Росс Макдональд - The Three Roads

“Jeez, bud, I don’t know any more than you do what happened to her. She walked out of here that night, and that was the last I saw of her.” Exerting a visible effort, he withdrew his attention from the twenty-dollar bill and looked into Bret’s eyes. His gaze was as transparent and innocent looking as gin.

“Was she drunk?”

Rollins’s wide mirthless grin showed a gold-capped wisdom tooth. “What do you think? You said you knew Lorrie. I never saw her sober, did you?”

“I didn’t say I knew her.”

“Oh, I caught you wrong. What’s your interest then? Say, you’re not writing one of these here true detectives?”

“No.” The interview was hopeless anyway, and there was no use in being cautious or discreet. “My name’s Taylor. She was my wife.”

“You her husband?” Rollins sat up straight, and conflicting emotions wrinkled his face like a sudden violent onset of old age. “I thought you was–” He regained control of his tongue.

“No doubt you did, but I’m not interested in what you thought.” He unfolded the bill and smoothed it out on the table. “You’re absolutely sure that she left here alone?”

“Sure I’m sure. I’m not the only witness either. You know that. I wouldn’t be holding out on a thing like that.”

“You called her Lorrie–”

“Did I? That must’ve slipped out. You know how it is.”

“I don’t know. Tell me. Was she in the habit of coming here?”

“Yeah, sure. She was in here every couple of nights.”

“Alone?”

“Of course alone,” Rollins said very glibly. “The kid was strictly on the up and up. She was a little bit of a lush, but you can’t hold that against her.”

“I don’t hold anything against her,” Bret said, imposing a level tone on the violence of his feelings. “Was she a friend of yours?”

“Not what you’d call a friend,” Rollins said uneasily. “Naturally I got to know her, with her coming in here all the time.”

“Always alone?”

“I told you she was alone, didn’t I? Look here, Mister, you got to excuse me, I got to get back to the bar. The boss’ll be coming in any time.” He cast a farewell glance at the twenty-dollar bill and rose to his feet.

“Sit down again,” Bret said. “You’ve only got one customer, and he still has part of his drink.” He took a second twenty from his wallet and laid it crosswise on the first.

Rollins resisted the magnetism of the bills, but it gradually drew him back to his seat. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” he said after an interval. “The kid was no floozie, if that’s what you’re trying to get at. I never had anything to do with her except for shoving her a drink across the bar. I never even knew her last name until I read it in the papers.”

“You know very well what I’m trying to get at. My wife is dead. I’m trying to find out why.”

“So why do you come to me? I’m not a prophet. I told the cops everything I know, and it wasn’t enough to do them any good.”

“Didn’t she have any friends? You should be able to give me some kind of a lead if she was in here nearly every night.”

“Sure. She knew a lot of the regulars. Everybody liked her. One guy or another used to buy her a drink, but there was nothing to it.”

In his eagerness to convince her husband of Lorraine’s innocence, Rollins was overstating his case. Bret was encouraged to go on. “Who bought her a drink? Give me a name.”

Rollins squirmed, but remained transfixed on the hope of a forty-dollar windfall. “I don’t keep no diary, Mr. Taylor,” he whined. “I got no list of names. I don’t keep track of the customers’ private life.”

“One name. One man that knew her. One man that bought her a drink.”

“I don’t want to get anybody into trouble, Mr. Taylor. It’s no crime to buy a girl a drink, and it’s not my business what people do as long as they don’t make trouble in this bar. For forty bucks it isn’t worth it to me to make trouble for a customer.”

“I have a lot of twenties in my wallet. How much?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Taylor. It isn’t the money I care about–”

“How much?”

“A hundred?” Rollins whispered.

“What can you give me for it?”

Rollins leaned across the table and spoke quietly, his eyes glancing sideways at the kitchen and the front door. “There’s a guy that was interested in her. He tried to pick her up a couple of times, but she wasn’t having any.”

“When?”

“Oh, several times. He was in here the night she got killed. He wanted to take her home, but she gave him the old brush-off.”

“Do you think that’s worth a hundred dollars?”

“Wait a minute. I didn’t tell it all yet. But for God’s sake, Mr. Taylor, keep me out of this. I don’t want to get anybody into trouble,” he said, thinking of himself.

“Is that why you didn’t tell the police?”

The drain of color from Rollins’s face placed his pimples in relief. “You’re not going to tell the police about this? I got no reason to think the guy had anything to do with murdering her. I wasn’t going to throw him to the lions without a reason, was I?”

“A friend of yours?”

“No, not what you call a friend. If he was a friend I wouldn’t be selling you his name for a hundred bucks, would I?”

Wouldn’t you, Bret thought. He said: “You haven’t told me his name.”

“You haven’t slipped me the hundred.”

“Here’s forty now.” He pushed the bills across the table. “You said there was more to tell.”

Rollins’s hand moved like a quick white bird, and the bills were gone from the table. “You going to give me the rest?”

“When you tell me the rest of your story, and if there’s anything to it.”

“Yeah, but how do I know I can trust you?”

“You can trust me. The question that’s bothering me is whether I can trust you.”

“I’m telling you what I know. I can’t do better than that.”

“You’re being slow about it. Go on.”

“Well, this particular party tried to pick Lorrie – your wife – up like I said. She said she was going home alone, or something like that – I didn’t hear her exact words.”

“This was the night she was killed?”

“Yeah, a few minutes before she left. She went out by herself, just like I said, and this party got up and went out right after her. I didn’t give it a thought then, but it came back to me when the cops were here the next day. I knew the guy had a car parked outside, and he might have gone out after her to give it another try on the street.”

“Who is this man?”

“He’s a fellow that comes in here sometimes. He used to be just another cheap grifter, but he made a lot of money during the war, and now he’s opened his own cocktail lounge over in Glendale. He’s still a crook through. The dirty bastard promised me a job over there, and then he turned around and gave the bar to Lefty Swift, a nance if I ever saw one.”

“I see.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re sure you’re not simply trying to make trouble for him?”

“Honest to God, Mr. Taylor, trouble is the last thing I want. You asked me to tell you anything I knew, and that’s what I’m doing. For God’s sake, you won’t tell Garth I told you?”

“Garth? Is that his name?”

“Yeah, Burton Garth. But you got to promise you won’t tell him I told you. I don’t know whether he had anything to do with the murder or not, but if he did I don’t want any part of it.”

“Unless it comes to court. Then you’ll have to be a witness.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he admitted reluctantly. “Do I get the other sixty?”

“If this Garth is a real lead. Otherwise not.”