“They show remarkable good sense.”
“Cannon and Tinkle and Artie looked through your clothes and wallet, then put everything back and left.”
“That’s great.” I thought a minute. “Tinkle?” I asked her. “Tinkle Miller?” It had to be; there wouldn’t be another hoodlum with the same monicker.
“Uh-huh, the cowboy. And Artie Payne. And you’re Shell Scott. A detective.”
I looked across the table at her. “True. Is that bad?”
“I didn’t say that. But it made me... wonder.”
“Yeah. I suppose it would.” I didn’t add anything to that; I wasn’t going to con the gal; she could take her chances or leave them. I said, “I didn’t know you’d chosen Cannon.”
“I didn’t. He chose me. He’s... after me, you might say. But he hasn’t got me yet.”
“I imagine he’d put on quite a campaign. He’d have to. You know, flowers, candy, pretty baubles, things like that.”
“Things like that. He ordered me to stay away from you.”
“I had you picked as a gal to ask, not to order.”
“I am.”
“Well, I’m asking.”
“What and when?”
“Dinner. Tonight.”
“Maybe.” She glanced toward the door. “Couple customers,” she said. “I have to get back to the table.” She left. Naturally I watched her walk away.
I ordered and slowly drank a last water-high while I added some bits and pieces. Tinkle Miller. A hood who’d been lucky with convictions, but had been charged with half the book, mostly suspicion of burglary. A Jack-of-all-trades hoodlum, he’d been a dishwasher, bank clerk and burglar, labor goon and locksmith, soda jerk and short-con man, strikebreaker, and, of course, a cowboy. I filed the one important point in my aching head and added some more. Yesterday Joe had stumbled in here in an alcoholic haze, seen Cannon bestowing a pretty bauble on Lois. I wondered about Lois. Today Tinkle Miller had seen a similar pretty bauble among those on my typed list, called Cannon and Artie Payne, and Cannon had proceeded to knock me silly. It looked pretty good. I got up.
On my way out I stopped at the dice table. Lois was alone there and I said, “Well?”
She nibbled on the inside of her lip. “Where we going?”
“Grove O.K.?”
“Cocoanut Grove?”
“Uh-huh. Then the Strip, Ciro’s, Mocambo, maybe catch Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers.”
“Your face is already swollen. Won’t you mind?”
“I’ll put ice packs on it.”
“I’m supposed to work.”
“Get a headache. Then we’ll be even.”
“All right.”
“You got a long slinky dress you feel like trying out?”
She smiled. “Umm-hmmm. Long... and low.”
“Wonderful.” I grinned at her. “What color?”
She looked up at the ceiling, then slanted her eyes down at me, lips curving into an amused smile, slightly wicked. “Rum and coke.”
“The time and the place?”
She scribbled on a paper and handed it to me. I looked at it and said, “So long, Lois. See you at nine.”
“So long, Shell. Don’t be late.”
“You kidding?” I left. It was just getting dark.
I reached the Spartan Apartment Hotel, home, at seven p.m. Inside I mixed a weak drink, then settled on the oversized chocolate brown divan in the front room, winked at Amelia, the nude over my fake fireplace, and put in a call to Diane Borden.
“Hello-o?”
“Diane? Shell Scott. I want—”
“Ooooh, Scotty. How nice. You missed me. Really missed me.”
“No. I want—”
“You didn’t miss me? Scotty! Please!”
“O.K., I missed you. Now listen. Reserve two tables at the Ambassador tonight. The Grove, adjoining tables. If you need glasses, wear them—”
“I don’t need glasses—”
“Keep quiet a minute. One table is for you; the other is for me and a gal. I’m hoping she’ll be wearing some rocks. Maybe yes, maybe no, but just in case, I want you to be there to take a peek. If you see anything that looks like yours, just sit tight. I’ll get the word from you; I’ll table-hop or something. O.K.?”
“What are you talking about?”
I went through it again, more slowly and clearly, telling her to get the tables for nine-thirty, and she said, “Is she pretty?”
“Who?”
“The girl.”
“Yeah, she’s a beauty. What’s that got to do with your bracelet and chokers and—” I broke it off. “Oh, hell, I forgot. Drink cokes or something till we get there.”
“I’ll drink anything I want.”
“But you’ll get in—”
“You dope. I’m twenty-one. I told you I was—”
“You’re what!”
“Twenty-one. You can look it up if you want to, just like a detective. I was twenty-one six days ago. So there.”
She hung up.
Well, I thought. Well, well.
It was nine sharp when I read the neat card, “Lois Sanders,” and rang the buzzer. A gong went off inside, then she opened the door and a gong went off in my head. This time she was in a gown like deep-maroon skin, just the right size. The dress wasn’t high on her throat like the green one; it was strapless, smooth, low on her high breasts, snug around her trim waist, gleaming over her curving hips, gracefully draped almost to the floor.
“Come in,” she said. “You’re right on time. And you know something? My headache is miraculously gone.”
I stared at her. “You know something? I am miraculously gone. You look lovely, Lois.” She held the door and I went inside.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re rather pretty, too. You look right at home in a dinner jacket.”
I’d showered and shaved and climbed into the old tux and black tie. If I’d had soup and fish I’d probably have worn the silly things. I wanted this to be “formal” enough so Lois would feel lost without some glittering jewelry. Funny thing, though, I was beginning to feel a little lousy about this deal.
Lois took both my hands in hers and backed across the room to a divan that faced a wide window.
“You sit there, Shell. Drink before we leave?”
“Swell.”
“You’ll have to take what I’ve got. But its not too bad.”
She was still holding my hands, her back to the window and faint illumination behind her softly outlining the curve of her waist and hips. “Sounds delightful,” I said, and tightened my hands on hers.
She slipped her fingers free and said, smiling, “I meant rum and coke.”
“I was afraid you meant something like that.”
I looked out the window until she came back with the drinks. We chatted about nothing in particular, pleasantly, so pleasantly that I didn’t want it to end and decided I liked Lois perhaps a bit too well. It was nine-fifteen when we finished our drinks.
“Ready, Lois?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll get my stole.”
I followed her to the bedroom door. She picked what looked like a mink stole off the bed, draped it over her shoulders and walked back in front of me. She didn’t have on a single diamond, ruby, bracelet or necklace. She wasn’t even wearing a ring.
I opened my mouth to comment on that, and stopped. This wasn’t at all clever or funny any more. But finally I said, “Here I am all decked out in studs and links and a he-mannish after-shave lotion, and you haven’t so much as a watch. I’ll have to buy you some baubles.”
It came out flat, toneless, and cruelly obvious. I had no way of knowing what Cannon might have said to her earlier in the Zephyr Room. Nor what he’d said yesterday when he gave her what I felt sure was Diane’s bracelet. She could know Cannon had given her a stolen bracelet, she might even be in with him; she might suspect the thing was stolen, or she might even think it was a paste offering from a smitten suitor. And she might not even have it now, whether it was the one I was after or another one entirely — but I had to find out, and I was stuck now with the way I’d played it.