She looked at me, glassy-eyed. “‘Smatter, Irish? Can’t you sleep?”
“No,” I said. I sat on the floor near her.
She sailed another card toward the bowl. It missed. She said a word I’d have bet she didn’t even know.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
”Matter?” She regarded me owlishly, and poured some more vodka. “Nothing at all.” She held out the bottle to me. “Have some of the opium of the futile, friend, and let’s revel in the pleasures of the flesh.” She paused, hiccupped, and solemnly appraised her naked torso and the swelling, dark-nippled breasts. “And speaking of flesh, did you ever see so much of it to revel in? One hundred and sixty pounds of futility—”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
She paid no attention. “No vodka? Then Benzedrine? Marijuana? Sex, anybody?”
She swayed. I caught her and somehow managed to get her in my arms and stand up. Carrying her into the other room, I put her on the bed and covered her. “Save six for pallbearers,” she said, and passed out cold. I stood looking down at her. It was a rotten shame, I thought.
In the morning when I awoke it was after nine and she was up and already dressed to go out. She was at the dressing table putting on her lipstick, and when she saw in the mirror that I was awake she turned and smiled, apparently without a trace of a hangover, as handsomely blonde and clear-eyed as ever.
She came over and sat on the side of the bed. “Sorry about last night.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I wish there was something I could do. Where are you going?”
She went over to the closet and put on the gray fur coat “Denton Street.” She smiled. “Fitting, don’t you think? The brunette being stalked by her only natural enemy?”
“Leave that to me,” I said. “It’s my pigeon.”
She paid no attention and went on out. Her only natural enemy was boredom; she had to do something or go crazy. She came back shortly before eleven. In the industrial area around Denton Street everything was closed on Saturday. She had been shopping, however, and carried two packages that contained a gabardine topcoat and a new hat.
* * *
“All right, let’s see how you look,” she said. I turned and she studied me critically. It was seven a.m. Monday.
She nodded. “The suit is a little snug across the chest and the sleeves are half an inch too short, but it’ll never show when you have the topcoat on.”
I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. The last trace of the black eye was gone now, and with the hat on there wasn’t enough of the red hair showing to attract attention. My shoes were shined. I wore a white shirt with button-down collar and a conservative tie, and a folded handkerchief and fountain pen peeped over the edge of the breast pocket of the jacket. I put on the topcoat.
“And now the clincher,” she said. She handed me the briefcase. It was a slender one, of the type with no handles, zipper-closed, and rather old and beat-up. There were a couple of magazines in it, and some advertising circulars and two or three meaningless letters she had typed out. As she had pointed out, it was the perfect piece of camouflage.
She grinned. “Darling, I just know you’re going to land that Ficklefinger account today and get the raise.”
“I think I’ll get by,” I said, “if they don’t look too closely at my face.”
“Who ever looks closely at men’s faces?”
“Professional cops,” I said. “The very people we’re trying to fool.”
She shook her head. “They don’t have a photograph, as far as we know. You could walk right up and borrow a light from any policeman in town—as long as you don’t do anything that looks suspicious. Don’t act nervous. And above all, don’t run when nobody’s chasing you. Maybe he just wants to borrow a match himself. Don’t worry about entering of leaving the building. There are thirty-three apartments in it, and not one of the tenants knows ten per cent of the others, even by sight? Ready?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You go first. And you know where to meet me.”
“I wish you’d let me go alone. If I’m picked up and you’re with me, they can make it really rough. You could go to prison.”
“You’ll be much safer in the car. The first time, anyway, until you get over some of the nervousness. I’m going.”
There was no use arguing with her. “All right,” I said. “But remember, if I get in a jam, get the hell out of there —fast.”
She opened the door and peered out into the corridor. “All clear,” she said softly. I went out. The stairs were just around the corner. I walked down two flights, and punched the button of one of the self-service elevators. It came. I went out through the small lobby. It was a cold, clear morning without wind, and there was frost on the grass in front of the building.
Morning traffic was picking up along the street, which paralleled the edge of the park. I turned right and went up the sidewalk. There were a few pedestrians striding briskly along. For the first minute or two I felt naked and scared and wanted to shrug down inside the coat and pull my hat over my face. There was a bus stop at the corner. I passed it and went on to the next one, two blocks away.
Several people were waiting here, and there was a newspaper rack. I dropped a dime in the box and picked up an Express. No one paid any attention to me.
Stedman’s murder was still on the front page. Three men answering my description had been picked up in skid-row flophouses and later released. I shivered slightly. My greatest danger was that there were at least half a dozen detectives on the force who might know me by sight from having seen me around the Sidelines Bar. If I ran into one of them, I was a dead duck.
I saw the blue Olds coming. It slid to a stop at the curb and I got in. There was a map of the city in the glove compartment. I spread it open, partly as an excuse to keep my face down.
“I know how to get there,” she said. “I sized it up pretty thoroughly on Saturday. Denton Street’s in an industrial area three or four blocks from the ship channel. You see it—there in back of the Municipal docks, about two miles from downtown and three or four miles up from the Southlands Refinery.”
“I see it now,” I said. We stopped for a traffic light.
“If we’re lucky enough to find a parking place near that diner, I think we can watch two bus stops at once.”
Traffic was growing heavier. She swung off the arterial, bypassing the downtown area, and in about fifteen minutes she turned into Denton in the 1200 block. “Four blocks now,” she said. “The. Comet Boat Company’s 1636.”
I looked at my watch. It was still twenty minutes before eight. The traffic was mostly buses and trucks. She backed into a parking place. I looked around. On this side 0f the street the whole block was taken up by the Comet plant, a long brick building enclosed by a steel mesh fence. Directly across from us was a low frame building with a number of small windows. The sign said GEORGE’S. That would be the lunchroom. Next to it was a large wholesale plumbing supply outfit.
She lighted a cigarette. “There’s another coffee place in the block behind us and one two blocks ahead. So if she came into George’s, there’s a good chance she works in the office of one of the four places in these two blocks. There’s Comet, the Hildebrand Plumbing Supply, and across the street in the next block is the Warren Paint Company. And directly ahead of us, beyond the next corner, is the Shiloh Machine Tool Company. It seems to be the largest.”
There was a bus zone almost in front of the diner on the other side and one at the corner ahead of us. We had a good view of both. The car parked ahead of us was a small foreign sedan and we could see over it. The sun was spilling into the street now, and the air was warmer. I rolled down the window.