Armand caught sight of me. “Meestair Vine, s’il vous plait!”
Hacklin let go the maître’s arm. “C’mon, Smart Stuff. Where’s this Auguste fellow, hah? We’re not kidding.”
“I know you’re not.” I wondered if he’d run into Auguste in 21MM. Likely he wouldn’t have, if he didn’t stay after noon and didn’t come on before midnight; Auguste only worked the noon to eight o’clock shift, ordinarily. “We’re trying to locate him.”
“Yeah? Downstairs they told me he’d quit and gone home. Then I hear he’s doin’ extra duty tonight.”
“Sometimes Armand lets them do that,” I explained, “to earn an extra buck.”
Armand gesticulated. “Was ici. Is gone.”
“Don’t worry about it, maître.” I asked Hacklin, “What’s the big sweat?”
“See this?” He thrust a paper at me. A newspaper clipping headed Numerology. Under it was:
Following are the most significant numbers of the past thirty days. The figures in the third column indicate the number of times a certain number, played straight, has appeared since January, 1950. The figures in the last column indicate the number of times other combinations of the same number repeated.
Below it were figures: