In a Lonely Place (6 page)

“How was I to know her husband was a brass hat? With brass knuckles.” He wanted the second drink less than the first but it tasted good.

“You’d better let me look her over,” Sylvia suggested. “I don’t trust Brub’s taste. He just looks at the envelope. Now I’m a psychologist. I find out what’s inside.”

“You’re both invited. As soon as I read the meter.”

“That shouldn’t take you long,” Brub railed. “Unless you’re getting old.” He squinted his eyes. “You don’t show much wear.”

Voices clacked on the porch.

“That’ll be Maude and Cary,” Sylvia said. She called. “Come on in.”

They were about what Dix had expected. A cute, babbling brunette, big-eyed, hips too wide for her salmon slacks. A nice, empty-looking guy in gabardine slacks and a sports shirt. The Jepsons. Maude liked Dix. She baby-eyed him while she headed for the couch. He’d finish the drink and get out.

She said, “You’re the ace, aren’t you? I’ve heard all about you.” There was a Texas drawl in her voice. She put a cigarette in her mouth and waited for him to light it. She smelled of perfume and liquor. “Make mine weak, Brub. We had one before leaving.” She turned back to Dix. “You were in England with Brub.” She babbled at Dix until Brub put the drink in her hand. She started on Brub then; it was inevitable what she would say.

“Have you caught that man yet. Brub? I tell you I’m so scared I don’t know what to do. I won’t let Cary leave me alone for a minute. I tell him—”

She ought to be scared. It would be a pleasure to throttle her.

“Anything new?” Cary put in. “No,” Brub said.

Sylvia said firmly, “We’re not going to talk about it tonight.”

Maude ignored her. “Why can’t the police catch him?” She was highly indignant. “Nobody’s safe with him running around loose.” She whispered in sepulchre tones, “The strangler.” She shivered closer to Dix. She was having a swell time.

Sylvia took a preparatory breath but Maude raced on, “How are we supposed to know who he is? He could be anybody. I tell Cary maybe he’s our grocery man or the bus driver or those dreadful beach athletes. We don’t know. Even the police don’t know. You’d think they could find out.”

Sylvia said desperately, “For God’s sake, Maude. Don’t you think they’re trying?”

“I don’t know.” Maude tossed her head. “Maybe it’s one of their own men. Well, it could be,” she insisted to the rejection on the faces of the others. “How do we know? It’s simply silly to think that this nice-looking fellow she had coffee with is the one. How did he get her into Beverly Glen Canyon?” she demanded. “Did they walk?”

Cary grunted, “He had a car, of course, Maude.”

“Ah.” She pounced on it. “But he didn’t have a car. They went into the drive-in for coffee.” She cocked her triumph at all of them. Her husband looked tired of it all but a thin layer of fear came over Sylvia’s doubt.

Brub was scowling. He said, “That’s just one of the things we’re trying to find out, Maude. He must have had a car.”

“I don’t get it,” Dix admitted.

“Our effete Easterner.” Brub seized the diversion. “Dix is from New Jersey,” he explained and turned to Dix again. ”No one goes into a drive-in for a cup of coffee. Not if he has a car to sit outside in.”

“But I’ve seen people in the drive-ins,” Dix argued.

“Kids without a car. Or folks who’ve walked to the neighborhood movie. Or someone who’s after a full meal, something he doesn’t want to balance on a tray. But not for a shake or a cup of coffee. That’s the point of a drive-in. You don’t have to get out of your car.”

“If you don’t have a car, then you have to sit inside.” Maude wagged her head. “He couldn’t have had a car. Because,” she took a deep breath, “because if he was the strangler and had a car, he never would have taken her inside where people could identify him. That man didn’t have a car. But the one who killed her did have a car or she wouldn’t have been found up Beverly Glen.” Her triumph skittered joyfully. “There has to be another man with a car.”

Dix narrowed his eyes, as if with the others he was pondering her conviction.

Sylvia broke the pause. “You think then that there was a second man, an accomplice.” She looked quickly at Brub.

Brub shook his head. “He works alone.” There was certainty in him.

Dix didn’t jump on the statement. He asked simply, “How do you know that?”

“His kind of killer always works alone. He can’t risk an accomplice.”

Cary said. “He’s insane, of course.”

Dix turned his glass in his hand. Cary Jepson was a clod. He wouldn’t be married to a stupid little talking machine if he had any spirit. The obvious reach of his imagination was, “He’s insane, of course.” It would never occur to him that any reason other than insanity could make a man a killer. That’s what all the dolts around town would be parroting:
he’s insane of course he’s insane of course.
It took imagination to think of a man, sane as you or I, who killed. He hid against his highball glass the smile forming on his lips.

Brub was explaining, “—but doubtless he’s a loony only in that respect. Otherwise he’s probably an everyday citizen. Going about his business like any of us. Looking normal, acting normal until that urge comes on him.”

“About once a month,” Maude said goggle-eyed and then she screamed, “Oh.”

Dix moved slightly away to look down at her. There was nothing wrong, she was just acting up. Sylvia didn’t like it. Sylvia’s face was granite. Dix didn’t like it either; he was getting out of here.

Brub said, “Just don’t be out alone at night, Maude, and you needn’t worry.” He, added almost to himself, “We’ll get him. He’ll make a mistake yet.” His mouth was grim.

“Suppose he doesn’t,” Maude wailed. She savored it, “Suppose it goes on and on—”

“Maude!” her husband complained wearily. “She keeps raving like that—”

Sylvia said definitely, “She isn’t going to rave here. That’s all, Maude. It’s a truce—no more talk about crime tonight.” She put on a bright smile. “Where will we eat? Ted’s for steak? Carl’s for shrimp? Jack’s for chowder?”

He could leave now. Dix glanced at his watch and stood upright fast. “Why didn’t someone tell me? I’ve a dinner date in Hollywood at seven. I’ve got to beat it.”

Maude pushed out her spoiled underlip. “Break it.”

“With a redhead?” Brub grinned.

Dix grinned back. “Not yet. I’ll keep you informed. Thanks, Sylvia. Ring me, Brub. We’ll have lunch.” He nodded goodbye to the Jepsons, not saying it was a pleasure to meet them; it hadn’t been.

He took a deep breath outside to expel the odor of Maude from his lungs. He’d like to meet her on a dark corner. It would be a service to humanity. He drove the beach road to the Incline, casually glancing towards the three houses there. The traffic was still fairly heavy, on Wilshire it became irritating, at Sepulveda’s intersection it was a slow-moving mass. Enough to make anyone’s nerves short. He left turned at Westwood Boulevard, cutting sharp, just missing a right-turning car. He saw the motorcycle cop as the brakes of the other car screamed. But the cop didn’t come after him.

He drove slowly up through the university gates and onto Sunset. Only one stop sign, at Beverly Glen. Sunset seemed deserted after Wilshire, he picked up speed. The light was against him at the intersection. He glanced casually at the Bel-Air gates; the road north jogged here, dividing into Bel-Air Road and, just beyond, Beverly Glen.

His hands tightened on the wheel. Cops again. Not on cycles; in a prowl car. Parked there watching the cars. He slid with the change to Go, not gathering speed until he had rounded the corner of the twisting woodland Sunset stretch. The rear-view mirror showed no car following. His hands relaxed and he wanted to laugh. Out loud, noisy.

The cops were as unimaginative as that Jepson. Could they actually believe the killer would return to the scene of the crime? He did laugh and loud. He could see them sitting there all day, waiting for a loony to drive up the canyon. Fools.

He cut south at Rodeo, swinging back to Wilshire. He had nothing to do with himself and tonight he didn’t want to be alone. The routine dullness of his nights, eat alone, go to a movie, go home—or, skip the movie, go home and read, write a little sometimes. The end, the same. Take some dope to sleep. Unless he could sleep the sleep of exhaustion. That wasn’t often.

A man couldn’t live alone; he needed friends. He needed a woman, a real woman. Like Brub and Sylvia. Like that stupid Cary had that stupid Maude. Better than being alone.

It wasn’t often it hit him hard. It was the balmy night and the early dusk and the look of lamps through opened windows and the sound of music from radios in the lighted rooms. He’d eschewed human relationship for something stronger, something a hell of a lot better.

The car had followed its lead to the apartment; he hadn’t intended to come back here yet. He parked at the curb; he’d have to go out to eat. Later.

He didn’t have to give up normal living; that had been his one mistake. Brub and Sylvia proved it. He could be with them and be himself and not give away any secrets. His nerves were steady, his eyes level. It was time to gather friends again. Someone besides Brub and Sylvia. He couldn’t be so constant at their home. They might start wondering. Sometimes Sylvia’s eyes were disturbing, they were so wise. As if she could see under the covering of a man. Ridiculous, of course. You didn’t ever have to give yourself away. Not if you were smart.

His spirits had jutted back up to a normal level. It wasn’t often he got the dumps. His life was good, a slick apartment, a solid car; income without working for it, not half enough, but he could get by. Freedom, plenty of freedom. Nobody telling him what to do, nobody snooping.

He pulled the keys from the ignition and walked, tinkling them, the few paces to the court entrance. It was amusing to enter boldly, announcing his entrance with the metallic percussion. He didn’t let into actual consciousness the thought that the redhead might be on her balcony.

The first time he’d seen the patio, he hadn’t believed it. He hadn’t been long enough in Southern California to believe it. It wasn’t real; it was a stage set, a stagy stage set. In the center was the oblong blue pool. By day the pool was sky blue, it was tiled in that color, the water in it had to look that blue. By night it was moonlight blue. Two blue spotlights, one at either end of the balcony, made certain of that.

Dix had never seen anyone swimming in the pool by day or by night. He’d never seen anyone lounging in the bright, striped gliders or around the gaudy umbrella tables. The idea was good, the semi-tropical flowers spotted in the corners of the square prettied it up still more, the high oleander hedge was protection from street eyes, but nobody used the patio. The people in the Spanish bungalows boxing the court on three sides, and those upstairs off the Spanish-Colonial balcony, weren’t clubby. Dix hadn’t laid eyes on a couple of them in the weeks he’d been here.

He was thinking about the artificial moonlight in the artificial patio when behind him the blare of a horn jabbed. Jangle of voices scraped across his nerves. Anger shook him; for a moment he was tempted to turn out of the court and raise hell. Instead he tightened his fists and walked to his door, the first bungalow on the left. He was only at the door when he heard the heels clicking across the flagstone patio. Before he turned he was certain whom he would see.

She hadn’t noticed him standing there by his door, she was hurrying. In the blue light her hair and her slacks and jacket were all blue, different depths of blue.

What he did was out of impulse, without thought. Thought would have rejected the idea. With long stride he quietly circled the pool. He was at the stairs almost as quickly as she. She was only on the third step when he spoke to her.

“I beg your pardon.”

She wasn’t startled although she hadn’t known he was there. She stood arrested in motion of ascent, her head turning without any haste until she could look back down at him. When she saw it was a man, the glint of dare touched her mouth, her eyes.

“Did you drop something?” he continued. He held one hand cupped before him.

She looked down at herself, at her purse, touched her blown hair. “Did I?” she puzzled.

Quickly, impudently, he thrust both hands in his pockets He looked up boldly at her. “I don’t know. I was hoping so.”

Her eyes narrowed over him slowly, in the way they had last night. She liked the look of him. Her eyes lengthened and she began to smile her lips. “Why?” she countered.

“I just lost my dinner date. I thought maybe you’d lost yours too.”

She stopped smiling and she froze up just a little, not much. His eyes didn’t waver; they held on to hers until she smiled again. “Sorry.”

“I’m your neighbor. One A.” His head gestured. He didn’t want her to think he was a stranger, trying for pickup.

“Sorry,” she repeated and she moved up to the fourth step. “My dinner date will be here any minute and I’m not dressed. I’m rushing.”

“I’m sorry too,” Dix said. He said it warmly, with all the charm he could summon, and only a touch of arrogance for diversion.

She broke in, “If I ever lose a dinner date, I’ll let you know.” She ran up the stairs lightly, not looking back at him.

He shrugged. He hadn’t expected success, therefore he wasn’t disappointed. He’d made the preliminary maneuver, the question now was of time. He was stimulated by merely talking with her; she was a lure, even with that ghostly blue light coating her face. He moved back to his own quarters. Hearing again the tap of her heels, he swung suddenly and looked up to the balcony. She was just entering her apartment, the darkened one. the third. He continued content, to his bungalow. He’d made headway. He knew now where to find her.

He didn’t have to hurry. As a matter of fact, he needn’t leave the apartment. There were tins of food, crackers, some cheese and fruit, cold meat in the ice box. He could get comfortable, cheese and beer were good enough for any man on the evening of a scorcher day. But he didn’t want to get comfortable; he wanted something lively. Something amusing and stimulating and male.

He switched on the radio, found music, and fetched himself a cold beer from the kitchen. He was sprawled on the couch, half listening to the program, half thinking about the things he’d like to do tonight. If he had the money and the woman.

The slow beer was half gone when his front doorbell sounded. It startled him momentarily: his front bell was never rung. Slowly he got to his feet. He didn’t delay moving to answer it. But he didn’t hurry. He walked with caution.

The breath he took before setting his hand to the knob wasn’t deliberate. Not until he flung open the door and heard the breath expelled did he realize he’d been holding it.

On the doorstep was the redhead. She said, “I’ve just lost a dinner date.”

He tried not to sound too foolishly pleased. “Come in. Maybe you’ll find him here.”

“I hope not.” she said dryly. She moved past him into the living room. She was eyeing it. It didn’t look so good, the Sunday papers crushed on the couch, spilling over to the floor. The limp sofa cushions. The ash trays dirty, the beer bottle standing on the rug. Yet even in disarray it was class. The gray-green walls might have been indigenous to Virginibus Arms but the furniture was handpicked by Terriss. All modern bleached wood and glass and chrome, upholstery in yellow and crimson and gray. Terriss had boasted of his decorating taste. It wasn’t personal taste, it was money; with Terriss’ money you were steered to taste. You couldn’t go wrong.

Dix said, “Tillie doesn’t come on Sundays.”

“You should see my place.” She slid down in the wing chair as if she belonged there. She was still wearing the slacks; the outfit wasn’t shades of moonlight blue but pale yellow, the pullover deeper yellow; the jacket, loose over her shoulders, was white. And her hair wasn’t red, it was burnt sienna with shimmer of gold dusting it. She’d done over her hair and her face but she hadn’t taken time to change.

Dix held out the cigarette box to her. “What do you mean you hope not?”

She put the cigarette in her mouth, lifted her face, waited for the light. From the thin gold lighter, Mel’s lighter. “Because I told him I had a lousy headache and was going to bed.” She blew the plume of smoke directly up at Dix. “And that I was disconnecting the phone.”

He laughed. She was bold as her rust-red mouth and her slanted eyes, sharp as her painted tapering nails. She was what he’d needed. She was what he wanted. “Drink?”

“No. I want dinner. I had enough cocktails before I came home.” She moved her body in the chair. “Maybe that’s why I’m here.” Her eyes studied the room.

“Mind if I finish my beer?”

“Not at all.”

He returned to the couch and picked up the bottle. He didn’t bother to pick up the newspapers. The way the first section had fallen revealed half of Mildred’s whey face. He rested his foot on the paper.

The redhead turned her eyes suddenly back to him. “This is Mel Terriss’ apartment.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. He’s in South America. He turned it over to me while he’s away.”

“Who are you?” she demanded.

He smiled slightly. “I’m Dix Steele.” In turn demanded, “Who are you?”

She wasn’t accustomed to being given her own treatment. She didn’t know whether she liked it. She tossed back her autumn hair and waited, her eyes watching him. And then accepted his equality. “Laurel Gray.”

He inclined his head. “How d’y’do.” Exaggerated politeness. He switched to impudence. “Married?”

She bridled. Retort was on her tongue but she withheld it, her eyes going over him again in that slow slant fashion. There was no wedding ring on her finger, there was a lump of twisted gold, channeled with rubies and diamonds. A glittering bauble, the kind that cost fat money, the kind you looked at in jewelers’ windows on Beverly Drive. You looked through the thick plate glass of the windows and wondered about those jeweled hunks. Wondered how a man could get his hands on the kind of dough it took to touch.

Somebody had put it on her finger. But there wasn’t a wedding ring beside it.

She answered coolly, “It’s none of your business, son, but since you asked, not now.” She lifted her chin and he knew what she was about to say. He didn’t want it said, he fended it away quickly.

“You were a friend of Mel Terriss?” The ring might have come from Terriss.

“Not much.” She stubbed her cigarette into the ash tray. Dropped in on a couple of his parties.” She eyed him. “You a friend of Mel’s?

She was like all women, curious about your private life He laughed at her; she’d find out only as much as he wished. “An old friend,” he laughed. “Pre-war. Princeton” Princeton meant money and social position to her, calculation came that quickly under her skin. She was greedy and callous and a bitch, but she was fire and a man needed fire. “I’m from New York,” he threw in carelessly. It sounded better than New Jersey.

“So you looked up old friend Mel when you came to the coast,” her voice mocked.

“What do you think?” He saw the way her leg curved and lengthened into thigh. “Terriss isn’t the kind of guy you look up. He’s the kind you run into.” She had taken another cigarette into her mouth. He crossed to light it. Her perfume was of flesh as he bent over her, and her eyes were wide and bold. It was too soon. He snapped shut the lighter, but he stood over her for a moment longer, smelling her. “You won’t change your mind about a drink?”

“It’s food I want.” She didn’t want food, she wanted what he wanted.

“You’ll get it,” he told her. But not yet. He was comfortable. He didn’t want to start out again. He wanted to sit here opposite her, feeling for knowledge of her in his mind. He knew her; he had known her on that first evening when he’d bumped into her. But it was satisfying to corroborate the knowledge. He said, “First, I’m going to have a drink.”

She gave in. “Make it two.”

He smiled to himself as he went to the kitchen. He’d thought she would change her mind. A couple of drinks and they’d get acquainted faster. When he returned to the living room with the drinks, she was still curved in the chair. As if she hadn’t stirred but were waiting for him to infuse movement into her.

She had moved. The paper his foot had trodden was by her chair. She took the glass from him and she said, “I see where the strangler’s been at it again.” She wasn’t very interested; it was conversation, nothing more. “Someday maybe those dopes will learn not to pick up strange men.”

“You picked me up.”

She’d taken a long swallow of the highball. As he spoke, she lifted her eyebrows. “You picked me up. Princeton.” She purred. “Besides, you’re no stranger.” She knew it too, the instinct of one for the other. “Mel’s liquor is good as ever.”

He said, “Yes, he left a good cellar for me.” He went on, “I ran into him in a bar.”

“And you had an old-home week.”

“He was potted and trying to make my girl.” His eyes spoke meaning beyond the words he slurred. “A blonde.”

“That you’d picked up somewhere,” she retorted.

He lied, “Friend of mine from home. She was just here for a week. Not Mel’s type.” He drank. He couldn’t even remember the girl or her name. “Did you ever try to get rid of Mel when he was soused?”

“When wasn’t he?”

“Well,” he shrugged. “I promised to lunch with him next day. I lunched with him. I was trying to find an apartment. He was going to Rio on this new job. So—”

“Wait a minute,” she called out. “Not Mel. Not a job in Rio.”

“That’s what he told me,” Dix said. That’s what Mel had said. He could have gone on a job. Some alcoholics tried to make a new start. She was laughing to herself. “So you moved in.”

“Yes, I moved in.” He wasn’t irritated. She didn’t mean he was a charity case; she wouldn’t be here drinking with him if she didn’t think he had the stuff to spend. She probably thought he was another stinking rich loafer like Mel Terriss. He was casual. “I needed a quiet place for work.”

She was still laughing within her. “What do you do? Invent bombs?”

“I’m a writer.” He didn’t let her put the question. It was time again for her to answer questions. “I suppose you’re in pictures?”

“Not often. I don’t like getting up mornings.” She knew all the tricks, to speak in commonplace phrases, to say more than words could say. He wondered who was keeping her. He could see the guy. fat-paunched. fat-jowled. balding. Too old, too ugly to get without paying for it. Paying plenty. A guy with nothing on his side but money. A bad idea slapped him. Could Terriss have been the guy? He didn’t fit the picture of Old Moneybags. But if you revised the picture. A younger fellow, dopey with drink, his looks ravaged by the booze, a dullard always, even before alcohol narcotized what he had for a brain. And that stinking ego. He could just hear Terriss boasting about his girl, wearing her in public the way she wore that hunk of a ring; making himself believe he didn’t have to buy it. he was just treating the gal right.

It couldn’t have been Terriss. Terriss would have bragged about her. At least he’d have mentioned her. It wasn’t Terriss. But doubts were worms crawling in his mind. She could twist a man about those taloned fingers, a man like Terriss. She could have excuses to keep her name out of it. Her career. A jealous ex. A divorce not quite complete.

She hadn’t been talking. She’d been having her drink, eyeing him. Nor had his thoughts run across his face. It was trained to remain emotionless.

He finished his drink. “I don’t like mornings either.” he said. “That’s why I’m a writer.”

“Trying to break into pictures?”

He laughed at her. “I write books. Lady. When I try to break into screen work, it will be because I need the money.” He’d said the right thing, some of the speculation about him went out of her that quickly. There was an imperceptible relaxing of her muscular tension. He watched her over the edge of his glass as he tilted it, finished his drink. “Another?”

“Not now—”

He broke in. “I know, you’re hungry. Wait’ll I get a jacket and we’ll be on our way.” He didn’t take a minute, catching up the heavy tweed jacket, a fuzzy, wiry tweed, rich brown, rich stuff. He slipped into the coat—he had about twenty dollars, enough for a Sunday-night dinner. Not a dress-up dinner, not in slacks.

She had retouched her lips, combed out her hair, resettled the white coat over the yellow sweater. She looked as fresh as if she’d just tubbed. She turned from the mirror as he reentered, the mirror near the desk. Her bag was on the desk. Good thing he’d mailed Uncle Fergus’ letter. She was the kind who wouldn’t care how she got her information on a man.

“Ready?”

She nodded and she walked towards the door. He came up behind her. In time to open the door. She looked up at him. “Do you have Mel’s address in Rio?” The question was sudden. Why the hell couldn’t she forget Mel Terriss?

“I’ll give it to you when we get back.” he told her. He opened the door. They went together into the night.

He touched her then for the first time, his hand against her elbow, escorting her into the blue courtyard.

He asked. “How would you like to drive up to Malibu?”