Nothing to Lose But My Life Read Free Page B

“Because we both have problems.” She reached for her fur. “I’ll have to go or I’ll be missed. Are you staying here?”
    “Bungalow eight,” I said.
    “Thank you,” she murmured. We rose and she turned to leave. “I want to talk to you very much.”
    “I’m always glad to be of aid to a lady,” I said in my best Texan.
    “This may be the other way around,” she said. “Good night, Lowry Curtis.”
    I watched her go, sat down until I stopped shaking inside, and then went to my bungalow. I put on my tuxedo, took a black coat and hat, and went out to find a taxicab. Settled, I said casually, “Nikke’s.”
    “Which one?”
    I had to think that one over. To me Nikke’s meant just the one place—on the Hill. Tonight I wanted Enid Proctor, not Nikke himself, so I said, “The big one, south.”
    “That’s a long way, mister.”
    I showed him a bill. “I can cover.”
    We went.
    • • •
    This wasn’t Nikke’s. There was none of his stamp on the place. This was cold and chromed and hard without any of the soft charm that was reminiscent of a time of gracious living, the charm Nikke had imbued his own place with. I entered a small dining-room bar where there was no one but a bored-looking barman. Behind him was a door and I started for it.
    He jerked a thumb toward another door on my left. “Through there, bud.”
    I went through. There was a small lobby, the kind you see in a middle-class hotel. There was a counter at one side and a cloak room opposite. Between them was another door. A man was behind the counter, his elbows on it, his chin propped in his hands. He was intent on a photography magazine that was mostly pictures of girls pretending to be nude.
    “Do I go through here?” I said.
    He lifted his head, letting me see little brown eyes set in a greasy face. He had a toothpick in one corner of his mouth. “What you after?”
    No, this wasn’t Nikke’s. I got sore. If this outfit wanted to play it rude, I would too. I had learned in the last five years that there were times and places where throwing my weight around was useful. This looked like one of the times and one of the places.
    I said, “I’m lonesome and thirsty and ready to howl. And I’m loaded, bub.”
    He shifted his toothpick. “That a fact?”
    I walked up until I was pressed against the counter. “You hear me.”
    He laid out one hand, palm up. He was expecting a bill. I gave him the edge of my hand down across his nose and lips so that the toothpick broke off short. He ducked back, his foot going for a button on the floor and his hand reaching under the counter. I reached, got his wrist, and threw him off balance. A knife dropped from his fingers. With my grip on his wrist, I held him forward, out of reach of the floor button.
    “Just tell me the procedure,” I said.
    “You register,” he said. “Name, address, fifty bucks initiation fee. This is a club.” He didn’t like saying it but I still had his wrist in my hand. I let it go. He rubbed the wrist and then his nose. He hated me.
    I saw a half-pint girl staring at me from the checkroom. I said, “Is that right?”
    “Yes, sir.” She whispered it.
    I took fifty dollars from my wallet. I let my friend see that I had a lot more, enough more to make even his eyes widen. “Name, Lowry Curtis. Portview Motel.” I laid the fifty down and watched him fill out a card in duplicate, I got the top half.
    “Let’s remember that name after this,” I said.
    He pressed a button on the desk top, not answering me. The door opened and one of the biggest and strangest-looking men I had ever seen appeared. He stood close to seven feet and had a miniscule head perched on narrow, sloping shoulders and almost no neck in between. He went down to wide, womanish hips, thin shanks and too-small feet. When he walked, his balance was bad. His arms were long and his hands massive. He had blue eyes and tallow-colored hair, and he simpered when he spoke to me.
    “This way.” His