The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

“Excuse me, baby, but I got to make a phone call. Just wait for me.”

The Negro orchestra was blowing so loud it shook the phone booth, but I finally got Sam, the hotel clerk. He was an inquisitive cuss, and I figured that by this time he would know everything the police did. I asked him if the cops had identified the corpse.

“Sure,” he said. “Where are you?”

“You just answer questions and one of these days I’ll give you a winner.”

He said the stiff was identified as a Roscoe Jancey, a member of a New York brokerage firm.

“How much money did he have on him?” I asked.

“Fourteen bucks and twenty cents. But at the St. Charles — that’s where he was staying — he’d put five hundred in the safe.”

“Did he have any big certified checks on him, or in the safe?”

“There’s none listed,” Sam said. “What’s your idea?”

“That lanky Boston lawyer, Linden Blumberry, brought down a big check for McCracken. And you said the dead man was a broker. I thought maybe he’d brought one too.”

Sam was quiet a moment before he said, “He didn’t bring the one Mr. Blumberry had. That was on a Boston firm and had to be countersigned by Blumberry himself.”

“Not that one,” I said. “But there may be some damn fool who wanted to steal the one he did bring.” And I hung up and went back to the booth and finished my brandy flip.

The waiter stuck his head in and looked at the empty glass, and then at me with some new respect. He said, “Little man, what now?”

“A metropolitan cocktail.”

The girl said, “When you make mine this time, use the big eyedropper to put the liquor in my water. I got to have something to help me stand up under this guy’s conversation. I swear to Gawd he’s about to talk my ear off.”

Doug brought the drinks back and put mine gently on the table. “I’ll bring the lilies with the next one,” he said. The guy underestimated me.

“You don’t have to worry as long as I stick to straight brandy,” I said. “I always stick to brandy when I’m drinking fairly steady.”

“Oh,” the girl said. “So that’s straight brandy?”

“With gum syrup, caroni bitters, and French vermouth thrown in,” the waiter said. “The bartender’s sprained his back looking under the shelf for bottles that ain’t had the dust off ’em since he bought this place.” He closed the booth door and went away.

The girl said, “How’d you ever learn the names of all them drinks? You read ’em in a book somewhere? Or’d you used to be a bartender?”

“I used to be a jockey,” I said. “I was raised around horses; I never had more than two bits at a time until I was sixteen and started riding; and all at once I was in the big money. Of course, after three years I was too heavy and out of the money again, but when I had it, I had plenty. I had to train most of the time, but on Saturday nights I’d go out with the other jockeys and, because we didn’t know any better, we’d order whatever looked the fanciest and cost the most. I got to where I liked the things.”