club’s entrance, and killed the lights. They might have a man watching the road, just on general principles, but unless he was on the roof with binoculars I didn’t see where they could put him, and I figured I was probably clear.
My watch said about 9:40. I decided I’d wait an hour to see if Halliday showed. They had strong lights under the port cochere, I’d seen his picture, and there’s nothing wrong with my eyes. In the army, I was company sniper. It’s interesting what snipers do. When your company retreats, you’re supposed to cover them by climbing a tree or something and firing on the approaching enemy. They don’t say what you’re supposed to do when the Germans arrive and you’re still up the tree. I didn’t mind. By the time I joined up I was twenty-six and had been on the bum for eight years, just rattling around loose from town to town, and I was ready for someone to tell me what to do, even if they were telling me to go climb a tree and wait to be shot. Anyway, we didn’t retreat much and I made it to the Elbe without so much as a skinned knee. Around ten past, a dark blue Lincoln pulled up with two suits in front and a blonde head in back. The blonde head got out and became a big young guy with sort of sparkly hands and what looked like Halliday’s chin. He breezed right by the valets with his hard boys and breezed back out at 10:25. By then I had my engine running, and I slipped into traffic two cars behind him.
We headed back toward town on the Golden State. The radio was broken, so I was singing
The market had a big neon sign of a performing seal. It had a red ball balanced on its nose, and then the ball was floating a little above its nose, and then higher, and then gone. Then it reappeared on the nose again. After five minutes I drove back to the Jade Mountain. The blue Lincoln was in the back corner of the lot, almost out of sight behind the restaurant. I got out of the car, locked my door, and went inside.
The bar was off to the right as you come in the front door, one of those grotto things with a low ceiling, all the light coming from behind the bottles. There was an old Chinese gent in a short jacket behind it, and Halliday at the far end, chatting with the cocktail waitress. She wore a snug brocade dress and had a smooth cool face you wanted to cup in your hands. Her waist was about as big as my neck. He had big rings on every finger, as advertised. They must have been pure hell during piano lessons.
I guessed his lugs were still out in the car. Aside from us, the bar was empty. I sat down at the other end and ordered my fifth gimlet. I hoped there weren’t going to be too many more. The waitress was neat and smooth. She had everything a man could want, only little. She and Halliday looked awfully pretty together, and I watched them talk and tried not to get sad. People talk a lot of crap about the Chinese being inscrutable, but there was nothing mysterious there. She was looking up at him as if she thought he was just fine. He gave her a business card, and she did a little series of head-bobs over it and admired it and tucked it away somewhere in her dress. Then he kept talking, looking friendly and reasonable, and you could see her wondering if she might not be understanding him right. Then her face went slowly dead, and then she said something brief and walked steadily out of the bar. Halliday looked after her ruefully. When he turned, he found me grinning at him. I raised my glass.
He came over in no hurry and said, “Laughing at me, friend?” It was a nice voice, medium deep and not trying too hard.
I shook my head, still grinning. “Toasting you. You got more nerve than I do.”
“For whatever good it did,” he said, sitting down next to me. “I guess I got told.”
“I guess. What were you told?”
“Actually, I couldn’t make it out. But whatever it was, I got told, all right.”
“Honorable wound, anyway. Let me buy you a drink. Make up for my bad manners.”
“The hell you’ll buy me a drink,” he said amiably. “I just got trimmed down to nothing. I need to feel like a big shot again. I’ll buy.”
Halliday was about the best-looking man I’ve seen. He had thick, dull blonde hair swept straight back from a broad forehead, thick straight brows, a straight nose that wasn’t too small, and a small, sensible-looking mouth. He might’ve had a little more jaw than he needed, but it had a good shape. He wore a tan mohair jacket with shoulders padded out to here, but he had plenty of his own shoulders underneath. He wasn’t sissy-looking, either, like some of these perfect types. His eyes were calm and he looked friendly. You found yourself thinking it wasn’t his fault he was gorgeous. You almost thought the rings weren’t his fault, either.
He asked me my name and I told him Stuart Rose, and we shook hands. I don’t look much like a Yid, but neither did Rosey. We’d gotten to be pretty good friends at Camp Claiborne and stayed that way until halfway through the Ardennes. He wouldn’t have minded me using his name. He didn’t need it anymore. Halliday told me his name was Halliday and I said “Huh.”
“Heard of me?” he said.
I said, “Director, right?”
“More of a producer.”
“You thought little Lotus Blossom was your next big star?”
“That’s right.”
“Must be the only woman in L.A. who doesn’t want to be in the movies.”
“Well,” he said lightly, “maybe she doesn’t like the kind of movies I make.”
“What kind are those?”
“Well, you know. We strive to entertain.”
“Guy with your looks, how come you’re not in front of the camera instead?”
“Tried it,” he said. “Stank up the joint. Now I produce.”
“Landed on your feet, huh?”
“Hope so, anyway. You look like you might’ve played a little ball sometime.”
I shook my head. “I come from a pretty small town, and pretty much all the guys were on all the teams. But I never cared for it much.”
“I was a tailback,” he said. “I wasn’t bad, either. I could hit a little and run a lot, and we had a quarterback with an arm and some guys on the line who could chase off the riff-raff. We did all right. That was a good time. That was about as good a time as I’ve had. Of course, when I was acting, my press bio said I was the quarterback.”
“Where was this?”
He shook his head. “I’m funny about that, I guess. I’d rather not say.”
“Ashamed of your old home town?”
“Other way round, friend,” he said. “Other way round. I don’t think everybody there would be too pleased with some of the things I’ve done out here. I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, but like I said, I’m funny about it. Anyway, the press kit said Tarzana, which sounds better than the real thing would’ve, anyhow.”
“Quarterback from Tarzana.”
He grinned. “I wouldn’t’ve been quarterback, even if I’d had the arm. I was having too much fun where I was. You never played football? You must’ve done something. I don’t meet that many guys who make me look dainty.”
“Boxed a little.”
“Yeah? Pro?”
“For a while. Army and then pro.”
“Kid Rose, huh?”
I laughed. “I was thirty when I had my first professional bout. I fought as plain old Stu Rose.”
“How’d you do?”
