“Yes.”

“All right, now think a minute. If all that stuff were stacked up in one heap, instead of spread out on shelves, how much space would it take up?”

She gave me a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, could you fit it all in the trunk of a car, or would you need something bigger?”

“Oh—I see. Well, of course I don’t really know. I’d imagine if you had a big car with a big trunk compartment, and you didn’t mind stuffing wads of cash in all the funny little nooks and corners, you might get all of it in. But it would have to be big.”

“Like, say, a Cadillac?”

“I suppose so. I don’t think I’ve ever looked inside the trunk of a Cadillac.”

“Who do you know that drives a pink Cadillac?”

“I—I’m not sure I know anybody. I don’t really pay much attention to the make of cars. I can’t tell one make from another.”

Neither could I, any more. Fifteen or twenty years ago you could, but nowadays they were all pressed out by what looked like the same cheap stamp mills. I said, “Any large pink car, then. Pink cars aren’t all that common.”

She took a while to think about it and there was no doubt she was giving it full effort, but she came up empty. I said, “It’s okay,” and went back to the phone. This time I gave the switchboard Vincent Madonna’s number.

I had to run the gauntlet of Freddie, the Neanderthal, and DeAngelo, whose hoarse whisper sounded a bit out of breath, before I got put through to the big cheese. Big, I thought, green and moldy. Madonna snapped at me without friendliness and I said, “I need a fact. It may help both of us get what we’re looking for if you can answer a question.”

“Where are you?”

I grinned at the phone. “Don’t play games. You’ve got Ed Behrenman and I don’t know how many other goons glued to this place. You know damn well where I am.”

I had to hand it to him. He actually chuckled into the phone. Then he said, “What fact?”

“Who do you know that drives a pink Cadillac?”

“What?”

I just waited, seeing no point in repeating it, and after a moment his basso profundo resumed: “Offhand, I don’t know anybody who’d be seen dead in a pink Cadillac. Are you serious?”

I recalled the classic Continental in his drive and knew I’d hit on a sore spot. If Madonna had any taste, aside from his weird preoccupations with voyeurism, it seemed concentrated in his worship of fine automobiles. I could see how a car painted pink might offend him. It also indicated he would probably have noticed it if any of his acquaintances had driven into his driveway in such an abomination.

I thanked him and got off the line after he recited the expected litany of veiled threats. Naturally he didn’t commit himself to anything actionable over the telephone but the meaning was clear to both him and me. I couldn’t help feeling more shaken than ever when I hung up, and Joanne couldn’t help but notice it.

She was giving me a cool stare. She said, “So you did go to see him. What kind of deal have you made with him?”

“You don’t trust anybody, do you?”

“Simon, I want to.”

Her faith was so tattered I couldn’t keep attacking her. Instead, I gave her a brief resumé of the day’s unhappy events. I condensed it but left out nothing important. At the end I said, “There’s no question I’ve been floundering. We’re still in that boat without hooks or bait. The only clue that makes any sense is that pink Cadillac Mike saw leaving Aiello’s when he went there the second time last night. If he was telling the truth, and if it was a pink Cadillac. He was a bit vague about it and it was the middle of the night. Headlights might make a car look pink even if it was orange or red or yellow. Of course, the chances are even if we do find a pink Cadillac we’ll discover it was stolen three hours before the robbery. But it’s just about the only lead we have, and we’ve only got”—I looked at my watch—“a little over forty hours to settle this.”

I got up, picked up the .38 from the newspaper on the bed, and stuffed the gun into Joanne’s handbag. It made a tight squeeze and I thought of substituting the little .25 Beretta I’d taken from Brawley, but decided against that for a variety of reasons, one of which was that if a woman unfamiliar with guns has to shoot one, she’s better off with something that makes a lot of noise; it may scare off an attacker if it doesn’t hit him. Another was that a .38 police bullet will make a man stop and think even if it just pinks him, while a pipsqueak .25 is only a bee sting if it doesn’t hit a vital spot.

So I gave her the .38 and told her to use it if she had to, trusting she’d learned from the mistake with Brawley. When I handed her the handbag she said, “Where are we going?”

“Dinner, first. Even if we find the loot we can’t carry it on an empty stomach.”

She shuddered a little. “It’s all so—callous, Simon. We keep talking about the money and never say a word about the man who was murdered.”

I said, as harshly as I could, “I don’t gave a damn about the poor unfortunate victim and I see no reason why you should. If ever a man deserved to be killed—”

“All right,” she said, snappish. “Let’s not argue about it.”

“I just want it clear. We’re not a couple of hawkshaws investigating a murder mystery. The only reason it might help us to know who killed Aiello is that it might lead us to the loot. I’ve got no interest in bringing anybody to justice—if there is such a thing—all I care about is your life and mine. Understood?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, of course. I get stupid sometimes.”

No wonder, I thought dismally. Buffeted back and forth by one shock after another. Most of the girls I knew would have ended up in a rubber room long ago, going through what Joanne had had to suffer the past few years. Yet, through it all, she remained vivacious, even wholesome to the casual eye—certainly not undone to the point of hysteria.

I put an arm around her shoulders and held her tight, walking her to the door and outside. The sun was going down behind a layer of diaphanous cirrus clouds. I made a remark about the spectacular sunset and she was not too immersed in fright to agree, even stop a moment to stare and drink it in. With sudden savage conviction I said to myself, We will make it through this.

We ate in the motel dining room. We didn’t have much to say. I was trying to work out the next moves, and Joanne drew into herself and huddled over a whisky sour until the food came. The only time she roused herself to speak was when there was motion at the bar, beyond the fake flower planter, and she nudged me with her foot and told me not to look but she knew the girl at the end of the bar—she’d seen the girl at Aiello’s several times in company with Tony Senna. I nodded and went on chewing celery. When the time seemed right I glanced over my shoulder. She was just another girl who probably spent half her time working the bars and the men in them, a brittle, black-haired borderline alcoholic. She was making a point of not watching us, staring instead at the Geriatric Five on the bandstand. But the tip-off came when she rejected a pickup. The guy shrugged and went away.

I had spotted one outside when we’d walked to the lobby from the room—a paunchy, purple-nosed man standing with his hip against the fender of his car, trying not to look interested in us.

When we were out of his earshot Joanne had identified him for me—Ed Behrenman. So we were well-covered—Behrenman in front, with the car; the girl in the bar; watching us; and doubtless a third man somewhere in back where he could watch the room and my Jeep and Joanne’s car.

I wanted to get us out from under Madonna’s surveillance, perhaps for no reason other than that it made me nervous. But this wasn’t the place to do it. If we’d had a reliable friend with a car we might have pulled it off, and I thought of two or three but ruled them out. On the road was better, I decided. So while Joanne did her lips, I went out into the lobby and paid the room phone charges at the desk, telling the clerk we planned to leave very early in the morning and wanted to take care of this now. By the time I paid the dinner bill at the dining-room cashier’s desk, Joanne was up and walking. We went outside without paying any attention to the bar girl, who followed us at a discreet distance until she made sure we were out the front door and within Behrenman’s view.