Dames Don't Care

CHAPTER I-3

There is four bedrooms up there. One looks like a hired girl’s room an’ the other is a sorta store room—there is all sorts of junk lying around. On the other side of the hall there are the other two rooms. One of ’em might belong to anybody, an’ it don’t have any special features that attract my attention. When I try the last door I find it is locked an’ so I think that maybe this is the room I am lookin’ for.

I take a look at the lock an’ I think that it might fall for the spider key I got in my pocket, an’ I try it out an’ it works. I have the door open pronto an’ go in. Directly I get into the room I can smell that this is what I am lookin’ for—the perfume comes up an’ hits me. It’s swell—I always did like Carnation.

I go over an’ pull the shades over the windows before I switch on the flash, an’ then I take a look around.

It is a dame’s room all right. There is a wrap lyin’ over the back of a rest chair, an’ there is a long line of the swellest shoes you ever saw. Oh boy, was they good? There is little shiny patents with French heels an’ there is dress shoes in satin an’ crepe-de-chine. There is polished brown walkin’ shoes, ridin’ boots an’ a pair of pink quilted satin mules that woulda knocked a bachelor for the home run. I tell you these shoes was swell. They sorta told you that the dame who owned ’em knew her way about, an’ I reckon that if the rest of her kit was on the same level, well, she was an eyeful any time.

I nose around. I am tryin’ to figure out where a dame—a clever dame—would hide some papers so that nobody would guess where to find ’em supposin’ they figured to look. I reckon that either she’d have ’em stuck on her body an’ carry ’em around, or she’d put ’em in an innocent sorta place where no smart guy would think of lookin’ for ’em.

Over in the corner is a pile of books standin’ on a little table. I go over an’ look at ’em. I run the pages of the top books through my fingers an’ they are O.K. but when I grab the fourth book—a leather-bound book of poetry, do I get a kick or do I? Somebody has cut a big square out of about fifty pages in the book, an’ stuck inside is a packet of letters. I look at the address on the envelope of the top one, an’ I do a big grin because it is addressed to Granworth C. Aymes at the Claribel Apartments, New York City.

It looks as if I have pulled a fast one on Henrietta. I stick the packet of letters in my pocket, put the books back, close an’ lock the door behind me an’ scram downstairs. I stick around for a bit just to see if anybody has been tailin’ me, but everything is O.K.

I go out the same way as I come in, an’ fix the back door so’s it looks all right. I go over to the car an’ I head back, intendin’ to take the main desert road back to Palm Springs, but before I have gone far I come to the conclusion that I will go back to the Hacienda Altmira an’ just have a look around an’ see how the party is goin’.

I am there in about fifteen minutes.

The electric sign is turned off an’ the place is all dark. There ain’t a sign of anything. Way up on the top floor facin’ me I can see a little light comin’ between the window shades.

I go up to the entrance an’ it is all fastened up. Then I think of the screens around on the left, an’ I get around there. They are locked too, but they are pretty easy, an’ I have one open pronto.

The moon has come up an’ there is a lot of it tricklin’ through a high window above the bar.

I shut the screen behind me an’ start easin’ across the floor. I am keepin’ quiet an’ if you asked me why I couldn’t tell you. It just seems sorta strange that this place shoulda closed down so quick—especially when everybody looked like they was having such a swell time.

When I get past the band platform, where the bar starts, I stop and take a look, because from here I can see the bottom of the adobe stairs that lead up the side of the wall. There is a piece of moonlight shinin’ on the stairs an’ as I look I can see somethin’ shinin’. I go over an’ pick it up. It is the silver cord that Sagers was wearin’ in his silk shirt, an’ there is a bit of silk stickin’ to it, so it looks like somebody dragged it off him.

I turn off the flash an’ stick around. I can’t hear nothin’. I lay off the upstairs an’ start workin’ around the walls, nice an’ quiet, feelin’ for door knobs. I miss the entrance wall because I know that the passage leads straight out front.

I get over the bar because I figure that there will be a door behind, probably leadin’ upstairs an’ connectin’ with the balcony some place. There is a door all right an’ I have to spider it open because it is locked. On the other side is a*****e room. I go in an’ use my flash. The room is about fifteen feet square an’ filled with wine an’ whisky cases an’ a coupla big ice boxes. There is empty bottles an’ stuff lyin’ all over the place.

I ease over an’ look in the first ice box. It is filled with sacks. In the second ice box I find Sagers. He is doubled up in a sack an’ he has been shot plenty. I reckon he was on the run when they got him because he is shot twice in the legs an’ three times through the guts at close range afterwards. I can see the powder burns on his shirt. Somebody has yanked his neck cord off him an’ torn his shirt open.

I put him back in the ice box an’ close it like it was. Then I get outa the store room, lock the door with the spider an’ mix myself a hard one in the bar. I get over the bar an’ scram out the way I come in.

I go back to the car an’ drive towards Palm Springs.

It’s a hot night; but it wasn’t so hot for Sagers.