“You never… made her?”
“No.”
“Well, do you have a client?”
“No. Now back to my questions, Marion-was there much money in the joint? I mean hard cash on the tables?”
She tried to blow a smoke ring and muffed it. “Yup,” she said, “enough to make our friend Louie look like a piker.”
“Estimate it.”
She frowned in thought, then: “Well, I watched a poker game where they used chips. The whites cost five hundred. Nobody bothered with those. The play was all with the blue. One guy had a pile as big as his belly in front of him. And he had a good-size belly.”
“Any important people from the city there?”
“A few politicians. Local types. Maybe some state officials. I don’t pay much attention to that kind of thing.”
“What did you pay attention to?”
She shrugged. “Some out-of-town money from Chicago seemed to carry things that night. There were one or two society-page playboys treating some phony blondes to a showy time, too. You know, trying to impress.”
“Were you impressed at all? I mean… what was your opinion of the place?”
“Say, you really did want to talk, didn’t you?”
“I told you that.”
“All right. To me it looked big-time. There was as much money there as you’ll ever see out in the open, and nobody was worried about it, so the fix was in. In a town the size of that Sidon, it wouldn’t be hard to do. A few hundred handed out to the bulls, and everything’d be jake.”
Miss Marion Ruston really had been working for Louie Marone a while.
She went on: “It was an elegant joint, all right, with enough attractions to pull a crowd from as far away as the Midwest. I’ve seen some of the players in Louie’s, but they weren’t the real spenders. These playboys and rich johns, they think they roll high, but the boys with the real dough at the Wesley joint were guys who made gambling their business. I could mention a few names, but it would be better if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“You may not like me, Mike. But I like me, Mike. I like me so much I’d hate like hell to be put on the spot.”
“I like you just fine, kid. And anyway, getting put on the spot went out with Prohibition.”
“Oh, did it? That’s what you think! Why, only the other day I was reading a magazine article where a mobster went in for a haircut and shave and got his throat cut, instead.”
I stabbed out my cigarette in a tray, and waved that off. “Nuts. Like Bugsy Siegel said, those boys only kill each other.”
“You think? Didn’t he wind up shot to hell?”
“All I mean is, they have their own fix in. As long as they pay their income tax, they have nothing to worry about. Sharron’s place wasn’t underground. If anybody catches hell, it’ll be the operators, not the players. Giving me their names won’t get them or you in any kind of hot water.”
She frowned, smoking nervously now. “Are you really sure, Mike?”
“I’m sure.”
“Well…”
She looked dubious, but decided to take the chance. “I saw Bill Evans there-from Chicago?”
“Yeah? Who else?”
“Miami Bull.”
I whistled at that. Those two guys were the biggest of the big in gambling circles. When they sat in a game, it was for tens of thousands. If that was the kind of crowd that played at her “parties,” Sharron Wesley had cleaned up.
“Do you know a local Sidon cop named Dekkert?”
Marion laughed gaily. “ That big phony? Ha! Last time I was out there, he spent the whole darn night putting the make on me, or anyway trying to. Can you beat that?”
“Tell me more.”
She sat forward, dishing the dirt. It’s in a dame’s blood. “He took me out in the back and walked me to the beach. He said he was worried about something he saw my date do, and wanted a private word. We passed a clump of bushes and he tried to throw me down to drag me in there.”
“The damn rape-happy slob…”
“Oh, it was funny! I got my hands on a rock and bashed him in the puss. He went out like a light. Was he burned up! When he crawled back in half an hour later, he couldn’t look at me the rest of the night without going red as a monkey’s rear-end. And he had a mouse under his eye big enough to put in your pocket and feed cheese to.”
It was pretty funny, the way she put it. Dekkert must have felt like a dope to be pushed over by a young broad like Marion. Trying to force himself on a kid, well, that was one more score to settle with the bastard.
I said, “Who was Dekkert around there? Not a customer surely.”
“No! He was the bouncer at Sharron’s. At least that’s what he told me. He never bounced anybody that I saw. The out-of-town big shots, like Evans and Miami Bull, they all carried rods anyway, and I don’t think Dekkert could have pushed them very far.”
“How do you know they packed rods? They didn’t go around with their coats off, did they?”
She grinned at me, the real girl under the sex kitten facade in full evidence now. “Listen, Mister Man, I’ve been around punks so long that a hood with a rod on his hip, or under his arm, couldn’t hide it from me even if it were small enough to be a watch fob.”
That made me laugh.
She pointed with her cigarette. “Like that rod under your left shoulder. It must be a big one. I always figured you for a big gun, Mike.”
So we were back to that routine again. Full circle.
I stood. “Okay, thanks, Marion, you told me enough for one night. And I appreciate it. Maybe after I’ve dug into this thing a little deeper, I’ll drop back and see you again.”
She leaped to her feet, eyes flaring. “You mean you’re going?”
“Sure. I got what I came for.” I slapped my hat on and walked to the door.
She grabbed my arm and spun me around. “You can’t leave yet!”
“Why?” I let my eyes laugh at her.
“You didn’t even try. We didn’t even get started. And you promised.”
“I don’t remember promising you anything, kiddo.”
“All that talk about skipping the preliminaries! You talked real big! You-”
Before she could finish that thought, I reached up and gripped her dressing gown at the neck, then gave it a vicious yank. The light material of the wrapper ripped like paper. I tossed it away like a used tissue and had a look at my handiwork.
She stood there stark naked, her eyes glowing like hot coals, her mouth open with surprise. I looked her over coolly. She did have a lovely body.
“Nice,” I admitted. “Still… nothing that unusual.”
I pulled a ten spot from my pocket and stuck it in her hand. “That’s for the gown. Maybe you better get a housecoat next time. It’ll save you catching a cold.”
When I closed the door, a vase smacked against the wood and smashed into fragments. I usually had to know a girl a lot better before the pottery started flying. Maybe next time she wouldn’t try so hard, and we really could have a little fun.
I walked to the corner intending to catch a cab back to the garage where I’d left the heap, then on impulse stopped by a drugstore and slipped into a phone booth.
After three tries I got Pat, at home this time.
