Lemons Never Lie

'Could they use another man?'

'Dan, you aren't ready.'

'I know it, goddam it.' Dan glowered toward the wings. 'When I get my hands on that son of a bitch-'

'Be sure you're ready first,' Grofield said.

'I'll be ready.'

Grofield nodded, and said, 'I'm going back to work.' He walked over to the doorway and was about to jump down when Dan called his name. Dan's voice was all right until he tried to shout, and then it thinned out.

Grofield looked back, and Dan called, 'Thanks.'

'Sure,' Grofield said, and jumped to the ground, and walked back around to finish painting the letters.

PART THREE

1

Grofield wrote Charles Martin on the registration card, and pushed it across to the desk clerk.

'Yes, Mr. Martin. And you'll be staying with us how long?'

'I'm not sure yet. A day or two.'

'Yes, sir. That will be room four-twelve.'

'Are there any messages for me?'

'One moment, I'll check.'

The clerk rippled through an uneven stack of envelopes. 'Yes, sir, just the one.'

Grofield took the envelope. 'Thank you.'

'Front!'

The bellboy took Grofield's suitcase. Grofield put the envelope away in his inside jacket pocket, and followed the bellboy to the elevator. The Hotel Hoyle was old, and old fashioned, in a downtown section of St. Louis that hadn't been fashionable since before World War I. It was now a competent commercial travelers' hotel, and the lobby carpeting had paths worn in it, like rabbit trails in the woods.

The elevator was self-service, a nice combination of modernization and economy. The bellboy, a skinny black youth who looked as though he lived on a diet of bones, pushed 4, and the elevator rose slowly upward in its shaft. Grofield could hear the clicking of the descent guards all the way up.

The room was small but functional, dominated by a wide old-fashioned window that overlooked a blacktop parking lot and the many-faceted face of an office building. Grofield gave the bellboy a dollar, double-locked the door after him, and opened his envelope.

Wood's Bar, East St. Louis, Eleven P.M.

2

St. Louis, on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River, is a city, like any other. East St. Louis, across the bridge on the Illinois side, is the city's underbelly. Here are the late-night bars, the cruising hookers, everything you can't find in the Yellow Pages. The streets are dark, the neon seems undernourished, and the soldiers and airmen from the bases around the city keep the money supply fat and moving.

Grofield sat at the bar in the long blue-gray room called Wood's Bar, and nursed a bottle of Budweiser- support local business. On a narrow stage up behind the backbar a tired and aging mixed-race jazz quintet tried to figure out how to make the transition to rock. So far, all they were sure of was the volume level; you couldn't hear yourself think. Looking at the conversations going on up and down the bar, and in the booths behind him, Grofield decided the place must be full of lip readers.

He'd gotten here five minutes early, and now it was five minutes late. Where the hell was Barnes?

A hand touched his shoulder. He turned his head, and Barnes nodded at him and went toward the door. Grofield considered finishing his beer, but it had no head left at all by now, so he left it, got off the stool and followed Barnes out to the street.

'Glad you could make it,' Barnes said, and pointed to a Pontiac parked across the way. In this light, it looked black, but it probably wasn't.

They went across the street, and Grofield waited on the curb while Barnes unlocked the driver's door, got in, and reached across to unlock the door on Grofield's side. Grofield slid in and said, 'I hope this one works out. I went out on a dud about a month ago.'

'You're gonna like this,' Barnes said. 'Simple, fast, and fat.'

'You just described my ideal.'

Barnes drove a dozen blocks and turned in at the shut door of a parking garage closed for the night. 'Go give a triple knock on the door,' he said.

'Right.'

Grofield went out and knocked, and a second later the door slid up. The inside was a big square, low-ceilinged, concrete-floored, half full of parked cars. An office with windows all the way around was in the middle; the only light was in there, a fluorescent fixture hanging from the ceiling.

Barnes drove in, Grofield walked in beside him, and the door slid down again. Barnes steered the Pontiac on over to the office, and Grofield walked after him, getting there as Barnes was climbing out of the car.