Fletcher Flora: The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery MEGAPACK™: 20 Classic Mystery & Crime Stories!

“Smart,” Wiley Shivers said. “You’re a smart pair.”

“We’re really not so bad,” I said. “It’s just that we’re leery of visitors. We’ve had bad luck with some recently.”

His eyes dropped again to the toe of his shoe.

“Joker,” he said. “Some people always reaching for a fast line. You got no call to be funny, counselor. Maybe you better start worrying a little. Maybe you got some more bad luck coming up.”

Already I was sick of him. “Is that a guess or a threat?”

He straightened, rocking forward from the jamb to an unsupported perpendicular. I noticed that his feet were very small, almost like a child’s, so that the balance of his excessive weight always seemed a little precarious.

“Neither. Call it a prediction based on evidence. I’ll come in and talk with you about it.” He rolled his milky eyes at Kitty. “See that no one disturbs us, sister.”

Kitty cackled and put her legs away under the desk. “That’s a very rough assignment,” she said.

I went into my office and sat down in my chair, and Shivers came after me and sat down in the chair that Wanda Henderson had sat in yesterday.

“I hear you were out on South Twentieth last night,” he said.

“That’s right. I went out to see Wash Richert. You’ve probably heard that, too.”

“I hear a lot of things. You see him?”

“No. I saw his wife.”

“Yeah? Platinum dame with round heels?”

“I can vouch for the platinum, not the heels. Maybe you’re better acquainted with her than I am.”

“There you go again. You got a smart mouth, counselor. She tell you where Wash was?”

“No. She gave me a drink and threw me out. She didn’t even give me time to finish the drink.”

“Tough. All your luck seems to be bad. Why’d she do it? Throw you out, I mean.”

“She didn’t like my name. She didn’t like my job. She thought I was nosey.”

“Probably she thought right.”

“You’re not a nice guy, Lieutenant.”

His pale, milky eyes were unaffected. “I’m not paid to be nice. I’m paid to be a cop.”

“Are they incompatible?”

“Usually they are. You telling me you never saw Wash at all last night?”

“That’s right. I saw his wife. Then I went to see Austin Stark. After that, I went home.”

“Well, someone saw him. I thought maybe it was you.”

I looked at his nasty, fat face across the desk, and the pressure was back in my chest.

“Why not come to the point, Lieutenant?”

“Sure. He’s dead — Richert is. Someone smoked him in a room over on the east side. Crummy dump where he’d holed in.”

I stared at him, and my mind was as numb as a blank can be. After a while I said, “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Murder never does. Not in the end.”

“Who would want him dead?”

“Hal Decker would.”

I laughed caustically. “Use your head, Lieutenant. Decker’s an ordinary guy, a little guy. He doesn’t have hired hoods to bump off an unfriendly witness for him.”

“He’s got you.”

“I’m a lawyer, not a torpedo.”

“He’s got the dame — the one who took a story to the D.A. — the Henderson dame.”

“So you’ve heard about her.”

“Like I said, I hear a lot of things.”

I massaged my forehead trying to muscle my thoughts into some kind of pattern, but it wasn’t any good. They kept right on milling around in confusion.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t expect you to believe it, but I’ve never been close to Richert. Not even within shooting distance. And I’d stake my life that Wanda Henderson hasn’t, either. There’s no reason to think she’d have been able to locate him. Damn it, there’s just no one loose who wanted him dead, no one who gave a damn about his testimony against Decker.”

Shivers’ lips, twisted with sour sarcasm. “Maybe you think the D.A. bumped his own witness. Maybe that makes sense to you.”

“No. That makes no sense, either. Not a damned thing about this makes sense.”

Surging up onto his little feet, he said, “One thing makes sense, counselor. Whoever killed Richert, it’s my job to find him. That makes all the sense I got any use for. You think I’m an unpleasant guy, and probably I am, but you haven’t seen anything yet. Believe me, you haven’t begun to see how unpleasant I can be.” He turned and went over to the door, and turned back again. “Be seeing you, counselor,” he said.

He went out across the reception office, and I heard his thin, dry voice directed at Kitty from the vicinity of the hall door, “It’s not that you aren’t good looking, sister. It’s just that I’m too old.”

Kitty came in and sat down on my desk. “You hear what he said? I thought it was very considerate of him. Restored my confidence.”

“Well,” I said bitterly, “he didn’t say anything to restore my confidence.”

She put fingers under my chin and tipped my face up. “I know. Just when you’re beginning to look human, too. You look much better without the fat lips, Sol.”

Her voice was light, but her eyes were clouded. I got the idea that she might be concerned.

“You been listening at the door again?” I said.

“Of course. Naturally.” Her eyes were lifted to the window behind me. “We’ve been loafing too hard, Sol. We ought to go somewhere on a vacation.”

“Together, honey? That’s a very interesting idea that I may remind you of later.” I stood up and moved around the desk. “Right now I’ve got a date with another gal. You have Wanda Henderson’s address?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’m going out there.”

“Look, hero, a lawyer’s supposed to see his clients in his office. He doesn’t run around knocking on doors like a census-taker. Damn it, do you have to go looking for trouble?”

“I’m not looking for trouble, honey. I’m looking for a way out of it. In case you haven’t noticed, trouble’s all around me. I’m buried in it, right up to my neck.”

She slipped off the desk. “Sure you’re in trouble. You know why? Because the area’s swarming with dames. Scratch a dame, you always uncover trouble. I knew you were out of your depth, Sonny, the minute that redhead showed up here yesterday. Then, as if a redhead wasn’t enough, you had to go get involved with a platinum blond, with round heels, no less. This case starts out as a nice, simple frame for murder, and all of a sudden it develops female trouble.”

I grinned. “You haven’t credited all the cast. There’s a black-headed doll, too. Her name’s Alma Stark.”

“The great man’s wife? How does she figure?”

“I don’t know how she figures, but she’s got a black eye. A dame with a black eye must have been into something.”

Kitty eased up close and tapped me on the chest with a red nail. “For your information you still haven’t got the cast complete. There’s still another female on the stage. She’s beautiful, intelligent, and loaded with charm. Besides, you owe her three months’ salary, and she doesn’t want you dead until it’s paid. Take care, lover.”

That put us on an upbeat, and it seemed like a good place to leave us for the time being, so I got the address and went downstairs to my car. After cutting across town for about twenty minutes, I came to the address Kitty had given me. This was another walkup, but Wanda Henderson lived on the second floor instead of the third, and I was feeling better than I had felt yesterday, what with the rapid healing of my bruises and the growing affection for Kitty Troop. Even with Wiley Shivers in the background, any mental state was reasonably bright as I knocked on Wanda’s door.

The door was a little off the latch and I and swung inward away from my knuckles. Through the crack between door and jamb, I could see a kind of dull, red stain on the worn carpet of the room. Having been made susceptible to suggestion by recent experience, I thought at first that it was blood, but then I saw that it wasn’t blood at all. It was hair.