8
On the face of it, it looked as if the show was over. I left the tidying up to Hoskiss. I wish now I had done it myself because they let Bat Thompson slide through their fingers. They threw a drag-net around Paradise Palms, but when they hauled it in, everyone who mattered was in it except Bat.
It worried me at first, but after thinking it over I decided that Bat by himself wasn’t a danger. He hadn’t the brains to think up trouble, and he was as near moronic as made no difference. But I would have liked to have seen him behind bars. The Feds were pretty sure that he had got away. It spoilt their case, since he was the guy who had bumped off Herrick, Giles and Brodey.
Killeano got twenty-five years. Speratza and Flaggerty were dead. Juan Gomez had been killed by one of the Federal officers in the fight outside 46 Waterside.
Once I was sure that Bat wasn’t in town, I asked Tim to fetch Miss Wonderly from Key West.
We were now in Palm Beach Hotel, trying to decide our future.
I sat on the balcony and looked at the green ocean. Only this time I didn’t have any presentiment of trouble. She sat on the balustrade.
“All right,” I said, after I had heard her argument. “I’ll get a job. I’ll go respectable if that’s what you really want.”
Her eyes were full of questions.
“But I want you to be happy too,” she said. “If you don’t think you could settle down…”
“I can try, can’t I ?” I said. “The thing to do is for you and me to get married. Then I’ll have to settle down.”
And that’s how we fixed it.
Four days later we were married. Hetty, Tim, Jed Davis, Clairbold (the boy wonder), and Hoskiss turned up at the wedding. It was quite an affair.
We decided to spend our honeymoon at Paradise Palms because the others didn’t want us to go elsewhere. They were pretty good to us, but at the end of the week I decided, if I was going to get a job, I’d better start looking for one. We packed our bags and arranged air passage to New York.
On our last night at Paradise Palms we threw a party that the staff of the hotel still talk about. Hoskiss brought with him six of his hard-drinking G-men. He announced at the beginning of dinner that Clairbold had entered the Federal Service. Clairbold finished up under the table. I guess he was getting beyond his Ohio School of Detection course by now.
After our guests had gone, we went up to our bedroom. It was around two o’clock in the morning. We were undressing in the bedroom when the telephone rang.
I told Clair—she wasn’t Miss Wonderly any more—I’d answer it.
I went into the sitting-room, took off the receiver.
The line crackled, hummed. A woman’s voice said, “Chester Cain?”
I said it was, wondering where I had heard the voice before.
“This is Lois Spence,” the woman said.
“Hello,” I said, wondering what she wanted. I had forgotten about her.
There was a lot of noise on the line. It crackled, popped and buzzed.
“Listen, you heel,” she said, her voice indistinct, far away. “You tricked Juan, and it was through you he was killed. Don’t think you’re going to get away with it. I pay off old debts, so does Bat. Remember him? He’s right by my side. We’re coming after you, Cain. We’ll find you wherever you are. You and your floozie, and we’ll fix you both.”
The line went dead. I replaced the receiver, frowned. Spiders’ legs ran down my neck.
“Who was it?” Clair called.
“A wrong number,” I said, and went back to the bedroom.