Hale said, “What a peculiar place.”
“It’s like all New Orleans nightclubs — that is, the ones in the French Quarter,”
A waiter came over. “You want a table?”
I nodded.
We followed him over to the table he indicated and sat down. “Marilyn Winton works here?” Hale asked.
“Yes. She’s the girl in the cream-colored satin.”
“Marvelous figure,” Hale commented appreciatively.
“Uh huh.”
“I wonder if we could arrange to — well, you know, how are we going to get a chance to talk with her?”
“She’ll be over.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I have a hunch.”
Marilyn had been in the game long enough so that when men’s eyes started boring a hole in her back she turned instinctively.
She smiled; then she came over.
“Hello,” she said to me.
I got up and said, “Hello. Marilyn, this is a friend of mine, Mr. Hale.”
“Oh, how are you, Mr. Hale?” She gave him her hand.
Hale was standing up at his full height beaming down at her. The expression on his face was like that of a kid who is looking through a plate-glass store window at Santa Claus two days before Christmas.
“Won’t you sit down?” I asked.
“Thanks.”
We had no more than seated her when the waiter came up for an order.
“Plain water and whisky,” she said.
“Gin and Coke,” I ordered.
Hale pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Well, let me see. Do you have any real good cognac?”
I answered for the waiter. “No,” I said. “Since you’re here in New Orleans, why not drink a New Orleans drink? Gin and Seven-Up; gin and Coke; rum and Coke; or bourbon and Seven-Up?”
“Gin and Coke?” he inquired as though I’d suggested he try a chloride of lime cocktail. “Do you mean they mix them?”
“Bring him one” I told the waiter.
The waiter went away. Marilyn said to me, “Why did you run out on me — that other time?”
“Who said I did?”
“A little bird — and then I have eyes, you know.”
“ I’ll say you have.”
She laughed. “What’s your name?”
“Donald.”
“Next time don’t get a girl all interested and then walk out”
Hale said to me, “You’ve talked with Miss Winton before?”
“No. I’ve wanted to, but-well, somehow, it just didn’t come off.”
She said, “Faint heart never won fair lady. Don’t let things get you down, Donald.”
The waiter brought our drinks. Hale paid for them. He picked his glass up, an expression of austere disapproval held in escrow on his face, ready to be delivered as soon as the first sip of liquid passed over his tongue. I saw a look of surprise on his face; then he took another sip and said, “Good heavens. Lam, that’s good! ”
“I told you it was.”
“Why, I like it. It’s a delightful drink. Much better than the conventional Scotch and soda. It has just enough body without having a cloying sweetness.”
Marilyn sipped her cold tea and said, “I like this bourbon and plain water. It’s a nice drink — when you’re doing quite a bit of drinking.”
Hale seemed shocked. He looked her over and said, “Do you do a lot of drinking?”
“Oh, off and on.”
His eyes looked her over, searching for evidences of extreme dissipation.
“Cigarette?” I asked her.
“Please.”
I gave her a cigarette. Hale took a cigar. We lit up.
“Where are you boys from?” she asked.
I said, “My friend’s from New York.”
“Must be quite a city. I’ve never been there. I think I’d be afraid to go.”
“Why?” Hale asked her.
“Oh, I don’t know. Big cities terrify me. I know I couldn’t find my way around.”
Hale contrived to cast himself in the role of cosmopolite by saying, “I think New York is an easy city to get around in. Chicago and Saint Louis are much more difficult.”
“They’re all too big for me.”
“If you ever come to New York, let me know, and I’ll see that you don’t get lost.”
“Or stolen?” she asked, her eyes laughing.
“Yes.”
“How about strayed?”
“Well,” Hale deliberated, and glanced at me. A smirk began forming about the comers of his mouth. “If you stay with me, you won’t stray very far.”
“No-o-o-o?” she asked with just the right rising inflection, using her eyes.
Hale laughed as though he’d received a shot of vitamins. “I like this drink, Lam. I like it very much. I’m certainly glad you called my attention to it. I like this New Orleans type of nightclub, so cosy, so intimate, so typical of the French Quarter. There’s a certain distinctive, informal atmosphere which you wouldn’t find anywhere else, eh?”
I grinned across at Marilyn and said, “I’ll give you one guess as to who’s having a good time.”
“I don’t think you are.”
“What makes you think so?”
“You haven’t said so.”
“I’m the strong, silent type!”
Rosalind walked by. Marilyn looked at her as a watchdog might look at a tramp. Rosalind gave me no sign. Marilyn looked away, and I got a quick, intimate, split-second smile; then her face was a dead blank once more.
I ground out my cigarette in the ash tray, dropped my hand to my coat pocket, and surreptitiously dumped all of the cigarettes except one out of the package.
Hale said, “I think this is one of the most delightful drinks I’ve ever tasted.”
Marilyn tossed off the rest of her cold tea, said, “If you take two or three of them one right after the other, you really feel good. But you never get high on them, just a pleasant glow.”
“Is that so?”
She nodded.
“I like to sip a drink like this,” Hale said.
I said, “Be a sport and drink it down. Marilyn wants us to buy another drink.”
Her eyes caressed me. “How did you know?”
“I’m psychic,”
“I believe you are.” Her hand came across the table to rest on mine.
The psychic one was the waiter. He materialized by the table without any apparent signal.
“Fill them up again,” I said.
I took the cigarette package from my pocket, extended it to Marilyn. “How about another one?”
“Thanks.”
She took it, and I fumbled around in the package with my forefinger.
“I believe I took the last one,” she said.
I shook the package, grinned, crushed it, said, “That’s all right. I’ll get more.”
“The waiter will bring some.”
“No. This is fine, thanks. I see a machine over there.”
I held a match to her cigarette, shook it out, got up, and walked over to the cigarette-vending machine. I pretended I was out of change, and went over to the bar to get some. After getting the package of cigarettes, I paused by the pinball machine and played a game. While I was doing that I slid my right hand down into my coat pocket, got hold of the discarded cigarettes I’d slipped out from the other package, crumbled them into a ball, and dropped them unobtrusively on the floor.
I finished my game on the pinball machine and managed to ring up a couple of free games.
I looked back over at the table. Marilyn was watching me, but Hale was leaning forward, pouring conversation into her ear. The three new drinks were on the table.
I waved my hand, called out, “This is velvet,” and turned back to the pinball machine.
Rosalind walked up to the cigarette-vending machine, fumbled in her purse for coins, said out of the comer of her mouth, “Don’t look up.”
I kept playing the pinball machine.
“Don’t make any play for me. It would cost me my job. She’s interested in you. When you walked out on her, it knocked her for a loop. But-don’t go overboard.”
“Why?”
“You’d be sorry.”
“Thanks.”
She picked up her cigarettes and turned away.
I swung around so I could see the mirror over the bar. Marilyn was watching her with the cold, unwinking stare of a snake regarding a young bird that has just fluttered to the ground.
I kept on shooting balls in the machine, used up my two free games, started feeding in coins.
Hale was really going to town. He’d worked up a lot of enthusiasm now, making gestures with his hands, looking in Marilyn’s eyes, occasionally letting his glance stray down to the bare shoulders.
I went back to the table.
Emory Hale was saying, “—ex ceed ingly fascinating.”
Marilyn was giving him the steady eye. She said, “I’m glad you think so because I find mature people so much more interesting than the men of my own age. Somehow those younger men can’t seem to hold my attention. After a little while they bore me to distraction. Now why is that, Emory? Is there something wrong with me?”
He beamed across at her. At that particular moment he didn’t know I was anywhere in the country and she couldn’t see me without turning.
“Go on,” she pleaded. “If you know why it is, tell me.”
I cleared my throat. Neither of them looked up.
He said, “It’s because, my dear, you have such a fine mind. You can’t be interested in the mediocre banalities of adolescent conversation. Despite your beautiful body and your very evident youth, it’s quite apparent that you—”
I backed up a few steps, coughed loudly, and came walking toward the table.
Marilyn said, “We thought we’d lost you.”
“I went to buy some cigarettes.”
“I’ll take one,” she said.
Hale kept looking at her while I opened the package.
“How’s the pinball machine?” Marilyn asked.
“Pretty fair. I won a few.”
“Cash in?”
“No. Played back.”
“I always do that. They say it’s foolish. You should cash in your winnings.”
“I can’t see that it makes much difference.”
“If you don’t cash them in, the machine eventually cleans you.”
“It does anyway.”
She thought that over.
Emory Hale cleared his throat. “As I was saying, it is very seldom that one finds a mind capable of developing the mature outlook before—”
She said, “Oh, there’s the waiter — looking over this way. I guess he sees my glass is empty. He’s such a funny chap. Do you know if I sit here with an empty glass, he’ll stand there and stare at us as though he was trying to hypnotize me. Why, you have a drink there which you haven’t touched, Donald.”
I said, “That’s right. I should have taken it over to the pinball machine with me. Well, here’s happy days.”
“But I have nothing to drink with.”
“We’ll have to remedy that.”
Hale said, “I think you have the most wonderful hair.”
“Thanks... Joe, I’ll have another whisky and water.”
The waiter turned to Hale.
“Bring him another Coke and gin,” I said. “Fix it so he can taste it if you don’t want the party to go dead.”
The waiter looked at Hale, then looked at me. “Okay, what do you want?”
“This is a hold-over. I’m keeping it.”
He said, “You’re entitled to another drink at no extra charge. When you have a girl at the table, you—”
“I know all about that,” I told him. “Get these drinks before these people die of thirst in the middle of your night spot.”
Marilyn laughed at that.
Hale started rubbering around the room.
Marilyn took a deep drag at her cigarette and said casually, “You’ll find it through the archway in that next room.”
Hale seemed embarrassed. “I beg pardon.”
“That’s where it is.”
“What?”
“What you’re looking for.”
Hale cleared his throat, pushed back his chair, said with dignity, “Excuse me for a moment.”
“Guess he can’t take it too well,” I said, as she watched him cross the room.
“A lot of those old bozos can’t. He’s a nice guy, isn’t he, Donald?”
She was watching me intently.
“Uh huh.”
“You don’t seem to put much enthusiasm in it”
“What do you want me to do? Stand at attention or I jump up on the table and start waving a flag?”
“Don’t be silly. I just said he was a good guy.”
“Don’t be silly, yourself. I said he was, too.”
She looked down at the table for a while, then suddenly looked back up at me and smiled, that steady-eyed, direct smile which had such a suggestion of intimacy. “Don’t get me wrong, Donald. I mean that he’s a good enough guy, but — well, you know how it is. Youth appeals to youth and—”
“Go ahead,” I said, “finish it,” as she seemed to stall on dead center. “What does age appeal to?”
“Nothing.”
I laughed.
“It’s the God’s truth. The old women want young men, and the old men want the flappers. If the older men would give the older women just a little attention, it would make everybody a lot happier.” She kept her eyes on mine. “As for me, I want youth.”
She put her hand across the table and squeezed mine. “What did you say to that girl?”
“What girl?”
“The one who came over to use the cigarette machine when you were playing the pinball machine — Rosalind. You bought her a drink when you were here before — remember?”
I said, “I didn’t place her at first. I guess she’s sore. I kept looking at you when she was with me. She noticed it. I think it made her mad.”
“Oh.”
“Aren’t you and Emory getting along?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Famously. Why?”
“I was wondering after what you said about older men and wanting youth.”
She smiled and said, “Oh, in a way he’s different. He’s so quaint and — sort of old-fashioned. He’s like a father to me. What does he do?”
“He’s a New York lawyer.”
“Oh, a lawyer! Successful?”
I said, “He’s got money to burn. And he isn’t one of the hard-boiled kind that know all the tricks. He specializes on probate work. He’s really a babe in the woods.”
She said, “It’s funny, but I thought there was something in his life — oh, you know what I mean. An aura of misfortune that clings to him. Perhaps he’s unhappily married. That may be it. Domestic troubles.”
“I don’t think there’s anything to that theory. I gathered the impression he’s a wealthy widower.”
“Oh.”
I said, “Here he comes now. Look at the way he’s walking. He’s certainly picking them up and putting them down carefully.”
She laughed and said, “Another gin and Coke and his feet won’t even touch the floor. Look, Donald,” she said hurriedly, “you know that girl I was talking to you about?”
“You mean Rosalind?”
“Yes.”
“What about her?”
“Try and find an opportunity to speak to her. She’s just absolutely crazy about you, simply nuts. Perhaps you don’t realize it, but when a girl in a place like this falls for a man the way she does for you, it hurts her terribly to have you come in and sit with another girl. Do try and say something nice to her, won’t you?”
“Why, sure. I didn’t think she even remembered me.”
“Remember you! I tell you she’s crazy about you... Oh, you’re back, Emory? Just in time for your drink. Joe’s bringing one over. How do you feel?”
Hale said, “Like a million dollars.”
Marilyn said, “There’s Rosalind now. Rosalind’s a great one for the pinball machine. I’ll bet she keeps herself broke playing the pinball. During the daytime when business is slack, you know.”
Marilyn looked significantly at me and smiled.
“Excuse me,” I said.
I got up and wandered over to the pinball machine. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marilyn give Rosalind a signal.
I’d shot the third ball on the machine when I noticed Rosalind standing beside me. “What did you do to her?” she asked.
“Why?”
“She gave me the highball to pick you up.”
I said, “I let her think she had a diamond-studded live one.”
“Is he?”
“Maybe.”
“Friend of yours?”
“In a way. Why?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering.”
I finished out the game on the pinball machine, fed a coin in the slot, and pushed in the plunger. “Want to try it?” I asked.
She started shooting balls around the board. Joe came over and looked at me significantly.
“Couple of drinks,” I ordered.
“What’s yours?” he asked Rosalind.
“Same old stuff. This guy is wise to the joint, Joe. Don’t bother with the hooey. Just bring me the cold tea. You’ll get the dough.”
“Yours?” Joe asked me, grinning.
“Gin and Seven-Up.”
Rosalind and I finished our drinks at the pinball machine. “You going back?” she asked.
“Perhaps.”
“Marilyn wants me to stay with you.”
“Why not? Come on over and meet Emory.”
“You aren’t sore, are you?”
“At what?”
“Oh-Marilyn. You don’t-you didn’t really fall for her, did you?”
I grinned at her. “Come on over. Sit down and join the party.”
She said, “You did a swell job with Marilyn.”
“Why?”
“She was looking daggers at me a few minutes ago when she thought I was making a play for you. Now she’s signaled me to go ahead.”
“Circumstances alter cases.”
She said, “Donald, you’re a deep one. Just what are you after?”
“Nothing that’s going to hurt you any.”
She looked at me and said, “I’ll bet you’d give a girl a square deal at that.”
I didn’t say anything. We walked over to the table.
Marilyn said casually, “Oh, hello, Rosalind. This is Emory, my friend, Mr. Emory — Smith.”
She turned to Hale and flashed him a quick wink.
Rosalind said, “How do you do, Mr. Smith?”
Hale got up and bowed. I held a chair for Rosalind. We sat down.
Marilyn said to Hale, “I don’t like to talk about it. Let’s talk about something else.”
“What don’t you like to talk about?” I asked.
Hale said, “What happened this morning.”
“What happened?”
“Marilyn heard the shot that killed that lawyer. You remember reading about it in the papers?”
I said, “Oh.”
“She was coming in around three o’clock in the morning,” Hale said.
“Two-thirty,” Marilyn corrected.
Hale frowned. “Why, I thought you told me it was somewhere between two-thirty and three.”
“No. I looked at my watch. It must have happened just a second or two after two-thirty.”
“Wrist watch?” Hale asked.
“Yes.”
He reached across the table, took her wrist in his hand, and looked at the diamond-studded watch.
“My, what a beauty!”
“Isn’t it?”
“I’ll bet someone thought a lot of you to give you that. May I look at it?”
She unsnapped it, and Hale turned it over and over in his fingers. “A very beautiful watch,” he said, “very, very beautiful.”
I said to Rosalind, “What is there to do in this place? Don’t they dance?”
“No. They have a floor show.”
“When?”
“It’ll be on almost any minute now.”
Marilyn laughed and said, “There’s Joe looking at your empty glass, Rosalind.”
Hale said, “Just a minute, and he can look at mine.” He tossed down the rest of his drink, snapped his fingers, and said, “Oh, Joe.”
The waiter didn’t waste any time this trip. “Fill ‘em up with the same thing?” he asked.
“Fill ‘em up same thing,” Hale said, still fingering Marilyn’s wrist watch.
Joe brought the drinks. The lights dimmed. Marilyn said, “This is the floor show coming on. You’ll love it.”
Chairs scraped over the floor as a girl with an Egyptian profile, a pair of shorts covered with hieroglyphics, and a bra decorated in the same way came out, sat cross-legged on the floor, and made angles with her hands and elbows. She got a spattering of applause. A man with boisterous hilarity came out and made a few off-color cracks into a microphone. A strip-tease artist did her stuff, finishing up in the middle of a blue spot that furnished all the clothing. She got a terrific hand. Then the Egyptian dancer came back into the blue spot wearing a grass skirt with a lei around her neck and an imitation hibiscus in her hair. The bird who had put on the monologue played a uke, and she did her version of the hula.
When the lights came up again, Hale handed Marilyn the wrist watch he’d been playing with during the floor show.
“That all of it?” I asked Rosalind.
Marilyn said, “No. It’s just an intermission. There’ll be another act in a minute or two. This gives us a chance to get our glasses filled up.”
Joe filled up our glasses.
Hale grinned across the table at me, the man-of-the-world grin. “Havin’ a swell time,” he said. “Bes’ little girl in the world. Bes’ drinks in the world. Gonna have all my friends in when I get back t’ New York, show ‘em fine New Orleans drinks. Makes you feel good. Don’t get drunk. Jus’ get to feeling good.”
“That’s right,” I told him.
Marilyn put the wrist watch back on. A second or two later she was looking at me, then at Rosalind. She wiped her wrist with a napkin, said, “Ain’t we got fun?”
The second act started. The man who had been playing the uke came out in evening clothes and put on a series of dances with the Egyptian dancer; then the strip-tease artist did a fan dance. The lights went back up, and Joe was at our elbows.
“How many Joes are there?” I asked Marilyn.
“Just one. Why?”
“He seems to be twins.”
“You seein’ two of ‘em?” Hale asked solicitously.
I said, “No. I only see one, but the other one is over at the bar getting the drinks mixed. He’ll come back with the drinks while this one is over at the bar getting more drinks mixed. One man couldn’t make that many round trips.”
Joe looked down at me with the half smile on his lips, an expression of detached amusement, not unmixed with contempt.
Hale started to laugh. His laughter kept getting louder. I thought he was going to fall off the chair.
Marilyn waved her hand. “Same thing all around.”
Abruptly I pushed back my chair. “I’m going home,” I said.
Rosalind looked at me. “Aw, gee, Donald, you just got here.”
I took her hand, held it in mine long enough to slip her a couple of folded dollar bills. “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling good. That last drink didn’t agree with me.”
Hale laughed uproariously. “Ought to drink gin and Coke,” he said. “That stuff you can drink all night. Marvelous drink. Makes you feel good, but doesn’t get you tight. You youngsters can’t stand anything. We know, don’t we, Marilyn?”
He looked across at her with a loose-lipped leer, his alcohol-lighted eyes peering out from over the folds of flushed skin.
Marilyn put her hand across to let it rest on his for a moment. A little later she freed her hand, moistened the tip of her napkin in the water glass, and rubbed it on her wrist.
I said, “Good night, everybody.”
Hale peered up at me. For a moment the laughter left his face. He started to say something, then changed his mind, turned back to Marilyn, thought of something else, swung around to me, and said, “This is a smart bird, Marilyn. You wanna watch him.”
“What kind of a bird?” she asked — “not a pigeon!”
“No,” Hale said, failing to get the significance of her remark. “He’s an owl — you know — wise guy. Always said he was ‘n owl.”
That idea struck him as funny. When I went out of the door he was laughing so hard he could hardly catch his breath. Tears were beginning to trickle down his cheeks.
I got to the hotel. Bertha had arrived in Los Angeles. There was the characteristic wire from her: What’s the idea digging in last year’s rabbit warren? We are too short-handed to scare up dope on old murder cases. Felonies outlaw in this state after three years. What sort of a bird do you think you are?
I went down to the telegraph office and was feeling just good enough to send her the reply I wanted: Murder never outlaws. Hale says I’m an owl.
I sent the message collect.