Another line of thought cut suddenly across my mind, and I felt inside my shirt and brought out the .45 automatic. I was in a hell of a spot here, a sitting duck for anyone who might want to slip up from behind and poke a gun through the window. But of course they couldn’t get rid of me—not until they did something about getting the package and incriminating letter back. I drew on the smoke to calm my jumpy nerves, then went back to the pool idea. I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it was the kind of thing I’d enjoy and could do without breaking my back—with plenty of free time for the basic things in life. I’d hire a couple of good boys and maybe a bright girl to help with the instruction, run classes, give private lessons, rent the plunge at night now and then to clubs or other groups interested in throwing a novel party. It would be a considerable deal for Eddie Baker.
My take on this caper would be the same, less taxes, but I could spend the dough right now and this was an important factor. Playing it legit would ease the tension and would just about take care of everything but Hank Sawyer—and I didn’t figure in that deal at all. And Nola? She would do all right too, a dame with a smart head and lined up for a big career in films. This switch in plans looked like a pretty sound thing all the way around.
I bounced the .45 in my hand a time or two, slipped it carefully into the pocket of my sports jacket, snapped my smoke off into the darkness, and got out of the car. I crossed the street and walked down on the sand. Nola was about a block up the beach—running toward the waves and then hurrying back up onto dry sand as the swirl of water washed in. She seemed like a kid without a worry in the world, but this too would have to be an act. No one, I was sure, could be quite that free and easy, considering the situation, and I was going to try to remember that. I was going to try like hell to remember that I was sitting in on a performance given for an audience of one, and by a lady who was strictly a pro.
SHE CAME RUNNING up to me. “How about it?” she asked anxiously. She tilted her head back to look up at me, her blue eyes going over my face.
“I don’t see anything too wrong with it,” I said, nodding slowly. “Unless it should look different in the next few days, I guess we can go ahead with it.”
“Thank you, Eddie.” She took my arm as we turned back to the car.
Without shoes she came only to my shoulder, and she managed to half turn for a look behind us on two occasions, giving me the benefit of that gentle feminine pressure both times. I was getting the treatment and I knew it, but it was all right with me. All I had to do was protest enough to make it clear that I wasn’t a complete sap and then swallow the rest of the bait.
“We’re a great deal alike, Eddie,” she was saying, “and I—well, you probably expect me to hate you, but I don’t.”
“Of course not,” I said, and grinned down at her. “Nothing like nicking a babe for big dough if you want to win her undying love.”
“Who said anything about love? All I meant was that we see things alike. We’re both pretty determined, for one thing. We know where we’re going and we push hard to get there.”
“We do?”
“Well, don’t you? I think so, and I admire you for it.”
“Aren’t you a little cold in that thin dress with all the snow around here?”
She smiled up at me then. “Snow job? Look again, my friend. I’m being perfectly honest; if you’re willing to do this the way I suggested, I stand to lose very little. I may even be money ahead.”
“This is going to be the first swindle in history where everybody wins,” I said, and laughed at her.
“Laugh, Eddie, but it only takes one hit. Look at what
The Jungle Princess
did for Dorothy Lamour. And the money you’re getting—it isn’t as if I already had it and then you took it away.” She hopped up on the concrete wall and walked along, her hand on my shoulder and her face well above mine now. Dames in her class are damn careful about being above the man when they’re interested in selling a bill of goods. She jumped down to the sand, and a few feet farther on she sat on the wall and drew her feet up. I sat beside her and lit two smokes, then passed one to her. She got up to smooth that thin nylon dress under her bottom, and when she sat down again, her shoulder was against my arm.
I said, “Someone in this combine has a lot of head on his shoulders. Or hers. Who thought up this latest publicity gimmick?”
“Joe Lamb, of course. He’s sharp, but not any sharper than this Baker boy. We’ve got a good cast lined up for our little show.”
“It’s snowing again,” I said.
She shook her head. “No snow, Eddie. It’s just that you—you expect me to hate you because you think we’re working against each other. I don’t see it that way at all.”
“A crock if I’ve ever seen one. And I have, baby, I have.”
Her smile faded, and she shook her head. “Look at it from this angle, Eddie. There are hundreds of starlets in Hollywood today who haven’t been in a big picture yet. Kids in the same boat I was in before
Island Love
came along. Suppose, Eddie, that you contacted every one of these girls and offered to get them a leading role in a big production, something that would suddenly make them newspaper copy across the nation, then tell them that they’ll have to gamble because, although this is a big picture, they’re going to have to work for less than ten thousand. Now tell me honestly, Eddie; how many do you think would say no?”
“None.”
“Not one,” she agreed, and then her arm caught mine and those blue eyes were doing tricks again. “I’m even luckier. With the right timing on when you’re found—if we can make it hit just before
Island Love
is released—we’ll wring a bundle of dough out of it, Eddie.”
It wasn’t air tight but it was firm enough so that I could accept it without being too dull. I nodded thoughtfully and then smiled.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe you will make more in the long run, Nola.”
“Of course I will.” She stood up and I got to my feet, then started across the pavement toward the parking lot and the Ford. I opened the luggage compartment and found a towel I’d used at the beach, and while Nola dried her legs and feet I dumped sand out of my shoes. We came back to the car door on her side and I opened it, expecting her to hop in, wiggle her bare feet into her shoes, and drop the nylons into her bag. Instead, she began to put the stockings on. Standing by the open door, she smoothed the filmy hose over her foot and ankle and began to run it up her leg. She glanced over her shoulder in one brief concession of modesty, then slipped her dress most of the way up her thigh and fastened the garters.
It was strictly from strip tease, and it was doing to me just what it was supposed to do to me. I swallowed once or twice as she set her shoes on the concrete, then went through a repeat performance with the other stocking. When she slipped her feet into the shoes and straightened up, I caught her to me. She pressed tight against me, her arms going around my neck. When our lips parted her cheek nuzzled along mine momentarily; then her soft lips nibbled at my ear. I kissed her again, fumbled toward the back seat and felt her tremble against me.
“Not in the car, Eddie,” she whispered. I raised my head and looked at the row of motels along the strand. She nodded silently, her face against my chest.
I sat by the picture window of the beach-front motel and smoked, my eyes on the surf a short distance away. Now that the heat was out I was thinking soundly again. Why? Could it be that five hours weren’t enough for Joe Lamb to go over my apartment? He would have had that much time just with Nola and me driving down to San Diego and back again.
I took another puff on the cigarette and thought about her going over the junk in my glove compartment back in San Diego, but then Nola came out of the bathroom, the nylon dress swirling around her legs as she walked. She crossed the room, took the smoke out of my hand, drew on it, and handed it back.
“It’s early. Just after eleven, Eddie,” she said, and knelt beside the chair to look toward the water with me. “We need a drink.”
“The bars are still open,” I said, and caught up my jacket. I was thinking of Hank Sawyer and half expected Nola to go into a routine about why don’t we bring a bottle home and be cozy. She didn’t; she slipped on her light coat and linked her arm through mine. She hung on like someone newly engaged, and it was a real performance, an authentic picture of a dating couple in love and out for an evening. We hit a couple of places, found a piano bar, did a little singing, hoisted a few drinks, and wound up back at the beach about one.
“It’s lovely,” Nola said, and sighed. We stood at the big window, the lights out, and her hand caught mine. She pointed toward the low rollers breaking a short distance beyond the street below us. “People that live here the year around—they have an easy life. Restful.”
“Nice,” I agreed. She rubbed her cheek against my arm then, and we turned toward each other. We kissed and it was good again; she worked on my ear with those soft warm lips, and then I slipped an arm under her legs, lifted her up, and carried her into the bedroom. There wasn’t quite as much rush this time—a low lamplight on the dressing table, the careful, deliberate motions as she put her dress over the back of a chair and went on in a routine that would have done credit to an accomplished stripper—all the way to the snapping off of that one remaining light.
Later, standing in the warm shower, I felt pretty shot, and I was getting worried. The first tumble might have been a clincher, something to be sure Baker was sold on the idea, but why the second? I wasn’t about to back out on our agreement tonight, and she knew that well enough. So what the hell was she pitching at? Why the encore?
I turned off the water and began to towel down, my mind still bucking the stone wall. I wasn’t kidding her about going along with that publicity gag—I was willing to hide out somewhere for a few weeks and let them find me. It looked damn reasonable, and I bought it and she was sure as hell a smart enough salesman not to oversell the customer. The only logical answer was that she wanted to make sure I was dead on my feet—she wanted me to be damn good and tired.
If I had guessed right, then what was next? I smiled grimly, hung up the towel, and went into the bedroom. She was doing her nails and when she went into the bathroom to wash some of the gook off her hands, I caught up my jacket, cautiously slid out the .45, checked to see that it hadn’t been emptied, and made it ready for business as silently as I could. I went to the door. It was locked. So we’d registered and then gone to a bar—could company have slipped in while we were out? Could she have passed the word and set me up for a chump? Whistling softly, I went into the tiny kitchen, opened everything big enough to hold even a small man, found nothing. I checked the hall closet but drew a blank—the thing had only a few extra blankets. When I got back to the bedroom I made like an old maid and peeked under the bed. All clear.
But it couldn’t have been just nerves. Something was off beat. Carefully I slid the automatic between the mattress and the box spring. Crawling into bed, I pulled the sheet up, reached over to wiggle the pack of smokes out of my sports shirt, which was draped over my jacket and pants on a chair, and lit one last smoke. Nola came back, stretched luxuriously like a beautiful cat, took one puff on my cigarette, and crawled in. By the time I finished my smoke her breathing was rhythmic, untroubled. I ground out the butt, turned out the light, patted her lightly on the fanny, and rolled over on my side.
There was a light in the bathroom, and something had caught my attention. Or maybe it was those nerves again, but I was suddenly alert. I cautiously swept a hand behind me. The bed was empty. I lay still and listened for the usual small sounds—the scraping of a foot, the turn of a paper roll, water in the basin; but there was only silence. Bright yellow from a street lamp fell through a crack in the curtain and lined the far wall, matching the streak of light under the bathroom door.
I breathed softly, turned onto my stomach, and let the sheet hang down over the side of the bed. My right hand fumbled between mattress and springs and closed lightly over the butt of the automatic, my finger not quite touching the trigger. Then I lay still again, and listened.
Something moved in the bathroom. There was the jingle of a belt buckle. I was almost sure it was that; and turning my head slightly I glanced toward the chair. My sports shirt was on the floor; my pants were gone and so was the jacket. The white paint of the chair was bald and bare in the dim light. I lay there for a long time and listened. Finally the switch clicked in the bathroom and the door opened. When I heard Nola’s bare feet padding around toward my side of the bed, I closed my eyes and waited. There were sounds of cloth on cloth as she arranged my pants, the shirt, and the sports jacket over the chair, and then she came back to the other side and slipped into bed. Her hand touched my shoulder momentarily, and then she relaxed and sighed. Her breathing became slow and even.
Very carefully I returned the gun to its place under the mattress. This time there couldn’t be any doubt—they were looking for something in no way resembling a beer tin and photographs. The thing was idiotic—the can alone would have been so big that I couldn’t have hidden it in a car or on my person—
But suppose they still didn’t believe my story about mailing the package out. Suppose, now, they figured I’d buried the can at the beach and kept the photographs and—well, naturally they’d want to have a look. Seventy-five grand is a hell of a lot of boodle, even with the tax dodge Nola and Joe were figuring on, and I couldn’t blame them for taking a long look before they kicked in.
I grinned in the darkness. Let them look. The car, my wallet, my pockets—make it a regular field day. Good! And the more they worked at it and found nothing, the more certain they would be that I’d given them the straight scoop—the more they’d know that the only answer was a pay-off.
So I was clear. Eddie Baker was right on top of the heap. I relaxed my fingers and brought the hand back under the covers and let the tension ebb away.