Jarnstrom ran up. “You hurt?”
“Not much.” Garret stood up groggily.
That had been close, too close. If he had delayed a fraction of a second in diving out of the way, his head would have been twisted from his shoulders.
“Too bad. These belts are always coming off the pulleys. I should have warned you.”
Garret’s gaze was steely. “If that thing had caught me around the neck, it would be to late for a warning.”
“You seen all you want to see?”
Garret answered cryptically, “I’ll be back for another look. And I’ll make sure no one is monkeying with the pulley-idlers when I come through next time!”
Garret didn’t stop at Loomis’ office on the way out. He was still dizzy from that smack by the lashing transmission-belt. He needed fresh air. The ten-minute walk down to town might do him good.
Nevertheless, he did ride down the hill in Ryder’s limousine. The Bender Corporation’s general manager was waiting for him, fifty yards down the street from Consolidated’s office.
“Where you want me to drop you now?”
“The hotel.” Garret had no intention of letting anyone else in on his Red Rooster appointment. “I didn’t expect you to wait for me.”
Ryder smiled. “I wouldn’t trust those muckers any further than you could spit.”
Garret felt of the lump on his head. “Not as far as that.”
“Besides” — the big man let the car coast easily down the incline — “I didn’t exactly wait for you. I drove back to Darcy’s place. Bill Narriver was there, thirsting for your blood.”
“Proctor got away from him then.”
“Sure. Bill’s burned to a cinder. He says if it hadn’t been for you, Proctor’d be in the jailhouse now.”
“Why do you hire punks like Narriver for company guards, anyway?”
“Bill’s just a plug-ugly in uniform,” the executive agreed. “But he has his uses. For instance, he has an in with the local police. They just tipped him off there’s a murder warrant out against you.”
“Darcy, huh? Did they find his body?”
“Bill didn’t know how they learned you were in the thing.”
“Better let me out right here then.” The car was still a hundred yards away from the Big Rooster, but Garret could make out a slender figure in a sports coat hurrying into the cafe. “They’ll post a cop in the lobby of the Rocky Mountain House, first thing.”
“You ought to know.” The limousine stopped. “I’ll have Ken pull a few strings. We might be able to kill that warrant. Anyhow, if the police do pick you up, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing your job’s more’n half done already.”
“Which half?”
“Why, Darcy’s.” There was surprise in Ryder’s tone. “Doesn’t seem to be much doubt he was working with Consolidated.”
“Not much,” Garret admitted, “but the other half of the combination might not be so easy to work out. I’m busy on that now. Thanks for the lift.”
He waited until the limousine rolled out of sight, then came up cautiously on the opposite side of the street from the Rooster. There was no one around who looked as if he might belong to the police force. He crossed the street and went in.
He didn’t see Shirley Brann for a minute. The place was roaring. At an enormous horse-shoe bar, miners in work denims jostled young girls in fluffy dance frocks; slick-haired youths just out from behind store counters reached for their drinks across the shoulders of housewives whose men had just gone down on the eight o’clock shift. Four bartenders in white jackets, with red roosters on the breast pockets, pulled beer taps, juggled shakers, poured from bottles at a furious pace. There was no time for punching a cash register; silver dollars were merely bounced on a marble slab to make sure they rang true, then tossed into a washtub on the back bar.
A double row of red-covered tables ran along one wall; among them, waitresses in knee-length Dutch girl costumes perspired under trays heaped high with steaks, french fries, hot biscuits. Against the other wall a staircase slanted up to the second floor. Guarding it at the foot was a cashier’s booth commanded by a brassy-haired female with a pink complexion, a baby stare and the physique of a wrestler. A neatly lettered placard over the cage stated:
Garret looked over the couples milling on the dance floor between the tables and the stairs; he knew Ken Brann’s sister wouldn’t be with that mob.
She saw him before he located her, called, “Bruce” over the din of the booming juke box and the babbling hubbub at the bar. He found her squeezed in between a middle-aged man and a bald-headed miner.
Garret steered Shirley deftly toward the end tables. “Sorry to get you into this.”
She laughed nervously. “It’s all right. It’s kind of exciting to see it once. Only it’s so terribly noisy.”
“That’s what the customers seem to want.” He found a vacant table. “Noise and excitement. But the food will be good, you can bank on that.”
“I’m not hungry, though. And I refused three drinks in those few minutes before you got here.”
But Garret said, “Two orders of sirloin and french fries,” to the waitress who flounced up to the table. “And coffee.”
“I understand.” Shirley opened her handbag, slid out a packet of printed documents. “So we won’t be too conspicuous?”
“That’s the idea, sort of.” He didn’t know how to tell her that nothing could prevent her standing out in this mob like a Powers model at a washerwomen’s convention, no matter whether she ate or drank anything or not. But perhaps nobody would notice him, as long as she attracted all the attention.
He smiled with his eyes. “Thanks in advance, for services rendered.” He took the packet of papers.
“I hadn’t intended to be helpful,” she admitted frankly. “But Ken’s brought me up to believe that every man at Ajax should be given a square deal, so I wanted to reassure myself that Harve Yault was treated fairly. When I found Darcy’s name in the report, I realized you might be right.” She leaned over to let him light her cigarette. “But if it does help you, I’m glad.”
“It does.” He studied the documents. “This pension allotment of his, made out to this Millie, seems to check with an anonymous scrawl sent to Washington a couple of days after Yault’s death.” He brought out the cellophane envelope. “No way of determining absolutely. But it looks as if a woman wrote this, judging by the use of lipstick and the way she worded it.”
“By the way she misspelled cartridge,” Shirley said, “not an especially well educated woman, either.”
He glanced up approvingly. “That’s Bingo for you. The sort of female who might have a name like Millie Hippo.”
There was a little squeal of surprise from the waitress bringing their steaks.
Garret asked, “You wouldn’t be Millie Hippo, by any chance?”
“Oh! No!” She giggled. “That’s her.” She pointed to the brassy-haired cashier at the foot of the stairs. “You must be new around here. Everybody knows Millie!”
Shirley made a confidential appeal. “I don’t know her, but I’d like to. Would you mind asking Millie if she’d care to come over to our table and have a bite to eat—”
“—or a drink,” Garret amended hastily-
“I’ll ask her.” The waitress seemed dubious. “I don’t know if she can get a relief now.”
Garret took the cellophane envelope with the scribbled message on it. He folded it in a bill of fare. “Take this over to her, sister. Then ask her if she wants to join us.”
Millie did. She opened the cardboard menu and started as if she’d seen a mouse. Hurriedly, she called a girl from one of the tables to sit in the booth, and came waddling over to Garret’s table. When he saw her lumbering method of locomotion across the floor, there was no necessity of asking where she acquired her nickname.