Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2
As I walked through the lobby, I took a better look at the two bruisers. The larger, standing by the staircase, had a face as roughly textured as a second-hand football. He wore a gray suit. The other man, while not as tall, was almost as wide through the shoulders as the back of a Greyhound bus. Someone had sold him a Harris Tweed (ugh!) double-breasted suit.
I climbed into a cab at the hack stand on the corner and told the driver to go around the block. The traffic was heavy, and it took almost four minutes to complete the circuit. As I had suspected, Miss Brechin was already outside and standing on the sidewalk. She looked nervously up and down the block. There isn't a woman in the world that can follow instructions and I'd counted on this fact when I had told her to wait eight minutes.
"Stop here," I told the driver. He slammed on the brakes and I whistled. Miss Brechin ran blindly across the street, narrowly avoiding an up-dragging cable car, and got in beside me. I pulled the door shut.
"Drive down to Market," I instructed the driver, "and turn right to Van Ness. Take another right at Geary and when you hit the Union Square Garage, pull inside."
Miss Brechin looked out of the window and bit her thumbnail. The hackie moved the heavy vehicle out with a jerk and I settled back in the seat.
"Relax," I told her. "We'll get rid of them."
"I've tried cabs before." She shook her head. "I think there's too much traffic to get away."
We were on Market Street, and I couldn't see anyone behind us. The driver barked over his shoulder: "I just thought of something. I can't make a left turn into the Union Square Garage. There's a sign."
"Don't worry about it," I said. "You make the turn anyway. It'll only take a minute and you can dodge out the other side. If you get a ticket, I'll take care of you."
"I'll try it--"
We turned right at Geary and the driver made good time to the Square. Ignoring the NO LEFT TURN sign he angled his wheels hard and skidded to a stop inside the garage. We got out of the cab and I handed him twenty bucks. I took Miss Brechin by the arm and led her into the tunnel.
"Where does this go?"
"To the lobby of the Saint Francis," I said.
"I never knew this tunnel was here."
"I'm hoping your friends don't know about it either."
As soon as we gained the lavish lobby I took a short breather, reaching for a cigarette. Then I remembered they were still on my desk, and with the girl holding my arm, I headed for the cigar counter. The man in the gray suit was smoking a cigar and leaning against the counter. His leathery face wore a wide grin. He lifted the brim of his hat, pulled it down again.
"Oh, there you are, Miss Brechin."
"Where's your friend?" I asked pleasantly, hiding my chagrin.
"He's outside waiting in the car, but we aren't taking you along. I'd like to, but it's a private party. Some other time, maybe."
He was cocky, well pleased with himself. Miss Brechin's face was pale except for her cheeks. They had turned a mottled red. She gave me a helpless look, and that did it. I stretched my arms out; my left above my head, my right almost to my knee, and yawned as if I were bored. I brought my right fist up from my knee and caught the man in the belly, an inch above his belt buckle. His lungs were full of cigar smoke and the smoke belched out of his mouth with a loud whoof. His knees sagged and he dropped to the floor in a praying position.
"Let's go!" I said. We walked briskly through the lobby toward the Powell Street entrance, ignoring the looks passed our way. A cab was waiting in the white zone and the doorman opened the door for us. We climbed inside, and he closed the door.
"Golden Gate Park," I said. The driver bluffed his way into the traffic stream. "I still haven't got a cigarette."
"Here," Miss Brechin said, taking a pack of Marlboros out of her purse. "Oh, that was simply wonderful! The look of surprise on his face was marvelous. I didn't expect you to hit him!"
"Neither did he."
When we reached the park I had the driver circle through the grounds for five minutes before I was satisfied no one was following us. It was almost dark and the rain was coming down as hard as ever.
"We've lost them," I said. "Where do you want to go now?"
"My car is parked in the lot at Eighth and Market."
"Do they know it?"
"I don't think so. I had some work done on it yesterday and I told the mechanic to park it there for me. I gave him a fifty dollar tip..."
"Drive to the parking lot at Eighth and Market," I told the driver. I leaned back on the seat and closed my eyes. Tomorrow I could expect two visitors. Perhaps I should wear my gun. The man in the gray suit surely would be looking for a little revenge for the belt in the belly. I sighed. Sometimes a hundred bucks a day didn't seem to be enough money for what I had to go through to earn it. Then I smelled perfume. Soft lips covered mine and an arm curled around my neck. I opened my eyes. Miss Brechin's firm, insistent tongue pried my teeth apart and I responded gallantly. The kiss lasted a long time. She was the first to break away, not me. She folded her hands self-consciously in her lap.
"That was for being so brave. And if that isn't good enough for an excuse, I'll think of another."
"If you can't think of another one, ask me," I said.
We got her blue Bentley out of the parking lot and she drove through town to the cut-over for the Golden Gate Bridge.
"There's a place in Sausalito that you'll like, Blake." With only one kiss, we were now on a first-name relationship. "We can have dinner, and maybe dance afterward. I haven't been out in a long time."
"Suits me, Cynthia. After a day like today I could stand a drink and a steak."
I watched her as she drove. She was expert enough, although I thought she took too many chances darting in and out of traffic. She concentrated on what she was doing, however, and kept the Bentley under perfect control. After we crossed the bridge we dropped down the narrow winding two-lane highway that led to Sausalito. When the road leveled she made a left turn up an unpaved cliff road, dropped to low-drive, and we twisted and turned for two miles before we reached the top of the cliff and swerved into a gravel parking lot. A blue neon sign flashed intermittently from the roof of a long, low red-brick building:
THE KNOCKOUT CLUB
"Ever been to this place, Blake?"
"I didn't know it was here. I don't have a car."
"You'll like it."
She parked as close to the building as she could and we dashed for it through the wet. I checked our raincoats and my hat while she went into the ladies' room. The bored headwaiter raised his chin and lowered his eyelids the way they do and I held up two fingers. He nodded and I got a pack of Camels out of the machine next to the checkroom. I smoked one and a half cigarettes while I waited for Cynthia. The wait was worth every minute of it. When she appeared, Cynthia had undergone a complete transformation. She looked as if she had spent the entire afternoon in a beauty parlor. Her fine dark hair was piled high on top of her head and held in place with two plain silver combs. She had added the faintest blush to her cheeks and colored her full lips a coral red.
We were early and there were only a few other couples on hand. The room was large, dark, and lighted solely by the electric candles on the occupied tables. I told the waiter to bring us two Martinis while we looked over the menu.
"You'll like the trio, Blake." Cynthia smiled. "They're nervous.
"Fine. I like nervous trios. What do you want to eat?"
"You order. Men are so much better at ordering than women are."
I ordered two rare sirloins and while we waited we drank our second Martini. She didn't ask for my olive and I liked her for this one non-feminine trait.
We didn't talk to each other, because we both had the same thing on our minds, and talking wasn't necessary. How long would we have, and would there be enough time to do what we wanted to do before her father's bodyguards caught up with us? After the kiss in the cab I could easily see why Gray Brechin kept a guard on his daughter. She wasn't the type who is hard-to-get; she was anxious-to-get!
The steaks arrived, swimming in mushroom gravy, and with their appearance the curtain behind the ridiculously small dance floor swept upward and revealed the imprisoned trio on the raised stand. It was a colored trio consisting of guitar, accordion and bongo drums. They wore tuxedo trousers and red dinner jackets. White ties. They started off right with a mambo arrangement of Tangerine, and the bongo thumper did things with the beat that I didn't know were possible.
"Let's dance," I said, and I took a large bite of steak to hold me over for a while.
"Do you know what they call themselves?" We picked our way through the empty tables to the dance floor.
"No," I said, chewing.
"The Knockout Drops."
We started to dance. Cynthia was remarkably good. She clung to me like jello to a molding tin, following my lead as though we'd practiced the mambo at Arthur Murray's for ten years. When the music stopped we walked over to the stand. The leader smiled widely and hit three questioning chords on his guitar.
"Please play, 'I Got It Bad--'"
"And that ain't good!" He finished for me.
"Play it." I opened my wallet. The smallest I had was a ten-dollar bill. I gave it to him. "Play it ten times."
"Yes, sir!" He slammed his foot down and they went into it. The first time through they played it slow, not sickening slow but danceable. After the third chorus some of the other dancers threw hard looks at the trio. The bongo bumper sang the fourth chorus and he was so good nobody minded the repetition of the song. Perfect enunciation, and yet you didn't exactly follow the words. Just the meaning. Before he finished the chorus I led Cynthia across the room to the side double-doors leading outside. We closed the doors behind us and we were standing on a narrow three-foot ledge that overlooked the parking lot. The night was inky black and it was still raining. We were partly protected by a striped awning, but now and then the wind would whip the rain in on us and it would get to our legs. Through the white-curtained double-door I could see a man and a woman eating at a table, less than three feet away from us. This lent an extra excitement to my ardor, along with the knowledge that any car entering the parking lot with its lights on would pick us out against the building. I pulled Cynthia hard against me and kissed her.
"Here?" I asked.
"Oh, yes! Here! Now!"
I gathered the hem of her skirt in my fingers, and lifted. The heat of her body reached out for my hands. The flesh of her was firm and yet oddly relaxed. She wasn't wearing much beneath the skirt. In an instant it was all over. Fiercely and abruptly. Cynthia arranged herself, opened the door and walked across the dining room to the ladies' room. I had to light and take several drags on a cigarette before my hands stopped shaking enough for me to go back inside. When I did go in the man eating by the door looked at my face and gave me a wide grin. I wiped my face and mouth with the palm of my hand and got rid of the lipstick.
The trio was still playing "I Got It Bad." I laughed out loud on my way to the men's room. Cynthia would hardly be satisfied with the rapidity of my attack; we'd have to do better than that...
Cynthia still hadn't returned to our table when I got back from the men's room, so I crossed to the trio stand and talked with the leader.
"That was real low down," I complimented him. "Very nice."
"That's the way we play it," he said seriously. "We're specialists. Real spelunkers. All the way down!" He grinned happily.
"Play it ten more times." I took a ten-dollar bill out of my wallet.
"Man, I can't do it," he said, shaking his head from side to side, his eyes on the bill in my hand. "You want me to get fired?"
"Okay. Take it anyway."
"Thank you, sir!" He examined the bill into his pocket.
Cynthia still hadn't returned, but I started in on my steak. It was cold, but it tasted wonderful. Cynthia appeared, and I held her chair for her. Her eyes were very bright.
"Our two hours are up," she said unhappily.
"Don't worry about it. Eat your steak. You'll need it."