Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 6, June, 1953

“Where’d she go?”

“Right across from Polly’s. Right on the corner. You know it?”

Polly’s was a beer joint where you could place a bet in the back room. I knew the spot. “You’re sure, Joe? You got this straight?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It don’t seem real, does it?” He licked his lips again. “But it’s straight, Scott. I give it to you straight.”

I took out the nightclub photo and showed it to him. “On the doll’s wrist. That look near enough?”

He bent over the print, then looked up at me, a pleased expression on his face. “That’s it. I swear, that’s it. But that ain’t the doll. I’m pretty sure it ain’t.”

I gave him the twenty. “Anything else, Joe?”

He shook his head, spread the money out before him on the table. I stood up. “Thanks.”

He nodded and waved at Manny.

“Joe,” I said, “give a listen. Why don’t you spend some of that for a big steak? Get yourself—”

He interrupted angrily. “Lemme be. I give you what you was after, didn’t I? Now leave me be.”

“Sure. See you. And the hell with you.” I was sorry as soon as I said it, but Joe was a nice enough guy when he was sober. He’d made me laugh plenty of times, and there are too few things to laugh at. I didn’t like seeing him slopped up most of the time, so I barked at him.

He laid a hand on my arm, shaking his head. “Don’t get a heat on, Scott. Just lemme be.”

“Sure, Joe. Cheers.” I left. The sun was almost blinding after the gloom in Manny’s and I stood outside for a moment wondering if Joe had told me anything at all. The story was just crazy enough, though, that it was probably true — as true as Joe could get it. I got in the Cad and drove toward Hollywood and Polly’s. A diamond bracelet with a snake’s head and rubies for eyes, a guy ten feet tall, and a gal with a walk like a circus. I knew, from Joe's description, where to look for the gal: the left half of a duplex — if there was a gal. It was worth a check.

She was a tall, willowy tomato with dark hair and the unashamed curves of a modern Venus in white sweater, black skirt and spike-heeled pumps, and she came out of the duplex on Wilcox Street like a gal in a hurry. I hadn’t got a good look at her since I’d staked out near the duplex on the corner, but in the hour I’d waited for her to show I’d deduced a few interesting things about her from the frilly black underthings hanging on a line behind her place. But not even the transparent and abbreviated step-ins hanging there, nor Joe’s fuzzy words, had prepared me for her walk. Walk?

That wasn’t a walk; it was a parade. Wilcox Street should have been curved into a horseshoe lined with bald-headed pappies chipping their choppers and falling down in dead faints while a band played “Put The Blame On Mame, Boys!” And there should have been a drum. I fell in about fifteen yards behind her and followed, let’s face it, grimly intent on my job and wondering how she made any forward progress at all.

After two blocks she still hadn’t looked back. I was carrying a brown tweed coat over one arm and a hat in my hand, and there were dark glasses in my shirt pocket. In case she got a look at me I could put the stuff on and look a bit different except that I’d still be six-two. But my preparations for a cagy tail seemed wasted, because she apparently didn’t expect anyone to be following her. Maybe there was no reason she should have. She certainly wasn’t sneaking up the street.

She kept going like that for another block and I followed her happily. Just across the next street was a small cocktail lounge with a sign over the door: Zephyr Room. She went inside. I followed her in, stopped inside the door and looked around as my eyes got accustomed to the dimness. She’d disappeared somewhere, but there were booths on the left, four or five people in them, and a bar extending from the back halfway up the right wall. This side of the bar, at its end, was a small U-shaped table with a stool behind it. I felt a little tingle of exhiliration; that must be the “kind of funny little booth thing” that Joe had mentioned. He’d been in here, all right.

I went to the bar and climbed onto a stool next to a cowboy leaning against the bar. At least he thought he was a cowboy; he was wearing high-heeled boots and tight blue jeans, a white-trimmed black shirt, and a black neckerchief looped around his neck and tucked through a small silver cow’s skull at his throat. He was real quaint.

I ordered a bourbon and water and while the bartender mixed it I reached into my inside coat pocket and took out the neatly typed list of stolen items I’d got from Osborne’s jeweler. I made a few random check-marks on it with a pencil, not being careful about hiding the list from possibly prying eyes, and when the bartender brought my drink I turned the paper face down on the bar and asked him, “Did a sharp brunette just wobble in here?”

“Wobble?” He looked puzzled, then he grinned. “You must mean Lois. Yeah, she’ll be out in a minute.” He jerked his head toward the U-shaped table. “Dice girl.”

“Thanks.” I started to pull at my highball when the cowboy flipped me on the shoulder with the back of his fingers.

“What makes you so curious?” he said. His voice was soft and gritty, like sand running through an hour glass. I didn’t say anything and he said, “Well?” and flipped me again with his fingers.

I wasn’t even looking at the guy, minding my drink and my business, but just that fast I was mad enough to hit him with the bar. Maybe I’m touchy, maybe I’m even a little neurotic about it, but this guy had done the wrong things — a couple of them. In the first place, I don’t mind strangers blabbing at me or asking questions — if they ask them nice; he wasn’t asking nice. And in the second place I don’t like guys flipping me or grabbing me or even laying their paws on me.

I swallowed at my drink, then wheeled on my stool and looked at the foolish character just as he said, “I asked you a question, Pally.”

I took a good look at him this time. He was about an inch under six feet and broad, big-chested, and with more hair sticking up from his shirt than I’ve got on my head. His face was square, and his eyes were narrowed, lips pressed together as he looked at me.

I said, “I heard you. Don’t ask me questions, don’t call me Pally, and keep your hands off me.” I turned back to the bar and got the highball glass just to my lips when he latched onto my arm and pulled me around.

He started to say something, but I slammed my glass down on the bar and climbed off my stool as liquor squirted up and spread over the mahogany. I grabbed the guy by his scarf and said, “Listen, pardner, the next time you lay a hand on me you better take off those high heels and get your feet planted square on the floor, because I’ll knock you clear into the men’s room.”

His mouth dropped open and for a moment he sputtered in surprise, then his chin snapped up and his face got white. He wrapped a hand around my wrist and drew back his right fist so he could slug me, and I almost felt sorry for what was going to happen to the cowboy. Even if he couldn’t know I was an ex-Marine crammed full of more judo and unarmed defense than I knew what to do with, he should never have tried hauling off while I still had hold of his pretty scarf and he was wide open from all directions.

But he was stupid, and he actually launched his right fist at me. I gave just a little tug on the scarf and he staggered maybe two inches and the fist missed me four inches, and he was so far off balance I had all the time in the world to grab his left arm above the elbow, then break his weakened hold on my wrist and force his wrist and arm behind him with my right hand. While he was still bending over and turning I locked his arm behind him, got some leverage from my hand on his shoulder, and he started to make noises. I was still trying to decide if I should break the arm for him, when the bartender swung a two-foot club against the bar top and yelled, “None of that! Shove it, boys, break it up.”