The Complete Ed and Am Hunter Mysteries by Fredric Brown

Author:Fredric Brown [Brown, Fredric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-16T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

THE BLUE CROCODILE was a medium-sized night club, medium expensive. Not the best in Chicago, but a long way from being the worst. On a Thursday night, it wasn’t crowded but there was enough business so you didn’t have to feel sorry for Augie Grane. There were seventy or eighty people in a place that would hold a hundred comfortably and held half again that many on big nights. There was a five-piece combo—Harry Hart’s outfit; I had some of his records—playing pretty fair stuff and there were about a dozen couples dancing.

When the headwaiter walked up to me as I came in, I said, “Table for two. My friend will be here later.” If he noticed me after that, he’d think I was being stood up, but that was better than attracting attention by being a lone wolf. He led me to a table for two that was probably the worst table in the place; it was farthest from the dance floor and a post blocked view of the combo, but that was all right with me. I hadn’t come to hear the music. Come to think of it, I didn’t know why I had come at all, unless it was just to see Estelle.

And she must have seen me come in, for she came toward me the minute the headwaiter left. She looked beautiful as hell in an evening gown that had, I’d guess, a dozen square yards of material in the skirt and a scant square foot of it above the waist. It was a beautiful gown and it had cost money. I wondered if she’d had it before or if it had come with the job. Or if Augie had bought it for her. But since they’d met only that afternoon, either he or she had worked pretty fast if that was the case. Then I caught her eyes and felt ashamed of myself for wondering.

As she reached my table she made her eyes and smile impersonal and said, “Cigarettes, sir?”

I had a fresh pack and didn’t need any; I started to say no, and then noticed that she had a package of them in her hand, held just above the tray, and that there was a folded slip of white paper that she was holding against the under side of the package with her finger; she tilted the pack slightly so I could see the note.

So I nodded and put a dollar bill in the tray and she put the cigarettes down on the table with the note under them. She said “Thank you, sir” without even asking if I wanted any change and walked away.

I shoved the cigarettes into my coat pocket and palmed the note but I couldn’t read it just then because the waiter came up. I ordered a whiskey and soda and a club sandwich; my trip to the mortuary had killed my appetite temporarily and I’d eaten only one hamburger to Bassett’s four, and now I was getting hungry again.

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