SOMEBODY LESS TIRED THAN I was might have gotten it earlier.
When I talked to them in the phone booth Monday night, the Scummies had been furious. They had called me “treacherous” and referred to my “cop friends.”
I had never figured out why.
But now I knew. Monday was the first night Bobbie Lee followed Charlotte Vivien. It was also the night that Quentin Quayle followed her. Vivien had spotted Quayle and taken tire-squealing evasive action to shake him. But she had thought she was shaking a cop and for a cop to be tailing her meant that I must have betrayed them.
Later that night I displayed the hanky in my window. I wanted to talk.
So did they. And everything they had had to say was angry.
If I'd only managed to associate their unexpected anger with the shaken tail, I would have known then that Charlotte Vivien was one of them. The Gorilla. The one who hadn't ever spoken in my presence.
Oh God! My woman and Miller had both asked the key question: why did the Scum Front come to me in the first place? Why me?
I had asked it too and been told it was because I worked alone. But that wasn't enough. No. The Scum Front came to me because, when they decided to hire someone to look for their missing bomb, Charlotte Vivien was able to say that she already knew a private detective. One who could be paid to do just about anything. Even a goddamn murder dinner party.
I picked up the phone.
Bobbie Lee watched.
I dialed Charlotte Vivien's number. Loring answered. I asked for Mrs. Vivien. I was told she was not at home. I asked when she was expected. He said he didn't know.
Then, for what felt like the hundredth time that day, I dialed Kathryn Morgason. But this time I was afraid that she would answer.
She didn't.
When I hung up, Bobbie Lee said quietly, “You could have called the motel to see if they checked out.”
I nodded. “If I'd thought of it.” She studied me. “This is something serious.”
“Yes,” I said. Then, “I've got to go there.”
“You want me to come?”
I was surprised at the offer.
But pleased.
“I still won't be able to tell you what it's all about.”
“O.K.,” she said easily. “I'll try to figure it out as I go along. Ain't nothing so intriguing as a little mystery.”
“If you say so.”
“Correct me if I'm wrong,” she said, “but I get the feeling you'd trade the intrigue for a little sleep.”
“Honestly,” I said, “I no longer really know what I'm doing.”
“Is that supposed to be a news flash?”
“I guess not.”
“One car or two?”
I was sorely tempted to go in her Rabbit. It was unlikely to have a bomb in it.
But it wouldn't be “socially responsible” to leave my car. Or to ask her to ride in it. “Two,” I said.
I followed as she led to the motel. She drove quickly.
I had to concentrate to keep up.
But not too hard to wonder whether Bobbie Lee Leonard carried a gun.
By the time we got there I didn't want to ask. I wouldn't like the answer either way.
She parked near the end of one group of motel rooms.
There was a space next to her but I passed it. I drove my bomb as far away from her car as I could.
She stood by her Rabbit and watched as I walked back across the lot.
“Problem?” she asked.
“No.”
I slipped into her passenger seat and she got back in too. Shaking her head. But she said, “Their cars are still here.”
So this was it. I had them together.
But what was I going to do with them?
“Where?” I asked.
She pointed them out. “And the room is up there, second from the end. Forty-seven.”
We were almost directly in front of it. “I want you to move the car,” I said.
“What?”
I looked for a place away from the room and away from my car. “Over there,” I said. I pointed.
“Why?”
“I'm afraid they might see you here.”
“But they don't know me.”
I looked at her.
She said, “Yes, boss,” and started the engine.
“Back into the space, so you can see the room door.”
“So what happens now?” she asked when we were settled again.
“I go up and knock, I guess.”
“And if they won't let you in?”
“I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow the door down.”
Or put a note under it saying if they didn't open up I'd go to the police. The principle was the same.
“Nervous, huh?” Bobbie Lee said.
“Yeah.”
“Look, let me go to reception and try to get a key.”
“A key? How the hell you going to do that?”
“Ah,” she said, “I'll only show you my little secrets if you'll show me yours.”
I didn't know what to say.
“You want me to try?”
If I had a key I could surprise them.
Was that good? Or would that make something go bang? Or would knocking on the door make something go bang?
“Go on,” I said.
She went.
I sat in the car and fidgeted.
I worried about the suitcases.
I knew what the Scum Front carried in suitcases.
What if they were making new bombs? What if they were about to blow themselves up in a spectacular final gesture?
Was there any reason to think they'd do that?
Well, I would go in anyway. No way was I going to get this close and back off.
Then I got worried because I hadn't made a will.
So I wrote one, on a piece of notebook paper.
Everything to my only child except my books. Those to my woman friend. And a wish for good luck to Miller. My mother as executor without bond. No eight hundred dollars to Frank.
Bobbie Lee came back grinning the most beguiling gap-toothed grin I had ever seen. She dropped onto the seat and jingled a key in front of me.
“That was quick,” I said.
“Shows I was dealing with a man,” she said.
I began to speak but she interrupted. “Clerk last night complained he was having to do double shifts. So it was the same guy. He likes money.”
“I want you to witness something.”
“What are you talking about?”
I signed the will and passed it to her.
But even that didn't wipe the smile. “Give me the pen,” she said, and wrote her name by mine. “You are just about the nuttiest fella I ever worked for.”
“Today I can believe that,” I said.
“So,” she said, “you're going into the room. You want me to come too?”
“No.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Call the cops if I don't come out, I guess.”
“After how long?”
“I don't know. Use your judgment, but give me some time.”
“I take it you figure these women are dangerous.”
“I don't think they are, but they might be.”
“Are you sure you want to do whatever it is you're doing?”
“No. But I'm sure I don't want not to do it.”
“If you were someone else,” she said, “I'd ask what that was supposed to mean. When you going?”
“Now,” I said. I got out of the car.
Room 47 was up a slight incline from the parking lot. I walked straight to the sidewalk in front of the door.
I felt naked. It wasn't because I didn't have a gun. It was because I didn't have any ideas.
I was also frightened.
I approached the door and listened.
Nothing.
I tried to see in the window but the curtains were closed tight.
I turned back to Bobbie Lee. She was watching impassively.
I moved to the door and slid the key into the lock. I gave it a wiggle. The door opened.
I eased myself inside.
The air in the closed room smelled stale.
I found the light switch.
I turned it on.
They were all there. All four of them.
They lay two each on the twin beds, but they were dressed in street clothes.
They were motionless.
They were silent.
They were dead.