That act of vandalism puzzled a little of the steam out of him. Before the pressure could build again, he had a waiter — a real one — on each arm.
I turned to give Dabney a choice word or two. The borrowed tray and napkin occupied his previous spot on the balding carpet. Of the man himself, there was no sign.
3.
When I started to look around for Dabney, everyone who noticed me at it pointed the same way: toward the club’s front door. The man in charge of that door confirmed the bad news. Dabney had grabbed another party’s cab and sped away. For a crisp new five, the doorman remembered the destination Dabney had given the cabbie. It was another nightclub, Don the Beachcomber’s, on McFadden.
I dallied long enough to collect our hats and then set out in my LaSalle, a sleek prewar coupe that was the brainchild of that genius designer I mentioned earlier, Harley Earl. The drive to McFadden took less than no time, but even that was too long. At Don’s, a club that looked like it had been flown in complete from Key West, I learned that Dabney had been turned away due to the damage he’d caused on a prior visit. He’d sawed partially through the seats of several of the club’s rattan chairs with his trusty penknife. The weight of their next occupants had completed the gag.
The guy who had bounced Dabney on that occasion took pity on me and recommended I try Nick’s Hideaway, another place from which Dabney had been banned. The bouncer’s theory was that the little humorist — whom he called a “bedbug“ — would naturally go where he wasn’t wanted. I decided to trust his judgment, since the alternative was confessing all to Paddy.
After the big nightclubs had established themselves on Sunset, smaller ones had popped up on the hills behind the boulevard. These had both fed off the overflow and taken advantage of a wartime tendency among the stars to seek out quieter watering holes. I hadn’t been around to follow that trend, so I’d never been to Nick’s Hideaway. It turned out to be a Spanish-looking stucco building with an authentic red tile roof and inauthentic striped awnings, all of it spotlit in a way that belied the hideaway part of its name.
The inside was much darker and quiet, so quiet that I despaired of finding Dabney. The first guy I asked was a thin citizen in a suit whose jacket was overly wide in the shoulders and so long it came down almost to his knees. His trousers were as tight at the cuffs as jodhpurs. He was standing at a window next to the front door, peering through a gap in its gauzy curtains.
“Don’t work here,” he said in a south-of-the-border accent. Then he undercut his claim by exiting through a door marked Private.
I left my hat on the counter of an unmanned coat check and entered the main room, where a decent combo was playing to a smallish crowd. Their current effort was “Sophisticated Lady,” a Duke Ellington song I’d loved ever since I’d heard Lillian Roth warble it in a Vitaphone short. My visit to the Trocadero had made me sensitive to signs of decay, and I saw them all around me at Nick’s, which had last been painted around the time I’d landed on Utah Beach. I decided that the place was yet another Hollywood hopeful who would soon be looking for a fresh start, which made us soul mates.
I asked after Dabney at the bar and was told he hadn’t been there and wouldn’t get in if they saw him coming. The bartender didn’t describe Dabney’s past offense in detail, except to say it may have involved Jeanette MacDonald and a seltzer bottle.
I sat there smoking a Lucky and trying to think of my next move. I could wear out my very valuable tires trying to hit every gin joint in greater Los Angeles. Or I could call the cops to see if anyone had reported a riot. Or I could call Paddy and make a clean breast of things. I was looking toward the phone booth near Nick’s entrance when a lady I knew came in. It was the woman of the jade necklace from Ciro’s. She was accompanied by the guy she’d been dancing with there, who was peering around now through gold-rimmed specs like he was appraising the joint.
I wasn’t surprised to see them. If you went nightclubbing in as small a town as Hollywood, you could expect to bump into the same nomads once or twice in the course of your evening. That reflection made me think that my best plan might be to stay where I was and let Dabney come to me. I was still mulling it over when a guy sat down next to me and asked to share my ashtray.
“I’m Nick Sebastian, the owner,” he said. “I understand you’re looking for Claude Dabney. You his keeper?”
I gave him my name and Hollywood Security’s. I would have shown him a card, too, only Paddy hadn’t issued mine yet.
Sebastian nodded through that and said, “I came by to offer to hold on to Dabney for you, if he should stumble in. I’m guessing the object is to keep him out of the jug.”
“And the hospital,” I said, thinking of the punch the little man had courted at the Troc.
Sebastian, a sad-eyed, slightly overweight guy, gave his jowls a shake. “If you ask me, a hospital is where he belongs, one with bars on the windows. That liver of his isn’t going to last forever.”
I’d been keeping one eye on the front door in case that endangered liver sauntered through. So I caught the entrance of another Ciro’s alumnus. It was the kid in the dark suit who’d shared the bar with Dabney and me. The one who’d been told to memorize the woman in the green dress.
4.
The kid scanned the main room, spotted the jade woman and her escort at their ringside table, and sat down at the bar a few stools from the club owner and me.
“Friends of yours?” Sebastian asked.
“Nope,” I said. And then, “Excuse me.”
The combo was taking a break, and the audience was stirring itself, looking around for the powder room or the coat room or just doing a little table hopping. It was the natural moment for me to say hello to old friends, even ones I didn’t actually know.
These friends were laughing as I walked up to their table, though I thought the woman’s titter was less than sincere. That judgment might have been colored by one I’d arrived at when they’d entered, which was that she was far too pretty for her companion.
“I beg your pardon,” I said when they realized I wasn’t the waiter. “I wonder if I might have a word with you.”
I’d addressed the lady, but the wearer of the gold eyeglasses answered me. He had wavy hair and a shade less jaw than he needed to support his attitude. “What’s this regarding, Mr...?”
“Elliott,” I said. “Scott Elliott.” I waited for them to recognize the name and told myself I had to stop doing that. “I guess it’s regarding a warning.”
“A warning?” the woman repeated. “Friendly or unfriendly?”
“Extra friendly.”
“Please sit down,” she said, with a warmth in her voice that convinced me the laughter I’d heard earlier had been pure tin. I didn’t often notice a lady’s ears, not for the first date or two, but I noticed hers. Her dark hair being up put those ears on display, and it had been worth the effort, as they were delicate, perfectly shaped, and — backlit by the glow of the stage — as translucent as fine china. In contrast, her full lips had been designed for heavy service and rouged for it, too. Her brown eyes, under long, natural lashes, were green around the irises, the color brought out by her gown. And the jade, of course.
“We should introduce ourselves,” my hostess said. “My name is Evelyn Lantrip. This is my brother, David Beeler.”
She explained the difference in their last names by uncovering her left hand — formerly under her right — and displaying a wedding ring I should have noticed a lot sooner.
“I’m visiting from Kansas City,” she added. “David is showing me the town.”