replaced the envelope and hurried into the lobby. The clerk at the desk handed him three bills and a telephone message. The message was from May. Joe hummed to himself as he read it in the elevator. It said:
Goggles happier and fatter and much better company. We both hope you keep away for a while.
He scowled and stuffed the note in his pocket. Goggles. That smut-smeared Siamese.
As he opened the door to his room, one of the two men who had been lounging on the bed got up. He was a good-looking red-headed boy except for a nose that looked like something the Germans did to Poland. Contact with leather had also failed to improve his left ear. He had freckled, healthy skin and his blue eyes were clear and guileless. The grin he gave Joe as he entered revealed large glistening teeth. He was naked except for a pair of athletic trunks. His name was James Michael Kierney. Joe liked him.
The other man was different. He didn’t rise, but one side of his mouth lifted in a brief grin as he said, “Cheer-o.” If James Michael Kierney looked like a well-thumped punching bag David Kitchener Carton was the life-size dream picture of every blonde, brunette and red-head from Passamaquoddy to San Francisco Bay. Six feet two, with dark hair graying at the temples, “Kitch” Carton was the composite of Anthony Eden and Ronald Colman in a rôle designed for Lawrence of Arabia. His accent was clipped close to ground that had never seen Harvard Yard. His age might have been anything from thirty-five to forty-five.
Kierney spied the red spots on Joe’s shirt.
“So you been catchin’ ’em on the Old shnozola, huh? Who hung that one on you, Joey? Did that high-class mouthpiece get tough?”
Joe looked patronizing.
“My boy, you’ve left so many of your fine, virile corpuscles in the rings of second-rate prelims you haven’t enough blood left to recognize it when you see it. This isn’t blood, slap-happy. This is ink. Red ink. Van Pelt only makes passes at people with skirts on.”
Carton grinned.
“So we’re still in the red? Inconsiderate of you to go about displaying our financial status on your shirt front.”
Joe shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Listen, boys,” he pleaded. “How many times do I have to tell you there’s a swell strike over in Jersey praying for guys like you. Eight bucks a day for walking scabs through picket lines. The only place those dumb strikers ever think of heaving a brick is at your heads. It’ll be a push-over for you.”
Kierney removed the cap from the rye and held it under the detective’s nose. “See this, Joey? When you’re ready to talk you get a swig of it. How’s about it?”
Joe said, “All right. Gimme it.” He took a long drink, winced and leaned back against the foot of the bed. He hesitated, scowled at each of them and began, “It’s like this . . .”
“It is like hell,” Kierney snapped. “We want the straight dope, Joey.”
“I’m giving it to you, but for cripe’s sake stop calling me Joey. It’s just a simple job of playing bodyguard to a Little Lord Fauntleroy who’s been matching pennies with the gang from the wrong side of the tracks.”
Carton said, “Guarding him from what?”
“Everything and anything. The kid’s a fugitive from the Blue Book and the family’s trying to hook him back on the leash. You can’t blame the kid for that, but he’s doing it the wrong way. This guy apparently sets up all the pins in the Social Register, then steps back and bowls them over. According to Van Pelt he’s been seen around in the hot spots with a couple of hoods for the past year. That’s a part of my job. To keep him away from them—or see that he keeps ticking while he’s with them.”
“And the other part?”
“What do you think? A dame, of course. There aren’t enough front-row sable-and-station-wagon gals to go around, so this guy plucks one out of the front-row-center—chorus—I mean. She’s probably a looker, but even the best of them can’t trot their oomph around in the horse-show set and come up with the blue ribbons.”
Joe left his chair and posed with arms outstretched like a traffic cop. “So here I am. St. Joseph South, protector against fortune hunters with one hand; gangsters with the other. At a price, of course.”
Carton said lazily, “As we say in America, that’s screwy.” He gave Joe a thoughtful look. “I’m not questioning your version, Joey. I’m merely wondering about the job itself. I can’t understand why a law firm—one as respectable as Van Pelt’s, that is—should want to risk its reputation by hiring a detective with a suspended license to act as a bodyguard to one of its clients. I am assuming, of course, that your friend Van Pelt does have a reputation to risk.”
Joe moved to the telephone. “You seem to forget that all three of us have worked for Van Pelt before. And when it comes to reputation he has more waxed up in his little mustache than the Bank of England, Why the suspicion?”
Carton shrugged. “Doing behind-the-scenes research for corporations and playing bodyguard in the open are hardly the same things. My suspicion is based solely on the opinion that Mr. Van Pelt seems scarcely the type who’d hire anyone to take care of a playboy client. The point being that every counselor with a license to practice prays nightly for a wealthy client endowed with the extraordinary faculty of getting into trouble. Deliberately taking steps to keep one out seems like lighting five-cent cigars with fifty-pound notes. In short, it’s not like Van Pelt.”
Joe picked up the telephone. “Sound logic, Kitch,” he agreed. “Damned sound. But you’re overlooking several important facts. First, Van Pelt isn’t just the kid’s lawyer. He’s one of the two trustees of the estate. Guarding the lad isn’t his idea. That little inspiration comes from Parker Raleigh. Get that! Mr. Parker Raleigh, the guy’s uncle!”
Carton whistled softly. The mention of Parker Raleigh to anyone who doesn’t skip the financial pages was tantamount to quoting the cost of a naval program—or at least a couple of destroyers.
“Then that makes you the kid’s new scoutmaster?”
“The same. Which brings me to point number two. He isn’t a playboy in the usual sense. He’s not exactly a playboy, and he’s not wealthy. Not yet, he isn’t. That’s coming—the money, I mean—in a couple of months. If he marries he gets it right off. And that’s what’s got the relatives frothing at the mouth. They don’t want their family crest kicked around by a dame who’s not top drawer. Personally, I think it’s because they’re not enthusiastic about having a little oomph-and-hips gal becoming Mrs. Richard Raleigh and worming her heart into the family strong-box.”
“Did Van Pelt tell you that?”
“Unh-unh! That’s my idea. Van Pelt wasn’t doing much telling. He’s mainly worried about the Raleigh kid running around with thugs. He’s afraid that one of these days he’ll come floating down East River with baling wire where his tie ought to be.”
“And what’s he up to—running about with police characters?”
“Because of the terms of a will. Apparently his old man knew what he’d be like. Under the trust fund he gets just about enough to squeak along on until he’s twenty-six. That’s still a couple of months off. In the meantime he’s been spending a lot
