The Blonde Wore Black

pay his telephone bill?” I demanded.
He stood up.
“It would take a better man than you to make me lose my temper,” he assured me. “As for telephones, they are not suitable for delicate business matters. When will you call on Mr. Martello?”
I yawned, and looked at my watch.
“Where will he be around noon?”
“He is normally at a place called the Oyster’s Cloister at noon. Mr. Martello usually takes coffee and brandy at that hour.”
“I’ll get down there if I can.”
He nodded coldly and went out. Before I’d picked up the newspaper, Florence Digby was back.
“What did you say to Mr. Hamilton,” she queried indignantly. “He didn’t even say good morning.”
“You ought not to judge by appearances, Miss Digby. Your nice young man is a thug. A well-dressed, well-spoken thug, but a thug just the same.”
She sniffed in evident disbelief, and went away. I was intrigued to know what Jake Martello wanted with me. He could hire a small army if he wanted, and I didn’t see what I could do that they couldn’t. There was just one comfort. It had to be something legal. Jake would never look at an outsider for the other kind of work.
I parked half a block away from the Oyster’s Cloister and walked the rest. The place is run by a friend of mine, Reuben Krantz, and I hadn’t given him a play in months. The Cloister has a jealous reputation for its fine cuisine, and people said the chef, Armand, was the highest paid chef in the city, if not along the entire coast. In the ordinary way, the eating prices are out of my bracket, but there’s a pleasant bar attached. It’s one of those spots where you can imagine you’re wealthy for the price of a scotch and soda, watching other people diving into the twelve fifty filet mignon. It is one of those little peculiarities of life that Krantz personally is unable to join in on the eating spree. He has this stomach condition that normally restricts him to simple plain foods. One of his excesses is a special brew of pigs knuckles, and this is where he and Armand differ. The chef maintains he is not employed to boil up swill, and simply will not deliver knuckles, special recipe or no. So if you happen to be passing the Oyster’s Cloister one evening around nine thirty, you may be in time to see a steaming dish being carried over from the delicatessen across the street.
The doorman is a big husky named Biff, and his leathery face split open when he saw me.
“Well well Mr. Preston. I thought maybe you left town.”
“Hi, Biff. Boss around?”
“In the office.” He patted at his stomach. “It’s not one of those good days.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
I went through the glass doors and peeked in the bar. There were four or five people in there, none familiar. Then I tapped on the door marked “Manager”.
“Come in.”
Krantz was seated behind his green leather-topped desk. Beside the wall was a table with a crystal water jug, and enough pills and powders in heaped boxes to stock a small druggists.
“Don’t tell me, don’t tell me—I have the name on the tip of my tongue,” he greeted.
“Hallo Ben. I’ve been busy lately, thought it was time I looked in.”
“It is, it is,” he confirmed. “How’re things?”
We chatted away about this and that for a few minutes. Then he suddenly clutched at his stomach and an expression of resigned agony came over his face.
“No improvement huh?” I asked.
He shook his head and waited till the spasm passed.
“I tell you, there’s an overnight fortune for the guy who really finds out how to deal with these things.”
“I imagine. I was talking to a guy a month or two back who did something with seaweed.”
His eyes brightened.
“Seaweed huh? You remember the details?”
“No,” I confessed. “But next time I see him I’ll get him to tell me what it’s all about.”
He nodded eagerly.
“Fine. Make it soon huh? You want to call him from here?”
He began pushing a telephone forward.
“No thanks,” I hedged, “I don’t even know his number. But I’ll get on it. By the way, I hear Jake Martello gets in here some mornings.”
The brightness went from his eyes at the mention of the name, and the normal obscure look took its place.
“Sometimes. What about it?”
“Nothing. Just want to have a talk with him, that’s all.”
Now the whole face was suspicious.
“Talk? Not trouble talk? The Cloister ain’t built for it.”
“You know I wouldn’t do anything like that here.”
He wanted to say something but natural caution caused him to hesitate.
“Look Preston, Jake can be bad company if he don’t get along with people. I’m running low on friends as it is.”
And even in saying that much, Krantz was coming further out of his shell for me than most people would see him do in a lifetime. And he’d done it for me before.[1]
I grinned and shook my head.
“Thanks Ben, but this is just routine. Anyway, nice to see you.”
We shook hands, and he reminded me of my promise to get him the seaweed prescription. Then I left him brooding over which pill to try today, and went out to the bar.
The early drinkers looked at me incuriously, in that casual impersonal way peculiar to early morning barflies. I walked through and looked into the restaurant. Only two tables were in use that early, and at one of them a young fellow was talking earnestly to a woman ten years older. The table in the far corner was the one for me. Martello sat with his back to the wall. Next to him was another man his own age, a stranger. The third man was my earlier visitor, Hamilton. Opening the door, I trod the deep carpeted steps down inside. The head waiter swept up, smile becoming a little fixed when he saw who it was.
“Hallo Ernie. I don’t need a table thanks. I’ll join Mr. Martello.”
He nodded and escorted me across the small dance