Kept Women Can’t Quit

“I didn’t have time to change them,” I said. “Now look, you’re hotter than a stove lid. Sergeant Sellers of the Police Department is waiting out there in the hall.”

“That so-and-so!” Hazel Downer said. “What right has he got to start pushing me around? I haven’t done anything.”

Elsie Brand looked at me with wide eyes.

“All right,” I said to Hazel, “what do you want?”

She looked me over. “I want some service but I don’t want it here — and I don’t know whether you can give it to me.”

“Why not?”

“You’re not the sort of man I expected.”

“What kind did you expect?”

“A big-shouldered, two-fisted fighter,” she said.

“Mr. Lam fights with his brains,” Elsie told her, rushing to my defense.

Hazel Downer looked around at the “fixtures” and said, “So it seems.”

“All right,” I told her. “There’s no harm done. I’m walking out. I’ll decoy Frank Sellers down to the sidewalk, then you girls get out of here. You go back to the office, Elsie. Hazel can take care of herself. When you get to the street, Hazel, Frank Sellers will be there waiting for you. You’re going to see a lot of Frank Sellers.”

Hazel Downer looked frightened. “I don’t know anything about his fifty grand,” she said. “This Baxley was a torpedo that was on the make. I don’t even know how he got my telephone number.”

I stretched and yawned. “Why tell me? You don’t like me, remember?”

Her eyes sized me up. “Maybe I could like you — under other circumstances and in a different environment.”

“This is the environment we’re forced to use at the moment. What did you want?”

“I wanted you to find a man.”

“Who?”

“Standley Downer.”

“And who’s Standley Downer?”

“He’s the so-and-so who skipped out with my dough.”

“Any relative?”

“I said yes to the guy.”

“Where?”

“In front of an altar.”

“Then what?”

“I thought you were smart,” she said.

“He means with the money,” Elsie said.

“That’s what I meant,” Hazel said.

“Where did you get the money?” I asked.

“From an uncle.”

“How much?”

“Sixty grand.”

“After taxes?”

“After taxes and attorneys’ fees. That was net to me.”

“Any way of proving it?”

“Of course. There are court records.”

“They’ll be checked,” I told her.

She bit her lip.

“All right,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“There aren’t any court records. My uncle was what they call a, rugged individualist. He did business on a cash basis. He cheated on the income tax. He had sixty grand salted away in a safety deposit box. When he knew it was the end of the road for him he sent for me.”

“Now then,” I said, “all you need to tell me is that he had this sixty grand in thousand-dollar bills and that he gave it all to you.”

“That’s exactly what happened.”

“And you didn’t dare to deposit it in a bank because the income-tax people would want to know where all the money came from, so you hid it someplace and then you married Standley Downer and Downer wondered where your money was coming from’ and you wouldn’t tell him so he got smart and finally found where you had hidden it and took the boodle and departed.”

“That’s right.”

“So,” I said, “you want me to find him. Now, if you’re lying and this money represents your share of the fruits of the robbery of that armored truck I’d go to prison as being an accessory after the fact and be there for probably fifteen years. On the other hand, if your story is true and I found the money I’d be accessory after the fact to income-tax evasion and would probably get off with about five years. No, thank you, I don’t want any of it.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “I’ll come clean.”

“Go ahead.”

“You find my husband and the money and then I’ll prove I have the title.”

I said, “When I find Standley Downer, what’s going to keep him from telling us to go chase ourselves?”

“I am.”

“How?”

“I have something on him.”

“This fits into a beautiful picture—” I said, “blackmail, cheating the income tax and compounding a felony. I don’t like it.”

“You get fifty bucks a day and a bonus depending on what I get back.”

“How big a bonus?”

“That depends on how long it takes.”

“Twenty percent.”

“All right, twenty percent.”

Elsie Brand looked at me pleadingly. Her eyes were begging me not to have anything to do with it.

“We’d need a retainer,” I said.

“How much?”

“A thousand.”

“Are you crazy? I haven’t got it.”

“What do you have?”

“Five hundred is every cent I have.”

“Where?”

She put a foot on one of the fixtures, elevated her skirt and took a plastic envelope from the top of her stocking. She pulled back the flap of the envelope. There were five one-hundred-dollar bills inside.

“Have any trouble changing it?” I asked.

“Changing what?”

“The thousand-dollar bill.”

“Go to hell,” she said. “Do you want this, or don’t you?”

I said, “Let me tell you something, sister. If you’re mixed up in that armored car business I’m going to turn you in. If you’re lying I’ll sell you down the river. If you’re telling me the truth, I’m going to find Standley Downer.”

“Fair enough,” she said, “you find him and then we’ll talk turkey, but you’ll have to find him before he’s spent it all.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“A week.”

“You got a picture?”