillance. Don’t try to hand me a line!”

Bertha started to say something, but changed her mind.

I faced Bertha and said, “What’s the score?”

“This little bitch,” Bertha said, “was carrying on with a publicity director by the name of Calhoun. She liked him but he didn’t have dough. When Standley Downer cut in with dough, our little friend Evelyn here took a powder on Calhoun.

“Calhoun was jealous. He didn’t like it. He managed to locate Downer, came up here and found Downer and little Evelyn together just at a time when Downer was unpacking your trunk and found he had the wrong trunk.

“He tried to explain to Evelyn that this was a big surprise to him, that he had a lot of dough and someone had highjacked it by switching trunks. That was a line Evelyn thought she had heard before. She said things that weren’t ladylike.