I said, “He’s got money to burn. And he isn’t one of the hard-boiled kind that know all the tricks. He specializes on probate work. He’s really a babe in the woods.”
She said, “It’s funny, but I thought there was something in his life — oh, you know what I mean. An aura of misfortune that clings to him. Perhaps he’s unhappily married. That may be it. Domestic troubles.”
“I don’t think there’s anything to that theory. I gathered the impression he’s a wealthy widower.”
“Oh.”
I said, “Here he comes now. Look at the way he’s walking. He’s certainly picking them up and putting them down carefully.”
She laughed and said, “Another gin and Coke and his feet won’t even touch the floor. Look, Donald,” she said hurriedly, “you know that girl I was talking to you about?”
“You mean Rosalind?”
“Yes.”
“What about her?”
“Try and find an opportunity to speak to her. She’s just absolutely crazy about you, simply nuts. Perhaps you don’t realize it, but when a girl in a place like this falls for a man the way she does for you, it hurts her terribly to have you come in and sit with another girl. Do try and say something nice to her, won’t you?”
“Why, sure. I didn’t think she even remembered me.”
“Remember you! I tell you she’s crazy about you... Oh, you’re back, Emory? Just in time for your drink. Joe’s bringing one over. How do you feel?”
Hale said, “Like a million dollars.”
Marilyn said, “There’s Rosalind now. Rosalind’s a great one for the pinball machine. I’ll bet she keeps herself broke playing the pinball. During the daytime when business is slack, you know.”
Marilyn looked significantly at me and smiled.
“Excuse me,” I said.
I got up and wandered over to the pinball machine. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marilyn give Rosalind a signal.
I’d shot the third ball on the machine when I noticed Rosalind standing beside me. “What did you do to her?” she asked.
“Why?”
“She gave me the highball to pick you up.”
I said, “I let her think she had a diamond-studded live one.”
“Is he?”
“Maybe.”
“Friend of yours?”
“In a way. Why?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering.”
I finished out the game on the pinball machine, fed a coin in the slot, and pushed in the plunger. “Want to try it?” I asked.
She started shooting balls around the board. Joe came over and looked at me significantly.
“Couple of drinks,” I ordered.
“What’s yours?” he asked Rosalind.
“Same old stuff. This guy is wise to the joint, Joe. Don’t bother with the hooey. Just bring me the cold tea. You’ll get the dough.”
“Yours?” Joe asked me, grinning.
“Gin and Seven-Up.”
Rosalind and I finished our drinks at the pinball machine. “You going back?” she asked.
“Perhaps.”
“Marilyn wants me to stay with you.”
“Why not? Come on over and meet Emory.”
“You aren’t sore, are you?”
“At what?”
“Oh-Marilyn. You don’t-you didn’t really fall for her, did you?”
I grinned at her. “Come on over. Sit down and join the party.”
She said, “You did a swell job with Marilyn.”
“Why?”
“She was looking daggers at me a few minutes ago when she thought I was making a play for you. Now she’s signaled me to go ahead.”
“Circumstances alter cases.”
She said, “Donald, you’re a deep one. Just what are you after?”
“Nothing that’s going to hurt you any.”
She looked at me and said, “I’ll bet you’d give a girl a square deal at that.”
I didn’t say anything. We walked over to the table.
Marilyn said casually, “Oh, hello, Rosalind. This is Emory, my friend, Mr. Emory — Smith.”
She turned to Hale and flashed him a quick wink.
Rosalind said, “How do you do, Mr. Smith?”
Hale got up and bowed. I held a chair for Rosalind. We sat down.
Marilyn said to Hale, “I don’t like to talk about it. Let’s talk about something else.”
“What don’t you like to talk about?” I asked.
Hale said, “What happened this morning.”
“What happened?”
“Marilyn heard the shot that killed that lawyer. You remember reading about it in the papers?”
I said, “Oh.”
“She was coming in around three o’clock in the morning,” Hale said.
“Two-thirty,” Marilyn corrected.
Hale frowned. “Why, I thought you told me it was somewhere between two-thirty and three.”
“No. I looked at my watch. It must have happened just a second or two after two-thirty.”
“Wrist watch?” Hale asked.
“Yes.”
He reached across the table, took her wrist in his hand, and looked at the diamond-studded watch.
“My, what a beauty!”
“Isn’t it?”
“I’ll bet someone thought a lot of you to give you that. May I look at it?”
She unsnapped it, and Hale turned it over and over in his fingers. “A very beautiful watch,” he said, “very, very beautiful.”
I said to Rosalind, “What is there to do in this place? Don’t they dance?”
“No. They have a floor show.”
“When?”
“It’ll be on almost any minute now.”
Marilyn laughed and said, “There’s Joe looking at your empty glass, Rosalind.”
Hale said, “Just a minute, and he can look at mine.” He tossed down the rest of his drink, snapped his fingers, and said, “Oh, Joe.”
The waiter didn’t waste any time this trip. “Fill ‘em up with the same thing?” he asked.
“Fill ‘em up same thing,” Hale said, still fingering Marilyn’s wrist watch.
Joe brought the drinks. The lights dimmed. Marilyn said, “This is the floor show coming on. You’ll love it.”
Chairs scraped over the floor as a girl with an Egyptian profile, a pair of shorts covered with hieroglyphics, and a bra decorated in the same way came out, sat cross-legged on the floor, and made angles with her hands and elbows. She got a spattering of applause. A man with boisterous hilarity came out and made a few off-color cracks into a microphone. A strip-tease artist did her stuff, finishing up in the middle of a blue spot that furnished all the clothing. She got a terrific hand. Then the Egyptian dancer came back into the blue spot wearing a grass skirt with a lei around her neck and an imitation hibiscus in her hair. The bird who had put on the monologue played a uke, and she did her version of the hula.
When the lights came up again, Hale handed Marilyn the wrist watch he’d been playing with during the floor show.
“That all of it?” I asked Rosalind.
Marilyn said, “No. It’s just an intermission. There’ll be another act in a minute or two. This gives us a chance to get our glasses filled up.”
Joe filled up our glasses.
Hale grinned across the table at me, the man-of-the-world grin. “Havin’ a swell time,” he said. “Bes’ little girl in the world. Bes’ drinks in the world. Gonna have all my friends in when I get back t’ New York, show ‘em fine New Orleans drinks. Makes you feel good. Don’t get drunk. Jus’ get to feeling good.”
“That’s right,” I told him.
Marilyn put the wrist watch back on. A second or two later she was looking at me, then at Rosalind. She wiped her wrist with a napkin, said, “Ain’t we got fun?”
The second act started. The man who had been playing the uke came out in evening clothes and put on a series of dances with the Egyptian dancer; then the strip-tease artist did a fan dance. The lights went back up, and Joe was at our elbows.