The Bamboo Blonde. Dorothy B. Hughes

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СКАЧАТЬ could have had a choice of the cars in Oppy’s garages at Malibu.

      Disappointment blurred her eyes but she rubbed it away, pretending it was the night mist now dense on the windshield. He drove the five short blocks to the main street of Belmont Shores, parked the car directly in front of his pet, the Bamboo Bar. She hadn’t been in it before. There was something ridiculously sinister in its look, like the opium-den sets in early movies. She cared even less for the interior; the greenish amber lights were too dim for seeing, especially without her glasses, and they made the color of flesh as ghastly as something photographed under water at sundown.

      Con said, “Want to sit at a table?”

      “I do.”

      “All right.” He eyed the high bamboo stools of the bar with thwarted affection.

      They took a table near the door. Con greeted the waiter fondly, “How you, Chang?”

      The waiter didn’t look as if his name were Chang; if it was, he’d changed it from Buck or Spike. He looked as if he would be a top sergeant in the tank corps if and when called for duty.

      He returned the greeting lovingly, “How’re you, Mr. Satterlee?”

      All bar waiters were Con’s intimates; all adored him. It wasn’t because he bought so many drinks; it was just something about Con, his nice horsey face, his gray eyes that could be careless or keen with equal lack of effort. She adored him too, but she was nothing but a wife. Her adoration didn’t matter to him.

      Chang-Buck took the order for two Scotches and rolled with a prizefighter’s gait over to the bar. He hadn’t acquired the cauliflower ear from palming trays. Probably one of Con’s lame ducks from past newspaper days. Probably too he was the attraction at the Bamboo Bar, the reason Con couldn’t go by it without stopping for a drink. She could just hear them with Con’s Scotch as a wailing wall, remembering Tony’s and the good old Prohibition years. Not tonight they wouldn’t! Her fury hadn’t abated one jot. She sat stiffly, her eyes beginning to accustom themselves to the lack of light.

      The room was almost empty. There were two couples, from Kansas or Iowa if looks were honest indication, having a devilish good time at one table. There were two men in the far corner, attending to the business of drinking. And perched on a stool there was a blonde girl. She was all alone and she’d evidently been there for too long a time. She was slumped forward on her elbows, her head bent over the flat top of the bar. She wore the inevitable California slack suit; it looked a sickly green-gray in this light, but so did Griselda’s own. Her face wasn’t visible.

      Chang brought the drinks. “How’s tricks, Mr. Satterlee?”

      “Can’t complain. How’s with you?”

      “Okey-dokey with me.” His voice had a rasp to it, as if his throat had a touch of prizefighter’s resin in it.

      “Travis been in tonight?”

      “Not tonight, Mr. Satterlee. His wife was here earlier.”

      Griselda put a stop to them, asking frigidly, “May I have a cigarette, Con?” She didn’t care to hear about this Kathie.

      Chang or Buck went away. There was an annoying amusement and sympathy behind his unexpressive face as if he well knew wives on rampage. It didn’t help Griselda’s temper. She didn’t feel like crying now; she felt like smashing things.

      The man who started away from the far table looked as a gentleman should. Even in this murky light his brown jacket was the right color and cut, his lighter colored slacks tailored deliberately with casualness. She looked at him again; something about the short crop of his brown curly hair, about the way he moved, straight and secure, was familiar. His head turned back to his companion and she saw the mustached profile.

      She cried out in delight, “Con, it’s Kew. Kew Brent.” No wonder she hadn’t known him immediately; he wasn’t the man to sit drinking in imitation opium dens; you only met Kew in the right places, escorting important men or beautiful women.

      “Pretend you don’t know him,” Con muttered, and then groaned, “Oh, my God,” for Kew had caught sight of them or had heard her exclamation. He came toward them, settling his ascot as he moved.

      Con muttered again, “See you later, baby.”

      “Con, you can’t,” she began, but he could. He was already walking bar-wards rudely, not even waiting to speak to Kew. Her anger rose impotently. There was no reason at all why Con should behave that way about Kew, simply because Kew liked to dress as a gentleman instead of in dirty old sneakers, antediluvian gray trousers, not deliberately casual, but impossible to be anything else; a brown coat that didn’t go at all, a blue shirt with neither tie nor ascot to give it shape. Kew was originally Con’s friend not hers, dating back to the newspaper days before Kew became the featured Washington correspondent of the greatest news service and Con the crack news commentator for the greatest broadcasting company. He was one of the few remnants from Con’s early days who wasn’t thoroughly disreputable. That was probably why Con couldn’t stand him.

      Kew greeted her, pleasure printed all over his square browned face. “Griselda, this is a good surprise. I thought you were in New York. Where’s Con off to?”

      She put her hand in his. “Grand to see you, Kew. It’s been too long.” And she shrugged, laughing to hide her displeasure. “You know Con’s thirst. He’ll be back.” She didn’t have the least assurance that he would, but one had to pretend; if he had no manners or bad ones, she must cover up for him.

      Kew asked in surprise, “But what are you doing in Long Beach? I understood you were the particular bright-haired child designer of the studios. I should have expected to run into you at the movie hideouts, not here.”

      She said simply, knowing it would explain all to one who knew him, “Con wanted to come,” and she added, “We’re married again, you know.” He probably hadn’t heard; he’d known them in their first two-year attempt, and she had met him once or twice during the four-year divorce desert.

      “Congratulations?” he grinned.

      But she didn’t answer. She was looking toward the bar. The bleached girl had moved to the stool next to Con. He was lighting her cigarette. Her face was still hidden.

      Kew’s eyes followed hers. “Who is it?”

      “I don’t know.” She turned back to him, picked up her tasteless drink. “I’ve never been here before.” But she couldn’t keep from looking again at Con and the blonde. She knew how Lot’s wife must have felt; it wasn’t being curious; it was urgency.

      And she heard the bartender say, “I’m sorry. I can’t give her another one.”

      Con’s voice was deceptively mild. “I said I’d buy the lady a drink.” Every word was distinctly audible in the small, quiet room.

      The barman repeated with unshaken stolidity, “She can’t have no more.”

      “No?” Con put his hand on the girl’s arm. “Come on, honey. I know where they’ll sell us one.”

      Griselda’s eyes widened. She saw Con help the girl away from the bar, brush past Chang-Buck’s attempted words, start with his companion across the room. The blonde had a СКАЧАТЬ