Part 39 (1/2)
We three are dining downstairs in an hour; perhaps you could look in on us?”
”Sure. I'll give her the once over,” Mallow agreed. ”If she's anybody in our set, I'll know her.”
The dinner had scarcely started when Gray heard his name paged and left the table. In the lobby Mallow was waiting with a grin upon his face.
”Is that her?” he inquired.
”That is the girl.”
”_Girl?_ 'Arline Montague,' eh? Her name is Margie Fulton and she had her hair up when they built the Union Pacific.”
”Nonsense! You're mistaken. She can't be more than twenty-five--thirty at most.”
”A woman can be as young as she wants to be if she'll pay the price.
Margie had her face tucked up two years ago. Cost her five thousand bucks.”
”I--can't believe it.”
”You see it every day. Look at the accordion-pleated beauts in the movies. Why, some of those dolls nursed in the Civil War! Those face surgeons have ironed the wrinkles out of many a withered peach, and you're dining with Margie Fulton, the Suicide Blonde. I know her kid.”
”Her _what?_” Mallow's hearer gasped.
”Sure. She was married to Bennie Fulton, the jockey, and they had a boy. Bennie was ruled off in New Orleans and started a gambling house.”
”New Orleans! Wait--I'm beginning to remember.”
Into Gray's mind came an indistinct memory; the blurred picture of a race track with its shouting thousands, a crowded betting ring; then, more clearly, a garish, over-furnished room in a Southern mansion; clouds of tobacco smoke rising in the cones of bright light above roulette and poker tables; negro servants in white, with trays; mint juleps in tall, frosted gla.s.ses; a pretty girl with straw-colored hair--”You're right!” he agreed, finally. ”She was a 'come-on.'”
”That's her. She worked the betting ring daytimes and boosted in Bennie's place at night. Whenever she was caught she suicided. That's how she got her name.”
”Just what do you mean by that?”
”Why, the usual stuff. A bottle of water with a poison label. If a mullet threatened to call the police, she'd cry, 'You have ruined my life!' Then with shaking hand she'd pull the old skull bottle and drink herself to death. Of course, the poor leaping tuna usually got the acid out of her hand in time to save her. She saw to that.”
Gray was laughing silently. ”My dear Professor,” he confessed, ”wisdom, of a sort, is mine; sometimes I grow weary with the weight of my experiences and wonder why the world so seldom shows me something new.
But beside you I am as a babe. Tell me, what has become of the ex-jockey husband?”
”She divorced him. Mind you, Margie was square, like most of those 'come-ons.' She'd 'how dare' a guy that so much as looked at her. You know the kind I mean.”
”And the child? Where do you suppose she keeps it?”
Mallow reflected. ”The last time I saw the little cherub he was singing ba.s.s in a bellboys' quartette at Hot Springs. He hops bells at the Arlington summers and butchers peanuts at the track during the season--you know, hollers 'Here they come!' before they start, then when the women jump up he pinches the betting tickets out of their laps and cashes them with the bookies.”
”Could you get hold of this--this boy ba.s.so and bring him here without letting him or his mother know?”
”I can if he's still at Hot Springs, and I saw him there the last time I was up. The little darling got me into a c.r.a.p game and ran in some shaped dice. Of course, it would cost something to get him.”
”How much?”
Mallow ”shot” his cuff and upon it gravely figured up the probable expense. ”Well, there would be the fares and the eats and his bit--he wouldn't come for nothing. He'd gyp me for ten dollars, but he'd probably come for five. I'd offer him three--”