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across the lobby to a small desk with the sign Bell Captain over it. He eased his right hip onto a corner of the desk and asked huskily, “What’s chances of a man getting shown around this burg?”
    The man behind the desk was one-armed and slightly bald. He had a high, sloping forehead, sunken cheeks, and a very sharp chin. His eyes, bright and calculating, studied Shayne’s face as the bell captain reached for some printed circulars. “We can arrange various sight-seeing tours—”
    Shayne shook his head and snorted, “I’m not interested in that tourist flubdubbery. I want to see the real town—the Quarter and all.”
    “We can arrange for a special guide to take you through the Quarter.”
    Shayne leaned closer, getting out his wallet and opening it. “You know what I mean, pal. Where a man can take it on the hip, or maybe inhale some snow if he gets the yen. The real low-down—three-ways-for-your-money stuff.” He slid a five from his wallet, watching the captain’s face, and then added another five to it.
    The captain stopped shaking his head. He dropped the circulars and palmed the bills. “Off the record, I can put you onto a lad that knows the ropes. A circus or the junk—whatever you crave.”
    Shayne licked his lips and nodded. He tried to make his voice drool with lewd satisfaction. “That’s what I’m willing to pay for.”
    “Be around about seven-thirty. I’ve got it fixed for him to pick up another hot sport from three-oh-nine.”
    Shayne crossed Canal and wandered up Royal Street under overhanging balconies of cast-iron lacework. He turned left on St. Louis, passed up Antoine’s for a small, unpretentious building near the end of the block. There was a sign on the door which read Casti’s, and underneath it the single word Eat.
    Steps led down from the door into a semi-basement room set with small tables not too close together in spite of the limited capacity of the place. The only light was supplied by individual table lamps with shaggy, irregularly cut halves of coconut shells for shades. These were lit only at the occupied tables, and at this early hour only a few were lit.
    Shayne took a table in a corner and waved the handwritten menu aside. His waiter was an aged Negro with a wizened face and friendly, inquiring eyes. His bony shoulders were gracefully bent at a gallant angle from years of service. He bobbed his head and asked, “What will you have this evenin’, suh?”
    Shayne said, “Bring me three sidecars if you’ve got any decent cognac to put in them.”
    “Yassuh. We’s got moughty fine cognac what ain’t nevah been drunk, suh.”
    Shayne asked, “Does Mr. Casti still make his gumbo with crayfish tails and shrimp?”
    A shadow crossed the Negro’s lined face. “Mistuh Casti ain’t heah no mo’, suh, but de gumbo am still de same ez when he wuz.”
    Shayne nodded. “Pure coffee with it?”
    “Yassuh—jes lak always, suh.”
    The waiter returned with three cocktails, grinning broadly as he set them in a row before Shayne. “I hopes one don’t get wahm ’fo you finishes t’other, suh.”’
    Shayne said, “They won’t,” and drank half of one of the sidecars. It was icy, and strong with the clean, mellow taste of good cognac.
    The gumbo was as Shayne remembered it. He ate the man-sized serving while the small restaurant slowly filled with hungry patrons. By the time he topped off the gumbo with a sugarless Café Brulot, there was not a vacant table in the low-ceilinged room and a waiting line was forming outside. He had killed a lot of time with dinner, and it was nearing 7:30 when he stepped out onto St. Louis Street. He walked briskly back to Canal and crossed over to the Angelus Hotel.
    A young man leaned against the desk in front of the bell captain. He was a head shorter than Shayne, with a body that looked unhealthily thick. He had smooth features and sensual lips set in a perpetual pout. The captain said something to him and he turned his head to