“Where is she now?”
“She took it on the lam when the shooting started. Anyway, Thayler would have given her the heat if I hadn’t broken in. I wish now . . . that ... I’d’ve waited . .. . before I shot him.”
Fenner was too late to catch him. He rolled off the chair on to the floor.
Fenner knelt down and lifted his head. “Crotti’s a good guy,” Nightingale said faintly. “You tell him I stood by you. That’ll make things . . . even.” He peered up at Fenner through his thick lenses, tried to say something and couldn’t quite make it.
Fenner said, “I’ll tell him. You’ve been a good guy to me.”
Nightingale whispered, “Get after . . . Carlos. He’s got a dive . . . back of Whiskey Joe’s. ...”
He grinned at Fenner, then his face tightened and he died.
Fenner laid his head gently on the floor and stood up. He wiped off his hands with his handkerchief, staring blankly at the opposite wall. Just Carlos now he told himself, then maybe he’d get through with this business. As he put his handkerchief away, he found the telegram. He pulled it out of his pocket and ripped the envelope. It ran:
Dead woman you thought Marian proved by finger prints to be kidnapped daughter of Andrew Lindsay. Suggest Marian not all she seems. Paula.
Fenner crumpled the cable slowly in his hand. “So that’s that,” he said. “Now I guess I can finish this.”