aside. As she stumbled she saw him move away, like an automaton, his back to her, walking to the door. He wasn’t waiting for her, and in her haste to follow him she fell again, her hand touching a cold leg. Hysteria ripped at her throat and her scream was like a knife.

Catell was gone when they got there.

Twelve o’clock.

Chapter Seventeen

“He won’t get away, you know that.”

Driving with one hand and fiddling with the dials of the short-wave set with the other, the detective gave Herron a short look and then turned his attention back to the traffic.

“I don’t know any such thing,” Herron said.

“Jackie, a guy like this Catell never gets away with anything. History proves it.”

“That’s the first I heard of it,” Herron said.

“Christ, we got the whole town roped off for that bird.”

“Sure. He was gone who knows how long by the time we got to that apartment, and it took another half hour to get an intelligible answer out of that howling dervish.”

“Whirling dervish.”

“Howling. This one was howling. And then you got to figure another hour, a good hour, before your roadblocks would be anywhere near effective. But here’s the clincher, Rosen: It’s now twelve hours later and we haven’t got him yet. History be damned.”

“That’s only twelve hours—”

“Which you can add to all the time I’ve already spent missing that hood. Rosen, I am in fact getting the eerie feeling there is no such guy.”

Rosen made a sharp turn to avoid a hot rod coming the other way. Traffic was getting worse as they entered the downtown area of Los Angeles.

“Listen, Jackie, that was no ghost what knocked off that one we found on the floor.”

“What makes you think Catell did it? Could have been that howling lush there, that Selma dame.”

“I don’t think so,” Rosen said. “I don’t think so at all.”

They drove in silence for a while. The air that blew in through the open windows felt gritty and hot.

“I think you’re wrong, Rosen. I think it was that Selma dame. That is, not counting the chance it was one of those weird accidents.”

“Crap,” Rosen said. After a while: “Wanna know why I say it was Catell? Because of his record. He’s a longtime heavy, he’s ruthless and vicious, he never showed any feeling for anybody yet who got in his way, his whole history proves it.”

“You know a hell of a lot for never having run into the guy.”

“I know crooks, Jackie. But I shouldn’t brag. What makes this so simple is the circumstances of the crime. Here he was, laying this young thing, when in walked his moll. Now this young one was probably just a one-night stand, picked her up at that Pink Shell, but this don’t cut no ice with that other dame. They all start screaming, and Catell gets annoyed. I can just see him get mad there. But all this time his real sympathies are, of course, with his old-time sweetheart, see? When the one-night stand gets the drift, she starts getting vicious. You know how those little blonde spitfires can be. And that’s when Catell has too much. He grabs this dish, the young one, and throws her back into—onto—anyway, you saw it. Now the other one starts to howl. Catell has enough of her too, it looks like, being a woman hater deep down anyway, and starts slapping her around, right? She won’t stop, so he just ups and walks out. He’s the real filth, and this proves it.”

“Christ,” Herron said. “You live too close to Hollywood.”

Rosen turned into the police garage. “Anyway, that’s how I feel about it. And also it might be true, Jackie, it might be true.”

Rosen had parked the car and they went upstairs. The inside of the police station was cool. Herron kept moving his shoulder blades to keep the wet shirt from sticking to his back, but it didn’t help. He took off his jacket and pulled at the shirt with his fingers. They went into one of the offices and sat down.

“I’ll see what’s new,” Rosen said, and he called the switchboard.

Herron took his hat off, fanning himself. His moist hair started to itch and he rubbed his head. He knew that when his hair was wet or sticky, the balding scalp showed up more. Self-consciously he put the hat back on.

“Nothing,” Rosen said, putting the phone down. “They should have another interview out of that Selma.” Herron lit a cigarette.

“Interview! You shoulda been there when we tried