In a Lonely Place (7 page)

She wasn’t afraid. She rested herself carelessly against the seat of the car, her left knee half-turned towards his thigh In the rounding of a corner she would touch him. She knew it; she curled herself deliberately in this fashion. It was one of her tricks. Yet, even knowing it was a trick, he was stimulated, waiting for that pressure.

This was the beginning of something good, so good that he was enjoying its immediacy without thought, without plan. She was beside him, that was enough. He had needed her for so long a time. He had always needed her.

It was a dream. A dream he had not dared dream, a woman like this. A tawny-haired woman; a high-breasted, smooth-hipped, scented woman; a wise woman. He didn’t want to go to Malibu, he wanted to swing the car around, return to the apartment. He could wait. It was better to wait. She knew that.

The traffic lanes were quieter at this early evening hour. He followed Wilshire to the eucalyptus grove of San Vicente. The spice of eucalyptus scented the darkness. San Vicente was a dark street, he hadn’t noticed before. And the smell of the sea came in to meet them long before they reached the hill that dropped into the canyon, long before they reached the sound of the sea.

She was quiet on the drive. He was grateful for her quietness. He wondered if she were feeling for knowledge of him in her quietness or if she were only tired. She didn’t speak until he turned into the canyon.

She remarked then, “You know the back roads.”

“You recognize them,” he smiled.

The touch of her knee on his thigh was more deliberate. She tossed back her hair. “I’ve driven them often enough.” she said in that slow, husky way which gave words meaning. She laughed. “I’ve friends in Malibu.”

“The particular friend?”

“Which one?” she countered.

“Isn’t there a particular one?” Curiosity nagged him. He wanted to know about her. But he couldn’t ask questions, not open questions. She was like him; she’d lie.

“There usually is,” she said. They had reached the ocean road, turn right to Malibu. “Where will we eat?”

“Any place you say. You know Malibu.”

“I don’t want to go to Malibu.”

He turned his head, puzzled at her abruptness. Afraid for the moment that this was to be the end of it, that she would put him off as she had the other man. Afraid that he’d said the wrong thing or done the wrong thing although he didn’t know where he’d gone wrong. But she was still relaxed. She said, “I’m too hungry to drive that far. Let’s stop at Carl’s.”

Anything that she said. The neon sign of Carl’s slatted over the road ahead. He remembered the Nicolais and their friends had mentioned a Carl’s or Joe’s or Sam’s. He wouldn’t want to run into them. He wanted Laurel alone, unshared. Not touched by the anger and terror which entangled the Nicolais. He didn’t ever want her touched by ugly things.

Yet he had no reason to reject Carl’s. No reason to instil controversy in what had been between them, quiet, uncluttered. If Carl’s had been the Nicolais’ dinner choice, they would be gone by now. It had been more than two hours since he left them; they were planning to eat at that time. A car was pulling out from the front of the restaurant. Instinct avoided the lights. He drew up in the road at the side of the building, parked there.

She said, “I’ll slide through.” He stood there watching her come to him, taking her hand, touching her waist as he helped her from the car. The sea was a surge and a hush in the darkness across the road. She stood close to him for a moment, too close, before he removed his hand. She said “You don’t mind stopping here? The shrimp’s good.”

She led him around to the steps and they went up into the dining room. There were few in it, his quick look saw that he knew no one. Nor did she. Her look was quick as his own.

It was a spacious room, warm with light, circled with windows overlooking the dark sea. They sat facing each other and it was good. To be with a woman. To be opposite her, to have his fill of her face, the shape of it, the texture of it, the bone structure beneath the amber flesh. The set of her eyes and the shape of her mouth . . . her fire-tipped mouth.

“You think you’ll know me the next time you see me?”

He returned to her actuality. He laughed but his words weren’t made of laughter. “I knew you before I ever saw you.”

Her eyes widened.

“And you knew me.”

She let her lashes fall. They curved long as a child’s, russet against her cheeks. She said, “You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Dix?”

“Never before.”

Her eyes opened full again and laughter echoed through her. “Oh, brother!” she breathed.

He didn’t answer her, only with the look in his eyes. He hadn’t been sure-footed with her before. He was now. He knew how to play it. She was brittle only on the surface. Underneath she too was seeking. Exhilaration heightened him. He knew then the rightness of this; she was for him.

The waitress came to the table before he could further it. He said, “You order. Laurel. I’ll double it. Drink first?” He was irritated by the interruption. The waitress was a little chit, too much hair and flat face.

”No drinks.” Laurel ordered for both, competently, without fuss. “Bring the coffee now, will you?”

The waitress went away but she was back too quickly. She poured the coffee. This time she’d be away longer.

Laurel said, “If you don’t want your coffee now, I’ll drink both, Princeton.”

“You’re out of luck.” She knew what a man wanted, coffee, now, not later. He lighted her cigarette, realizing her as he leaned across the table. She was real, not a begging dream in his loneness. She was a woman.

She settled herself in comfort. “How long have you been living at Mel’s place?” She was deliberately veering from intimacy. It didn’t matter; postponement added zest.

He tried to remember. “About two months—six weeks, I guess.”

“Funny I haven’t run into you.”

“Yes.” Yet it wasn’t. He’d used the back door, short cut to the garage. He hadn’t been in the blue patio half a dozen times. “I thought you were a visitor when I bumped into you last night. Have you been away?”

“No.”

“Guess our hours didn’t coincide. They will now.”

“They might,” she admitted.

“They will,” he said with certainty.

Again she veered. “When did Mel leave?”

He Figured it in his mind. “August. Around about the first. Before I moved in.”

The waitress divided them again. She wasn’t too long about it, and she was agreeable despite her flat face. The shrimp looked good and she poured more coffee without request.

He waited only until she was out of hearing. “Why the interest in Mel? I thought you’d only been in his place a couple of times.” It wasn’t jealousy but she’d think there was a twinge of it in him. She was thinking it now, maybe that was why she kept harping on Mel. Just another trick, not actual curiosity. “You weren’t carrying the torch there?”

“Good Lord. Princeton!” That ended that. She needn’t try that trick again.

He smiled slightly. “I was beginning to think he might have been the jeweler.” His forefinger touched the mass of gold and ruby.

Her lip curled. “Mel was more careful of his money than that. Liquor was the only thing he could bear to spend it on.” Her eyes touched the ring. “My ex.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “It’s a nice piece.”

She said suddenly, “Don’t ever marry money. It isn’t worth it.” She began to eat as if her hunger had reawakened.

“I’ve always thought it might be a good racket.” He added, “For a woman.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the money. It’s what goes with it.” Her face was stony. “Bastards.”

“Ex’es?”

“Rich men. And women. They believe the earth was created for them. They don’t have to think or feel—all they have to do is buy it. God, how I hate them!” She shook her head. “Shut up, Laurel.”

He smiled patiently. “I don’t believe that’s true of all of them.” As if he were a rich guy himself, one of the dirty bastards himself.

She said, “I can smell them a mile off. They’re all alike.”

“They aren’t all like Mel—or your ex.”

She went on eating. As if she hadn’t heard him. And he had to know. If Mel had been in on the rent. He seized it. “After all they pay the rent. And the jeweler.”

“They don’t pay mine,” she said savagely. Then she smiled. “I said shut up, Laurel. But I’m surprised Mel went off without saying goodbye. He was always in my hair.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t take you with him,” Dix said.

She grimaced. “I told you I’d learned my lesson. Don’t marry money.”

No one was paying her rent. She was on her own; the ex, the rich one, must have settled up. She’d see to that; she and a battery of expensive lawyers. He said lightly, “It’s the man who pays and pays. It couldn’t have been too bad. You can sleep mornings and not have to worry about the roof over your head.”

She said, “Yes,” and the hardness came about her mouth. “As long as I don’t marry again.”

He understood her bitterness, but, understanding, he was disturbed. There could be someone she wanted, the way he was going to want her. She wouldn’t have the hatred of the ex if there weren’t a reason; she had his money to live on and free of him. Dix couldn’t go on asking questions; he’d asked too many now. He was prying and she’d know it when the anger went out of her. He smiled at her again. “I’m glad that’s the way it is,” he said.

“Why?” She flashed at him.

“Because I wouldn’t have found you in time—if it hadn’t been that way.”

Because she was desired, she softened. Giving him the look and the dare. She said, “Why, Princeton!”

“Or am I in time?”

She smiled, the inscrutable smile of a woman who knew the ways of a woman. She didn’t answer him. There could be someone else. But at the moment, here with her, he was sure of his own prowess. Because he knew this was intended; that he and she should meet and in meeting become enmeshed. It was to be; it was.

They were the last guests to leave the restaurant. Again in the dark, sea-scented night, he was filled with power and excitement and rhythm. But tonight it was good. Because he was with her.

He didn’t want to turn back to the city. He wanted to go on with her into this darkness, with the sound of water echoing the beat of his heart. He wanted to keep her with him always in this oneness of the two. He wanted to lift her with him into the vastness of the night sky. He said “Shall we drive on up to Malibu?”

But he didn’t want to drive, he didn’t want to be occupied with the mechanics of a car. He was relieved when she refused.

“Let’s keep away from Malibu.”

He turned back, but driving without plan, he found the place where he could silence the car. An open stretch overlooking the dark beach and the sea. He said, “Do you mind? I just want to smell the salt.”

Her eyebrows quirked. She’d thought he was parking the way a kid parked with his girl. She liked it that he hadn’t meant it for that. She said suddenly, “Let’s go down where we can really smell it.”

The wind caught at them as they left the car and descended to the beach. The wind and the deep sand pushed at them but they struggled on, down to the water’s edge. Waves were frost on the dark churning waters. Stars pricked through the curved sky. The rhythm pulsed, the crash and the slurring swish repeated endlessly, the smell of the sea was sharp. Spindrift salted their lips.

He had taken her hand as they walked to the water, he held it now, and she didn’t withdraw it from his. She said, “I haven’t done this for a long, long time.” Her voice wasn’t brittle; she wasn’t playing a game with him. She was alone here, with him but alone. The wind swirled her hair across her face until he could see only the slant of her forehead and her cheek. Happiness rose like a spire within him. He hadn’t expected ever to know happiness again, his voice stirred, “Laurel—”She turned her head, slowly, as if surprised that he was there The wind blew her hair like mist across her face. She lifted her face and for the first time, there in the light of the sea and the stars, he knew the color of her eyes. The color of dusk and mist rising from the sea, with the amber of stars flecking them.

“Laurel,” he said, and she came to him the way he had known from the beginning it must be. “Laurel,” he cried, as if the word were the act. And there became a silence around them, a silence more vast than the thunderous ecstasy of the hungry sea.

To sleep, perchance to dream and dreaming wake . . .
To sleep and to wake. To sleep in peace, without the red evil of dreaming. To wake without need to struggle through fog to reach the sunlight. To find sleep good and waking more good. It was the ringing phone that woke him. He reached for it and he felt her stir beside him.

He spoke into it quietly, not wishing to wake her. Yet he willed her to wake, to open her eyes as he had opened his, into the full sunshine. “Hello.”

“Dix? Did I interrupt your work?”

It was Brub Nicolai. For the instant there was a waning of the sun, as if a cold hand had pushed against it. Dix softened his voice to answer. “Not at all.”

Brub didn’t sound depressed today; it could have been the old Brub speaking. “Who was that redhead I seen you with last night? Was that the redhead?”

He couldn’t answer quickly. It was impossible for Brub to have seen him last night with Laurel. Unless Brub were having him followed. That was more impossible. That would be incredible. He asked, “What are you talking about?”

“The redhead, Dickson. Not the blonde you were meeting in Hollywood. The redhead. Was that—”

Dix said, “Hm, a peeping Tom. Where were you hiding Tom?”

Brub laughed. As if he hadn’t a care in the world. “You didn’t see us. We were pulling out of Carl’s when you went in. It was Sylvia spotted you. I spotted the redhead.”

The car he had avoided by parking at the side of the building. There were always eyes. A little tailor on his way home from a movie. A waitress in a drive-in. A butcher-boy on a bicycle. A room clerk with a wet pointed nose. A detective’s wife who was alert, too alert. Whose eyes saw too much.

There were always eyes but they didn’t see. He had proved it. His hand relaxed on the phone. “You would. And what did the little woman say to that?”

“I couldn’t repeat such language.” There was an imperceptible change in Brub’s voice. Back to business. “How about lunch with me? You bring the redhead.”

He could hear the stir of her breath. She was awake but she was silent. “She’s tied up.” He wouldn’t put her and Brub together. She belonged in a different compartment from the Nicolais.

“Then you’re not, I take it. How about lunch?”

He could refuse. But he didn’t want to. Even to be with her. Because the game with Brub was important; it had to be played. There was renewed zest of the game in having Brub make the approach today.

“Sure,” he agreed. “What time and where?” He noted the clock. It was past eleven.

“Noon? I’m at the Beverly Hills station.”

His pulse leaped. The game was growing better. To walk into the police station, to be the guest of Homicide for lunch But he didn’t want to hurry. He wanted to watch her rise from sleep, to see her woman-ways, the clothing of her the combing of her hair. He asked, “Can you make it one or do you punch a time clock?”

“One’s okay. Meet me here?”

“I’ll be there, Brub.” He replaced the phone and turned to look on her. She was beautiful, she was younger than he’d thought her on first meeting; she was beautiful in the morning after sleep. Her hair was cobweb on the pillow, her dusky amber-flecked eyes were wide. She didn’t smile up at him, she looked at him with that long wondering look.

She said, “Who’s first on the shower?”

He put his fingers to her cheek. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was. He wanted to tell her all that she was to him, all that she must be. He said, “The one who doesn’t fix the coffee.”

She stirred, lazy as a cat. “I don’t cook.”

“Then you do the scrubbing, Lady. And don’t take all day.”

“You have a lunch date,” she mocked.

“Business.”

“It sounded like it.”

He didn’t dare touch her, not if he were to make it to Brub. He slid away his fingers, slowly, with reluctance. Yet there was a pleasure in the reluctance, in the renunciation. This moment would come again and he would not let it pass. Postponing it would make it the sweeter.

“Go on,” she urged. “Make the coffee.”

She didn’t believe that he meant to leave. He surprised her when he rose obediently, wrapped his bathrobe about him. He wanted to surprise her; he wanted her interest. She knew men so well although she was too young to know so well. Only by whetting her interest would she remain with him long enough to become entangled with him. Because she was spoiled and wise and suspicious.

He put on the coffee in the kitchen and then he went to the front door. The paper had hit the doorstep today, he didn’t have to step outside for it. It was habit that unfolded it and looked at the front page. He didn’t really care what was on it. The story wasn’t there; it was on the second page, the police quizzing friends of the dead Mildred, the police admitting this early that there were no leads. He read the story scantly. He could hear the downpour of the shower. There was no mail in the slot. Too soon to hear from Uncle Fergus. The old buzzard had better come through. He’d need money to take Laurel where she should be taken. To expensive places where she could be displayed as she should be.

He flung down the paper, went back to the bedroom, impatient to see her again. She was still in the bathroom but the shower was turned off. He called, “How do you take your coffee?” Touching the soft yellow of her sweater there on the chair. Wanting to look on her, to smell her freshness.

She opened the door. She was wrapped in a borrowed white terry bathrobe, it was a cocoon enfolding her. Her face was shining and her damp hair was massed on top of her head. She came to the quick take of his breath, came to him and he held her. “Oh, God,” he said. Deliberately he set her away. “I’ve got a business luncheon in one hour. How do you want your coffee?”

Her eyes slanted. “Sweet and black.”

He hurried as she sat down at the dressing table, hurried to return to her. She was still there when he brought the coffee, she was combing out her hair, her fiery gold hair. He put the coffee down for her and he carried his own across the room.

“You’d better shower, Dix. You don’t want to be late for that business appointment.”

“It is business. Someday I’ll tell you all about it.” He drank his coffee, watching the way she swirled her hair below her shoulders. Watching the way she painted her lips, brushed her lashes. As if she belonged here. Jealousy flecked him. She knew her way around, had she been here before? He couldn’t bear it if Mel Terriss had touched her. Yet he knew she had been touched by other men; there was no innocence in her.

Abruptly he left her, long enough to shower. He couldn’t stay with her, not with the anger rising in him. It washed away in the shower. Mel Terriss wasn’t here. She couldn’t have had anything to do with Terriss. She wouldn’t ever have been that hard up. He opened the door when he’d finished showering, fearing that she might have slipped away from him. But she was there, almost in the doorway. “I brought you more coffee,” she said.

“Thanks, baby. Mind the noise of a razor?”

“I can take it.” She was dressed now. She sat on the edge of the tub with her coffee, watching him shave. As if she couldn’t bear to leave him. As if it was the same with her as with him. The burring didn’t annoy him with her there. He could talk through it, gaily. “I knew you’d be busy. That’s why I said okay.”

“And if I weren’t?”

“Aren’t you?”

“I have a voice lesson at two,” she admitted.

“What time will you be home?”

“Why?” she mocked.

He didn’t bother to answer, only with his eyes. He finished shaving, cleaned the razor.

“Busy tonight?”

“Why?” she repeated.

“I might be free,” he said.

“Call me.”

”I’ll camp on your doorstep.”

She frowned slightly, ever so slightly. He might have imagined it. Only she said, “I’ll come here.” And she curved her lips. “If I’m free.”

She didn’t want him to come to her place. It could be the ex, yet how could it be? It could be she was tied up with someone else. She could have lied. There might be a Mr. Big in the background. The man she’d lied to last night.

He said definitely, “If you aren’t here, I’ll be on your doorstep.”

She followed him into the bedroom again, lounged on the edge of the bed while he dressed. Gray slacks, a blue shirt—he wouldn’t need a coat, warmth filled the room. From the back of the chair he took the tweed jacket he’d worn last night. He’d forgotten to hang it.

She said, “That looks like Mel’s jacket. He was a good dresser.”

He turned with it in his hands. She hadn’t meant anything, it was just a remark. He admitted, “It’s Mel’s,” casually but boldly. “In Rio it’s summer. Mel was going to buy up all the best Palm Beach. He left his old stuff here, told me to help myself.” He explained it, continuing into the closet, the closet filled with Mel’s expensive clothes. “My own things shrank when I was in the service. And thanks to the shortages, I arrived here practically destitute.”

She said, “I’m surprised anything of Mel’s would fit you.”

He closed the closet door. “His backlog before he developed that paunch. He was skinny enough at Nassau.”

He transferred his billfold and car keys.

She said, “He even left you his car. You must have done him a favor once. I never thought he’d give away an old toothpick.”

He smiled. “He’s making up for all of it on the sublease. But I did do him several favors.”

”At Nassau,” she mimicked.

“Yeah. I used to speak to him.” He took her arm, steered her to the door. “Is your phone still disconnected?”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll start calling you the minute I’m back here.”

“I’ll call you when I get back.”

They were at the front door and she turned to him, into his arms. Her mouth was like her hair, flame. This time she broke from him. “You have a business date,” she reminded.

“Yeah.” He took his handkerchief, wiped his lips. “Somebody might be in that empty patio.”

She laughed. “The nice part about departing at noon, Dix, is that no one knows what time you arrived.”

They left together and he heard her footsteps passing the pool to her staircase. He knew he was behaving like a love-smitten sophomore but he waited by the entrance until she was on her balcony, until she lifted her hand to him in goodbye.

He’d left his car standing in the street. There hadn’t been time last night to put it away. He was pleased it was there, that he didn’t have to go through the back alley to get it out. He felt too good to do more than step into it and swing away on its power. He was even on time for the appointment with Brub.

He drove up Beverly Drive, turning over to the city hall. It looked more like a university hall than headquarters for the police, a white-winged building with a center tower. It was set in green grass, bordered with shrubs and flowers. There was nothing about it that said police save that the huge bronze lamps on either side of the door burned green. He climbed the stone steps and entered the door.

The corridor inside was clean and businesslike. A sign directed to the police quarters. He went up to the desk, it might have been the desk in any office. If it hadn’t been for the dark blue uniform of the man just leaving, it would be hard to believe this was the Beverly Hills police station. The pleasant young man behind the desk wore a brown plaid sports coat and tan slacks.

Dix said, “Brub Nicolai?” He didn’t know a title. “Detective Nicolai. He’s expecting me.”

He followed the young man’s directions up the hall entered another businesslike room. Brub was sitting in a chair. There were a couple of other men present, a little older than Brub, in plain business suits. They didn’t look any different than ordinary men. They were L.A. Homicide.

Brub’s face brightened when he saw Dix. “You made it.”

“I’m seven minutes early.”

“And I’m hungry.” Brub turned to the other men, the tall, lean one and the smaller, heavier-set one. “See you later.” He didn’t introduce Dix. But they were Homicide. It was in the way their eyes looked at a man, even a friend of one of their own. Memorizing him. Brub said, “Come on, Dix. Before I start eating the leg of a chair.”

Dix said, “Sawdust will give you a bay window if you aren’t careful.”

They walked down the corridor, out into the sunshine. “My car’s here.”

Brub said, “Might as well walk. We can’t park much nearer. Where do you usually eat?”

“If you’re hungry and don’t want to stand in line, we’ll go to my favorite delicatessen. Or the Ice House.”

They walked together the few blocks. The sun was warm and the air smelled good. It was like a small town, the unhurried workers of the village greeting each other in the noon, standing on the corners talking in the good-smelling sunshine. He chose the Ice House, it was the nearer, just around the corner on Beverly. Man-food in it. He was surprised that he too had an appetite. Good sleep meant good appetite.

He grinned across the table at Brub. “For a moment this morning you startled me. I thought you were clairvoyant.”

“About your redhead?” Brub whistled. “That’s a piece of goods. How did you arrange to meet her?”

He could talk of her to Brub. And like a love-smitten swain he wanted to talk of her. “It’s time the Virginibus Arms had a good-neighbor policy.”

“Virginibus Arms? Not bad,” Brub said.

He realized then that Brub hadn’t known his address until now. He’d given his phone number, not his address.

“Yeah, I was lucky. Sublease. From Mel Terriss.” Brub didn’t know Mel. “Fellow I went to school with at Princeton. Ran into him out here just when he was leaving on a job.”

“Damn lucky,” Brub said. “And the redhead went with it?”

He grinned again, like a silly ass. “Wish I’d known it sooner.”

“Is she in pictures?”

“She’s done a little.” He knew so little about her. “She’s studying.”

“What’s her name?”

Brub wasn’t prying; this was the old Brub. Brub and Dix. The two Musketeers. A part of each other’s lives.

“Laurel,” he said, and saying the name his heart quickened. “Laurel Gray.”

“Bring her out some night. Sylvia would like to meet her.”

“Sylvia, my eye. You don’t think I’d expose Laurel to your wolfish charms, do you?”