Blonde Bait for the Murder Master

I got up and poured us fresh drinks. She knocked hers off before I could even pour mine. “As long as you think he’s hooked...” I said.

“That big clown has been trampled on for years. This is his chance to put one over on the powers that be. Besides, he thinks that as soon as I collect on the tickets, I send some of the money to my brother and he and I run away on what’s left. He wept on my shoulder and said that he’d even dig ditches for me.”

“Let me review the great plan,” I said, sounding more calm than I felt. “One — you heard from Brock that there is internal trouble in the syndicate and they aren’t as strong as they once were. Two — you have found some smart money around town that you won’t tell me about, some person or persons who will back the new pool. Three — you get the fake tickets and print them up; I arrange for a chump to turn them in, for a small cut. Brock has to pay off; the syndicate men come down to investigate, and some blank tickets are planted among Brock’s stuff. That gets rid of him. Four — I turn honest and give the whole deal to Miss Robinson, who feeds the information to the DA, giving him enough to set up a raid and knock over the house, the printers, the stitchers and pick up a lot of the less reliable salesmen. Five — then we get the new tickets printed outside of town and set up our own organization and we are in operation before the syndicate can do anything about it. And once we are operating, we don’t let them scare us out.”

“That in several nutshells, is it.”

“And why don’t you tell me who the smart money is?”

“Because then you would know, and if you were suspected and anything goes wrong, I’m quite sure that Brock could make you talk.”

“You also speak English.”

She stood over me, her hands on her hips. She said softly, “But I am also faster, tougher and more sure of myself than you’ll ever be, Brian.”

“It sounds as if you don’t trust me.”

“And that’s my privilege, darling,” she said.

I reached up and gently pinched her throat with my thumb and forefinger. Her eyes blazed. “And if you get funny baby, I have privileges too,” I said.

But even as I did it, I knew it was to melodramatic a gesture; my bluff was showing. She slapped my hand away and said, “Get a cap-pistol, junior, and we’ll play cops and robbers.”

Half an hour later I dropped her near the small drugstore where she had arranged to meet Homer. As I drove away, I glanced back. She looked slim, young, lovely, under the street light; hate and greed wear fancy clothes sometimes.

I headed for Kit Robinson.

Chapter Three

It is an odd and lonely thing to drive down a quiet, faded street where the houses need paint, and the children, playing in the night shadows, make small hoarse sounds — and see, behind the familiar elms, the house where you grew up.

That room on the second floor on the side: Quinn and I had shared that room. Banners on the wall, and mechano set under the table by the window. And the quiet grey woman is dead; her big husband is dead; there are strangers in the house, and nothing is ever the same.

Except that Kit Robinson still lived diagonally across the street, and her house was still green with white blinds.

When I had still been on the force, I had been a welcome visitor. “Why, hello, Brian! Come right in. Kit’ll be down in a minute. Oh, Kit! Brian’s here, honey.”

But then the papers had a little spread about a cop who got tight on duty; there was a picture of the mess I had made of the prowl car, and they had found me drunk, it seemed only fitting that I should spend a good portion of my time getting to that state again. I went back and worked in the yards for a time, but everything was sour.

Kit’s father had ordered me out of the house, with Kit standing, white-faced, at the foot of the stairs, her heart in her eyes and tears on her pale face. And when I started to get next to the wise money, Mr. Robinson’s mind didn’t change. He had a pretty shrewd idea where the money came from.

I drove slowly down the street, turned in a driveway and parked in the spot we had decided on several months before. I knew that she was up in her room with the door shut, looking out her window toward that spot. Her window was the only one in the house which faced it.

I put my foot on the floor button and clicked the headlight beams up and down three times. I waited a moment, and did it again. Then I turned out the lights, slouched in the seat and lit a cigarette.

I could visualize what was going on in the green house. Kit would grab her jacket, saunter with great nonchalance down the stairs and say, “I’m going down to the corner for a magazine.” Or cigarettes, or a coke, or some fresh air.

Maybe there’s be a shade of suspicion in the air. Maybe not.

In the stillness I heard a door open, and close. High heels on wooden steps. Then her free stride, the heels clicking on the sidewalk. The tree shadows were dense where I parked. I saw her tall figure, and I leaned over and quietly opened the door on her side.