Nancy got into the car and started the engine. Too bad this guy’s only temporary, she thought. He’s friendly, and he might know something.

By ten o’clock Nancy had driven over two hundred miles. Her money bag was full, her back was stiff, and her rear end was numb from sitting. But if Brownley was away from his desk, she wouldn’t be sitting much longer.

Turning onto McConnell, she made a pass by the garage to see if the office was empty. It was. Unfortunately, Brownley was standing just outside of it talking to a tall, thin man, who turned just then and glanced out into the street.

“Oh, no!” Nancy whispered.

It was Philip Reston. If he got a close look at her, her life wouldn’t be worth a ten-cent tip.

Chapter Twelve

Nancy eased past the garage so the sound of the motor wouldn’t attract the attention of either man. What should she do? She wasn’t sure whether Brownley had seen her.

Grabbing the mike, she called in. After a second, Brownley answered. “Hey, kid, did you just pass here?”

“Sure, on the way to twenty-five-twelve Bennett. Is something wrong with the radio? I called you three times before you answered.”

“Guess I didn’t hear you,” he said. “I was talking to somebody.”

“Oh. Sorry. Want me to call back?”

“No, I’m finished.” Just what Nancy wanted to hear. “Why don’t you knock off early? Call it a night. Come on in when you’ve finished this run. Nothing’s happening tonight.”

“Will do. One-six-one out.”

She drove a couple of blocks farther and parked long enough to put in the money her imaginary fare would have paid. Then she doubled back, edging around the corner onto McConnell again. Reston was standing by a late-model Buick parked on the street just beyond the garage. It was a dead ringer for the car that had tried to run her over the day before.

To kill more time, Nancy ran the cab through the car wash next door, sitting in the vehicle as it glided through the cycles. It seemed to take much too short a time. Reston was still out front, but she couldn’t put off going in any longer.

The Gold Star sign-a brightly lit rectangle above the broad rollup door-spilled its gaudy light into the cab as she drove under it. From the corner of her eye, Nancy saw Reston staring at her with a puzzled expression.

After a moment’s hesitation, he got in the Buick and started the engine. Nancy’s hand shook slightly as she opened the cab door. But Reston was gone. She’d survived her first shift as a Gold Star cabbie.

“Not bad, Nickerson,” Brownley said, counting her money. “Lay off that gum, and you’ll do even better.”

“I’ll think about it.” Nancy removed the cushion she’d brought from the front seat of the cab. “Where can I leave this?”

He nodded toward a bank of lockers just beyond his office. “Snag one for yourself. You have to supply your own lock, though.”

Nancy walked along the row of lockers, hoping for an empty one as close to the back of the garage as possible. The second and third from the end were available.

She crammed the cushion into one and hunted for a pen to scratch “Ellison” off the strip of adhesive tape that served as the name tag on the locker door. After squeezing “Nickerson” on it, she glanced at the names on either side-Eastman, which had a monster combination lock on the door, and Tyler, with no lock at all.

Nancy stared at it. “T. Tyler.” The doorman at Mrs. Harvey’s building had mentioned a Tyler. The same man? she wondered.

“Hey, Nickerson! Find an empty?” Brownley shouted from the office.

“Uh-yes.” Nancy slammed the door closed and ambled toward the front. Perhaps the next night she’d be able to slip away from her locker and see what else was back there in the dark.

One thing she had been able to see. The white van was gone.

“I don’t understand why you wanted me to come with you,” Ann said as the elevator in Crimson Oaks building two rose to the tenth floor.

“According to the doorman in building four, this Mr. Tyler knows your Mrs. Harvey and knows all about the accident. He may be able to convince Mrs. Harvey to talk to us.”

Ann looked doubtful. “As frightened as she sounded on the phone, it would take a subpoena to make her open up.”

“Even that might not work,” Nancy said, smiling at her. “It hasn’t worked with you.”

The elderly man who answered their knock eyed them with curiosity. He had sandy hair and laugh lines that made his face look permanently happy. “Which one of you did I talk to this morning?” he asked.

“That was me,” Nancy said. “Thank you for seeing us. I’m Nancy Nickerson, and this is Ann Granger.”

“Delighted,” he said. “Thomas Tyler at your service.”

Nancy glanced around the neat, comfortable apartment. The top of a corner table was cluttered with framed photographs, probably of his family. She walked over to it and noticed a picture of-Jim Dayton!

What was his photo doing here? She decided she’d work in the question during the course of the conversation.

“Please,” Mr. Tyler said. “Have a seat.” He seemed determined to be the perfect host. Charming and witty, he had them laughing over cups of tea for half an hour before they got around to the subject they had come to discuss.

“Mr. Tyler,” Nancy said, beginning, “did you work for the Gold Star Cab Company?”

“I was their mechanic from the first day they hit the streets until a year and a half ago, when they kicked me out. Said I should retire, and saw that I did.”

“Brownley and Reston?”

“That’s right. First they brought in a new man-to help me, they said-a thug who didn’t know a brake shoe from a bedroom slipper. Then they cut back on my hours, but they still paid me for full-time. The new man didn’t do a thing, which took care of the rolling stock. Everything began to fall apart.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Ann said.

“No, it doesn’t. Then they closed off the lower level where I was doing the maintenance work.”

Nancy held up a hand. “The street level isn’t the lowest level?”

“No, indeed. There’s a basement. The entrance was at the back on the right. You just drove on down. They put a door in there to close it up, and then they locked it. It cut the amount of our parking spaces in half, because I then had to work on the street level.”

“Why did they do that?” Nancy asked.

“I still don’t know. They fired drivers who’d been with them for years and began taking on part-timers. Then they bought new cabs, but they never used them.”

“It sounds as if they wanted to lose money,” Ann said.

“Well, they didn’t, even though the old cabs began to fall apart. You know riding in a Gold Star cab has become hazardous to your health. I even told my grandson that before he started working there.”

“Your grandson? After all you went through, why would he want to work there?” Nancy asked, now knowing Jim’s connection to Mr. Tyler.

“All Jim would say was that good-paying temp jobs are hard to come by. I know it’s only going to be a few weeks, but I still wish he hadn’t taken it.”

Nancy thought that sounded familiar. Ned was in the same predicament, only he hadn’t found a job.

A sudden suspicion began to grow in Nancy’s mind. “Were you working for Gold Star when Mrs. Harvey was hurt?”

“No, that happened a couple of months after they put me but to pasture. But of course I heard about it. Crimson Oaks is like a small town. And I felt real bad about what happened to Vera. Haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since.”

“Why?” Ann asked.

“That cab’s brakes had failed twice before I left Gold Star. I warned Brownley that they needed work. But they didn’t do a thing, Ms. Granger. Not before I left, and not after, because I saw that cab on the street.”