“He looks like Captain LeRoy,” said Millie. “Why doesn’t he move?”
Stan beckoned to Thomas, the grinning Negro head-waiter, and gave him half a dollar. “The lady wants to know why Jake doesn’t move, Tom.”
“Yessum,” said Tom. “He ain’t goin’ no place and he’s got three hundred years to git thar in!” He left them to seat a couple who had just entered.
“Do you prefer looking at this alligator to dancing with me?” Stan demanded.
“I think I’m gettin’ tight.”
“I hope so. We’ve spent twelve dollars on drinks.”
Millie was looking across the room. “The man and girl who just came in. Do you know them?”
“I hope not—if you mean the fellow in the chocolate suit with balloons in the shoulders.”
“He’s a trigger man in Caprilli’s mob.”
“Maybe it’s just his night off,” Stan suggested, “and he won’t shoot. Once an evening is as much as I can stand. Could he have been driving Fowler’s car?”
“He could have. I don’t think he was. He hasn’t guts enough to drive a car that fast—”
“Does he know you?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve only seen him once before.”
“I feel in a mood for retaliation. Do you ever feel in a mood for retaliation, Millie?”
“Retaliation?” She found the word a trifle difficult. “I’m feeling a bit tight. I think we better finish our wine.”
“Cheek for cheek,” Stan explained. “When your opponent has gouged out your eye and you get him down you kick him on both cheeks.”
“I know that. A tooth for a tooth. Let’s finish our wine.”
“Exactly,” said Stan delightedly. “There you have it. Retaliation in the unvarnished rough and tumble. I’ve been hit on the head and insulted. I’ve been put on a roof and shot at. I’ve had glass stuck in my ear—drawing the Rice blood. Shall I stand for that? Shall a Rice have headaches without retaliation?”
“If we finish our wine we could get another bottle. It mixes so well with the rum and Martini cocktails. Then we could have a tooth for a tooth and I’d be only too glad to help.”
“You’re a brave girl, Millie, a very brave girl. And I’m glad to have you working with me instead of against me.”
They shook hands solemnly and returned to the table to toast their bravery in the balance of the Château d’Yquem. When it was gone Stan ordered another bottle. While waiting for it to chill properly, Stan wrote a note on the back of a menu, and started across the room to a table near the door. Two men were seated at the table, and rather anxiously they watched Stan’s progress in their direction.
“He’s full to the ears,” Hogue remarked sotto voce.
“I doubt it,” said Patterson. “But if he is I don’t blame him. We’ll be that much more careful.”
Near the table, Stan stumbled and almost fell into Hogue’s arms. When he straightened up with grave apologies, the menu was on the table in front of the plainclothes man. He continued on to the men’s room, and in a few minutes was back at his table with Millie. He beckoned Thomas to personally supervise the opening of the new bottle, and the replenishing of glasses.
Tennessee Johnson’s orchestra went into action. Most of the tables in the Alligator Inn were filled, and in a short time the floor was crowded to capacity with dancers. The young man in the chocolate suit, dancing too near to a pretty hard-eyed girl, swung by close to where Stan and Millie were seated.
Stan got up and held out a hand. Together, he and Millie worked a way through the jam of dancers. They had circled the floor twice, and were receiving plenty of sour looks and remarks, when they found themselves close to Caprilli’s henchman and his partner. Stan swung Millie around in time to catch a glimpse of pinpoint pupils in snaky black eyes, and bitten-down fingernails on the hand resting at the girl’s back.
“Snowbird!” He said the word close in Millie’s ear.
“Most of them are,” she whispered back. “They have to be hopped up before they can shoot. What are you going to do?”
“Start trouble.”
“That’s nice. Let’s hurry. I’m getting thirsty.”
They maneuvered close to the chocolate suit. Stan stumbled awkwardly and came down painfully on the young man’s toe. At the same instant, Millie kicked the girl violently on a silk clad ankle.
“What the hell!” The young man reacted with proper justification, his remarks low and furious. “Get off the floor, you damn stew, before I poke you in the puss!”
His companion was standing on one foot, nursing her ankle, her face contorted with pain. Stan recovered himself with difficulty, hauling himself upright hand over hand on Millie. “Exhuse me, pleashe,” he apologized thickly. “No offensh. No offensh.” He released Millie and extended one hand, then toppled forward and came down on the young man’s other foot.
Millie burst into shrill laughter, and threw one arm around the girl’s neck, separating her from her escort. With her face close to the girl’s ear, Millie said sweetly: “If you try to pass him his rod, honey, Millie will blow open your little tummy! Better stand to one side and let nasty mens fight it out!” The girl choked down some choice words, but made no effort to move.
Goaded into rashness, and seeing no chance of getting his gun from his partner, the young man struck out madly at the smiling face of the drunk who had spoiled his evening. Somehow he found himself on the floor looking up at a circle of startled faces. Blood was running out of a cut over one eye. Forgetful, for an instant, and lusting to kill, he started to reach for the place where his gun should have been. A number eleven shoe
