The Famous-Barr was closed, but a pedestrian directed us to a Boyd’s branch close by. Hagan parked out front and Steve led the way, playing the big shot, striding into the men’s department and telling the first salesman he came to, “I need a new suit.”

The slender, pomaded salesman, with a superior attitude from home and expensive suit provided at work, said, “I’m afraid we have a considerable backlog of alterations. It will be several days, I’m afraid, before anything can be ready for you.”

Steve was already thumbing through hanging Hickey-Freeman suits like they were wallpaper samples. “Are you a gambler?”

“Sir?”

“I will bet you ten dollars you can have a suit ready for me by tomorrow.”

And Steve yanked a wad of cash from his dirt-smudged pants and fanned out twenty-dollar bills like he was dealing cards. “Price tag says one-hundred and-twenty-two dollars,” he said. “That’s one-hundred-and-thirty right there. Put the rest against any alteration charge. That assumes, of course…”

“It will be ready tomorrow, sir.”

“Good.”

I sat to one side and watched rather numbly while Steve—who introduced himself to the salesman as John Byrne—was measured for his suit, then bought a new pair of shoes, several pair of trousers (one to replace his muddy ones), a Dobbs hat (we were all wearing them that season), an assortment of socks, three sets of cufflinks, a belt and various neckties. Steve turned Hagan loose—“Buy yourself half a dozen shirts”—and, as the store closed around us, settled up with the salesman.

“We’ll be doing more business with your fine firm,” Steve said, “when we pick up my Hickey-Freeman tomorrow.” He had changed trousers and had the rest of his purchases in a big-handled bag. “Shall we say at noon?”

“Noon will be fine, sir.”

Back in the Plymouth, with Hagan again at the wheel, Steve said, “Sometimes I think these people don’t know who they’re dealing with.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

But Steve was coming down off his high. “I want a nice girl, remember. Some nice, sexy doll, Johnny. Go two hundred. Go three if you have to.”

“Okay,” Hagan said. “Sure.”

He’d been confident minutes ago, but now he was all nerves, lighting up a cigarette clumsily. “I don’t think I care to move to the Town House tonight. If it’s a nice place like you say, Johnny, the Coral Court’s better for a rendezvous.”

“Okay,” Hagan said.

“We need to get my luggage up to the room again.”

Outside the Pink House, they dropped me to pick up the Caddy. I followed them to the motor court, our middle two-story building at the rear, then parked in the 50-A garage and walked around where the Plymouth was backed up to the foot of the exterior stairs, trunk lid up. Hugging the black metal suitcase to him as he went up, Steve looked like he might lose his balance and tumble down onto us any moment. We were following, perhaps too close, the green footlocker in a coffin carry again, the cabbie climbing backward.