Scarlet Lady (11 page)

He leaned against the door, looked her over carefully, and smiled. “There’s something you ought to think about, darling. I go with the boat. If you claim you won the
Scarlet Lady
, you won me, too. Maybe you’d better start deciding what you’re going to do with both of us.”

“What?”

“And lock this door behind me,” he said. “I don’t want anybody else moving in before I do.”

“He says that
if
I won the boat, I won him, too.” Katie flung clothes into a small case as her assistant and best friend, Cat, watched.

“Hmmm. Does that mean by claiming his share of Carithers’ Chance, he also wins you?”

Katie zipped the case closed with a vengeance. “Certainly not. People don’t belong to people.”

“You could have fooled me. Listening to you talk about the Carithers family, I thought you owned each other heart and soul.”

“That’s different. That’s Southern tradition.”

“So’s gambling. Sounds to me like you and Montana won each other. Some package deal.”

“Oh! You sound just like him. Bossy and dictatorial!” Katie picked up her case and marched down the steps to the foyer.

“I’m perfectly happy to take a few days’ personal leave and go with you, Katie.”

“You don’t have any left, Cat, you’ll have to take time off without pay.”

“Okay, time without pay. You can just gamble an extra hand and share your winnings. Call it expense money.”

Katie wanted to refuse, but she needed Cat. She needed her courage and, it occurred to her, she needed her car. “All right. You can go.”

“I’m already packed,” Cat said. “But I would kinda like to know where we’re heading.”

“To New Orleans.”

“Why my car?” Cat glanced around. “Where is the blue goose anyway?”

Katie threw her bag in the back of Cat’s Mustang.

“Apparently Carson took it.”

“And how’ve you been getting back and forth to work?”

“Montana insisted on driving me.”

Cat’s “Hmm” was all interest and questions. “Do we know what happened to Carson’s car? Or did he use that as part of his wager, too?”

Katie leaned her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. “I have no idea. For all I know, it could have been repossessed. Let’s go to New Orleans, Cat.”

“You’re the boss. Any specific place we’re heading?”

“Carson is supposed to be dating a showgirl on one of the riverboats there. I want to talk to her.”

“You think she knows where he is? I thought he had a fiancée.”

“He does.”

Katie never realized how many gambling boats and dinner cruisers there were along the river. The gambling casinos were open twenty-four hours a day. The dinner cruises provided the live shows and entertainment. But none of them gave out information about their patrons.

Finally, just after lunch, they boarded the
Dixie Queen
, a permanently anchored, gaudy paddleboat that advertised the finest entertainment north of New Orleans and the biggest winners at their gaming tables. A sign on the dock announced they were holding tryouts for their show.

“That’s it,” she declared. “That’s how we’ll get some answers.”

“What’s it?” Cat echoed.

“We’ll apply for jobs. Get friendly with the other girls and see what we can find out.”

“Katie, we only have the rest of the day. We don’t have time to waste applying for jobs. Besides, what makes you think anybody would hire us?”

Katie brushed by her friend and started down the deck. “I didn’t say we had to get hired. I just said we’ll try out. Besides, I took ten years of dancing and you can belt out a fair tune. Let’s go for it.”

It didn’t take any more convincing to sway Cat. She was always up for something new. However, Katie wasn’t nearly as confident as she tried to sound. She had no doubt that Cat could pull it off, but there was no way she could become a chorus girl.

Minutes later a short bald man was walking around them, studying both women as if they were prize steers and he was a butcher. “Tell me again about your experience,” he said, glaring sternly at Katie.

“I’ve had ten years of ballet, tap, jazz.”

“So has every girl south of the Mason-Dixon line,” he said. “Experience, lady. Where have you worked?”

“Well,” she improvised wildly, “I spent some time on the
Scarlet Lady
.”

“Montana’s boat? I didn’t know he had a show.”

“He sometimes offers shows,” Cat threw in. “For special occasions, for private parties. I was the singer.”

With that, she pulled up a stool near the piano, picked up the portable mike, and began to sing. By the time she told Bill Bailey to come home, the man holding the auditions was nodding his head in appreciation.
When the song ended, he walked over, took Cat’s hand, and said, “I’ll take you, doll. The other one can go.”

Cat jerked her hand back. “No way, Jack. We’re a team. If she’s out, so am I.”

“Name’s Sam, not Jack. And I don’t even know if she can dance,” he protested.

“Sure she can. Would a Carithers lie to you.”

A stiff, disbelieving look washed over the manager’s face. “You related to Carson Carithers?”

“I’m his—”

“Friend,” Cat finished. “Friend of a Carithers was what I meant. It’s Carson who’s the black sheep. He ran off with her car and we’re still looking for it. Do you know Carson?”

“Oh, I know him all right.”

“Then you’ve seen him?” Katie asked, losing her stiffness in her eagerness to hear his answer.

“He was in here a couple of nights ago.”

Katie let out a deep sigh of relief. He was all right. He hadn’t been murdered and thrown overboard by the mob. “Do you know where he went?”

“Nope. Saw him talking with a man in a suit. Then both of them took off.”

Cat spoke up. “Can you tell us the man’s name?”

“Nope. All I know is that he travels in a gray limo. Comes in here to hassle my customers and never spends any money. If he shows up again tonight, I’m going to have him thrown out.”

“Oh.” Katie’s disappointment was overwhelming. They’d come so close. But he’d said
again tonight
. That
meant the man came often. “Do you think he’ll be back?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Please,” Katie said, “the money’s not important. If you’ll give me a job, I’ll do whatever you ask. It’s really important to me. To get my car back, that is.”

“Your car—yeah. Look, ladies, nobody ever said Sam couldn’t appreciate a woman who’s been done wrong. Knowing your friend, he’ll probably be back when he finds some more cash. Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you a job for a couple of days, and I’ll ask around about the guy your boyfriend left with.”

Katie looked at Cat. There was no point in correcting his impression that she was a woman wronged. This might be a lead to Carson. She turned back to Sam and nodded. “What do we have to do?”

“The redhead can sing and you—maybe you’d just better start out hustling drinks. We’ll play it by ear from there.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Cat said. “I’m Cat and this is Katie. For tonight, we’re yours.”

That remark turned out to be a complete error. Even without her Wonderbra and feathers in her hair, the tight red shorts and cutaway had the same effect. The patrons on the
Dixie
thought the waitresses belonged to them, particularly the new ones. At nine, the boat left port, traveled upriver, returning at midnight with no sign of Carson.

By one o’clock, one of the gamblers who struck it big ordered a bottle of champagne. When Katie brought it to his table, he decided that she’d brought him good
luck. He’d gambled there for over a year and this was the first time he’d won. There was nothing for it except that they have a drink.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said backing away, searching desperately for Sam. “I’m not allowed to drink while I’m working.”

“Oh, I think Sam would approve. He gets enough of my money to keep him happy.”

Katie found herself being pulled to a corner table and shoved into the seat. “Please, don’t do this.”

At that moment Montana, dressed in his work clothes, the black frock coat and string tie, appeared in the hall. He clamped down on his usual unlit cheroot and forced himself to swagger across the room toward Kate, who was trying to back away from the customer.

“Hello, darling,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”

“Montana,” she said, springing up and moving toward him. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“And I’m glad to see you,” he said, pulling her close and planting a kiss on her forehead. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, he’s a lucky customer. He just won the jackpot.”

“Congratulations, buddy. But I think you’d better find someone else to celebrate with. Let’s go, sweetheart.”

He turned and, pulling her into the curve of his arm, started toward the door.

“What are you doing here?” Katie asked in an angry whisper, resisting his attempt to get her out the door.

“I came to keep you out of trouble. Looks like I’m just in time.”

“Okay, so you rescued me. Now let me go!”

He had a grip of iron. “Not yet, darling.”

“How’d you know where I was?”

“Sam called. Wanted a reference on you. When he said you performed for me at private parties, I couldn’t resist accepting his invitation to be at the one he was arranging for later tonight. I didn’t think you’d start without me.”

“What do you mean, a private party later tonight?”

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Don’t you know what entertaining at private parties implies?”

She gasped. “But we just meant singing and dancing.”

“We?”

“My friend Cat and I. I’m the waitress. She’s a singer.”

Montana groaned. “Where is she now?”

“She went on upstairs to the party. I’m supposed to be bringing up a special bottle of whiskey after I served that man back there.”

Montana glanced around the room, catching sight of a red-haired woman just as she exited the elevator and marched toward the door. “Katie, we’re not going to find out anything,” the redhead said. “We’re getting out of here. We just quit.”

“Can you swim?” Montana asked, remembering the last time Katie left in a hurry.

“No,” Cat answered. “Do I have to?”

“Not this time,” Montana said, putting an arm
around each woman. “We’re back at the docks. I’m Montana. Let’s get out of here.”

“So you’re the bad guy?” Gat said, looking up at him. “I’m Cat. You didn’t tell me he was a man to die for, Katie.”

“He’s not.”

“No, I’m worse. I’m the private party Katie’s entertaining later tonight.”

SIX

“Just how far were you two planning to go to get
my
money back?”

Montana drove Katie to Carithers’ Chance with Cat following in her own car.

“The money wasn’t our objective. We were trying to find Carson. Sam said he was in his casino Sunday night, talking with a man with a gray limousine but nobody knows who he is. We thought if we went to work for Sam, we might learn something.”

“Did you?”

“No,” was Katie’s answer.

“Well, I did. The man’s name is Leon. The scuttlebutt is that he’s some kind of vampire who appears in the night and disappears before the sun comes up.”

“Vampire? Come on. That’s ridiculous.”

“I agree. I’m only repeating the talk along the river.”

“So what does Leon have to do with Carson?”

“I’m still working on that.”

Katie loosened her seat belt and leaned forward. “Can’t we go and talk to him?”

“Good idea,” Montana agreed. “Know where he lives?”

“No,” Katie admitted with a frown.

“And neither does anyone else, so far as I can tell.”

“But the police,” Katie suggested. “Surely they can find him.”

“The police are looking for him too. It seems several people have disappeared after being seen talking with our mystery man.”

Katie gasped. “You mean he kidnaps them?”

Montana shook his head. “No, I don’t think he kidnaps them. Think about it, who’d want to kidnap a gambler that loses all the time?”

“But there must be someone who can help us find him. Maybe the news—a television reporter?”

Montana looked skeptical. “I can’t get anybody to publicly admit that Leon exists. The casino owners don’t know, and the gamblers won’t talk. If he isn’t a vampire, he’s a ghost. A reporter will only drive him further underground.”

Katie leaned back, making no attempt to cover her disappointment. “So what now?”

“We wait. I put out the word that there is a reward for information about either Leon or Carson. Until somebody comes forward, we’ll just have to sit tight.”

“What about Carson’s girlfriend, the showgirl?”

“She works for Mario, who used to deal for me. But she hasn’t seen him either.”

“So you found her too.”

“No. She found me. She’s a very nice girl named Emily, who said that Carson left her, heading for my place to pick up his IOUs. Later he called her. He seemed despondent, told her he was a failure and a screwup. He ruined everything he touched and he wasn’t about to hurt her or anybody else anymore.”

Katie paled. “You don’t think he—”

“No, I don’t.”

“But you can’t be sure he hasn’t done something to himself, can you?”