Shayne shook his head. “No.”
“And you’re not a tourist,” she mused. “Now let me see — you drink Monnet and wash it down with ice water, of all things! You might be a sculptor — those hands of yours—” She laid a small brown hand over his left one.
Shayne held out his big right hand and studied his long knobby fingers. “They come in handy for a lot of things,” he said, amused. “Why should I be a writer or sculptor?”
“Well, some kind of artist. Why else would you be here in the Quarter wasting your good cognac on a gal you’ve never seen before, and expecting only conversation in return?”
“Maybe I expect more than conversation in return.”
She laughed impishly. “Maybe you’re one of those devils who plan their seductions carefully and lull their victims into false security during the preliminaries. But you look like a forthright scoundrel.”
Shayne said, with a big grin, “You’re too young to be talking so airily about seductions.”
She said scathingly, “After a month in the Quarter?”
Shayne took a final drag on his cigarette and ground it out with the toe of his shoe.
“You changed the subject very cleverly,” she charged. “We were talking about you and why you are here.”