Pellingham’s hand dropped down to his side trousers pocket. I thought he was going to come out with a star. Instead he brought out a nickel.
“See that?” he asked. “That’s my authority.”
“Five cents’ worth?”
“No. When I drop that nickel into the coin box of a pay telephone and call police headquarters, I’ll have all the authority I need to back up anything I want to do.”
I felt Hale’s eyes burning into mine, saw Bertha’s glittering stare of intense concentration, and the fixed, cold-blooded determination of Pellingham’s gray eyes.
“Are you going to come with me now?” Pellingham asked.
I said, “Go ahead and drop your nickel,” and started for the door.
Bertha Cool and Emory Hale stood completely petrified, looking at me as though I’d dropped a mask and turned out to be a stranger.
Pellingham took it all as a matter of course. He might have been expecting that particular development in that particular way, from the minute he had opened the interview. He marched calmly and without hurry toward a telephone booth.
The agency car was outside. I jumped in it and made time. I had to make a detour to be safe, up through Burbank to Van Nuys, then down to Ventura Boulevard, then through Sepulveda to Wilshire Boulevard, and into Los Angeles that way. I knew that Pellingham would have the other roads blocked by officers and a description of the agency car out.