“Who are you?”
“Bud Stanley from the Orange Taxi Company. I had a call from the office sayin’ you wanted to see me.”
“Yeh. About a fare you picked up about a half an hour ago at the Dragoon. Remember?”
“Sure thing. A dame-and plenty classy.”
“Where’d you take her?”
“Armentiers Apartments on Chartres-just beyond Bienville.” The driver twisted his cap around his finger, then asked awkwardly, “What’s this for, boss? Police?”
“Hell, no. Private stuff. Your office told you I was all right, didn’t they?”
“Sure. I’ve heard about you, Mr. Shayne, but look-I don’t wanta get mixed up in nothin’. You know what I mean.”
Shayne said impatiently, “You’ll just help me cut a corner if you’ve got anything. Know anything else about the girl? Her name-which apartment?”
“It ain’t much, but I’ve seen that dame before.”
Shayne reached in his pocket and brought out a handful of coins and selected three half-dollars. He stacked them on the desk and asked. “Where?”
“She hangs out at the Laurel Club,” Stanley told him. “Makes a pick-up once in a while, maybe.”
“A hustler?” Shayne asked with interest.
“N-o-o. Not that way, I don’t think. But I drove her once when she was pretty tight. Quite a while ago,” he amended.
Shayne pulled the silver pieces back. Putting them in his pocket he said, “That’s worth a five-spot,” and took out his wallet.
“Thanks.” Bud reached out a grimy hand for the bill.
“Was she alone when you drove her-when she was tight?” Shayne held the bill in his hand.
“No, sir. She had a soldier with her.”
Shayne tossed the bill across the table. The cabbie took it and went out.
Shayne finished his drink, tugging absently at his ear lobe. A pattern was beginning to emerge-if he could only see it clearly. The Laurel Club figured in it somehow. There were too many signposts.
He called headquarters and asked for Chief McCracken and was informed that the chief had gone home. He called the chief’s house and got him there.
“What do you know about the Laurel Club, Mac?” he asked.
“Off the record?” McCracken chuckled.
“Sure.”
“It’s on Chartres between St. Louis and Toulouse. Dan Trueman runs it and there’s never any trouble. He keeps his shows clean enough to avoid the vice squad, and if there’s any gambling in the back room we’ve never had a squawk to base a raid on.”
Shayne said, “Fair enough,” and added reflectively, “Dan Trueman?”
“He’s after your time,” McCracken told him. “No record, and he’s built the club up from a shoestring to a nice take. That’s all I can give you, Mike. Still hunting for emeralds?”
Shayne grunted. “And no luck. Thanks, Mac.” He hung up and ran his hand over a bristly growth of red whiskers. He got up and turned off the lights in both offices at a switch in the reception room.
It was a short drive down to St. Charles and up to Carondelet where he had a three-room walk-up apartment in an old two-story residence that had been remodeled and modernized. He parked his car at the curb and went up the path and wooden steps to the veranda. Stairs led directly up from the double entrance doors, and the pleasant smell of highly seasoned food pervaded the house as he climbed them at a brisk pace.
He entered a high-ceilinged corner room with freshly papered walls and a new rug on the floor. An antique chandelier gave light from a dozen small bulbs when he flipped the switch.
It was unpleasantly warm in the apartment and he opened a double window before going into the bedroom where he took off his coat and tie.
He picked up the evening paper which had been pushed under his door and settled himself comfortably, glanced over the headlines, then carefully read the newspaper account of the death of Katrin Moe and the theft of the Lomax necklace.
There was nothing new in the newspaper account. Katrin’s death was treated as suicide, though the motive was an admitted mystery. A sob writer had got hold of the wedding-day angle and played it up heavily, with pictures of Lieutenant Drinkley and his bride-to-be. Nowhere in the story was there any suggestion that there might be a connection between the girl’s death and the loss of the necklace; and Mrs. Lomax’s negligence in leaving the necklace out of the safe was glossed over.
Shayne studied the newspaper picture of Katrin Moe, wondering whether it had been taken recently. Her face was round and full-cheeked with a firm, pointed chin. Her eyes were big and solemn, and there was no hint of a smile in her expression. Her hair was plaited in two braids and coiled around her head. Soft curls of short-cut hair or new growth made a halo around her face.
He folded the newspaper and sailed it across the room, went into the bedroom, stripping off his shirt as he went. He shaved and took a tepid shower, then dressed swiftly and carefully. He selected a pin-striped suit of dark blue that made him look younger, and a solid blue shirt with a lighter blue tie slashed across with bars of white. A gray topcoat and a snap-brim felt of a lighter shade finished the transformation from the man who’d ridden down in the elevator at the Dragoon Hotel that afternoon into a person whom he hoped Lieutenant Drinkley’s visitor wouldn’t recognize.
When he went outside a high wind was rapidly dispersing the clouds. He hesitated for a moment beside his car, then swung off briskly to Canal and down to Chartres and the French Quarter. He stopped under a canopied entrance where three steps led down from the sidewalk and a neon sign above read, The Laurel Club.
Inside a small foyer there was a red neon arrow pointing left and blue light above it flowed through the words Cocktail Lounge.
He checked his hat and topcoat and went into a large room softly lighted by concealed fluorescent tubes around the low ceiling. A bar ran the length of the room at one end, accommodated by leather-upholstered stools and a rail. Horseshoe seats hugged the tables set against the other three walls. Strolling past the booths, he glanced into the few that were occupied. He went on to the bar and studied the faces reflected in the mirror. None of the faces were familiar.
Shayne cut across to a center booth from which he could see both the main entrance and a door at the rear of the cocktail lounge. A waiter was coming toward him when he saw her come in. She had changed to a silvery green evening gown that clung to her slender figure and left bare her firm-fleshed shoulders and arms.
The girl who had visited Lieutenant Drinkley’s hotel room stopped and looked around at the booths, then went slowly to the bar.
When the waiter approached Shayne to take his order, Shayne asked, “Can I get quicker service at the bar?”
“Yes, sir. It’s a little early for the booths to be filled and all the waiters haven’t come on yet.”
Shayne said, “Okay,” and went to the bar. He sat down beside the girl with the tawny hair and ordered cognac.
Shayne was watching the girl’s reflection while he spoke. She gave him a swift, low-lidded glance, fumbled in a glittering evening bag and brought out a cigarette case. She snapped the case open. It was empty. Shayne took out his pack and shook one out.
The girl said, “Thanks,” and dug into her bag for a match.
Shayne took a cigarette for himself, struck a match to both, and said, “Those little bags aren’t good for much, are they?”
She looked levelly at him as she lit her cigarette. She chuckled and said, “I never seem to have anything but the habit, anyway.”
The bartender set a sidecar before Shayne. He said, “Make it two,” lifting one bushy red brow to query the girl.
She nodded and asked, “How come you’re on the loose?”
“I’m new in town.” He appraised her with a frank, steady gaze and added, “A girl like you shouldn’t be here alone-accepting drinks from a strange man.”
