The Leander pearls
I was sitting in my of&’e, busy doing nothing. No phone ialh. no niesagrs. Nobody in Los Angeles seemed to need a privaic deteiive toda.
A warm wind blew in at the window, bringing with it the smell of the oil-burners from the hotel opposite.
I was just thinking about going to lunch when Kath Home ame in.
Kathy was a tall blonde with sad eyes who had oiicc been a polkewontan. She lost 1er oh when she married a cheap little crook called Johnny I lornc, hoping to make him mm an honest man. Now Johnny was hack in prison again, and Kathy worked at the Mansion House Hotel across the road. selling cigars, and waiting to try agaili with Johnny.
She sat down and lit a cigarette.
‘I)iJ you ever hear of the I e,indcr pearls?’ slw asked. ‘God, that old blue suit of yuuls is so shmv. You rnList have mone in the hank, the clothes you wear.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘to both your ideas. I never heard of the Lcandcr pearls, and I don’t havr any money in the baiik.’
I hen ma ybe you’d like lu make y urseII a ciii ol twcntI nc grand.’
I put my cigarette out. How was Kathy Home going to put her hands on twenty- tve thousand dollars?