Dames Don’t Care Read Free Page B

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 OK.
    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 comm' between the window shades.
    I go up to the entrance an' it is all fastened up. Then I think of the wire windo~vs 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 window 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 walls because I know that the passage leads straight out front.
    I get over the bar because I reckon 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 storeroom. 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 icebox. It is filled with sacks. In the second icebox 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 icebox an' close it like it was. Then I get outa the storeroom, 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.

CHAPTER 2
    THE LOW DOWN
     
    A nyhow I have got the letters.
    When I am about ten miles from Palm Springs I slow down. I light a cigarette an' I do a little thinkin'. It looks to me as if it is no good makin' any schmozzle about Sagers bein' bumped off, because if I do it is a cinch that I am goin' to spoil the chance of my gettin' next to this counterfeit bezuzus.
    I suppose whoever it was