The Honest Dealer

Chapter Seventeen

Leaving his car in front of El Casa Rancho, Johnny went directly to Jane Langford’s room and knocked on the door. There was no response. He tried the door, and found it locked.

Annoyed, he went to his own room and saw Sam Cragg’s suit hanging up in the bathroom. Leaving, Johnny headed for the casino. The tables were already receiving some play, but Johnny was not tempted at the moment. He went through the lobby to the terrace in front of the hotel.

There he found Sam Cragg, the center of an admiring group of feminine hotel guests. He had somewhere obtained trunks, but they were dry and he had apparently not even been in the pool. Sam was enthusiastically recounting a wrestling bout in which he had figured.

“...he tries to get his thumb in my eye,” he was saying, “so I gives him the elbow. He gets sore and kicks me in the... the... where he ain’t supposed to kick me. For a minute I don’t know what’s hit me and I’m down on the mat. Only instinc’ keeps me from lettin’ him pin my shoulders. And then I’m okay again and what I don’t do to the guy shouldn’t happen to a dog. When I got him good and groggy I gives him the old kayo... I picks him up and throws him clear outta the ring. He breaks his collar bone and four ribs...”

At this point Sam saw Johnny at the edge of the crowd. A sheepish grin spread over his features. “Excuse me,” he said to his admirers, “I gotta see a fella about a dog.”

“Nice going,” said Johnny, as Sam Cragg came through the fringe of feminine pulchritude.

“Aw, it wasn’t anythin’...”

“Where’s your redheaded friend?”

“She hadda go see her lawyer...”

“Speaking of lawyers!” said Johnny grimly. He walked abruptly away from Sam and bore down on Jane Langford, who was seated at a table under a sun umbrella in a far corner of the flagged veranda. Opposite her was a little, bandy-legged man with a briefcase.

Jane Langford, somehow, did not seem overly pleased to see Johnny.

“Hello,” she said coolly. “This is Mr. Morrison. Mr. Fletcher.”

The little man bounced to his feet. “Glad to know you. I’m Mrs. Langford’s lawyer. If you should need a good attorney, come and see me.” He bowed to Mrs. Langford. “Remember what I told you, my dear...” He nodded to Johnny. “It’s been a pleasure.” With that he hurried off.

Johnny took the seat vacated by Mr. Morrison. He regarded Jane steadily.

“Well?” she asked in a tone of annoyance.

“Why didn’t you tell me your maiden name was Bloss.”

Jane picked up her purse from the table, prepared to rise. “This is where I came in.”

“What was he — your father?”

“Look, Mr. Fletcher,” said Jane Langford. “I’ve got a lot of things on my mind. I’m in no mood for another third degree session.”

Johnny got up and took her purse from under her arm and replaced it on the table. “Baby,” he said, “I could get huffy, too. But we’re not going to get anywhere that way. I know how you feel. You just got bad news from your lawyer—”

Jane exclaimed indignantly, “What makes you think that?”

“Your husband’s threatened to appear in court tomorrow with a charge that you haven’t fulfilled the terms of your legal residence in this state...”

Her eyes went wide. Johnny smiled crookedly. “I had Jim Langford’s telephone tapped this morning.”

She stared at him. “Now you’re being absurd again.”

“It’s true, isn’t it — about Langford making that threat?”

“Yes, but I don’t see...”

“And how do you think I found out that your maiden name was Bloss... and that you met Jim Langford at The Ojai Club in Chicago, where you were singing...?”

“And what else do you know?”

“Quite a lot — and I’ll know more before the day’s over... I’ve got a private detective agency working on you in Chicago... I wasn’t going to tell you about that, but in view of...” He shrugged.

The color faded from her cheeks. “So you are determined to make trouble...”

“Uh-uh! I’m trying to help you. There were things you wouldn’t tell me yourself, so I’ve got to learn them from other sources. I can’t help you if I don’t know what trouble you’re in...”

“You can’t get it through your head that I’m not in any trouble?”

“Maybe you don’t know you’re in trouble. Your father...”

“He wasn’t my father!”

“No?”

She bit her lip. “He was my uncle, but I scarcely knew him. I saw him once when I was eight years of age; then when I came here — he came up and said he was my uncle.”

“Was he?”

“Yes, he told me enough about my family.”

“How did he happen to know you? You didn’t register under your maiden name, did you?”

Her eyes clouded. “He said he’d followed my career in Chicago and when he saw in the papers that I was coming here for a divorce...”

“Was it in the paper?”

“Just a couple of lines.” She shook her head. “Mr. Fletcher, are you or are you not a book agent?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you go and sell your books and leave things alone that don’t concern you...?”

“What doesn’t concern me? Your uncle died in my arms in Death Valley and someone brought him here and put him into my room. You think that doesn’t concern me?”

“It’s a matter for the police.”

Johnny laughed. “You’re not kidding. Right now, I’m out of jail only because the police haven’t figured things out.”

“And when they do figure them out, you’ll be in jail?”

“I mean,” said Johnny firmly, “they’ve got to have somebody, and failing to pin it on anyone else, I’ll be elected.”

“You’ve got enough money; you could leave town.”

“How far do you think I’d get?”

Jane sighed wearily. “I don’t know; all I know is that I wish people would let me alone. I want to get through the next twenty-four hours as quietly as possible...”

Johnny got up and handed her purse. “All right, you won’t hear another word from me.”

She walked off. Johnny watched her enter the hotel. He looked around for Sam, but that worthy was nowhere to be seen. Johnny shook his head and headed for the hotel lobby.