He moved aside to let a couple of buckets of champagne get around him. “What I’d like to know is where Lanerd found out she was heading for Kentucky.”
The waiters’ recreation room is off in the corner of the service basement, beyond the silver-cleaning drums. I could tell there was something unusual afoot before we reached it. Three of our main-dining-room garçons blocked the doorway, watching something in the smoking-room. None of them spoke to me because they didn’t know Hacklin.
What they were watching was Auguste, in shirtsleeves, shorts, and socks. Practically in tears, besides. He stood, shamefaced, beside the table where the boys sometimes played gin rummy or tarot. Schneider stood beside him, feeling in the toe of one of Auguste’s shoes. The mess jacket hung on a chair back. Auguste’s trousers lay rumpled on the table.
Auguste saw me at the same time Schneider noticed Hacklin. They began simultaneously.
“Mister Fine, oh, pleasze!”
“Hi, Byrd. I guess this does it.”
I touched Hacklin’s arm. “The search routine is all right. But no vile durance. Remember?”
Hacklin didn’t answer. He gawked at the glittering gadget Schneider juggled in his palm. A compact. But something ultra. Engine-turned platinum, the turnings like the figures fancy skaters make on ice. Studded with diamonds. Sparklers around the circular rim. More glitter forming a nice neat T in the center. Quite an item.
“He had it in his sock.” Schneider flipped the back of his hand at Auguste’s middle. Auguste practically jumped out of his socket. “Good thing I thought of comin’ back here, looking for the crut.”
Auguste cried, “Mister Fine, Mister Fine, pleasze! Miss Millett, she gifts me this. A preszent, yesz. I tell him so, but he will not belief!”