Date for Murder by Louis Trimble Read Free Book Online Page A

now,” she said with a touch of grim humor. “I’ll go phone.”

Chapter
VI
    M ARK went off duty at seven, leaving the station to the boy who worked mornings, and walked over to Babe’s for steak and coffee. Babe always reserved a pair of steaks, and usually had them fried by the time he arrived. She turned her kitchen over to the morning girl and slid onto a seat alongside Mark.
    “Have lots of fun, last night?” she asked.
    Babe used a blond rinse on her hair. Not enough to bleach it, she often said, but just enough to bring out the lights. Normally it was a rather rusty blond, but with the rinse it glowed attractively. That was what Mark liked about Babe, her hair. It was long, and she wore it with a clip so it narrowed at her neck and spread in waves down her back. When he would pull it around her shoulders it came below her breasts. When it was freshly shampooed he liked to bury his face in its thick softness.
    He gave the clip holding her hair a tug to set it in place, and grinned in answer to her question. “Plenty,” he said, sipping hot black coffee. “Oh, hell, yes.”
    “You should have,” she said coldly. “Going up to that joint with a hot-looking brunette and coming down with the Cartwright blonde. If I hadn’t watched the clock to see how long it took you from the time you passed here, I would have—”
    “And you would have been right,” he interrupted. “If I could have trusted you with the station.” He slipped one hand beneath the counter and patted her knee. “Forget it. I was just taking her home.”
    “And the other one?”
    Mark sawed at the steak with his knife. “Idell Manders?” he said casually. “Oh, she had her car shot out from under her. I picked her up just this side of Coachella.”
    “Uhm,” Babe said through a mouthful of meat. “Hell, yes.” She made a face at him. “Christ, you do things up fancy when you step out.”
    Mark finished his steak before he answered. “It’s a fact,” he said finally. “I imagine they’ll find the car today and drag it back here.” He stuffed his pipe and lit it. Babe put a cigaret between her lips, and he held his match for her.
    “Thanks,” she said. “You aren’t kidding, Mark?”
    “Not a damned bit,” he assured her. “She was chased all the way from Riverside. Maybe you saw it, if they swung back this way. A long black convertible sedan; foreign make of some kind. The pipe had a belly rumble to it.”
    Babe said, “I saw them. It was about three-thirty. They went roaring west, doing sixty anyway—maybe more. I heard the damned thing a mile off; it sounded worse than the midnight express.”
    Mark nodded. “They must have thought they got her, then.” He slipped off his stool and waited while Babe stacked the plates and pushed them across the counter toward the waitress. “Let’s go,” he said.
    Babe was extraordinarily silent as they drove across the highway and cut into town. Two blocks west of the main street, Mark swung into an alley and drove over a lot and parked in front of a cabin. It was a double, facing the vacant lot, with another building cutting it from the street and street noises, and the afternoon sunlight. Mark liked it because it was quiet and there were no kids to disturb him when he slept days. There were trees shielding the front, and with the blinds down it was almost night dark inside. The air-cooler in front, a big wire cage packed with excelsior through which water dripped continually, kept it comparatively moist and cool in his room. At first he had struggled to get used to the fan in front of the cooler that sucked air into the room, but eventually it got so he hardly noticed whether it was on or not.
    His cabin had a number one over the door, Babe’s a two. There was a connecting door between their rooms in case it was ever rented out as an apartment. Hers had a kitchenette in the rear with a small sink and a two burner gas plate. The bath was outside in the rear of the building