The Duchess of Skid Row by Louis Trimble Page A

remains of the fire bomb we found by the shed. Both jobs were done by an expert.”
    I felt a sudden surge of excitement. I knew one man who was a demolition expert. The United States Army had put his abilities to good use. But that had been some time ago. Since then he had gone in for a different way of making a living. His name was Hoxey Creen.
    I said, “That lets me out, Maslin. I hardly know a bomb from a Hawaiian pineapple.”
    “You could have had a confederate,” Maslin said.
    “Name one.”
    “There’s Hoxey Creen,” he said. “He’s been a stoolie of yours for quite a while. I don’t know what you’ve got on him, but it must be something powerful to keep a crud like that in line. You could have swapped him his freedom for doing this job.”
    I said, “Did you dream this up or did Ritter?”
    “It’s only a theory,” he said.
    Tod Billings was watching us both; he was obviously puzzled. He said, “You guys argue your problems on your own time.”
    “Tell him the rest of it, Tod,” said Maslin.
    Billings started pointing out objects on the workbench. “This is the remains of a portable tape dictating machine,” he said. “There’s no sign a tape was on it.” He paused and poked a finger toward a cigaret lighter with a miniature painting on each flat surface. “This was apparently on the seat of the car. A bit of seat cover fiber is caught under the sparkwheel. It must have been blown into the recess where we found it. That’s why it isn’t burned.”
    Maslin picked the lighter up and handed it to me. I looked at the two miniature paintings on the sides. They were of oriental ladies, nudes, and not far from being obscene. I turned the lighter over and looked at the butt end. The initials
JGM
were etched there. My initials.
    I said, “What the hell?” I put it back on the bench.
    Maslin said, “Can you explain it, Jeff?”
    “Sure I can explain it. Griselda gave it to me. She found it in an L.A. oriental store. It’s a whorehouse souvenir from Hong Kong. Griselda thought it was a terrific gag. Only it won’t hold fluid over a day, so I didn’t use it.”
    “Did you give it to someone?”
    I tried to remember what I had done with it. I had a vague memory of leaving it behind, in the desert shack Griselda and I had shared. But I couldn’t be sure.
    “No,” I said, “I didn’t give it to anyone.”
    Tod Billings said, “The show’s over. Go outside and glare at each other.”
    We went outside. We stopped in the hall. Maslin said, “Could someone have taken it from you after you were knocked down in the shed?”
    I said, “I wasn’t out. I could feel. And no one laid a paw on my pockets.”
    He grimaced. “Are you being honest or just bull-headed?”
    I said, “Why should I try to fake an alibi for myself? That would only obscure things. I want to get at the bottom of this as much as you do. Johnny was my friend, damn it. And I’m on the hook. Sure I could say someone lifted the lighter off me—and then you could waste a lot of energy snooping down a dead-end trail.”
    Maslin said, “It’s idiotic reasoning like this that keeps me from locking you up.”
    “Ritter will change your mind before long. I hear he has evidence that puts me right in the death cell.”
    Maslin said, “You mean the tape recording—Johnny’s report?”
    “What else? Or is there more too?”
    “According to Ritter, Itsuko’s report stated that there was no doubt about the charges against you.”
    “If that’s true why did Johnny want to talk to me last night?”
    Maslin said somberly, “Kay Itsuko gave Ritter the tape. She gave me something too—information.”
    “Get it said, Lieutenant.”
    Maslin said, “According to Johnny’s wife, he didn’t have an appointment with you last night or any other night.”
    “Then why did he go out to the woodshed?”
    “Because ten minutes before he did, he got a phone call. It was from you, Jeff. You made the appointment with Johnny. He didn’t