I pulled off my shirt. "The wine is very warming," I said.
"Yes," she said softly. She opened her blouse and took it off and then tossed her head to make her hair come down over her shoulders. She unhooked her bra and threw it aside. "Here in Austria," she said, "we have two ways of addressing people. One is more formal than the other."
"I know."
She moved closer and her breasts touched my chest. "We say du to those who are very close to us. It is a special way of saying the word for 'you'." Her arms went around my neck as I unzipped the zipper on her skirt and let it fall to the ground.
"It is a way of talking to a lover," she said.
My hands touched her warmth, the silky skin, and I didn't say anything. I forgot about the dead man whose killer I was seeking. I forgot about the others who were trying to kill me. I forgot everything ... except this woman's searching mouth.
"I think I will call you du," she said....
She was naked then and so was I, and the breeze off the lake was warm on our bodies....
1
Some days start out one way, and some days start out another way. You know how it is. Above all else, this day was starting out early for me.
While I kicked at the sheet and remembered that my houseboy was on vacation, the doorbell kept ringing as though tape had been slapped over the button. I got my eyelids far enough apart to see that it was exactly seven-thirty. I sleep in the raw, and without wearing a stitch I staggered to the door, wondering why anyone would want to call on me at this time of the day.
I found out soon enough.
When I opened the front door the glare of daylight hit me, and through my squinted and sleepy lids I could distinguish only the vague figure of a man.
"Damn you, Six," he said.
And then he hit. me.
When I came out of it a while later I was a nude in repose, stretched out on my back, looking up at the ceiling of my front room. I sat up, fought off a nudge of dizziness while my fingers explored the single sore spot on the side of my jaw. The front door was now closed.
After I'd gotten to my feet I went over and opened it again. I saw the morning paper and a lot of California sunshine outside. But the man was nowhere in sight.
I brought the paper inside with me and dropped it on the kitchen table. Then I made a quick tour of the house. Nothing had been disturbed and there was no one there except me. I finished up in the kitchen, and while I made the coffee I wondered about the guy who'd punched me. Even with the bright sunlight in my face something about him had seemed vaguely familiar, but at the moment I couldn't remember what it had been. Maybe it would all come back to me after some coffee.
The morning headlines were pretty dull, and so I turned to the sports section and checked yesterday's ball scores. A sportswriter had recorded an interview with Durocher. The interview was continued on another page, and while I was looking for it my glance hit the day's astrological forecast.
"A sparkling day," it predicted. "Surprises in business, travel, and romance. Avoid early A.M. conflict, however."
Then the phone started ringing and the percolater started bubbling. I answered the phone.
It was Simon Farmer, senior member of the most respected law firm in Southern California.
In that same wonderful voice that could mesmerize any jury he said, "Agnes Belcher would like to ask you for a favor. Can you go see her?"
"Certainly."
"How about twelve o'clock?"
"Today?"
"This noon. She just got back to her home in Palm Desert and she'll be staying there this summer. I believe you have her address."
"Yes."
"I'll call and tell her you'll be out to see her. Thanks, Hardy." And then he hung up.
I shaved quickly and followed that with a fast shower. After I'd towelled dry, I padded a la Adam out to the kitchen for my coffee. I poured a scalding cupful, added a bit of cream, and then I brought it into the bedroom, to sip on while I got dressed.
When I set the cup onto the dresser I got the first scent of her perfume.
And then I caught on.
On the floor in the front of my bed was a small and untidy heap of woman's clothing. I could see a brown pump, a sleeve of a blouse, half of the bra, and a skirt.
Somebody sure was sleeping in Daddy Bare's bed.
Only she wasn't sleeping. Her face was turned towards the wall and she was entirely motionless, except for an occasional flicker of the long lashes of her right eye. The sheet had been pulled up to her ear so that only the top of her blonde head was visible.
There was only one blonde head like that in the Los Angeles area, and it belonged to Astrid. An airline hostess with wonderful long legs, as Norweigian as any girl could be-even though she'd been born and raised in a small town in Wisconsin.
It wasn't the first time Astrid had been in my bed, but it was the first time she'd gotten there by herself. And I'd never given her a key to the house, so she must have found the front door a bit ajar while I was in the shower.
I picked up the top of the sheet and slowly moved it down and off her and let it drop at the foot of the bed. As I said, she was entirely motionless, a delightfully soft and slender nymph. She was lying on her back, her arms and hands at her sides, and with the patch of gold glowing like a neon.
Then she came to life, not in one big convulsive leap or lunge, but rather in a wonderful slow change. First I noticed the quickening of the flicker of her lashes while the pulse beat became more pronounced in the hollow of her throat, and then the pink nipples topping the full lush breasts began to rise and harden, growing larger and turgid under my gaze.
Along with that I felt the blood begin to pound in my ears, thundering so loudly that I was certain she could hear it, too, and maybe she did, for she slowly opened her eyes and when she turned her head to look up at me I saw the heat and wanting through the screen of lashes.
She squirmed languidly, bringing her arms up above her head, and then a smile touched her lovely face. "Hello, Hard Six," she said soft There was nothing personal in that remark; it was only a nickname she'd come up with long ago, like all the others. Besides, at a time like that you don't pay much attention to what is being said.
"Hello, yourself," I told her, which is about as trite as anyone can get. Then I leaned over and used the tip of my finger to draw an X lightly over the target.
This time her reaction was swift and violent. In the next second she'd grabbed my arm and jerked me down on top of her, with her lovely arms going around my neck while her mouth came up, moist and hot, and fitted itself over mine.
As I said, she'd been in my bed before, and coming in like this on her own meant that she was there for only one thing. We didn't waste any time with preliminaries because I was now in the same condition, and when we got together it was like opening the door of a blast furnace.
Except that she was very soft and supple and aggressive, coming at me and against me in furious, savage jolts which required the same vicious violence in return. Quickly we were caught up in the mutual urgency which became even more agonizing with each second whenever the skin of our bodies burned and seared each other.
She was slashing me to bits with her fingernails and I was holding her up and bringing her even closer to me with each movement, and at the same time I was moving off into space, being kept in orbit by the deliciousness of each moment and going further out until I slipped into a galaxy that was a mass of hot lava that gushed out in thundering waves, caught me up in the maw, and when the last tremendous one began to recede I not only went along with it but I powered forward so that I could keep up with it all the way.
In the final terrifying moments I lost all control and balance. I tumbled forward, irrationally, into the warm golden warmth that she had prepared for me and brought to me and now given to me.
We talked about that long wonderful journey for a while, and after we'd gotten dressed, I got the percolator and the cups and saucers and we had coffee on the pool terrace.
I tried to peek at my watch without her noticing it, but she saw me do it, and there was frost showing in her blue eyes.
"Am I boring you, Hardy?"
"I said, "Don't be silly."
That was the worst thing I could have said.
"I am not silly!" Astrid slammed down her cup. "Maybe I'm stupid for coming way out here to see you before I start on my vacation, but I am not silly-I didn't mean-"
I tried to tell her that it was just an expression, that I'd used it on her maybe a hundred times before, that it had never bothered her before, that I did appreciate her and the fact that she came out that morning and wanted to spend the day with me, and that I was merely checking the time because I had to be in Palm Desert at noon. But I didn't get to say much of it; and none of it was heard.
Before I understood what was really happening, Astrid had stormed off the terrace and run into the house. By the time I jumped to my feet the front door had already slammed shut behind her. When I got to the door I heard her car leaving the driveway and a second later down the street.
But some days start out like that.
From my front door it's roughly one hundred and twenty miles to Palm Springs. Once you're on the freeway you're GO.
It was almost eleven o'clock in the morning when I hit the outskirts. I swung the Ferrari into the first filling station I found on the right hand side of the street, and when I got out of the car the heat nearly knocked me down. On my way to the phone booth I glanced at a thermometer hanging on the shady side of the building. One hundred eleven degrees.
Knowing how hot it was really made the phone booth unbearable, but I stayed there until I'd dialed Diana's private number. After about a dozen rings, she finally answered.
Her voice was low and husky, as though she'd just awakened. But that's the way Diana always answered her phone.
"This is Hardy Six," I said. "I received your letter last night, so I came right out."
"Oh, Big Six," she said. Now the voice had lost some of its sleepiness and it had added warmth. "You made a special trip for me?"
"Of course," I lied. What the hell, if it made her feel good.
"Can you come up to the house?"
"I'll be there in about ten minutes."
"I'm grateful, Hardy."
Diana's house was located on a hillside, w-edged in between two huge gray boulders in the little tuscany arc of the Springs. She'd had it built right after the settlement with her fourth husband, but she really hadn't lived in it until after the divorce from her fifth husband. By that time she'd hit her late, late forties, and her movie career was definitely dead.
Her main objective had now changed from squiring husbands to acquiring young men for the season. The last one had been an unemployed piano player of twenty-three, but after a month or so she'd begun running around with a bearded guitar player. Also unemployed. So Diana and the guitar player spent six weeks together in Mexico.
Now as I pulled up in front of Diana's house, I saw the white T-Bird convertible parked in the driveway. A young girl, not more than eighteen years old, was sliding under the wheel. She was wearing shorts and a halter, dark sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed hat with the pink scarf tied under her chin. As I stepped away from my car, she started up the Bird.
It thundered loud and the next second I saw the front of it hurtling towards me. For a bout a day and a half, it seemed, I just stood there. I couldn't think or move, or even begin to get out of her way.
But then I must have leaped into the air, twisting my body around like a fighting cock, because I found myself behind my car the moment the T-Bird shot by. Above the engine's roar and the squeal of the rubber I could hear the clear and bell-like tones of the girl's laughter.
By the time I'd let out my breath and mopped the sweat off my face, all sounds of the girl and the car had disappeared.
Off to the left of me I heard Diana asking, "Are you all right, Hardy?"
Diana was standing in the doorway of her home, and she was wearing a short virgin-white beach robe over a green bathing suit.
She added quickly, "I do apologize for Andrea."
I put my handkerchief away and walked over to her. "This just happens to be one of those days, Diana. Don't worry about it."
"But I do worry about Andrea and the things she's doing lately."
Diana had an excellent tan, but whenever she frowned, the lines deepened in her face. Her dull copper-red hair had been tied up in the back with a green ribbon, to keep the hair off her shoulders, I suppose; now it revealed the sagging skin and the tiny spider webs of wrinkles on the sides of her neck. Except for a thick and glistening coat of lipstick, she wore no makeup.
While I followed her into the house she told me the reason for her concern about Andrea.
The girl was barely eighteen, and Diana's only child. Andrea had been born while Diana was married to her third husband, Andrew Cleff, the architect. Andrew had gotten custody of the child because at the divorce hearing he'd convinced the judge that Diana had already been sleeping with the guy who eventually was to be her next husband. And now Diana was upset about her daughter because Andrea was running around with a bunch of beats who drove fast cars and apparently existed on orange Juliuses and tacos.
While Diana was telling me all of that, and bemoaning the fact that Andrea wasn't visiting her as often as she once did, I watched the big guy coming out of one of the rooms.
He looked to be over six feet tall, with shoulders about five feet wide, and he was wearing white duck pants that fit skin-tight with the raggedy cuffs barely reaching down to his thick corded calves.
His white silk shirt was the long sleeves was buttoned only at the waist, revealing a dusky V of bare skin covered with a soft mat of dark, curly hair. His skin was the color of a mild cigar, and he had a square face with high cheek bones, and a wide mouth that showed big teeth with about a quarter inch space between each one. No more than twenty-five years old.
"Oh, Golly," Diana said abruptly, "this is Hardy Six."
Golly nodded slightly as he continued his primitive two-step on the way out to the pool. I suddenly realized that his movements were in time to the music of the tropical steel band that had been pouring out of the hi-fi ever since I'd entered the house.
Like instead of going to the Caribbean, man, Diana had brought it here.
"His name's really Goliath," Diana explained, her glance never leaving him. "But he's such fun I always call him Golly."
I'll bet she did, too. Call him, I mean. The way she was watching him now I was afraid she'd get the urge any moment.
So I asked", "What's the favor you wanted to ask me, Diana?"
When she pulled her glance from him and looked at me her face became troubled. "If I should call you sometime to help me-with Golly-would you?"
"Of course," I said. "I'm disappointed you had any doubts."
"It's not that, Hardy. It's just that-with all your money-I was afraid you might have found something else to occupy your time now-rather than helping others."
"It keeps me from getting fat and lazy. Besides, I enjoy it."
"You're a dear," she said vaguely, with her glance going back to the pool area. "But why do I always have these problems?"
Like maybe, where is Golly wandering off by himself? I guessed.
I made certain she still had my phone number and insisted she call me whenever she needed my help. Then I let myself out. Five minutes later I was going through Palm Springs on my way to Agnes Belcher's residence.
2
It was L-shaped, huge, one of those long and low rambling affairs. I swung the Ferrari into the crescent driveway, killed the motor, and got out.
The nearest house was more than a mile away to the east, and just barely visible through the shimmering heat waves. Between the two houses grew no shrubs, not a single tree. Just a grey, flat and dead desert burned in the heat.
Around the Belcher residence had been planted mesquite and a dozen different varieties of cactus. Tons of white sand had been brought in for landscaping. An old and busted half wagon wheel leaned up against an old and busted fence post, portraying an air of desolation. Glistening white bones and steer skulls were partly covered with sand dunes, with artistic ripples showing on their surfaces.
I walked up to the entrance and rang the bell. Inside I could hear the chimes tolling a few bars of some poor cowpuncher's lament.
Then the door opened and for several moments she stood framed in the doorwav while I looked at her. She was rather small and deliriously tanned, soft and curvy in the nurse's uniform. Her hair was the color of gold dust, and her eyes were that chilled blue that made me think of a mountain stream. "Yes?" she finally asked.
"My name's Six. Hardy Six. What's yours?"
"Karen."
"I'm deathly ill," I kidded. "I need your cool hand and tender breast to comfort me."
Blue eyes twinkled. "I believe you."
"Besides that, I have an appointment to see Agnes Belcher."
'I know," she said. "Why don't you step fn out of the sun?"
With her uniform rustling softly I followed her through a huge room with black beams, out a doorway, and then we were under the shady portion of the terrace. Bright and blinding under the noonday sun lay the patch of cement surrounding an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Agnes Belcher was sitting in a straight-backed metal chair at the edge of the pool. She was wearing one of those monstrously wide straw hats the sleeping Mexican wears in every cartoon. Over her frail shoulders was draped a brightly-colored serape; another one, just as thick and as heavy, was lying across her knees.
Besides her chair stood a small table under an umbrella. There was a pitcher of lemonade on the table, and two glasses. The one unoccupied chair was obviously for me.
She heard us approaching now and when she swung her head around I was looking at the long and narrow, bloodless face behind a pair of huge sunglasses.
Quietly Karen said, "Mr. Six, Ma'am."
"Hardy!" Agnes extended a bluish-white hand.
It felt cold and dry as parchment. "It's so good to see you again, Agnes."
"Sit down, Hardy, and give your corns a treat."
While I slid into the hot chair I heard Karen asking, "Shall I tell Flossie to serve lunch now, Ma'am?"
"I'll ring when we're ready."
Karen's uniform rustled and I watched the wonderful movement of her back as she went to the house.
Agnes said, "Why don't we have a bit of lemonade?"
"All right."
I poured a glassful and held it out to her, but she made no move to take it.
"May I serve you, Agnes?"
"Thank you, Hardy." Her skinny hand came out and it missed the glass by six inches. So that was it. Agnes was not only having a tough time keeping warm, she was also blind.
I touched the glass to her hand and she took it. While we sipped lemonade, we reminisced about the other times, the other places we'd met. The Riviera, Hong Kong, Acapulco. She'd steered me to many good investments; I owed her much. I finally worked the conversation around while we were having lunch to find out what I could do for her.
"I used to sleep as soundly as a hibernating bear," she said, "but for about a month now I've been dreaming a lot. And it's always the same dream. I dream that a young woman is pushing my brother off the side of a mountain. The fall kills him each time. Now, I'm over ninety years old and it's possible that I dream this sequence repeatedly only because I am old, and my blood is thin, and I'm blind now. Nevertheless, it leaves me shaken and I have trouble getting back to sleep."
Her brother had been the fabulous Alan 'Inside' Straight. He'd died more than a year ago.
"Alan didn't die of natural causes?" I asked.
"Let's say the police investigation wasn't a best-seller."
"Well," I said, "let's hope that before the snow flies you'll be sleeping as soundly as a bear again, Agnes."
"Thank you, Hardy, for looking into it for me," she said gratefully.
We finished lunch. I promised her I'd keep in touch, and then the housekeeper let me out of the house.
There was a red Mustang with its motor idling in the driveway next to my car. As I moved towards it, Karen rolled down the window.
"How do you feel now?" she asked.
Instead of the uniform she was now wearing sandals and a little summer dress. The way it out-lined the soft luscious curves of her thighs and breasts, it had to be the only garment she was wearing.
"I'm in real bad shape," I said. "My temperature is going up fast, and I need a stimulant."
"Then follow me," she said with a quick smile, "because I hate to see anyone suffering."
I didn't have to suffer very long because she drove like a demon, and within a few minutes we were in Palm Springs and stepping into the cool interior of her apartment.
"Would you like a drink first?"
The moment she said it, I was certain she was making a funny, giving me the shock treatment just to see how I'd react. But now as she turned towards me and pulled her head back I could see the same tortured smoldering that had been apparent in the other pair of blue eyes that had greeted me that morning. The tip of her tongue was swabbing at the puffed red lips as though she'd been without water for days.
All of southern California had to be in heat. That was the first thought that came to mind. You never find them like this when you want them, and suddenly they pop out at you from everywhere.
Then another thought came to mind. When they do come at you like this, you'd better stock up for the season.
Finally I managed to say, "Who needs a drink?"
That was the extent of my recitation because she pulled down the little zipper on the right side of her dress, and then she was moving towards me, bringing up her arms to slip them around my neck.
The moment they touched me an electric charge ripped through me, clogging my throat and restricting my lungs. Then when she shoved her hot little body against mine I felt as though I'd stepped out into the hot sun.
"Hardy," she whispered, "I'm burning up. Every time the temperature goes over a hundred and ten-I-" Her breath was coming erratically and when she gave up she flung her arms about me.
My arms went around her and the moment our hungry lips locked I straightened up and she was so short that her feet were no longer touching the floor, but neither of us minded that because her mouth was moist and feverish and she was wonderfully soft and luscious, squirming and shifting around in the dress under my hands.
Finally, with my lungs screaming for air and the heat pounding through me, I pulled my mouth from hers and let her slide downward until her feet had touched the floor.
She tore herself away from me, and in one quick motion she'd stripped the dress up and over her head and flung it aside, and without pausing she was back again, helping me get out of my clothes.
I was trying to get out of them as quickly as possible and seeing her now without her dress I vaguely realized that she hadn't been wearing anything else, and that made everything worse because the urgency in her hands and fingers accentuated the sight of her.
Every inch of her was beautifully tanned, reminding me Of milk chocolate, and she had the classic figure with good hard breasts and already I could see the perspiration breaking out on her skin, giving her a sheen as though she were gilded with salver.
This time when we came together she was steaming, and the second our bodies made contact she groaned as though I'd hurt her terribly, and so I just swooped her up and looked around where I could put her and take her.
Her mouth and teeth and lips were busy at the side of my neck and around my ear, and time was running out rapidly for me. Urgently I glanced around because the flames had enveloped me and I couldn't hold off any longer. Then I saw the doorway to the kitchen and the big refrigerator.
I got the door open with my arm before I put her down, and the second we crumpled to the floor the cool surge of air hit me, coming out over the rows of jellies and jams and milk containers. For a second I was afraid I might have blown the whole thing but the touch of chill sent her into a violent frenzy.
She was tugging and pulling at me at the same time she was shoving herself at me, wiggling and twisting until we'd accomplished the fit, and after that she 'became a wild woman.
She was groaning horribly and muttering my name, repeating that she'd never done it under the refrigerator light and vaguely I realized that with the blinds drawn it was quite dark in the kitchen and that we were in the faint light, and by that time she'd rocked me so often that I was riding the top crest of our passion.
When she came off the floor I knew the hardness of it was probably killing her but I put her right back down again and even with the cool air I felt as though I'd been streaked with lightning and the whole room reeled, but that's the way it ended and after that we both felt the chill that enveloped us.
After a while we each had a bottle of beer and she was very sweet and tender when I kissed her apartment and crawled into my oar the sun was low in the sky and it was much cooler than it had been.
When I got back to the house I made a couple of phone calls, and then I had the background on Alan Straight that I needed. He'd died of a heart attack in Austria, and his travelling companion at the time had been a twenty-year-old girl named Elaine Fine.
Maybe they hadn't left the refrigerator door open.
There was also the obvious fact that Alan Straight had been almost seventy years old at the time, and extremely wealthy. That suggested any number of intriguing possibilities concerning his death.
Anyway, he'd died in a small Austrian village near Salzburg, and that was the spot I decided to visit. I called a few airlines and finally got the reservation I wanted.
The moment I put down the phone, it rang. It was Diana. Urgently she said, "I need your help, Hardy, and I need it desperately tonight."
"What's wrong?"
'Golly-" she said quickly, "-Golly took my car and left a while ago. Hardy-I've got to know-"
"-what he's doing?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where he might be headed?"
"Los Angeles. I eavesdropped and I overheard him talking on the phone. He promised to meet someone at a drive-in at ten o'clock."
I got the make and license number of Diana's car and learned the address of the drive in theater picked for the meet.
"I'll check it out, Diana," I told her.
3
I parked off Sunset Boulevard so that I could keep an eye on the two major entrances to the drive-in. Things were momentarily quiet, so I listened to the ball game on the radio.
At ten-ten I still hadn't seen Diana's car, or Golly. I wondered whether the phone call hadn't been made solely for Diana's benefit, to throw her off the trail.
And then the white T-Bird convertible with Andrea driving pulled into the drive-in and circled slowly around the back. The next moment I saw Golly coming out of the drive-in itself. When Andrea spotted him, she stopped. Golly hopped into her car. Then Andrea pulled out onto Sunset Boulevard, headed east; and she took off like a rocket.
Fortunately I was headed in that same direction. I started after him. I had to go through two amber lights and a red one to keep up with her. I didn't think she moved like that because she thought she was being tailed. Here was a kid that just liked to move.
We took the Hollywood freeway, headed for downtown Los Angeles, and then we were on the Santa Ana Freeway, favoring the center lane most of the time because the fast lane was too slow. Then we scooted onto the Long Beach Freewav and swung off at Rosecrans.
It was a major thoroughfare, but the Bird didn't stay on it for more than a dozen blocks. It cut off and began zigzagging at one block intervals through the minor streets of the area. I had to drop back then because I didn't want to tip them off that they were being tailed. As the Bird began to move more slowly, I cut my lights.
The area we were moving through now consisted of only a few residences. This was the land of the dairies, and the reason for Andrea and Golly coming to this locale was a bit intriguing. I was willing to bet that they hadn't driven thirty of forty miles just for a bottle of milk or a sack of fresh fertilizer.
And it wasn't an idyllic spot for necking. Not the way the cows and the stuff they were walking around in were stinking up the summer night air.
Ahead of me I watched the beam of the Bird suddenly cut to the right. Then its lights went out. I stopped my car and shut off the motor.
When I stuck my head out of the window I could hear two car doors being slammed shut. I pulled the Ferrari off the street, locked it, and started walking to where the Bird was parked.
I could see about sixty million street lights beyond me, but there wasn't a single light bulb within a quarter of a mile. A bit of a moon, looking like a fingernail clipping, hung in the west, but it wasn't putting out much light either.
Finally I saw the whiteness of the Bird ahead of me. After I'd walked a little further I saw the light-colored mass that turned out to be a house. One story. And about three-bedroom in size, I guessed.
Unless I'd been looking specifically for that, I wouldn't have noticed the lights on inside the house. As the location of the windows became visible, I saw that they didn't have the usual drapes. Apparently some heavy material had been placed over the windows to completely blot out the light. Only on the side edges of two of the windows a thread-line line of an intensely bright light was visible.
I moved slowly into the driveway, walking along the edge of it so my shoes wouldn't make any noise on dirt or gravel. I passed the Bird and moved on around to the back of the house.
My eyes were accustomed to the night now, and I could distinguish the outlines of two cars parked there. I moved closer and saw that one was a station wagon, the other a sedan.
I stood near the station wagon for several minutes, peering at the house and trying to understand it all. With the two cars parked in the back it was possible that some one might be having a little party tonight, and that Andrea and Golly had been invited. But if there were a party going on inside there would have been music, the sound of voices, some laughter now and then.
Silently I moved across the back yard to the nearest window. I pressed myself against the side of the house and stuck my ear against the craok at the side of the window.
I could hear voices inside. There were three or four different people talking, it seemed; but I couldn't understand what they were saying. I moved along the side of the house until I came to the rear corner and moved up to the back door.
It was a screen door. I stuck two fingertips into die metal latch and the door swung open. I slipped inside of what appeared to be a small back porch. I could still hear the sound of their voices, but I couldn't understand what was being said.
It was much darker here than it had been outside. I moved forward slowly, letting the fingers of my left hand creep along the side of the wall.
Suddenly and quickly a strange sound started up to my right. I whirled to meet it, the hackles rising up at the base of my neck; then I realized it was only an electric motor that had started up. It was a heavy motor, running smoothly and quietly now. 'Probably a deep freeze.
I sucked in air and relaxed a bit. Then I moved forward and my fingers found the door and then its doorknob. Slowly my left hand turned it and the next moment I was easing the door open. I stepped noiselessly inside and then eased the door shut behind me.
The voices were loud now; and they seemed to be coming from one of the very next rooms.
A woman was talking. "I think we should shoot him the way we'd planned it at the very beginning."
"I don't know," a man said. "This way seems a lot better to me."
"That's all you know about it," the woman said.
Stubbornly the man said, "Well, it makes sense to me."
"I'm sure it does," she said sarcastically.
"Well, I'll go along with whatever Gus says," the man agreed. "What do you think, Gus?"
I'd moved to a spot where I could look through a narrow hallway into what seemed to be a large living room. One corner of the room was illuminated brightly. The people talking were apparently gathered in that corner because I couldn't see them.
"What do you think, Gus?" the man asked again. "How will we shoot him? Sylvia's way, or my way?"
"It's stupid to do it your way, Larry," the woman said sharply. "I know because I'm a woman. He may think he can do it the other way, but I know better, because "-because you're a woman," Larry's voice broke in. "We know you're a woman, Sylvia."
There was anger in Sylvia's voice now. "Weil, I'm just trying to tell you guys how to do it and how it is. I'm just trying to point out a few things to you so that you won't have a problem later on and we'll be waiting all night to shoot him. I'm just trying to help so we'll get done tonight."
"I want to get done tonight, too," Larry said. "Well, what do you say, Gus?"
TV ore was silence that lasted about five seconds. Then an elderly voice, apparently Gus, spoke softly but with authority. "We'll go ahead-the way we planned it in the beginning."
"See," Sylvia said triumphantly, "That's the only way to do it, Larry!"
There was a lot of rustling and moving about and scraping of furniture across the floor. I took the opportunity to move through the hallway until I was finally able to see the entire living room.
All the furniture had been moved out of one corner and in that space had been set up a huge bed. I suppose you could call it an extra special Hollywood king-sized Texas bed. It was gigantic, and it was covered with a spread of wild tiger stripes.
An elderly man with a shook of white hair and wearing steel-rimmed glasses, who must have been Gus, was smoothing out the wrinkles on the bedspread. The woman, Sylvia probably, was adjusting the barn doors on three 'baby spotlights, and the other man was taking readings on a light meter.
Two battery-driven 16 mm movie cameras had been set up on tripods. The one in front was aimed at the corner of the room, probably to take the full shot of the bed. The one on the right would apparently take care of the mediums and close-ups.
Outside the perimeter of illumination made by the spots I could see the rest of the furniture that had been jammed together. On the couch was Golly, sitting between a young Chinese girl and a Spanish looking girl. Andrea was sitting by herself in the easy chair. None of the girls was more than twenty.
The Chinese's girls hair was braided in pigtails, while the Spanish girl's hair was long, and it swirled around her shoulders as dark as a thundercloud. Andrea's hair was blonde and straight, and it was short. Quite an orchestration of characters you might say. Or, quite a cast.
Suddenly Gus straightened up and clapped his hands. "All right, stars, get up here."
The three girls and Golly got up and came into the glare of the lights. They stood attentively beside the bed, looking at Gus. Golly was bare from the waist up, wearing only white slacks. The Chinese girl had the green dress with the slits way up the sides. The Spanish girl wore a skirt and blouse, and Andrea was in blouse and shorts. They were all barefoot.
Gus' glance inspected the four briefly, and then he nodded approvingly. "All right, I'll run through it once more."
"We know it by heart already, I theenk," the Spanish girl said.
Gus' glance was withering. "Then take off those goddamn earrings-if you know everything by heart."
While Spanish girl flushed and ripped off her earrings, Gus spoke quickly to the four of them but his glance was mostly on the Spanish girl.
"I'm going over it again. None of you is wearing anything under what I can see now, are you?"
Four heads moved from side to side.
"Even earrings have to be off when we start the cameras rolling," Gus said pointedly, "because once we start rolling we're not going to stop them and we're not going to have any retakes because we don't have the time or the money or the film, and that's why you've got to be wearing only what I see right now because you've got to get out of those clothes fast, and you've got to do what you're here to do. That's what we want to get on film and that's what we've got to get on film because nobody at a stag party is going to get the hots out of watching some girl take off a pair of earrings, or maybe have to fish them out of a guy's mouth or eye (he glanced angrily at Spanish girl when he said that) especially where there's all that film footage for the rest of the stuff we've got planned for this scenario."
Gus paused to take a quick breath. "Now I'll explain everything to all of you just once more. Golly, here, is stretched out on his bed in the nude because it is a very hot and sultry afternoon, with a hurricane about ready to pop. Now you three girls have been admiring this guy for a long time but you've never had the nerve to let yourselves do what you really wanted to do. But with the hurricane building up, and the heat, and the humidity, and so forth, you get restless and sexy, and you know, you break away from your inhibitions and run out of your homes and you come to see Golly, here.
"Done worry about that part because we'll explain all that to the viewers with a little narration at the 'beginning, or now and then. You know, like they do in travelogs. Maybe well even dub in the sound of a strong wind. We'll see how everything works out. All right, the first girl to come see Golly will be-you with the black eyes."
Gus paused to stare at the Spanish girl before he continued. "You no more than get through with him than there's another knock on the door. It's Chinese girl now. Spanish girl, you go run and hide in the closet. You go through that door over there, it goes into the dining room but you go in there anyway for now, and later on we'll make some shots of you hiding in a closet and we can splice those shots in later in the final editing of the film.
"All right, same thing goes for Chinese girl. The moment you're finished, here comes another knock on the door." Gus' glance went to Andrea. "You're the last but you've got the best role because the other two girls in the closet are going to get sore as hell about the entire thing now, and they are coming out of that closet and the three of you are going to tear in Golly at the end and that is going to be our big orgy and the finnale and the end because then the hurricane hits with its full force and fury and as they always said back home it's not going to be a fit night out for man or beast."
Gus put his hands on his 'hips and smiled angelically. "And that's what we call the plot."
Golly grinned and asked, "Will there be music while all this is going on, man?"
Gus glanced disgustedly at Sylvia. "A Chinese girl, a Spanish girl, and an Ail-American girl he's got-all young and ripe and beautiful and he wants music. Can you imagine?" His glance shifted back to Golly. "I'm sorry, but I can't afford music. This is no "Ten Command merits" or a "Ben Hur", you understand. Good music we'll have later-you won't believe the music we'll dub onto the film later to fit the scenes and the mood, but-that's all right," Golly said good-naturedly. "I was just wondering, because when I've got music I can really go."
"Sure," Gus said. "But if I were you I would have a little more than that on my mind right now than just going, with music, because young man, you are going to have to hold up for three times, for the three girls, and if you don't make it I am going to have nothing but trouble, extra expense, and we may be here all night, the way we were discussing it a while ago, and we all want to get out of here and get home to our kiddies. You understand?"
Golly nodded.
Gus directed his question at Larry. "Are the cameras ready?"
"Let's go," Larry said. "I want to get home. My youngest is teething."
"Sylvia," Gus said, "you've got to call out the film footage to me on Larry's camera so I'll know whether we're going to have to stop sometime and reload. So keep me posted on the footage."
"You know I will," Sylvia said.
"You know she will," Larry kidded, "because she's a woman."
"Oh, shut up," she snapped.
"All right," Gus clapped his hands. "Let's go. Golly get on the bed."
4
As the three girls stepped out of the circle of light, Golly slipped out of his slacks. Gus pulled out a tape and measured the distance from Larry's camera to the center of the big bed.
Gus nodded, satisfied, and while he put the tape away he walked to his camera. Golly settled onto the bed, lying on his back in the very center of it with his hands clasped behind his head.
One of the girls whistled.
"There will be no more of that!" Gus' voice cracked across the room. Then he ripped off his glasses and glared at the girls. They hung their heads and shuffled nervously in their bare feet. Gus stood motionless for about a half a minute, his sneering glance never leaving them.
And that's when I recognized him, and remembered a few things I'd heard about him, and I really understood what was going on in this place.
Without the glasses it was Gus Billings, as sure as I was standing in the dark hallway.
Gus Billings-con artist, swindler, blackmailer, and ex-con. A few years ago he'd been convicted of milking some old widow out of almost a hundred thousand dollars, and he'd been sent to San Quentin. It hadn't been Gus' first run-in with the law, and he'd never messed around with the penny ante rackets. Watching him now getting ready to shoot a stag movie somehow didn't fit in with has usual operations. Compared to the other things he'd been involved in, this was strictly peanuts. Or was it?
My glance went to the three girls beginning to cringe under Gus' stare, and I wondered how many of them or all three of them could make things pay off big for Gus. And then I knew.
Andrea.
Once Gus had her on film he had more than just a stag movie of a teenage orgy in a hurricane. Diana had lots of money. Andrew Cleff, Andrea's father, had both money and a splendid reputation. The moment Andrea got onto that bed and Gus got the scene on film, he'd be selling prints of it to Diana and Andrew for a long time.
"You girls stop clowning around," Gus said, putting his glasses on again. Then he settled down behind his camera. "All right, Larry. Camera!"
Larry's camera began whirring.
"Action!" Gus yelled. "Come on, Chili Pepper, get out here!"
The Spanish girl moved out into the light, walking a little hesitantly as she neared the bed, her eyes flinty-hard as she looked down at the big form of Golly stretched out on his back. His eyes were closed, feigning sleep, I suppose, and trying to give the impression that he was relaxing on a hot and sultry afternoon, as Gus had described the scene, but Golly wasn't fooling any body that he was asleep and not aware of what was going on around him.
In a second it seemed, all the hesitancy and reservation had left the Spanish girl, and with her long hair boiling wildly around her shoulders she tore the blouse off her back and let the skirt fall from her waist.
Her tongue began licking at her lips as though a desert wind were searing her, and then she was completely nude, a supple, dusky little figure with a flat stomach and full voluptuous breasts that tilted upwards, beautifully firm and well-proportioned thighs with the muscles rippling and moving under the tawny skin as she knelt down on the bed and sent her hands out to stroke and fondle Golly.
While her fingertips lightly moved over the matted hair on his chest Golly began to shift about and rick his hips, very slowly and casually, as though he might be caught up in a dream and not yet quite aware that he had a visitor. In the next few moments her hands continued their downward course, and at the very second that she made contact with him and hung onto him with both hands, Golly s eyes popped open.
As she swung one leg over to straddle him, she simultaneously pulled back with both hands the way the pilots in the old movies used to pull the plane out of a dive; and now as she settled down slowly Golly had begun rumbling in his throat like the thunder of an impending storm.
Gus dollied his camera in fast to get a tight close-up of all the action. Sylvia was calling out the film footage about every thirty seconds, Larry's eye was glued to the viewfinder, and the two girls were squirming and twisting around on the sofa, their glances never leaving the bed.
Pulling my glance from them and back to the bed I noted that the Spanish girl was now a study in frenzy, with the violent twitching of her shoulders and the pounding of her hips. The mass of hair whipped about her shoulders, the ends rhythmically covering her surging breasts then revealing them again as she shot her head back, and whenever the hair moved away from her face it revealed a contorted mask, her tongue lashing at the outline of her mouth.
I looked at Andrea and saw her fine teeth gnawing at her lower lip and I wondered how she'd ever agreed to get into this with Golly, what he'd promised her besides the night on the tiger striped bedspread, and while I was watching her I knew I'd never let her get into camera range of Gus. Only how was I going to stop her from doing that was another problem.
If it had been just a night of big kicks and big Golly's I would have walked out of that dark hallway at that moment and let Andrea have her kicks and Golly's, but with Gus running the show and my knowing Diana and Andrew, I was damned if I was going to let Gus get his hooks into them through Andrea.
But I didn't know how to prevent it. I didn't like the idea of walking into the living room and yelling "Cut!" Gus had been armed the last time the law took him, I recalled. I'm not a coward, but neither am I a hero.
While I stood in the hallway trying to figure out some way to keep Andrea off the film, I saw her suddenly jump to her feet. Sylvia's glance went to her at that moment.
I saw Andrea pantomiming that she wanted to get a drink. Sylvia nodded her head then looked back at the bed again. The Spanish girl was now crumpled forward over Golly, her hair touching that on his chest until Gus pounded on the floor with his knuckles, to simulate the knock of the Chinese girl's arrival. Wearily the Spanish girl pushed herself erect, moved aside and slowly began to get off the bed.
Andrea was now heading for the hallway in which I was hiding. I pressed myself against the wall but I knew immediately that she would see me. Then I spotted the doorway on my right and I stepped through it and found that I was in the kitchen. I backed into the corner formed by the wall and the sideboard.
Andrea entered the kitchen and walked by me. She didn't turn on the light, but she went to the sink and turned on the faucet. While the water ran out of the faucet she opened the cupboard door and took out a glass. While she was filling it her back was turned to me.
I hurried to her as quietly as I could, but she heard my footsteps. She whirled around and when she saw me her mouth opened, ready to cry out.
I clipped her on the chin. It shut her mouth again and her teeth clicked together. The full glass of water slipped from her fingers and dropped about an inch before it hit the sink. It made some noise; but I couldn't help it. I was busy at the moment, catching her and holding onto her to keep her from hitting the floor.
I paused a moment to listen. The cameras were still whirring, and there were no other sounds than those being made by the Chinese girl and Golly. Apparently no one had heard the sound of the glass hitting the sink.
Andrea was unconscious and limp as a towel. Holding her with my right hand, I Shut off the faucet with the other one. Then I flipped her over my shoulder the way you'd carry a sack of grain. We were on our way.
Quietly and quickly, I slipped out of the house the way I'd entered. I didn't know how long it would be before they'd miss her; but I wanted to be as far away from the house as possible when it happened.
I started toward my car at a slow trot, feel Andrea's chin hitting me in the back with each step. I tightened my forearm across the backs of her bare knees and tried to steady her, but it didn't do much good. One thing I knew, with her stomach bouncing on top of my shoulder she would probably be very sore around the waist tomorrow. But then again, she probably wouldn't 'be any sorer than if I'd left her there and she'd gotten involved with Golly.
She was still out when I got to the car. I dumped her on the seat beside me, and then I drove about a dozen blocks before I turned on my lights.
When I reached Rosecrans and saw the filling station, I knew exactly how I was going to handle the rest of it. After I'd gotten some change from the attendant, I slid into the phone booth and called Diana.
She answered on the second ring; but she still sounded sleepy. When I'd identified myself she came wide awake.
"Golly-" she asked, "where is he-what's he doing?"
I told her. Right over the phone. Then I also told her about Andrea and that I had her in my car, and that I was going to deliver her to Diana.
"Meet me in Riverside," I said, "that's about halfway. Get out there fast and you can have her."
"Dear," Diana sounded helpless, "would you mind bringing her out here?"
"I don't have time. I'm flying to Europe in the morning."
"But I don't have a car. Golly took mine."
"Then steal one." Then I told her where I'd be waiting, near an all-night filling station on a major street.
I hung up and walked back to the car. Andrea was still in the same position she'd been in when I left her.
I'd been driving about five minutes when Andrea started coming out of it. She groaned, stirred a bit, finally fluttered her eyelids and looked about. She stared at me for a few mo merits, and then she pulled herself up so that she was sitting erect. Her mouth tightened as her hand explored the side of her chin, and I could see the fury glinting in her eyes.
"You meddling bastard," she said slowly. And then heatedly she really told me what she thought about me. Filth spilled from her mouth and it was all parboiled with venom.
I waited until she'd finished and then I said, "I didn't mean to hit you quite that hard."
I've read a few articles on teenage psychology but none of them had ever touched on the reaction that was coming up. I damned near lost her.
She let out a scream while her heels drummed on the floor mat. The next instant she'd opened the car door. She was going to jump.
I shot out my right hand the same moment my foot hit the brake. I grabbed a handful of blouse, heard it rip, heard the screech of tires and the angry horn of the car behind me, and then I vaguely became aware of the car swerving out to pass me.
Andrea was a fistful of fury and the material of her blouse continued ripping. I held my breath and tried to watch her and keep an eye on my driving at the same time, hoping the blouse wouldn't tear off completely so that she wouldn't fall out and hurt herself.
The blouse came off completely the moment I pulled over to the curb and stopped. She was sliding head first out the door. I hooked my fingers into the back of her shorts, and jerked her back inside the car. I felt a button pop, felt the abbreviated buzz of a zipper, but I'd kept her inside, and now I reached over and slammed the door shut.
She wrapped her hands around my arm and clung to it like a monkey to a stick. She wasn't wearing anything from the waist up, and the heat of her full, throbbing breasts was burning through my sleeve. Normally I might have paused to admire the bare-chested beauty, this teenager with breasts more adult than many on adults, but not here, and not now.
The street was brightly lighted and we needed only to be seen by someone driving by. An old lecher in a car with a naked piece of jail bait. They'd report it like that to the police, and the latter think unkindly of matters like that.
Andrea must have been plotting exactly that, because her right hand hit the hom. When I knocked it aside and shoved her down onto the seat so her blonde head wouldn't be visible from the outside, she whipped her right hand away and the next second she'd squirmed her hips and she was working the shorts off her.
She twisted and fidgeted as though she was sitting in a bucket of ants. I tried to grab her hands but the shorts were already down to her knees.
This time I really belted her.
I pulled the shorts back up again, and after I'd fastened her hands with my belt, I covered the top part of her the best I could with the tattered blouse.
The rest of the trip was quite uneventful.
She'd regained consciousness before we got to Riverside but she didn't say a word. Not until we'd been parked about twenty minutes near the filling station where Diana was to meet us.
"You idiot," she finally said. "Why did you have to drag me out of there?"
I ignored it. "How much was Gus paying you for the performance?"
"Pay?" She snickered. "Man, you are stupid. Who wants bread for a ball like that?" She grinned. "Kicks. We were making the whole scene for kicks."
That ended our conversation and about a half hour later I saw Diana driving up. After she'd parked nearby I went over to her car.
"Do you have a sweater or wrap in your car, Diana?"
She brought out a white sweater and we walked over to my car. I tossed it to Andrea and then I untied her. While I was running my belt through the loops on my slacks I explained why I'd had to tie her up.
Andrea got out of my car, wearing the white sweater now, and went to Diana's car. She got in, slammed the door shut. Hard.
I had a hunch Andrea would be back, making the scene with Gus, the first opportunity she had. That's what I told Diana.
Diana was frowning. "I just can't believe Golly did that to me."
"I think Andrew should be told about Gus, Diana."
But Diana wasn't worried about her daughter. Not now, and probably not ever. Disappointedly she said, "And I was positive I could keep Golly satisfied."
That was more than I could stand.
Driving back to Los Angeles I thought about Diana's reaction to all of it. It was going to be a nice change, getting out of the country for a while.
5
I caught a taxi in Salzburg and had it take me out to the lake, and Gasthof Stern. This was the spot where Alan Straight had spent his last night with Elaine Fine. Now to find out how he'd spent it.
After the taxi had departed I went inside and learned that every room in the inn was taken. The stocky middle-aged Frau with the ruddy cheeks behind the desk kept shaking her head as she clutched the worn registration book to her ample bosom.
I asked, "Can you recommend another inn?"
Maybe she did and maybe she didn't. I couldn't understand a word she was saying. We were getting nowhere. Then a soft voice to my right said, "I'm afraid you'll have difficulty finding accommodations. It's the summer season."
I looked around. Now we were getting somewhere.
She was tall and slender and tanned, with hair the color of caramel, and she was wearing a drindl skirt and a white blouse with a scoop neck, revealing the upper valley between a pair of beautiful breasts.
"Am I glad to see you," I told her.
"You are American?"
I nodded. "Hardy Six."
"I am called Lisl." She extended a slender hand and I took it and held it a moment liking the feel of her warm soft skin against my palm. Finally I felt a slight tug and reluctantly I released it.
"Every inn and pension around the lake is filled," she continued. However, wait a moment, please."
She spoke to the Frau briefly. Then Lisl said to me, "Sometimes guests check out later in the evening. If that happens tonight you'll have first choice for that vacancy. Why don't you wait around and see what happens?"
I thought it was a helluva good suggestion, especially since she'd come up with it. "All right," I said, "providing you have a drink with me."
She agreed with a warm smile and a slight nod.
It was getting dusk when we went outside into the garden and found a vacant table about three feet from the edge of the lake. With every lull in the conversation of the crowd around us I could hear the soft and gentle sound of the lake water lapping at the shore. Then two guys started playing, one an accordion and the other one a zither, and their music covered all the sounds.
The moment we'd gotten settled a white-coated waiter with pink wine spots on his front stopped beside me.
"What would you like, Lisl?"
"A glass of wine."
I went for that and told him to bring a bottle. Lisl said, "I must warn you it's rather strong, and quite warming."
"I need protection against the cool night air.
When she smiled it automatically drove away all the chill. "The nights are very beautiful this time of the year."
Before she got me to thinking how beautiful they might be with her, I asked her whether she would interpret for me when I spoke to the owners of the inn.
"Yes," she agreed, "but they are not here now. They went to Salzburg today and they won't return until late tonight. Very late."
I can't say I was too disappointed. Especially after I'd tasted the wine. It was white and dry without bitterness, cask-cool, and the quality was tops. You could practically chew each mouthful.
Now Lisl was saying, "It's not necessary that you speak to the owners. Frau Minter promised you the next vacant room."
I told Lisl I didn't want to talk to them about a room, and then I continued and told Lisl all of it. How Alan Straight and Elaine Fine had stayed at this inn a couple of yeans ago, how Straight had died of a heart attack; and how I wanted to look at the inn's records now and talk to the owners as well as everyone else who'd been around at the time.
Lisle's eyes sparkled. "It sounds very exciting. And intriguing."
"Will you help me-be my interpreter? Or are you here only for the weekend?"
Lisl told me she had a week's vacation remaining and that she worked in the Salzburg office of an Austrian export firm. She was renting a small cottage on the lake, and she was eager to help me dig out the facts on Straight and Elaine.
I was relaxing, looking at her and listening to her voice while I sipped at the wine, and I wondered how long this part of my search might keep me in the area. With Lisl around it might turn out to be something special.
We must have been talking for more than an hour because it was dark now, and a gentle breeze had begun to move off the lake. Most of the people had departed the garden leaving only two other couples besides us still seated at the tables. I watched one couple, both smartly dressed, drinking from their wine glasses while their drinking arms were linked.
I called Lisl's attention to it. "That looks like fun."
She explained that it was part of a ritual, so to speak. German, like some other languages, has a peculiarity not found in English. It has two pronouns for 'you'-the formal Sie and the informal Du. Naturally when two people have just met they do not use the Dm, the familiar pronoun.
But they also have a little ceremony which enables them to get familiar in a helluva hurry. They call it drinking Brudershaft.
It's simply a lover's toast, where you link your arm through a woman's and then each drinks out of his own glass. You top it all off with a kiss.
"I'm all for that," I told her. "That last part I especially like." So we tried it.
It worked pretty good. Especially when I kissed her. Lisl's lips were soft and still wet with the wine but sweeter than any champagne. There was a sudden, blinding flash of light.
We moved apart, fast.
The string of overhead lights for the garden had just been turned on.
When we caught on what had really happened we both laughed about it for a while, then I said, "Another kiss like that might set off all kinds of reactions."
"Yes," she said quickly, "it might." She also made a point to change the subject. "I'll see if anyone has checked out of the Gasthof."
She relayed the question in German to the waiter and he went inside. When he returned he didn't even have to come over to our table. That's how emphatically he was shaking his head.
"I'm sorry," Lisl said.
"That's all right," I told her. "I can always go back to Salzburg."
"If you haven't made reservations you won't get a room there either. It's the tourist season here in Austria."
I sipped at my wine and wondered whether I might be able to find an unoccupied haystack somewhere.
Then I heard Lisl saying, "I'll let you sleep on my grass."
"I didn't know you had grass," I said.
"The cottage I rent-it has grass around it. Between the lake and the main road."
"All right," I said. "I'll wear green pajamas. If anybody sees me from the road they'll think I'm a grasshopper. Now let's get a bit to eat."
We had a snack wuerstels, black bread, country butter, and potato salad. We washed it down with the wine and it was all delicious.
After we'd finished I picked up my bag, and we walked about a quarter of a mile along the road that followed the lake edge.
The cottage was painted bright red; and it had two rooms downstairs and one room upstairs. When Lisl turned on the lights she said, "I sleep upstairs, and there is only one bed. The grass will be softer for you than the cottage floor. I will get some blankets."
When she started upstairs, I went outside. The cottage was set back about forty feet from the dirt road, and stone steps led down to the lake. The lot was only about fifty feet wide, and there was a small boathouse to my left as I walked down to the water.
A low wall of bricks had been built along the water's edge, but as it was the middle of the summer, I suppose, the level of the lake covered only about four inches of the bottom of the wall. The lake was placid except for an occasional ripple when a fish surfaced, and the water glinted from the light of the waning moon. On the far side of the lake I could see the vague forms of the dark, wooded mountains.
I felt the warmth of the wine inside me, and the clean, refreshing breeze on my face. I felt good. Except for an occasional car that went by on the road, or the squeak-squeak of a bicycle's pedals, everything was quiet.
I saw Lisl coming out of the cottage with a blanket under her arm, but when she caught sight of me she draped it over the wooden ledge of the little stoop and went back inside the cottage. When she reappeared she was carrying a bottle and two small glasses.
"I have a little wine left," she said. "Would you care for some?"
I told her I wouldn't mind that at all. After I'd poured into both glasses, we sat down on the brick wall and put the bottle and the glasses between us. We talked about Austria, the United States, and many things, but nothing very serious.
We sat facing the cottage at first, and then we moved the bottle and the glasses from between us, faced the lake, and then we shoved close together. We talked some more and I kissed her and before long we were doing less talking and more kissing.
Suddenly Lisl jumped to her feet. "I'm going to take off my shoes and stockings and let my feet swing in the water."
That was a good idea. Because of the wine I was beginning to feel about as reckless as she. In a couple of minutes we were both barefoot. I started to roll up my slacks so that they wouldn't get wet, but at the last second I stood up, stripped them off and tossed them aside.
Setting down beside Lisl I stuck my feet in the water and found it very warm to the touch. Lisl had been watching me silently, and just as silently she stood up, took off her skirt and tossed it aside.
Her panties were dark red with a fringe of lace and they covered more of her than if she'd been wearing a bikini. But as I sat there and looked at the wonderful trim, firm and straight thighs, the way her hips flared out and knowing that they were panties, shot the blood into my throat.
I stood up slowly, my glance never leaving the lovely form of Lisl out-lined in the dimness, and all the while I was doing that she stood perfectly still, with her head thrown back and staring up into my face.
My hands went up to the front of my sports shirt and after I'd gotten the buttons undone and pulled it off over my head, I said, "Just like you warned, Lisl, the wine is very warming."
"Yes," she said vaguely, and then as though she were in a trance her hands went to the nape of her neck. After she'd opened up the blouse and pulled it off, she tossed her head to get the hair off her shoulders. During the next long delicious moments she unhooked her bra and tossed it aside.
Without a word we began walking towards each other and the points of her surging breasts jabbing against my bare chest was the first contact we made with our skin, and with the touch of her it felt as though someone had planted a haymaker into my guts.
I heard her gasp at the same instant and then we were in each others arms, my mouth was feeding on hers, both of us were pushing and jamming ourselves forward, moving our hips and thighs in a slow rhythmic tempo.
When the beat picked up considerably I felt as though I'd been bathed completely in hot wine and the breath had all leaked out of my looks. I pulled my mouth from hers and held her tightly while I caught my breath and heard her gasping erratically in the hollow of my shoulder.
Somehow we moved away from the edge of the lake and found the blanket that was draped over the back stoop and got it spread out on the lawn. It was dark enough not to be seen from the road but light enough to vaguely see each other, and she was no a willowy shifting delight, dusky and yet white where the bikini had shut Out the sun.
"Du," she whispered softly as we came together, and every time I moved she moved in return and whispered the same thing again.
There was a lot of Du's and never any don'ts, and with the warmth of our nearness and the wine that we'd drunk, the lawn became a soft luxurious world that began to shift and lurch beneath us, and finally she broke the wonderful stillness with a tortured "Dm!"
I did, and then it was a long time to he quietly and merely hold her and whisper absolute insane things to her and listen to many hushed words in return. Finally we got up and went for a swim in the lake and after that we dressed again and finished up the bottle of wine.
One of the busboys from the inn arrived on his bicycle and informed Lisl that a doctor staying there had gotten an emergency call and one room had been vacated for me.
After a while I picked up my bag, and Lisl accompanied me out to the road.
"I'm sorry to see you leave," she said softly, and standing close. "But the bed is bigger at die inn and you will sleep much better."
Before I kissed her goodnight I said, "I still think you've got the nicest grass in Austria."
We made a date to meet the following morning and then I started walking back to Gasthof Stern.
6
The next morning when I stepped outside the world was so bright it almost knocked me down. The sun shone brilliantly. Its rays bouncing off the lake gave the same effect you get from a huge mirror's reflection, and it was pretty blinding. But that wasn't the only thing that dazzled me.
Lisl was already sitting at one of the little tables in the garden, watching the sailboats and the motorboats out on the water. She was wearing soft gabardine slacks about the color of creamed coffee, leather sandals, and an emerald green blouse with short sleeves. She'd brushed her hair until it gleamed. Whenever she moved her head the soft waves nuzzled and played around her neck and shoulders.
I would have preferred to kiss her good morning, but I settled for a lingering handshake instead. "Hello, Lisl," I said.
"How did you sleep?"
"We won't go into that, because I was alone." I pulled out a chair and sat down.
Eagerly she said, "I'm ready to go to work, Mr. Boss."
So we did.
The Sterns, the owners of the inn, had breakfast with us, and we talked only about Straight and Elaine Fine and the period of time they'd been staying at the inn. Adolph Stern dug up his old record book, and he showed me where Alan Straight had registered for himself and for Elaine Fine. Straight had been assigned room 16 and Elaine 17, right next door. The rooms had been connecting. On the fifth night of their stay the old man died.
After breakfast, and with the help of Lisl, I talked to all the employees who bad been there during Straight's stay. There were less than a half dozen, and with the kitchen help knowing absolutely nothing about the couple, the interviews didn't take much time. O Ludwig Waldman had been the porter at the time, but he was now working for an Austrian farmer.
Lisl borrowed a couple of bicycles from the Stern's and we rode down to the village of Attersee, near the east end of the lake. We talked to the police, and Lisl read me the report of investigation they'd made at the time of Straight's death. The next step was the doctor who had come to the inn in the morning and pronounced death to natural causes-a heart attack.
That left us with the interview with Waldman. From the police we'd learned the location of the farm where he was now working. We rode our bikes on the road that followed the edge of the lake until we came to the narrow and rutty road leading up to the house.
We had about two hundred yards to go, up a gentle slope, and so we walked it, pushing our bikes. As we approached I saw a dachshund curve himself around the corner of the house, yawn, and then trot out to meet us. His tail was wagging so hard it sent little ripples through his long body and it made him look like a snake slithering over the ground.
Lisl and I parked our bikes up against a wooden fence. The dachshund stopped suddenly, made a U-turn, and trotting over to the trunk of an apple tree, flopped down in its shade.
Lisl knocked on the door of the house. While we waited for an answer I watched a goose giving her seven goslings extended order drill in the yard. At the moment she was leading them in a squad column. Every gosling, except the last one, was out of step.
When there wasn't any answer to Lisl's knock she said, "Maybe they are all out in the fields."
Then I heard a sound, like metal scratching on concrete, coming from the far end of the house. Actually it was the barn part of the building. The Austrians build their barns right next to the house, with only a thin wall separating the two. In the winter time the warmth of the animal's bodies helps heat the house interior. The heat radiates through the wall. Don't ask me about the smell.
I moved along the side of the barn and when I rounded the comer I saw the open doorway a few yards away. I started towards it, but something warned me I'd better pull up.
It was a good thing I did.
A forkful of dripping manure sailed through the doorway and hit the ground nearby with a soggy thump. A second forkful quickly followed.
Loudly Lisl called out her greeting.
Inside there was a moment's silence and then I heard the sound of footsteps and rustling straw. They became louder and finally through the doorway came the pitchfork with the girl.
I knew it was a girl because she had big, heavy breasts and she wore a faded yellow dress with a rip in the hem. It hung straight down around her chunky body like a stage curtain. Her legs were thick and fuzzy with blonde hair and she wore heavy shoes that might have been G.I. issue at one time. She was built as strong as a horse; and she had the face to go with it.
Lisl spoke to her. The girl giggled.
'Who is she?" I asked.
Lisl must have asked her, but the girl just giggled again. Then she caught her breath and spoke quickly.
"She is the daughter of the farmer," Lisl explained.
I asked, "Where is everybody?"
When Lisl asked her that question it really broke up the poor girl. Her face reddened with embarrassment, she started giggling again and I thought she'd never get over it. Eventually she had to stop and catch her breath. It was tough for Lisl but between the girl's giggling outbursts we learned that the others were in the fields, and that Waldman was out behind the house sawing wood.
Lisl and I walked up the slope and before long we'd gotten to Ludwig Waldman. He was about thirty years old, with a bony face and a bobbing and prominent Adam's apple. Lisl made an immediate hit with him.
They chattered for several minutes and then Lisl said to me, "He remembers Mr. Straight and the girl very well. They made many walks together. Sometimes the girl made walks at night."
"With Straight?" I asked.
Lisl asked Waldman and he shook his head.
I asked, "With whom did she go for walks?"
Lisl relayed that on to him. When she got the answer she told me. "With a soldier the girl walked at night. An American soldier."
"What was the soldier's name?" I asked.
Lisl asked Waldman. He studied the scattering of sawdust on the ground. When he finally spoke he seemed to be trying out the sound of each word. "Sohatz-Schitt-Schitz," he said.
"Schatz, Schitt, or Schitz," Lisl said.
"What?" I asked.
"Sohatz, Schitt, or Schitz," Lisl repeated. "Oh," I said.
Waldman was now speaking rapidly to Lisl. She turned to me and said, "It's not Schatz. It's either Schitt, or Schitz."
"Well, that's more like it," I said.
Waldman continued to talk to Lisl. Now Lisl said to me, "Even that doesn't sound right to him. I mean-Schitt or Schitz. He's got it on the end of his tongue but he can't get it out of his mouth."
"I sympathize with him," I said.
"What?" Lisl asked. "I don't understand."
"Horsohitz!" Waldman said loudly.
"Horschitz!" Lisl repeated for my benefit.
"Hurray!" I said.
"No!" Waldman objected. "Horsohitz! Horschitz!"
"He insists it's Horsohitz," Lisl explained.
"He's positive it's Horschdtzl"
"I gathered that," I said.
"What else would you like to know?"
"How about his first name?"
Lisl passed that question on to Waldman. He frowned, squinted, thought and scratched his ear, but he couldn't remember the soldier's first name.
We spent a lot of time talking to Waldman. As it developed he'd seen the soldier only once taking a walk with Elaine Fine. That had been at night. In the beginning Waldman was positive that he'd seen them out a dozen times, but we finally pinned him down to the fact that he'd only seen them once. He couldn't remember exactly which night it had been. He thought it was the night Alan Straight had died, but he wasn't positive. Finally, like a flare burst in the night, Waldman remembered that the American soldier had been a sergeant.
It was past midday when Lisl and I got back to the inn, and with the miles we'd peddled on the bikes we were both starved. We slid into chairs around a small table in one corner of the garden and then we ordered.
First of all we had another bottle of white wine. And to go with it we had fresh lake trout. Two of them. They were twins, practically, with the head, and about fourteen inches in length.
Each trout was served on a huge silver platter, ringed with small potatoes roasted a golden brown, and garnished with sprigs of parsley. The cooking heat was still rising from the trout and they were smothered in hot melted butter, looking brown and tempting with a little color still visible in the rainbows on their sides.
The meal was perfect in every respect, from the white wine to the final rich and delicious torte.
When our coffee had been served Lisl and I leaned back in our chairs and relaxed. First of all we agreed that Frau Stern was, indeed, an excellent cook. And before long we got around to discussing what we'd learned about Straight and Fine that morning.
The police and the doctor were in agreement that Alan Straight had died of a heart attack, and the autopsy verified that. All sources confirmed the fact that on the night of his death, Straight and the girl had gone up to their rooms to retire about ten-thirty. About eight o'clock the next morning Elaine Fine reportedly went to Alan's room because she hadn't heard him stirring around. That's when she found him dead. She ran downstairs and notified the Stern's, and they in turn immediately called the doctor and the police. The time of Straight's death was estimated to have been about midnight. That part of it was pretty factual, with no incongruities.
And then Waldman reported he'd seen Elaine out walking with an American Sergeant. Named Horschitz, no less.
I asked Lisl, "I wonder if he was staying here at the time?"
"We will see." She went into the inn; and in a few minutes she returned with Stern's old registry. Lisl and I put our heads together and scanned the pages a second time.
Sure enough, we found it. A Maurice Horowitz, American, had registered two days after straight and Elaine's arrival. The name didn't agree with Waldman's version, but Horowitz was close enough to make us believe he was the one. He checked out the day after Straight's death. Room number 43.
"Do you think they really made walks together?" Lisl asked as she put aside the registry. "This Sergeant and the girl?"
At first I'd doubted it, the way Waldman had been confused about the number of times and the Sergeant's name. Now I began to waver. "It could very well have happened."
Lisl began talking, trying to remember Waldman's exact answers during the interview, and I listened to her for a while. And then I was no longer paying any attention to what she was saying.
I was sitting, facing the inn, and for several minutes I'd been watching one of the open windows of a room on the second floor.
A woman who resembled Whistler's Mother had come to the open window a short time ago and draped the bedding over the sill so that it could air out. She disappeared inside the room. Now she was standing at the open window again, pummeling two huge pillows.
"Lisl," I asked, "did we talk to that woman this morning?"
Lisl studied her for a moment. "I'm certain we did not."
"She's obviously one of the maids. How could we have missed her?"
"I don't know."
"Come on, Lisl. The boss has got some more work for you to do."
We damned near scared the woman to death coming into the room like that; but after Lisl had talked to her for a few minutes she finally settled down.
"She only comes here to work once in a while," Lisl explained. "To help out. Whenever the regular maids can't keep up with the work."
"Where was she this morning?"
Lisl asked the question and gave me the answer. "She wasn't called in to work until noon. More people checked out this morning than the Stern's anticipated."
"How long has she been working here on a part-time basis?"
"Almost five years," Lisl said after she'd gotten the answer.
"Does she remember anything about Straight, Elaine, or Horowitz?"
I noticed that the woman reacted when I spoke the name of Horowitz. And the way it developed, she had all kinds of information about him.
She remember the Sergeant Horowitz because she'd spoken a bit of German, and he'd always kidded around with her. He'd told her that he was with the American Army stationed in Germany and that he was on furlough at the time. He'd mentioned that his home was in Hollywood and that he hoped to become an actor when he got out of the Army.
The woman had never seen Horowitz talking to Elaine and she'd never seen the two of them together. Walking, or otherwise. She knew, however, that he'd checked out the morning following Straight's death. My, she was positive about that.
She related that Sergeant, Horowitz had asked her personally to wash and iron one of his shirts. The following morning, when the excitement over Straight's death had subsided, she'd brought the freshly-laundered shirt to the Sergeant's room. She found his door ajar, and when she entered he told her to put the clean shirt into his suit case. This she did.
"But there was the other part that seemed a little strange to her," Lisl interpreted.
"What was that?"
"In the Sergeant's suitcase she saw a black, silk, and very thin-nightgown-do you call it?"
I nodded.
"For a woman," Lisl emphasized. "That's right."
Lisl was frowning. "But what would he do with a woman's nightgown?"
"Sleep in it maybe."
"A man?" Lisl asked.
"I was kidding. I can think of a number of reasons why an American Sergeant might be carrying a black nightie around in his suitcase. It would come in very handy if he met a girl who might want to wear it. It might have been a trophy, the spoils of a conquest, so to speak. And he might have bought it to send to his girl back home."
"Of course," Lisl agreed.
The woman was now eager to get on with her work. Lisl and I left the room and walked downstairs. We rechecked with Adolph Stern, just to be sure there weren't any other employees who had been working part-time on the night of Straight's death. He assured us the woman had been the only one.
"Also," Lisl said thoughtfully, "what do we do now, boss?"
We were outside the inn now, and with Lisl standing in the afternoon sun it shot highlights through her hair and softened all the rest of her.
I was thinking about something.
"Are you thinking about something?"
She came forward slowly, walking silently on sandaled feet until she was about three feet away from me. Then she stopped. Her perfume kept right on coming.
"What would you like to do now?" she asked.
I said, "I'd like to make a little walk with you."
"You're making fun of my English," she said softly, "but a walk would be wonderful."
I took her hand and we began walking slowly along the road that followed the edge of the lake until we came to her cottage. We thought about going for a swim in the lake but neither one of us got very enthused about it.
Not the way we were standing close together in the kitchen, with her back up against the sideboard and with me pinning her there so that she couldn't move away. But she didn't try very hard.
In fact she enjoyed it, the way we were enjoying our kisses, and when we did talk we somehow got around to the wine of the night before and what it had done for us. Lisl just happened to have another bottle in the cottage.
I took it, the corkscrew and the glasses and followed her upstairs. The ceiling wasn't very high so we couldn't stand upright to drink our wine. We sat down on the bed and toasted each other and savored the wine and each other.
It was cool and comfortable when we first went up there, but before long it became very warm, and much too warm for clothes. Somehow, while I raised my glass to take another sip, I jiggled and I spilled some of it on her, specifically on her left luscious breast.
Not wanting to waste even one drop I licked it off with my tongue, and that started a chain reaction. Before long I was spilling little droplets in different locations, and I had to rid her of them the same way I'd had to improvise in the very beginning.
That led to one thing and another; and before long we'd forgotten the wine and we were intoxicated with our closeness and passion and the long and wonderful night.
7
The plane bringing me back from Europe landed at Los Angeles International Airport. I could have taken the limousine that was going to town, but I slid into a cab instead and told the driver to take me home.
It had been dark about an hour when the cab dropped me off at my house. I paid the driver, and I tipped him well for his skill in getting me safely through that miserable traffic. The cab's headlights had already disappeared When I unlocked the front door and stepped inside.
I smelled it immediately. Even before I'd turned on the light.
It was the odor of stale cigarette smoke, along with the stink you get when a cigarette burns the varnish on furniture, and the stench of spilled liquor, rotten and decayed food, and urine, and I hated to think what else.
I turned the lights on as I moved from one room to another. They'd knife-slashed every piece of upholstered furniture in the house, dropped live cigarettes on the rugs, then apparently urinated on the butts to put them out, piled all the furniture in the two bedrooms on top of the beds and then poured my best liquors over both heaps.
Every bottle in the house must have been smashed by slamming it against the walls. I could recognize catsup, A-l sauce, and soy sauce stains, and I could see the bits of broken liquor bottles that had once been in the bar. A couple hundred bucks worth of prime steaks were now rotting in the deep freeze because they'd pulled the plug and opened the door. A small potted rubber tree from the terrace was standing in the John. The terrace furniture was stacked up in the bathrooms.
I went outside and flipped on the pool lights. One look was all I needed.
I had the only open cesspool in Los Angeles County. The amount of filth floating on top of the water made it pretty clear that there had been a bunch of them and they'd been there quite a while.
That's when everything got to me. A man in California takes a lot of pride in his house and pool. Especially his pool. And especially this man.
I realized I was still carrying my suitcase. I slammed it down beside the pool. The lock broke open and a shirt sleeve and a sock jumped out.
At first the thought had been in the back of my mind that it had been a bunch of kids hitting houses that were unoccupied. Then I remembered the guy who'd punched me early that morning. I kept thinking about him as I roamed the house, and I was positive he'd initiated this, too.
I didn't know who the guy might be or the size of his friends, but I decided to find out.
And I intended to get even.
You just push Hardy Six so far. Then watch out.
I found where they'd broken in at the back of the house. I searched around the house but there was nothing that might be a olue. Then I went inside again and began pulling the furniture off the beds. When I'd finished my hands were sticky with Creme de Menthe, Benedictine, Gran Manier, and all the rest they'd sloshed over the furniture.
All the stamps in the desk drawer in the den had been pasted on top of the desk. Someone had gotten sick and thrown up into the waste paper basket. I would have preferred that they'd have let it go on the floor instead because I saw some crumpled paper in that stinking mess.
My stomach was bouncing and I thought I'd get sick, but I managed to fish out the pieces of paper and spread them out without tearing them.
Two of the sheets had dirty pictures, the kind usually found on toilet walls. The next one was filled with unimaginative doodling. Finally I figured I had something.
It was all printed in block letters:
BIG BEN BIG BIG BENJ BIG BENJAMIN BIG BEN FRANKLEN BIG BEN FRANKLEN
Under the couch in the front room I found a book of matches put out by a bowling alley on Rosemead Boulevard. I went into the den and dialed the number.
When the guy answered the phone I said, "Let me talk to Big Ben Franklen."
"Who?"
I repeated the name.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. "What team does he bowl with?"
"Beats the hell out of me."
"Well," he said, as though it pained him, "hang on and I'll check around."
I could hear him drop the phone and then all I heard was the rumble of the balls rolling down the alleys. I must have waited five minutes. Finally the guy came back.
"Not here, fella. Sorry."
He hung up before I could ask him if Big Ben Franklen was ever there. I spent another half hour wandering through the house and wondering how I'd locate Big Ben. The answer almost hit me right between the eyes.
The phone number scrawled in pencil on the wall next to the kitchen phone was about the same level as my forehead. Its prefix put it somewhere in the San Fernando Valley.
"Yeh!" the guy answered. He yelled it loud, like a sailor in a storm, to make himself heard above the music in the background.
"Hey man," I said, "I've got to find Big Ben."
"Who? Beller is out!"
"Big Ben Franklin! Is he around?"
"No. Left about an hour ago. All of them cut out."
"Big deal." Then I hung up on him.
I memorized the phone number, turned out all the lights, locked the doors and headed for a motel.
Tomorrow the bell would toll for Big Ben.
I didn't get up until after ten the next morning. I called Simon's secretary and got an appointment for four-thirty. Then I called the number in San Fernando Valley.
"Twitch's Bunny Tail." The man sounded tired and a little bored about the whole thing.
"I beg your pardon."
"This is Twitch's Bunny Tail. What do you want?"
"I want to make a reservation."
I thought he'd died because I didn't get an immediate answer. Then he mumbled, "Well, I don't know. I just clean up around here."
"Where are you located.?"
It took him a while, but he finally remembered the address. That's where I headed after I'd finished with a late breakfast, and by the time I got there it was past lunch time.
I found a parking area that could handle the landing of Piper Cubs, and in one corner of the lot was a low-roofed, unpainted, rectangular building that was big enough for the hanger.
Twitch's Bunny Tail. That's what the sign said that had been painted recently and was nailed over the entrance. There were only a couple of cars parked out in back and nobody was outside. I parked near the front and entered.
The bar along the left hand wall was for the beer, the big gaudy juke box against the far wall was for music. The little stage had to be for the star, and I supposed all the old tables and chairs were for the customers. But I thought I'd strolled into the city dump.
There was paper all over, the different colors that bathroom tissues and Kleenex come in these days, strung along the walls, over the back of the bar, lying on the floor, and draped in inverted rainbows from the ceiling. There were also Christmas bells, clumps of tinsel, and synthetic twigs of mistletoe. In the corner to the right of the entrance stood a ten-foot tall Douglas fir tree. It was decorated, as though Santa Claus would be riding in that night.
At that moment the gal who'd been behind the bar straightened up, dusting her hands. When she saw me she hurried around the back of the bar and then bore down on me.
She had the face of an angel, small, round, and innocent, and the fine legs of a dancer, but she weighed at least two hundred pounds. When she walked her arms stuck out at an angle because the size of her wouldn't let them hang straight. Black skirt and sweater, taffy-colored hair, cut short with bangs on her sweaty forehead.
"Can I help you, Doll?"
"Merry Christmas," I said.
"Same to you, and come to our Yule party tonight. Starts at eight."
Now I knew it was the middle of summer but I had to ask anyway. "Trying to beat the holiday rush?"
"That's right, Honey. I decided to have my Christmas party in the summer. Cops don't have the road blocks set up, decorations are at a discount, and besides, I may not be in business anymore bv the time Christmas comes rockin' in. I'm Twitch. I own this place."
"Good luck to you."
"Come and have a ball. Bring the gang."
"Is Big Ben Franklen planning to show?"
"Big Ben? You couldn't keep him away. The whole mob's coming."
"Then we'll swing."
"You know him? Big Ben?"
"Sure," I said. "We have had some great times. Balls. Real balls, every time."
"Then you roar in here tonight," she urged. She glanced at one of the girls calling to her. "Gotta move on now. See you tonight."
When I got outside again I took my time walking around the building and I figured out a few things before I drove away.
On Sepulveda I stopped at a super market and made a phone call. It was a good day. I caught Kai Jergensen at home and set up the meeting for that night. Then I bought the supplies I needed for my house and put them into the trunk of my car.
Then I kept my appointment with Simon Farmer. Agnes Belcher's attorney was located on the top floor of one of the newest buildings on Wilshire. I told him about my trip to Austria and then I asked him to tell me what had happened after that.
I learned that Alan Straight had been a change of life baby and that he'd married only once. When Alan was 65 years old his wife passed away. Both the Straight and Belcher families had always been wealthy, and when Straight became a widower he was worth several million dollars. Anyway, he'd stopped counting the bucks long ago. So now he began to knock around a bit, primarily enjoying himself. At Santa Anita race track one day he'd bought a hot dog from a girl whose name turned out to be Elaine Fine.
Elaine had just turned twenty. Maybe it was the way she helped him put the mustard on the hot dog. Whatever it was Alan Straight took to her. She didn't put him down. They took a trip to Europe, and while they were in Austria he died of the heart attack.
A month or so after his death Elaine Fine walked into Simon Farmer's office and revealed that she was pregnant. She thought she'd become pregnant during the week of Alan's death, and under Simon's questioning she even hinted that maybe the activity on that last night might have been too much for him and it had killed him.
Here, Simon Farmer interjected, that shortly after Alan's wife's death Alan had requested Simon to make a provision in his will that should he ever die and leave a pregnant girl behind, Simon was supposed to take care of the girl and the offspring with a hundred thousand dollars from the Straight estate. Simon assured me now that Agnes Belcher had known about that request but she'd shrugged it off, remarking that it was only a sign of Alan's senility. Simon was positive that Alan wouldn't have told Elaine Fine about that provision in his will.
According to Simon, Elaine Fine hadn't come into his office demanding money. She had been very sweet and polite about the entire thing, and she'd merely been looking for a little financial help, with the baby coming and all.
When Elaine's baby was born the blood tests were checked out. There was no proof and no reason to believe that it wasn't Alan's baby, and Simon Farmer accordingly turned the hundred thousand dollars over to her.
She named the baby Alan, took the money, and bought herself a nice home in Arcadia where she'd been living ever since.
After I'd gotten her address from Simon, I left his office.
I wasn't going to call on her tonight.
First I had to go to a Christmas party.
8
Kai Jergensen was already settled in a booth at the steak house in the Valley when I got there. And I was ten minutes early for our appointment.
"I'm all set, Hardy," he reported when I sat down. "I've got the station wagon and the other stuff you wanted."
"Fine, Kai. Now let's eat."
We ordered a couple of rare filets and while we were digging into our salads Kai brought up the Christmas party we were going to attend.
"I thought I didn't understand you correctly when you called today. I'm sixty-six years old and I've been all over the face of this earth but this is the first time I have ever heard anything so idiotic and shameful as somebody having a Christmas party in the dead of summer. The world must be going to hell, I think, when I hear something like that."
Kai Jergensen was the direct descendant of a tough line of Scandinavians who hit the West coast early in the history of California. The entire Jergensen line had built boats or skippered them, and Kai himself had been a sailor, roustabout, skipper of millionaire's yachts, a stunt man in the movies and TV, and he usually stepped up to take jobs too tough for others to handle.
The last five years he'd been free-lancing, so to speak. He'd been making a good living for the boys in Vegas, persuading the deadbeats in the Los Angeles area to pay the gambling debts they'd run up at the casinos.
Red-haired, didn't smoke or drink, insisting that if he ever got drunk he'd probably kill somebody with his fists, but nevertheless soak ed his hands in brine to keep them tough, kept in shape by working out daily in a gym and walking at least (five miles every day.
He wasn't very big. Maybe five foot eight at the most, but without an ounce of fat. That's what made him so wonderfully deceptive Tough as steel, and quick as a cat. He knew judo, karate, and a few little tricks he'd developed himself.
With Kai on your side you knew he'd be able to protect your flanks. That's why I'd called on him. I figured I could handle Big Ben, and Kai could keep an eye on any of the others.
Now I told him, "Don't get yourself worked up about this, Kai. Ignore the fact that it's a Christmas party."
"I'll spit on the guy who has no respect for this day."
"A girl dreamed up the party. Don't take it seriously."
"It's your party," Kai said disgustedly. "It's your Christmas party."
While we were eating I told him about the guy who'd punched me early that one morning and that I figured he'd sent a bunch around to mess up my house.
I said, "If this guy has got a legitimate complaint against me, I don't mind it, Kai. But I don't look kindly on somebody sneaking into my home when I'm not there and doings the things that were done to it. That's why I'm going to get even. And that's why I've asked you to help me."
When we'd finished eating I led the way with my car and Kai followed in the station wagon he'd acquired. When we wheeled into the big parking lot of Twitch's Bunny Tail it was already dark. The doors of the building were open, loud music was spilling out, and the lot was about half full of cars and a few motorcycles.
Kai and I walked around the building and I told him the way I'd planned it but he came up with a couple of suggestions that sounded good to me. So he stayed out in the lot and I went inside.
It didn't look like the same place. They'd twisted and glued and patched together all the different colored tissues to make long streamers going out from the huge white paper bell in the center to the walls. Very Chistmasy. Of course, all the chairs and tables around the dance floor were occupied now and there were at least a half dozen or more standing at the bar and drinking beer out of steins.
The noise was deafening. The juke box had (been turned up as loud as it would go and with the crowd I had to use the Australian crawl to get up to the bar.
Someone shoved out a foaming stein of beer and I paid for it. Then I set my back against the bar and watched the action. There were three topless dancers on the stage, each blonde and each one facing in a different direction. One had breasts the size of lemons, the other one was in the orange bracket, and the third bordered on grapefruit, but Twitch was the big attraction.
She was out on the dance floor, and her partner in the twist was a guy in slacks and T-shirt. Handsome, and big, with tremendous biceps. He was twisting, but next to Twitch he looked like he was merely a little unsteady on his feet.
She was barefoot, wearing a black skirt and sweater. Around her neck she was wearing a string of silver letters that spelled out MERRY XMAS across that forty acre chest of hers. It was obvious she'd shucked her brassiere. Those massive breasts were bouncing and rolling underneath that black material, and it was like a couple of tankers wallowing in a rough sea.
Sweat was dripping off the end of her nose and along the sides of her neck, and her face was turning pink. Luckily for her the record ended at that moment. Her partner headed for one part of the room, and she left the floor, amidst thunderous applause.
When she caught sight of me she came over. "Merry Christmas!"
"Happy New Year!" I caught the odor of her perspiration. It was pretty bad.
"Glad you could make it, Doll!"
"I promised I'd show," I said.
At that moment the new record came up on the juke box. She yelled, "I wore out Big Ben. How about trying it with Twitch?"
I shook my head and took a sip of beer. I stalled long enough. Some guy grabbed her arm and wheeled her out on the floor.
Over on the far side of the room I saw the guy she'd identified as Big Ben. I set down my beer stein, and walked over there.
There were eight of them squeezed in around the little table, each with a couple of beer steins in front Of them. Two of them were girls wearing baggy sweaters and tight capris. All were in their early twenties, and the guys had long hair that should have been trimmed and shampooed last Christmas.
The guys were all different sizes, but next to Big Ben they seemed anemic. The odds were six to one. At the moment, unless the girls wanted to wrestle.
The girls caught on to it first, and before long they'd elbowed the guys sitting next to them; and finally everyone was quiet, with their glances busily flicking between Big Ben and me. I waited until he finally swung around in his chair and looked up at me.
I asked, "Are you Big Ben Franklen?"
"Yeah, man, and what can I do for you?" His hands kept tapping the table top in time to the music.
"I'm Hardy Six."
He missed two beats but then he started in again. He was off a quarter beat. Everybody at the table was watching him. Finally he said, "Are you a councilman, or something, that I should know you?"
"No," I said, "you should know me because you called the other night at my home and I wasn't there."
The girls snickered and the guys grinned and then made it .obvious that they were trying hard to keep from laughing.
"Six, Six. Hardy Six. Is that what you said vour name was?"
"That's what I said."
"You got a beef or something? You don't like your name, is that it?"
One of the guys slapped his hand onto the table top and broke up. Another one said, "That's right, Big Ben. He's got a wild hair. Someone."
Big Ben shifted around and showed me his back while he picked up his stein. I stuck my four fingers and thumb into the her on the way to his mouth. Then I flicked suds into the guy's face that thought the whole thing was so uproariously funny.
Now the meeting had been called to order.
Big Ben straightened up in his chair. The girls grabbed their guy's arms and nobody was laughing anymore. Not even grinning. They were watching Big Ben. The next move was his.
"You polluted my beer, Six." It came out real loud because the record had finished again and at that moment we were without a musical background.
"That's a shame," I said.
"Best you buy another round for this table."
"I already did. The night you freeloaded at my bar," I told him.
The new record came on and now Big Ben had to talk louder because he wanted to give the group the benefit of his wisdom.
"Don't panic, Six. It was lousy booze."
"It made me sick," the blond-headed guy chirped.
"You don't say?" I said.
He nodded. "Normally I wouldn't touch the stuff."
I went right along with all of it. Kidding, like. And now they figured they had me on the defensive and they poured it on. We kidded about the things I'd found in the shower, and the furniture pyramided on the beds, and the way they'd played around the pool.
We had a great time. I mean, I did. I let them think that they were making me back down on everything that I hit them with, but I just wanted to be sure that they had all been in on it and that I wasn't gunning for one of them that was innocent.
When I had the thing going the way I wanted it. I picked up Big Ben's stein and poured the beer over the top of his head.
"Now, you son of a bitch," I said, "come outside."
He came out of his chair and he was ready. He was putting on a show for the others. "Come on, punk." He headed for the side door that had an EXIT sign over it, also freshly painted in red.
About a half dozen chairs were shoved back at the same time, and I knew they were all coming. I followed Big Ben, and the rest of them tagged along behind us. Before I stepped outside I glanced over my shoulder. We'd picked up a half dozen other curious ones that had caught on to what was happening. They didn't bother me.
Big Ben spun around on the balls of his feet, ready to get it over with.
"Hold it, jerk," I said. "We start it here and they'll be calling the cops in a second. With you I want to take my time." I walked right past him and headed for the darkened part of the parking lot.
He followed me and so did all the others. The moment I cornered the building I whirled. Big Ben was coming in and I chopped him with a hard right in the teeth.
He pulled up fast and I knew I'd scored. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the blond one and the guy that had been laughing split up to take me from two sides. There could have been a cavalry troop forming up and it wouldn't have bothered me. Not with Kai Jergensen in reserve.
Big Ben stormed in and it took me about ten seconds to stop him and get him initiated as to what was going on. Then he started moving backwards. He couldn't fight for sour owls, and it was obvious he'd been counting on help from the others, they didn't show, and he noted it.
Now he got panicky, missed with his punches, and kept losing his balance. I closed his left eye, got a good stream of blood running out of his nose, and kept irritating the bleeding spot on his lower lip.
Nobody cheered him anymore. Except for the muffled music coming from inside, there wasn't any sound except a grunt now and then, and the mushy sock every time I planted one. Before long I had cut him enough and I didn't want to hurt him anymore. Not when I'd planned the night's activities so carefully.
So I waited until he really got frantic. Then I dropped him.
Hell, I was pretty proud of that.
Then I turned around and saw Kai Jergensen. He had the others on the ground in front of him, and they were staring up at Kai, scared silly. The two girls were gone.
"Jesus Christ, Six," Kai said disgustedly, "where did you learn to fight?" Then he managed a quick grin.
"Come on, Kai. Let's get them out of here."
He tossed me a pair of handcuffs and I snapped them around Big Ben's wrists. I got him to his feet while Kai rounded up the others. We loaded them all into the back of Kai's station wagon and I followed it to my house.
Then the six guys went to work. Out of the trunk of my car I got brushes and mops and pails and soap and all the rest I'd bought that afternoon. By about three in the morning the place looked fairly presentable. I'd have to get the pool people to drop by and I'd need a couple of estimates on redoing the inside of the house, but the mess had been cleaned up.
Kai and I took them back to the Twitch where they'd left their cars. Big Ben and a couple of the others rode with me.
Finally Big Ben said, "You're all right, Six, a guy that doesn't go crying to the fuzz when he has a problem."
"I don't blame you for trying to make a buck," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"Who paid you to mess up my place, Big Ben?"
"You guessed?" I nodded.
"Well, we were supposed to wreck a few things. But after a couple of drinks, things got out of hand."
"Who was it, Big Ben?"
"The six of us-and some others."
"I mean-who paid you to do it."
He stalled a moment and then he said. "Billings, I think his name was."
It had been obvious; and yet I had never thought about him. Gus Billings. Sore, because I'd broken up his scenario. Andrea must have told him about me. Otherwise he'd never known my name.
9
It was one o'clock in the afternoon when I parked a half block from Elaine Fine's house in Arcadia. Her tree-lined street ran perpendicular to Foothill Boulevard, and it inclined gently as it extended northward towards the San Gabriel mountains. In the summer heat of midday no one was outside.
The garage door next to Elaine's house was open and I saw the back end of a new black Chevy parked inside. I made a note of the license number as I walked by.
There was a sign hanging on the front door knob of her house: Mother and Baby Are Resting.
Well, we'd just have to get mother out of the sack. Instead of ringing the bell and disturbing baby, I tapped softly on the door. Nothing happened, and so I walked around the corner of the house, went through, a little wooden gate and then I was in the backyard.
Elaine Fine had a small pool there with a few lounge chairs and tables. A yellow ball and a blue baby's rattle were enclosed by a wooden fence.
There was a screen door on the back of the house. When I rapped on it I could tell that it wasn't latched, but I didn't open it or try to go inside. Finally I could hear soft footsteps and then I caught the outline of her through the screen.
She'd formed her mouth to say something, but then she pulled up short, studied me carefully, and then moved quickly to the door and snapped the inside latch. I had the feeling she had been expecting someone else.
"What do you want?' she asked in a low voice, but there was no hiding her irritation.
"Miss Fine? Elaine Fine?" When she didn't deny it, I continued, "I'm Hardy Six, a friend of Agnes Belcher, and Simon Farmer." I added the attorney's name, just in case the Belcher name didn't ring enough bells.
While she leaned forward to get a better look at me I had an opportunity to study her.
She was the girl next door, the childhood sweetheart, and the sweet young homemaker pictured in all the women's magazines. If your mother saw her she'd say, "My, what a nice girl!"
She was medium height, slender, with orange-blonde hair that had soft waves, and it fell to her shoulders. Green eyes. A sweet face with tiny features. Just a touch of makeup. She was wearing a short blouse cut square in the front, black shorts, and sandals. Her bare legs were bowed a bit and she had small breasts. And all around her was the aroma of baby powder.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but my son is sleeping and I can't ask you in."
I kept my voice in a whisper, too. "I just want to talk to you a moment."
"Can't you come back some other time?"
"No," I said. "This is far too important to wait."
"What is?"
Hell, I didn't know. But I'd gotten her to bite, and now I had to come up with something. "There might have been a mistake," I said. "I don't understand."
I fictionalized certain business commitments that Alan might have made with my partner while Alan was in Austria that last week and now I intended to establish their validity.
I then stressed the fact that I'd already been to Gasthof Stern and that I'd checked out all the guests there during her stay with Alan. Now I needed her kind help in perhaps clarifying something that needed to be verified.
I said, "I found out that a man by the name of Maurice Horowitz had been there at the time, and I wondered whether he and Alan ever got into any discussions. Business, or otherwise. Do you recall, Miss Fine?"
"Well, no," she said thoughtfully, "not that I can remember. Maurice Horowitz, you said?"
"Yes. He was a sergeant in the United States Army at the time. Of course, he might have been in civies and no one would have recognized him as a soldier."
"I don't remember Mr. Straight even mentioning his name. I certainly would have known it if they'd ever met and talked. I'm very sorry."
"That's all right," I said. "It was just a shot in the dark. But you understand, I have to try every angle."
"Oh, I understand, all right."
"Thanks, anyway, Miss Fine. Sorry to have troubled you. I'll leave now so I won't wake up the baby."
Now she wasn't concerned about the baby anymore. "This-this Sergeant Horowitz, did you say, is he the one who claims that Mr. Straight made the business commitment?"
"I'm not certain. The sergeant may be just a name the Austrian remembered. You know how they are. Easy-going and the rest."
"If there's any way I can help you further, please call. I'm always ready to help out with anything that concerns Mr. Straight. You understand, don't you?"
"Of course."
I left her then, walked around the house and got into my car. While I headed for Pasadena I kept thinking about Elaine Fine. Such a nice girl. But such a lousy liar. About Horowitz. The guy who'd hoped to become an actor.
I could just see the marquee: Starring MAURICE HOROWITZ.
That sent me into Los Angeles and I made a thorough search of the public records. A year ago a Maurice Horowitz had legally changed his name to Basil Howard. The age was just about right.
There was even an address. It was also a year-and-a-half old but it was a lead. I followed it out to Hollywood and finally got to talk to the manager of the apartment.
She remembered him, and recalled that he'd checked out, new address unknown. But he'd had a girl, the manager said, and she'd never forget that one. She called her the snake girl.
"She wiggled like one?" I asked.
"No, she kept a lot of snakes in her apartment. Like pets."
"You wouldn't remember her name would your
"If I live to be a hundred I'd never forget it."
"Marvelous memory."
"Once I remember she came here to visit Mr. Howard and she had one of those things, a live one, too, on her sweater. You know, the kind that looks like a lizard and changes color?"
"Chameleon?"
"Well, all I know is that it had beady eyes. The idea, a young girl like that living with snakes."
"What was her name?"
"And I told her right away to get out when she showed up with it. She just laughed and said it wouldn't bite me. Oh, it was hideous."
"What was her name, Ma'am?" Joan.
"That's all?"
"And she danced with those snakes, too, I heard."
"Oh," I said.
Then I thanked her and got out of there because the manager didn't know where Joan lived, or worked, or what her last name had been, or anything else. Except that, my goodness, did she have the snakes.
And, my goodness, did Joan, the Jungle Girl, have the snakes I found out a couple of hours later.
I'd made several phone calls to booking agents and flesh peddlers and before long I'd gotten her current address.
So there I was now in a little shack off Fountain Avenue, one that probably rented as a guest house, standing in the center of a dirty front room, and not wanting to sit down because like the manager had said, here was a girl who kept a lot of snakes.
Along the west wall of the room she had almost a dozen cages, stacked on top of eaoh other, with glass sides so you could see inside and a light bulb burning in each one to keep them warm. There were snoozing diamond backs, and sidewinders, and timber rattlers, cobras, a foot-long boa constrictor, and some fellow I didn't recognize.
They were all sleeping except one of the rattlers. He was coiled and ready, a mean looking old bastard. And he must have been crotchety, the way he was rattling.
"Isn't he gorgeous?" Joan, the Jungle Girl, asked me for the third time.
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "He certainly is."
"Oh, I love him. A rattler like that is a jewel. They go for them in the movies and TV. "Give me a rattler that rattles' the director screams. Well, I've sure got one that will scare the pants off anybody."
"Pity them too," I added.
"Ever see a cobra hood up?"
"In the movies," I volunteered.
"Come here."
I followed her over to the cages and she began banging on the glass with the tips of her fingernails.
"Watch," she said.
I did, and that three foot cobra swung his head around and the first thing I knew he'd raised up, then hooded up, and before long he was banging his face against the inside of the glass right at the spot where she was banging her fingernails against the outside.
"Isn't he terrific? I almost faint whenever I watch him do that."
I stepped back and reckoned as how that might be possible. She kept right on talking. She told me about the rattlers, how inexpensive it was to keep them because they needed to eat only about three or four times a year and then she was telling me about the boas.
"This one, you see, the small one is a baby. But I had a beauty. Nine and a half feet long he was and I danced with him every night in different clubs. It died one day."
She went over to an old card table that was covered with junk and publicity stills. While she was fumbling through it she explained that boas could really bite and that they weren't harmless as some folks thought. They were also a problem to work into an act.
"You know," she said, "people don't realize it, but a boa has to be fed every nine days. And when they eat they have to go potty. That's the thing you have to worry about when you're up there, performing in front of the crowd. You hope he doesn't go potty right there-all over you, your act, and the stage. It smells pretty bad. I don't know if you know that or not."
"Yes." Hell, she had me convinced.
The Joan, Jungle Girl, publicity photos were of a girl with long blonde hair that reached down to her buttocks; and she was dressed in a costume that' consisted of a leopard bikini and bra. Wide and heavy bracelets encircled the biceps of both arms.
But the girl standing next to me now had real short brown hair, that appeared never to have been combed. She wore a filthy, bulky sweater and black, food-spotted slacks. Barefoot.
"Well," she said now, "I've told you about my snakes, what else can I tell you about?"
"Basil Howard."
"Base. The poor guy. We lived together in the beginning. He was trying to break into the industry. I was the only one working. Dancing with my boa. He couldn't get any parts. I supported him most of the time. Not that I minded. He was good in bed. Next to my snakes I liked him best."
"And then he left," I said.
She nodded a bit sadly. "He said his pride wouldn't let him sponge off me anymore. I know it was the snakes. He just couldn't love them the way I do."
"Where did he go?"
"I don't know. I heard he shacked up with a stripper."
"Do you know her name?"
"Oh, sure. Barbara Seville."
I thanked Joan, the Jungle Girl, for her information and-began sidling towards the door.
That's when I saw the ugly thing on the floor scuttling for my toes. I backed up fast.
"He won't hurt you," she assured me. "He's just a baby Gila Monster."
"That's all right. I was leaving anyway."
I closed the door behind me and inside I could hear her cooing sweet nothings to the Monster, while the rattler whirred in the background.
I checked the evening paper and found that Barbara Seville was the headliner at a club on the Strip. I made a phone call and learned that her final performance each night was about one o'clock.
I decided to call it a day; and I headed for home. The smog had cleared out pretty well by that time, and I relaxed, and I decided Southern California wasn't such a bad place after all.
The driveway from the street to my house goes up a slight incline and it's about a half city block long. It makes a gentle curve to the left until about fifty feet from the house, and then it makes a sharp turn to the left, heading towards the garage.
Just as I came around the bend I saw the guy, lying face down and about ten feet in front of the garage entrance. I jammed on my brakes and stopped about ten feet short of him.
In the next moment I was out of the car, bending down to turn him over.
A hard chop in the back of my neck jarred my brains. I whirled and tried to get in a good lick but something hit me from my blind side; and from then on it didn't take very long.
But it seemed like ages.
I couldn't get a good look at them but I guessed there were about three of them. They were pretty good when it came to this sort of thing.
I felt myself hitting the ground often, but each time they derricked me to my feet and went to work again.
Specialists. In the gut and kidney areas. I was spinning, and before long I felt light and loose and relaxed. I was in orbit.
Until somebody grabbed my hair and jerked my head back.
"Stay away from Elaine Fine!" the voice rasped in my left ear. "Stay away from her! Get it?" The hand in my hair snubbed my head even further.
I tried to fight free but that didn't work. That's where I felt myself falling and it didn't even hurt when I hit the driveway, but the damdest thought flashed through my mind. Stay away from Elaine Fine, he'd said. Now we were getting somewhere.
10
The phone ringing the next morning woke me up and when I answered it, I got a dead line. So I hung up and went into the bathroom and inspected the face I have to shave every day. I found a couple of dark bruises under each eye. I had a cut on the right side of my mouth and my teeth felt sore. So did my guts and rib cage. There were a lot of red welts around the equator but after I'd probed and felt around a bit I was still positive they hadn't broken any ribs.
I'd made the same inspection while I soaked in a hot tub last night, and then I'd tumbled into the sack.
The phone rang again. When I got to it and spoke up I could hear somebody breathing on the other end but the caller didn't say anything and neither did I. I just put the phone down beside the cradle, and went back to bed.
I wondered whether it was one of the guys that had been waiting for me the night before. Or was it someone working for Gus Billings? Maybe it was the same guy who'd punched me early that other morning.
I fell asleep wondering about it, but not too concerned. I slept well the rest of the day.
Refreshed, I crawled out of bed about dusk, got cleaned up, and then I went out to eat. After that I felt as good as new.
Because my final objective for the night was the Sunset Strip, I went out there and had some Scotch in about a half dozen spots, listened to some good jazz, and relaxed.
Anyway, it was about one-fifteen when I pulled up at the club featuring Barbara Seville.
I came in the Artist's Entrance and found a little old lady with glasses barricading the hallway. I told her, "I came to see Barbara."
"She's just finishing," the lady said.
"I'll wait."
She turned her head to the left as though she were listening, and then she said, "It's a fine, responsive group out there tonight."
There was a wave of whistles and applause, and naturally a few chestnuts were yelling for a lot more. The lady said, "I'll tell her you're here. What's your name?"
"Hardy Six."
I set my back against the wall and waited. It was quite a wait. But not dull.
First a redhead came out in slacks and sweater, carrying a toy poodle, and exited. Then a little thing that looked pure Mexican swirled by in her huaraches and went out the door. Next a couple of stage hands in overalls, another girl with a lot of pink hair spun into a beehive, and then the little lady again. Now she had a black sweater riding her frail shoulders.
As she walked by she said, "Barbara will be out any time now."
Any time now turned out to be another fifteen minutes.
Finally here came this girl in a tight white sweater, white capris with thin gold braids down the seams ,and four-inch heels on open-toed white clogs.
But her hair was as black as a coal miner's collar. So were her eyebrows and the long eyelashes. She had the big, heavy eyelids that made you think of bedrooms at four o'clock in the morning. But her eyes were dark blue in color.
They appraised me in one quick flash, and then she asked, "You wanted to see me?"
Her mouth was beautiful, with the full and luscious lips you'd like to juice. And she was built. Young and vibrant, about twenty-two years old.
"I'm the one," I said. "I'd like to talk to you about Basil Howard." Lets go.
She hit the exit door and I hurried out after her. When we were outside I said, "Is there someplace we can go to talk? Maybe we could have a late supper."
"Just take me home."
I got her into the car and she didn't say another word except to tell me which street to turn off on, and the way to go; and before long she told me to park wherever I could find a spot. The street was north of Sunset and it headed upwards and northward at a modest sixty degree angle. I parked at the curb, cut the wheels so she wouldn't roll, and set the hand brake.
By the time I'd crawled out of the car Barbara Seville was waiting for me on the sidewalk. When she saw that I was now a pedestrian she headed for the three-story apartment house. I tagged along the best I could.
We hit the lobby, the elevator was open, and I followed her inside. She punched the number three button and we were off. Then we got out and she unlocked the door to apartment 303.
"Home sweet home," she said, slamming the door shut behind us. "Sit down."
She hit every light in the apartment, turned on the hi-fi, and pulled back the drapes covering the south window. On the top floor and perched on the side of the hill, you could look out over the lights on the Strip, those of West Los Angeles, and if there hadn't been smog in the Basin I could have seen the beach.
Her hair was black and she'd worn white, and that's the way the apartment was furnished. In black and white. Not alabaster white, but varying soft shades of white were the rug and walls and drapes. The furniture was black. The couch, coffee table, easy chairs, and the rest.
And the tiny bar in the corner of the room. She was there now, getting ice cubes out of the refrigerator. "How about a drink?"
"Scotch on the rooks," I said.
When I sat down I noticed that she grabbed the gin bottle, and that's what she had on the rocks. She brought my drink to me, kicked off her clogs, and then she sat down on the couch and tucked her legs under her.
"Cheers."
"Luck," I said.
She had a good drink, and then while she was lighting a cigarette I said, "Thanks for letting me talk to you. I was told you could give me some information about Basil Howard."
"You in trouble?"
"No."
The corners of those beautiful eyes tightened briefly and her glance was brief; but I felt as though I'd been under a microscope.
"How did you like the show?" she asked.
"I didn't see it."
"No, I guess you didn't."
"Does that surprise you?"
"From anybody else it would, but coming from you it doesn't surprise me."
"That doesn't say much for me."
"It says more for you than you might think. Drink up."
While she was fixing us a couple of fresh ones she asked, "Have you ever been to Miami?"
When I nodded she wanted to know about the town.
"Lots of action. The track, the dogs, jali-all, girls, clubs, strip joints "I've got a chance to go there next winter. To dance in one of the clubs. A crazy contract."
"They don't have any smog there."
She smiled a little when she handed me my glass. "Smog, shmog. When you sleep in the daytime and work at night you don't concern yourself about that. Unless you read the papers or turn on TV. My act, though. I need a new act. I can't go down there with the same act I've got now. You know how it is, don't you?"
"Sure," I said. "I know how it is."
'But you didn't see my act tonight."
"Sorry about that," I said. "Real sorry."
"I want you to see the new one I'm working on." She planted her drink on the coffee table and got to her feet. "I'll be right back."
I leaned back in the chair and sipped my Scotch, listened to the music on the hi-fi, and studied the lights visible below. And I wondered when I was going to be able to talk to her about Basil Howard.
For the life of me I couldn't understand a guy like Basil making the grade from the girl with the snakes to the girl with the body. But I didn't know Basil Howard so how in the hell could I judge him at this time?
Barbara Seville had returned by that time, and she'd changed into her costume. She'd piled that mass of black hair onto the top of her head and stuck one of those big Spanish combs into the back of it. She was wearing a black and red flowered dress, scooped low in the front, with a wide flared skirt. Plus a pair of red high-heeled pumps. A sheer black silk shawl was draped around her beautiful bare shoulders.
She was in front of the hi-fi now, digging out the record that she wanted, and after she'd put it onto the turntable she walked out into the center of the room, struck a typical Spanish dancer's pose while her thumbs wriggled into the loops on the castanets.
There was a moment's lull as the record arm found the groove on the new record, and then we were in the land of Spain.
I mean the music started off the way the usual Spanish numbers begin, with the coronets and guitars up big, and Barbara Seville was doing the usual Spanish dancer's routine, clicking her castanets. But I could tell this was only the beginning.
The tempo was picking up, and the stripper's beat was beginning to throb in the background, and before long we were no longer in Spain.
She started out by getting rid of the castanets first. One after the other. Then it was time for the shawl. Kid stuff. But the show was on the way.
While she was bumping and grinding those hips she was working at the zipper, got it pulled down and soon she was out of the dress and free, and now she was dancing in the black bra and panties and the music was getting louder and wilder and faster and Barbara Seville stayed right on top of the beat.
She had a wonderful body and she was moving it sensually; and I kept thinking then that if this were only a rehearsal I didn't think I'd ever he able to stand the real thing.
The music made a big finish and I had the feeling that normally that would have ended it right there but apparently this wasn't normal, because when the music started up again with a second chorus her hands were working at the bra and she got rid of that. She didn't need a bra to hold up those full, lush breasts because they were firm enough to stand by themselves and they were without pasties. There was too much going on to concentrate on merely them because she was squirming and hammering out of the panties and there I was sitting only about six feet away from her when they came off.
That's when the record quit and so did Barbara.
"Ole!" I shouted, and then I applauded furiously.
She gave me a vicious bump and then she scampered out of the room.
I needed a cold shower but the next best thing was a cold drink. I picked up her glass along with mine, went over to the bar and fixed up a couple. When I'd finished the little doll was coming up to the bar.
"That was terrific," I said.
"You did like it, didn't you?" She was still getting her breath when she reached out and picked up her glass.
She'd slipped into a thing that resembled a smock. All-white soft material with a black collar that stood up a little in the back. Now she was barefoot.
"If that's She act you plan to take to Miami, I can promise you they'll never let you leave."
"The last part was a special bit. Just for you.
"I guessed that."
When I went back to my chair and sat down, she curled up on the couch again with her drink and a cigarette. "I think it will go," she said softly. Then she shrugged, "But you never know."
She wasn't wound as tightly as she'd been when we'd come home. Maybe the drinks and being here was helping her get rid of the tension she'd built up at work. Maybe now we could sit around like homebodies and just talk. About Basil Howard.
But already she was rambling on, telling me that she'd originally been a waitress in the club she was dancing now, hoping in the beginning that some director or producer would discover her and learn that she was studying acting in her spare time and get her a part in a picture, but the only thing the guys she waited on were trying to discover was whether she was wearing anything underneath her uniform, and she got pretty disgusted about that. So when she went to quit, her boss and his wife got her into the office and talked to her, the way she wished her parents had talked to her ten years ago, and finally the boss and his wife offered to send her to school to learn to become a stripper, and then they promised her a six-month's contract in the club after she'd gotten her diploma.
She figured those chestnuts in the audience would be seeing a lot less of her than they were feeling while she waited on their tables. So she went for the deal. Now she was a big hit at the club, and she was earning far more money than she'd ever made before. She'd paid the boss and his wife what she owed them, and everything turned out just fine. But now she had the urge to get the hell out of this town and she'd been offered the contract in Miami, and she wanted to go real bad and yet she didn't want to leave because she felt a lot of loyalty to them.
"But I've got to cut out of this town!" she repeated.
"Because of Basil Howard?"
She brought her head around to look at me and then she got a funny look on her face, as though she had a big problem.
"Just what do you want him for?" she asked.
"I don't want him. I just want to know something about him."
"That's right. That's why you came to see me, wasn't it?" She came off the couch and started walking towards me. Not fast, but she moved. Even in that smock-thing.
I stood up. This was the showdown. I could feel it as sure as I could see the smoky blue smoldering behind the screen of her eyelashes and the way her mouth was wordlessly forming every enticement woman has used on man since time began.
Then she asked, "What would a guy like you want to know about Basil?"
"Everything you know," I said.
She pulled up now, just a step away from me. She tipped her head back at the same time her hands began opening the front of her smock. Every move was slow and deliberate; but she knew how to make each one a seductive symphony. I stood there and let her go.
She said, "You see, I'm not sure just what about Basil would interest you most."
When she was completely open down the front she set her hands on her hips and then she stuck out her chest. She was as bare as the moment when she'd finished dancing. Her breasts had no other place to go than forward.
Then she hit me with it.
She wanted to know, now that I'd had a good look, if I didn't prefer her and other girls to boys.
11
I slapped her across the mouth. Not hard, but there was blood on her lower lip, and the jar had shaken loose that wig she'd been wearing all this time.
The black one.
I grabbed it and flung it aside. Barbara Seville was a fantastic doll with a mass of short and soft blonde curls. No wonder she had the stunning blue eyes.
Then I grabbed her shoulders and socked her up against me, feeling the hardness of her full, hot breasts against my chest while I brought my mouth down to hers.
All of her became limp and unprotesting, and when my lips touched her I found them cool and not responsive to mine or to the tip of my
"Now what?" she asked in a very bored tone.
"I am going to demonstrate to you which sex I prefer." I picked her up and while I carried her into the bedroom she said nothing nor did she resist.
Her bed was strewn with a lot of clothing and it was still unmade, and after I put her onto it I swept all the clothing onto the floor and a few moments later my clothes had joined the rest. While I was doing that she slipped out of the smock and tossed it aside, and now as I came towards the bed she was lying on her back. Her hands were clasped behind her head, her legs were crossed, and she was staring up at the ceiling as though the moment was the most boring she'd ever experienced.
It was the supreme insult, the way she was letting me know that I didn't heat her up one bit. And there are times when a man has to prove himself.
"Well, come on and get it over with, if you want to," she said now as her glance moved over me and without interest.
"No," I said, "it's not going to be like that. When I've finished with you, you are going to be begging for it."
"Hmph," she said, or something equally unimpressive.
When I stretched out beside her I found her skin soft but cool to the touch, the nipples of her beautiful breasts flattened out and looking like frail pink blossoms.
I slid my arm under her neck and turned her into me, moving closely against her so that we were touching from chest to knees, and then I took my mouth and found hers, letting my tongue and lips stroke her lips lightly, the sides and corners of her mouth, down the side of her neck and into the hollow of her shoulder while my hand was moving lightly over the satiny curve of her hip and along her side.
I felt not even a slight shiver and response and I was beginning to believe that there was no part of her body that had an erogenous zone.
It was very discouraging and I was on the verge of giving up when quite by accident, while I was moving my arm under her neck I felt the quick intake of her breath when my hand neared her hair.
With the back of her head in the palm of my hand and while my fingertips were digging against her skull and pulling at the mass of short curls my mouth took hers again. This time her breath came faster and within a few moments her tongue had come to life, the tip of it coming forward to touch mine, then it stirred and probed deep into my mouth, lashing at my tongue, twisting and turning, the way she was beginning to move the rest of her.
I just slid on top of her then, using both hands at the sides and back of her head; and where we were touching I could feel her skin heating up, the movements of her body becoming faster and more erratic and before long she was breathing so fast and heavily that he had to move her head aside to catoh her breath.
"Oh," she said. "Come on if you want to."
That's when I slid off her again, with only my left hand clenching a fistful of short curls, and I noted that her breasts were taut now, towering magnificently with the stiff pointed nipples so puffed that they appeared dark red, and while I fed on them and clenched my fist even tighter she was pulling at my shoulders, trying to get me to move back again.
"Come on," she said urgently.
She kept repeating it, and I stayed at her side, my mouth working at her breast while my hand was whisping and playing down below, and before long she was to the point that her urgency and my reticence to come to her had her in tears.
I'd promised her I'd make her beg, and I thought briefly about asking her to say the word out loud, but there was such a buildup in me and in my throat that I couldn't prolong the agony any longer.
It was now time for the ecstasy.
The moment we were joined her arms and legs became hot steel bands that enclosed me tightly. My hand had left her hair moments ago but each time it returned to tug at the curls she became violent in her movements and action, and there were moments when she arched off the bed in the surge of orgasm.
She was beautifully soft and unbelievably passionate and while I drove through the countless intricacies we both became caught up in a powerful surging bewilderment and finally when the big moment arrived I could hear her cry out while the room tilted and spun and I found and became enveloped in her exquisite fulfillment.
Some time later she asked, "Did I beg?"
"What I have to go through at times to make a point."
"Was it that bad?"
"No, it was that good."
"I'm so happy. Now what was the information that you wanted so badly?"
It sounded like a record but I repeated it again. "Tell me about Basil Howard."
She sure knew Basil Howard, that two-bit actor. She'd met him several months ago at a Hollywood party, and immediately things just seemed to swing between them. At that time she'd been going to the dancing school, learning to strip, and things had been a little tough for her. Times had been tough for Howard, too, because he hadn't been able to get any decent parts, any parts for that matter. So she let him move in with her because he helped buy a few groceries and chipped in occasionally on the rent. But the funny part about ail of it, Barbara recalled, was that although Howard was a lousy actor, was always out of work, he nevertheless always had money.
As time went on Howard seemed to be doing even better, and she never could figure out where the loot was coming from. He told her not to worry because he swore it was all legitimate and so she kept on stripping and Howard kept on paying most of the bills.
Suddenly Barbara hopped out of bed now and went to a closet. She brought out an armful of sheer black nighties.
They were all types. Baby doll lengths, short lengths, some trimmed, others untrimmed, the floor-sweeping kind, and so on. But they were all black and very sheer.
She dumped all of them onto the floor, keeping one in her hand which she slipped on.
"'Sweetie'", Barbara was quoting, he always said to me, never underestimate the power of a black nightie. It's like a million bucks in the bank. Exciting, and just lying there and waiting to be admired and fondled.
"He said that?" I asked.
"You can't imagine how often he said that. Every time he went out and bought me a new one."
Obviously he'd said it to her pretty often. "Where is he now?" I asked.
"Still in Vegas, I suppose. About two and a half weeks ago I came home one night, the way I always did when I finished working, and he was gone. Just a note from him saying that he'd loved every minute of it but he was sorry he had to go to Vegas. He had a couple of deals cooking up there and he thought that this could be his big break." She tried to smile. "So I was stuck with a closet full of black nighties."
"And a big hole in your heart?"
She frowned and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I thought it was love, at first, and then I realized it was only my pride. He'd obviously left me for another girl and I meant to get even. Then I thought about running. To Miami. You know."
"And you never heard from him after he got to Vegas?"
"Not even a postcard. The dirty bastard. Him and his damned black nighties!" She jumped up and started taking off the one she'd just put on.
"Wait a minute!" I said.
"Why?"
"Let me help you with that." I came off the bed and walked towards her.
The nightie came only halfway to her knees and from that point to her neck she was a dusky silhouette; and she brought her arms up and as we came together she slipped them around my neck, working her hips to fit herself tightly against me.
"I'm begging," she whispered before her mouth touched mine, the wonderful heated and puffed lips hungry and wanting.
We got her out of that nightie somehow, and this time when we sank onto the bed she was a tremendously passionate woman who cried out at the tortures that racked her as my mouth travelled over her soft and steaming body.
And then we came together and it was even better than before because now she was completely uninhibited from the very beginning. We travelled the golden road of ecstasy, leisurely, then wildly and frantically, and as the brilliance of the climax burst through us we clung savagely to each other and remained like that because time no longer mattered at all.
When I was driving home the sun shone brightly and it really looked like it would turn out to be a beautiful day. I had the car radio turned on, and some of the newscasters were even promising a smog alert that afternoon.
It was a good day to get out of town early.
When I got home and saw the mess that still remained I decided not to leave until the interior decorator came by. I called him and the earliest he could be there was two o'clock. Then I called the airlines and got a reservation to Las Vegas on a five o'clock flight.
The phone rang as I headed for the bedroom. I answered it up in the front room, standing so I could look out the glass doors that led to the pool terrace.
"Six?" here was a pause and then the man's voice continued, "You forget about Elaine Fine and her friends. You hear?"
"Why?"
The answer came quick, but not over the phone.
The slug smashed through the top part of the glass door and chunked into the floor beside me.
I remembered what the guy had told me, and looking at the hole he'd put into the floor it became obvious that they'd gone to a lot of trouble. There had to be two of them. One to telephone while the second one sat in the brush and hoped I'd go to the front room phone.
Before I went to bed I put the phone back in the cradle, and I slept soundly until the decorator arrived at two thirty. After he left I cleaned up and drove out to the airport. There had been a smog alert at two o'clock.
After the plane had taken off my eyes were still burning from the stuff. So I kept them closed, put my head back and thought nice thoughts.
They managed to find me a room at the Desert Inn, the way they always do, and when I'd checked in I was ready to go to work.
Find Basil Howard.
Barbara had given me a picture of him. He had dark brown wavy hair, nostrils that flared a little and thick lips. His face was almost perfectly round.
After I'd poured a Scotch from the set-up in my room, I settled down with the telephone. I called my contacts, but none of them had ever heard of Howard. They promised to put out the word.
I went to the Silver Slipper to eat because the chuck wagon is open most of the night, and the restaurant never closes. It therefore is pretty popular with the people working in the shows.
While the waitress was pouring my coffee I showed her Howard's picture. "Ever see this guy around here?"
Her glance passed right over the picture. "All the time." And she was gone.
While I ate I tried to catch her eye, but when waitresses want to ignore someone, they've really got a system. So I upset my coffee.
She noticed what happened immediately. She merely called the bus boy to clean up the mess and bring me a fresh cup.
I kept on eating after that and wondered how she'd work the rest of it. Probably ignore the desert and send my check by mail.
But I'd knocked her before I'd tried her.
She asked, "Would you care for some dessert, Sir?"
"What have you got?"
She started with the pies, then told me a bout the cakes, the puddings, the custard, and finished with the sherbits and ice cream.
I said, "The picture I showed you is of a man called Basil Howard. Do you know him?"
"No," she said abruptly.
"But you recognized him."
"I made a mistake. How about some blueberry pie? I recommend it."
"Does Howard come here to eat?"
"Look, Mister, lots of guys come here to eat, and they come here with their bank's funds, with their boss' wives, with girls engaged to marry somebody else. So order dessert, why don't you?"
"Apple pie."
She left to get it and I pulled a hundred dollar bill out of my pocket, folded it up and put it on my plate, next to the mashed potatoes I hadn't eaten; and then I pinned it down with my fork.
She saw it the moment she brought my pie. When she looked at me, I said, "He's not one of those you mentioned. I just want to get in touch with ole Base, that's all."
I knew she didn't believe me but she didn't rush off this time. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of the bus boy coming for my plate. The bill miraculously disappeared and found a home in her apron pocket. While the bus boy cleared away the dishes she went after the coffee pot.
Now while she was refilling my cup she said, "He comes in here every morning. After the second show." She was gone again.
A few minutes later she returned with my cheek.
"Is he in one of the shows?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Lately he's been coming in with a couple of girls from the Tropicana. French ones. The nudes." She put down my check. "French, they call themselves." Sarcastically she added, "What a bunch of Limey's, if you ask me."
12
Looking over the crowd in the Tropicana casino it was hard to believe that with all the dinner shows along the Strip currently in progress that there would be anybody left to try the tables. But that's Vegas.
Players were stacked three deep around one of the crap tables and by peeking around a bunch of heads I saw that some fat woman wearing a hat with a blue feather was running a hot streak. I wanted to get on her, and she made two more passes before I could get up to the table. She was still shooting a buck and dragging every time.
I put a hundred on the pass line just as the croupier was returning the dice to her. Her point was eight. She came right back and threw a seven.
The next shooter was a man and I bet two hundred with the house. He crapped out, and I kept playing with the house after that. I was six hundred ahead when the dice came to me.
While I was warming up the dice strong fingers closed over my wrist. "Are you Hardy Six?"
He had grey eyes, a tough face, and he was wearing a beige sports shirt open at the throat, and slacks.
"Who wants to know?"
He did. And he showed me a badge from the Las Vegas Police to prove it.
Now he smiled, not with his mouth, but only with his eyes. They lost some of their hardness, and the crows feet crinkled at their corners. "You want to try your luck first?"
"Get on me," I said, "I feel hot."
He just stood there and waited.
So I turned them loose and got an eleven. After I'd picked up my chips I followed him over to one side of the casino.
He said, "I understand you're looking for Basil Howard."
"I am."
"Why?"
I told him I had been told to look him up by a mutual acquaintance.
"Then he's not a friend of yours?"
"I don't know. I never met the man."
"Let's go downtown where we can talk."
We went to his office, and in the beginning I did most of the talking. When I'd finished the Lieutenant told me that I could stop looking for Howard. He was dead. He'd been killed that afternoon in an auto accident. Hit and run. The police were still working on it but at the moment there was nothing to make them believe it hadn't been an accident. There were no witnesses. An anonymous phone caller reported he'd seen some guy lying on a side street. The police rushed out there and the man was already dead, having been run over by a car. Later they learned his name was Basil Howard.
You can wonder about some things whether it's murder or an accident. But, like the police, you've got to have facts, either one way or another.
I didn't have any facts, but I had a hunch. I wanted to bet it had been murder, and the more I thought about Howard being wiped out, the more fidgety I got. He'd been the key to a number of things, and I was certain that talking to him would have clarified a lot of things concerning Elaine Fine.
So that left me with Elaine Fine. She had all the answers, but would she ever tell?
She was the only lead I had now, and I didn't want to lose her, too. The Lieutenant let me use his phone and I called the airport. The next plane for Los Angeles was scheduled to leave in forty minutes. I was on it.
When I got my car at the airport in Los Angeles I checked the time. With the traffic and all at that time of the night I felt that I could be knocking on Elaine's door just about midnight.
I was on schedule, until I got on the Pasadena Freeway. Up ahead all the lanes going into Pasadena were blocked with cars. Fortunately there was a turnoff right beside me and I took it, getting a quick glimpse of the truckload of hay that had upset on the Freeway. I was lucky I hadn't gotten stuck on there, but even so, it was almost one o'clock in the morning when I arrived at Elaine's house.
There were only two cars parked on the street in her block. Her Chevy was parked at the curb in front of her house, and as I drove by slowly I saw that there was light showing behind a couple of curtained windows. Maybe she was still up. Maybe it was only a night light.
I kept driving and passed the second car that was parked at the curb in front of the house next to Elaine's. I parked in front of it, got out, and walked back to her sidewalk entrance. The street was very quiet, and all the other houses on the street were dark. It was nice and cool now and I even caught the scent of roses.
There weren't any messages hanging on her front door knob this time, but in deference to the baby I knocked lightly instead of using the bell.
Nothing happened. I knocked again, and louder this time.
The third time I really hammered with my knuckles. I caught the sound of muffled footsteps inside. A second later I heard Elaine's voice.
"Who is it?"
"Hardy Six."
There was no comment about that, and so I added, "I was here the other day, Remember?"
"It's late," she said. "Go away."
"I've got to see you. Very important."
"Come back tomorrow."
I tried the door. It was locked. "Come on, open up."
Now the door opened.
Elaine Fine was wearing a silvery blue housecoat that almost touched the floor. Her hair looked a little mussed, as though she'd been in 'bed, but her eyes didn't look as though she'd been asleep.
Stepping inside I said, "Sorry to bother you, Miss Fine, but I guess that's all I said.
Something very hard cracked against the back of my head. I saw blue and red flares for just a second, felt myself falling, and then somebody turned out all the lights.
I couldn't guess how long I'd been out, but when I came to I had a headache that was torture. The big pain was in the back but it radiated out from there to make my eyes hurt and hammered at my ear drums.
I found I was lying on my face on the rug in the front room, and as I pushed myself up into a sitting position, the nausea and dizziness almost knocked me down again. And that damned shrillness was still torturing my ears.
Like a guy on his first big drunk I swayed and struggled to my feet and after my head had cleared a little I looked around but I didn't see Elaine Fine. Or anybody else, for that matter.
But I heard plenty. The noise in my ears was being caused by the baby. God, he was bawling.
Shrill, ear-splitting screams, one right after the other. The pauses were very infrequent, only long enough to suck in breath.
I wobbled through the living room and headed towards the door from which the sound was coming. My right toe kicked up against something that felt like a bundle of laundry. I stopped and peered downward.
Elaine Fine was stretched out on the floor in the hallway. She still had on the silvery blue housecoat. But now the braided cord was knotted around her throat instead of her waist.
From the light's dimness her face looked a bit blue, and her eyes were almost out of their sockets. I knew she was dead, even before I checked.
She was warm. But the pulse was gone.
I staggered from room to room to see if the murderer might still be around. I found no one. But the baby's screaming followed throughout the house. What a set of lungs.
I got to the nursery and found him in the crib. He was on his back, red in the face, sweat and tears were streaming down his fat little cheeks.
"Hey," I said, "cut that out."
When he heard my voice he cut it off real quick and opened his eyes. At that moment I heard the squeak of a car's brakes out in front of the house. Then the baby cut loose again and drowned out all other sounds.
I rushed to the front window and peeked outside. There was a police car pulling up in front. Its headlights hit Elaine's car and mine, and then they snapped off, and two guys were getting out of the car. One of the neighbors must have called them because of the noise the baby was making.
So there I was, with my car out in front, my prints on the door, and a dead woman in the house. I had to get out of there fast.
I rushed through the house, out the back door, and ran across the backyard. I hit the fence at a dead run, vaulted over it, and landed on the other side, still running. I sprinted through another backyard, and then I stayed on the grass as I went by the house. There weren't any lights showing on this street and I spurted across it, ducked into an alley and then I really sprinted.
I kept to the darkened streets, working my way down to Foothill Boulevard. My head was hurting so badly it felt as though my skull had split open and the two halves were falling apart. My lungs burned and my legs ached, but I continued.
They'd put out the call by now and already they might be blocking off the area. This was the crucial part of the entire thing. If I could get outside the cordan that they'd set up I'd have a better chance of getting away.
A half block away from Foothill I saw the restaurant on the corner. I slowed down to a walk and when I got to its parking lot I went in there and looked around. It was now after two, and there were only four cars still parked there.
They'd closed up and some of the help were probably cleaning up.
I checked one car and then the next, hoping I'd find a key forgotten in one of them; but I had no luck. At the third car, I didn't see a guy in it until I stuck my head in the window on the driver's side.
He was lying down on the front seat and I caught the scent of sour alcohol; and I knew he'd gotten sick and then passed out. I jerked open the door and got in. You know he'd gotten sick because that stuff was all over the front of him.
"Hey!" he mumbled, trying to sit up. "Whacherdoin' fer Chrissakes?"
I hit him on the chin and shoved him down onto the seat again. The keys were already in the ignition and I started it up and drove out of the lot. That stuff that was all over the front of him and on the floor was nauseating, and I rolled down the other front window. It was still bad. But what the hell, I had transportation.
I checked the registration on the steering column and saw that he had a Hollywood address. Maybe if I took him home he'd consider it a favor and not report it to the police when he recovered, I sped due south, and before long I was turning onto the San Bernadino Freeway, heading for Los Angeles.
Now with more cool air circulating through the car it wasn't bad at all. The stink wasn't as sickening and my head was beginning to clear. But I still had a headache.
That got me to thinking about everything that had just happened. Obviously someone had been inside with Elaine and that someone had cracked me over the head when I entered. I was willing to bet that someone had killed her. To keep her from talking.
About whom? Alan Straight? Basil Howard? Or both? With Elaine Fine now dead I was at the end of the line. No more leads. There was no one left who could tell me what really happened that night in Austria.
On second thought, there might be somebody who could do that-the one who had hit me and killed Elaine. But he had disappeared. The police wouldn't be looking for him because they'd be looking for me. My car had been parked outside.
And then it hit me.
The other car, the second one, parked at the curb when I'd arrived hadn't been there anymore when the police car headlights picked up my car at Elaine's.
I didn't recall making a note of the car's plates when I parked in front of it, but now the series of letters and numbers flashed through my mind. With one hand I dug out pencil and paper and wrote it down before I forgot it, and I was thankful that noting license numbers had become an unconscious habit on my part.
I swung off the Freeway onto the Sunset off-ramp, and a few minutes later I parked the car at the curb of a dark side street near Santa Monica. As I switched off the lights the guy beside me moaned and tried to get up. Before he got his eyes completely open I slugged him again. That put him back to sleep for a little while longer. When he awoke I hoped he'd realize he wasn't too far away from where he lived.
After cleaning up in the restroom of a filling station I walked a few more blocks to a restaurant that was open all night. The place was pretty full for that time of the morning and I went inside. I didn't see them until I was inside the door, but there they were.
Two Los Angeles' policemen were having coffee and sandwiches at the counter. At that moment one turned around on his stool, trying to catch the waitress' eye, and I walked right by them. Close enough so that I could see the number on one guy's badge.
I sat down at the end of the counter, got the waitress to bring me some aspirin, and then I ordered breakfast. When she'd put down my coffee and I'd taken the aspirin, I walked over to the phone booth and made a call.
Sometimes you get lucky. I'd been afraid that it might have been a stolen car. It wasn't. It was registered to Charles Fentron, with a street address in the Crenshaw area.
After breakfast I took a cab to the airport. By that time it was light and lots of people were out. I rode the buses back to the Crenshaw address. Sooner or later the police would find the cab driver who'd taken me to the airport, and they'd find out, too, that I hadn't left town. It would take them a little time. That was what I needed now. Time.
A sleepy manager at the apartment house told me the Fentron's had moved, but he gave me their new address. Going down the front steps I heard the seven o'clock news on someone's radio coming out of an open window. The newscaster reported the finding of the murdered woman in Arcadia early that morning. The police had a number of dues and they were confident they'd pick up the murderer before long.
I found a phone booth and called a private investigator I knew in Hollywood. One that I could trust. I asked him to rent a car and bring it down to a parking lot of a bowling alley nearby and leave it for my use.
I hoped Fentron had a lot of good answers.
13
Again the address turned out to be an apartment house, but this was a small one, consisting of maybe a half-dozen units on the second floor of a commercial building. The entrance was between a small print shop and a finance company. Inside I saw die stairway and immediately to the right were the mailboxes.
Apt. 106-C. Fentron.
I went up the stairs and when I hit the landing I glanced around until I saw 106 halfway down the hall on my right. Just as I neared the door it opened and I heard a man saying, "So long, Cora."
He stopped in the doorway when he saw me. He was about forty-five years old, skinny, with a narrow face. Looking at him was like looking at the cutting edge of an axe.
"Fentron?" I asked.
"Who wants to know?"
"I do."
I grabbed the front of his sports coat then because he'd tried to duck back inside. Then I shoved him ahead of me into the apartment and kicked the door shut behind me. "I want to talk to you."
He didn't like that. He shot a fist against my ear and that didn't do my headache a bit of good. He was quick but I didn't waste any time. When he sank to the floor from my right I reached down to pull him up so we could talk.
"Hold it!" a woman bellowed.
I saw a big woman in a faded pink muumuu. She had tinted glasses on her nose and an automatic in her right fist. "Get away from him," she said sharply.
I stepped back. The guy scrambled to his feet and moved over beside her.
She asked him, "Is he a cop?"
"No, I'm not a cop," I said.
"Then what in the hell are you bustin' in here for?"
"I want to talk to Fentron, and I'm in a hurry."
"The hell you say." She nodded towards the phone. "Call the law and tell them to get this guy-"
"Wait a minute," I said. "All I want is some information. I'll pay for it."
"Go on." She was squinting behind the tinted glasses.
"Where was he last night?" My glance went to the guy.
She laughed and the front of her bounced around under the muu-muu. She asked him finally, "Where were you last night?"
He asked me, "What do you want to know for?"
"A car," I said, "the black Mercury, PHB 191, it's registered to you, isn't it?"
He started to shake his head, but the woman spoke up. "Now you're touching on a sore subject around here."
"Why?"
"Because I'm the one who should have the car so I wouldn't have to ride the crumby buses!"
It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. She must have seen it all in my face because now she waved me to the couch with the automatic. "Sit down." To the guy she said, "Bring some beer."
When he'd left the room the woman said, "Now, I guess you're looking for Fentron?"
"That's right."
"Well, you missed him."
I studied the guy coming back with the three cans of beer and I wondered who he was, if he wasn't Fentron.
"Get your filthy mind out of the gutter" she growled.
She got the first open can of beer, took a swallow and belched. Then she said, "Yessir, you missed Fentron by almost a year."
"Where is he?"
"Terminal Island," she said, putting the automatic on a side table. "Drink up," she urged me.
While I had a sip she said, "My old man's in the pen."
"So who was driving his car last night?" I asked.
"Dammit, that's what I'd like to know!" she yelled.
You couldn't rush her while she was having beer, but finally I got the whole story. When Fentron had been sent to the Federal Correctional Institute at Terminal Island for defrauding via the U.S. Mail, he'd given the black Merc to someone else. Not to his wife. She'd tried to find out who was driving the car, but he wouldn't tell her.
"So you saw the car last night," she continued, "and now you want to know who was driving it. Well, brother, you tell me and we'll both know!"
It was tougher getting out of the apartment than it had been getting in. Probably because I gave her a twenty-dollar bill for the beer.
While I was driving away from there I squirmed around behind the wheel and cussed at the way things were going. Maybe by now Fentron wouldn't even know anymore who'd been driving the car last night, and even if he knew, why should he tell me when he didn't tell his woman? But I had no other choice but to walk into a Federal penitentiary and ask to see Charles Fentron, and hope they wouldn't keep me there because I was wanted for the murder of Elaine Fine.
It was after ten thirty when I left my car in the public parking lot north of the main gate. The building itself was large, constructed of grey stone, and it looked like any penitentiary you see on TV. There was a guard tower down at the east end and one directly inside the gate and maybe fifty yards inside the fence.
I'd travelled about ten yards on the sidewalk going up to the entrance when a stern voice beside me said, "Stop right there!"
I stopped, and when I glanced to my right I saw the small loudspeaker planted about a foot above the ground. Then I looked up at the tower and saw the guard talking into a gadget.
"What do you want?" the loudspeaker asked.
"I want to talk to one of your inmates."
"Talk right at that loudspeaker," it said.
I repeated what I'd said.
"Who?"
"Charles Fentron."
"Are you a relative?"
"Insurance investigator."
"Any weapons or ammunition on your person?"
"No."
"Go inside. They'll take care of you."
It took a lot of time, I had to register and they asked many question. I was working on an auto accident, I explained, and I needed some information.
Finally I was in the office of the parole officer. He was young, husky, and clean-cut, looking like a Bruin tailback. I had to go through the same routine with him.
"Well, you're lucky," he said. "Fentron's on the yard detail this morning. We've called him. He should be here any minute."
When Fentron arrived I saw that he was about fifty, with pale blue watery eyes, and not much bigger than a jockey. A poorly fed one at that.
After we'd shaken hands I told him I was working for Blackpool Insurance and that one of their insured's cars had gotten clobbered a couple of days ago by a hit and run vehicle. A witness had taken down the license number of the vehicle taking off, and I'd traced it as being his. I wanted to know who'd been driving it. I finished up by telling him his wife hadn't been much help.
Charles Fentron began to giggle, then his laughter turned shrill. When he again got control of himself and straightened up his grey sunken cheeks were wet.
"Really fixed that old twitch of mine, didn't I?" He was overjoyed. To the parole officer he said, "Remember I told you, I told you I'd get even with her? Keeping the car from her, and all?"
The parole officer just looked at Fentron, as though he could do without the funnies.
I asked Fentron, "Who did you give the car to-when you decided not to let your wife have it?"
"My buddy. J. P. Jones."
"And where can I find him?"
He was shaking his head. "Oh, you'll never find him. Moves around all the time. All the time." He paused and then he added, "But I'll give you a clue. J.P. used to hang around the poker clubs in Gardena. I mean he did when I was still on the outside. But you can't tell what he might be doing now." Again Fentron explained it to the parole officer. "Nothing wrong with that is there? Playing a little poker once in a while? It's legal. Poker's legal in Gardena, it sure is."
I asked, "What does J.P. look like?"
"Big. Like you. Maybe ten pounds heavier than you. More muscle though. Used to wrestle some. Forty or so. Almost bald, but with a lot of hair on his chest. A lot of hair. Brown eyes. Big square face."
Fentron began to giggle again. "Bet the old twitch was really sore about it, wasn't she?"
I thanked him, the parole officer, and left the office. I signed out at the desk, and departed quickly.
I drove carefully and slowly out of the parking area and the street leading off Terminal Island, and then I got onto the Freeway. I tuned in on a newscast and the Elaine Fine murder thing was getting less attention. I should have felt good about that. But I knew better. When the cops stop feeding new information to the public, they're working.
They'd picked up my trail by now, I knew. You can feel it when it happens. You don't hear or see anything, but you can sense it. It's like the world is closing in on you and they've begun shutting off your oxygen. Once they'd caught up with me it would be all over. I'd never find out who killed Elaine Fine, and Basil Howard.
The first poker club I stopped at was big and modern, looking almost as fancy as some of the spots on the Strip in Vegas. The two-bit limit tables were all filled and there were almost a dozen names on the blackboard listing the names of people waiting their turn to sit down and play. I moved around and asked some questions about J.P. Jones.
He wasn't there and no one had ever heard of him.
I moved on, going from one poker club to the next; and when I came out of the Paradise Club I'd hit them all. While I. got into my car I kept thinking that maybe the guy, J.P. Jones, didn't exist at all, and maybe at that moment Charles Fentron was laughing all over the back prison lot. What a way to finish.
Then my stomach cramped up and reminded me that I hadn't eaten since early morning. There was a little hamburger stand up ahead on the right, and I flicked the right turn signal on and edged over to the curb. When I got even with it I glanced up in my mirror and saw a car behind me also edging over to the right curb and slowing down. I took one look at the hamburger stand and it was too dirty to suit me.
I flipped on my left turn signal and eased out into the lane of traffic again. When I checked the mirror to be sure all was clear, I saw the same car behind me pulling away from the curb and speeding up.
It was a grey '61 Chevy sedan with a guy driving, and he was alone in the car. I swung right at the next corner, went a short block, turned left and gunned it. When I'd reached the end of the block, I saw him slanting around the corner. No question about it. The guy was a tail.
I kept going for several more blocks, keeping on the same street because it had nothing but rows of apartment houses. Finally I gave him the signal in plenty of time. I got my right turn signal going again to let him know that I was going to park. He dropped back a bit. When I swung over and parked at the curb I watched him in the mirror. He'd already parked at the curb behind a car that was parked between him and me.
I got out, pretended I was checking the apartment numbers, and then I started walking back up the street where he was parked. He was reading a paper. Pausing to let him know that the street number I was looking for was on the opposite side, I stepped off the curb right in front of his Chevy.
A second later I'd whirled around; and I shot my arms through the open window on the driver's side. I grabbed him around the neck and pressured.
His face shot crimson and his right hand was clawing for the glove compartment. He was a little guy and I jerked him towards me, slamming his shoulder against the inside of the door. His ear inches away from my face.
"Move and I'll break your neck," I told him.
Immediately he became motionless, and I let up on the pressure. His face was still red and the muscles were standing out in his neck. He was sucking air into his lungs and sounding like he had an attack of asthma. His eyelids were damped shut and water was oozing out of their corners.
I hacked him across the Adam's apple with the edge of my right hand. As he doubled over I yanked open the door, shoved him aside, and slid under the wheel, slamming the door shut. He was coughing but his hand again was heading for the glove compartment. I axed him behind the left ear.
That gave me time to open the glove compartment. I found a .38 Colt revolver. I slipped it into my coat pocket and then straightened him up in the seat.
"Now talk."
He was rat-faced with a hairline moustache, practically no chin. "I wasn't-I didn't-" He stopped to cough.
'Why the tail?"
"I-want to help you." Sure.
"Believe me, you need help. I can help you. That's why I was tailing you-I wanted to talk to you."
"All right, talk!"
"I know you're looking for J.P. Jones." Some of the whine went out of his voice and he seemed to get more courage. Now I recalled seeing him at one of the poker clubs.
"Where is he?" I asked.
"It'll take a little while to find out. About as long as it'll take you to get the money."
"How much?"
His eyes had dried out and greed made them glitter. "A grand."
"Too much."
"Then you don't want him bad."
"Make it five hundred."
"In cash?"
I nodded. "Now where is he?"
"He left town, I heard, because of the heat. But I aim to find out where he went."
"When did he leave?"
"Early this morning. Hey, what is this?"
I waited until the car coming down the street had passed us, and then I asked, "Why'd lie have to. get out of town?"
He got a sly grin on his face and shook his head. "No. You ain't getting all that for five bills."
I cupped my hand and powered it over his left ear. While he was moaning and holding the side of his head I told him. "Get one thing straight. You came running after me. Now spill it."
Reluctantly he told me that the last rumble had J.P. Jones doing some work, on and off, for a wealthy woman. She'd apparently backed him into a corner and he'd had to kill her in self defense.
"But that's all I know," he said.
I gave him the benefit of my doubt.
"But I know J.P., and I know where he might have run to."
"All right," I said. "Where'll we meet.?"
I couldn't push him to hard and I didn't want to let him know that I was pressing, and so I agreed to meet him at the Paradise Club at eight o'clock. He promised to have the information on J.P.'s whereabouts.
At seven-thirty, I went outside and drove up to the Paradise Club.
14
Dusk was turning into darkness when I arrived at the Paradise Club. There apparently were a lot of players inside because the parking lot was almost completely filled. I finally found a slot way down at the northeastern corner of the lot.
When I stepped inside they asked me what limit I wanted to play, but I told them I wanted to look around a bit first. The little guy wasn't in sight. I walked into the restaurant and saw him sitting at the counter.
There was a cup of coffee in front of him, but he was spending all his time swivelling his head about, watching everyone entering and leaving. I went over and sat down beside him. "Well?" I asked.
He glanced about to be sure no one was near enough to hear us, and by that time the waitress was there to take my order.
"Coffee."
He waited until she'd brought it over and left again before he said anything. Then he asked, "Got the money?"
I nodded.
"Get it up."
I stirred some cream into my coffee. "I explained it all to you once-you made the offer."
"Okay," he said. "J.P. cut out early this morning, like I said. He's got a half-sister, married to some Italian. That's where he went. To spend some time with her. Laying low."
"Where?"
"Cayucos."
"Make sense," I said.
"It's a little town up the coast. A couple of hundred miles north of here. North of Morro Bay."
Now I knew the area. "Why would he go up there?"
"Why not? He visits the sister regular. All the time." This time when he looked at me I saw the glitter of a rodent in the little eyes. "Anyway, they're not looking for him. They're looking for you."
I knew he'd already sold me out to the cops and I wanted to grab that double-crossing neck of his and squeeze it until his eyes popped out.
But I asked, "What's the Italian's name?"
"Finelli. I don't know his first name. The sister's name is Florence." Impatiently he said, "Now the money."
I didn't answer him because I was kicking a few thoughts around. He'd told the police about me, I was certain, but I didn't think he'd tell them where I was headed. I had to keep him from that. I was positive he'd told them about the car I was driving and the numbers on the plates. So I wouldn't be able to use it.
"Come on," he whined, "I ain't got all night!" He was beginning to fidget and swivel his head around again so that he could look out the restaurant windows.
I stood up.
"Hey!"
"Hang on," I told him. "I'll be right back."
"You'd better," he warned, and it sounded like the squeak of a rat.
I slipped into the phone booth and dialed the operator. I told her the number I wanted, dug out all the change I had in my pockets and gave her the down payment when she asked for it.
"Yoh!" the guy yelled again, and it was just the same as the other time I'd called Twitch's Bunny Tail.
"Big Ben Franklin," I said. "I want to talk to him."
Over the sound of the music booming out of the juke box I could hear him calling Big Ben.
It was a gamble. I didn't know whether Big Ben was there, or whether he'd be willing to drive me up to Cayucos. At the moment I didn't have any one else I could call.
I squinted out the phone booth and saw the weasel squirming around more than ever, and he kept watching the windows that faced the parking lot.
"Yeah, man," Big Ben answered.
I identified myself and asked him if he'd like to make himself some quick change driving me a couple hundred miles up the coast.
There was a hole of silence on the other end of the line. I filled it with, "Five hundred bucks."
"Let's go, man."
"Stay right where you are. I'll be along soon."
I hung up. When I came out of the phone booth I glanced at the windows the weasel had been watching. A police car was cruising the parking lot. I knew they were trying to find my car.
I threw a buck on the counter, and then with my left hand I grabbed the back of his collar and jerked him to his feet.
"I didn't tell them!" he squealed.
There was an EXIT sign over the double swinging doors the waitresses used. Shoving the guy ahead of me we went through the door and then we were in the kitchen. We passed a couple of cooks, a guy washing dishes, and then we were heading for the back door. Somebody was yelling about us not authorized to leave that way, but we were already outside.
To the right was a little lean-to under which the garbage cans were sitting. Straight ahead was an alley, and I prodded him into a fast trot. When we got to the side street I steered him to the right.
A quarter of a block away was a main thoroughfare. There was a traffic light at the corner and at the moment it was red for north and southbound traffic. The second car waiting in the outside northbound lane was a cream-colored T-Bird. With a woman driving.
I saw that the button on the inside of the door next to the curb was up. The light changed at that moment. Before she started forward, I stepped off the curb, still dragging the guy. I opened the door and shoved him inside. I jumped in after him and slammed the door shut.
"Keep driving," I told her. I had the .38 in my hand so she could see it. I'd gambled she wouldn't be the hysterical type, and this time I had some luck.
She drove well, moving right along with the flow of traffic. I said, "Get on the San Diego Freeway and head north."
"This ain't part of the deal!" the guy whined.
I told him, "Just relax and enjoy the drive."
"You bastard!"
"You keep that up and I'll tear your tongue out."
He slouched down in the seat then; and by that time she'd glanced several times at the gun I was holding in my lap. Finally she said, "You wouldn't really kill me, would you?"
"No," I said. "But I might put a bullet into one of those pretty knee caps."
"Somehow I believe you."
"I'm glad we understand each other."
"Why don't you drive?"
"All right."
While she was easing over to the curb I cheeked the glove compartment and then I picked up her pocketbook and went through it. There was nothing more deadly than a nail file.
"My, you're suspicious," she said.
"All the money's in the pot."
When I'd stopped the car I told her, "Dammit, now I am sorry that I made you come all the way out here. Like they say, you've been wonderful through the entire mess."
Then I got out, tipped the seat forward and told weasel to hop out.
He came out of the back, crab-like, his crimson handkerchief pressed to his mouth and trying to stop the blood.
While we were walking up to the entrance, Sandra turned the T-Bird around and drove out of the parking lot.
I kept him in front of me while we moved up to the door. There was a guy just coming out and I asked him if he'd tell Big Ben I was waiting outside.
A few minutes later Big Ben came out; and when he saw the weasel with the bloody handkerchief at his mouth, he frowned.
"Don't worry about a thing," I said. "Let's get out of here."
Big Ben led us to the same car he'd had the night I'd taken him back to the Bunny Tail after our housecleaning party. It was a glistening light green 56 Chevy, snugged olose to the ground. Big Ben got in, kicked it over, and it throbbed powerfully. I couldn't tell how many pots were working or what he'd done to the mill, but it was a jewel.
Big Ben had the door open on the driver's side, and while he sat there, stroking the gas and letting the motor surge, I dug out the five bills and gave them to him.
I explained, "Just in case we get flagged down by the police and I have to bail out."
While I was tying the guy's hands behind his back with a piece of wire Big Ben had found in the trunk, I explained the rest of it. I told him I had to get to Cayucos as quickly as possible, but that he'd have to watch his speed because we couldn't take the chance of being pulled over for that. Big Ben knew the place we were headed.
We put the guy in the front and then I crawled into the back. "If he even breathes loud, Big Ben, you shut him up."
"What's your name, man?" Big Ben asked.
"Danny," the guy said.
I said, "I'm going to take a nap. Wake me when you're going through Morrow Bay.
Big Ben goosed it, and we idled out of the parking lot.
I squirmed down into the back seat and tried to relax. When we got there I'd have to locate the Finelli's and then hope that J. P. would be there.
"Hey, Danny," I said, "what was the name of the woman J. P. worked for?"
I didn't get an answer.
Big Ben's right arm shot and grabbed Danny's ear. "Man, you wake up and pay attention."
"I ain't sleeping," Danny whined.
"So give Big Six some dialog," Big Ben said.
"J. P. was working for Elaine Fine," Danny said.
"Doing what?"
"Christ, how should I know? What do you think I am?"
"And then he killed her?"
"Yeah," Danny said. "Self defense."
Not really, I couldn't believe him, but I let it drop. Maybe I could figure out why J. P. had killed Elaine Fine.
15
Cayucos was just a cluster of buildings on Highway 1, a couple of motels, a general store, a place advertising fishing tackle and bait. There was a neon hanging over the front of a bar.
From the bartender inside I learned that Florence Finelli lived in a faded yellow house. As we pulled up in front of it Big Ben asked, "Want me to come with you?"
"No." I had the .38 out now. I checked it, found it was carrying a full load. I stuck it into the waist band of my slacks and then buttoned my coat over it.
A grey cat slunk away from the entrance as I approached the house. The smell of the sea was very strong now, and in the distance I could hear the breakers surging in and out. It was overcast, and it was chilly.
I rapped on the front door. There were two short warning barks inside and then all was quiet. It had been a small dog, and someone had called for silence. I rapped harder the second time.
I heard muffled footsteps coming to stop behind the door. "Who is it?" a woman asked.
"Sam," I said. "I've got to talk to J. P. Real important."
I heard her opening the little window in the door and now she talked through it. "He's down at the pier."
"This time of the night?"
"That's what I always say! But they've got to drink, those two, and that's where they go to do it."
"Who's with him?"
"My husband, who do you think? I don't allow any of that boozing in my house! If they have to go out to drink that's too bad, but they don't drink in here, I can tell you. They take the crab nets with them, and act like they're going for crabs, but I know better. Stinking like breweries when they get back!" She slammed the little door shut.
We found the wooden fishing pier. Big Ben larked the car near the place advertising tackle and bait and killed the lights.
"I'll come along," he said.
"You don't have to."
"Man, I've got to see if you were lucky the night you beat hell out of me."
The breeze had picked up and now it was lowing cold. As we walked out on the pier I could make out the narrow stretch of beach to our left. The breakers were rolling in and spilling their foam and then receding for more.
We kept on walking out on the pier and under my feet I could feel the wooden planking shiver and strain as the breakers hit the pilings. Up ahead the pier was probably more than twenty-five feet above the water.
Suddenly I heard the sound of men's voices, stopped to listen and so did Ben. The sound of their voices had disappeared. They must have heard us coming and now they were waiting.
First I could distinguish the outline of two figures at the very end of the pier; and as I came closer I saw that the bigger man was huge, and he was wearing a wool knit cap and a turtle neck sweater. I stopped about six feet away from him.
It had to be J. P. Jones, considering his size and the square face. He had a fifth of whiskey in his right hand but he wasn't drinking. He stood quietly beside the other guy, with his back up against the wooden railing. Suddenly I saw him tense and I knew he'd recognized me. Maybe the woman at' the house thought these guys got falling down drunk, but J. P. was alert.
I moved only one step nearer and I felt the tension between us begin to crackle. I knew he wouldn't be easy. My right hand slipped down for the gun and even before I could get it all the way up he'd thrown the bottle. I saw it coming and ducked; but it slammed against my right bicep. The gun slipped from my fingers.
I heard it hit the boards, but J. P. was hurtling into my guts with his right shoulder. I heard the scrape of a shoe sole and guessed the other guy kicked the gun off the pier.
The jolt of his shoulder carried me backwards and I back-pedalled to keep from falling. My heel caught on the edge of one of the planks. My shoulders and the back of my head hit the wood and I skidded. J. P. jumped into the air and now he was coming down to pile-drive his heels into my chest. I twisted aside but one of his heels hit my right thigh.
I felt the muscles in it bulge up, and when I scrambled to my feet I fell down again because the right leg wouldn't hold me. That saved me from being slammed against the railing. J. P. had charged, and now he stumbled over me and fell forward. His heavy legs were on top of mine.
I rolled on top of him, and it would have been easier to hold down a bulldozer. He humped his back and I tumbled off. I kept on rolling towards the end of the pier. I grabbed at the railing and pulled myself to my feet. J. P. was moving in slowly now, his fists cocked and hunched forward like a boxer. He'd lost his wool knit cap and he was bald, as Fentron had said.
I balanced myself on my left leg and then ducked his left while my right socked into his gut. The guy was hard muscles. His fist caught me below the heart and in the second I was stunned, he caught my head in a hammer lock.
It felt like a vise crumbling my skull and I heard the waves roaring and I saw red. He was dragging me about, and I had sense enough to remember he was a wrestler. He was going to but my head against the railing instead of the usual ring pole.
I kicked at his shins while my right hand tried to break the head lock. That was no good. Then I shot my right hand up under his sweater. I felt a mass of hair, grabbed a fistful, and jerked.
The head lock loosened and he bellowed like a bull moose. I grabbed hair again and yanked. Maybe skin was torn loose, I didn't know, but he was bent forward and I'd slipped free.
I kicked him in the teeth and then realized my right leg was working again. He staggered backwards and I roared in, my right splattering his nose.
The small of his back was against the railing and I kept pounding at his face with both fists, knowing the gut was a waste of time. I noticed he wasn't really fighting back. He seemed more concerned with turning himself around, getting away from the railing. Maybe he was afraid of the water.
I slammed a left and a right to his face. That stunned him a second. I stopped, grabbed his legs, hoisted them and shoved. He went over backwards. He yelled and it was the sound of fear as he hurtled downward. I hopped up on the railing, hoped the water wasn't full of junk metal, and dove.
I dove in shallow and when I came up I looked around. After a few moments I saw his thick arm and bald head for a second, and then he went under again.
He was between me and the pier and I swam towards him. When his flailing arms touched me he grabbed me and pulled me under. The water coiled and churned in my ears and I felt my chest beginning to hurt for lack of air. With my feet I found the outlines of his legs, and then I knead him.
Good shot.
His fingers loosened and his hands slipped off my arm. I shot to the surface and gulped in air. When he came up again I swam towards him.
Suddenly my feet touched bottom. While I walked towards him I saw that his arms and legs were threshing the water, and I heard the frightened sounds gurgling in his throat. I waded around him until the top of his head was pointed at my stomach. His face was out of the water and I was certain he was standing up too, but the way his arms were beating the water he was too panicky to realize that he couldn't drown.
I grabbed an ear in each hand, keeping the top of his head away from me. He grabbed my wrists and I shoved his head under the water. His hands left my wrists and his arms began flailing again.
I pulled his head out of the water and he coughed and spat and gasped for air.
"Who killed Elaine Fine?" I yelled.
He tried to jerk my hands off his ears. I shoved his head down and held it there for a few moments. Then I brought it up again.
He was retching and gagging, trying to vomit. I felt him beginning to tremble. "Don't drown me!"
"Who killed Elaine Fine?"
"I did! Get me out of here."
"Who killed Basil Howard?"
"Save me."
"Who killed Howard?"
"I did! Both of them! Get me out of here!" He was really shaking now and all the fight had gone out of him.
I glanced at the shore and saw that there were a bunch of flashlights on the beach, as well as a couple of cars with their red lights flashing.
I tucked J. P.'s head under my arm and started walking towards the shore. Big as he was I didn't have any trouble because the rest of him just floated along behind and I hauled him in.
A spotlight picked us up and stayed on us as I came out of the water, dragging J. P. by his shoulders now. I caught sight of a Highway Patrolman, Big Ben, the guy that had been on the pier with J. P., and some others I didn't know.
A Patrolman said, "Let me give you a hand."
"Don't get your feet wet," I said.
I put J. P. down on his back, still in the water, and so that the breakers were ending up just below his chin.
"Now you listen very closely," I told the Patrolmen that had gathered around. I asked J. P. to tell me again who and why he'd killed Blaine Fine and Basil Howard. He trembled and coughed and tried to vomit, but he talked.
Then I got up, told the Patrolmen they could have him and walked towards Big Ben's car. Big Ben fell in beside me. I asked, "Who called the Law?"
"The guy-the one on the pier with J. P. He took off the second you two started mixing it up."
16
The Palm Desert was just as searing as it had been the other time, and Agnes Belcher was still wearing the serapes and trying to keep warm. Nothing had changed. Not even the temperature of the lemonade.
Eagerly she said, "Tell me all about it."
"Let's begin with Alan Straight and Elaine Fine checking in at the Gasthof Stern in Attersee. Let's assume that he told Elaine although he'd never marry her, he'd made arrangements to take care of her in case she might have a baby. In the amount of a hundred thousand dollars."
"Of course Allan did! Feisty, he was, and feeling his oats."
I nodded. "When Alan dies of a hear attack, Elaine is physically present. Maybe she isn't pregnant at the time; but with his death she loses out on a lot of money. Why not try for it, anyway?"
"She remembered the American Sergeant staying there at the time. She seduced him that night in one of her black nighties. He kept it as a souvenir. She returns to Los Angles and discovers she's pregnant. She collects the money and all's well until Horowitz comes back. "Hie settlement got a big play in the papers and Horowitz read about it, and he remembered the night he'd spent with her."
Sternly Agnes said, "You've got no proof the baby is his."
"And neither did Howard. He started to blackmail her. She paid and paid and he bought black nighties. Elaine wants to stop the whole thing. One weekend in Las Vegas she asks a few questions and she is put in contact with J. P. Jones."
Agnes asked, "How do you know this about J. P. Jones?"
"It's all part of the confession he gave the police."
Go on.
"When I went to see Elaine Fine she became a bit panicky. Basil Howard had gone to Vegas, and she thought her problems had been solved. When I started asking questions she knew I'd eventually find Howard and he might tell me everything. Quickly she now hired J. P. Jones to persuade me from digging into her background. When that didn't work she hired J. P. to kill Howard."
Agnes Belcher said, "And now she didn't have a problem in the world."
"On the contrary, her problems had just began. She'd told J. P. ones far too much. After he'd killed Howard he flew back to Los Angeles and went to Elaine to collect for the killing. She paid him, but J. P. wasn't satisfied with just the money. He couldn't take a chance of her going to the police ever. Especially when I came rapping on the door while he was inside the house with her. He made her let me in and knocked me out. He killed her, phoned the police, and took off, believing the police would jail me as the murderer. But he forgot one important item."
"What was that?"
"He'd forgotten about Danny, the original contract had steered Elaine Fine to J. P. Danny always remained in the background, watched what developed, and waited for the day he could cash in on this thing, too. The rest of it is all part of the statements he and J. P. gave the police."
Agnes Belcher asked, "Did J. P. Jones ever hear from Blaine about who really is the father of that boy?"
"No," I said. "I guess no one will ever know."
From somewhere inside that rambling house came the cry of a child.
"You're wrong, Hardy," she said softly. "I know." She got up quickly with the serape dropping at her feet. "May I have your arm?"
We went inside and finally came to a nursery that had obviously recently been decorated. A white-haired nurse was bending over the crib. Alan Straight Jr. was on his back, wearing only a diaper. He was bicycling with his chubby legs and blowing bubbles at the same time.
Agnes Belcher went to the crib, leaned down and her hand lightly out-lined the boy's features. "I know he's a Straight," she said firmly. "He looks exactly like his father."
As I was leaving I said, "I hope you'll be able to sleep now, Agnes.'
"Sleep?" she asked in amazement. "I won't be getting much sleep for a while. I've got a young one to raise."
I'd hoped Karen might be waiting outside again, but she wasn't there. I drove back home, shucked off my clothes and slipped into my swimming trunks. Then I built a jug of martinis, poured myself a glass, and walked through the house and inspected the job they'd done.
The more I saw the better I liked it, and after the second martini everything looked even better.
While the filets were losing their chill out in the kitchen and the charcoal turning to ash in the barbecue, I swished and splashed around in the pool.
After that I crawled out and relaxed beside the pool while I sipped another martini. The phone rang, and I went inside to answer it.
"Hardy?" It was a woman's sultry voice.
"Speaking."
"This is Patricia Duke."
And then I remembered. One night at the club not to long ago she and I had taken a walk out to the seventeenth green. That's all we'd done, walked and talked. We hadn't even blown kisses at each other.
"How are you?" I finally asked.
"Fine. Someone here wants to talk to you."
I waited while the phone was being passed and then a man said, "This is Ray Duke. It was early, about seven-thirty in the morning when we met last. Remember?"
"I remember."
"Jealousy makes a man do some strange things, Hardy. Sorry about that."
He hung up, and so did I. Then the doorbell rang.
I padded across the room in my bare feet and opened the door.
Astrid was standing there, the prettiest sight my poor eyes had seen since the morning she'd left.
"Hello, Hardy."
"Hello, Doll. How was the vacation?"
"Wonderful," she said. "But it's more fun to be back."
"Come in," I said.
We went out to the pool terrace and while we were nibbling at the martinis she told me about the cities she'd visited in South America, and some of the highlights of her trip. As she talked I spent most of my time watching her and getting that tight warm feeling in my chest.
She looked absolutely delicious and whenever she talked animatedly the blonde hair swirled joyously around her shoulders. She was wearing a simple summer dress of powder blue that seemed molded to her lush breasts and flaring hips. Her long slender legs were bare and tanned, and they were extended straight out from her as she sat with her sandalled feet propped up on a chair.
Suddenly she asked, "Anything exciting happen to you while I was gone?"
I remembered the way the other day had started, especially the morning when I'd found her in my bed and later as she'd run out the door.
"Things haven't been the same since you left," I said.
"Oh, really, Hardy," she said. "With all your money it couldn't have been dull."
And then I remembered. "I did have most of the house redone. In the process I had to move your bathing suit from the spot we usually keep it. If you'd like to take a dip, I'd be happy to get it for you."
"I'll come with you," she said.
Hand in hand we walked inside and she looked around and made a few comments about the job they'd done; and eventually we were in the bedroom.
"I believe it's over here in the closet somewhere," I told her. It took me a few minutes to find it because the clothing I'd tossed in there had become disarranged. Finally I found it and came out of the closet.
She'd kicked off her sandals and taken off her clothes, and now she was standing elegantly near the bed with her arms up and fluffing out her hair with the tips of her fingers.
I dropped her bathing suit and walked right out of my trunks, and the moment I stepped up to her she slipped her arms around my neck and willowed her golden warmth against me. The touch of her breasts and stomach and thighs against mine was a torrid flame that scorched my skin and then drove its heat into the marrow of my bones, and the temperature became even more intense as our lips met and our mouths and tongues became ravenous and rapacious and tried to consume each other.
Suddenly she jerked her head back. Breathlessly she cried, "Oh, Hard Six-take me quickly."
I lowered her onto the bed and found her very passionate, and her softness was exquisite with the well filled with molten rapture that became glorious with the delights that were hidden for me to find.
We moved in unison now, through the lush and steaming Paradise where she retreated a short distance from me and I followed her to find the new treasure which she'd secreted in a darkened and isolated recess.
And then we began to increase the tempo of our little game, the new urgency making us move faster as the tenderness and gentleness was now being replaced by force and violence, then to be replaced by viciousness and savagery; and through the steamy perfumed mists that began to envelop me I heard her calling out to me to hurry and find her and come to her, and furiously I began plunging forward, finding each moment more delicious than the one immediately before.
Then I knew I'd explored every minute part of the valley that all the delights she'd led me to before were all massed in one single location, and when I arrived she no longer waited for me but came towards me. Brilliantly and in a shattered explosion I came apart as the world about me shattered and she drove towards me, hurtling to engulf me in her wonderful, overwhelming seething ambrosia.
