The Line Is Dead | Page 2

both of us. Look at the shoe- leather we'd save, not hustling back and forth over the bridge from my place to yours. We'd get a bigger place, on the ground floor, right off the patio with the two marble lions."
"On Toulouse Street? Mmmm. . . I'd love it."
"Exemption with golden hoofs! And every time I put you on the list of dependents, we'd tap the till for dinner at Antoine's, and then we'd go to the Slave Exchange to heckle the boss till he mixed a pousse cafe the hard way."
"And exchange me for another slave? Oh, quit trying to fascinate me that way! How's the patrol service?"
Between telling her of the clients he was getting, warehouse owners along the waterfront, pouring a refill of Pedro Domecq, and completing the ruin of Alma's makeup, he was quite certain that he was safely on the right side of the fine line that divides generous-mindedness from stupidity. The snarl of the buzzer broke in. He made a long lunge, cursed idiots who didn't bother to phone, then jabbed the button to release the latch of the door which opened from the street and into the arched passageway. It was shadowy, and perhaps sixty feet from door to courtyard.
So he sat back to wait. Hopefully, he began to think, "Someone forgot the outside key and needed a buzz to get in." He resumed talk about the patrol service.
All this was spoiled when, without a warning jingle, the door slammed open. A big fellow, blond and rugged of face, wearing an important look and in dinner jacket, barged in.
His expression of haughty disapproval, and the way he carried his head, made it plain that he not only knew what was wrong with the world, but also had the answers needed to make it right.
"Who the hell let you in?" Carver demanded. "Get out and try knocking next time!" The man wasn't a client, and couldn't be if he wanted to.
Alma bounced to her feet with a cry of dismay. "Oh, Herb, I didn't know it was so late! Jeff, you've never met Mr. Lowry, have you?"
"Seeing was enough for me; skip the meeting."
Lowry ignored both Carver and the remark. He caught Alma by the arm. "Can't your tax problems hold?" he demanded. "Or how much longer shall I wait?"
Carver interposed. "Take your hands off, and put 'em where they'll do you some good, meat-head!"
And to show him where the hands ought to be, Carver hauled off and socked him. Lowry slammed back against the rickety table, knocking over the brandy. Carver, in no mood to flood the floor with any such liquor, whirled to retrieve it.
He had underestimated Lowry; instead of going glassy eyed, the intruder recovered and clipped him one that promised to lift his head and send it up through the ceiling. What settled the ensuing even exchange was Carver's stumbling over a shoe; not one of those he was wearing, but one that should have been put away. He took a lurch, banged his head against the corner of the Chesterfield, and for a moment was too busy clutching the floor for support to have any chance of getting back into immediate action.
Alma flared up, "You can keep your dinner, if you're in such a frightful hurry!"
Seeing that protest or apology would get him nowhere; and perhaps sensing that he had used up his day's quota of luck, Lowry shrugged, and made for the door. The balcony decking sounded under his tread. By the time Carver regained his feet, the departing visitor was in the courtyard and not dallying to pick cape jasmin.
Carver, still unsteady, hustled Alma to the bridge. "Get on your phone and camp on it, honey. He'll be calling when he cools down; and if he buzzes from the street and can't get an answer from you, he won't try my number again."
She tried to smooth things over, but Carver's response was, "He's probably heading home to retouch his makeup, sulk awhile, and then come back. I'll bust in on him and give him something more than a rumpled shirt and tie, the flathead!"
"Oh, good Lord, Jeff! Don't! You're advertising it to the entire building. I'm awfully sorry; it is my fault, and he was all wrong, but--"
"Run along, run along. I'm not sore at you. But I'm taking care of that high-ranking drip!"
Once she had crossed the bridge, Carver thumbed the phone book, got the man's address, and drove uptown. Lowry lived not far from where St. Charles Avenue branches off to become Carrollton.
WHEN HE got to the place, Carver chalked up a bad guess. The house was dark; the convertible was not in the garage.
Remembering, from Alma's chatter, the bars that she and Lowry and his crowd had visited, he hightailed back to the Vieux