Armchair in Hell by Henry Kane

Author:Henry Kane [Kane, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-4036-3
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 1975-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Viggy’s big-time gambling hole is on Eighty-second Street and Park Avenue.

I pushed the pearl button and I waved at the mirror and Tutti opened the door and he said, “Good evening, Mr. Chambers,” in the select, awed voice that he reserved for everybody, and everybody thinks he’s a secret glamour boy, exclusive and expensive.

I checked my hat and coat and I smiled at the smooth-jawed boys and I said, “First floor,” to the elevator man.

The room was full of people.

I slid along the sides to the bar, and I was very much interested, because I saw Pierre Vyseuseau going with the horse-smile for a ponderous lady with bosom, and, not too far removed, Detective Lieutenant Parker, alone and sullen with a highball, and, across the bar from the detective lieutenant — Dolores Castle.

I headed for Dolores.

Dolores Castle was Viggy’s very latest special; a new employee at the club. I had seen Dolores just once before, she had been pointed out to me, but I had never met her, formally — leave that to Viggy. She did a few throaty torch numbers (when she had the time) and she did them exquisitely (I’d been told); a tall high-shouldered scintillant upswept blonde, cute as a dimple, button-nosed with etched nostrils and a bright mouth and delicate hollows under her cheekbones; statuesque, Junoesque, burlesque, but gorgeous.

I crawled up on the high stool behind her and the Mexican bartender whose name, believe me, was Pancho, looked up and said, ” Ai, it is a pleasure and glad to see you,” and I said, very funny, ” Agua, with rye on the side,” and then I touched her, two fingers on a lovely shoulder and she turned, three-quarters,

one eyebrow up, and she said, ladylike and golden-voiced:

“Brush, guy.”

“Brush?”

“Blow. Hoop with the roll. Powder. Like Seidlitz.”

“Powder?” I said. “Like Seidlitz?”

She turned her back on me.

That wasn’t bad either.

Her dress was no dress at all down to the hips, smooth as pitchman’s patter.

In the monotone of a little girl reciting for company after the coaxing and the curtsy, I said, “My name is Peter Chambers and I thought yours might be Dolores Castle.” Cute; like the lady in the midriff, trying hard, but ahead of herself in the family way.

She swung around on the stool, smiling with the teeth, and her blue eyes sprinkled lights like a kid’s sparkler on the Fourth of July.

“Peter Chambers?”

“Me.”

“Oh.” Giggle. “I’m sorry I was rude.”

“Sure.”

“You know how it is.”

“Sure, I know how it is.”

“The characters have a drink and then they make like wolves.”

“Sure.”

“That wasn’t ad lib. That was line. I really don’t talk that way.”

“You telling me?”

“I’m dreadfully sorry.”

Pancho interrupted with rye and water.

“Drinkie?” Cute Chambers, like the lady with the midriff.

She had a voice that sort of reached in and put a hand on your heart, like a gypsy’s fiddle when you are young and the night has stars. “I’d love to, but I can’t, really. I go on in a very few minutes. How is it, Mr. Chambers, that we’ve never met? I’ve heard a lot about you.

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