“This is Universal Services,” she said in her gentle, polite voice. “Good evening.”
“And this is your old pal Vic Malloy calling from a drug store in Coral Gables. Grab your car, bright eyes, and come arunning. You and me are going to hold hands and make love. How does it sound?”
There was a momentary pause. I’d have given a lot to have seen her expression.
“Where exactly are you?” she said, and sounded as unexcited as if I had asked her the time.
“Beach Road. Come as fast as you can,” I said, and hung up.
I left the Buick outside the drug store and walked to the corner of Beach Road. From there I could see Eudora Drew’s cabin. I propped myself up against a lamp standard and kept my eyes on the gate of the cabin.
Nine o’clock. I had three hours to wait, and I wished I had asked Paula to bring some Scotch and a sandwich to help while away the time.
For the next twenty minutes I lolled against the lamp standard and never took my eyes off the cabin. Nobody came out. Nobody went in. Several tough-looking homhres emerged from other cabins and either walked away or drove away. Three girls, all blondes, all with strident voices, came out of the cabin next to Eudora’s and strolled down the road towards me swinging their hips and ogling anything in trousers within sight. As they passed me they all looked my way, but I kept my eyes firmly on the cabin.
A nice neighbourhood this, I thought. Not the kind of road Mrs. Bendix’s bunny-faced pal would care to walk down.
Paula’s smart little two-seater came bustling out of Princess Street and headed towards me. It pulled up and the door swung open. Paula looked very trim and slightly glacial in her grey, pin-head suit. She was hatless, and her brown eyes looked at me enquiringly.