Free Sinful Woman by James M. Cain

stratagems developed by the whole inner arcanum of insurance agents, any known method of throwing him out.
    He didn’t address Dmitri at once; indeed, he didn’t seem to pay any attention to Dmitri. Instead, he drummed on the desk with annoyed finger tips, then lifted the receiver and asked for a number. When it answered he said: “Sheriff Lucas, please—Layton calling, George Layton of Southwest General ... Well listen, sweetie, I don’t like to get disagreeable about it, but haven’t you any idea at all where he is, or when he’ll be in, or how I can get hold of him? ... No, there’s no way he can reach me . I’ll be on the move all afternoon and there’s no use having him call ... I’m sorry too, and I suppose you’re doing your best and that God loves you or somebody does, but you’re putting me to one awful lot of unnecessary trouble.”
    Hanging up, he spoke with the baffled weariness of one who has puzzled over human nature all his life, but can still make no sense out of it: “Maybe you can figure this one out. Sheriff Parker Lucas. If there’s been any time in the last two years when you couldn’t see that longlegged jerk anywhere you went, with his hand out for a cigar, a drink, a phone number, or what have you, I don’t know when it could have been. But now, on a murder case, when I want him, when I’d like something for my vote, try and find him. It’s a great life if you like a great life. Personally, I’d rather see a picture.”
    On the word murder , which was the only part of this elaborate harangue that mattered, he saw Dmitri’s eyes leave the map and stare glassily at the wall. He lifted the phone, rang Miss Jennifer again, asked airily if the sheriff had called. Then he went out, paid the operator for his calls. Then he went in the gentlemen’s room, combed his hair, whistled The Minstrel Boy. When he came out, Tony and Dmitri were in a corner of the casino, whispering. He went into the office, called the apartment where he lived, and where he knew there would be nobody. He was holding the receiver to his ear, frowning at getting no answer, when Dmitri came into the room and went to the map again. But he looked up pleasantly when Dmitri said: “You been to Goldfield?”
    “Oh yeah, plenty of times.”
    “They have a hotel there, yes?”
    “The old brick hotel, it’s still there. Little more hotel than Goldfield needs right now, but they’ll take care of you.”
    “Always wanted to see this place. Doch , it’s impossible to start now. I want to see the Sharf, too. What makes you think it’s a murder case?”
    “Think? I know.”
    “You talked to the police, yes?”
    “Yeah, I talked to them, but I generally always haven’t got time to wait for the police to wake up. Insurance is my line. Southwest General of N. A., and when you’ve handled as many cases as I have, you know and you don’t even know how you know. You just smell it.”
    “I don’t smell nothing, myself.”
    “To me, it’s quite a stink.”
    There was a long pause, while Mr. Layton set his heels on the desk and lit a cigar. When he could see through the wreathing smoke, he noted that Tony was in the room. Then, with the air of one who regretfully pronounces a final judgment on a matter long since closed, he said: “Her big mistake was making it accident. That gets an insurance company a little sore. Now if he was just dead, then O. K., he had to die sometime, and we were on the risk. But when she made it accident, that made the big accident-and-health bond operative, and that makes a difference of fifty thousand bucks. Well, that’s just too bad.”
    “ ... She? Who are you talking about?”
    “Shoreham. The widow.”
    “You mean she made it accident?”
    “She gets the dough, don’t she? As beneficiary?”
    “How can you talk that way?”
    “What have you got to do with it?”
    Mr. Layton snapped this at Dmitri sharply, as though his discussing the case at all were a very suspicious