The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

But Bessie was sure the man hadn’t heard a word of what they’d said. The volume was turned up on the noon agricultural price reports on the radio, and the man was bent over his plate, shoveling in his mashed potatoes and gravy as fast as he could. He was obviously in a hurry to finish his dinner so that he could get back to the booth and make that telephone call.

Over their meal, Liz related to Bessie the rest of the details Verna had gotten from Mrs. O’Malley, including the fact that the man sitting over there at the counter, enjoying Euphoria’s fried chicken, was a member of the Capone gang named Diamond. Frankie Diamond. Verna had set it up so he was supposed to use the phone in the phone booth to make a call to Mr. Capone, but she wasn’t going to put the call through. When he came out of the booth, she wanted them to shadow him.

Bessie listened to all of this with increasing astonishment. A member of the Capone gang, here in Darling? Miss Jamison’s friend, her face slashed? Miss Hamer’s niece, a killer? And she and Liz were supposed to do what?

“Shadow him?” She sneaked a look at the man out of the corner of her eye. There was a bulge in the back of his coat. Was it a gun?

“Follow him,” Liz explained. “Keep an eye on him. Find out where he goes. It’s something Verna got from reading those true-crime magazines of hers. But we have to keep out of sight. He’s not supposed to see us.”

“Oh,” Bessie said, understanding. She picked up her biscuit and slathered it with butter. “Well, as for keeping out of sight, you know as well as I do that we’re just a pair of small-town women. You’re too pretty and wholesome-looking to be any kind of a threat to him, and I’m almost old enough to be his mother. We might as well be invisible. He will never in this natural world suspect that we’re ‘shadowing’ him.”

And this seemed to be the case. As Bessie and Liz watched from their vantage point in front of the hardware store window, Mr. Diamond came out of the phone booth. His thick-featured face was a mottled red, his eyes were narrowed to slits, and his expression was surly. Bessie suppressed a giggle. He looked exactly like a man who had been cooped up for twenty minutes in a hot, stuffy telephone booth, only to learn that his critically important long-distance call could not be connected because all the circuits were busy.

Mr. Diamond jammed his snap-brim hat down on his bald head and strode angrily past Lizzy and Bessie. Without wasting so much as a look in their direction, he stalked across Robert E. Lee, dodging a pair of mangy dogs and a cart pulled by a mule. He was heading in the direction of Mann’s Mercantile. Taking their time, the two women strolled casually behind him, chatting as they went.

In front of Mann’s, Diamond paused, took out a cigarette, and lit it with a match. He was about to go into the store when a woman, coming out, bumped him. It was Leona Ruth Adcock, carrying a shopping bag full of purchases. She stopped, looked at Mr. Diamond in some surprise, smiled, and opened her mouth.

“Uh-oh,” Liz said, under her breath. “Didn’t you tell me that Leona Ruth has got it into her head that this man is a government agent?”

“I sure did,” Bessie said grimly. “She might be going to tell him how to find Miss Jamison. We ought to try to stop her.” She stepped forward. But she was too late.

“Oh, Mr. Gold!” Leona Ruth exclaimed in a tittery voice. “How nice to see you again.” Her black hat was tipped forward over her freshly done curls, a red rose bobbing in a nest of red ribbons over one ear. “It’s such a coincidence, runnin’ into one another like this.”

“You got me mixed up with somebody else,” Mr. Diamond growled impatiently, clearly in no mood to chat with a woman wearing a red rose over her ear. He made as if to dodge around Leona Ruth and into the mercantile, but she sidestepped adroitly, planting herself right in front of him.

“Why, don’t you recall?” She pouted, as if she were put out at him for not remembering. “You stopped at my house just yesterday afternoon, askin’ about a platinum blonde. I was just on my way over to the hotel to leave you a message.”

Mr. Diamond pulled his eyebrows together in a dark scowl, not even attempting to be polite. “I been stoppin’ at a lot of houses in this stinkin’ little burg, sister,” he snarled around his cigarette. “You got something juicy for me, spill it fast, before I lose what’s left of my temper. I been hangin’ out in a phone booth for twenty minutes and I ain’t in no mood to stand here and listen to some dumb dame bash her gums.”

Bessie saw that Leona Ruth was clearly taken aback by this out-and-out rudeness, but she pulled herself together and persevered.

“The lady you were inquirin’ about yesterday. I just might be able to tell you something about her.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, darting a coy look at him. “That is, if you’ll tell me why you’re lookin’ for her. It’s a trade, y’see. You give me something, I give you something back.” She smiled, pleased with herself. “Tit for tat.”