Top of the Heap by Erle Stanley Gardner Read Free Book Online

suppose I could have got into trouble over that deal. What’s this guy going to think? Does he know he was drugged?”
    I nodded. “He figured you’d pulled a fast one on him.”
    “Before the label was found or afterward?”
    “Before.”
    “He wasn’t such a bad sort, only he was a little too obvious and impulsive. I guess he has money. That’s probably half the trouble with him. He feels that just because he buys a girl a good dinner and a few drinks he has the right to move right in and share her life.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “Who is he, Donald?”
    I said, “Suppose you tell me what you know about him.”
    “Any reason why I should?”
    “No. Any reason why you shouldn’t?”
    She hesitated a moment, looking at me from under long lashes and said, “You seem to cut your cake in big pieces.”
    “Why do things halfway?” I asked.
    She laughed. “I guess you don’t have to.”
    I remained silent.
    She said, “Sylvia and I were on the prowl. Sylvia is more impulsive than I am. This fellow was on the make. We needed an escort and we needed someone to pay the check. We—”
    “Don’t, Millie,” I said.
    “Don’t what?”
    “Don’t go on with that line.”
    “I thought you wanted to know.”
    I said, “You’re an intelligent girl and you’re a good-looking girl. There’s no percentage with that line. It won’t work. How much is Billings paying you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    I said, “You’ve overlooked a lot of little things. I just wanted to make certain that you knew him before I called them to your attention.”
    “What do you mean?”
    I said, “If you’d been really adept at the game you’d have insisted I talk with the two of you together. Letting me get you one at a time was a fatal weakness, and shows how amateurish you are.”
    “You’re doing the talking now,” she said, her greenishblue eyes hard, wary, and watchful.
    “According to Sylvia, he was placed on the couch fully clothed, with only a pillow behind his head. The davenport wasn’t made up into a bed, there were no blankets for him. Sylvia donated a pillow and that was all.”
    She hesitated a moment, then said, “Give me another cigarette, Donald.”
    I gave her one.
    She said, “I could try to juggle this one but I know it wouldn’t do any good. Sylvia phoned me you’d swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. You were young, gullible, and a pushover for a girl who had good-looking legs.”
    “I am,” I told her.
    She laughed.
    “Come on,” she said, after a short silence. “How did you get wise?”
    “You mean how much do I know?”
    “I’m feeling my way,” she said.
    “There were certain things about the story that gave it every appearance of being synthetic,” I told her. “How long have you known John Billings?”
    “I just met him. He’s one of Sylvia’s friends.”
    “You don’t know all of her friends?”
    “Not the ones that have money,” she said, and laughed. “Sylvia plays some things close to her chest.”
    “How much did he pay you?”
    “Two hundred and fifty bucks. That is, Sylvia passed it over. She said that was my share of the take.”
    “Exactly what did she say you were to do in return?”
    “She said I could get two hundred and fifty dollars if I was willing to have my picture in a newspaper. She said I’d have to play the part of a fallen woman, but she thought I could be ‘fallen’ in name only.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “You’re here, aren’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, that’s the answer.”
    “And then you met Billings?”
    “Just over cocktails. He passed over the money and took a look at me so he’d know me when he saw me, and I took a look at him so I could identify him, and we had a drink or two, then he and Sylvia went out.”
    “Who fixed up the story?”
    “Sylvia.”
    “Why does he want an alibi? Do you know?”
    “No.”
    “You mean that you didn’t ask?”
    “There were five nice, crisp fifty-dollar bank notes. I