I finished my coffee. “Go right ahead,” I said. “Keep on thinking that I’m a babe in the woods who shouldn’t be trusted out alone after dark. You know damn well that if I’d told you I had two or three years as a detective back of me, you’d have told me what’s really on your mind. The way it is now, you figure I can’t be trusted.”

She started to say something then, but checked herself just as she started to speak.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Pay the check, and let’s go meet the brother, and see what he has to say.”

“And you won’t tell anyone what I’ve told you?”

“You haven’t told me anything—what did you say the brother’s name was?”

“Thoms.”

“His first name?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard it. It’s B. Lee Thoms. That’s the way he signs his name. Sandra calls him Bleatie. She always has.”

I motioned to the German woman to bring us the check, and said, “Let’s go see Bleatie.”

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

IF ALMA Hunter had a key to the apartment, she didn’t use it. She stood in the hallway and jabbed her gloved thumb against the buzzer at the side of the door. The young woman who opened the door and stood looking out at us was in the late twenties. She was slender around the waist, but had curves, and her dress showed the curves. Her hair was black. Her eyes were big, dark, and expressive. She had high cheekbones and very red, full lips. Her eyes veered away from Alma Hunter to study me, as though I’d been a new horse brought home from the fair.

Alma Hunter said, “Sandra, this is Donald Lam. He works for Bertha Cool’s agency. And he’s going to find Morgan and serve the papers on him. Tell me about the accident. Was it bad?”

Sandra Birks looked at me with surprised eyes. “You don’t look like a detective,” she said, and gave me her hand.

She didn’t just extend her hand. She didn’t shake hands, but she gave me her hand just exactly as though she were turning over a part of her body to me.

As I closed my fingers around her hand, it surrendered in mine. “I try to look innocent,” I said.

“I’m so glad you came, Mr. Lam,” she said, laughing nervously. “It’s imperative that we find Morgan at once. I think you understand why— Come in.”

I stood to one side and let Alma Hunter walk in first. It was a big room, with dark beams across the ceiling, heavy drapes across the windows, thick carpets underfoot. Lounging chairs were scattered about, with cigarettes and ash trays handy. It was a place that reeked with the feeling of having been lived in, a sensual, human, warm existence.