“What is it, Gramps, another one of your concoctions, or something you’ve picked up from some friend—”
“Well, about half and half,” Gramps said. “This has a new kind of liquor in it.”
“A new kind of liquor?”
Gramps shied away from the hostile suspicion of her voice. “Now don’t go gettin’ me wrong, Milred. This here is old liquor. I mean real old. It’s older than any liquor you got in the house.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Mexico.”
“Okay, let me taste it before you offer it to Frank.”
Duryea laughed and said: “Come on, Gramps. Don’t pay any attention to her. Bring in the cocktails.”
A few moments later Duryea heard his wife exclaim: “Why, Gramps, that’s good!”
“Course it’s good,” Gramps said. “I told you it was good.”
Milred brought in a tray with glasses. Gramps gave the cocktail shaker a final agitation, then poured out a pale concoction of foaming bubbles which presently settled into a clear drink with a very slight tint of golden yellow, as though glasses filled with crystal-clear liquid were reflecting a bit of sunlight.
Duryea sniffed the drink, pledged Milred with his eye over the rim of the glass, and tasted suspiciously.
It wasn’t until after the smooth tang had touched his tongue that he realized he had braced himself for something rather violent.
“Doggone it, it is good,” he announced.
Gramps said innocently: “I may have made it too mild.”
Duryea, tasting it, said: “Well, it’s innocuous all right, but it tastes good just the same.”
“Now it ain’t so damned innocuous,” Gramps said, rising indignantly to the defence of his drink. “You just swig down a couple of ’em and you’ll — well, you’ll get a good appetite.”
Milred left her second cocktail half finished to turn the steaks. Gramps managed to squeeze an additional dividend out of the shaker so that he and Duryea had a third cocktail while Milred’s share consisted in having her glass “freshened’.
It wasn’t until Milred announced that dinner was served and Duryea started to get up that he realized something was wrong with his knees. There was a peculiar buzzing in his head. His brain felt clear enough, but his legs were like rubber, and there was a sudden urge toward hilarity.
Startled, he glanced at his wife. One look at her eyes, and he knew that she was aware of exactly how he felt.
“Gramps,” Duryea said, looking at the enthusiastic little old man who seemed hardly to have turned a hair, “what the devil was in those drinks?”
Gramps said: “A drink they make from mescal down there in Mexico. After she gets so old, she turns a clear yellow. A darn nice drink. You mix that with—”
“You mean to say you’ve mixed tequila with gin?”
Gramps said soothingly, placatingly, “Now you just sit down and relax, buddy. Don’t get all steamed up about what you’ve taken. It’s just a nice tonic... Tasted good, didn’t it?”
Duryea dropped into his chair. Milred glanced across the table at him. “Who,” she asked, “is going to carve these steaks?”
Duryea grinned. “Gramps,” he said.
Silently Milred handed the carving knife and fork to her grandfather.
Chapter 16
Harvey Stanwood looked up and down the bar, over at the dark booths where electric lights disguised as candles gave an intimate, cosy illumination. There were not more than half a dozen people in the entire place. It was a place Stanwood had never been in before.
He ordered a drink, then sauntered to the telephone booth and dialled George Karper’s number.
When he had Karper on the line, he said: “I guess you know who this is, Mr. Karper. I had lunch with you day before yesterday.”
“Oh, yes,” Karper said cautiously. “I hope nothing you ate disagreed with you?”
“So far, I’m getting along all right,” Stanwood said, “but I think it might be a good plan for you and me to have a little chat.”
“I don’t,” Karper snapped promptly.
“At a place,” Stanwood went on, “where there wouldn’t be any chance of our being seen together... I’m at a little bar called The Elmwood on Grand Avenue. You can get down here any time within the next ten minutes. I’ll be in the back booth on the right-hand side.”
Karper said positively: “That’s out. As far as I’m concerned you’re poison. You—”
Stanwood interrupted: “I’m not taking this all by myself, Karper. I want to talk with someone. You’d better get here in ten minutes.”
“Or what?” Karper demanded truculently.
“Or else,” Stanwood said, and hung up.
Exactly eight minutes later Karper walked in the door, surveyed the bar, strolled leisurely over to the booth, and said in a loud voice to Stanwood: “Why, hello! What are you doing here? Haven’t seen you in ages.”
Stanwood got up and shook hands. “It has been a long time. I just dropped in for a drink. Won’t you join me? Understand you’ve gone in for ranching these days. Have a drink and tell me about it.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Karper said cordially, sliding in along the leather cushion.
Once inside the booth, however, where he could lower his voice, he glared across the table at Stanwood. “In the first place, I don’t like the manner in which you arranged this appointment. In the second place, it’s dangerous for you and me to be seen together.”
“Dangerous for whom?” Stanwood asked coldly.
“For me — for both of us — for you.”
Stanwood pressed the button which summoned the bartender. “What’s yours?” he asked Karper.
“Old-fashioned,” Karper said.
“Make mine Scotch and soda,” Stanwood ordered.
When the bartender had withdrawn, Stanwood leaned across the table, put an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and said: “Got a match?”
Karper said coldly: “Yes.”
“Lean over and light my cigarette,” Stanwood told him.
Karper hesitated a moment, then scraped a match on the underside of the table and leaned forward to hold the flame to Stanwood’s cigarette.
Stanwood said rapidly in a low voice: “I’m not in a very sweet spot, but you can cover up for me.”
“Not me,” Karper said promptly. “Whatever spot you’re in is your own funeral.”
Stanwood glanced furtively around him, then said: “When I told you where the boss was hiding out, I didn’t expect you were going out and murder him... That’s too strong a dose for my stomach.”
He sucked in a deep drag on the cigarette, and settled back against the cushions to exhale smoke, apparently thoroughly relaxed and very much at his ease.
Karper said indignantly: “So that’s your game! Well, I’m not taking any part of it. You can’t get by with that!”
“You don’t have to run a bluff with me,” Stanwood told him.
Karper said coldly: “I’m just on the verge of going to the police myself.”
“With what?” Stanwood asked.
“In case you really want to know, I’ve had detectives keeping an eye on you for some time. You’ve been hitting a fast pace — and I mean damned fast. A lot of it can be proven. You were short about seventeen thousand bucks. You tried to make a last plunge and failed to get anywhere. Pressman was on to you. He was going to get in touch with the district attorney. You wanted him out of the way.”
Stanwood’s smile was frosty. “I sold out to you at your suggestion. A few hours after I gave you the information that Reedley was Pressman, Pressman was dead.”
Karper said: “I have an alibi, in case you try that.”
“For what time?”
“For whatever time is necessary. What were you doing after you left me?”