Girl Out Back (17 page)

I shrugged it off. The whole thing was over now. No, I thought; not quite. There’s one more slight matter, and that’s to re-sell Mr. Nunn his little bill of goods. I thought about him very coldly. I’d pick up my own, but I was damned if I was going to buy his. His mistake was that he didn’t know anything about this other business. I could tell the whole truth from beginning to end, including Cliffords, and the chances were they’d believe me. There was just a chance, too, that I might be able to help him trip himself up. Grady Collins was a bright young man who could use his head.

I went upstairs and called his office, and was lucky enough to catch him in.

“Barney Godwin,” I said. “Has my friend Nunn been bothering you again?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, he has,” Grady said. “He called up again about ten minutes ago. Still insists you’ve got his wife. You holding her for ransom, or what?”

”But he hasn’t come in the office?”

“No.”

“Well, I think he will. And probably before too long.”

“What makes you think so, Barney?”

“I’ve always been interested in psychic phenomena. And unless I’m badly mistaken, Nunn is clairvoyant.”

“Come again?”

“Don’t ask questions. Just listen. Make sure you’ve got a witness there all the time, and when Nunn comes in make sure he does all his talking before the witness. How’re you reading me?”

“Fine. Keep on.”

“Play it dumb. Keep brushing him off. If you do it long enough, and keep listening closely enough, he’ll tell you where his wife is.”

“All right,” he said. “Do
you
know where she is?”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I don’t even know where my own wife is.”

I was down in the den lying on the couch with a cigarette thirty minutes later when I heard her car pull into the garage. In a moment there was the clicking of high heels on the basement stairs. She appeared in the doorway. She had a new hair-do, new shoes, and a new dress that was loaded with the same old magic in the same old places.

I grinned at her. “You look wonderful.”

“You look pretty wonderful yourself,” she said.

She walked over by the sofa and stood looking down at me with eyes that were faintly misted. I made no move to get up.

“How was Sanport?” I asked.

“It was fine, I guess.”

Nobody said anything for a minute.

“Did you miss me?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.

She slid to her knees beside the sofa, and then sat down on the floor. Her face was on her arms very near to mine and her eyes were brimming with tears.

”Barney,” she said, “you’re not helping me very much.”

“What are you trying to do, baby? I’ll help you if I can.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I love you more than anything in the world. It’s all I thought about all the time I was in Sanport and all the way home. . . .”

She went on talking, and I listened to her, reflecting that I was probably in love with her, which was an asinine situation when you thought of it. You couldn’t operate that way; you began to flub your lines and get awkward and emotional, like a teen-ager. It had ruined everything. Well, it was ruined anyway, so what difference did it make?

Above the sound of her voice I heard the car stop outside. They were about on schedule, I thought. Nunn had no doubt finally become too impatient and suggested they search the station wagon. I saw a pair of feet go by the basement window toward the kitchen porch. The doorbell began to chime in front.

“There’s somebody at the door,” I said. “I’ll go.”

“It’s probably just some pedlar,” she protested. “He’ll go away.”

The doorbell chimed again.

“I’ll tell him to go away,” I said. I got up.

She caught my hand. “Don’t be gone long, Barney.”

“Not any longer than necessary,” I said.

I went up the stairs and through the kitchen. Ramsey would have looked in the station wagon, I thought, even if Nunn hadn’t suggested it.

Porphyry, I thought. That was it. That detective’s name was Porfiry Petrovitch.

I opened the front door. It was Ramsey and Grady Collins. Ramsey was just about to ring the bell again.