If Lois had wondered, during the evening or earlier, if I’d say anything about her wearing jewelry, she hadn’t given any indication of it. She’d been sweet and happy and smiling, but now the half-smile went away from her face and something went out of her brown eyes.
“Maybe you’re right, Shell,” she said. “I suppose I should wear something.”
She turned away from me and went to a dresser against the left wall, opened the second drawer and took out a square box. “Well, help me out,” she said, not looking at me. “What should I wear?”
She opened the box and watched me as I walked over and looked down into it at the crystal-white stones, and the red ones, the bracelets and chains and pins.
And it was there. The bracelet with the snake’s head, ruby-red eyes, and a forked gold tongue flicking out the of mouth. I picked it up.
“How about this?”
Right then, if it was all going to come apart, was when it should have happened. But she went along with it, neither of us fooling the other. “All right,” she said quietly.
I picked up a glistening choker, gems set into a thin black band. “This would be good.”
“It’s rhinestones. I bought it myself. Most of the others were given to me.” She swallowed. “By men, of course.”
I lifted her wrist. She’d already slipped the bracelet on and I asked, “More rhinestones?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She hesitated. “Cannon gave it to me, Shell. I suppose you know that.”
“I... I had a hunch, honey.”
She was facing me, and she put the choker around her throat, her hands behind her neck to fasten it there. Her full breasts lifted and pressed against the edge of her dress. She said softly, “I don’t know why I’m putting this on. I hope you didn’t make reservations.”
I winced. “Look, Lois. Let’s get this straight. We might as well now. Cannon gave you the rocks. I think they’re hot — stolen. O.K., there you’ve got it. I didn’t know I was going to get into a screwed-up mess like this, but there it is. Now what about it? Anything you can tell me? Or should I keep on guessing?”
Her brown eyes were icy. “Cannon gave me this yesterday. I don’t know where he got it or how — and up till now I didn’t want to know. He’s given me other things, but never anything so nice. He’s been trying to... buy something from me, by giving me things, but he hasn’t bought anything yet because it’s not for sale. Or... maybe he has bought something.” She paused, looking at me, her oval face sober, then added, “And I don’t like you at all, Shell.”
Neither of us said anything after that for a while, but finally I said, “I wonder whatever made me think I was a detective? Hey, what say we have another quick one, then take off for the high spots.”
“You still want to go?” Her voice was dull.
“Sure.”
We each had a short drink and some rather deadly and dragging conversation, then we left. She was awfully quiet going down in the elevator and I said, “Lois, honey, give me a grin. Let out a whoop or something. Come on, we’ll have a big kick tonight, let down your hair.”
She smiled slightly. “I suppose there’s no sense wasting the evening.”
“Of course not. We’ll run around screeching, we’ll get higher than rockets and yip at people. Baby, we’ll dance in the streets—” The elevator stopped, so I stopped, but she shook her head at me and the smile was a little wider, a little brighter.
She looped her arm through mine and we went out onto Wilcox Street. I steered her toward the Cad, but just before we reached it I heard something scrape on the sidewalk and Lois said, “Why Cannon! What—”
And then there was a grunt, and a great whistling and roaring and clanging of bells, and my last sad thought after that monstrous list landed like an artillery shell alongside my head was: There’ll be no dancing in the streets tonight.
I came to this time in my Cad, slumped behind the wheel. The first time this had happened, I had been more than a bit peeved at Cannon. But now I was seriously considering killing the son. I was so mad that it felt as if the top of my head were going to pop off and sail through the roof of the Cad like a flying saucer. It was five minutes before I calmed down enough to start thinking about anything except smashing my fists into Cannon’s ugly face.
Then I got out of the car and went back to Lois’ apartment. She wasn’t there; at least there was no response to my ringing the buzzer and banging on the door. I checked the Zephyr Room but Lois had “gone home with a headache” and hadn’t come back. No, neither Cannon nor his pals had been in. Yes, I did have a black eye, and would you like a couple? I left the Zephyr Room and went back to my apartment, still burning.
It was a little after ten. I looked up Lois Sanders in the phone book and called her half-dozen times, but each time the line was busy. Finally I flopped on the bed, still in my tux. The phone ringing woke me at midnight.
I woke up with everything still fresh in my mind, grabbed the phone and I suppose I snarled into it, “Yeah?”
“Scotty... Scotty, I’m plastered. Oh, woo, am I drunk. Scotty? That you, Scotty?”
I groaned. Diane. Oh, Lord, now Diane. I’d completely forgotten about her. I said, “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m at the Groove, Coc’nut Groove, an’ you’re not here, Scotty, you’re not here.”
She sounded moist. I said roughly, “For Pete’s sake don’t bust out bawling. I’ll come down and get you.”
“Will you? Will you, Scotty?”
“Yes, of course. Just hang on, I’ll be there in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
She said, “Goodie,” and I hung up. Well, at least I was dressed for the Grove. Almost. I hadn’t been wearing my gun up till now. I went into the bedroom, dug out the .38 Colt Special and shrugged out of my jacket, slipped on the gun and harness. With the jacket back on it bulged over the gun, but that was all right. Now I was dressed. If I saw Cannon, and he so much as sneered at me, I was going to aim at his right eye and pull the trigger. Then when he fell down I was going to aim at his left eye and pull the trigger. Then I was going to kick him in the head, real hard too.
In the bathroom I took a look at myself, and I looked terrible. The left side of my jaw was swollen considerably and my right eye was purple and almost closed. I could see out of it still; well enough to aim a .38, anyway. I headed back toward the front room and somebody outside pressed the buzzer. I opened the door and gawked at the guy in a gray suit and the cop in uniform.
“What’s the matter?” I asked them. I know a lot of guys in the department, but these were strangers.
“You’re Scott?”
“Yeah.”
“Better come with us.”
“Huh? What for? What is this?”
They were both medium height, both husky, one about twenty-five, the other in his forties. The older one was in plainclothes, the other in a patrolman’s uniform.
The older guy showed me his shield and said, “Where’d you leave your Cad, Scott?”
“It’s down in front. I parked it on the street, sure, so I get a ticket. I was pooped, and—”
He interrupted. “What happened to your face? You have an accident?”
“I was in a fight. I guess it was a fight. This some new kind of traffic citation?”
“No ticket, Scott. Hit and run. You didn’t leave your car on the street. Not this street.”
“What?” It hadn’t even penetrated.
He smelled my breath. “Drunk? All sharped up, too. You usually have fights in those clothes?” His voice hardened. “Come on with us, Scott. We want you to look at somebody. In the morgue.”