“Oh-oh! You’ve married again, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Puts you in something of a predicament, doesn’t it?”
“Predicament is no name for it.”
I said, “It sounds interesting. Let’s hear some more.”
“Edna left me and came to New Orleans. I divorced her and got an interlocutory decree. Those things take time. Love doesn’t wait. I met my present wife. We went to Mexico and got married. We should have waited for the final decree. It’s one hell of a mess.”
“Does your present wife know?”
“No. She’d hit the ceiling if she even suspected. If Goldring did serve the wrong woman-well, you know something about the case. What is it?”
“Nothing that would help you.”
“I could pay you a lot of money to uncover something that would help me,”
“Sorry.”
He got up. “Keep it in mind. If in your investigations, you stumble onto something that would help me, I’ll be very, very generous.”
I said, “If Cool and Lam do anything for you, you won’t need to be generous. You’ll get a whale of a bill.”
He laughed at that, got to his feet, said, “Okay, let’s leave it that way!”
We shook hands and he left the hotel.
Chapter Eleven
The Jack-O’-Lantern Nightclub was typical of dozens of other little nightclubs that clustered through the French Quarter. There was a floor show of sorts, half a dozen hostesses, and tables crowded into three rambling rooms which had been merged together by a process of knocking out doors and making full-length openings where windows had been. Out in front a dozen publicity pictures of the various performers in the floor show were exhibited in a large, glass-covered frame.
It was early, and the place hadn’t as yet begun to fill up. There were a few stragglers here and there. A sprinkling of soldiers, some sailors, four or five older couples, evidently tourists, determined to “see the sights” and starting early.
I found a table to myself, sat down, and ordered a Coke and rum. When it came, I stared down into the dark depths of the drink with a lugubrious expression of acute loneliness.
Within a few minutes a girl came over. “Hello, sour-puss.”
I managed a grin. “Hello, bright-eyes.”
“That’s better. You look as though you needed cheering up.”
“I do.”
She came over and stood with her elbows on the back of the chair opposite, waiting for my invitation. She didn’t expect me to get up, and seemed surprised when I did.
“How about a drink?” I asked.
She said, “I’d love one.” She looked around as I was seating her, hoping some of the others would notice.
A waiter popped up from nowhere.
“Whisky and plain water,” she ordered.
“What’s yours?” he asked me.
“I’ve got mine.”
He said, “You get two drinks for a dollar when one of the girls sits at the table with you. Or you get one drink for a dollar.”
I handed him a dollar and a quarter and said, “Give my drink to the girl. Keep the quarter for change, and don’t bother me for a while.”
He grinned, took the money, and brought the girl a medium-sized glass filled with a pale amber fluid.
She didn’t even bother to pretend, but tossed it down straight as though performing a chore, then pushed the empty glass out in front of her where it bore eloquent testimony to the fact that she was being neglected.
I reached for it before she could snatch the glass away, and smelled it.
She said, somewhat angrily, “Why is it that all you wise guys think you’re being so cute when you do that? Of course it’s cold tea. What did you expect?”
“Cold tea,” I said.
“Well, you’re not disappointed. If my stomach can stand it, you shouldn’t kick.”
“I’m not kicking.”
“Most of them do.”
“I don’t.”
I reached down in my pocket, pulled out a five-dollar bill, let her see the figure on it, then folded it so it was concealed in my hand, and slid the hand halfway across the table. “Marilyn in here tonight?” I asked.
“Yes. That’s Marilyn, the girl standing up by the piano. She’s the big-shot hostess, runs things, and spots us girls around at the different tables.”
“She sent you over here?”
“Yes.”
“What would happen if we started fighting?”
“We wouldn’t. It takes two to make a fight. As long as you were buying drinks, I wouldn’t fight. When you quit buying drinks, I wouldn’t be here to fight with.”
“Suppose we didn’t get along?”
“Then you wouldn’t be buying drinks, would you?”
“No.”
She grinned. “Well, then I wouldn’t be here.”
“Would Marilyn send you back?”
“No. If you stayed here, she’d try you with another girl. Then if you didn’t loosen up, she’d let you sit here and mope all by yourself unless the place got crowded. If it did, and they needed the table, they’d get rid of you. Is that what you wanted to know?”
Her hand slid across toward mine.
“Most of it,” I said. “What’s your name?”
Her hand hesitated. “Rosalind. What else do you want?”
“How could you get Marilyn to come over here and sit at this table?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. She looked around the room and said, “I think I could arrange it.”
“How?”
“Tell her that you like her style, and kept looking at her instead of playing up to me, that I thought she could hustle a few commission checks on the side before the place filled up. She’d fall for that.”
“Think you could do that?”
“I’d try.”
Her fingers touched mine. The five-dollar bill traded hands.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“How about Marilyn?” I asked. “Is she a good scout?”
“She’s all right, but she’s been off her feed for the last four or five weeks. She fell awful hard and had a jolt. A girl’s a fool to fall for anybody in this racket.”
“How’s the best way to get along with her? What’s the line of approach?”
“With Marilyn?”
“Yes.”
The girl grinned. “That’s easy. Buy her drinks and slip her a dollar on the side when no one’s looking.”
“How about her love affair? That fellow didn’t make her by buying her drinks, did he?”
“No. A man who buys her drinks is a sucker to her — say, mind if I tell you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m going to give you a tip. You look like a right sort. Don’t monkey with Marilyn.”
“I want something from her.”
“Don’t get it.”
“I mean information.”
“Oh.”
There was silence for a little while. I caught the waiter looking at me and motioned him over. I handed him another dollar and a quarter and said, “Another drink for the lady.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said after he left.
“Why not?”
“Because Marilyn might not fall for that line I’m going to hand her. That would only go where you’re not buying me very many drinks. If you kept on buying me drinks, she’d know darn well I wouldn’t give a hang who you looked at.”
“Mercenary, eh?” I asked, smiling.
She said, “You’re damn right I’m mercenary. What did you think this was, love at first sight?”
I laughed.
She said somewhat wistfully, “It may be at that. You’re a good kid. You can always tell them, the fellows that treat us like ladies... Marilyn’s turning around. Start staring at her. I’ll pretend I’m sore.”
I stared at Marilyn. She was rather tall, slender, with dark hair, somewhat deep-set black eyes, and a mouth made up so that the lips were a thick, crimson smear across the olive of her face.