James Cain - The Cocktail Waitress

He picked up his phone and called, then asked: “Sheriff’s office? Dwight Eckert calling-about the Lacey case. Will you put somebody on that’s familiar with it?” Apparently someone came on, a deputy from what Mr. Eckert said, and for a time it was nothing but all sorts of questions, the date of the warrant, what was being done to serve it, the officer in charge of the case, and: “So, what do we think, where is he?”

Then: “Oh, you have no idea at all? But don’t you fellows know Lacey well enough …?”

Pretty soon he hung up, and reported: “They’re on the case, they’ve been given the bench warrant to serve, the one the judge signed this morning, for Lacey’s arrest, and they’ll bring him in when they know where he is. But that’s the catch: They don’t know where he is, and being ‘short-handed,’ as that deputy said, they have no one detailed to find him. Now I’ll leave you to decide if that’s really the reason or if the fact that Lacey was the engineer who worked on building their new station house has anything to do with it. He hung around the station plenty, glad-handing and ingratiating himself as best he could. They all knew him.”

“You don’t mean they’d let him get away?”

Eckert shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe not; maybe they didn’t even like him. Most people who got to know him didn’t. But if they did, and if they’re short-handed anyway, it could be they just wouldn’t choose to put the few men they do have on his case. No one could fault them-you have to remember, it’s not a regular criminal case. Still…” He looked me over in a way that made me feel like I was wearing my work uniform rather than my gray wool suit… “… it wouldn’t surprise me, if a good-looking lady were to go over and talk to whoever’s in charge over there and explain what she had at stake, that might light a fire under them. They’re human too, after all.”

“Thank you, Mr. Eckert. How much am I going to owe you?”

“… For our chat today, nothing. If you want me to stay on the case, put it on my calendar-oh, shall we say two-fifty?”

“Two-fifty’s fine. Thank you.”

I wrote him a check for $250, thanked him again, and led the way out, Tom following. “Which way is this new station house your friend built, if you know?” I asked him.

“Across the street from the courthouse.”

“Then we can walk.”

The sheriff’s office was in a big room off the street, but shutting it off when you went in was an elbow-high counter with desks on the far side, girls seated at some, uniformed men at the others. We leaned on the counter, and Tom rapped with his knuckles. A girl came, and when she heard what case it was, called a deputy in the back of the room. He came, and remembering what Mr. Eckert had said, I put on a bit of an act, playing the poor, upset little girl who’d gotten charmed into putting her property at risk-which wasn’t so far from the truth, of course. “I went bail for a man who has skipped,” I said with my friendliest smile, “and I’ve come to find out what I can do, what the Sheriff can help me to do, to bring him back so I don’t lose my house.”

“… On that,” he said, eyeing me close, “I’d take it very serious.”

“I do take it serious,” I assured him. “If it was your house at risk, I think you’d take it serious too. But you seem to mean more than you’ve said. Give. What’s your name?”

“Harrison.”

“Deputy Harrison, I’m listening.”

“Mrs. Medford, it’s so rare for bail actually to be forfeited that I can’t remember its happening. But most bail is signed for by bondsmen, professional bondsmen, who have tremendous political clout. They’re not supposed to have it, but do. In the case of a woman who signed the bond as a friend, who has no particular clout-or do you have?”

“Not the slightest.”

I aimed that at Tom, and saw him wince. “In that case,” Deputy Harrison went on, “I’d say you could be in trouble. You could be the human sacrifice offered up, to prove the law takes its course- without fear, favor, or finagling of any kind.”

“… And is that so, that the law takes its course without favor?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m told Jim Lacey was well known around here, built this building for you.”

At that, he snorted. “Oh, yes. He was known. Sheriff had to tell him three times to stop trying to give the men bottles ‘for after hours.’ Don’t worry that he’s got friends here, Mrs. Medford, for he hasn’t.”

“O.K.”

“But that’s not entirely the good thing you might think it is.”

“Oh?”

“If he did have friends here, they might know where to find him. Now, we’ll do all we can, but it’s not a case with men detailed to search-we just haven’t got the men. What that means, in practice, is you’ll have to find him yourself. The good news is, you might be able to where we couldn’t. After all, I’m sure he does have a few friends somewhere, who wouldn’t help us, but who might shoot off their mouths to you. You see what I’m saying? If you can get them to tell you anything, we’ll be on it right away, if you give us the barest hint. To help a young girl like you, who made a mistake and now is in a jam, we’ll act and act quick-but we have to have something to act on.”

“Well, then we’re at a dead end, because I don’t have the barest hint to give you.”

“But why?” He looked genuinely baffled. “Why wouldn’t you know where to find this guy, or at least his friends?”

“… Me? Why would I?”

“You went his bail, didn’t you?”

I stood there, utterly crossed up, and then at last saw what he meant. I asked him: “You mean there was something personal, as you think, between me and Mr. Lacey?”

“Well it’s what you would think, isn’t it?”

“Lacey’s my friend,” Tom cut in.

“All right, then you must know-?”

“I don’t.”

Deputy Harrison looked at Tom in a very peculiar way, and the way Tom looked away, I suddenly felt that he did know something, at least more than he was telling us. I knew also, if I wanted to find out, I had to get him out of there. So I thanked Deputy Harrison, shaking his hand with both of mine. He smiled, nodded, and squeezed my hand extra, as if to communicate that he really wanted to help. Then I drove home with Tom, and asked: “What was that all about? What are you keeping from me?”

“I thought of someone, that’s all. Jim has a girl. On the side, apart from his wife. I saw her once, leaving his office when I came to pick him up.”

“And Deputy Harrison thought I was she?”

“I don’t know that he knows about her. Probably not, and I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. But I guess he thought you might be something like that to Jim. He gave his reason for thinking it, and you can’t say it didn’t make sense-until you were explained, that is. Your connection with the case, through me.”

“So who is this girl?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know-not her name, not where she lives, nothing.”

“What do I do now?”

“Joan, if I knew I’d certainly say.”

I asked him in and he began making calls, or rather the same call, over and over, to at least a dozen people: “Jack?”-or whatever the name would be-“Where’s Jim? I have a reason for wanting to know… O.K., but if you hear something, will you ring me at this number? Oh, and do you have any idea how I might reach his girl? No, not his wife. You know who I mean…” About the fifteenth call I went out in the hall to put my hand on the receiver, so he couldn’t lift it again. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve had about all I can take.”

“It’s all I know to do. These people are his friends, and one of them might know something useful-if they’d want to tell me.”