The Thin Man (15 page)

“It’s not that. I’ve got to go back to my folks and food. I came over to ask you if you’d got an answer to your ad in this morning’s
Times.”

“Not yet. Sit down, Nick, there’s a lot I want to ask you. You told the police about Wynant’s letter, didn’t—”

“Come up to lunch tomorrow and we’ll bat it around. I’ve got to get back to my folks.”

“Who is the little blonde girl?” Louise Jacobs asked. “I’ve seen her places with Harrison Quinn.”

“Dorothy Wynant.”

“You know Quinn?” Macaulay asked me.

“Ten minutes ago I was putting him to bed.”

Macaulay grinned. “I hope you keep his acquaintance like that—social.”

“Meaning what?”

Macaulay’s grin became rueful. “He used to be my broker, and his advice led me right up to the poorhouse steps.”

“That’s sweet,” I said. “He’s my broker now and I’m following his advice.” Macaulay and the girl laughed. I pretended I was laughing and returned to my table.

Dorothy said: “It’s not midnight yet and Mamma said she’d be expecting you. Why don’t we all go to see her?”

Nora was very carefully pouring coffee into her cup. “What for?” I asked. “What are you two up to now?” It would have been hard to find two more innocent faces than theirs.

“Nothing, Nick,” Dorothy said. “We thought it would be nice. It’s early and—”

“And we all love Mimi.”

“No-o, but—”

“It’s too early to go home,” Nora said.

“There are speakeasies,” I suggested, “and nightclubs and Harlem.”

Nora made a face. “All your ideas are alike.”

“Want to go over to Barry’s and try our luck at faro?” Dorothy started to say yes, but stopped when Nora made another face.

“That’s the way I feel about seeing Mimi again,” I said. “I’ve had enough of her for one day.”

Nora sighed to show she was being patient. “Well, if we’re going to wind up in a speakeasy as usual, I’d rather go to your friend Studsy’s, if you won’t let him give us any more of that awful champagne. He’s cute.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised and asked Dorothy, “Did Gilbert tell you he caught Mimi and me in a compromising position?”

She tried to exchange glances with Nora, but Nora’s glance was occupied with a cheese blintz on her plate. “He—he didn’t exactly say that.”

“Did he tell you about the letter?”

“From Chris’s wife? Yes.” Her blue eyes glittered. “Won’t Mamma be furious!”

“You like it, though.”

“Suppose I do? What of it? What did she ever do to make me—”

Nora said: “Nick, stop bullying the child.” I stopped.

Business was good at the Pigiron Club. The place was full of people, noise, and smoke. Studsy came from behind the cash register to greet us. “I was hoping you’d come in.” He shook my hand and Nora’s and grinned broadly at Dorothy.

“Anything special?” I asked.

He made a bow. “Everything’s special with ladies like these.” I introduced him to Dorothy.

He bowed to her and said something elaborate about any friend of Nick’s and stopped a waiter. “Pete, put a table up here for Mr. Charles.”

“Pack them in like this every night?” I asked.

“I got no kick,” he said. “They come once, they come back again. Maybe I ain’t got no black marble cuspidors, but you don’t have to spit out what you buy here. Want to lean against the bar whilst they’re putting up that table?” We said we did and ordered drinks.

“Hear about Nunheim?” I asked.

He looked at me for a moment before making up his mind to say: “Uh-huh, I heard. His girl’s down there”—he moved his head to indicate the other end of the room—“celebrating, I guess.”

I looked past Studsy down the room and presently picked out
big red-haired Miriam sitting at a table with half a dozen men and women. “Hear who did it?” I asked.

“She says the police done it—he knew too much.”

“That’s a laugh,” I said.

“That’s a laugh,” he agreed. “There’s your table. Set right down. I’ll be back in a minute.”

We carried our glasses over to a table that had been squeezed in between two tables which had occupied a space large enough for one and made ourselves as nearly comfortable as we could.

Nora tasted her drink and shuddered. “Do you suppose this could be the ‘bitter vetch’ they used to put in crossword puzzles?”

Dorothy said: “Oh, look.”

We looked and saw Shep Morelli coming towards us. His face had attracted Dorothy’s attention. Where it was not dented it was swollen and its coloring ranged from deep purple around one eye to the pale pink of a piece of court-plaster on his chin. He came to our table and leaned over a little to put both fists on it. “Listen,” he said, “Studsy says I ought to apologize.”

Nora murmured, “Old Emily Post Studsy,” while I asked, “Well?”

Morelli shook his battered head. “I don’t apologize for what I do—people’ve got to take it or leave it—but I don’t mind telling you I’m sorry I lost my noodle and cracked down on you and I hope it ain’t bothering you much and if there’s anything I can do to square it I—”

“Forget it. Sit down and have a drink. This is Mr. Morelli, Miss Wynant.” Dorothy’s eyes became wide and interested.

Morelli found a chair and sat down. “I hope you won’t hold it against me, neither,” he told Nora.

She said: “It was fun.” He looked at her suspiciously.

“Out on bail?” I asked.

“Uh-huh, this afternoon.” He felt his face gingerly with one hand. “That’s where the new ones come from. They had me resisting some more arrest just for good measure before they turned me loose.”

Nora said indignantly: “That’s horrible. You mean they really—” I patted her hand.

Morelli said: “You got to expect it.” His swollen lower lip moved in what was meant for a scornful smile. “It’s all right as long as it takes two or three of ’em to do it.”

Nora turned to me. “Did you do things like that?”

“Who? Me?”

Studsy came over to us carrying a chair. “They lifted his face, huh?” he said, nodding at Morelli. We made room for him and he sat down. He grinned complacently at Nora’s drink and at Nora. “I guess you don’t get no better than that in your fancy Park Avenue joints—and you pay four bits a slug for it here.” Nora’s smile was weak, but it was a smile. She put her foot on mine under the table

I asked Morelli: “Did you know Julia Wolf in Cleveland?”

He looked sidewise at Studsy, who was leaning back in his chair, gazing around the room, watching his profits mount.

“When she was Rhoda Stewart,” I added.

He looked at Dorothy. I said: “You don’t have to be cagey. She’s Clyde Wynant’s daughter.”

Studsy stopped gazing around the room and beamed on Dorothy. “So you are? And how is your pappy?”

“But I haven’t seen him since I was a little girl,” she said.

Morelli wet the end of a cigarette and put it between his swollen lips. “I come from Cleveland.” He struck a match. His eyes were dull—he was trying to keep them dull. “She wasn’t Rhoda Stewart except once—Nancy Kane.” He looked at Dorothy again. “Your father knows it.”

“Do you know my father?”

“We had some words once.”

“What about?” I asked.

“Her.” The match in his hand had burned down to his fingers. He dropped it, struck another, and lit his cigarette. He raised his eyebrows at me, wrinkling his forehead. “Is this O.K.?”

“Sure. There’s nobody here you can’t talk in front of.”

“O.K. He was jealous as hell. I wanted to take a poke at him. but she wouldn’t let me. That was all right: he was her bank-roll.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Six months, eight months.”

“Have you seen him since she got knocked off?”

He shook his head. “I never seen him but a couple of times, and this time I’m telling you about is the last.”

“Was she gypping him?”

“She don’t say she is. I figure she is.”

“Why?”

“She’s a wise head—plenty smart. She was getting dough somewheres. Once I wanted five grand.” He snapped his fingers. “Cash.”

I decided against asking if he had paid her back. “Maybe he gave it to her.”

“Sure—maybe.”

“Did you tell any of this to the police?” I asked.

He laughed once, contemptuously. “They thought they could smack it out of me. Ask ’em what they think now. You’re a right guy. I don’t—” He broke off, took the cigarette from between his lips. “The earysipelas kid,” he said and put out a hand to touch the ear of a man who, sitting at one of the tables we had been squeezed in between, had been leaning further and further back towards us. The man jumped and turned a startled pale pinched face around over his shoulder at Morelli.

Morelli said: “Pull in that lug—it’s getting in our drinks.”

The man stammered, “I d-didn’t mean nothing, Shep,” and rammed his belly into his table trying to get as far as possible from us, which still did not take him out of ear-shot.

Morelli said, “You won’t ever mean nothing, but that don’t keep you from trying,” and returned his attention to me. “I’m willing to go all the way with you—the kid’s dead, it’s not going to hurt her any—but Mulrooney ain’t got a wrecking crew that can get it out of me.”

“Swell,” I said. “Tell me about her, where you first ran into
her, what she did before she tied up with Wynant, where he found her.”

“I ought to have a drink.” He twisted himself around in his chair and called: “Hey, garsong—you with the boy on your back!”

The somewhat hunchbacked waiter Studsy had called Pete pushed through people to our table and grinned affectionately down at Morelli. “What’ll it be?” He sucked a tooth noisily. We gave our orders and the waiter went away.

Morelli said: “Me and Nancy lived in the same block. Old man Kane had a candy store on the corner. She used to pinch cigarettes for me.” He laughed. “Her old man kicked hell out of me once for showing her how to get nickels out of the telephone with a piece of wire. You know, the old-style ones. Jesus, we couldn’t’ve been more than in the third grade.” He laughed again, low in his throat. “I wanted to glaum some fixtures from a row of houses they were building around the corner and plant ’em in his cellar and tell Schultz, the cop on the beat, to pay him back, but she wouldn’t let me.”

Nora said: “You must’ve been a little darling.”

“I was that,” he said fondly. “Listen. Once when I was no more’n five or—”

A feminine voice said: “I thought that was you.”

I looked up and saw it was red-haired Miriam speaking to me. I said: “Hello.”

She put her hands on her hips and stared somberly at me. “So he knew too much for you.”

“Maybe, but he took it on the lam down the fire-escape with his shoes in his hand before he told us any of it.”

“Balls!”

“All right. What do you think he knew that was too much for us?”

“Where Wynant is,” she said.

“So? Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Art knew.”

“I wish he’d told us. We–”

“Balls!” she said again. “You know and the police know. Who do you think you’re kidding?”

“I’m not kidding. I don’t know where Wynant is.”

“You’re working for him and the police are working with you. Don’t kid me. Art thought knowing was going to get him a lot of money, poor sap. He didn’t know what it was going to get him.”

“Did he tell you he knew?” I asked.

“I’m not as dumb as you think. He told me he knew something that was going to get him big dough and I’ve seen how it worked out. I guess I can put two and two together.”

“Sometimes the answer’s four,” I said, “and sometimes it’s twenty-two. I’m not working for Wynant. Now don’t say, ‘Balls,’ again. Do you want to help—”

“No. He was a rat and he held out on the people he was ratting for. He asked for what he got, only don’t expect me to forget that I left him with you and Guild, and the next time anybody saw him he was dead.”

“I don’t want you to forget anything. I’d like you to remember whether—”

“I’ve got to go to the can,” she said and walked away. Her carriage was remarkably graceful.

“I don’t know as I’d want to be mixed up with that dame,” Studsy said thoughtfully. “She’s mean medicine.” Morelli winked at me.

Dorothy touched my arm.

“I don’t understand, Nick.”

I told her that was all right and addressed Morelli: “You were telling us about Julia Wolf.”

“Uh-huh. Well, old man Kane booted her out when she was fifteen or sixteen and got in some kind of a jam with a high-school teacher and she took up with a guy called Face Peppler, a smart kid if he didn’t talk too much. I remember once me and Face were—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “Anyways, Face and her stuck together—it must be five, six years, throwing out the time he was
in the army and she was living with some guy that I can’t remember his name—a cousin of Dick O’Brien’s, a skinny dark-headed guy that liked his liquor. But she went back to Face when he come out of the army, and they stuck together till they got nailed trying to shake down some bird from Toronto. Face took it and got her off with six months—they gave him the business. Last I heard he was still in. I saw her when she came out—she touched me for a couple hundred to blow town. I hear from her once, when she sends it back to me and tells me Julia Wolf’s her name now and she likes the big city fine, but I know Face is hearing from her right along. So when I move here in ’28, I look her up. She’s—”