He went on down Las Palmas to Sunset, east to Vine and up Vine to the Brown Derby.
Granquist was in a booth, far back, on the left.
She said: “I ordered oysters.”
Kells sat down. “That’s fine.” He nodded to an acquaintance at a nearby table.
“A couple minutes after you left me,” she said, “a guy came into my place and asked the girl at the desk who I was. She said ‘Who wants to know?’ and he said he had seen me come in and thought I was an old friend of his...”
“And...”
“And I haven’t got any old friends.”
“What’d he look like?” Kells was reading the menu.
“The girl isn’t very bright. All she could remember was that he had on a gray suit and a gray cap.”
Kells said: “That’s a pipe — it was one of the Barrymores.”