His eyes reflected back the lights as though they’d been burnished with black lacquer. “Excuse please,” he said. “Plant acorn. After a while is very big oak tree, but cannot make lumber from green sapling. Must allow time for growth.”
I said, “Well, if you think it’ll work, I’m willing to be shown, but the way things stand right now, I think it’s just a stunt. I’ve got fifty bucks to cover their bets.”
He got up and pushed his feet into straw sandals, slippety-slopped across to a closet, opened a door, peeled off his pajamas, and pulled on clothes. When he turned to me, there were reddish lights in his eyes. He didn’t say a word.
I led the way out of the door. He put on a coat and hat, and went down to where the taxicab was waiting at the curb, the meter clicking merrily away. He didn’t say a word as we got in, and he didn’t say a word all the way to the gambling club.
When he was dressed up, he wasn’t a bad-looking chap, a bit heavy in the waist. But it was just thick body muscles, not fat, that gave him that chunky appearance.
I walked over to the roulette table and started gambling. He stood a couple of paces behind me, looking at me scornfully.
The brunette who had taken over Esther Clarde’s date looked up, saw me, and hastily averted her eyes. A moment later she slid quietly out of the room and through a door marked Private. I pushed some chips in the Jap’s hand and said, “Put those on the board.” I quit playing. The brunette came back, said something to the man at the wheel, and looked right through me as though she’d never seen me before in her life.
The Jap put a chip on number thirty-six, and the ball, whirring and jumping around the track of the wheel, popped into pocket thirty-six.
The croupier raked in all the chips.
I said, “My friend had a chip on thirty-six.”