Death Comes Early
Page 14
“A favor,” said Damon. He winked Jack outside on the stairs, out of hearing. “Jack, could you lemme have a loan of some loot?”
“How much?” asked Jack, surprised.
“Just enough for a steak and a bottle,” said Damon, embarrassedly. “What I really want is, can Rose Marie and me use your apartment?”
“Rose Marie and…” Jack grinned. He took out fifty dollars and pressed the bills on Damon. “You’re pretty lucky, at that.”
Damon rubbed the tip of his long nose. “She likes us uglies. Hell, she’ll meet some john at the club and I’ll be out the window. But you got to take what you can get.”
“I hear they knocked off that hat check girl at the Greystone before they went uptown,” said Jack.
“Old Nola Lopez.” Damon shrugged. “Just a shopworn old grifter. Tough noogy for her. Well, thanks a lot, Jack.” He went to the door and called, “Hey, baby. You comin’ along on that errand we got?”
Rose Marie said, “You bet.” To the others she explained, “I go to work tomorrow night. Last minute things, you know. Everybody come and see me, now.”
She left with the policeman. Max shifted uneasily and Eloise Camp said to him, “Take me down through the bar. Cyrus is there.”
“You have nothing to fear. He has agreed to everything. I think Cyrus has had a lesson,” said Max. Nevertheless he squared his shoulders and escorted her from the office.
Watching them through the opaque window, Jack said, “I think Cyrus has had it, period. He is on the sauce all day, every day.”
Lila leaned against him. “I’m so tired, so beat. Thank goodness the Greystone is padlocked. I need a rest. I’d like to get away.”
Jack went back to the desk, sat down. He opened a drawer and took out a telegram and a check made out for five hundred dollars and signed by Ted Colyer. He handed Lila the wire and tore the check into bits and put it in the wastebasket.
She said, “Hollywood, is it?”
“Yes,” he said. “I have to be there to open the place. I have to find a man for the job Ted was going to take.”
“All right,” she said, “or I think all right. At any rate, we could try it for size. Maybe they’d like me in Hollywood.”
He nodded. He was looking at the torn scraps of the check. He was saying a silent good-by to Ted Colyer, killed because he was trying to make a fresh start.