Black money by Ross MacDonald

too far down. Based on such minor co-operations an intimacy was growing between us, as if the room had provided us with built-in roles. But it was a chancy intimacy, whose rhythm was an alternating current of fear and doubt. She asked me sensible questions and seemed to believe my answers. But her eyes weren't certain that I wouldn't kill her.

    "Do you know who he is?" I said.

    "I think so, and he isn't any Frenchman."

    "What is he?"

    "I'll tell you," she said crisply, as if she had decided on her story. "I happened to be the confidential secretary to a very important businessman in the Southland. This man who calls himself Martel wormed his way into my employer's good graces and wound up as his executive assistant."

    "Where does he come from?"

    "I wouldn't know that," she said. "He's some kind of South American, I think. My employer made the mistake of giving him the combination to the safe. I warned him not to. So what happens? Mr. so-called Martel takes off with a fortune in bearer bonds, which Harry and me - and I - are trying to get back."

    "Why not the police?"

    She was ready with an answer. "My employer has a soft spot in his head for Mr. Martel. Also our business is highly confidential."

    "What is your business?"

    "I'm not in a position to reveal that," she said carefully. She shifted the position of her body, as if its substantiality and symmetry might divert my attention from the ferry-built flimsiness of her story. "My employer has sworn me to secrecy."

    "What's his name?"

    "You'd know his name if I could tell it to you. He's a very important and well-heeled man in certain circles."

    "The lower circles of hell?"

    "What?" But I think she heard me.

    She pouted, and frowned a little with her thin painted-on eyebrows. She didn't frown very hard because that gave girls wrinkles and besides I might kill her and she didn't want to die with a frown on her lovely face.

    "If you'd take me seriously and help to get the money back, etcetera, I'm sure my employer would reward you handsomely. I'd be grateful, too."

    "I'd have to know more about it," such as what she meant by "etcetera."

    "Sure," she said. "Naturally. Are you going to help me?"

    "We'll see. Have you given up on Harry?"

    "I didn't say that."

    But her green eyes were surprised. I think in her concentration on me and on her story - her late late movie story - she had forgotten Harry. The room provided roles for only two people. I guessed what mine would be if we stayed in it much longer. Her body was purring at me like a tiger, the proverbial kind of tiger which is dangerous to mount and even more dangerous to dismount.

    "I'm worried about Harry," I said. "Have you seen him today?"

    She shook her head. Her hair flared out like fire. The wind, momentarily louder than the music, was whining at the window.

    "He was talking about buying a gun this afternoon."

    "What for?"

    Gun talk seemed to frighten her basically.

    "To use on Martel, I think. Martel gave him a bad time today. He ran him off with a gun and smashed his camera."

    I produced the flattened camera from my pocket.

    She brooded over it. "That camera cost me a hundred and fifty bucks. I ought to've known better than to trust Harry."

    "Maybe the picture bit wasn't a good idea. Martel is allergic to cameras. What's his real name, by the way?"

    "I don't know. He keeps using different names."

    She changed the subject back to Harry: "You think Harry got hurt or something?"

    "It's possible. His car is parked on the boulevard about half a mile from here, with the key in it."

    She jerked herself upright. "Why didn't you say so?"

    "I just did."

    "Show it to me."

    She picked up her radio and bag, got her coat out of the closet, and put it on while we were waiting for the elevator. It may have been the noise of the elevator, or the radio, or some perpetual sign, which her body sent out, but when she crossed the lobby with me all three of the sharpies were watching from the curtained