“No,” I said. “He hired me. I found you.”

  “How?”

  “Simple enough. You used sleeping-capsules that a doctor had given Sylvia on a prescription. The gummed label fell off the box and was caught in the back of one of the bureau drawers.”

  “Say,” she said, “you might be right at that!”

  “It had slipped down behind one of the drawers in the bureau.”

  She made a little gesture of disgust. “I thought I was being a smart girl. I suppose I could have got into trouble over that deal. What’s this guy going to think? Does he know he was drugged?”

  I nodded. “He figured you’d pulled a fast one on him.”

  “Before the label was found or afterward?”

  “Before.”

  “He wasn’t such a bad sort, only he was a little too obvious and impulsive. I guess he has money. That’s probably half the trouble with him. He feels that just because he buys a girl a good dinner and a few drinks he has the right to move right in and share her life.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Who is he, Donald?”

  I said, “Suppose you tell me what you know about him.”

  “Any reason why I should?”

  “No. Any reason why you shouldn’t?”

  She hesitated a moment, looking at me from under long lashes and said, “You seem to cut your cake in big pieces.”

  “Why do things halfway?” I asked.

  She laughed. “I guess you don’t have to.”

  I remained silent.

  She said, “Sylvia and I were on the prowl. Sylvia is more impulsive than I am. This fellow was on the make. We needed an escort and we needed someone to pay the check. We—”

  “Don’t, Millie,” I said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t go on with that line.”

  “I thought you wanted to know.”

  I said, “You’re an intelligent girl and you’re a good- looking girl. There’s no percentage with that line. It won’t work. How much is Billings paying you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I said, “You’ve overlooked a lot of little things. I just wanted to make certain that you knew him before I called them to your attention.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I said, “If you’d been really adept at the game you’d have insisted I talk with the two of you together. Letting me get you one at a time was a fatal weakness, and shows how amateurish you are.”

  “You’re doing the talking now,” she said, her greenishblue eyes hard, wary, and watchful.

  “According to Sylvia, he was placed on the couch fully clothed, with only a pillow behind his head. The davenport wasn’t made up into a bed, there were no blankets for him. Sylvia donated a pillow and that was all.”

  She hesitated a moment, then said, “Give me another cigarette, Donald.”

  I gave her one.

  She said, “I could try to juggle this one but I know it wouldn’t do any good. Sylvia phoned me you’d swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. You were young, gullible, and a pushover for a girl who had good-looking legs.”

  “I am,” I told her.

  She laughed.

  “Come on,” she said, after a short silence. “How did you get wise?”

  “You mean how much do I know?”

  “I’m feeling my way,” she said.

  “There were certain things about the story that gave it every appearance of being synthetic,” I told her. “How long have you known John Billings?”

  “I just met him. He’s one of Sylvia’s friends.”

  “You don’t know all of her friends?”

  “Not the ones that have money,” she said, and laughed. “Sylvia plays some things close to her chest.”

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “Two hundred and fifty bucks. That is, Sylvia passed it over. She said that was my share of the take.”

  “Exactly what did she say you were to do in return?”

  “She said I could get two hundred and fifty dollars if I was willing to have my picture in a newspaper. She said I’d have to play the part of a fallen woman, but she thought I could be ‘fallen’ in name only.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s the answer.”

  “And then you met Billings?”

  “Just over cocktails. He passed over the money and took a look at me so he’d know me when he saw me, and I took a look at him so I could identify him, and we had a drink or two, then he and Sylvia went out.”

  “Who fixed up the story?”

  “Sylvia.”

  “Why does he want an alibi? Do you know?”

  “No.”

  “You mean that you didn’t ask?”

  “There were five nice, crisp fifty-dollar bank notes. I wouldn’t have asked a question of any one, let alone the whole five.”

  “How much did he pay Sylvia? Do you know?”

  “He and Sylvia are—” She held up her hand with the first and second fingers crossed.

  I said, “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

  “Don’t mention it. It was all part of the two hundred and fifty bucks. I rather expected you last night but Sylvia telephoned you had to go back to Los Angeles.”

  I nodded.

  “You must be wearing out airplanes.”

  “I’m moving around.”

  “Now what do I do?”

  “Keep quiet.”

  “Do I ring Sylvia and tell her that you were wise all along, that you trapped me and—”

  “Then what would Sylvia do?”

  “Oh,” she said, “Sylvia would blame it all on me. She’d swear she’d pulled the wool over your eyes and everything was fine until you came to talk with me, and then I let the cat out of the bag. That’s all right; you couldn’t expect Sylvia to take any responsibility, not with it being one of her boyfriends.”

  “How many does she have?”

  “Two or three.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “None of your business.”

  “A lot of things are going to be my business. How many do you have?”

  She looked at me and said, “None. Not in the way that you mean.”

  I said, “That’s the answer that I expected.”

  “It happens to be true.”

  “I think it is,” I told her and got up from the chair. “Can you tell me why Sylvia happened to pick on you to back up her story?”

  “Because we’re friends.”

  “Any other reason?”

  “And I was available.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “That I happened to be taking a week of my vacation. That meant no one could check on me and find I’d been at work when I said I’d been in Los Angeles.

  “I guess Sylvia would rather have had one of her other friends. We’re not too close. But the vacation business got me the two-fifty. Nice business, isn’t it? Once you can get it. Tell me, Donald, am I in bad?”

  “Not with me.”

  “With anyone?”

  “Not yet.”

  “But I shouldn’t stick with the story?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  “To work.”

  “Can’t I fix you a cup of coffee?”

  I shook my head.

  “And you’re not going to tell Sylvia I spilled the beans?”

  “No.”

  “What do I tell her?”

  “Tell her I showed up and asked you questions.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  She said, “You’re letting me off pretty easy, aren’t you, Donald?”

  “I’m trying to.”

  She said, “Thanks. I’ll remember it.”

  I closed the door, walked down the two flights of steps, and went to police headquarters.

  I picked a man who looked as though he might be able to do me some good, got acquainted, showed him my credentials, said, “I want information. It’s information that’s a matter of public record but I want to get it fast. I’m going to need a little help. I’m willing to pay for it.”

  I took out a ten-dollar bill.

  “What’s the information?”

  “I want to get a list of hit-and-run driving accidents on last Tuesday night.”

  “Just hit-and-run?”

  “I’d like the whole crime list — but hit-and-run particularly.”

  “Can you give me the location?”

  “Just anywhere around this part of the country.”

  He said, “Why the hit-and-run? You got a hunch?”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t a thing that will be of any help to you. I don’t even know it’s hit-and-run, but judging from the type of man I’m dealing with I think it might be hit-and-run. That looks like the most obvious explanation.”

  “Explanation for what?”

  “Explanation for why I gave you ten bucks to dig up the information for me.”

  He said, “Sit right here, buddy. I’ll be back.”

  I sat there and cussed myself for having associated with Bertha so long I was picking up her ways. Fifty dollars would have done the job. Ten bucks wasn’t enough. However, I’d heard Bertha scream so much about expenses that I’d unconsciously begun to start economizing. I decided in the future to play things my way. A cop who is willing to take anything on the side is apt to regard ten dollars the same way a bellboy looks at a tencent tip.

  My man was back, however, in about ten minutes with the information I wanted.

  “Two cases are the only ones you could be interested in, buddy. A man was hit at Post and Polk by a car driven by a young fellow who was probably drunk. A jane was sitting next to the driver, and, according to spectators, had amalgamated herself pretty thoroughly with him. She was crawling all over him. He was driving pretty fast. He hit this pedestrian, broke a hip, an ankle, and a shoulder, knocked the guy over to the curb, slowed for a stop, then evidently remembered how many drinks he’d had and went away from there fast. He got a break. No one seems to have taken his license number. It happened pretty fast, you know. A car behind him, halfway down the block, saw the whole thing and took after the hit-and-run. He had good ideas but his execution wasn’t so hot.

  “Another car was just pulling out from the curb. They tangled. There was a smashing of fenders and cracking of glass. The road was blocked, no other cars could get through.”

  “Any physical clues?” I asked.

  “I told you the guy was lucky. The second accident took place right close to where the pedestrian had been hit. We’ve got quite a few assorted pieces of glass and some bits from a broken grill. So far, the assorted junk all came from one or the other of the cars that were in the collision. The car that hit the pedestrian doesn’t seem to have shed anything. If it did, it was mixed up with other stuff.”

  I nodded. “What was the other case?”

  “The other case I don’t think you’re going to be interested in. A man was driving a car and was pretty drunk. He’s out on bail.”

  I got up and said, “Well, I guess that does it.”

  He grinned at me and said, “The hell it does.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You’ve got a date with the man who’s working on the case.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  I said, “I don’t know a thing. I’m here to get information. I—”

  He said, “You tell it to the lieutenant.”

  “And furthermore,” I went on, “if I had any information I wouldn’t give it to the lieutenant or anybody else. I’m protecting a client.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  I said, “When I protect a client I go all the way.”

  “You’ve gone all the way now, buddy. You’ve gone from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Try and protect a Los Angeles client up here and see where it gets you.”

  I said, “Try and beat information out of me and see where it gets you.”

  “We won’t beat it out of you,” he said, grinning. “We just shake it out of you.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder, a hand that was big as a ham, with strong fingers that slid down my arm until they took a grip on my elbow. “Right this way,” he said.

  Chapter Seven

  Lieutenant Sheldon was a tall, slender individual who didn’t look like a cop at all. He was wearing plain clothes and he sat behind a desk, assuming the attitude of a fatherconfessor. He stood up, shook hands, and said, “I’m very glad to meet you, Donald. Anything we can do for you up here we’ll be only too glad to do.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We like to help the visiting firemen in every way we can.”

  “I’m sure I appreciate it.”

  “In return we expect a reasonable amount of co-operation.”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re interested in hit-and-run cases on Tuesday night?”

  “Not exclusively. I was interested in the whole crime blotter, but I was giving special attention to hit-and-run.”

  “I know, I know,” he said. “You wanted the whole thing. I’ve had it all typed out for you, Lam. Here it is.”

  He handed me a three-page list of crimes that included one case of molestation, three stickups, five burglaries, three driving while intoxicated. The list went on with solicitation, prostitution, gambling, and a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses.

  I didn’t get to read it all. Lieutenant Sheldon started talking. “Fold it and put it in your pocket, Lam. You’ll have an opportunity to study it at your leisure. What do you know about the hit-and-run charge?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You have a client, perhaps, who has an automobile that’s been smashed up a little. You’re a shrewd operator. You want to know just what you’re getting into before you represent him, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You should.”

  “I mean I don’t have a client who has a broken-up automobile.”

  “Tut-tut,” Lieutenant Sheldon said. “Let’s not spar around with each other, Donald.”

  “I’m not sparring.”

  His eyes twinkled. “And don’t try to get hardboiled. It doesn’t buy you anything — up here.”

  “I’m satisfied it wouldn’t.”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “So now we understand each other perfectly.”

  I nodded. “If I knew anything that would help on that hit-and-run charge I’d let you fellows know.”

  “Of course you would,” Lieutenant Sheldon said. “I know you would. In the first place, we’d be very grateful for any co-operation, and in the second we’d be very, very much put out if we didn’t get the co-operation.”

  I nodded.

  “Now, the way I see it,” Sheldon went on, “is that you’re from Los Angeles. You have a detective agency down there and somebody came to you and said, ‘Look, Lam, I had a little trouble when I was up in San Francisco. I had a few drinks and I had this girl along with me and she was getting affectionate and demonstrative, and there was a crowded street corner and I heard somebody yell. I don’t think I hit anybody, but I’d just like to have you find out. And if I did hit anybody, you try to square it for me, will you?’ž”

  I shook my head. “It isn’t like that at all.”

  “I know,” Sheldon said. “I’m just telling you the way I thought it might be.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “So you come up here and start looking around to try and find out about what happened. Now that’s all right as far as you’re concerned, but as far as the department is concerned we’d like to have the credit of cleaning up the case and solving it. You understand that, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  Sheldon’s eyes got hard. “So,” he said, “if you know anything about it, you tell us and we’ll all co-operate and play palsy-walsy; but if you don’t co-operate, Donald, your man will be in one hell of a fix. There won’t be anything he can square. He’ll have the book thrown at him, and whenever you come to San Francisco you’ll wish you’d stayed home.” Again I nodded.

  “So,” Sheldon went on, “now that we’ve become acquainted, what have you got to tell us?”

  “Nothing, yet.”

  “Now, we don’t like that, Donald, I don’t like the ‘yet’ and I don’t like the ‘nothing.’ž”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He said, “You’re going to want some co-operation at this end before you get done. Now’s the time to lay the foundation for it.”

  I said, “You could be all cockeyed in your surmises.”

  “Of course I could, of course I could, Donald! You don’t need to tell me that. Good heavens, some man could have walked into your office and said, ‘Look, Donald, my boy went up to San Francisco and when he came home I’m satisfied he’d been in trouble of some sort. Now, he’s a good boy but he does have a tendency to hoist a couple and then go out and get behind a steering wheel. Now, suppose you just slide up to San Francisco and see if there’s any hit-and-run charge up there that hasn’t been accounted for.’

  “Or,” Lieutenant Sheldon went on, “some man might have come to you and said, ‘I saw a hit-and-run job up there in San Francisco. I was out with a woman who wasn’t my wife and I simply can’t afford to get mixed into it, but I’ll give you a little information about what I saw and perhaps you can use it to locate the driver of the car and he’ll take care of me in some way.’ It could be any one of a hundred and one things.”

  I said, “I have a client. I haven’t the faintest idea whether he knows anything about hit-and-run or not, but I’m interested in finding out. When I go back to Los Angeles I’m going to see that client. I’m going to put it up to him. If he was mixed up in any hit-and-run he’s going to try and square it, and if he tries to square it he’s going to come to you first. Now, how’s that?”

  Lieutenant Sheldon got up, came around the desk, grabbed my hand, and pumped it up and down. “Now, Donald,” he said, “you’re beginning to understand how we work in San Francisco; the way we try to co-operate with you fellows when you’re up here. You don’t try to do any squaring on the side. You pick up the telephone and you call for Lieutenant Sheldon, person to person. You get it?”

  “I get it,” I said.