She snapped her bag shut viciously on the money. “I’m not very likely to forget your rudeness,” she said between her teeth. “Nobody in the world’s ever talked to me the way you have.”
I stood up and wandered around the end of the desk. “Don’t think about it too much. You might get to like it.”
I reached up and twitched her glasses off. She took half a step back, almost stumbled, and I reached an arm around her by pure instinct. Her eyes widened and she put her hands against my chest and pushed. I’ve been pushed harder by a kitten.
“Without the cheaters those eyes are really something,” I said in an awed voice.
She relaxed and let her head go back and her lips open a little. “I suppose you do this to all the clients,” she said softly. Her hands now had dropped to her sides. The bag whacked against my leg. She leaned her weight on my arm. If she wanted me to let go of her, she had her signals mixed.
“I just didn’t want you to lose your balance,” I said.
“I knew you were the thoughtful type.” She relaxed still more. Her head went back now. Her upper lids drooped, fluttered a bit and her lips came open a little farther. On them appeared the faint provocative smile that nobody ever has to teach them. “I suppose you thought I did it on purpose,” she said.
“Did what on purpose?”
“Stumbled, sort of.”
“Wel-l-l-l.”
She reached a quick arm around my neck and started to pull. So I kissed her. It was either that or slug her. She pushed her mouth hard at me for a long moment, then quietly and very comfortably wriggled around in my arms and nestled. She let out a long easy sigh.
“In Manhattan, Kansas, you could be arrested for this,” she said.
“If there was any justice, I could be arrested just for being there,” I said.
She giggled and poked the end of my nose with a fingertip. “I suppose you really prefer fast girls,” she said, looking up at me sideways. “At least you won’t have to wipe off any lip rouge. Maybe I’ll wear some next time.”
“Maybe we’d better sit down on the floor,” I said. “My arm’s getting tired.”
She giggled again and disengaged herself gracefully. “I guess you think I’ve been kissed lots of times,” she said.
“What girl hasn’t?”
She nodded, gave me the up-from-under look that made her eyelashes cut across the iris. “Even at the church socials they play kissing games,” she said.
“Or there wouldn’t be any church socials,” I said.
We looked at each other with no particular expression.
“Well-l-l—” she began at last. I handed her back her glasses. She put them on. She opened her bag, looked at herself in a small mirror, rooted around in her bag and came out with her hand clenched.
“I’m sorry I was mean,” she said, and pushed something under the blotter of my desk. She gave me another little frail smile and marched to the door and opened it.
“I’ll call you,” she said intimately. And out she went, tap, tap, tap down the hail.
I went over and lifted the blotter and smoothed out the crumpled currency that lay under it. It hadn’t been much of a kiss, but it looked like I had another chance at the twenty dollars.
The phone rang before I had quite started to worry about Mr. Lester B. Clausen. I reached for it absently. The voice I heard was an abrupt voice, but thick and clogged, as if it was being strained through a curtain or somebody’s long white beard.
“You Marlowe?” it said.
“Speaking.”
“You got a safe-deposit box, Marlowe?”
I had enough of being polite for one afternoon. “Stop asking and start telling,” I said.
“I asked you a question, Marlowe.”
“I didn’t answer it,” I said. “Like this.” I reached over and pressed down the riser on the phone. Held it that way while I fumbled around for a cigarette. I knew he would call right back. They always do when they think they’re tough. They haven’t used their exit line. When it rang again I started right in.
“If you have a proposition, state it. And I get called ‘mister’ until you give me some money.”
“Don’t let that temper ride you so hard, friend. I’m in a jam. I need help. I need something kept in a safe place. For a few days. Not longer. And for that you make a little quick money.”
“How little?” I asked. “And how quick?”
“A C note. Right here and waiting. I’m warming it for you.”
“I can hear it purr,” I said. “Right where and waiting?” I was listening to the voice twice, once when I heard it and once when it echoed in my mind.
“Room 332, Van Nuys Hotel. Knock two quick ones and two slow ones. Not too loud. I got to have live action. How fast can you—”
