She pushed me out of the kitchen.
“Run away,” she said, “or you won’t have any lunch.”
I beat it back to the station.
There was trouble all right. A big Cadillac had hit the concrete wall of the driveway. Its fender had been pushed in and the bumper was buckled. It was a swell-looking car, and it hurt me to see the damage.
Bones was standing by. His usually smiling face was shiny and dismayed. He rolled his eyes at me as I came up.
“It wasn’t my fault, boss,” he said hurriedly. “The lady got into the wrong gear.”
“Don’t tell such bloody lies, you rotten nigger,” a shrill, hard voice exploded from inside the car. “You waved me on. I thought I had plenty of room.”
I signalled to Bones to scram, then walked up to the car, looked in.
A typical lovely young product of Hollywood sat at the wheel. She was dark, expensively dressed, pretty according to the standard hardness of the Movie colony. She was also very angry, and under her rouge her skin was white as marble.
“See what your blasted nigger’s done to my car,” she stormed as soon as she saw me. “Fetch the manager. I’m going to raise holy hell about this!”