“I’ve only a minute, Iva,” Spade said patiently. “What is it?”
“Who is she?” she repeated, nodding at the street door.
He looked away from her, down the street. In front of a garage on the next corner an undersized youth of twenty or twenty-one in neat grey cap and overcoat loafed with his back against a wall. Spade frowned and returned his gaze to Iva’s insistent face. “What is the matter?” he asked. “Has anything happened? You oughtn’t to be here at this time of night.”
“I’m beginning to believe that,” she complained. “You told me I oughtn’t to come to the office, and now I oughtn’t to come here. Do you mean I oughtn’t to chase after you? If that’s what you mean why don’t you say it right out?”
“Now, Iva, you’ve got no right to take that attitude.”
“I know I haven’t. I haven’t any rights at all, it seems, where you’re concerned. I thought I did. I thought your pretending to love me gave me—”
Spade said wearily: “This is no time to be arguing about that, precious. What was it you wanted to see me about?”
“I can’t talk to you here, Sam. Can’t I come in?”
“Not now.”
“Why can’t I?”
Spade said nothing.
She made a thin line of her mouth, squirmed around straight behind the wheel, and started the sedan’s engine, staring angrily ahead.
When the sedan began to move Spade said, “Good night, Iva,” shut the door, and stood at the curb with his hat in his hand until it had been