'About twelve hours,' he said. 'Broken neck, of course. I doubt if there's any water in him. Better get him out of there before he starts to get stiff on us. I'll tell you the rest when I get him on a table.'

He nodded around, went back up the steps and along the pier. An ambulance was backing into position beside the stucco arch at the pier head.

The two deputies grunted and tugged to get the dead man out of the car and lay him down on the deck, on the side of the car away from the beach.

'Let's go,' M'Gee told me. 'That ends this part of the show.'

We said good-bye and M'Gee told the deputies to keep their chins b.u.t.toned until they heard from him. We went back along the pier and got into the small black sedan and drove back towards the city along a white highway washed clean by the rain, past low rolling hills of yellow-white sand terraced with moss. A few gulls wheeled and swooped over something in the surf. Far out to sea a couple of white yachts on the horizon looked as if they were suspended in the sky.

We laid a few miles behind us without saying anything to each other. Then M'Gee c.o.c.ked his chin at me and said: 'Got ideas?'

'Loosen up,' I said. 'I never saw the guy before. Who is he?'

'h.e.l.l, I thought you were going to tell me about it.'

'Loosen up, Violets,' I said.

He growled, shrugged, and we nearly went off the road into the loose sand.

'Dravec's chauffeur. A kid named Carl Owen. How do I know? We had him in the cooler a year ago on a Mann Act rap. He run Dravec's hotcha daughter off to Yuma. Dravec went after them and brought them back and had the guy heaved in the goldfish bowl. Then the girl gets to him, and next morning the old man steams downtown and begs the guy off. Says the kid meant to marry her, only she wouldn't. Then, by heck, the kid goes back to work for him and been there ever since. What you think of that?'

'It sounds just like Dravec,' I said.

'Yeah but the kid could have had a relapse.'

M'Gee had silvery hair and a k.n.o.bby chin and a little pouting mouth made to kiss babies with. I looked at his face sideways, and suddenly I got his idea. I laughed.

'You think maybe Dravec killed him?' I asked.

'Why not? The kid makes another pa.s.s at the girl and Dravec cracks down at him too hard. He's a big guy and could break a neck easy. Then he's scared. He runs the car down to Lido in the rain and lets it slide off the end of the pier. Thinks it won't show. Maybe don't think at all. Just rattled.'

'It's a kick in the pants,' I said. 'Then all he had to do was walk home thirty miles in the rain.'

'Go on. Kid me.'

'Dravec killed him, sure,' I said. 'But they were playing leapfrog. Dravec fell on him.'

'Okay, pal. Some day you'll want to play with my my catnip mouse.' catnip mouse.'

'Listen, Violets,' I said seriously. 'If the kid was murdered and you're not sure it's murder at all it's not Dravec's kind of crime. He might kill a man in a temper but he'd let him lay. He wouldn't go to all that fuss.'

We shuttled back and forth across the road while M'Gee thought about that.

'What a pal,' he complained. 'I have me a swell theory and look what you done to it. I wish the h.e.l.l I hadn't brought you. h.e.l.l with you. I'm goin' after Dravec just the same.'

'Sure,' I agreed. 'You'd have to do that. But Dravec never killed that boy. He's too soft inside to cover up on it.'

It was noon when we got back to town. I hadn't had any dinner but whisky the night before and very little breakfast that morning. I got off on the Boulevard and let M'Gee go on alone to see Dravec.

I was interested in what had happened to Carl Owen; but I wasn't interested in the thought that Dravec might have murdered him.

I ate lunch at a counter and looked casually at an early afternoon paper. I didn't expect to see anything about Steiner in it, and I didn't.

After lunch I walked along the Boulevard six blocks to have a look at Steiner's store.

6.

It was a half-store frontage, the other being occupied by a credit jeweller. The jeweller was standing in his entrance, a big, white-haired, black-eyed Jew with about nine carats of diamond on his hand. A faint, knowing smile curved his lips as I went past him into Steiner's.

A thick blue rug paved Steiner's from wall to wall. There were blue leather easy-chairs with smoke stands beside them. A few sets of tooled leather books were put out on narrow tables. The rest of the stock was behind gla.s.s. A panelled part.i.tion with a single door in it cut off a back part of the store, and in the corner by this a woman sat behind a small desk with a hooded lamp on it.

She got up and came towards me, swinging lean thighs in a tight dress of some black material that didn't reflect any light. She was an ash-blonde, with greenish eyes under heavily mascaraed lashes. There were large jet b.u.t.tons in the lobes of her ears; her hair waved back smoothly from behind them. Her fingernails were silvered.

She gave me what she thought was a smile of welcome, but what I thought was a grimace of strain.

'Was it something?'

I pulled my hat low over my eyes and fidgeted. I said: 'Steiner?'

'He won't be in today. May I show you '

'I'm selling,' I said. 'Something he's wanted for a long time.'

The silvered fingernails touched the hair over one ear. 'Oh, a salesman ... Well, you might come in tomorrow.'

'He sick? I could go up to the house,' I suggested hopefully. 'He'd want to see what I have.'

That jarred her. She had to fight for her breath for a minute. But her voice was smooth enough when it came.

'That that wouldn't be any use. He's out of town today.'

I nodded, looked properly disappointed, touched my hat and started to turn away when the pimply-faced kid of the night before stuck his head through the door in the panelling. He went back as soon as he saw me, but not before I saw some loosely packed cases of books behind him on the floor of the back room.

The cases were small and open and packed any old way. A man in very new overalls was fussing with them. Some of Steiner's stock was being moved out.

I left the store and walked down to the corner, then back to the alley. Behind Steiner's stood a small black truck with wire sides. It didn't have any lettering on it. Boxes showed through the wire sides and, as I watched, the man in overalls came out with another one and heaved it up.

I went back to the Boulevard. Half a block on, a fresh-faced kid was reading a magazine in a parked Green Top. I showed him money and said: 'Tail job?'

He looked me over, swung his door open, and stuck his magazine behind the rear-vision mirror.

'My meat, boss,' he said brightly.

We went around to the end of the alley and waited beside a fire-plug.

There were about a dozen boxes on the truck when the man in the very new overalls got up in front and gunned his motor. He went down the alley fast and turned left on the street at the end. My driver did the same. The truck went north to Garfield, then east. It went very fast and there was a lot of traffic on Garfield. My driver tailed from too far back.

I was telling him about that when the truck turned north off Garfield again. The street at which it turned was called Brittany. When we got to Brittany there wasn't any truck.

The fresh-faced kid who was driving me made comforting sounds through the gla.s.s panel of the cab and we went up Brittany at four miles an hour looking for the truck behind bushes. I refused to be comforted.

Brittany bore a little to the east two blocks up and met the next street, Randall Place, in a tongue of land on which there was a white apartment house with its front on Randall Place and its bas.e.m.e.nt garage entrance on Brittany, a storey lower. We were going past that and my driver was telling me the truck couldn't be very far away when I saw it in the garage.

We went around to the front of the apartment house and I got out and went into the lobby.

There was no switchboard. A desk was pushed back against the wall, as if it wasn't used any more. Above it names were on a panel of gilt mail-boxes.

The name that went with Apartment 405 was Joseph Marty. Joe Marty was the name of the man who played with Carmen Dravec until her papa gave him five thousand dollars to go away and play with some other girl. It could be the same Joe Marty.

I went down steps and pushed through a door with a wire gla.s.s panel into the dimness of the garage. The man in the very new overalls was stacking boxes in the automatic elevator.

I stood near him and lit a cigarette and watched him. He didn't like it very well, but he didn't say anything. After a while I said: 'Watch the weight, buddy. She's only tested for half a ton. Where's it goin'?'

'Marty, four-o-five,' he said, and then looked as if he was sorry he had said it.

'Fine,' I told him. 'It looks like a nice lot of reading.'

I went back up the steps and out of the building, got into my Green Top again.

We drove back downtown to the building where I have an office. I gave the driver too much money and he gave me a dirty card which I dropped into the bra.s.s spittoon beside the elevators.

Dravec was holding up the wall outside the door of my office.

7.

After the rain, it was warm and bright but he still had the belted suede raincoat on. It was open down the front, as were his coat, and vest underneath. His tie was under one ear. His face looked like a mask of grey putty with a black stubble on the lower part of it.

He looked awful.

I unlocked the door and patted his shoulder and pushed him in and got him into a chair. He breathed hard but didn't say anything. I got a bottle of rye out of the desk and poured a couple of ponies. He drank both of them without a word. Then he slumped in the chair and blinked his eyes and groaned and took a square white envelope out of an inner pocket. He put it down on the desk top and held his big hairy hand over it.

'Tough about Carl,' I said. 'I was with M'Gee this morning.'

He looked at me emptily. After a little while he said: 'Yeah. Carl was a good kid. I ain't told you about him much.'

I waited, looking at the envelope under his hand. He looked down at it himself.

'I gotta let you see it,' he mumbled. He pushed it slowly across the desk and lifted his hand off it as if with the movement he was giving up most everything that made life worth living. Two tears welled up in his eyes and slid down his unshaven cheeks.

I lifted the square envelope and looked at it. It was addressed to him at his house, in neat pen-and-ink printing, and bore a Special Delivery stamp. I opened it and looked at the s.h.i.+ny photograph that was inside.

Carmen Dravec sat in Steiner's teakwood chair, wearing her jade ear-rings. Her eyes looked crazier, if anything, than as I had seen them. I looked at the back of the photo, saw that it was blank, and put the thing face down on my desk.

'Tell me about it,' I said carefully.

Dravec wiped the tears off his face with his sleeve, put his hands flat on the desk and stared down at the dirty nails. His fingers trembled on the desk.

'A guy called me,' he said in a dead voice. 'Ten grand for the plate and the prints. The deal's got to be closed tonight, or they give the stuff to some scandal sheet.'

'That's a lot of hooey,' I said. 'A scandal sheet couldn't use it, except to back up a story. What's the story?'

He lifted his eyes slowly, as if they were very heavy. 'That ain't all. The guy say there's a jam to it. I better come through fast, or I'd find my girl in the cooler.'

'What's the story?' I asked again, filling my pipe. 'What does Carmen say?'

He shook his big s.h.a.ggy head. 'I ain't asked her. I ain't got the heart. Poor little girl. No clothes on her ... No, I ain't got the heart ... You ain't done nothin' on Steiner yet, I guess.'

'I didn't have to,' I told him. 'Somebody beat me to it.'

He stared at me open-mouthed, uncomprehending. It was obvious he knew nothing about the night before.

'Did Carmen go out at all last night?' I asked carelessly.

He was still staring with his mouth open, groping in his mind.

'No. She's sick. She's sick in bed when I get home. She don't go out at all ... What you mean about Steiner?'

I reached for the bottle of rye and poured us each a drink. Then I lit my pipe.

'Steiner's dead,' I said. 'Somebody got tired of his tricks and shot him full of holes. Last night, in the rain.'

'Jeeze,' he said wonderingly. 'You was there?'

I shook my head. 'Not me. Carmen was there. That's the jam your man spoke of. She didn't do the shooting, of course.'

Dravec's face got red and angry. He balled his fists. His breath made a harsh sound and a pulse beat visibly in the side of his neck.

'That ain't true! She's sick. She don't go out at all. She's sick in bed when I get home!'

'You told me that,' I said. 'That's 'That's not true. I brought Carmen home myself. The maid knows, only she's trying to be decent about it. Carmen was at Steiner's house and I was watching outside. A gun went off and someone ran away. I didn't see him. Carmen was too drunk to see him. That's why she's sick.' not true. I brought Carmen home myself. The maid knows, only she's trying to be decent about it. Carmen was at Steiner's house and I was watching outside. A gun went off and someone ran away. I didn't see him. Carmen was too drunk to see him. That's why she's sick.'

His eyes tried to focus on my face, but they were vague and empty, as if the light behind them had died. He took hold of the arms of the chair. His big knuckles strained and got white.

'She don't tell me,' he whispered. 'She don't tell me. Me, that would do anything for her.' There was no emotion in his voice; just the dead exhaustion of despair.

He pushed his chair back a little. 'I go get the dough,' he said. 'The ten grand. Maybe the guy don't talk.'