in one long swallow, tucked a cigarette between his smooth little lips and snapped a match alight while it was coming up from his pocket. He blew smoke and went on staring at me. The corner of his eye caught the money on the bed, without looking directly at it. Over the pocket of his shirt, instead of a number, the word Captain was stitched.
“You Les?” I asked him.
“No.” He paused. “We don’t like dicks here,” he added. “We don’t have one of our own and we don’t care to bother with dicks that are working for other people.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That will be all.”
“Huh?” The small mouth twisted unpleasantly.
“Beat it,” I said.
“I thought you wanted to see me,” he sneered.
“You’re the bell captain?”
“Check.”
“I wanted to buy you a drink. I wanted to give you a buck.
Here.” I held it out to him. “Thanks for coming up.”
He took the dollar and pocketed it, without a word of thanks. He hung there, smoke trailing from his nose, his eyes tight and mean.
“What I say here goes,” he said.
“It goes as far as you can push it,” I said. “And that couldn’t be very far. You had your drink and you had your graft. Now you can scram out?”
He turned with a swift tight shrug and slipped out of the room noiselessly.
Four minutes passed, then another knock, very light. The tall boy came in grinning. I walked away from him and sat on the bed again.
“You didn’t take to Les, I reckon?”
“Not a great deal. Is he satisfied?”
“I reckon so. You know what captains are. They have to have their cut. Maybe you better call me Les, Mr. Marlowe.”
“So you checked her out.”
“No, that was all a stall. She never checked in at the desk. But I remember the Packard. She gave me a dollar to put it away for her and to look after her stuff until train time. She ate dinner here. A dollar gets you remembered in this town. And there’s been talk about the car bein’ left so long.”
“What was she like to look at?”
“She wore a black and white outfit, mostly white, and a panama hat with a black and white band. She was a neat blonde lady like you said. Later on she took a hack to the station. I put her bags into it for her. They had initials on them but I’m sorry I can’t remember the initials.”
“I’m glad you can’t,” I said. “It would be too good. Have a drink. How old would she be?”
He rinsed the other glass and mixed a civilized drink for himself.
“It’s mighty hard to tell a woman’s age these days,” he said. “I reckon she was about thirty, or a little more or a little less.”
I dug in my coat for the snapshot of Crystal and Lavery on the beach and handed it to him.
He looked at it steadily and held it away from his eyes, then close.
“You won’t have to swear to it in court,” I said.
He nodded. “I wouldn’t want to. These small blondes are so much of a pattern that a change of clothes or light or makeup makes them all alike or all different.” He hesitated, staring at the snapshot.
“What’s worrying you?” I asked.
“I’m thinking about the gent in this snap. He enter into it at all?”
“Go on with that,” I said.
“I think this fellow spoke to her in the lobby, and had dinner with her. A tall good-lookin’ jasper, built like a fast light-heavy. He went in the hack with her too.”
“Quite sure about that?”
He looked at the money on the bed.
“Okay, how much does it cost?” I asked wearily.
He stiffened, laid the snapshot down and drew the two folded bills from his pocket and tossed them on the bed.
“I thank you for the drink,” he said, “and to hell with you.”
He started for the door.
“Oh sit down and don’t be so touchy,” I growled.
He sat down and looked at me stiff-eyed.
