“Right. I think she read the writing on the wall. She was getting pawed by a hundred strangers a night for peanuts. She figured she might as well get pawed by only one guy, and live in luxury.”
“You’re a cynic, Danny,” Carella said.
“I read the cards,” Danny said, shrugging. “Anyway, Kramer hit it big in September.”
“How?”
“That’s the one thing I don’t know.”
“Mmm,” Carella said.
“I take it you know all this already? I ain’t giving you nothing new.”
“Most of it,” Carella said. “I didn’t know about the girl. What else have you got?”
“A hunting trip.”
“Kramer?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Beginning of September. It was after he come back that he started throwing the green around. Think there’s a tie-in?”
“I don’t know. Has he got a rep as a hunter?”
“Rabbits, birds, stuff like that. He’s never shot a tiger, if that’s what you mean.”
“Where’d he go on this trip?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he go alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure it was a hunting trip?”
“Nope. It could have been anything. For all I know, he could have gone to Chicago and rubbed somebody. Maybe that’s where he got the lump of dough.”
“Did he come back with the money?”
“No. Unless he was real cool with it and didn’t start flashing it around. The trip was in the beginning of the month. He didn’t start spending until the end of the month.”
“Was the money hot, do you suppose?”
“Not the way he spent it, Steve. If it was hot, he’d have used a money changer and taken a loss.”
“How do you know he didn’t?”
“I checked the guys buying hot bills. Kramer didn’t go to see any of them. Besides, we’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“His racket. He’s an extortionist. True, he may have decided to do a quick rub job for somebody, but you don’t hire a shakedown artist for a torpedo job. Besides, like I told you, this torpedo crap went out in the-”
“Mmm, maybe you’re right,” Carella said. “But he could have carried hot ice or furs-”
“He ain’t a fence, Steve. He’s a shakedown artist.”
“Still.”
“I don’t buy it. Maybe this hunting trip was a cover. Maybe he went to see a mark.” Danny shrugged. “Wherever he went, it netted him a big pile of bills.”
“Maybe he really
“Maybe,” Danny said.
“But you don’t know where he went, is that right?”
“Not a glimmer.”
“And he went alone?”
“Right.”
“Was this before he met the O’Hara girl?”
“Yes.”
“Think she might know something about it?”
“Maybe.” Danny smiled. “Guys have been known to talk in their sleep.”
“We’ll check her again. You’ve helped, Danny. How much?”
“I don’t like to hit you too hard, Steve. Especially when I didn’t give you so much. But I’m slightly from Brokesville. Can you spare a quarter of a century?”
Carella reached for his wallet and gave Danny two tens and a five.
“Thanks,” Danny said. “I’ll make it up to you. The next one’s on the house.”
They lay on the sand for a little while longer. Carella went into the water for a quick dip, and then they went back to the locker rooms. They shook hands, and left each other at three in the afternoon.
LOVE, FLEETING CHIMERA that it is, was hardly present at all the second time Cotton Hawes called upon Nancy O’Hara. In fact, aside from their use of first names in addressing each other, one hardly could have guessed they’d shared the most intimate of intimacies. Ah, love. Easy come, easy go.
“Hello, Nancy,” he said when she opened the door. “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“No,” she said. “Come in, Cotton.”
He followed her into the living room.
“Drink?”
“No. Thanks.”
“What is it, Cotton? Have you found the murderer?”
“Not yet A few more questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“Were you a stripper?”
Nancy hesitated. “Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks. I’m glad I have your seal of approval.”
“Why’d you lie?”
“A dancer sounds better than a stripper. I’m a lousy dancer, and a worse stripper. Sy wanted me to live with him. So I lived with him. Is there something so terrible about that?”
“I guess not.”
“Don’t get moral, Cotton,” she told him. “You weren’t very goddamn moral in bed.”
“True.” He grinned. “End of sermon. End of shocked Daughter of American Revolution routine. Beginning of important questions.”
“Like what?”
“Like Kramer. Did he ever mention a hunting trip to you?”
“Yes.” She paused. “I told you. Hunting was one of his hobbies.”
“A hunting trip in September?”
“Yes.” Again, she paused. “Before we met. Yes, he mentioned it.”
“Did he really go hunting?”
“I think so. He talked about the stuff he’d shot. A deer, I think. Yes, he really went hunting.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he go hunting again while you were living with him?”
“Yes. I already told you this. He went several times.”
“But you don’t know where he went that time in September?”
“No.”
Hawes thought for a moment. Then he said, “Would you happen to know if Kramer had a gasoline credit card?”
“A what?”
“A credit card. To show at service stations. So that he could charge his gas.”
“Oh. I don’t know. Would he carry that with him?”
“Yes.”
