The Saint Sees It Through (14 page)

“Mr.
Prather,” he said, “you must find life quite exhilarating.
Contact
with the major ports of the world, and all that.”

Prather
stared, his eyes more lobster-like than usual.

“What
are you talking about?”

There was no mistaking the honest
bewilderment in the
prominent
blue eyes, and this gave the Saint pause. According to his ideas on the
organization he was bucking, Prather would
be
one of the key men. Sam Jeffries had substantiated this no
tion, in his interrupted story to Avalon: “. .
. and there was
this guy we had to
see in Shanghai.”

That fitted in with the whole theory of
“Benny sent me.” A contact was made here, instructions given, perhaps
an advance
made. Then the delivery of a package in the Orient or
the Near East, which was returned to New York and duly turned over to James
Prather or a prototype. All this made sense, made a pat
tern.

But here was James Prather, obviously bewildered by the
plainest kind of a lead. Was the man cleverer
than he seemed?
Was he putting on an act that could mislead that expert
act-detector, the Saint? Or was he honestly in the dark about the
Saint’s meaning? And if he was, why was he here
immediately
after a visit from two
sailors freshly back from the Orient?

Mr. James Prather, it seemed, was in this
picture somewhere,
and it behooved the Saint to find out where.

“Well,” Simon said, “no matter. We have more important
things to do, such as demolishing our——
But we
have no
drinks.” He motioned to
an aproned individual, who came to
the
table and assumed an attitude of servility. “Three more of
the
same. Old Forester.”

The waiter took the empty glasses and went
away. The Saint
turned his most winning smile on Prather.

“I wasn’t really shooting in the
dark,” he said. “But I guess
my remarks weren’t
down the right alley.”

“Whatever you say,” Prather
replied, “I like. You have a good
quality of voice.
Though I don’t see why you should spend any
time with me.”

“Remember?” Simon asked. “I’m still doing research on Dr.
Zellermann.”

Prather
laughed. “I’d forgotten. Ah, here come our drinks.”

The waiter, an individual, like the village
blacksmith, with brawny arms, came across the empty dance floor with a tray
flattened
on one upturned palm. It was obvious to the Saint’s practiced eye that the
man’s whole mental attitude had changed.
He had gone away trailing a fretful desire
to please; he ap
proached with new-found
independence.

He was a stocky individual, broad of shoulder, lean of hip,
heavy in the legs. His face was an eccentric oval,
bejewelled
with small turquoise
eyes, crowned with an imposing nose that
overhung a mouth of rather
magnificent proportions. His chin
was a
thing of angles, on which you could hang a lantern.

But the principal factor in his changed
aspect was his inde
pendence.
He carried the tray of drinks as though the nearest thing to his heart was the
opportunity and reason to toss them
into the
face of a customer. Not only that, but each of the three
glasses was that type known as “old
fashioned.”

Each glass was short, wide of mouth, broad
of base. And in
each drink was a slice of orange and a cherry impaled on
a tooth
pick.

“Sorry,” said the Saint as the waiter distributed the
glasses,
“but I ordered highballs, not
Old Fashioneds.”

“Yeah?”
said the waiter. “You trying to make trouble?”

“No.
I’m merely trying to get a drink.”

“Well,
ya act like to me you’re tryin’ to make trouble. Ya
order Old Fashioneds,
‘n then ya yell about highballs. What’s
comin’ off
here?”

“Nothing,” Simon said patiently,
“is coming off here. I’m
simply trying to get what I ordered.”

“Ya realize I’ll hafta pay for this,
don’t ya?” the waiter de
manded.

“I’ll pay for them,” Simon said in the same gentle
voice. “If you made a mistake, it won’t cost you anything. Just bring us
three Old Foresters—highballs.”

“And
what’s gonna happen to these drinks?”

“That,” the Saint said, “I
don’t know. You may rub them into the bartender’s hair, for all of me.”

The waiter
lifted his lip.

“Lissen,
the bartender’s my brother-in-law.”

The
Saint’s lips tightened.

“Then
rub them into his back. Will you get our drinks?”

The waiter
stared sullenly for a moment.

“Well, all right. But no more cracks
about my brother-in-law,
see?”

He went away. The Saint watched him for a
moment, de
cided against any action. His attention drifted from the
waiter to the Pairfield murals.

“It’s an odd mind,” he remarked,
“that can contrive such
unattractive innovations in the female form divine.” He indi
cated a large sprawling figure on the far wall.
“Take Gertie
over there. Even
if her hips did have Alemite lubrication points all over them, is it quite fair
to let the whole world in on her
secret?”

“What I like,” Avalon said, “is the hedge for hair.
That penthouse effect throws me.”

“I’m sorry,” James Prather said,
“but I feel a little uncom
fortable
looking at those designs. This one over here, with
each lock of hair ending in a hangman’s knot. I——
”

He broke
off, with an ineffectual gesture with his pale hands.

“The poor man’s Dali,” murmured
the Saint. “Here come our
—what
are
those drinks?”

They were pale green, in tall flared
glasses, each with a twist
of lime peel floating near the top.

The Saint
repeated his question to the sullen waiter.

“Lissen,” that character said.
“I got no time to be runnin’
back and forth for you. These here
are Queen Georgianas, ‘n if you don’t want ‘em, run ‘em in your—” He
glanced at Avalon, colored. “—well, rub ‘em.”

“But I ordered,” the Saint said very
patiently, “Old Forest
ers. Highballs.”

” ‘N if you’re gonna be fussy,” the waiter Said,
“you’re lucky
to get anything. Wait a
minute. Here comes the manager.”

The
manager was thin, dapper, and dark, like George Raft
in his halcyon days.
He strode up to the table, took in the situa
tion with an
expressionless look of his dark eyes, and turned
them on the Saint.

“Yes?”
he said.

“Whom do you have to know here?”
Simon inquired. “I’ve
been trying to get some bourbon for about
thirty minutes.”

“Why
don’t you ask for it then?” suggested the manager.

“Look,” Simon said. “I don’t
mind buying your watered
drinks at about three times the normal
prices. All I want is the
right flavor in the water. I do not want Queen Georgian as, or
Old Fashioneds. I want Old Forester. It’s a simple
thing. All
the waiter does is
remember the order until he gets back to the
bar. I’ll write it out for him if he has a defective memory.”

“Nothin’s wrong with my memory,” the
waiter growled.
“Maybe you’d like these drinks in your puss, smart
guy. You
asked for Queen Georgianas, and you’re gonna take
‘em.”

Simon
clenched his hands under the rim of the table.

“Believe me,” he said earnestly,
“the last desire I have is to cause difficulty. If I must take these
obscenities, I’ll take them.
But will you please, please get us a round of
bourbon high
balls?”

“Why don’t you go away, if the service
doesn’t please you?”
asked the George Raft manager.

“The service,” the Saint said,
“leaves nothing to be desired,
except everything.”

“Then
why don’t you just go away?” asked the manager.

The Saint
decided to be stubborn.

“Why?”

“No reason,” the manager said. “We reserve the
right to
re
fuse service to anyone.
Our sign says so.”

He indicated a sign above the
bar.

“And
you are refusing me service?”

“No.
Not if you don’t cause trouble.”

“And?”

The
manager nodded to the waiter. “Get him his drinks.”

“I’m
not gonna serve him,” the waiter said.

The manager stamped a gleaming shoe.
“Did you hear me?”

The waiter
went away.

“Now,” the Saint said, “where
were we? Oh, yes, we were
discussing,” he said to the manager, “the more obscure
aspects
of suicide in American night clubs.
Would you have anything
to add to our data soon?”

The manager smiled a crooked smile and
departed. The Saint
caught
the eye of James Prather and formed a question: “Now
that we’ve gone through the preliminary moves,
shall we get
down to business?”

Prather goggled rather like a fish in an aquarium tank, but
before the Saint could begin to explain he caught
sight of the
waiter returning with a
tray of pink concoctions in champagne
glasses.

“I,” Simon announced, “am beginning to become
annoyed.
Avec
knobs on.”

The waiter slammed the tray on the table and
distributed the
drinks. The Saint eyed his.

It was definitely not a Pink Lady. Nor was it
pink cham
pagne. There was grenadine in it, judging from the
viscosity
apparent to the eye. There might be gin, or even water.
He
raised his eyes.

“What—is—this?”

The waiter’s eyes were like small blue
marbles. “They’re
bourbon and sodas, see?”

“Pink
bourbon?”

“Ja
ever see any other kind?” the waiter snarled.

“I believe,” Simon said gently, “that I have been
patient.
Compared to the way I’ve conducted
myself, burros are subjects
for
straitjackets. You have brought four rounds of liquid abor
tions that no self-respecting canned-heat hound
would dip a
finger in. While this
went on, I have kept my temper. Job him
self would stack up beside me like a nervous cat. I have taken
all your insults with a smile. But I warn you, if
you don’t bring
the right order on your next trip, you are going to wish
your
mother had spanked the bad manners out
of you before I had
to.”

“So
you wanta make trouble, huh?” The waiter signalled.
“Hey,
Jake!”

The bartender, who seemed to be Jake, stopped
shaking a
whiskey sour at the top of the motion, looking something
like a
circus giant caught in a ballet pose. He was pushing six feet
and a half
with shoulders perhaps not so wide as a door, but
wide enough. He had a
face like the butt end of a redwood log,
and hands like great
brown clamps on the shaker.

His customers turned to regard the tableau
across the big
room according to the stages of inebriety they’d reached.
A middle-aged man with a brief moustache twirled it at Avalon. A
lady of
uncertain balance lifted one side of a bright mouth at
the Saint. A young
couple stared, and turned back to their
private discussion,
which, to judge from their expression, was
going to wind up in
the nearest bedroom.

Jake then set down the shaker, and walked
around the end of
the bar. At the same moment a third man, large and
aproned,
came out of the archway and joined him. They marched to
gether
across the dance floor, side by side, and advanced upon
the Saint.
It was obvious that he was their objective.

The Saint didn’t move. He watched the approach
of the
brawny gents with the bright-eyed interest of a small boy at his
first
circus. He noted the width of Jake’s shoulders, the practiced
walk
bespeaking sessions in a prize ring, and the shamble of
his
companion. He weighed them, mentally, and calculated the
swiftness
of their reflexes. He smiled.