I didn't expect to find Ross serving behind the bar. I guessed it was his night off.
As I looked around I was aware that at least ten of the women on their own were staring pointedly at me. I took care not to meet their inviting eyes.
I wandered over to the bar and waited my turn beside a fat man in a slightly creased, tropical white suit who was being served with a rum and lime juice and who looked three parts drunk.
When my turn came, I ordered a Scotch on the rocks, and while the barman was fixing the drink, I asked him what time the cabaret started.
'Half past eleven, sir,' he said, sliding the drink over to me. 'In the restaurant, second on the left down the passage.'
He went away to serve a tall, bony blonde in a sea-green evening dress whose elderly escort seemed to begrudge her the champagne cocktail she was whining for.
I glanced at my wrist watch. The time was twenty minutes past eleven.
The fat drunk next to me turned and grinned sheepishly as if to apologize for intruding. He said on a rum-ladened breath: 'You don't want to waste good money on the cabaret, friend. It's the worst swindle in town, and that's saying a lot.'
'No girls?'
He made a face.
'Well, yes, there are girls, if you can call them girls.'
I twiddled my glass.
'I heard this Lane dish is worth catching.'
He sucked up some of his rum and lime juice, and then closed a heavy eyelid.
'If you could catch her, I'd say she would be pretty satisfactory, but she's hard to catch. I've tried, and all I've got out of it is a couple of evenings listening to her sing, and that's something she can't do.'
'So what's good about this joint?'
He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening, then leaning close and lowering his voice, he said: 'Between friends, they have a roulette table upstairs. The table stakes are up to the ceiling. All the rest of the muck here is just a front. But keep it under your hat, friend. I'm doing you a favour, telling you.'
'Maybe I might see what I can lose.'
He lifted his fat shoulders.
'They're pretty strict who they let up there. It's strictly illegal. You might have a word with Claude: he manages the joint. You can mention my name if you like: Phil Welliver.'
'Thanks. Where do I find him?'
He nodded across to the bar to a door.
'In there.' Then he pushed himself away from the bar. 'I've got to move along. I promised the wife I'd take her out tonight. Went right out of my mind until five minutes ago. I'd better not be too late.'
I watched him lurch across the bar, and when I was sure he had gone, I went the same way, again aware of the twenty staring eyes on me as I walked to the exit.
I found the restaurant on the left of the passage: an oval-shaped room with dim lighting, rose-pink mirrors and blue decor. There were about sixty people finishing dinner, and the room was full of the hum of voices and cigarette smoke.
The head waiter, a jaded young man with red-gold wavy hair, came up to me, his face set in a professional smile.
'I wanted to catch the cabaret,' I said, 'but I don't want the dinner.'
'Certainly, sir: perhaps a drink and a sandwich ...?' He let his voice die away as he waved his hands apologetically.
'Sure,' I said. 'I'll have a whisky sour and a chicken on rye bread.'
He led me around the back of the tables to a small table a little too near the band for comfort, but I didn't argue about it.
He went away and I sat down.
The band was a four-piece job: four well-built Negroes: a trumpet, drums, double bass and a saxophone. They played as if they needed a vacation and were going to strike at any moment if they didn't get it.
After a while the waiter brought my chicken sandwich and my drink. The rye bread was a little dry and the chicken looked as if it had had a sharp attack of jaundice before departing the earth. I let the sandwich lie. I've drunk worse whisky sours in my time, but not much worse.
Around quarter to twelve, the floor was cleared and four girls came prancing in. They wore Gstrings, halters and guards-men's hats. They were pretty terrible, and there was one of them who had dirty knees. They were strictly for the drunks, and after they had shown themselves off and made eyes at the habitués they bounced out more enthusiastically than they had bounced in. As my rum and lime juice friend had said: as a cabaret, it was a swindle.
A little after midnight, Dolores Lane came in and stood holding a microphone the way a drowning man hangs on to a life-belt.
She was wearing a gold lame dress that fitted her like a second skin, and she looked pretty good as she stood there under a white spotlight. She sang two Latin-American songs. Her voice was small, but at least she could sing in tune. Without a microphone, no one would have heard her. She sang listlessly as if she were bored with the whole thing, and the applause she collected could have been packed into a thimble without overflowing.
She went away, her eyes glittering, and then the crowd began to dance again.
I found a scrap of paper in my wallet and wrote the following message:
Will you have a drink with me? I hope you didn't get sand in your shoes this morning.
A nutty note to send her; but I had an idea it might book her. I grabbed a passing waiter, gave him the note and a five-dollar bill and told him to get some action. He made sure the bill was for five dollars before he said he would fix it.
I was working on my second whisky sour when the waiter came back.
'She'll see you in her dressing-room,' he said and gave me a curious stare. 'Through that door, turn left, and it's the door ahead with a star on it.'
I thanked him.
He paused just long enough for me to reach for my wallet if I felt inclined, but as I didn't, he moved off.
I finished my drink, settled the check which was three times too much, and then, made my way through the door the waiter had indicated into a typical behind-the-scenes passage.
Facing me was a shabby door with a faded, gold star on it. I rapped and a woman's voice said: 'Come on in.'
I turned the handle and stepped into a small room with a lighted mirror, a small dressing-table, a cupboard, a screen in a corner, two upright chairs and well-worn carpet on the floor.
Dolores was sitting in front of the mirror doing things to her face. She had on a red silk wrap which fell open above her thighs to show me her sleek legs in nylon stockings.
On the dressing-table was a bottle of gin, half-full, and a glass with either gin and water in it or just gin.
She didn't turn, but looked at my reflection in the mirror as I closed the door and moved over to the upright chair.
'I thought it would be you,' she said. 'Want some gin? There's a glass somewhere around.'
I sat down.
'No, thanks. I've been on whisky. The idea was for me to buy you a drink.'
She leaned forward to peer at herself in the mirror. She picked up a rabbit's foot and dusted the powder off her dark eyebrows.
'Why?'
I had an idea she was a little drunk, but I wasn't sure.
'I liked your act. I thought it was worth a bottle of champagne,' I said, watching her. 'Besides, I wanted to talk to you.'
She put the rabbit's foot down and drank from the glass. By the way she grimaced, and then shuddered, I knew the glass contained neat gin.
'Just who are you?'
Her eyes were slightly glassy and slightly out of focus. That told me she was three parts drunk, but not drunk enough not to know what she was saying or doing.
'The name's Chester Scott. I live and work in this city.'
'Scott?' Her eyebrows came down in a frown. 'Chester Scott? Where have I heard that name before?'
'Have you?'
She screwed up her eyes, grimaced, then shrugged.
'Somewhere ... so you liked my act?' She held out her hand. 'Give me a cigarette.'
I gave her one, gave myself one and lit hers, then mine.
'The act was fine, but the background didn't jell.'
'I know.' She blew smoke to the ceiling, then took a little more gin. 'Did you hear the way they applauded? You would think to hear them, they had blisters on their hands.'
'It's the wrong crowd for you.'
She grimaced.
'An artist who is worth a damn can handle any crowd,' she said and turned back to examine her face in the minor. She; picked up an eyelash brush and began to stroke up her eyelashes with quick, deft movements. 'What were you doing down there this morning? I didn't fall for that swim story.'
'Looking the place over. What were you thinking about, marrying a cop?'
She put down the eyelash brush and turned her head slowly. Her glittering eyes were now more out of focus.
'What's it to you who I marry?'
'Nothing much. It seemed odd to me a girl like you should want to marry a speed cop.'
Her lips curved into a smile.
'But then he was a very special cop.'
'Was he?' I reached forward to drop ash into an empty tobacco tin that stood on the dressing-table. 'How special?'
She put her hand to her mouth to cover a gentle belch.
'He had money.' She got to her feet and crossed over to the screen and went behind it. She moved unsteadily. 'Have you any money, Mr. Scott?'
I edged my chair around so I could stare at the screen. I could just see the top of her head as she stripped off her wrap which she tossed on the floor beside the screen.
'I have a little money,' I said. 'Not much.'
'The only thing in this world that means anything, that has any importance, is money. Don't let anyone kid you otherwise. They say health and religion are good things to have: but I'll settle for money,' she said from behind the screen. 'If you haven't got it, you might just as well buy a razor and slit your throat. Without money you're nothing. You can't get a decent job, you can't go anywhere worth going to; you can't live in a place worth living in; you can't mix with the people who are worth mixing with. Without money, you're just one of a crowd, and that's the lowest form of life to my thinking – being one of the crowd.'
She came out from behind the screen. She now had on a red silk dress that showed off her curves to advantage. She moved unsteadily to the dressing-table to fix her dark hair.
'I've been in this racket for ten years,' she went on as she ran a comb through her hair. 'I have a small talent. The words aren't mine. They were dreamed up by my drunken agent who hangs on to me because he can't find anyone else to bleed. But the small talent doesn't bring me in any money worth speaking about. It provides me with a living if you can call it that, and that's all. So when this redfaced cop started to work on me, I let him, because he had money. For the past ten years I have been in practically every nightclub along this lousy coast, and although I have been propositioned countless times, I have never had an offer of marriage. Then this cop comes on the scene. He is tough and crude and utterly horrible, but at least he wanted to marry me.' She paused and finished the gin in her glass. 'He had money. He gave me presents.' She pulled open a drawer in her dressing-table and fished out a gold powder compact. She held it in her hand so I could see it. It was an expensive, impressive ornament. 'He gave me this and he didn't j expect me to throw my clothes off the moment I got it. He gave me a squirrel coat and I still had my clothes on. He said if I would marry him he'd give me a mink coat for a wedding present.' She paused to pour more gin in her glass. She sipped and grimaced with disgust at its taste. I guessed she wouldn't be talking like this if she hadn't been three-quarters tight, but I was listening: listening as hard as I could. 'He had a bungalow out at Palm Bay. It was nice. There was a terrace overlooking the sea and the rooms were tricky: one of them had a glass floor with lights under it. I would have married that man if he had stayed alive long enough, even though he was so crude he used to come in here with his hat on, put his feet up here on the dressing-table and call me "Baby Doll". But he had to be dumb enough to get killed.' She finished the gin and put the glass down, shuddering. 'He had to be dumb enough just when he and Art Galgano …' She broke off, squinting at me, as if trying to get me in focus. 'I guess I'm drunk,' she said. 'What am I talking like this to you for?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'People talk to get things out of their systems. You're not boring me. He couldn't help getting killed. You should feel sorry for him.'
'Should I?' She stubbed out her cigarette. 'You mean I should feel sorry for myself.' She splashed more gin into her glass. 'Are you looking for a wife, Mr. Scott?'
'I can't say I am.'
'What are you looking for?'
'I'd like to find out how O'Brien got himself run over.'
She lifted the glass of gin and sniffed at it.
'This is filthy stuff. It's only when I've done my act and get the applause I got tonight, that I use it.' She peered at me. 'What's O'Brien to you?'
'Nothing. I'm just curious to find out how he got run over.'
'No reason – just curious?'
'Just curious.'
She studied me.
'What did you say your name was again?'
'Scott.'
'And you want to know how Harry got himself run over?'
'That's right.'
'I could tell you.' She sipped the gin, then with a movement of disgust, she crossed the room and poured the gin into the small, grimy toilet basin. 'I could tell you. How much is it worth to you, Mr. Scott?'
I dropped my cigarette into the tobacco tin.
'You mean how much in money?'
She leaned her solid hips against the toilet basin and smiled at me: it wasn't a nice smile, and it made her look as hard as if her face had been hacked out of stone.
