Lay Her Among The Lilies

I pushed open my office door and marched in. Jack Kerman was dozing in the armchair by

the window. Paula was sitting at my desk working on one of her hundreds of card indexes:

indexes that kept our fingers on the pulse of Orchid City, that told us who was who, who was

in town and who had left town, who had married who, and so on. Although she had four girls

working continuously on the cards, she insisted on keeping the key-cards up-to-date herself.

She moved out of the desk-chair as I tossed my hat at Kerman, waking him. He gave a

startled grunt, rubbed his eyes and yawned.

“What’s it like—working?” he asked. “Or haven’t you started yet?”

“I’ve started,” I said, and sat down, reached for a cigarette, lit it, shot my cuffs and plunged

into the tale. I gave them all the details with the exception of my session with Nurse Gurney.

I skirted over that, knowing Paula wouldn’t have approved and Kerman would have got too

excited to think straight. “Not much,” I concluded, “but enough to make me think it’s worth

while going on with. Maybe there’s nothing wrong; maybe there is. If there is the less

commotion we make the better. We don’t want to tip anyone off just yet.”

“If this guy in the Dodge was tailing you, it seems to me someone’s tipped off already,”

Kerman pointed out.

“Yeah, but we can’t be sure of that. Maybe my face interested him. Maybe he was

practicing to be a detective.”

I reached for the telephone. “Give me police headquarters,” I told the exchange girl.

“You got his number?” Paula asked, fluttering through the stack of cards in her hands.

“Checking it now,” I said. “Give me Lieutenant Mifflin,” I went on when an unenthusiastic

voice announced Police Headquarters. There was a plop on the line, and Mifflin’s gritty voice

asked, “Hello?”

Tim Mifflin was a good tough cop, and we had worked together off and on for some time.

Whenever I could I helped him, and whenever he could he helped me. He had a great respect

for my hunches when playing the horses, and, by following my tips, he had had the luck to

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make himself a little folding money.

“Malloy here,” I said. “How are you, Tim? “

“What do you care?” he snapped. “You’ve never been interested in my health and you

never will be. What do you want this time?”

“Who owns an olive-green Dodge; licence number, O.R.3345?”

“The way you use Headquarters for financial gain slaughters me,” Mifflin said. “If Brandon

ever finds out what I do for you he’ll screw me.”

“Well, I won’t tell him, so it’s up to you,” I said, and grinned, “and another thing, talking

about financial gain, if you want to make yourself a piece of change, put your shirt on Crab

Apple for a win. Tomorrow; four-thirty.”

“You really mean my shirt?”

“I’ll say I do. Sell up your home; hock your wife; break into Brandon’s safe. As good as

that. Two gets you six. The only thing that’ll stop that horse is for someone to shoot it.”

“Maybe someone will,” Mifflin said, who was always over cautious. “Well, if you say so

”

“It’s the safest bet you’ll ever have. How about that number?”

“Sure, sure. Hang on. I’ll have it for you in ten seconds.”

While I was waiting I saw Jack Kerman busily dialling on the other phone.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

“Getting my bookie. That Crab Apple sounds good.”

“Forget it. I’m just telling him what someone told me. It’s a safe enough tip for a copper,

but not for a friend.”

Kerman replaced the receiver as if it had bitten him. “Suppose he sells up his home and

hocks his wife? You know what a dope he is on these things.”

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“Have you seen his home and wife? Well, I have. I’ll be doing him a favour.” As Mifflin’s

voice came on the line, I said, “What have you got?”

“O.R.3345, did you say?”

“Yeah.”

“The car’s registered in the name of Jonathan Salzer, The Sanatorium, Foothill Boulevard.

That what you want to know?”

I kept the excitement out of my voice. “Maybe. Who’s Salzer? Know anything about him?”

“Not much. He runs a crank’s home. If you have a pain in your belly he fills you up with

fruit juices and lets you ferment. He does all right.”

“Nothing crooked on the side?”

“For crying out loud! He doesn’t need to be crooked. He’s making a hell of a lot of dough.”

“Well, thanks, Tim.”

“You’re sure about that horse?”

“Of course I’m sure,” I said, and winked at Kerman. “Put your shirt on it.”

“Well, I’ll spring five bucks, but no more.” I hung up.

“Five bucks! The gambler!”

“Salzer’s car, huh?” Kerman said.

I nodded.

“Maybe we did tip our hand.” I looked at Paula. “Have you anything on Salzer?”

“I’ll see.” She put a card down before me. “That might interest you. It’s all the information

we have on Janet Crosby.”

I read the details while she went into the card-index room that led off the outer office.

“Dancing, tennis and golf,” I said, looking across the desk at Kerman. “Doesn’t sound like

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someone with heart disease. Intimate friends, Joan Parmetta and Douglas Sherrill. A couple

of years back she was engaged to Sherrill, but broke it off. No reason given. Who’s Sherrill