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receiver to his ear. He replaced the instrument, walked back to where Liddell stood.
    “Mr. Stack will be out in a moment, sir.”
    Liddell nodded, swung back to the bar. He signaled for a refill and waited until the bartender had replaced the bottle on the back bar. “You don’t make it any too easy for a guy to drop his dough around here, do you?”
    The bartender shrugged. “Like I said, mister. I only work here.” He looked past Liddell’s shoulder. “Here’s the guy you want to make your beefs to. Mr. Stack.”
    Liddell turned to face a two-hundred-pound fashion plate in a midnight-blue tuxedo, a red carnation in his buttonhole, a lazy smile pasted on his thick, red lips. The headwaiter hovered anxiously in his wake.
    Stack bowed to Muggsy, turned a pair of cold, gray eyes on Liddell.
    “You wanted to see me, sir?”
    Liddell nodded. “I knew it would be a waste of time to ask for Yale Stanley. I figured it would have to be done through you.”
    The big man nodded, sniffed at the carnation in his lapel. “Does Mr. Stanley know you?”
    “No. But I think he’d be glad to see me.”
    Stack considered it, failed to be impressed. “Why should he?”
    Liddell pulled his card out of his pocket, wrote on the back, “Concerning Shad Reilly’s paper,” handed it to Stack. The big man read it slowly, nodded.
    “You may be right. I think Yale will see you. However,”he added sadly, “he isn’t in the house yet. He doesn’t usually get here this early.” He adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, looked sadly at Liddell. “If you’d care to wait?”
    Liddell looked at Muggsy, got a nod. “I have no reservation.’ ‘
    The stock smile was back on Stack’s face. He pulled the menu from under the headwaiter’s arm, stepped aside, motioned for them to precede him. At the entrance to the dining-room, he stepped ahead, led the way down three crimson steps, along the tables that skirted the dance floor. He stopped at one facing the bandstand, pulled it out. “Will this be all right?”
    Liddell nodded. “Fine. You’ll call me when Stanley arrives?”
    Stack nodded and opened the menu for them.
    “Make it two combination sandwiches and two Harper,” Liddell told him. Stack nodded, transmitted the order to the waiter.
    “Anything else?” he asked. When Liddell shook his head, Stack bowed slightly and glided off. On the way to the door, he stopped to smile at a customer here and a customer there, or to bend over a table to talk to a favored one.
    “You must know the password,” Muggsy whispered. “Whatever you wrote on that card sure got results. What was it?”
    Liddell grinned. “I just said we were here concerning Shad Reilly’s paper. From the action we got it must be enough to pay the national debt.”
    The waiter deposited two drinks and two sandwiches on the table and left. At the other end of the dance floor, the band on the low podium blared into an introductory chord, and the house lights went down. A long yellow spot stabbed through the dimness of the room to outline the figure of a girl emcee. She undulated out onto the stage, waited for the overhead mike to be lowered to within range, broke into a brassy song of welcome. Her voice was heavy, roughened by whisky and overuse.
    After the song, a long line of girls scampered onto the floor in spangled brassieres and satin tights. They went through a tortured routine, twisted and squirmed under the colored spot, their bare legs flashing, their bare stomachs undulating. They ran off the stage to a smattering of applause, gave way to a piano single that played and sang a series of
double-entendre
songs in a manner that left only one interpretation.
    The line of girls was back with different costumes but the same steps, the same bare midriffs and insufficient brassieres. This time they made way for the brassy-voiced emcee. She leaned against the piano, threw her head back, and gave herself over to a wail of unrequited love.
    “Got enough of this?”