Kells put his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “None of your business, darling.” He looked up at her and smiled. “Now keep your pants on. I stand to make a ten-or fifteen-thousand-dollar lick tonight, and that one” — he gestured with his head toward the door — “is a very important part of the play.”
Ruth Perry leaned back and looked at the ceiling and laughed a little bit. Presently she said: “What are you going to do about Dave?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’m not going to go on the stand and lay myself open to a perjury rap.”
Kells shook his head. “You won’t have to, baby. The trial won’t come up for a month or so and we can spring Dave before that” — he smiled with his mouth — “if you want to.”
They were silent for a little while.
Then Kells said: “I’ve got to go now — call you around twelve.”
He got up and went out into the rain. He walked up to the corner of Vine and Hollywood Boulevard and went into the drugstore and bought some aspirin, took two five-grain tablets and then went out and crossed the Boulevard and walked up Vine Street about a hundred yards. Then he crossed the street and walked back down to the parking station next to the Post Office. He stood on the sidewalk watching people across the street for a little while, then went swiftly back through the parking station and down the ramp to the garage under the Knickerbocker Hotel.
He got out of the elevator on the tenth floor and knocked at the door of ten-sixteen. Fenner opened the door.
Fenner said: “Well, Mister Kells — you didn’t catch your train.” He smiled and bowed Kells in.