Free The Ivory Grin by Ross MacDonald Page B

thing. What you’re doing is peddling my private affairs to a dirty snooper.”
    “What’s that?” Heiss put in brightly. “I beg your pardon, lady?”
    “Don’t ‘lady’ me. Are you coming, Florie?” The woman’s voice was low, but it hummed like an overloaded electric circuit.
    “I hope there ain’t no trouble, ma’am,” the waitress said briskly behind her.
    Mrs. Benning toned to look at her. I didn’t catch the look, because the back of her dark head was towards me. The waitress backed away, holding the menu card as if to shield her chest.
    Heiss stood up, not quite so tall as she was. “I don’t know who you are, lady. I can tell you this, you got no call to molest my girl friend in public.” His face was groping foran attitude. Then his liquid gaze met hers and drooled away.
    She leaned towards him, talking in a low buzzing monotone: “I know who you are. I saw you watching the house. I heard you talking to Florie on the office extension. I’m warning you: stay away from her, and especially stay away from me.”
    “Florie has a right to her friends.” Heiss had found a manner, that of man-of-the-world, but it went bad immediately. “As for you, Mrs. Benning, if that’s what you call yourself, I wouldn’t touch you. I wouldn’t buy you for cat’s-meat—”
    She laughed in his face: “You’d never have the chance, little man. Now crawl back down your hole. If I ever see you again, I’ll knock you over with a stick the way I would a gopher. Come on, Florie.”
    Florie sat head down with her arms on the table, frightened and stubborn. Mrs. Benning took her by the wrist and hauled her to her feet. Florie didn’t resist. With dragging feet, she followed Mrs. Benning to the door. There was a taxi waiting at the yellow curb outside. By the time I reached the street, it had pulled away and lost itself in the traffic.
    I had a bad feeling that history was repeating itself, in spades. The bad feeling got worse when Heiss came up behind me and touched my arm. He touched people whenever he could, to reassure himself of his membership in the race.
    “Go and take gopher poison,” I said.
    The veined nose stood out on his pale face. “Yeah, I saw you in there. I thought you run out on me, boysie. I was consoling my bereavement with a nice fresh chunk of Mexican cactus candy.”
    “Pumping her, you mean.”
    “You unnerestimate me. I pumped Florie dry long since! They can’t resist me, boysie. What is it I got that they can’t resist me, I wonder.” His mobile mouth was working overtime, talking him back into his own good opinion.
    “What’s the pitch, Max?”
    “No dice, Archer. You got your chance to cut in, this aft. You couldn’t be bothered with me. Now I can’t be bothered.”
    “You want to be coaxed.”
    “Not me. Lay a small pinkie on me and I scream my head off.” He cast a smug eye on the crowds streaming past us, as if he was depending on them for protection.
    “You don’t know me well,” I said. “Those aren’t my methods.”
    “I know you as well as I want to,” he said. “You gave me the quick old brush this aft.”
    “Forget it. What’s the tieup with this missing man in Arroyo Beach?”
    “Come again, boysie.” He leaned against the corner post of the storefront. “I should give you something for nothing. Nobody ever gave me something for nothing. I got to roust and hustle for what I get.” With a lipstick-stained handkerchief, he wiped his face.
    “I’m not trying to take something from you, Max.”
    “That’s jakeroo, then. Good night. Don’t think it ain’t been charming.” He turned away.
    I said: “Lucy’s dead.”
    That stopped him. “What did you say?”
    “Lucy had her throat cut this afternoon.”
    “You’re stringing me.”
    “Go out to the morgue and take a look for yourself. And if you won’t tell me what you know, tell it to the cops.”
    “Maybe I will at that.” His eyes shone like brown agates lit from behind. “Well,
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