She nervously finished her drink. What a let-down if she had to go! she thought. After spending the whole evening making herself look as attractive as she could, and then wasting a taxi fare to the club. There was nowhere else she dared go. At least none of Paul’s stuffy friends ever came to the Paradise Club.
Then just when she was resigning herself that she could stay no longer, she saw a tall man moving towards her, wearing a faultlessly cut tuxedo: a man that set her heart beating rapidly. His lean good-looking face and the white scar that ran from his left eye to his nose set her nerves in a flutter.
He paused at her table and gave her a wide friendly smile. She smiled back, a little uneasily, but she didn’t attempt to conceal her hopeful interest.
“Don’t tell me he’s stood you up,” Seigel said, bending over her. She felt he was trying to look down the front of her low-cut dress, and she drew back, a little alarmed, but excited, too. “I’ve been watching you. You’ve been here quite a time.”
“Well, yes,” she said, and glanced at her wrist-watch. “He is late, but he’ll be along. He — he’s always late.”
“Time and woman should wait for no man,” Seigel said, his smile widening. “Can’t I take his place?”
She pretended to hesitate.
“Well, I don’t know. I — well, we don’t know each other, do we?”
He pulled out a chair and sat down.
“That’s easily fixed. I’m Louis Seigel. Who are you?”