A. Fair - Spill the Jackpot

I swore I’d never rat, but I can’t hold out on you. There are some things you’ll have to know. The girl with the rabbit nose is named Dearborne. She’s strong for Philip Whitewell. Somebody in Whitewell’s organization who didn’t want the marriage to go through put detectives on Corla Burke. They uncovered her record and turned up Sid Jannix. I didn’t know him by that name. I knew him as Harry Beegan, and called him Pug because he’d been in the ring.

I think Pug wrote the letter to Corla Burke and signed my name to it. He was pretty good at forgery. He wanted to get Corla Burke where he could squeeze her dry. She was too smart for him. Pug didn’t think up the scheme. It was someone else who did, someone who didn’t want the marriage to go through.

Philip’s father knew about the letter to me. He wrote to the Dearbornes to look me up. The boy made the investigation, but his sister started cultivating me and trying to work me. She was suspicious of Pug. I don’t know how sheknew, but she did know he was connected with Corla Burke. She wanted to pump me. She was so obvious I just strung her along and didn’t bother to take her seriously. I’d had the apartment where you found me for a week. I knew things were coming to a head with Pug, and I wanted a way to leave him for good when I walked out. I knew he’d never think of looking for me in another apartment in the same city.

But after the killing, I had to sit absolutely tight. I went out to get some grub — and darned if I didn’t run into the Dearborne girl on the street. She knew I was hiding and offered to see me through. Why, I don’t know.

Pug had taken the roll from me as soon as I came in, and I didn’t have over thirty cents to my name. The Dearborne girl offered to get grub. Well, I let her.

We’re taking your car for a few days. I have an idea you won’t need it. When we get done with it, I’ll drop you a note at your office telling you where you can find it.

I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in the world, and I’m taking a powder because I don’t want anything to interfere with the memory of the time we spent together. I know it’s finished. I know we can’t go on. I know that if I try, something is going to happen to rob that memory of all its sweetness.

Louie doesn’t understand all the details, but he knows enough to get the sketch. He says if there’s ever anyone you want killed, all you have to do is put an ad in the personal columns of the Los Angeles papers, saying, “Louie, She guy’s name is so-and-so.” Louie would lay down his life for you. Louie says it’s because you’re a real champ, that people feel that way about you. I think it’s because you’re so darn clean and decent. Anyway, we’re both for you and we’re both saying — Good-by.

I was shivering with the cold and a nervous chill. My hand was shaking so I could hardly hold the letter. I turned on the hot water in the shower. When it was good and hot, I got out of my clothes and stood under the stream, letting the water run as hot as I could stand it. When I got out, I felt a little better. I rubbed myself with a towel, went out into the kitchen, and looked in the wood stove. Leave it to Louie to think of little things like that. He’d laid the fire with kindling and dry wood, so all I had to do was touch a match to it.

When the fire was roaring into flame, I lifted the cover from the stove and dropped in Helen’s letter. I put on some coffee, and looked through the cupboard to see if, by any chance, there was any whisky. I couldn’t find any. The warmth of the hot shower left me, and I was standing over the stove once more, shivering.

The east was splashed with vivid crimson, then the sun came up. The wood stove did its stuff, and my bones began to thaw out. The coffee started bubbling, and I had two big cups. By that time, I realized I was hungry. I broke some eggs into a frying-pan, scrambled them, made some toast in the oven, and had another cup of coffee with the eggs and toast. The kitchen was good and warm by that time.

I tried to smoke a cigarette, but the room gave me the jitters. Every article in it reminded me of her. The whole place was vibrant with memories — and desolate as a tomb.

I packed my bag and went out to stand in the sunlight. I couldn’t wait in the house any more.

The man who owned the gas station came out, and unlocked his pumps, rubbing his eyes sleepily. I walked over to him and said, “I’ve got to leave by plane. The others have taken the car and gone on. There are some provisions in the house you can have if you want.”

He thanked me, looked at me curiously, and said, “I thought I heard your wife and the other man drive away last night.”

I started for the highway. I’d been walking about three minutes when a car coming out from Reno swerved and slid to a stop. I looked up, my heart pounding in my throat.

Some woman was rolling down a window. Her arm concealed her face. I started toward the car, running across the pavement.

The window rolled down. The woman’s arm came away so I could see her face. It was Bertha.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“Getting things straightened out here.”

“No one showed up, did they?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think they would. It sounded goofy to me. Well, come on. We’ve got work to do.”

“What and where?”

“First we get back to Las Vegas. This man Kleinsmidt on the police force is raising merry hell, and you’re the only one who can do anything with him.”

“What happened with Philip and the girl?”

She snorted and said, “Loss of memory! Well, it’s all right if he falls for it.”

“They’ve made up?” I asked.

“Made up! You should have seen them.”

“Where are they now?”

“Took a plane for Los Angeles. We’ve got to go back and square things with Kleinsmidt. Come on, hop in.”

I climbed in the car with her, and she said to the driver, “All right, now we’ll go to the airport.”

A plane was waiting. We climbed aboard. I wouldn’t talk. Bertha quit trying to pump me after a while. Then gradually the nerve tension left me. I dropped into a sound sleep.

A car met us at Las Vegas. “Sal Sagev Hotel,” Bertha said, and to me, “You look ‘pretty bad. Get a bath, shave, and then come to my room. We’ll get Kleinsmidt up.”

“What’s eating him?” I asked.

“He thinks you spirited a witness away, and he doesn’t like the way everybody pulled out of town last night without saying anything to him. He also thinks he should have questioned Corla Burke. He thinks the murder gave you some kind of a lead on her. You’ve got to square the whole thing. It’ll take a good story.”

“I know it will,” I said.

We went to the hotel. I told Bertha a button was loose on my shirt, and asked her for a needle and thread. She became unexpectedly maternal, and offered to sew it on for me, but I stalled her along.

As soon as her door closed, I beat it for the elevator. It wasn’t much of a walk around to the place where Helen Framley had lived. I stood at the foot of the stairs long enough to make sure no one was around, jabbed the needle into my thumb and squeezed out blood. I tiptoed up the stairs — and tiptoed down.

Bertha Cool was talking on the telephone as I came in. I heard her say, “You’re certain of that?… Well, pickle me for a herring… You’ve investigated at the airport?… That’s right. We’ll leave here on the afternoon plane. I’ll see you in Los Angeles this evening… That’s fine. Give them my congratulations. Good-by.”

She hung up and said, “That’s funny.”

“You mean that Endicott didn’t show up?” I asked.

Her little eyes glittered hard at me. “Donald, you do say the damnedest things.”