‘See here, May . . .’ said Pat, but May had rung off and he could not get the connexion through again.
‘Any news?’ asked the boys as he slammed down the receiver.
‘May’s sore,’ said Pat. ‘That’s all the news.’
‘What’s she got to be sore about?’ asked Ken.
‘She’s sore because we took Barry to Poncho beach.’
They all went out to the car again, each with a different suggestion. Bob thought they ought to call the F.B.I. right away, but Alf said once the dope was spilt to the F.B.I. then it would be all down the Coast about what had gone wrong, and how Barry’s rating was Force G.
‘Those fellows can’t keep a secret,’ he said. ‘We only go to the F.B.I. if we can’t produce Barry in the studio by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.’
‘Tomorrow morning?’ said Slip. ‘It’s half-past one now. There’s only seven hours to go.’
They all climbed into the car again and started driving back to town.
‘I’ve a hunch,’ said Bob. ‘I’ve a hunch he’s got a lift somehow and gone back to Poncho beach. That pose of his about not showing interest was all my eye. Bet you he’s gone to see the kids do their stuff again.’
‘Bob’s right,’ said Pat. ‘They have the beach flood-lit at two a.m. The kids do the feather dance under the arc lights. It would be dangerous to leave Barry down there without us.’
Ken turned the car down the road that led out of town to Poncho beach.
‘I don’t know,’ said Alf. ‘I can’t believe those kids meant a darn thing to Barry. But when we were watching the floor-show I had the impression he was restless. I felt him move, I was next to him in the box. If Barry’s anywhere he’s down at Poncho casino watching the floor-show.’
‘We’d better do both,’ said Ken. ‘We’d better do the beach first and then the floor-show. How long will it take?’
‘I guess they close at five,’ said Slip. ‘They couldn’t get through with all they do before five.’
Ken stepped on the accelerator, and the car sped along the road to Poncho beach.
The departure of Barry Jeans’ party from the Silver Slipper killed the evening.There was no fun in dancing or sitting around when the big names had gone. Those who still felt energetic went home to bed, and the people who were always tired decided to go on to Poncho beach. At two-thirty the band packed up, the tables were cleared, and the lights were dimmed. The chap on the switchboard had fallen asleep. No one noticed that the light was still on in the ladies’ powder room. The curtains were pulled back now that everyone had gone home, and Barry had come out of the cubby-hole. He was sitting in a chair by one of the dressing-tables, and he had put his feet up on the table itself. He was drinking hot milk. Pinkie was going round the powder room with the basin-cloth, seeing that everything was neat and clean for the following night.
‘I don’t remember that bit about the bath-buns,’ she was saying. ‘I know you always pinched the currants out of mine, but I had forgotten I made a bet you couldn’t eat ten at a sitting.’
‘I ate twelve,’ he said, ‘and then I was sick.’
‘Shame it didn’t put some weight on you,’ she said, ‘but you were always scrawny. You’re scrawny now.’
She wrung out her basin-cloth, and tidied the brushes and combs, and then went to the row of hooks by the curtain and lifted down her coat and her head-scarf.
‘What’s the time?’ asked Barry.
‘It’s nearly four,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be dead on my feet in the morning after gossiping here all this time.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Barry. ‘I’ve kept you. I’m sorry, Pinkie.’
He dragged his feet down from the dressing-table and stood up.
‘I’ll see you home,’ he said. ‘It will be like old times.’
Pinkie was adjusting the head-scarf in front of the mirror, and she tied it under her chin and put her handbag over her arm.
‘I don’t know about that,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t do for me to be seen coming out of the powder room with you. I might lose my job.’
‘You go first,’ he said. ‘You go first and I’ll wait, and then I’ll slip out after you.’
She seemed dubious, and kept muttering something about losing her reputation.
‘I don’t want to get into trouble,’ she said. ‘They think a lot of me here.’
She looked through the door into the empty passage, and at the far end of the passage she could see the chap at the switchboard fast asleep.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll risk it. I’ll go through the door on the right there, and wait on the street. Give me three minutes, and then come after me.’
Barry gave her three minutes, and then, when he judged it safe, he slipped out after her and joined her on the street as she had told him. It could have been the draught from the open door that awoke the chap on the switchboard, but he came to feeling a breeze on his face just after Pinkie had passed him, and as he sat up yawning and rubbing his eyes he caught a glimpse of a male figure creeping stealthily out of the ladies’ powder room and sneaking on tip-toe down the passage towards the door. He was too startled at first to press the alarm which would have brought the watchman from the front of the building, and it was only after the man had passed him and gone through the door that he decided after all not to give the alarm. He was a married man and had been on switchboard duty at the Silver Slipper for many years, but in all his time there, and at other restaurants and night-clubs, he had never seen a man come out of the ladies’ powder room before.The sight was shocking enough in itself, but that was not all. What made it doubly shocking was that he had recognized Barry Jeans.
Pinkie was already walking down the street, and when she reached the corner she stood and waited for her companion to join her.
‘I suppose you haven’t a car?’ he asked. ‘Mine seems to have gone. The boys must have got tired and slipped off home.’
‘I generally get a trolley,’ she said, ‘but I’ve never been so late. We might pick up a taxi if we’re lucky.’
They were lucky some five minutes later. Pinkie hailed the taxi and she and Barry both climbed in.
‘I haven’t any money,’ said Barry. ‘I’m awfully sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Pinkie. ‘I always did pay.’
When they came to Pinkie’s block she got out first and paid the taxi, and then she said to Barry, ‘I’d better tell him to drive you straight home.’
Barry had been thinking during the drive that he would get hell from the boys for being out late, and Slip might call up the masseur to get to work on him as soon as he put foot inside the house. They would turn the shower on him too, the one with high pressure, and Slim would use the electric ray on his scalp to stimulate the hair, and they might even insist on that pinching and kneading of his arms and legs so as to ginger the muscle tone. The funny thing was he was not tired. He did not feel tired at all. He just did not want to go home.
‘Pinkie,’ he asked, ‘Pinkie, couldn’t I come up with you and see your place?’
Pinkie considered. ‘It’s a bit late,’ she said.
‘Not late, Pinkie,’ he urged, ‘it’s early. It’s not last night, it’s tomorrow morning. I have to be in the studio soon after seven. I’ll come to breakfast.’
‘All right,’ she said, ‘as long as no one sees you. I don’t want my neighbours to think I give fellows breakfast.’
They went inside the building and up to the fifth floor. It was a new apartment house, and Pinkie had a nice little three-roomed home. She showed Barry round, and introduced him to the canary, and then made him lie down on the settee in the living-room and take his ease. She put a piece of newspaper under his feet so that he did not spoil the new covers, and then she went into the kitchen to get him some breakfast.
‘You can’t make porridge, can you, Pinkie?’ he asked.
‘Not without Quaker Oats,’ she told him, ‘but I’ve got some rice here. I could mak
e you a rice pudding.’
‘I’d like that,’ he said. ‘I’d like that more than anything.’
He must remember to tell May to ring the changes sometimes with his breakfast, and to serve rice pudding instead of porridge. He lay stretched out on the settee and watched the canary hop about in its cage, and he listened to Pinkie bustling in the kitchen getting the crockery and setting the milk to boil. He wondered what the boys had done when he had not returned to the table. They must have been anxious. The best thing to do would be to have Pinkie put him in a taxi just before seven, and go straight to the studio and not back home at all. Then Slim could only make him up and get him on the set in time for shooting. There would not be time to give him hell or insist on massage. He settled himself more comfortably on the cushions and glanced at his watch. He had about two and a half hours to go.
‘Pinkie?’ he called.
‘Yes?’ She came through from the kitchen. She had taken off her coat and dress and was wearing a flowered overall. It had a beige background and great big roses on it, and it buttoned all down the front.
‘There’s something I’d like to do,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘I’d like to look at all those snapshots you were telling me about. The ones of you and your family, the children and the grandchildren. I’d just love to lie here looking at the snapshots while you get on with making the rice pudding.’
Down at Poncho beach the line of cars was queueing up to drive back the ten miles into town. It was after five-thirty when Ken got all the boys together. Bob and Pat and Slip had held them up. They had stayed down on the beach after the feather dance while the others went to see the floor-show, and when the floor-show was over Alf had gone round the back of the stage to talk to some of the girls. He said he wanted to ask them if they had seen Barry. Then Bob, Pat and Slip came up from the beach and they said the coloured kids had not even heard of Barry. It was really astonishing. They had not heard of the Menace. It had taken them nearly an hour to convince the kids that the Menace existed, and had been down on Poncho beach that very day to watch them dance. It had been pretty exhausting work looking for Barry up and down Poncho beach, and the boys could hardly stand up. They all had to go to the bar and have stiff drinks to get them steady. Alf had to have a stiff drink too. Ken and Bim seemed to be the only ones who were in any shape at all.
‘There has to be someone in this outfit in a state to take the wheel and get us back to town,’ said Ken, ‘and, when we get there, go to the studio and deal with Gigantic Enterprises.’
‘That’s right,’ said Bim,‘that’s why I stayed sober. If Barry don’t turn up I can go on the floor for him.’
Ken took the ten miles back to town slowly. It would give the boys time to pull themselves together. First they would have to check at the house to see if Barry had come home, and after that they must all of them shower and shave and dress to be down at the studio by seven. They must come to some decision as to what was to be said. Alf was of the opinion that, if there was no news at all, then they must call up the F.B.I. It meant Barry had been kidnapped, and the matter was out of their hands. The news would break, of course, but it could not be helped. Ken agreed with Alf, and one by one as the car slid slowly along the road the boys came round to the same belief. It would have to be the F.B.I.
They pulled up in front of the house and, as they had feared, there was no word of Barry. The boys went round to their own place, and showered and changed, and then they all met once more in the living-room of Barry’s house, and Pat called up May and told her to come right back.
‘I can’t speak over the wire,’ he said. ‘It’s serious.’
None of them had any stomach for breakfast.The butler served them coffee, and that was all. They sat there watching the clock, and they saw the hands creep up to a quarter of seven.
‘Well?’ said Alf. ‘Do I call the F.B.I.?’
The boys looked at one another. It was a fateful decision to have to make. Once done, the Menace would no longer be their property, but the property of the United States government.
‘Hang on,’ said Pat. ‘How about checking with the Silver Slipper just once more, in case the doorman or someone saw Barry get away?’
‘We tried them before,’ said Ken impatiently. ‘It’s a waste of time.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bob. ‘It’s worth trying again.’
Although it was always Pat’s job to put through calls, Alf was on the buzzer because it had been agreed that he was the one to speak to the F.B.I., so he carried on, and asked for the Silver Slipper.The boys sat waiting, and watched his face for any change in expression. When they answered him from the Silver Slipper, and he asked if anything had been seen of Mr Barry Jeans, the effect was instantaneous. Alf said, ‘What?’ excitedly, and nodded to the boys, and then he listened to what the operator had to say. The boys saw his jaw drop, and a look, first of disbelief, then of dismay, then of shocked resignation and despair, pass over his features.
‘OK,’ he said grimly. ‘Sit on it. We’ll call you back.’
He clamped the receiver down and sagged in his chair.
‘Dead?’ asked Ken.
‘Worse.’
Alf pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose. Then he took a swig of coffee and pushed back his chair.
‘Barry’s sick,’ he said briefly. ‘We’ll have to call the psychiatrist after all. Get that Swede’s number, Pat, but don’t get it through International. If International has this story we’re through.’
‘But Jesus, Alf,’ said Bob, ‘what’s happened?’
Alf stared at the floor. Then he straightened his shoulders and looked at the boys.
‘Barry never left the Silver Slipper all evening,’ he said. ‘The operator on the switchboard saw him sneaking out of the ladies’ powder room just after four a.m.’
In Pinkie’s living-room the Menace had finished his second plate of rice pudding and was licking the spoon. With his left hand he turned over the pages of Pinkie’s photograph album.
‘This one’s great,’ he said, ‘just great.’
He was pointing to a snapshot of Pinkie’s second grandson in paddling-drawers bending down and patting a sand-castle with a wooden spade.
‘How old is the little chap in this one?’ he asked.
Pinkie bent over his shoulder and put on her spectacles.
‘That’s Ronnie,’ she said,‘that’s Ronnie on his second birthday. He doesn’t take after our side of the family, though, he’s a real McCaw. Turn back, and you’ll see Mr and Mrs McCaw, that’s to say my Vivian’s in-laws, sitting on their verandah. There they are. You see Mr McCaw’s big ears? Ronnie has them too. That little girl on Mrs McCaw’s knee is another grandchild, Sue, she’s the child of Tom McCaw, who had the bad motor accident I was telling you about.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Barry, ‘I remember. And who’s this?’
‘They’re just friends we used to know, the Harrisons. Such a nice couple. They lost a son in Korea. That girl there is the married daughter. Now, I don’t want to hurry you, but time’s getting on. If you want to be at the studio by seven you’ll have to think of getting into that taxi.’
‘Damn,’ said Barry.
He shut the album and glanced at his watch. Pinkie was right. There was just time to straighten up and get a taxi, and arrive at the studio. He swung his long legs over the settee and on to the floor.
‘I can’t tell you, Pinkie,’ he said, ‘what this has meant to me.’
‘I’m so glad,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to see old friends.’
He washed his hands, and brushed his hair, and touched his jaw where the beard was beginning to show. Slip must deal with that when he got to the studio. Then he bent down and kissed Pinkie.
‘It’s been great,’ he said, ‘just great.’
She opened the door of the apartment and looked up and down.
‘Just one thing,’ she said.‘Don’t tell anyone where you’ve been, or who you
’ve been with. A woman living alone has to be so careful, and I couldn’t hold up my head if I thought there might be talk.’
‘I won’t say a word, Pinkie,’ he assured her.
‘It never seemed worth telling the children about how we knew each other at Herne Bay,’ she went on. ‘I thought about it once or twice, and then it seemed silly. They would have thought I was making it up. So I left it. But of course if you like to come again some time I shall always be glad to see you.’
‘Thank you, Pinkie,’ he said.
‘No one saw us at the Silver Slipper,’ she said. ‘The operator on the switchboard was fast asleep. It’s a good job, and I should hate to lose it.’
‘Of course you won’t lose it,’ he told her.‘What an idea. Could you let me have some money for the taxi?’
‘I’ll give you five bucks,’ she said. ‘It shouldn’t be more than that. If there’s any over keep the change.’
Pinkie had called up a taxi from the stand at the end of her block, and it was waiting for Barry when he got downstairs. The driver smiled when he recognized the Menace, and he opened the door for him to hop inside.
‘I haven’t had the luck to drive you before, Mr Jeans,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Barry, ‘I don’t often ride in a taxi.’
The driver passed an autograph book through the window to the back.
‘To please the wife,’ he said.
Barry took out his pen and wrote his name in the book.
‘Don’t say where you picked me up,’ he said. ‘I’ve been out all night.’
The driver winked and reached back for his book.
‘Good job you picked on me,’ he said. ‘Some of the lads sell all the dope they get to Confidential.’
Barry paid off the driver before they reached the studio, and then walked through the gates and along to his dressing-room just as the big clock was striking seven. The boys had beaten him to it and were already waiting there. He could hear them talking inside as he opened the door, and it sounded as if Pat was on the telephone. Anyway, there would not be time for massage.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘How’s tricks?’