Whistle Past the Graveyard [= Give the Girl a Gun]

Chapter Two

Catching this byplay, Fausta studied Bubbles momentarily with narrowed eyes, decided she wasn’t important competition and dismissed her. This was not because Bubbles was unattractive in Fausta’s estimation, I knew, but only because she was aware I am constituted so that the only emotion girls ten years younger than I can arouse in me is paternal instinct. I prefer my women more mature.

Fausta studied Evelyn Karnes a little more thoughtfully, but since the lacquered brunette had not once glanced at me since we were introduced, or at anyone else other than Walter Ford for that matter, apparently Fausta decided she would not be active competition either. Evelyn could not seem to keep her eyes off Walter’s sardonically handsome face, and her unconcealed interest in the man did not go unnoticed by her escort, Ed Friday. Though he made no attempt to draw his date’s attention back to himself, the way in which his teeth clamped down on the fat cigar he was smoking, when he looked from Evelyn to Walter Ford and back again, indicated his thoughts were not pleasant.

In a less open way Ford was returning the brunette’s attention, which I suspect was the reason Bubbles so eagerly accepted my addition to the party.

The third woman in the group, the red-haired Madeline Strong, Fausta did not even consider, as she seemed to have a friendly interest in the girl and Fausta never mistrusts her friends.

Lest I create the impression that I am a roué and Fausta is a shrew, let me explain that Fausta’s jealousy is a matter of habit rather than emotion. Years back, when she was a penniless refugee, we had a violent romance which nearly ended in marriage. But unfortunately I tend to be pigheaded, and from the moment Fausta started to gain success in the night-club business, I started to back out of the picture. On the old-fashioned theory that the man is supposed to be the breadwinner, the richer she became, the farther I backed. Now that she was one of the richest women in town, I had backed so far that we saw each other not more than once in two weeks.

Having completed her estimation of the situation, Fausta seemed to decide she was capable of protecting me from any of the women present and gave me a questioning look. I passed the decision back again by shrugging.

“We will come for a little while,” Fausta told Barney, leaving herself an out in case we decided we didn’t like the party. “Manny and I have some plans for later on.”

As I already had my hat in my hand and Fausta was carrying her evening cloak over her arm, we stopped at the front door to have a word with Mouldy Greene while the others reclaimed various articles from the cloakroom. Mouldy, whose actual name is Marmaduke Greene and who derives his nickname from a mild case of acne, holds a position at El Patio rather hard to define.

During my stint in the army, Mouldy had been a basic in the company in which I was first sergeant. According to army regulations, a basic is a private without a specialty, but it was a mis-designation in Mouldy’s case, for he definitely had a specialty. His specialty was fouling up details.

I doubt that any army ever contained a less efficient soldier than Marmaduke Greene, and the few gray hairs I developed in service are directly attributable to his talent for doing the wrong thing at the worst possible moment. When the army finally released him with a sigh of relief, Mouldy got a job as bodyguard for the underworld character who at that time owned El Patio and ran it as a gambling casino. How he talked himself into the job is a question which has always intrigued me; for while he has a body encased in muscle, five minutes of conversation with Mouldy should have warned his prospective employer his head is encased in the same substance.

The result of this arrangement was a foregone conclusion. Louis Bagnell, Mouldy’s gambler boss, failed to live out the year.

When Fausta took over El Patio and converted it into a supper club, it was already staffed with bartenders, waiters and a collection of bouncers, dice men and card dealers. She kept the bartenders and waiters, but cleaned out the rest with one swipe. When she came to Mouldy, however, softheartedness got the best of her judgment and she found herself incapable of casting him out into a competitive world.

She tried him at practically every job in the place, including headwaiter for one disastrous evening, before she discovered the job which was Mouldy’s natural niche in life. Now he was El Patio’s official customer-greeter, which involved his standing just inside the front door with a hideous smile on his face, greeting customers with friendly insults.

The more dignified the customer, the less formal Mouldy became. A typical greeting to a United States Senator might be, for example, “Hi, Bub. How goes digging in the public trough?” Dowagers he invariably addressed as “Babe,” usually accompanying the greeting with a resounding slap on the back.

Once new customers recovered from the initial shock, they loved Mouldy, for he had much the same charm as a friendly mongrel dog, if you can visualize a mongrel dog weighing two hundred and forty pounds.

Mouldy as usual greeted me as “Sarge,” a hangover from army days, eyed Fausta’s gown critically and commented that it wasn’t a bad looking rag.

“You going out with that old crook and his crowd?” he asked.

“Crook?” Fausta said.

“Ed Friday.”

“Well, yes, but what makes you think Mr. Friday is a crook?”

Mouldy looked at her in astonishment. “Everybody knows that, Fausta.” Then he said to me, “Catch the big guy waiting by the door?”

Glancing that way, I nodded. The man was even bigger than Mouldy, though not as solidly built. He must have been six feet five, with heavy shoulders and long powerful arms. His eyes bulged and his lips hung slightly open, giving the impression he was on the verge of choking, but he wasn’t actually. It must have been his normal expression, for he seemed in no discomfort.

“What about him?” I asked.

“He seems interested in your crook friend. Or someone in his party. He come in right on their tail, took a table near theirs, and after he finished eating, just sat there till they started out again. I been watching him ‘cause I don’t like his looks.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep my eye out for him.”

When the rest of the group rejoined us and we went out together, I noted that the tall man left too. He was still waiting on the steps for his own car when the parking-lot attendant brought mine from around back and we drove off. In the rear-view mirror I could see him watching without any apparent interest as the other four in our party climbed into a taxi, and I decided Mouldy was having pipe dreams.

En route to Barney Amhurst’s apartment I made conversation with the couple in the back seat by inquiring just what the invention was that was responsible for our celebration.

“We call it the Huntsafe,” Walter Ford said. “It’s a portable warning device that lets hunters know when other hunters are nearby. The whole contraption weighs only two pounds and the transmitter, including batteries, is only one by three by four inches. It straps on the belt, and the receiver straps around the wrist like a watch.”

“I see,” I said dubiously. “A sort of portable radar device. But is it efficient enough to sort hunters out from trees, or deer, or other objects that might reflect radar waves?”

“No, no. It doesn’t work by reflection, like radar. It’s based on the principle of the radio compass. The transmitter sets up a huge electromagnetic field around itself... a little over four hundred yards in radius. The idea is to get every hunter in the woods equipped with a Huntsafe. Then any time two hunters get within four hundred yards of each other, their receivers begin to tick like Geiger counters. The wrist receiver has an indicator on it resembling a compass needle, and when you hear the tick, you hold your wrist horizontal and the needle points straight at the other hunter. Then you avoid shooting in that direction. It’s the most terrific thing in the field of outdoor sports in years. Do you know how many hunters are accidentally shot by other hunters every year?”

“No,” I admitted. “But the thing isn’t going to be very effective unless you can talk all hunters into buying it, is it?”

“Oh, we’ve got that figured,” Ford said confidently.

But he never got a chance to explain how, because Bubbles Duval, apparently tiring of being excluded from the conversation, changed the subject.

“Are you a professional boxer, Manny?” she asked suddenly.

“Me?” I asked, startled. “No. I mean, not now.”

“You were though, huh?”

“Manny has not fought for years,” Fausta told Bubbles. “He is a private detective.”

“Oh!” Bubbles said in a thrilled voice. “Like Martin Kane, private eye?”

“Nothing so glamorous,” I assured her. “Most of my cases are insurance investigations, skip tracings or acting as bodyguard for people who think someone is mad at them. Mostly the last.”

“That’s interesting,” Walter Ford remarked. “We’re practically surrounded by bodyguards tonight.”

He didn’t explain the remark and no one asked him to.

Barney Amhurst lived at the Remley Apartments on McKnight Avenue, which is neither highly exclusive nor in a slum area. When we parked in front, the taxi containing the rest of the party double-parked next to us, and at the same time a gray coupé pulled to the curb directly behind my Plymouth.

While I was opening the door for Fausta, I glanced back at the coupé and noted its driver remained seated in the car. By the light of a nearby street lamp which cast a dim glow into the coupé’s interior, I could faintly make out his face. Something about it seemed familiar.

Not being bashful, I walked over to the coupé and peered in. Its single occupant was the muscular guy with the hyperthyroid eyes who had followed us from El Patio.

“Anybody in our party you want to talk to?” I asked. “Or are you just casing us for a heist?”

He merely stared at me without saying anything.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” I said in a reasonable tone. “But strangers following me around make me nervous. Just give me a plausible explanation and we’ll drop the subject.”

“Anything the matter?” asked a slurred voice behind me.

Turning, I found the reformed extortionist, Ed Friday, had come up and was watching us inquiringly.

“He was asking if maybe I’m going to heist somebody,” the man in the coupé said.

Friday chuckled. “The misunderstanding is my fault, Max. I should have tipped Mr. Moon off.” To me he said, “It’s all right, Mr. Moon. Max is with me.”

“You ought to pin a label on him,” I said. “Some jittery citizen might misinterpret his loitering and yell for the cops.”

Friday emitted a hearty laugh and slapped me on the shoulder.