By the time I got my foot free I knew it would be useless to go after him. There were too many bolt-holes in Coral Gables to find him after such a start.
I limped to the door, swearing to myself. Something white lying in the passage caught my eye. I bent to pick it up.
It was a white felt hat.
III
The barman in Yate’s Bar looked like a retired all-in-wrestler. He was getting old now, but he still looked tough enough to quell a riot.
He served me with a slice of baked ham between rye bread and a pint of beer, and while I ate he rested hairy arms on the counter and stared at me.
At this hour of the day the bar was slack. There were not more than half a dozen men at the various tables dotted around the room: fishermen and turtle men waiting for the tide to turn. They took no notice of me, but I seemed to fascinate the barman. His battle-scarred face was heavy with thought, and every now and then he passed a hand as big as a ham over his shaven head as if to coax his brain to work.
‘Seen yuh kisser some place,’ he said, pulling at a nose that had been stamped on in the past. ‘Been in here before, ain’t yu?’
He had a high, falsetto voice that would have embarrassed a choirboy.
I said I had been in before.
He nodded his shaven head, scratched where his ear had been, and showed a set of very white even teeth.
‘Never forget a kisser. Yuh come in here fifty yars from now and I’d remember ya. Fact.’
I thought it wasn’t likely either of us would live that long, but I didn’t say so.
‘Wonderful how some people remember faces,’ I said. ‘Wish I could. Meet a man one day, walk through him the next. Bad for business.’
‘Yah,’ the barman said. ‘Guy came in yesterday; ain’t been in here for three yars. Give him a pint of old ale before he could ask for it. Always drank old ale. That’s memory.’
If he had served me old ale without asking me I wouldn’t have argued with him. He didn’t look as if he had a lot of patience with people who argued.
‘Test your memory on this one,’ I said. ‘Tall, thin, broad-shouldered. Wears a fawn suit and a white felt hat. Seen him around here?’
The squat, heavy body stiffened. The battered, hairy face hardened.
‘It ain’t smart to ask questions in dis joint, brother,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘If yuh don’t want to lose yu front teeth, better keep yu yap shut.’
I drank some beer while I eyed him over the rim of the glass.
‘That scarcely answers my question,’ I said, put down the glass and produced a five-dollar bill. I kept it between my fingers so only he and I could see it.
He looked to right and left, frowned, hesitated, then looked to right and left again: as obvious as a ham actor playing Hard-iron, the spy, for the first time.
‘Give me it wid a butt,’ he said, without moving his lips.
I gave him a cigarette and the bill. Only five of the six men in the bar saw him take it. The other had his back turned.
‘One of Barratt’s boys,’ he said. ‘Keep clear of him: he’s dangerous.’
‘Yeah; and so’s a mosquito if you let it bite you,’ I said, and paid for the beer and the sandwich.
As he scooped up the money, I asked, ‘What’s he call himself?’
He looked at me, frowning, then moved off down to the far end of the bar. I waited a moment until I was sure he wasn’t coming back, then I slid off the stool and went out into the hot afternoon sunshine.
Jeff Barratt: could be, I thought. I didn’t know he had any boys. He had a good reason to shut Gracie’s mouth. I began to wonder if he was the master-mind behind the kidnapping. It would fit together very well if he was; possibly too well.
I also wondered, as I walked across to where I had parked the Buick, if Mary Jerome was hooked up in some way with Barratt. It was time I did something about her. I decided to run up to the Acme Garage and ask some questions.
I drove fast up Beach Road into Hawthorne Avenue and I turned left into Foothill Boulevard.
The sun was strong, and I lowered the blue sunshield over the windshield. The sunlight, coming through the blue glass, filled the car with a soft, easy light and made me feel as if I was in an aquarium.
The Acme Garage stood at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Hollywood Avenue, facing the desert. It wasn’t anything to get excited about, and I wondered why Lute Ferris had selected such an isolated, out-of-the-way spot for a filling station.
There were six pumps, two air- and water-towers in a row before a large steel and corrugated shed that acted as a repair shop. To the right was a dilapidated rest-room and snack bar, and behind the shed, almost out of sight, was a squat, ugly looking bungalow with a flat roof.
At one time the station might have looked smart. You could still see signs of a blue-and-white check pattern on the build-ings, but the salt air, the sand from the desert, the winds and the rain had caught up with the smartness, and no one had bothered to take on an unequal battle.
Before one of the gas pumps was a low-slung Bentley coupe; black and glittering in the sunshine. At the far end of the ramp leading to the repair shop was a four-ton truck.
There seemed no one about, and I drove slowly up to one of the pumps and stopped; my bumpers about a couple of yard from the Bentley’s rear.
I tapped on the horn and waited; using my eyes, seeing nothing to excite my interest.
After a while a boy in a blue, greasy overall came out of the repair shop as if he had the whole day still on his hands, and wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it now he had it. He lounged past the Bentley, and raised eyebrows at me without any show of interest.
At a guess he was about sixteen, but old in sin and cunning. His oil-smudged face was thin and hard, and his small green eyes were shifty.
‘Ten,’ I said, took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Don’t exhaust yourself. I don’t have to be in bed until midnight.’
He gave me a cold, blank stare, and went around to the back of the car. I kept my eye on the spinning dial just to be sure he didn’t short-change me.
After a while he reappeared and shoved out a grubby paw. I paid.
‘Where’s Ferris?’
The green eyes shifted to my face and away.
‘Out of town.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Mrs. Ferris about?’
‘She’s busy.’
I jerked my thumb towards the bungalow.
‘In there?’
‘Wherever she is, she’s still busy,’ the boy said and moved off.
I was about to yell after him when from behind the repair shop came a tall, immaculate figure in a light check lounge suit, a snap-brimmed brown hat well over one eye and a blood-red carnation in his buttonhole: Jeff Barratt.
I sat still and watched him, knowing he couldn’t see me through the dark blue sunshield.
He gave the Buick a casual stare before climbing into the Bentley. He drove off towards Beechwood Avenue.
