“I imagine not,” Reardon conceded. “How old was this beauty?”
“Twenty-five, maybe,” the bartender said. “Maybe less, maybe more. Maybe thirty.”
“Thanks for the latitude.”
“Well,” the bartender said defensively, “these days they look younger than they used to. I seen a couple of college kids on a TV quiz show the other day, and so help me, they looked like they should still be in junior high. Man, believe me it makes it tough when they come in here. You ever ask some dame married five years for her ID card?”
“Never,” Reardon said truthfully. “What was this lovely wearing?”
“Wearing?” The bartender frowned. “Some kind of dress; I don’t remember. Up to her chin, I remember that, but that didn’t hide them boobs, believe me. She had on some beads, lay on those tits like on a shelf. I didn’t see what kind of skirt she had on. Maybe even pants. I was ringing something up when she left with Mr. Falcone.”
Reardon sighed. He didn’t seem to be getting very far in pinning down a definitive description of the girl, but how in the devil did you describe any girl these days? Except Jan, of course. They all tried to copy one another and ended up looking like store dummies, or at least ninety-nine per cent did. Damn! If only the unknown girl had had two heads, or a cast on her left leg — or both — then maybe they could put out an all-points on her and locate her inside of a year or so. But probably not even then, he thought with an inner grin, and remembered something else: the strange case of the multiple bottles on the coffee table upstairs.
“What did Falcone usually drink?”
“Mr. Falcone? Catto’s scotch. The best. Straight. No water, sometimes ice. All the time, it’s all he ever drank.” The bartender looked and sounded proud of the excellent taste of his ex-patron. He inspected the glass he had been working on, set it in place, and reached for another all in one practiced motion.
“How about this doll we’re talking about?”
The proud look on the stubby bartender’s face turned to a rueful grin. He put the dirty glass back until he got what was troubling him off his chest.
“Believe it or not, mister, she stuck me. There was a time when the house, here, bought the first drink for anyone knew of a drink I couldn’t make, but then guys started to lie, you know, making up all sorts of screwy names out of their heads. Chiselers, see? Dames did it, too, so we had to stop it.” He shook his head at the thought of the chicanery so natural to people.
“I know,” Reardon said sympathetically. “About her drink — you were saying?”
“Oh, yeah.” The bartender picked up the dirty glass again, beginning to rinse it. “She asks for a Gremlin’s Grampa. I never heard of it, so she tells me how to make it. Half a jigger of gin, half a jigger of brandy, a touch of vermouth—”
“Some Cointreau and some vodka.”
The bartender’s mouth fell open. “You heard of it! I’ll be double-dipped! I’d of bet my shirt she was making it up!” He leaned over the bar, curious. “What’s it taste like?”
“Like it sounds, I imagine,” Reardon said. “I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot swizzle stick myself.”
“That’s what I figured,” the bartender said, and nodded, satisfied. “She didn’t barely drink it herself.”
“Which just proves we’re up against a superior intelligence,” Reardon said. He thought a moment and then came to his feet. Lundahl slid from the adjoining stool and stood waiting, towering over the lieutenant. “Well,” Reardon said to the bartender, “thanks for the help. If you see the girl again, you know where to get in touch.”
“Sure, Lieutenant.” The bartender finished polishing the glass, blew some fluff from the towel off it, and set it beneath the counter. “Gremlin’s Grampa, eh? I’d of sworn she made the thing up out of her head...”
The two detectives walked into the hotel lobby; Reardon found a telephone booth and squeezed himself into it, closing the door behind him. A few minutes’ conversation with the Homicide desk at the Hall of Justice and he hung up and managed to escape the confining cage.
“Captain Tower’s smart, which is probably why he made captain. He’s gone home and gone to bed. Which is what I’m going to do.” He yawned deeply and stretched, after which he headed in the direction of the front door and the street. Lundahl caught up with him.
“Hey, Lieutenant, what do we do about the dame?” He paused a moment. “I’ll put her make out on the town — such as it is — but, well, you want me to put the word around, maybe to some of the bars, for them to keep an eye open for anyone asking for a — what did she call it?”
“A Gremlin’s Grampa.” Reardon grinned. “I think you’d be better off checking the DT wards of the local hospitals. Nobody can knock down very many of those without starting to see little green men.” His smile suddenly faded; he checked his watch. “As a matter of fact, Stan, there is something you can do. Jerry Capp got knocked off earlier tonight in a bar down on the Embarcadero—”
“Yeah. I heard.”
“Well, just before he got it, some girl came into the bar asking for directions. The bartender couldn’t give a decent description, but maybe he’d recognize the one we got just now. It’s worth a try, anyway. We don’t have much of anything else to try. It’s on the corner of Berry — Seven twenty-eight Embarcadero.” He looked at his watch again. “They ought to still be open down there.”
“They’re open down there practically all the time,” Lundahl said. “They sweep from under guys. I’ll get right down there.” He paused. “Say, Lieutenant, she didn’t ask for any of that Gremlin’s Grampa stuff down there, did she?”
“No, just directions. No Gremlin’s Grampas.” Reardon smiled. “I suppose we should be thankful she didn’t order martinis. If we had to put a check on every dame in town who drinks martinis, we’d really have our hands full.”
Or guys, either, he thought, as he waved good night and climbed into the Charger. Speaking of martinis, exactly why had he thought it so absolutely vital to take that third martini tonight at dinner? He hadn’t really wanted it; he was just looking for an excuse to fight with Jan about the marriage bit, and as usual he’d found it. He smiled wryly as he started the engine and pulled out into the deserted street. Maybe when they found the girl who had been with Pete Falcone when he so unfortunately met his end, he’d start dating her instead of Jan. There certainly shouldn’t be any argument about his drinking — not with anyone who put down that concoction!
He yawned, settled himself behind the wheel, and headed for home.
Chapter 6
Thursday — 12:55 a.m.
It was rare, indeed, that a parking space appeared within a quarter-mile radius of Reardon’s apartment, and in fact he had often thought some of the car owners represented in his neighborhood bought cars for the sole purpose of taking potential spaces from him, and never drove them, but tonight he was pleasantly surprised to find an empty space almost immediately in front of his door. With the rightful suspicion of the native San Franciscan, he glanced down the steep hill, more than half expecting that the car that had been parked there had escaped its brake and rolled down the sharp incline, but nothing seemed to be amiss below. With an inner hope that the event foreshadowed good luck in general for a while, he set the emergency, swung the tires sharply into the curb, and descended, yawning. Below him the fog was clearing rapidly; tomorrow, he was suddenly sure, would be a good day in all respects.