Chapter 5

Wednesday, June 25th, 1947, 8:15 p.m.

The Pickup is a bar and grill on South Street, a ten-minute streetcar ride from my office that I could have walked in twenty if there hadn’t been something I was vaguely aware of in my shoe, and if my body hadn’t still been sore from its unplanned morning workout. It’s nicer than most spots that cater to a crowd that would just as soon not be recognized the way they would be in the dens where the Hollywood hoi polloi and their admirers are known to lurk. It’s dimly lit, the chairs are large and red plush, and the tables are dark wood planks studded together and far enough apart that you don’t usually hear the goings on at the ones near you. For some reason there are large silk fans on every wall, and the gold-wallpapered bathrooms are spotless. At least the men’s is. A guy about the size of a jockey is the attendant. He’s easygoing enough, but he looks like he’d bite you if you dropped a soap wrapper on the floor or left your towel on the marble vanity.

It was also a place we’d frequented. In the past year, I hadn’t gone there much. Alone, it was just another memo re: used-to-be. But it was a nice, public place, just the sort I wanted in case Scott decided to show up accompanied. By Wilma and Elisha, for example. I was especially concerned because when I left the office there’d been a guy in a brown hat leaning against the Hellinger Building, reading a newspaper, and chomping a two-for-a-nickel cigar that gave off the aroma of flies hovering over carrion. I saw him fold the paper and head off in my direction, keeping a dozen steps behind me. When I stopped, he stopped. When I got on the streetcar, he got on the streetcar, and when I got off, so did he. When I got to the Pickup, I turned around and waved to him. He didn’t wave back. He just leaned against a building, opened his paper, and chomped some more.

It didn’t make sense that he was working for Scott or Lizabeth Duryea, but I didn’t have any idea who he might be working for.

I’d made a few calls that afternoon, but who Wilma and Elisha were—and where Scott might be—had remained a mystery. I hadn’t been able to reach anyone in Seattle, but I figured there wasn’t much reason to anymore. Wally Dietrichson had never heard of Dan Scott; he said he’d try to find out—then he asked whether I needed any more insurance—and neither Stanwyck nor even my buddy Mark McPherson had been able to help.

McPherson was a fellow PI. Like most of us, he was an ex-cop. I was the exception. I sort of wandered into it. I’d gone to Frisco—no reason except it sounded exotic—when I finished high school. I had fifty bucks saved up and a romantic notion of life on the docks, which I’d probably gotten reading Eugene O’Neill. I met Sam Spade a couple of years later in a bar there. He’d needed an office boy to run errands and now and then provide diversionary actions. I’d learned the business from him and got my license, then headed down to L.A. after the Maltese Falcon case—and Ruth Wonderly. She hit him harder than most people knew, or than he was willing to admit, even to himself; he went into seclusion for a year or two after it was over. We still kept in touch via Christmas cards and the like. Spade was a good guy—tough but not as tough as people made him out to be. He had a heart. And a conscience, even if he was having a fling with his partner’s wife when Wonderly killed Archer. He passed the conscience on to me, and I was glad to have it. There are a lot of guys in this business without one.

That June morning, it wasn’t my conscience that was bothering me. It was my stomach. But by one o’clock, it had recovered enough that I’d kept down my lunch, a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of seltzer. But a big purple bruise was sneaking its way out from under the Band-Aid, and my jaw was still plenty sore. So was my frame of mind: Having two hoods ransack my office and knock me around in the bargain always left me sore at whoever was responsible, and Scott was still my prime suspect.

While Gloria replaced and repositioned fallen files, flowers, and picture frames, Scott and I had talked on the phone. Then he suggested we meet, at my office. “We can talk there comfortably,” he said; he would “straighten everything out.” I almost laughed: Gloria and I would be spending the rest of the day playing King’s Men to the office’s Humpty Dumpty. I suggested The Pickup instead, at eight thirty. He asked if the chairs were large. I said they were. He said okay.

The funny thing was that Scott didn’t ask me about the package until I mentioned it. He said to bring it along. I said I would.

Between calls, I told Gloria what had happened. She said “Oh, my!” and clucked sympathetically while I helped her try to re-create order out of chaos. By the time I left, things were finally beginning to make some sense again. She cheerily volunteered to stay late and put the rest back. I offered to buy her supper; she turned it down: a special diet, she said. I gave her another bonus: the pillow. Greenstreet would survive.

And I’d ordered a new file cabinet. With a combination lock.

* * *

Wednesday nights tend to be slow in the booze-and-hamburg business, another reason why The Pickup seemed like a good choice. The place was popular with cops and robbers; I was bound to run into people who knew me—yet another precautionary measure—but Scott and I could have our privacy.

It also had air-conditioning that worked beautifully in a Los Angeles summer and a good house bourbon; once upon a time we sat there, and I drank glass after glass while she sipped her extra dry martinis, the olives slowly disappearing between her glistening full lips, and smoke never got in my eyes. Or my throat. Nobody smokes in The Pickup. Smoke makes Sydney MacMurray, the owner, sneeze. The only drawback was the lousy jukebox: Every other record was somebody singing, or playing, The Song.

I wrapped up a little something before I left the office, and I walked through The Pickup’s door about eight fifteen. Being early was a way to settle myself in, make sure I had control when Scott showed up. I was greeted by the noise that greets every patron at every bar and grill in every city in America: rumbling voices, some hushed, some loud; laughter; the clatter of glasses and plates and people coming out of and going into the kitchen and the bar. And the jukebox, which was playing it. The Dick Haymes version. Nuts. I remembered why I’d avoided the place for a year. Come next Thursday.

I waited by the entrance and watched while Sydney—a small, rotund man with a sly smile, the pigtail and elliptical black eyes of his Chinese mother, and the freckles of his Scotch-Irish father—ushered a guy and a girl into the seating area. The guy was in a black suit, and his hair was slicked back like that new congressman’s, something Nixon. The girl was wearing four-inch heels and a black sheath that was one size too small in the hips and two sizes too small everywhere else. She was blonder than Blondie and had a chest that resembled two pristine volleyballs forced into eggcups. Most of each volleyball was fully visible.

“Right this way, sir. Madame,” Sydney said with perfect aplomb as he waved them through the crowd of tables like they were the Duke and Duchess of Woolworth. Sydney maintained his decorum whether his patrons were the rich and famous (or, as likely, notorious) or stargazers on the lookout for them. Or, like me, just in search of a little privacy to conduct business. “Thanks, pal,” the guy said. I saw him unpeel a bill from a thick roll. His companion was silent except for the snap of her gum.

“Thank you, sir!” Sydney said. He smiled, folded the bill, and tucked it away discreetly. “Oh, Vivian?” he called, and a waitress—tiny, with a sweet-smiling, childlike face and firm legs that disappeared under just enough cover to skirt anything the Hays Office might have found objectionable—sidled toward him. “This is Miss O’Shaughnessy,” he told Slick Hair. “She’ll be your server.”

“Well!” the patron said appreciatively. “How do you do!”

“Oh, I ‘do’ really well, hon,” Vivian said. The corners of her mouth curled slightly into a smile that could have been a sneer if she’d put forth a little more effort. She talked like the kind of girl who put forth effort only if there was a large tip to be gleaned from it. Then she’d make any effort that might be required.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you do,” he replied, and withdrew a cigar and a lighter from his pocket.

Sydney interrupted. “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t allow smoking in The Pickup. Several of the staff are allergic.”

“Oh,” said Slick, and put them away.

“But” said Vivian, “we allow almost everything else. Hon.” The girl with the volleyball chest blew a bubble and popped it, then chewed impatiently as Vivian seated them. “What can I get you?”

“Two martinis,” the man said. “Easy on the vermouth, hon.”

Vivian’s mouth curled again. “We’re easy on everything here.”

He nodded. “I can tell. Especially on the eyes. Miss O’Shaughnessy.” He reached out and touched her cheek. She lowered her head and butterfly-kissed his finger. He grinned.

“Samuel—Wilder!” the Duchess exclaimed. “You oughta be ashamed of yourself!” She blew an angry pink bubble and snapped it back into her mouth.

“My friends call me Vivian,” said Vivian.

“Well. I’d certainly like to be your friend, Vivian,” noted the Duke. She smiled. He smiled. Everyone smiled. Even me.

Except Miss Chest. “I never!” she said. “She’s young enough to be your little sister!”

Vivian kept her eyes on Slick, who kept his eyes on her as he said, “Ah, shaddup!”

Miss Chest stood up. “Well!” she said, and stormed out.

“I’ll be over later, Barbara. Be there,” he called after her. Vivian licked her lips. Slowly. “Maybe,” Slick added.

Vivian took a small step back. “Be right back with both your martinis. Big brother.” She sounded like June Christy after one drink too many. Then she turned—slowly—and slinked to the bar.

I watched it all from the entryway. Barbara flounced past me the way only a black-sheathed blonde in four-inch heels can flounce, muttering, “Maybe, maybe.” I leaned against the wall, looking around for a man alone, and was satisfied when I didn’t find one. I’d have the chance to relax. If the darn jukebox would play something else. I decided to feed it a couple quarters. A dozen songs would give me half an hour of relief.

Sydney returned to the front, saw me, and broke into a wide smile, greeting me like a long lost sheep returned to the fold. “Mr. Grahame, good evening. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you.”

“Evening, Sydney.”

“It’s a real pleasure to have you back. Dinner, drinks, or both?”

“Probably just drinks.”

“Very good,” said Sydney. He bowed slightly and led me down the several steps to the main floor.

“I’m meeting someone in a few minutes. He’ll ask for me.”

“I’ll bring him to your table personally.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And if I could have one off to the side—way off to the side?”

“Of course.” He stopped and touched the shoulder of a passing figure. “Vivian?”

Vivian, holding a tray with two martinis, stopped. “Yes, Mr. MacMurray?”

“Take Mr. Grahame to number four, please. After you deliver those?”

“Sure,” said Vivian. She smiled and, all hips and legs, strutted away.

“Miss O’Shaughnessy’s new here, Mr. Grahame,” Sydney told me.

I nodded. “Miss O’Shaughnessy looks new everywhere. Almost newborn, in fact.” Sydney laughed easily. “Oh, and do me a favor.” I handed Sydney two quarters. “Put those in the box. Any twelve you like, except . . .” I pointed at a speaker. “Okay?”

“Of course, Mr. Grahame,” Sydney said with an inscrutable smile. He returned to the entryway, making the requested stop en route.

* * *

By the time Vivian returned, Nat King Cole was singing “For Sentimental Reasons.” I was pleased. She came toward me, décolletage first, curled her smile, and said “Right this way, hon” in a low, smoky voice and with a beckoning finger that, like the ones that weren’t beckoning, was slim, perfect, and had a blood-orange nail. The nail was long and sharp and looked like it could slice open your jugular vein or your wallet—which depended on the lady’s mood—to get at what was inside. Her nails reminded me of nights I’d spent in San Francisco twenty years ago. I used to think those were the days. Now I knew they were. I was almost forty. I couldn’t live like that again even if I wanted to. Sometimes I did want to. Being a grown-up has its advantages, but I’ve never thought it was all it’s cracked up to be. Like I said: Everybody has problems. But when you’re nineteen, you can leave them in the bar and forget about them. When you’re forty, you remember. Everything.

Vivian seated me at number four, in a corner where I could see the room. “You by yourself?” she asked.

“For the moment,” I told her. “Why? You thinking about joining me, or the size of your tip?”

Vivian put the tip of her beckoning finger on my shoulder. “Not the size of my tip, hon,” she purred. “What can I . . . get you?”

I looked at her finger. I said, “Just bourbon.”

She pouted with her full lower lip but didn’t move the fingertip. “Straight?” she said, whispered, into my ear.

“I think a little ice would be a very good idea.” I raised my glance to her face.

She narrowed her eyes. They looked like Greenstreet’s when he caught the scent of a girl cat in heat. “What-ev-er you say, Mr. Grahame. I’ll be right back.” I watched her walk to the bar. Her tail swished in slow motion all the way.

I shook my head, mostly to clear it. Watching Vivian was like watching grease spatter on a floor you were about to walk across: You knew every step would be slippery, especially the first one. So I watched the entrance. Guys came and went, none of them alone and none of them looking like they were looking for me. Vivian brought my drink and a big smile. Then she brought me another—this time a double. At nine fifteen, when she brought my third, Dan Scott still hadn’t shown up. I drank it in a single swallow—that darn song was playing again: Three drinks in, I didn’t need a jukebox to keep hearing it. Vivian brought a refill. I closed my eyes, rested my head in my hands, and made a resolution. This is the last drink. Then I go home and go to bed.

“Hello, Grahame,” a voice I recognized said.

I looked up and saw the familiar face. Stanwyck. I wasn’t surprised. She was a regular.

“Waiting for someone?”

“Yeah.”

“Anyone I know?” she asked.

“No one I know.”

Stanwyck snorted: her version of a laugh. She looked tired, probably because she was: She usually showed up for work at six a.m. and left after midnight. Sometimes, especially when she was stuck in the office, she didn’t take a break; Bacall brought her a bologna sandwich. When she did take a break, it was after dark and The Pickup was where she went. It was only a few blocks from the station. I’d been there often enough to wonder if she knew what sunlight looked like without the filter of a dirty window. The department didn’t spend much on getting them washed.

“You don’t usually do blind dates,” she said, looking down at me.

“I don’t usually meet missing persons in The Pickup, either.”

“This about Mr. Seattle?”

“Uh-huh.” Stanwyck whistled. “You know,” I said, “I love the way you do that. Just put your lips together and—blow.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I’ve been known to do other things with them, too. Or have you had too much of that”—she pointed at my glass—“to remember.”

I snickered. “That’s the trouble with this stuff. You remember in spite of it.”

“Good.” She set her purse on the table. “What time’s he coming?”

I finished the drink. That made it time to go home. “An hour ago.”

“So you’re alone.”

“Except for the ghosts.” From the jukebox, a fresh version began. Rosemary Clooney carefully enunciated all the words. “I gave them the night off, but they like hanging around.”

Stanwyck mm-ed and shook her head. “Can I sit. Till he comes.”

I pointed to a chair. “Suit yourself.”

“How can I pass up such a gracious invitation.” She sat. “Anyway, you owe me a drink.”

Stanwyck works hard at being hard-boiled. She is, but she’s not as hard-set as she thinks everyone else thinks she is. Her center’s a little soft. There’s a smidge of underdone yolk inside the shell she can’t quite solidify. I used to peek at it when we were making a go at being scrambled eggs. She used to peek at mine, too.

She’s also no-nonsense attractive. She’s got the pageboy, and every strand of her hair is still the natural mahogany she was born with. It’s a little darker than her eyes and her skin: They’re biscuit, like Rosa’s, her Mexican mother. She’s my age, give or take a year, but while I’ve got enough lines and crannies to look like something out of a Boris Karloff picture, Stanwyck’s skin is as smooth as twenty-year-old bourbon. She doesn’t wear makeup, and she doesn’t need to. Not even lipstick.

Vivian sailed into my line of sight like the flagship of a cruise line of small, over-priced yachts. “Good evening, Lieutenant,” she purred with a lovely and casual-but-professional smile. “What can I get you?”

“A Blonde Ice.” Vivian looked blank. “Gin and limoncello on the rocks,” Stanwyck explained, and looked at my empty glass. “Robert? Refill?”

This is the last drink, then I’m going home to bed, I told myself again. “Sure, why not.” Vivian reached for the empty. “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll suck on the cubes till you get back.”

“If that’s what you want to”—she glanced at Stanwyck—“do,” she finished, and winked. “One minute, hon.” She quivered toward the bar. One more drink and I probably wouldn’t notice that, either.

Stanwyck looked in her direction and hmph-ed. “She looks like Little Bo Peep. Or maybe one of her sheep on the way home.” She opened her purse, took out a tissue, and blotted her forehead. “Feels like it’s ninety-nine out there.” I nodded. She wadded the tissue and shoved it back into her purse. “You look lousy, Grahame. And it’s not just the booze. You run into a door full speed?”

“More like one ran into me. By accident.” Stanwyck didn’t need the details. She’d only start an investigation.

“I hope ít’s worse for the wear, too.”

I nodded again. “I’d like to think so. They don’t make doors like they used to.”

Stanwyck didn’t smile. “They don’t make private investigators like they used to, either. How’s the drowning business these days.” She tapped my glass.

“Probably not much different than the homicide business.”

“Yeah, we both got our corpses.” She sighed.

I shook my head. “Unh-uh,” I said as the music swelled. “You got corpses. I got ghosts. At least corpses just lie there.”

“Ever think about leaving L.A.?”

“You mean ghosts don’t travel?” I dripped melted ice into my mouth. It didn’t taste like bourbon. I wanted it to taste like bourbon.

“I mean you can find slimeball husbands and wives anywhere in the great forty-eight. You don’t have to wait around here, looking for them.” She waved her hand in the direction of the jukebox.

“‘Them’?”

“Her.” She scanned the bar. Vivian was nowhere in sight. “It’s been a year, Grahame.”

“Next Thursday.”

“Robert.” Stanwyck grabbed my chin and held it up so I’d have to look her straight in the eye. I did, though mine were a little watery. “She’s long gone,” she said. “She left the City of Angels for a little bit of hell called Chicago.”

I chuckled. She let go of my chin. “Huh. City of Angels. You ever see any angels here, Stanwyck?”

“Not a one.”

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. They went for a swim in my brain.

“I did. She had a mouth like the Mona Lisa, eyes like black smoke, and hair as long as the first day of summer. Perfect. Not a thing in the world wrong with her.”

“Except she had wings and decided to use them.”

“Yeah. Angels. Who needs ’em.” I opened my eyes and drained the melted ice. It still didn’t taste like bourbon. “Hey,” I called to no one in particular, “where’s our drinks?”

“They’ll get here. How’s Greenstreet?”

“Fat. Loud. Lazy.”

She snorted her laugh. “Like always.”

“You can come by and say hello to him, y’ know. He’d remember you, too.”

“Some of these days.”

I snorted, a snort. “You sound like Sophie Tucker.”

Vivian appeared, black tray in hand. She set Stanwyck’s drink before her—“Here you go. A Blonde Ice.”—then leaned over and carefully placed mine. “And,” she said into my eyes, “a double bourbon. On the rocks.” She stirred it for me, slowly.

“Thanks,” I said, and took the swizzle stick. “Don’t hurt your wrist. You might need it later.” I lifted the glass. When I put it down, it was half empty.

“Something to eat?”

Stanwyck looked at me. “I don’t think so,” she said. “That’d be good for him.”

Vivian gave her the professional smile. “Okay,” she said, and picked up the empty. “I’ll be—around.”

Stanwyck watched her go with an amused smile. I just avoided the whole thing and lifted my glass again. “To your health, Lieutenant Stanwyck.”

“And yours.” She took a deep swallow.

The jukebox finally had a change of heart. Sophie Tucker’s stentorian voice burst forth with “After You’ve Gone.”

Not my first choice either, but . . . “Hallelujah,” I muttered.

“She’s not comin’ back, Robert.”

“Who, Sophie Tucker?”

“Yeah.”

I looked into the glass. Just bourbon and ice. Not an answer in sight. “Nice of you to bring her up.”

“But I might. If you ever make a serious effort to climb out of the deep end.” I looked at her: Her yolk was showing.

I grinned. “Well, here’s to the deep end.” I clinked her glass and took another slug from mine.

Now she snorted a snort. “I’ve got a good mind to take you home and put you under the shower.”

“Be a terrible waste of a good mind.” I was still grinning. “I’d just dry out again.” I waved the glass. “’Sides, this is keeping me good and—”

“Evening, gumshoe.”

I recognized that voice, too. It belonged to the short, skinny man standing beside the table. I hadn’t seen him in two or three years, and I’d missed him like I’d missed another bullet in my gut. He was wearing a stylishly wide-brimmed panama that covered his thinning hair and mashed his lettuce leaf–sized ears, between which there was a bulbous-nosed, acne-scarred face. The rest of his outfit would have landed him on Hedda Hopper’s Ten Worst Dressed list. The jacket of his pin-striped, navy-blue, double-breasted suit was open. Underneath it there was a light-blue fifty-dollar silk shirt and a three-inch-wide lavender-and-goldfinch-striped tie that only clashed a little with the two-inch-wide purple-and-mustard suspender straps it hung between. There was a slightly brown-at-the-edges white carnation in his lapel.

His name was Moe Sedway, a crook whose smell made even other crooks hold their noses. He had been a friend of Bugsy Siegel. A close friend. And he was not smiling at me. “Moe,” I said, as happy to see him as I would have been to see the beach at Normandy the day after D-Day. “What cesspool did you climb out of?”

Stanwyck looked up, too. “Well, if it isn’t Bugsy Siegel’s faithful sidekick Dumbo,” she said. “Twice in one week!” He’d been among the first people she’d interviewed in the investigation. I wondered if he’d exhausted her patience. Probably not. Moe was a “friend” of the Chief, too. Just like Bugsy’d been. “To what do we owe the honor?”

“If that’s a reference to my ears, I’ll choose to ignore it, Lieutenant.”

She shook her head. “Your ears are the least of your problems, Moe. It’s a reference to your brain.”

“I’ll choose to ignore it anyway,” he said, keeping his eyes on me.

“Still in L.A.! Huh. Slumming, Moe? Or is life in Vegas getting boring,” she added.

“As you already know, Miss Stanwyck, I came here with my good friend Benjamin for a visit.”

“That’s Lieutenant Stanwyck to you, Sedway.” Her tone could have cracked boulders.

He continued to stare at me. “Unfortunately, something happened to him Friday night.”

I took a drink. “Alas, poor Bugsy. You knew him well. A fellow of infinite wits—which got spread all over the room.”

Sedway glared at me. “Hate” was a mild word for what was in his eyes. “Putz,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “You want more trouble, keep goin’ in that direction.” He turned to Stanwyck and his voice changed. “How’s the investigation comin’, Lieutenant Stanwyck?” he asked affably.

She shrugged. “You oughta know. Chief tells me you two had a—conversation this afternoon. He said you knew a couple things even he didn’t know.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I heard some things.”

“Gonna share ’em with me?”

“Maybe.” He glared at me again. “Maybe someplace else. Where it smells a little less like rat.”

“I’m gonna get hurt feelings, Moe,” I said. “You don’t like my perfume? Tell you what: You can buy me something different. I hear Chanel Number Five is good. But maybe you’d prefer eau de Bugsy. That’s the kind of toilet water I hear your kind bathes in. In fact, I can smell it on you now.”

Sedway took a deep breath and held it. His face turned red, and his collar swelled; it looked like it was going to burst. Or he will, I thought. Or maybe hoped.

He let it out in a gust. Then he squeezed his face together like he was trying to crack open a walnut with it, and spoke softly. “Just you watch yourself, gumshoe. Or maybe you’re gonna get somethin’ hurt besides your feelings—and your jaw. Or maybe they’re gonna be pickin’ more lead out of your liver.”

“It was my stomach, Sedway,” I said, “and you’re making me sick to it.”

Stanwyck took out her shield. “You threatening him, Sedway?”

He smiled. I’d never seen one that leaked snake oil before. “Nah, Lieutenant: You know me. I don’t threaten guys. I just give ’em good advice.” He wiped away the oil and the smile along with it. “You got that, putz?”

I nodded. “Oh, I got it. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Moe, but I got it.”

He pulled himself up to his full five feet five inches. “Just you remember—both of ya: Me and Benny, we were pals. And I ain’t gonna forget what happened.”

“Nobody’s forgetting anything, Moe,” Stanwyck said. “We’ll find the guy who did it.”

Sedway looked straight into my eyes, the way that Lizabeth Duryea had the night before. I looked straight back. Hers were much prettier. “Yeah,” he said, the knife in his voice fully honed and a little frustrated at not having a convenient apple, or throat, to slice. “You will. And I don’t think you’re gonna have to look too hard.” He tipped his hat. “G’ night, Lieutenant.” He glared at me one last time. “G’ night. Putz,” he said, and walked out.

Stanwyck whistled. “What was that all about?”

I shrugged. “Search me. I’ve known the guy for ten years.”

“Well?”

“I’ve seen him around a few times. Not recently, though.”

“And Siegel?” Stanwyck asked.

“I met him once or twice. That’s—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Grahame.”

I glanced up. Sydney was standing there. “Yeah?”

Sydney smiled. “I believe your party is here.”

“He is?” I probably sounded surprised. I was. He was only an hour and a half late.

“A Mr. Scott,” Sydney said. “Shall I bring him to the table?”

“Oh, by all means. By all means.” Sydney nodded, bowed, and left. I looked toward the entryway but I didn’t see anyone standing there. I finished my drink. Stanwyck finished hers. “S’ long, Lieutenant,” I murmured over the empty glass. “And good luck finding Bugsy’s killer. How is it comin’, by the way?”

She snorted, another snort. “Strangest thing? There were nine bullet holes. Great big bullet holes.”

“Yeah, I heard. Not all of them in the walls, either.”

She leaned over and spoke quietly. Stanwyck’s careful about letting press-protected facts about a case get out, but now and then I’d been a useful board to bounce them off. When she did, she had a habit of watching my reactions. I didn’t mind. I had a habit of watching hers, too, when I revealed something more or less confidential. Cops and PIs read each other—and suspects and clients—that way. Stanwyck believed none of what she read in the papers and only half of what she heard. Maybe three-quarters, from me. Cops are notorious for not believing PIs, anyway. I’d never yet met one who said “Uh-huh” when I said something without sounding sarcastic. Of course, with the possible exception of Stanwyck, there wasn’t much the jakes had told me over the years I thought was jake, either.

“We didn’t find a single bullet,” she said. “Whoever did it actually came in and picked up every one of them before he left. Of course, nobody knows nothin’.”

“Nobody ever does.”

She put down her empty. “Including you?”

I shook my head. “Including me, Lieutenant Stanwyck.”

She nodded. “Of course, if you did know something, you’d tell me.”

“Of course. But I don’t.”

She eyed me suspiciously but sat up and took a clean tissue from her purse. “If I find out different, I’ll bring you in, Grahame. I don’t care if it was Siegel. Whoever killed him is gonna face the music. And anybody who withholds information is, too.” She wiped her face and hands. “Am I clear?”

“As an extra dry martini.”

“Good.” She closed the purse and stood. “See you around. Thanks for the drink.”

“Yeah. Around. Watch out for the bad guys, Stanwyck.”

“You watch out for accidents.”

I laughed. “Hey, you oughta hope I have one: I got a double indemnity policy. You’re the beneficiary. You and Greenstreet.”

Stanwyck winced. “Just what I need. Another fat, loud, lazy cat in my life; I already got the Chief.”

“This,” said Sydney, “is Mr. Grahame.”

The man he was standing beside was smiling. He looked as smooth as freshly poured asphalt, and almost as dark. He was about my age, and despite the smile he did not look like someone I would be happy meeting in an alley at midnight: He was burly and twice my size—Elisha could have been a member of the Lollipop Guild in comparison—with tight-curled jet-black hair. Slap a wreath of dead leaves on his head and wrap a tunic of them across his body, and some company could have itself a Jolly Brown Giant. My respect for Lizabeth Duryea’s judgment of size surged: He was every inch of half my desktop wide and only a little shorter than a small Alp. Still, he had curiously delicate features: something about his slender, almost feminine finger, and his eyes. They were small and very round, and sort of salmon-pink, a startling contrast to his almost-black skin. He wore an expensive mocha-brown suit, a bright-yellow shirt, and an emerald-green tie with embossed orange shamrocks. I wouldn’t have believed a tie like that even existed. One thing he had in common with Lizabeth: Fashion was clearly not his forte, either.

Stanwyck glanced at the stranger, sizing him up the way she sized up everyone when she was investigating a murder: as the potential killer. I doubted, however, he would have shot at Siegel once, let alone nine times. He would have sat on him instead. It would have been quicker.

The stranger smiled at her benignly. “Excuse me,” she said. “I was just leaving.”

“Oh, not on my account,” he said: a paragon of politeness and straight ivory tusks. His dentist must be thrilled.

“No. On his.” She tossed her head in my direction. “I’ll be at the station, Robert. If you change your mind.”

“Okay,” I said. Stanwyck took one more look at the stranger, who again smiled with the controlled graciousness of a bull elephant being handed his Oscar; said “Goodnight, Sydney”—Sydney half-bowed in return—and walked briskly up the steps and out of The Pickup.

The stranger watched her leave. Then he wolf-whistled.

“You’re late, Scott,” I said. “You are Dan Scott?”

He nodded and sat without offering his hand. I was glad. “Yeah. Sorry. Traffic,” he said, still smiling.

“Mm. You want something to drink?”

“Maybe some water, later.”

“Water? My friend Sydney here sure isn’t gonna get rich off you.”

“I’m strictly a water man—never get enough, y’ know? But I’m fine for right now.”

He loosened his tie and laughed. Loudly. I figured his laugh could stand in for the boom they said would happen when somebody finally broke the sound barrier they kept trying to break. “But I’m prob’ly gonna want some later: nice and cold. It’s hot out there!”

“Mm.” I turned to Sydney. “Keep Vivian at bay a while, will you?”

The small man smiled. “Of course, Mr. Grahame. Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, and left, quietly and quickly.

Scott folded his hands on the table and continued to smile. “Some babe you were talkin’ to.”

“Yeah, she is.” That smile was already getting on my nerves. It looked painted on. “But I didn’t think we were here to talk about babes.”

“No,” said Scott. His expression didn’t change one iota. “Of course. ’D you bring it?”

Well, smile or no, the man was all business. That wasn’t how insurance agents usually worked. Every time I talked to him, Wally Dietrichson spent ten minutes talking about our good old days in the hospital. Then he mentioned a new policy. “Uh-huh,” I said. “I brought it.”

Scott reached into a back pocket, pulled out a thick wallet, withdrew a wad of bills, and, without counting them, offered it to me. Yep, I thought. All business. I pushed it away. “Unh-uh. First, I want some answers.”

Scott’s smile broadened—at least it changes—and he said genially, “This is thee answer. To everybody’s questions.”

“Not mine.” I took out the package and held it tightly, although I was sure he could have broken off my hand at the wrist and walked out of the place, still smiling, if he’d wanted it that second. “I wanna know what’s in here.”

Scott laughed. “No big secret. At least, not from you. Like you said she thought: It’s a present. For Lizabeth. Four-carat diamond ring with a coupla rubies. I’m gonna surprise her with it.”

I turned it between my fingers. A four-carat diamond! He did sell a lot of insurance. “Must’ve set you back a few policies,” I said. Wally Dietrichson bought Phyllis, his wife, diamond earrings last year, for their tenth anniversary. A quarter-carat each. And he was the district sales leader. They were, she raved ecstatically, “huge.” Of course, Phyllis was a girl with simple tastes.

“Hey!” Scott spread his hands in the air. “Kid’s had a tough life. Nothin’s too good for her. Y’ know?”

“Oh, I know. She’s quite a gal.”

“Yeah,” said Scott. “She is.”

“What’s she givin’ you?”

Scott seemed oblivious to the implication. “I guess I’ll just have to wait to find out,” he said pleasantly and went back to smile number one.

I nodded. “Oh, by the way: Happy Birthday.”

“Happy—?” For an instant confusion replaced the smile. Then it returned, and he said, “Oh. Thanks.”

“Yeah. How’s your back?”

“It’s fine. Why?”

I closed my fist around the package and leaned back. My gun was easier to reach, sitting that way, and I thought I might need it. Soon. “I was just wondering. You looked a little—stiff.”

Scott watched my fist intently. “Never been better,” he said.

“Good.” Good, maybe. “And your girlfriend?”

“My— Oh, her.” He shrugged.

“Sorry to hear that. Your sister seems to think you’re in Seattle.”

“Lizabeth?” Scott said, slightly incredulously, and laughed. He sounded like a grizzly with a sinus problem. A dozen heads turned toward us, probably including a couple from the bar next door. “I was. Till this morning. I’ve been trying to telephone her all day to let her know. Stopped by her place, too; put a note under thee door, but I guess she hasn’t been home.”

Maybe it was just a quirk, but it was the second time he’d said “thee” instead of “the.” I thought the first might have been just for emphasis. The second made me wonder. “Yeah, I tried to call her too,” I said. I looked closely at Scott’s hands, hair, face. He looked normal (at least he did if you were a Brobdingnagian; I, however, felt like Gulliver). Except for the eyes. But he might have an albino gene or something like that. I’d look it up sometime. “She also seemed to think someone might be keeping you there. Maybe against your will.” A horde of Titans, maybe.

Scott laughed again. “Lizabeth gets a little—confused sometimes.”

“I see.” I opened the fist and looked at the small, carefully sealed packet on my palm. “Y’ know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a diamond that big. I’d like to.”

“It’ll be on her finger tomorrow,” Scott said cheerfully. “I’ll bring her by thee office.”

“What’s wrong with now?”

He looked around, then leaned toward me and spoke confidentially. His breath smelled too sweet, like he’d been sucking on mixed fruit–flavored Life Savers all day. Well, mine smelled like bourbon. If he didn’t drink, that was probably just as hard to take. “It’s a little too much to be showing around in a place like this.”

I snorted. “My friend Sydney might get hurt feelings if he heard you say that. Anyway, this is the most private table in the joint. And seein’ as there’s just the two of us . . .”

“I’d just ratheer not.” I raised my eyebrows. “So if you’ll just give it to me . . .” He reached for it. I pulled it back.

“I’ve got more questions.”

Scott sighed but smiled. “All right. What d’ ya wanna know?”

I sipped my what had been bourbon over ice but was now mostly water. And tepid water at that. Scott may have enjoyed it, but as far as I’m concerned, water’s for taking a shower. Or making coffee. It’s okay as a mixer, but I don’t make a habit of drinking it straight. “Where did Lizabeth get the money she was carrying around last night?”

Again, he seemed surprised. “I didn’t know she was carrying money.”

“Funny, you didn’t seem to know she left the packet with me, either. Until I told you.”

“I was—just makin’ sure you had it.” He extended the smile.

Uh-huh. “I see. Anyway: She had ten or twenty thousand dollars.”

Now he seemed amused. “You saw her with ten thousand dollars?”

“Or twenty. We didn’t count it.”

He laughed. “Well, that’s news to me!”

There was an awful lot about his sister that was news to Dan Scott, and the gnawing sensation I’d had last night listening to her was back. The good news was, whatever else might be happening, focusing on the peculiarities was clearing my head: I was confused, but along with that I felt a tingle of answers beginning to come together, like molecules looking to make atoms. And I noticed Frank Sinatra warbling through “Always”; it was the first time I’d noticed the jukebox since Scott sat down. “That’s an awful lot of dough for somebody to be carrying in her purse.”

Scott looked around, then leaned into me again. “Look,” he said in his version of a whisper, “there’s something you oughta know about Lizabeth. She can be a little . . .” He put an index finger to his temple and turned it. “Y’ know? More than just—confused, if you know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong: She’s a sweet kid, but . . .” He repeated the gesture. “That’s why I try to look out for her. Have someone keep an eye open when I can’t.”

“I see.” I swallowed more water, wishing it were bourbon. “So, how was Seattle?”

“Nice. Wet. Not thee kind a weatheer I’m used to.”

There it was again. Well. “Sell a lot of insurance?”

Scott shook his head. “Wasn’t really a sales trip. More like getting to know what’s gonna be in thee air thee next couple of years. Flew around thee Sound a few times. New aircraft, y’ know.”

He didn’t sound like a foreigner, like Lizabeth Duryea did; maybe it was just a speech impediment. Odd, yeah. Nothing about the way he spoke seemed threatening, but there were those four hundred or so pounds on that seven-foot frame. I sort of expected him to break out in “Fee-fi-fo-fum” any minute. Made me glad my parents were Scottish, not English. “Sounds pretty routine. What kept you?”

Scott’s smile froze, then gradually but steadily melted away, and his face reset itself in a hard-eyed, grim frown. The salmon eyes turned fire-red. “Business, Grahame,” he said. “My business.”

I nodded. Never argue with a four-hundred-pound red-eyed canary about where it wants to sleep. “O-kay.”

At once the smile returned. “Hey! I got things to do. I think I’ve been pretty polite. So why don’t you just give me that and we’ll both go where we gotta go.”

“You meeting someone?”

“Could be.”

I held up the package. “Not a couple of cheap hoods named Elisha and Wilmer, by chance.”

Either Scott was a heck of a lot better actor than Jimmy Stewart, or even Ray Milland, or else he really was perplexed. “Elisha and who?”

“Wilmer. The boys who stopped by my office this morning. Your boys. ’Scuse me: Your boy and your girl. This”—I held up the package—“was there all the time. They didn’t do a very thorough job. Except on me.”

He shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. “Grahame, I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Oh. It was just an accident, you calling ten minutes after they left.”

Scott sat up. He was still smiling. “Accidents happen. All thee time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s smart to watch where you’re goin’.” There was no edge in his voice, no veiled threat, just a quiet cautionary note: big brother talking to little, the man who’d been there offering friendly advice to the man who hadn’t.

Well, I’d been there. And I was in no mood for friendly advice from anyone, least of all a guy who was probably responsible for the stomachache I’d had all day and now was trying to buy me by buying something he already owned. “It’s smarter to keep your monkeys off my back, Scott,” I said. With an edge in my voice.

Now he grinned and reached inside his suit jacket. “You’re pullin’ my leg, Grahame,” he said, and surreptitiously withdrawing a pistol and pointing it discreetly, but directly, at me. It was a large gun and a little peculiar: The barrel looked slightly bent. But maybe it looked that way because I was, from all that bourbon. “And I don’t like it,” he added unnecessarily.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he would have shot Siegel. I was about to let him have the package, no more questions asked, when he reached into a side pocket with his free hand, took out a second, larger wad of bills, and dropped it on the table. “This is for your trouble. Now give me thee package. Or your pal Sydney might be wipin’ up more wet spots than usual.”

Well, why not: If Scott was willing to pay for it, fine. Besides, what was in the package wasn’t worth getting roughed up again, much less dying for. Not to mention the problems blood-spattered walls and the descent of a legion of cops would cause Sydney. And it looked like there was a lot of money wadded up on the table. I could use the dough. If it was real. If it wasn’t stolen.

I wondered whether Scott knew what was in the little brown jug I was holding, or whether he’d be surprised when he found out. Or pleased. I laid it in the center of the table. Scott pushed the money toward me and picked the package up. “Thanks,” he said, with the same good cheer he’d had earlier. He examined the thing briefly, dropped it into his breast pocket, and stood up. “See you around,” he said.

I nodded. “Yeah. Be sure to give my regards to Lizabeth.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” Scott said. He was smiling again, that same annoying smile. “And be careful, or you might be givin’ yours to Bugsy Siegel.”

“Y’ know, everybody tonight seems to think he and I were bosom bodies.”

“That so?”

“That’s so. I didn’t have anything to do with Bugsy.”

Discreetly, Scott tucked the gun away. “That’s a bad bruise on your face, Grahame,” he said in the same brotherly tone. “You oughta be more careful about where you’re sticking it.”

“Thanks for the advice. But what’s Siegel got to do with me?”

Scott shrugged. “He wasn’t,” he said amiably.

“I see.”

He took a deep breath and yawned. Cherry Life Saver residue wafted over me. He tipped his head toward the exit. “This heat: It wears me out!” He yawned again; this time, he covered his mouth. “See,” he said, and leaned on the table, which, happily, was well built. He brought his face all the way into mine and spoke in that roar of a whisper: “They got him, and they can get you, too.”

“Ohhh . . .” I moved my face away from all that sweetness. “I suppose it’s a matter of space.”

He stood up. “Space?” he said incredulously. “Nah, see, it’s— Hey!” He stopped and perked his head. “You hear that?”

I did. For the twentieth time that night.

“My favorite song,” said Scott. “You like it?”

“I used to.”

He laughed. “Funny how people’s tastes . . . change.”

“Yeah. A real laugh riot.”

Scott listened a moment and sighed. “Love that tune. Listen: I’m goin’ out thee front door. Don’t be behind me when I turn around. Okay?” I nodded. “S’ long, Grahame. I’ll be watchin’ for you.” He saluted, widened the smile, and, calmly and casually, walked away and out of The Pickup without looking back.

I watched him go. I wanted another drink: The wooziness had all but vanished. I knew it would come back unless I quit now. What I really needed was coffee, hot, strong, and black. Besides, Scott had it all wrong. I was gonna give him plenty of time to disappear before I gave him any chance to make me disappear as well.

I wondered if Brown Hat was still twiddling his thumbs outside.

“Ready for something else, hon?” said Vivian, slinking to my side.

I looked at her. Her eyes were cat’s eyes, green and narrow, and flecked with gold like Lizabeth Duryea’s. “What’d you have in mind?”

She smiled and leaned over, revealing the little of her chest that had been left to the imagination. “I get off in half an hour,” she purred.

I nodded. “Most girls I know don’t take that long.”

Vivian stood up. “Huh?” she said.

“Never mind.” I picked up the bills Scott had left on the table, peeled off a twenty, and held it out. “Here. Buy yourself some long underwear.”

She took it and stuffed it inside her top. I wondered what other denominations had occupied that privileged domain. “Thanks. Maybe I will.”

I ordered one more drink: the coffee. I wanted to make sure I was ready in case there were any surprises waiting when I walked out of The Pickup. While I waited for it, I counted the rest of the money. There was sixteen hundred twenty dollars, more than I took in most months. And it was all large bills, in no particular arrangement: nothing smaller than a twenty, but there were a few fifties and a couple of hundreds mixed in with them randomly. It was like there’d been a large pile and Scott had scooped up whatever was handy. I worried it might be fake or stolen. I’d ask Jules Bezzerides to have a look at it in the morning. He had one of those black light gizmos that could tell the real stuff from the counterfeit, and he’d helped me out before. I’d make it up to sweet little Vivian if it was phony. But if it wasn’t—and I had the gut feeling that was the case—there was a new Buick in the offing. And maybe a fishing trip. Me and Wally and his partners, Bart Neff and Fred Keyes, could all head up the coast toward Santa Rosa for a few days. Or down it—there was good fishing not too far past the Mexican border. Maybe McPherson could join us.

Vivian brought the coffee. I was stirring in a half-teaspoon of sugar when Sydney stopped by.

“I have a call for you, Mr. Grahame,” he announced with another inscrutable smile, plugging in the phone he was carrying.

“Thanks, Sydney.” I took a swig of coffee. It burned my tongue, and it felt good everywhere else. Then I picked up the receiver. “This is Grahame.”

“Mr. Grahame,” the soft, trembling voice on the other end said, “this is Lizabeth Duryea.”

I was, to say the least, surprised. I had called her, several times during the day, and gotten no answer. I hadn’t stopped by her apartment: There’d been enough to do without getting into a face-to-face conversation with a woman who seemed to play fast and loose with a lot of things, including, probably, the truth. And who happened to be a client and a woman who was very well aware of that fact, and that I was a man. I’d become pretty aware of that myself over the past year, and especially during the last twenty-four hours. Still . . . “Well . . . nice to hear from you, Miss Duryea.”

“I have to see you. Right away.”

I blew on the coffee and took another swig. “How’d you know I was here?”

Her voice was almost apologetic between the tremors. “I telephonick’ your office. Your secretary tol’ me you were going to The Pickup. I was going to come there, but I thought I sh— ought to call to be sure.”

“I was just about to leave.”

She gulped. “Dan is back.” Now she sounded terrified. Having seen him, I could understand why.

Even if she was his sister. Which she wasn’t.

“I know. He was just here. I gave him a little package.”

“A . . . package?”

“Uh-huh.” Vivian flitted past. She waved. I waved back. “And he gave me sixteen hundred more dollars. Then he said he had to meet someone, seemed awful anxious to get going. I figured it might be you.”

Her laugh bordered on the hysterical. “I don’t think so.”

“Where are you?”

“At a telephonick booth. At the corner of . . . South Street and Vine. Can you meet me? Please, it’s very important. I’m very . . . afrai’. I don’t know what to do.”

It was past ten, and I was tired and a little at sea: Lizabeth Duryea was a ride on a small but ritzy sailboat in the middle of a monsoon. And two late nights in a row with her wasn’t going to make the ride any more settling. Scott had left me with doubts and questions I’d just as soon not have about a client. But . . . nuts: Those questions needed answers, and there was no time like the present.

South Street and Vine wasn’t that far; I could catch a taxi and be there in ten or fifteen minutes. “Okay,” I said, “look: There’s a little diner down the block from where you are. The Criss Cross. There’s another telephone booth in front it. And a big ‘Phillies Cigars’ sign above the window.”

She paused. Then: “Yes, I can see it.”

“I’ll meet you there. Fifteen minutes.”

She paused again; then I thought I heard a sob. “All right,” she murmured worriedly. “Please hurry.”

I finished my coffee and left.