Part 16

Do you know, that twerp suggested an orgy? Ambitious little thing.

So I was engaged, to a man who thought I was a woman. Things were just peachy.

A little later Joe and I were dressed in our floatiest, summery frocks and on our way down to the lobby. In the elevator I examined my bracelet again. "I feel like such a tramp--taking jewelry from a man under false pretenses."

Joe shrugged. "Get it while you're young. Your bosum isn't gonna be firm forever."

"It will as long as the foam rubber lasts."

"Oh, yeah. I forget sometimes."

"Tell me about it. It's just going to break his heart when he finds out I can't marry him."

The elevator let us off in the lobby, and Joe said, "You'd better fix your lips. You want to look good for Osgood."

Well, that was true. He had such a high opinion of me, and a girl gets inspired by that sort of admiration. So I took out a lipstick and mirror and started my touch up.

There was something a little different in the reflection, so I glanced over at it. Huh. There seemed to be some sort of convention. The lobby was busier than ever, lots of the guests wearing suits instead of resort wear. The banner over the check in desk said WELCOME DELEGATES 10TH ANNUAL CONVENTION FRIENDS OF ITALIAN OPERA. Oh, a CULTURAL crowd. Well, we probably wouldn't see much of them in the ballroom, what with the hot stuff we played.

The odd thing was that they seemed to have some sort of little check in station set up, masked of from the lobby by a screen. I was at just the perfect angle to see behind it. There was a table with a couple of big wire baskets on it, and the two men behind the table seemed to be greeting the five men who'd just arrived.

It was a funny sort of greeting, though. The greeter was... Well, I wouldn't have objected to that sort of welcome, if the guy was cute. He almost looked like he was getting groped. Then the greetee did the same thing to him. I'm telling you, it warmed my heart. That was until he pulled out a gun and dropped it in the already overflowing basket.

The official shook a gun out of the bottom of one leg of a man's knickers, and bullets out of the other. Then he pulled a sub machinegun out of the guy's golf bag, and I heard the golfer protesting that it was his mashie.

Now, all of this was bad enough, mind you. What was worse was the dapper gent who stepped out from behind the screen and perused the lobby. He was wearing a neat, conservative suit. But the spats on his shoes made him not only natty, but terrifying. Spats Colombo.

Deer in the headlights, rabbit staring at a snake, person who woke up with an ugly date sleeping on their arm. You know--frozen. I couldn't move. Joe was busy adjusting his girdle as discreetly as possible, and didn't notice right away.

A big, Irish looking fellow who'd been reading a newspaper got up and greeted Spats with a smile. Spats did not look pleased to see him. The guy looked vaguely familiar, and I finally realized where I'd seen him before. In the speak easy right before the raid, ventilating his cigar with the pin of a police badge.

He said, "Well, a Spats Colombo, if I ever saw one."

Spats was smooth, I'll give him that. "Hello, copper. What brings you down to Florida?"

"I heard you opera-lovers were having a little rally, so I thought I better be around in case anybody decides to sing. Say, Maestro, where were you at three o'clock on Valentine's Day?"

"Me? I was at Rigoletto."

"What's his first name? Where does he live?"

Spats sneered. "That's an opera, you ignoramus."

Mulligan wasn't phased. "Where did they play it, in a garage on Clark Street?"

"Clark Street? Never heard of it."

Ever hear of the Deluxe French Cleaners on Wabash Avenue? The day after the shooting you sent in a pair of spats with blood on them."

"I cut myself shaving."

"You shave with your spats on?"

"I sleep with my spats on. I do everything with my spats on." He smirked. "Ask my girlfriend."

"Quit kidding. You ventilated Toothpick Charlie, and we know it."

"You and who else?"

"Me and those two witnesses whom your lawyers have been looking for all over Chicago." Uh-oh. I knew it. "One of these days we'll dig up those guys."

"That's what you'll have to do--dig them up." They started toward the elevator.

Joe was still talking. "So what? Sugar's going to be disappointed when she finds out I'm not a millionaire. That's life. Ya can't make an omelette without breaking an egg. Why yap? You got a bracelet, you got a yacht, you got Osgood, and I got Sugar. We're cooking with gas."

"Cooking an omlette with gas. Well, Josephine, the omelette is about to hit the fan." I held my mirror so he could see Spats Colombo approaching.

Joe grabbed my arm. "C'mon, Daphne." We started back toward the elevators. And we would have gotten up before they arrived if that fresh bellhop hadn't practically run us down with that wheelchair bound duffer he was taking out for a stroll. We got in and told the elevator operator, "Going up!"

But Spats said, "Hold it!" and the greedy little lift operator, conscious of possible tips, had the nerve to hold it.

They got on. As the doors started to close, Spats eyed us. "I don't mean to be forward, but ain't I had the pleasure of meeting you two broads before?"

We exchanged looks. I spoke up. "Oh, no. You must be thinking of two other broads."

One of the goons, who was looking far too interested, said, "You ever been in Chicago?"

I turned up my nose. "We wouldn't be caught dead in Chicago." Oh, I tell you, men! Their eyes just crawled all over us.

We reached the third floor, the one they wanted, and another goon said, with a leer. "What floor are you on?"

Joe shook a finger at him. "Never you mind!"

Unfortunately Joe was holding our room key. The goon looked at it and read the number on it. "413. We'll be in touch."

As they exited I snapped, "Don't call us, we'll call you." I really didn't like that last look Spats threw at us as the doors closed.

Up in our room, without another word, we hauled out the suitcases and started packing. But... Well, you know me. I can never keep quiet for long.

"I tell you Joe, they're on to us. They're going to stand us up against a wall and rat-a-tat-tat, and the police are going to find two dead dames, and they're going to take us to the ladies' morgue, and I am going to just die of shame.

I started to put my orchid corsage in my case, and Joe jerked it out and tossed it in the wastebasket. "Not that, you idiot."

I got huffy. What did he care what I packed? "But they're from Osgood. He wanted me to wear them tonight. My first corsage from him." I sighed and started to pack my maracas. "I'll never find another man who'll be so good to me."

Joe had pulled out that yachting cap, and was turning it over in his hands, staring at it thoughtfully. I continued, "I suppose if we get out of this hotel alive we'll have to sell the bracelet to get a stake." I sighed. It wasn't so much the idea of losing the bracelet, but the fact that Osgood had given it to me. But this was a desperate situation. "We can grab a boat to South America and hole up in one of those banana republics." I put the bracelet back in its little jewelry box. "If we eat nothing but bananas we can live there for fifty, maybe even a hundred years. That is if we get out of this hotel alive."

Joe had picked up the phone. "Give me room 414."

I gaped. "What do you think you're doing? Who has time for a telephone call?"

"I can't just walk out on Sugar without saying goodbye."

I put my hands on my hips. "Well, I like that! Since when can't you? Udually you leave 'em with nothing but a kick in the teeth and your bills."

He looked pios. "That was when I was a saxophone player. Now I'm a millionaire."

I threw up my hands. "Nuttier than my Mom's Christmas fruitcake. Drop her a postcard. Any minute those gorillas may be up here to *cough cough* get acquainted."

He wasn't listening. He was busy using a Southern accent to pretend to be a ship-to-shore operator.