“A shock? What do you think it’s doing to me?” Adkin shouted. “I’m getting out of here! Do you imagine I want a knife in my guts? I know what that nut did to your other boyfriend. Do you think I want my guts hanging out? I’m off. From now on, baby, you keep clear of me! I’m not tangling with some madman and getting my guts spread over the floor. That’s strictly for the birds, but not for me!”
“You are not going to leave me here alone?” Thea asked, staring at him.
“You’ve got the cops.” Adkin was throwing on his clothes. “They’ll keep you company. If that nut found me here . . . oh, no! You stick with the cops. I’m getting out!”
Thea regarded him contemptuously.
“I knew you were soft, Bruce, but I didn’t think you were that yellow.”
Adkin zipped up his trousers.
“Me . . . yellow? You don’t know the half of it. I’m yellow right through to my marrow. When it comes to a nut with a knife, I’m more than yellow.”
She hesitated, then shrugged and walked into the lounge. She poured herself a stiff whisky. She drank it, shuddered, then lit a cigarette, irritated to see her hands were shaking. Perhaps after all it would be better for Bruce to get out, she decided. She couldn’t afford another scandal if she wished to remain in Paradise City. Pretty soon the press would find her and it wouldn’t do for them to find Bruce with her. Then she remembered that Wallace Marsh, the President of the local bank, was coming out to see her this night. She couldn’t let him come with two cops watching the bungalow. She suddenly realized what a bodyguard meant. Her men friends ― all married ― used the bungalow because it was private and isolated. They had a horror of being seen with her in public. She sat down abruptly. This would mean she would be short of money. She had a flock of debts. She had planned to make at least six hundred dollars from her men friends by the end of the week. Now, she didn’t dare have them here. She would have to telephone them and make excuses. Excuses? Once they read the papers, they would know the truth and they would drop her like a red-hot brick.
Adkin came out of the bedroom, carrying a suitcase.
“I’m on my way, baby,” he said. “Have a ball with the cops.”
She didn’t bother to look at him. Her mind was too busy trying to decide what her next move should be.
She heard the front door slam, then a car start up and roar away. Getting to her feet, she went over to the telephone and began to cancel her dates.
At one p.m., the news broke that Dr. Paul Forrester, top U.S. Rocket Research scientist who had been two years in a sanatorium following a mental breakdown, had escaped.
The local TV station interrupted its programme to put Dr. Forrester’s photograph on the screens of the City’s TV viewers. The local radio station broadcasted the news. The
Paradise Herald
rushed out a special edition that was on the streets by two-thirty. The public were asked to look out for Forrester.
“Don’t attempt to apprehend this man,” the radio announcer warned. “He is believed violent. You should call Police Headquarters: telephone number: Paradise City 7777.”
Jesse Hamilton of the C.I.A. was given the job of handling the press. He set up his headquarters at the City Hall. So far the news hadn’t leaked that Mervin Warren was on the scene, and Warren kept to his hotel suite. It was to the hotel that Terrell, Williams of the F.B.I, and Lepski rushed in a police car.
Lepski’s report satisfied Terrell that there must be a conspiracy. Terrell now wanted Warren to have it first hand.
It was a great moment in Lepski’s life when he recounted what he had done and heard during the past hours. Not only did Warren listen with absorbed interest, but also Jonathan Lindsey, sitting with headphones clamped to his ears in Radnitz’s penthouse suite.
When Lepski had finished his report, Warren telephoned the Paradise Research Station. He had a brief conversation, then hung up.
“This Jacey girl would not have returned to work,” he told Terrell. “Any employee convicted in Court automatically loses his or her job. So they didn’t expect her back. I want to know if this girl Sheila Mason exists . . . if she lives in Texas. Can we find out?”
“I’ll check, but we do know that Jacey had no relations so I very much doubt if Sheila Mason of Texas does exist, but I will check,” Terrell said.
“This store detective,” Warren went on. “I want a check on him. We want to be absolutely sure that he did see Jacey steal the articles. If he is put under pressure he might admit he gave false evidence. This is important. If the girl was framed ― and it looks as if she was ― we would know for certain she is involved in the conspiracy.”
Terrell turned to Lepski.
“See him,” he said. “If he doesn’t talk, bring him to headquarters.”
Lepski got to his feet.
“Yes, sir,” he said and left the room.
Listening, Lindsey picked up the telephone receiver by his side. He asked for an outside line. When he got it, he dialled a number. Silk came on immediately.
“Emergency,” Lindsey said quietly. “The police are on their way to interrogate that store detective. They could crack him. He could give them a description of you. Shut his mouth. They are on their way now, so hurry it up!”
As he replaced the receiver, he heard Warren say, “These two men who met the Jacey girl when she was released. We must find them.”
“I’m working on that now,” Terrell said. “We are looking for Lu-Lu Dodge. She had a good look at them. She is certain they were police officers. I know they weren’t, but they could have been ex-police officers, working for some Agency. We have photographs of all ex-officers in our files. As soon as we pick her up, we’ll get her to go through these photographs.”
Lindsey felt his hands grow damp. This was dangerous. If the police arrested the men from the Agency, they would talk. He was sure of that. He now felt a sense of panic. This operation was going wrong. The Agency would give the police his name. He didn’t trust the man who ran it. He hesitated for a moment, then again dialled a number. This time Chet Keegan came on the line.
“The police are looking for a woman named Lu-Lu Dodge,” Lindsey told him. “She can identify White and Fox. Get down to headquarters and wait for them to bring her in. Shut her mouth. Understand?”
“Lu-Lu Dodge? Sure . . . I know her,” Keegan said. “Okay, I’m on my way,” and he hung up.
Lindsey then telephoned the Detective Agency.
“Get Fox and White down to Mexico,” he instructed. “Pronto. I want them out of the State at once!”
“Okay,” a man’s voice said, then his voice sharpened as he asked, “Trouble?”
“Do what I tell you and don’t ask questions!” Lindsey snapped.
When Lepski arrived at the Paradise Self-Service store which was crammed with shoppers, jostling one another, their baskets ladened, he looked around, a little bewildered. This was foreign country to him. He forced his way to a counter and asked one of the sales girls, “Where’s Friendly . . . your dick?”
“I wouldn’t know,” the girl said indifferently. “Taking a nap, I guess.” She pointed a red fingernail across the store. “Door marked private . . . if he isn’t there, then search me.”
Lepski leered at her.
“Some other time, baby,” he said. “It would be an interesting experience.”
He left the girl giggling and made his way across the store, pushing and shoving through the milling crowd. He bumped into a tall, thin man with a glass eye and a scar running down his face.
“Can’t you look where you’re going?” Lepski snarled in his cop voice.
“Pardon me,” the tall man said, side-stepped and continued on towards the exit.
Lepski found the door marked “Private’, pushed it open and walked into a big store room.
Tom Friendly sat on a wooden crate, his fat back against the wall. There was a black hole in the centre of his forehead. His eyes were closed. When Lepski touched him, his big bulky body sagged and rolled slowly to the floor.
Lu-Lu Dodge was picked up by Detective 3rd Grade Sims as she was discussing terms with an elderly man who was trying to make up his mind whether to go with her or not. They were sitting together at the far end of the Night and Day bar where Lu-Lu, more often than not, practised her trade.
Sims had been told where to find her by the patrolman on the beat.
“Lu-Lu? Sure . . . The Night and Day. If she isn’t in bed, she’ll be there.”
Sims, husky and solid, walked into the bar.
As soon as Lu-Lu saw him, she said to her prospective client, “Fade, honey . . . the cops.”
The elderly man got off his stool and practically ran out of the bar. Sims stood aside and let him go. He moved up to Lu-Lu.
“Come on, baby, we want you,” he said.
“So does every sucker in this goddam city, but it doesn’t mean he can have me,” Lu-Lu said. “So what’s it all about?”
“Remember those two guys who picked up Nona Jacey when she left the Pen?” Sims said. “We want to find them. You could help. It just means looking at some photographs. You play with us and we’ll play with you. Look on it as a long-term investment.”
“I bet. That’s a laugh,” Lu-Lu said. She finished her drink, thought, then slid off the stool with a show of her legs. “I liked that kid. Okay. Those two creeps weren’t on the force, were they?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sims said, walking with her to the exit. I’m never told a thing.”
“That I can understand,” Lu-Lu said, getting into the waiting police car. “It’s a wonder to me you know you’re alive.”
They arrived outside Police Headquarters as the City Hall clock was striking the half hour.
Keegan was sitting in the Thunderbird, parked across the road. He waited until Lu-Lu began to walk up the broad stone steps, then he lifted his silenced .38 and shot her neatly and professionally through the back of her head.
Alice Sims had been the chambermaid at the Belevedere Hotel for the past thirty years. She was a gaunt, tail woman, now seventy-three years of age and was considered by the hotel management as a shining example of what a chambermaid should be.
She was in charge of the two most expensive and most luxurious suites in the hotel. She and Josh, the Negro valet, cleaned and serviced the suites, looked after the occupants, saw there were always fresh flowers and they did their work with the least inconvenience to the pampered occupants.
Alice Sims cleaned the main sitting-rooms and the bathrooms at six o’clock in the morning and again at eight o’clock in the evening. It was understood that at those hours the occupants were either in bed or would be out.
She let herself into Mervin Warren’s suite a few minutes before six o’clock and began her work. Her methodical method of dusting had been overlooked by Lindsey. Alice Sims had a fetish about dust. Every article in the room received attention from her duster. She even made a habit of dusting under the tables. It was while she was on hands and knees, chasing dust, feeling her thin old bones creaking as she knelt, that she came upon the microphone stuck to the under-panel of the big table.
Although seventy-three years of age, Alice Sims was a rabid follower of Spy thrillers on the television. She guessed immediately that this black button clamped to the table was a microphone and she examined it curiously. It was now common knowledge in the hotel that Mervin Warren, head of Rocket Research, was occupying the suite and it didn’t take her more than a few doubtful moments to realize that the suite was bugged. Whether on Warren’s authority or not, she had no idea, but if not, then she would have to do something about it.
She decided to consult Rube Henkel, the house detective. She was hesitating whether to find him now or whether she should continue with her work when the bedroom door opened and Warren came out, tying the cord of his dressing-gown.
“Good morning, Alice,” Warren said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll go out on the terrace. I can’t sleep. Could I bother you for some coffee . . . then you carry on.”
“Yes, sir,” Alice said. She watched Warren walk out on to the terrace, then she hurried to the Service-room where coffee was always ready. She took a prepared tray, poured coffee into a silver coffee pot and returned to the suite. She went out on to the terrace which was already getting the early morning sun and put the tray on the table.
Warren was yawning and staring out across the bay.
“That’s fine, Alice,” he said. “Thank you . . . how quick you’ve been.”
Alice hesitated, then said in her prim voice, “Excuse me, sir. It’s not my business, of course, but do you know about the microphone under your table?”
Warren was about to pour out the coffee. He nearly dropped the coffee pot as he started around in his chair to stare at her.
“Microphone?”
“Yes, sir. One of the adhesive kind.” No one could tell Alice anything about the modern methods of bugging. “Under your table, sir.”
Warren got to his feet.
“Show me,” he said, his voice hard and curt.
She led him to the table. Both of them went down on their hands and knees and she pointed out the black button.
Warren also knew everything about bugging. One look at the button told him she wasn’t mistaken.
He got to his feet.
“All right, Alice, you run along. Never mind about cleaning up,” he said, wondering who was listening to the conversation. He knew the microphone was so sensitive that even their conversation on the terrace had either been recorded or listened to.
Seeing the angry, worried light in his eyes, Alice started for the door.
“Oh, Alice . . .”
She paused.
“Yes, sir?”
“Say nothing to anyone about this. I’m relying on you.”
“I understand, sir,” and she left.
Warren went into the bathroom, turned on the shower and put through a telephone call to Jesse Hamilton. With the sound of the running shower covering his voice, he told Hamilton about the microphone.
“I’ll be right over, sir,” Hamilton said. “Would you ask if you can be moved to another suite? I don’t want to disturb the bug and we can’t talk where you are. We could trace the receiver. I’ll be over in half an hour.”
Jonathan Lindsey also slept badly. He heard the conversation between Warren and Alice Sims. He knew he had to act quickly. He had to get rid of the tape recorder and the receiver. He woke up Fritz Kurt, Radnitz’s secretary, a thin, swarthy man whom Radnitz had left at the penthouse suite to handle his business while he was away. While Kurt was dressing hurriedly, Lindsey told him the microphone had been discovered.