Part 14 (1/2)

”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 n.o.body here you can't talk in front of.”

”O.K. He was jealous as h.e.l.l. 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 h.e.l.l 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: ”h.e.l.lo.”

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.”

”b.a.l.l.s!”

”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”