She looked me over and decided I was harmless. “That’s all right by me,” she said, smiling. “I like variety. The trouble here is that all men seem cast in the same mould.”
“But surely some are more mouldy than others?” I said.
She giggled. Three men came up to check their hats, so I drifted on through the arch into as sweet a night club layout as you would wish to see, done in pastel shades with indirect lighting and with a beautiful crescent-shaped bar on one side. It was a terrific room with a place for an orchestra and small dance floor made of some composition that looked like black glass. Out of the floor, out of blue and chromium boxes, grew banana trees with broad green leaves and clusters of green bananas. Vines clung to the trunks of the trees, bearing fragile blossoms; pink, orange, bronze and henna. Half the room had no roof and overhead were stars.
A fat bird came up to me and gave me the teeth, which was supposed to mean he was glad to see me. He wore patent-leather shoes, dark trousers, a Dubonnet-red cummerbund and a white drill coat tailored like a mess jacket.
“Give me Speratza,” I said.
He gave me the rest of the teeth, including a couple of gold inlays.
“I am the manager, please,” he said. “Is there something I can do?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Drum up Speratza. Tell him Chester Cain has blown in.”
If I’d said I was King George VIth I couldn’t have got a faster double-take.
“A thousand apologies for not recognizing you, Mr. Cain,” he said, bowing in half. “Senor Speratza will be enchanted. I will have him informed you have arrived.” He swung round and signalled frantically to a dressed-up dummy who was posed by the bar. The dummy shot away like he had a rocket in his pants. It was a pre-arranged, regal routine, and it impressed me as it was meant to impress me.