Rex Stout - Target Practice

“Much obliged,” replied Rick calmly. His face was flushed and his brow covered with perspiration. He turned to his partner.

“Shall we have a drink on it, Miss Carson?”

They found a table in a corner back of the platform. Miss Carson, a rarity among cabaret performers, was even more pleasing to look at when you were close to her than on the stage. Her sparkling eyes retained all their charm, and the softness of her hair, the daintiness of her little mouth, the fresh smoothness of her cheeks, became more apparent. She was panting now from her exertions, and her flushed face and disarranged hair made a lovely picture.

“Really,” she said, as she sat down, “I ought to ask you to wait till I go to the dressing room and repair damages.”

“Oh, that can wait,” declared Rick. “If you knew how nice you look right now you wouldn’t want to fix up anyway. I suppose we ought to drink to each other with a bottle of champagne, but to tell the truth I was kind of hungry this evening and I’m afraid I about finished my little stake. I’ll corral Dickson for an advance tonight and we’ll have the wine later.”

But Miss Carson protested with a gay smile that she never drank anything stronger than mineral water, so that was all right. More, a little exclamation of horror escaped her when she saw Rick swallow three fingers of whiskey straight, after clinking glasses with her.

“That awful stuff!” she exclaimed. “It’ll kill you. I thought you mixed water with it or something.”

“I haven’t got that low yet,” Rick declared. “But there’s a funny thing, I was thinking just then that I’ve been drinking too much since I came East. Out home I don’t touch it oftener than once in two months, though I do fill up pretty well then. You know—” he hesitated — and blushed! “You know,” he went on, “I’m glad you don’t drink.”

“Yes? Why?”

“Lord, I don’t know. I’m just glad.”

“Well, so am I. I never have. But listen, Mr. Duggett. Mr. Dickson said he was going to give us a hundred and fifty and we could split it fifty-fifty. I won’t do that — divide it even, I mean. I was only getting fifty alone, so it’s quite evident that the hundred belongs to you.”

“You don’t say so,” Rick smiled at her. “Now, that’s just like you.” (How in the world could he have known what was just like her, having met her only twenty-four hours before?) “But you’ve got it wrong. The hundred is yours. I wouldn’t be worth two bits without you.”

“Mr. Duggett, the increased value of the turn is due entirely to you, and you must take the extra money. I insist.”

“Miss Carson, you really ought to have the whole thing, only I need a stake to get back home, so I’ll agree to take one-third. Not a cent more.”

They argued about it for twenty minutes, and at the end of that time compromised on an even split.

“It must be terribly exciting out in Arizona,” observed Miss Carson after a pause.

Rick lifted his eyebrows.

“Exciting?”

“Yes. That is — well — exciting. ”

“Not so as you could notice it. Oh, it’s all right. I don’t kick any. Plenty to eat, a good poker game whenever you’re loaded and a dance every once in a while. And of course lots of work—”

“But I didn’t mean that,” Miss Carson put in. “Working and eating and playing cards and dancing — why, that’s just what the men do in New York. I meant Indians, and things like that.”

“Yes, the Indians are pretty bad,” Rick agreed. “You’ve got to keep your eye on ’em all the time. They’ll get anything that’s loose. Worst sneak thieves in the world. But I don’t call that very exciting. In fact, I guess I’m having the most exciting time of my life right now.”

“Oh, so you like New York?”

“I should say not. That is, I didn’t mean New York. I meant right now, here at this table.”

“My goodness, I don’t see anything very exciting about this,” the girl smiled.

“Of course not. You’re looking in the wrong direction. You’re looking at me and I’m looking at you. You know, it’s a funny thing about your eyes. They look like the eyes of a pony I had once, the best that ever felt a saddle. The only time I ever cried was when he stumbled in a prairie dog hole and had to be shot.”

This was not the first compliment Rick had ever paid a woman, but you may see that he had not practiced the art sufficiently to acquire any great degree of subtlety. It appeared nevertheless not to be totally ineffective, for Miss Carson turned away the eyes that reminded Rick of his lost pony. She even made inquiry about the pony’s name and age, and why his stumbling in a prairie dog hole necessitated his death; also what is a prairie dog and a hole thereof?

At their next appearance on the platform they repeated their former success. There seemed little doubt that they were to be talked of on Broadway, and that meant profitable popularity. Miss Carson was delighted, and Rick found himself echoing her pleasure. Besides he was pleased on his own account, for two reasons: he was going to have no difficulty getting back to Arizona without revealing his disgraceful adventure to the boys, and he was going to get back from Broadway itself at least a part of that which Broadway had taken from him.

After this second performance they would not be needed again for more than two hours, and Rick changed into his street clothes and went out for a walk. It may as well be admitted that his thoughts during this long stroll were mainly of his cabaret partner, but there was another idea in his mind at the same time. He did not leave Broadway, and his eye ran ceaselessly over the faces of the passersby; also he stopped in every café, though he drank not at all. He was hoping that he might run across Mr. Henderson.

At eleven o’clock he was back at Dickson’s. Miss Carson found him in front of the dressing room and informed him that their call would be at 11:24. The immense dining room was filling up rapidly with the supper crowd from the theaters.

Waiters and omnibuses trotted swiftly up and down the aisles, there was a continuous line of new arrivals streaming in from the doors at both ends, and corks were beginning to pop. Two numbers of the supper cabaret had already done their turns, and the sentimental soprano was standing at the rear of the platform squeezing the bulb of an atomizer and half choking herself.

When the time came for the Rope Dance, as Lonny Dickson had decided to call it in his advertising copy for the following day, Rick Duggett was surprised at the ease with which he walked out on the platform, bowed and began loosening his coil of rope.

Miss Carson was daintily performing her short opening dance to the music of the orchestra. Rick got his noose arranged, stepped forward to his position in the center of the platform and started the rope slowly whirling. This was easy. He got it a little higher and went a little faster. There would still be at least a minute before the music cue came for the dancer to leap into the whirling circle, and Rick allowed his gaze to wander over the throng of faces turned toward him from every side. The scene spread out dazzlingly from the raised platform.

All at once Rick’s head became rigid and his eyes fixed themselves in an unbelieving stare. This lasted for half a moment; then suddenly he started and jumped forward and shouted at the top of his voice: “Damn!”

Miss Carson stopped short with amazement in the middle of her dance. The orchestra wavered and was silent. The clinking of knives and forks and the hum of conversation was suddenly hushed all over the room. Rick stood at the front edge of the platform, still staring at something with a wildly inquiring eye, his arm still moving mechanically around his head as the noose whirled in a great circle.