Saint Goes West (16 page)

“What did Ufferlitz have on you?” he retorted.

“You must be crazy.”

“Are you sure?”

“All right. You tell the Lieutenant this time.”

Condor’s inquisitive gaze switched back again.

The Saint shrugged.

“You’re too clever,” he said. “I don’t know. Naturally. If a lot of people knew, there wouldn’t have been any point in playing ball with Ufferlitz to keep him quiet. And there wouldn’t have been any point in killing him to make it perнmanent.”

The director appealed to Condor with another helpless movement of his hands.

“What on earth can I say to an insinuation like that? I took this job with Ufferlitz because I needed it quite badly, and I thought it might do me some good. I didn’t have to like him especially. But now he must have been blackmailing me, and if nobody knows what I was being blackmailed with I must have murdered him.”

“This girl you quarrelled about,” Condor said. “Was that recently?”

“No. It was months ago-nearly a year.”

“What was her name and where does she live?”

“She doesn’t,” said Groom.

The detective cocked his head sharply.

“What’s that?”

“She died soon after. Too many sleeping tablets.” Groom’s voice had an almost ghoulish flatness. “She was pregnant. She was trying to get into pictures, but I guess she never got any further than the casting couch.”

“Is that on record?”

“No-it’s just more gossip. Ufferlitz went out with her quite a lot. However, Mr. Templar will probably tell you that I murdered her too.”

“What was her name?” asked the Saint.

“Trilby Andrews.”

Something smooth and magnificent like a great wave rolled up over Simon Templar’s head; and when it had passed he was outside the studio, alone, and the conversaнtion had broken up and petered out in the frustrated inefнfectual way that had perhaps always been doomed for it, but that didn’t seem to matter any more. It had ended with Groom sulky and sneering, and Condor turning his long predнatory nose from one to the other of them like the beak of a suspicious bird; but there was nothing much more that he could do, it was only talk and suggestion and leads that he could remember to follow later, but Simon hardly even noнticed how the scene ended. Clear as a cameo in his mind now he had a name, a name that had been written on a photoнgraph of a face which in some faint disturbing way had seemed as if it should have been familiar and yet was not; and now the wave rolled over and left him with a serenity of knowledge that out of all the cold threads that he had been trying to weave into patterns he had at last touched one that had a warmth and life of its own…

He found himself crossing the boulevard to think it over with the mild encouragement of a few drops of Peter Dawson. The interior of the Front Office was dim and soothing after the bold light outside, and he had been there for several minutes with a drink in front of him before he was aware that he was not the only customer ahead of the five o’clock stampede.

“H’lo,” said the heart-shaking voice of Orlando Flane, now somewhat thickened and slurred with alcohol. “The great deнtective himself, in person!”

He unwound himself from the obscurity of a booth and steered a painstaking course to the bar, only tripping over his own feet once.

“Hullo,” said the Saint coolly.

“The great actor, too. Going to be a big star. Have your name in lights. Women chasing you. Cheering crowds, an’ everything.”

“Not any more.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“My job was with Ufferlitz. No more Ufferlitz-no more job. So I have to go back to detecting, and the crowds can cheer you again.”

Flane shook his head.

“Too bad.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Too bad, after you did such a swell job chiselling me out.”

“I didn’t chisel you out”

“No. You just took my part away from me. That was nice to do. Real Robin Hood stuff.”

“Listen, dope,” said the Saint temperately. “I never took anything away from you. You were out anyway. Ufferlitz dragged me in. When he made a deal with me I didn’t know you’d ever been involved. How the hell should I?”

Flane thought it over with the soggy concentration of drunkenness.

“Thass right,” he announced at last
“I’m glad you can see it.”

“You’re okay.”

“Thanks.”

“Shake.”

“Sure.”

“Less have a drink.”

They had a drink. Flane stared heavily at his glass.

“So here we are,” he said. “Neither of us got a job.”

“It’s sad, isn’t it?”

“My pal. You gotta get a job. I’ll find you a job. Talk to my agent about you.”

“I wouldn’t bother. I didn’t really want to be in this racket to start with. It just looked like fun and a bit of dough.”

“Yeah. Dough. That’s all I’m in for. I never thought I’d be in this racket either.”

“What racket were you in before?”

“Lotsa things. You don’t think I’m tough, do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Most people don’t.”

“I suppose not.”

“But I am tough, see? I’ve been around. I know what it’s all about.”

“Like Ufferlitz?”

“That son of a bitch.”

“Was he really?”

“Threw me out of the picture. Threw me outa his office when I was drunk an’ couldn’t give him what he had coming.”

“Yes, I was there.”

“That dirty bastard.”

“But you fixed him, didn’t you?” Simon asked gently.

Flane stared at him dimly.

“Whatsat?”

“You said you were going to fix him.”

“Yeah. So he’d stay fixed.”

“You certainly did.”

‘Too late now,” Flane said gloomily.

Simon looked at him over his glass with a slight frown.

“What d’you mean-too late?”

“Too late to fix him. He’s been fixed.”

“But you did it, didn’t you?”

Flane steadied himself, and a smudgily truculent rigidity came over his face.

“Are you nuts?”

“No. But you said you’d fix him—”

“Are you trying to hang something on me?”

“No. It was just a natural thing to think.”

“Well quit thinking.”

“I might,” said the Saint, “but I don’t know whether the police will. After all, you were heard to threaten him.”

“To hell with the police.”

“Hasn’t Condor talked to you yet?”

“Who?”

“Lieutenant Condor-the guy who’s in charge of the case.”

“Christ, no! Why should he? Annew know something? You know what I’d do if any cop came near me?”

“What would you do?”

“I’d poke him right in the eye!”

“Let’s have another drink,” said the Saint.

Flane picked up his drink when it came and focused on it with intense deliberation. He held it rather like a binnacle holds a ship’s compass, rocking under and around it but holding it in miraculously isolated suspension.

“That son of a bitch,” he said. “I coulda fixed him.”

“How?”

“I coulda put him right in the can.”

“What for?”

“For quail!”

Simon lighted a cigarette as if it were fragile. It was curious how coincidences always had to be repeated, and when your luck was coming in you just had to let it alone.

“You mean Trilby Andrews,” he said calmly.

“Yeah. She was under age. He ditched her an’ she took a sleep.”

“That’s just gossip.”

“That’s what you think. But I coulda proved it.”

“Only you didn’t,” Simon said carefully, “because he had something even better on you.”

He had a picture already of the methods and associations of the late Mr. Ufferlitz which made that kind of shot in the dark look almost as good as the chance of hitting a wall from inside a room, but he was not quite prepared for the response that he got this time.

Flane put down an empty glass and turned and took hold of him by the lapels of his coat. The alcoholic slackness was crushed down in his face as if with a great effort of will, and his eyes were cold even through the obvious bleariness of his vision. For the first time since Simon had set eyes on him he really looked as if he could have been tough. He didn’t raise his voice.

“Who told you that?” he said.

Simon had played this kind of poker all his life. Now he had to be good. He didn’t move. The bartender was down at the far end of the bar, polishing glasses while he looked over a magazine, and he didn’t seem to have been paying any atнtention for some time.

The Saint met Flane’s straining gaze with utter confidence. He dropped his own voice even lower, and said: “Ufferlitz’s attorney.”

“What did he know?”

“Everything.”

“Keep talking.”

“You see, Ufferlitz didn’t trust you. And he wasn’t dumb. He took precautions. He left a letter to be opened if anything happened to him. He had quite a story about your early life.”

“In New Orleans?”

“Yes.”

Flane fought against the compulsion of his clouded inнstincts. Simon could see him doing it, and see him losing his way in the struggle.

“About the girl who got knocked off-who was a witness-“

“Yes,” said the Saint, with absolute intuitive certainty now. “When you were a talent scout for a rather less glamorous business.”

Flane steadied himself against Simon’s lapels.

“How many other people did he tell?”

“Quite a lot. More than you could take care of now … You’re all washed up, brother. If Condor hasn’t found you yet, you’d better get ready for him. You’re going to make the best headlines of your career.”

“Yeah?… My pal!”

“Not your pal,” said the Saint, “since you tried to hang the rap on me by sending me that note.”

Flane blinked at him.

“What note?”

“The note you sent to put me on the spot.”

“I didn’t send you any note.”

“Your memory needs a lot of reminding, doesn’t it? But you’re not helping yourself a bit. You had it all—”

The Saint’s voice loosened off uncertainly. It wasn’t from anything that Flane had said or done. It was from something that came up within himself: a recollection, an idea- two ideas-something that was trying to form itself in his mind against the train of his thought, that suddenly softened his own assurance and his attention at the same time.

At that instant Flane pushed lurchingly against him, and the bar stool started to topple. Off balance, the Saint made a wild attempt to get at least one foot on the ground and get a foundation from which he could hit. It was too much of a conнtortion even for him. Flane’s fist smashed against his jaw- not shatteringly, but hard enough to put new acceleration into his fall. As he went down, the next stool hit him on the back of the head, and then for an uncertain interval there was nothing but a thunderous blackness through which large engines drove round and round …

8

HE WOKE UP in a surprising lucidity, as if he had only dozed for a moment-except for a throbbing ache that swelled up in waves from the base of his brain. He woke up so clearly that he could lay still for a moment and take full advantage of the wet towel that the bartender was swabbing over his face.

“Thanks,” he said. “Do I look as stupid as I feel?”

“You’re okay,” said the bartender, and added without inнtention: “How d’ya feel?”

“Fine.”

The Saint stood up. For a second he thought his head was going to fall off; then it righted itself.

“What happened?” asked the bartender.

“I slipped.”

“He gets ugly sometimes, when he’s been drinking.”

“So do a lot of guys. Where did he go?”

“Out. He scrammed outa here like a bat outa hell. Maybe he was scared what you’d do to him when you got up.”

“Maybe,” said the Saint, appreciating the sympathy. “How long a start has he got?”

“Long enough. Now look, take it easy. Better have a drink and cool off. On the house.”

“Anyway that’s an idea,” said the Saint.

He had a drink, which might or might not have helped the pain in his head to subside a little, and then went back across the boulevard and interviewed the studio gatekeeper.

“Lieutenant Condor? No, sir. He left right after you did. He didn’t say where he was going.”

Simon picked up the desk phone and dialled Peggy Warden.

“So you’re still there,” he said. “Didn’t they fire you too?”

“I expect I’ll be here till the end of the week, clearing some things up for Mr. Braunberg.”

“That’s good.”

“You left in an awful hurry.”

“My feet started travelling. I had to run to catch up with them.”

“You’ve got to give me an address where we can send your check.”

“I’ll be seeing you before that.”

“You’re not still going on being a detective, are you?”

“I am.”

“I wonder what you’re like when you relax?”

“You could find out.”

“A dialogue writer,” she said.

“Where are you going to be later?”

“Where are you going to be?”

“I don’t know right now. Can I call you?”

“I’ll be at home. Probably washing my last pair of silk stockings. The number’s in the book.”

“I don’t read very well,” said the Saint, “but I’ll try and get someone to look it up for me.”

He walked around to the parking lot and retrieved his car, and drove north towards the hills that look down across the subdivided prairie between Sunset Boulevard and the sea. Lazaroff and Kendricks lived up there, not Orlando Flane; and yet suddenly the pursuit of Orlando Flane was not so imнportant. Flane could be found later, if he wanted to be found at all-if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be sitting at home. But other patterns were taking a shape from which Flane was cuнriously lacking. It was like stalking a circus horse in the beнlief that it was real, and finding it capable of separating into two identities with cloths over them…

The house was perched on a sharp buttress of rock high above the Strip-that strange No Man’s Land of county in the middle of a city whose limits traditionally extend to the Jerнsey side of the Holland Tunnel. There were cars in the open garage, Simon noticed as he parked; and he rang the bell with the peaceful confidence that the wheels were meshing at last and nothing could stop them.

Kendricks himself flung the door open, looking more than ever like one of the earnest ambassadors of the House of Fuller, as if their positions ought to have been reversed and he should have been on the outside trying to get in. The sight of the Saint only took him aback for a moment, and then his face broke into a hospitable grin.