The Lady Came to Kill by Kendell Foster Crossen & M.E. Chaber

Author:Kendell Foster Crossen & M.E. Chaber [Crossen, Kendell Foster & Chaber, M.E.]
Format: epub
Tags: Crime, OCR-Editing
Google: AeTxZwEACAAJ
Amazon: B000NQ0VP0
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1959-12-14T23:00:00+00:00

7.

The Cafe Bendito proved to be a small combination bar and restaurant. On the bar side, I saw as I entered, there were a number of curtained booths in the back. There were several men at the bar drinking, but no girls in sight. I was about to go look in the restaurant side when I heard something that sounded like a snake hissing. I looked around. The only person looking at me was the bartender, a rotund little man with one of the fiercest-looking mustaches I’d ever seen. Only on him it looked like a musical comedy prop.

“Ven acá” he said hoarsely.

He obviously meant me so I went over. He leaned across the bar confidently. “You are the Señor March?” he asked in a stage whisper that carried further than if he had spoken normally.

I admitted I was. There didn’t seem to be anything to lose by that.

“The lady is in the farthest booth back,” he said. “She is waiting for you. You would like something sent back?”

“Claro que si” I said. “Send whatever the lady is drinking and send me—a brandy.” That seemed about the safest thing to order. I would have preferred a martini, but this hardly seemed the place to order one. In fact, in most places a martini only serves to convince you that practically everybody owns stock in the vermouth companies.

I walked on back to the last booth. The curtains were drawn. I unbuttoned my coat and made sure it was loose just in case I had to get to my gun quickly. Then I reached out and opened the curtain quickly.

She was right. I knew her. She was the little dark-haired girl who had come into my office with a pastel blue gun to shoot me. She was the girl who’d been on the plane with me. According to the Pan American records her last name was Sanjurjo. And now she was going to claim she was Fulano.

“Buenos tardes, Señor March,” she said.

“Dichosos los ojos que lo ven usted” I said. “Maybe it is a small world after all. What color gun are you going to use this time?”

“I am sorry about that,” she said. “I will explain. That is also one of the reasons I wanted to see you. Won’t you sit down? Please.”

“Well, I did promise you another chance, didn’t I?” I said. I slid into the booth opposite her. “You just have to give me a little time. I’m used to being shot at, but not by such pretty girls.”

“I gave you a little time before,” she said with a smile. “To smoke a cigarette. That was very clever of you. I’m glad that you stopped me from shooting you.”

“So that you could try again down here?” I asked. “But you didn’t have to do the Fulano bit. I’d have come even if you told me who you really were, Señorita Sanjurjo.”

She looked surprised for a minute. “How—” she began. Then she smiled. “But of course. You got my name from the seating arrangements on the plane.

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