A voice from the window said in a sleepy drawl. “Wouldn’t it be easier to take a licking than go to all that trouble, Louie?”
I looked up at the bedroom window. Helen Framley, her elbows perched on the sill, a kimono falling away from her throat, was watching us with an amused twinkle in her eyes.
Louie said, in all deadly seriousness, “There’s times when a man can’t afford to take a licking, Miss Helen — maybe he’d be fighting for you.”
“Save it,” she told him. “I like men with black eyes, and besides I have to clean my teeth.”
She left the window. Louie turned to me with that grin pulling his lips back so that the missing teeth showed as black spaces. “There,” he announced, “is a girl for you. Buddy, what I mean that’s a girl!”
I nodded.
Louie was looking at me speculatively as though he wanted to say something else, perhaps wondering if he dared to try coaching me in something that wasn’t fighting. But it was hard for him to find words. At length, he said, “Listen, buddy, you know where I stand. I’m your pal, see?”
I nodded.
“I’m backing your play. No matter what it is, I’m backing it.”
Again I nodded.
He blurted awkwardly, “Well, don’t pull no punches on my account. Come on, get your mitts up and let’s go through that again. One — two — one — two — one — two — one — two—”
I was so tired I could hardly move when we finished. Perspiration was commencing to stand out on my skin. Louie looked me over. “No cold showers for you, buddy. That cold-shower stuff is all right for the guys that have a layer of fat under their skin. Even then it don’t do ’em as much good as they think it does. You take a warm shower, not hot, now, just a little bit warmer than your skin. Get the temperature with your hands, then step in under it. It’ll feel like a cold shower at first, and you’ll want to turn on more warm water, but don’t do it. Just stay under there and put on lots of soap and scrub off good. Then make the water just a little cooler, not enough to give you a shock, but just start cooling it down until you feel you’d like to get out and then get out quick. Rub yourself good with a towel, then get in on your bed and — well, then’s when I take over.”
I took the shower. The towels furnished by the man who owned the cabin were little thin things that became wringing wet by the time you were half through drying yourself.
Louie was waiting in my room when I stretched my damp body out on the bed. He had a bottle, and, as he sloshed some of the contents of the bottle into his hand, I thought I smelled alcohol, witch hazel, and bay rum. Then Louie went to work. He kneaded, pounded, massaged, slapped, rubbed, and then did it all over again.
I began to feel a delightful sense of relaxation. I wasn’t drowsy, but I could feel new, clean blood coursing through my muscles, could feel my skin tingle and glow.
From the kitchen, I could hear the rattle of pans. Louie gave a little exclamation, strode across the room, jerked the door open, and said, “Hey, I’m the cook here.”
I heard Helen Framley’s deep-pitched distinctive drawl saying, “You used to be. You’ve been promoted to trainer. I’m taking over the breakfast.”
Louie came back to the bed. “A great girl,” he said, stiffening his fingers and jabbing them into the muscles on each side of my spine.
It took Louie half an hour to get me massaged to suit him, then I got into my clothes, feeling slightly tired but not fatigued. Helen had the table set, with grapefruit, coffee, golden brown toast, thick ham steaks, and fried eggs. As we started eating, she got up to pour flapjacks into a big frying-pan.
I felt hungry, not particularly ravenous, just hungry, but the food I ate didn’t seem to have any effect on my hunger. I ate and ate and my stomach refused to fill up.
Louie watched me approvingly.
Helen Framley said, “You’ll have him so fat he’ll waddle.”
“He won’t put on over three pounds,” Louie said. “He’s using up energy, and it takes food to supply that energy. He won’t carry an ounce of fat, but, boy, oh, boy, will he get solid.”
Her eyes searched mine. “Why the sudden desire to become proficient in the manly art of self-defense?” she asked.
I said, “I get tired of being a human punching-bag.”
“And so you quit your job, hire a boxing instructor, and start right in with road work, massages, boxing, and regular fight training?”
“That’s right.”
“When you go after anything, you don’t use any halfway methods, do you?”
“No.”
“Some things, anyhow,” she said, and turned away.
Louie said, “Now, buddy, after breakfast, you don’t do nothing. See? You just sit back for an hour and let your food digest. You read the paper, and try to keep from moving. Don’t do anything that will use up energy.”
Nothing in my life ever felt quite so good as that hour of complete relaxation which followed. Then I announced that I had work to do. Louie wanted me to take some breathing exercises, and some “skull practice,” but I insisted I had to go to town.
Helen said we needed some groceries, and handed me a list. Louie volunteered to go along and buy the groceries. Helen said she’d stay in the cabin and straighten things up.
Louie talked about her all the way into Reno. “A wonderful girl,” he said. “She’s got what it takes. She’s championship stuff. Sock her one on the button, and her knees might be buckling, but you’d never know it.”
I eased the car into a parking-space and told Louie to be back in half an hour.
“I’ll be here,” he promised. “You got that grocery list?”
I handed him the grocery list and twenty dollars. “Expense money,” I said. “When it’s gone, tell me and I’ll give you some more.”
His eyes held that same devotion you see in the eyes of a big dog looking up at his master. “Okay, buddy,” he said, and pushed the money down into his pocket.
I went into one of the hotels, got a list of numbers, closeted myself in the telephone booth, and went to work. I called retail-grocer associations, credit bureaus, the dairies, and even the ice company. I was, I explained, from the Preferential Credit Bureau of San Francisco. I was trying to get some information on a Mrs. Elva Jannix. I knew they wouldn’t have any credit applications, but I’d like very much to have them check their deliveries during the next few days, and if they got any information to save it until I called again.
That’s a peculiar thing. No matter what kind of an alibi you use, you can’t get information out of a business house unless you pose as a credit man, and then they’ll turn everything inside out. They almost never ask to see any credentials. Simply tell them you’re handling a credit matter, and the world is yours.
I made the rounds of the banks, told /hem I was trying to locate a stolen check, asked them if they’d had any business dealings with a Mrs. Jannix, either Mrs. Sidney Jannix, or Mrs. Elva Jannix.
Most of them fell for it. One of them didn’t. The manager wanted to know more about me. Somehow, the way he went at it, I had an idea Mrs. Jannix might be a client of that bank. A man can tell you he hasn’t the information you want without violating any ethics, but if he happens to have the information you’re after, he gets a little cagey about giving it out.
I went back to the car. It had been an hour and ten minutes. There was no sign of Louie Hazen beyond a pasteboard carton filled with canned stuff, and two heavy brown-paper shopping-bags loaded with various staples.
I sat and waited for fifteen minutes. The sun crawled over the roofs of the store buildings, and sent warm rays glancing down into the streets. I felt drowsy. My muscles and nerves were all relaxed. I didn’t give a damn for Bertha Cool or the detective agency or anything that concerned it. I closed my eyes to rest them against the glare of the sunlight — and woke up with a jerk from a sleep so sound that it took me a few seconds to realize where I was and how I had got there.