Cut Thin to Win

Chapter 15

After I was satisfied I hadn’t been followed, I moved Elsie Brand’s bag from the car into her room at the motel.

She looked it over and said, “Where’s the connecting door, Donald?”

I showed her.

“It goes into your room?”

I nodded, opened the door, and we went through.

She started to say something, then blushed and checked herself.

“Now listen, Elsie,” I told her, “this is going to be quite an assignment. I want you to get it straight. You see this closet door?”

She nodded.

“At the top there’s a metal latticework,” I said. “That’s to give the closet ventilation. There’s no window in the closet. It’s a big closet.”

She looked at me inquiringly.

I said, “I have a room in a downtown hotel here. I think that when I go back to that room a shadow will pick me up and an attempt will be made to follow me wherever I go from that point on.

“I’m going to drive directly back here to this motel, pretending that I’m naive enough not to worry about being followed.”

“You think you will be followed?”

“I’m almost certain of it.”

“But Donald, if you got this place as a hideout, why do you lead people directly to it?”

“Because I’m ready to lead people to it now,” I told her.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

I said, “I come back to the motel. We leave the door to the connecting room wide open until I come in.”

She lowered her eyes.

“If anyone knocks on my door,” I said, “you take your notebook, hurry into that closet as fast as you can, closing the connecting door behind you, and also the closet door. In the closet you can hear what’s being said. You take down the conversation in shorthand as far as possible but we’ll fix up this tape recorder now so the microphone is just underneath this metal grille. Everything that’s said in the room will be registered on the tape.

“You will of course have to be very, very silent. If anyone suspects you’re in there — well it could be dangerous.”

“Donald,” she said, “I’ll be all right, but you’ll be in danger.”

I said, “I think things are going to be all right. Are you game to try it?”

“Of course I am. I’ll do anything, Donald, anything — for you.”

“Good girl,” I told her. “Now it’s late. You get everything settled, rig up that tape recorder. You know how to do it. Tie the microphone to the grille, have things all fixed up by the time I get back. I’ll be gone about thirty minutes. I’m going to go to my hotel, go out, drive around the block, then make a beeline for this place.”

“And you feel sure you’ll be followed?”

“I’m almost certain I’ll be followed.”

“How long will it be after you get back before someone knocks on the door?”

“Probably only a minute or two.”

“All right,” she said. “I think I’d better move into the closet within about twenty minutes.”

“Good girl,” I told her, and patted her on the shoulder. “I’m on my way.”

I drove the rented car to a parking place at the hotel, got my key, went up to my room, fooled around for a minute or two, then came back looking over my shoulder once or twice, got into the car, drove around the block, and then made a beeline back to the motel.

I opened the door of my room and walked in.

The connecting door was closed. I looked in the closet.

Elsie had the tape recorder all set up on a chair and she was seated in another chair, her open notebook on her lap and pencils arranged on a chair.

“Good girl,” I said.

She blew me a kiss.

There was a knock at the outer door.

I hurriedly closed the closet door, went to the outer door, opened it and then fell back in surprise.

The woman who was standing there wasn’t the one I had expected.

“Hello, Donald,” she said.

“Good Lord,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

Mrs. Chester said, “I kept thinking about the smell of that money, Donald. You know I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. I’m not young any more and my racket is getting pretty much worn out.”

I said, “You were supposed to—”

“Yes, I know,” she said smiling. “I was supposed to go to Mexico City and then I was to be picked up and taken out in the country someplace where no one would ever find me, and it’s not nice to double-cross people, is it, Donald?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said.

“I never like to do it,” she admitted, “but there are times when one has to. After all, self-preservation is the first law of nature, you know.”

She had moved quietly and unobtrusively into the room while she was talking and now I closed the door.

I said, “You’re hotter than a stove lid. Sergeant Sellers has got thirty detectives working on your trail. If you stay here, he’ll find you just as sure as shooting.”

She smiled at me and said, “You wouldn’t like that, would you, Donald?”

I thought my answer over carefully. I said, “It means nothing to me but apparently there are people who wouldn’t like it. And I don’t think you’re going to like it very well because they’d put you in a spot.”

“I am in a spot,” she said. “I know it.”

She sat down and smiled at me.

“Also,” she went on, “I know that you’re in a spot, Donald, and I know that the people who are back of you would be very much inconvenienced if the police should find me. Therefore it’s up to you and up to those people to see that the police don’t find me.”

“They’ll find you anywhere in this country,” I said.

“Not if you hide me, Donald. You’ve got brains.”

“And you want me to hide you?”

She said, “I want you to hide me from the police, that’s all. I want to be in contact with you. I’m using this nose of mine. It’s an educated nose, Donald. It smells money trails just like a bloodhound can smell where people have left a trail.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to go to Mexico but I want money first.”

“How much money?”

She smiled at me and said, “All I can get, Donald. You should know that.”

“And how much do you think you can get?”

She said, “I got ten thousand. I was to keep five. I gave five of it back. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why?”

“I should have held onto that five and asked for twenty-five more. I think I’d have got it.”

I said, “What you’re doing amounts to blackmail.”

She smiled affably and said, “It does, doesn’t it, Donald?”

“Yes, it does, and that could be serious,” I said.

“Everything in life can be serious, but you have to gamble once in a while.”

I said, “You were given money to go to Mexico City?”

“That’s right.”

“You know who gave you the money?”

“Of course, Donald, whenever anyone gives me money I know who it is.”

I said, “You’d better get in touch with that person and tell him you want more money. Don’t tell me. I can’t do anything about it.”

“I think you can, Donald,” she said. “I think you can do it better than I can. I think you can present my case to better advantage. My nose smells money, but you’re the one to get it.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Bless your heart, I followed you from the hotel. That’s a pretty slick idea to have a room in a hotel and then go out to a motel someplace to sleep — but you shouldn’t have been so obvious about it, Donald. I’m not a very good driver but I followed you just as easy as could be. I didn’t have any trouble at all.”

I mopped my forehead with a handkerchief.

There was a knock at the door.

Mrs. Chester looked at me in dismay. “Were you expecting somebody — at this hour?”

I said, “You called, and if you called, somebody else could.”

She said, “I could hide somewhere. How about in that closet?”

I shook my head. “I’m not hiding you. This may be the police for all I know. They’re looking everywhere for you, Mrs. Chester.”

She said, “Remember, Donald, when I smell money I have to keep sniffing. That’s my nature.”

I strode over and opened the door.

The woman who had been seated next to me on the plane was standing there with a smile.

“Hello, Donald,” she said seductively, and moved on into the room, then stopped as she saw Mrs. Chester standing with one hand on the door leading to the bathroom.

“Well, well, well,” she said. “What’s this?”

I said, “May I ask what you’re doing here? More fortune-telling?”

“More fortune-telling, Donald,” she said. “I got worried about you and I thought that perhaps it was time you and I had a nice long talk — but who is this woman?”

“She is a woman I barely know,” I said. “She dropped in wanting something and I’ve already given her the advice she wants.”

I nodded to the door.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Chester said, and started out.

Mrs. Badger moved between her and the door, “Just a minute,” she said.

Mrs. Chester stopped and looked at her and then looked at me.

Mrs. Badger’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, oh,” she said, “I’m beginning to get a picture, a very, very beautiful picture.”

There was a tense silence in the room.

I said, “You may jump to a lot of false conclusions, Mrs... Minny.”

She looked at me and said, “You are smart, aren’t you?”

I said nothing.

She said, “You started to call me by my right name. I should have known you’d run me to earth in time. But, by the same token, Donald, I think I hold a few trump cards myself. In fact, I think I’ve got enough trumps now to make a grand slam.”

She said almost musically, “This officer from Los Angeles was after you because you’d hidden a woman who was mixed up in a hit-and-run suit. You wouldn’t tell him where she was. You said you didn’t know.

“Now, I heard just enough while I was listening outside the door to let me know that I’m getting in on something pretty juicy. I think that I’m going to get my hooks into something I’ve always wanted.”

She turned to Mrs. Chester and said, “I believe he called you Mrs. Chester.”

Mrs. Chester glanced at me helplessly.

“And,” Minny went on, “you wanted money. You said your nose could smell money. Well, dearie, if you’ve got a good nose and can smell money, you just come right along with me, because you and I are going to do some smelling together.”

Mrs. Chester’s face lit up. “You aren’t turning me over to the cops?”

Minny laughed and said, “You’re my ace in the hole, dearie. That nose of yours has finally smelled the way to money, lots of money.”

“You’ve got it?” Mrs. Chester asked.

“I’m going to get it,” Minny said. “You and I are going to get it together.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Mrs. Chester said.

“Bless your soul, you don’t have to. You just need to tell me the whole story, just put your cards on the table,” Mrs. Badger said. “When you finish talking, I’ll pick the trumps and start trumping everything in sight. Then we’ll have money, lots of money.”

“Twenty thousand dollars?” Mrs. Chester asked.

Minny laughed. “A hundred thousand for your share if you do exactly as I tell you.”

Mrs. Chester’s face lit into a beatific smile. “Darling,” she said, “I had a feeling of panic when you walked in, and then right away this nose of mine began to twitch. I think we’re on the right track now. Where do we go?”

“Where we can talk,” Minny said, “and where you can meet with my attorney.”

“Is he a good lawyer?” Mrs. Chester asked.

“The best.”

“Can he keep me out of trouble in Los Angeles?”

Minny laughed and said, “You’re in Nevada now. This attorney of mine has all the political pull in the world. If you don’t waive extradition, you can stay in Nevada as long as you live, provided you haven’t committed a murder in California.”

“It wasn’t a murder,” Mrs. Chester said. “It was... well, sort of a fraud.”

Minny laughed. “Come on, dearie,” she said. “I want you to meet a good lawyer and then we’ll do a little talking.”

She held the door open and smiled at me. “Goodnight, Donald,” she said.

The door slammed.

The closet door opened. Elsie, looking white and frightened, came out and said, “Is that what you expected?”

“That,” I told her, “was not what I expected.”

“What we do now?” Elsie asked.

“Now,” I said, “you go into that bedroom, take the tape recorder and your notebook, lock the connecting door, and go to bed. Don’t open up either the connecting door or your outside door for anything or anyone other than me, and make absolutely certain I’m the one at the door before you open.”

“Where are you going, Donald?”

“I’m going out and start picking up pieces,” I said.

“Pieces?” she asked.

“The shattered pieces of my career, Elsie.”

She came to me then and put her arms around me. “Donald, is it serious?”

“It’s so damned serious that I don’t like to think about it,” I said. “Sergeant Sellers has probably got what he wants. I’ve botched up a case and, taken by and large, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

She stood on her tiptoes then to kiss me. “Donald,” she said, after a moment, “remember that you have me and my faith in you. We’ll come out on top of the heap yet.”

“Well, we’re sure at the bottom now,” I told her. “But thanks for your support.”

This time I kissed her. It was a long, lingering kiss.

“Do you have to go, Donald?” she asked.

“That,” I told her, “is the understatement of the week. I have to go now and I have to go fast.”

She stood watching me wistfully as I dashed out of the door, slamming it behind me.