He jotted it down and went over to the service bar.
Outside a colored pianist was trying hard to play loud enough to be heard over the racket of the crowd that was four deep around the bar. I pushed Ellen behind me and started elbowing a path between the mob and the booths along the side and if I didn't almost trip over a foot stuck out in the aisle' I wouldn't have seen Lou Grindle parked in the booth across from a guy who looked like a Wall Street banker.
Only he wasn't a banker, but the biggest bookie in the business and his name was Ed Teen.
Lou just stopped talking and stared at me with those snake eyes of his. I said, "Your boy's still in the morgue, Lou. Don't you guys go in for big funerals these days?"
Ed Teen smiled and the creases around his mouth turned into deep hollows. "Friends of yours, Lou?"
"Sure, we're real old buddies, we are," I said. "Some day I'm gonna kick his teeth in."
Lou didn't scare a bit. The bastard looked almost anxious for me to try it. Ellen gave me a little push from behind and we got through the crowd to the checkroom where I got my hat, then went outside to the night.
Her face was different this time. The humor had gone out of it and she watched me as though I'd bite her. "Lord, Mike, a joke's a joke, but don't go too far. Do you know who they were?"
"Yeah, scum. You want to hear some dirty words that fit 'em perfectly?"
"But... they're dangerous."
"So I've heard. That makes it more fun. You know them?"
"Of course. My boss would give ten years off his life to get either one of them in court. Please, Mike, just go a little easy on me. I don't mind holding your gun to frighten someone like that little man back there, but those two..."
I slipped my arm around her shoulders and squeezed. "Kitten, when a couple of punks like that give me the cold shivers I'll hang up. They're big because money and the power and guns that money can buy, but when you take their clothes off and there's no pockets to hold the money or the guns they're just two worms looking for holes to hide in."
"Have it your way, but I need a drink. A big one and right now. My stomach is all squirmy."
She must have been talking about the inside. I felt her stomach and it was nice and flat. She poked me with her elbow for the liberty and made me take her in a bar.
Only this one was nearly empty and the only dangerous character was a drunk arguing with the bartender about who was going to win the series. When we had our drink I asked her if she wanted another and she shook her head. "One's enough on top of what happened tonight. I think I'd like to go home, Mike."
She lived in the upper Sixties on the top floor of the only new building in the block. About a half-dozen brownstones had been razed to clear an area for the new structure and it stood out like a dame in a French bathing suit at an old maids' convention. It was still a pretty good neighborhood, but most of the new convertibles and sleek black sedans were lumped together in front of her place.
I got in line behind the cars at the curb and opened the door for her. "Aren't you coming up for a midnight snack, Mike?"
"I thought I was supposed to ask that, I laughed.
"Times have changed. Especially when you get my age."
So I went up.
There was an automatic elevator, marble-lined corridors under the thick maroon rugs, expensive knickknacks and antique furniture all for free before you even hit the apartment itself. The layout wasn't much different inside, either. For apartment-hungry New York, this was luxury. There were six rooms with the best of everything in each as far as I could see. The living room was one of these ultra modern places with angular furniture that looked like hell until you sat in it. All along the mantle of the imitation fireplace was a collection of genuine Paul Revere pieces that ran into big dough, while the biggest of the pieces, each with its own copper label of historical data, was used beside the front windows as flowerpots.
I kind of squinted at Ellen as I glanced around. "How much do they pay you to do secretarial work?"
Her laugh made a tinkling sound in the room. "Not this much, I'll tell you. Three of us share this apartment, so it's not too hard to manage. The copper work you seem to admire belongs to Patty. She was working for Captain Chambers with me tonight."
"Oh, short and fat."
"She has certain virtues that attract men."
"Money?"
Ellen nodded.
"Then why does she work?"
"So she can meet men, naturally."
"Cripes, are all the babes after all the men?"
"It seems so. Now, if you'll, just stay put I'll whip up a couple of sandwiches. Want something to drink?"
"Beer if you have it."
She said she had it and went back to the kitchen. She fooled around out there for about five minutes and finally managed to get an inch of ham to stay between the bread. A lanky towheaded job in one of those shortie nightgowns must have heard the raid on the icebox, because she came out of the bedroom as Ellen came in and snatched the extra sandwich off the plate. Just as she was going to pop it in her mouth she saw me and said, "Hi."
I said "Hi" back.
She said, "Ummm," but that was before she bit into the sandwich.
Moving her arms jerked the shortie up too far. Ellen blocked the view by handing me my beer and called back over her shoulder, "Either go put some more clothes on or get back in bed."
The towhead took another bite and mumbled, "With you around I need a handicap." She took another bite and shuffled back to the bedroom.
"See what I have to put up with?"
"I wish I had to put up with it."
"You would."
So we sat and finished the snack and dawdled over a beer until I said it was time to scram and she looked painfully unhappy with an expression that said I could stay if I wanted to badly enough. I told her about the kid and the arrangements I had made with the nurse, tacking on that I should have tucked him into bed long ago.
The same look she had in the office stole into her face. "Tuck me into bed too, Mike," she said. With the lithe grace of an animal she slid out of the chair past me and in the brief second the passion that our eyes met I felt the heat of passion that burned behind those deep blue irises.
Not much more than a minute could have passed. Her voice was a husky whisper calling, "Mike..." and I went to her.
There was no light except that which seeped in from the other room, a faint glow that made a bulky shadow of the bed with against the deeper blackness of the room itself. I could hear the rhythmic sigh of her breathing too heavy to be normal, and my hands shook when I stuck a cigarette in my mouth.
She said, "Mike..." again and I struck the match.
Her hair was a smooth mass of bronze edges on the pillow, her mough full and rich, showing the shiny white edges of her teeth. There was only the sheet over her that rose and dipped between the inviting hollows of her breasts. Ellen was beautiful as only a mature woman can be lustful.
"Tuck me in, Mike."
The match burned closer to my fingers. I reached down and got the corner of the sheet in my fingers and flipped way back. She lay there beautiful and naked and waiting.
"I love brunettes," I said.
The tone of my voice told her no, not tonight, but her smile didn't fade. She just grinned impishly because she knew I'd never be able to look at her again and say no. "You're a heel, Mike." The match went out.
"You told me that once tonight."
"You're a bigger heel than I thought." Then she laughed. When I backed out of the room she was still chuckling, but that thing was running up my back again.
I was thinking of her all the way back to my apartment and thinking of her when I put my car away. I was thinking too damn much to be careful. When I stabbed my key in the lock and turned it there was a momentary catch in the tumblers before it went all, the way around and I swore out loud as I rammed the door with my shoulder and hit the floor. Something swished through the air over my head and I caught an arm and pulled a squirming, fighting bundle of muscle down on top of me.