Lucky at Cards by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online

couldn’t remember what it was about.
    I called her a little before noon. The voice that answered didn’t sound like hers. It was younger, softer. I said, “Mrs. Rogers?”
    The voice said, “Just a minute.” Then there was an offstage, “Joyce! Telephone!”
    A few seconds later another voice said “Hello,” and this time it was the right one.
    “You sound lovely this morning,” I said. “Who was I talking to before?”
    “Oh, good morning, Mr. Hewlitt,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about my monthly statement. It came this morning.”
    “There’s somebody in the room with you.”
    “Yes,” she said. “That’s right.”
    “Can you get away this afternoon?”
    “I really don’t think so, Mr. Hewlitt.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Well, that’s possible, I suppose.”
    “Name a time.”
    “There’s a charge for eight dollars and thirty cents here that I really don’t understand.”
    “Eight-thirty tonight?”
    “Yes, that’s right.”
    “Where?”
    “Well, I’m not sure exactly. I can’t say, Mr. Hewlitt.”
    “You want me to pick a place?”
    “That’s right.”
    “My hotel?”
    A pause. Then: “I should think there would be a better way than that to handle the matter.”
    I thought for a minute. “There’s a bar at Main and Utica,” I said. “Southwest corner. I’ll be there at eight-thirty. Drive by and give a honk.”
    “Fine,” she said. “I’d appreciate that.”
    “I wish you were here now, Joyce. I’d like to rip your clothes off and pitch you onto a bed.”
    “Yes,” she said, calmly, levelly. “Yes, of course. Certainly.”
    I spent the afternoon in a movie. It was a Sunday, so Rogers was probably home, and that no doubt explained why she couldn’t get away during the afternoon. The monthly statement routine had sounded a little less than brilliant to me—not too many credit managers make adjustments on Sunday morning. But that was Joyce’s problem. I had the feeling that there wasn’t anybody in the room with her anyway, that she was just exercising a talent for melodrama.
    The movie was dull. I walked out somewhere in the middle of the last reel and went across the street to a lunch counter. I had a hot pastrami sandwich on rye and a cup of black coffee. The check came to eighty-five cents or so. I left a quarter on the counter for the waitress, then carried my check to the cashier. I gave her a ten and she handed me my change.
    The rest was almost reflex. My fingers tucked the five down and held it so that it stayed out of sight while my palm was up. It all happened in one quick movement while I was reaching with my other hand for a toothpick. Then I picked through my change and told the frayed blond cashier that she had made a mistake—I had given her a ten and she was five bucks short. She stared at the bills and coins in my hand, then at the fresh ten on the register. She shrugged her bony shoulders in puzzlement and gave me another five. I stuffed everything in a handy pocket and stepped outside.
    Cheap, I thought. Cheap and shabby. I walked back to the hotel and picked up the car and tried on the way to figure out why I’d picked the girl for an extra five dollars. I didn’t need the money. Maybe my action had been force of habit. Maybe I had been showing off to myself, proving how much faster the trained hand is than the untrained eye.
    I left the car on the avenue and found the bar where I was supposed to wait for Joyce. It was a block from Daniels’ office and I’d had a drink or two there one day after a particularly bad session of drilling and grinding. That had been in the afternoon. Now it was early evening and the place was worse than I remembered it. There were a few embryonic derelicts drinking cheap wine and a few young punks getting high from the smell of the beers in front of them. I ordered a bottle of beer and got a cigarette started.
    At eight o’clock I started watching the street. I watched for the full half hour. Then a Caddy