Donald Hamilton: The Shadowers

We had to wait for a table, and the one we got was out in the middle of the floor. The delay bothered me, but I told myself there wasn't really anything else for me to do back at the hotel. Olivia would be all right if she followed instructions, and it was better to let some time pass before we set up another meeting. I might as well be making sure this stray kid I'd involved in the game didn't cause us any official trouble.

"I'd like to go make repairs," Antoinette said after the headwaiter had made us comfortable and departed. "There's something about panic… I feel as if I'd come unraveled, just a little. Do you mind?"

I looked at her across the table. She was really an extremely pretty girl, but pretty wasn't quite the right word. It was an off-beat face, not quite symmetrical, with the heavy black eyebrows almost meeting over the straight little nose. I was betting on those individualistic eyebrows, and on the well-worn satin shoes. She probably wasn't starving, but she was a kid to whom an expensive meal in a fashionable restaurant meant something beyond food; and she was a kid who'd gamble recklessly and high to get it.

"No," I said. "I don't mind."

I watched her go off across the room, slim and straight in her shiny little dress. It was up to her now. There was nothing to be gained by wondering which way she'd turn; I'd know soon enough. There was not much to be gained by wondering what Olivia Mariassy was thinking after her humiliating experience in the Montclair bar, or what the bald man with the craggy face was doing. And there was certainly no profit at all in thinking about a woman who was dead, but I thought about her just the same. We'd had some good times together, Gail and I, even if she'd had too much money and Mac hadn't approved of her. I was going to have to get used to the idea that she wouldn't be around for me to call up when the job was over.

Then Antoinette Vail was returning, her hair very smooth and her lipstick quite perfect, and I rose to manipulate her chair like a gentleman. She smiled up at me as she seated herself.

"Well, there was one," she said.

"One what? Oh, you mean a phone?" I went back and sat down deliberately. I said, "I figured there would be. Did you use it?"

"Of course," she said. "The police don't want to make a fuss in here, but they'll be waiting when we leave. I told them you were armed and dangerous, so they'll probably shoot you down as you step into the street. But we can still have dinner first, can't we?"

"Sure," I said. "All the more reason to enjoy ourselves while we can. Take your choice. The sky's the limit."

She waved the menu aside. "I don't have to look. I want steak and champagne," she said. "It's square, it's corny, and they're not as good with steak here as with fish, but that's what I want. It makes me feel… luxurious. Paul?"

"Yes?"

"How did you know I wouldn't use the phone?"

I said, "You're not a cop-calling girl, Miss Vail. If you were that stuffy and conventional you'd pluck your eyebrows and wear a girdle."

She thought that over for a moment. "Well, I guess it makes sense, vaguely." She had another thought, and looked at me quickly across the table and grinned. "I was going to ask why you picked on me, back there at the Montclair. I guess you've just told me, indirectly, Mr. Paul Sharpeyes Corcoran."

"Sure. You have a beautiful little fanny, Miss Vail. It shows up particularly well on a bar stool. When I had to find a female companion in a hurry, who would I pick from that collection of bulging rumps? Who would any man pick? The corseted lady three stools down? Don't be silly."

Toni laughed and started to speak, but the waiter was hovering nearby, and she changed her mind. We went through the serious formality of ordering dinner. When the waiter had gone again, she leaned forward on her elbows comfortably.

"All right," she said, "let's hear them."

"Let's hear what?"

"The lies. About why you needed a female companion in a hurry. Make them good now."

"Sure," I said. "Well, there's the one about my meeting a married woman for a jazzy New Orleans weekend, and just as we were about to settle down for a drink, who should walk into the bar but her husband? He's a big tough guy. I don't want to tangle with him, and the lady doesn't want any nasty publicity, so I had to act quickly to make it look as if I didn't even know her."

Toni was wrinkling her nose distastefully and shaking her head. "That's not very original. You can do better."

"What's the matter with it?"

"Well, if you were just a weekend Romeo, you'd hardly be flashing a knife like that. And then there's the lady. I suppose you mean the dowdy one in tweed you pointed out as an amorous schoolteacher. She's hardly the type to be stepping out on her husband, if she has a husband; and even if she did want to flip, I can't see you as her partner in sin, Paul. I don't know what you are, but you're a little too smooth to fall for a creep in horn-rimmed glasses."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," I said. "I'm supplying only eats, drinks, and lies. Diamonds and furs you'll have to get elsewhere."

She laughed. "It isn't very nice to call a girl a gold-digger, even just by implication. You might hurt her feelings. No, I don't think much of that story. Try again."

"Well," I said, "how about this? You've heard of the Syndicate, I suppose. Well, I'm on the payroll, see, only I'm hiding out because the fuzz is after me, and I'm running short of the folding ready. So they send my moll with a fresh supply of green, and she's all done up with glasses and a kookie hairdo so nobody'll know her-she's a real dish, normally-but just as she's about to slip me the loot I see a cop come in and I know he's been tailing her. He doesn't know me by sight, and I've made a few changes since the descriptions went out, but I've only got a minute to… No?" I said. "You don't like that one, either?"

"No," she said. "I don't like that one, either."

I sighed. "Lady," I said, "you are very hard to suit. How about this? I'm a government man, see, and I've got a big deal cooking all about spies and saboteurs and stuff, only just as I'm about to make contact with one of my fellow agents, feminine gender, I see a man watching. He's got her spotted, obviously, but there's still hope that I can keep clear if I… No, that won't work."

She was looking at me intently. She touched her lips with her tongue. "Why not, Paul? Why won't it work?"

"Well, hell," I said, "if I were really a government man, I'd have identification, wouldn't I? I'd be just lousy with identification. Did you ever see a government man yet who wasn't ready to flash his buzzer at the drop of a hat?"

"And you haven't got identification?"

"Not the lousiest little bit, doll. I mean, Miss Vail. I'm the most unidentified man you ever saw, Miss Vail."

She said slowly, still watching me, "I think you're one of the cleverest men I ever saw, too, Paul." Her voice was cool. "You want something for nothing, don't you? Well, not for nothing. But for the price of a dinner you want silence and cooperation without committing yourself one tiny little bit. Do you think that's a fair deal?"

I shook my head. "No. Only a damn fool would buy a deal like that. Or a girl who likes steak and champagne and isn't scared of a touch of mystery."

There was a short silence. She reached out and placed her hand on top of mine. "All right," she breathed. "All right. If that's all you're going to tell me."

"I haven't told you anything, Miss Vail. Not a damn thing. Anything you want to guess is up to you, but it's strictly a guess."

"I'm not sure I want you for a friend," she said. "I'm not sure I trust you enough to call you friend." She patted my hand lightly, and sat back, smiling. Everything was settled in her mind, and she murmured, "But I think you'd better start calling me Toni just the same."