As she led him into the restaurant, a fat, smiling Maître d’, bowed to her. His black eyes ran over Frost, then he gave him a little bow. With his right hand held high, he conducted them along the aisle between the tables. As Frost followed Marcia’s swinging hips, he glanced round. This was some joint, he thought. In the centre of the vast room there was a playing fountain, the cascade of water kept changing colours. In the big pool, containing the fountain, was a tiny island on which stood a grand piano. A thickset, coloured man played immaculate swing: gently and softly. Frost regarded the people at the tables: fat, thin, all bronzed, all in sun dress: women in bikinis or halters and slacks: the men, hairy chested, in shorts. Some of them raised languid hands, some holding fat cigars, as Marcia progressed towards a table away from the pool. She waved, twitched her hips, and reaching the table, she sat down in a blue and gold armchair. Frost, slightly dazed by the opulence of the room, dropped into a chair at her side.
The Maître d’ flicked his fingers and the wine waiter appeared.
What the hell is this going to cost me? Frost thought uneasily and mentally fingered his billfold.
‘Gin or whisky?’ Marcia asked him.
‘Whatever you have,’ Frost said.
‘Martini gin,’ Marcia said, smiling at the wine waiter. ‘The usual, Freddy.’
The wine waiter bowed and went away.
‘Relax, honey,’ Marcia said, laying a cool hand on Frost’s wrist. ‘I own this dump. Everything is for free.’
Frost gaped at her.
‘You own this place? You must be kidding!’
She giggled.
‘Fact... it’s a story. Let’s eat. I’m starving.’ She patted his wrist. ‘Let me order, honey. I check the menu every day. Okay?’
‘Go ahead. You really mean...’
The Maître d’ moved forward.
‘Gaston, we’ll have the prawn salad with the trimmings, the duck in that tricky brandy and cherry sauce and coffee.’ She looked at Frost. ‘Sounds right? You can have anything else if you don’t like duck.’
‘Sounds fine.’
The Maître d’ went away.
‘You really mean you own this place?’ Frost said, staring around.
She nodded, sipped her martini, then sat back.
‘It’s a story, honey. Three years ago, I worked Miami. I had a pad on the second floor in a quiet side street. I was doing all right, making around two grand a week. One night, a guy propositioned me.’ She laughed. ‘This guy was really kinky. He said he would be outside my complex every Sunday morning at nine o’clock. All he wanted me to do was to show myself at the window and wave him away. That’s all he wanted. For that, he left five hundred bucks in my mailbox. The longer I kept him waiting before I waved him away, the better he liked it. This went on for eighteen months. It used to half kill me, dragging myself out of bed at nine in the morning, but the bread was sweet. Then one day, he wasn’t there. You know, after all that time, I missed the freak. Then his attorney wrote, telling me his client had died and had left me this joint Now can you believe that?’
‘You mean this freak actually left you this setup in his will?’
Marcia nodded.
‘That’s what he did.’
Looking around the lush restaurant, envy gnawed at Frost.
‘There are times when I wish I’d been born a woman!’
Marcia laughed.
The prawns were served, and they began eating.
‘You... born a woman? Don’t kid yourself, honey. To be a successful career girl, you have to take a lot. Girls always get the shitty end of the stick.’ She grimaced. ‘Okay, I’ve been lucky, but I’ve earned my luck. I’m twenty-five. In another five years, I plan to retire. I own this place. I’m learning to run it. Then...’ She paused to heave a sigh. ‘No more freaks. No more filthy old men. No more being scared of a sick with a knife.’ She looked at him, her eyes serious. ‘Don’t ever wish you were born a girl.’
Frost thought about this, but he wasn’t convinced. To own a lush joint like this! Again envy gnawed at him.
‘Now tell me about your job,’ Marcia said.
Six hundred a week! he thought, and this hooker must earn thousands! He ate. The big prawns were succulent, but envy had dried his mouth.
The wine waiter poured a chilled Chablis, then moved away.
‘Well, it’s not much,’ Frost said. ‘I got myself a job guarding a wop’s daughter.’
‘A wop? Who?’
‘Carlo Grandi. He’s supposed to be a big shot in Italy. He’s scared his daughter will be snatched.’
‘Carlo Grandi?’ Her voice shot up a note. ‘A big shot? Honey! He is Italy’s Big Shot. You really mean Joe’s fixed you to work for Grandi?’
‘Yeah, but what’s so hot about that? Okay, Grandi has quite a place and he seems loaded, but the job’s only worth six hundred a week.’
Marcia conveyed a prawn to her mouth.
‘You have yourself a job, honey!’
‘You think so? Six a week? You must be making thousands.’
She regarded him thoughtfully.
‘What so wrong about six hundred a week?’
‘I’ve got ambitions.’ He continued to eat. Then after a pause, he went on, ‘I want to live like these slobs,’ and he waved a hand to take in the whole of the restaurant. ‘I want real money, not a crappy six hundred a week.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ She finished the prawn salad and leaned back in her chair. ‘But, honey, use your head. You have your foot in the door. You’ve started right. Tell me about the job. What do you do?’
Frost told her. He was still telling her when the duck was served.
‘Have you met Grandi’s daughter?’ Marcia asked as they began to eat.
‘Not yet. Marvin tells me she has hot pants.’ Frost grinned. ‘That’s something I could take care of for her.’
‘Not with Amando around.’
Startled, Frost stared at her.
‘You know about him?’
‘Honey, I know everyone around here. It’s my business. I have a date with that creep every first Saturday of the month.’ Marcia pulled a face. ‘There’s a cold fish: strictly an in and out job: nothing fancy: just letting off steam, but he pays.’
‘He’s right out of a horror film.’
‘You can say that again.’ She smiled at him. ‘How about Marvin, the other guard? Do you jell with him?’
Frost shrugged.
‘I wouldn’t know yet. It’s early days. From what I’ve seen of him he is a dedicated cop: a guy without ambition.’ He ate, then said, ‘This duck is fantastic.’
‘All the food here is fantastic.’ She paused to look directly at him. ‘Honey, you shouldn’t gripe. Sitting in a chair, just watching, getting well fed and well paid, isn’t something to gripe about, is it?’
‘I’ve got big ideas. I look around. You, and everyone around here, are loaded. Grandi! A goddam wop! It kills me to think a wop could have so much money.’
‘He worked for it, honey. I worked for what I’ve got. What you put in, you take out. If you want real money, begin to think what you can put in.’
Frost scowled.
‘You sound just like my jerk of a father. He was always yakking about putting in and taking out. He put in, sweating his stupid guts out fourteen hours a day, but he never took out.’ Frost clenched his fists as he thought back into the past. ‘My father! Now there was the original pea brain! Don’t feed me this crap about putting in and taking out. That’s strictly for the birds!’
The waiter came and removed the plates. Frost sat back and looked around the lush room. This was his scene! This must be his future background if he could only find the key to the fast buck. His mind floated around his ambitions: to own a villa like Grandi’s, to own a big motor cruiser, a Lamborghini, to snap his fingers to have a doll drop on her back, and to have big money to spend.