Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 30, No. 2 — July 1947)

“A man named Steele took me there,” she answered coolly.

“Oh, that,” I murmured deprecatingly. “Just a name I used.”

“I see. And I suppose you have your reasons for giving a false name?”

“Uh-huh.” My smile stiffened, sickened, struggled a little and died. “Let’s sit down,” I mumbled. “I’ve had a touch of gout. My foot is killing me.”

She shrugged coldly, dropped languorously into one of the soft aqua chairs beside a pickled walnut table. Long gold legs glittered as she crossed them. She reached a cigarette off the end table. I fumbled up a light for her and then sat down on the piano bench and shakily lit one of my own cigarettes. A long deep drag of smoke steadied my nerves some. I decided that it was time to take the ball away from her.

“How well do you know Keever?” she asked.

“Keever?” I coughed out the cloud of smoke.

“Yes, Keever, That man downstairs.”

“Well, you know how it is with guys in the same racket.”

“So you are some sort of detective. I rather suspected it.”

“Uh-huh. Private. Keever seems to think a lot of you.”

“He’s a slimy wolf — or would be if he could, I wouldn’t trust him to walk my dog, if I had a dog.”

“How about me? Would it be all right if I aired the little fellow now and then, if and when you ever do get him?”

“Let’s talk about why you are here,” she said curtly. “What do you want?”

“Oh, nothing much,” I told her. “Hardly anything at all. It was such a fine morning, after all that rain yesterday, that I thought I would just scamper over for a chat before the police got around to you.”

“Indeed? And why should the police be getting around to me?”

“Well, policemen are funny. Er — I guess you trust your maid.”

“Implicitly. She’s gone to market for things for luncheon.”

“Such is faith. You trust her implicitly, but you suspected that I was some kind of a detective, so you sent her out. Who killed Harvey Costain?”

I made my voice hard and sharp and leered directly at her. It was her turn to swallow her cigarette and cough herself purple and fall on the floor and gasp out a full confession. She smiled for the first time that day, faintly, coolly, almost bleakly, but she smiled.

“Policemen are funny,” she drawled. “Funny, fast and very very tricky. That goes for the private variety, too.” Bitterness hardened her voice. “Lord, how I despise cops. All cops.”

“What did a cop ever do to you?” I grumbled.

“None of your business,” she snapped, lurching up out of the chair and standing stiff-legged in the middle of the thick soft aqua rug. “You’re wasting my time, baby, if that’s all you have to say. You’d better beat it.”

“Not quite,” I said, grimly. “Have the cops been here?”

“No,” she said huskily. “I hope I never see another cop as long as I live. Get going, baby.”

I stood up. Her big, dark eyes had lost some of their softness, but not all of it. The gold pajama cloth clung to her curves like heavy silk. Her lips parted and her breathing became a harsh dry sound.

“You’ll be seeing them, just the same,” I said.

“Quit hedging, baby. Is it money you are after?”

“Damn your money,” I snarled, pitching my cigarette into the fireplace. “I’m the guy who beefed to Harvey Costain when he knocked you down last night, out at the Blue Valley Inn bar. Tell me you don’t remember that.”

“Yes, I do remember,” she whispered, huskily.

“Well, that’s something at last.”

“They wouldn’t let you touch him.”

“Yeah. He was one of their juiciest suckers. They liked his dough. So they sapped me. To hell with them. To hell with him. That’s probably where he is. He’s dead — murdered. We both know that. I found you, soaked to the skin, outside in the parking lot, staring into his car. He was in there with a bullet in him even then. Who shot him? You?”

She began to tremble. “No,” she breathed. “I didn’t kill him.” Her eyes got larger, darker. They became deep black pools of emotion. The emotion was fear.