get a few new ideas.
The barman, an elderly, fat humorist we called Slim, nodded to me as I came up to the bar.
‘A double Scotch,’ I said, climbing up on the stool.
There were only four men in the bar and they were at the far end, shooting crap.
‘Right away, Mr. Scott,’ Slim said. ‘You’re late tonight.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘still, tomorrow’s Sunday.’
‘That’s a fact: my favourite day.’ He poured the Scotch, dropped ice into the glass and placed it before me. ‘Heard the latest on the hit-and-run case?’
The muscles in my stomach suddenly cramped up.
‘No. What’s new?’
‘On the radio: ten minutes ago. A man and woman were seen driving off the highway and going down the beach road where the cop was killed about the time of the accident. The police are asking them to come forward. They seem to think they might have seen the car that killed O’Brien or maybe they did it themselves.’
I took a long pull at my whisky.
‘Is that right?’ I said, not looking at him.
‘I bet they don’t come forward. A man and woman don’t go down that kind of road to admire the view.’ He winked at me. ‘I bet those two aren’t going to get themselves on the front pages of the papers.’
‘That’s a fact. Well, they’re certainly making an effort to catch the guy who did it,’ I said, trying hard to sound casual.
‘Yeah. Seems a lot of fuss to me. People get killed every second of the day, but when it’s a cop, it’s got to be special.’
I sat and listened to views about the police for several minutes, then I asked him suddenly: ‘Would you know a guy who calls himself Oscar Ross?’
Slim looked surprised.
‘Why, sure. He’s a barman at the Little Tavern nightclub out at Mount Cresta. You know him, Mr. Scott?’
‘No, but someone was saying he was the best barman in town.’ I was careful to keep my face expressionless although this unexpected information had me seething with excitement. ‘I just wondered what was so special about him.’
‘I bet a lady told you that,’ Slim said, his face registering contempt. ‘The best barman in town! That’s rich. Why, he’s just an amateur. The martinis he throws together would make a cat puke. I tell you what he’s got: he’s got looks. I’ll say that for him. The dames go for him in a big way. He really gives them the works when they come into the bar: you know the stuff: the steady stare, looks up and down them, strokes their behinds when he helps them up on the stools. They love it, but he hasn’t any talent as a barman. I wouldn’t have him in this bar, not if he offered to work here for nothing.’
‘The Little Tavern? Isn’t that where Dolores Lane sings?’
‘That’s the joint.’ Slim picked up a cloth and began to polish the bar. ‘You ain’t missed a thing by not going there. She’s nothing to lose sleep over either.’
‘Wasn’t she supposed to be engaged to this cop who was killed?’
Slim scratched the back of his neck and stared blankly at me.
‘Yeah, I believe you’re right, but maybe it’s just a newspaper story. What would a nightclub singer want to marry a cop for?’
I finished my whisky.
‘You’re right. I only believe half of what I read in the newspapers,’ I said as I slid off the stool. ‘Well, I’ve got to be getting home. So long, Slim.’
‘Always glad to have you in here, Mr. Scott. Have a nice weekend.’
I went out to the Buick. Getting in, I lit a cigarette.
By the merest chance I had picked up a piece of information that had to be important. So Ross and Dolores Lane worked at the same nightclub. Dolores had told me she was going to marry O’Brien. As Slim had said why should a nightclub singer hook up with a cop? It didn’t make sense. It certainly deserved to be investigated.
On the spur of the moment, I decided to take a look at the Little Tavern nightclub.
I thumbed the starter, moved the Buick into the evening traffic, and headed out to Mount Cresta.
CHAPTER NINE
I
The Little Tavern nightclub was a typical roadside joint with a circular drive-in, a lot of coloured neon lights, a gaudy doorman and a big parking lot crammed with the less expensive cars.
I found space in one of the rows, cut my engine and turned off my lights.
Then I walked back between the alley of cars to the entrance of the nightclub.
The doorman turned the revolving door for me, touching his cap as he did so.
I entered a large ornate vestibule. A hat-check girl, clad in a frilly thing that showed her knees, hipswayed towards me, showing her even white teeth in a smile of welcome. The smile slipped a little when she saw I had no hat and had nothing to leave with her for her to earn a possible dollar tip.
I moved around her, giving her one of nay boyish smiles, but for the impression it made on her, I might be offering a beggar the time of day. She turned and hip-swayed back to her station. For build, she and Marilyn Monroe had a lot in common.
I went up the red-carpeted stairs to a passage lit by ceiling lights and headed towards a pale-blue neon light that flashed Bar at me.
I paused in the doorway and surveyed the scene.
The room was big, with a horseshoe-shaped bar at the far end, and a lot of tables and chairs to cope with the hundred odd people who were getting liquored up for the night.
It wasn’t what I would call a smart crowd. None of the men were in tuxedos. The women were a mixed lot: some of them looked like businessmen’s secretaries out for the night in return for past services rendered; some of them looked like slightly soiled young ladies from the back row of unsuccessful musicals; some of them were obviously professionals, and they sat alone at various tables, discreetly distant from each other, and there were a few elderly women waiting impatiently for their gigolos: the usual crowd you can see any night of the week in the less smart nightclubs of Palm City.
I looked over the bar. There were two barmen coping with the rush: neither of them was Ross: two small men, Mexicans to judge by their sleek, black hair, their dark oily skins and their servile, flashing smiles.
I didn’t expect to find Ross serving behind the bar. I guessed it was his night off.
As I looked around I was aware that at least ten of the women on their own were staring pointedly at me. I took care not to meet their inviting eyes.
I wandered over to the bar and waited my turn beside a fat man in a slightly creased, tropical white suit who was being served with a rum and lime juice and who looked three parts drunk.
When my turn came, I ordered a Scotch on the rocks, and while the barman was fixing the drink, I asked him what time the cabaret started.
‘Half past eleven, sir,’ he said, sliding the drink over to me. ‘In the restaurant, second on the left down the passage.’
He went away to serve a tall, bony blonde in a sea-green evening dress whose elderly escort seemed to begrudge her the champagne cocktail she was whining for.
I glanced at my wrist watch. The time was twenty minutes past eleven.
The fat drunk next to me turned and grinned sheepishly as if to apologize for intruding. He said on a rum-
