By bending down I could see a faint gleam of light behind my knothole in the bar, but it looked like the reflection from a bottle, not the lens of a television camera. I was content. Now I could leave, knowing I had done all I could. I would be able to hear — and see — virtually everything that went on in this room — if the meeting were actually held, and held here instead of someplace else, and my camera wasn’t found, and the police didn’t remove my “Under Repair” signs, and nobody wanted a drink this morning, and nobody spotted the peculiar cable hanging down the building’s rear wall, and enough other ifs to turn my stomach.

  It sounded as if it had just turned over. At least I’d heard something . . . unless my imagination was working overtime again. But then there was another noise. Different from the first. If these noises were inside me, that second one must have been a small bone breaking, which didn’t seem likely.

  I looked at the door — and saw the knob slowly turning.

  That was the little clicking sound I’d heard. A whole flock of emotions exploded in me. First, I just about jumped straight up out of my trousers. And second, I got a horrible feeling of griping, anger, frustration, and I don’t know what all. To come so far, get so close, go through all this work, and then have it blow up in my face — well, it was too much.

  I yanked out my gun. The door opened an inch. I aimed at the crack, almost ready to shoot right through it.

  But then — so suddenly and loudly that I jumped again — a voice yelled, “I’ll be right back, honey.” It was a woman’s voice. “I’ll only be a couple minutes.”

  What in the hell? I thought.

  Now, with the door cracked, I could hear answering voices — male, more than one, and apparently from out in the Gardenia Room — but I couldn’t distinguish the words, only what struck me as a horrible roaring sound. I could easily hear the woman, though, as she cried, “Don’t get in an uproar, honey. Mix me a drinkie — I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t know whether to try climbing out the window — too late for that now — or hiding behind the door, or desk, or bar, or what. There was just too much to contend with in the approximately two or three seconds at my disposal.

  But at least it was a woman, and she wouldn’t be out there yelling if she had a gun and was coming in here to shoot me. There was a dandy bit of logic. If she knew me, recognized me, I was sunk. But maybe she didn’t know me.

  Maybe she . . . The thought wavered, faded, came back.

  I was in Sullivan’s office — maybe she didn’t know me or Sullivan. It was possible. Hell, anything is possible; some day I might be eating cheese on the moon. Some day I might go through a whole case without getting hit on the head. Some day — there wasn’t time for any more of this mental diddling. Something had to be done; she was coming in.

  All I can say is, it was inspiration. Something bigger than I guided me, moved me. Maybe part of it was the thought of Sullivan in my mind, part merely an attempt to cover my white hair, but in one bound I was behind the desk grabbing Sullivan’s red beret out of the drawer and clapping it on my head, snatching his stale cigar from the tray, turning with my back to the door — just in time, just as the woman came inside — cigar visible in my left hand, the cocked Colt out of sight in my right.

  I pulled my head left a little, rolled my eyes sideways so I could peer at her, see if she was alone. She was. She shut the door behind her — and giggled.

  Well, that didn’t sound menacing.

  “Hello,” she said. “I saw your light under the door. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Mind?”

  “You’re Sully, aren’t you? Huh?”

  I turned my head clear around and looked straight at the gal, but her expression didn’t change one iota. It remained a sort of happy, expectant, hopeful, drunk expression. She looked and sounded as plastered as a stucco duplex. I slid the gun back into its holster and turned to face her as she said, “Didn’t you hear me? You’re Sully, aren’t you?”

  “Ain’t I seen you before?” I said, very friendly.

  “No. Not yet, but you’re going to,” she said kittenishly. “I hope.”

  I didn’t know what the hell that meant, but I asked the vital question. “You mean you ain’t seen old Sully before?”

  She shook her head. “No, I been wanting to. But my honey says he don’t want me in showbiz. But I want to be in showbiz. I got talent, honest.”

  Showbiz, talent. Comments I’d heard about Sully came back to me. Whatever it was that had moved me just kept on moving me, and I stuck the cigar between my teeth and said: “Well, come on in, baby. Lessee what you got.”

  She let out a little trilling squeal. Something had been bothering me until then, because she looked slightly familiar to me, but when she squealed trillingly I remembered. I’d seen her last night, sitting with Blister and Speedy and two other girls. She’d been the one without a partner, wearing a high-necked green dress.

  Apparently she had a partner — her “honey” — tonight, and tonight she was wearing another clinging, high-necked dress, of bright orange knit wool, which was stretched all into the same shape as the other one. It was a splendid sight, even though undoubtedly tough on the wool, since she had a lot more stretchers than it had stretch. The blonde hair, which had been worn long when I’d first seen her, was piled on top of her head this time.

  As her squeal ended in a little fruity sound, like a cat’s meow, she clapped her hands in front of her and cried happily, “Oh, I was afraid you wouldn’t let me.” Then she wriggled her hips and snapped her fingers a couple of times. “I’m just going to warm up a little first,” she said.

  This was moving too fast for me. Maybe that whatever, which I’d thought was guiding me, had really been misguiding me. All I’d wanted to do was pass inspection from this tomato so she wouldn’t let out a yell and bring numerous boy friends and casual acquaintances in here to shoot me. And now I was remembering more that I’d heard about Sully — his hiring all the show’s acts, the “auditions” here in his office . . .

  The blonde said, “O.K. I’m ready. I’ll just have to do it without music, I guess.”

  “Ah, Miss, this won’t do — ”

  But she went right on, “I’ll have to do it real fast, before my honey comes in here and catches me.”

  “Catches you?”

  “He’d kill me if he knew I was in here.”

  “Kill you?”

  “I sneaked away — he doesn’t sympathize with my desire for a career in the theayter. But I’ve got the whole act worked out, everything.” She was starting to emote already, but the theayter she was thinking about was not the Biltmore Theayter. “I’ve even got the name for my dance,” she went on. “The Dance of the Seven Bumps. Or is that too suggestive?”

  “Baby, it’s about as crude as the oil in the La Brea Tar Pits. But I guess that’s what the public wants, hey?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead she was slinking about the room, reaching back to pull down a long zipper, starting to shake out of the orange dress. Shaking . . . shaking . . .

  “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t . . . do it.”

  “What? Don’t? Why?”

  “Well, I’m — all choked up. I mean booked up. No more spots for new — new goils.”

  “Oh, it’ll only take a minute. I’m already started, and maybe you’ll remember me when you’ve got a spot.” She smiled like a gal sitting on something that tickled.

  I said, “This won’t do — ”

  But she kept talking — and moving. “I’ve got the whole act worked out, even my name. Vava. That’s my new stage name.”

  “Vava?”

  “Yes, isn’t it wonderful? Sort of smooth and hot and all. And the last name — Voom!”

  “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “But you said — voom or something very — ”

  “That’s my last name. Voom!”

  “Good God, not Vava Voom!”

  “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Good God, not Vava Voom!” I said again, unbelieving. “Why, that’s as bad as that Yaki gal, the Japanese dancer. What was it? Yeah, Suki. Suki Yaki. Good God — ”

  “I thought it up myself.”

  “It figures. Look, you’ve got to stop — ”

  She wasn’t paying any attention to me. She let out a high, horny, squealing sound — Weeeeee — still moving a lot, and moving very fast, presumably so she could finish before Honey came in and caught her — or, rather, us — and killed her — or, rather, us.

  “No,” I said firmly. “You’ve got to stop.”

  “Weeeee!”

  She wouldn’t pay a damned bit of attention to me. And not entirely to my surprise, I discovered that she had the bright orange dress off, and a pink half-slip off, and was now slinking about in — from the floor up — high-heeled shoes, sheer nylon stockings apparently held up with invisible garters, sheer pink nylon panties, and a sheer pink nylon brassiere, one of those low frilly ones called “Sheer Madness,” or something wild like that.

  It was, I’ll tell you, something to see. But I couldn’t afford to get carried away with the vista under the circumstances, and it’s a good thing or I would have been pretty well shaken as she reached behind her back to fumble with the clasp of her brassiere, the movement causing even more stretching than ordinarily. So naturally I said firmly, “This has got to stop!”

  I was speaking more and more firmly, but it wasn’t doing a bit of good. She got the clasp unhooked, let the bulging pink cloth start sliding down, down . . .

  I said, “You really should stop, you know. Don’t you think . . .”

  Down the pink cloth slid, down to the floor. She was moving quite rapidly now, flinging her arms around, saying, “Vava Voom, Vava Voom!” And then a particularly strenuous conniption: “WEEEEEE!”

  “Weee,” I said, sort of tentatively.

  Her blonde hair was starting to get loose, her arms were flying, she was rearing back, her fingers playing with the top of her pink nylon panties. “Vava VOOOM!” she cried. “Weeee . . . Weeeee!”

  I suppose at practically any other time and under any other circumstances I would have heard the sound. The sound of footsteps. Footsteps in the hall, clattering closer. But I didn’t. I just wasn’t listening. That old Achilles thing again. And as luck would have it the blonde, though I wouldn’t have believed she would really get carried so far away, was actually starting to slide the pink nylon down, either carried away by the sheer joy of the theayter or determined to make sure that old Sully remembered her when he had a spot available.

  And so it happened that the blonde was only seconds from the climax of her act, crying “Weeeee” over and over in a thin, high voice, sort of scrunched forward and tugging delicately, when the door crashed open.

  A large ape stepped inside saying in a loud, harsh voice, “What in hell is comin’ off in here?”

  It was Fargo.

  His eyes fell on the blonde, and in a flash he took in the vast bare expanse of her, as well as the oddly strained position she had gotten herself into, sort of bent over and thrust out behind and slightly atilt, tugging, and if his eyes had bugged out before, it was nothing to the way they went now.

  He let out a roar like a wounded bull moose. “Ba-aby. What in hell are you do-ing?”

  The blonde didn’t move, just kept tugging weakly, in the other direction now but too weakly to do any good; besides which, this moment was shot no matter how hard she tugged. In a plaintive voice she said, “Oh, honey, you spoil everything.”

  And I thought miserably: “Yeah, he sure does.”

  Twelve

  The blonde straightened up, pulling her pants on firmly, which seemed a pretty good idea, and then standing erect looked at Fargo and said plaintively, “Oh, honey, you won’t let me do anything.”

  “Cheez,” he said in a disgusted tone, shaking his head. He glanced at me, then back at the blonde. “Baby Doll,” he said in a voice filled with suffering, “when is you goin’ to give up your cracky ideas about a career in showbiz?”

  Then he turned, saying, “Come on, Baby Doll, the whole gang is waitin’ on you.” And he took one step toward the door.

  But then he stopped.

  He didn’t merely stop; he froze. He came to an absolute twanging quivering halt, like those dogs that point their noses at birds, and he held very still, and then he slowly began shaking his head back and forth.

  “No,” he was mumbling. “It can’t be.”

  I realized that it had finally penetrated Fargo’s seven inches of skull that the big open-mouthed chap he had just glanced at was, despite the beret and cigar, despite what his Baby Doll had been doing in front of him, not the big open-mouthed chap he had thought him to be.

  He kept mumbling to himself, wagging his head back and forth like a railroad semaphore, “No. I’m wrong. I got to be wrong. It ain’t him. I won’t let it be him.” He stopped mumbling momentarily but kept his head wig-wagging loosely. “I has gone cuckoo. Baby and me, we is all alone in here. That’s it. I has gone cracky.”

  Well, Fargo had been frozen there for quite a spell — longer perhaps than you may believe — but I had been frozen for a while myself. Not, however, for as long as Fargo. So as he said his last “cracky”, I was right behind him, swinging a chair. It was a heavy chair, and it landed heavily on the back of Fargo’s wagging head, which stopped wagging.

  He crumpled silently to the floor, all his problems solved for the moment — which was more than I could say for me. I turned, grabbed my suitcase, spun around and started out.

  The blonde was gawking. “Why did you do that?” she asked me.

  I didn’t tell her; I was on my way.

  I had heard those other male voices; I had heard Fargo say “the whole gang” was waiting; and I knew I had to move fast even if not far. Hoods were probably all over the joint, and I had a hunch that in about ten seconds half the goddam Mafia would be in here giving me a hand, a big black hand, and shooting bullets into my fatal wounds.

  I jumped over Fargo, grabbed the door and slammed it shut as I went through — and hesitated. I had a momentary impulse simply to turn left and run out that door I’d come through earlier and keep on going. But it was only for a moment. I turned right, ran to the hall’s end and started to leap up the stairs there.

  I was going up when I heard the blonde’s voice.

  She yelled, “Blister! Speedy! Come here, will you? You’ll never guess what happened.”

  Wrong again, I thought. I’ll bet they guess.

  But by then I was at the top of the stairs, on the Barker’s second floor. I made it to the fourth floor without complication, let myself into room 418, locked the door behind me and collapsed in a chair.

  Well, I’d made it to here, but I didn’t exactly feel safe. I felt more like those people who use the wrong deodorant, only half-safe. I figured that any hood in his right mind would assume I must have managed to escape from the hotel — certainly that I wouldn’t have remained in the Barker by choice. The trouble with that reasoning was the fact that many hoods are not in their right minds.

  Even if I was safe here for a while, it looked as if my night’s work had gone to waste. Once word reached Quinn that Shell Scott had been surprised in Sullivan’s office, Quinn would have that office gone over inch by inch. Even a casual search would turn up my camera — or Quinn might simply transfer the planned meeting to another, uncontaminated location.

  I swore, wondering what was going on down there in Sully’s office. They might at this very moment be sending goons to search the hotel. If I knew what they were up to, I might . . .

  I slapped a hand against my forehead. What was the matter with me? All I had to do to find out what was happening in Sully’s office was — turn on my TV set. Moreover, I’d find out if the thing really worked.

  Gabe had told me he’d left the set on Channel 12, and all I had to do was turn it on, then switch on the recorder, without necessarily starting the tape, and I’d get sound from the recorder’s speaker. I jumped up, crossed to the TV receiver and turned it on, switched on the recorder at the receiver’s base. While the tubes warned up I watched the twenty-one-inch screen, unconsciously holding my breath. Only when light flickered and a picture formed did I realize I was letting out my breath in a long sigh.

  It was happening before my eyes; the thing was actually working — working beautifully, the picture perfect except for a blurred inch or two at the right of the screen. There was Fargo, sitting in the chair I’d hit him with, ugly eye, massive nose, pained and sour expression, all clear as could be. He was facing almost directly toward the bar, and alongside him with one hand on his head was the blonde.

  In all the rush, she hadn’t had time to dress yet, and though she’d managed to put on the low and frilly brassiere, that was the only change since I’d been down there myself. It was something to see on television. In fact it was astonishing to see on television.

  Squatting beside the chair was Speedy Gonzales, and a couple of feet behind him was another man, identifiable from his almost noseless profile as Blister. In the blurred area at the right side of the picture tube I could make out the hazy form of another woman standing near the door.

  I was so exhilirated to see the actual scene, to see what was right now transpiring in Sullivan’s office and to know that this damned closed-circuit setup was no-fooling working, that I wasn’t listening closely at first. The sound from the tape recorder’s speaker was low and I turned it up.

 

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