one into the apartment, calling word of his arrival to Red. 'All is lost, honey. Turkelson's here.'
Turkelson chuckled delightedly as Red came running in. She hugged him enthusiastically, kissed him on top of the head and accepted a kiss on the cheek. 'Is there no way,' she asked, turning to Mitch, 'to escape this character?'
'That,' said Mitch, 'is the question on everyone's lips.'
'Well, he'd better behave himself,' Red said severely. 'He's thirty stories up.'
Mitch urged him to sit down, before his weight pushed him through the carpet. Then he asked what Turkelson's position was at the place-did he wash dishes or clean out the johns? Turkelson chuckled that he had applied for both jobs, been rejected as untrustworthy and forced to accept the post of resident manager. Actually, he added with the faintest trace of gloom, the job was not as good as it looked. Practically everything was a concession-food, drink, laundry and valet, newsstand, florist shop and so on-leaving him only the management of the hotel proper.
'But I do all right.' He brightened. 'And I see you kids are certainly making out. When you can pop forty-five hundred for a month's rent-'
Red let out a yipe, and appeared to faint. Mitch shook his head disgustedly.
'Oh, God, Mitch!' Turkelson slapped his forehead. 'I should have know you wouldn't tell her.'
'Why should I have to with you in the same country?'
'But that's what I came up for, one of the things. To do something about it, I mean. Red, you dream creature, if you'll pass me the phone please…'
She passed it to him. Abruptly, he became a different man: imposing, humorless, voice cracking with authority as he spoke to the room clerk.
'… now you know better than this, Davis! You should know at least. Other things being equal, the rate in a case of this kind is governed by the availability of space and the desirability of the guests. We want people to come back, you know. Or did you have some other idea?… Well, all right, then. All right. But consult me, hereafter. Oh, yes, and make this, uh, thirty-seven-fifty.'
He hung up the receiver, and beamed at them. Mitch pulled Red onto his lap, signaling her with a sharp little pat. Red responded promptly.
'This is a nice man, Mitch. Maybe we should give him a little present.'
'But he already has everything,' Mitch said. 'Dandruff, fallen arches, a sixty-four-inch bust-'
'Well, let's see,' said Red, as Turkelson chortled helplessly. 'Why don't we give him a bucket of bread-and-butter sandwiches? He's obviously on the point of starvation.'
'One bucketful wouldn't put a dent in that yawing void. Do you suppose we could trust him with money?'
'It's now or never,' Red said. 'After all, he's a pretty big boy-horizontally.'
'We'll give him this one chance,' Mitch declared. 'Turk, you are to spend five bills of that rebate on bread-and-butter sandwiches.'
Turkelson flatly refused to accept the five hundred. After all, friends were friends.
He refused to accept so much, friends being friends. He absolutely would only accept it, because they were friends and friends should help each other. And since they were helping him, he must now help them.
'There's some big action at Zearsdale Country Club. I can get you a guest card.'
'Can you put me in a game?'
'With that crowd? I couldn't put Jesus Christ in it!' Red and Mitch groaned in unison. They razzed him mercilessly, Turkelson chuckling and shaking and growing red with delight. He had been pretty embarrassed about the money (although God knew he could use it), and the razzing helped to dispel it.
'Catch this character'-Mitch jerked a thumb at him. 'He'd actually get us a guest card to a country club!'
'It pays to have influence,' Red said. 'I bet he could even get our names in the telephone book.'
'He's all heart,' Mitch said. 'P-o-t, heart.' Laughing, the manager held up his hands. 'All right, all right! But I do have something; I've just thought of something. Winfield Lord, Jr., is checking in here next week, and I know I can put you in with him. I can come right out and tell him that you're a gambler, and he'll be up here pounding on your door.'
He beamed from Red to Mitch, very pleased with himself. Then, slowly, his smile faded and he looked almost comically plaintive.
'Please,' he pleaded, 'can't I do anything to suit you two?'
'You can stop using dirty words in my presence,' Red said.
'Huh? But-'
'Like Winfield Lord, Jr.,' Mitch explained.
'So all right, he's a real stinker,' the manager conceded. 'So hold your nose, and grab for that sweet-smelling Lord money. My God, the Lords own half the state of Texas, and-'
'How fast money goes in Texas,' Mitch said. 'Winfield Lord's part of it, anyway. Ten years, twenty million. All he has left now is a rubber checkbook, and the world's nastiest disposition.'
'We take his checks,' Turkelson said. 'We've never had a minute's trouble with them either.'
'That's different. His mother would make good on a legitimate expense.'
'I happen to know that Frank Downing has taken his paper, too. More than fifty thousand dollars worth, and he got every nickel of it.'
Mitch said that that also was different. No one was allowed to cool-out on Frank Downing. Winfield Lord's mother had had the choice of paying off, or keeping her son on the Lord ranch for the rest of his life.
'Downing, Frank Downing,' Red mused. 'Now, don't I know that name?'
'Of course, you do,' Mitch told her. 'He runs that store outside of Dallas. Kind of a Texas Monte Carlo except that Frank's place is probably bigger.'
Turkelson coughed, running a finger between his tight wing collar and the folds of his neck. He said hopefully that perhaps the situation had changed with Winfield Lord, Jr. Maybe Mama Lord was loosening the strings of the bottomless Lord purse.
'I hardly think so,' Mitch said. 'News like that gets around.'
'But you can't be sure!' Turkelson turned to Red. 'It's worth a try, don't you think so, Red?'
'I think whatever Mitch thinks.'
'Mitch is the boss, huh?' Turkelson twinkled.
'Of course he's the boss! What's so damned funny about that?'
Mitch kissed her, cuddled her protectively in his arms. 'Red's my lamb,' he smiled firmly. 'Don't you tease my lamb, Turk.'
'Certainly, she's a lamb. Haven't I always said so?' The manager gestured plaintively. 'But, Mitch, I do wish you could see this Lord thing. After all, you're already here and he's going to be here. What can you lose but a little time?'
Mitch hesitated thoughtfully, examining the project in his mind; deciding that Turkelson was probably right. There was nothing to lose, and this was certainly no time to overlook a bet. But still… still, something seemed to hold him back. From some deep recess in his mind, a voice whispered darkly, pointing out that Lord was a bastard and that no good was to be had of him.
But-but maybe personal feelings were getting in the way of his reason. Lord had once tried to paw Red. He was too drunk to know what he was doing, of course-even to recognize who she was-but a thing like that…
Mitch sighed, pulled in two ways, almost irresistibly tugged by the need to be practical, yet still stubbornly resisting.
