A Midwesterner, I thought, suppressing a sigh. “Mr. Lantrip doesn’t dance?”
“Doesn’t even travel,” his wife said.
Her brother was less patient with personal questions. “About this warning.”
“Right. I happened to be in Ciro’s earlier this evening while you were there. I overheard two men discussing your necklace. Specifically, how much it was worth. One of them followed you here. The crewcut at the bar.”
Brother and sister exchanged a glance and maybe a ghost of a smile, though I convinced myself that I’d been wrong about that when Mrs. Lantrip’s tone became serious. “You’re concerned about a robbery? That’s sweet of you, Mr. Elliott. I guess it was foolish of me to wear this, but it’s the nicest thing I own. A girl from Kansas City needs all the help she can get out here.”
“Not every girl from Kansas City,” I observed.
Beeler took his absent brother-in-law’s part. “Thanks for the warning. We’ll keep our eyes open. Please don’t let us detain you.”
I wished them a good evening and returned to my seat at the bar. Nick Sebastian was still occupying the one beside it. He took up our conversation where we’d left off. “No kidding, I’ll be happy to sit on Dabney for you. Just give me a number I can call.”
Between Sebastian handing me my hat and Beeler’s bum’s rush, I was beginning to feel unwelcome. “You’re not afraid he’ll wreck the joint?”
The club owner shook his jowls again. “We’re closing to remodel in a week. I’ve picked up a silent partner with a pocketful. Dabney’s welcome to tear down anything but the bearing walls.”
We were seated with our backs to the padded bar, so when Beeler whistled up a waiter and paid their check I noticed. I looked down the row of stools in time to see the kid with the crewcut toss some bills on the bar.
I started to get up, and Sebastian put a hand on my arm. “Then again,” he said, “if you’re here when Dabney shows, it’ll be easier on me.”
Evelyn and her brother were at the exit by then. They used it without a backward glance at me. The kid followed them out.
I removed Sebastian’s hand from my sleeve. “When you make up your mind,” I said, “wire me collect.”
5.
I didn’t waste any time at the hat check; my best black snap-brim was on the counter exactly where I’d left it. Still, I barely made it outside in time to see the brother and sister team pulling away in a cab. Before I reached my LaSalle, a dark blue Plymouth coupe left the curb in the wake of the taxi.
I joined the parade, which wound through the hills without climbing much or descending to the boulevard. Eventually, I spotted the red neon sign of another nightspot, one I knew, the Arbor Supper Club. Either by design or accident, Lantrip and Beeler were moving to increasingly discreet establishments. The Arbor was so discreet it couldn’t be seen from the street. It was reached by a path that climbed through a long archway of trained bougainvillea. The cab stopped at the foot of this chute, and the lady and her escort got out. The Plymouth had pulled to the curb well before the club’s shield-shaped sign. I parked even further back.
The man who got out of the blue coupe wasn’t the one I’d been expecting, the kid I’d followed out of Nick’s. It was his shorter, broader friend from Ciro’s. He’d been using his junior partner to keep tabs on Lantrip and the jade, I decided. Now he was moving in himself. As he stepped onto the sidewalk, he yanked his hat brim down almost to his nose. If he’d covered half his face with a black bandanna, I wouldn’t have been any more sure that the feature was about to start.
To keep up with him, I had to pass within plain sight of the Plymouth and its driver. I weaved a little as I walked and whistled a few bars of “Sophisticated Lady” so I’d pass for a Dabney-in-the-making. I hadn’t forgotten about the real Dabney or my real job, though I was trying my best. But nothing, not even Paddy’s certain disapproval, could get me to put a pint-sized practical joker ahead of a damsel in distress.
The bougainvillea tunnel was inadequately lit by a series of paper lanterns. Though the ground rose steadily, there were no steps, just some flags set here and there in the grass. Muted Gershwin came down from above, sounding no louder than a neighbor’s gramophone. I started up at a trot, trying my best to step on the grass and not the stones. I hadn’t gone very far before I saw my man. He was standing still and — it seemed to me — listening. I listened too, hearing a voice only a little louder than the distant music. I had a second’s impression that the voice was familiar. Then I swung into action.
Due to the wetness behind my ears, Paddy hadn’t issued me a gun, which suited me, as I’d had my fill of them. But a gun would have been a comfort just then. I made do with my right hand stuck in my jacket pocket, supplemented by a fountain pen I’d gotten in the habit of carrying back when I was hoping to be asked for my autograph.
“Don’t move,” I growled. “You’re covered.”
The light heavyweight froze, hands at his sides.
“Forget about the jade,” I said. “The lady’s taking it back to Kansas City.”
I had more to add, maybe something about how crime didn’t pay. But just then somebody grabbed my pen arm and whirled me around.
It was the kid I’d left behind the wheel of the coupe. If he’d clouted me from behind, we would have been done. Luckily, he’d chosen to do the sporting thing and brace me face-to-face. He’d even spotted me a slight advantage, since I was above him on the hill. I counter-punched his left jab aside and landed most of a right cross.
Then something that wasn’t a fountain pen poked me in the spine. “Reach, Gentleman Jim,” the older man said.
The kid was getting up from the grass, looking a lot less sporting. His partner stopped him with a single word: “Relax.”
He patted me down, found the Waterman, and swore. “Who the hell are you?”
“Scott Elliott, Hollywood Security,” I said, thinking it might be my last chance to make that claim.
He shoved me under the nearest paper lantern. “One of Paddy Maguire’s crew? Let’s see some identification.”
“Haven’t got any yet.”
He swore again. “Another rookie.”
The kid I’d sat on the grass rubbed his jaw and looked embarrassed. I was starting to feel the same way.
“Who are you guys?” I asked.
“Truax,” the man with the gun said, tapping himself on the necktie. “He’s Riggs.” As he returned the snub-nosed revolver to his shoulder holster, he added, “We’re Hollywood Security’s competition. Only we’re legitimate.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’ll find out, if Maguire keeps you around long enough. In the meantime—”
Somewhere off in the shrubbery, a woman screamed.
6.
It was my second scream of the evening. This one was cut short before it really got going, which somehow made it worse. My two new friends took off up the path, with me a step behind them. At the head of that path was a jumpy guy with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He took one look at us and exited stage right. The scream had come from stage left, from somewhere down a gravel path that skirted the Arbor’s big bay windows. Just beyond the light they cast, we found Evelyn and Beeler.
She was seated on the gravel, nursing a bleeding lip. Beeler was staggering around, his wavy hair standing up like the back hairs of an angry cat. He was looking for something — his golden glasses, I realized. As I helped Evelyn to her feet, I noticed a second missing item. A whole lot of jade.
“He took it,” she said. “A guy with a gun.”