drive, like they’ve all got now. I pulled up and gave my keys to the valet. He was a strict-looking young Mexican. He took my keys as if all the guests drove up in dented ‘41 Hudsons. My respect for the place went up a notch, or maybe just my respect for him, and I started down a long walkway with a line of torches on either side that made the leaves of the shrubs gleam like metal. The Centaur was gotten up as some sort of chateau. Beneath the cement gewgaws, you could see it was just a big brick shed, but they were nice gewgaws, and I passed two doormen and walked into a foyer with a big statue of a centaur in something that was supposed to be gilt bronze. She was rearing back on her hind legs, getting ready to wing a spear at the bandstand. She looked like she wished somebody would give her a shirt.
I walked around her rump to check my hat and had a look around. It was an enormous place. The carpeting was burgundy. Through the arch to my left I saw a row of blackjack tables and the end of what looked like a row of roulette tables, all of them well attended. Through the arch to my right was a dance floor surrounded by a horseshoe of banquettes, and behind them, a raised mezzanine with round tables and more banquettes. I wasn’t the only guy there in a suit, but a dinner jacket would have been better. At the end of the dance floor sat an orchestra in gold tuxedos, making with the elbows and teeth. In front of them stood a colored girl with a mouth like a cut plum, singing very softly about something that couldn’t be helped.
I went around a corner to the bar, which was of dark wood and ran lengthwise along one wall of the big room. Behind the bar was a long mirror tinted gold, and above the mirror was a long frieze in greenish glass, lit from behind. The frieze showed more girl-centaurs, hopping around with a bunch of satyrs. They didn’t carry spears and looked a lot more fun to know. I ordered a gimlet and toasted them.
“Halliday in here most nights?” I asked the bartender. He was built solid, with a solid, pouchy white face.
“Friend of his?” he said.
“Admirer.”
“Most nights, yeah. Fact he’s overdue. You say you’re not a friend of his?”
“Why?”
“In case his friends might not like you.”
“Friends?”
“Always got one, two, even three guys along, and never the same ones. He must purely hate to be alone.”
“Guys,” I said.
“Yeh.”
“Bodyguards.”
“Okay,” he said.
“What would one man need with so many?”
“Beats me. ‘Course, if you got three, you can play a game of bridge. How’s that gimlet?”
“Good,” I said truthfully. “How’s business?”
“We get ‘em,” he said. “I don’t get bored. Excuse me,” he said, and moved off toward a couple who’d just sat down.
He wasn’t lying about business, and it was a while before he came by again. “How’s that gimlet treating you?” he asked.
“I’m all right,” I said. “But I’ll tell you the truth. Sometimes you need a little something to pick you up. You know the feeling?”
“All the time. What can I fix you?”
“It’s like I just don’t have the energy any more. No zip. Sometimes I suspect I need a little something to pep me up.”
“Well, that gimlet won’t liven you any. Can I bring you some coffee?”
“I was thinking a little stronger.”
“Something in the coffee?”
I looked him in the eye. “I just had the idea,” I said, “that I might get something here to fix me up, if I asked nicely. I’d be grateful to the man who pointed the way, too.”
“I can make you any kind of drink they make anywhere,” he said. “I don’t run a pharmacy.”
“You don’t run a charm school, either. You telling me all you got behind the bar’s those bottles? You telling me a man can’t get himself fixed up around here? Oh, now, that was unnecessary.”
“What was?” he said. His face had gone very blank.
“The button under the bar. That was unnecessary.” I saw two men in dinner jackets strolling toward me from the direction of the dance floor. “Here they come. How do you work it, one buzz for drunks, two for dope fiends?”
But he was busy with the cash register and couldn’t hear me.
One of the dinner jackets was a pretty little fellow, a real pocket edition. But I’ve known some pocket editions and I wasn’t giggling. The other was more of a size. Neither was young. The small one said, “Mr. Burri sends you his compliments, sir, and wonders if you might join him at his table.”
I’d seen Fausto Burri in the papers. His table was by the dance floor, with a view of the front entrance. He was a narrow man who could have been fifty, though I knew he must have been over seventy, with a dark, heavily creased face, a weak jaw, and a strong nose. He wore a snowy white shirt, a dark red tie figured in dull silver, and a quiet charcoal suit that must have cost more than any car I’ve ever owned. His suit was what my suit wanted to be when it grew up. My suit was kidding itself. “Good evening, Mr. Burri,” I said as they walked me up to him. “My name’s Ray Corson. What can I do for you?”
He said, “Please, Mr. Corson, sit, sit.”
“Thanks.” I sat. At his elbow was a glass full of some clear liquid and a little dish of chalky-looking little cookies. He looked at my empty hands and said, “You don’t have your drink.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
“Excuse me, please, it’s not. This is not a place, a man comes here for a drink and they don’t let him drink it.” He was looking toward the bar, and now he moved his chin fractionally in my direction. He settled back. “That kind of place we don’t run. Tell me, you like our little place?”
“It’s quite an operation, sir.”
“Ah. You don’t like my place.”
“I’m afraid it’s not the kind of place I’m used to.”
“No? Well. I’ll tell you something.” He leaned closer. “It’s not my kind of place, either. Ah? That surprises you? It’s true.”
“Why not?” I said.
“Look around,” he said. “These people.”
“They look all right to me.”
“Sure, all these highly desirable customers with the money they got. You know what I call them? I call them lowlifes. Their money, they don’t work for it, they just got it. Like a rash. What good’s it do ‘em? I don’t know. Here they are every night, the men like fairies and the women naked, just naked. Okay, it’s about time.”
A slim brunette with a neck like a gazelle had appeared at my shoulder, wearing about as much cloth of gold as you’d need to keep the chill off a canary. She set a fresh gimlet in front of me as if she were kissing her baby goodnight. Burri watched me taste it and looked pleased when I nodded. It was as good as the first.
“Here they are, every night,” he continued. “And they drink, not a nice civilized drink like we’re having together here, but I think you could say they guzzle, and they stuff themselves, and what they put in their mouths I wouldn’t touch with my hand. The food here, I’m sorry to say it, I wouldn’t touch it with my bare hand. They call it French. They got to have the French food, and the booze, and the roulette, and the naked women, and they — ” He held a thumbnail under his nose and gave a delicate sniff. “But what can I say?” he said, extending his hands and looking surprised. “Life is difficult. Very painful, and people need to have a good time. And maybe I don’t like their good time or their music,
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, your business I don’t know. This,” he said, holding the thumb beneath his dark nose again, “this interests you?”
