I said I had; Hacklin studied me impassively. Lanerd gripped Hacklin’s shoulder. “Didn’t Tildy come back from the studio with you?”
“She gave me the run-around. She and that tricky maid.” Hacklin satisfied himself the gun was still in Roffis’s holster. He slid his hand down to the dead man’s right leg, let his fingers rest there a second, patted the knee several times rapidly. “I can stick with a female most places, but when she begs off to go to the john, lets me out. There’s a corridor outside that new studio, between it and the can. I waited across the hall. After ten minutes I sent one of the actresses in; Miss Millett and the maid had scramoosed.”
Reidy frowned. “Doesn’t mean she killed this man.”
Hacklin eyed him bleakly. “Don’t strain your brain speculating about this. It’s official business. My business. Herb was my partner. I don’t want any theorists mucking around with it. All I want you to do is lock your lip and get out of here. Oh, one thing. Call Spring four nine-one-two-one on a pay phone. Ask for Schneider. Tell him to jump over here fast. Got that? Four nine-one-two-one.”
Reidy didn’t care much for the way it was put to him. He looked to me for a cue. In his book I’m the guy to be giving orders when trouble is busting around the Plaza Royale. That’s how my book reads, too. But I’d been working in the dark up to then. I wanted more light before I began to throw my weight around. So I reassured Reidy.
“We’re all in a fog. But Hacklin seems to know the road. Let him drive, time being.”
Hacklin growled, deep in his throat, as if he was minded to tell me off. But he didn’t. He repeated, “Don’t call through the hotel switchboard. And don’t come back up here, or tell a damn soul what’s happened. Thanks.”
Reidy nodded dourly. “Spring four nine-one-two-one, Schneider.” He flicked me on the arm with the back of his hand, took a parting shot at the bull in the china shop. “You’re in charge, Gil.” He went away before Hacklin tried to challenge that last remark.
Lanerd began, “What, for godsake, we going to do about—”
Hacklin rubbed one hand over his face as if to shut out the whole scene — the dead man, all of us. “Tell you what you’re going to do, Mister Lanerd. You’re going to chase over to Video City, get hold of anybody who might have seen Miss Millett depart, anybody who had any idea where she went.”