“You’ll leave marks on his face,” Tobias said.
“Let me worry,” I said, “about marks on my face.”
Irene leaned toward Tobias. “How’s she taking it?” she said softly. “Mrs. Malamed.”
“Like a trooper.” He inclined his head toward the inner room. “She’s inside, setting things up for tonight.”
“If she asks for me, I’m upstairs, getting into my uniform.” Her wonderful teeth shone in a smile. “Uniform, I call it.” She took up the package. “Thanks, Peter.”
“Date for tonight? You’ve got your bribe.”
“It’s no bribe and you know it. Boy, how these men try to talk tough! Pick me up at closing?”
“You bet.”
“Date for tonight.” She went to the stairway, called back to Tobias: “Ruth here yet?”
“Upstairs.”
She ran up the stairs. I watched her legs. Then I turned back to Tobias. “How’s it set up, up there?”
“Joe Malamed’s room in the rear, Claire Malamed’s room in the front, a couple of toilets, and one room, in the middle, for acts to dress in.”
“I get it. Now about this Frankie Hines.”
“You mean that big typhoon?”
“Typhoon?”
“Retired rich guy?”
“Tycoon.”
“Yeah, tycoon.”
“I’m going to want to talk with him. Where do I find him? You know?”
“This time of day, you figure to reach him at the coffee pot.”
“The what?”
“Coffee pot.”
“What coffee pot, Tobias?”
“One of the enterprises of the typhoon is a little coffee pot over on Fifty-second by Seventh. It’s called The Horseshoe. It’s easy to find. It’s the one with no customers. I think that Frankie just keeps it to have a little hangout for himself, maybe a hot meal sometimes when he’s hungry.”
He looked over my shoulder, and went back to polishing glasses. A young woman came up to us. She said, “I’m sorry, but we’re not serving yet.” She looked at the shot glass near me, and then she looked at Tobias. Tobias said, “He’s a cop.”
“Cop?”
“Private,” I said.
Tobias said, “Mr. Chambers, Peter Chambers — Mrs. Claire Malamed.”
“Well...” I said. “Well...”
“May I ask why you’re staring, Mr. Chambers?”
“Well...” I said. “Uh... I didn’t expect... someone quite as young...” Lamely I added: “And beautiful.”
Beautiful she was. And young she was. About twenty-five, I figured, with blue eyes, and a white skin like the inside of an apple, and pouting red lips, and clean sweeping eyebrows, and blonde blonde hair piled over her head in beautiful waves that shone like gold in the harsh white light. Her voice was low, deep, musical.
“Young?” she said. “I’m twenty-seven. I was married to Mr. Malamed for two years. We were quite happy. I’ve told all of this to Lieutenant Parker, but if there are any other vital statistics that I can supply, I’d be most happy.”
“No,” I said. “No, thank you.”
“Then, if you’ll excuse me, I have many things to attend to, Mr. Chambers...”
“Yes, of course, Mrs. Malamed...”
She looked from the shot glass, to me, to Tobias, turned and walked off toward the inner room. She was almost as good from the back as from the front.
“Tell her I left,” I said to Tobias.
“What?”
“Tell her I left.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No. I’m leaving you, but I’m not leaving. I’m going” — I pointed — “upstairs.”
I put a twenty on the bar. “Now, kindly don’t be insulted. This is business, a business deduction. It’s for you to say — in case of emergency — that I said goodbye, started for the doors, that you turned your back and went to work on the glasses. If I happened to sneak back — how would you know?”
“But Mr. Chambers...”
“Take the twenty, Tobias. I’m going up to talk to Irene.”
I went. But I didn’t go to Irene. I by-passed the middle room, and the toilets, and I didn’t go to the back room. I went to the front room, which turned out to be a lavishly-furnished, large studio room with slanting glass facing north for a ceiling. I mosied. I peeked. I searched. I poked. I made like a hundred percent private eye hot on the trail of nothing. In a drawer of a dressing table I found a jewel box. When I lifted the top, it opened to three stuck-out compartments like a little step ladder. There was a good deal of gleaming junk in it, some of it quite expensive. In the lower compartment there was a flat velvet box. It contained a large gold medal about three inches across and about a half inch thick. I took it out and examined it. Just from its weight it must have been worth three-four hundred dollars. One side of it had engraved crossed pistols, beneath that the initials C.M. The reverse side said Target Club Competition, First Prize, June 15, 1952. I slipped the medal into my pocket, shut the velvet box, put it back into the jewel case, closed that and stuffed it back into the drawer. I tried another drawer. A voice behind me said:
“Looking for something special, Mr. Chambers?”
I twisted around. Claire Malamed had a black automatic in her hand and a funny look in her eye.
“No,” I said. “Nothing special.”
“Get out of here. Quickly, please.”
“I’m not finished yet, Mrs. Malamed.”
“You’re finished.” The automatic dipped and came up again.
I began to move toward her. “I’ve been retained to look into Mr. Malamed’s murder. That’s what I’m doing here, looking into Mr. Malamed’s murder.”
“You’re trespassing.”
“Am I?”
“Get out, and get out quickly.” Her soft voice moved up a peg. “And don’t come a step nearer to me.”
I kept walking. Toward her. “I don’t think you’ll pull that trigger.”
“Won’t I, though? I’m within my rights, and you know it.”
“I’m gambling you don’t.”
“Don’t come near me.”
I didn’t stop. I lost my gamble.
She pulled at the trigger. I saw the knuckle of her forefinger go white with pressure.
Nothing happened.
She squeezed at it again.
Nothing happened again.
I was near enough. I slapped the gun from her hand and picked it up. I looked at it, emptied the clip and threw the gun on a divan.
“Automatics don’t shoot,” I said, “with the safety catch on.”
I tried for a short, curt, military bow, and I got out of there.
V
The Horseshoe was a narrow white-walled slot set in between a huge dour warehouse and a clip joint with strippers. There was a narrow plastic-topped eating bar with six fixed oscillating stools, two little tables and a telephone booth. Nothing more. There was no room for anything more. The only customer was the boss, seated at one of the stools, a thick-mugged cup of coffee in front of him. He was speaking to the counter-man, tall and very slender, wrapped in a white apron and wearing a white overseas-style hat. The counter-man’s eyes were squinting in agitated grief, and his Adam’s apple had more jumps than the navel of a belly-dancer.
“This is the pay-off,” Frankie Hines was saying. “When a man don’t like the coffee in his own coffee pot, maybe it’s time to change up the help around here.”
“But, Mr. Hines! I just made that coffee ten minutes ago.”
“What’d you use to make it with? Buckshot?”
I coughed. I said, “Mr. Hines?”
Frankie whirled around. “Yeah? What’s it to you?”