I said, “No. Get her both an apartment somewhere and a room in a hotel. She goes to the hotel room once a day to pick up mail and messages. The rest of the time she stays in the apartment.”
“Why?” Bertha asked.
I said, “She can’t be too accessible. You can figure the play. They have organized vice and organized graft in this city. Alftmont can’t be bribed. He’s running for mayor. If he’s elected, he’ll start cleaning up the city. Lots of people don’t like that. Some of them are on the police force. They can dig up this scandal and play it either of two ways — to keep him from being elected or make him withdraw from the race, or they can let him be elected and hold it as a club over his head. They’ve been working quietly on it for a couple of months. Then he walks right into the middle of a murder. He couldn’t afford to notify the police because the newspapers would start asking questions about why he’d gone to the apartment of a night-spot commission girl. He’d figure her trip to Oakview would be dragged out. He knew the local police would try to frame the crime on him, and he had to make a sneak. It just happened he ran into Marian in the hall. That was his hard luck. Our business now is to keep the Homicide Squad from suspecting the case has a tie-in with Santa Carlotta, to keep Marian Dunton from ever seeing Dr. Alftmont.”
“That shouldn’t be hard,” she said.
I laughed. “Remember the man who beat me up and kicked me out of Oakview?” I asked.
“What about him?” she asked.
I said, “His name is John Harbet. He was Evaline Harris’s particular boy friend. He has a tie-in with the man who runs the Blue Cave. He’s the head of the Vice Squad in Santa Carlotta. Figure that out.”
While she was studying that bit of information, I opened the door of the agency car and said, “Okay, there’s your bus. Get started, and don’t forget to be on hand to take Marian out for breakfast. And just one other thing. I told that girl to act dumb. She’s doing it because she knows it’s the thing to do, but don’t kid yourself. She’s country, but she isn’t dumb. And she’s a darn nice kid.”
Bertha Cool put her left hand on my right arm. “Lister, lover, come back with me. Bertha needs you.”
I said, “Any minute now, a cop may come along the street and turn a flashlight on us just to see who we are. Would you like that?”