<code> The Guilty Party

There are days when you feel euphoric for no particular reason; and there are babes who make you feel euphoric for particular reasons. Put them both together and anything can happen.

Maybe that’s why it happened. Who cares why it happened?

She came into my office like a gal out in the woods in one of those sexy movies, smiled at me, flowed across the room with the fluidity of hot molasses, sank into the big leather chair opposite my desk, and crossed her legs slowly, gracefully, gently, as though taking care not to bruise any smooth, tender flesh.

I rose to my feet, walked clear around the desk and sat down again.

“Lady,” I said, “whatever it is, it’s eight to five I’ll do it.”

She smiled, but still didn’t say anything. Maybe she couldn’t talk. Maybe she was an idiot. I didn’t care. But if curves were convolutions, she had an IQ of at least 37-23-36, or somewhere in that neighborhood, and that’s the high-rent district.

Moreover, if some faces can stop a clock, hers would have made Big Ben gain at least forty minutes an hour. A lot of black hair, somewhat tangled, as if a horny Apache dancer had just wound his hands in it, preparatory to flinging her across the room. Narrow dark brows curving hotly — yeah, whether you think so or not, they curved hotly — over tawny brown eyes the indefinable shade of autumn. Lips that would burn holes in asbestos. And then that genius body. Man, whatever she had, it should be contagious.

She was looking me over, still silently. I leaned forward, waiting. And I started hoping she wasn’t really, truly an idiot.

Finally she said, “So you’re Shell Scott?”

“That’s me. And you? You?”

She didn’t tell me, darn her hide. Instead she cocked her head on one side and said, “I almost hate to take up your time with this little difficulty of mine. I mean it’s nothing big and exciting like murders or gangsters — “

“Now, don’t you worry, it’s big and exciting enough already, and I don’t care how little — “

“I mean, I’ve heard stories about the big cases you’ve handled and all. I hardly believed them. But I do now. You certainly look capable.”

“Yeah? Of … what?”

“Anything. You really do.” She smiled. “You look as if you just got back from an African safari. After shooting lions and tigers and things.”

Well, it was a new approach. So to hell with the old approaches. Maybe she was serious. Or maybe she was pulling my leg. But I’ll go along with a gag. Besides, I was feeling pretty wild.

“That’s me,” I said. “Just got back from darkest Zuluongo, where the pygmies are nine feet tall. Braved the poison swamps, the burning heat, the creeping goo — “

“Goodness! It sounds dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Why, it’s not even in the UN. But nothing daunts me when I’m on a trek.” I shrugged. “Killed a couple elephants this trek.”

She chuckled. “With your bare hands, of course.”

“Of course not. I … used a rock. But enough about me. You said something about a — a little difficulty?”

“Yes. It’s a bit embarrassing. And I wanted to get to know you a little first.”

“OK by me. In fact, you can get to know — “

“You see, there’s a thing under my bed, Mr. Scott.”

“Shell. A what?”

“A thing under my bed.”

“A thing? I don’t — is it alive? Hell, I’ll kill it. You came to the right place — “

“No, nothing like that, Mr. Scott.”

“Shell.”

“It’s a little funny metal thing. I thought it was a bomb at first. But probably it isn’t. When I got out of bed this morning I heard it fall from the springs or somewhere — that’s how I found it — and it didn’t go off. It’s sort of square, about three or four inches long, and has a small doodad on it. Can you guess what it is?”

“I couldn’t guess. What is it?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I came here. I told you it wasn’t anything important.” She sighed. “I knew you wouldn’t be interested.”

“But I am! It’s just that your description … Could you sort of narrow it down a little more? I mean, I can think of a million things it isn’t. But if we’re going to pin this thing down, we’ve — we’ve got to pin it down.”

I stopped. This wasn’t me. Or wasn’t I. It wasn’t either of us. This gal had me thinking with a stutter. I shook my head, remained silent, waiting.

She described the thing again, in more detail this time. Finally her description rang a bell.

“Ah-ha,” I said. “I think I’ve got it. I think your bed has been bugged.”

“It’s a bedbug?”

“No — look, a ‘bug’ is a term for a microphone, or listening device. The item in question sounds like a small radio transmitter. Though why in the world anybody would put a portable transmitter under your…”

I let it trickle off, as suspicion trickled in. The same trickle got to her at about the same moment.

“No!” she cried.

“You’re wrong, I’m afraid,” I said. “I’m afraid the answer is Yes!”

“But why?”

“Well, possibly somebody — ” I started over. It was kind of delicate. “Do you talk in your sleep?”

“How would I know?”

“How indeed? Well, that’s out.” I paused. “OK, let’s be logical, what? Usually people plant them to hear or record conversations — for blackmail purposes, to catch crooks, get inside information, business secrets and so on. Now, who might benefit in some way by hearing your conversations?”

“In the bedroom?”

“Well…” She had a point. And it stimulated my thinking.

I said, “We’ve been going at this all wrong. We have assumed the bedroom bug is the only one. The place may be lousy with them. They may be all over the joint — living room, dining room, attic, everywhere. Where do you live, anyway?”

“I’ve a suite in the Montclair.” The Montclair was a swank hotel only three or four blocks away.

We attacked the problem from all angles for a few minutes. She was a lingerie model — it figured — and thus didn’t have any big business secrets to discuss in her suite. She didn’t dictate important letters or help plan union strikes, didn’t know any criminals, and so on. She didn’t even entertain anybody in her suite, although she did mention one name, which obviously I heard incorrectly.

All in all, there seemed no reason whatsoever for anybody to bug her rooms. It was a puzzler.

Finally I said, “OK, you live in the Montclair. And your phone number?”

“Will that help?”

“It’ll help me.”

She smiled. “Oxford 4-8096, that’s the Montclair’s number. And I’m in number Twenty.”

“And your name?” I said, all business.

“Lydia Brindley. At least until next week.”

“It won’t be Lydia next week?”

“It won’t be Brindley. It will be Fish.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, you do too. Stop joshing me. That’s the name of my fiance.”

“Your — oh.”

I got a sharp shooting pain, in an area which it is impolite to mention. An area, in fact, which it is ghastly to mention.

I went on, “Say what you said again. About — about you won’t be Brindley.”

“It’s nothing, really. My fiance is Rothwell Hamilton Fish, and we’ll be married next Friday.”

“Nothing, huh? Maybe to you it’s nothing. Rothwell Hamilton Fish, huh? I never heard of him.”

“I mean it’s nothing to do with my difficulty. And Rotty hasn’t lived in Los Angeles until just lately. He’s from Las Vegas. That’s where we’ll be married.”

“Uh-huh. So he’s from … wait. He’s not — he’s not Rotty Fish!”

“Yes. You do know him, then?”

“My God, no.” I paused, closed my eyes. “That’s what you said before. Rotty Fish. I thought it was a cat food or something. You remember. When we were wondering who might benefit from recording anything you might say, you mentioned that there was hardly ever anybody in your suite except you and Rot — Rothwell. Right?”

“Right.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Where does Rot — Rothwell live?”

“At the St. Charles in Hollywood.”

“Way out there? That makes it tougher. He doesn’t live at the Montclair, then.”

“No, but he was visiting a friend there one day, and that’s how we met. In the elevator. It was so romantic — he kissed my hand and everything.”

“No!”

“He’s very polite and polished, a real gentleman.”

“Uh-huh. He’s at the St. Charles now?”

“No, he’s out of town for a few days. Wrapping up business affairs and things before we get married.”

“Uh-huh. I see. Yeah. I’ve solved it. He did it. He bugged you.”

“What? That’s preposterous. And why?”

“Why not? He’s bugging me — and I don’t even know him. Besides, we eliminated everybody else.”

“Oh, we did not.”

“Maybe you didn’t. Well, he won’t get away with it! I’ll catch him.” I stood up. Then I sat down again. “Tell me,” I said, “about Rothwell. All about Rothwell.”

They had met two months ago in that romantic spot, the elevator. Love or something blossomed, a marriage date was set. Rotty, Lydia said, was tall and slim and dark and divine, and had a little thin black moustache. He danced like a dream, and when they’d met in the elevator, as she’d said, he had kissed her hand, like those fruity Continental bounders.

“He sounds like a con-man to me,” I said.

I was all steamed up. In this life, a man has to fight for what he wants. The Government can’t give you everything. Some things a man has to do for himself, no matter what you’ve heard. Fight fair, yes; but fight.

“Why, Mr. Scott,” Lydia said, blinking the big brownish eyes hotly at me. “How can you say that?”

“Easy. Call me Shell, huh?”

“Shell. But how can you say such a thing? He’s priceless. And he’s horribly jealous, isn’t that wonderful?”

“No, that’s horrible. Either he trusts you or he doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.”

“Well…”

“You see? He’s horribly jealous. That means he doesn’t trust you. Besides, he has a little thin black moustache — you said so yourself.”

“But you don’t even know him.”

“Lydia, give him up. We’ll all be happier — “

“Why are you talking like this? What do you care — “

“Well, I’m jealous.”

“But you just said — “

“Never mind what I said. Tell me more about Rotty.”

There wasn’t a great deal more. They had dined and danced and had wine and crepes suzette — he could even order in French.

“He sounds like a con-man to me,” I said.

“He’s not, either. Oh, at first I thought maybe he was only after my money, but now I’m sure it isn’t that.”

“That’s clear thinking…. You’ve got money, too?”

“Yes, my father was the Brindley of Brindley Nuts — canned pecans, almonds, cashews and so on. He left me several million.”

“Nuts?”

“No, dollars, silly. I’m — well, I guess you’d say loaded.”

“That’s what I’d say.” I paused, thinking, considering all angles. Then I stood up.

“Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the Montclair.”

* **

Lydia’s suite was composed of living room, sitting room, kitchenette, bedroom and bath. I cautioned Lydia to be very quiet and we went in silently. I then spent half an hour going over the place, but all was in order except for the “thing” she’d mentioned finding under the bed. It was a compact portable transmitter, all right. I left it under the bed, undisturbed, then joined Lydia in the front room.

As far as I could figure it, there were only two probabilities, especially since there were no other transmitters to be found. First, the culprit was a hi-fi bug, one of those cats who sit around listening to trains hooting and crickets cricketing and wild birdcalls and such. Second … that was the one I liked.

But how to prove it? I could call all the people in town who sold electronic eavesdropping equipment, trace the men who’d recently bought such items. That could take days, though. Or, if the receiver were here in the Montclair I could start knocking on doors — a method that also failed to strike me as speedy or efficient. And nothing would really be proved even if I found a receiver. Besides, the little transmitter had power enough to broadcast on its special frequency for several blocks.

Or I could … I had it.

I whispered, “When did Rot — Rothwell leave on his trip?”

“Let’s see. This is Friday, so it was Tuesday. Three days ago. He’ll be back Monday.”

“He may be back today.”

I started to tell Lydia about it, but decided not to. It was eight to five she’d think I was nuts, and ten to one she wouldn’t cooperate anyway. I would simply let it happen, and trust in my fairy godmother or whatever it is that watches over me. It might even work better this way. Moreover, the other way Lydia might get confused. There was a pretty good chance she’d get confused anyhow, but in this case to think was to act.

I jumped up, walked to the front door, opened it and slammed it shut again, careful that it didn’t lock. Then I thumped over the living room carpet.

“Well, here we are!” I bellowed. And I thumped across the living room to the bedroom and whacked the door open.

Lydia, a puzzled expression on her face, walked up behind me.

“Here we are,” I said loudly, “alone at last.”

“Shell,” she said, “we have been alone for — “

I interrupted. “Let’s have some more of those hot martinis!”

Lydia was starting to look a bit unnerved. “Hot martinis!” she said.

“That’s the ticket,” I shouted.

“What’s this?” she said, peering at me dubiously. “Why hot?”

“Yes, why not? Let’s try something new. Let’s not be hidebound by static old conventions. I’m tired of that static. Let’s be different, let’s be gay. Oh, Lydia, Lydia!”

“Huh?” she said.

I trotted back and forth over the bedroom carpet, stamping my feet. “No, you don’t!” I roared. “You won’t get away from me now. Ha! Got you!”

Lydia stood motionless in the bedroom doorway, staring at me. A slow paralysis seemed to be creeping over her. Except for her head, which was wagging back and forth.

“Here we go!” I yelled, and sprang through the air and landed with a thump in the middle of the bed. Then I got my feet under me and started springing about. I was beginning to have a few misgivings about this; if it didn’t work, Lydia and I would be all washed up. But it was too late to stop now, I had burned my bridges, cast the die, flung the gauntlet. Too late. So I kept bouncing.

“Shell!” she cried.

“Lydia!” I cried.

“What are you doing?” she yelled frantically. “What are you doing?”

Lydia was doing marvelously, I thought, even without coaching. I bounced up and down on the bed as if it were a thick trampoline, the springs wailing and shrieking, letting out noises actually un-bedlike. I was going higher and higher now, getting the hang of it.

“Shell!” Lydia wailed, “have you lost your mind, are you mad?”

“Yes! This is madness — “

“What happened? This is crazy.”

” — madness!”

I bounced almost to the ceiling, and when I came down, some springs let go with the twanging sound of coiled ricochets.

Lydia almost screamed. “Stop it, Shell, stop it, STOP IT!”

“DARLING!” I yelled.

“STOP!”

“DARLING!”

“Cops — murder — help!” she yelled, all unstrung.

I lit on the edge of the mattress and the bed broke, the frame splintering with a crashing sound that blended with the grating and twanging of springs giving up and letting go. I figured this had gone far enough, and stopped bouncing.

Lydia had just spun about as if preparing to sprint for miles. “Wait,” I called to her. “Don’t leave. Listen.”

She stopped, looked back over her shoulder at me. “But — “

“Shh. Listen.”

There had been, I thought, the sound of a distant crash. Like a door slamming maybe. Fifty feet or so away? Then came faint thumpings. Was it … ? Yes, more thumpings, feet pounding, pounding nearer, getting louder. And a high, keening sound out there: “Lyyyydia! Lyyyyydiaaaa!”

I climbed down off the slanting bed.

“What’s — what happened to you? What’s going on?” Lydia asked me.

“We’ll soon know. We stirred something up. I’ll explain later — “

That was all there was time for.

The thumping and keening sounds were almost upon us now.

The front door crashed open.

Feet thumped across the living room, reached the bedroom.

He was tall, slim, dark, moustached, and very speedy. He took one step into the room, left his feet and flew four yards through the air straight toward the bed, without even looking. He landed atilt and bounced and wound up in a heap over at the intersection of the walls.

But he was up in an instant, head snapping about, teeth gnashing, eyes rolling.

“Hoo!” he snorted. “Hah!” He lamped Lydia, then focused on me and sprang again. At me this time. He came at me like a windmill, arms flailing.

I grabbed his arms, got my fingers around his biceps as Lydia yelled, “Rotty! Stop it!”

“Yeah, Rotty,” I said. “Stop it.”

But he was swinging and snorting, completely out of control. I’d managed to ward off all the blows so far, but there were so many it was quite an operation. I was sort of winded from all that bouncing anyway.

“Look,” I said. “It’s all right, pal. Relax. Just a little trick.”

“A trick!” he roared. “I’ll trick you!”

“Dammit,” I said. “If you don’t watch out, you’re going to hit me, and then there’ll be hell — “

I knew it. Right then he sneaked a hand loose and got me a good one on the eye.

There was no help for it then. I stopped trying to hold him, ducked a roundhouse right and tapped him one. It wasn’t an especially hard blow, but it landed on his kisser, which for at least a week was going to be of no use to him for kissing.

He sailed back and landed on his rear pants pockets and sat there with a pained look on his face.

Lydia raced over to him, knelt by him and said, “Rotty, darling, are you all right? Where did you come from? Oh, I’m a nervous wreck!”

He blinked at her. “You’re a nervous wreck!”

“What happened?” she said. “What happened?”

He said, “I’ll ask the questions. What happened?”

Then, as he stared at her, his brows pulled down and down and down, until he appeared to have very hairy eyes, and he looked her over carefully, and he looked me over carefully. Then he said in a dull voice, “Something is cuckoo here.”

“Lydia.” I cleared my throat. It was time for the explanation, and I wasn’t exactly sure how Lydia would take it. “This will require your undivided attention for half a minute,” I said. “A sort of generous, what-the-hell attitude would help, too.”

She straightened up and stood looking at me, a puzzled expression on her face. Not that her expression had changed much during these last few minutes.

“You see,” I went on, “the problem was to find out who planted that item under your bed, who was the guilty party. There were several long-drawn-out ways to check the thing, but I had a feeling the villain was Rotty dear, here. I had a hunch he didn’t trust you to the ends of the earth, and his ‘business trip’ might merely be an excuse to check into the Montclair where he could keep a beady eye — or ear, if you’ll accept the phrase beady ear — on you. So I cooked up this little episode on the fifty-fifty chance it would pop him out of hiding.” I paused. “I had no idea it would shoot him out of a cannon.”

“I don’t…” She frowned. “I don’t quite understand.”

“You will. Just take your time. And remember I did only what you employed me to do. If I’d told you what I was up to, you wouldn’t have believed me in the first place; and in the second place, you sure as fate wouldn’t have cooperated with me in the gambit. So I just played it by — by ear. Incidentally, Lydia, you did splendidly. In fact, I hope he really has it recorded.”

“Recorded?” It sank in part of the way then. She glared at me. “Why, you beast. The very idea! You beast — “

But then it sank the rest of the way in. The first part had been merely my deviltry — or whatever Lydia might have preferred to call it. But the second part was the Rotty part.

Slowly she swung her gaze from me to him, then finished what she’d started to say. Only this time she was speaking to Rothwell Hamilton Fish. “You beast!” she cried. “The very idea!”

Rotty was just struggling to his feet, poor chap, when she hauled off and socked him right in the chops. Not just once, but several times, moving with much agility.

Rotty went down again, clear onto his back this trip.

Slowly, very slowly, he clambered to his feet. He knew the jig was up, but at the last there he said something that almost got him onto my good side.

He glanced at Lydia and shrugged, then looked at me.

“Hell,” he said. “I can lick her. She just hit me with eight or ten lucky punches.”

Then, without another word, he turned and walked out of the bedroom and through the living room and out the front door, never, I felt sure, to be seen in these parts again.

For maybe a minute Lydia and I stood there in the bedroom, not saying a word. We gazed around the room, at chairs, the dresser, at the broken bed, at each other.

I waited.

But finally the suspense was too much. I was, after all, greatly interested in what her reaction would be. So at last I said, “Remember, I did only what you employed me to do. So, baby, you’d better not try socking me.”

And at last she smiled. Gently at first. But then a little more warmly. And with this tomato, a little more warmly was like the house burning down.

“Shell,” she said, “I’ll bet you did kill those elephants with rocks.”

I sighed, and relaxed, and grinned. “Not really,” I said. “In fact, elephants scare the devil out of me.”

“They certainly didn’t scare it all out.” She kept smiling.

“Well, they were small elephants. Hardly more than babies. The worst part was the burning swamps and creeping — “

“Shell,” she interrupted me, “I suppose you did me a favor.”

“Time will tell.” I grinned. Not for any special reason. I just felt like grinning.

“But what made you think it was Rotty?”

“Oh, a lot of things — mainly you.” I grinned some more. “But just his name alone should have warned you, Lydia. Imagine going through life with a name like Rotty Fish. Bound to mix a man up. He was irrevocably doomed on the day when he failed to insist that you call him Rothwell.”

Lydia walked over to the dresser and peered into the mirror, patted the tangled black hair, smoothed a hotly curving eyebrow. “This must seem like an odd case for you, Shell. Different, anyway. No murder, no kidnaping — nothing even criminal.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Bugging bedrooms must be at least a misdemeanor. Besides, what I did to Rotty — that was criminal.”

She smoothed the other brow.

I said, “Well, I suppose I’d better get back to the office. I suppose. Feed the fish or something. I have guppies, you know. Uh…”

She turned, leaned back against the edge of the dresser, fixed the tawny brown eyes on me. “You’ve done enough work for today, haven’t you?”

“Why, if you want the truth, I’ve done enough work for a week.” I cleared my throat. “Besides, my office guppies are very well fed. Almost obese.”

“Stay a while, then,” she said. “We’ll talk a little.”

“OK.”

Her brows creased slightly. “That reminds me,” she said.

She walked to the bed, bent down and reached under it, stood up holding the little transmitter. Without a word she went to an open bedroom window, peered out and looked down, apparently to make sure nobody was below, then tossed the transmitter vigorously out the window. I heard it crack on the cement.

Then Lydia turned around, smiling, and walked toward me.

“There,” she said. “Now we can talk. Or — Shell, what would you like to do?”

She stopped in front of me, looking up at me, close enough to scorch, those incandescent lips slightly parted.

I grinned down at her. “Well,” I said, “for a start — how about a hot martini?”

</code>

<code> The Live Ones

I had left Sheldon Scott, Investigations — My Downtown Los Angeles office — about three p.m., so I reached my Hollywood apartment earlier than usual; I went in, closed the door, and stared at the naked blonde on my divan.

I blinked and shook my head like a maraca. There are good days and dandy days, but this was unbelievable.

“Woops,” I said, “pardon me, ma’am,” and went out again and looked carefully at the number on the door. It was my apartment, all right. I went back in.

She was still there, still sprawled on the chocolate-brown divan as if she lived on it — and I kind of wished she did live on it, since she was a busty beauty with the longest white-blonde hair and most golden sun-bronzed skin since Lilly Christine — but I’d never met this one before.

There was something familiar about her, and I was so delightfully dazed that for a moment I thought maybe it was that her hair was the same color as mine, and her skin was about the same tanned shade as mine — but there I stopped. She didn’t look anything like me.

Right then there was a big flash. I thought: My brain has burned out! But then there was another flash, so I knew it wasn’t my brain. Not even my brain could do that twice — and besides, the pulse of light had come from the bedroom. The blonde hadn’t moved, except to let her mouth sort of hang open loosely. I jumped past her and into the bedroom. There was another blonde on my bed. Dressed exactly like the first one.

But she wasn’t alone. Close on her left was a short, husky guy with a camera looped around his neck, and on my right was a big ugly ape named Agony, swinging a sap down at my head. I bent my knees and threw my left arm up, my forearm blocking Agony’s descending wrist, then I was straightening up with my right fist slamming toward his stomach. The blow landed and bored in, and then I led with my right a couple more times, but the last one Agony knew nothing about. Before he hit the floor I spun around toward the other man.

The guy hanging onto the camera with its strobe-light flash attachment was a local photographer named Lomey Fain. He jumped away from me, letting out a surprised yell. Ordinarily, I don’t slap medium-sized guys like Lomey around, since I am six-two and 206 pounds, but Lomey was a punk who did work for the syndicate and the private eyes who peer through keyholes, and also he was in my bedroom and I’d about figured out why, so I hit him on the mouth and it suddenly looked the way a mouth must look to teeth, all red and ugly. Lomey sailed back through the air, out cold for a while.

The pale white gal on the bed let out a little scream and jumped off it, and the sun-bronzed blonde from the front room came racing into the bedroom. Why? How would I know? Maybe to talk with the other blonde. Maybe anything. Why do gals run to bedrooms?

Both of them were running about stark staring naked — they were stark, and I was staring — and they looked at the two unconscious men, and sort of jumped up and down making wailing sounds, and I stood pretty still making a sort of low wailing sound myself, and then I heard the shower running.

I groaned, then ran to the bathroom, threw open the door, stepped in and pulled the shower curtain away from my combination tub and shower. Sure enough, there was the third gal. A real dish, this one. A redhead with saucy white breasts and flaring hips, water streaming over her in glistening rivulets, and a wide-eyed startled expression on her striking face.

She squealed, “Who are you!”

“I’m Shell Scott, and — “

“Oh, you’re Shell Scott!” She beamed at me, happily.

“Arrgh,” I growled in frustration and wheeled around and ran out. Be calm, I told myself. Think. Think! That was the hell of it. I was thinking.

One thing was sure: I had to get rid of these women fast. I groaned again. Here I was in my own apartment with three beautiful nude tomatoes and all I could think of was getting rid of them. Life can really be cruel sometimes.

From where I was standing I could see out the living room window down to North Rossmore. A flash of white caught my eye.

A Los Angeles police car had just pulled up to the curb below. Another car was behind it. Across the street was the rest of that flash of white I’d seen — an all-white Lincoln Continental that belonged to one Victor Grieg. It was ten thousand dollars’ worth of car driven by a two-bit slob. Maybe four-bit, since Grieg was one of the top racket boys in L.A., but still slob.

There wasn’t going to be time for me to get rid of these gals. I was trapped here with them. I thought: I’m dead. This may be living, but I’m dead. If I knew Grieg, in addition to the policemen he’d have some reporters along and maybe even a judge and jury, and when they all swarmed in here it would be the end of Happy-Go-Looky Shell Scott.

In my mushy mind my license took wings, my mind took wings, everything got dizzy. I jumped to the door and locked it, then turned around with my back against the door, feeling breathless. And at the sight which met my eyes I got even more breathless.

All three babes were greatly excited, and running about every which way, and all sorts of things were flying about helter-skelter, through the air, up, down, even sideways. Man, it was wonderful. But then they seemed to become aware of me standing scrunched against the door, and I guess they decided to get out.

They all turned, as if with one mind, and ran at me.

Well, you know how it is with just one nude woman running at you. My brain sort of wobbled, and I thought: How’d this happen?

It had started happening with a phone call from the wife of the late Judge Phineas Latham. The judge had died recently in an apparently accidental fire, but Mrs. Latham thought he’d been murdered. She’d hired me to check it. Nearly a month of investigation had convinced me she was right. And every lead I followed up pointed to a shadowy racket boy named Victor Grieg.

Grieg’s motto must have been, “To Victor belong the spoils,” because he was so rich he had TV in the john, and it seemed he was involved in practically every crime except suicide. But I couldn’t yet prove it. I was getting close to him, though, and he knew it. The fact that many of my friends in the L.A. Police Department knew I was trying to get Grieg made it almost impossible for him to have me shot in the head without virtually naming himself as responsible. So one day Grieg phoned and asked me, politely, to call at his office. I went.

I got there sooner than I’d expected to and glimpsed a long-limbed bleached blonde leaving Grieg’s office. She walked with a loose-limbed sway that, combined with her yellowish hair and a kind of meat-hungry look on her face, made me think of a tired tiger.

Victor Grieg himself was about forty or forty-five, with black hair and heavy brows, and he looked like what he was: a tough customer. His words slid down icicles at me. It was a long session, but what it boiled down to was that Grieg couldn’t buy me off, or scare me off, and at the present time it would be inconvenient for him to have me killed. His last remark was, “If you don’t lay off, I’ll squash you like a bug. I’ll get you one way or another, and even if I got to do it legal, I’ll do it legal.”

I grinned at him and left. Two days later a friend called from Sacramento and told me there’d been pressure brought, unsuccessfully, to have my state investigator’s license revoked. If Grieg could get my license jerked, it would be like pulling my fangs, and that should have warned me….

My brain continued to wobble, but gently now. The three nude babes were all over me, screeching and pawing at me, and trying to get through the door. As I broke out in a cold sweat, I realized what Grieg’s next move had been.

There is a section of the California Penal Code, referring to private investigators, which states that the applicant for or possessor of a license must be “of good moral character and temperate habits.”

Well, it is widely known that I have an eye for the women. As a matter of fact, it is pretty well known that if I had eight eyes, I would have eight eyes for the women. But my morals aren’t any more questionable than anybody else’s. Than any red-blooded man’s, anyway. Well, any lusty red-blooded man’s. At least, nobody could prove anything. Not until now, I thought gloomily.

Finally the gals calmed down. Apparently a couple of them had got the impression that I was a strange man who’d wandered in here and started knocking people unconscious. Once I made it clear that I lived here, sanity returned. All three were familiar in appearance, and now I recognized two of them — the white-blonde with the bronze tan, and the saucy redhead from the shower — as lovelies who had often posed for pictures in the slick men’s magazines. But the third one, the pale-white blonde, had me puzzled for some seconds longer. Then I recognized her. She was the tired tiger.

This was the long-limbed gal I’d seen so briefly outside Grieg’s office. A few fast questions of the other two verified my suspicions. The two models had thought they were merely modeling for Untamed magazine’s monthly feature, “Apartment of the Month,” and they’d been told the owner — Shell Scott — knew all about it. They had been getting ready to leave when I’d arrived.

It looked very much as if, with them gone, I was to have reached home, here to be sapped neatly by Agony. Next Grieg’s bleached blonde was to have taken over, thus, like a dragon with halitosis, adding insult to injury. Lomey was handy to record all these reasons for revoking my license. Arrival of the law and reporters would have smeared the three of Grieg’s playmates along with me, I thought — but Grieg undoubtedly had convinced them their sacrifice would be worthwhile. Probably he had agreed to let them stay alive. Only my coming home early had fouled up the plot.

I explained my suspicions to the redhead and tanned blonde, and the blond lovely exploded with anger, picked up an end table and swatted the tired tiger over the head. She went out cold. It happened so fast I couldn’t have stopped it, but it did fit in with my plans.

I said, “We’ve got maybe two minutes, girls. Here’s what we do….”

I guess they had to break the lock to get in. Anyway, they made plenty of racket. I was in the shower singing at the top of my lungs, which is pretty loud, when they came in. In front were two plainclothes detectives from downtown, Flannery and Wilkins. I knew very well that they were here only because they had to be, and given half a chance would be on my side.

Behind them, in the next room, were a man and a woman, reporters from L.A. newspapers. Grieg had stayed below. Apologetically, Flannery showed me a search warrant.

“Where are they, Shell?” he asked me.

“They?” I peered around the shower curtain.

“Well, we heard there was … an orgy going on up here.”

I laughed. “You did, huh? Heard from whom?”

“Grieg. Victor Grieg.”

“That slob.”

Flannery shrugged. “Grieg said he got word all hell was coming off. Somebody’s supposed to’ve phoned him from here — rape, murder, sex, I dunno. Everything. We got to look around, anyway.”

“Go ahead.”

As the two officers went out, both reporters came into the John. You know how it is with some reporters, nobody has any privacy any place. The gal had a thin body, thin lips, thin brain, a face like those pictures on poison packages, and straggly hair done in a bun. It looked like a bun with a couple hot dogs in it.

I said, “Ma’am, was there something you wanted to use in here?”

She frowned and said slowly, “There were supposed to be some naked women…” She sounded disappointed.

I reached for a towel and wrapped it around me, then pulled the shower curtain about halfway back and stepped out onto the floor. Right toward the female reporter. Keep them off balance, I say. Don’t retreat, attack! She retreated.

Flannery and Wilkins came out of the bedroom wearing frowns. They hadn’t found anybody. I’d known they wouldn’t. I dripped into the front room and looked out the window. I could see Grieg sitting in his Continental. And then came my best break of the day.

Around the side of the building staggered the tired tiger, with one hand pressed against the side of her undoubtedly aching skull, and not a stitch on. She saw the white Continental, shook her head, and then loped toward it. She had regained consciousness at precisely the right time.

“Well, look at that, would you?” I said to Flannery.

He stepped alongside me and looked and his mouth dropped open and his eyes got wide and then glazed over as if somebody had spilled milk in them. He let out a sort of tooting sound. Wilkins took a look and his eyes got about the same as Flannery’s.

The nude gal was trying to get into Grieg’s car. He was probably trying to push her away, in horror, but it appeared that he might instead have lost control of himself.

I said to the officers, “Surely that sort of thing is against the law. Do your duty, men.”

Maybe there were supposed to be two or three other nude babes around here somewhere, but that wasn’t important to Flannery and Wilkins. A bird in the hand is worth two or three in the bush, and they took off like hungry eagles.

The male reporter was quick to follow them. Only Skull-and-Crossbones remained. I smiled at her and said, “Make yourself at home, dear. I’m going to finish my shower — love to feel clean … clean.” I went back to the john. In a moment I peeked out, but she had given up and was gone. A quick look toward the street showed me the whole gang of them waving arms. Grieg’s face was a splendid color. The blonde was in the Continental, looking out and yakking.

So that took care of that. Grieg and I weren’t through with each other — barely started, in fact — but I figured the interruptions were finished for a while. I knew Wilkins and Flannery well, and that gang wouldn’t be back — at least not today. I took a look out my bedroom window. One floor below, Agony and Lomey were sprawled on the lawn where I’d dropped them, still unconscious. They had made a relatively soft spot upon which to drop the tired tiger.

I went back to the bathroom. I opened the shower curtain all the way. My two nude lovelies were still there quiet as can be, big-eyed and pressed back against the tiled wall. Like the Purloined Letter.

“They gone?” the bronzed blonde asked softly.

“Yeah, all’s clear. Well, you can get dressed now — I stuffed your clothes in the laundry bag, along with the camera.”

The redhead grinned. “Keep your shirt off. What’s the rush? You said they were gone.”

I heard a siren. “There they go now,” I said. “I, uh, did I hear — “

The blonde spoke, smiling an incandescent smile. “Torchy and I were talking … just a second ago … and she said…”

Torchy, huh? It was high time I learned their names. The blonde — Brandy — told me what they’d been saying.

I had to chuckle. Me, Shell Scott, the guy who is usually examining the dead ones…

</code>

<code> The Da Vinci Affair

I caught up with Lupo in the Happy Time, and it was a very unhappy time for Lupo.

He was in a rear booth of the small bar on Third Street in downtown Los Angeles, having a highball with an older man, and he appeared to be unusually jolly. But his jollity died a horrible death when he glanced up and spotted me as I stormed through the door.

It was past ten o’clock at night, but the Happy Time was not one of the favorite spots of most L.A. nightgoers and only a half-dozen other customers were in the joint. That suited me fine, but it didn’t suit Lupo at all. His eyes got very wide and his mouth puckered as if he had swallowed a pickle. He blurted something to the man with him, and the guy lit out, headed for the back door.

For a half-second I thought the man might be Alston Spaniel, one of the two chaps I was eager to kill, but this guy was too large and flabby to be Spaniel. In fact, he looked like a man I’d seen with Lupo earlier, but that was singularly unimportant to me at the moment. The important thing was that the other chap I wanted to shoot, right in the eye, was Lupo.

Lupo tried to slide from the booth himself, but he didn’t make it.

By then I was close enough to whack my open left hand against his chest and slam him back to the wall. He hit, and his head clunked hard against the wood. His eyes wobbled, then focused on me — still very wide.

I said, “Surprised to see me again, Lupo?”

It took him a while, and he wet his lips a couple of times, but finally he said weakly, “Surprised?”

“Yeah, surprised. Astonished. To see me alive, I mean. You didn’t know anything about that art heist, huh? Not much you didn’t.”

“I didn’t steal the damn thing, Scott. I swear. I didn’t heist that Da — “

I cut him off. “I never said you did, Lupo. But you sure as hell know who grabbed it. And it’s eight to five you knew the last time I talked to you. Right, pal?”

He licked his lips again. “The last time? I don’t get it.”

“You will. I just got through killing one guy — “

“Killing?”

“Yeah, shot him twice in the guts. You wouldn’t believe how much he bled. Let’s just say it was horribly messy.”

Lupo wasn’t all bristly and lumpily masculine to begin with, and his pallor paled considerably. Soft breath sighed from his mouth, and the lids drooped over his long-lashed dark eyes. He liked gay conversation, brittle witticisms, dialogue about Byron and Shelley and Keats and such. He didn’t like talk about blood and guts, or anything in that general area.

So I said, “I thought he was going to puke everything but his veins all over my pretty gold carpet. But it could have been me throwing my guts up, right?”

He didn’t look at all well.

I went on, “I know why he tried to kill me, of course. We both do, don’t we?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Scott. I don’t — “

“Sure you do. And you can guess what I’m going to do to you, can’t you?”

I reached under my coat, pulled out the .38 Colt Special and cocked it.

“Lupo, you’re going to think I’m a mean sonofabitch, but it can’t be helped.”

I pointed the gun at his right eye and pulled the trigger.

The hammer fell with a sharp click — since I had taken pains to be sure an empty chamber would be under the hammer when it fell — but even though Lupo must, for an instant, have realized he wasn’t dead yet, the effect on him was unusually striking. He fainted.

I swore softly, stuck the gun back in its clamshell holster and glanced around. One couple at a nearby table was looking my way, but apparently nobody had noticed the gun. At least no customers were racing for exits.

Lupo had sprawled peacefully across the table, overturning his highball glass. The liquid spread over the dark tabletop, dripped to the floor. I waited.

If I was wrong about Lupo, I would apologize for leaning on him, and even for saying blood and guts; but it wasn’t likely I was wrong about Lupo. In which case he was getting off easy. I hadn’t really shot him. Not yet.

He lay so still it worried me. Maybe he was dead. But I felt his pulse and it was still pulsing. I was glad, because actually I rather liked Lupo — at least I had until tonight. I didn’t care for his associates, or his brand of perfume and such, but he was neat and tidy, joyous and witty — usually, that is.

Right now his left eyebrow was lying in a puddle of what smelled like brandy, and it was eight to five he wouldn’t feel joy and wit stirring in him for quite a while. A little noise rose from his throat.

I waited for more noises, and ran over the sequence of events in my mind. Yeah, it almost had to be Lupo.

This night, a balmy Wednesday in September, had started out on a very different plane. I’d been at home — that’s Hollywood’s Spartan Apartment Hotel, on North Rossmore across from the green acres of the Wilshire Country Club — having completed a satisfactory day in and out of my one-man agency, Sheldon Scott, Investigations.

I was fresh from the shower, wrapped in a towel and preparing to get dressed, ready for whatever this warm new evening might bring. No plans — just hope. I’m a very hopeful fellow.

The phone rang. Hopefully, I grabbed it. “Hello?”

“Shell?”

“Who else?”

“This is Antonia.”

Hot dog, I thought.

“Antonia, darling!” I said.

“Are you doing anything?”

“Just putting my pants off — on — up — getting dressed. What are you doing?”

“I’m — oh. Shell. Are you sober?”

“Of course I’m sober. Haven’t had a drink all … why? Do I have to be sober?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Neither had I. Now you mention it, I need a drink. Why don’t I put my pants wherever the hell I was putting them, and come over, and we’ll go out into this warm September madness and — “

“Fine — “

“I haven’t yet told you what I have in mind, dear — “

“What shall I wear?”

“Well, pants, of course. Antonia, forget I said that, will you?”

“Forget my pants?”

“I don’t know why I am suddenly so obsessed with pa — skip it. Wear one of your — I’ve got it. Remember that slinky black contraption you wore two weeks ago? The one that goes clear up to your neck in front and is cut way down in back?”

“Yes.”

“Wear that one backwards.”

“Shell! I won’t, either. I’ll surprise you.”

“That would surprise me. And seven thousand other — “

“Why don’t you pick me up here?”

“OK.”

“What time will you be over, Shell?”

“About two minutes before you finish dressing, if you’ll take it easy.”

“Sevenish?”

I glanced at my watch. Six thirty p.m. on this wild September evening. “Sure.”

“I’d better hurry, then.”

“Yeah, you’d better.”

We hung up.

I did a little hop and skip into the bedroom. I felt good. Life was good. Antonia was good. Actually, just between you and me, she was sensational.

Holding my pants in one hand and shorts in the other, I stood in the bedroom, thinking: Antonia, darling!

I could see her in my mind’s eye: a long, luscious Italian tomato with thick amber-colored hair; dangerous heavy-lidded eyes, passionate plump lips, breasts like twin Vesuviuses momentarily dormant, white skin smooth as ice but warm enough to melt the wax in your ears, a 37-ah, 22-oh, 36-wow steamy Italian pizza fresh from the Mediterranean oven, still cooking.

Better get cooking myself, I thought. Four minutes later my six feet, two inches and two hundred and six pounds were draped in a lightweight blue-gray suit, unstarched white-silk shirt — Italian silk, just for Antonia — splendidly bright Windsor-knotted tie, and gleaming Cordovans on my big feet.

I looked in the full-length mirror.

“Hot dog,” I said — but not because I was impressed with myself; I was still thinking about Antonia. Then, however, I took a good look in the mirror.

My short-cropped white hair was still combed straight up into the air, just as the barber had left it three days ago. I waggled the sharply angled white brows, twitched my slightly bent nose, stuck out my tongue.

Well, that’s life, I thought, that’s what thirty years of smog will do to a man. Nothing I could do about any of it. But my tongue looked great. Probably my best feature, I thought philosophically. Which put me in the same class as the guy with perfect feet.

I glanced at my short-barreled revolver and harness on the dresser, wondering if I should wear it. There are, strange to relate, numerous guys in Southern California who would like to kill me, for one reason or another, and I almost never go out among my enemies, men, without the heater handy. But I figured I wouldn’t need it tonight. Not with Antonia.

The phone rang again. I hopped to it, but this time it wasn’t Antonia. It was a guy named G. Raney Madison.

I had heard of G. Raney Madison; everybody except the newborn in Somaliland had heard of G. Raney Madison. But I not only hadn’t met him, I’d never seen him — except on the covers of Fortune, Time, and the local newspapers. He’d made millions in real estate, doubled his money in oil, plunged into and out of the stock market, endowed foundations, collected old masters and new Impressionists, and published a best-selling book, The Magnificent Leonardo, which even I had read and greatly enjoyed. He was worth at least fifty million bucks, I guessed, which must have been a comfort to him.

That was about all I knew of G. Raney Madison, but I was favorably impressed by the minute or so we spent on the phone.

After the preliminary hellos, he said, “I would appreciate it if you could come to my home this evening, Mr. Scott. I would like to discuss an important and highly confidential matter with you.”

“Well, I did have something … cooking.”

“I considered most of the private investigators in Los Angeles before deciding to phone you. However, if you are unavailable I can call the number-two man on my list.”

I wanted to ask him who the number-two man was. But I guessed it wasn’t all that important. Not if I was number one. I liked G. Raney already.

“Well…” I said.

“This is extraordinarily important.”

I sighed. “OK. I’ll come over. Actually, I just had a date tonight, is all. With a woman, I mean. I mean. But she’ll forgive me. I hope. Can you tell me what the problem is? On the phone?”

“I’d prefer not. I will say this. I have, shall we say, lost something. Something quite valuable.”

“Money?”

“Indirectly. Something worth, roughly, a quarter of a million dollars.”

I gulped. “That’s pretty rough.”

“You will be able to come to my home, then?”

“Almost immediately.”

I called Antonia back. “Darling, steel yourself for a catastrophe.”

“Oh?” She sounded suspicious.

“I can’t come over. You’ll forgive me, won’t you?”

“The hell with you.”

“Antonia, you don’t mean that. You know I’m like a — doctor. Got to be ready — “

“One of your other girls called you, I’ll bet a million — “

“I don’t know a million girls.”

“I meant dollars.”

“I don’t even know a million dollars. Not yet. Sweet, think of all we’ve — “

“The hell with you.”

“Antonia, darling.”

“Darling? Dar … Why, you pigheaded pizza, you can’t talk to me like that!” She’d hung up. Right after her second the-hell-with-you.

I went into the bedroom again, but this time I didn’t go hop-skip. It looked as if another case was starting.

Sometimes my jobs are enjoyable, even fun. But sometimes there are bullets in broad daylight, and knives in the night. Sometimes there is blood and pain and death. You never know.

And I could feel the faint chill, a kind of spine-stretching anticipation, the beginning of that not unpleasant tension which never leaves me entirely until the case is over.

I got my gun harness, strapped it on, shrugged into my coat again. Then I went downstairs and out of the Spartan Apartment Hotel, climbed into my sky-blue Cadillac convertible, and headed for the Bel Air estate of G. Raney Madison.

I rarely have doors opened for me by butlers. This one was tall, thin, and quiet as a shadow. His “Good evening, sir” was smooth and cold as syrup on yesterday’s pancakes, and when I said “Shell Scott,” he did not brighten visibly. But he did pull the door open, and I went inside.

Mr. Madison was coming down a wide staircase approximately as far from me as the distance between my front door and my bedroom window. It was a roomy house.

He smiled and said, “You’re Mr. Scott?”

I told him I was, and he came on down the stairs. We shook hands as he said, “I hope your young lady will forgive you for coming here. You had to break a date?”

“Yeah, I broke it. I shattered it. But perhaps she’ll let bygones be bygones. I may need a signed, notarized statement from you, swearing you’re not a wild tomato, but … forget it.”

He looked puzzled momentarily, then said, “Shall we go into my den, Mr. Scott?”

It was small and warm. Books halfway up one wall, thick blue carpet, man-sized leather chairs. Two half-charred logs were in a small fireplace. Above the bookshelves the smooth dark paneling of the wall was bare, except for a couple of brackets as though for pictures. But no pictures.

We sat in the leather chairs and Mr. Madison offered me a cigar. I shook my head, lit a cigarette, and he got his thin cigar going. I knew Madison was fifty-four years old, but he could have passed for ten years less than that, more than ten in a dim light. He was five-nine or so, slim, his skin smooth and his eyes bright. He didn’t wear glasses, and still had plenty of hair, dark brown with a little gray in it.

“Are you acquainted with details of the recent auction held at the Hall-Warner Gallery in Pasadena?” he began.

“Auction?”

“Of paintings. Several valuable and well-known works were sold, among others a Gauguin, a minor El Greco, and a recently discovered drawing by Da Vinci.”

I shook my head.

“No matter,” he continued. “I purchased the Da Vinci. It was a large, exquisite drawing, a complete study for the Battle of Anghiari. It was undoubtedly executed in 1504, and must have been Leonardo’s final conception for that magnificent cartoon which, unfortunately, is now lost to us.”

“Um,” I said. “That one, huh?”

“Yes. At any rate, my successful bid was two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. I had the drawing specially framed and it was delivered here last week. Six days ago to be precise. I hung it there, on the wall.”

He indicated the now bare wall. I said, “It’s been heisted? Stolen?”

“Precisely. I want it back. But there are some unusual aspects to this situation. I want the property back not only because it is my property, not only because of the rather considerable sum of money involved — the Da Vinci is, of course, priceless — but because there is something even more important to me than the drawing itself.”

He gazed at the glowing ash on his small cigar. “I don’t know who stole the Da Vinci. But I do know it must have been taken last night. I flew to San Francisco Tuesday morning and returned early this afternoon. The Da Vinci was on the wall when I left, and on returning I noted its absence. Thus — unless in the unlikely event that it was removed this morning, in broad daylight — the theft occurred during the night just past.”

I nodded.

“It is possible the thief has already disposed of the drawing. But I — we — must proceed under the assumption that he has not yet delivered the Da Vinci to its intended purchaser.”

He paused and looked at me. Expectantly, I thought. I dragged on my cigarette. “The intended purchaser. I suppose you mean because the thing was so well known, at least among collectors, he could hardly sell it to a museum. Or hawk it from door to door like encyclopedias — “

He appeared pained, but interrupted smoothly, “Yes. Almost surely he had a few, or more likely one, prospective buyer in mind before committing the theft.”

Madison stood up, walked to the bare wall and looked at the brackets there. With his back to me he continued, “I would like to employ you to accomplish three things. One, recover the Da Vinci. Two, apprehend the thief. Three, and I stress that this is most important, discover who buys, or receives, the Da Vinci from the thief. That is, if indeed the buyer was aware prior to the theft that the theft was going to be committed, you are to reveal to me, but to no one else, his identity.”

I stubbed out my cigarette; this was getting a little complicated. I opened my mouth, but Madison wasn’t through.

After a brief pause he went on, “Additionally, this must be accomplished with the utmost … shall I say delicacy? By that I mean, without publicity, certainly without notoriety.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m not exactly notorious for my delicacy — “

“I am fully aware of that. And I realize I am making this difficult for you. I’ve no idea how you may be able to accomplish what I ask, or if it will be possible at all. That is your problem, Mr. Scott.”

“Yeah. It’s quite a … yeah.”

“But that is precisely why I called you in preference to several others. Because of your peculiar skill — or luck — or whatever it may be that has enabled you to achieve results which, on some occasions at least, appeared exceedingly remote in the beginning.” He paused. “I am also aware that at times you employ methods which are … unusual. But this is an unusual affair, and I am interested solely in results. I am not concerned with what methods you may use, only that there be no outcry, no public awareness of your investigation or its results.”

“Surely the police — “

“The police do not know of the theft. I do not intend that they shall know. At least not until you have successfully performed the task, or failed in its performance.”

“Mr. Madison, if a felony has been committed — “

He swung around. “If a felony has been committed, Mr. Scott, only those responsible, and I, know of it. We, and now you. If I prefer not to make an official complaint about the theft of my own property, that should surely be my prerogative.”

He paused, but I didn’t say anything. It seemed clear there was more to come.

He asked me, “Under these circumstances would you like to undertake the task for me?”

I had to think about it for a minute. It was Madison’s rather odd desire to keep the whole thing so clammed up that bugged me. But finally I said, “OK. It’s your money.”

“Are you concerned about your fee?”

I raised my eyebrows. “No. I was thinking about the other angles. My usual fee, and expenses, will be perfectly — “

“The fee, too, will be somewhat unusual, Mr. Scott. Perhaps I should have mentioned this sooner.” He reached toward a small table near him and rolled ash from his cigar. “If you fail in all particulars, I intend to pay you nothing. If you fail in other particulars but do recover the Da Vinci, I shall pay you five thousand dollars. Plus, of course, your expenses. If, however, you conclude your investigation to my entire satisfaction, in all particulars which I have mentioned, I shall consider the amount legitimately due you no less than ten percent of the price I paid for the Da Vinci.”

Ten percent made it easy to figure — $28,000. I stood up, walked across the room to G. Raney Madison, and held out my hand.

“You talk a language I like,” I said. “A foreign language.”

He shook my hand. “Nothing whatever, you understand, if you botch it.”

“Please. Let’s not even think about botching it. Well, now that I’m hired, quite possibly for a fee of nothing, can you tell me why all the requirements, the secrecy and such? If I’d lost something worth over a quarter of a million bucks I’d be setting alarm bells off all over town.”

“Yes, but the alarm did not go off.”

I started getting it then.

Madison explained. Cleverly concealed at a point above us in the ceiling was a cell which beamed a thin ray of infrared light — invisible to the human eye — down onto the drawing, or rather onto the spot where the Da Vinci had been. If the drawing were to be removed, the beam would be broken and a circuit closed, not only setting off a noise like noon in an alarm-clock factory, but triggering another signal in the Beverly Hills police station. There had been no alarm.

This kind of setup wasn’t unfamiliar to me. I had recently installed a somewhat similar beam inside my apartment, aimed at the door, so I could tell if, during my absence, anybody invited himself in. Or herself — I like to be prepared for any emergency. Mine didn’t start gongs gonging, but among other things caused a little metal flag to flop down over the keyhole of the lock on my apartment door.

“I see,” I said. “So who knew about this rig besides you?”

“My wife and our son, and a close friend of mine, Mr. James Chance. The control switches are in this room, but I assure you only someone quite familiar with the alarm system could have found and disabled them, for the control itself is similarly guarded.”

“Uh-huh, pretty good. So which one do you think tipped the thief? Or perhaps was the thief?”

“Certainly not my wife or son. But…” He sighed. “Neither can I believe it was Jim Chance.” We walked back to our chairs and sat down as he went on, “I have your solemn word you will divulge nothing of what I now say to anyone?”

“You do.”

“It is possible a clever thief managed to get in here, and out with the Da Vinci, without prior knowledge of the alarm systems, I suppose. If so, it is beyond my understanding. It is almost but not quite beyond my understanding that Jim — Mr. Chance — provided the thief with that prior knowledge.”

He chewed at a little piece of skin on his lip. “I must know, one way or the other. However, I must also insist there be no possibility that suspicion arise in any other mind but my own — and of course yours. Unless he proves to be guilty in fact.”

“OK. I won’t let out a peep.”

“I require more of you than — ” he smiled for the first time — “not peeping. Should Mr. Chance become aware that you suspect him, he might, ah, lose heart. If he is involved, and does intend to go through with this matter, I want him actually to go through with it. I want to know. I want no doubt in my mind.”

“You’re making this pretty tough.”

“I didn’t say it would be easy.”

“I mean on both of us. If I do this your way, or try to, you’re taking a fat chance of throwing the whole ball game. Including the Da Vinci. Hell, I’d practically have to catch them in the act of trading a bag full of U.S. green stamps for the drawing before you could be sure — “

“Precisely. Understand this, Mr. Scott. I would prefer that I lose the Da Vinci than that you, by your actions, should so alarm Mr. Chance that he would, shall we say, run for cover. I might then never know if my suspicions are false or well founded.”

“OK. That means I’ll have to concentrate almost entirely on the thief, assuming he’s somebody else. And I can’t even shake him up too much. Well, I’ll play it by ear. But here’s another thing. You can’t very well give the insurance boys this kind of — “

“There will be no insurance investigators.”

I blinked. “You mean the Da Vinci wasn’t covered?”

“Of course it was.”

“I don’t get — “

“As you started to say yourself, I could not place such restrictions upon the insurer and expect to hold them liable if recovery were unsuccessful. Since I prefer not to reveal to anyone else what I have told you tonight, I do not intend to report the Da Vinci as stolen.”

He paused. “But that’s academic now. Under the terms of the policy, I have already too long withheld notification, since my discovery of the loss. For — ” he looked at a slim silver watch on his left wrist — “twenty minutes now, the policy has been invalid.”

I lit another cigarette and had two big drags from it before speaking. Then I looked at Madison. “You must think a helluva lot of this Chance character.”

“I do.”

“Next question. If he’s such a delight, why are you ninety-nine percent convinced he’s a thief? Or the next thing to the thief, at least.”

“Not quite ninety-nine percent, Mr. Scott. However, Jim and I have been friends for sixteen years. In the beginning we were business associates, he worked for me. I need not go into details, but fourteen years ago he stole a considerable sum of money from me — that is, from my company. I discovered the theft, but did not prosecute him. He returned the money. He straightened out, and over the years our friendship became very close and rewarding. But I was never certain he had forgiven me” — he smiled again — “for forgiving him.”

I didn’t say anything.

“My final point. At the Hall-Warner auction last month there were initially several bidders for the Da Vinci. At the end there remained only Mr. Theodore Finster, Mr. Chance, and myself. Mr. Finster quit at one-ninety, but Jim continued, bidding against me. He stopped at two-seventy, and the Da Vinci was mine for two-eighty.”

Madison got up, began pacing the floor. “Jim was, even then, exceptionally resentful, it seemed to me. I’ve — well, I’ve always had a good deal more money than he. At any rate, there has been a noticeable coolness between us since then. I haven’t even seen or spoken to him for more than a week. The auction itself, considered not merely as an isolated event but as, perhaps, the climax to many small irritations over the years…” He didn’t finish.

He didn’t have to. The reasons for his conclusions were Madison’s own business; my business was to do what he wanted done, if possible.

So I got on with my own business. “Who was in the house last night, Mr. Madison?”

“No one. That is, only Sterling. Both my wife and George, Junior, my son, went with me to San Francisco.’”

“Sterling?”

“My butler.”

“Ah, the butler. Well?”

“I don’t quite — oh. Yes, he knows of the alarm system, of course. I nearly forgot about him.”

“The people who installed it? Unless it was a do-it-yourself job — “

“Damn,” he said abruptly. “Yes, Ladd Electronics. Mr. Ladd himself supplied the equipment and did the work. The field is hardly narrowing, is it?”

“It usually doesn’t.”

We talked a few minutes longer. Finally I said, “Well, I’ll have at it your way, Mr. Madison. It still bothers me, the chance you’re taking with all that money.”

“I’m not really concerned about the money,” he said casually. “I’m naturally anxious to get the Da Vinci back. But I’ve never been much interested in money.”

Ha, I thought. He can afford it. Who’s interested in turkey after Thanksgiving? But then I thought, why not? Could be. Some guys don’t even like money. Some guys don’t like women. Some guys are nuts.

Madison was going on, “It’s Jim Chance I want to know about.”

“I hope it’s the butler,” I said. When he smiled I added, “I can’t help saying, if this James Chance did break it off in you, or put somebody else up to it, he must be lower than a snake in Death Valley.”

He blinked. “How odd you should use that expression.” He reached to the table on his left and picked up a small brown book, half hidden behind a heavy marble ashtray. “Before I phoned you I was reading…” He flipped the pages. “This is a translation of an old, old manuscript, Mr. Scott. From Tibet, I believe. Ah, here it is. ‘The serpent loseth not his sting though benumbed with the frost; the tooth of the viper is not broken though the cold closeth his mouth; take pity on his state and he will show thee his spirit; warm him in thy bosom, and he will requite thee with death.’”

At that moment G. Raney Madison looked all of his fifty-four years, and then some. He said slowly, “I need not, I suppose, tell you that I have been disturbed for some time, and am greatly disturbed now, wondering if I did the right thing those many years ago. It’s a long time not to be sure.”

We were quiet for a few moments, then I said, “Well, aside from James Chance, there’s jolly Sterling, the butler, whom I’ve already met. I guess. And Ladd. Your wife and son at home?”

“Yes, would you like to meet them?”

“Sure.”

“I think it wise. You may have to call here numerous times.”

“Do they know what I’m supposed to be doing, why I’m here?”

“No, and I would prefer, Mr. Scott, that you say nothing to them about it.”

I smiled sadly. Pretty quick he was going to tell me to conduct a dynamic investigation, only not to do anything. I’d be like the guy who invented a perpetual-motion machine and couldn’t get it started.

“They’re in the library. We can tell them you dropped in for a glass of sherry.”

“For a what?”

But he was leading the way out of his den. Into the hallway, past about five doors, around the foot of that staircase, by a half-dozen more rooms — did I say it was not a small house? — and finally through a pair of ten-foot-high carved-oak doors into an octagonal room lined on six sides with about a billion books.

Mrs. Madison and George, Jr., were no more than fifty feet away, seated on a long, burnt-orange divan. We started toward them. I had lots of time to think of what I’d say. Man, I thought, if a guy forgot where he left his book, he’d be too pooped to read it when he found it. Then G. Raney Madison was performing the introductions, and I shook hands with Mrs. Madison and their son.

He was younger than I’d expected, possibly not even twenty-one yet, with a look of a lad just recovering from tuberculosis. He was thin-faced, pale, soft, as if made of milk on the verge of clabbering. His hair was very long, fluffy, over his ears and on his neck.

About that hair: we’ve apparently entered an era in which a good chunk of the young and not-so-young male population is doing its damndest to look girlish — and succeeding — while the girls are cutting their hair short, wearing unfeminine garb, and egging the girlish boys on. There are male trios whose voiceless singers mouth the top teenage hits, all of which sound like the same song played in different keys, while wearing dirty sports shirts and velvet stretch pants and doing little bumps on the high notes and grinds the rest of the tune. Any day now they’ll appear wearing topless bikinis and pasties.

Well, you can take it or leave it — I’ll leave it — but it’s happening, and a lot of otherwise sensible people are joining the movement. George Raney Madison, Jr., appeared to have joined up. It’s important, I suppose, to belong; but I figure it’s even more important what you belong to. Not that George Junior looked like a girl; he didn’t. But he didn’t look a hell of a lot like a dashing young man, either.

Mrs. Madison looked like a girl, all right; or, rather, a woman. An exceptionally good-looking woman. She was no spring chicken — I guessed she was five years younger than her husband — but she still had a good figure, and a very lovely face.

The three of us mumbled the usual inanities while Mr. Madison poured sherry from a cut-glass decanter. Ordinarily I would no more have drunk sherry at that hour than I would have stood on my head in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard during the rush hour, but this, I suppose, was to be my excuse for being here at all. According to G. Raney, at least.

There was a rather thick silence.

Then Mrs. Madison smiled sweetly and said, “You haven’t been here before, have you, Mr. Scott?”

“No, ma’am. I just dropped in for a glass…”

I couldn’t say it.

“Fact is,” I said smoothly, “I just dropped in to chew the fat with old G.”

Gee, it sounded good. It even felt good. Maybe it would never happen again, but here I was trading gay repartee with fifty, or maybe even a hundred, million dollars.

Well, you could have heard a gnat’s wing drop off and thud on the floor. The silence lasted a while.

Gulp, down went my sherry.

The silence lasted until G. Raney Madison, Jr., said something. Just one word. But it was not a lovely word. No, not at all lovely. Actually, it was a word I never use, even when talking to myself. It’s OK for school kids, for collegiate post-adolescents, say, and boy singers who wear their hair long and do little bumps and grinds. But not for me.

“Ha-ha,” I said, laughing mirthlessly. “Young man, you should wash out your mouth with a strong detergent.”

Mrs. Madison mumbled something nice, then took her son’s pale hand and led him from the room. Not to paddle him, I’ll bet. There was a little more silence.

Then I sighed, squared my shoulders, turned to Mr. Madison and said, “Well, it looks like we started out miserable, then lost our rapport. Am I fired?”

His eyes were squeezed shut and for a second I thought it was a symptom of the furious-Dad bit. But he was laughing, trying to keep the sound muffled. In a few moments he said, “By God, he should wash out his mouth with hydrochloric acid, if the truth be told.”

He sighed. “I’m afraid we’ve been a bit lenient with George, in some ways. But — well, I didn’t want him to turn into a spoiled rich-man’s son, ruined by money before he understood its value, that it represents work and brains and sweat. I’ve kept him on a rigid allowance, tried to teach him the value of a dollar, but I think we’ve both been too lenient with him in — other ways. I don’t know. Young people these days…” He let it drop, then went on, “Ah, Mr. Scott, that was refreshing. You’ve given me my first moment of jollity for a long time.”

“You mean I’m not fired?”

“Certainly not. On the contrary, would you care to have a talk with George in regard — “

“Sir, I realize he’s your son, but I would nonetheless prefer to stay fifty miles — “

Madison interrupted, “George is like my own son. He is my son. But he’s adopted, you know. When he was a year old — but you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

“No, sir. I did think he seemed, ah, cast from a different mold, so to speak.” He had looked very moldy, I thought.

“We’ve much in common, to be sure. But in some ways I’ve never been able to understand him.”

We chatted a while longer, and he chuckled a little more; then Mr. Madison grinned at me and said, “Would you like some more sherry?”

I grinned back at him. “I guess you know what you can do with your sherry.”

He laughed again, and I left. At least the case was starting out fun.

But as I walked through darkness toward my Cad, one phrase still lingered in my mind, from the bit G. Raney Madison had read. It was: “…requite thee with death.”

That and, mingling with it, the memory of Mr. Madison’s long-suppressed laughter.

Next to my gun, the most valuable part of my investigator’s equipment is a list of names, some in a little book, and some in my head. Informants, tipsters, men and women both inside and outside the rackets, all of whom have given me — or some day may give me — the “information” which breaks ninety percent of the cases investigated by anybody, whether policeman or private citizen.

On most burglaries, stickups or crimes of violence, I would have gotten in touch with anywhere from half a dozen to a dozen of those on my list. But for a caper like this one there were only two men I wanted to see. If any word at all was floating around, word about an art heist, a big score last night, they were the two most likely to have heard about it.

I found Lupo first. He was where I expected to find him, in Dolly’s, a small bar well out the Sunset Strip. Dolly’s was not the kind of club I usually frequented, because one rarely saw lovely tomatoes in low-cut gowns in the place. There were generally lots of handsome fellows, but I don’t give a hang about looking at lots of handsome fellows.

Not many customers were present this early in the evening, and I spotted Lupo right away. He and a heavy-set, soft-looking old duck were seated alone at the end of the bar, jawing and having a drink. I glanced around, to pick out an empty booth, and when I looked back at Lupo he’d spotted me and was walking my way.

He was a tall, slim, good-looking man, about my age, thirty, with a brilliant smile and exceptionally long black lashes over dark eyes. He himself had been in the art-heisting dodge several years back, which was why I’d hunted him down. He’d found the racket too rich for his blood, however — especially after one jolt on the county — and now put his knowledge of the old and new masters to use from the other side of the law, and the other side of the counter, in Fancinni’s, Fine Arts, on Wilshire Boulevard. But he still knew most of his old cronies, kept his ears open, and didn’t object to a sawbuck or even a C-note from me on occasion.

“Hello, Scott,” he said — a bit nervously, I thought. A lot of guys get nervous around an investigator, public or private; but it could have been that we were both aware I wasn’t exactly in my element, not in Dolly’s.

“I need a little help, Lupo. OK if we grab a booth while I tell you about it?”

“Sure.”

He weaved through tables to an empty booth against the wall as I said, “Didn’t mean to break up a conversation, but this won’t take long.”

I glanced around, but the guy Lupo had been talking to wasn’t at the bar now. Maybe he’d recognized me and thought I was here to put the arm on the joint.

But Lupo said, “Conversation? Oh, that was just some chap … don’t even know his name. Just in for a drink.” He grinned. “Wanted to know if there was a topless act.”

That was a laugh. I wondered what Lupo had told him. We ordered drinks, and after making sure nobody was bending an ear nearby I said, “You hear anything about an art heist last night?”

He didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “Like what?”

“A big one. Must’ve run to two hundred and fifty G’s. Place they hit was in Bel Air.”

That was all I told him, and all I meant to tell him, at least for the moment. When you’re looking for a specific item and describe it to informants, occasionally one of them will come back with a fascinating tale about that item, making it sound very authentic — by including the identical details you earlier told him. Besides, I wasn’t quite sure about Lupo yet.

We’d been acquainted for over a year, and he’d passed on a few tips to me in that time. But none of them had panned out; something was always missing. That’s not particularly unusual in my business — the unusual tips are the ones right on the button. Once in a while you nurse an informant along for months, even years, and then one short sentence from him saves you a week of legwork, or breaks a case, or maybe even keeps you from getting sapped — or shot — in the head.

Besides, I liked Lupo, enjoyed talking to him. He was a kick, quick-spoken and witty, undeniably brilliant, an upbeat kind of guy.

He shook his head. “Have you got a lead to anybody, Scott?”

“Not yet. My guess is it was one of four guys. Luigi, Bonicef, Spaniel … make it three.”

I’d just remembered the fourth man I’d had in mind could be eliminated. He was doing five to life at Folsom. So, unless somebody new was operating locally, those were the three who fitted the job in my book: Alston Spaniel, a tall, slim satyr with an insatiable appetite for other people’s art objects, including women; goateed Guy Bonicef, ex-artist, ex-art teacher, and ex-inmate of San Quentin; and an old, but still slick, three-time loser named Luigi.

While not averse to picking up a poke of cash or the family jewels if opportunity knocked, each of them specialized in works of or objets d’art: valuable paintings, ancient Chinese jade, Ming dynasty vases and such.

Lupo ran the tip of an index finger over his right eyebrow. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said slowly. “At least not anything definite.” He was silent for a while. “Not about a job, I mean. Nothing about Bel Air.”

“You sound like you’ve got something.”

“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s nothing. It’s just I know Al Spaniel’s down on his uppers. No score for a long, long time for Al.”

That checked with what I knew. Spaniel had, so the story went, been living off the last of his ill-gotten gains for several months, and the living was getting lean. Moreover, Spaniel was a man who liked to live high, and usually spent more on busty babes than most men spend on home, job, family, and life insurance.

“That’s no news, Lupo,” I said. “And it doesn’t mean he’d get reckless, unless he’s really broke.”

“Worse than broke, the way it reached me. I hear he’s into Joe Pappa for five thousand. Which is now about seven thousand. Is that news, Scott?”

“Yeah. He was that broke, huh?”

“Broke for him. They say Al met one of those fat redheads he goes for. You know Al.”

I did know Al. There was no secret about Al. And Lupo’s describing whomever Al had met as a “fat redhead” was merely Lupo expressing his opinion. It was almost a certainty that, if I could see her, I would not even think of describing her as a fat redhead. Nor would Al.

“Five G’s, huh?” I said. “Not exactly small change.” Joe Pappa was an unofficial bank. He’d lend a guy money at ten percent. Ten percent a week. You didn’t have to pay it all back at once. He’d settle for ten percent interest and then the principal, or a hundred percent of your blood. People should never borrow from the Joe Pappas. But they do. And a guy like Spaniel, if he saw a really “fat” redhead, and needed loot for the conquest, would not only borrow from a Joe Pappa but promise to pay off in transfusions.

He was, indisputably, possessed of a gargantuan sexual appetite; satyr, freak, or man with a genital tapeworm, whatever the cause of his elephantine libido, it was said he had the virility of a stone statue and the perseverance in pursuit of an aphrodisiacal Javert. Or, in the language of his cohorts and those in illegal cahoots, Alston Spaniel was remarked as the horniest citizen in at least one and possibly several counties.

“Where would I find this gal?” I said. “I mean, Alston and his new amour.”

“That I don’t know, Scott.”

“Think you could find out?”

“I could try.”

“Try.”

“What was the score?”

“Art, from Bel Air.” I grinned at him.

He grinned back. “Yeah. So, OK.”

“OK.”

It took me an hour to run down my second informant, an ex-con named Zeke, and the dialogue was about the same as it had been with Lupo — except that my second man didn’t know anything, not even about Alston’s recent indebtedness. Didn’t know, but would go amongst ‘em and look and listen, and maybe ask a question from time to time. That was good enough for me, because Zeke was, among my informants, a kind of lieutenant, with a number of privates who reported to him.

That done, I headed for North Rossmore and the Spartan Apartment Hotel. The night was far from over; in fact, it was only beginning for me. But I wanted to grab a sandwich at the apartment while I used the phone. There were still a few more lines to put out.

I left the car in front of the Spartan, trotted in and got my key at the desk, then walked slowly up to 212, thinking. I was jabbing the key at the lock when I noticed the little metal flag over the keyhole. It looked like part of the design, only I knew it shouldn’t have been in evidence unless somebody, while I was out, had let himself in.

Or, of course, herself.

Actually, the only previous time my little alarm system had tipped me to somebody’s presence inside, I had sprung in with my .38 Colt Special ready and cocked and had come within an inch of shooting a gorgeous belle named Lucretia, an acrobatic dancer who, in the moment of my bursting-in, became more acrobatic than even she in her dizziest dreams had dreamed she could become.

The desk clerk had let her in, gasp, she’d said. He must have, gasp, forgotten to tell me. I was still thinking about that when I went in this time, so I was smiling. Oh, I did it right. Key in the lock silently, door open and me bent low and inside in a hurry. But the basically amusing episode was still in my thoughts, so I guess I was still smiling when I shot the guy.

He was standing near the wall on my right, gun in his hand. In his hand, but not pointed at me. He’d been waiting for a sound, probably the key in the lock, knob turning, and hadn’t heard it. Not in time.

He was a big man, with the pale face that comes from avoiding sunlight — or from a stretch in stir — and he moved suddenly, whipping the gun toward me like a man starting to throw a ball. I pumped two into him before he could get the gun aimed at me and I saw him bend forward as his eyes closed.

He didn’t go down, but his gun arm kept moving, toward me and past, sinking toward the floor. But the heat was still in his hand and I fired one more slug into his chest. Then he dropped the gun.

He staggered back, hit the wall. His eyes opened. Slowly he slid down until his seat hit the floor. His arms hung limp at his sides, backs of his hands on my yellow-gold carpet, palms up and fingers curling. Blood gushed up into his throat and slid over his lower lip.

I jumped to him, kicked his gun away, and said, “Was this your own idea, or did somebody send you?”

He blinked at me, licked his wet lips. “Where’d you come from?” he said. The words were quite clear.

He didn’t know how bad he was hit. Sometimes it’s like that, the shock dulls pain, dulls comprehension. He didn’t know; but I thought I did. I gave him a minute, or seconds. These were the last sweet moments of his life.

“Hurry up, you bastard,” I said.

I raised the gun toward his face, thumbed back the hammer again.

He coughed. “Wasn’t my idea,” he said. “It was a job. A G now, and…” His head went back suddenly, then rolled a little to the side. In a couple of seconds he was looking at me again, but there was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“Spill,” I said. “Or do you want one in the teeth? Who sent you here? Who hired you?”

“Spaniel. He told me his name was Al Spaniel. Give me the G and said — ” He stopped.

Now we both knew.

Nothing more was said. Even if he could have spoken, I imagine he was too busy thinking to speak. Too much to think about, and too little time. Well, they should think about that before they start dying.

His eyes didn’t close. He just slumped back a little more and slid sideways down the wall, head turning on a rubbery neck. His dark hair left a faint smear of oil behind him.

I looked him over, checked his pulse, his pupils. He wasn’t out; he was dead.

I was on the phone and dialing before it hit me.

I hung up as racket sounded in the hallway. Thumping feet, shouts. It took me a minute to calm the startled tenants, shoo most of them away and shut the door on the few remaining. Then I went back and stood by the phone again. But I didn’t dial.

Al Spaniel, huh? Well, it made sense, if he’d pulled off a quarter-million score and knew I was looking for him — but how could he have known? Who could have tipped him? Madison? Hardly. Surely not Zeke. I’d done business with him a long time; his tips had usually been good ones and I’d paid him plenty.

I would call the police, yes. But I’d have to take a chance that could wait for a while. There was something else that couldn’t wait.

I started looking for Lupo.

Lupo’s face rested on the table in our booth at the Happy Time; his breath rippled the spilled liquid shining on the tabletop and sopping into his left eyebrow. In a moment his eyelids fluttered. He sighed.

When he finally got his head up and looked at me I thought he was going to faint again. But he didn’t. Not quite.

“I’ll tell you how it was, Lupo,” I said sweetly. “Then you fill me in on the details. That all right with you, friend?”

He swallowed. His lips looked chapped.

I said, “You’ve never yet given me a tip that paid off. I figured it would take time, that’s all. What I didn’t figure was that when I asked you about a guy, instead of trying to help me you might be tipping the guy I asked about. Like tonight, huh, Lupo?”

He finally said something. “That’s nuts.”

I grinned. “A hood just tried to shoot me, and died trying. But he lived long enough to spill that Al Spaniel sent him to hit me. Guess what else that tells me, Lupo?”

“I … couldn’t guess.”

“One of the men I talked to tonight, about the heist and my suspicions of Spaniel among others, must have got that word to Spaniel. Who could have told him, Lupo?”

He shook his head.

“Maybe I only talked to you, friend. Maybe you’re the only one who could have told him. You think of that?”

He hadn’t. But he was thinking about it now. Suddenly he said, “All right, Scott. I’ll tell you about it. Just take it easy.”

“What did you do, Lupo? Call all three of them? Spaniel and Bonicef and Luigi, to be sure you tipped the right one?”

He opened his mouth, shut it. Then he said, “I was pretty sure it must have been Spaniel. I would have called the other two, sure, but there wasn’t any need to. I phoned Spaniel first thing, talked to him. The way he reacted, it had to be him.”

“I’d kind of figured that out, Lupo. The hard way.”

“Scott, I swear it never entered my mind he might try to have you killed. I thought he’d probably blow town. Who’d think he’d send anybody to…” He let it trail off.

“OK, where is he?”

“I wouldn’t know — “

“Knock it off. You knew where to find him when you wanted to tip him. So you know where to find him now.”

He was silent for a few seconds, then shrugged. “That does make sense, doesn’t it? He was at the Westmoreland Hotel.”

“That’s where you phoned him?”

“Phoned, then went there to see him. He was with one of those obscenely fat women he’s always got hanging around.”

I grinned. At my request he described the woman in more detail, and by sort of listening between the lines she shaped up as a wow. Five-five or six, a lot of red hair, green eyes, and “obscenely” shapely.

“They’re at the Westmoreland now?” I asked him.

Lupo hesitated and I said, “If you hold anything out, pal, anything at all — “

“Well, it’s just … that’s where they were. But when I talked to Alston I got the impression he was going to leave for Laguna Beach.”

“How’d you get the impression?”

“Actually, that’s what he said. He told me.”

“Thinking, of course, I wouldn’t find out. Not in this life. Or maybe if something went wrong and his hired gun missed me, I wouldn’t be able to find him. Right?”

“Scott, I swear, I didn’t have any idea — “

“Yeah, skip it. Where in Laguna Beach? And how come he spilled his whole itinerary to you?”

“The Seawinds. And, well, I didn’t want to lose track of him. He’s supposed to — ” Lupo stopped, swallowed, but continued gamely. “Supposed to pay me for the information.”

“With what? I thought he was flat.”

“That’s the point. I didn’t think he’d have much cash handy. But he said by tomorrow or the next day he’d have plenty, and he’d take care of me. So I wanted to know how I could keep in touch with him, and he said he’d be at the Seawinds for a day or two.”

“Why Laguna? Any special reason?”

Lupo shook his head. “None he told me. I figured he just wanted to be out of the city.”

“How was he going to get all this loot — and from whom?”

“I don’t know anything about that. It’s not what we talked about.”

“He didn’t tell you what the score was?”

“No.”

“You still don’t have any idea what Spaniel heisted, huh?”

Lupo shook his head. “Just what you said yourself. I mean a big heist in Bel Air. An art job. I mentioned that to him, and said you were looking for him. But he didn’t spill anything to me.”

“Uh-huh. You just spilled your guts to him. Lupo, I really should plug you right between the eyes.”

He shuddered delicately, pressed a few drops of highball from his left eyebrow with the tip of a well-manicured index finger. I asked him if Spaniel had pulled the job alone or with somebody else’s help, but he said he’d told me everything he knew. I hoped he had.

So I said, “You think you can manage not to shoot your mouth off for a while? Or will I have to shoot it off for you?”

“I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

“Let’s both hope it’s the truth, Lupo. Because if Spaniel finds out you’ve filled me in, I’m not even going to worry about him. At least not until I find you again, friend.”

“You don’t have to worry. I swear — “

I left him in the booth, still swearing fidelity to me. Undying fidelity.

Laguna Beach is a small, lovely town on the coast, about an hour’s drive from Los Angeles if you hurry. I’d hurried, but there hadn’t been much point in it because I didn’t get started until well after the sun was up.

When I’d got back to the Spartan after talking to Lupo, two police officers were waiting for me in my apartment. The dead guy was gone, but traces of him remained. And traces of dudgeon remained in the two officers. For another tenant at the Spartan had phoned the law, and policemen feel that when any citizen, even one so well known to them as I, shoots a guy he should stick around to explain why he found it convenient to shoot him.

Consequently I had to spend more time than would ordinarily have been the case telling my story, and sitting on a hard chair in an interrogation room downtown. The whole thing was made somewhat more difficult because I couldn’t mention the fact that I was working for G. Raney Madison, or explain why I felt the hood had been waiting for me.

But it was finally over — about seven in the morning — and by the time I’d cleaned up and driven to the coast the day was well along.

It was a lovely day. Sun sparks flashed from the blue sea, and only a faint haze of distant smog blurred the horizon. At three p.m., parked on South Coast Boulevard, across the street and about half a block from the Seawinds, I got my first look — recent look, that is — at Alston Spaniel.

The Seawinds sprawled along fifty yards of choice property on the west or ocean-front side of Coast Boulevard. I’d already been over there. From a desk clerk I’d learned that a man answering Alston Spaniel’s description had checked in last night, and was in Suite B on the top tier of the hotel. He answered the description, but was registered as William Simms, which I thought was sly of him. The suite was forty bucks a day, so Alston wasn’t living like a man without money — or at least without prospects. Not if he could afford to pay eighty bucks a day for rooms.

Eighty, since twice forty is eighty, and Suite C last night had become occupied by what the clerk described as “a helluva good-looking redhead.” She’d registered as Miss Ardith Mellow. No, she hadn’t been with Mr. Simms, at least not so far as the clerk knew.

I almost missed Alston when he came into view and climbed into a three-year-old Lincoln. I had the top up on the Cad, but it was a warm day and the sun pounded the canvas over my head. More, I’d done no sleeping last night, and my eyes were starting to feel like toasted marshmallows.

Alston waved to somebody near steps leading down toward the beach, then started to pull out of the curving driveway and into the Boulevard. I got a glimpse of a girl waving back — some red hair and what appeared to be a very wavy figure — but I ducked down as the Lincoln went by me. I let it get a block away, then pulled into the light traffic myself.

It was possible that I was wasting my time. Assuming, of course, that Alston had indeed lifted the Da Vinci, he might be in Laguna not to dispose of it, nor merely to lie low, but for the fun of spending some of his already ill-gotten gains. But I had to go ahead under the assumption that he’d not yet gotten rid of the drawing, and that completion of the score still lay somewhere in the future. Besides, Lupo had told me Spaniel expected sizable loot “by tomorrow or the next day.”

So, though I would much have preferred to grab him and hit him for a while, the way housewives used to pound on tough steaks to tenderize them, I merely followed him.

He didn’t go far. We were headed north, back toward the small business district, and before reaching the stoplight at the corner of Coast Boulevard and Laguna Avenue he swung left into the parking lot next to the Laguna Hotel. I was lucky enough to find a slot at the curb around the corner on Laguna Avenue, and was out of the car in time to spot Spaniel striding toward the double glass doors at the hotel’s front.

Striding was the word. He was a tall, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped cat, and he moved with a long easy swing of leg, cleft chin thrust forward and splitting the air like the prow of a boat. He was undeniably a vital, handsome slob, and always looked like a guy bursting with vitamins and on his way to a wild party, which he usually was.

I caught the green light and trotted across the street, entered the hotel lobby just as Spaniel stepped into the elevator. It was next to the desk, just beyond stairs on my right, and when the indicator stopped at “3” I started up the stairs.

I almost trotted up them too fast. Spaniel was still in the hallway when I reached the third floor, and I clumped to a stop, waited, then peered around the edge of the wall. I saw him knock softly, glance down the hall, then look back at the door as it opened.

“Al, darling!”

Yeah. Everywhere the sonofabitch went, it was “Al, darling!” This one wasn’t a redhead. She came out in the hall far enough so I got a good look — and Al got a good squeeze and an enormously healthy smooch on the chops.

The woman was between twenty-five and thirty years old, with a sensual face and an exceedingly feminine figure, including what Lupo might have called a great deal of too-much-fat displayed at the convex V of the kind of cocktail dress gals wear when they know they’ll be drinking double martinis with dear friends. Or with Alston Spaniel.

Her hair was piled high on top of her head and was black — so either she wore a wig, or wasn’t a redhead, I told myself. So what the hell was Alston doing? More important, what the hell was I doing? The latter question was more important not only because I had a hunch I knew what he was doing, but because I couldn’t simply tail Spaniel around, peeking to see what he might be up to.

If he had the Da Vinci stashed somewhere he’d hardly lug it around and make a meet in broad daylight. And even if he should, I wasn’t supposed to shake him up and possibly queer the deal. The deal was supposed to be consummated, the transfer actually made.

For a moment I swore under my breath. Maybe part of it was directed at Alston Spaniel, but part was for G. Raney Madison and his goofy conditions. It seemed the only way I could handle this in a fashion to please Madison was to be miles away when the switch was accomplished, but still know who it was that Spaniel met. And that was impos … Something flickered in my mind, flickered and vanished.

I carry a lot of junk in the trunk of my Cad — electronic equipment, bugs, infrared gear, a squawk box, dozens of other items occasionally of value in my work. But running over the stuff in my thoughts didn’t help. There was always a chance, I supposed, that I could stick a squawk box under the frame of Spaniel’s Lincoln, then using a small receiver tail him, following the signal from a distance. But the switch, if made, would probably be accomplished in a hell of a hurry, in which case I could wind up with a tail on Spaniel and no idea of whom he’d met. I didn’t much like it — and I was sure that wasn’t what had flickered in my mind anyway.

I let it simmer, checked the number of the room into which Spaniel had gone, then in the lobby again stopped at the desk. A Mrs. Ingrid Otterman was in the room, I was told.

“Mrs. Otterman? Did she just check in?”

“No, she’s been with us for several months now.”

“Is her husband with her?”

“No, she’s alone. She is, I believe, a widow.”

I’ll bet I know what killed him, I thought, but merely thanked the clerk and left — to see the clerk at the Seawinds. A different man was on, not the one I’d talked to, this morning. This one didn’t know what Ardith Mellow looked like. So I went to Suite C and knocked. No answer.

I tried the doorknob, and it turned. Well, if the joint was unlocked it was at least even money I’d find no quarter-of-a-million-buck Da Vinci inside. But I looked anyhow. I was right, no Da Vinci.

I did find a connecting door between Suites B and C, but that failed to surprise me much, either. Fifteen minutes later I’d tossed both Spaniel’s suite and Ardith Mellow’s without learning anything. Except such things as that Alston had with him only two suits and a sports outfit, all of it from a good custom tailor’s on Sunset Boulevard. And Ardith Mellow had lots of frilly things along, including several lacy brassieres, all of them labeled 38-C, which to those who have never read a brassiere from the inside may not mean much, but in truth does mean much.

Each suite had a separate sitting room and splendid view of the blue sea and white combers breaking fifty yards away, a bedroom, and adjacent to the bedroom, a sparkling tiled bathroom including a tiled tub. Ardith’s — I was by now thinking of her as Ardith — bedroom and bath were much more interesting. On the bedroom dresser were several kinds of makeup, creams and sprays, combs and brushes and such, and a huge box of powder named — excitingly, I thought — Caress! which had a maddeningly fetching scent, and a great big purple powder puff. It was time, I decided, to meet Ardith Mellow, if for no other reason than to smell her.

At the base of the Seawinds, just above the sand, was the dining room, and before the dining room’s glass wall, facing the beach and sea, was a long bar. At four p.m. only half a dozen people were at the bar, but one of them was a redhead. Maybe not the redhead, but certainly fashioned like all I’d been led to expect of Ardith. Besides, I figured she was either 38-C or 39-B-plus, which was a fat clue.

She was at the end of the bar on my left, with several empty places next to her, so I strolled down and climbed onto a stool, leaving one empty between us. She was drinking something green in a martini glass. Green like her eyes, I noticed when she glanced my way.

Maybe she was one of those gals who won’t speak to strangers, but you never find out if you don’t try. So when the bartender asked what I wanted to drink I said, “I don’t know. Something different — it’s a little early for…” I glanced at the redhead. “Miss?”

She turned slowly. Not just her head. All of her, swinging tantalizingly toward me as the bar stool swiveled. Maybe she didn’t talk to strangers, but she sure communicated.

I said, “May I ask you what it is you’re drinking?”

“Sure,” she said. “Ask me.”

Whatever it was, I decided it must not be her first one. But I grinned and said, “OK, what is that you’re drinking?”

“It’s a martini.”

“A green martini?”

“Well, it’s like a martini, only it’s green. Creme de menthe instead of vermouth.”

“Is it any good?”

“‘Licious.”

I said to the bartender, “Just what I wanted.”

He looked at me as if I’d ordered a Horse’s Neck. “You’re kidding.”

I smiled. “I’ll let you know when I’m kidding.”

Surprisingly, the concoction wasn’t half bad. I timed the drink so that I finished it just as the redhead pushed her empty glass across the bar. When I suggested that, since she had introduced me to whatever it was, perhaps it would be clever of me to buy us both another, she said, “Clev-er,” which I took to mean agreement.

We finished those drinks without an empty stool between us, but she hadn’t told me anything important. Not even her name, or if she was staying at the Seawinds.

Finally I said, as we began our third green martini, “Why don’t we do something exciting tonight? I mean, like go out for dinner, or even stay in for din — “

“Can’t.” She lifted her left wrist and looked at a glittery watch with a face the size of a sliced pea, and apparently invisible numbers on it. “In another … while,” she said, “I’ve got to meet Al — ” She chopped it off quick. “Oo.” Her eyes widened, then narrowed slyly. “Il.”

“He’s sick?”

“Bill, I mean.”

“Dear, I refuse to believe you’re waiting for a guy named Al Ooilbill. Unless he’s a prince from — “

“Bill, that’s his name.”

“Who were those other guys?”

“They’re nobody. I just said them because … Well, if you want the truth I don’t know why. I say funny things when I drink martinis.”

“Don’t we all.”

“What time is it?” she asked me.

I looked at the clock behind the bar. “Five.”

“Oh, dear. In only another hour I have to meet…” She stopped, looking puzzled.

“Bill?”

“Yes,” she smiled her thanks at me. “Bill. I’d better go. It’ll take me that long just to soak and powder.”

“To what?”

“Soak and pow — why am I telling you?”

“Beats me. But, I’m interested.”

It seemed to make her glad. “I soak,” she said. “In a warm tub. Before I get dressed to go out, I always soak and soak. And then powder all over. I think it’s nice if women powder all over, don’t you?”

“If you say so.”

“I think if you know you smell good, you feel good, don’t you?”

“If you say — “

“And the powder I use smells so … I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Hmm?”

“I can’t describe it. You tell me.”

She was wearing a pale-gray dress with a square-cut neckline and inch-wide straps over her shoulders. She slid the strap off her right shoulder and kind of nudged the shoulder — actually the whole general area — at me.

She smiled. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to say anything. Well, I thought, nothing beats determination. I’d set out to get a smell of her — and here I was: smelling. In no more than five seconds, or ten, or so, I was sure: Caress!

“Doesn’t it smell good?” she said finally. “What does it smell like to you?”

“Who cares.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, like wild flowers, the carnivorous kind that eat little animals — “

“I’ve got to go.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I almost wish I didn’t have to go,” she said brightly. “Were you serious about doing something later?”

“You bet I was serious.”

“Well, like I said I have to meet — ” She stopped, her green eyes getting a slightly glazed look again.

“Bill?”

“Yes. If it wasn’t for him, Bill, we could do something.” She paused, then put the strap back up over her shoulder.

“Actually,” she went on, “he can only see me for an hour or two tonight. Just long enough for maybe a drink, and some talk. So if you’re still around, like maybe eight o’clock, we could do something.”

“I’ll be around. Bill can’t stay, huh?”

“No. He’s got something important to do tonight.”

“He must be nuts,” I said. “Important like what?”

But that she wouldn’t tell me. Maybe she didn’t know.

“Well, I’ve got to go soak,” she said. “And powder.” She smiled meaningfully, and left.

I sat there, smiling meaningfully. And slowly came back to normal. There’s something about green martinis. By the time I’d finished that third one I knew all I needed to know. I knew, of course, that she was Ardith Mellow, and powdered “all over” with Caress! and that Al Ooilbill was William Simms, born Alston Spaniel, and that he had something important — damned important, if he preferred it to being with Ardith — to do tonight.

But those weren’t the most important things. The important thing was that I knew, now, what I was going to do about it.

It struck me as a little goofy even after three green martinis, but I probably wouldn’t have thought of it except for them. And Madison’s goofy conditions. And if I hadn’t met Ardith.

It was a quarter to six p.m. Not much time. In fifteen minutes, or less, Alston was supposed to show up, apparently. But I thought there was time — at least, if Ardith was still soaking, and soaking, in her tub.

She was. I couldn’t see her, but the door was cracked and I could hear her in there, humming and splashing. I’d run all the way to my Cad, spent a minute digging through the junk in my trunk, found what I was after, and had then run back to the Seawind.

Ardith’s door had been locked this time, and I’d spent another two minutes picking a lock — not hers, but Alston’s next door, to avoid alarming her. Then through the adjoining door and into Ardith’s bedroom. Right next to the tiled bathroom, in which she still hummed and splashed.

She’d have to shake a leg if she intended to be all dried and powdered, much less dressed in something zippy, before Spaniel got here. So would I — it was five minutes till six.

But it didn’t take me long.

I’d brought up an empty paper sack, and another sack filled with the powder I’d rummaged for in the trunk of my Cadillac. The big box of Caress! was still where I’d seen it before, and I opened the box, poured about half the Caress! into my empty sack, and replaced it with an equal amount of the powder I’d grabbed from my Cad. The consistency was OK, but the replacement powder was a bit lighter than Ardith’s. Probably she wouldn’t notice. It still smelled like those wild flowers.

I put the top back on the box, and it was done. For a moment I hesitated, wondering. Wondering if I was wrong about why Spaniel was coming here, wrong about Ardith, wrong about everything.

But right then Ardith stopped humming and splashing. There was the swirl of water, the sexy little drip-drip as water dripped from Ardith.

And on the wooden walk outside, fronting all four suites, the thump of big feet.

Thump-thump.

Ardith, there — like that. And me here — like this. And Spaniel about to spring through the door.

Thump.

The sound of footsteps was on my left as I faced the sea, coming closer. The draperies in here were drawn now, and I couldn’t see out. Suite A was clear down at the left, then B, Alston’s own through which I’d come a minute or two ago, then this one and finally D, the last of the four.

Thump-thump-thump.

The footsteps clumped up to Alston’s suite — and kept coming. I jumped for the interconnecting door, went through it and swung it almost closed behind me. Barely in time.

Barely in time — even though the heavy footsteps went right on by and I heard the door of Suite D open and close — because only seconds after I got safely into Spaniel’s suite, Ardith Mellow came out of the bathroom.

Ardith and a towel.

She wasn’t exactly wearing it, but more sort of nuzzling and patting herself with it, rubbing and blotting the last traces of moisture from her body. From, to be accurate, her sensational body.

I left the door cracked, even opened it another inch. Yes, I peeked. But, truly, it was not merely for the purpose of peeking. I had to know — yes, she was doing it.

She opened the box of Caress!, picked up the great big fluffy purple puff, dabbed it at the powder and then dabbed and stroked and patted and Caressed! her smooth throat, and high heavy breasts, and columnar thighs, then filled the puff with powder once more, and stroked and dabbed, and filled the powder puff again….

Thump-thump-thump!

Right up to Spaniel’s door. This door, the one ten feet from me. I couldn’t go back into Ardith’s room — that would blow the whole bit, if it wasn’t ruined already. I had eased the connecting door closed at the first thump, and now I dived for Spaniel’s bed and slid under it — as the door opened and he came inside.

I could still hear thumping, but it was my heartbeat. Spaniel walked across the floor, turned, walked back and turned again. I didn’t get it. He was simply pacing — as though waiting for something. Maybe he was waiting for Ardith to finish powdering, or to get dressed in something zippy, or perhaps to come in and join him.

But that wasn’t it. The phone rang.

Two swift steps and Spaniel was there. “Yeah?” he said.

Silence for a few seconds. Then, “Good. Tonight, huh? OK. I’ll see you tomorrow…. Yeah, you know it, you damn well bet I’ll see you tomorrow.” A brief pause, then he said, “Two G’s. Right … right.” He hung up.

Two G’s. It reminded me of the man in the Spartan, dying, right after telling me Spaniel had paid him “a G,” a thousand bucks, as the down payment on his job — the job he’d been unable to finish. Al seemed to be throwing plenty of money around.

He was moving across the room again. Straight to the connecting door. He didn’t even knock, just went on in. He must have come in here merely to wait for the call.

The door clicked shut behind him.

“Bill, darling!” Ardith cried.

“Who the hell is Bill?” he said.

“Oo — I mean, H … Al!”

Well, you may be able to imagine the dialogue which ensued, but it soon stopped ensuing. She covered her confusion one way or another, and they stopped talking. I waited a minute, then rolled from under the bed and stood up, moved slowly to the door. Not the outside door; the door between Suites B and C.

I used a full sixty seconds turning the knob, cracking the door again, careful to move very slowly and to make as little sound as possible. Although a mere two or three seconds would probably have been careful enough.

I hadn’t been wrong about Spaniel. Or Ardith. It gave me a little hope. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t wrong about the rest of it.

I eased the door shut again, and left. Left silently, even though I doubted they’d have heard me if I’d thumped out the way Alston had come in. I went to the bar down below. And had, as a kind of ceremony, a green martini.

And waited for Ardith.

* **

This time the sorrowful-faced butler didn’t let me in. It was G. Raney Madison himself who opened the door.

I stepped inside, carrying the heavy lamp in one hand. We went into his den, where the brackets still stood out nakedly against the bare wall, and sat in two of the big chairs.

Madison lit one of his little cigars and said, “Well, Mr. Scott, I did what you asked.”

“It’s all set?”

He nodded.

Soon we would know, I thought. Unless I was nuts — which I was now beginning to think barely possible.

This was Friday night. Two nights ago I’d sat here and listened to Mr. Madison’s tale. Last night I had waited for Ardith until shortly after eight p.m., when she joined me and had another gin and creme de menthe. I wisely switched to bourbon, and we talked for an hour. I learned nothing except that she still smelled good, and that what’s-his-name wouldn’t be back until the early morning, at least — and that he didn’t have another girl. Ardith was his “one true love.” No, she didn’t know any Mrs. Ingrid Otterman.

After another drink I drove back to Hollywood, to the Spartan Apartment Hotel, and went to bed. I slept long enough to make up for the snoozing I’d missed, then in the afternoon phoned G. Raney Madison and said I’d see him at seven p.m.

Now Madison said, “I don’t understand what you plan to do, Mr. Scott.”

“Well, that’s because I left the gimmick out when I phoned you. I just wanted to be sure you’d be able to have everybody here tonight.”

“They are all in the library.”

“Good. Here’s the pitch. I’m satisfied that a man named Alston Spaniel stole your Da Vinci. I think he’s already delivered it to the buyer, but who that is I don’t know yet. I didn’t think I could tail him to the delivery point without queering the deal — which you insisted must not occur. However, I managed, without his knowledge, to get onto Spaniel’s hands a powder which glows under infrared light. Anything he handled in the last twenty-four hours will have traces of that powder on it — even if he washed his hands, or showered. It’s remarkably persistent stuff.”

I pointed to the lamp which I’d placed on the carpet at my feet. “That’s an infrared lamp, Mr. Madison. If Spaniel handled the Da Vinci and later somebody else handled it, or if Spaniel shook hands with the buyer, that person will also be marked with traces of the powder, and those traces will be clearly revealed by the light from this lamp. That’s what I want to check out tonight.”

He was silent for several seconds. Then he said, “I see. I like it. But how did you manage to get this powder on the gentleman’s hands without his knowledge?”

I smiled, thinking of Ardith and her Caress! But I merely said, “Well, it’s a bit complicated, Mr. Madison. There’s not time to go into it now. I guarantee he doesn’t know I did it, though. Shall we check the people in the library?”

“By all means.” He paused. “What should we expect to see? I understand the principle involved, you’ll merely direct the beam of your lamp on the hands of those you wish to check, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What will the effect be? The powder will glow under the lamp?”

“Yeah — believe me, if we find somebody with traces of the powder on his hands, you won’t be able to miss it. The effect is quite striking.”

He nodded, and stood up.

When we entered the library, five people were there waiting for us. Mrs. Madison, George Raney Madison, Jr., the butler, Madison’s old friend Jim Chance and, just to be on the safe side, Mr. Ladd, the guy who had installed the alarm system.

This was the first time I’d seen James Chance. He was a tall, heavy-boned man, husky and solid. He had a slightly sour face, but wasn’t a bad-looking man. He had bushy brows over blue eyes and crew-cut dark hair with streaks of gray in it, though I doubted he was much over forty.

He glanced at me curiously. So did the others.

Madison had already told them I was conducting an “experiment” and they were to cooperate with me, so I stationed the butler by the light switch and lined the four others up on the long burnt-orange divan.

Standing near the door with the butler, I said, “Just for a check, douse the lights, Sterling.”

He doused them. I flicked the lamp’s switch and aimed its beam at Sterling, let the radiation pour onto his hands. Nothing. Just the shadowy substance of hands and fingers. No glowing in the darkness. In a way, I was disappointed. It would have been a great line. But the butler was clean.

So I said, “OK, lights on again.” He flipped the switch. I continued, “I’ll give you a nod when I’m at the divan. Turn off the lights, then switch them on when I call to you. Got it?”

“Of course, sir.”

I walked across the room toward the four people, who were eyeing me in some puzzlement. What I felt wasn’t puzzlement but a growing excitement. It was exciting. This was the moment of truth, the culmination of all my labors. It’s always exciting, at the moment just before the climax, when the clever investigator, in one master stroke, unmasks the culprit. Then, of course, he says something like, “Elementary!” or “It was nothing, really,” so people won’t think he’s got a fat head. Yes, I was excited all right.

Mrs. Madison was on my left, George next to her, and on my right Mr. Ladd and Jim Chance. In seconds now it would all be over. I turned and nodded to Sterling. He doused the lights.

I flipped the switch on my infrared lamp and poured it on Mrs. Madison. Then on George. Then Mr. Ladd. Then Mr. Chance. Then I did it again, throwing the beam all over the place. Just dark light in darkness. Nothing.

I wondered if maybe the lamp wasn’t working, stepped back and directed the beam onto my own left hand. Yeah, the infrared beam was on all right; my hand glowed like crazy. When I’d transferred the powder to Ardith’s box I’d naturally got a lot of it on my own hands, and as I’d told Mr. Madison the powder was remarkably sticky stuff.

I was staring at my fingers, eerily glowing, when there was a great shout: “Lights! Turn on the lights!” Then somebody grabbed me. A body thumped into me and hands clutched at my wrists. Startled, I dropped the lamp — as the room lights went on.

The guy trying to wrestle me around was G. Raney Madison.

He had his hands on my wrists and was looking straight at me, yelling excitedly. “I’ve got him, Scott!” he yelled. “I’ve got…”

He stopped.

“You!” he gasped.

“Of course it’s me,” I said irritably.

“But … you?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.”

What happened to my master stroke, I was thinking. Even with the lights on, the infrared beam would show traces of the powder if held close enough, so without making any attempt to hide what I was doing I again examined the hands of the four people on the divan. Nothing. No doubt about it.

“Ah…” I said. “Well, I’ll — I’ll talk to you later.”

Madison went with me into the hallway outside the library.

“What happened?” he said.

“I goofed.”

“Does that mean — “

“Let me check your hands, Mr. Madison. Just to cover all the possibilities.”

He frowned, but then said, “Of course,” and held his hands out. Nothing.

I was uncovering a lot of nothing.

“Then the experiment is a failure, Mr. Scott?”

“Well, I suppose…” I thought about it. I thought a little more about it, and smiled.

“No, Mr. Madison. Not exactly.”

* **

I made exceptionally good time, and by eight fifteen p.m. was knocking at the door of Suite C at the Seawinds in Laguna Beach. I had my portable lamp in one hand, and portable Colt .38 Special in the other — just in case Alston Spaniel answered the door.

I didn’t think he would. He didn’t.

It was Ardith Mellow. Sweet-smelling Ardith, who — unless I really had goofed — glowed in the dark.

“Hi,” I said cheerfully.

“Oh, hello. It’s Mr….” She got that puzzled look.

“Bill.”

“Of course. Come on in, Bill,”

I went inside, shut the door, marched to her bedroom and found the box of Caress! When I shined my light on it the powder glowed as if alive and radioactive.

Ardith, looking over my shoulder, said, “Well, I never. Is that why it smells so good?”

“Nope.” I turned the lamp’s beam on Ardith. She was wearing a simple black cocktail dress with spaghetti straps and a provocatively nude neckline, and there was a lot of smooth white skin in view. All of it glowed beautifully. The stuff was even in her eyebrows, in her hair, on arms, fingers, elbows, everywhere. Literally everywhere, as I recalled.

“Ardith,” I said, “last night at the bar before I left, you may recall I talked to you about a woman named Mrs. Ingrid Otterman.”

“I remember. Why does it shine so funny, like — “

“I also hinted that maybe your fellow — hell, let’s call him Alston Spaniel, shall we?”

“I don’t know any Alston Spaniel. He — my fellow — told me never, never to say anything to anybody who asked anything — “

“Yeah. It’s still Alston Spaniel. I tried to tell you last night, I’ve a hunch he’s got another tomato — girl around here. A hot-looking — “

“He doesn’t!”

“I know. You’re his one true love. But what if he’s got lots of one true loves?”

“That’s silly. I’m — “

“Yeah. But what if I could prove it? Would you feel more like telling me a little about Alston then?”

She didn’t even deny his name was Alston. She squinted her eyes and said, “Prove?”

I pointed at the box and told her what was in it, what I’d done, explained about the lamp in my hand and why she was glowing.

“You mean … you put something in my Caress! box?” she asked me, still struggling with the problem.

“You got it,” I said. “So then you put it on you, yourself. Dear, it’s all over you, wherever you powdered with that great big fluffy purple puff.”

Her green eyes narrowed. Widened. Squinted. She looked at me and said in a stony voice, “How did you know I used a great big fluffy purple puff?”

She had me there. “Well, that’s a trade secret.”

It seemed to start sinking in, then, and Ardith said, “All over me? All over?”

She grabbed the lamp from my hand, bent over and pulled up her skirt and shined the light on her legs. Wow. Yeah, she’d gotten the legs good. Then Ardith straightened up, raised the lamp and aimed it toward the nude top of her dress. With her free hand she reached for one of her remarkable breasts. Damned if she didn’t haul it out and examine its apparently radioactive gorgeousness in the infrared beam.

She stared at it, examined it closely. Which made two of us. She made a little noise, and I made a little noise.

“But — why?” she asked in perplexity.

“Well, it’s rather complicated — “

“Will it hurt me? Is it like X-rays?”

“Goodness no, and it won’t hurt a bit, dear.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive. It isn’t hurting, is it?”

“No. No, I have to admit that.” She realized she was still holding onto her breast, and put it back where it had come from. “No, it doesn’t hurt,” she said seriously.

“I’m sure glad of that.”

“But — why?” she said again. “Why did you put it in my Caress! box?”

“Why? Well — ” I paused and collected my thoughts, then went on briskly. “You’ve told me several things, Ardith. That you never heard of black-haired Mrs. Otterman, and you’re sure Alston — Bill, whoever he is — never heard of her, either. You’re his one true love, and all that.”

“I am his one true love.”

“I already asked you, what if I could prove different?”

“You couldn’t.”

“I could. And will. Let me clue you, dear. The powder which you administered to your, ah, anatomy with that great big fluffy purple puff is obviously all over you. If Alston, um, got some of that powder on his, ah, hands — and then put his, ah, hands on — um — a portion of another woman’s anatomy, then according to the laws of magnetism, cohesion, friction — according to the laws of science, the evidence should still reside not only upon Alston’s hands but upon that aforementioned portion of her anatomy.” It was a bit difficult to explain delicately.

But she got it right away.

“Why, that bastard,” she said.

“So let’s go see the gal in question. Unless you want to spill to me about Alston immediately.”

“I don’t know any Alston. I don’t believe you. Besides, I am his one true love.”

“Yeah. Well, we’ll see.”

After my thunderous knock on Mrs. Otterman’s door in the Laguna Hotel, there were sudden sounds inside. Rustling, thumping, then footsteps coming toward us. The door opened and the shapely black-haired gal looked out, dark brows knit in a frown.

I pushed the door open and she said, “What’s the meaning of this?”

Her face was angry — but by that time I’d poured the infrared light over her and the evidence was unmistakable. Luminous streaks on her face and throat, her bare shoulders and the upper swell of her breasts.

With the door wide, both Ardith and I could see she wasn’t dressed to go out. She had a striped beach towel wrapped around her, beneath her arms and reaching down nearly to her knees, and quite clearly she wore nothing beneath it.

Ardith swept past me, and the black-haired tomato moved away from her. I stepped inside and slammed the door, then looked around and peeked into the john, but the room appeared empty except for the three of us.

Mrs. Otterman obviously didn’t know what was going on, and a little fright was beginning to show on her sensual face.

I stepped close to her, letting the light pour onto her face and shoulders, and glanced at Ardith. “Maybe Spaniel isn’t here now, but he sure as hell was here. Satisfied?”

She didn’t speak to me. She glared at Mrs. Otterman and said, “You bitch! Where’s Al?”

Al. She’d got it right that time.

“Al?” said Mrs. Otterman. “Who?”

These babes, they sure weren’t going to admit they knew Al. He trained his one true loves well. They weren’t going to talk about Al. Not much, they weren’t.

“You know who!” Ardith screamed.

Then in one swift movement she reached out, grabbed the beach towel, and yanked. It came free and Ardith threw it to the floor, pointed at Mrs. Otterman’s marvelous, jutting breasts, pointed here and there and practically everywhere, and yelled: “That Al, that’s who!”

Mrs. Otterman reacted automatically, I suppose.

The towel had barely hit the floor when she threw her right arm way back and out as if reaching for the brass ring on a merry-go-round, then swung it forward and thwack! She got Ardith on the cheek and knocked her halfway across the room.

But not down. Not down, and a long way from out.

“Eeee!” Ardith yelled, and charged at Mrs. Otterman. Sock, thwack! Slap!

“My Al!”

“Your Al? Why you — “

Thwack!

Friends, it was the battle of the decade. Maybe even the heavyweight championship of the century. It was glorious. Midway in the first round, Mrs. Otterman got one hand in Ardith’s red hair and another wound in her black dress and tried to yank them both off. She got the dress three fourths off, but couldn’t manage the hair, and by that time Ardith had kicked her in the stomach and knocked her flat on her back, going “Ooooph!” and gasping.

It was a combination of boxing, slapping, screaming and wrestling, and I saw a few blows and holds that not even I — with years of unarmed defense, judo, aikido, karate and unnamed systems behind me — had witnessed or even experimented with before.

Ardith lost the rest of her dress and finally was fighting to the death in a pair of black lace pants, which made it easy to tell her from Mrs. Otterman, who was wearing nothing except lots of Caress!

The fight ended when Ardith hit Mrs. Otterman with a ceramic lamp, then fell, exhausted, to her hands and knees. Mrs. Otterman lay flat on her back, eyes slowly opening and closing, and saying, “Gug … ahp…”

And then something sneezed, under the bed.

Something? I smiled.

“Come on out, Al,” I said.

He came out — but not like a man defeated, dejected, surrendering. He came out in a hurry, his handsome face contorted with rage, frustration — and perhaps a sense of irrevocable loss. He came out, onto his knees, up in a hurry, and at me swinging his right hand.

Even while swinging he got a glimpse of his two true loves in approximately equal states of nudity and sheer exhaustion on the floor, and he let out the cry of a wounded elk, then concentrated on knocking my block off.

But he didn’t concentrate hard enough. And he shouldn’t have swung that right hand at me in the first place. In fact, he shouldn’t have swung any hand at me.

It was a two-punch fight. His, which whistled by my ear as I bent my knees and pulled my head aside two or three inches, and mine which cracked on his chin with the sound of a baseball bat breaking.

Then Alston was sprawled next to the wall, silent; Mrs. Otterman was gasping her last “Gug…” and trying to struggle to a sitting position; and Ardith was still on her hands and knees, breathing like a long-distance runner.

I didn’t say anything for a while.

I looked at Alston, at Mrs. Otterman, at Ardith. I took a good look, since perhaps never again would such a sight present itself to my eyes, and I wanted to remember every little detail, in case I should some day write my autobiography.

Finally, having memorized all of Chapter One, clear up to the flashback, I said, “Well, girls, shall we now discuss this sensibly? Come, let us reason together….”

* **

I caught up with Lupo — this time — in Dolly’s. Not at the Happy Time. Back where it had truly started. From Dolly’s, to the Happy Time, to Dolly’s again. But this was the really unhappy time for Lupo.

On the first occasion he’d merely been scared; and of course, now, I knew precisely why. At our second meeting he’d been horrified, afraid I was actually going to shoot him in the eye. But this time the jig was up, and he knew it.

He was already in a booth. Two men sat opposite him. His back was to me, but one of the other guys saw me striding their way and apparently told Lupo that a large, white-haired, fierce-looking individual was descending determinedly upon them.

Lupo craned his head around the side of the booth and spotted me. He just looked. He didn’t spring to his feet, or try to run, or do anything violent. Just looked. The Colt Special wasn’t in its holster; it was in my right-hand coat pocket and my hand was around it, but as it turned out I didn’t need it.

When I stopped by the booth Lupo looked up at me and said, very quietly, “Well?”

“I’ve got all of it, Lupo,” I said. “The Da Vinci bit, the m.o., who and why, even the phony lead to Spaniel. Hell, I even know who gave you the idea about Alston. I gave you the idea. Right?”

He raised one hand weakly and waved it at the two men, as though waving good-bye. Well, he was waving good-bye. They left.

I slid into the seat they’d vacated and said, “I’ll tell you about it, Lupo. I’ll even buy you a drink.”

“Thanks a bunch,” he said.

After the highballs arrived I said, “I’ll skip the details. Just let it be said that Alston Spaniel, true to form, had two women with him at Laguna, stashed in separate pads. And both of them told me everything they could think of about Al, which was plenty. I can account for virtually every minute of his time for the last forty-eight hours and more. For example, last night he was with one of them till about eight p.m., then went directly to the other one — what a life that man leads.”

“Yeah,” said Lupo gloomily.

“For a better example, I know that on Wednesday night — when I first asked you to listen around for rumbles about an art heist in Bel Air — Alston was with one of his lovelies from about five p.m. on. At the Hollywood Roosevelt by the way, not the Westmoreland, as you told me. Around ten thirty p.m. Al got a phone call from somebody, whereupon he and the lovely packed a couple bags and headed for Laguna Beach. He was with her constantly, and did not make any phone calls or go out into the city. In other words, Lupo, he did not and could not have contacted a killer or set up a hit. He didn’t send that gunman to blast me.”

Lupo moistened his lips but didn’t speak.

“Interestingly enough, the killer didn’t even say Al Spaniel sent him to plug me. What he said when I asked him who sent him was, ‘Spaniel. He told me his name was Al Spaniel.’ Get that, Lupo. He told me, the bum said. Which means he didn’t know Al by sight, but merely accepted the word of the guy who hired him.”

I grinned. “Obviously he didn’t know you by sight, either, Lupo.”

He lifted his glass and I saw his Adam’s apple bounce as he took three or four successive swallows. When he put the glass down there was less than an inch of liquid left in it.

I went on, “I heard Alston talking to somebody on the phone last night about a two-thousand-buck payment, but I thought he was making the payment. Hell, he was getting the two G’s, wasn’t he, Lupo? Two G’s — from you, of course — for taking a quick expense-paid trip to Laguna. For leading me on a wild-goose chase. To get me out of L.A. while you disposed of the Da Vinci. Was that the whole payment, or were you going to give him enough to settle with Joe Pappa when you got your cut?”

He finished his drink, that was all.

I leaned forward. “You’re going to tell me, you know.”

He swallowed. “Yeah, I know. Go on. Or is that it?”

“Not by a long shot. Spaniel didn’t heist the Da Vinci, so who did? Spaniel didn’t send that hood gunning for me, so who did?”

“Maybe … maybe he did send the hood, Scott,” Lupo said hesitantly. “Just because he didn’t know by sight the person who hired — “

“Quit trying. There’s plenty more. For one thing, Spaniel didn’t get that phone call when he was with Ardith Mellow until a little after ten thirty.”

“Ardith Mellow? You’re kidding. Nobody can be named — “

“That’s her name. You must have seen Alston with her, in order to be able to describe her — and very well, by the way, a superbly fat redhead with green eyes, to change your description a little. But you didn’t get in touch with Spaniel the first time I talked to you. You just gave me a song and dance and got in touch with that hood instead. After I charged in on you the second time — still alive, and full of fun — then you called Al. The important point is, Spaniel didn’t get that call from you until after the hood had tried for me at the Spartan and missed. That hood was dead and all through bleeding by ten p.m.”

He rolled it around in his head, nodded slightly, looking depressed.

“Lupo, I told you I suspected three men of the heist, one of whom was Alston Spaniel. You yourself told me the only one of the three you contacted was Spaniel. So the guy who sent that hood to stop me — to stop me from getting to the guy who really stole that quarter-of-a-million-buck Da Vinci — was one of four men who knew I was on the prowl for it. And he was the one with the most to lose. Either Spaniel himself, you, a guy named Zeke to whom I told the same story I gave you, or my client. I arbitrarily eliminate Zeke for many good reasons. Good enough for me, anyway. It wouldn’t have been my client, says the simplest logic. From talking to Spaniel’s two tomatoes — and Spaniel himself, for that matter — I know it wasn’t Spaniel. That leaves you, Lupo.”

“I wish you were dead,” he said, almost brightly.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You want to buy me another drink, Scott?”

“Sure. I’ll buy you champagne if you want it. This is a night for celebration.”

He smiled sadly.

I ordered one more drink, for him. Mine was three fourths full. But that’s usually the way it is, you can almost look at the glasses and tell who’s been doing all the talking. Lupo’s turn was coming, though.

“Hell,” I said, “I should have realized Spaniel wouldn’t have been cavorting with two babes, not if he was preparing to get rid of a hot Da Vinci. Not even Alston Spaniel. And if he wasn’t selling the Da Vinci, who was? But there’s one more little item — then it’s your turn, Lupo.”

“What’s the item?”

“The first time I saw you Wednesday night, here in Dolly’s, you were at the bar, talking to a flabby, heavy-set man. He disappeared, almost immediately. The second time I saw you, in the Happy Time, a guy — who, I noted even then, looked much like the character I’d earlier seen with you in Dolly’s — was jawing with you. And he took off like a scared rabbit. Just like the first time. I’ll give you eight to five he was your customer, the guy you were dickering with about the price of the Da Vinci. How much did you get, by the way?”

Lupo was looking at his drink. Finally he raised his eyes and stared at me silently for maybe ten long seconds. Then he said, “A hundred thousand. He had it with him the second time you spotted us together. My cut was forty G’s.”

“Who took it off your hands for the hundred big ones?”

“Finster.”

At first the name didn’t register. Then I remembered where I’d heard it. Sure; it made sense. “OK, Lupo,” I said. “The rest of it.”

This time, while he talked, I did the drinking.

* **

It was only a few minutes after eleven p.m. when G. Raney Madison once more opened the door of his Bel Air home and looked at me. Looked wearily at me. Undoubtedly the hours since I’d left here hadn’t been especially pleasant for him.

But then he turned his gaze toward the man with me and said, “Who is this gentleman, Mr. Scott?”

“He’s the guy who heisted your Da Vinci.”

Madison suddenly stopped looking weary.

Inside, we left Lupo standing before the big carved-wood doors and went on into the library. The whole gang was still gathered here, all looking uncomfortable. One of them, of course, exceedingly uncomfortable, even if the totality of discomfort failed to show clearly as yet.

I walked toward the group sitting on the divan or standing near it, and stopped.

“OK,” I yelled. “You can come on in.”

Then I turned and said pleasantly, “I want you to meet a friend of yours, George.”

Uh-huh. George. Even if I hadn’t already been sure it was young G. Raney Madison, Jr., I would have known from his reaction when he lamped Lupo. Already pale as milk, he clabbered. He got about the color of a winter turnip; his jaw sagged; breath sighed from his open mouth.

I merely noted all that, then turned to look at my client.

G. Raney Madison looked worse than Junior. I’d told him to be ready for anything, even for the worst; and I think probably he already knew, or at least feared he knew. None of that helped, though. He looked like a man beginning to die. And maybe he was, at that. Requite thee with death, I thought.

There was thick silence, which thickened some more.

It was broken only when George Raney Madison, Jr., said something.

It was just one word. But it was not a lovely word….

Theodore Finster — whom Madison had told me was one of the final three bidders on the Da Vinci — also lived, conveniently, in Bel Air. The trip to his home, and picking up the Da Vinci, was anticlimactic. It took less than thirty minutes for me to drive there, do the job, throw the fear of ghastly retribution into him, and drive back to Madison’s for the last time.

With the Da Vinci once more on the wall of his den, Madison turned from his examination of it, looking tired and old.

I said, “At this point it’s really none of my business, Mr. Madison. So just tell me to blow if you want to. But did you really believe it was Jim Chance?”

He hesitated before answering. Then he said, haltingly, “I think so. I know I wanted to believe it, painful as the thought was. The other was simply too — ” He didn’t finish.

We were quiet for a while. I was thinking of George, who had liked the idea of upping his weekly allowance by approximately $60,000 for the week; and of Theodore Finster, unsuccessful bidder, who had liked the idea of buying a $280,000 Da Vinci for $100,000. And of Lupo, who was in it for $40,000. I couldn’t know what Mr. Madison was thinking, not for sure, but I had a pretty good idea.

Finally he said, “Did my — my son approach Mr. Finster?”

“No. It was his idea, but the guy he approached was Lupo.”

“How did George happen to know such an individual?”

“He met him at Doll — well, at a bar. What he was doing there isn’t important now, but it’s important that he did meet Lupo, and knew quite a bit about him — for example, that he was an ex-art thief. At least, I thought he was ex. Maybe when George told him the setup it looked like too soft a touch to pass up. George did know, of course, who the other unsuccessful bidders were and passed the info on to Lupo. Lupo took it from there. In fact, he was still dickering with Finster when I walked in on them the first two times.”

“He really tried to have you killed?”

“Yeah. He knew — even if I didn’t then — that I’d seen him with Finster, with the guy who was going to buy the Da Vinci, which linked them together like handcuffs. Incidentally, George had phoned Lupo shortly before I found him, and told him I’d just been talking to you, and must be on the case — so when I walked in on Lupo he knew what I was after. He might even have thought I was already onto him. If I pinned the job on him he’d go back to the slammer, not to mention the fact that he’d lose his forty thousand clams — and guys have been killed for forty cents. Anyway, it gave him enough of a scare so he sent a wiper to poop me.” I paused. “Actually, if he hadn’t, I might not have gotten onto him. But he reacted like a guilty man, which is the hell of being guilty.”

“Poop?”

“To plug me, shoot, kill. To erase me entirely.”

“Yes. So this Mr. Spaniel you mentioned had nothing to do with the theft?”

“Nothing. Hell, he was too busy with — other things,” I finished. “It was clever enough of Lupo to send me on a wild-goose chase, sure, but what he did was listen to me tell him what I suspected and then feed it back to me. No wonder I believed it — it was my own idea. Lupo figured, correctly, that with all my attention focused on Spaniel I wouldn’t even think of checking on anybody else, including Lupo himself.”

“Mr. Scott,” Madison said soberly, “when I first spoke to you on the phone I said I knew of your reputation for getting things done, even though sometimes by unusual methods.”

Boy, I thought, you don’t know how unusual.

He went on, “And you have, indeed, done precisely what I asked of you. I wish it could have ended differently, but I am nonetheless very grateful.”

He reached into his pocket, took out a piece of paper, and handed it to me. It was the check. The very lovely check.

“Your part in this affair is concluded, Mr. Scott. You may be sure I shall take that action which is appropriate. The thief will be prosecuted, Mr. Finster will pay his debt one way or another, and as for what happens to my son — ” He sighed.

“Yes, sir.”

We shook hands. “I wish to hell,” I said, “it had been the butler.”

He smiled a little. “Thank you, Mr. Scott.”

“Thank you, Mr. Madison. And good night.”

I left him standing in the den, the Da Vinci on the wall behind him. He wasn’t looking at it. He was looking across the room, as if at something very distant, distant in space and time. I suppose he was.

It was only half an hour after midnight, a time when life is still pretty zippy, here and there.

Hell, even the bars were still open. I’d had lots of sack time. Even if I went to bed I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Besides, there were too many thoughts twirling in my mind. Thoughts about George and Lupo and Finster and Madison, among others. Others, like Alston Spaniel. And Ardith, and Mrs. Otterman. Every once in a while I imagined I could see bodies, glowing in the dark….

Why not?

I called Antonia.

Her voice was sleepy.

“Wake up, wake up,” I said. “Darling, this is Shell.”

She woke up. “The hell with you!” she said.

“Antonia, you don’t really mean that.” She started to tell me she did, too, mean it, but I kept on going. “Darling, I really was on a case. And I’ve just wrapped it up, all over, I’m free.”

“The hell — “

“I can’t tell you what the job was, but it was for G. Raney Madison. Do you know who he is?”

“The billionaire?”

“Well, not actually a billionaire. But well-to-do. I recovered something for him, and he gave me, as my fee, a check for ten percent of the item’s value to him. It’s burning a hole in my pants — there’s that word again. I don’t know why whenever I talk to you — “

“Ten percent of what?”

“Of two hundred and eighty thousand bucks.”

“Two hundred and eighty — Shell, darling!”

“Antonia!”

“Shell! Really?”

“Really!”

“And it’s burning a hole in your pants?”

“Well, my pocket’s starting to smoke a little. I’ll hurry over before I catch fire entirely, hey?”

“Give me time to get dressed. I don’t have anything on.”

“Hot dog.”

“I’ll wear that outfit you like.”

“You’re wearing the outfit I like. I’m on my way!”

“Shell, wait. I mean it, give me time to get dressed. We have to go out and spend money, lots of money, spend and spend — “

“Yeah,” I said dully.

“Shell?”

“Yeah?”

“But afterward … Well, don’t worry. Shell, darling.”

“Who’s worried?”

I hung up. I should never have let her know the check was for twenty-eight thousand dollars. It might take days to spend twenty-eight thousand dollars. Ah, but surely, we wouldn’t have to spend it all. I grabbed my coat, put it on, headed for the door.

The phone rang.

At this hour, it might be a potential client. Somebody in trouble. An interesting case, another fat fee maybe.

Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. Duty, perseverance, dedication, all that jazz — it is very good jazz indeed. It’s drink for the parched spirit and meat for the hungry heart. But there is more to life than meat and drink, friends. There is the lean of life, and the fat of the land, all sorts of fun things.

As I went out the door, the phone was still ringing.

I let it ring.

</code>

<code> The Bawdy Beautiful

Zing!, you’ll recall, was the most exciting thing in bathtubs since plumbing for a while.

If you could believe the advertising, the lavender soap didn’t just clean the dirt off you, but “gently coaxed” it away, leaving your skin sinfully soft and maddeningly scented with a seductive fragrance which, presumably, no man with a nose could resist.

But no more. Nobody hears about Zing! any more.

Overnight the zip went out of Zing!

I know, I was there, I saw it happen.

In fact, I did it.

* **

It had been a slow day at Sheldon Scott, Investigations, and I was at home, my three rooms and bath in Hollywood’s Spartan Apartment Hotel, watching TV for a change. On the screen was a movie which had been cut only enough to remove the plot, allowing equal time for commercials, one of which was starting.

I watched it too. Because this was a new Zing! commercial. In color.

It began with a stunning and extraordinarily shapely blond gal playing tennis, racing on the beach, cooking over a hot electronic range. Then — the bath. But not in a tub. Not for Zing!

The lovely stood nude beneath a waterfall — at least I guessed she was nude, you could never get a really good look the way they handled the thing — laughing wildly as if she had somebody hidden in there with her. Then a shot of her in the mountain pool into which the falls plunged, soaping ecstatically, lavender-tinted Zing! lather in great gobs all around her. You couldn’t really see a thing this time, either.

But I watched intently as the soupy-voiced announcer spieled away: “Zing! Zing! Zing! Makes your skin feel so good you can’t keep your hands off yourself! … Comes in a plain, sealed wrapper … Tasteless … contains the exclusive, magic ingredient, the secret ingredient: SX-21!” Or something happy like that.

Right then — it was eight forty P.M. — the apartment chimes bonged.

On the screen, the lovely was in a black gown with spaghetti straps and saucy front, thoroughly rejuvenated, dancing in the arms of a guy who seemed to be chewing her neck. I waited until the commercial ended for the next commercial, then walked to the door and opened it.

A tall blond girl stood there hugging some kind of white coat, or robe, around her. Irregular spots darkened the cloth, as if it was wet, though this was a balmy evening with no sign of rain.

“Mr. Scott?” she said. “Are you Mr. Scott?” Her brown eyes were wide, very wide. They roamed over my white thatch of hair, the smaller white thatches of eyebrows, my tanned ex-Marine chops, and she said, “Yes, you are, aren’t you?”

“That’s me. Come on in.”

She had a strikingly beautiful face, marred at the moment by marks of strain, or fright. The long blond hair was damp, little flecks of something like foam upon it.

She said, “You’re the detective, aren’t you? Will you help me? I just saw a man murdered, only five minutes ago, he pushed him into the pool, I saw it, I didn’t even wait to get my clothes back, I just ran — “

“Wait a minute.” She stopped.

I guided her to the divan, turned off the TV, faced her.

She sat quietly, staring at me from the wide eyes. And what eyes they were. Big and dark, a melting, golden brown. Eyes like hot honey, eyes that sizzled. Plus flawless skin, smooth brow and cheeks, lips that looked as if you could get a shock from them.

It was a disturbingly familiar face, too, but I couldn’t remember where we might have met.

I said, “Do we know each other, miss?”

“No, I remembered reading about you in the papers and that you lived here, and when it happened all I could think of was — ” This time she stopped the rush of words herself. “I’m sorry. Shall I go on?” She smiled.

It was her first smile. But worth waiting for.

“Sure,” I said. “But one word at a time, OK?” She was still hugging the stained coat around her, so I said, “Relax, let me take your things. Would you like a drink, or coffee?”

“No, thanks.” She stood up, pulled the coat from her shoulders and started to slide it off, then let out a high-pitched scream and I let out a low-pitched wobbling sound like a muffler blowing out.

She was wearing nothing beneath the coat.

She jerked the coat back on and squeezed it around her again, but not soon enough. There had been a good second or two during which my muffler had been blowing out, and now I was certain I’d seen her somewhere before.

“I forgot!” she yelped. “Oh, do forgive me. I’m sorry!”

“I forgive — “

“That’s what started all the trouble in the first place. Oh, dear, I’m all unstrung.”

“You and me both, dear. Haven’t we … haven’t I seen you … I mean, surely we’ve — “

“You may have seen me on TV,” she said. “I’ve done several filmed commercials for — “

“Zing!” I cried.

“Why, yes. And you recognized me!” She seemed pleased.

“Yes, indeed. In fact, I was watching you on that little seventeen-inch screen when you rang my bell. Man, you rang — It was in color, too, miss, and … miss? What’s your name, anyway? Ah, you were splendid.” I sat by her on the divan. “Splendid. In a waterfall … and all that.”

“That’s the last one we did. That was a fun one.”

“I’ll bet. It was fun for me, all right. I don’t mean to pry, but do they hide the swimsuit with the bubbles, or something sneaky like that? I mean: is advertising honest?”

“It depends on who does it. I never wear anything at all. It wouldn’t — wouldn’t seem fair, somehow.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more. Why, that would be a rotten — “

“I really do have something important to tell you, Mr. Scott. About the murder.”

“Murder? Oh, yeah,” I said. “Tell me about the murder.”

She told me.

Zing! was the creation of two men, Louis Thor and Bill Wallnofer, partners in Zing!, Inc. They’d peddled the soap virtually alone, and without much success, until about a year ago, when — with the addition of SX-21 to their secret formula, and the inauguration of a high-powered advertising campaign — sales had soared practically into orbit. Their product had been endorsed by Good Housekeeping, the A.M.A., and the Veterinary Journal, among other repositories of Higher Wisdom, and before much longer if you didn’t have a cake of their soap in the john even your best friends would think you just didn’t bathe.

My lovely caller — Joyce Holland was her name — had previously done three filmed commercials for Zing! and this evening the fourth, a super production, had been filmed, in Wallnofer’s absence, at the home of Louis Thor on Bryn Mawr Drive, only two or three miles from the Spartan.

The water in Thor’s big swimming pool had been covered with a blanket of thick, foamy soapsuds — fashioned, of course, from Zing! — Joyce had dived from the board into the pool, then swirled and cavorted in her luxurious “bath” while cameras rolled. The finished — and drastically cut — product would begin with a hazy longshot of Joyce entering the suds, then bursting above the pool’s surface clad in layers of lavender lather, and I had a hunch this item was going to sell tons and tons of soap, even to clean men and boys.

Joyce went on, “When we’d finished, Lou — Mr. Thor — asked me to stay a little longer. He wanted a few stills for magazine ads, he said. Everybody else left and I stayed in the pool, then Lou came back alone and leaped into the pool too! And he didn’t have any clothes on!”

“He didn’t!”

“Yes, he didn’t! Did, I mean.” She paused. “Did leap into the pool, and didn’t have anything on. Anyway, it was evident what he had in mind.”

“You got away, didn’t you?”

“Yes. He caught up with me once and grabbed me, but I was all covered with Zing! — it’s very slippery, you know.”

“I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have the stuff in the house. But I’m pleased to hear — “

“So I just scooted out of his clutches. I swam like mad, got out of the pool, grabbed my robe and ran to the car. Luckily I’d left the keys in it, and I was miles away before I remembered that my clothes and purse and everything were still in the little cabanya where I’d changed.”

She paused.

“That’s where they are, huh?” I said encouragingly.

“Yes. I couldn’t leave them there. So after I’d driven around for a while, when I figured Lou — Mr. Thor — would be calmed down, I went back. I parked in front and started walking toward the pool, but before I got there I saw a man kneeling at the pool’s edge. For a second I thought it was Lou, but it wasn’t. Lou was still in the water and the man was holding onto him, holding him up and looking at him.”

She stopped again.

I said, “What was Lou doing?”

“He was dead.”

“Oh.”

“At least I think he was dead. At least he wasn’t doing anything.”

“I see. And this other guy was just holding onto him and looking at him?”

“Only for a second or two. Then he shoved Lou into the water and ran past the cabanya — there’s a walk next to it that goes out to Quebec Street. I was so scared … well, I just ran to my car and came straight here.”

“The guy see you?”

“No, I was behind some shrubbery there. It’s an oleander hedge, actually.”

“Uh-huh. You know who the man was?”

“No, I never did see his face. I didn’t get a good look at all, his back was to me, and I was so scared…. It was just somebody in a man’s suit. But I’m sure the other one was Lou. The one in the water.”

“I see. Well … was there something you wanted me to do?”

“Oh, yes. I’m afraid to go back. Twice is enough for me. I’m scared to death — but you could go there. And do whatever detectives do.”

“What’s that?”

“I thought you’d know.”

“Yeah. Well, the first thing I’d do would be call the cops — “

“No!” It was the loudest noise she’d made. “That’s what I don’t want. I want you to go to Mr. Thor’s before any police get there, and get my clothes and bag — my identification and everything. I can’t afford to get involved.” She leaned forward a little, and moistened her lips, and widened her eyes, and turned me on and said, “You will help me, won’t you?”

“You bet. I don’t quite — just get your clothes and bag?”

“Yes, mainly my identification. You see, if I were to be involved in scandal — murder — bad things, it would just be awful! I might lose the part in Underwater Western Eye!”

“In what?”

“A television series set for next fall.”

“What did you call it?”

“Underwater Western Eye. It’s going to have everything.”

“Sounds like quite a lot, all right. You might lose the part? I think we left something out somewhere — “

“Oh, I didn’t tell you. Well, you know I’ve been doing the Zing! commercials.”

“Yeah.”

“They’ve had quite an — impact. I mean, they’ve drawn a lot of attention to me.”

“Yeah.”

“Before Zing! I was only a receptionist in a dentist’s office. And I hate teeth, anyway. Unless they’re in mouths.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“It was just a job. There wasn’t any incentive. But now — well, I’m simply crazy about showbiz. I love it. I feel like I’ve found my true destiny.”

“Say, about this Lou Thor. Are you pretty sure he was dead? If he wasn’t, I kind of hate to think of him there in the swimming pool — “

“He looked awfully dead. Or at least unconscious.”

“There’s a difference — “

“And even if he wasn’t dead then, he surely must be drowned by now — “

“Yeah. I wasn’t thinking clearly. You were saying something about — your destiny? In Underwater Western Eye, was it?”

“Yes, it’s a documentary-type show to be sponsored by Oatnut Grits. I’m set for a wonderful part in it, but if I get involved in scandal — murder — all that — the role will probably go to the sponsor’s wife.”

“Mrs. Oatnut Grits?”

“Who?”

“Never mind. I see what you mean.”

“And I so want the part,” she said. “Even the commercials have just been for money, there hasn’t been any real incentive for me, but in the series I’d have a chance to act. I could show what I can do.”

As far as I was concerned, she had already and dandily shown what she could do, but I promised her I’d scoot over to Thor’s and get her clothes and bag quick as a wink. And incidentally check on Lou while I was at it.

I explained to Joyce that — eventually, at least — the police would have to be let in on this, but she pleaded with me to keep her name out of “all the scandal” if I possibly could. I promised her I would mention her name, if at all, only as a last resort.

Seeming much relieved, she smiled one of those worth-waiting-for smiles, and I smiled all the way into the bedroom. There I got my Colt .38 Special and shoulder harness, slipped my coat on over the rig, and went back into the front room.

Joyce squirmed a little on the divan. “I’m starting to itch,” she said.

“Itch?”

“Yes, I’m still all covered with that soap. I was loaded with suds when I ran away, and I haven’t had a chance to wash it off. Mmmm, it sure itches.”

“You might as well wait here while I’m gone. So you can use my shower if you’d like.”

“Oh, I’d love to.”

I showed her the shower and tub, and she said, smiling, “If you really don’t mind, I think I’ll get clean in the shower, then soak for a few minutes in your tub. That always relaxes me. Doesn’t it you?”

“Only when I do it.”

I shook my head. One of my virtues, or vices, is a sort of three-dimensional imagination complete with sound effects and glorious living color. “Soak … as long as you want, Joyce,” I told her happily. “It’ll probably be at least an hour or two before I can check back with you. So you’ll have everything all to yourself, doggone…”

I looked at my watch. Ten after nine. Time to go, I supposed. “Well, good-bye?” I said.

“Good-bye. You’d better hurry.”

“You can count on that.”

She smiled slightly. Softly. Warmly. “Don’t hurry too much. I’ll be soaking for … at least half an hour.”

That was all she said. But suddenly those hot-honey eyes seemed to have everything but swarms of bees in them. However, when there’s a job to be done, I’m a monstrosity of grim determination, I like to think.

I spun about and clattered through the front room to the door. As I went out, I could hear water pouring in the shower. Hot water. She wouldn’t be taking a cold shower. Hell, she couldn’t.

It took me less than five minutes to get to Bryn Mawr Drive. But the scene at Thor’s home was not the quiet calm scene I’d expected. Four cars were parked at the curb, and two of them were police radio cars. Lights blazed in the big house and surrounding grounds.

I followed a shrubbery-lined gravel path alongside the house to the pool. Two uniformed officers, a couple of plainclothesmen I knew who worked out of Central Homicide, and two other men stood on a gray cement area next to the pool on my left. At the pool’s far end was the little cabanya Joyce had mentioned, and on the water’s surface floated scattered lavender patches of limp-looking lather.

A few yards beyond the group of men, a man’s nude body lay face down on a patch of thick green dichondra.

Lieutenant Rawlins, one of the plainclothesmen, spotted me, said, “Hi, Shell,” and walked toward me. “How’d you hear about this one?”

I grinned, but ignored the question.

He filled me in. A call to the police had been placed from here a couple of minutes after nine p.m., and the first police car had arrived two or three minutes later — ten minutes ago now. Present at the scene — in addition to the dead man, who was indeed Louis Thor — had been Thor’s partner Bill Wallnofer, and Gerald Rose, an advertising agency executive who handled the Zing! account. Neither of them, I understood, had been present at the filming session earlier.

“What were they doing here?” I asked Rawlins.

“They were supposed to meet Thor at nine p.m. for a conference. About the ad campaign for their soap, a new angle based on this SX-21 stuff.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard more about SX-21 than space exploration lately. What is the gunk?”

“How would I know? It’s a secret. That was the new advertising angle — something about a Lloyd’s of London policy to insure the secrecy of the secret ingredient. Actually, only two men know what the formula is, Wallnofer and — ” He stopped.

I looked at Thor’s body on the grass and said, “OK, so now only Wallnofer knows. How’s it strike you, foul or fair?”

“Can’t say yet. Deputy coroner says it looks like he sucked in a big pile of those thick suds and strangled on ‘em. The PM might show he drowned instead, but that’s what the once-over-lightly gives us.”

“Anything else?”

“According to Rose, he arrived here a couple minutes before nine and spotted Thor in the water, got a hooked pole from the pool equipment locker and started hauling him out. Then Wallnofer showed up, let out a yell and ran over. Together they got the body onto the grass there.”

Rawlins paused. “The way Wallnofer tells it, he arrived at nine sharp for the meet and saw Rose hanging onto the dead guy, either pulling him out — or holding him in. He also says Rose wanted them to take off without phoning us. But Wallnofer insisted on phoning and gave us a call.”

“Friction, hey? They and the dead guy didn’t all love each other?”

“They all hated each other. Thor shapes up as a classic bastard, sarcastic, the sandpaper type. Wallnofer’s the brain, the thinker. Control of the firm rested with Thor and Wallnofer, but neither liked the way the other operated. Each wanted to buy the other out, neither would sell. And I guess they both gave Rose a hard time.”

“Where’d you get all this so fast?”

“Part from Rose and Wallnofer, more from Casey there.” He gestured toward the other plainclothesman. “Used to be in the ad game and still keeps in touch.”

Oddly, when he said “Keeps in touch,” that old devil imagination of mine went from stalled to high gear, and either this was more wishy-washy thinking or else I was truly telepathic and clairvoyant and addled. Because for a moment, instead of Rawlins’ pleasant chops, I saw Joyce turning off the shower and sinking, all pink and glowing, down into the tub — my tub. She didn’t itch any longer, either, I noted.

Rawlins bent his head toward me. “Did I say something that shook you, Shell?”

The moment ended. “No, I was watching — thinking about something else. Go on.”

“That’s about it. Could be a homicide, so we’ll take both these guys downtown for interrogation — “

“But that would take too long. All night maybe — “

“Too long? What difference…” He squinted at me, “You got a better idea?”

“I’ve got a much better — wait a minute. Let me think.”

I thought. Joyce was adding hot water to the tub. I thought some more.

“Rawlins, string along with me, will you? Tell Rose and Wallnofer you know it was murder and you’re taking them both to the clink. Then let me have at them for a few minutes — but if I shake the right answer out, no questions, OK?”

He wasn’t wild about the idea, and he growled and even swore a little, but finally said OK and led me over to the group of men. Rose, the ad-agency executive, was a small, thin, pale guy with sour eyes and the look of a man suffering from chronic misery. Wallnofer, about six feet tall and well built, with a receding hairline and a nose just wide enough to breathe through, stared at us and shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

Rawlins gave them a spiel and both men started looking grave as his words about murder sank in. Finally he stopped talking and turned to me.

Joyce was making little waves in the water with both hands.

I said to Rawlins, “I’ve seen enough. I’m sure.” Then I pointed at Bill Wallnofer. “That’s the guy who killed him.”

Wallnofer’s mouth dropped, his eyes popped open, he went back one step and said, “Wha … what? Are you nuts? I didn’t kill anybody. You are out of your cotton-picking mind.” But his lips were sort of wiggling around loosely.

“Sure you did,” I said. “I just wanted to get a good look at you, a check on the description. There was a witness. You were seen, friend.”

For a little longer his lips wiggled and he mumbled unintelligibly at me. But then he clamped his teeth together, took a deep breath, and said with complete clarity: “You are out of your cotton-picking mind. Nobody saw me here, mister, since that would constitute an impossibility of monumental proportions. I was not here.”

He sure sounded convincing. I stared unsmiling at him and went right on, “I said you were seen, friend. Not actually killing Thor — and keep that in mind. That means I don’t know if it was first degree and you’ve had it, or merely manslaughter and a much milder unpleasantness. But I’ll buy manslaughter. If you want to sell it.”

“You are out of your — “

“Keep listening. After you killed Thor you grabbed him, lifted him up right there — ” I pointed to the general area Joyce had described, the concrete at this side of the pool. “He was dead then — or at least unconscious. You plopped him back in. Then you went running out — that way.” I pointed to a path leading alongside and beyond the cabanya. “On out to Quebec Street. And to your car I imagine. That part of it wasn’t witnessed.”

Wallnofer’s face had gotten a little paler, as if some of the blood had turned to gray ash beneath his skin; his lips pressed more tightly together. But he said, “I was not here. Either you are inventing this entire idiotic story, or someone else was seen here.” He swallowed. “However, common sense indicates I should say no more without the advice of my attorneys.”

That wouldn’t do. I said, “Common sense, huh? OK, let’s try it that way.”

I glanced at my watch. Nine twenty-seven. I’d left the apartment at nine ten. Another five minutes to get here. So it had been only twelve minutes since I’d parked out front, and seventeen since I’d left the Spartan. I thought back to that TV commercial when this had started. Right then — at eight forty p.m. — my chimes had bonged. Taking off five minutes, the time it had taken Joyce to reach my place from here, would make it eight thirty-five p.m.

I said to Wallnofer, “You and Rose were supposed to meet Thor here at nine tonight, but you showed up early. About eight thirty — give or take five minutes either way — you killed Thor. Almost on the dot of eight thirty you dumped him into the pool. I’ve already told you what you did then. But instead of leaving the area, you waited around for Rose to get here, gave him a minute or two and then strode in casually for the meeting — pretending to be greatly surprised to see Rose with a dead man on his hands. Reason? You couldn’t afford to be found with the body, since you’d killed the guy; but if you didn’t show up at all that would tag you for sure.” I paused. “OK so far?”

“I told you I … wasn’t here.” His voice petered out on him momentarily in the middle.

I said roughly, “Look, we know it was one of you two guys. Assume for a moment it was Rose. OK, then he tossed Thor in the soap, at eight thirty-five as witnessed, and then what? Why, then he cleverly stood around for twenty-five minutes waiting for you to show up, whereupon he began hauling Thor out again. No, the same logic applies to him as to you. If Rose had killed Thor, he’d have left — and let you find the body. But that’s not the way it happened.”

Wallnofer didn’t speak. He got a little grayer, though.

“Look,” I said, letting the hardness out of my voice, “even a very dim wit indeed would know the party’s over. I’ve just told you everything, exactly as it happened. Except for why you did it — and how. Man, that’s the only out you’ve got, that’s the part for you to tell us.”

His eyes didn’t seem to be focused on anything. I said, “Wallnofer, no matter how it happened, you’ll feel better once you get it off your chest. You really will. And you’re stuck; you know you’re stuck.”

Well, either he did know or he didn’t. Which is to say, either he was stuck or I was stuck. But I’d used up all my ammunition.

Wallnofer swallowed. That odd glaze slowly left his eyes. He looked at me. Then he said, “You’re right, of course. I … will feel better.” He ran his tongue over his lips, but the lips stayed dry. “It was an accident. Honestly it was. Lou was a bastard. Always, as if it was a career with him. We never got along. Tonight it started again, he took a poke at me. I hit him on the chin, just once, knocked him into the pool. I started to leave, got clear out to my car, then calmed down, went back. But it was all over by then. He … I guess he’d started choking, tried to reach the pool’s ladder but couldn’t quite make it. I managed to get him out, but he was dead. I knew it wouldn’t look like an accident unless he was in the water. So I pushed him back in.”

And that was it. Rawlins was looking at the skull above my ear, as if he saw a big ugly crack there. Then he peered up at the sky, dropped his gaze to Wallnofer. He said quietly, “What was the argument about?”

Wallnofer sighed. “SX-21 — at least that’s what it boils down to. Lou insisted we take out a huge policy insuring the firm against loss if anybody discovered the formula.” He laughed suddenly, for no apparent reason. “The insurance angle was to be the basis for a big ad campaign coming up. I told Lou we couldn’t get that kind of policy without revealing what the stuff was, but he said we could hire a chemist to figure out something impressive.”

That stuck me a little and I started to speak, but Wallnofer was going on, “Lou claimed publicity from the Lloyd’s policy, and the ad campaign playing it up, would boost sales twenty percent. I told him I didn’t give a damn. We were making all the money we could keep after taxes. I told Lou I didn’t want to make more profit — especially from SX-21 — there just wasn’t any … any incentive.”

Wallnofer took a deep breath. “Well, we got into a beef about it, the usual beef. I never liked the damned SX-21 angle from the beginning anyway, it was his baby.”

“What is the magic stuff, anyway?” I asked him. “And what did you mean a second ago about having a chemist figure something?”

Wallnofer looked at me but remained silent.

“It doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference to you now, does it?” I paused. “Or to Louis Thor.”

He chewed on his lip for a while. “I guess it doesn’t, at that. Well, it’s air.”

“It’s — I don’t quite get the message here. What about air? Is that what you said?”

“That’s what I said — that’s what it is.” He sighed again. “Originally, when times were tougher, we bubbled hot — make that heated — air through the liquid soap to save money. The more air in it, the less soap. Pardon me, the less Zing! It did change the texture and appearance a little, so Lou decided we might as well capitalize on the new look. He thought about it for a few days. And SX-21 was born.”

“Air?” I said dully. “Air is the secret ingredient in Zing!”

“That’s it. Neither of us expected it to catch on so.”

Feeling as if I had a firm grip on unreality, I said, “What in hell is so secret about air? Air’s not a secret ingredient.”

“You don’t understand,” Wallnofer said, just a bit stuffily. “We never told anybody SX-21 was air. We kept it a secret.”

In the ensuing silence I heard a small hissing sound, a very wee sound, like an ant unburdening its bladder near my ear.

Only when it got louder did I realize the noise was coming from Gerald Rose. Rose, the advertising-agency executive who had composed tone poems, if not complete symphonic epics, about SX-21.

His head was thrust forward on his neck, his eyes were thrust forward in their sockets, a vein pulsed snakelike on his forehead, and hissing between his tight-pressed lips was — well, SX-21.

Slowly he stepped toward Wallnofer, slowly his thin right arm came up from his side, slowly the small fingers balled into a fist white at the knuckles. Then Gerald Rose opened his chops and delivered his one statement of the evening: “You utter monster!” he cried, in the tone of a man with his dearest possession being run over by a road grader. “I am going to hit you right on the mouth. Right on the mouth. And hit you and hit you, and hit — “

But that was as far as he got. Rawlins grabbed him, and Rose seemed to wilt. An officer led him, drooping, away.

Soon, then, the area was empty except for Rawlins and me. He looked at the lavender-dotted pool, at the sky, then at me.

“Shell, will you just for hell tell me — “

“Ah, ah. No questions. You agreed to that, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, but tell me this. How in hell did you know it was Wallnofer? Not just some guy named Schultzbinder.”

“I didn’t. But I knew somebody did all those things I mentioned. And it looked much like Wallnofer for the reasons you heard me give him. Besides, you can’t play it safe all the time, and I was in a hurry. What could I lose?”

“Uh-huh. You knew somebody did those things.” He squinted at me. “There really was a witness, then? You weren’t just making it up?”

I smiled. He frowned.

I walked to the cabanya, and in a small locker found feminine clothing — some of it black and wispy — plus a handbag. I grabbed the stuff and headed for my Cad. Rawlins was still standing by the pool. As I walked past him he scowled at the items in my hands, and at me, swearing colorfully.

I grinned, trotted to the car, started the engine and headed for home.

As I drove, odd thoughts and symbols drifted through my skull. Ah, I thought, the marvels of Science and the Advertising Mind: SX-21 … GL44 … Contains Bacillaurum! … Hyperoricrud … and a half a hundred others, including Hydroatomalkafluorium, the most-secret secret ingredient of them all. Probably, I thought, it was old crankcase drainings.

I thought of Louis Thor strangling — ah, how men initiate their own ends — on Zing!

And I thought of all the women bathing all across the land — some hopefully, some giddily, some cautiously — on Zing!

And I thought of one particular woman bathing … under waterfalls … in lavender pools … in a tub at the Spartan Apartment Hotel.

But by then, because I had been tromping on the accelerator, I was at the Spartan Apartment Hotel.

As I got out of the car I glanced at my watch. Nine forty p.m. Exactly. From the Spartan and back to the Spartan in half an hour. Probably the speediest case of my career.

But after all, I thought, I’d had incentive. And that’s the secret ingredient.

</code>

<code> The Cautious Killers

Her name was Jasmine, but she had asked me to call her Jazz.

Both names fitted her well enough, I supposed. Anybody with eyeballs could tell she looked very jazzy indeed; and I could personally attest that she smelled splendid.

I knew she smelled splendid, because on two previous occasions within the past week, both of them at her soon closed — and locked, and probably barred — apartment door, I had managed to get a sniff of some kind of aphrodisiac which she dabbed behind her ears.

Whether she dabbed the stuff — Sortilege, I think it was — anywhere else, I hadn’t the haziest idea. And to a thirty-year-old bachelor named Shell Scott — that’s me — smelling ears is not exactly the high point of a wildly exciting evening.

Consequently little Jazz had begun to strike me as a bit waltzy. But this was our third joint expedition into the night life of Hollywood, and Jazz had hinted that tonight’s foray might be even more orgiastic than the first couple. At least, she had if you can call unbelievably steamy glances from hot brown eyes a hint. Or the implied promise of tomato-red lips on the verge of spontaneous combustion. Or occasional deep breaths of such magnitude that the next might split and even remove entirely the form-fitting blue-silk cocktail gown clinging, strapless, to her 38-23-36, which was higher mathematics for a gal only five feet, three inches tall. But I was only guessing, since it was pretty hard to tell for sure, when she was putting away a meal which would cause a horse instantly to founder.

This gal ate like a couple of longshoremen. Not indelicately, no; merely with absorption, determination, gusto, persistence. And, of course, appetite. It is a fact that she could put away more goose liver and steak and potatoes and salad and vegetables and crepes suzette and cafe diablo than anybody of her size — and especially shape — that I’d ever seen. I could understand how Jazz got that dandy shape, but not how she kept it.

She sighed passionately once more. “Oh, my!” she said. “That was good. That was good, Shell.”

We had just finished dinner at a restaurant called the Hideout. Though not far from downtown Hollywood, it was secluded, resting alone atop a hill overlooking the several million lights of Hollywood and its suburbs, like L.A. It was somewhat more expensive than a beanery, but considering the artistry of the chef not unduly so. An ordinary meal, complete with oddments a la carte, would run about fifteen bucks; Miss Jasmine Porter’s snack came to forty-two sixty, which I had a faint feeling was impossible.

Fortunately, I could afford a little Jazz this week. I had recently concluded a profitable job for a wealthy client — “Shell” is from the Sheldon in Sheldon Scott, Investigations — and could thus even have bought myself a forty-two sixty meal if I were nuts, and if it had been possible for me to cram that much food into my six feet, two inches, and two hundred and six pounds, which it wasn’t.

I said, “You want another?”

“Another what?”

“Another meal.”

“Of course not. That was plenty.”

I smiled. “Well, then, what would you like to do now, Jazz? Take a nap for a few hours? Drive up into the hills and snooze on Lover’s Lane? Go watch birds at the aviary — “

“Goodness, no. Shell. I told you tonight was going to be different, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, that’s why I thought maybe you’d like another dinner. That would be diff — “

“That’s not … quite … what I meant.”

Boy, when she turned it all on like that — the hot-whispery voice and steamy eyes and conflagration of lips — it was a kind of Sortilege ravishment of all the known senses, and I smiled very widely and said, “Then follow me, dear. Out there” — I pointed toward a tall, wide window and the brilliant lights beyond — “is romance, adventure, danger, even booze. I refer, of course, to my apartment.”

“Wonderful!”

I got up, dropped approximately a pound and a half of money onto the waiter’s tray and the check, slid the chair out from under Jazz’s inimitable 36, let her drape a hand on my arm, and we started out.

We almost made it.

Just inside the front door and at one end of the long view window filling the front wall of the dining room, a man and woman were seated at a table for two, drinking some kind of liqueur from thimble-sized glasses.

I knew the guy, a local attorney named Vincent Blaik, but since he was merely an acquaintance I nodded and was going to walk right on by.

But Jasmine recognized the girl. “Lynn!” she cried in the tone of approaching ecstasy women generally use when greeting any other female who isn’t a total stranger. “How nice!”

The lovely called Lynn — and she was a lovely — looked up and smiled. But the smile appeared to begin and end on her lips. “How nice,” she echoed. “Jasmine! It’s so good to see you.” She sounded as happy as a sore loser halfway through hara-kiri.

Then they went into the How’ve-you-been? and It’s-been-too-long bit. I sighed.

“Hi,” I said to Blaik.

“‘Lo, Scott. Sit down, join us.”

“Thanks, but we were on our way out.”

He lifted an eyebrow, glanced at the two girls and back at me. “Were is right.”

“And then Suki — you remember Suki, don’t you?” Jazz was saying. “Well she and Jim went out onto the patio and — ” She leaned over and mumbled something which, try as I might, I couldn’t catch.

“No!” said Lynn.

“Yes!” cried Jazz.

“Hey!” said I. “Jazz. The romance, and adventure, and danger, remember? And — “

She rested the brown eyes on me. “What’s the hurry?”

” — booze. Out there in the wilds…. What do you mean, what’s the hurry?”

“It’ll still be there. Shell.”

“Yeah. But maybe we won’t.”

She wasn’t listening. I lifted my hands up and let them flop.

Blaik grinned, and repeated his offer. “Care to join us for a drink, Scott?”

“Why not?” I said glumly. “At least, I will. Jazz may join us after a while, OK?”

“Fine. What are you drinking?”

I told him, pulled over a couple of chairs, and sat down. Blaik gave a nearby waiter the order.

When the drinks came Jazz was seated, leaning forward a bit and saying, “It was Suki, all right. But you know Jim.”

“Just don’t I?” Lynn said, rolling her eyes.

They were very pretty eyes. Large, wide-set, green. A moist, dark green, the color of bruised mint leaves. She was leaning back in her chair, not saying much, apparently content to let Jazz do most of the talking. The quiet type, I supposed, though she didn’t look like the quiet type. I guessed she was no more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old, but she looked pretty flamboyant to me.

Part of it had to be those eyes and the sensual, crushed-looking lips. But another part was the dress she wore, a soft, shimmering cloth as black as her short-cut and casually tousled hair; the cloth lay so close and smoothly against her skin it might almost have been black dye spilled over her full-curved body.

It took about five minutes, but by then the girls had covered the essential trivia and we’d even had time for introductions.

The quiet but flamboyantly dressed lovely was Lynn Duncan. I already knew, from listening to Jazz’s volubility and Lynn’s monosyllabic comments, that until six months ago Lynn had lived in Miami, Florida, and since moving to Hollywood had been working at some place called the Skylight, was single, drank Kahlua after dinner and straight bourbon the rest of the time, liked the new hip-length dresses but hadn’t dared to wear one yet, and was wild about the latest boy-singer singing rage, Weenie Latour.

When Jazz informed her that I was a private detective Lynn looked at me long enough and intently enough to know I have stickup-in-the-air hair that is white, as springy as thin quills, and just about as long as the equally white hair in my peaked eyebrows; that my eyes are gray, my chops deeply tanned, my chin at least resolute if not ponderous; that my nose has been broken no less than twice and amusingly set once; that there’s a small scar over my right eye and a piece cut or bitten or sliced or shot — shot’s the one — from the tip of my left ear; and that the total gorgeousness of my features often gives rise to suspicion that they may have been caught in an avalanche, or been struck with determination by lots of knuckles.

I looked out at the view. For almost half a mile there were only scattered lights, but then the real sparkle and brilliance of the city below began, white and frosty and red and blue and green, individual dots blending into an abstract mass of color farther away.

There was only one road up to the top of the hill where the Hideout sat, and the view had been selected so diners could not only get the full impact of the city at night but also see arriving cars come up the two-lane asphalt road to the circle before the restaurant’s entrance. The circle where, with military snap and dispatch, two attendants magnificently attired in dove-gray dinner jackets opened doors, whisked cars away to the large parking lot on the right.

It was said that many ladies, and even some of their escorts, enjoyed knowing that numerous curious — and, hopefully, envious — eyes could note their arrivals. On a good night, at least. But this was Tuesday, only a little after seven thirty p.m., early on a slow evening in September, and there weren’t more than a dozen eyes in the joint.

Another car was coming up the road. Its headlights silvered the black asphalt, but at the top swung left toward the darkened lot rather than into the brilliance and uniformed-attendant splendor before the entrance. This one apparently preferred parking his car himself, rather than leaving it with an attendant and later buying it back.

A miser, forced to bring his wife to the Hideout? I wondered. A guy with a gal wearing one of the old-style dresses, with its hem almost down to her kneecaps? A gay with somebody else’s wife? Or quite possibly, I thought more generously, a high-school kid with his sweetie, doing optimistic addition and subtraction in his head.

Jazz appeared unaware that I was still only about six inches from her ear. I could smell the Sortilege again.

Suddenly the gals stood up simultaneously and murmured they’d be back “in a jiffy.” Neither of them had mentioned it. Just click, and they were on their way. I presume it’s telepathy. Or perhaps a certain strained expression undetectable by males.

Blaik said, “Gorgeous little gal, Jasmine.”

“Yeah. So’s your Miss Duncan.”

“Not my Miss Duncan. She’s just … well, call it combining business with pleasure.”

I grinned. He could call it business if he wanted to, but it looked more like pleasure to me.

Vincent Blaik was a bachelor, like me, only he was five or six years over my thirty. He was a solid five-ten, a bit chunky at a hundred and ninety pounds or so, with a square face, muscular cheeks, brown hair several inches longer than mine and wavy, combed straight back from the slightly-off-center widow’s peak like a little comma punctuating his hairline.

For several years I’d been hearing about Blaik and reading of his brilliant courtroom strategy and techniques — he was a much-sought-after attorney for the defense, with his own offices and staff. But this was the first time we’d actually sat down and talked. He struck me as a much nicer chap than I’d assumed he would be, because among the things I’d heard were rumors that his ethics and morality were not exactly above reproach.

He had a long string of courtroom successes, and a few flops, behind him; but I’d heard that some of those successes might have been achieved with the aid of such illicit techniques as jury tampering, bribing, and even — perhaps — intimidation of hostile witnesses. He was also alleged to have an abundance of political pull which he was not averse to using, too-close connections with a couple of Superior Court judges, and intimate acquaintance with a number of the kings and princes of hoodlumland.

But every defense attorney takes on clients accused of, or even previously convicted of, crime; that’s his job, his purpose and function. And rumors are spread about many of them, rumors very often completely groundless. I didn’t know whether any of the rumors about Blaik were true or not; and until I did I meant to assume they were baloney.

So, instead of shop-talk, I said, “You have dinner here, Blaik? Or just those dinky drinks?”

“Hell of a dinner. Didn’t have any idea the food was so good.”

“First time here?”

He nodded. “Yeah, Lynn suggested the place. I’m glad she did — we had the tournedos. Man, on artichoke bottoms and with that bearnaise sauce — ” He smacked his lips.

“We had the Chateaubriand,” I said. “And the prime ribs.”

He blinked. “And? I thought a Chateaubriand was for two people.”

“Yeah. Prime ribs were mine. Jazz had the Chateaubriand.”

He was silent for a few seconds.

“No kidding!” someone said behind me.

I looked around. The gals were already on their way back from the powder room. After maybe two minutes. Remarkable. Must have run out of powder. Usually they’re in there at least three quarters of an hour.

Blaik had paid his check after getting the last drinks, and as the girls arrived I stood up, saying we had to hit the road.

Blaik said, “Time for us to take off, too. Glad we got to chat, Scott.”

Lynn sat down. “I’d like another drink, Vince,” she said. “Let’s stay a while longer.”

But Jazz, I was pleased to note, remained standing and grabbed my arm.

Blaik was arguing mildly with Lynn. She said she truly would prefer to stay a while longer, that she didn’t feel well. She did look pale to me. Maybe she needed oxygen; couldn’t afford to breathe very deeply wearing that black outfit. But finally Blaik grabbed Lynn’s hand and hauled her to her feet.

We all walked out together, Jazz squeezing my arm.

“That didn’t take long, did it?” she said brightly. “Now we can go out into the wildness, or whatever you called it. And I’ve already got part of my dinner digested.”

“I’ll bet it’s all digested. You have a unique metabolism — “

That was the last word for a while. From any of us.

We’d gone down the steps, Blaik and Lynn ahead of us, and he’d walked forward to give one of the attendants his parking check. As the gray-tuxedoed youngster turned and started to trot toward the darkened lot I heard a car engine start over there.

The sound stuck oddly in my brain. At first I thought the other attendant must be in the lot, but both were here, the one kid moving away now. Another thought was forming, too; but it had time only to wiggle.

I’d taken a step toward Blaik, who was still a few feet ahead of me. Jazz was behind me on my right, Lynn standing back and to my left, waiting. As I took another step, with the hand holding the square cardboard check I half-consciously tapped my coat over the Colt .38 Special always in the clamshell holster. It’s always there because whenever I’m out in the city I know that more than one other guy who would like to see me dead is there, too.

Besides, that thought was just starting to wiggle.

Nobody had left the restaurant before us. And I was remembering that nobody had come into the Hideout since I’d seen that car come up the asphalt road. Why would anybody drive up and just sit out there? Those high-school kids, maybe? Or maybe —

That was it.

The sound, even out in the open without walls and ceiling to bounce from, was hellishly loud.

Gunshots — five, maybe six of them, fast — one isolated shot, followed by a second, then three or four more, one after the other and almost blending into one. Before the second shot sounded I’d started bending forward into a low crouch, left shoulder swinging in toward my right hand as the hand came up fast to slap the Colt’s butt, my brain tagging the sound as the heavy, full-bodied boom of a .45.

As I rolled my shoulder back and slid the Colt from its holster I saw Blaik flop, heard screams from the girls behind me. A gray blur was the second attendant spinning around and starting to run. The car’s engine was racing and over its ascending whine was the screech of tires spinning. I saw the car jerk forward, sliding, heading down the road. It was a shiny sedan, dark, its headlights still off.

With my feet planted wide apart, knees bent, I punched the revolver toward the already fast-moving sedan and squeezed off a shot, followed it with two more. I heard at least one slug hit something. But the car leaped forward and down the hill, picking up speed fast.

I straightened up. It seemed to take a long time; a long time in nearly complete silence. There were no more screams, almost no sound. I crammed the Colt back into its holster, turned toward the restaurant steps. The back of my left hand was stinging and there was a red streak across it. One of those flying slugs had nicked the skin.

Jazz was straightening up, rubbing one knee. Her eyes were almost closed, lids drooping. She’d been holding both arms before her but now let them fall to her sides, breathing through her open mouth. Her face was chalk-white.

Lynn lay on her back, one leg flopped awkwardly over the other. Light glistened from the small fat finger of blood near her head. There was a cough from behind me, a cough and a soft groan.

I turned around. BIaik was on his knees, weight on the backs of his heels, but bending forward, both arms pressed against his midsection.

I jumped to his side, squatted next to him. “Blaik,” I said, “are you all right? You get hit?”

He pulled his head up, looked at me. Blood was on his mouth. His lips stretched as he tried to smile.

“It’s … nothing,” he said, and died.

A waiter had already phoned for the police and an ambulance by the time I got inside. As he hung up the phone I grabbed it, dialed the L.A. Police Department, got Phil Samson, captain of Central Homicide.

“Sam,” I said, “this is Shell. Shooting here at the Hideout just now, Vincent Blaik killed — somebody else already called in so cars should be on the way from Hollywood Division.”

“You see it?”

“I was in the middle of it.”

“You all right?”

“Yeah. Scratch on my hand, but Blaik’s dead and a girl named Lynn Duncan got one along the side of her head. She’s still breathing, but that’s all I know.”

“Scratch on your hand? Stray bullet? Or was the guy aiming at you?”

“Beats me, but I’d sure like to find out — main reason I called, Sam. Dig up whatever you or the Intelligence Division have on Blaik, will you? If you’ve got anything that says some gun might have been after him, it would help my peace of mind.”

“Anything else we can use?”

“I saw the car, but I can’t tell you the make. Dark sedan, new one — didn’t get a glimpse at the guy. But I took three shots at the car and hit it at least once. Left side somewhere.”

“That might help. You coming downtown?”

“Soon as I can, Sam.”

I hung up and went out front again.

Immediately after the shooting, four or five people had come charging out to view the excitement, screaming and yelling and pointing — the usual gathering, brilliant as lemmings heading for the sea. So I’d left one of the attendants near Lynn’s unconscious body, with instructions to keep people away from her; she lay just as she’d been before, still breathing.

Jazz was sitting on one of the steps, arms crossed and hands squeezing her shoulders. She was shivering a little. I draped my coat over her shoulders, asked if she’d seen anything that might help identify the killer. She hadn’t. Neither had the gray-uniformed attendants.

The one who’d been waiting to take my car check had simply run about a block, then come back. When I talked to the young guy who’d been trotting toward the lot he said, “I heard the shooting and plain hit the deck.” He’d hit it pretty hard; his chin was skinned and a little blood had dripped onto his shirt and tie.

“What about the car?” I asked him. “The guy must have been parked in the lot for several minutes. In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw him drive up and turn in there.”

“So did I,” he said. “But the kids come here to neck sometimes. Usually after closing, but not always. It’s a great view, what the hell?” He shrugged. “I figured that’s all it was. Why would I worry about it? Some guys like to park their own cars. Who’d think some nut would start shooting the place up?”

He was right, of course. Who would? More important from my point of view, who’d really been the target? Blaik — or me?

Those slugs had covered a pretty wide area. The bullet that nicked my left hand had either been fired at me or else the gunman had missed Blaik by at least four or five feet. Another of those slugs had whistled past close to my head, too.

Judging by the spot from which the shots had been fired, it must have been one of those bullets going past me which had hit Lynn. She was lucky not to be dead right now. For that matter, so was I.

I could think of several reasons why guys with guns might want to knock me off; but if the creep had been trying for me he’d missed me by several feet with at least one slug — the one that killed Blaik. And, vice versa, if he’d been aiming for Blaik. It was, of course, possible that somebody had a motive for wanting Blaik dead; but I couldn’t think of a single reason why any man would want to kill both of us.

I was sure of a couple things, though: Blaik was dead; and, if the gunman had killed him by mistake, he knew he’d missed me. Missed me, and still had to get me.

By the time I’d finished talking to officers at the scene and driven to the Police Building in downtown L.A., it was after nine p.m. and the story was on all the news broadcasts and telecasts. The bare facts were covered: Blaik killed; his companion Lynn Duncan shot and taken to the Emergency Receiving Hospital with a concussion and possible skull fracture; Shell Scott and Miss Jasmine Porter had escaped serious injury.

But there was a good deal of conjecture, too. In part because Blaik had been a well-known attorney, but mainly because I had been involved, not for the first time, in a shooting. At least one commentator wondered audibly why I had been with Blaik, and covered the same point in my mind by adding, “It is not yet known whether the fusillade of bullets was intended for Vincent Blaik or for Shell Scott, who was wounded in the hand. But the police are confident — ” and so on.

I hadn’t exactly been wounded in the hand, but in more like a thirty-second of an inch of skin. The commentator had also made it sound as if a whole army of hoodlums had been shooting up the county. Of course, for all I knew there could have been two, or more, people in the car at that. I hadn’t really seen anything except muzzle blast and a glimpse of the car itself.

I took the elevator to the third floor and walked down the hall to the Homicide squadroom.

Samson was in his office, solid jaw wiggling as he chewed on one of his uniquely foul-smelling, but fortunately unlighted, black cigars. As I walked in he flicked the sharp brown eyes at me, continued growling into the phone.

When he hung up he took the well-chewed cigar from his wide mouth and gazed upon me with exaggerated distaste. “I think an invisible black bird follows you around, from time to time swooping down on the corpses which litter your path — “

“Sam, I’m wounded.”

“Wounded!”

“It said so on the broadcasts.”

He swore for several seconds remarkable for their richness, then said sincerely, “Undoubtedly some would-be benefactor of all mankind was trying to kill you, and unfortunately managed to shoot Blaik instead.” He stuck the cigar back into his mouth. “You took your time getting here.”

“Well, first I had to staunch the flow of my hot blood,” I said. “And then I was there at the scene of the crime, Sam, cooperating with the forces of law and order, decency and justice. Namely, the fuzz. Then I had to see that my girl got home — “

“Ahk,” he ejaculated. “You and your girls.”

“What’s wrong with girls?”

He proceeded to tell me more of what was wrong with me. Finally he said, “All right, tell me what you think happened. And how you’ve managed to solve the crime already.”

“Well, I haven’t solved it yet, Sam. I’m all at sea, would you believe it? But here are the facts.” I told him what had happened.

“Jazz hadn’t met Blaik,” I finished, “and I didn’t know the girl he was with. But Jazz did. Seems the Duncan gal works at a bar and restaurant called the Skylight Lounge. Part of a private country club and estates, homes on the golf course and such. She’s a waitress out there.”

“Where’d she meet Blaik?”’

“Beats me. I talked to Jazz after the shooting, but she didn’t know much about her. Met Lynn when she was at the Lounge for dinner a couple of times.”

Samson ran a hand over his iron-gray hair. “That’s all you got?”

I nodded. “You dig up anything on Blaik since I phoned?”

“Well, I’ll give it to you the way I got it. About six thirty this evening a lady phoned the Hollywood Division to ask about her husband. She’d been expecting him all afternoon, but he hadn’t shown up and she was worried about him. Far as we know, he still hasn’t shown.”

“So tell Missing Persons. Why tell me, Sam?”

“The lady’s name was Moulder. Mrs. Georgina Moulder.”

I kept on looking blank. “That’s wonderful.”

“Wife of Leslie Moulder.”

“Leslie Moulder, huh? How about that? Good old — wait a minute.” I stopped. “He’s the boy fell for theft, or embezzlement … went to Q a year or so back?”

“You got it. Grand theft, sentenced to San Quentin.”

It was the kind of case I don’t pay special attention to ordinarily, and it had been in the newspapers last summer. But I remembered a little about it. Leslie Moulder had been accused of stealing twenty or thirty thousand bucks from a safe to which only he and one other man had the combination. The other man was out of town when the theft must have occurred, and was able to prove it. Other details were brought out at the trial, but Moulder’s defense, I recalled, had been little better than no defense at all. Anyhow, he’d been convicted and jugged.

So far, so good. But I knew Sam wouldn’t be gassing without good reason, so I probed in memory some more. I remembered that Moulder and the other man had been partners. Moulder and … Gordon. Robert Gordon. Gordon was much the wealthier of the two. Moulder, though not exactly out of the chips, was a contractor, a builder and developer — but on a much smaller scale than Gordon, who had hotels and country-club estates all over the landscape.

That jiggled another fact loose. Gordon and Moulder had cooperated in building one of those “country-club” developments here in Southern California. The Hollywood Hills Estates in Hollywood, in fact. Nine-hole golf course, clubhouse, homes on the fairways and such. Plus hotel-type accommodations, and a luxurious restaurant and bar, the Skylight Lounge.

“I’ve made him,” I said. “Hollywood Hills Estates, Moulder and Robert Gordon. But wasn’t there something else? End of the trial…”

Sam nodded. “When the verdict was read he raised a little hell.”

“More than a little, if I recall — took a swing at his attorney, didn’t he? Yelled that the s.o.b. had sold him out — ah, Blaik. Hell, his attorney was Vincent Blaik.”

Samson smiled. “The late Vincent Blaik, yes. Moulder took a swing at him, right there in the courtroom…”

“Also swore he’d kill the s.o.b. — Moulder’s choice of words. Yelled it about three or four times, with some vehemence, if I correctly recall the reports.”

“You do.”

“OK, so what? Moulder’s languishing in Q … Wait a minute. Mrs. Moulder called the Hollywood boys? She was expecting her husband to show up this afternoon?”

“You do get there in time, don’t you, Shell?” Samson sighed, rubbed his eyes for a moment. “That’s it. Moulder did his bit. He’s out.”

“When?”

“Today. Only a few hours ago. Not so few he couldn’t have made it to L.A. with some hours to spare, though.”

I thought about it. “Well, I still say, so what? You don’t expect me to think you’d pay any attention to a threat made in anger more than a year ago, do you?”

“Ordinarily maybe I wouldn’t. But we don’t have much else to go on.”

It was true enough. But that old “I’ll kill you” line has been tossed at a large percentage of the attorneys, policemen, D.A.‘s — and private detectives for that matter — in the country. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred it’s no more than hot air.

Still, I thought, there’s always that one other time out of the hundred.

“Something else interesting,” I said. “Moulder was one of the owners of the Hollywood Hills Estates, wherein is the Skylight Lounge, wherein it seems our Miss Lynn Duncan works. And the chap she was dining with tonight is the — late — attorney who defended Moulder.”

“Who got sprung today. Yeah, we’re working on all of it.”

“How is the Duncan girl?” I asked him.

“In Emergency, last I checked. They’re fixing her head — but it’s not serious. She’ll make it.”

“Moulder hasn’t shown up yet, huh?”

“Not the last I heard. I called Mrs. Moulder myself a couple times. First time was over an hour ago. Couldn’t reach her then, but talked to her at eight thirty. Still no husband. Told me she was taking a shower when I called before. Now why would she tell me she was taking a shower?”

I grinned. “Why, Sam?”

“You, now, that I could understand. Even if she doesn’t know you, she must have heard about you. Aren’t you always talking to babes in showers?”

“Only when they’re roomy enough for both of us. And there’s lots of hot water. And — “

I cut it off, because Sam had dug out a big wooden match and was preparing to light his cigar.

He knew I gagged on the effusion from those unbelievably foul smokes of his — which was why he lit them. He fired one up whenever he wanted to get rid of me. It always worked.

“Sam,” I asked him, “what are those things made out of? Poison-ivy?”

He’d got the end glowing. “They are manufactured from pure horse manure,” he said complacently.

“Damn sick horses,” I said, out of my chair and edging away.

He puffed, an expression of contentment spreading over his clean-shaven pink face.

“You could get cancer in your fingers, you know,” I said. “Just from holding those things.” But by then I was at the open door.

Usually Sam simply let me go, relishing his victory. But this time as I started out he said, “No need for you to meddle in the case now. Right, Shell? I won’t have to worry about you in my hair?”

“Well, if it was that hundred-to-one chance, and Moulder did the shooting, I suppose I can relax and forget about it. But what if it wasn’t Moulder, old buddy? Besides, no matter who it was, I do not take kindly to fellows tossing pills so close to me as those pills were tossed tonight.”

“I was afraid of that,” he said.

Home is a comfortable three-rooms-and-bath in Hollywood’s Spartan Apartment Hotel, on North Rossmore opposite the grounds of the Wilshire Country Club. At ten minutes till ten I was unlocking the door of 212.

The living-room phone was ringing, but by the time I got inside, walked over the yellow-gold carpet, flopped on the low chocolate-brown divan and grabbed the phone, nobody was on the other end of the line.

So I mixed a healthy bourbon and water in the kitchenette, took it into the bathroom and drank it before, during and after a quick shower. I was half dressed when the phone rang again. This time I got to it on the second ring.

“Mr. Scott?” It was a woman’s voice.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, good. I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour. Could you please come to see me? It’s dreadfully important.”

“Well, I suppose so. I’m a little pressed for time, though. What’s it about?”

“It’s — it concerns my husband. My name is Mrs. Moulder, and I have the most ghastly apprehension — “

“What? I mean, you’re who?”

“Mrs. Moulder.”

“Mrs. Leslie Moulder?”

There was a brief silence. Then she said, “Oh. You know about him, then.”

“Know what about him?”

“Well, he … It’s very embarrassing. I’d much prefer to tell you in person. Would you come to my home, Mr. Scott?”

“Right away.”

She gave me her address, one of the homes along the first fairway of the golf course at Hollywood Hills Estates. I finished dressing in a hurry, including my reloaded Colt. As I pushed the revolver into its holster a ridiculous thought occurred to me. Wouldn’t it be funny if, for a motive as yet incomprehensible to me, Leslie Moulder had in fact been the chap who’d shot at me earlier … and was now enlisting the aid of his freshly showered wife to lure me out onto the fairways, where with a double-barreled shotgun…

I found the front door of the Moulder residence with ease, and with no shock other than the sight of Mrs. Moulder when she opened the door.

Only seconds after I rang she threw the door wide and light spilled over me. It also spilled all around Mrs. Moulder. And though she was clad, she was not clad in enough to keep her warm should the temperature fall below eighty degrees.

“Oh,” she said, as though disappointed. “Are you Mr. Scott?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She was gazing upon me the way people sometimes look at mangy dogs, shivering in the cold. “Oh,” she said again. Her shoulders slumped, and she sighed.

“I am sorry, madam,” I said a bit stiffly, “but if you were expecting somebody who looks like Lord Byron, or even Sherlock Holmes — “

“No, no, it’s not that. I thought perhaps it would be Leslie.”

“Ah, I see. Well — no word from your husband yet?”

“No, nothing.” She squinted at me. “How did you know I was expecting him?”

“I just finished talking to the police, Mrs. Moulder. I had a rather interesting experience earlier this evening.”

“You mean getting shot at?”

“Yeah. You know what happened, huh?”

“I heard it on several news programs. In fact, that’s why I called you. Because your name was mentioned. But…” She frowned. “You say you know I was expecting Leslie, because you’ve talked to the police? But that means — the police don’t suspect Leslie, do they? They can’t suspect Leslie!”

She was stretching her features and wiggling them around, and waving her arms about, her voice screeching into the upper octaves.

I said, “Do you mind if I come inside? I feel a little — I know it’s silly, really, but I’d rather not stand here in the doorway.”

“Oh, of course.” She stepped back and as I went in shut the door behind me.

A television set was glowing in the corner, on the screen four boys, or girls, thumping guitars and singing in what was apparently a brand-new key. The song appeared to be about an H-bomb that blew up the world: “…boom it went, a great big boooom!” But Mrs. Moulder walked to the set and turned the volume down just as the entertainers got to the last boom, which made it less scary.

Standing before the set, Mrs. Moulder said, “I presume you know that my husband was sent to prison, and that he was released today?”

“Yes. I’ve a general idea of the background.”

“I’ve visited him every week or two during this past year. We planned to meet here this afternoon — he did not want me to meet him at the prison, but rather in … less ugly surroundings. You understand?”

I nodded.

She was a big, good-looking woman, about thirty or possibly a couple of years older. She had a pretty face. Not beautiful, but pretty, with very large wide-set eyes, long-lashed and dark, as her most striking feature. Most striking feature of her face, at least. Good nose, warm-looking mouth. She was made up, with rouge and lipstick and eye shadow artfully applied, as though ready to go out on the town. Not dressed to go out on the town, however.

“We agreed he would fly from San Francisco to International Airport and take a taxicab from there. I arranged for him to have sufficient money. I was to be here, waiting for him, with…” She paused. “With everything ready for him.”

She waved a hand toward a long, low, black divan. Before it, on the antique-gold-mirrored top of a wide table, sat a silver bucket in which was a bottle of champagne. Three vases of cut flowers added brightness and color to the room. The top of an intricately carved stereo set was raised and I could see a stack of records resting on the spindle.

After a year in stir a man would greatly enjoy a drink, some champagne, music, even fresh flowers. Then there was, of course, Mrs. Moulder.

She asked me to sit down, so I plunked onto the black divan. The ice in the champagne bucket had melted, I noticed.

As Mrs. Moulder continued talking she began pacing the floor, which was rather an interesting occupation, since she was wearing a pale-blue negligee and thin robe or peignoir which did not entirely conceal the outlines, and even some of the inlines, of her undeniably lush and lovely figure.

She had heavy breasts, high and pouter-pigeon plump, and now exceedingly active, as though endowed with a vigorous life of their own; a strong but not thick waist; full hips and long slim legs. As she paced back and forth she said, “It’s simply ghastly. I don’t know what to do. There’s been no word at all from him.”

She clutched the front of her peignoir, squeezed it, released it. “He hasn’t even phoned me.”

I didn’t say anything. It often takes even calm and collected women quite a while to get to the point.

She went on for another minute, audibly expressing her concern: possibly Leslie had been hurt; killed in an accident; everything but eaten by sharks.

Then she stopped pacing suddenly, close in front of me, and said out of the blue, “Did you see the man who shot at you?”

I blinked. “No, I didn’t. Are you implying that maybe it was your husband who — “

“I’m not implying anything,” she interrupted me. “I just wanted to know if you saw him, the man who shot — “

“Mrs. Moulder, just take it easy, huh?”

“I am quite calm!” she cried. “Naturally I’m concerned — “

“Of course!” I said.

She was getting to me. I figured it would be easier to stay calm and relaxed if she’d go put on a brassiere and some pants. But I could hardly tell Mrs. Moulder that.

She was beginning to wave her arms a bit, so I said, “Mrs. Moulder, precisely what is it you want me to do? Want me to look for your husband? Try to find him?”

“Well … yes.”

“Is it anything more than that?”

“Well … in a way it is. In a way, yes.”

“Look, we both know of the threat your husband made against Vincent Blaik quite a while back. We know your husband got out of prison today. We know Vincent Blaik was killed this evening. But I assume you do not believe Mr. Moulder fired those shots — or do you?”

“Of course not.”

“OK. You don’t think so, and I don’t really think so either. So what am I doing here? If there’s nothing else you want to talk about, I’ll leave. That will be, oh, call it twenty bucks for my time.”

She moistened her lips. A calculating look grew in her large eyes. Her nostrils pinched in slightly. Then she said, “The truth is, I’m a little afraid it might have been Leslie. Just a little afraid.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You see, he was really innocent of the crime he was charged with. He was sent to prison an innocent man.”

“I see,” I said.

“It was that Blaik — that attorney, that rotten, stinking lawyer…” She let it trail off, as if realizing she was talking about a man very recently dead. Then she went on, “Leslie told me so many times, every time I visited him in prison, that when he finally realized Mr. Blaik was absolutely incompetent it was too late. By the time he knew he wanted another attorney, he was convicted. There was nothing he could do.”

“Uh-huh. Well, leaving that for a moment, you were saying you’re a little afraid it might have been Leslie. Who shot at me, you mean?”

“Yes — not at you. At Blaik. Why would he shoot at you?”

“Beats me.”

Georgina Moulder turned and began pacing again. “I don’t really think it could have been Leslie,” she said quietly. “But — if I’d only hear from him. It’s just that, while he was in prison, he couldn’t seem to forget that if it hadn’t been for Blaik he wouldn’t have been there. The last few months he’d even begun saying he thought Blaik must have lost the case deliberately. Leslie kept, oh, brooding about it.”

“Why would his attorney have done that?”

“It was just an idea in Leslie’s mind. I couldn’t talk him out of it.”

“You know your husband was innocent of the theft, Mrs. Moulder?”

“Of course.”

“Pardon the question, but how do you know? If you’ve got any evidence which would be — “

“Why, he’s my husband! I just know.”

Well, I’m a great one for loyalty, myself. But I couldn’t help wishing I also had Mrs. Moulder’s womanly intuition. Probably I should hire a gal to work with me in the office. Preferably one with a shape like Mrs. Moulder’s.

My thoughts were going a bit astray because Mrs. Moulder had turned around before the television set and was standing there with the light from that big TV eye squarely behind her. It was much the same vista she would earlier have presented on opening the front door if it had been a Dutch door with only the bottom half open; I amused myself with the thought that she somewhat resembled a gal baking her derriere in front of an electronic oven.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I get the picture. As long as there’s a chance Mr. Moulder fired those shots at the Hideout, you want me to do what I can to find him.”

“Yes, and help him. If he needs help, of course. He’s probably only been delayed — “

“Help him how? There’s probably little I can do that the police can’t do better.”

“But that’s the whole point, Mr. Scott.” She left the TV set and walked over to me, swinging her hips as if they were half cooked already. “The police are probably looking for Leslie right now, but now I don’t want them to find him. I want you to find him before they do. You see, I called the police station earlier this evening. About six thirty or seven when it was starting to get dark. I was a little frantic. I’d been waiting here, waiting since noon. Like this. Champagne ready, charcoal in the broiler, steaks marinating. And in my brand-new neglig — “

She cut it off, eyes widening suddenly. “Oh, good grief!” she cried. “Don’t look at me!”

“Hmm?”

“I didn’t even realize…”

She looked down at herself, let out a little gasp and cooed, “You must think — ” and then scurried into an adjacent room.

After a minute or so she came back, but now wearing a thick, quilted white housecoat over her — apparently brand-new — negligee. Her face was as pink as if she’d slapped it several times, but she didn’t mention her former seminudity again. Instead she continued briskly with what she’d been saying.

“I phoned the police, partly because I was worried about Leslie, but also to find out if he had actually been released from prison. For all I knew, he might have had to stay there another day for some reason. They were able to confirm his release, and when I told them he was supposed to be home but hadn’t arrived they said something about my coming in and filling out a — Missing Person report?”

I nodded.

She moistened her lips, frowning slightly. “But that was before the — the shooting, before I heard about it. Don’t you understand?”

I thought I did. At six thirty Leslie was just a hubby who hadn’t come home when he was supposed to. But by seven forty-five he was a man who might have murdered Vincent Blaik.

Consequently I could understand her desire — now — to have the police forget about Leslie entirely. I got the impression she hoped I could find her husband and, innocent or guilty, keep him from the clutches of the law, hide him out, possibly spirit him to South America. Which, of course, I was not about to do.

And I told her so.

She started flapping her arms again and crying, “No matter what he’s done!” and such, so I said, “Mrs. Moulder, if I’m going to work for you it has to be on my terms, which include complete cooperation with the police.”

“But — “

“Wait a minute. If your husband is innocent, which we presume him to be, cooperating with the police is the best way to help prove it. You don’t really think he killed Blaik, do you?”

“Of course not. But the police might. After that threat Leslie made against Blaik, and then me like a damned fool phoning them and asking if he’d actually been released from prison — “

“Don’t worry about that. The police are a little smarter than most people think. After all, they’re the ones who put the crooks in jail, instead of vice versa. As of today, at least. Just in case your husband is guilty, neither the police nor I would help him get away with it. But assuming he’s innocent, we’ll also do our damndest to prove it.”

She was reluctant still, but finally agreed I could do it my way. I was hired; we settled my fee. I agreed to keep her informed of anything I learned which might be of importance to her or Leslie whether I managed to find out where he was or not, and then asked her for more details about the original theft, for which Moulder had been sent to the clink.

There wasn’t a great deal more. The sum had been an even twenty-eight thousand dollars, not much when compared to the multimillion value of the Hollywood Hills Estates, but a sizable chunk nonetheless. The money had been taken from the main safe in the hotel office after the day’s receipts, including those from the Skylight Lounge, had been placed in it. Mrs. Moulder admitted that only her husband and Mr. Gordon knew the safe’s combination. She didn’t even know what it was herself.

“It was brought out in court, I recall, that your husband did need money. Despite the fact that he had plenty invested here in the development.”

She pulled her brows down and her dark eyes got a little colder. “It’s true we didn’t have a lot of readily available cash, Mr. Scott. We put everything we had or could scrape up into Hollywood Hills. But it’s ridiculous to think Leslie would have taken money out of his own safe.”

“His, and his partner’s.”

She let that go by. “Besides,” she continued, “he would have known somebody would surely find out.”

“What about your and your husband’s investment in the Hollywood Hills? Did Mr. Moulder hope to come back and resume his work here, or what?”

“He was coming back. Everything would be like it was before.”

“How come, if Mr. Gordon was convinced your husband stole the money?”

“Oh, that was all settled before Leslie went to prison. And I’ve talked to Bob a lot about it since then. He feels that even if Leslie did make a — a mistake, it must have been more like borrowing for a little while, not really stealing. Leslie’s not a thief. He’s an honest, wonderful man! And Bob said when he came back we’d all just try to pretend it never happened.”

“Quite a fellow, this Bob Gordon.”

She shrugged. “He really hadn’t lost anything, especially since Leslie made restitution, as they called it.”

“He gave the money back?”

Her eyes cooled a few degrees again. “He didn’t give it back — he never stole it in the first place. But we managed to sell some things, scrape up the money.” She wound her fingers together. “He not only went to prison for something he didn’t do, but he had to pay twenty-eight thousand dollars for the privilege.”

I thanked Mrs. Moulder and told her I’d get busy, but asked if I could use her phone first. It had been more than an hour since I’d talked to Samson, and there could have been some developments in the case since then.

There had been. Indeed there had.

Mrs. Moulder sat on the couch, idly twirling the champagne bottle in the warm water in the bucket, while I phoned Homicide and got Samson.

I told him I was officially on the case, working for Mrs. Moulder, and he said, “I suppose she wants you to pursue and capture her husband — assuming six thousand policemen find themselves incapable of coping with the problem.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, maybe I can help you. Shell. To make up a little for all the favors you’ve done the Department.”

“Oh? How?”

“We’ve got Leslie Moulder down here now, in an ‘I’ room. He was brought in about ten minutes ago.”

“You’ve already found him?” I said.

Mrs. Moulder stopped twirling the champagne bottle and looked toward me, raising one hand to the hollow of her throat.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Parked half up on a curb in his car, passed out. Still drunk — he’d puked all over the front seat. Bullet hole in the left rear door of the sedan, by the way.”

“I’ll be damned,” I said. “That tags the car, then. So I guess there’s no doubt he — ” I cut it off, realizing Mrs. Moulder was naturally hanging onto every word. I finished by saying, “Well, I guess that about wraps it up.”

“You haven’t heard the half of it. Shell. You’re at Mrs. Moulder’s now?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, here’s what we’ve got. We’ll send a team out to talk to her, but you can tell her we’ve got Moulder if you want to.”

“What is it?” That was Mrs. Moulder, rising slowly to her feet.

I shook my head at her, listening to Samson.

“Looks like the damn fool must have started drinking right after he got sprung. Nearly empty bottle of bourbon on the car seat. He was out cold, down on the floorboards in his own mess. Officers who found him had a hell of a time bringing him around — didn’t think they were going to make it for a while. We’re pouring black coffee into him now and trying to make sense of what he says. So far he won’t admit he did it.”

“Well, confessions aren’t much use these days anyhow, so maybe it’s just as well — “

“What is it?” That was Mrs. Moulder again. She walked over to stand a few feet from me, staring at my face.

“We’ve got enough without a confession,” Sam went on. “No gun in the car, but one cartridge case was on the floorboards in back. From a .45 automatic, same as the ones scattered in the lot at the Hideout. SID’s doing the comparison now, but there’s no question they’re identical.”

“The booze — that could explain the way the slugs were sprayed around.”

Sam grunted. “Amount of sauce he must’ve put away, I’m surprised he didn’t hit somebody in the restroom. One other bit, we already had a report on the car.”

“Hot?”

“Right, stolen shortly after two p.m. — from the parking lot at L.A. International. We’ve got Moulder placed on the plane that came in from San Francisco just before then. He didn’t stop at the gate to pay any parking fee, naturally enough. Just roared out past the gateman. Man got the license and reported it to the local police. Well, that’s it. You coming down?”

“Maybe later. Doesn’t seem much reason to now.”

“Yeah. OK, tell Mrs. Moulder two detectives will be out in twenty minutes.”

“Right. Thanks, Sam.” I hung up.

“What is it?” Mrs. Moulder said again, but not with such vehemence this time.

“It’s not good,” I told her. “Maybe you should sit down.”

“I’m all right.” Her voice was low, but not very steady. “That was about Leslie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. The police found him in his — that is, a stolen car. He’d obviously been drinking, and…”

It isn’t easy to tell a woman her husband has been arrested for murder. Not even if she already knows — as I was sure Mrs. Moulder now knew — the truth. I fumbled for a cigarette and started to light it, trying to line up the right words.

“Don’t try to spare my feelings, Mr. Scott. At least I know where he is. Anything’s better than not knowing. And I can … see him again, talk to him.” She paused. “Go on. I can stand it.”

Well, if that was the way she wanted it, OK. Sometimes that’s the best way, quick and over with. So I gave it to her.

“All right. It’s pretty much open-and-shut. There’s been no confession, but the police are convinced he did kill Blaik. There was a cartridge case, from the gun he used, in the car. Mr. Moulder came in on the plane, all right, but apparently he started drinking, stole a car, and — well, he’s it, that’s all. The police have him in an interrogation room trying to get his story, but he’s still so drunk they haven’t got much out of him. But they will. So face it, the simple fact is, your husband murdered — “

There was no longer any point in going on.

I was looking right at her from a foot away, and even before I began my last sentence, or part of a sentence, her eyes changed, lost their brightness; the lids drooped visibly and began instantly to tremble. And then it was as though a huge invisible squeegee started moving downward from her head, pressing the blood from her face and brain.

Between one second and the next her complexion changed from a healthy pink to a gray nearly the color of death. Even her throat got a kind of dirty white. Her eyes rolled up. She swayed ever so slightly.

Then she let out one soft sigh and fell, silently, like a bird dead in the air.

She crumpled soundlessly on the carpet at my feet. I wasn’t even fast enough to catch her. She could stand it, she’d said. Well, she couldn’t — and probably I should have known better.

When she came out of the faint after a minute or two, I helped her to the divan. We sat there quietly for another minute, then haltingly she asked a few questions. I told her a couple plainclothes officers would soon be here from Homicide. Just routine, and to tell her what she already knew. But she might have a little difficulty getting to see Leslie tonight, assuming she wanted to go down to the Police Building.

She could speak clearly enough now, though she was still somewhat rocky. “I want to go,” she said. “But I don’t think I could bear it tonight. I’m just drained. Oh, poor Leslie. He never could drink worth a damn!” She tried to smile, and almost made it. “I’ve seen him pass out sober,” she said.

In a little while, after she assured me she was truly all right, I left.

It was a unique situation, I was thinking. Shortly after I’d gone inside Mrs. Moulder’s home she had become my client, but she was no longer my client when I left. Quickest case of my entire career.

Or so I thought then.

I stood on the spongy green grass of the fairway, looking up at the stars. Then I lowered my gaze to the darkened clubhouse on my left, and the pale gleam of lights lining its second story. Behind each of a dozen windows, twice as tall as they were wide, was a blue glow, soft as the dust from a butterfly’s wing, the pale blue lights of the Skylight Lounge.

I walked toward it.

It wasn’t merely that I felt like having a cool drink — though I did. But even though Moulder was in the jug and the real work of the case was done, still there were questions, little questions, in my mind.

Or maybe it was that something which had begun wiggling in my head shortly after seven forty-five P.M. had not yet completely stopped wiggling.

The Skylight Lounge was a membership club — the whole of Hollywood Hills Estates was exclusively for the membership, for that matter. But by producing my private investigator’s wallet card and holding it casually before me as I walked in, I was admitted without difficulty by an exceptionally strong-looking but not very bright-looking individual clothed in black satin shirt with high collar buttoned around the neck, Russian style, black satin trousers, and black shoes curving up and to a point in front, as if he had two small gondolas on his feet.

He was something, all right; but the hat-chick in the small booth beyond him was something else. She looked like a taller, slightly plumper edition of Jazz. Yeah, Jazz. Saucy little Jazz. Where, I wondered, was she? Did she miss me? Was she eating her heart out? Probably she was home, eating a hamburger.

The hat-check girl wore a rather stimulating costume which, I quickly noted, was repeated on the three other girl employees in view. The costumes, of black satin, were: bra, with bulge of cloth at bottom and bulge of girl at top, bare midriff of girl at midriff, huggy short-shorts, net stockings, and black high-heeled slippers.

I noted all this on my way to the bar, which was around the corner of the wall and to my left. It was ten stools long, facing the windows I’d been eyeing from the fairway a minute ago. Two couples and a lone man occupied the seats at this end of the bar, so I walked past them and slid onto an empty stool near the other end.

As I sat down, a tall, broad-shouldered bartender in a white jacket with gold piping hanging all over it was saying into the bar phone, “What do you mean, he’s in jail?” A pause. Then, “Who?”

His back was to me, but I could see his reflection in the long mirror behind the bar. He was a good-looking sonofagun, dark, with black sultan-in-the-harem eyes. One of those horny Latins, I figured. But at the moment he appeared to be about half as cracked up as Georgina had been not long ago.

He listened a moment silently, then hung up and turned around. He glanced at me, let his eyes hang on my face for a second, then stepped to the bar and looked past me as if searching for somebody in the crowded room.

“Bourbon and water,” I said. “If you’re up to it.”

He turned his head toward me. “Up to it?”

“You look a little rocky. You all right?”

He glanced past me again. “Yeah. I — ” He stopped, then went on, “I just had some bad news, that’s all. About a friend of mine.”

“Leslie Moulder?”

“Yeah — ” He stopped again, and looked at me more intently this time. After a couple of seconds he said, “Yes, it was about Mr. Moulder. What’s it to you?”

“I think I know what the bad news was.”

He scowled. “I guess it isn’t a secret. If it is, it won’t be for long. I don’t remember seeing you here before. Are you a member?”

“No.” I nodded toward the phone. “That call from the cops?”

He didn’t answer for a while. Then he said, with just a bit more heat than before, “I’m not sure it’s your business — sir — but it was from Mr. Moulder’s wife. I have to inform Mrs. Gordon, and others, that we may be in for some … mild difficulty.” He paused. “What makes you so interested?”

“It’s my business. I’m a private detective. I already knew Moulder was jugged. Fact is, Mrs. Moulder was about to hire me to try locating him when we learned he’d been picked up.”

He nodded slowly, then smiled kind of halfheartedly and stuck out his hand. “That’s different. Sorry if I wasn’t very — pleasant. That call shook me up a little. I’m Falcon.” He pronounced it Fahlcone. “Rafael Falcon.”

“Shell Scott.” I shook his hand. “I no more than got hired than Mrs. Moulder fired me. Well, not actually fired — there just wasn’t anything left for me to do.” I grinned. “So I decided to crash the Lounge for a drink. If there’s no objection.”

“No objection.” He flashed me a grin. “Now.”

He’d been good-looking even when resembling a guy having a severe attack of gallstones, but more relaxed and smiling he was handsome enough to make normal men feel that life had been not merely unfair to them, but positively cruel. Despite the dimness here in the lounge, his even white teeth looked like several pairs of dice with no spots on them, and his thick black hair had more waves in it than really seemed necessary.

He was well beyond adolescence, maybe five or six years past my thirty, but he possessed the almost-boyish look of some cats who seem not truly to begin aging until they get one foot and three toes in the grave. It was my guess he had a long lusty life ahead of him, if he didn’t kill himself in the most probable fashion. Most probable, and enjoyable. So who wants to live forever?

“Bourbon and water, was it?” he asked.

“Right.”

He mixed the drink quickly and placed it before me. “Excuse me a minute, Mr. Scott.”

He ducked under the bar’s end and walked to a table against the far wall, leaned over and spoke to a woman with blond hair intricately piled atop her head, then pulled out a chair and sat down.

I carried my drink to the hat-check booth and talked to the girl there for a couple minutes.

She was a cute young creature about old enough to vote, with poochy raspberry-colored lips, and a happy disposition, and big crinkly-cornered eyes very bright and shiny, as if she’d just finished laughing till she cried. But she seemed not totally aware of every little thing that went on around her.

Leslie Moulder? Who was he? Any relation to Mrs. Moulder?

Sort of, I said. They were married. Didn’t Mrs. Moulder act married?

She was a boss, so she acted — well, like a boss. How do you act married, anyway? She knew some married people, and they didn’t act married.

She was Ruthie Barrows, but everyone called her Sweetie, I discovered. I could call her Sweetie, too, if I liked.

So, who were some of the other people who worked here, Sweetie?

Well, there was one of the other bosses, Mrs. Gordon. It was the blonde with hair piled atop her head, to whom Falcon was still talking. Then there was Rafe, of course. Mr. Falcon. Rafael.

Tell me about Rafe.

He was too good-looking. Dreamy. And dance? He could dance all the new steps, and even some of the old steps. He’d taught her some of the old steps. They were almost more fun than the new steps. Especially with Rafe. She’d been out with him a couple of times — but it didn’t mean anything, darn it. Not to him. He went out with all the girls.

All the girls? How about Georgina Moulder?

She wasn’t a girl, she was an old woman. Besides, she was a boss.

Maybe Mrs. Gordon?

She was a boss, too. Besides, she was married to Mr. Gordon. What was the matter with me, was I some kind of nut?

I ignored that question. “How about Lynn Duncan?” I asked Sweetie. “Her, too?”

She hadn’t heard the news.

“Oh, sure,” she said with a sigh. “Her more than most, I guess. Especially lately. But Lynn’s really a dove.”

“Is that good?”

“She’s beautiful, simply gorgeous! Haven’t you seen her?”

“Yeah, once. For a little while. Big thing between her and Rafe?”

She pooched her lips out a little more. “Right now, I guess. Real big. But Rafe — he turns you on, and then he turns you off.”

“Is that good?”

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “It is for a little while.”

“What’s Mr. Gordon like?”

“He’s a — “

“I know, he’s a boss. Besides that what’s he like?”

“He’s gone a lot of the time, so I don’t know him too well. But he’s nice. Handsome, and tall, and with awfully pretty white hair — ” She glanced at my head. “Not like yours. But white from, well, he’s about fifty or sixty. You know, a hundred years old.”

“Ah, then I presume he remains aloof from all the girls, the cocktail waitresses and such.”

“A loof?”

“He doesn’t creep up behind you, and give you a quick pinch or anything sly like that.”

She laughed, delighted. “No, but he’s got something in him. Memories, maybe.” She laughed some more. “I mean, he gives you that all-hung-up look. Like — ” She paused, chewed the side of her lip. “The way you’re looking at me right now.”

I wondered if we should carry this conversation any further. Surely I had learned about all there was to learn from Sweetie. So I carried my drink away. The ice cubes had melted in it. I imagined Sweetie melted a lot of ice cubes.

I finished my drink and left it on the bar, noting that Rafe was no longer seated with Mrs. Gordon, who was alone at the moment. So I walked over, introduced myself, and asked if I could join her briefly.

She was quite charming. “Of course, Mr. Scott,” she said smiling. “Rafe just finished telling me who you are. I have, of course, heard of you.”

“Did Rafe tell you about Leslie Moulder?”

“Yes, isn’t it terrible? In jail again.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to think.”

Mrs. Gordon was in her late thirties, I guessed. Aimed toward forty, anyhow, but still going uphill and not down. She had the look of a high-fashion model who had quit the racket, stopped crash-dieting, and put some healthy meat on her skeleton. The cheekbones were high and prominent, giving her cool blue eyes a slightly Eurasian cast. And it was a sweet, soft mouth, which must have worn a lot more smiles than frowns.

We talked casually for a minute or two. She told me that Rafe was bar manager of Hollywood Hills Estates, and worked the Skylight bar during the week.

I took the opportunity to say, “Rafe’s quite a hit with the girls, I gather. I can understand why.”

“He is devilishly handsome, isn’t he? But he, like nearly all bachelors — you are a bachelor, aren’t you, Mr. Scott? — plays the field, as men say. He even made a play for me at one time,” she continued. “Can you imagine that?”

“I can imagine it. You mean since you married Mr. Gordon?”

She smiled. “It could hardly have been before. We’ve been married for nineteen years, Mr. Scott, and it’s a good marriage.” She paused. “I told Rafe I was marvelously complimented, but he really should play in his own back yard. He’s wonderfully amusing when he wants to be.”

“There must be some husbands who miss the joke. I wonder if he ever tried making a play, as you put it, for Mrs. Moulder.”

She had been unusually frank until that point, but I guess I started overstaying my welcome right then.

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know about that,” Mrs. Gordon said coolly. “And even if I did, I’m equally sure it would be none of my business.”

She didn’t exactly tell me to leave, but the conversation from then on was brisk and without any more of her sweet, soft smiles. I did determine that her husband was once more out of town, as he often was. In San Francisco — he owned the Southbay Apartment complex there. He’d been gone for three days and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. Mrs. Gordon didn’t know the slightest thing about Vincent Blaik, except, of course, that he had defended Leslie Moulder.

We talked a bit about Leslie, but I learned nothing new. Except that, clearly, Mrs. Gordon felt Leslie had been justly convicted and sentenced. But she felt no real animus toward him, and if her husband was willing to have Leslie return to Hollywood Hills she was willing to welcome him back.

At least she had been — but Leslie might be a murderer now, mightn’t he? And one doesn’t welcome back murderers, does one?

She had a point, even though Moulder’s guilt hadn’t yet been proved in court. But at that point I excused myself.

The thought had been creeping up on me that I was engaged in an exceptionally fruitless operation. Moulder was safely in the can, I no longer had a client, yet here I was still roaming around merely because of a mental wiggle. It was becoming pointless. And there are other wiggles.

I was, of course, again thinking of Miss Jasmine Porter.

Not that she had been far from my thoughts at any time during the evening. It was still early — not yet eleven p.m. — and with luck Jazz would still be up and about. She might even be willing to take up, belatedly, where we’d left off.

It was settled. I’d phone Samson and get up-to-date, then, the last of duty done — I smiled, just thinking about it.

So I called Sam.

And that is when things began getting gummy.

“Shell,” he said, “I tried to reach you, but you’d left Mrs. Moulder’s.”

“I came to the Skylight Lounge out here, Sam. For a look, and — well, just to nose around a little. How’d the boys do with Georgina?”

“Routine. Rawlins and Kidd went out, gave her the story, asked a few questions. She was in pretty bad shape, according to Rawlins.”

“Yeah, I saw her start going into shock. True love, I guess.”

“Never mind that. We can’t get a damn thing out of Moulder.”

“You mean he’s still too sauced up?”

“Not that. He’s still half-stewed, yeah, but we’re keeping his eyes open. I mean he’s clammed. Doesn’t want a lawyer — in fact, refuses to see one.” Sam paused. “You know where that puts us.”

“Well, he’s been in Q a year. You can bet he talked to some of those smart stir-lawyers they’ve got up there.”

“I told you on the phone what we’ve got on this bum. It’s a good case.”

“Cold, Sam. But you don’t need to tell me — “

He told me anyway. “Suppose he absolutely refuses to accept counsel? Tonight, tomorrow, couple days. Then — when he gets into court — he says, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing, they cursed at me, I got confused. I didn’t even have an attorney.’ Hell, the court kicks the case out. And we’re stuck.”

Sam kept going but I only half listened. I’d heard it all from him — and a lot of others — many times before.

But I couldn’t blame Sam, the old war-horse. He’d given most of his life to clean, honest, damned-hard-working law enforcement. He was dedicated to that abstract thing, justice, which to Sam — and me, for that matter — meant not only that the innocent go free, but that the guilty do not. And now he was seeing the edifice built over years, by him and men like him, crumble into chaos, undermined — in a paradoxically accurate phrase — from the top.

Cases cold, cut-and-dried — some built up over months or years by dozens and scores of policemen, some of them caught-in-the-act classics of incontrovertible guilt — were being tossed out of court in obedience to a long line of U. S. Supreme Court decisions. Decisions made not by gods on Olympus, not quite, but by nine, or eight, or seven, or six — or even five — men, men wiser, so much wiser, than the rest of us.

“Dammit,” Sam was going on, “pretty quick we won’t be able to arrest a hood unless we’ve got a lawyer and social worker and piece of cake along with us. We don’t have to kiss their butts yet, but who knows when they’ll tell us to pucker up?”

I let him run down. Then I asked him, “Moulder’s not saying anything at all?”

“Yeah, he’s saying something. The guy’s a nut. I think he’s really a nut. He must be stir-crazy.”

“What’s Moulder saying? That he didn’t kill Blaik?”

“Hell, he’s been telling us that ever since he could talk clear enough so we could understand him ten percent of the time. He says he couldn’t have killed him, couldn’t have killed anybody. He was in a motel all afternoon. Get this — with his wife.”

“With his — Georgina?”

“He’s got some more wives?”

“Why the hell would he claim something like that?”

“Will you quit asking stupid questions and get down here?”

“You want me to come down? Now? I was about to call Jazz — “

“Jazz — damn you! Get down here, will you?”

“Sam, if you really want me, if you truly need me — “

“Arrgh, I wish I’d never see you again. He wants you.”

“Who?”

“Moulder. Leslie Moulder. The killer — the suspect. Who in hell do you think I’ve been talking about?”

“Why would Moulder want to see me? I’ve never even met the guy. Are you nuts?”

Silence for several seconds.

I’d better watch it, I thought. Sam is big and hard and tough, and usually can bear the weight of mountains. But I could tell. He was experiencing one of his rare, very rare, about-to-flip times.

This Moulder must really be a cutey, I thought.

Sam said, “No, Sheldon, dear boy, I am not nuts. He is nuts. Leslie Moulder is nuts. Or else he is a very clever cookie.” Sam paused again. “Fact is, I think he might be working up to a not-guilty by reason of he’s psycho. Whatever he’s pulling, you’re part of it. He insists on seeing you.”

“He insists, huh? Why?”

“He doesn’t say.” Sam’s voice was weary. And no wonder. Ignoring Moulder, I knew he’d been on the job since before eight o’clock this morning. “No, he doesn’t say,” Sam continued. “He just says you’re the only one he’ll talk to.”

“Well, some of us have got it, and some of us — “

“If you’re not here in half an hour — “

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes, Sam. If I get any tickets, you’ll fix them for me, won’t you?”

I hung up while he was still swearing. He’d fix the tickets for me. In a pig’s eye. It was a hard world for Sam.

“OK, Captain,” I said to Sam as I walked in, “where is the culprit? Lead me to him. I’ll show you fuzz how to handle a creep. Where’s my billy? Where’s my rubber hose? Man, give me that old police brutality!”

Believe it or not, he grinned. Must have recovered somewhat in the twenty-one minutes it had taken me to get there.

“Lovely,” he said. “He’s all yours. Do you mind if I watch?”

“You didn’t think I was going to let such a splendid opportunity to infuriate you slip through my fingers, did you?”

He got up and walked around his desk. “Let me,” he said, “lead the way.”

We went into an interrogation room in which stood Sergeant Kidd, whom Sam had mentioned to me earlier, and in which sat, in a wooden chair on the other side of the long table, Leslie Moulder.

He was a mess.

It was obvious he’d been lying in his own vomit not long before — within recent memory, at least. The police had apparently tried to clean him up but hadn’t done a really spic-and-sanitary job of it. There was even a smear of brown stickiness still on his chin and the underside of his sharp jaw.

I couldn’t refrain from saying, very softly, to Sam, “Look at the guy. What’s got into you? All by itself that’s enough for a smart lawyer to get him turned out.”

Sam spoke in a normal tone. “I keep forgetting you just got here. He declined — disdained? — to let us help him tidy up. We can’t force the gentleman, now, can we? He said if we touched him he’d hit us. He knows his rights.”

I looked at the gentleman. Some gentleman.

I had no clear idea of what Moulder had looked like before doing his time in the state prison, but I did know he was now forty-eight years old. Maybe he’d looked forty-seven when he went in; I didn’t know that, either. But he’d come out looking fifty-seven. At least.

He was a tall, lean man with a thin and slightly lopsided face, very pale, prison-pallor pale, balding, with a fringe of brownish-red hair extending an inch or two up from his ears. The ears were just the right size for his head, if he wanted to hear faint whispers from forty paces; otherwise they were a bit large. His lips were very thick. His eyes were the color of roses, but not nearly as pretty. He did not smell like a rose, either.

One of his front teeth was missing — knocked out by a fellow con at Q, I learned later, too near his release date for expert repair unless Moulder wished to stay over for the friendly dentist, which he did not wish to do.

He was a fearsomely unpleasant specimen of humanity, and knowing he’d flicked a .45 caliber slug close enough to burn skin from my hand didn’t make him look better to me.

“Theyzz,” he said.

I glanced at Sam, who looked innocent, but not back at me.

A little later I started to decipher the code. Moulder’s missing tooth didn’t help — and apparently his lips appeared unusually fat because the con who’d knocked out a piece of his grin had done his smile no good, either — but the main thing was that Moulder was drunk. He was still as drunk and dopey as an alcoholic going down for the third time in gremlins.

He was staying awake, it seemed, partly because he’d wanted to see me, and partly because the cops kept joggling him — gently, of course — to rouse him from approaching stuporousness; but not because he himself thought it a marvelous idea.

“Theeyzz,” Moulder said. “Yazr, izzim.”

Well, I couldn’t understand it all until a minute or two later, but by thinking back to how it had begun I was able to decipher most of his mumbles. It would be futile to report the weird dialogue either verbatim or as it buzzed on the ear. But his last comment had been, “There he is. Yes, sir. That’s him.”

Even allowing for the tooth and lips and booze and possible dementia, the statement oddly assaulted intelligence, because he was looking straight at me when he said, as though to several other people, “There he is.”

After a moment he buzzed on, “You’re Scott, right? Couldn’t be anybody else. You’re Scott?”

“That’s right. What’d you want to see me about, Moulder?”

“You got shot at tonight. Right? That’s what the fuzz tell me. They act like I’m supposed to know about it.”

“Yeah, I got shot at.”

His words became a little more distinct when he next spoke. He leaned forward and fixed the rosy eyes on me and said, “You see who it was shot at you? See anything at all?”

It sent a little ripple over the vertebrae of my spine. It was the same question, in almost the same words, that his wife had asked me.

I hesitated, then said, “No.”

“Nothing?”

“Only the car. And not much of that.”

He said a foul four-letter word. Then, “OK. Screw.”

The word “screw,” to certain elements of the hoodlum-world, means, among other things, “Get lost,” or “Beat it.” Even while trying to figure out what he was up to now, it occurred to me that Moulder was unquestionably not the same man who’d gone behind prison walls a year and a little more ago. I doubted that he would so casually have used the four-letter word, for one thing; but I knew very well he wouldn’t have said “screw” for beat it or “fuzz” for police. Undoubtedly he’d picked up a lot of other colorful language, and attitudes, from the prison-wise cons and many-time losers he’d met in stir, been with, lived with, in a very real sense gone to school with. Significantly, the cons themselves call it a “college.”

Anyhow, Leslie Moulder had been there. And clearly he had graduated, if not cum laude, at least wiser in the ways of the con than when he’d been involuntarily enrolled.

He had withdrawn his attention from me. His eyes were closed now. His puffed lips flapped gently, as if he was beginning to work up a snore.

“Hey,” I said sharply.

His wrinkled lids slid up like puffy Venetian blinds.

“Yeah?”

“Is that all, Moulder? I thought you wanted to see me.”

“I’ve seen you.” I was dismissed.

Maybe that’s what he thought.

“Listen, saphead,” I said. “Keep those goddamn glimmers open and — “

He bounced a little on his chair, maybe an eighth of an inch, when he heard the entirely different tone of my voice. But Samson had a hand on my arm.

“Can it,” he said. “I know it’s not loads of fun, old tiger, but — “

“Can it yourself, Sam. I’m not a cop. No police brutality here, buddy, just one dumb private citizen talking to another, OK?”

“Just take it easy.”

“I won’t lay a hand on him. But he asked for me, didn’t he? OK, he’s got me.”

Sam raised one shoulder an inch, let it drop.

I stepped closer to the table, put my hands flat on its top, and bent over it toward Moulder. I stuck my face about two inches from his, and since I have been told it is a face which, when I am not amused, is not an exceptionally soothing collection of features to behold, and I was not amused, his glimmers were wide open now.

The reek of him oozed into my nostrils and burned. But I kept looking down at him and said, “Moulder, Leslie Moulder, you hear me?”

He could hear me, all right; they could hear me in the Homicide squadroom.

I roared on, “If you can’t, sweetheart, start shoveling the crud out of your ears, because you’re going to be listening a while, and my words may pound dingleberries clear into your biscuit.”

It wouldn’t happen again, most likely, but for those few seconds he was very nearly hypnotized, and he actually lifted a hand with a long finger extended and dug into one of those big whisper-catchers of his, bloodstained eyes fixed on the bridge of my nose.

“I’ve talked to a thousand like you, Moulder,” I went on. “And I’ve got a very good record of listeners. You got it? I’d hate it like hell if you put a blot on that record. You got it, sweetheart?”

He nodded, very slightly, drawing away from me a little. So I cut the two inches between our chops to one and gave him another half minute of words, then finished with, “So we’re friends now, right, Moulder? And we’re going to have a very friendly conversation.”

Well, in a way we did.

Moulder didn’t dummy up on me again, but his cooperation wasn’t a lot of help. As I’ve indicated, it took about twenty-five minutes to decipher and interpret a five-minute dialogue. At first I wondered how the guy could still be so plastered after all this time, but then I realized it hadn’t been a long time, it had only seemed long to me.

When I’d called Samson from Mrs. Moulder’s he told me they’d had Leslie for about ten minutes. Add half an hour for me with Georgina and in the Skylight Lounge, a shade over twenty minutes to reach the Police Building, plus another ten minutes till now. Moulder had been in custody for only a little more than an hour.

At any rate, the friendly conversation — deciphered, and with obscenities deleted — went about like this.

“Now we understand each other, Moulder, maybe you’d like to explain why you tossed those friendly pills at me.”

“I didn’t shoot at anybody.”

“Where were you about quarter of eight tonight?”

“With my wife.”

“Georgina?”

“Georgina.”

“At quarter to eight?”

“All the time. All day. All night.”

“Sure. Even last night.”

“Tonight. This afternoon. All the time.”

“Chop it, Moulder. You’ve been claiming you can’t remember a damn thing for hours, not even driving the heap you stole. You remember driving the car now?”

“No, I — how could I remember? I was asleep.”

“You were passed out, yeah.”

“Passed out, asleep, what difference? I wasn’t even in a car.”

“The fuzz found you in the car.”

“That’s what you tell me. I don’t remember it. Just the police car.”

“Yeah. You were with your wife since St. Valentine’s Day. Where?”

“Motel.”

“A motel. With your wife. You can do better than that.”

“She met me at the airport. We went to a motel.”

“Why? Why not to your own home?”

“Georgina wanted it like a picnic. I mean, a vacation. Where nobody’d know we were there and bust in on us.”

“Sure. Tell me about it.”

“Well, that’s it. I was with her. We drank a lot. And banged a lot. Drank and banged. I’d been inside for a year, no drinks, no bangs, hit me harder than I thought it would.”

“Uh-huh. So?”

“I fell asleep, that’s all. There in the motel. I didn’t kill anybody.”

“Of course not. You didn’t threaten to kill Blaik when you fell from here, either.”

“So I threatened. What’s threatened? That was just — he got my goat. He got me bugged up.”

“Looks like you got a lot more bugged up in stir, Moulder.”

“No, I let it go out of my mind. But the bastard sold me down the river. He didn’t have to lose the case. Bastard wouldn’t even put me on the stand. ‘Stead of buggin’ me you ought to work him over, give him a lie test or something and it’ll prove — “

“You conveniently forget a lot of things — like he’s dead.”

He blinked slowly and moistened his fat dry lips. “That’s right. I did forget. Well, it’s a mess.”

“Yeah, a mess you made when you plugged him in his dinner.”

“It didn’t happen.”

“Nothing happened. Nothing at all. You drank with your wife, had a couple too many, and now conveniently can’t remember a thing. Everything went black. And while everything was black you of course did not drive around and kill Blaik and maybe let a few fly at me…”

I stopped. Nobody had been shooting at me. I’d gone over that part in my thoughts with some care.

So I continued, “Skip the shots at me. Make it shooting at Blaik — and Lynn.”

“Who?”

“Lynn Duncan.”

“Who’s she?”

“You never heard of her?”

“Never heard of her.”

“Don’t tell me the police haven’t mentioned her name to you, Moulder.”

“I … yes. Think they did. Don’t really remember. But I don’t know who she is.”

“Where’s this dandy motel you stayed in?”

“I, hell, I don’t remember. Somewhere near Hollywood. I was a little drunk when we got there.”

“Forgot that, too, huh? You’ve got a damned good forgetter. Even forgot your wife was home all afternoon, waiting for you to show. Slinky and frilly, rouged and perfumed, in a brand-new negligee, waiting for hubby.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“She was with me. In the motel. Drank and banged, drank and banged.”

And that’s the way it went.

Back in Samson’s office he sat behind his desk and I straddled a wooden chair and leaned on its back. Sam said, “You did very well. Shell. You got almost as much out of the man as we did.”

He got out his stinking black cigar. And a match.

Well, I couldn’t have that.

“Sam,” I said, making my voice as smugly patronizing as I could, “I hate to mention it, but I am beginning to fear you’re just not cut out for this kind of work.”

“Izzatso?” he said, like a straight man.

“Yes, sad to say. Oh, you were probably all right in your time, years and years ago. But now you’ve become a slave to the book, to rules, to the nibbling of legal termites. You listened to what was said, rather than what was between the lines.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. By listening between the lines myself, I learned a great deal from my brilliant interrogation of Leslie Moulder.”

“How nice,” he said. “Like what?”

“Like he didn’t do it.”

“Of course, you can prove it.”

“Well, ah, not this instant.” I paused. “But I’ll tell you how we can prove it.”

* **

Four of us walked down the hospital corridor, headed for room 411 in which lay abed Lynn Duncan, under sedation and with her head somewhat ravaged, but alive, recuperating, and even conscious. Conscious enough to talk if she wanted to — and we had the doctors’ OK for a brief talk with her, if Lynn didn’t object too strenuously. I didn’t think she would.

The four of us were: Samson, Sergeant Kidd, Leslie Moulder, and me. Half an hour had passed since I’d told Sam what I wanted to try, whereupon he’d thought a while, put away his wooden match, clamped the cigar in his teeth, and started making arrangements.

Arrangements, including the timing, had now been completed.

I glanced at my watch. Eleven thirty p.m., on the tick. We could hear the girl’s voice coming faint from inside 411 as we approached the door.

When we stopped outside it the words were clear: “I did it for Leslie! I’ve told you and told you, I did it for Leslie!”

Sam opened the door and we went in. Me first, so I could turn and keep an eye on Moulder. Then Moulder with Kidd, followed by Samson.

Lynn Duncan sat propped up against pillows behind her on the bed, looking toward us as we entered. A uniformed officer, and a doctor, stood near her before a white folding hospital screen.

Moulder looked at Lynn. She looked at him. Moulder looked at me, Kidd, Samson, back at Lynn again.

The first one to speak was Lynn. She said quietly to me, “Hello, Shell.”

Big deal. Big nothing. That was fine.

“Hi, Lynn,” I said.

Sam threw a few fast questions at Moulder, a couple at Lynn. Only halfheartedly. I think he was just about convinced. Then he nodded at Kidd and the sergeant took Moulder away. Back to the cell block this time.

The policewoman — who’d been behind the screen crying “I did it for Leslie” — came out, spoke to Samson, and left.

The rest was my baby, so I sat down on a wooden chair by the bed, close to Lynn. “This won’t take long,” I said to her. “Mostly you’ll just have to listen, maybe answer a couple of questions. OK?”

“All right.” She looked scared. But she had plenty to be scared about.

I said, “Let’s go back to when we met tonight, Lynn. At the Hideout. After Jazz and I joined you and Blaik, I was looking out the window and saw a car come up the road. But it didn’t continue on to the entrance. The driver pulled into the lot. That was a little before seven forty-five. Just a little before the shooting. He just came up, parked, and waited there. Got it?”

“Yes.” Very soft.

“When we all went out, it was about quarter of eight — you didn’t want to leave right then, remember? You made it very clear that you wanted to stay a little longer.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Then, the shooting,” I went on. “Blaik was farthest from the club’s steps and I was moving toward him. Jazz was behind me on my right. More important, you were to my left, about the same distance from the steps as Jazz was. So you were a long way from Blaik. A long way. Clear?”

She moistened her lips and swallowed. She moved one hand from her side and let it rest on her left breast. “I remember now.”

“Uh-huh. One final thing. The killer had plenty of time to aim his first shot. He was ready and waiting; he’d started the car’s engine. So, first one shot, then a short pause — call it the time required for a man in a hurry to aim again in a hurry — and the second shot. Another brief pause, and then three or four shots all at once, the guy yanking, not squeezing the trigger for those last ones. But we know he aimed at least two, maybe three of those shots with some care.”

I paused. “I realize you haven’t had much time to think about these things since it happened, Lynn. Maybe just during the last half hour or so. But if you hadn’t already figured it out for yourself, are you starting to get the picture now?”

She didn’t speak, but I saw her throat move as she swallowed again.

“Remember where you were? Put it this way: draw a line on the ground from that dark sedan to you, and I was standing just about on that line. A man shooting at me might miss and hit you by accident. Only that’s not what happened. Instead, a man shooting at you — taking time to aim, wanting to be sure he killed you — came close to hitting me. The killer wasn’t after Blaik and me. He was after Blaik and you. Want to tell us about it now, Lynn?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

I sighed. “OK, here’s a little more of it. Some of us, for a while, thought those slugs were sprayed all over the landscape because the gunman was drunk. But the gunman wasn’t drunk. He was cold sober. He shot and killed Blaik. And he intended to kill Blaik — not me — he was ready and waiting for him. So he had to know Blaik would be at the Hideout, and at least approximately what time he would be there.”

I got out cigarettes, looked at the doctor, who nodded. Then I lit a smoke and had a long drag before continuing.

“Blaik wasn’t tailed to the Hideout. The killer didn’t arrive until shortly before we all left, and you and Vince had finished dinner, must have been there for at least an hour then. If we wanted to grab at straws we could say maybe a waiter or guest at the restaurant called the gunman and said Blaik was there — but I think we can ignore that little beauty. So what’s left?”

She stared at me silently, those moist, wide-set eyes, eyes the shade of bruised mint leaves, unwavering on my own. But now the hand resting on her breast rose and fell more rapidly, testimony to her accelerated breathing. Usually people under stress fail to realize it’s happening and is visible to others — emotions spurring glands and organs into increased activity that eats up more and more of the blood’s oxygen, and the lungs automatically labor faster to make up for the loss. So her hand rose and fell, rose and fell, on her sweet young breast.

I felt a little sorry for Lynn, just a little. She was so young and scared. And such a damned fool.

“There’s only one thing left, Lynn. Blaik hadn’t known where he was going for dinner, hadn’t known in advance that he would take you to the Hideout. That, dear, was your idea. He told me, while you and Jazz were in the john, that you’d suggested the place. Which explains how the killer knew where Blaik would be and approximately when he’d be leaving. Because, Lynn, the killer asked you, or told you, to make sure Blaik took you to the Hideout.”

Her hand stopped moving as she held her breath. I counted the seconds. One, two, three, four — then the sudden movement again, even more rapid than before.

“We don’t need to go into what you told Blaik to explain why you wanted to go to the Hideout. That’s not important. We needn’t even wonder right now about what Mr. — call him the killer — told you, or promised you, that made you willing to take a man to a secluded, carefully selected spot where he could be murdered.”

I paused. “Hell, Lynn, I’ll give you this. There’s a good chance you didn’t think Blaik would be killed, maybe didn’t even think he’d be hurt. But I know for damn sure you didn’t guess you were supposed to be murdered right along with him.”

“That’s crazy. It’s all crazy. You don’t make any sense, not any!”

“Come on. Why do you think we brought Moulder in here — and had a policewoman pretending to be you spilling your guts? Whoever tried to kill you must know by now that he only wounded you. So he’s sweating, hoping you won’t pull through, that you’ll still die. Because he knows as long as you’re alive you might start spilling. Moulder didn’t react, and neither did you — hell, you’re strangers, you were still living in Florida when he was sent up. We didn’t expect any reaction, except a negative one.”

I got to my feet. “But you can take my word for it, you can count on it, Lynn, when the real killer walks through that door he’ll be sweating blood. And so will you. And the harder you try to keep it from showing the more it’ll show.”

“Stop it, you’re crazy! What are you trying to do to me?” Lynn’s eyes rolled from side to side. “My head. Oh, my head — “

“You’re lucky your head’s just banged up, baby. One more inch and your brain would have tried to explode inside your skull. When a .45 slug hits that soft jelly — “

“Stop it!”

I let the words come out faster. “Look, you know he tried to kill you. He was taking dead aim, as carefully as he could in the little time he had. You were clear the hell out of the line of fire — if Blaik was the only target. He couldn’t leave you alive to tell us why you did it, who you did it for. You know he killed Blaik, baby. And you know he tried to kill you. He sure meant to kill you. So now it’s your turn, Lynn. Tell us who it was.”

For a few moments I thought it had worked. It hadn’t.

I knew she must have other reasons for not wanting to spill, but little Lynn certainly was also aware that telling us the tale would make her a part of it, make her, in the dry phrase, “accessory before the fact” of murder.

She did react, though.

She sat straight up in bed, flinging an arm out, fingers clawing the air. She waggled that one claw-fingered hand back and forth as if she were rattling a doorknob, while crying, “No! I can’t stand it! No! No — “

And then she fainted.

Some faint. She must have seen Bette Davis in an old movie where the doctor says, “That’s a bad cough, lady, no more smokes for you.” It was a far, far cry from the true, authentic, no-way-to-stop-it faint, the honest-to-goodness faint, of Mrs. Moulder.

Lynn merely let her last word trail off in a kind of cooing oo-aaa, like a quail calling across a canyon, then flopped back onto the pillows. There was still color in her cheeks. She was breathing pretty well. But she must have figured she had to do something fairly dramatic.

If I knew it was a fake faint, surely the doctor did, too. But he said — not looking at all panicked, however — “I think that’s enough.”

Sam opened the door for me, bowing and sweeping his arm toward the hall like a lowly vassal — or an idiot — but I ignored him and turned in the doorway.

“All right. Doctor,” I said. “For now. But we’ll be back — with the next guy.”

There was no visible indication that the words had hit their target. Lynn didn’t twitch, or go oo-aaa. She lay as one dead.

But I knew very well the little dear was listening….

In the hallway I said to Samson, “How long do you think it’ll take to get word back from San Francisco on Robert Gordon?”

“If he’s there — and has been there all the time, no conspicuous absences — word might be waiting at the office right now. If not, who knows? Two, three hours more, maybe a day.”

“Actually, I don’t think it’s too important. But there’s no point in leaving it dangling. Everything set?”

“All set.”

“OK, see you later, Sam.”

It was fifteen minutes after midnight when I phoned Mrs. Georgina Moulder. She answered right away, so either she had a phone by the bed, or hadn’t been in bed. Anyway, she didn’t sound sleepy.

“Mrs. Moulder?” I said. “Hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“No, I … simply can’t sleep. Not after all that’s happened.”

I’ll bet, I thought.

“Is this Mr. Scott?”

“Yes, Shell Scott.”

Her voice grew a bit thinner. “Is anything wrong?”

“Wrong? I should say not. Everything’s wonderful! I’ve got wonderful news!”

“Oh? What … is it, Mr. Scott?”

“You know the police hauled Mr. Moulder in, arrested him for Vincent Blaik’s murder. But what you don’t know is that your husband didn’t do it.”

I wished I could have seen her face. There was an unduly prolonged silence.

Finally she said, “Why, that’s unbelievably good news. I can hardly believe it … although of course I knew he didn’t do it. I just knew it. But — are you absolutely certain?”

“Well, not absolutely. But I expect to know a good deal more before long.”

“Oh? How do you mean?”

“It’s clear that Mr. Moulder didn’t do the shooting. But we’re not yet sure who did. There’s another man involved, apparently — somebody who killed Blaik, at any rate — and we’re working on that angle now. When I say we, I mean the police and me. I know I haven’t been working for you, at least not officially, but I simply had to tell you the splendid news myself.”

Short silence this time. “Yes, it’s so good of you, Mr. Scott. I’ll be able to sleep now.”

“Well, then, I’ll leave you to pleasant dr — “

“Mr. Scott, don’t hang up!”

“No, I’m here.”

“I — this is such fantastic … I’m so happy. But this has been such a trying day, waiting and waiting for Leslie, you know.”

“I know.”

“And I still don’t know where he was. Why didn’t he come home to me?”

“Oh, he got drunk. He’s still drunk, if you don’t mind my saying so. He even tried — this would probably amuse you, Mrs. Moulder, if it wasn’t such a serious matter — he tried to tell us he was with you. In a motel of all things. Of course, we slapped that out of him. Incidentally, while staggering drunk, he fell and injured his face slightly. And his arms and legs. But it’s nothing serious.”

“Just so he’s alive and can come home to me.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. He won’t be released until morning — in view of his condition, you understand.”

“I’ll be waiting for him.”

I smiled, shaking my head. Words, they can mean so many things.

“I wonder where Leslie was all afternoon,” Mrs. Moulder said. “Do you know?”

“Frankly we never did find out precisely. But, since we know he didn’t do the shooting, his whereabouts are of little moment now. As long as he didn’t commit a crime, the police have no interest — “

“You still haven’t told me how you — the police — know it wasn’t Leslie.”

“Oh, that. Simple, really.”

I hated to tell another lie. But I was going to have to do it. This was at least a lie in a good cause, more of a fib — and a lot of it was true. Besides, I was kind of enjoying lying. That’s the trouble with lying, it grows on you.

“You may or may not know, Mrs. Moulder, that the Los Angeles Police Department is one of the finest organizations of its kind in the world. Moreover, it has a criminalistics department second to none. In SID — that’s the Scientific Investigations Division in the Police Building downtown — they have instruments so up-to-date they haven’t even been invented yet … ah, that is, most people don’t know they’ve been invented.

“Um, to make a long story short, by certain scientific techniques and processes, involving X-rays, quantitative diffraction, and molecular precipitation, SID has been able to prove conclusively that, for at least a week past, Leslie Moulder, your husband, was never closer than two meters to the locus of a gunpowder explosion, such as that required to propel a bullet from the muzzle of a gun.”

“Two meters,” she mused. “How far is that?”

Actually, I wasn’t quite sure myself.

“Quite a ways,” I said. “The vital fact is that Leslie could not possibly have held a pistol in his hand and fired it. In fact, he hasn’t been within … two meters of anybody who did fire a pistol.”

“I see. Like the paraffin test to find out if someone shot off a gun?”

“Ho-ho,” I hoed, “that’s for writers of fiction, and old wives who tell tales.” I liked that. “You can merely wear gloves and foil the so-called paraffin test. We’re much beyond that now.” I paused. “Incidentally, this is still supposed to be secret, Mrs. Moulder. I’ve permission to tell you this much, but no more. Actually, I don’t know why I’ve told you any of it, since it’s completely irrelevant now that we know your hus — “

“But I’m interested, I really am, Mr. Scott. And I’m so — so excited, I know I won’t be able to sleep. You must come out and tell me everything. I simply must know all about Leslie — who won’t be home until morning.”

“Now? But it’s so late. It’s after midnight — “

“To me, it’s — I feel it’s the dawn of a new day.”

“Yes, I guess it is, at that.”

“Please come.”

“OK. I’ll get there as fast as I can, Mrs. Moulder.”

“Call me Georgina,” she said.

When Georgina opened the door I won another bet with myself.

I had figured it was at least ten to one she’d still — or again — be wearing her brand-new sheer negligee. She was. I think she’d also turned on three or four more lights inside the house, including some of those real hot kinds. There was a hell of a lot more illumination than she’d got from her TV set, that was certain.

“Shell,” she cooed, “you got here awfully fast.”

“I hurried, Georgina,” I said. I hadn’t been miles and miles away when I phoned, either.

She stood aside in the doorway, just enough so I had to brush rather vigorously against her to get in. Then she closed the door, took my hand and pulled me to the low divan.

The colorful flowers were still in the same places, but they appeared a little wilted now. That’s life; inevitably the bloom fades. The silver bucket was on the table where it had been before, in it the bottle of champagne. And I noticed, not with astonishment, that there was fresh ice in the bucket.

Mrs. Moulder — Georgina to me now — got me seated, then leaned back against some throw pillows at the divan’s end, and crossed her legs. Damn good legs, I had to admit it. In fact, practically everything I could see on and about Mrs. Moulder was first-class, and that included practically everything on and about Mrs. Moulder, except her spleen and gallbladder and other internal organs.

It became evident to me that I’d not quite won my bet with myself, after all. Georgina was in sheer negligee and peignoir, but it wasn’t the same outfit in which she’d greeted me before. That had been blue; this one was pale lavender. It looked even thinner than the blue one. Yes, no doubt about it. Lots thinner.

Merely by crossing her legs, and making use of some kind of inborn feminine trickery, Georgina had managed to pull the fine, gauzy cloth just smoothly enough over her firm thighs, while at the same time the delicate peignoir fell away — on both sides at once — from her swollen, pouter-pigeon-plump breasts.

“Now, Shell, tell me — ” she began.

This had taken enough time already, so I interrupted her. “You’ve got an exceptionally fine body, Mrs. Moulder,” I said.

“Call me Georgina — what?” She blinked, then smiled, almost drippingly. “Not that I really mind, but you are quite blunt, aren’t you?”

“You haven’t heard anything yet.”

Maybe she really was a highly intuitive tomato — not quite intuitive enough, of course — because I think she knew, right then, that the jig was up.

I said, “It is a fine, a very lovely body, Georgina. I hate to think of it shriveling up like a sea anemone … make that a felled cactus in the desert — “

“Shriveling?”

“Yeah. Getting dry and droopy, out of juice, less fire and more ashes. But it happens. The bloom fades. Why, I’ve seen gals come out of Tehachapi after only half a dozen years — “

“Tehachapi? Isn’t Tehachapi a prison?”

” — looking like they’d been there since the Coolidge Administration. Looking like Coolidge. Yeah, Tehachapi’s a prison. But, dammit, you and — call him Lover — shouldn’t have tried to stab Leslie the second time. You’ll have to tell me part of how you rigged that twenty-eight-G dandy and stuck Leslie with it in the beginning, but you will, Georgina. I can see that the idea of Leslie’s heisting cash from the development of which he was co-owner might not have been strong enough that you could be sure he’d go to the jug, so you must have enlisted Vincent Blaik for insurance. I suppose you had something on him, or got something, or maybe just paid him off. That’ll keep. But I can tell you the finish of the Blaik caper. That’s enough by itself, and it’s all wrapped up now.”

She laughed. “This is preposterous. What in the world are you talking about?”

“You and Lover, what else? I suppose it was the same old story, Adam and Eve and them big apples, but however it started, Georgina, it is now ended.”

“You must be ill. I’m going to call the police.”

I grinned, for several reasons, and said, “Let me finish first, will you? There’s more. Some of it will interest you. Some of it will really interest you.”

“Well … all right. Try me.”

She had assumed a most perplexing posture for one presumably relaxing.

I looked at her, then turned to peek at the partly open door of the bedroom. The bedroom in which was a fine bouncy bed, of which it could almost positively be assumed I was supposed to be thinking.

But I was thinking of the guy in there. I knew there must be one guy there — maybe two.

I turned my head back toward her, saying, “I guess I’m all business tonight, Georgina. First, I really should apologize for lying to you on the phone a little while ago. But tit for — it’s even-steven now. You lied quite a lot to me today.” I got out cigarettes. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead and smoke.” She wasn’t smiling drippingly any more.

I had a puff. “The truth is,” I went on, “that’s one of the things that clinched the affair. You told me one story and your hubby told me another. Unless you were in some kind of nutty cahoots to beat the rap or set up a plea, one of you had to be lying. If you were telling the truth, Leslie of course was lying, and guilty. But if Leslie’s tale was true, it was vice versa. And the vice versa became increasingly fascinating.”

“None of this is very fascinating yet. Have you got anything important to say?”

“I’ll be more specific. The fact is that Leslie told the truth — you did meet him, did take him to a ‘vacation’ motel. Which one isn’t important. There you dallied, and drank — and drank and drank. At least, he did. You called the Hollywood police at six thirty — knowing the Blaik kill was set for approximately seven forty-five — so the name Leslie Moulder and the fact of his release from prison would be fresh in the official mind when word came in about Blaik’s murder. Georgina, am I boring you?”

She didn’t reply. But she didn’t look bored.

“Understand, during none of this time were you home waiting for your big moment. You were in the motel room with your increasingly stewed — and undoubtedly exhausted — husband. You couldn’t go home and scoot inside until after dark, not merely because you had to avoid being seen, but because Blaik wouldn’t be dead until then. Until a quarter of eight as it turned out.

“A friend of mine named Samson tried to reach you at about eight p.m. but had no luck until eight thirty. By then you and Lover had met, put Leslie’s frazzled form in the murder car, planted the cartridge case and such, and scooted your separate ways — leaving Leslie to be found, and the sooner the better. That, of course, depended on making sure the police were looking for him. Which was part of your reason for calling me, Georgina — after you heard my name on the news programs — just in case the Missing Person bit didn’t do the job all by itself.”

I stopped, looking down at the table in front of us. “I hope I’m not out of line, Georgina, but were you planning for us to drink this champagne?”

The word she said wasn’t a very thrilling one. Maybe Leslie had picked up some of his lingo at home, before going off to college.

“Well, you don’t have to bite my head off,” I said. “You were much nicer this afternoon. But this afternoon, of course, you wanted to know if I’d gotten a look, any kind of look, at — Lover. That was vital. I wasn’t even supposed to be — “

“Quit calling him Lover!”

“Not quite yet. I will, at the right time.” I smiled. “I’m funny, I suppose. I have a certain delicacy of feeling about how things should be — “

“You jerk. What’s the rest of it?”

“OK.” I dropped the light tone. “It’s murder, and it’s murder one. Here’s the rest of it: conspiracy to commit murder, murder in fact accomplished, murder attempted and missed, and murder attempted and missed — again. How’s that for openers?”

She didn’t say anything. Except with her eyes.

“Back to Leslie. Oddly, he asked me the very same question you did — if I’d seen the gunman — but for an exactly opposite reason. He hoped I had got a look at the man because then I might know it hadn’t been him. When I finally started thinking maybe his drunken story was true, something else puzzled me. I couldn’t understand why you and your co-killer would have taken a chance somebody might believe Leslie’s story, even as crazy as it sounded and as drunk as he was — plus the fact that he had a fat motive and no alibi, his public threat to kill Blaik and the rest of it. That puzzled me, however, only until I realized you wouldn’t have taken that chance. Not the careful way you’d planned everything else. When the cops found poor Leslie he was supposed to be dead.”

“You’re a liar!”

“Not any more. That was only on the phone. I very rarely — “

She called me a couple unflattering names.

I said flatly, “Leslie was supposed to be quite dead when the police found him. I’m not guessing, Georgina. I don’t yet know whether you fed him some kind of poison or sleeping pills in his drinks, or just poured more booze down him after he passed out — SID can check that — but I know you thought Leslie was dead. He would have been, too, except that he probably roused somewhat from his stupor when you and your helper moved him from the motel and dumped him into the car, and that plus his throwing up, and the police feeding him coffee and keeping him awake, undoubtedly saved his life.” I smiled. “Fortunately the police did find him — because you went to such pains to be certain they, and I, were looking for him. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“That’s ridiculous. All of it. Even if it were true, you’d just be guessing — “

“I told you, I’m not guessing. Georgina, you’re going to hate yourself, but I knew, knew for sure, that Leslie was set up for the second murder — the third if Lynn hadn’t been missed — and that you were part of it, you were in on the planning of it, you in fact thought Leslie was dead — the very moment I remembered something that you, yourself, told me.”

She was interested enough now. But all she said was, “Go on.”

“Well, you keeled over in a faint earlier this evening, you’ll recall. More recently another lady pulled a fake faint on me, but yours was the real thing. You really fainted. And the interesting thing, Georgina, is that it was something you not only hadn’t planned, but that you couldn’t have prevented. And that gave you away.”

I pulled the last drag from my cigarette and stubbed it out in an ashtray.

“You aren’t making any sense with this yet.”

“I will. Let me set the stage, Georgina. Me on the phone, you twirling a prop champagne bottle, listening, oh how attentively, listening. Waiting for Leslie to be found, hoping, hoping he’d been found. And on the phone to Samson I said, ‘You’ve already found him?’ or something like that. Even in the middle of your act — ‘What is it?’ — you must have been dancing inside. It was working beautifully, exactly according to plan. Even better, dumb old Shell Scott was right by your side to help out, proof of the widow’s devotion.”

I grinned at Georgina. “You knew I was talking to the law, you heard my end of the conversation. Then you let me tell you the police had found Leslie. In a stolen car. That he’d been drinking. The case was open-and-shut, the police were convinced your husband had killed Blaik.”

I looked at her appraisingly. She was interested, intensely interested, but that was all. No real reaction.

“You don’t get it yet, do you? Up till then, Georgina, you’d been a woman of steel, but still a woman. Facing tragedy bravely and unafraid. There was still a glow of color in your cheeks — eight to five you did slap your face in the bedroom. You wanted me to tell you everything, not spare your feelings. So I told you what I knew, explained that the police had Leslie in an interrogation room, that he hadn’t confessed yet, but that it was almost certain Leslie Moulder had murdered Vincent Blaik — at least I started to say that last part. But by then you were on your way, you were gone.”

Comprehension was beginning to dawn, slowly, in her eyes.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Here your world was crashing about your head. Beloved husband was indeed a killer, he’d been found, only a day out of prison and his crime was murder this time. Still, you stood up to all that. Because everything, every word, up till then fit the picture in your mind of a dead man found in a parked car. You didn’t come apart at the seams, didn’t feel the shock that pulled the blood from your face and sent you into that faint until the moment when you realized the sickening truth: your husband wasn’t dead.”

Georgina looked a bit fishy around the gills.

But she was silent for only a second or two. Then she cried out, in quite a loud voice, “All right!”

It was pretty loud if she was talking to me. But I didn’t think she was. She wasn’t.

He came out of the bedroom. So I’d had that figured, too. Fortunately. The room he would probably be in, I mean. It’s a good thing I feel there’s a time and place for everything, and despite Georgina’s implicit, and even explicit, invitations, had not felt that this was either the place or the time.

Handsome, horny, pretty-toothed, he came out of the bedroom with a .45 caliber Colt automatic pistol in one brown hand; the pistol was pointed at my head; and at last I felt, for this at least, it was the time.

I glanced at Georgina. “Now I’ll stop calling him Lover.”

Then I turned to Rafe. “Hi, there — “

“Up,” he said, very nasty. “Get ‘em up.”

“Oh, come on. You can’t go around knocking off everybody who peeves you, Rafe.”

He got a certain look on his face, and without examining it closely I decided to do what he’d said. I climbed to my feet and raised my hands over my head.

“Take it easy,” I told him. “A bottle of booze — or pills, or whatever you stuffed into Leslie so he wouldn’t wake up again — that’s one thing. It doesn’t make any noise. But if you set off that banger there’ll be eighteen people charging in here from all over the fairways, not to mention cops — “

“Shut up.”

“Look, you’ve had it. Lynn’s still alive and sure to spill soon — “

“If I have to, I’ll kill you right now, Scott. Noise or no noise.”

“I suppose you would, at that.”

“Move.”

“Rafe, I was about to tell you that cops would also bust in here. Cops, fuzz, police officers — “

Everybody I’d run into lately was foul-mouthed as could be. What was happening to civilization? Or maybe it was just the low-type people I’d been running into. At any rate, Rafael Falcon was the most accomplished curser of them all.

“Rafe — Mr. Falcon,” I said. “Easy. You probably won’t believe this — and I guess I wouldn’t blame you — but the captain of the L.A.P.D. Homicide Division is somewhere behind you, in that bedroom. The one you just came out of. You don’t believe it, huh? Well … He’s supposed to be there. And any second he’s apt to shoot you — any minute now, anyway — “

A new vein had appeared on Rafe’s forehead and was throbbing down toward his left eye. I looked at Georgina, and I said it as fast as I could. “Will you calm this creep of yours down? You didn’t realize it until I got here, but on the phone I was feeding you a lot of baloney. I knew then what I was going to do and going to say to you, and you should sure as hell understand that yourself now. Do you think I’d have come here alone, knowing everything I’ve just told you? And knowing you’d call your lover over here as soon as I hung up?”

Rafe was listening, too, but it was obvious he didn’t believe a word of my fantasy.

Georgina, though, wasn’t so sure. “You couldn’t have known it was Rafe,” she said.

“The hell I couldn’t. Ignoring such items as his play for Lynn Duncan, you called him, bing, the last time I left here. He was still on the phone when I went into the Skylight Lounge. I could see him in the bar mirror, which means he could also see me if he looked. And I imagine he looked, since by then I’m sure you’d done a good job of describing me. I’ll admit you’re both pretty good actors, and Rafe didn’t do badly ad-lib when we had our little chat at the bar. But he still told me too much, more than he should have spilled to a stranger — even though he must have been a little panicked and knew I’d heard part of his conversation with you.”

“That’s enough,” Rafe said in a strangled voice. “Out the front door. Georgina, kill some of the lights.”

“Hold it.” I faced Falcon, and looking at the big gun in his hand I really wanted to move; but I didn’t. If I moved, Rafe would follow me, and I wanted him where he was, with those wide shoulders almost filling the doorway of the bedroom behind him.

“Sam,” I said, not softly. “SAM. What the hell? Get with it, will you? Do something.”

Rafe leaned forward in a kind of twitch, peeling his lips back and sticking the gun out a little farther. I wasn’t sure, but he acted like he was going to shoot me.

“Rafe,” I said rapidly, “there’s something you’ve simply got to believe. For both our sakes, I swear, Sam’s somewhere in there behind you. Phil Samson himself, the old fuddy-duddy of Homicide. He’s there. He may be unconscious — he must be unconscious — and there are three other cops either in or around this house. They got here before you did. I wanted … a lot of protection.”

I wasn’t certain that Rafe was quite sane. His lips were going in and out and waggling at the sides and he was getting an expression in his eyes that I didn’t like at all.

“Rafe,” I said soothingly. “Old buddy. Mr. Falcon. Your Highness. OK — the hell with that damned fuddy-duddy in there. Why didn’t I think of this before? I’ll go outside with you. Sure. I’ll go outside and watch you get your ass shot off. Rafe — watch it! Look, I didn’t mean it … well, yes I did, but — ah, why do I have to be so honest? Especially at a time like this. And I guess this is it, huh? Well, Rafael Falcon, let my, perhaps, last words be: ‘You’re like every killer I ever met, you dumb sonofabitch, namely a dumb sonofabitch — ’”

Presumably I was never closer to that Shell Scott Heaven — in which gorgeous, and tempting, and willing tomatoes ripen on celestial vines — but it is at least true that I would not care to be that close very often.

When Sam did move, it was a beautiful movement.

Of course, he was an old pro. He knew it all. I’d seen him in action before, but never with such smooth ease and grace. One moment the bedroom doorway was empty, Sam was in there having a coronary or something, I was going to get shot, going to get to go to Heaven, and then Sam was in the doorway.

Two seconds after that, maybe a second and a half, and it was over.

Sam moved Falcon’s body and arm at the same time — so if the gun went off I wouldn’t get hit in the head — but he didn’t move him more than four inches, and the gun did not go off. I knew Samson was strong, but I’d forgotten how strong.

When he slapped Rafe’s wrist with his right hand — left hand still guiding the movement of Falcon’s body — and twisted, cranking the arm around and up behind Falcon’s back, he broke that arm at the elbow.

I heard the pop, and Falcon’s agonized scream. Sam hadn’t intended to break it, I’m sure. That would have been brutal. Of course, he could have shot Rafe in the back of the head, from the bedroom. The thing most certainly broke, however, and seemed to keep on breaking for a while; and that was all, end of the line for Rafael Falcon.

Then there were lots of cops.

I said, “I hope I didn’t disturb your sleep, gentlemen.” A bit icy, I was.

Sweat was pouring off Sam as if he’d been rained on. But did he tell me he was sorry for the delay? In a pig’s eye he told me.

I stalked over to him and said, “What were you doing, out on the golf course taking a leak?”

It took him a while to smile, and he looked around a bit, making sure everything was under control. Then he smiled.

“I wanted to see if you could talk your way out of it,” he said.

“Yeah. And on my headstone you’d engrave, ‘He couldn’t.’”

“That will teach you,” he said, “to call me a fuddy-duddy.”

I laughed.

And Captain Phil Samson hauled off and socked me a tremendous one in the belly. He was actually glad I was still alive.

* **

It took no time at all to get the story out of them. Most of it was spilled before we left the house and headed downtown.

Some of it — the complex motivations, the sex, the lust not only for flesh but for money, the desire twisted into greed, and the lies on lies compounded — might never be fully told. But we got all we needed. Most of it was contained in what I’d told Lynn and Georgina. Especially Georgina.

We picked up a few interesting items. Like Rafe’s having been smart enough not to leave the murder gun in the car, reasoning that even a drunken Moulder would probably have thrown it away right after the crime. The cartridge case had been a more effective touch, since Ballistics could match it to the other cases — or to the gun — for positive identification.

Only Rafe hadn’t been smart enough to get rid of the gun itself. It was the same .45 he’d been aiming at my head. As I’d told the man, he was a dumb sonofabitch.

Another somewhat intriguing item was the fact that the twenty-five thousand clams Falcon had personally paid to Vincent Blaik, to make sure he blew Moulder’s defense, was the bulk of the twenty-eight thousand which Rafe and Georgina themselves extracted from the Hollywood Hills Estates safe, back in the beginning. It had not been difficult for Georgina to loiter near hubby enough times to memorize the combination.

Twice in the year since Falcon had paid Blaik off with the twenty-five G’s, Blaik, thinking — erroneously as it turned out — that Falcon couldn’t do anything about it, had hit Falcon up for a “loan.” Another five thousand each time. So in addition to the fact that Blaik was the natural victim in the plan to frame Moulder for murder, and the further uncomfortable fact that Blaik knew all about the original frame, Falcon thus had one more reason for killing him.

As for Lynn, handling her had almost literally been child’s play for Falcon. He’d sold her a bill of shoddy goods, made her believe he intended to marry her, though he actually planned, of course, to marry the well-to-do widow, Georgina. Maybe Lynn had suspected the real reason why Falcon wanted her to lead Blaik to the Hideout, not the lie Falcon told her, but she’d believed what she wanted to believe, and she had wanted to believe Falcon.

Even before framing Leslie the first time, Rafael and Georgina had been lovers, even in that beginning thinking ahead to the day of Moulder’s release — especially after Leslie blew up in court. I never did know if the real core of it all was lust, or love, or mainly Falcon’s greed for money, for a slice of the Hollywood Hills pie with Georgina on the side.

I don’t know what it was in the beginning, but at the end it was murder — and they wound up hating each other, which to me somehow seemed rather nice. The whole thing couldn’t be put in a nutshell, but I suppose there’s a word for it. And at the end, Georgina had a last word for me.

With everything wrapped up, just before she turned and walked out through the door of her house for the last time, the very last time, I spoke to her briefly.

She didn’t say anything while I talked, finishing with, “As for Blaik, I don’t know, these things happen. And they’re paid for one way or another, one time or another. He was in on it; maybe Blaik got what was coming to him. But I’ve at least a little idea what Leslie was like before he went, an innocent man, to prison. And I know damn well what came out of that college. I’ve a hunch you’ll pay more for that than for Blaik.”

She stood before me, looking coldly at me, ice in her eyes.

“Well, that’s it,” I said. “Believe it or not, I wish it hadn’t turned out like this, Georgina.”

She turned on her heel and started out the door, flinging back over one shoulder her exit line.

“Call me,” she said, “Mrs. Moulder.”

I guess you could call me an optimist. Especially at the moment.

Because at the moment I was in a phone booth, dialing the number of Miss Jasmine Porter.

And it was three o’clock in the morning.

The phone rang once, twice. Ah, she’s there, I thought optimistically. She’ll be glad to hear from me. She’ll be hungry again by now.

I suppose I should have been conked out by this time, but I felt surprisingly good. Part of the reason is that laughter is plasma for the blood, and I’d had a pretty good laugh. I had learned what delayed Samson so long in the bedroom.

Not from Sam — never would he have told me. I got the story from Sergeant Kidd. Samson had no sooner managed to open a window, climb into the bedroom, and close the window again, than recently arrived Rafe had, boomingly, told Georgina, “OK, I’ll wait in the bedroom, baby.”

Sam had sped into the closet so hastily that he’d put a foot into a hatbox and knocked a pile of clothing, some on metal hangers, down upon him. Then Rafe was only feet away and Sam couldn’t move. When the action started, Sam had to get his foot out of the box and untangle himself from hangers without clanging them together, none of this made easier by his working in darkness. When he finally got untangled, after an episode with a girdle which I found very funny — I find girdles all by themselves very funny — he’d still had to move slowly and with care.

With care, as I well knew, not because he feared that Falcon might hear a soft sound and shoot him, but because Falcon might instead shoot me. Even so, I was not going to spare Sam when next he began ribbing me.

Four rings so far. Just getting warmed up. Boy, she was going to be crazy to hear from me. She might be starving at this hour. And I was prepared, even for starvation.

In a large box outside the phone booth — it was too big to get into the booth — was a great quantity of edibles, some of them even nutritious, which I had just selected in haste and at great expense in an all-night delicatessen.

Six rings? I must have miscounted.

Then — sound in my ear. Followed by sweetness in my ear.

“Hello? Hello?”

“Jazz?”

“Yes. You sound like — Shell?”

“Of course I sound like him. Hey, did I wake you up?”

“No. I was reading. I read a lot.”

“No kidding. Well. That’s good. Reading a lot, I mean.”

“I’m like that, Shell. Whenever I do anything, I do it a lot.”

“Fascinating. I should have guessed, having seen you eat. And I’ll bet you’re famished, what? Ravenous? Well, never fear. You can count on old Shell. I have a whole packing box full of goodies right here beside me. Gobs and gobs of food, cheeses and pickles and hamb — “

“I’m not hungry.”

” — urgers and stea … What?”

“I already had a snack.”

“Uh. Oh?”

“Yes, about an hour ago.”

“You mean … you don’t want my goodies?”

“No.”

“You mean we’re through?”

“I mean, I’m not hungry. Don’t worry about the food, Shell. Just come on up. And hurry.”

I hurried. You can bet I hurried.

She wasn’t hungry, she’d said. Don’t worry about the food, she’d said. But that was then. What about an hour from now? Two hours? Tomorrow morning, noon, night? Next week?

Yes, I guess you could call me an optimist.

Anyway, I took all that food along.

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