I said: “Don’t bother. I’ve got one and I’m keeping it.”
Danny’s yellow eyes narrowed, and I noticed the pupils were normal size. “I got orders to frisk everybody.”
“I don’t take, orders. Tell Wade I want to see him.”
He neither moved from his flat-footed position in the center of the doorway, nor bothered to say anything. I suppose he thought it was a stalemate.
I said: “Let’s see if you can do it without coke,” put a palm under his chin and pushed.
His arms flailed to regain balance, suddenly yielded to the laws of physics, and he sat solidly on the floor. Taking Fausta’s arm, I guided her around his recumbent body. Across the room Byron Wade stood near a poker table watching the play. As we angled back and forth through the crowd toward him, I kept shooting over-the-shoulder glances back at Danny. I saw him scramble to his feet and scurry after us.
All three of us reached Wade simultaneously. Danny skidded to a stop between Wade and me, facing me with his back to Wade. His hands were thrust stiffly into his coat pockets and his face was green with rage.
Over his shoulder I said: “Evening, Wade.”
Byron Wade said sharply: “Danny!”
Danny stepped back until he could see both of us, his hands still tautly in his pockets. “This guy’s got a gun,” he said.
I acted as though Danny were invisible. “This is Byron Wade, Fausta.” Then to Wade: “Fausta Moreni.”
“We met in the hall at El Patio,” said Wade. He turned his head at Danny and made his eyes frost over. “Get back to the door.”
Resentment and fury mixed in the expression Danny poured at me. He turned abruptly and marched back to his post.
“Have a drink?” asked Wade.
“Sure,” I accepted for both of us.
He guided us to a sort of low balustrade ringing the room. The platform it edged was raised only about two feet from the main floor and the railing was punctured at intervals with gates you entered by climbing three low steps. Tables were arranged along the railing so that guests could drink and at the same time, from their slightly elevated position, obtain a good view of the gamers. We chose a table and a white-coated waiter took our order.
Fausta looked out over the crowded game room and said: “You have very good crowd for opening night.”
Wade’s piggy eyes swept the customers complacently. “Not bad. Of course it helps, having El Patio closed.”
When our drinks arrived the waiter dangled the check uncertainly between his thumb and forefinger until Wade shook his head at him. He stuck it in his pocket and moved off.
“I should make you buy the drinks,” Wade said, “after the way you threw me to Hannegan and Day.”
I grinned at him. “Next time use a night club for your alibi. Know a corpse named Margaret O’Conner?”
He merely looked blank.
I said: “Never mind. Want your thousand dollars back?”
He shook his head. “That was on the level. If you thought I was trying to buy an alibi, you’re way off base.”
I handed him a cigar and bit off the end of another for myself. Wade fired a lighter and held the flame to my cigar first. We were being very polite to each other.
When he had tobacco burning adequately, he asked: “This a business or a pleasure call?”
“Some of both,” I admitted, and drew a smoldering look from Fausta.
“It is for pleasure alone,” she said. She slitted brown eyes at me. “If you come for business, we leave now.”
“Be nice,” I said. “This business will only take a minute.” I turned back to Wade. “I have a client who wants the Bagnell ease solved. Mind answering questions?”
“Depends on the questions.”
Without warning he leaned forward and perspiration popped out on his brow. He overturned his chair backward and doubled across the table with one hand gripping the table edge and the other clasped to his pot belly.
“Dyspepsia,” I explained to the startled Fausta. “You’ll get used to it.”
The attack passed almost as quickly as it started. He pulled his chair back to its former position, apologized fluently to Fausta and thrust aside his drink with an air of finality.
“The attacks are getting worse,” he said. “It’s to the point where I can hardly eat a thing. Just in the last couple of days, too. But I got a new patent medicine lined up...”
“I know,” I interrupted. “You told me about it the other night. Let’s get back to questions. How do you account for your wife being with Bagnell when he was shot?”
His small eyes held mine a long time before he answered. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“It isn’t,” I agreed. “But I’d still like an answer.”
He examined the growing ash on the end of his cigar, seemed to come to a decision and met my eyes with a sudden confiding air.
“My wife’s relations with me are her business and mine. But I don’t want talk going around about her and Bagnell, so I’ll set you straight on a few things. Eleanor and I are very happily married. But I keep her out of my business. She had no idea that Bagnell and I were rubbing against each other until she got drawn into this murder investigation. She likes to play roulette and I knew she was going to El Patio, because she tells me everywhere she goes. I saw no point in objecting to her fun just because I intended to open this place in competition to El Patio. And get this... She went there only for roulette. She just happened to be cashing a check in Bagnell’s office when he got it. There was nothing between them.”
While he spoke I saw Eleanor come from a door to the left of the bar, glance up and down the tabled balcony until she saw our party and move toward us. She had changed the sport suit of the afternoon for a black evening gown that split down the front, exposing a half-inch strip of flesh from the dog collar effect at her throat nearly to her waist. She was nearly to our table before Wade finished his confidential speech, and I could tell she caught the last two sentences.
As she touched Wade’s shoulder from behind, I rose and Wade looked up nervously. A peculiar embarrassed expression crossed his face. He followed my example by getting to his feet.
“Evening, hon,” he said faintly. “You know these people?”
“We’ve met.” She took a chair between her husband and me and studied the crowd in the game room. “I’d estimate three hundred,” she said to Wade. “What are receipts so far?”
“I haven’t checked.”
Her brows raised. “It’s nearly eleven. Better find out.”
He rose immediately. “Sure, hon.” To Fausta he said: “Excuse me, please.”
As Wade departed the two women examined each other with that flat coldness which makes men’s skin crawl. To break up the frigid silence I blurted the first remark I could think of.
“Must have taken some cash to put this old building back in shape.”
Eleanor said: “Seventeen thousand, including the wheels.”
My brain tingled with a sudden idea. “What did the whole setup cost, if you don’t mind telling?”
Her eyes flicked over Fausta and settled on my face. “I don’t mind telling you anything. Twenty-eight thousand for the property and seventeen thousand for repairs and improvements. Forty-five thousand altogether.”
“That’s quite an investment, if it doesn’t pay off.”
She shrugged. “We estimated six months to get back our capital. If El Patio stays closed, we may make it in three.”
Fausta said: “El Patio will no more have the casino. Only dancing, food and drinks.”
Eleanor looked past my shoulder and I turned to see Byron Wade approaching from across the gaming room. I turned back to Eleanor.
“You seem to know a lot about your husband’s business.”
With eyes still on her husband her lips curled in mild contempt. “Someone has to.”