A. Fair - Owls Don't Blink

Hale frowned. “Why, I thought you told me it was somewhere between two-thirty and three.”

“No. I looked at my watch. It must have happened just a second or two after two-thirty.”

“Wrist watch?” Hale asked.

“Yes.”

He reached across the table, took her wrist in his hand, and looked at the diamond-studded watch.

“My, what a beauty!”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’ll bet someone thought a lot of you to give you that. May I look at it?”

She unsnapped it, and Hale turned it over and over in his fingers. “A very beautiful watch,” he said, “very, very beautiful.”

I said to Rosalind, “What is there to do in this place? Don’t they dance?”

“No. They have a floor show.”

“When?”

“It’ll be on almost any minute now.”

Marilyn laughed and said, “There’s Joe looking at your empty glass, Rosalind.”

Hale said, “Just a minute, and he can look at mine.” He tossed down the rest of his drink, snapped his fingers, and said, “Oh, Joe.”

The waiter didn’t waste any time this trip. “Fill ‘em up with the same thing?” he asked.

“Fill ‘em up same thing,” Hale said, still fingering Marilyn’s wrist watch.

Joe brought the drinks. The lights dimmed. Marilyn said, “This is the floor show coming on. You’ll love it.”

Chairs scraped over the floor as a girl with an Egyptian profile, a pair of shorts covered with hieroglyphics, and a bra decorated in the same way came out, sat cross-legged on the floor, and made angles with her hands and elbows. She got a spattering of applause. A man with boisterous hilarity came out and made a few off-color cracks into a microphone. A strip-tease artist did her stuff, finishing up in the middle of a blue spot that furnished all the clothing. She got a terrific hand. Then the Egyptian dancer came back into the blue spot wearing a grass skirt with a lei around her neck and an imitation hibiscus in her hair. The bird who had put on the monologue played a uke, and she did her version of the hula.

When the lights came up again, Hale handed Marilyn the wrist watch he’d been playing with during the floor show.

“That all of it?” I asked Rosalind.

Marilyn said, “No. It’s just an intermission. There’ll be another act in a minute or two. This gives us a chance to get our glasses filled up.”

Joe filled up our glasses.

Hale grinned across the table at me, the man-of-the-world grin. “Havin’ a swell time,” he said. “Bes’ little girl in the world. Bes’ drinks in the world. Gonna have all my friends in when I get back t’ New York, show ‘em fine New Orleans drinks. Makes you feel good. Don’t get drunk. Jus’ get to feeling good.”

“That’s right,” I told him.

Marilyn put the wrist watch back on. A second or two later she was looking at me, then at Rosalind. She wiped her wrist with a napkin, said, “Ain’t we got fun?”

The second act started. The man who had been playing the uke came out in evening clothes and put on a series of dances with the Egyptian dancer; then the strip-tease artist did a fan dance. The lights went back up, and Joe was at our elbows.

“How many Joes are there?” I asked Marilyn.

“Just one. Why?”

“He seems to be twins.”

“You seein’ two of ‘em?” Hale asked solicitously.

I said, “No. I only see one, but the other one is over at the bar getting the drinks mixed. He’ll come back with the drinks while this one is over at the bar getting more drinks mixed. One man couldn’t make that many round trips.”

Joe looked down at me with the half smile on his lips, an expression of detached amusement, not unmixed with contempt.

Hale started to laugh. His laughter kept getting louder. I thought he was going to fall off the chair.

Marilyn waved her hand. “Same thing all around.”

Abruptly I pushed back my chair. “I’m going home,” I said.

Rosalind looked at me. “Aw, gee, Donald, you just got here.”

I took her hand, held it in mine long enough to slip her a couple of folded dollar bills. “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling good. That last drink didn’t agree with me.”

Hale laughed uproariously. “Ought to drink gin and Coke,” he said. “That stuff you can drink all night. Marvelous drink. Makes you feel good, but doesn’t get you tight. You youngsters can’t stand anything. We know, don’t we, Marilyn?”

He looked across at her with a loose-lipped leer, his alcohol-lighted eyes peering out from over the folds of flushed skin.

Marilyn put her hand across to let it rest on his for a moment. A little later she freed her hand, moistened the tip of her napkin in the water glass, and rubbed it on her wrist.

I said, “Good night, everybody.”

Hale peered up at me. For a moment the laughter left his face. He started to say something, then changed his mind, turned back to Marilyn, thought of something else, swung around to me, and said, “This is a smart bird, Marilyn. You wanna watch him.”

“What kind of a bird?” she asked — “not a pigeon!”

“No,” Hale said, failing to get the significance of her remark. “He’s an owl — you know — wise guy. Always said he was ‘n owl.”

That idea struck him as funny. When I went out of the door he was laughing so hard he could hardly catch his breath. Tears were beginning to trickle down his cheeks.

I got to the hotel. Bertha had arrived in Los Angeles. There was the characteristic wire from her: What’s the idea digging in last year’s rabbit warren? We are too short-handed to scare up dope on old murder cases. Felonies outlaw in this state after three years. What sort of a bird do you think you are?

I went down to the telegraph office and was feeling just good enough to send her the reply I wanted: Murder never outlaws. Hale says I’m an owl.

I sent the message collect.

I got up at seven o’clock, showered, shaved, had breakfast, and unpacked my bag to dig out the revolver that I was supposed to carry. It was a .38, blued steel, in only fair condition. I put it in my pocket and walked down Royal Street to the entrance to the apartment. I wondered how much of a hangover Hale had.

I didn’t try to be quiet as I climbed the stairs. I made noise, lots of it, and my knock on the door wasn’t at all gentle.

Hale didn’t answer.

I started both knuckles to work and used the toe of my shoe to give the summons a little more interest.

Still no Hale.

I had the extra key to the apartment. I fitted this key to the lock and clicked back the bolt.

Hale wasn’t there.

The bed was rumpled, but the wrinkles in the sheet didn’t look as though it had been slept in much longer than an hour.

I walked across the bedroom into the living-room, looked out onto the porch to make certain he wasn’t there. Assured that the coast was clear, I took the drawers out of the writing-desk, tilted it up on one comer, and spilled out the debris from the bottom: letters, clippings, and the gun.

I pocketed the gun that had been in there, replaced it with my own revolver, and then put the desk back into shape.

It was a fine warm day, and the street below was filling up with people who were strolling around, enjoying the sunlight.

I gave the place a final once-over, then quietly opened the door, pulled it shut behind me, and went down the stairs.

I was in the courtyard when I met the colored maid. She gave me a grin and said, “Is the ge’man up yet?”

I assured her that the “ge’man” was either out or was asleep, that I’d pounded on the door, and hadn’t been able to raise him.

She thanked me and went on up.

I went back to the hotel. There was a memo in my box to call Lockley 9746.