At first I couldn’t believe it. Then I saw from the way she walked as she headed toward the telephone that she must be the one I wanted. There was a little one-sided hitch to the walk. It wasn’t a limp, it was simply a vague stiffness as the back got in just one position.
But she wasn’t anything like Georgia Rushe had described her. She wasn’t any anemic little milksop. She was all woman, and she knew it. The cardigan suit was smooth over well-shaped hips; her chin was tilted at a saucy angle, and there was pert independence in the way she carried her head. When she walked, men turned to look at her and, in that environment, that alone spoke volumes.
While she was out at the telephone I looked at the man who was with her. He was a tall drink of water with all the robust sex magnetism of a marble slab. He looked like a bank cashier with a passion for exact figures — on paper. You couldn’t picture him as getting enthusiastic over any others. You felt certain his fingers knew their way around on the keyboard of an adding machine. He was somewhere around fifty with the expression amateur theatrical players like to assume when they’re taking the part of an English butler.
A couple of minutes later, Mrs. Crail returned to the table. The man who was with her arose and seated her with punctilious, unsmiling formality. Then he settled back in his seat and they talked in low tones.
For all of the expression on their faces, they might have been discussing the National debt.
I left the table once more, sauntered to the telephone booth and again called the office. Elsie Brand told me Bertha Cool was in now, and I told her to put Bertha on the line.
“Hello,” Bertha said. “Where the hell are you, lover?”
“Down at the Rimley Rendezvous.”
“Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a hell of a way to work on a case,” she said angrily, “sitting at a table guzzling drinks on the expense account and...”
“Shut up,” I interrupted, “and get this straight. Mrs. Ellery Crail is here with a man. I don’t think they’re going to stay long. I’d like to know who the man is. Suppose you stick around the outside, pick them up when they come out and tail them.”
“You’ve got the agency car.”
“You have your personal car, haven’t you?”
“Well... Yes.”
I said, “Mrs. Crail is about twenty-eight. She weighs a hundred and twelve pounds. She’s five foot four and a half inches tall, is dressed in a black dressy suit, a large black straw hat with a red doodad on it, red reptile shoes and a red bag.”
“The man who’s with her is fifty-two, five feet ten, a hundred and seventy-one to a hundred and seventy-five, double-breasted bluish gray suit with a white pin stripe, long nose, long jaw, an expressionless map, dark blue necktie with a red pattern in big S curves, edged with white, sandy complexion, eyes either gray or light blue, I can’t tell which at this distance.
“You can pick up the woman by watching her walk. She swings her legs from the hips. But when she swings her right leg, the left side of her back has just a slight hitch. You’ll have to watch sharp to notice it, but if you watch sharp, you will notice it.”
Bertha, somewhat mollified, said, “Well, that’s all right, if you’ve got them spotted. I’m glad you’ve accomplished something. I’ll come right down. You don’t think I’d better go inside the club and wait?”
“I wouldn’t. I’d wait on the outside. It might be a little too noticeable if you got up and went out at the same time they did. They may be just a little suspicious after that telephone call that didn’t materialize.”
“All right, lover, I’ll take care of it.”
I went back and sat down at the table. The waiter, I noticed, was watching me rather closely.
“Cigars — cigarettes?”
The voice with the smile was right over my shoulder. I turned and looked at the legs. “Hello,” I said. “I just bought a pack of cigarettes. Remember? I don’t use them up that fast.”
She leaned slightly forward, said in a low voice, “Buy another one. You seem to enjoy the scenery, and I want to talk with you.”
I started to make a wisecrack, then caught the expression in her eyes and reached in my pocket for another quarter. “It’s a fair exchange,” I said.
She placed a package of cigarettes on the table, leaned forward to take my quarter and said, “Get out!”
I raised my eyebrows at her.
She smiled tolerantly as though I’d made some verbal pass, and tore off the corner of the cigarette package for me. She took out one and extended it to me. “You’re Donald Lam, aren’t you?” she asked, striking a match.
This time I didn’t need to raise my eyebrows. They popped up by themselves. “How,” I asked, “do you know?”
“Don’t be silly. Use your head. You’ve got one.”
She leaned forward and applied the match to the end of the cigarette. “Leaving?”
“No.”
She said, “Then for Heaven’s sake, circulate! Pick up some of these women who are looking you over with purring approval. The way it is now, you stand out like a sore thumb.”
That was an idea. I realized suddenly that unattached men didn’t drop into the Rendezvous simply to sip a highball. But I was still worried about how the cigarette girl had learned my name. I’d been in the Southwest Pacific for some eighteen months now. And before that I didn’t think I was particularly well known as a figure about town.
The dance orchestra started making noise. I picked a young vivacious looking brunette a couple of tables over. She seemed just a little too demure as I walked over.
“Dance?” I asked.
She looked up at me with a well-simulated expression of haughty surprise. “Why... aren’t you being just a little abrupt?”
I met her eyes and said, “Yes.”
That brought a laugh. “I like abrupt men,” she said, and arose to extend her arms to me.
We danced half around the floor without saying anything. Then she said, “Somehow you aren’t the type I had pictured.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The way you sat over there frowning into your drink — you looked melancholy and belligerent.”
“Perhaps it was belligerency.”
“No. I was wondering about you. Oh, I suppose I’ve given myself away that I was watching you.”
“Any harm in watching me?”
“One isn’t supposed to admit it.”
I didn’t say anything and we danced some more. Then she laughed and said, “I was right all the time. You are belligerent and melancholy.”
I said, “Let’s talk about you for a while. Who are the two women with you?”
“Friends.”
“You surprise me.”
She said, “The three of us go around together quite a lot. We have something in common.”
“Married?”
“Well... No, not that.”
“Divorced?”
“Yes.”
We danced some more. She said, “You don’t come here very often, do you?”
“No.”
“I haven’t seen you. I wondered — something about you. You don’t look like the sort of man who does come here. You’re hard and... well, there’s nothing aimless or smirking about you.”
“What about the men who come here?” I asked.
“Most of them are no good. Occasionally you see someone who is — interesting. It’s once in a blue moon. There, I’m giving myself away again.”
“You like to dance, and occasionally you find a partner here, is that right?”
“That’s about it.”
The music stopped. I took her back to her table. She said coyly, “If I knew your name, I’d present you to my friends.”