Laura pulled away from Harry's fingers. "Nothing's wrong," she insisted.
"Then explain why you're different now than you were before I left."
"I'm not."
"Can you honestly tell me that the woman who wished me a lingering farewell at the airport a week ago is the same woman who barely responded to my embrace earlier in your office?"
"It's where I work," Laura reminded him. "What did you expect me to do? Make love to you on the desk?"
"Sounds good to me," Harry said with a smile. Laura's loud exhale made him frown. "Something happened between the time I left for London and my return today. How can I make it right if you won't discuss it-"
The limo came to a stop and Laura opened the door before Fred could do it. "We're here."
"Laura-" Harry said, then found himself looking at her back as she moved toward the office of the motel. He'd lost this battle- but the war wasn't over yet, he decided.
After Harry "assisted" the desk clerk's memory, the unshaven, sleepy-eyed man finally admitted that he remembered seeing the man in the photo that Laura showed him. "Yeah. He was here a week ago," he admitted. "Strange old guy."
"Did he have any visitors?" Laura asked.
Seeing the greedy gleam in those eyes, Harry pulled another twenty dollar bill out of his wallet, but wisely kept it out of reach until the man responded. "Yeah. Man in a suit, looked kinda sleazy. And a woman."
"A woman?" Laura asked, grimacing as Harry pulled out another bill.
"This is getting expensive, mate," Harry said. "Say we set a limit here-" he pulled out another couple of twenties. "A hundred? And you answer any of our questions?"
The clerk grinned widely. "Sounds good to me." He reached for the money.
"Answers first," Harry admonished, keeping the money in his hand.
"Some dame came to see him during the middle of the night. Didn't see her face. Came by cab, left the same way about an hour after she got here."
"Have you seen this man since then?" Laura asked.
"He's here now. Room 19- end of the building down there."
Laura nodded toward Harry, who put the money into the clerk's hand. "Thank you."
"Say, pal, I know who she is, but who are you?" the clerk asked Harry.
"An associate," Laura answered, pulling Harry out of the door behind her.
"Remind me to reimburse you for any expenses," Laura muttered to Harry.
"That's not necessary," Harry told her.
"You just dropped over a hundred dollars in there," she reminded him as they moved toward Room 19. Stopping, she turned to look at him. "American dollars. You carry American dollars all the time?"
"Pin money," he explained.
"Of course," Laura sighed, turning her steps back toward the room where Elliot Markham was staying. "I'm afraid to ask how much you carry for 'pin money'." Harry started to answer, but Laura lifted a hand to stop him then knocked on the door.
"Perhaps he's gone out," Harry suggested.
"Hmm." She reached into her purse. "Keep an eye out-"
Before she could remove a pick from the case, the doorknob turned and the door was opened the length of the security chain. A red rimmed, bloodshot eye appeared. "Whaddaya want?" he asked gruffly.
"Mr. Markham?" Laura asked, and Harry noticed the apprehension in that eye. "I'm Laura Holt. I'm a private investigator-"
"I've heard the name," he told her impatiently.
"Your daughter-"
"I told her to keep out of this. That I'd handle it on my own."
"She's concerned about you, Mr. Markham," Harry pointed out, drawing the attention of that single eye.
"Who are you?"
"A fan," Harry assured him. "This reminds me a bit of the predicament that Detective Leon McCall found himself facing in "Dead by Default"," he said.
"You're too young to remember that one. I made it in 1947."
"Well, to a lonely little boy, a movie theatre can be a place of great solace and escape. Even one playing old film noir titles. I used to watch you up on that screen and wish I could be like that. Firm, unyielding, not taking anything off of anyone." Harry saw Laura's curious look in his direction, but he kept his gaze locked on that red-rimmed eye that bored into him. "Oh, those were the days of great film making," he finished with a regretful sigh. Bogart, Bacall, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet-"
"Worked with Greenstreet once," Markham muttered. "Didn't like him much."
"May we come in, Mr. Markham?" Laura asked in a gentle voice.
The door closed, and they heard the sound of the chain being slipped out of its runner before it was opened again. "I was just packing up to leave," he told them as they entered, passing the beat up travel valise that was sitting on the floor near the bed.
"To go home?" Laura asked.
"Not yet. Miss Holt, what exactly did my daughter tell you?" Elliot Markham asked, indicating a chair sitting in front of the window.
Laura sat down. Harry remained standing behind the chair, watching Markham. He was much older than Harry remembered him. The Elliot Markham who had been known as a "poor man's Bogey", tall, thin, dark haired, craggy faced, had aged into a slightly shorter, but still thin, balding man with a face that could have modeled for Mount Rushmore in "North by Northwest", Harry thought.
Markham took a seat on the edge of the bed as Laura began to explain. "She simply told us that you'd been disappearing for days at a time. She found some motel receipts at your house- and is worried that something's wrong. If you're seeing a woman and don't want your daughter to know-"
Markham's face went pale at Laura's words. "A woman? What makes you say that?"
"The desk clerk told us that he'd seen a woman visit you late last night," Harry explained. "And a man- the same man, apparently that your neighbor Mrs. Farley has seen on occasion visiting you at home."
"Johnny Dedman," Markham said. "I keep telling him not to follow me down here. That I'm not gonna change my mind, but-"
"Who *is* this- Johnny Dedman?" Laura asked.
"A third rate film producer. Wants to make an updated version of some of my old movies. With *me* as the star. Now, I ask you, who's gonna come to the movies to see a doddering, over the hill has been trying to be a private dick?"
"You might be surprised," Harry commented. "I'd be there."
"He just wants to cash in on the publicity that my coming out of retirement would create," Markham told them. "I haven't set foot before a camera in over 30 years. I've told the parasite that, but he just keeps pestering me."
Laura sat forward. "Mr. Markham, what happened the night your wife died in that accident? Why did you stop acting and drop out of sight?"
Markham rose stiffly from the bed and moved toward the window, where he looked outside. "It was a long time ago, Miss Holt. Luckily, my memory's not very good. Look, I'll talk to Eileen, explain things to her. And I'll see that your fee is paid. There's no reason for you and Mr. Steele here to continue this goose chase."
"Mr- ?" Laura said, glancing at Harry in alarm.
"Mr. Markham-"
"Didn't take much figuring. She's Laura Holt- lately the papers have had more about her mysterious 'associate' than they have her."
"If you need some help, Mr. Markham," Harry offered. "We'd be more than glad to-"
"No. Thanks anyway. I got myself into this, I'll get myself out."
Laura held out a business card. "If you change your mind, call."
Markham took the card. "Thank you. Good luck. Too back we didn't have P. I.s like you back in the old days. Would have made for some interesting movies." He opened the door for them.
As the limo pulled out of the parking lot, Laura sat back with a frown on her face that Harry already recognize meant she was troubled by something. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"It still doesn't make sense. Mr. Markham sounded as if his daughter already knew what the problem is- yet she didn't tell us anything. And what about the money he's withdrawn over the last month? What's he doing with it?" She sat forward. "Fred, pull up here by the curb."
Fred did as she asked, then watched in the rear view mirror for more instructions. Laura turned around to look back at the motel parking lot. Harry joined her. "What are we doing, Laura?" he asked.
"Keeping an eye on Mr. Markham."
"He dismissed us."
"*He* didn't hire us," Laura pointed out. "His daughter did. We're still on the case. Did you notice his reaction when we asked about the woman who'd been to see him? And he never explained who she was." She placed a hand on his arm. "There he is."
Harry watched as a cab pulled up before the motel and Elliot Markham came out to get into the vehicle before it drove away. The cab turned their direction, and once it passed, Laura told Fred, "Follow him, Fred."
"Sir?" Fred asked, his eyes meeting Harry's in the mirror.
"You heard her, Fred. Don't lose him."
"Yes, sir," the driver said, pulling back onto the street.
They followed the cab to another motel- one of the same ones he'd stayed in the week before. "There seems to be a pattern here," Harry commented as they watched Markham enter the office, then go to a room at the far end of the building.
"Precisely, Harry," Laura agreed. "Now, all we need to do is wait."
"Wait?"
"And see who else turns up."
Harry looked at her. "You're thinking that the woman from last night will turn up here, aren't you?"
"It's possible."
"What about dinner?" Harry asked.
"If you're hungry, I suppose you could just let me out here and go on. I'll take a cab back to the office," she said, her hand on the door handle.
"No," Harry said quickly, pulling her away from the door and closer to him. "There's only one thing I'm hungry for at the moment." His lips hovering over hers left little doubt as to what he meant.
Laura remained still in his arms. "What about Fred?" she asked quietly.
"He can keep an eye on things at the motel."
"Harry, this isn't the time-"
"You haven't given me a proper greeting," he reminded her. "Not even one hello kiss."
"We're not- that close," she said. "I'm sure you have- friends in London that are much closer to you than I am."
Harry heard the hesitation in her statement and drew back, looking at her. "Friends. You mean women? Laura, is that what you think I did while I was gone? Spent all my time with old girl friends? Is *that* what all of this is about?"
"Let's just drop it, okay?" Laura said, pulling back toward her corner of the limo. "It's not important."
"It's bloody well important to *me*," Harry thought, watching her closed expression. Before he'd left for London, they had dinner together every night, ending at either at his place or hers. While they hadn't crossed the line into bed, Harry had curbed his impatience and reminded himself that some prizes were worth the price of a few sleepless nights. He had been half way certain that upon his return Laura would be ready to take that next step in their relationship.
He'd been very disappointed when she hadn't called him as he'd asked her to. But he'd laid it to the increase in business that the Agency had seen after the Oliver matter. She was a busy businesswoman, and he couldn't expect her to drop everything anymore than she would expect him to do the same for her.
But something *had* happened. He would have bet everything he owned that she'd been glad to see him when he had arrived at the Agency. That gladness had quickly vanished, and the walls that he'd painstakingly begun to dismantle were back in place. Perhaps he'd made a mistake in going to London so soon after moving to Los Angeles. But that paperwork had be signed in person, in front of specific witnesses, people who hadn't been able to go to Los Angeles easily.
He winced as Laura's hand fell on his arm and squeezed it, nearly cutting off the circulation. "There she is," Laura announced as another cab pulled up to the room into which Markham had vanished.
A black clad woman exited the cab and went to the room, knocking once before the door was opened for her.
Laura grabbed the door handle, and opened the door of the limo, but Harry stopped her. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to find out what's going on. That *is* what the Agency was hired to do, remember?" She shook off his hand and got out, leaving him no choice but to follow.
"Keep the motor running, Fred," Harry muttered. "We might need to make a quick getaway."
"Will do, sir," Fred responded in a dead-pan voice.
Harry caught up with Laura as she ducked behind a van, her eyes moving from the waiting taxi to the closed door of Room 15. "Laura, there's no way you're going to get close enough to overhear whatever is going on in there. Why don't we wait til the lady comes out and then follow *her*?" he suggested.
Laura looked at the door, then at Harry. "You're right. I let myself be blinded by my anger that someone is playing us on this case. I don't know if it's our client- *my* client," she corrected, "or Elliot Markham. But I don't like the Agency being used."
They took a step back toward the limo, but the door to Room 15 opened. The woman's voice was raised in anger. "I said get it, Elliot. I don't care how, but get it. Or I'll make good on my threat."
Harry pulled Laura back into hiding behind the van until they heard the door close and the taxi leaving. Then they made a mad dash for the limo. "Fred-" Laura began as Harry closed the door behind them.
"I know, Miss Holt. Follow that taxi."
"You're learning, Fred," Laura said, sitting back, her gaze on the car that was already half a block in front of them. "I think they're making a left. Don't lose her."
Fred turned the corner, then another, until the taxi came to a stop before a seedy looking hotel. The woman paid the driver and left the car to enter the building. Laura practically pushed Harry out of the limo and toward the hotel.
The lobby was dark, allowing the duo to hide behind a wilting plant near a column with peeling paint to watch the woman move toward the elevator. But the desk clerk called out as he looked up from the television he was watching. "Miss Smith!"
Laura and Harry looked at each other and questioned soundlessly, "*Smith*?" The woman detoured to the desk, not speaking. "You have a message." He handed her an envelope, then kept his hand out as if he expected something for his trouble. But the woman simply turned back toward the elevator and pressed the button to summon it. The clerk shrugged and went back to watching the TV.
Getting across the lobby wasn't as difficult as it seemed like it would be, since a group of men left the elevator when it arrived to cross the lobby. They were all drunk, and talking loudly. The clerk glared at their interruption of his television show when one of them hit the desk with his hand. "Hey! Where can someone go around here to find some company, pal?"
Laura gave Harry's hand a tug and led him toward the stairs beside the elevator. Inside the well, he asked, "How do you know which floor she went to?"
"I don't. But I'll check every floor if I have to-"
"Laura, you can't do a door to door search of this place. If those gentlemen downstairs were any indication of this establishment's clientele, -"
"I can take care of myself," Laura reminded him. "If being among the lower end of society makes you nervous, you're welcome to return to the limo and wait for me."
"I'm not nervous," Harry insisted. "Just wondering how you're going to find a needle in a haystack."
She opened the first doorway and looked up and down the hallway. "Nothing," she told him. "Let's go on."
After they climbed to the roof, with no sign of "Miss Smith", Laura was forced to admit that they had lost her.
"Tomorrow morning, I'm going to pay a little visit to Miss Markham," she decided as they went back down the stairs and crossed the lobby where the drunken revelers were still badgering the hapless clerk. "I think it's time I got some answers to some questions."
Harry got into the limo and sat back. "Tortino's, Fred," he told the driver.
Laura sat up- "What? I told you-"
"You have to eat. And I'm famished. Might as well share some linguini and a bottle of wine over a candle lit table, eh? And I'll tell you all about my visit to London. Every last detail."
To Be Continued ---