Read Online Home is the Sailor by Day Keene - Free Book Online

jumpy.
    It was the second time Mamie had warned me to shove off. Why? It could be she was jealous. Some women are that way. There couldn’t be any other reason for her to say what she had. She couldn’t know about Jerry Wolkowysk. No one knew that. No one but myself and Corliss.
    I pushed my food around the plate, then forced myself to eat. Mamie had to be jealous. That was all it could be. She was as pretty as Corliss. Her body was just as lovely. But Corliss had everything that any woman could want while all she had was a job and Meek.
    Sweat beaded on my face. Still, Mamie hadn’t been out on the cliff. That I knew. All she could possibly know about me and Corliss was that Corliss had brought me to the court to keep me out of trouble; that I had got fresh and Corliss had slugged me with a bottle; that Corliss had brought my money to the Palm Grove brig and we might have parked for an hour or so on our way back to the Purple Parrot. And, possibly, that we had taken an early morning ride together.
    I pulled the morning paper Mamie had been reading to my side of the table and ordered another cup of coffee.
    “How long has Mrs. Meek managed the court?” I asked the waitress.
    “I think almost two years,” she told me.
    For want of something better to do, I read the Palmer story again. When you got down into the bulk of it, while the F.B.I. might have traced Lippy Saltz as far west as Las Vegas, his imminent apprehension was the reporter’s own idea. The F.B.I. wasn’t talking. There was only one direct quote. That was a statement by a Chicago agent to the effect that one small mistake on Sophia Palanka’s part had given them what pertinent information they had.
    One small mistake. That was all it took.
    I wondered if I’d made any. I thought of two and really began to sweat.
    I’d wiped the wheel of Wolkowysk’s car. Then I’d released the hand brake and used my left hand to steer the car to the lip of the cliff. If the car was found and murder was suspected, my fingerprints were on the brake button release and the left half of the wheel. More, the bloody white pile rug on which Wolkowysk had died was still in the back of Corliss’ car.
    I patted my face with my napkin.
    “Hot in the sun, isn’t it?” the waitress said pleasantly.
    “Yeah. Hot,” I agreed.
    I couldn’t do anything about the fingerprints except hope the rocks and waves would grind the Buick to pieces before it was found. The rug was something else. I had to destroy the rug and buy one to replace it as soon as I possibly could.
    I dropped two bills on the table to cover the check and tip and walked out and leaned against Wally the barman’s beaten-up Ford.
    The wind sweeping across the highway was cool on my face. It felt good. I stood looking at Corliss’ carport, wondering how I could get the rug out of the back. I didn’t see how I could, at least without someone seeing me. I’d have to dispose of the rug on our way to L.A. to be married. But how? How did a man go about getting rid of a bloody three-by-four loop pile rug?
    The little things.
    I crossed the highway to the beach and walked down it for a quarter of a mile. Maybe I hadn’t been smart in telling Ginty I was washed up with the sea and the line. It took brains to operate a farm. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough to make a living on shore.
    Hell. I hadn’t even been smart enough to get on a bus for Hibbing. On the other hand, if I had, I wouldn’t be marrying Corliss.
    I walked back down the beach to the Purple Parrot and across the highway to the drive. Corliss’ door was still closed. The blinds on her windows were drawn.
    I flipped a mental coin trying to decide whether to go back in the bar and see if I could persuade the heavy-set waitress to sell me a couple of drinks before legal opening time, or try to get a few more hours of sleep. I decided to try for sack time.
    The screen door of the office was open. I could hear Mamie crying inside. Meek was pruning a climbing