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THIRTEEN

The house was on a curving quiet street between San Vincente and Sunset Boulevard. It was set far back and had a long driveway and the entrance to the house was at the back with a small patio in front of it. She unlocked the door and switched on lights all over the house and then disappeared without a word. The living room had nicely mixed furniture and a feeling of comfort. I stood waiting until she came back with two tall glasses. She had taken her coat off.

“You’ve been married, of course,” I said.

“It didn’t take. I got this house and some money out of it, but I wasn’t gunning for anything. He was a nice guy, but we were wrong for each other. He’s dead now—plane crash—he was a jet pilot. Happens all the time. I know a place between here and San Diego that is full of girls who were married to jet pilots when they were alive.”

I took a single sip of my drink and put it down.

I lifted her glass out of her hand and put it down too.

“Remember yesterday morning when you told me to stop looking at your legs?”

“I seem to remember.”

“Try and stop me now.”

I took hold of her and she came into my arms without a word. I picked her up and carried her and somehow found the bedroom. I put her down on the bed. I peeled her skirt up until I could see the white thighs above her long beautiful nylon-clad legs. Suddenly she reached up and pulled my head down against her breast.

“Beast! Could we have a little less light?”

I went to the door and switched the light off in the room. There was still a glow from the hall. When I turned she was standing by the bed as naked as Aphrodite, fresh from the Aegean. She stood there proudly and without either shame or enticement.

“Damn it,” I said, “when I was young you could undress a girl slowly. Nowadays she’s in the bed while you’re struggling with your collar button.”

“Well, struggle with your goddam collar button.”

She pulled the bedcovers back and lay on the bed shamelessly nude. She was just a beautiful naked woman completely unashamed of being what she was.

“Satisfied with my legs?” she asked.

I didn’t answer.

“Yesterday morning,” she said, half dreamily, “I said there was something about you I liked—you didn’t paw—and something I didn’t like. Know what it was?”

“No.”

“That you didn’t make me do this then.”

“Your manner hardly encouraged it.”

“You’re supposed to be a detective. Please put out all the lights now.”

Then very soon in the dark she was saying, “Darling, darling, darling” in that very special tone of voice a woman uses only in those special moments. Then a slow gentle relaxing, a peace, a quietness.

“Still satisfied with my legs?” she asked dreamily.

“No man ever would be. They would haunt him, no matter how many times he made love to you.”

“You bastard. You complete bastard. Come closer.”

She put her head on my shoulder and we were very close now.

“I don’t love you,” she said.

“Why would you? But let’s not be cynical about it. There are sublime moments—even if they are only moments.”

I felt her tight and warm against me. Her body surged with vitality. Her beautiful arms held me tight.

And again in the darkness that muted cry, and then again the slow quiet peace.

“I hate you,” she said with her mouth against mine. “Not for this, but because perfection never comes twice and with us it came too soon. And I’ll never see you again and I don’t want to. It would have to be forever or not at all.”

“And you acted like a hardboiled pick-up who had seen too much of the wrong side of life.”

“So did you. And we were both wrong. And it’s useless. Kiss me harder.”

Suddenly she was gone from the bed almost without sound or movement.

After a little while the light went on in the hallway and she stood in the door in a long wrapper.

“Goodbye,” she said calmly. “I’m calling a taxi for you. Wait out in front for it. You won’t see me again.”

“What about Umney?”

“A poor frightened jerk. He needs someone to bolster his ego, to give him a feeling of power and conquest. I give it to him. A woman’s body is not so sacred that it can’t be used—especially when she has already failed at love.”

She disappeared. I got up and put my clothes on and listened before I went out. I heard nothing. I called out, but there was no answer. When I reached the sidewalk in front of the house the taxi was just pulling up.

I looked back.The house seemed completely dark.

No one lived there. It was all a dream. Except that someone had called the taxi. I got into it and was driven home.

FOURTEEN

I left Los Angeles and hit the superhighway that now bypassed Oceanside. I had time to think.

From Los Angeles to Oceanside were eighteen miles of divided six-lane superhighway dotted at intervals with the carcasses of wrecked, stripped, and abandoned cars tossed against the high bank to rust until they were hauled away. So I started thinking about why I was going back to Esmeralda. The case was all backwards and it wasn’t my case anyway. Usually a PI gets a client who, for too little money, wants too much information. You get it or you don’t, depending on circumstances. The same with your fee. But once in a while you get the information and too much else, including a story about a body on a balcony which wasn’t there when you went to look. Common sense says go home and forget it, no money coming in. Common sense always speaks too late. Common sense is the guy who tells you you ought to have had your brakes relined last week before you smashed a front end this week. Common sense is the Monday morning quarterback who could have won the ball game if he had been on the team. But he never is. He’s high up in the stands with a flask on his hip. Common sense is the little man in a gray suit who never makes a mistake in addition. But it’s always somebody else’s money he’s adding up.

At the turn-off I dipped down into the canyon and ended up at the Rancho Descansado. Jack and Lucille were in their usual positions. I dropped my suitcase and leaned on the desk.

“Did I leave the right change?”

“Yes, thanks,” Jack said. “And now you want the room back, I suppose.”

“If possible.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you were a detective?”

“Now, what a question.” I grinned at him. “Does a detective ever tell anyone he’s a detective? You watch TV, don’t you?”

“When I get a chance. Not too often here.”

“You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off. What do you know about Larry Mitchell?”

“Nothing,” Jack said stiffly. “He’s a friend of Brandon’s. Mr. Brandon owns this place.”

Lucille said brightly: “Did you find Joe Harms all right?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“And did you—?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Button the lip, kid,” Jack said tersely. He winked at me and pushed the key across the counter. “Lucille has a dull life, Mr. Marlowe. She’s stuck here with me and a PBX. And an itty-bitty diamond ring—so small I was ashamed to give it to her. But what can a man do? If he loves a girl, he’d like it to show on her finger.”

Lucille held her left hand up and moved it around to get a flash from the little stone. “I hate it,” she said. “I hate it like I hate the sunshine and the summer and the bright stars and the full moon. That’s how I hate it.”

I picked up the key and my suitcase and left them. A little more of that and I’d be falling in love with myself. I might even give myself a small unpretentious diamond ring.

FIFTEEN

The house phone at the Casa del Poniente got no reply from Room 1224. I walked over to the desk. A stiff-looking clerk was sorting letters. They are always sorting letters.

“Miss Mayfield is registered here, isn’t she?” I asked.

He put a letter in a box before he answered me. “Yes, sir. What name shall I say?”

“I know her room number. She doesn’t answer. Have you seen her today?”

He gave me a little more of his attention, but I didn’t really send him. “I don’t think so.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Her key is out. Would you care to leave a message?”

“I’m a little worried. She wasn’t well last night. She could be up there sick, not able to answer the phone. I’m a friend of hers. Marlowe’s the name.”

He looked me over. His eyes were wise eyes. He went behind a screen in the direction of the cashier’s office and spoke to somebody. He came back in a short time. He was smiling.

“I don’t think Miss Mayfield is ill, Mr. Marlowe. She ordered quite a substantial breakfast in her room. And lunch. She has had several telephone calls.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “I’ll leave a message. Just my name and that I’ll call back later.”

“She might be out in the grounds or down on the beach,” he said. “We have a warm beach, well sheltered by a breakwater.” He glanced at the clock behind him. “If she is, she won’t be there much longer. It’s getting cool by now.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back.”

The main part of the lobby was up three steps and through an arch. There were people in it just sitting, the dedicated hotel lounge sitters, usually elderly, usually rich, usually doing nothing but watching with hungry eyes. They spend their lives that way. Two old ladies with severe faces and purplish permanents were struggling with an enormous jigsaw puzzle set out on a specially built king-size card table. Farther along there was a canasta game going—two women, two men. One of the women had enough ice on her to cool the Mojave Desert and enough make-up to paint a steam yacht. Both women had cigarettes in long holders. The men with them looked gray and tired, probably from signing checks. Farther along, still sitting where they could look out through the glass, a young couple were holding hands. The girl had a diamond and emerald sparkler and a wedding ring which she kept touching with her fingertips. She looked a little dazed.

I went out through the bar and poked around in the gardens. I went along the path that threaded the cliff top and had no trouble picking out the spot I had looked down on the night before from Betty Mayfield’s balcony. I could pick it out because of the sharp angle.

The bathing beach and small curved breakwater were a hundred yards along. Steps led down to it from the cliff. People were lying around on the sand. Some in swim suits or trunks, some just sitting there on rugs. Kids ran around screaming. Betty Mayfield was not on the beach.

I went back into the hotel and sat in the lounge.

I sat and smoked. I went to the newsstand and bought an evening paper and looked through it and threw it away. I strolled
by
the desk. My note was still in Box 1224. I went to the house phones and called Mr. Mitchell. No answer. I’m sorry. Mr. Mitchell does not answer his telephone.

A woman’s voice spoke behind me. “The clerk said you wanted to see me. Mr. Marlowe—” she said. “Are you Mr. Marlowe?”

She looked as fresh as a morning rose. She was wearing dark green slacks and saddle shoes and a green windbreaker over a white shirt with a loose Paisley scarf around that. A bandeau on her hair made a nice wind-blown effect.

The bell captain was hanging out his ear six feet away. I said: “Miss Mayfield?”

“I’m Miss Mayfield.”

“I have the car outside. Do you have time to look at the property?”

She looked at her wrist watch. “Ye-es, I guess so,” she said. “I ought to change pretty soon, but—oh, all right.”

“This way, Miss Mayfield.”

She fell in beside me. We walked across the lobby. I was getting to feel quite at home there. Betty Mayfield glanced viciously at the two jigsaw puzzlers.

“I hate hotels,” she said. “Come back here in fifteen years and you would find the same people sitting in the same chairs.”

“Yes, Miss Mayfield. Do you know anybody named Clyde Umney?”

She shook her head. “Should I?”

“Helen Vermilyea? Ross Goble?”

She shook her head again.

“Want a drink?”

“Not now, thanks.”

We came out of the bar and went along the walk and I held the door of the Olds for her. I backed out of the slot and pointed it straight up Grand Street towards the hills. She slipped dark glasses with spangled rims on her nose. “I found the traveler’s checks,” she said. “You’re a queer sort of detective.”

I reached in my pocket and held out her bottle of sleeping pills. “I was a little scared last night,” I said. “I counted these but I didn’t know how many had been there to start with. You said you took two. I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t rouse up enough to gulp a handful.”

She took the bottle and stuffed it into her windbreaker. “I had quite a few drinks. Alcohol and barbiturates make a bad combination. I sort of passed out. It was nothing else.”

“I wasn’t sure. It takes a minimum of thirty-five grains of that stuff to kill. Even then it takes several hours. I was in a tough spot. Your pulse and breathing seemed all right but maybe they wouldn’t be later on. If I called a doctor, I might have to do a lot of talking. If you had taken an overdose, the homicide boys would be told, even if you snapped out of it. They investigate all suicide attempts. But if I guessed wrong, you wouldn’t be riding with me today. And where would I be then?”

“It’s a thought,” she said. “I can’t say I’m going to worry about it terribly. Who are these people you mentioned?”

“Clyde Umney’s the lawyer who hired me to follow you—on instructions from a firm of attorneys in Washington, D.C. Helen Vermilyea is his secretary. Ross Goble is a Kansas City private eye who says he is trying to find Mitchell.” I described him to her.

Her face turned stony. “Mitchell? Why should he be interested in Larry?”

I stopped at the corner of Fourth and Grand for an old coot in a motorized wheel chair to make a left turn at four miles an hour. Esmeralda is full of the damn things.

“Why should he be looking for Larry Mitchell?” she asked bitterly. “Can’t anybody leave anybody else alone?”

“Don’t tell me anything,” I said. “Just keep on asking me questions to which I don’t know the answers. It’s good for my inferiority complex. I told you I had no more job. So why am I here? That’s easy. I’m groping for that five grand in traveler’s checks again.”

“Turn left at the next corner,” she said, “and we can go up into the hills. There’s a wonderful view from up there. And a lot of very fancy homes.”

“The hell with them,” I said.

“It’s also very quiet up there.” She picked a cigarette out of the pack clipped to the dash and lit it.

“That’s two in two days,” I said. “You’re hitting them hard. I counted your cigarettes last night too. And your matches. I went through your bag. I’m kind of snoopy when I get roped in on a phony like that one. Especially when the client passes out and leaves me holding the baby.”

She turned her head to stare at me. “It must have been the dope and the liquor,” she said. “I must have been a little off base.”

“Over at the Rancho Descansado you were in great shape. You were hard as nails. We were going to take off for Rio and live in luxury. Apparently also in sin. All I had to do was get rid of the body. What a letdown! No body.”

She was still staring at me, but I had to watch my driving. I made a boulevard stop and a left turn. I went along another dead-end street with old streetcar tracks still in the paving.

“Turn left up the hill at that sign. That’s the high school down there.”

“Who fired the gun and what at?”

She pressed her temples with the heels of her hands. “I guess
I
must have. I must have been crazy. Where is it?”

“The gun? It’s safe. Just in case your dream came true, I might have to produce it.”

We were climbing now. I set the pointer to hold the Olds in third. She watched that with interest. She looked around her at the pale leather seats and the gadgets.

“How can you afford an expensive car like this? You don’t make a lot of money, do you?”

“They’re all expensive nowadays, even the cheap ones. Fellow might as well have one that can travel. I read somewhere that a dick should always have a plain dark inconspicuous car that nobody would notice. The guy had never been to L.A. In L.A. to be conspicuous you would have to drive a flesh-pink Mercedes-Benz with a sun porch on the roof and three pretty girls sunbathing.”

She giggled.

“Also,” I labored the subject, “it’s good advertising. Maybe I dreamed I was going to Rio. I could sell it there for more than it set me back new. On a freighter it wouldn’t cost too much to ferry.”

She sighed. “Oh, stop teasing me about that. I don’t feel funny today.”

“Seen your boy friend around?”

She sat very still. “Larry?”

“You got others?”

“Well—you might have meant Clark Brandon, although I hardly know him. Larry was pretty drunk last night. No—I haven’t seen him. Perhaps he’s sleeping it off.”

“Doesn’t answer his phone.”

The road forked. One white line curved to the left. I kept straight on, for no particular reason. We passed some old Spanish houses built high on the slope and some very modern houses built downhill on the other side. The road passed these and made a wide turn to the right. The paving here looked new. The road ran out to a point of land and a turning circle. There were two big houses facing each other across the turning circle. They were loaded with glass brick and their seaward windows were green glass. The view was magnificent. I looked at it for all of three seconds. I stopped against the end curb and cut the motor and sat. We were about a thousand feet up and the whole town was spread out in front of us like a 45 degree air photo.

“He might be sick,” I said. “He might have gone out. He might even be dead.”

“I told you—” She began to shake. I took the stub of the cigarette away from her and put it in the ash tray. I ran the car windows up and put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her head down on my shoulder. She was limp, unresisting; but she still shook.

“You’re a comfortable man,” she said. “But don’t rush me.”

“There’s a pint in the glove compartment. Want a snort?”

“Yes.”

I got it out and managed to pull the metal strip loose with one hand and my teeth. I held the bottle between my knees and got the cap off. I held it to her lips. She sucked some in and shuddered. I recapped the pint and put it away.

“I hate drinking from the bottle,” she said.

“Yeah. Unrefined. I’m not making love to you, Betty. I’m worried. Anything you want done?”

She was silent for a moment. Then her voice was steady, saying: “Such as what? You can have those checks back. They were yours. I gave them to you.”

“Nobody gives anybody five grand like that. It makes no sense. That’s why I came back down from L.A. I drove up there early this morning. Nobody goes all gooey over a character like me and talks about having half a million dollars and offers me a trip to Rio and a nice home complete with all the luxuries. Nobody drunk or sober does that because she dreamed a dead man was lying out on her balcony and would I please hurry around and throw him off into the ocean. Just what did you expect me to do when I got there—hold your hand while you dreamed?”

She pulled away and leaned in the far corner of the car. “All right, I’m a liar. I’ve always been a liar.”

I glanced at the rear view mirror. Some kind of small dark car had turned into the road behind and stopped. I couldn’t see who or what was in it. Then it swung hard right against the curbing and backed and made off the way it had come. Some fellow took the wrong road and saw it was a dead end.

“While I was on the way up those damn fire stairs,” I went on, “you swallowed your pills and then faked being awfully terribly sleepy and then after a while you actually did go to sleep—I think. Okay. I went out on the balcony. No stiff. No blood. If there had been, I might have managed to get him over the top of the wall. Hard work, but not impossible, if you know how to lift. But six trained elephants couldn’t have thrown him far enough to land in the ocean. It’s thirty-five feet to the fence and you’d have to throw him so far out that he would clear the fence. I figure an object as heavy as a man’s body would have to be thrown a good fifty feet outward to clear the fence.”

“I told you I was a liar.”

“But you didn’t tell me why. Let’s be serious. Suppose a man had been dead on your balcony. What would you expect me to do about it? Carry him down the fire stairs and get him into the car I had and drive off into the woods somewhere and bury him? You do have to take people into your confidence once in a while when bodies are lying around.”

“You took my money,” she said tonelessly. “You played up to me.”

“That way I might find out who was crazy.”

“You found out. You should be satisfied.”

“I found out nothing—not even who you are.”

She got angry. “I told you I was out of my mind,” she said in a rushing voice. “Worry, fear, liquor, pills—why can’t you leave me alone? I told you I’d give you back that money. What more do you want?”

“What do I do for it?”

“Just take it.” She was snapping at me now. “That’s all. Take it and go away. Far, far away.”

“I think you need a good lawyer.”

“That’s a contradiction in terms,” she sneered. “If he was good, he wouldn’t be a lawyer.”

“Yeah. So you’ve had some painful experience along those lines. I’ll find out in time, either from you or some other way. But I’m still being serious. You’re in trouble. Apart from what happened to Mitchell, if anything, you’re in enough trouble to justify hiring yourself a lawyer. You changed your name. So you had reasons. Mitchell was putting the bite on you. So
he
had reasons. A firm of Washington attorneys is looking for you. So
they
have reasons. And their client has reasons to have them looking for you.”