Free Noir by Robert Coover Page B

something or someone else, but who wasn’t there when you were able to turn and look, nothing left but maybe a trace of his sweet cigar smoke. Was it just a coincidence he was so often somewhere in the picture? You didn’t think so. Blanche went on running the toy soldiers ad, tabulating the inquiries, sending out photos to some, waiting for the call from Mister Big, and one day Blanche gave you a thumbs-up signal and handed you the phone. Some guy named Marle who said he represented a bigtime buyer and wanted you to meet him in the Vendome Café, bring along a few of the figures. You said you’d bring photos. There was a hesitation before he agreed. Was he muttering to someone? You decided to go armed.
    The Vendome Café was a dimly lit joint near the arena where the scalpers hung out, offering straight sales or a poker game at the back with tickets as their stakes. As soon as you stepped into the place, you smelled the cigar. And there he was, poised serenely at a back table in his white three-piece suit and fob watch chain, his panama on the table alongside a teacup like a signboard. Fat Agnes. As you drew near, you were struck by the way his little cleft chin sat like a bauble in the middle of his neck folds. No jaw line. Sad blue eyes. Button nose. A few strands of colorless hair combed across the top of his dome. He looked startled as you approached him as if about to grab up his panama and run. Hey, mister, are you Noir? some guy asked at the table you’d just passed. It was Marle. You were mistaken. When you looked back, Fat Agnes was gone. Just a cigar butt in an ashtray, still smoldering.
    Marle affected a goatee and granny glasses, a leather jacket, black string tie. You showed him the photos with your left hand, ready to draw with your right. He glanced at them cursorily, said he’d have to see the miniatures themselves. You said you’d show them only to the buyer he represented. There were four other leather-jacketed guys at different tables all watching you. You figured they were together. You also figured you were zoning in on your target. You nodded at them all and left. It was the closest you ever got to Fat Agnes, but you heard from Marle again.

    BEFORE YOU HANG UP (YOU SKIP THE BREAK-IN, YOUR visit to the Shed) you book a bill-dipping meet with Snark at the Star Diner, hoping you can make it, there are a lot of things you’ve got to talk about, then you hurry back through the misty night to the burlesque house. But there’s no red light, no stage door. You must have taken a wrong turning. You double back to get your bearings, cannot find the phone booth. Probably you’ve been winding your way through the smugglers’ burrows too long, you’re disoriented. You spy just a brief flicker of white at the far end of the street like a butterfly wing. Then darkness again. You know that a shot could ring out in the night, the last thing you’d hear. You press up against the wall of a building, eyes alert in all directions, and sidle along warily, sniffing the wet night air. You might be able to find the docklands by nose alone.
    You reach a corner and, drawing the .45, throw yourself around it, crashing into a young girl in fancy but disheveled duds staggering your way on the lonely street. If the collision hadn’t knocked the gun out of your hand, you might have shot her. A kid still in her teens. She has been drinking but that’s probably the least of it. She stands there, weaving confusedly, trying to focus on you, a stray black curl swaying prettily on her forehead, then she falls into your arms. Take me home? she pleads wispily.
    A lone cab rolls by out of the night and you hail it. The address she gives the cabbie is in a spiffy part of town. In the cab, she collapses against your shoulder and drops off, her childish hand falling, as if by accident, between your legs. Knowing winks and grimaces from the pug-faced cabbie in the rearview mirror. You wonder if you’ve seen him somewhere before. The