intend to hand the papers to the Crime Commission in Chicago?” I asked. She nodded and I fell to musing out loud. “And Shelmerdine pulls almost every string that’s pullable in Chicago; if his outfit knows you’re in the Windy City, they’ll serve up the table d’hôtel pretty damn quick—with you as the dish. Where will you go, once you’ve succeeded in putting the papers in the hands of the crime-chasers, I mean?”
“Why, home. My parents live out at Woodstock.”
I thought about that for a while. Woodstock was close to Chicago and Shelmerdine’s hired hands might track the girl out there.
“Does Shelmerdine and his crowd know you hail from the Chicago area?”
“Yes, but nobody at Shelmerdine’s country house knows my home address and they think my name is Maybelle Jones.”
“But they’ll probably figure you’ll head for Chicago, since that’s your hometown.
“It’s my guess that our friends who had the mishap in the sedan were chasing you because they realised you’d blown with something out of the safe, and they wanted you back—and whatever you’d taken—before Shelmerdine got back from his trip. It was desperate and ham-fisted. That business of opening fire on a state highway proves it. Shelmerdine left that sort of stuff behind him with prohibition. When he wants shooting done in public, he hires gutter-rats like those who killed your brother to do it; his kind of smooth mobster doesn’t allow those who are close to him to charge around the country blasting away with heaters—it’s bringing the dirt too close to his own doorstep. The real chase, girlie, the top-shelf subtle stuff, will come when big shot Athelstan gets back and finds out just what’s missing from the safe.”
She tried to stifle a sneeze by pressing a slender forefinger to her top lip. It escaped her clutches.
The sneeze decided me on a half-formed plan that had been floating about my mind.
“Listen,” I told her. “You’ve been soaked to the skin and you’ve had a rough time. You need rest and dry clothing. I’m on my way to visit some old friends in South Bend and you stay right with me. These folk are great—an old army pal and his wife—they’ll fix you a place for the night and the strong-arm hoodlums will never think of looking for you in South Bend. Tomorrow, we’ll push on to Chicago. Meantime, I’ll get in touch with my branch in Chicago to stand by for some action. World Wide Investigations will back you up, girlie. You deserve somebody on your side and, besides, I have an interest in this fight—those bums fired bullets into my car. Deal?”
She nodded her approval while stifling another sneeze.
So, we drove into South Bend and into the realisation that it was Saturday night. I jockeyed the car along the wide sweep of Michigan Street with its bright sky-signs and its trees. The movies were disgorging their patrons at that hour. There was a bustle of activity on the street, still glossed by recent rain.
I drove steadily through the mass of cars. It was my first time in South Bend for some years, but I remembered my way around. On the way up from the south, I had reflected pleasantly on how surprised Jack and Beth Kay would be at my unexpected visit. Now I was calling on them with a total stranger but, what the heck, Jack and Beth were friendly, happy-go-lucky people, they’d make us both welcome.
I could book a couple of rooms at a hotel, but the Kays would be highly insulted if I stayed in South Bend without making use of their high, wide, and handsome hospitality. That’s the kind of folk Jack and Beth were. Good folk.
It’s comforting to think that the world holds more of their kind than the other species.
Cautiously, I drove along Michigan with its bright lights and glittering theatre awnings, waited dutifully at the intersection of Munroe Street until the traffic cop signalled me across. I took the coupe easily though the tangle of crossings at mid-Michigan Street and on up to the bridge spanning the St. Joseph River, then over the river to Leeper Avenue.
It was quiet and residential. The buildings of the University of Notre Dame stood not too far away, a stately group against the summer night sky with a church spire and a great golden dome dominant.
I glanced at Joanne Kilvert. She had been very quiet for a long time.
She was sound asleep. Just like a kid.
I drove along steadily with one eye on the neat painted houses. I remembered Jack’s place vaguely, but recognised the house as soon as the headlight beams picked it out. A pang of something, maybe envy, hit me as I saw the trim house and its neat lawn.
It looked like it belonged to somebody and somebody belonged to it.
Why the hell didn’t I have a comfortable house, a nice wife, and a nine-to-six job? Settling down would be great.
I hit the brakes, shaking off the feeling with the action.
I had no squawks coming. I had wanted to be a private dick. From starting out in a back room, I’d wound up with a worldwide investigation outfit. I didn’t want to be another solid citizen. I already was what I wanted to be—a shamus, but a shamus par excellence, I hoped.
The jerk of the brakes wakened Joanne. She sat up quickly and looked about in slight alarm.
“Relax. You’re with friends,” I told her as I stepped out of the car.
The sidewalk was still wet after the rain. There was a fresh scent from the nearby trees.
I walked up the pathway, mounted the three or four steps to the Kays’ porch, and hit the doorbell. Deep in the soul of the house there was a buzz which ceased when I took my thumb from the bell-push.
Through the frosted glass of the door I saw a bloom of light as someone opened a door in the interior of the house. The bulk of a figure loomed against the light and a light illuminated the hallway as a switch snapped. The door opened and Jack Kay stood there, blocky, with a crew-cut, and wearing the kind of clothes a man can loaf around in. There were house slippers on his feet.
“Tear yourself away from that television set, you’re entertaining tonight,” I said. There was a hollowness to the words, the joviality was forced. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing in bringing Joanne here.
Jack Kay’s features settled into a wide grin of surprise and he hit me a playful blow in the stomach.
“Lantry, you old scoundrel! Come in!”
I jerked my thumb towards the coupe standing at the kerb.
“I have somebody with me—a girl.”
Jack put his hands on his hips and looked at me steadily.
“I detect a certain furtive tone,” he said. “Can it be that you finally got married and are suffering from henpeck malady? Or are you eloping with somebody?”
I grinned at Jack’s easy-going joshing. This was him all over.
“Look, Jack, this is to do with a case,” I confided. “It’s something I got into by accident when I was driving up from Florida. I was on my way to see you anyway, but I gave this kid a ride and found she’s on the run from Athelstan Shelmerdine’s mob. She wasn’t one of his crowd—don’t get that idea; she’s been doing some slick detective work on her own. She’s the sister of Kilvert, the guy who
