the coat. “Oh,” she said, and then after a moment, “Oh!”
The man at the wheel paid off my bet, seemed to frown with annoyance as he paid off the blonde’s bet. It was a sizable bunch of chips.
She leaned against me. I could feel her tremble.
“I’ve got to go where I can sit down,” she said. “Please — Please, what can I do about my — about my chips?”
“Cash them in, if you wish,” the dealer said carelessly, “and then you can buy in again when you get ready to play.”
“Oh, I — Very well.”
Her weight was heavy against me as though her knees were getting ready to buckle.
“Please,” she said in a half-whisper, “can you help me over to a chair?”
I gave a quick glance at my stack of chips and at hers.
The man at the wheel caught my eye and nodded. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, with the gesture of one who disdains to consider money of any great importance.
I took the girl’s arm and helped her out to a table at the bar.
A waiter hovered over us solicitously as soon as we were seated.
“The occasion,” I said, “would seem to call for celebration. Would you care for champagne?”
“Oh, I’d love it. I have to have — something. Oh, it means so much! Would you — Could you—”
“Certainly,” I said, “if you wish. I’ll see about getting your money for you. Do you know how much you had coming?”
She shook her head.
“Under those circumstances, I’m afraid you’d better attend to the financial transaction yourself.”
“Oh, it’s quite all right. I know you’re on the up-and-up. I — I wouldn’t have had a thing if it hadn’t been for you, Mr.—”
“Lam,” I said.
“I’m Miss Marvin,” she said, smiling. “My friends call me Diane.”
“My name’s Donald.”
“Donald, I’m just too absolutely, completely flabbergasted to get up and walk into that room. My legs just seem to turn to water. I — Well, I just wish you could see my knees.”
“It’s an idea,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, making a little slap at me. “I didn’t mean it
One of the assistant managers bent gravely over the table. “Did you people wish to cash in your chips,” he asked, “or would you prefer to have them brought to you here in the bar? You can use them to pay for anything in the house.”
“Let’s hang on to them,” she said instantly. “Could you — Well, could they be brought out here?”
“But certainly.”
He bowed, vanished, and a moment later came back with a plastic container in which my chips had been placed, and a polished wooden rack in which the girl’s chips were stacked.
“We took the liberty of changing some of these chips,” he said, “so they wouldn’t be so bulky. The blue chips represent twenty dollars each.”
“Those blue chips — twenty dollars for each one?”
“That’s right.”
Her fingers caressed the edges of the gold-embossed chips. “Each one,” she said in an awed half-whisper, “twenty dollars.”
The waiter brought champagne, popped the cork, spilled ice out of the glasses and filled them to the brim.
We touched glasses.
“Here’s luck,” I said.
“Here’s to
We sipped the champagne. Her eyes studied me. She said abruptly, “I’m betwixt and between.”
“What do you mean?”
She said, “I need money. I have just about half enough here. I’ll be frank with you. I was down to my last cent. I came up here and invested every cent I could scrape up to buy chips. I made up my mind I’d either get what I wanted or be completely broke, and then I’d—”
Her voice trailed away into a significant silence.
“Then you’d what, my dear?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I hadn’t gone that far. Either sell myself or kill myself, I guess.”
I said nothing.
She studied me thoughtfully. “What should I do? Should I quit now, play it safe and try to raise the rest of the money some other way, or should I go ahead and gamble?”
“On those matters,” I said, “I give no advice.”
“You’ve been my inspiration, my luck. You’ve brought me success. Everything was going bad for me. And then you came along.”
I said nothing.
Abruptly the floor manager glided up to the table. “Would you mind stepping into the office?” he asked Diane.
“Oh,” she said, her knuckles suddenly white as she pressed her fist against her lips. “What have I done now?”
The manager’s smile was reassuring. “Nothing,” he said. “Only I have been asked to invite you to step into the office, Miss Marvin, and the boss would like to see Mr. Lam, too.” ‘
I glanced at my watch. It was thirty-five minutes from the time I had entered the place. I still hadn’t seen anything of Horace B. Catlin.
Abruptly Diane Marvin pushed back the chair. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get it over with.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Probably something about my credit — about — I don’t know.”
The floor manager escorted us deferentially to a big door marked
He swung the door open without touching it, apparently by putting weight on a concealed button.
“Right this way, please,” he said, standing aside.
I followed Diane into an office.
The floor manager didn’t come in. The door clicked shut behind us. I turned to look. There was no knob on the door.
There were comfortable chairs grouped in a half-circle around a table on which were glasses, a decanter, ice, and soda.
A plain door at the far end of the office opened and Hartley L. Channing said, “Right this way, please.”
We walked in.
Channing shook hands with both of us. “How are you, Lam?” he said.
“Fine,” I told him.
He didn’t say anything to Diane.
She walked on into the inner office and I followed.
This was a room fixed up both as a den and an office. There were a television set, a radio, phonograph, a safe, filing cabinet, a desk, and comfortable lounging chairs. There were bookcases, paneled walls, indirect lighting, and there wasn’t a window in the place. An air conditioning unit kept a stream of fresh air flowing in and out.
Channing turned to Diane and said, “You can lay off, Diane. He’s not a fish.”
She said indignantly, “Well, then, why the hell didn’t I get the signal? I—”
“Keep your shirt on,” he told her. “There’s been a mix-up.”
“I’ll say there’s been a mix-up! I had things coming along just fine and—”
“That’ll do,” he told her. “You can go now. Forget you’ve seen this man, that you’ve been here, forget everything.”
Without a word to me she got up and flounced out through the door.
