many people that liquor,” I said. “I can’t afford to.”
Her lips curled. “I supposed you would want money.”
“Huh?”
She didn’t say anything. Her hand was close to her bag again.
“Don’t forget the safety catch,” I said. Her hand stopped. I went on: “This fellow I called Waldo is quite tall, say five-eleven, slim, dark, brown eyes with a lot of glitter. Nose and mouth too thin. Dark suit, white handkerchief showing, and in a hurry to find you. Am I getting anywhere?”
She took her glass again. “So that’s Waldo,” she said. “Well, what about him?” Her voice seemed to have a slight liquor edge now.
“Well, a funny thing. There’s a cocktail bar across the street… Say, where have you been all evening?”
“Sitting in my car,” she said coldly, “most of the time.”
“Didn’t you see a fuss across the street up the block?”
Her eyes tried to say no and missed. Her lips said: “I knew there was some kind of disturbance. I saw policemen and red searchlights. I supposed someone had been hurt.”
“Someone was. And this Waldo was looking for you before that. In the cocktail bar. He described you and your clothes.”
Her eyes were set like rivets now and had the same amount of expression. Her mouth began to tremble and kept on trembling.
“I was in there,” I said, “talking to the kid that runs it. There was nobody in there but a drunk on a stool and the kid and myself. The drunk wasn’t paying any attention to anything. Then Waldo came in and asked about you and we said no, we hadn’t seen you and he started to leave.”
I sipped my drink. I like an effect as well as the next fellow. Her eyes ate me.
“Just started to leave. Then this drunk that wasn’t paying any attention to anyone called him Waldo and took a gun out. He shot him twice—” I snapped my fingers twice—“like that. Dead.”
She fooled me. She laughed in my face. “So my husband hired you to spy on me,” she said. “I might have known the whole thing was an act. You and your Waldo.”
I gawked at her.
“I never thought of him as jealous,” she snapped. “Not of a man who had been our chauffeur anyhow. A little about Stan, of course—that’s natural. But Joseph Choate—”
I made motions in the air. “Lady, one of us has this book open at the wrong page,” I grunted. “I don’t know anybody named Stan or Joseph Choate. So help me, I didn’t even know you had a chauffeur. People around here don’t run to them. As for husbands—yeah, we do have a husband once in a while. Not often enough.”
She shook her head slowly and her hand stayed near her bag and her blue eyes had glitters in them.
“Not good enough, Mr. Dalmas. No, not nearly good enough. I know you private detectives. You’re all rotten. You tricked me into your apartment, if it is your apartment. More likely it’s the apartment of some horrible man who will swear anything for a few dollars. Now you’re trying to scare me. So you can blackmail me—as well as get money from my husband. All right,” she said breathlessly, “how much do I have to pay?”
I put my empty glass aside and leaned back. “Pardon me if I light a cigarette,” I said. “My nerves are frayed.”
I lit it while she watched me grimly, no fear—or not enough fear for any real guilt to be under it. “So Joseph Choate is his name,” I said. “The guy that killed him in the cocktail bar called him Waldo.”
She smiled a bit disgustedly, but almost tolerantly. “Don’t stall. How much?”
“Why were you trying to meet this Joseph Choate?”
“I was going to buy something he stole from me, of course. Something that’s valuable in the ordinary way too. Almost fifteen thousand dollars. The man I loved gave it to me. He’s dead. There! He’s dead! He died in a burning plane. Now, go back and tell my husband that, you slimy little rat!”
“Hey, I weigh a hundred and ninety stripped,” I yelled.
“You’re still slimy,” she yelled
Carnival of Death (v5.0) (mobi)
Saxon Andrew, Derek Chiodo, Frank MacDonald