I smiled and said, “Just dropped in because I wanted a little social life.”
“Obviously,” Rimley said smiling, “you can appreciate the reactions of my customers if someone should point you out and say, ‘That’s Donald Lam of the firm of Cool & Lam, private detectives. They’re one of the firms that handle divorce cases.’ I rather fancy there’d be lots of diners who would very suddenly remember they had engagements elsewhere.”
I said, “I hadn’t exactly thought of that particular angle.”
“Suppose you think of it now, then.”
We sipped our drinks.
“I’m thinking of it,” I said.
I wondered if Mrs. Crail and her escort had left the place yet, and if Bertha Cool was on the job. I also wondered if Pittman Rimley’s aversion to private detectives might not be due, at least in part, to the fact that he may have had some idea that a sale of the building in which his club was located was in process of negotiation — and did his lease have a clause that changed its terms in the event the premises were sold?
Rimley said, “Well, don’t let it get you down, Lam. How about freshening up your drink?”
He reached across for my glass with his left hand, held the bottle of Scotch over the glass, gurgled in amber liquid and squirted in siphon water.
I don’t know just how it happened that my eyes dropped down for a casual glance at the very expensive wrist chronometer with its sweep-second hand circling the dial, but they did. It was a big watch and only a big man could have worn it, but it was a watch that could keep time to a split fraction of a second.
The watch said four-thirty.
I did mental arithmetic. It couldn’t have been that late. I wanted to look at my own watch, but somehow it didn’t seem to be just the thing to do.
Rimley freshened up his own drink, smiled at me across the brim of the glass. “After all,” he said, “just so we understand each other.”
“Certainly,” I told him. “That’s all that’s necessary.”
I looked around the office very casually.
There was a clock on top of a filing case, one of those nautical affairs mounted inside the spokes of a bronze wheel.
I waited until Rimley was looking at something else then flashed my eyes back for a quick glance at the face of the clock.
The time was four thirty-two.
I said, “You must have your problems running a place of this kind.”
“It isn’t all gravy,” he admitted.
“I suppose you get to know your customers pretty well?”
“The regular ones, yes.”
“Have trouble getting liquor?”
“Some.”
“I’ve got a client who wants to bring suit against some people for an automobile accident. Know any good lawyers?”
“Is that the case that you’re working on now?”
I simply smiled.
“Pardon me,” he said.
“Know any good automobile accident lawyers?” I asked.
“No.”
“Guess there are some pretty good ones around.”
“There should be.”
I said, “Well, it’s nice liquor and I’ve enjoyed my visit. I suppose you’d prefer I didn’t go back to my table.”
“Go right ahead, Lam. Make yourself at home. Enjoy yourself. Relax. Have a good time. And when you leave, don’t bother about the check. Just get up and walk out. There won’t be any check. But don’t... come... back!”
He’d been holding me with liquor and talk. Now both the liquor and the talk had dried up. It was quite all right for me to go back to the Rendezvous — now. Why had he been so anxious to get me out of the place a few minutes before and was so willing to let me return now? Could it be because Mrs. Ellery Crail and her escort had left?
I tossed off the last of the drink, got up and extended my hand. “Nice meeting you,” I said.
“Thank you. Make yourself at home, Lam. Have a good time, and I wish you every success with whatever case you happen to be working on. Just remember to work on it some place other than here.”
He followed me to the door and bowed me out.
I went back to the main dining room.
I knew I didn’t have to look. I did it just to make sure.
The table where Mrs. Ellery Crail had sat with the unsmiling individual in the double-breasted gray suit was vacant.
I looked at my watch.
The time was three forty-five.
I didn’t see my cigarette girl, so I asked a waiter casually, “Cigarette girl here?”
“Yes, sir, just a moment.”
A girl came toward me, legs, apron, tray, but it wasn’t the same one.
I bought a package of cigarettes. “Where’s the other girl?”
“Billy? Oh, she went home an hour early today. I’m filling in for her.”
My girl friends over at the other table kept looking in my direction. I went over there. I didn’t dance but just chatted for a minute. I was, I told them, being arrested for nonsupport of my wife and seven children. I was going to have to arrange bail, and could they do something to keep me out of jail?
I saw they were puzzled, and interested. And the waiter came along again. Mr. Rimley’s compliments and would my friends care to join me in a drink on the house, some champagne, perhaps, or some of that Black Label Johnny Walker?
The young women stared as though they were seeing and hearing things. “My God,” one of them said, “he must be the Duke of Windsor!”
They all laughed.
I smiled at the waiter. “My thanks to Mr. Rimley,” I said. “Tell him that I enjoyed his hospitality, but I never drink more than I can hold comfortably. However, my friends will probably accept a drink on the house. I’m leaving.”
“Yes, sir. There’s no check, sir. Mr. Rimley’s taken care of that.”
“So I understand. But I suppose a tip would be in order?”
He seemed positively embarrassed. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d rather not.”
I nodded, turned and bowed to the three most startled women in the city. “A business appointment,” I assured them gravely, and walked out of the main dining room.
I recovered my hat from the hat-check girl and she was perfectly willing to accept the two-bits I handed to her.
I took the elevator to the ground floor, tried to be nonchalant as I walked out and headed for the agency car. I’d misjudged the owner of the big Cad. Not only had he gone out before I did, but he’d calmly shoved his car into low gear and pushed the agency car forward so that it was right in front of the entrance of the building. A cab had moved into the place where the Cad had been parked.
A cab driver walked over to me. He had a broken nose and a cauliflower ear. “Your car?”
“Yes.”
“Get it the hell out of here.”
“Someone shoved it out here. I didn’t leave it here.”
He spat insultingly. “I’ve heard that one so many times it put this tin ear on me. I had to let a passenger out of my car way out from the curb. It cost me a dollar tip.”
He held out his hand.
I regarded the outstretched hand gravely. “You mean you lost a dollar?”
“Yeah.”
I reached for the door of the agency car. “I’m sorry, Buddy. I’m going to make it up to you.”
“That’s the general idea.”
I said, “I’m from the income tax department. Take it off your return and tell the department I said it was okay.” I started the motor.
He lunged toward me, met my eyes, hesitated.
I slammed the car door shut and drove off.
It was four twenty-three when I got to the office.
4
Bertha came in just before five. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittering. She jerked the door open, strode into the office, took one look at me and said all in one breath, “Donald, why the hell don’t you go in the private office and read the newspaper?”