Glancing that way, I nodded. The man was even bigger than Mouldy, though not as solidly built. He must have been six feet five, with heavy shoulders and long powerful arms. His eyes bulged and his lips hung slightly open, giving the impression he was on the verge of choking, but he wasn’t actually. It must have been his normal expression, for he seemed in no discomfort.
“What about him?” I asked.
“He seems interested in your crook friend. Or someone in his party. He come in right on their tail, took a table near theirs, and after he finished eating, just sat there till they started out again. I been watching him ‘cause I don’t like his looks.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep my eye out for him.”
When the rest of the group rejoined us and we went out together, I noted that the tall man left too. He was still waiting on the steps for his own car when the parking-lot attendant brought mine from around back and we drove off. In the rear-view mirror I could see him watching without any apparent interest as the other four in our party climbed into a taxi, and I decided Mouldy was having pipe dreams.
En route to Barney Amhurst’s apartment I made conversation with the couple in the back seat by inquiring just what the invention was that was responsible for our celebration.
“We call it the Huntsafe,” Walter Ford said. “It’s a portable warning device that lets hunters know when other hunters are nearby. The whole contraption weighs only two pounds and the transmitter, including batteries, is only one by three by four inches. It straps on the belt, and the receiver straps around the wrist like a watch.”
“I see,” I said dubiously. “A sort of portable radar device. But is it efficient enough to sort hunters out from trees, or deer, or other objects that might reflect radar waves?”
“No, no. It doesn’t work by reflection, like radar. It’s based on the principle of the radio compass. The transmitter sets up a huge electromagnetic field around itself... a little over four hundred yards in radius. The idea is to get every hunter in the woods equipped with a Huntsafe. Then any time two hunters get within four hundred yards of each other, their receivers begin to tick like Geiger counters. The wrist receiver has an indicator on it resembling a compass needle, and when you hear the tick, you hold your wrist horizontal and the needle points straight at the other hunter. Then you avoid shooting in that direction. It’s the most terrific thing in the field of outdoor sports in years. Do you know how many hunters are accidentally shot by other hunters every year?”
“No,” I admitted. “But the thing isn’t going to be very effective unless you can talk all hunters into buying it, is it?”
“Oh, we’ve got that figured,” Ford said confidently.
But he never got a chance to explain how, because Bubbles Duval, apparently tiring of being excluded from the conversation, changed the subject.
“Are you a professional boxer, Manny?” she asked suddenly.
“Me?” I asked, startled. “No. I mean, not now.”
“You were though, huh?”
“Manny has not fought for years,” Fausta told Bubbles. “He is a private detective.”
“Oh!” Bubbles said in a thrilled voice. “Like Martin Kane, private eye?”
“Nothing so glamorous,” I assured her. “Most of my cases are insurance investigations, skip tracings or acting as bodyguard for people who think someone is mad at them. Mostly the last.”
“That’s interesting,” Walter Ford remarked. “We’re practically surrounded by bodyguards tonight.”
He didn’t explain the remark and no one asked him to.
Barney Amhurst lived at the Remley Apartments on McKnight Avenue, which is neither highly exclusive nor in a slum area. When we parked in front, the taxi containing the rest of the party double-parked next to us, and at the same time a gray coupé pulled to the curb directly behind my Plymouth.
While I was opening the door for Fausta, I glanced back at the coupé and noted its driver remained seated in the car. By the light of a nearby street lamp which cast a dim glow into the coupé’s interior, I could faintly make out his face. Something about it seemed familiar.
Not being bashful, I walked over to the coupé and peered in. Its single occupant was the muscular guy with the hyperthyroid eyes who had followed us from El Patio.
“Anybody in our party you want to talk to?” I asked. “Or are you just casing us for a heist?”
He merely stared at me without saying anything.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I said in a reasonable tone. “But strangers following me around make me nervous. Just give me a plausible explanation and we’ll drop the subject.”
“Anything the matter?” asked a slurred voice behind me.
Turning, I found the reformed extortionist, Ed Friday, had come up and was watching us inquiringly.
“He was asking if maybe I’m going to heist somebody,” the man in the coupé said.
Friday chuckled. “The misunderstanding is my fault, Max. I should have tipped Mr. Moon off.” To me he said, “It’s all right, Mr. Moon. Max is with me.”
“You ought to pin a label on him,” I said. “Some jittery citizen might misinterpret his loitering and yell for the cops.”
Friday emitted a hearty laugh and slapped me on the shoulder.
Chapter Three
Barney Amhurst’s place was a four-room corner apartment on the first floor, its décor so overwhelmingly masculine it was obvious the effect had been striven for, possibly as compensation for our host’s curly hair and dimples. Heavy leather furniture dominated the big front room, leather-bound volumes filled three rows of built-in bookshelves each side of the wide fireplace, and a mounted deer head stared at us from over the mantel when we entered the room. A rack of pipes on the mantel and another on a square end table drove the point home, and the whole effect was topped by a gunrack on one wall containing a deer rifle and a pump shotgun.
Wide French doors opened from the front room onto the outside lawn, with a step down of about two feet. When Barney led us into an equally masculine bedroom, where the men left their hats and the women their evening capes, I noted similar French doors opened from there to a side lawn. A third room, presumably either another bedroom or a study, was off the front room, but its door was closed and our host didn’t offer to show it to anyone.
The fourth room was a full-sized kitchen, into which Amhurst herded the men to assist in drink mixing while the ladies repaired their make-up in the bathroom off the bedroom.
By the time we had gotten together eight highballs and transported them to the front room, Fausta, the red-haired Madeline Strong and the enameled brunette, Evelyn Karnes, had completed their repairs, but Bubbles was still in the bedroom.
“If we wait for Bubbles, the ice will melt,” Walter Ford said. “Put her in front of a mirror and she’s content for hours.” He raised his glass. “A final toast to the Huntsafe before we settle down to serious drinking.”
Instantly Evelyn Karnes’s glass was touching Ford’s and she was smiling brilliantly into his face. Deliberately Ed Friday moved between the two, touched his glass to theirs and stared down at his date without expression. Evelyn’s smile became mechanical as she hurriedly stepped back from Ford and made a point of standing close to Friday. The rest of us skipped touching glasses, signaling the toast merely by raising them slightly before drinking.
When we had drunk the toast, I said, “On the way over Mr. Ford explained to me what the Huntsafe was, but I didn’t quite grasp its commercial value. I’m not trying to be a wet blanket, but what makes all of you so sure anyone will buy the contraption?”
Apparently this touched off the pet subject of the Huntsafe’s inventor, for Barney Amhurst’s eyes lighted with enthusiasm. Almost bounding at me, he stuck his finger against my chest.