A. Fair - Owls Don't Blink

“Go ahead,” I said. “Skip the alibis.”

“I explained to the landlady that my wife, Edna, had lived in the apartment. She said Edna had been there for several months around three years ago, that she could look it up, and let me have the exact dates. I told her I’d want her as a witness. I took Edna’s picture from my pocket, showed it to her, and asked her to identify it. She said that wasn’t the woman. Then she got suspicious and wanted to know what it was all about. In the course of the conversation it came out that you had appeared on the scene a few days earlier and showed her a picture of the woman who actually had rented the apartment, and that she had identified the photographs for you.

“Naturally, that bothered me. You’ll understand why. I went up to the apartment at once, trying to get you. You weren’t there. I was excited. I kept pounding on the door. A man told me to go away and stay away. I told him I had to see him at once on a matter of life and death, and finally he grumblingly opened the door. I’d expected to find you there or the heavy-set woman. This man was something of a surprise.”

“What did you tell him? How much?”

“I told him that my wife had occupied that apartment some three years ago, that I was trying to check up on it to prove that certain papers had been served on her there, that I’d talked with you, and that I simply must talk with you again.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he thought I could reach you at the hotel, that you hadn’t said anything to him about it, but that if there was anything I wished investigated, you were a very fine private detective. I think he was trying to get you a job. He praised you to the skies.

“The more I thought it over, the more peculiar it sounded. It began to look to me very much as though you were — well—”

“Trying to slip something over?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“So what?”

“So I came to see you.”

“That’s all?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

The elevator cage slid to a stop. I said, “Probably not. We’ll talk down in the lobby.”

“Isn’t that terribly public?”

“Yes.”

“Then why talk there?”

“Because it’s public.”

“And how about that person in your room?”

I said, “We’ll speak to the house detective.”

Cutler wasn’t keen about that house-detective idea, but he waited while I summoned the house detective, explained to him that a friend of mine had telephoned my room, that a stranger had answered, and that I thought someone might be prowling through the room. I gave him my key, told him to go up, and take a look.

Then I turned to Cutler. “Okay, now we can talk.”

Cutler was frightened. “Look here, Lam, suppose it should be the police?”

“The person in my room?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“If it’s the police, it’s all right. City police sometimes get suspicious of private detectives and want to check up on them. It’s something we get accustomed to. You have to learn to take it — and like it.”

“But if it is the police, they’ll come down here, pick you up for questioning, find me talking with you, and—”

I interrupted him with a laugh. “That shows how little you know about this game.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it’s the police,” I said, “they’ll tell the house detective to go back and say there was no one in the room. He’ll come down here, looking smugly complacent, and say that everything is okay.”

“And what will the police do?”

“Fade out of the picture temporarily. They don’t like to get caught searching a person’s room without a warrant.”

Cutler seemed apprehensive. “I wish I could believe you.”

“You can. I’ve been through this before. It’s a regular procedure — all in a day’s work.”

He turned that over in his mind. “I don’t want police messing around with this thing. This is a private matter and I’m going to settle it in my own way.”

“Very commendable.”

“But if the police should start to question me, certain things would come out that I don’t want to have made public.”

“Such as what?”

“That divorce, for instance.”

I said, “Bosh, that divorce was put through in legal form. It’s a matter of public record. The whole set of papers will be on file—”

“I know that,” he said, and squirmed.

“Go ahead. What’s the rest of it?”

“My wife.”

“What about her?”

“Don’t you understand?”

“No. I thought you said you didn’t know where she was.”

“Not that wife.”

“Oh-oh! You’ve married again, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Puts you in something of a predicament, doesn’t it?”

“Predicament is no name for it.”

I said, “It sounds interesting. Let’s hear some more.”

“Edna left me and came to New Orleans. I divorced her and got an interlocutory decree. Those things take time. Love doesn’t wait. I met my present wife. We went to Mexico and got married. We should have waited for the final decree. It’s one hell of a mess.”

“Does your present wife know?”

“No. She’d hit the ceiling if she even suspected. If Goldring did serve the wrong woman-well, you know something about the case. What is it?”

“Nothing that would help you.”

“I could pay you a lot of money to uncover something that would help me,”

“Sorry.”

He got up. “Keep it in mind. If in your investigations, you stumble onto something that would help me, I’ll be very, very generous.”

I said, “If Cool and Lam do anything for you, you won’t need to be generous. You’ll get a whale of a bill.”

He laughed at that, got to his feet, said, “Okay, let’s leave it that way!”

We shook hands and he left the hotel.

The Jack-O’-Lantern Nightclub was typical of dozens of other little nightclubs that clustered through the French Quarter. There was a floor show of sorts, half a dozen hostesses, and tables crowded into three rambling rooms which had been merged together by a process of knocking out doors and making full-length openings where windows had been. Out in front a dozen publicity pictures of the various performers in the floor show were exhibited in a large, glass-covered frame.

It was early, and the place hadn’t as yet begun to fill up. There were a few stragglers here and there. A sprinkling of soldiers, some sailors, four or five older couples, evidently tourists, determined to “see the sights” and starting early.

I found a table to myself, sat down, and ordered a Coke and rum. When it came, I stared down into the dark depths of the drink with a lugubrious expression of acute loneliness.

Within a few minutes a girl came over. “Hello, sour-puss.”

I managed a grin. “Hello, bright-eyes.”

“That’s better. You look as though you needed cheering up.”

“I do.”

She came over and stood with her elbows on the back of the chair opposite, waiting for my invitation. She didn’t expect me to get up, and seemed surprised when I did.

“How about a drink?” I asked.

She said, “I’d love one.” She looked around as I was seating her, hoping some of the others would notice.

A waiter popped up from nowhere.

“Whisky and plain water,” she ordered.

“What’s yours?” he asked me.

“I’ve got mine.”

He said, “You get two drinks for a dollar when one of the girls sits at the table with you. Or you get one drink for a dollar.”

I handed him a dollar and a quarter and said, “Give my drink to the girl. Keep the quarter for change, and don’t bother me for a while.”