“Nothing doing!” Vicki heard Mr. Duke say. “When I make a man as good a proposition as this, I expect him to say yes or no. Besides, I’ve got a job that needs to be done right away. Now what do you say, boy? That money looks pretty good, doesn’t it? I’ll bet you never saw that much before in your life. So what is it? Yes or no?”
“Gee, Mr. Duke!” Joey’s voice was wavering with indecision. “I— Honest, I’ll have to think it over.”
“Okay!” Mr. Duke’s voice rose slightly, and seemed to Vicki to have an angry, exasperated tone. “But look here, kid. You keep your lip buttoned about this. If the word got around about me having a good job open, every boy in Tampa would be after me. So not a word to anybody. Okay?”
“Okay,” Joey said. “I’ll let you know.”
“You do that. But remember what I said about keeping quiet.”
Mr. Duke got to his feet, picked his Panama hat off the hatrack by the booth, and started for the door. He was tall, thin, sleek, and slightly overdressed. The shoulders of his jacket were just a little too padded, Vicki thought, and the lapels a little too pointed. His hair was thick and black and curly, his long face was deeply tanned, and a hair-thin mustache spread across his upper lip.
On impulse, Vicki stood up and casually followed him out the door of the snack bar and across the terminal building. When he stepped out into the sunshine of the taxi loading ramp, she hung back as he whistled for a cab. A taxi pulled up, and before Mr. Duke got in, he said to the driver: “Granada Restaurant. Ybor City.”
Granada Restaurant! Ybor City! Vicki’s hand felt for the travel folder in her jacket pocket. Why, that was the restaurant old Mr.—what was his name?—Tytell had tried to call her attention to! If he really had been trying to call her attention to it by leaving the folder on his seat in such a peculiar way with the words “meeting place” underlined!
Vicki shook her head in bewilderment. It all seemed too curious to be a coincidence. The frightened old man on the plane—the travel folder—and now this odd-looking man making such a strange proposition to Joey—and then going to that very same restaurant!
It seemed too curious to be a coincidence, but for the life of her, Vicki couldn’t make any sense out of it. Maybe she’d better go back to the snack bar and have a talk with Joey.