A Swell-Looking Babe Read Online Free Page A

himself. Bascom had better watch his step. Tug Trowbridge definitely wasn't a guy you'd want to get down on you.
    Back in prohibition days, Tug had headed a statewide bootleg syndicate. His well-earned reputation for toughness was such as to make even the Capones shy away from him. During the war – though he had never been convicted – he had been the brains, and no small part of the muscle, of a group of black-market mobsters, men who specialized in the daylight hijacking of bonded whiskey trucks. At various times in his career, he had been involved – reputedly – in the loan-shark and slot-machine rackets.
    These illegal and often, deadly activities, or, more properly, these alleged activities, were now years behind him. His present and obviously profitable enterprises were confined to a juke-box company and a stevedoring firm. Still, and despite his brimming good humor, he obviously was not a man to be trifled with. Dusty knew that from the attitude of the men who accompanied him.
    It wasn't likely, of course, that Tug would ever rough up Bascom. He'd be too contemptuous of the clerk, and there was an easier way of showing hi% displeasure.
    Tug paid seven hundred and fifty dollars a month rent. His bar and restaurant bills ran at least as much more. Neither he nor his associates ever created a disturbance. He made no special demands on the hotel. In short, he was the Manton's idea of a highly desirable – a "respectable" – guest; and it would take no more than a word from him to get Bascom discharged.
    … Dusty didn't get up to the Trowbridge suite within the half hour suggested. First, he had a hurry-up call for some aspirin from another room. Next, he had to unlock the check room for an early-departing guest, locate a small trunk stored therein and lug it out to the man's car. Then, there was a flurry of elevator traffic, now his responsibility since the operator had gone home.
    It was Bascom, however, who was the chief cause of the delay. The clerk had insisted that Dusty give him the few minutes help he needed to complete the transcript. Then, with the task completed, he had pretended that the lock to the cashier's cage was jammed. Anyway, Dusty was convinced that it was a pretence. Bascom wouldn't let him try to work the key. He couldn't climb out of the enclosure, as he might have in any of the other front offices, because of the heavy steel netting across the top.
    Finally, after almost twenty minutes had passed, the room clerk's phone rang, and, lo and behold, the lock suddenly became unjammed. Bascom gave him a shrewish, over-the-shoulder grin as he sauntered out of the cage. Dusty shoved past him roughly as the clerk began relocking the door.
    It was in his mind to tell Trowbridge what had happened. But he wasn't quite angry enough for that, and, as it turned out, there was neither opportunity nor necessity to do so.
    Tug and the other two men were lounging in the parlor of his suite, their coats off, brimming glasses in their hands. They were obviously unaware that Dusty was more than thirty minutes late.
    "Here already, huh?" Tug beamed. "Now, that's what I call service. Sit down and have a drink with us."
    "Thanks very much," said Dusty. "I don't drink, Mr. Trowbridge."
    "Sure, you don't; keep forgetting," the big man nodded. "Well, have a smoke then. Shake hands with my friends. Don't believe you've met these gents."
    Dusty shook hands with them, and sat down. He'd never seen them before, but he felt that he had. There was something in the manner of Tug's friends that made them all look a little alike.
    "Dusty's the lad I started to tell you about," Trowbridge continued. "Ain't that hell, though? Here's a plenty smart kid, got almost four years of college under his belt, and he winds up hopping bells. Nice, huh? Some future for a guy that figured on being a doctor."
    The two men looked sympathetic. Or, rather, they tried to. Tug wagged his head regretfully.
    "That's about the way it stacks up, eh,