`What about the Sunday jam sessions? Are they still on?'
`Yeah. We had one yesterday. The boys were in great form. Too bad you missed them.'
He slid my drink across the bar. `You in the music business?'
`I represent musicians from time to time. I have an office on the Strip.'
`Sam would want to talk to you. He's the leader.'
`Where can I get in touch with him?'
`I have his address somewhere. Just a minute, please.'
A couple of young men in business suits with rain-sprinkled shoulders had taken seats at the far end of the bar. They were talking in carrying voices about a million-dollar real-estate deal. Apparently it was somebody else's deal, not theirs, but they seemed to enjoy talking about it.
The small man served them short whiskies without being asked. A lavishly built young woman came in and struggled out of a transparent raincoat, which she rolled up and tossed under the bar. She had a Sicilian nose. Her neck was hung with jewelry like a bandit princess's.
The small man looked at her sternly. `You're late. I can't operate without a hostess.'
`I'm sorry, Tony. Rachel was late again.'
`Hire another baby sitter.'
`But she's so good with the baby. You wouldn't want just anybody feeding him.'
`We won't talk about it now. You know where you're supposed to be.'
`Yes, Mr. Napoleon.'
With a rebellious swing of the hip, she took up her post by the door. Customers were beginning to drift in by twos and fours. Most of them were young or young middle-aged. They looked respectable enough. Talking and laughing vivaciously, clinking her jewelry, the hostess guided them to the red-checked tables.
Her husband remembered me after a while. `Here's Sam Jackman's address. He has no phone, but it isn't far from here.'
He handed me a sheet from a memo pad on which he had written in pencil: `169 Mimosa, apt. 2.'
It was near the railroad tracks, an old frame house with Victorian gingerbread on the facade half chewed away by time. The heavy carved front door was standing open, and I went into the hallway, feeling warped parquetry under my feet. On a closed door to my right, a number 2 stamped from metal hung upside down by a single nail. It rattled when I knocked.
A yellow-faced man in shirt sleeves looked out. `Who is it you want?'
`Sam Jackman.'
`That's me.'
He seemed surprised that anybody should want him. `Is it about a job?'
He asked the question with a kind of hollow hopefulness that answered itself in the negative.
`No, but I want to talk to you about something important, Mr. Jackman.'
He caught the `mister' and inclined his head in acknowledgement. `All right.'
`May I come in? My name is Lew Archer. I'm a private detective.'
`I dunno, the place is a mess. With the wife working all day - but come on in.'
He backed into his apartment, as if he was afraid to expose his flank. It consisted of one large room, which might once have been the drawing room of the house. It still had its fine proportions, but the lofty ceiling was scabbed and watermarked, the windows hung with torn curtains. A cardboard wardrobe, a gas plate behind a screen, stood against the inner wall. Run-down furniture, including an unmade double bed in one corner, cluttered the bare wooden floor. On a table beside the bed, a small television set was reeling off the disasters of the day in crisp elocutionary sentences.
Jackman switched it off, picked up a smoking cigarette from the lid of a coffee can on the table, and sat on the edge of the bed. It wasn't a marihuana cigarette. He was completely still and silent, waiting for me to explain myself. I sat down facing him.
`I'm looking for Tom Hillman.'
He gave me a swift glance that had fear in it, then busied himself putting out his cigarette. He dropped the butt into the pocket of his shirt.
`I didn't know he was missing.'
`He is.'
`That's too bad. What would make you think that he was here?'
He looked around the room with wide unblinking eyes. `Did Mr. Hillman send you?'
`No.'
He didn't believe me. `I just wondered. My Hillman has been on my back.'
'Why?'
`I interested myself in his boy,' he said carefully.
