“I like it good here,” he said uneasily, and his mind cast about for a fault in himself. “I got it real nice here.”

She moistened her lips with her arrow-shaped tongue. “You and I can work together,” she said.

“Any way you want it,” he said ingratiatingly, and a surge of pleasant expectation grew in him. He waited patiently. She took a good long time to begin.

At last she said, “Joe, I don’t like to have anything stolen.”

“I didn’t take nothing.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“Who?”

“I’ll get to it, Joe. Do you remember that old buzzard we had to move?”

“You mean Ethel what’s-her-name?”

“Yes. That’s the one. She got away with something. I didn’t know it then.”

“What?”

A coldness crept into her voice. “Not your business, Joe. Listen to me! You’re a smart fellow. Where would you go to look for her?”

Joe’s mind worked quickly, not with reason but with experience and instinct. “She was pretty beat up. She wouldn’t go far. An old hustler don’t go far.”

“You’re smart. You think she might be in Watsonville?”

“There or maybe Santa Cruz. Anyways, I’ll give odds she ain’t farther away than San Jose.”

She caressed her fingers tenderly. “Would you like to make five hundred, Joe?”

“You want I should find her?”

“Yes. Just find her. When you do, don’t let her know. Just bring me the address. Got that? Just tell me where she is.”

“Okay,” said Joe. “She must of rolled you good.”

“That’s not your business, Joe.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “You want I should start right off?”

“Yes. Make it quick, Joe.”

“Might be a little tough,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

“That’s up to you.”

“I’ll go to Watsonville this afternoon.”

“That’s good, Joe.”

She was thoughtful. He knew she was not finished and that she was wondering whether she should go on. She decided.

“Joe, did—did she do anything—well, peculiar—that day in court?”

“Hell, no. Said she was framed like they always do.”

And then something came back to him that he hadn’t noticed at the time. Out of his memory Ethel’s voice came, saying, “Judge, I got to see you alone. I got to tell you something.” He tried to bury his memory deep so that his face would not speak.

Kate said, “Well, what was it?”

He had been too late. His mind leaped for safety. “There’s something,” he said to gain time. “I’m trying to think.”

“Well, think!” Her voice was edged and anxious.

“Well—” He had it. “Well, I heard her tell the cops—let’s see—she said why couldn’t they let her go south. She said she had relatives in San Luis Obispo.”

Kate leaned quickly toward him. “Yes?”

“And the cops said it was too damn far.”

“You’re smart, Joe. Where will you go first?”

“Watsonville,” he said. “I got a friend in San Luis. He’ll look around for me. I’ll give him a ring.”

“Joe,” she said sharply. “I want this quiet.”