“Good heavens, you are different!” she exclaimed.
“I’m not. You are. Remember, it’s entertainment. I was going to a movie but this should be more fun.”
“More romantic,” she promised. “You see, I won’t have to submit the script to the Breen office. The movies would.”
We went a block and a half to another cocktail bar. These cocktails had liquor in them. Lucille drew on her imagination for a story of lurid romance. The details didn’t always fit here and there, but she took great pains to let me know that, when she went, she went all the way.
She was a nice girl with a good figure, swell eyes, and after the second cocktail I could see she had a plan.
We went to dinner. Lucille wanted more cocktails. Then she wanted Scotch and soda.
She went to the powder-room and I saw her manage to slip the waiter a note and a few words.
I called the waiter over to the table. “What did the girl want?” I asked.
He looked innocent. “Nothing,” he said.
“She gave you five dollars,” I told him. “For what?”
He coughed apologetically.
I took out my wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar note.
He grinned and said, “Whenever she ordered Scotch and soda, I was to bring her plain pale ginger ale.”
I handed him the ten and said, “Double it.”
“You mean you want pale ginger ale too?”
“Yes.”
“The prices will have to be those of Scotch and sodas,” he warned.
“Certainly,” I told him.
We finished dinner and consumed pale ginger ale. She drank hers and pretended to get a little tipsy, watching me like a hawk when she thought I wasn’t looking.
I drank my pale ginger ale and pretended to get a little tipsy, watching her when I knew damn well she wasn’t looking.
It was a Saturday night. While this was more expensive than a movie, it had more suspense, and, as she had so aptly pointed out, the script hadn’t been passed on by the Breen office.
When the floor show started, she started for the rest-room, detoured, glided out of the door and was gone for twenty minutes.
When she came back, she said, “Miss me? I’ve been ill. I get that way when I try to pour it in too fast.”
“Sure I missed you,” I assured her, “but there was a striptease on. I liked it. She was beautiful.”
“Oh, so you fall for the striptease numbers.”
“Yes.”
“The strip or the tease?”
“I guess it’s the tease, but I wouldn’t like to be teased if they didn’t strip.”
“However, I suppose you could stand the strip if they didn’t tease.”
I pondered that. “Frankly, I hadn’t given the matter that much consideration.”
“You would if you were a woman,” she said. “Let’s have some more dizzy water. I’m getting sober. I won’t drink so fast now.”
Two
Lucille Hart was smiling at me with her best imitation of loose-lipped friendliness.
“I like you,” she said.
“I like you.”
She put her hand over mine. “Have a Hart,” she said.
“Yes, Miss Hart,” I told her.
She giggled. “Know what?”
“What?”
“I’ve got to go home.”
“I’ll take you.”
“I’ve got my sister’s car. I was s’posed to deliver it by eight o’clock. I guess it’s past that now, isn’t it?”
“Nine five.”
“Ouch! I didn’t know it was so late. Time flies, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Look,” she said, “you’re more sober than I am, aren’t you?”
I regarded her owlishly and said, “Fifty-fifty.”
She giggled again. “Look, you drive the car. What we do, we drive to my sister’s house and then my brother-in-law picks up the car and drives us back.”
“Is your brother-in-law going to like me?”
She made a raspberry with her lips.
“What’s his name?”
“Dover Fulton.”
“Meaning he won’t like me?”
“Probably not. He likes him. You will, won’t you?”
“What?”
“Drive.”
“Okay,” I said. “Where do they live?”
“San Robles.”
“That’s way out,” I told her.
“Not so far. Listen, Donald, you going to let me pay the check?”
“Nope. It’s my party.”
“It’s mine.”
“Mine,” I said.
I summoned the waiter and paid the check. We walked a block to a parking lot and she gave me the ticket. I walked down with the attendant when he went to get the car and looked at the certificate of registration fastened to the column of the steering wheel. It showed the car was registered in the name of Dover Fulton, and the address was 6285 Orange Avenue, San Robles.
So far everything checked. That bothered me. In keeping with the picture, that car should have been as hot as a firecracker.
We eased the car out of the parking lot, and I opened the door for Lucille to get in.
I didn’t like it. I wanted a witness. I stopped at a service station and told the attendant I thought we needed air in the rear tyres. I walked around behind the car with him, pushed two dollars into his hand, and said in a loud voice, “Go ahead and drive, Lucille. Since you say it’s your sister’s car, I’d much prefer to have you drive it.”
She shook her head, her chin drooped forward on her chest.
“You’re all right. You aren’t too drunk. You can drive.”
“Sure I’m a’righ’. But I ain’t gonna.”
I didn’t buy any petrol. The attendant would remember me and remember the argument. I winked at him and said “Okay, I’ll drive if you insist, but I’m doing it under protest.”
“It’s all right.”
“This is your brother-in-law’s car?”
“My sister’s car,” she said. “Dover said it hadda be registered in his name. He’s a kind has to be big shot. Otherwise Dover won’t play. M’ sister’s money paid for it — Dover Fulton!” she said, and her voice had a note of disgust.
The attendant washed off the windscreen, puttered around the headlights. I snapped on the petrol gauge, looked at it, smiled, shook my head, and we went away from there.
I saw Lucille looking me over, studying me carefully.
“You’re not tight, are you?”
I said, “Whenever I get my hands on the steering wheel of an automobile I sober up.”
“But you can feel the stuff sloshing around inside of you, can’t you?”
“Sure.”
“That’s a’ right, then,” she said, and settled down with her head on my shoulder.
We went out the freeway and hit the Valley Boulevard. “Slow down,” Lucille said sharply.
“Why?”
“I’m lonesome.”
I slowed down.
She crawled up against me, her hands clinging to my arm. She said, “Pull off to the side of the road and kiss me.”
I pulled off to the side of the road and kissed her. It was quite a kiss.
Ahead, on the right, I saw the neon sign, ‘KOZY DELL SLUMBER COURT’ and down underneath it a sign that said, ‘Vacancy’.
“Drive on slow,” she said.
I drove on.
“Stop the car,” she commanded. “Right here.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t feel well. I’m... Oh, Donald, I’m so lonesome, and I’m afraid I’m going to have a horrible hangover tomorrow. Drive off the road,” she said. “Here, drive in here.”
“That’s an auto court.”
“Well?” she asked.
I said, “I just wondered.”
“I’ve got to get off the road. They’ll have a rest-room here,” she said.
I turned the car into the auto court.