Blood Money by Dashiell Hammett

Author:Dashiell Hammett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2014-01-21T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

AT FOUR O’CLOCK that afternoon Jack Counihan and I brought our hired automobile to rest within sight of the front door of the Stockton hotel.

“He cleared himself with the police, so there’s no reason why he should have moved, maybe,” I told Jack, “and I’d rather not monkey with the hotel people, not knowing them. If he doesn’t show by late we’ll have to go up against them then.”

We settled down to cigarettes, guesses on who’d be the next heavyweight champion and where to get good gin and what to do with it, the injustice of the new Agency ruling that for purposes of expense accounts Oakland was not to be considered out of town, and similar exciting topics, which carried us from four o’clock to ten minutes past nine.

At 9:10 Red O’Leary came out of the hotel.

“God is good,” said Jack as he jumped out of the machine to do the footwork while I stirred the motor.

The fire-topped giant didn’t take us far. Larrouy’s front door gobbled him. By the time I had parked the car and gone into the dive, both O’Leary and Jack had found seats. Jack’s table was on the edge of the dance-floor. O’Leary’s was on the other side of the establishment, against the wall, near a corner. A fat blond couple were leaving the table back in that corner when I came in, so I persuaded the waiter who was guiding me to a table to make it that one.

O’Leary’s face was three-quarters turned away from me. He was watching the front door, watching it with an earnestness that turned suddenly to happiness when a girl appeared there. She was the girl Angel Grace had called Nancy Regan. I have already said she was nice. Well, she was. And the cocky little blue hat that hid all her hair didn’t handicap her niceness any tonight.

The red-head scrambled to his feet and pushed a waiter and a couple of customers out of his way as he went to meet her. As reward for his eagerness he got some profanity that he didn’t seem to hear and a blue-eyed, white-toothed smile that was—well—nice. He brought her back to his table, and put her in a chair facing me, while he sat very much facing her.

His voice was a baritone rumble out of which my snooping ears could pick no words. He seemed to be telling her a lot, and she listened as if she liked it.

“But, Reddy, dear, you shouldn’t,” she said once.

$6

Her voice—I know other words, but we’ll stick to this one—was nice. Outside of the musk in it, it had quality. Whoever this gunman’s moll was, she either had had a good start in life or had learned her stuff well. Now, and then, when the orchestra came up for air, I would catch a few words, but they didn’t tell me anything except that neither she nor her rowdy playmate had anything against the other.

The joint had been nearly empty when she came in.

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