Ричард Деминг - She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow

Lawson shrugged. “So he wanted to be shown around town. He’s an old friend. When he suggested he’d rather not have me use his real name, I just figured he was a little hot at the moment. But I didn’t finger anybody for him.”

“You didn’t have to,” Ross said grimly. “He knew who he was looking for. I ought to flatten your pointed head.”

Lawson licked his lips. “They kill one of your people?” he ventured.

“No, but it’s not your fault. They just aren’t very efficient killers.”

For the first time that night some expression appeared on George Mott’s face. It was an expression of indignation. Apparently the only emotion he was capable of was professional pride.

With a touch of apology in his eyes Lawson looked at the men on the sofa, then looked back at Ross. “Suppose we discuss this in private, Clancy.”

“And leave these creeps out of my sight?”

“Well, we could at least go over in the far corner.”

Ross glanced in the indicated direction. The room was a good thirty feet long. Straightening away from the mantel, he marched the length of the room, turned and waited for Lawson to join him. The huge racket boss shuffled his slippered feet across the rug after him, halting with his back to the sofa.

In a low voice Lawson said, “Are you out, of your mind, Clancy? These guys are Whitey Cord’s men.”

“I’m aware of it,” Ross retorted coldly. “It was Cord who sent them after my cloakroom girl.”

Lawson hiked his ropelike eyebrows. “The little blond doll who took our hats?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So that’s what it was all about,” Lawson said musingly. “Is she something special to you?”

“Yeah. She’s my cloakroom girl.”

“If that’s all, why not let them have her?” Lawson asked in a reasoning tone. “I don’t care how much trouble you get yourself in personally, but if you get Cord sore enough, he may move in and take over the whole town. I haven’t got enough guns to fight the Syndicate.”

“I have,” Ross said savagely. “Just my own. Is that all you wanted to talk about?”

“Now don’t go off half cocked, Clancy. The Syndicate has had its eye on this town for years. I’ve kept them out almost single-handed by keeping on friendly terms with most of the big boys. Whenever I can do one of them a small favor, I do it. That’s why I got George Mott in your club tonight. I didn’t ask why he wanted in. It was just one of those things you have to do to stay on good terms.”

“You can toady up to that bunch of pimps and dope pushers if you want, Bix. I wouldn’t bother to spit on them.”

Brushing past the bigger man, he stalked over to the sofa and gazed bleakly down at the two men seated there.

“I have a message for your boss, Whitey Cord,” he announced. “Tell him he stays alive exactly as long as Stella Parsons does. He’d better pray she doesn’t accidentally fall out a window or get run over by a hit-and-run driver, because if anything at all happens to her, I won’t bother to look around for murder evidence. And I won’t bother with the underlings who actually do the job. I’ll head straight for Chicago and shoot his navel back into his pelvis.”

The two men stared up at him silently.

“I also have a message for you two,” Ross continued. “Be out of town on the next plane to Chicago. The next time I see either one of you in this town, you’re dead.”

Spinning on his heel, he stalked to the door, then turned with his hand on the latch. “Would you like a message, too, Bix?”

“I didn’t finger the damned girl,” Lawson said wearily. “Save your messages for people who push you around on purpose.”

Ross gave the assemblage a frigid smile, pulled open the door and stepped through it.

Ross left the car — probably stolen — in which George Mott had driven them to the hotel and took a cab back to the club. It was past three-thirty when the elevator let him off at his third-floor apartment.

Sam Black was seated at the front-room bar sipping a bourbon highball. Stella nursed a similar drink on the huge round ottoman in the center of the room.

Dropping his hat on an end table, Ross moved behind the bar and began mixing a Scotch and soda. Black gave him an inquiring look.

“They should be on their way out of town by now,” Ross said.

“Hmm. Not voluntarily, I don’t suppose.”

“At my suggestion,” Ross admitted.

Black muttered gloomily, “I suppose you knocked their heads together to impress upon them the need for haste.”

Ross took a sip of his drink. “I didn’t lay a hand on them,” he said in a tone of regret.

“Well, well. Your manners are improving. Maybe the Syndicate will only send in a platoon of machine-gunners to repay your courtesy instead of its whole army.”

Stella said, “I wish you had just let me run, Clancy.”

“I will. You can run to bed. Did Sam pick up your clothes?”

She nodded. “He put me in the pink bedroom. Is that all right?”

“Sure.” He rounded the bar with the drink in his hand. “Probably it would be safe for you to go home, but we won’t take any chances. For the time being I don’t want you to leave the building unless I’m along.”

She gave him a rueful smile. “I’m putting you to an awful lot of trouble.”

“He makes his own trouble,” Black said. Tossing off the rest of his drink, he rose to his feet. “I’m going home.”

Stella rose also, carried her empty glass to the bar and set it down. “And I’m going to bed. Thanks a lot, Sam, for going after my things.” She looked at Ross. “I don’t know how to thank you, Clancy, so I’ll just say good night.”

“Good night, Stella.”

As the girl moved into the center hall, Sam Black headed for the door. “See you tomorrow, Clancy.”

“Yeah,” Ross replied.

When Black had gone, Ross left his drink standing on the bar while he went to his bedroom long enough to hang up his suit coat, remove his shoulder harness and strip off his tie. He had barely returned to the front room when Stella appeared in the doorway from the hall. She was barefooted and wore a black semitransparent nightgown which dimly showed the outline of her white body beneath it.

In a tentative voice she said, “Are you going to stay up awhile?”

“Until I finish my drink. Want one?”

She shook her head. “I’ll watch you, if you don’t mind. I don’t feel like sleep.”

Padding into the room, she crossed her arms on the end of the bar, a couple of feet from where he stood. When she leaned her flat stomach against the bar, it had the effect of cradling her rather full but firm breasts in her arms and tightening the black nylon across them. The nightgown was tied decorously at the throat, but beneath the overhead bar-light it became more than just semitransparent. The white plumpness of her breasts and the darker circles of their tips were clearly visible.

Ross regarded her thoughtfully and took a sip of his drink.

“Sam and I were discussing you while we waited,” she said. “Did your ears burn?”

“What do you mean, discussing me?”

“I asked questions about you. Sam said he was your topkick in Korea when you were a fuzzy-cheeked second lieutenant.”

The gambler grinned. “I guess I was a trial to him. I was twenty years old and fresh out of college with an R.O.T.C. commission. Sam was nearly thirty and a World War II vet with a vast dubiousness about shavetails. He taught me the ropes.”

“He said you were a fine officer, even though you were so young. He said you once saved his life.”

“Did he mention saving mine twice?” Ross asked.

The girl looked surprised. “No.”