“Okay. Now listen, I’m going to take a walk. Helen’s in town. She’ll be back in a couple of hours. You feel like keeping an eye on the place?”
“Sure.”
“You won’t leave?”
He said, “Where’s my pants?”
“Over there on the chair.”
“Turn the pockets inside out, take all the dough out, then I won’t leave.”
I said, “You gave me the change — what was left of it.”
He heaved a sigh. “Okay then, that’s fine. Go ahead.” He punched the pillows back into shape behind his head, said, “Gimme a cigarette, buddy, and I’ll be all right as soon as that water quits sloshin’ around in my stomach.”
I gave him a cigarette, and walked out to the highway. I hadn’t gone over half a mile when a car stopped and gave me a ride to town.
A newsstand featured papers from all the principal cities. I found a Las Vegas paper. The police made much over the disappearance of Helen Framley. They had finally traced her to an apartment where she had been in hiding since the night of the murder. She had disappeared, and police, checking up on the activities of one Donald Lam, a private investigator who had been employed on another angle of the case, were convinced that she, an ex-prize fighter by the name of Hazen, and Lam had all left town together. The police were inclined to believe that Helen Framley had either been implicated in the murder or had highly significant information, and that the private detective, seeking to steal a march on police, was offering her a chance to escape in return for such information as she could give. There was a strong intimation that the officials would consider this a serious matter, and that Lam might well find himself prosecuted for compounding a felony. Hazen, it seemed, was also implicated. He’d positively identified the body as that of a former pugilist named Sidney Jannix.