“Oh, yes. I can handle it all right.”
She said it so casually I began to wonder just how rich she was. When I had asked if she could afford my fee, she had said, “Of course. I have plenty of money.” That could have meant she had a million-dollar bank account, or only a couple of thousand. Engaging
Harvey Brighton indicated she had more than a couple of thousand, because he was the state’s top criminal lawyer and I suspected he wouldn’t even consider handling a criminal case without at least a thousand-dollar retainer. And now her implication that she could meet whatever bond the court set suggested her. wealth was practically unlimited. It occurred to me I ought to dig into her credit rating before I made out my final bill so that I wouldn’t make the mistake of charging too low a fee.
I said, “I’ll let you know the minute I dig up anything definite,” and rang off.
It was twenty after eight when I walked up El Patio’s wide steps and was bowed through the bronze double doors by the uniformed doorman. Inside, Mouldy Greene failed to fracture my spine as usual with his catcher’s-mitt-sized right hand. Instead he merely examined me puzzledly.
“You trying to commit suicide, Sarge?” he asked.
“She’s here, huh?”
“In the dining room at the table you reserved. Fausta knows you reserved it, and she’s been walking around with a funny look in her eye. Look, Sarge, it ain’t too late. You go on home and I’ll tell this blonde kid you broke your hip and you’ll phone her when it mends.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But I’ll take a chance on maybe getting it really broken.”
Instead of her favorite shade of green Fausta was wearing a turquoise blue gown of some shiny material that looked like polished metal. It had even less front than her gowns usually possessed, exposing the upper swell of her firm breasts so far you could see the cleft between them; and where she was covered, the dress fitted as though it had been painted on.
As she swept toward me, she smiled brilliantly, with hands clasped in front of her, inclined her head the merest obsequious inch and said with the formal politeness of a headwaiter, “Good evening, Mr. Moon. Your young lady friend is already seated. Follow me, please.”
Cautiously I followed, keeping a discreet distance back in order to avoid any accidental contact between my good shin and one of Fausta’s sharp heels. But apparently the caution was unnecessary, for her conduct remained impeccable. Too impeccable, I thought uneasily as she made a graceful gesture toward my chair.
Bubbles, wearing a frilly gown which made her look about sixteen and made me feel like a grandfather, said with mock crossness, “I thought maybe you’d stood me up, Manny honey.” Then she giggled.
“Hi,” I mumbled, stumbling slightly just before I took my seat. I thought about making some kind of excuse for being late, then decided the hell with it.
“Is the table suitable, Mr. Honey?” Fausta asked me politely.
“Fine,” I said.
“Is your headwaiter sick tonight?” Bubbles asked Fausta. It was nothing you could put your finger on, but even though her tone was pleasantly friendly, Bubbles managed to insert a note of triumph into it. I am not sure how I knew, but suddenly it was quite clear to me that she had deliberately chosen El Patio in order to get under Fausta’s skin.
Fausta said, “The headwaiter is around somewhere. I often attend to favored customers myself. Sometimes I even cook for my best customers.”
Fausta slipped a menu into my hand, gave a smaller menu to Bubbles, favored us both with a bright smile and moved away.
Bubbles stared at her menu in astonishment. “Why this is a child’s menu!”
She held it up for me to see. Sure enough it was the bill of fare El Patio made up for children, consisting of a number of colored pictures of animals, with the meals listed on the animals’ bodies. The top one, I noted, was “The Teddy Bear Special,” and included a small steak, half portions of potatoes, vegetable and salad, milk served in a Mother Goose cup, and an ice-cream cone for dessert.
“She made a mistake,” I said hollowly, trading menus with her.
But I knew the child’s menu had not been a mistake. It was merely Fausta’s delicate way of accusing me of robbing the cradle.
Fausta brought the drinks herself, another departure from normal El Patio procedure, as I had never before seen either her or the headwaiter personally deliver anything to a customer aside from a menu. Noticing that the headwaiter was now back at his accustomed stand, I wondered if Fausta had now switched roles to that of waitress.
Apparently she had, for after depositing our drinks on the table, she went away and returned with a pencil and order card. Any of the regular waiters, of course, would have produced both from a pocket instead of having to go after them, but there was no place in Fausta’s skin-tight ensemble to conceal even a pencil, let alone an order blank.
Bubbles decided to order spaghetti and meat balls.
By now I was too unnerved to put much thought into what I wanted for dinner and settled for the first item on the menu. Unfortunately I forgot I had traded menus with Bubbles.
“Teddy Bear Special,” I muttered. Then when Bubbles giggled and I looked up to find Fausta was ignoring this and still patiently waiting for me to order, I realized which menu I had in my hand. “I mean a Bubbles Special. That is, the same thing Bubbles ordered.”
When our waitress had moved away, Bubbles said, “You aren’t engaged to Fausta, are you, Manny?”
“No. Why?”
She emitted a small giggle. “You’re acting like a teen-ager caught by his steady girl friend out with another girl. Why don’t you relax?”
“For one thing I’m too old for you. You’re only a kid. I’m thirty-two years old.”
“I’m twenty-one. Eleven years isn’t too much difference.”
“It is for me,” I assured her. “You remind me too much of my younger sister the last time I saw her.”
“You mean you want me to be just a platonic friend?”
“Something like that. We can confide our troubles to each other and weep on each other’s shoulders over unfortunate love affairs. For instance, you could tell me about your affair with Walter Ford.”
“Walter? Whatever for? He’s dead.”
“I know,” I said. “Madeline Strong engaged me to investigate his murder.”
“You mean you asked me out just to ask questions about Walter?” she demanded indignantly.
“Not entirely,” I backtracked a little. “Naturally any man would jump at the chance of taking such a lovely blonde wining and dining. But working on the case gives me a chance to combine business with pleasure. You’d want to help me out if you could, wouldn’t you?”
“I guess that would only be fair,” she admitted. “What do you want to know?”
While I was framing questions in my mind, Bubbles took a sip of her martini, then lifted the olive out by its toothpick and started to take another. Suddenly she emitted a suppressed yelp, set down the glass and pushed it away from her.
In its bottom, where it had been hidden by the olive, was a dead fly.
Chapter Thirteen
An angry flush suffused Bubbles’s doll-like face. As she started to open her mouth, I said rapidly, “I’ll order you another drink.”
“No!” Bubbles said decisively. “She put it there on purpose. I’m not going to let that jealous female think she can get a rise out of me.”
Lifting the martini glass, she leaned over and emptied it into a vase of flowers bracketed to the pillar against which our table set. Removing the olive from the toothpick, she dropped that in also and returned the toothpick to the glass.
Holding my own drink up to the light, I examined it carefully, but could detect nothing floating in it except ice. Needing a drink to settle my nerves, I drained the glass.