get her to relax enough to tell me what she knew about that mess downstairs.
“I think it looks all right,” I said. “But why red?”
“Well, you see, there was already a blonde here and two brunettes, and Miss Abbie thought maybe a redhead would be nice.”
Christ, I thought, what the merchandise in one of these places goes through. But I wanted to get back to what I’d come here for.
“I guess you’re leaving,” I said, looking at the suitcase.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Now that Miss Abbie’s hurt…” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “There won’t be nobody to run the place now. And I was afraid they’d arrest me for a witness. You’re not going to, are you?” The big eyes regarded me apprehensively. “You promised.”
“No,” I said. “I just want to ask you a couple of questions. Did you see what happened down there? The first part of it, I mean.”
“No,” she replied. Her eyes avoided me and kept looking down in her lap. I knew she was still afraid and was lying.
“Well,” I said, “that’s too bad. But you go ahead packing and I’ll give you a lift up to the bus station with your suitcase. Have you got enough money to get away on?”
“No-o, not very much,” she said hesitantly. “I don’t know for sure just how much a bus ticket to Bayou City is, but I might have enough. You wouldn’t like to—to—” We had started to be friends now, and she had a little trouble getting back suddenly to the strictly commercial plane.
“No.” I shook my head. “But I’d be glad to lend you twenty or twenty-five if it’d help any. It’s kind of tough for a girl—”
“You would?” She said at me with surprise.
“Sure,” I said. I took out the wallet and removed a couple of tens from it and handed them to her. I can get it back from Buford, I thought. “Now, you go ahead with your packing.”
I smoked a cigarette and watched her get her meager clothing together, making no more reference to the fight. She knows something, I thought, and she’s just about convinced I’m not going to get rough with her or take her in.
In a minute she paused, looking down at the suitcase. “Thank you for the money. It was right nice of you. Not many people…”
“It’s all right,” I said.
She went on, still not looking at me. “I didn’t see much of that down there. It scared me. You know how us girls have to live. The least little thing, the police—”
“Yes. I know. It’s a tough racket,” I said, waiting and trying not to seem impatient.
“It wasn’t Miss Abbie’s fault.” She turned away from the suitcase and looked at me now, the big eyes very earnest and full of loyalty to Miss Abbie. Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. “She kept telling him she didn’t know where the girl was.”
“He was looking for some girl?” I prompted casually, trying not to be too insistent.
She nodded. “Yes. He was looking for his daughter That young kid that was here, the one that talked so mean.”
She didn’t have to draw me a picture. I knew what girl the man was looking for, and I knew just how quiet this whole thing was going to be the minute he decided to open his mouth.
Fourteen
There was a lot of it that didn’t make sense. How had he known the girl had been here? And why had he shut up like that the minute he was arrested? I lighted another cigarette and ground the old one out on the floor. “Look, Bernice,” I said, trying to be as offhand as possible, “why don’t you sit down and tell me all about it? You’ve got plenty of time before your bus leaves.”
“All right.” She sat down on the bed and I stepped over and took the chair.
“Try to remember what this man said,” I went on. “You were there when he came in, weren’t you?”
She nodded. “Miss Abbie and me was both downstairs. This man come in the front door and looked at me first and then at her and said, ‘Are you Miz Bell?’ He wasn’t a very big man, kind of scrawny, with his face all brown and wrinkled up with the sun grins, like he was a farmer or something, but he was dressed up in his town clothes, a kind of shiny old black suit and tan shoes, but he didn’t have no tie in his