If Death Ever Slept

There was something about her, her tone and manner, that wasn’t just right. Not that it didn’t fit a stenographer speaking to a secretary; of course I had caught on that calling her a stenographer was like calling Willie Mays a bat boy. I can’t very well tell you what it was, since I didn’t know. I only felt that there was something between her and me, one-way, that I wasn’t on to. I was thinking a little more conversation might give me an idea, when a phone buzzed.

She lifted the receiver of the black one, spoke and listened briefly, and turned to me. “For you. Mr. Foote.”

I went and took it. “Hello, Roger?” I call panhandlers by their first names. “Alan.”

“You’re a hell of a secretary. Where have you been all day?”

“Out and around. I’m here now.”

“So I hear. I understand you’re a gin player. Would you care to win a roll? Since Old Ironsides is away and you’re not needed.”

“Sure, why not? Where?”

“My room. Come on up. From your room turn right, first left, and I’ll be at my door.”

“Right.” I hung up, told Nora I would be glad to run an errand if she had one, was assured that she hadn’t, and left. So, I thought, Roger was on pumping terms with the butler. It was unlikely that Steck had volunteered the information that I had invited him to a friendly game.

Foote’s room was somewhat larger than mine, with three windows, and it was all his. The chairs were green leather, and the size and shape of one of them, over by a window, would have been approved even by Wolfe. Fastened to the walls with Scotch tape were pictures of horses, mostly in color, scores of them, all sizes. The biggest one was Native Dancer, from the side, with his head turned to see the camera.

“Not one,” Roger said, “that hasn’t carried my money. Muscle. Beautiful. Beautiful! When I open my eyes in the morning there they are. Something to wake up to. That’s all any man can expect, something to wake up to. You agree?”

I did.

I had supposed, naturally, that the idea would be something like a quarter a point, maybe more, and that if he won I would pay, and if I won he would owe me. But no, it was purely social, a cent a point. Either he gambled only on the beautiful muscles, or he was stringing me along, or he merely wanted to establish relations for future use. He was a damn good gin player. He could talk about anything, and did, and at the same time remember every discard and every pickup. I won 92 cents, but only because I got most of the breaks.