Page 77 of Shadow Ticket
“I did?”
“What I do know,” alluringly shrugs the Cheez Princess, “is you’ve let yourself in for plenty. When the Ojibwe tell you somebody’s on your duty list forever—”
“A-a-ack! Reminding you again, Tootsie Roll, how this ain’t my ticket, no matter how many of these Chippewa curveballs you keep throwin me.”
“And of course everybody in M’waukee knew all about the speedboat.”
“Not from me.”
“No,” Daphne nodding, “from me actually, and so what.”
“So I had to put up with Ole Evinrude remarks, job offers from undercover G-men for midnight hooch runs and booby-hatch crash-outs. Had me starting to feel like Fairbanks Junior or something—you discombobulated my workday as much as I did yours, but am I insisting on some contract clause? Heck no, never asked for no fugitive heiress ticket, not my specialty and did I also mention— where you going?”
“If I wanted a fifteen-minute sob story, I’d have the radio on, wouldn’t I.”
—
Hicks may havestrolled by Daphne’s hotel once or twice but hasn’t till now set foot inside, being reminded of places he tends to get thrown out of or at best told to move along from. Tonight however, seems Daphne has been busy sweet-talking the management. “What a pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. McTaggart. Madame expects you, please follow me.” Delivered with a face just managing to avoid the well-known bellboy smirk.
The second he clears the doorsill, before the door has even latched behind him, Hicks understands that Daphne has timed this whole routine so it’ll look like he’s catching her by surprise. “Oh—I must be early, hey.”
“Didn’t want you to miss the aldehyde fractions.” She’s sporting one ofthese black yet see-through negligee getups, while with somepoweredatomizer, valves and gauges all over it, she now triggers into the room an enormous cloud of scent, slips off the fancy kimono and steps, pale as a crescent moon, this freckle-dusted beauty, into the patch of fragrance that hangs in the air, strangely coherent, like it’s waiting there for her. “Brand-new, House of Tuvaché, Jungle Gardenia. Come on in, it isn’t riot gas.”
“Try to tend to business smelling like this all through next week? thanks, Toots, I don’t need the attention. Jungle what?”
“Too late, you’re in trouble now, way past the five-second limit in fact, nothing can resist it, not even the shine on that cheap suit—”
“Off the rack, maybe,” Hicks protests, nevertheless toppling on in, “but it probably cost— hey, careful with that, what do you think you’re doing—”
“You know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, but do I know what I’m doing.”
For a second he thinks he can see past the nightclub eyes, the scarlet lipstick, back to the nervous kid climbing off that rumrunner’s special like an explorer facing into who knew how much unmapped land, Nicolet or one of them, stepping ashore once upon a time thinking it’s only a short day-sail from Green Bay to China, its deep splendor, its mystery…
And then back comes the postdated debutante on the run, to reclaim this present hour of shenanigans, hammering away in clouds of jungle perfume and cigarette smoke…
“Forget what they sent you for…be the lost and found just for me…”
Which you’d think would be an improvement on all the “You big ape” types of remark he’s gotten used to, not that sometimes it isn’t agreeable to be taken for a big ape, especially one with what’s known as a One-Track Mind, many’s the dame who enjoys that and why shouldn’t she?
Later, no closer to being back out of unfamiliar territory, sentimentally swaying to music on the Victrola. “Swell that we finally got around to this.”
“That night on the speedboat? you know you could’ve made me do anything.”
“And it ain’t till now that I find out, swell, here just let me flag down a—oh…oh, Time Machine? uh huh? over here?”
A number of pauses to flip the record over, or sometimes forget to.
“Yes and while we’re on the subject, you’re sure, Daphne, now, about your—about, um, that Hop Wingdale? who could come strolling in here any minute—you’re sure he don’t mind that we…”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but we have a free and forgiving arrangement, yes many’s the time I’ve come upon him in the sweaty clutches of some Swing Girl barely into her teens, Louise Brooks hairdo, nighttime makeup in the daylight hours and all, ah but then whybrewed, as Schlitz said to Pabst, as long as Hop and I each do get to have our own adventures you see. Are you waiting for details? I hope not.”
“Had my mouth open again, didn’t I.”
“Hop is dear to me,” she advises, “beyond anything a kicked-around peeper such as yourself may be able to grasp, and frankly I don’t mind admitting as an off-and-on praying person that I’m praying for his safety right now. Which is already more than you need to know.”
“Fair enough except for maybe one or two details, like, oh would he be packing a heater of any kind, and how ready would he be to, you know…”
