Dames Don’t Care Read Free Page A

around. Tell him to tell the Bank Manager here to keep his trap shut about that counterfeit bond. Then fade out for the border by car. When you're well away switch; ditch the car at Yuma, grab a plane an' get back to Washington. Tell 'em I'm here an' all set. Got me?"
    "I got you," he says. "But I don't like it, Lemmy. I sorta got an idea in my head that somebody around here's leery to the fact that I ain't an honest-to-god film extra bein' a dancin' partner. I reckon they're suspicious."
    "So what?" I tell him. "Suspicion don't hurt nobody. OK, Sagers."
    We start drinkin' an' talkin' again, an' after a bit I put up
    a big act of shakin' hands with him, an' call for the bill. I pay
    it an' give a big buenos noches to Periera who is stickin'
    around the entrance, smilin' like he was in Heaven, an' then
    I get the car an' scram.
    I drive along till I come to the intersection an' I take the main desert road. It's still plenty hot. I step on it an' pretty soon I see this ranch. It is the usual sorta place. I pull up behind a joshua tree an' get out an' take a look around. There ain't no lights an' there ain't a sign of life. I go around the back an' it's just the same. There is a stake fence around this place an' after a bit I find a gate an' I go through. I amble up to the back veranda an' knock on the door, but nobody don't take any notice.
    I think I will try a fast one, so I put in a little heavy work on the door with a steel tool I got, an' in about two minutes I've got the lock open as good as any professional buster-in coulda done it an' I step inside.
    I pull out my electric flash. I am in a sorta little hallway that is furnished not too bad. In front of me is a passage leadin' through to the front hall an' doors each side. At the end of this passage on the right is some stairs leadin' to the floor above. I reckon that maybe what I am lookin' for is likely to be in a bedroom, so I ease along the passage an' up the stairs an' start gumshoein' around tryin' to find the dame's bedroom.
    There is four bedrooms up there. One looks like a hired girl's room an' the other is a sorta boxroom - 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 per-fume 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 OK but when I grab the