Hacklin didn’t care for my interference. “Nobody’s going to come and go in here, tell you that. You stay put, Miss Moore, till I get a detail statement from you.”
“Tsk, tsk,” I tsked him. “Girl’s unstrung. Let her go back to Lanerd’s suite. I’ll be responsible for her.” The phone jangled. I moved toward it. That was all he needed to urge him to beat me to it.
As he picked up the handset, I motioned her out.
“Thank you!” She started to leave.
Hacklin rumbled at the phone. “Gone where?... Lexington?” He hollered at Miss Moore, “Come back here!” then apologized to the party on the other end of his line. “I’m not talking to you, go on... that’s like sayin’ Main Street, there’s a Lexington ’n every one of the forty-eight — huh?... Kentucky?”
The secretary got to the door. A large, meaty-faced individual in rumpled seersucker barred her way. “Excuse me.” She tried to edge past.
He didn’t move.
I called, “Schneider!” I hoped he was Schneider! “’S all right.”
The wary eyes of a trained observer went from her to me, to Hacklin, finally to the outstretched feet in the closet. He assumed I knew what I was doing, stepped aside long enough to let the Moore kid get out. He hurried to the closet.
“Holy Mother! Herb!”