"Was," he corrects, mournful-like. This sort of scared me. Either this guy was the kind of crank they never use to wind up a cold jet, or women had changed a lot since the last time I enriched my culture by attending a performance of Flossie's Follies at the Little Venus Circuit Burly-que.
"Mister, I ain't lookin' fer no trouble," I mutters, edgin' back on my stool.
"Oh, but I assure you, I'm telling the truth."
"Helen LaTour, the terrific blonde," I says, meaningful-like.
"The same!"
"The queen of the burly circuit," I goes on, without realizin' that I am stretched halfway across the table, shoutin' into his ear because of a slight argument going on down the bar. "The most luscious hunk of stuff that ever shook a notion to go on the stage," I enlarges. "Right out of this world," I finishes up. "Right?"
"Precisely. Right out of this world."
"In your apartment?"
"In my apartment."
Now, I figures that maybe he was one of these here not-so-juvenile delinquents what believes that if they can't have it, they can at least kill it, so I starts edgin' away, but then I gets a sudden thought.