I took her hand, held it in mine long enough to slip her a couple of folded dollar bills. “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling good. That last drink didn’t agree with me.”
Hale laughed uproariously. “Ought to drink gin and Coke,” he said. “That stuff you can drink all night. Marvelous drink. Makes you feel good, but doesn’t get you tight. You youngsters can’t stand anything. We know, don’t we, Marilyn?”
He looked across at her with a loose-lipped leer, his alcohol-lighted eyes peering out from over the folds of flushed skin.
Marilyn put her hand across to let it rest on his for a moment. A little later she freed her hand, moistened the tip of her napkin in the water glass, and rubbed it on her wrist.
I said, “Good night, everybody.”
Hale peered up at me. For a moment the laughter left his face. He started to say something, then changed his mind, turned back to Marilyn, thought of something else, swung around to me, and said, “This is a smart bird, Marilyn. You wanna watch him.”
“What kind of a bird?” she asked — “not a pigeon!”
“No,” Hale said, failing to get the significance of her remark. “He’s an owl — you know — wise guy. Always said he was ‘n owl.”
That idea struck him as funny. When I went out of the door he was laughing so hard he could hardly catch his breath. Tears were beginning to trickle down his cheeks.
I got to the hotel. Bertha had arrived in Los Angeles. There was the characteristic wire from her: What’s the idea digging in last year’s rabbit warren? We are too short-handed to scare up dope on old murder cases. Felonies outlaw in this state after three years. What sort of a bird do you think you are?