Don't Dare a Dame by M Ruth Myers Page A

concerns about voters just a little.
     
        “Tell me about the in and out of debt part,” I said.
     
        Resting his cigar on the rim of a brass ashtray, he shrugged with what I recognized as impatience.
     
        “We’d run into one another a couple of times through the years. Had a drink together once, I think. Twice he came to ask if I’d bail him out with a loan.”
     
        “Did he say why he needed the money?”
     
        The politician shook his head.
     
        “Gambling?”
     
        “I don’t know. Actually....” He pulled at his chin again. “Now that I think, the last time he came, he mentioned legal expenses.”
     
        “When was this?”
     
        “Couple months back.”
     
        When he was contesting his dead wife’s bequest of the house to Corrine, I thought.
     
        “And before that?” I asked.
     
        “Eight, ten years ago?” Cy gestured vaguely, his dwindling interest apparent.
     
        “Did you pay?”
     
        “The first time I did. Not the last. I feel somewhat bad now, knowing he’s dead.” He began to shrug into his suit jacket. “I’m afraid I can’t spare you any more time just now. Come back any time if you have more questions.”
     
        I stood up. So did he. Resting a hand on my shoulder, he began to steer me gently but expertly toward the door.
     
        “If I ever have need of detective work, I’ll keep you in mind. I can see you’re very good at your work.”
     
        He gave me a smile which crinkled his eyes. I smiled back.
     
        “Looks like you’re good at yours, too — sweetheart.”
     

    
     
        
     
        
     
        
     
    Fourteen
     
        
     
        I left Cy Warren’s office and headed left toward the corner without looking back to see if anyone watched me. Across the street, at the opposite corner and two doors up where he wouldn’t be visible to anyone in Cy’s place, Heebs lounged against a building. At sight of me, he began to amble toward the intersection, yelling in his best newsboy style to “get the early news.” I turned the opposite direction. Our paths never crossed.
     
        Halfway up the cross street I turned into a hole in the wall that sold coffee and sandwiches. Chances of Cy and his cronies showing up here were just about nil. Their watering hole was much more likely to be a beer joint. Five minutes after I’d settled myself at a table with two mugs of joe, Heebs came in grinning.
     
        “Easy as pie, sis. They even bought two papers just to get rid of me.”
     
        He ladled sugar and cream into the coffee in front of him. The cream was too rich to pour and mounded on his spoon like pudding.
     
        “Two sharpies and a girl in the front,” he reported, licking the spoon. “Didn’t get her name. They just called her ‘the girl’ when they told her to pay me. She took money out of a drawer, though, so I guess they weren’t making her pay. None of ’em looked too worried. Didn’t look like they were having a pow-wow or anything.”
     
        He slurped some coffee, checking the temperature. His next drink was quieter.
     
        “At first the gents said they didn’t need any papers, they’d already read the early edition and the late one would be out directly. I told ’em they ought to have papers out where people could see them if they stopped in. Make it look like they kept right up to the minute. They chuckled, but they said ‘no’ again. So I moseyed over to the girl and called her ‘miss’ — that butters dames up — but she said ‘no’ too.
     
        “Didn’t matter, ’cause I’d been thinking the door behind her was closed, and I hadn’t seen any guy with white in his hair like you described—”
     
        “Heebs!” I’d told him not to take any chances.
     
        “So I said to the girl, all innocent, ‘Anybody back there? Maybe they’d like one.’ Only by the time