“No,” I said, “and I haven’t time to go into it right now. But I’m coming back some day and let you show me.”

  His face lit up. “Do you mean that, buddy? Gee, that’d be swell. I need to get in practice a little, and I’d like to show you. First we start out with the old one-two–” And be got the fighter’s crouch again, and his feet started shuffling over the cement.

  “Okay,” I said hastily, “I’ll be back,” and headed for the door. My watch gave the time as five minutes before six.

  Chapter Four

  I CLIMBED the stairs to Helen Framley’s apartment once more. My face was sore now. The tips of my fingers showed there was a bump on the right side of my jaw, and another just below my left cheekbone. I didn’t think they’d show badly, but they hurt.

  I rang the bell and waited.

  There was no answer.

  I rang again.

  Abruptly the door of the adjoining apartment opened. The woman who had talked with me before, said, “Oh, it’s you. I think she’s in now. I thought you were ringing this apartment. What’s the matter? Won’t she answer?”

  I said, “Give her time. She may not have heard the bell.”

  “Humph! I can hear it in my apartment as plain as my own bell. I certainly thought you were ringing my bell. Perhaps—”

  The man’s voice called impatiently from the back of the apartment, “Maw, get away from that door and quit prying into other people’s business.”

  “I don’t pry into other people’s business.”

  “No, not much.”

  “I thought he rang my bell, and—”

  “Get away from that door.”

  The door slammed.

  I rang Helen Framley’s bell again.

  Her door opened a cautious inch. I could see the brass chain which kept it from opening wider, could see cool, slate-colored eyes looking at me, and then heard her exclamation of surprise. It was the slot-machine girl. “How did you find me?”

  “May I come in?”

  “No— Certainly not— What do you want?”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened at the Cactus Patch—and it’s important.”

  She hesitated a moment as though turning something over in her mind, then slid the guard chain back out of its catch.

  She studied me curiously as 1 walked on in.

  “Don’t pay any attention to the face,” I said. “It’ll come back into shape after a while.”

  “Did he hit you hard?”

  “I guess it was hard. I felt like a flock of tenpins when a bowler makes a strike. I’ve often heard them explode all over the alley, and now I know just how they must feel.”

  She laughed, said, “Come on in here and sit down.”

  I followed her into a little living-room. She indicated a chair. I sat down.

  “Weren’t you sitting here?” I asked.

  “No. I was sitting over here.”

  The chair was warm.

  “Mind if I smoke?”

  “I should say not. I was smoking when you came in.” She picked up a cigarette from an ash tray which was by her chair.

  I said, “I’m going to put the cards on the table.”

  “I like people who do that.”

  “I’m a private detective.”

  Her face became cold and white, frozen into a stiffly starched look of courteous attention.

  “What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

  “N-n-nothing.”

  “Don’t you like private detectives?”

  “It depends on—on what they’re after.”

  “I’m after information about a friend.”

  “I—I’m afraid I can’t help you. I—”

  I heard a hinge squeak. She flashed a quick glance past me, then shifted her eyes and kept silent, waiting for something.

  I said, without turning my head, “You might just as well come on over and join the party, Sid.”

  I heard quick motion behind me, sensed someone standing close to the back of my chair. “Get all your cards on the table, brother,” a man’s voice said.

  “All of them that concern you are on the table.”

  I turned around and looked at him then. It was the man in the plaid sport coat who had been playing the quarter machine, and I noticed now he had just the’ trace of a cauliflower on his right ear. He was uneasy—and dangerous.

  “Sit down,” I told him, “and join the party. I’m not holding anything back.”

  He said, “You happened to stumble into the Cactus Patch at a queer time tonight. Maybe it was just luck—and then—”

  I said, “Don’t talk so loud. The woman in the next, apartment is curious.”

  “I’ll say she is,” Miss Framley said.

  The man in the plaid coat sat down. He said, “We’re not going to say anything for about five minutes. During those five minutes, you’re going to do a lot of talking.”

  “There’ll be just about four minutes of silence then,” I said. “My name’s Donald Lam. I’m working for the B.

  Cool Detective Agency. I’m trying to locate Corla Burke.

  I have reason to believe Miss Framley knows where she is.” His face twitched. “What you want to locate her for?”

  “A client.”

  “Ain’t you smart?”

  “I’m not trying to be, but I’m not dumb enough to go around telling the names of our clients to anyone who happens to ask.”

  He said, “Well, Miss Framley doesn’t have any idea where Corla Burke is ‘cause she don’t know any Corla Burke.”

  “Why did Miss Framley send her a letter then?”

  “She didn’t.”

  “I know people who say she did—people who are in a position to know.”

  “Well, they’re cockeyed. She didn’t send any letter.” Miss Framley said, “I don’t even know who Corla Burke is. You’re the second person who’s asked me.”

  Sid flashed her a quick glance. “Who was the first one?”

  “An engineer out at the dam.”

  His eyes glittered. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

  “Why should I? I didn’t know what he was talking about even. He got the wrong number somewhere.” She turned ‘to me and said, “And I presume he’s the one who tipped you off, and that’s why you’re here.”

  “What was this man’s name?” I asked.

  “The one who asked me the first time?”

  “Yes.”

  She started to answer, then glanced at Sid Jannix, and hesitated perceptibly.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “I don’t know his name. He didn’t give it to me.”

  “You’re lying.”

  She flared up. “Why should I lie to you, you big baboon? My God, do you want to know every agent that comes to the door trying to sell a new vacuum sweeper?”

  He turned to me and said, “What gave you the idea she’d written a letter?”

  “Some people thought she had.”

  “Who were they?”

  “People who reported to the agency. The agency sent me out.”

  “Who were the people?”

  “You’d have to ask the agency.”

  He said to Helen Framley, “But you didn’t write any letter?”

  “No, of course not.”

  He turned back to me. “What was that you called me—what name?”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “When I first came out, you said something—”

  “Oh, I called you Sid.”

  “Where’d you get that name?”

  “Isn’t that your name?”

  “No.”

  “Pardon me, my mistake. What is it?”

  “Harry Beegan.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Who told you to call me Sid?”

  “I thought, that was your name.”

  He scowled at me, said slowly, “Get this straight. My name’s Harry Beegan. My nickname is Pug. I don’t want to be called by any other name.”

  “Okay, that’s fine by me.”

  He turned back to Helen Framley. There were lights in his eyes, little lights coming and going, like the reflection of sky in a mountain pool when the wind blows it into little ripples. “If I thought you was two-timin’ me,” he said, “I’d—”

  “Get it out of your head once and for all,” she said, “that you can frighten me, and I’m not your slave. I’m living my own life. Ours is a business partnership, and that’s all.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “You heard me.”

  He swung back to me. “I want to know some more about this client of yours.”

  “You can ask Bertha Cool about that. She’s at the Sal Sagev Hotel.”

  “That client here in town right now?”

  “You’ll have to ask her about that.”

  “I think,” he said, “I’m going to take quite an interest in that client of yours.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I told him, “not after what Kleinsmidt told me about you.”

  “Who’s Kleinsmidt?”

  “The big cop who collared me at the blowoff.”

  “How did you happen to horn in on that?”

  “I didn’t. I walked in and won a jackpot.”

  He said, “You weren’t dumb enough to tap a nickel machine’ when the ten-cent and two-bit machines were all ripe, were you?”

  I said, “I had nickels so I played nickels.”

  I saw that he was studying me with a puzzled look on his face.

  “Did you take out a phoney rivet and leave it out?”

  I said, “I don’t know about any phoney rivets. I put in nickels and didn’t win anything until a couple of cherries showed up. The next time I hit the jackpot right on the nose.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then the attendant moved over, and we started arguing.”

  “Go on.”

  “Then the manager showed up, and the law. The law was named Lieutenant William Kleinsmidt. They took me up to the office and turned me inside out.”

  “Find anything?”

  “A bunch of nickels and—”

  “You know what I mean. Piano wire, drill, cups, or any of that stuff?”

  The girl said, “Pug, I believe he’s on the outside.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Pug said without taking his eyes off of me. “What did they find?”

  “They found,” I said, “that I’d hit Las Vegas a couple of hours ago on the plane. They found that I hadn’t been here before for six months, that I’m a private detective, that I’m employed by Bertha Cool, and that Bertha Cool was in the Sal Sagev Hotel waiting for me to make a report.”

  Pug looked me over carefully. “Wouldn’t it be a scream,” he said, “if you were telling the truth?” I said, “Kleinsmidt thought I was telling the truth.”

  “He’s dumb.”

  “And Breckenridge, the manager, thought I was telling the truth.”

  “Do you mean to say you just blundered in there and didn’t know the machines were fixed?”

  “The woman next door told me I could find Helen Framley hanging out around the slot machines at the Cactus Patch.”

  They exchanged glances. Pug gave a low whistle. “How did she know?” the girl asked.

  “She said she’d seen you there several times as she walked past.”

  “I wish she’d mind her own business for a change,” the girl said savagely. “She told you about Pug being in here, too, just now, didn’t she?”

  I nodded, then said, “She didn’t have to. I knew he was in the closet.”

  “Yes, you did,” Pug said derisively.

  I said, “The chair was warm. The girl was smoking a cigarette. Her cigarette was in the ash tray over by that other chair. She leaves lipstick on the paper. The cigarette, in this ash tray didn’t have any lipstick.”

  Pug said, “By God, he is a detective.”

  “Do I get what I want about Corla Burke?”

  “We haven’t anything, Honest Injun,” the girl said. “You don’t know anything about her?”

  “No, honest—except what I read in the newspapers.”

  “You read what the newspapers had to say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Las Vegas newspapers?”

  She glanced at Pug, then let her eyes slide away from his. Pug said to me, “Forget it. You ain’t goin’ to cross-examine her.”

  “I can ask her questions, can’t I?”

  “No.”

  I said, “I don’t think there was anything published in the Las Vegas newspapers. The Los Angeles papers didn’t give it a big play. The man she was to marry wasn’t prominent enough to make it a subject of general interest. It was just another disappearance.”

  “Well, she says she doesn’t know anything about it.”

  “Except what she read in the papers,” I pointed out. Pug’s scowl creased his forehead. “Listen, guy, you’ve gone far enough, see?”

  I said, “I don’t see.”

  “Well, maybe something will happen to improve your - eyesight.”

  I said, “It costs money to get me working.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “It means that the people who have hired my agency to find Corla Burke are willing to spend money.”

  “Okay, let ‘em spend it.”

  “And,” I said, “if a Los Angeles grand jury got the idea there was something back of that disappearance, it would call witnesses.”

  “That’s fine. Let ‘em go ahead.”

  “The witness who testified before the grand jury would be testifying under oath. Any lies they told would be perjury, and you know what that means. Now, I’m here as a friend. You can tell me whatever it is you know, and I’ll try to find Corla Burke. I could leave you out of it—if I got results. If you appear before the Los Angeles grand jury, the situation might be different.”

  “Forget it. I don’t want to appear before no grand jury.” I lit a cigarette.

  Helen Framley said, “Well, I’ll tell you. I—”

  “Skip it,” Pug said.

  “Shut up, Pug. I know what I’m doing. Let me tell it.”

  “You’re talking too much.’

  “No, I’m not. I’m not talking enough. Now, listen, Mr. Lam, I’m just like any other woman. I’m curious. Well, after this Mr. Dearbor—this engineer started asking me questions, I made up my mind I’d find out what he was talking about, so I wrote to a friend in Los Angeles to get clippings from the newspapers.”

  “Now,” I said, “we’re doing a lot better. How about the clippings?”

  “They were mailed to me.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “Nothing you don’t know. Just the stuff that was in the newspapers.”

  “I haven’t seen the papers,” I said. “I was only employed on the case a short time ago. You got those clippings with you?”

  “They’re in the bureau drawer.”

  “How about letting me see them?”

  “Lay off,” Pug said.

  “Oh, forget it, Pug. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t see the newspaper clippings.”

  She jumped to her feet, eluded Pug’s reaching hand with a swiftly graceful motion, vanished into the bedroom, returned after a moment with some newspaper clippings. I glanced through them. They had been cut from a newspaper and fastened together with a paper clip. The line along the edge of the paper was in irregular waves as though the cutting had been done very hastily.

  “Could I take these for a few hours?” I asked. “I’d bring them back in the morning.”

  “No,” Pug said.

  I handed them back to her.

  “I don’t see why not, Pug,” she said.

  “Listen, babe, we ain’t going to help the law in this thing. If that girl took a powder, she had her own reason for doing it. Let’s mind our own business and keep our own noses clean.”

  Pug turned to me. “I don’t exactly get you,” he said. “What about me?”

  “That slot machine. There was something funny about it. You don’t work that racket?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not even as a side line?”

  I said, “Listen, when it comes to slot-machines, I’m a babe in the woods. There’s one in the Golden Motto—the restaurant where I eat in Los Angeles. It isn’t supposed to be there, but it’s in one of the private dining-rooms, and the regular customers know about it. Bertha Cool goes crazy at the way I throw money away on that machine. Every time I go in, I look through my pockets for nickels. Ordinarily, I only play fifteen or twenty cents. I don’t think I’ve ever won anything out of the machine except a couple of small pay-offs.”

  He said, “Serves you right. Machines that are in restaurants that way are after a quick take. They don’t go for steady customers. They put rollers on the sprockets so winning two cherries and a bell is darn near as hard as winning the jackpot or the gold medal award.”

  I said, “Other people seem to win on it two or three times a week. The woman who runs the place will tell me about some of the salesmen who are pretty lucky on it.”

  “They’re supposed to win?”

  “They’ve won the jackpot three or four times.”

  “You never saw ‘em do it?”

  “No. That’s what the woman who runs the restaurant says. She tells me about ‘em every so often.”

  He gave a contemptuous snort and said, “That’s kindergarten stuff. She’s probably telling the salesmen about how there’s a private detective who keeps the machine milked dry by playing twenty-five cents to half a dollar and always coming out a heavy winner.”

  Helen Framley said to me, “You certainly have nerve.”

  “Why?”

  “Standing up to Pug the way you do. Most people are afraid of him. I guess that gets your goat, doesn’t it, Pug?”

  “What?”

  “To have this man so independent?”

  “Aw, nuts.”

  “I didn’t mean anything, Pug.”

  “Well, see that you don’t.”

  She turned slate-gray eyes on me again. “You must get around a lot. You know, get to know different types.”

  “Not much.”

  “What are you going to do with Corla when you find her?”

  “Talk with her.”

  “Then are you going to tell the man who was going to marry her?”