The Shadowers

V

IT WAS a long way through the lobby to the street door, and my patter had lost a good deal of its spontaneous wit and sparkling originality by the time I got her out on the sidewalk. Then we were walking away from the hotel. It was the old part of New Orleans, with one-way streets barely wide enough for a horse and carriage, and sidewalks barely wide enough for a crinoline. The alley I found was even narrower, just a crack between two tall buildings.

Where I stopped her at last, the night sky was a distant violet-gray strip above us, and the lighted street was a narrow slice of life and hope left far behind, or so it must have seemed to her. When we stopped, she put her back to a blank wall defensively. Her dim face, framed by the midnight-black hair, looked as white as her long gloves.

"What do you think is going to happen to you, doll?" I asked.

She shook her head minutely. "Don't!" she whispered. "Whatever lousy thing you're going to do to me, do it. Get it over with. Don't tease me. That's dirty."

"I'm not teasing you," I said. "I just want you to know what's going to happen next so you won't go off half-cocked. As soon as I finish talking I'm going to put this knife in your hand. Then, while you're holding the knife, I'm going to kiss you for being a sweet kid and helping me out of a tough spot. Are you ready?"

She stared up at me, startled and confused. Well, that was what I was working for. Now that I'd used her, I had to keep her from telling the police all about it. Being hauled off to jail is one of the things we're not supposed to let happen to us. On the spur of the moment, the romantic mystery-man approach seemed the best bet for silence, short of killing her, which was neither necessary nor desirable.

She licked her lips. "But-"

"Conversation is not required," I said. "Hold out your hand."

I had to reach down and find it and close her fingers about the handle of the knife. I guided the point toward my chest.

"No," I said, "a little to my left, doll. It's tough work shoving a knife through a man's breastbone. That's better. Now make up your mind. All you have to do is push; it'll go in smooth and easy. You'll be surprised how little effort it takes to kill a man. Here comes the kiss."

Moving very deliberately, the way you'd reach for a frightened bird, I took her face in my hands and bent down briefly. Her face was cold and her lips were cold. I felt the knife move very slightly against me, but it never penetrated my coat. I stepped back. She let her hand fall to her side. After a moment I heard a shaky little laugh.

"Mister," she breathed. "Mister, I…" She stopped.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Antoinette," she whispered. "Antoinette Vail."

"Toni?"

"My friends call me Toni," she said. Her voice was coming in stronger now. "I'll let you know when you qualify. In the meantime… In the meantime, I think Miss Vail sounds very nice, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

We stood for a little while facing each other like that, hearing the sounds of the city all around us; but nothing moved in the dark, narrow alley where we were. She glanced down at the knife in her hand, and looked at me again.

"You scared me," she murmured. "You really scared me! I really thought you… Here, take it!" I took the knife, closed it, and dropped it into my pocket. She was watching me steadily. "What happens if I run?" she asked.

"In here?" I said. "Dark as it is, you'll probably fall over something and ruin your stockings. You'd better walk carefully until you get out where there's some light. If you want to leave."

"If?" she breathed. "If? Are you crazy or something? Do you think I-" She stopped.

"Aren't you a wee bit curious? Aren't you intrigued? I must be losing my grip," I said. "Well, then, didn't you have some plans for tonight that I've just shot to hell? Wouldn't you like to have dinner on me-anywhere, any price.-and listen to a lot of lies about why I had to do what I did? I'm a fascinating liar, Miss Vail."

"That, I'll believe," she said tartly. "You fascinated me, you and that wicked-looking little slicker. Is your name really Corcoran like you said in there?"

"Hell, no," I said. "It isn't Paul, either. But what do you care? Paul will do for one evening, won't it?"

She said, "I'm not a tramp, Paul. I mean, if that's what you have in mind…"

I said, "Miss Vail, sex is certainly important to me, and you're a lovely girl, but I generally manage to satisfy my requirements without kidnapping young ladies at the point of a knife."

She hesitated, and said with a kind of compulsive honesty, "Of course, I'm not exactly a sheltered virgin, either. You've probably guessed that."

I said, "It's a fascinating subject, but it could be pursued in a warmer place. Did you have a wrap?"

"Yes. It was checked. It isn't the kind of coat you want to flash in a high-class bar. My date will probably take it home with him. God knows what kind of a story I'll have to tell to get it back. He's the jealous type." She hugged herself, shivering. "It is kind of chilly. You said anywhere?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And any price?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She hesitated again. Then she laughed and took my arm. "Well, you asked for it. Antoine's is only a couple of blocks…

I'd had a hunch it would be Antoine's if she could take her pick. I guess it usually is in New Orleans, although there are supposed to be some newer places with equally good food and atmosphere. Actually, the atmosphere at Antoine's isn't really plush, for all the reputation the place has got. The customers are well-dressed, the waiters know their business and look it, but the dining room itself seems kind of bare and disappointing to anybody who arrives expecting to wallow in the lap of old-fashioned southern luxury. You're supposed to go there to eat, I guess, not to appraise the furnishings.

We had to wait for a table, and the one we got was out in the middle of the floor. The delay bothered me, but I told myself there wasn't really anything else for me to do back at the hotel. Olivia would be all right if she followed instructions, and it was better to let some time pass before we set up another meeting. I might as well be making sure this stray kid I'd involved in the game didn't cause us any official trouble.

"I'd like to go make repairs," Antoinette said after the headwaiter had made us comfortable and departed. "There's something about panic… I feel as if I'd come unraveled, just a little. Do you mind?"

I looked at her across the table. She was really an extremely pretty girl, but pretty wasn't quite the right word. It was an off-beat face, not quite symmetrical, with the heavy black eyebrows almost meeting over the straight little nose. I was betting on those individualistic eyebrows, and on the well-worn satin shoes. She probably wasn't starving, but she was a kid to whom an expensive meal in a fashionable restaurant meant something beyond food; and she was a kid who'd gamble recklessly and high to get it.

"No," I said. "I don't mind."

I watched her go off across the room, slim and straight in her shiny little dress. It was up to her now. There was nothing to be gained by wondering which way she'd turn; I'd know soon enough. There was not much to be gained by wondering what Olivia Mariassy was thinking after her humiliating experience in the Montclair bar, or what the bald man with the craggy face was doing. And there was certainly no profit at all in thinking about a woman who was dead, but I thought about her just the same. We'd had some good times together, Gail and I, even if she'd had too much money and Mac hadn't approved of her. I was going to have to get used to the idea that she wouldn't be around for me to call up when the job was over.

Then Antoinette Vail was returning, her hair very smooth and her lipstick quite perfect, and I rose to manipulate her chair like a gentleman. She smiled up at me as she seated herself.

"Well, there was one," she said.

"One what? Oh, you mean a phone?" I went back and sat down deliberately. I said, "I figured there would be. Did you use it?"

"Of course," she said. "The police don't want to make a fuss in here, but they'll be waiting when we leave. I told them you were armed and dangerous, so they'll probably shoot you down as you step into the street. But we can still have dinner first, can't we?"

"Sure," I said. "All the more reason to enjoy ourselves while we can. Take your choice. The sky's the limit."

She waved the menu aside. "I don't have to look. I want steak and champagne," she said. "It's square, it's corny, and they're not as good with steak here as with fish, but that's what I want. It makes me feel… luxurious. Paul?"

"Yes?"

"How did you know I wouldn't use the phone?"

I said, "You're not a cop-calling girl, Miss Vail. If you were that stuffy and conventional you'd pluck your eyebrows and wear a girdle."

She thought that over for a moment. "Well, I guess it makes sense, vaguely." She had another thought, and looked at me quickly across the table and grinned. "I was going to ask why you picked on me, back there at the Montclair. I guess you've just told me, indirectly, Mr. Paul Sharpeyes Corcoran."

"Sure. You have a beautiful little fanny, Miss Vail. It shows up particularly well on a bar stool. When I had to find a female companion in a hurry, who would I pick from that collection of bulging rumps? Who would any man pick? The corseted lady three stools down? Don't be silly."

Toni laughed and started to speak, but the waiter was hovering nearby, and she changed her mind. We went through the serious formality of ordering dinner. When the waiter had gone again, she leaned forward on her elbows comfortably.

"All right," she said, "let's hear them."

"Let's hear what?"

"The lies. About why you needed a female companion in a hurry. Make them good now."

"Sure," I said. "Well, there's the one about my meeting a married woman for a jazzy New Orleans weekend, and just as we were about to settle down for a drink, who should walk into the bar but her husband? He's a big tough guy. I don't want to tangle with him, and the lady doesn't want any nasty publicity, so I had to act quickly to make it look as if I didn't even know her."

Toni was wrinkling her nose distastefully and shaking her head. "That's not very original. You can do better."

"What's the matter with it?"

"Well, if you were just a weekend Romeo, you'd hardly be flashing a knife like that. And then there's the lady. I suppose you mean the dowdy one in tweed you pointed out as an amorous schoolteacher. She's hardly the type to be stepping out on her husband, if she has a husband; and even if she did want to flip, I can't see you as her partner in sin, Paul. I don't know what you are, but you're a little too smooth to fall for a creep in horn-rimmed glasses."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," I said. "I'm supplying only eats, drinks, and lies. Diamonds and furs you'll have to get elsewhere."

She laughed. "It isn't very nice to call a girl a gold-digger, even just by implication. You might hurt her feelings. No, I don't think much of that story. Try again."

"Well," I said, "how about this? You've heard of the Syndicate, I suppose. Well, I'm on the payroll, see, only I'm hiding out because the fuzz is after me, and I'm running short of the folding ready. So they send my moll with a fresh supply of green, and she's all done up with glasses and a kookie hairdo so nobody'll know her-she's a real dish, normally-but just as she's about to slip me the loot I see a cop come in and I know he's been tailing her. He doesn't know me by sight, and I've made a few changes since the descriptions went out, but I've only got a minute to… No?" I said. "You don't like that one, either?"

"No," she said. "I don't like that one, either."

I sighed. "Lady," I said, "you are very hard to suit. How about this? I'm a government man, see, and I've got a big deal cooking all about spies and saboteurs and stuff, only just as I'm about to make contact with one of my fellow agents, feminine gender, I see a man watching. He's got her spotted, obviously, but there's still hope that I can keep clear if I… No, that won't work."

She was looking at me intently. She touched her lips with her tongue. "Why not, Paul? Why won't it work?"

"Well, hell," I said, "if I were really a government man, I'd have identification, wouldn't I? I'd be just lousy with identification. Did you ever see a government man yet who wasn't ready to flash his buzzer at the drop of a hat?"

"And you haven't got identification?"

"Not the lousiest little bit, doll. I mean, Miss Vail. I'm the most unidentified man you ever saw, Miss Vail."

She said slowly, still watching me, "I think you're one of the cleverest men I ever saw, too, Paul." Her voice was cool. "You want something for nothing, don't you? Well, not for nothing. But for the price of a dinner you want silence and cooperation without committing yourself one tiny little bit. Do you think that's a fair deal?"

I shook my head. "No. Only a damn fool would buy a deal like that. Or a girl who likes steak and champagne and isn't scared of a touch of mystery."

There was a short silence. She reached out and placed her hand on top of mine. "All right," she breathed. "All right. If that's all you're going to tell me."

"I haven't told you anything, Miss Vail. Not a damn thing. Anything you want to guess is up to you, but it's strictly a guess."

"I'm not sure I want you for a friend," she said. "I'm not sure I trust you enough to call you friend." She patted my hand lightly, and sat back, smiling. Everything was settled in her mind, and she murmured, "But I think you'd better start calling me Toni just the same."