“No and no.” She went very earnest. “Look, Mr. Wolfe. A friend of mine was mighty nice about that furniture, and we’ll just leave it. Archie told me what you’re interested in is the murder, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to drag in a lot of stuff just to hurt me and a friend of mine, so we’ll forget the furniture.”
Wolfe didn’t press it. He took a hop. “Your appointment on a street corner with Mr. Talento — what was that about?”
She nodded. “I’ve been wondering about that. I mean what I would say when you asked me, because I’d hate to have you think I’m a sap, and I guess it sounds like it. I phoned him when I heard on the radio about Phil and where he was killed, there on Arbor Street, and I knew Vic still lived there and I simply wanted to ask him about it.”
“You had him on the phone.”
“He didn’t seem to want to talk about it on the phone.”
“But why a street corner?”
This time it was more like a laugh. “Now, Mr. Wolfe, you’re not a sap. You asked about the furniture, didn’t you? Well, a girl with furniture shouldn’t be seen places with a man like Vic Talento.”
“What is he like?”
She fluttered a hand. “Oh, he wants to get close.”
Wolfe kept at her until after one o’clock, and I could report it all, but it wouldn’t get you any further than it did him. He couldn’t trip her or back her into a corner. She hadn’t been to Arbor Street for two months. She hadn’t seen Chaffee or Aland or Talento for weeks, and of course not Meegan, since she had never heard of him before. She couldn’t even try to guess who had killed Kampf. The only thing remotely to be regarded as a return on Wolfe’s investment of a full hour was her statement that as far as she knew there was no one who had both an attachment and a claim to Bootsy. If there were heirs she had no idea who they were. When she left the chair to go the dog got up too, and she patted him, and he went with us to the door. I took her to Tenth Avenue and put her in a taxi, and returned.