Free Red Gardenias by Jonathan Latimer

his body." She giggled. "I got you on that."
    "Well, well." He looked longingly at Delia Young's curves. "Slats is jealous, hey?"
    "With reason." Dolly's young face was wise. "She gets a few slugs under her girdle and thinks it's Christmas."
    Crane was bewildered. "Christmas?"
    "Yeah. She gets into the spirit of giving things away."
    "Oh. And Slats doesn't like that?"
    "What man would? He even went so far as to give her a bodyguard."
    "A sort of walking chastity belt, hey?"
    "Huh?"
    "That's one I got you on," Crane said. "Does the guy talk as though he had a bad needle on his phonograph?"
    She jerked away from him, stopped dancing. "Say! What do you know?"
    Other dancers began to look at them. "Nothing," he said. "I remembered someone in Marchton telling me about her, that's all."
    She allowed him to dance with her again, but her face was suspicious. "You've never seen her before?"
    "Never," he lied.
    "If Slats heard me telling this I'd get my teeth knocked out."
    "He's tough?"
    "I seen him put his fist through a door once." She squeezed his arm. "I gotta go. The show starts in five minutes. Keep out of trouble until I get back."
    "I will," he promised.
    He walked back to the table. Carmel and Dr Woodrin were there alone. Carmel said, "We thought you had gone for the evening."
    "The evening's young yet," Crane said.
    He sat down and looked for Ann and Peter, but they weren't dancing. He felt a trifle angry. Ann was supposed to be his wife, even though she wasn't. He drank some of his champagne. He decided to watch for an opportunity to meet Delia Young. He didn't know whether he was going to do it to pursue his investigations, or to annoy Ann. He guessed he didn't much care.

CHAPTER VIII
    "Bringing a strange girl to the table," Ann said, dancing as far away from him as possible. "A pickup!"
    "So that's what's the matter," Crane said.
    "No, it isn't."
    "Then why are you angry?"
    "I'm not."
    It was the last dance before the floor show. Ann had come back with Peter March and Crane had asked her to dance. She hadn't seemed enthusiastic, but she went out on the floor with him.
    "I guess I'm glad I'm not married to you," he said.
    "Not half as glad as I am."
    "I'm not really glad," he said. "I think you're swell. But don't you see I have to work?"
    "Do you call drinking and chasing after girls working?"
    "Certainly."
    "How do you think I feel, having a husband on the loose?"
    "But we're not married."
    "People think we are." Her voice was cold. "I don't like people thinking they have to be nice to me because you aren't."
    "You mean Peter?"
    She looked at him scornfully. "He's been very thoughtful."
    "I'm thoughtful, too. But I have to work."
    The orchestra was playing an old piece which Crane remembered Paul Whiteman as having played. It was a fairly fast piece, with lots of work for saxophones and trumpets, and it was hard to dance and talk. He thought the name of it was "You Took Advantage of Me." He caught sight of Delia Young's red hair in a corner of the room. She was talking to a man in a black suit.
    "Would you want me to slight my work?" he asked.
    She didn't answer and when he looked at her he was surprised to see moisture in her green eyes. He felt a tingling sensation in his stomach. He supposed it was sympathy. He felt a desire to hold her tight against his chest. That was sympathy, too.
    "I'll quit work," he said. "I'll be nice."
    "It's nothing to me what you do," she said.
    She pushed his arms away and stopped dancing and left him. She held herself very stiff in walking.
    He wondered why she had done that. It made him a little mad.
    He went into the taproom and had a double scotch and soda. He saw Williams at the end of the red bar, in conversation with the tough barman, but he ignored him. Presently Peter March came in and sat on the next stool.
    "Have a drink?" Crane said. "Sure."
    Crane ordered two more double scotch and sodas. "Aren't you drinking quite a lot?" Peter March said. "Not so much."
    "Ann... your wife