we stopped in this diner for a cup of coffee. And that’s where I saw the girl. It was around ten a.m. and she came in with three other girls. Typical coffee-break safari, so she works in an office somewhere in that area. Maybe even for Comet, I don’t know.
“If you see her you can’t miss her. She’s a real Latin type, dark brown eyes with a lot of moxie in ‘em, shiny black hair. She wears it long. Real white teeth, about five-five, one of those smoky-looking babes that you’re never quite sure whether they’re going to freeze you dead or burst into flame. Twenty-five, twenty-six, like that. No wedding ring. The three rimes I saw her she was wearing those dangly earrings.”
“Thanks a million,” I said. “Anything else?”
“One more pipe dream, and this is really reaching for it. Stedman was on the Robbery Detail, you know. He had partner named Jack Purcell, a real cool cat. One of those smooth ones without a nerve in his body. Well, you were probably at sea when it happened, but Purcell committed suicide just about three weeks ago. No note. No reason, that anybody could ever find out.”
“It was suicide?”
“What else could they call it? He was alone in the house while his wife was at the movies. He was shot through the head with his own thirty-eight, which was lying beside his body with his fingerprints on it. It was a contact wound, as they call it.”
“Well, it happens,” I said.
“But very seldom to guys like Purcell. I realize it’s goofy, but I keep thinking there may be a connection somewhere. Just after it happened a friend of mine told me he thought Purcell might have been stepping out. Said he saw him once in a car with a real dish of a brunette.” There was a pause. “Be careful, Irish,” he said and hung up.
I stepped out of the booth. A car was coming along this side of the street. I stopped, waiting for it to go past before I crossed. Then, as it passed a street light, I saw it was a police cruiser. I turned and started walking slowly along the sidewalk with my back to the oncoming lights. It came abreast of me. Then it stopped. My back congealed with sudden fear.
“You looking for somebody out here?” a voice asked.
It was all right; they couldn’t see my face in the darkness. I fought to make my voice sound casual. “No. Just taking a walk, officer.”
“In the rain? Where do you live?”
Before I could answer, a beam of light splashed full in my face. I tried to turn away, but it was too late. “Hey!” the voice barked. “Come back here!”
I heard the car door slam behind me, and running footsteps. The one still in the car was. trying to hit me with the spotlight. “Stop, Foley! We’ll shoot.”
I’d never make it to the corner alive. And if I did, the other one was following me in the car. I saw an opening between two concessions on my right, and shot into it. The rear of the buildings were in deep shadow, but I could make out the dark tracery of the Ferris wheel and some of the other rides. I cut sharply to the left, ran another fifty feet, and froze against the wall. Just beyond me was another corner. I inched quietly around it just as he shot into the open at the rear of the concessions, swinging the beam of the flashlight.
“Joe!” he yelled. “Drive on around and cover the street in back so he can’t get to the next block. And call in.”
The car went ahead and turned the corner. The one who was afoot had run-on back and was throwing the beam of his flashlight in wide arcs around the Ferris wheel. I slipped quietly along the narrow passage between two small buildings, and peered out into the beach boulevard. The Oldsmobile was gone. She’d managed to get away while they were occupied with me, and they probably hadn’t even noticed her. There was only one car in sight, some two blocks away. I shot across the street and over the edge of the far sidewalk. I landed on the sand, lost my balance, and fell. I was near one of the amusement piers, and the long expanse of beach stretched ahead of me, black and deserted in the rain. I got up and ran. I could hear sirens wailing behind me