People moved as slowly as the money inside this Twilight Zone gambling den. Cocktail waitresses cruised like airliners in a holding pattern: aimless, lumbering, remote in the skimpy crimson uniforms so common to their calling. Matt couldn't envision the woman who had visited him masquerading in one of these saloon-girl getups: limp red satin ruffles edging drooping hems and framing sagging shoulders. Nothing about Kitty O'Connor had drooped or sagged, least of all her attitude.
"Drink?" One of the red satin girls had blocked his path with a tray of smudged gas-station glasses.
She hadn't really looked at him; instead she eyed the half-empty casino for more candidates, customers who had entered, then paused to reconsider.
Under one of the few bleary overhead lights, the drinks showed their true watered-down colors through the dingy glasses: these freebies were straw-colored hybrid freaks, a thimbleful of scotch to six fingers of soda, probably flat.
No, thanks," he said with no regrets. "But maybe you could check out this ID. You ever see this guy in here? Last name is Effinger, first, Cliff."
"Honey, in Las Vegas the only names that count are on the games of chance, and you see everybody everywhere at some point. Jerry Lewis even came in here once. 'Course, it was years ago, before he had his big Broadway revival and this place hit the skids. No, I don't remember this here guy, but I don't look much anymore, you know? And I guess I don't have to."
She glanced up finally, as her restless eyes stopped their weary evasions.
"Whatever name he uses, that guy's your typical low-rent loser. They all look alike. You, though--"
"Kitty been in lately?" He didn't expect her to know that name. Now that he'd seen the place, he couldn't see Kitty O'Connor working here, not even long enough to earn thirty pieces of silver.
"She quit."
"She did?"
"Don't sound so surprised. We'd all quit if we could get jobs at anyplace other than this dump."
But he was surprised, so taken aback that he forgot to resent the sudden speculation in her tired eyes. She was maybe forty-one passing for forty-eight, with the underfed, slightly bucktoothed look of a lot of not-quite-pretty women who end up slinging hash and dipping at the knees to place paper cocktail napkins on damp tabletops while avoiding punches and worst.
He was thinking of moving on, when he realized he'd never gel anywhere at the private-investigation game if he didn't play the cards he had. It she thought he was the best looking customer who'd come in a blue moon, so be it. Amen. Use it, brother, use it.
"I don't know if they allow you to sit down, but I'd buy you a drink if--"
"Listen. They let us do anything that sells booze or poker chips." She sashayed ahead of him to the almost-empty lounge area, ruffles swaying.
Barrel chairs upholstered in dirty-orange crushed velvet sat at inhospitable angles to each other, pulled away from tables as if all the Gilded Lily's customers had decamped in a mass panic not long before.
"Verle." She threw herself into the chair nearest a table. Crossed legs showed off fishnet hose with one visible hole. She worried a pack of cigarettes from under a once-puffed red satin sleeve. "Got a match? Hey, I don't mean personally, honey. Obviously no one in this place, and a lotta other ones, can't even come close to you. I mean, can you light my fire?" By now, an unlit filtered cigarette was attached to her lips like an albino leech.
Matches, Matt noted. Something no investigator of the back alleys of life should be without. That and a strong stomach for rotgut.
He shook his head, but she was already beckoning the waiter. Or an albino leech seller. Matt smiled. If Temple could see him now.
"George," Verle wheedled. "You still got that Zippo lighter of yours outta hock? Hit me. Thanks." She sank back into a contrail of her own fresh smoke, coughing. "The usual, and see what Pretty Boy Floyd is having."
"Black Russian," Matt said quickly. Whatever brand passed for vodka at the place, they couldn't fake Kahlua. He hoped. He also hoped that the coffee liqueur would overpower any untoward tastes.
"You work here for long, Verle?" Matt asked pleasantly.
"Six years, off and on. I come and I go."
"Did Kitty come and go?"
"Nah. She was here for a few months, then she quit suddenly. You know her?"
"Not well. I heard about her, you know?"
"Yeah, well, she's gone, Little Boy Blue."
"Too bad." Matt had pulled out his wallet and now fingered the greasy sketch of Cliff Effinger. "I heard she might know something about this guy."
"What if she did? She's been gone eight months or so now. She's not the one who could tell you about this Effinger guy, if he was here lately."
Verle had picked up the portrait like a card dealt to her in a game, maybe even a lucky card. Her lukewarm brown eyes flicked at his.
"You want to find this guy bad?"
"I'm looking, aren't I?"
"You're not a cop. You a private dick?"
He shook his head.
"I didn't think so. This isn't your scene, is it?"
He shrugged, spread his fingers, and wondered if he should search for a lie, realizing that he had no good story ready. And Kitty? She had left too long ago to be the woman at the Circle Ritz. Kitty was a good name for a lot of women in Las Vegas.
When George returned, Verle grabbed the drinks from the tray before he could set them down. Matt paid, and handsomely. He had seen George's glance narrow at the tiny image of Effinger face-up on the table. Verle, he figured, had done him all the good she could, but now he was stuck for at least half an hour, easing her out of his way without hurting her feelings. He supposed Sam Spade would just smash her cigarette into her buckteeth and leave.
Verle puckered her lips into a wrinkled O to exhale a blast of blue smoke. "God, you are a breath of fresh air in this place. What's your name?"
"Matt."
"Matt. Good name. I get taken for Pearl a lot. Now I ask, do I look like a Pearl to you?"
He eyed her dry, bleached tangerine hair, her long artificial nails covered in a milky-blue polish that had chipped along the thick, uneven edges.
"Not a Pearl. Maybe an Opal."
"Oooh, an Opal. I like that. Fire opal, maybe." She waggled the cigarette, now sporting a half-inch of ash, between her long fingers.
Matt turned Effinger's face toward himself. "Maybe somebody else saw him."
"Sure. I got a distracting job. Some people just sit and wait on their ashcan all day." She glanced over a satin-edged shoulder at George behind the bar. "How many women bartenders you see in this town?"
"I'm not the best person to ask. I usually work nights."
"So do I, sugar. I do some of my best work nights. Or used to." Her drill-sergeant nails played "Taps" on the tabletop. "Anyway, there's more dough in tending bar, at least the tips. I saw what you handed George, and I'm the one who's talking to you."
Matt felt mild panic. He couldn't just throw some bills at her, but she was definitely hinting she wanted consideration. What to do? He sipped the Black Russian that was more black than Russian, and more coffee than vodka. It didn't even taste like a Red Russian.
"It's pretty important that I find this guy. Family matters."
"You mean people still have those?"
"Families? Yeah. Sure. You can't get rid of relatives, you know."
"Oh, I can. And if I were you, I'd get rid of this Effinger fellow too." A long, ragged nail tapped his nose. "Trouble, if you want my guess. I can see his kind coming a mile away. Wants some celebration honey when he wins, which is pretty unlikely, and even then his cash dries up as soon as you've let him check out your chips, if you know what I mean." She snorted in a strangely ladylike way. "But you don't. You're way out of your league here. Forget it. Forget Cliffie-boy. And forget Miss Kitty . . . oh, yeah, I can see she made quite an impression on you, probably belly to belly at some jamboree or other. You don't want that drink? Leave it, hon. I'll drink it for you."