Shayne took Ann’s arm and led her to the rear, peering into empty booths. He selected the last one. When they were settled, she looked at him with an odd intensity in her light-blue eyes, and for the first time since meeting her, Shayne saw a tinge of color in her cheeks.
“I’m not a drunkard,” she denied vehemently, as though Shayne himself had just accused her. “It’s just that — oh — damn it, I like to get Pops’s goat. When he starts pontificating, I want to scream. So, I take a drink instead.”
“Does that help?” Shayne asked gravely.
“Enough of them do.”
Shayne held up a warning hand for silence when he saw the waiter approaching. “Now, what’ll you have?”
“What would you suggest?” she said, taking the cue.
“Black coffee.”
“That will be fine,” Ann Margrave told the waiter. “With a double slug of cognac in it, please. Croizet, if you have it.”
Shayne lifted his ragged red brows and grinned appreciatively. “The same for me, but plain, with a glass of iced water on the side instead of coffee.”
When the waiter went away, Ann said, “I simply had to talk to you. I thought I’d retch back there when you asked Pops if he knew Nora and he said she was wonderful — loyal to the core!” Venom dripped from her voice.