"That's where I went. The key wouldn't open the door. I looked at the tag and saw it was for Seven B, so I thought you made a mistake about which place was empty. Don't worry. She wasn't there. A fellow named Griff, who seems to live in Seven C, saw my car and the open door and he straightened me out."
"She does go away quite often on trips." She spoke over her shoulder as she headed to the wall panel. She took the key from the Seven B hook and said, "This is the one I meant to give you. Darn it! It must be that maybe when Fred was sweeping up he knocked them off with the broom handle or something and put them back wrong." She stood there checking the other tags. "I guess the rest are okay. Do you want to look at Five B now?"
"I guess not. It's the same layout as Miss Western's?"
"The color scheme will be different, of course. "Has she lived there long?"
She looked at the card again. "Almost two years."
"Well, she certainly keeps it clean and tidy."
"You were asking about maid service. I see here that she has a maid who comes in. We have to keep a record, so we'll know who's been given permission to go into the units. Are you interested, Mr. McGee?"
"Very much. There's just one other place I wanted to check, mostly because I promised I would, but I think I'll settle for Five B."
"Then you ought to grab it now. This time of year they don't stay empty long."
"How long would fifty hold it, not returnable?"
"Let's say... since this is Thursday, until Saturday noon? Then if you take it, it applies to the rent. You would owe... an additional two eighty-four seventy five, with the tax, and forty dollars deposit for the utilities. We handle getting them hooked up in your name. But you take care of the phone yourself."
"Can you give me the maid's name?"
"Of course. Here. I'll write the name and address on the back of your receipt."
"Fine."
"She's a colored girl. She works for some of our other people too." I started the car and put the air-conditioning on high, both vents aimed at my face, before I drove away, I had the name of the maid. Mrs. Noreen Walker, 7930 Fifth Street, Arlentown. 881-6810. I tucked the slip in my pocket, and from a drugstore in the corner shopping plaza I dialed the number.
Noreen, she be back along six o'clock from the bus, she workin' today."
So I used my afternoon time in sorting out the bars and cocktail lounges. You can make a guess from the way they are on the outside, from the names they put on them, but can't be certain. You have to go in. You don't have to k. Certainly not in the ones you can check off at first glance. You just go look up an imaginary name in their book and walk back out. I had no interest in the ones, the ones with the neighborhood flavor and neighborhood trade, cute signs about credit, bartender bejolly uncle, general conversations including everyone in the bar, and generally a couple of massive women named or Sade or Pearl bulging over the edges of their bar drinking draft beer and honking their social-hour drinks.
five-thirty I had found four probables. They were all two miles of Cove Lane. They all had certain things in common. Carefully muted g, spotless glassware, premium brands in the bottle uniform jackets on the bartenders, carpeting, no television cocktail piano, dim and intimate banquette rooms flavor of profitable professional operation. And they had another factor I was looking for. You feel it in the back neck. A sense of being appraised, added up. Plymouth over ice. At The Ember Room, the shot was slightly stingy, and high. At The Annex the fee was a dollar. The gin was poured free hand into a squat thick-based tumbler, a knock better than two ounces, I estimated. The cheese spread in a brown pot was sharp and good. Couples sat in shadowy corners, heads close together, and they were served by cocktail waitresses in white leotards and high heeled white sandals. Two stools away two florid men in business suits were arguing intensely about one of the provisions of a Swiss corporate setup. A slender girl with a very deep tan and a cap of curls white as snow, and an evening gown with only a double thickness of gray netting over breasts as brown as her arms, noodled a little golden piano on a raised dais, under a small rose-colored spot in a corner beyond the bar, making mouths to match the music. The bartender at my end had the happy face of a young well-fed weasel. I left him a dollar bonus for the single drink to keep my image green.
The bar was attached to one of the glossier motels. I went through into the motel and made some casual conversation with a desk man with a faint smell of authority about him. I got around to my key questions, I learned that the management operated the dining room and the room-service liquor, but 'The Annex ', was on consignment.
Suspicion confirmed. The Annex would have a few sidelines going for it. The casual customer gets a heavy knock, good service in elegant surroundings! The aim would be to make just the costs on that business. The profit would come out of the live ones live, fat and unwary. Must keep careful watch, sort them out, steer them into whatever matches their vulnerability. Broads or beach boys, dice or cards, all staged elsewhere. It was nicely named. This was The Annex. The action was in other rooms, other places.
The shuffle is available everywhere, from Vegas to Chicago, to Cleveland. Sometimes it's a little smoother than in other places. Electronic technology has improved the efficiency.
I had to find out if Noreen Walker could fill in any blanks. Arlentown was the dusky suburb of Broward Beach, west of the city. The Street improved as I neared her block. The little frame rental cottages were more recently painted, the fences in repair, the yards free of old auto parts.
I parked in front of her place in the evening slant of sunshine, aware of eyes watching me from up and down the block. I got out and stood at the white gate, knowing there would be no need to push it open and walk to the porch. A heavy woman, very dark of skin, wearing a cotton print, plodded out onto the porch and said, "You about the phone again?"
"I want to talk to Noreen."
"She lives here. She my middle daughter. What about?"
"About some work out at the beach."
"Sure then," she said. "Just come home. Changing her clothes." She went back in.
I went back to the car and sat behind the wheel, leaned and swung the passenger door open. Through the open door, in a few moments, I saw her come down the porch steps, push the gate open, come to the car, her head tilted in inquiry. She wore blue sandals, bermuda shorts, a pale blue knit sleeveless blouse with a turtleneck collar. She was a tall slender young woman, very long-legged and short-waisted. She was lighter than her mother, her skin the tone of an old penny. She had a slanted saucy Negroid face, the broad nostrils and heavy lips. Her eyes were set very wide, and were a pronounced almond shape, and very pretty. Her breasts poked sharply against the knit fabric.
"Askin' fo' me, mister?"
"I phoned earlier and somebody told me you'd be home round six."
"Wantin' maid work done at the beach?" She was bending, peering in at me, manifestly suspicious.
"Would you please get into the car and sit for a minute, Mrs. Walker?"