“I’ve got to go to the can,” she said and walked away. Her carriage was remarkably graceful.
“I don’t know as I’d want to be mixed up with that dame,” Studsy said thoughtfully. “She’s mean medicine.”
Morelli winked at me.
Dorothy touched my arm. “I don’t understand, Nick.”
I told her that was all right and addressed Morelli: “You were telling us about Julia Wolf.”
“Uh-huh. Well, old man Kane booted her out when she was fifteen or sixteen and got in some kind of a jam with a high-school teacher and she took up with a guy called Face Peppler, a smart kid if he didn’t talk too much. I remember once me and Face were–” He broke off and cleared his throat. “Anyways, Face and her stuck together–what the hell–it must be five, six years, thowing out the time he was in the army and she was living with some guy that I can’t remember his name–a cousin of Dick O’Brien’s, a skinny dark-headed guy that liked his liquor. But she went back to Face when he come out of the army, and they stuck together till they got nailed trying to shake down some bird from Toronto. Face took it and got her off with six months–they give him the business. Last I heard he was still in. I saw her when she came out–she touched me for a couple hundred to blow town. I hear from her once, when she sends it back to me and tells me Julia Wolf’s her name now and she likes the big city fine, but I know Face is hearing from her right along. So when I move here in ’28, I look her up. She’s–”
Miriam came back and stood with her hands on her hips as before. “I’ve been thinking over what you said. You must think I’m pretty dumb.”
“No,” I said, not very truthfully.
“It’s a cinch I’m not dumb enough to fall for that song and dance you tried to give me. I can see things when they’re right in front of me.”
“All right.”
“It’s not all right. You killed Art and–”
“Not so loud, girlie.” Studsy rose and took her arm. His voice was soothing. “Come along. I want to talk to you.” He led her towards the bar.
Morelli winked again. “He likes that. Well, I was saying I looked her up when I moved here, and she told me she had this job with Wynant and he was nuts about her and she was sitting pretty. It seems they learned her shorthand in Ohio when she was doing her six months and she figures maybe it’ll be an in to something–you know, maybe she can get a job somewheres where they’ll go out and leave the safe open. A agency had sent her over to do a couple days’ work for Wynant and she figured maybe he’d be worth more for a long pull than for a quick tap and a getaway, so she give him the business and wound up with a steady connection. She was smart enough to tell him she had a record and was trying to go straight now and all that, so’s not to have the racket spoiled if he found out anyhow, because she said his lawyer was a little leery of her and might have her looked up. I don’t know just what she was doing, you understand, because it’s her game and she don’t need my help, and even if we are pals in a way, there’s no sense in telling me anything I might want to go to her boss with. Understand. she wasn’t my girl or anything–we was just a couple old friends, been kids playing together. Well, I used to see her ever once in a while–we used to come here a lot–till he kicked up too much of a fuss and then she said she was going to cut it out, she wasn’t going to lose a soft bed over a few drinks with me. So that was that. That was October, I guess, and she stuck to it. I haven’t seen her since.”
“Who else did she run around with?” I asked.