Inside, the place reeked of alcohol. They sat at plank tables In the wretched living room, and through the careless curtains Mundin saw the gleam of copper tubing and shiny pots. They were the only customers at that hour.
The woman asked tonelessly, “Raisin-jack? Ration-jack? Majun? Reefers? Gin?”
“Gin, please,” Mundin said hastily.
It came in a quart bottle. Mundin gasped when she said, “Fifty cents.”
“Competition,” Bligh explained when she had gone. “If it was just me she would’ve sold it for twenty-five, but of course she could tell you were just slumming.”
“Not exactly,” Mundin said. “Health!”
They drank. At first Mundin thought that somebody had smashed him on the back of the head with a padded mallet. Then he realized it was the gin.
Hoarsely, he asked Bligh, “How have you been getting along?”
Bligh shook his head, tears hanging in his eyes. “Don’t ask
me,” he said bitterly. “It’s been hell, one day of hell after another, and no end to it. How have I been deiegTJt couldn’t be worse, Mr. Mundin. I wish to heaven I——” he stopped himself, on the verge of breakdown. He sat up straighten “Sorry,” he said. “Been drinking all afternoon. Not used to it.”
“That’s all right,” said Mundin.
BHgh said, “Sure.” He eyed Mundin with a curiously familiar expression; Mundin, trying to place it, heard the words come tumbling out as Bligh abruptly clutched his sleeve and said, “Look, Mr. Mundin, you can help me. Please! You must have something. A big lawyer like you—working for the County Committee and everything—you’ve got to have something! I don’t expect a contract and a G.M.L. I had them; I was a fool; I threw them away. But there must be some kind of a job, any kind, enough so I can get out of Belly Rave before I split right down the middle and——”
Mundin, holding back the recollection of himself and silly Willie Choate, said sharply, “No! I can’t, Bligh. I don’t have a job to give.”
“Nothing?” Norvell cried. “Nothing I can do for you here, Mr. Mundin? Ask me. I know the ropes; ask me!”
It was a new thought. Mundin said uncertainly, “Why— why, as a matter of fact, there just might be something, at that I’ve been trying to locate—ah—a friend here in Belly Rave. A girl named Norma Lavin. If you think you could help me find her——”
Bligh looked at him expressionlessly. “You want me to find you a ghi?”
“A client, Bligh.”
Bligh shrugged. “Sure, Mr. Mundin.” Eagerly. “I can do it, I bet. I’ve got friends—contacts—you just leave it to me. You want to come along? I can get to work on it right now. I’ve learned a lot in a week; I can show you the ropes.”
Mundin hesitated. Why not? His job was to stay out of sight. Until the stockholders’ meeting, at least . . .
“Certainly,” he told Bligh. “Lead the way.”
Mundin thought at first that the little man had taken leave of his senses.
Bligh led him through the growing dusk to a vacant lot—the burned-out site of one of Belle Reve’s finest 40-by-60-foot
estates. And then the little man cupped his hands to his mouth and hooted mournfully into the twilight: “Wa-wa-wa-wa-wab-bit twacks!”
Mundin, stupefied, began: “What——?”
Bligh put his finger to his lips. “Wait.”
They waited. Two minutes; five. Then a small figure oozed from the dusk.
It asked suspiciously, “Who wants a wabbit?”
Bligh proudly introduced Mundin. “This gentleman is. looking for a young lady——”
“Cack, buster! Us Wabbits don’t-
“No, no! A particular young lady. She has disappeared.”
Mundin added, “Norma Lavin is her name. Disappeared a week ago. Lived at 37598 Willowdale Crescent. Drove an old Caddy.”
“Um. Gee-Gee territory, that is,” the shrill young voice informed them. “We got a Grenadier POW, though. What’s in it for the Wabbits?”
Bligh whispered to Mundin, “Ten dollars.”
Mundin said promptly, “Ten dollars.”
“For a starter?”
“Sure.”
“Come on.” The Wabbit led them a desperate pace through a mile of Belly Rave. Once a thick-set brute lunged at them from a doorway, mumbling. The child snarled, “Lay off. Wabbits!” The man slunk back; there had been a flash of jagged bottle glass from the fist of the Wabbit.