have to stay awake about that long.
It was getting late now, almost one-thirty. Once Ray and Loren had gotten out of Darla’s apartment I called her at home as we’d arranged, ringing twice and hanging up. A few minutes later she rang me back and I reported that I’d found the box and had the tapes and pictures in hand. “You don’t have to worry about negatives,” I said. “They’re Polaroid shots. One thing, whoever took them had a nice sense of composition.”
“You looked at them.”
“I had to know what they were and I didn’t trust myself to identify them by touch.”
“Oh, I’m not complaining,” she said. “I just wondered if you found them interesting.”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“I thought you might. Have you listened to the tapes?”
“No. I’m not going to. I think there should be a certain amount of mystery in our relationship.”
“Oh, are we going to have a relationship?”
“I rather thought we might. Does your fireplace work or is it just for decoration?”
“It works. I’ve never had a relationship in a fireplace.”
“I had something else in mind for it. I’m going to burn the pictures and tapes before I leave. They’re half mine anyway. I spent all my case money getting them back and I want them out of the way as soon as possible.”
“They might make interesting souvenirs.”
“No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. It’s like keeping a loaded gun around the house. The possible benefit is infinitesimal and the downside risk is enormous. I want to destroy them tonight. You can trust me to do it, incidentally. I’m not a potential blackmailer, just in case you were wondering.”
“Oh, I trust you, Bernard.”
“I still have my cop suit. I thought I might leave it here. It would save dragging it back downtown.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“And I still have the handcuffs and the nightstick, strangely enough. The cop they belonged to had to leave in a hurry and he won’t have any further use for them. I’ll leave them here, too.”
“Lovely. If it weren’t so late already—”
“No, it’s too late. And I have some other things to do. But I’ll be in touch, Darla.”
“Oh, good,” she said. “That will be nice.”
I looked up the number of the Cumberland and called Wesley Brill to tell him that the whole thing was wrapped up and tied with a ribbon. “You’re completely out of it,” I said. “The case is solved, I’m in the clear, and neither you nor Mrs. S. ever got mentioned. In case you were worried.”
“I was,” he admitted. “How’d you pull it off?”
“I got lucky. Look, have you got a minute? Because I’ve got a couple of questions.”
I asked my questions and he answered them. We chatted for a minute or two, agreed we ought to meet for a drink one of these days, albeit at someplace other than Pandora’s, and that was that. I found Rodney Hart’s number in the book, dialed it, heard it ring upwards of fifteen times, then got a cooperative girl at the answering service. She told me where to reach Rod—he was still in St. Louis—but when I got through to his hotel there he hadn’t come in yet. I suppose the play was still on the boards.
I changed back into my own clothes and stowed my cop gear in Darla’s closet. She had some interesting gear of her own there, some of which I’d seen in the Polaroid shots, but I didn’t really have time to inspect it. In the living room I flipped through the photographs and piled all but one of them in the wood-burning fireplace, which I now transformed into a film-burning fireplace. I added the cassettes, which smoldered and stank a bit, stirred the ashes when ashes there were, put on the air conditioner and left.
I took a cab downtown to Bethune Street and had a lot of fun telling the driver how to find it. I looked up at the building. There were no lights on in the fourth-floor apartment. I stood in the vestibule and checked the buzzer at 4-F. No name beside the button. I poked the button and nothing happened, so I opened the downstairs door in my usual fashion and went up three flights.
The locks were easy to pick. I let myself in and didn’t have to spend too much time in there. After ten minutes or so I left, picked the locks shut behind me, and climbed another flight to Rod’s apartment where Ellie was waiting.
And we were