A check girl in peach-bloom pajamas with small black dragons on them came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes as black and shiny and expressionless as the toes of patent-leather pumps. I gave her a quarter and kept my hat. A cigarette girl with a tray the size of a five-pound candy box came down the gangway. She wore feathers in her hair, enough clothes to hide behind a three-cent stamp, and one of her long, beautiful, naked legs was gilded and the other was silvered. She had the cold, disdainful expression of a dame who is dated so far ahead that she would haveto think twice before accepting a knockdown to a maharajab with a basket of rubies under his arm.
I went into the soft purple twilight of the bar. Glasses tinkled gently. There were quiet voices, chords on a piano off in a corner, and a pansy tenor singing «My Little Buckeroo» as confidentially as a bartender mixing a Mickey Finn. Little by little the purple light got to be something I could see by. The bar was fairly full but not crowded. A man laughed off-key and the pianist expressed his annoyance by doing an Eddie Duchin ripple down the keyboard with his thumbnail.
I spotted an empty table and went and sat behind it, against the cushioned wall. The light grew still brighter for me. I could even see the buckeroo singer now. He had wavy red hair that looked hennaed. The girl at the table next to me had red hair too. It was parted in the middle and strained back as if she hated it. She had large, dark, hungry eyes, awkward features and no make-up except a mouth that glared like a neon sign. Her street suit had too-wide shoulders, too-flaring lapels. An orange undersweater snuggled her neck and there was a blackand-orange quill in her Robin Hood hat, crooked on the back of her head. She smiled at me and her teeth were as thin and sharp as a pauper’s Christmas. I didn’t smile back.
She emptied her glass and rattled it on the tabletop. A waiter in a neat mess jacket slipped out of nowhere and stood in front of me.
«Scotch and soda,» the girl snapped. She had a hard, angular voice with a liquor slur in it.
The waiter looked at her, barely moved his chin and looked back at me. I said: «Bacardi and grenadine.»
He went away. The girl said: «That’ll make you sicky, big boy.»
I didn’t look at her. «So you don’t want to play,» she said loosely. I lit a cigarette and blew a ring in the soft purplish air. «Go chase yourself,» the girl said. «I could pick up a dozen gorillas like you on every block on Hollywood Boulevard. Hollywood Boulevard, my foot. A lot of bit players out of work and fish-faced blondes trying to shake a hangover out of their teeth.»
«Who said anything about Hollywood Boulevard?» I asked.
«You did. Nobody but a guy from Hollywood Boulevard wouldn’t talk back to a girl that insulted him civilly.»
A man and a girl at a nearby table turned their heads and stared. The man gave me a short, sympathetic grin. «That goes for you, too,» the girl said to him.
«You didn’t insult me yet,» he said.
«Nature beat me to it, handsome.»
The waiter came back with the drinks. He gave me mine first. The girl said loudly: «I guess you’re not used to waiting on ladies.»
The waiter gave her her Scotch and soda. «I beg your pardon, madam,» he said in an icy tone.
«Sure. Come around sometime and I’ll give you a manicure, if I can borrow a hoe. Boy friend’s paying the ticket on this.»
The waiter looked at me. I gave him a bill and a lift of my right shoulder. He made change, took his tip, and faded off among the tables.
The girl picked her drink up and came over to my table. She put her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. «Well, well, a spender,» she said. «I didn’t know they made them any more. How do you like me?»
«I’m thinking it over,» I said. «Keep your voice down or they’ll throw you out.»
«I doubt it,» she said, «As long as I don’t break any mirrors. Besides, me and their boss are like that.» She held up two fingers close together. «That is we would be if I could meet him.» She laughed tinnily, drank a little of her drink. «Where’ve I seen you around?»
«Most anywhere.»
«Where’ve you seen me?»
«Hundreds of places.»
«Yes,» she said. «Just like that. A girl can’t hang on to her individuality any more.»
«She can’t get it back out of a bottle,» I said.
«The heck you say. I could name you plenty of big names that go to sleep with a bottle in each hand. And have to get pushed in the arm so they won’t wake up yelling.»
«Yeah?» I said. «Movie soaks, huh?»
«Yeah. I work for a guy that pushes them in the arm — at ten bucks a push. Sometimes twenty-five or fifty.»
«Sounds like a nice racket,» I said.
«If it lasts. You think it’ll last?»
«You can always go to Palm Springs when they run you out of here.»
«Who’s going to run who out of where?»
«I don’t know,» I said. «What were we talking about?»
She had red hair. She was not good-looking, but she had curves. And she worked for a man who pushed people in the arm. I licked my lips.
A big dark man came through the entrance door and stood just inside it, waiting for his eyes to get used to the light. Then he started to look the place over without haste. His glance traveled to the table where I was sitting. He leaned his big body forward and started to walk our way.
«Oh, oh,» the girl said. «The bouncer. Can you take it?»
I didn’t answer. She stroked her colorless cheek with a strong pale hand and leered at me. The man at the piano struck some chords and began to whine about «We Can Still Dream, Can’t We?»
The big, dark man stopped with his hand on the chair across the table from me. He pulled his eyes off the girl and smiled at me. She was the one he had been looking at. She was the one he had come down the room to get near. But I was the one he looked at from now on. His hair was smooth and dark and shiny above cold gray eyes and eyebrows that looked as if they were penciled, and a handsome actorish mouth and a nose that had been broken but well set. He spoke liplessly.
«Haven’t seen you around for some time — or is my memory bad?»
«I don’t know,» I said. «What are you trying to remember?»
«Your name, doe.»
I said: «Quit trying. We never met.» I fished the metal tag out of my breast pocket and tossed it down. «Here’s my ticket in from the drum major on the wicket.» I got a card out of my wallet and tossed that down. «Here’s my name, age, height, weight, scars if any, and how many times convicted. And my business is to see Conried.»
He ignored the tag and read the card twice, turned it over and looked at the back, then looked at the front again, hooked an arm over the chairback and gave me a mealy smile. He didn’t look at the girl then or ever. He racked the card edge across the tabletop and made a faint squeak, like a very young mouse. The girl stared at the ceiling and pretended to yawn.
He said dryly: «So you’re one of those guys. So sorry. Mr. Conned had to go north on a little business trip. Caught an early plane.»
The girl said: «That must have been his stand-in I saw this afternoon at Sunset and Vine, in a gray Cord sedan.»
He didn’t look at her. He smiled faintly. «Mr. Conned doesn’t have a gray Cord sedan.»
The girl said: «Don’t let him kid you. I bet he’s upstairs crooking a roulette wheel right this minute.»
The dark man didn’t look at her. His not looking at her was more emphatic than if he had slapped her face. I saw hen whiten a little, very slowly, and stay white.
I said: «He’s not here, he’s not here. Thanks for listening. Maybe some other time.»
«Oh sure. But we don’t use any private eyes in here. So sorry.»
«Say that ’so sorry’ again and I’ll scream. So help me,» the red-haired girl said.