Joe said, when he had finished, “You’ve had a bad break, pal,” and patted him on his knees. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me what you were going to do? I could have warned you. Rose Hanson is well known for that trick.”
Slug looked at him suspiciously. “What the hell do you mean?” he demanded.
“The ‘Ambassadors’ trick,” Joe said. “That dame is bad, Slug, really bad. She married a guy two years ago and he found out what type of dame she was. Well, I guess she sort of sickened him, and he found some other dame he liked a lot better. He tried to get this Rose to divorce him, but she wouldn’t do it. She liked to see this guy suffer, so she just wouldn’t give it to him. He had her watched, hoping that she would slip up, but they never caught her with anything. She heard about it, so she took a boy-friend around to the ‘Ambassadors’ every now and then to torture her husband. Just so that he’d spend more dough having her watched; but she made sure that the boy-friend didn’t get anything out of it. That’s why she took you there.”
Slug half closed his eyes. “Why the hell should she want to go to the ‘Ambassadors’?” he asked.
“Why, her husband works there. He’s head waiter or something.”
Slug stiffened. “You mean the tall guy with the good manners?” he asked. “The guy that slipped me twenty-five bucks?”
“Did he give you twenty-five bucks? That’s like Johnny. He knew the game she was playin’ with you an’ felt sorry for you, I expect.”
“This dame won’t divorce him?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Slug took another long pull from his glass. “I see,” he said. “I guess that guy was pretty good to me; I’d like to do him a good turn.”