Chapter Seventeen

You never feel clean after a murder.

That’s what I’d tried to tell Daisy, and that’s what I found out now.

Hastings’ death had been a mess. Lucky for me, because when they went through his room they’d run across a notebook inside his mattress. Names of clients, including Daisy Bannock.

That’s what brought Al Thompson out to see her, and saved me.

For a while there, I wasn’t even happy about being saved. Not when I had to watch them break the news to Harry. They found him at his office, and he took it hard. The poor guy had never suspected. I felt bad about that.

I wasn’t rejoicing when they managed to pick up Joe Dean and Estrellita Juarez, either. They were traced to San Bernardino, where they’d holed up on a piece of property his brother Andy owned. Yes, they got Andy and this big guy Fritz, too. I had to testify against them.

They made a deal with Kolmar to drop his charges about the gun and the assault, so I was in the clear. And I did what I could to help in the weeks that followed.

It was some consolation to know that this particular reefer pushing outfit was broken up; turned out Dean’s brother Andy and his friend Fritz were both peddling for Hastings, too.

But they never were able to trace Hastings’ source. If there was anyone higher up, the police couldn’t find him.

And of course, I never got any eleven grand from Harry Bannock, either.

I haven’t seen him for months, but that’s my fault, I suppose. I could call him up and ask how’s tricks, sweetheart, and did he ever sell his films to See-More?

But I haven’t, and I won’t.

I just sit here in the office and tend to business. The literary agenting business, where all the murders are on paper and nothing is red except the ink of a typewriter ribbon.

Sometimes, though, when I happen to be working overtime, at night, I stop and stare out the window.

I can see across the city from here, and look down into the streets. And no matter what the hour, the streets are never empty.

They’re always moving down there, moving all over town—this town and every big town. The pushers and their customers, the big dealers and the little squealers, the future killers and the future victims. Along with a lot of other people: guys like Al Thompson, who do their best, and the anonymous thousands like Harry Bannock who never suspect.

When I stare out the window, I see them all, realize what’s happening outside. And I say to myself, It never ends, does it? What you knew was just a tiny fraction of the whole. Somewhere out there tonight there’ll be another murder. Another chapter in a book that’s never finished, even though it started way back with Cain.

That’s what I say to myself when I look out the window.

And then, I pull down the shades and go back to work.