34

DOC’S PLAN. FIRST, he and Jinx would run a variation of the priest and the jeweler scam on Loydell and nab her diamond. Then he’d leave Jinx in his car with the motor running, and he’d dash into Jack’s restaurant, pop Jack, take off, ditch the beauty queen, be on his merry way to the South Carolina coast, a very cushy retirement, and sweet dreams.

To that end, he and Jinx were cruising Central, searching for a parking spot. Headed down from the big hotels, they tooled along Bathhouse Row.

“There’s the Quapaw.” Jinx pointed. “Bubbles is on the main floor. The casino’s in the basement.”

Doc stared across the street at the long white stucco building. Big mullioned windows with blue awnings marched across the length of the front. Above the red tile roof of the second story was perched a gold and blue dome stately enough for Kubla Khan.

“You made the reservation?”

“Yes,” Jinx said. “Exactly like you told me to. I said I was bringing in a high roller from San Antonio who specifically wanted to meet Jack. They said he’d be there. But I don’t understand.…”

“And you don’t need to.”

There it was again. Boy, she had had just about a bellyful of that dumb blonde routine.

“And you know exactly how the flimflam works?”

“You told me forty-two times.”

“Yeah? Well, I could tell you a thousand and forty-two, you’re an amateur, there’s every chance you’re gonna screw up.”

“I’m not going to screw up.”

“Well, you do, you’re never going to see that bridegroom of yours alive again.”

“I’ve got it, Doc.” Then she pointed. “Look! There’s somebody pulling out.”

That, thought Doc, was a piece of luck. A good omen. Just as they approached, a red Cadillac driven by a man wearing a huge cowboy hat, that’s all you could see of him, was exiting a spot right across the street from Jack’s restaurant.

Early’s timing was impeccable, but then, as Jack said, that’s why he paid him the big bucks.

“And Mother’s house is right around the corner and up the hill on Exchange,” said Jinx.

They climbed out of the Mercury, and Doc locked it. He passed on feeding the parking meter.

“You’re going to get a ticket,” Jinx said, adjusting her little pink shorts suit with the yellow daisy trim. She was wearing matching pink stiletto sandals with daisies on the toes. She’d redone her manicure and pedicure to match.

Doc just gave her a look. Then he took her arm as they started down the sidewalk past a row of art galleries, souvenir stores, and coffee shops. “You think you can do this? You understand about the bank?”

“Yes, I understand, Doc.”

Doc wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure she could pull this off at all. But what the hell? What did he have to lose? If the scam fell apart, he’d just do Jack, climb back in the Mercury, and ride ride ride. Of course, he’d have to switch the Mercury pretty quick for another car, which was a shame because he liked the glide of the big boat. It reminded him of those great gas guzzlers from the late fifties, early sixties. He’d had a two-tone purple Bonneville, those loooong tailfins and acres of chrome. Now, that was a car. Like the Sunliner, which was less luxe, though still a beauty. It was a shame, that old sweetie sitting at the bottom of a lake, but them was the breaks.

“Well, hi!” Jinx said suddenly. “How’re yeeeew?”

Doc looked up, and Jinx was hugging a tall, curly-headed brunette, he’d put her in her late thirties. She was dressed like him, in khakis, with a white shirt—though she was wearing an expensive-looking blue-and-white seersucker jacket, and Doc was sporting an off-the-rack navy blazer and an ugly red-and-navy tie. The brunette was saying, “Why, I’m just fine. But how are yew?”

“I’m holding on.” Jinx shook her head, and her curls swayed.

“I know it must be hard. Speed just dying on you like that. It’s so awful. I just don’t know how you can bear it.”

Speed dying? What the hell was the broad talking about? Doc gave Jinx a hard look, but she didn’t see it because just then the tall brunette hugged her again, and Jinx stepped backwards off the curb.

“Owh!” she screamed. “Oh, my God!”

Damn! Doc thought. She’d sprained her ankle. Well, hell, wasn’t that par for the course? No way this town was good for anything except killing Jack. He wasn’t going to make a penny here. Why didn’t he just give it up?

“I broke the heel right off my shoe!” Jinx cried. She was dangling her high-heeled sandal.

“You just come right on in here into Frank’s and let me buy you a new pair,” said the tall brunette. “This is all my fault.”

“Dr. Dolittle,” said Jinx, “do you mind?”

It took Doc a second to realize she was talking to him. Dan Little was the bogus handle he’d told her to use. Blondes, Jesus.

“I don’t know what I’d have done without the doctor. He’s been so kind,” Jinx said to the brunette whom she introduced as Samantha. Sam bustled them into the shoe store, whose windows were draped with silver tinsel and gold bunting.

“Hello, ladies, sir. Welcome to Frank’s,” said a cute young girl right inside the door of the old-fashioned high-ceilinged store. It still had its original pine wainscoting and a tin ceiling that was festooned with gold and silver balloons. The river of dark hair that flowed down the young girl’s back was two inches longer than her little silver skirt. Her hair bounced around as she said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but you,” and she rounded on Doc and threw her arms around him like he was her long-lost love, “are the one-hundredth person who’s walked through our doors since yesterday morning, and that means you are the winner of our Diamond Jubilee door prize!” She was fairly squeaking with excitement. “Yes, sir,” she crowed, “this is the one-hundredth anniversary of Frank’s Shoes, and you are the hundredth one! Aren’t you thrilled?”

Jinx was grinning at him like she’d forgotten what the hell they were doing here, and this shoe business was the main event. But on the other hand, now that Doc thought about it, a Diamond Jubilee, it had to be a good sign.

The little brunette was pulling him by the arm over to a chair cushioned in brown velour. “The prize is any pair of shoes of your choice, for free! And I can see from your boots that you have excellent taste, and we just happen to have a pair of genuine alligator Luccheses that I bet are going to be exactly your size. Eleven A, am I right? You have an elegant foot there, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so. So long and narrow. Now, would those alligator boots interest you?”

“What’s the catch?”

“Oh, there is no catch, sir.” Her big brown eyes grew larger. “You are definitely the one-hundredth customer of our Diamond Jubilee. But if you don’t think you’d like the alligator boots, you just tell me what you want. By the way, my name’s Cynthia.”

Alligator Luccheses had to be worth seven, eight hundred, hell, maybe a thousand. Doc, who’d never even passed a tip left on a table for a waiter without palming it, couldn’t resist. “Well, sure. The boots’ll be fine. Thank you kindly.”

“I’ll sit right here beside you,” said Jinx, slipping in on his right. “And Samantha’ll sit on your left. How does that feel? Being bookended by a couple of pretty ladies?”

Now Doc was sure of it. Jinx had completely forgotten what they were doing in town. Well, let him grab these boots, slap some kind of shoes on her, he’d get her out on the street and remind her, quick.

A young salesman was approaching Jinx. He was a beanpole, tall and no bigger around than a pencil. He reminded Doc of a mobster in New Orleans who had one of those spaghetti names, but they called him Bennie Brown because of his brown hair, brown eyes, and he always dressed in tan: suit, shirt, tie. Just like this young civilian who was asking Jinx how he could help her. Do you have anything like these, she held up her broken sandal, seven-and-a-half B? Why, sure, he said and took off for the stockroom.

The woman named Sam was chatting on, telling Doc every last detail of a dinner party she had given the night before, describing each dessert down to the last lemon drop. Then Cynthia, the young brunette, was back and holding up the most beautiful pair of boots he’d ever seen. “I’ll take them,” said Doc. Then he punched Jinx in the arm. “We’d better get going, don’t you think?”

“I’ve got to try my shoes on.” She poked out her bottom lip. The woman had absolutely no sense of priorities. Like they didn’t need to get on to Loydell’s, down to the bank, over to Bubbles. She said, “Aren’t you going to try on your boots?”

“Nope,” said Doc. “Eleven A, they’ll do fine.”

“Oh, wait,” said Cynthia. “Actually, these are a half-size smaller, but sometimes that’ll do, you know, so why don’t you try them? If they don’t fit, I have some real pretty lizard ones I can show you.”

“We’re really in a hurry,” said Doc.

“Why, thank yeeeew,” Jinx was saying to the Man in Tan who’d just carried out a tower of shoeboxes. “You didn’t have to go to all that trouble.”

“Jinx,” said Doc. But she wasn’t listening. And Doc didn’t want to cause a scene. He was already making much more of an impression on the citizenry than he’d like.

“Here, sir, let me take those off for you.” Cynthia was sitting on a stool before him with that tiny strip of silver stretched tight across her thighs. It was impossible not to look.

“No, thanks. I’ll do it.” He pulled off his boots and placed them carefully under his chair. Then he tried to look at her face as she handed him the boots.

They were a bit short in the toe and a tad too tight in the arch.

“Now, let’s don’t give up hope,” said Cynthia. “We can do all kinds of tricks around here.”

“They are so clever,” Sam said, patting his arm. “I buy all my shoes here.”

“You don’t say,” said Doc, looking down at her brown woven-leather loafers. Huh. Shoes were the first thing you looked at, you wanted to judge a potential mark. One of Pearsa’s lessons. You take a man in a thousand-dollar suit, he’s wearing cheap shoes, and lots of them do, you’re not looking at a man with class. But a man wearing jeans and a blue denim shirt, a pair of Armani loafers, that’s the man you zero in on. The money’s all in the details.

So this broad had potential. Whereas Jinx, look at the flashy junk the woman was trying on. Catch-me-do-me stilettos. No wonder she didn’t have any money. She didn’t deserve any.

“So why don’t you just slip those off, and let me take them in the back”—Cynthia was saying about the alligator Luccheses, when all of a sudden, Jinx started screaming. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She jumped up out of her chair.

And then she was chasing the Man in Tan, who was running hellbent for leather toward the front door.

Jesus! Did he have her bag? Had he stolen the boodle in her wallet? The payoff for the scam? Jeeeesus!

Doc took off after them in the alligator boots.

The man in tan tore down the sidewalk past the Art Center, past a couple more galleries, and he was about to turn up the hill at the Chamber of Commerce when Jinx executed a flying tackle that was damned impressive.

“You filthy son of a bitch!” she screamed. She was sitting astraddle him in her little pink shorts suit.

“What did he take?” Doc grabbed the man by the neck and started throttling him. “What?”

“Nothing!” Jinx was breathing hard. She was red in the face. “He was sniffing my feet. He was getting off on sniffing my feet!”

“Christ on a crutch!” Doc flung the young man down on the pavement. “Jinx, what the hell is wrong with you?” And then he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her the two blocks down the street and back into Frank’s Shoes. The alligator boots were pinching the hell out of his toes.

He threw Jinx into a chair. “Just get some damned shoes, and let’s get going.”

Cynthia was wide-eyed. “I’m so sorry, sir. I’m so sorry,” she gulped. “Is there any way we can make this up to you?”

Doc was pulling off the alligator boots. He reached over and grabbed up a box beside Jinx that the Man in Tan hadn’t even opened yet. “She’ll take these, and we’ll be on our way.”

“I’m afraid that’ll be seventy dollars, sir. See, she wasn’t the hundredth customer. You were. Now, could I show you some lizard boots we have in your size?”

“I don’t think so,” Doc hissed. He turned to Jinx. “Put those shoes on now. Right now.” Then to Cynthia, he said, “I think, missy, you’ll consider her shoes the Diamond Jubilee door prize and count yourself lucky that I’m not calling the cops and reporting this pervert you have working in your store.”

“Yes, sir,” Cynthia said. “I guess you’re right. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. And don’t forget your boots.” She was holding up Doc’s old pair. Suddenly he felt nauseous. How could he? How could he have gone off and left his boots?

Doc snatched the boots out of her hand, jerked them on, and pushed Jinx out of the store. Sam and Cynthia ran to the front and watched him drag her down the sidewalk, then stop and point her around the corner and up toward Exchange. Jinx flounced on up the hill, and Doc slouched back toward the Mercury.

“We did it!” They hugged each other. “We did it!” Cynthia said, “Weren’t we cool?”

And then Jethro the Iceman, Joey the Horse’s precious gems fence and all-purpose jeweler, stepped from the stockroom. He was a dapper little man wearing a white linen suit and a handmade pair of brown-and-white spectator lace-ups that would have given Doc pause. He was carrying a smooth brown calf attaché case with serious combination locks. Jethro grinned. “Mission accomplished,” he announced, then raised a hand adorned with four sparkling rings. He and the ladies slapped high fives.