“They won’t let you stay there with me?”
“Of course not. I’ll take you up to your room, and then come back down. Here’s a hundred. It will take care of you for the time being.”
She took the hundred, thought things over for quite a little while, and then said, “I guess perhaps that’s the best way. Thanks, kid. You’re white. I like you.”
I started the car and drove to the hotel I had in mind — a little place on a side street where a night clerk and an elevator operator ran the whole place after midnight.
Just before we went into the hotel she said, “Donald, if I could get hold of the rest of those letters, I’d be sitting pretty.”
“How do you figure?”
“Crumweather wants them, Alta Ashbury wants them, and the D.A. would pay money to get them so he could build up a case against Lasster.”
“The D.A. can’t pay anything.”
“He could make a bargain.”
“On what?” I asked. “Immunity?”