the ice cold nude

chapter one

I always figured blondes, like brunettes, were mostly a sometime thing; while redheads, being invariably skinny, were mostly a no-time thing. One swift glance at this redhead made me realize the sheer stupidity of all generalizations. The tight fit of her demure black silk dress against the arrogant thrust of her high-riding breasts was proof positive. Brother! If she was skinny, I was from outer space yet.

“The name is Boyd,” I confided with an approving grin, “Danny Boyd, from Boyd Enterprises, New York City.” My head turned automatically—a fraction to the left, then a fraction to the right—so she got the full impact of the profile both coming and going. It was the absolute treatment because I figured she deserved it; just one sid^-of the profile alone is mostly more than enough to reduce a healthy bouncing blonde to sobbing tears of frustration.

Somehow it produced no reaction at all from the mag-nificendy built redhead. There was merely a questioning look in her tawny eyes as she returned stare for stare. I guessed she was myopic for sure, and just too damned proud to wear cheaters.

“The glazed eyeballs I take as a compliment,” she said finally in a calm voice. “But take one small step closer to this desk, Boyd, and I’ll scream my head off.”

“Maybe if you put on your glasses for a moment,” I suggested nonchalantly, “you’d realize that sinister blur in

7

front of your straining eyes is the most handsome hunk of virile—”

“My vision is twenty-twenty,” she snapped. “Without straining my eyes at all, I can tell you what I see is one of those square-jawed cartoon characters they frighten children with on'television. For sure, there’s no possible resemblance to anything human.”

“You’re sick?” I said hopefully. “I bet any analyst could find some simple reason for why you don’t like good-looking men. Maybe it’s a hangover from childhood —you being a skinny kid with flaming pigtails, all the boys would run screaming when you came around. But believe me, honey, you’ve changed—now you’re all rounded out and everything.”

A faint smile quirked her lips, and she bent her head quickly to hide it, giving me a bird’s-eye view of her fantastic hair-do, which was a kind of careless rapture in titian.

“You wanted to see Mr. Elmo?” she said in a muffled voice. “He’s been expecting you, Mr. Boyd. You can go right on into his office—the second door to your right.” “Thanks,” I said politely. “I expect to be around here a while and I’d like to offer you the services of the Boyd good neighbor policy for free. We should get together and work on that inferiority complex of yours, honey. How about we make a start tonight, around eight maybe?” “I’m no masochist, Mr. Boyd,” she said sweetly. “If I want to make myself real miserable, I can do it without your help.”

Right then I figured it would be easier to take the second door to my right than try and answer that crack, so I started walking at a fast pace, pretending I never even heard that malicious chuckle of triumph from in back of me.

Mr. Elmo was a little man sitting behind a big desk. He was dressed in a dignified black suit and he wore gold-rimmed glasses that glittered with curiosity as he looked at me.

“I’m Boyd,” I told him cautiously.

“Ah, yes.” His tone of voice made me some kind of personal tragedy. “Sit down, Mr. Boyd. I trust you had a pleasant journey from the East?” He made New York sound like the Casbah.

“It was fine,” I told him, then sat cautiously in what looked like a genuine piece of early Americana. “I never expected to be back in Santo Bahia so soon—it’s only around six months since I was last here.”

“Indeed?”

“I’m curious,” I said truthfully. “I normally work out of my New York office and I wouldn’t call the West Coast my home territory exactly. How come you found me?”

“You were recommended, Mr. Boyd. I had great need for the services of an astute private detective. Lieutenant Schell suggested I contact you.”

“Schell?” I gaped at him.

“Does it surprise you?”

“That’s an understatement.” I remembered the last time I was in Santo Bahia, a skip-trace assignment turned into a multiple murder caper—with Lieutenant Schell holding me personally responsible for most of the corpses.

Elmo gave me a wintry smile. “The Lieutenant said the assignment was impossible in the first place and only a— I quote his words, you understand?—complete nut could have any hope of success. That was when he mentioned your name, Mr. Boyd.”

“It’s real great to know you have friends,” I said bitterly. “So what is this impossible assignment?”

“My jewelry store was robbed a week back,” he said in a precise voice. “We lost a diamond tiara worth one hundred thousand dollars, approximately.”

“Obviously the police haven’t found it,” I said. “How about the insurance company?—they’d have their own men working on it. Why do you need me?”

“A reasonable question, Mr. Boyd.” His gold-rimmed glasses glinted with an outraged sense of propriety. “The insurance company have refused the claim. Unless the tiara is recovered, I shall lose its wholesale cost which is approximately fifty thousand dollars.”

“How was it stolen?”

Elmo leaned back in his chair and shook his head dismally. “A clever plot, Mr. Boyd! It is, I’m afraid, a quite complicated story. Perhaps I should start at the beginning?”

“My time is your time,” I said generously.

“On the basis of a thousand dollars retainer, plus expenses, I imagine it is,” he said coldly. “Well now, in the first place I was approached by a local manufacturer, Poolside Plastics, to cooperate in publicizing a beauty contest they’re running. The tiara was on display in our window, and had been for a couple of weeks, when their publicity manager, a Mr. Machin, brought the three contest finalists to the store. The idea was, of course, that the contest winner would be crowned with the tiara. He wanted to photograph the three finalists, each wearing it in turn, to further the publicity.”

“That was when it was stolen?” I asked.

He nodded. “Two armed guards removed it from the window and brought IT into this office, where Machin and the rest of his people were already waiting. Each girl put on the tiara while the photographer got his pictures, then the guards returned it to the window.

“Two hours later, our Mr. Byers returned to the store— he’d been out selling a few expensive trinkets to a private buyer—and happened to glance at the display window. Fortunately for us, this man has a sharp and expert eye. That one glance was enough to tell Mr. Byers the real tiara had been replaced by a paste imitation.”

“He’s that good?” I asked incredulously.

“Mr. Byers came to us five years back, direct from Van Dieten and Luutens, of Amsterdam,” Elmo said in a hushed voice. “This man is a genius with precious stones, Mr. Boyd!”

“Fine,” I said politely. “But whoever made the switch had to have a paste imitation ready for the occasion. Who actually took the tiara from the window and gave it to the guards?”

“I removed it myself,” he said with frozen dignity. “I am the only person who knows how to operate the photocell rays and the rest of the protective devices that make the display window burglarproof.”

“So the only possible place the switch could have been made was right here in this room?” I said.

“That is the police theory,” he agreed. “I can see no other possible explanation, Mr. Boyd.”

“And the police haven’t gotten anyplace so far?” “Certainly not to my knowledge, at least,” he said stiffly. “As I have already mentioned, the insurance company refused the claim—using some small-print legal trickery—because the tiara was only covered while it was either in our window or in the vault.”

“What did you hire me for, exactly, Mr. Elmo?” I asked him.

“To get my tiara back,” he said testily. “What else?” “That’s all you want?” I prodded. “Not for me to catch the people responsible for its theft?”

His eyes gleamed sharply through the gold-rimmed glasses.

“Ah!” He chuckled thinly. “I see your point. You think it may be possible to make some kind of deal with the thief, or thieves, as the case may be?”

“It’s up to you,” I shrugged. “Are you prepared to cut a loss?”

“Let us put this on a factual, businesslike basis, Mr. Boyd.” He rubbed his hands together briskly. “If you fail, you already have a thousand dollars and your return fare to New York—correct?”

“Sure,” I nodded agreement.

“If you recover the tiara, I am prepared to pay you another five thousand, with no questions asked,” he continued. “If you think it possible to make a deal with the thief under those terms—and still have something left for your own efforts—the decision is yours entirely, Mr. Boyd.”

I looked at him hard for a moment. He wasn’t about to give an inch. “Like Bargain Day at Macy’s, huh?” I muttered sourly. “Thanks a whole heap.”

“I see no reason for you to complain. You can handle this any way you please. Nobody’s forcing you into anything.”

“Yeah—just like nobody holding one hundred thousand bucks worth of rocks is going to hand it over for peanuts, and you know it.” I sighed. “Well, I guess I might as well start with the plastics people.”

“Tamara has a list of names and addresses,” he said. “You can get them on your way out.”

“The redhead?” I felt slighdy shaken. “Did she come to you straight from Van Wotzis and Whoever in Amsterdam, too?”

“She came to us straight from Santo Bahia High, about nine or ten years ago, Mr. Boyd.” A naughty gleam flashed from the gold-rimmed glasses for a brief instant. “But she does have a Russian mother, I understand, who married an American truck driver. Tamara O’Keefe—a living example of American compromise, wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s her whole trouble,” I said darkly. “She doesn’t have one ounce of compromise in her whole delightful body!”

So a couple of minutes later I was outside Elmo’s office, back with the redhead who had ice shifting through her veins, instead of red blood pulsating in eager response to the Boyd profile.

“There’s the list,” she said in a businesslike voice, and handed me a neady typewritten sheet. “Is there anything else you require, Mr. Boyd?—other than the services of an analyst, of course?”

“I’d like your confidential opinion on the whole problem and the people involved in it,” I said casually. “This will naturally take a great deal of time, and is also urgent, Miss O’Keefe. Why don’t we have dinner and discuss it?”

“Why don’t you get lost, Mr. Boyd, and start looking for that tiara?” she asked sweetly.

Once again she’d left me with the nasty alternative of dreaming up some brilliant repartee to top her crack, or else just getting lost. I folded the typewritten list of names carefully, then slid it into my wallet—and reluctantly got lost.

Before I’d gone calling on Elmo Jewelers to say hello to my new client, I’d checked into the hotel that held sad memories of my previous visit. A whole night of frustration with a gorgeous blonde waiting in my room, ready and eager to be transported into the rapture and delights of the intimate world of Danny Boyd—who just kept right on waiting, because I never did make it back to the hotel that night. My fervent hope now was that the pattern wouldn’t repeat itself; if it did, I’d probably walk straight off the hotel roof—or toss myself out a first floor window, anyway.

After checking into the hotel I’d gotten myself a U-drive convertible which stood waiting at the curb outside the jewelers, all bright and gleaming like real devil-may-care. I drove it down to police headquarters and its bright gleaming look vanished along with mine, once we parked right outside.

I asked the desk sergeant for Lieutenant Schell and my feeling of nervous depression strengthened with every step that took me closer to his office. The walls, I noted, were still the same attractive color of old dried blood; Schell was still the same tall, tough character with close-cropped gray hair and hooded dark eyes that didn’t like anything much, least of all Danny Boyd.

“Well, well,” he said, without making any move to lift his frame out of the chair. “If it isn’t Bug-Eyed Boyd, the moron from Manhattan, come to share another cute caper with us West Coast innocents!”

“You’ve been practicing that greeting for days,” I said accusingly, as I eased gently into the converted packing crate which passed for a visitor’s chair.

I lit a cigarette and we wasted maybe ten seconds just glaring at each other. “Okay,” I said finally, “so what’s the gag? What kind of Machiavellian plot is hatching in that evil mind of yours?”

“Are you talking about something?” he asked crisply. “Or maybe just stringing words together to hear how they sound?”

“Mr. Elmo hires me to get back his stolen tiara,” I said, my voice loaded with outright suspicion. “I ask how come he looks in New York for a private eye, and how come he picks on me? Because, he says happily, I come highly recommended by Lieutenant Schell.”

A nasty grin split the Lieutenant’s face, like someone had taken a delicate swing with a straight razor. “I’ll be frank with you, Boyd,” he said, his voice almost amiable. “We aren’t making much progress with the case at all, and naturally Mr. Elmo wants his tiara back. I figured the best thing he could do would be hire himself a smart

private detective—a guy who can work in areas that are barred to the police officer. What he needed, I told him, was a boy with no scruples, morals, or finer feelings. A guy with only one motivation in his whole life—money— and a guy who would do about anything to get it. In short, he needed Danny Boyd!”

“You don’t need to crawl to me with all those heady compliments, Lieutenant,” I growled at him. “A schemer like you needs to have a better reason for voluntarily dragging me back into your life.”

Schell shrugged his broad shoulders easily. “Anybody would think you didn’t trust me or something, Boyd?” “I’d trust you the way I’d trust an ex-wife looking for back alimony with a knife in her hand,” I said truthfully. “There has to be a mickey wrapped up in this someplace.”

“You don’t trust me?” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I’m hurt, Boyd, real hurt.”

“Okay,” I said. “So it’s all sweetness and light. Just how far have you gotten with the case?”

“Not very far at all,” he said ruefully. “Somebody made the switch in Elmo’s office, that’s for sure. The two armed guards are clean—supplied by an agency who only rostered them for the job that same morning—so neither of them had prior knowledge that they would get the Elmo job. It could just as easily have been any of the six guys employed by the agency.”

I pulled the list of names Tamara O’Keefe had given me out of my wallet and studied it. “So that leaves the three contestants, Machin, the publicity manager—and the president of the plastics corporation, a Mr. Rutter and his wife?”

“Right.” Schell nodded. “You can take your pick— we’ve tried and haven’t gotten anyplace.”

“No clues at all?—no suspicion even?”

“Nothing,” he said comfortably. “Maybe you’ll do better. I hope you will, Boyd.”

“Thanks,” I said doubtfully. “All I can do right now is follow your trail around and go see each one of them, I guess.”

“Why don’t you do that?” He smiled encouragingly.

“Take my advice and start with the contestants first. Try Louise Lamont for a start—she’s your kind of girl, Boyd!” “What does that mean?”

“Sexy, flamboyant—and as tough as nails!”

“I just might do that,” I said. “You have any other pearls of wisdom before I depart, Lieutenant?”

“You might get a copy of the evening paper,” he said comfortably. “There should be a nice story about how Elmo’s hired a real hot-shot private eye to recover his tiara.”

“What?” I goggled at him. “You planted a story about me in the paper?”

“Just part of our tourist service,” he said, grinning. “We aim to please.”

“All right, already!” I croaked. “So this is where you give me the mickey straight”

“You know the insurance company has refused Elmo’s claim?” Schell asked in a bland voice.

“He told me,” I said carefully.

“It was too bad,” he went on cheerfully. “Most times the insurance boys are prepared to do an undercover deal with the thief—but I don’t have to tell you that, I guess? It would have been a help in a tough case like this—by staying real close to the insurance investigator, we might have grabbed the thief as he was about to close the deal, don’t you think?”

I closed my eyes and counted up to five but it was no use—Schell’s leering face was still there when I opened my eyes again.

“Now I get it,” I said sourly. “I’m the substitute for the insurance investigator—that’s why you’ve already given me some free publicity. If the thief wants to make a deal to sell the tiara back cheap, he’ll contact me.”

“Right!” The Lieutenant smiled in mock admiration. “You’re the smart one, Boyd, just like I told Elmo! Only remember, we’re going to be right in back of you every minute from now on, and if anyone contacts you and you somehow forget to inform us right away—”

“You don’t need to fill in the detail,” I said miserably. “—I’m going to take the book,” Schell said happily, “and throw it at you—page by goddamned page!”

chapter two

I went calling on one of the beauty contest finalists right after I left Lieutenant Schell’s office. I even took his advice and called on Louise Lamont first because I figured it was the strictly logical thing to do, and his description of the dame as being sexy and flamboyant didn’t influence my decision by more than 95 per cent at the most.

Her apartment building was kind of ritzy and, if it had been a cooperative on New York’s East Side, the doorman’s uniform would have cost around a hundred clams a month in maintenance alone. She lived on the sixth floor. Within a couple of seconds automation had delivered me there with a contemptuously efficient hiss. I thumbed the buzzer beside her door and waited, but not for long.

The door was suddenly jerked wide open and a kingsized character stood framed in the open space, glaring at me like I’d just insulted his sister. A guy in his middle thirties, with thick, coarse black hair that fell down almost over his eyes, and an equally coarse face to match. While I was still recovering from the sudden shock of his repulsive features at close range, his massive hands reached out, grabbed the lapels on my coat, and literally lifted me inside the apartment.

“Okay, wise guy,” he grated in a sandblasted voice. “So now I’ll find out who’s been beating Marty’s time with the broad.

16

Out of the comer of my eye I caught a glimpse of a long-haired blonde who looked worth a considerably more detailed inspection, but right then 1 had other things on my mind, like this bum ruining the coat the Brothers Brooks had labored on with such loving care.

“I hope you won’t mind me speaking frankly, even if we haven’t been introduced?” I asked politely. “So take your stinking hands off me before I get rough and pound you down into a small child.”

His shaggy eyebrows lifted, then entwined in loving disbelief above the bridge of his nose. “Listen, punk!” He shook me violently a couple more times for added emphasis. “If you want to get out of here with any teeth left in your dumb head at all, you’d better start talking real fast. You’ve been beating Marty’s time with this broad and I want to hear the whole story. You don’t leave out a thing, understand?”

“Pete!” the blonde snapped in an irritated voice from somewhere out in left field. “I never saw this guy in my whole life before. You must be out of your mind.”

“Shut up!” he snarled at her, then shook me some more. “Did you hear me, punk? I want the works!” “Sure,” I said pleasantly. “I guess you got it coming, pal. You want to hear about the days I spent with her, like on weekends, or just the nights?”

He had the correct automatic reflex like I hoped he would. His right hand let go my lapel while his arm thrust back, ready to let me have a set of bunched knuckles straight between the eyes. It obviously never occurred to him that I might not just stand there and wait for it. I swung my right leg back, then let the toe of my slioe connect just an inch above where his shinbone ended, with enough force to maybe shift his kneecap a couple of inches out of alignment.

Pete let out a ferocious yell and canted sideways as his left leg kind of crumpled. He was still yelping even after I stiff-fingered the apple in his throat, only now there was no sound coming from his wide-open mouth. Anything I hate to see is a guy real confused. I pivoted neatly on one foot, then swung my right arm down in a wide arc so the edge of my hand slammed into the side of his neck.

He sank to the floor like a torpedoed battleship and finished up in a motionless heap, giving a remarkably realistic impression of total disaster.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the blonde said with immense perception. “Pete won’t like it.”

“Is that any way to talk to the lover-boy who’s been beating Marty’s time with you all these short days and long nights?” I snarled at her.

I smoothed down the lapels with loving care, then took my first real good look at the blonde, and she was worth it. My wild Irish old man had a theory that blondes mostly fall into three main categories, Uke dumb, dubious, and calculating. This one was strictly in the third division, from the cash register that tinkled gently in back of her eyes, defiling their lapis-lazuli innocence, to the carefully calculated, more naked than naked look of the short blue silk beach slip which was something less than a transparent veil hiding the luscious curves of her body.

She shook her head impatiently under my penetrating gaze, and the long blonde hair cascading in graceful waves from the crown of her head to well below her shoulders shone with a sudden iridescent sheen.

“Baby,” I said admiringly, “all you need is a big white horse and you'd be a smash hit as the new Lady Godiva!”

“Huh?” She stared at me blankly.

“She was some English dame from way back,” I explained wearily, “who rode a horse through the streets of Coventry just wearing her hair and nothing else.”

“What for?”

“Because—ah, never mind!” I said tersely. “You are Louise Lamont, right?”

“Sure,” she said, brightening a little now she could dig the dialogue. “Who are you?”

“Danny Boyd,” I told her. “Mr. Elmo hired me to get back his diamond tiara.”

“Oh?” The look on her face said she’d gotten me in return for a couple of cereal box tops and two bits, and right now she wondered if she’d been gypped on the whole deal.

“I wanted to ask you some questions,” I added hopefully.

“I’ve been through that routine with the police already.” Her voice was bored, but a little edgy at the same time. “Anyway, you’d better make it some other time and get out of here while you’ve got the chance. Before Pete gets up off the floor and kills you, I mean.”

“1*11 kick his head in before he even gets close to batting an eyelid,” I said confidently. “So we got plenty of time for the question and answer routine, right?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” she said flatly. “Mr. Machin took me to the store and I wore the tiara while the photographer took my picture—the same as he did with the other two girls—then we left. That’s all there was to it.”

“You didn’t notice anyone act suspiciously or do anything out of the ordinary at all?”

“Not me, buster.” She shook her head with a rapidly growing impatience. “Look! Do me a favor and get out of here before Pete opens his eyes again, will you? It’ll be hard enough explaining to Marty what happened without you hanging around and making things even worse.” “Marty is your boy friend?” I asked, with brilliant intuition.

“Kind of,” she said, shrugging indifferently.

“So what does that make Pete?” I pointed toward the inanimate heap on the floor.

“He kind of looks after Marty’s interests,” she said vaguely. “If you’re gone already when he wakes up, then maybe I can convince him he made a genuine mistake, and if I get real lucky Pete won’t even mention what happened to Marty. But if you’re still here, nothing will convince him he wasn’t dead right about you and me in the first place and then—”

“Okay!” I held up my hand pleadingly to try and stop her running off at the mouth like a waterfall. “You convinced me, baby, so I’m gone already—but I’ll be back.” “You’ll pardon me if I don’t wait up?” Her voice had an arctic quality that didn’t match up to that transparent beach slip and all.

“Sure,” I told her, and headed toward the door. “After all, baby, I know my way around your apartment just fine—remember those wonderful weekends?—so just leave my pajamas over a chair, huh?”

When I got back to the rented convertible my watch said it was almost six o’clock. Considering I’d only arrived in Santo Bahia in the early afternoon, and right off the plane at that, I figured I’d done enough work for one day and deserved a drink.

Back at the hotel I checked the front desk to find out if I’d had any calls from a jewel thief eager to sell back a diamond tiara cheap, but I was out of luck. I told the clerk I’d be in the bar if any calls came in for me, then resented the knowing look in his eyes which said, “Where the hell else?”

It was called the Luau Bar because it served meager, rum-based drinks in an imitation coconut half-shell at twice the price of good honest liquor. I settled for a martini with a twist of lemon, and started to relax. Someplace around the start of the third martini I was getting to be real relaxed, when a gentle voice from in back of me said, “Mr. Boyd?”

I turned my head and saw a brunette standing there—a dame with a good figure that was subdued, if not hidden, by the businesslike black suit and the crisp white blouse underneath. She looked like a girl Friday owned by some tycoon with an efficiency fetish, who spent one weekend a year in Las Vegas for sex.

“They told me at the desk that I’d find you in here.” She smiled nervously. “I am Miss Lamont ”

“Honey,” I said gently, “I already met the dame, and you couldn’t be Miss Lamont in a million years.” Hie nervous smile had gotten to be a fixture. “You mean Louise, of course.” Her fingers fumbled with the strap of her pocketbook. “I’m Patty Lamont, her sister.” “Why don’t you sit down?” I invited her. “Louise never told me she had a sister. What are you?—some kind of family skeleton?”

She nearly blushed as she sat down opposite me. “I’m afraid I don’t have Louise’s glamour, Mr. Boyd. I’m just a working girl.”

“Would you like a drink?” I asked, figuring it might help her nerves a little—mine, too.

“No, thank you.” She fooled around with her pocket-book some more. “You must excuse me coming in here like this, Mr. Boyd, and invading your privacy, but

I read in the newspaper about how you’re working for Mr. Elmo to get back his tiara that was stolen.

“Be my guest,” I said expansively. “If you want to sell it back cheap, we can talk prices.”

“It’s nothing like that!” Her cheeks flamed with a vivid scarlet. “I hoped you might be able to help me. I don’t want to go to the police and—and—” She stopped for a moment, busy fumbling for the right words, and I drank some more of the third martini to take care of the hiatus.

“You see, Mr. Boyd,” she resumed with an intense expression on her face, “it’s my sister, Louise. I’m so worried about her I just don’t know what to do. I—I need help.”

“If helping your sister helps me get that tiara back, honey, I’m your boy,” I told her generously. “Just what is it about Louise that keeps you awake nights?”

“Louise has always been the wild one of the family, you see, Mr. Boyd?” Her voice had a faintly wistful quality. “I’m just the homebody type, I guess. Our parents were killed in an automobile accident a few years back—maybe that’s why I feel so responsible for her, being the older sister. I didn’t want her to enter that beauty contest even, but I couldn’t stop her—and now she’s mixed up with all these dreadful people and I have this feeling that something horrible is going to happen to her!”

Patty Lamont settled back in her chair, obviously glad she’d broken the ice, and her face relaxed back into its natural primness. She should have been beautiful; she had all the basic attributes of her sister with one vital exception. The fundamental spark of natural, inborn, sex appeal was missing. Some got it and some ain’t—like the man said—and it’s a quality a girl can’t acquire like a taste for olives or frivolous underwear.

“You figure she’s somehow gotten herself mixed up in the tiara theft?” I asked hopefully.

“Good grief, no!” She nearly leaped out of her chair at the thought. “I only think she’s keeping bad company, Mr. Boyd. You see, I know something of the background of the beauty contest because I work for Poolside Plastics. I am Mr. Machin’s confidential secretary.” She made it sound jazzier than handmaiden to the high priest of some pagan temple.

“You mean there’s something crooked about the contest?” I grappled desperately to extract some kind of sense out of her words, but it was like wading through a sea of marshmallow.

“Well—” She paused momentarily, choosing her words very carefully indeed. “Louise also worked for them, Mr. Boyd. She had a very good job as confidential secretary to the president himself—Mr. Rutter.”

“And you work for Machin—the publicity manager?” “Director of Public Relations,” she corrected me coldly. “It was about four months back when Louise suddenly resigned—for no reason at all as far as I know—and after that, when they announced the beauty contest, she decided to enter it and now she’s one of the three finalists.” “I guess the prizes are considerable?” I suggested.

“But—as an ex-employee of the corporation?” Patty’s voice was basically disapproving. I started to feel a bond of sympathy with her boss—this Machin character. I guessed she had the kind of blind loyalty that could eventually smother a corporation executive to death.

“Maybe this Rutter guy didn’t care if she was his ex-secretary?” I said impatiently. “He’s the president—he could make his own rules for his own contest.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Patty said determinedly. “From the first day she entered the contest, Louise has been absolutely confident she’ll win it. She hasn’t done a day’s work since she left, yet she always seems to have plenty of money. How would you explain that, Mr. Boyd?”

There was an obvious explanation but I wasn’t about to say it to Patty Lamont. “Maybe she saved—” I started vaguely.

“Not Louise!” she snapped. “She isn’t the saving type. And there’s something I haven’t told you.” The glassy look in her eyes gave me a split second of wild speculation that maybe there was a third sister—the one that nobody talked about, the one with three heads.

“Louise had a dreadful argument with Mr. Rutter the day she left,” she confided in a semi-whisper. “I don’t know what about, but I could hear them screaming at each other—and my office is three away from Mr. Rutter’s suite. She left immediately after they’d had that

dreadful argument and he gave orders she wasn’t to be admitted into the building, even. Then a couple of months later he let her enter the contest.” -

“So maybe he’s the forgiving type of president?” I said heavily.

“Then there’s the other thing,” she said implacably. “I don’t like the men that Louise has been running around with—that dreadful Marty Estell—there’s something sinister about that man, Mr. Boyd!”

“I haven’t met him yet—only his associate Pete,” I said wearily.

“And that Willie Byers,” she continued, blithely ignoring my comment. “There’s something odd about that man —I have the feeling he’s a phony, Mr. Boyd, but a sinister phony!”

I drained the martini glass and looked helplessly around for a waiter, while I tried to figure out just how I could get rid of this screwy, natural-born old maid, to whom every man who looked twice at her sister automatically became a sinister character. It was only after I’d managed to wag an emergency signal with one finger to the waiter that the import of her last remark sank into my consciousness.

“Byers?” I almost yelled at her. “The guy who works at the Elmo jewelry store?”

Patty shrugged disdainfully. “I wouldn't know where he works—if he does and I doubt it. I only met him the one time at her apartment, Mr. Boyd. He’s far too old for her in the first place, and in the second place—”

“Tell you what, Miss Lamont,” I interrupted her quickly. “I can see what you mean about your sister being in danger—”

“You can?” Her eyes widened with pleasure. “You really can, Mr. Boyd?”

“Sure,” I gulped. “I think you’re damned right—she’s surrounded by a bunch of real sinister characters and I figure I should start investigating them right away.”

“Oh, thank you!” she said breathlessly. Her eyes shone with gratitude. “You don’t know what this means to me, Mr. Boyd. I’ll be eternally grateful.”

“Don’t give it another thought, honey,” I said hastily. “You run along now and I’ll start in investigating. As soon as I find out anything definitely sinister, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you!” She shook my hand in a firm, emotional grasp. “I’ll never forget you, Mr. Boyd!” She fumbled in her pocketbook and handed me a piece of notepaper. “I wrote my address and phone number down for you.”

“Thanks,” I said absently. I wasn’t interested in Patty Lamont any more. I just wanted her to get the hell out of it so I could have an early dinner and then go call on the diamond expert, Willie Byers, who was also one of Louise’s boy friends. His address would be on the list that Miss Tamara O’Keefe had given me, I remembered. Then I sensed Patty had something else to say, and looked up.

“It’s a funny thing, Mr. Boyd, somehow I felt sure you would help me!” she said gently. Her eyes were moist, like wet olives, as she smiled into my face and I felt my crew cut stand up in stiff revulsion.

Then she got onto her feet, collected her pocketbook, and walked toward the door in a series of small, tight movements, as if she was wired together like a marionette.

chapter three

Willie Byers was a tall, thin guy, someplace in his early fifties, with graying brown hair. His face had a pinched look and a pallid color to match; the overall impression— including his hands which trembled incessantly—was that he still hadn’t recovered from a king-sized hangover. Maybe that was the uncharitable point of view, but he didn’t exactly enthuse when I told him who I was and what I wanted; I almost had to force my way into his apartment.

The living room was elegantly and expensively fur-aished, dominated by the most outrageous—and magnificent—nude I’d ever seen. A massive, flamboyant painting that seemed to cover all of one wall with licentious pink and white flesh tones, along with the wildest curves any artist ever pitched. The subject was a long-haired blonde, reclining full-length on a couch, with her legs crossed de-:orously and her arms stretched langorously above her head. She had a misty look in her lapis-lazuli eyes—it was anyone’s bet if it was caused by regret or desire, and either way it was interesting food for thought.

“You will excuse me if I sit down, Mr. Boyd?” Byers said in perfect English, with only the merest trace of an accent. “I have been sick, you understand—a virus—and I am still weak.”

“Sure,” I said, and sat opposite him in a deep leather armchair. “Mr. Elmo didn’t tell me you were sick when

25

I talked to him this afternoon. Incidentally, you rate real high in M5 book.”

“He is very kind,” Byers said in a tired voice. He seized his nose between a spatulate thumb and index finger, squeezing it hard for a few moments. “It has been my whole life, you understand? There has been nothing else that ever interested me in the slightest degree but precious stones—the handling of them, the delicate craftsmanship involved. It requires both finesse and total absorption in the cutting of a diamond, for example, and where there is a strong element of chance involved, one also needs the recklessness of an addicted gambler.”

“You make it sound real fascinating,” I told him.

He squeezed the tip of his nose even harder, then smiled bleakly. “I do not wish to bore you, Mr. Boyd. Naturally, you have some questions to ask about the tiara?”

“Mr. Elmo said you spotted the fake in the window right off?”

“That is correct,” he said, nodding. “It was a very good copy, but there were a couple of small imperfections. Nothing that could be detected by an amateur eye, of course.”

“But to your expert eye, the fake was obvious, huh?” “Yes.” This time he squeezed so hard it brought tears to his eyes. “I see no reason for false modesty, Mr. Boyd. I am an acknowledged expert in these things.”

“Sure,” I agreed. “But it still takes an expert to spot the fake—so how could anybody have gotten hold of the real tiara long enough to make a paste copy of it?” Byers shrugged. “It would not be necessary to have the original beside you to make a copy.” His voice was pedantic. “The tiara was displayed in the store window for two weeks before it was stolen. It could have easily been photographed with a miniature camera from the sidewalk. An expert craftsman may have studied it four or five times a day for a week, or even longer—until he was sure of the detail. The design and the setting itself, they were not overly elaborate, you understand? The main value of the piece was in the five stones, the diamonds themselves, Mr. Boyd.”

“Don’t you figure it was kind of odd that Elmo didn’t spot the fake himself when he returned the tiara to the window?” I suggested casually.

“Not so strange, Mr. Boyd.” His eyes closed for a long moment, then opened again with an obvious effort of will. “His mind was probably on other things and he was not so familiar with it as I was. It happened to be one of the few trinkets I had amused myself with, you understand?”

“You made it?” I gaped at him.

“There are many times when I get bored with the purely commercial aspects,” he said in a tired voice. “I am still a craftsman at heart and like to keep my hand n on occasion.”

His eyes had a bleak and empty look as he stared at ne directly for a moment. “I am all alone, Mr. Boyd, vith no family to worry about or keep me busy. Only vhen I use my hands again am I truly happy.” A sudden varmth replaced the bleakness in his eyes.

“The fine, delicate purity of platinum between my finders,” he said softly. “The dazzling beauty of a flawless tone that demands a perfect setting so its own perfection nay be fully revealed! These are the compensations of a Dnely man, you understand?”

There was no answer to that kind of jazz, so I took a ittle time out and walked across the room to get a closer ook at that nude fantasy which sprawled all over one /all. This was a different kind of perfection and it stim-ilated my critical faculties like crazy. None of that ab-tract or surrealistic jazz—no dipping grapefruits into . can of paint and throwing them at a canvas. This /as a luscious, flamboyant painting of a luscious, flam-►oyant nude blonde. The kind of art that guys called ^rt—or Danny Boyd—really dig, like from deep down ►asic appreciation. In the bottom right-hand corner was a ignature, all curlicues, which read Willie Byers.

“I see you have a hobby, Willie,” I said appreciatively. And this is the kind of subject matter which appeals to my warm-blooded guy who likes to work with his hands.” “The painting?” He smiled wanly. “As you say—a hob->y—but I’m not a very good artist, I’m afraid.”

“I wouldn’t say that at all,” I told him sincerely.” Maybe in this particular painting the subject did help a lot, but to me its strictly a work of art.”

“You are very kind,” he said tersely.

“There’s something very familiar about that dame,” I went on happily, “and I do mean her face. Somehow she reminds me of a contestant in that Poolside Plastics beauty contest. A girl called Louise Lamont—you know her by any chance?”

“A girl in a beauty contest?” He almost laughed in my face at the very idea. “Me, Mr. Boyd? I only wish I could say I did—it might make for a little excitement in my dull life!”

“It was just a thought,” I said idly. “Anyway, it sure is some painting.”

“Thank you.” He rubbed his forehead sparingly, as if afraid that too much pressure would cause the skin to peel like rusted paint.

“If you don’t have any more questions now, Mr. Boyd, I’d be glad if you would excuse me. I am very tired.”

“I was wondering if you’d have any idea how much that tiara is worth to the thief?” I said.

“You mean how much he could get for it from a—if it’s the right word—fence?”

“Sure. Who the hell else would buy it?” I grunted. “The retail value was around one hundred thousand,” he said slowly, thinking out loud. “Wholesale around seventy. I wouldn’t imagine he’d get anything more than fifteen, most. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“I just remembered the point you made about the paste imitation would need a craftsman to fashion it,” he said, his voice dragging heavily. “So if the same craftsman got hold of the real tiara, he could break up the setting, recut and—or—reshape the stones, then sell them one at a time to legitimate buyers. That way, he’d make considerably more than fifteen thousand.”

I nodded. “Thanks. That’s all the questions right now, Willie—I can see you’re real tired.”

I headed toward the door, and he made no effort to get out of his chair and accompany me. When I reached the door, I stopped and turned my head to look at him for a moment.

“You know something, Willie? That girl, Louise La-mont, the one you never heard of before?”

“Yes?”

“She’s got a sister Patty you never heard of, either. But Patty’s heard of you, okay. She’s even seen you in Louise’s apartment. She figures you for a bad influence on her kid sister—too old for her and all that jazz.”

“She’s mistaken,” he said tautly.

“I’ll find out,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “I figure that painting of yours is too like Louise for it to be coincidental—and I figure you’re the craftsman who made a paste imitation around the same time you made the original tiara. Then you had Louise make the switch when she got the chance to handle it, when she wore it posing for the publicity pictures. How about that?” “It’s nonsense, of course,” he snapped. “You have a mind given to the most absurd fantasies, Mr. Boyd!” “Maybe,” I granted. “But right now I’m on my way to check with the real life version of your own fantasy on that wall!”

During the drive across town, heading back toward Louise Lamont’s jumping apartment, I had plenty of time to think over the theory. It sounded fine, real fine, and that was the only thing about it that had me real worried. It was too damned neat, and too damned easy. Real life—as the guy said when his girl won the Miss Universe contest, then offered him a hundred grand to marry her—is just not like this.

Around thirty minutes after I’d left Willie Byers, I was standing outside Louise Lamont’s apartment, my thumb practically cemented to the buzzer. Either she was out or she just didn’t want company, and I was about to relinquish the whole project and go buy myself a drink, when I suddenly noticed the door wasn’t shut tight by maybe a quarter-inch. I pressed the flat of my hand against it, exerted a little pressure, and the door swung open easily.

The living room was empty—so Pete must have finally recovered anyway—but I had the uneasy feeling that someone was around, and awful close to me at that. I called out “Louise?” a couple of times and got no answer. There was still no answer when I knocked on the bedroom door, so I went into the room and found that was empty, too.

Filmy nylon underwear and stockings were carefully placed on the bed, ready for wear. A wild profusion of cosmetics littered her dressing table and they also looked as if they were ready for use. From the bathroom came the monotonous sound of a running shower, so everything was explained. For around five seconds I figured the percentage in waiting silently until she walked out of the shower to greet the unexpected guest, covered only with naked confusion, then reluctantly realized I couldn’t bet on her reaction. If she screamed loud enough she could have me tossed out of the building before I’d even mentioned Willie Byers’ name.

So I tapped politely on the bathroom door and waited. Nothing happened. I knocked again, louder this time— then I thumped—I yelled real loud and still nothing happened. My thinking aligned itself with Patty Lamont’s— the sound of the steadily running shower began to assume sinister aspects. Louise had to be deaf not to hear all the noise I made, and I knew she wasn’t. So, either she’d gone out and absent-mindedly left the shower running, or she was in there and for some good reason couldn’t answer me at all. I tried the door knob and found it wasn’t locked.

Five seconds later I found Louise Lamont. She was in the shower okay—sitting splay-legged with her back propped against the tiled wall, while the pleasantly warm water cascaded all around her. Her saturated long blonde hair was plastered tightly against her scalp, giving her a peculiarly childish look of innocence. Her mouth was parted in a small O of surprise and blood still flowed in a sluggish stream from the ugly, blackened hole in her forehead.

Perched firmly on top of her head was a glittering diamond tiara which was somehow obscene in its crystalline beauty, making a dreadful contrast with the warm flesh tints of her ripe-rounded body. Nude, she was Willie Byers’ flamboyant painting come to life, except for that bullet hole in her forehead. Now she was an ice-cold Go-diva—or would be as soon as the water was turned off— and the glittering tiara seemed to wink at me lewdly to emphasize the fact.

I turned off the faucets and stepped back out of the shower stall. A bathroom is a lousy place to die in—surrounded by shiny, aseptic cleanliness. Everything’s so goddamned hygienic.

We sat in the living room of Louise Lamont’s apartment and glared at each other for a while.

“I should have known better,” Lieutenant Schell said heavily. “I should have had my head shrunk before I told Elmo to hire you—I should’ve remembered the last time. From the first day you arrived in Santo Bahia, the bodies started to pile up. You should change your name from ‘Boyd Enterprises’ to ‘Corpses Incorporated’!”

This was no time to argue with the lieutenant, I figured. So I tried tactfully to change the subject. “You have any idea who killed her?” I asked him.

“The way I figure it, you walked right in on her while she was taking a shower and she shot herself to death,” Schell said, scowling malevolently at me. “Boyd would represent a fate worse than death to any self-respecting dame!”

“Thank you so much, Lieutenant,” I said bitterly. “I find the body for you while it’s still warm and this is the thanks I get—insults!”

“You’ll get more than that if I can swing it,” he snarled, “like a murder rap, maybe.”

“Anyway,” I said, brightening a little, “you don’t have to worry about any more corpses being discovered. I found the tiara along with Louise, and I’ll be out of your hair just as soon as Elmo gives me his check.”

“Maybe that’s something else I can pin on you,” he muttered. “Collecting from Elmo is extortion in anybody’s language.”

“I called him right after I called you,” I said, very casual. “He should be here any minute.”

“You called Elmo?” Schell’s face darkened thunderously. “Who the hell gave you the right to—”

“I figured if I didn’t, some lousy cop might claim he’d found the tiara,” I said nastily. “I’m not mentioning any names but you can figure it out for yourself.”

Before Schell had time to detonate, there was a knock on the door quickly followed by the appearance of a beefy uniformed cop.

“There’s a dame outside says Elmo sent her right over to see thistBoyd,” he said heavily. “You want I should bring her in here, Lieutenant?”

“Why not?” Schell rasped. “It looks like Boyd is running this damned investigation—not me.”

A few seconds later the red-headed Tamara O’Keefe drifted into the room, instantly transforming the atmosphere into that of a perfumed pleasure room belonging to some sultan’s palace. She wore a short mink jacket buttoned over a black crepe cocktail dress. A silver bangle at her wrist writhed in serpentine glitter under the light, and matching pendent earrings writhed in unison beneath her fantastic hair-do, which seemed even more so tonight.

The tawny eyes calmly absorbed Lieutenant Schell’s blank face with no more interest than they paid to the wallpaper, then they looked questioningly at me.

“Mr. Elmo couldn’t make it right now, so he asked me to pinch-hit for him,” she said in that sultry voice. “You’ve really recovered the tiara?”

“Sure,” I said, then gulped as I felt the hot malevolence of the lieutenant’s eyes. “This is Lieutenant Schell—and this is Miss O’Keefe, Lieutenant.”

“We’ve met before,” Schell said crisply. “Did Boyd forget to mention to Elmo that he found the tiara sitting on top of a corpse’s head, Miss O’Keefe?”

Her eyes widened slightly as she looked at him directly for the first time. “How macabre! And what a dreadful waste of diamonds, Lieutenant. Do I know the corpse?” “Louise Lamont.” Schell stared at her bug-eyed for a few moments. “One of the finalists in Poolside’s beauty contest.”

“Oh?” Tamara thought about it for a little while. “Well, I guess it makes everything a lot easier for the other two finalists, now the Lamont girl’s out of the running, doesn’t it? May I see the tiara now?”

She unbuttoned the mink jacket and dropped it casually onto the nearest chair, then opened her purse and began searching its contents carefully. My eyes got the same bug-eyed look the Lieutenant’s had—the bodice of her dress was very low cut over the tight swell of her breasts, and was kept in place only by two fragile, finger-width, rhinestone-studded straps.

With a numb look on his face, Schell took the tiara out of his coat pocket and gave it to her. At the same time, Tamara extracted a jeweler’s glass from her purse and screwed it into her eye, then examined the tiara with minute and professional care. She studied it for an agonizingly long twenty seconds before she gave it back to Schell, then took the jeweler’s glass from her eyes and dropped it into her purse. A moment later the purse shut with a sharp, decisive snap.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” she asked coldly. “Or more probably Mr. Boyd thought it would be highly amusing?”

“Huh?” Schell gaped at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It was Mr. Elmo’s understanding you had recovered the real tiara,” she said in a steely voice, looking at me like I’d just sprouted another head.

“So what’s that—a mirage?” I croaked.

“In a pig’s eye,” she said inelegantly. “This is the paste imitation.”

“You’re out of your mind!” Schell bellowed at her. “The paste imitation’s locked in a safe at headquarters right now—where it’s been since the day of the theft.”

“Then you both have my congratulations,” she said thinly. “You now have two paste copies.”

“You’re sure?” Schell asked.

“I’m sure,” she snapped. “If you have any doubts you can always check with Mr. Elmo tomorrow morning— not that I advise it—his temper’s worn a little thin already.”

She picked up her mink jacket and buttoned it carefully. “If I may make a suggestion, Lieutenant? The next time Mr. Boyd thinks he’s found the real tiara, don’t bother checking it yourself—just send a couple of men with a restrainer instead? Good night.” She walked out of the room in a wonderful jiggling walk that didn’t even excite me for once. Then the door slammed shut behind her.

“Two paste imitations?” Schell looked at me helplessly.

“Well, the corpse was real, anyway,” I said, trying to console him a little. But from the look on his face as he mouthed short, silent words at me, I could see it didn’t help at alL

chapter four

After a lousy—and lonely—night in my hotel room, I got up reasonably early the next morning and figured I should take a closer look at the people who sponsored the beauty contest and started the whole trouble in the first place. So I drove the rented convertible out into the heat of the morning sun, leaving the top down as a gesture of defiance.

Poolside Plastics, Inc. was situated about twelve miles south of Santo Bahia, on a tidy fifteen acres which had once been an orange grove maybe. It was around eleven when I wheeled the convertible through the open plastic-barred gates and along a wide driveway. There was a magnificent jumbo-sized pool just lousy with inflatable plastic horses, ducks, seals, elephants—and a million other plastic poolside products that possibly included a plastic poolside pool table, for all I either knew or cared.

The front office was a long rectangular building, all plate glass and aluminum, and three stories high. I parked in the slot reserved for executives only because there was no point in giving myself an inferiority complex as a starter. Trim green lawns surrounded the flagged walk across to the front entrance, and the reception area was a plastic dream with just a little cheating on the side.

There was a languid receptionist with chestnut hair that rippled down almost to her shoulders, and she took her

35

own damn time about taking care of me. She was built like a diet-free Italian starlet—like she didn’t jiggle when she moved, she joggled. Her molded orlon sweater and form-caressing gabardine skirt left nothing to the imagination except maybe her age.

“Yes?” She yawned gently, and me and the profile just don’t care for that kind of early brush-off.

“I’m a guy given to quick decisions,” I told her in a grave, thoughtful voice. “Fifteen million for the whole business, including all tangible assets, plant, land—the works. What do you say?—take it or leave it?”

“Huh?” Her mascara muddied a little as she blinked twice.

“But the one thing I always do insist on is loyalty from all my employees—loyalty to the product, I mean,” I continued rapidly. “Are you personally loyal to the product?”

“What’s that?” Her eyes widened a little.

“For example,” I explained briskly, “are you wearing a plastic bra and girdle as of this moment?”

“A plastic bra and—” The muddied mascara turned into a confused swamp. “What are you?” She nearly choked. “A nut, or something?”

An impeccably dressed guy, somewhere around thirty-five, came up to the desk and noted the expression of traumatic shock on the girl’s face. Then he stared at me with insolent disdain. “You wanted something?” he asked in the kind of voice that strongly doubted it was possible.

“Well, sure,” I said plaintively. “This is the joint where they make those plastic gizmos, right?”

“You could call it that.” His voice gained added confidence from the slight wheedling tone I’d injected into my own, and a condescending smile began to spread his lips. “Don’t tell me you actually want to buy something?”

“It’s like this,” I confided in a confidential, but penetrating whisper. “I’m a sea captain, mister. I spend most of my lousy life making lonely voyages to Long Beach, so I wondered if your outfit maybe makes any of those plastic women—like life-size—I could take along for company. You just don’t have any idea how empty a small sea cabin can get”

I looked around for inspiration and found it in the pallid glassy-eyed stare of the receptionist. “I’m looking for something with a whole lot of foam padding,” I added helpfully, “like her?”

The square cut of the guy’s shoulders visibly crumpled, while his mouth opened and closed slowly a couple of times. Surrounded by a circular glass bowl—and fed a straight diet of ants’ eggs—who could tell him from any other goldfish? Around the time he started in making faint gobbling sounds, I figured the gag had gone about as far as it could go, so I told him who I was and that I was working for Elmo.

It took him a little time to absorb the information, and it looked like it would take the receptionist a little longer —like six months maybe—if the way her generous bosom had suddenly slumped was any indication.

“I’d like to talk with Mr. Rutter, the president,” I said cheerfully.

“He’s not in today,” the guy said vaguely.

“How about Machin, the publicity manager?”

“I am he.” He cleared his throat a couple of times and brought his voice back from a high-pitched squeak down to its normal baritone level. “Maybe we should go up to my office?”

His office was on the top floor, full of extruded plastic intrusions. It looked like a pool-lover’s dream that had suddenly multiplied into a nightmare one night when he wasn’t looking. Machin sat himself behind a magnificent desk and looked at me cautiously, like he figured I could produce a banana boat out of my hip pocket any moment.

“I don’t think I can help you much, Mr. Boyd,” he said finally, after a lot of thought. “I told Lieutenant Schell at the original investigation that I noticed nothing out of the ordinary happen during the whole time we were in Elmo’s jewelry store and the girls were modeling the tiara.” He shook his head dismally. “And now this dreadful murder of Louise Lamont! This is a shocking thing to happen, Mr. Boyd. Anyone would think there’s a curse on the Poolside contest. First the tiara is stolen— and now one of the finalists has been killed.”

“The way it looks, Louise Lamont must have been mixed up some way in the tiara theft,” I said, “and that’s why it figures the beauty contest could have been rigged to get at that tiara.”

“I don’t get it.” He looked at me expectantly.

“The contest was your idea in the first place, right?” I snarled at liim.

“No—funnily enough it wasn’t. The original idea came from Mr. Rutter himself.” Machin gave a self-deprecatory smile. “The tail wagging the dog, you could say, Mr. Boyd? I have to admit 1 resented it though—it sounded like a damned good idea, and I wished I’d thought of it first.”

“Does your president come up with red-hot publicity ideas very often?” I asked.

“That’s the only one so far—and I hope he doesn’t get any more, either!” he said fervently. “My guess is— after what’s happened now—there’ll be a six-inch fall of snow in Santo Bahia before he dreams up another publicity stunt.”

“Patty Lamont is your secretary?” I prodded.

“Sure, but she’s not in the office today.” His face sobered. “I called her as soon as I heard about the murder. She’s heartbroken naturally—they were very close, I believe, even for sisters.”

“They even worked for the same corporation, at the same time once,” I added helpfully.

“Yes,” Machin nodded. “Louise was Mr. Rutter’s personal secretary and she only left a couple of months back.”

“After she had a violent fight with him, right?”

His eyebrows rose a fraction. “Who told you that?” “Her sister—but it’s true, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is.” Machin shifted in his chair, a slight look of embarrassment on his face. “But don’t quote me, Mr. Boyd!”

“What was it all about?”

“I wouldn’t know. I only heard them yelling at each other, then she left—he fired her on the spot.”

“But later on he let her enter the contest and get to be a finalist even?”

“That’s right,” Machin said in a very neutral voice. “Why?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Boyd.”

I glared at his expressionless face for a while, then shrugged helplessly. “I guess I should be talking to Rutter, huh? I’m sure as hell wasting my time here talking with you.”

“You know how it is, Mr. Boyd?” he said smoothly. “You just stopped by to visit and ask a few questions—I work here all the time.”

“And Rutter is the president of the company?”

“You have a gift for putting things concisely, if you don’t mind me saying so.” He grinned weakly.

“Then maybe you could give me his home address— if that isn’t top secret around here,” I grunted. Tamara had given me only the office address for the Poolside characters—sort of like giving the service entrance.

“Sure, my pleasure.” He wrote it down on his desk pad, then tore off the leaf and handed it to me across the desk.

“Thanks.” I put the piece of paper into my wallet. “Just one more question before I leave: the idea of tying in the contest with that tiara in the jewelry store— who dreamed up that one?”

“I did,” Machin said promptly. “It looked like it was too good an opportunity to miss.”

On my way out past the receptionist’s desk, the chest-nut-haired, foam-padded receptionist gave me a dubious smile.

“I’ll be thinking of you, honey,” I said gallantly. “Nights, when my ship rolls gently in the cradle of the Pacific, I’ll—”

“Maybe plastic could give a girl good uplift,” she said, knitting her eyebrows in concentration, “but wouldn’t it be kind of hot in summer?”

“Not if you take a long sea voyage,” I assured her.

I left her still thinking about it, and I could tell she was thinking hard because of the disturbing thought waves that rippled the front of her orlon sweater. Back in the car, I checked Rutter’s address, which was south of Santo Bahia, and that meant at least an hour’s drive from the Poolside plant, which was due north. I stopped off for lunch on the way at one of those chintzy inns which specialized in nothing but pancakes, and the waitresses were all blue check gingham and adenoids.

It was around one-thirty in the afternoon when I reached the Rutter house—a split-level perched thirty feet above the road with a magnificent view of the coastline and Pacific. The sun shone radiantly from a cloudless blue sky and the breeze was a gentle zephyr off the ocean—a typical California day straight out of a tourist folder. I climbed the forty steps that led up to the house, figuring it would be just my luck to get a coronary on a day like this.

There was a double garage to one side of the house, flanked by a concrete drive, and I could see the shimmering blue surface of a back-yard pool, half hidden by a corner projection of the house. A carefully polished antique brass bell tolled loudly when I pulled the rope, startling a somnolent bee into hurried flight. The scent of hibiscus was heavy in the air. I leaned against the porch, lit a cigarette, and waited happily, with all the time in the world right there in the palm of my hand. Two, maybe three, peaceful minutes drifted by.

“I’m sorry,” a lazy voice said out of nowhere. “It’s the maid’s day off and I was out at the pool.”

I turned around real slow, nervous that the illusion the voice had created would vanish when I saw its owner, but one fast look was enough to make me stop any worries whatsoever. A tall, brown-skinned brunette was standing there, watching me with sloe-eyed detachment. She wore a blue-green satin swimsuit, softly shaped to flatter a tautly-curved figure that was in no need of flattery. Her legs were slender bronze pillars, supporting a beautiful temple to Venus, created in living flesh.

Her knowing eyes watched my reactions, lazily acknowledging the worship that was their due. They flickered once as they noted the profile with approval, then returned to a timeless contemplation of their own temple’s perfection.

“I am Myra Rutter,” she said. It was more an announcement, with trumpets playing someplace in the background, than a statement. “Are you something interesting, like an escaped sex maniac? Or merely dull, like a salesman?”

“I’m Danny Boyd,” I told her. “I’m something fascinating, like a private eye and—before I met you—I wanted to talk with your husband.”

“James had to go out to the airport or something,” she said coolly. “Why don’t you talk with me, Mr. Boyd, instead? I’m sure you have plenty to talk about—I can see the ego oozing out of your ears. I could possibly even offer you a drink as a bribe?”

“A drink would be the icing on the cake,” I said gallantly (D. Boyd is not above messing up a metaphor in times of stress). “Just the view from where I’m standing right now is bribe enough.”

She shook her head in wry amusement, and her long glossy black hair shone with myriad lustrous highlights. “Nobody can have everything,” she said, almost to herself. “With that profile, I guess it wouldn’t be fair to hope for sophistication, too. Let’s go around back to the pool.”

I followed her obediently, my gaze riveted on the rhythmic undulations of those impudently rounded, blue-green satin buttocks.

“Would you mind not panting quite so loud, Mr. Boyd?” she asked in a mocking voice, without bothering to turn her head. “I know it’s a wonderful view up here, but after a while you’ll find you get used to it.”

We came around the side of the house to where a wide concrete patio encompassed a free-form pool, which gave the impression it had been designed by some latter day Pythagoras during a bad attack of delirium tremens. A couple of chairs were set up at the edge of the pool beside an outdoor table, and within reaching distance was the fanciest drink wagon I ever did see. It was all chrome and rubber wheels, littered with a profusion of bottles; it obviously manufactured its own ice and—I wouldn’t have been real surprised—spoke four foreign languages while it mixed a martini.

“We call it home,” Myra Rutter said as she relaxed comfortably into a chair. “I guess because that’s as good a four-letter word as any. Make yourself a drink, Mr. Boyd, and while you’re at it you can make me a stinger, very, very cold.”

I made her the stinger and gave it to her, then made myself a bourbon on the rocks and sat down facing her.

“You have a very nice setup here,” I said approvingly, “but there’s one thing missing.”

“You’ll have to wait for the sun to go down before we can show the stag movies,” she said indifferently. “Or did you have something else in mind?”

“No plastic gizmos?” I shook my head sadly. “It’s not the Poolside spirit, Mrs. Rutter. I’m surprised at you— the president’s wife—not having the whole pool just loaded with plastic ducks and elephants and rafts and boats and—”

“The rest of the crap?” she said crisply. She recrossed her knees so her right kneecap had its chance to worhip her left. “I just remembered that I read something about you in last night’s paper, Mr. Boyd, only it’s not a distinct memory because the cook was wrapping the garbage at the time. Something about Mr. Elmo hiring you to recover his stolen tiara?”

“You must read fast,” I said admiringly. “That’s the size of it, as the man said.”

“And you’re from New York, and all. My!” The dark eyes glinted with derision. “What do you think of California, Mr. Boyd? I love New York, of course, it’s a wonderful place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Have you seen Disneyland yet?”

“I had it on my agenda,” I told her amiably, “but now I’ve seen you, I'm beginning to wonder if I need to make the trip south?”

“Danny Boyd?” She savored the words for a moment, like a doubtful oyster in her mouth. “I don’t like it much. We’ll shorten it to Danny so it’s only half-bad.”

“Gee! and Gosh!” I gurgled. “You mean I can get to call you Myra, Myra? I’d like that a whole lot. Myra sounds much better—Myra Rutter sounds like something that got chewed up in the garbage disposal unit.”

She laughed at that—full red lips pulled back over white, predatory teeth—and I wondered if her husband was out of his mind leaving a dish like this alone in the house for even five minutes.

“All right, Danny,” she said finally. “Tell me about the tiara. I’m fascinated, I really am. Are you hot on the trail of a heist mob—or maybe this is a lone wolf? I’ve got it!

A gentleman thief, and he wears a white silk scarf and suede shoes all the time?”

“If you want the truth,” I said reluctantly, “he’s a mad scientist who discovered a secret cream he rubs all over himself. It makes him invisible and gives him the advantage of being able to walk straight through walls at the same time. Fortunately I found a jar of the cream in his laboratory he must have overlooked.”

“How will that help you catch him?”

“Catch him?” I looked at her scornfully. “Are you out of your mind? I’m going to join him!”

She studied me in silence over the rim of her glass for a few moments before she spoke again. “This mad scientist doesn’t have the name Rutter, by any chance?”

“Not unless you know something I don’t,” I said. “Then why did you want to talk with my husband, Danny?”

“The beauty contest was his idea,” I said easily. “One of the three finalists was murdered last night, and coincidentally, he happened to be his ex-confidential secretary.”

“Louise Lamont,” Myra said tightly. “The bitch! She sure had it coming.”

“You knew her?”

Myra shuddered disdainfully. “No, with my devout thanks to a benevolent Providence, I only knew her.as a voice on the phone. A simpering slut who sweetly informed me she was sleeping with my husband, and if I didn’t want the fact made public I could take care of it with a lump of hard cash—ten thousand dollars, to be exact.”

“She tried to blackmail you?”

“Sweet innocence at eventide!” she snarled. “What the hell else would you call it?”

“Did you pay?”

“I told her fortune—for free,” she said in a satisfied voice. “I told her about her father and why he always wore a fur coat—it’s obligatory for all chimpanzees—and her mother, who once made ten dollars in a single week, and, at a nickel a time, that’s good going. Then I told her about herself and—”

“Like if I can cut the autobiography short,” I interjected hastily, “you didn’t pay?”

“When I was all through with her, I called James,” she snapped. “Five minutes after I hung up, she went out of the office on her ear!”

The bourbon was the real good stuff, straight out of Tennessee, and I sipped it appreciatively.

“But he allowed her to enter the contest,” 1 said finally, “and get to be one of the three finalists, even?”

“I didn’t know that until recently,” she said. “Then I asked James about that. There are times when he can be very uncommunicative.”

“He didn’t give you any reason?”

“He just hit me across the mouth,” she said casually. “There is never a dull moment in the Rutters’ lives— many sordid, but none dull.”

It was the kind of comment that didn’t call for an answer, and I didn’t try and dream one up. I drank some more bourbon instead, and felt the sun steadily getting hotter on the back of my neck. I loosened the knot of my tie and unbuttoned my shirt collar.

“You’re not dressed for sunbaking,” she observed. “Why don’t we go inside the house? It’ll be cooler there.” “Fine,” I told her.

We stood up together and suddenly we weren’t going any place. Her sloe eyes seemed transparent as she stared at me, her lips slightly parted, and I could see the well-banked furnace that burned steadily in back of them. She took the two steps it needed to cut down the distance between us to maybe a decimal point. “Danny?” Her voice was husky and triumphant at the same time, and there was no real question there at all. Her hands reached up and seized my earlobes painfully with each thumb and index finger pinching tight, pulling my head down toward hers. Those pouting lips pulled back again into a smile and a moment later the sharp white teeth clamped firmly into my lower lip. She hung on long enough for me to be in two minds whether to whoop or merely scream, then let go abruptly.

“Make us a fresh drink, Danny,” she said softly, “then come on into the house.” She turned away from me without waiting for an answer, and I was lost again in the torrid vision of those undulating satin clad curves as she walked toward the house.

I watched until she had disappeared inside, then made the fresh drinks with my hands shaking a little and twenty different—though allied—thoughts pulsating through my mind at the same time. Then I carried the jiggling glasses slowly, because I didn’t want the liquor all spilled by the time I got there, and it seemed to take a hell of a long time before I reached the open door.

The open glass door led off the terrace into a vast, strictly modem living room—and another door took me into the hall. I stood there for a moment, feeling a vague kind of empathy with Goldilock’s trauma in the bear house, then I heard Myra’s slightly muffled voice call, “Danny? I’m in here.”

“Here” figured to be the guest room, air-conditioned and the shades drawn, with pink broadloom on the floor and little fat cherubs depicted in gold on the walls. A blue-green satin swimsuit lay on the carpet, clashing with the color scheme. Myra stood beside an oversized couch, her arms raised above her head, stretching luxuriantly. Two horizontal strips of white across her nude body made a startling contrast with the deep bronzed tan that covered the rest of her. Her raised breasts, the nipples hard and pointed, were an arrogant challenge to the virility of all mankind—and I was mankind’s elected gladiator, I realized with a sudden surge of vitality.

She dropped her arms to her sides, then sauntered across and lifted her glass out of my hand. “You certainly took your own damn time about making fresh drinks,” she said casually. “What kept you?—stage fright?”

I reached out with my free hand and ran it slowly down across the swelling curve of her flank, then exhaled softly. “I heard about Venus rising out of the sea,” I said wonderingly, “but who’d believe a plastics outfit would come up with something like this?”

She smiled lazily. “It’s all real, Danny. You’ll find out!”

The bourbon I didn’t need right then, so I put the glass down on the bureau, and stripped off my clothes. By the time I’d finished, Myra’s empty glass stood beside my full one, and she lay on the couch, her head cradled in her hands, watching me with approval.

“Just don’t talk, Danny,” she said in a soft voice. “If I want sweet music when I make love, I can always switch on the radio.”

“What’s to talk about?” I asked hoarsely as I advanced ; toward the couch. “California weather is all the same the 1 whole year round, right?”

One time when I was in a poker game with four other guys and it had gotten kind of dull, we started swapping embarrassing experiences—like the time one guy had try- j ing to explain to his wife he was sure it was her looking for a lost earring under the bed, with only her legs sticking out, and that playful tweak of his fingers was meant as an expression of his love for her, not the maid, but his wife never did believe him. Although, he’d allowed, he’d had a hell of a time with the maid for the next six weeks.

Right then I suffered the kind of embarrassing experience that’s just too painful to recount, even to a bunch of old buddies over a poker game. I was bent—well, crouched even—over the couch when it happened, and that’s a hell of a position to be in with no clothes on. A door slammed suddenly someplace in the house, achieving the effect of freezing me rigid in that stooped-over position. Then the sound of tramping feet came rapidly closer, the door of the guest room was flung open, and for a couple of seconds that lasted longer than eternity there was a dreadful silence.

“So sorry,” a cold masculine voice said. “Should 1 apologize for having gotten home too early—or too late?”

I managed to unfreeze my aching back muscles and straighten up painfully. All I wanted right then was a jar of vanishing cream from my mythical mad scientist friend.

Myra turned her head and stared over my shoulder at the source of the interruption. “You’re very gauche, James,” she said and yawned. “You could at least call before you come home unexpectedly!”

“I’ll remember it the next time,” the male voice said icily. “Would you care to introduce me to your naturalist friend? He’s apparently suffering from some kind of seiz-* ure at the moment.”

“Of course.” Myra smiled gently, then raised herself on one elbow. “This is Mr. Boyd, and he’s a private detective hired by Elmo to recover the stolen tiara.” “Indeed?” The male voice registered polite interest. “I must say he appears to be dedicated in his search—leaving no woman unturned, as it were?”

“Danny”—Myra smiled sweetly at my frozen face— “this is my husband James. I don’t think a handshake is necessary, but it would be polite if you turned around and gave him another viewpoint, don’t you think?”

“The introductions can wait, Myra,” Rutter said crisply. “I think we should go into another room and leave Mr. Boyd to dress.”

“All right,” she said indifferently. She swung her feet onto the floor, then stood up. “I’ll freshen up the drinks while we wait, Danny.”

Right then I would have liked to say something—anything at all—but my vocal chords were still completely paralyzed along with the rest of me. I heard the faint rustle as Myra picked up her swimsuit and I heard them walk out of the room. The door closed after them, and all was silence except for the sound of my knees knocking together. Then I suddenly came to life in one convulsive tremor, and made a dive toward my clothes.

chapter five

I was knotting my tie when I heard a couple of sharp, rapping sounds from somewhere else inside the house. Maybe a minute later I was fully dressed, so I stepped out of the guest room not at all sure exactly what awaited me, like a brace of loaded pistols.

Rutter was waiting for me in the living room. A tall, huskily built guy who looked like he could go fifteen rounds with about anyone you cared to name. His thick black hair was streaked with gray, and the gray was repeated in his eyes, which held all the warmth of a tombstone carved out of granite. He was massaging the back of one hand with a set of well-manicured fingers when I came into the room.

“Sit down, Boyd,” he said almost cheerfully. “I want to talk with you.”

I sat on the edge of the chair and fumbled for a cigarette while he still massaged busily.

“Just hurt my hand,” he said casually. “Shows what can happen when a man loses his temper for a moment and hits his wife too hard, eh? Must be an object lesson wrapped up in that someplace—don’t you agree, Boyd? I’m afraid Myra won’t be joining us for a while, but I know she’d want me to apologize for her and make sure you’re quite comfortable. Can I get you anything?”

“Not one single thing,” 1 said thinly.

He shrugged easily. “Oh, well. I guess you’ve pretty much helped yourself to everything available already?’* “You caught me with your wife,” 1 said tautly,” so I guess you’re entitled to play the whole bit if you insist. But don’t shove it too hard, Rutter, or I could get real mad and maybe wind up hurting my own hand a little.” “Don’t waste any sympathy on Myra,” he said harshly. “She’s a tramp from way back. You’re only a number in an arithmetic progression as far as she’s concerned. Tomorrow she won’t even remember your name, and next week she won’t even remember you!”

I got to my feet again. “So now you’ve talked with me,” I snapped. “If you want to call me a few names on the way out, that’s fine—be my guest.”

He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth in a gesture of irritation. “Sit down, will you? I haven’t started to talk yet!”

“I’ve heard all I want from you about your wife, friend,” I said as patiently as I could. “Drop me a postcard, huh?”

“This has nothing to do with Myra,” he grated. “This concerns me—and you.”

The look of surprise on my face must have shown as I slumped back into the chair. Rutter glared at me for a little while, then ran his fingers through his hair in a frustrated gesture.

“Look! I wasn’t going into the plant at all today. I had a long interview with a certain police lieutenant downtown and I figured that was enough. Then I changed my mind and went into my office for an hour after lunch. I talked to Machin and he told me about your visit—the questions you asked. After that I called Elmo and asked about you. He said you came highly reccomended from Lieutenant Schell, no less.”

“So what do we have to talk about?” I growled.

The back of his hand wiped his lips a second time as he still glared at me intently. “Louise Lamont was murdered last night. You found her body, right?”

“Sure.”

“Schell seems convinced there’s a direct link between the tiara theft and her death. What do you think?” “Who the hell cares what I think?”

“Please!” He made a tired, downward gesture with his hand. “I’m not playing games, Boyd. This is important to me.”

“She was shot,” I said. “Whoever killed her put a tiara on her head, then left her in the shower with the water running. Sure I figure there’s a direct link.”

“So?” He pursed his lips tight. “Schell didn’t bother to tell me about the tiara.”

“It wasn’t the real one,” I said, “just another fake.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “That makes a clear-cut obvious connection between the theft and Louise’s murder. That gives me quite a problem, Boyd, because there’s a direct link between Louise and myself!”

“I know,” I said shortly.

The gray eyes searched my face with cold purpose. “Just how much do you know about that?”

“She was your confidential secretary until a few months back,” I said. “Then she called your wife, said she was your mistress, and demanded money to keep the fact quiet. Your wife told her to go to hell, then called you. There was a screaming fight between you and the Lamont dame which resulted in you kicking her out of the office with a ‘Never to return’ label hung around her neck. Then you came up with the brilliant idea of holding a beauty contest to gain publicity—and coincidentally Louise turned up as one of the contestants. Even more coincidentally she became one of three finalists and, the way I hear it, had openly boasted she was going to win the contest from the day she first entered. Like the implication was somebody had rigged the contest her way.”

“You haven’t wasted your time since you got here,” he said with grudging respect in his voice. “You know the way that damned lieutenant has things figured out?” “No,” I said confidently, “but I can guess.”

“So guess,” he said sharply.

“He figures Louise blackmailed you into creating the contest so she could become a contestant and win it. Then maybe she forced you into the publicity deal with Elmo so she could steal the tiara. It built up to breaking-point with you—came the time when you couldn’t take it any more, so you killed her. Is that what Schell thinks?”

“It’s close enough not to make any difference,” Rutter grunted sourly. “Do your have a different theory?” “Right now I don’t have any theory—period!” I told him.

He turned away from me and stalked up and down the room a couple of times, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, a look of deep concentration on his face. Finally he stopped, facing me again.

“If you want to find that tiara for Elmo, it looks like you got to find out who killed Louise first—right?” he asked abruptly.

I shrugged. “Could be—I don’t know yet”

“How much is Elmo paying you?”

“Expenses—five thousand when he gets the tiara back.”

“I'll make you a proposition, Boyd.” The gray eyes bored deep into my skull. “You come up with Louise’s murderer and Fll pay you another five thousand.” “Even if it’s you?” I queried innocently.

“Sure,” he grated. “I know damned well I didn’t kill her! I think it’s a reasonable proposition. It doesn’t cut across Elmo’s interests—the reverse, in fact. What do you say?”

“Okay, I’ll accept it,” I said promptly. I would have been out of my mind to refuse. “So now you’re a client of mine, right?”

“Repugnant as the thought is”—he closed his eyes for a moment—“yes, I am.”

“So answer me some questions?”

“All right. What do you want to know?”

“What Louise Lamont told your wife over the phone was true?”

“Naturally.”

“The thing that bugs me is why she tried to blackmail your wife instead of you—or did she try you first?” “No, she didn’t,” he rasped. “I agree with you, Boyd, it doesn’t make any sense. When Myra called me back that day and told me about it, I flipped. There was a hell of a row. Louise tried to deny it—but finally I threw her out of the place.”

“The beauty contest—was that Louise’s idea?”

Rutter looked uncomfortable for a moment. “I guess it was—kind of.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m not sure right now if I thought of it first or not,” he said vaguely. “I do know that once it was announced, she called me and said she was going to smear my name from here to San Francisco and back if I didn’t let her win it.”

“The publicity tie-in with Elmo and his tiara—that was Louise’s idea, too?”

“Definitely not!” He shook his head firmly. “That was Hugh Machin’s bright thought. I think the fact that I’d come up with the idea of the contest first had worried him a little—he wanted to prove he could do the kind of good job he’s paid for.”

“I don’t know exactly when Louise Lamont was killed last night,” I said, “but—”

“Neither do the police from what I can make out,” Rutter interrupted. “So if you’re going to ask me for an alibi—don’t.”

“The shower running warm water,” I said brightly. “I should have thought of that—retarding the natural processes and all that jazz—so now they can’t find an exact time of death.”

“Which makes things worse for me in a way,” he said bleakly. “I was in and out of the plant all day yesterday, and I didn’t get home here until around eleven last night.”

“Okay.” I stood up. “I’ll keep in touch.”

“Do that.” For a moment he was about to offer his hand, then thought better of it. “I imagine you can find your own way out?”

“Sure.” I took the easiest way—out through the still-open glass door, and onto the terrace again.

Myra Rutter was sitting by the pool, wearing the blue-green satin swimsuit again, the inevitable glass in her hand. She turned her head as my footsteps sounded on the concrete patio, and called, “Danny?” As I got close, I saw her eyes were hidden by an enormous pair of dark glasses, glitter-framed and opalescent. Her bottom lip was badly swollen and a dark bruise was beginning to show on one tanned cheek.

“Going without saying good-bye, Danny?” The swollen lip made it hard for her to smile. “That’s hardly gallant!”

“He hit you?” 1 asked bleakly.

“Twice—once where it shows, and once where it doesn’t.” She touched her midriff gently. “I hate to admit that James is a real gentleman—never even raised his voice once when he walked in on us, did he?”

I heard quick footsteps pounding across the concrete and turned to see Rutter hurrying toward us, with a flushed face and an ugly look in his gray eyes.

“Get the hell out of here, Boyd!” he said thickly. “Our deal didn’t include my wife—I thought that was understood.”

“I was saying good-bye,” I remarked idly.

“Did I hear somebody say something about you two having made a deal?” Myra asked lazily. “And it doesn’t include me? I’m desolate!”

“Shut your filthy mouth!” her husband said elegantly.

“James wants me to find out who killed his mistress,” I said to Myra. “It’s not that he misses her so much, I think—more that he’s worried the cops might have elected him as the killer.”

“Get out! Before I lose control!” Rutter snarled.

“That’s James,” Myra said lightly. “He just can’t help his finer feelings always getting the better of him. I often wonder why he wouldn’t be fair about Louise Lamont and let me beat him up occasionally.”

Rutter took a swift step toward her chair, his arm raised ready to backhand her across the face. Her right arm moved swiftly and the contents of her glass hit him in the face.

“Why don’t you cool down, darling?” she asked placidly. “It’s too hot out here for exercise.”

He pawed blindly at his face while he called her a whole lot of names, including a few you shouldn’t call anybody. After maybe ten seconds of it, I figured enough was enough.

“As a new employee, Mr. Rutter,” I said politely, “I’d like to offer my services right now. I think I can be of some help.”

I grabbed his coat collar in one hand and the seat of his pants in the other, then ran him forward at a vigorous pace and let go suddenly when he was on the edge of the pool. The momentum gave him the startling appearance of walking the first couple of steps on the water, then there was a huge splash and he disappeared from view.

The dark* glasses studied me for a moment, while one hand negligently flicked drops of water from the top of a curved thigh.

“Danny was that nice?” she asked reproachfully. “Now you’ve watered my drink.”

There was a soggy roar which sounded vaguely like a drunken sea lion, as Rutter’s head suddenly emerged above the surface. He plowed across to the edge of the pool and hauled himself out onto the concrete. I waited until he’d gotten to his feet and stood there dripping puddles of water all over the place.

“You want to play it real rough, Jimmy-baby,” I told him carefully, “I’ll throw you right back in—only this time I’ll tie a weight to your legs.”

A whole gamut of emotion chased across his face while I waited, then finally his shoulders hunched tight and he walked quickly past me toward the house.

“I think he’s mad about something,” Myra said cheerfully.

“I should’ve slugged him a couple of times,” I said regretfully. “Right where it doesn’t show.”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” she said. “I think maybe you’d better go now, Danny.”

“Yeah.” I looked at her uncertainly for a moment. “Well, thanks for everything.”

“I’m sorry we were interrupted,” she said softly. “Like they say—better luck next time?”

The sun still shone radiantly from a cloudless sky as I walked down the forty steps that led back to the road. A gentle zephyr carressed my cheek and the scent of hibiscus was still heavy in the air, but now it wasn't lazy any more—only decadent—and I wasn’t too sure where that left Danny Boyd.

It was ten of five when I walked into Elmo’s jewelry store, figuring I should have another talk with Mr. Elmo himself. The titian fantasy bent over the desk lifted a little, revealing the calm, composed, and exciting face beneath.

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Boyd—the fake tiara collector!” Tamara O’Keefe said pleasantly. “I’m afraid we don’t have any more in stock right now, but maybe I can interest you in some very uncultured pearls? They would make a perfect match for your personality.”

“I would like,” I said patiently, “to see Mr. Elmo. Is he in?—and please give a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without any further embroidery?”

“My!” She smiled evilly. “You are in a bad temper today, Mr. Boyd. What happened? Someone steal your Wheaties private detective badge?”

“In,” I snapped, “or out?”

“Oh, you’re still talking about Mr. Elmo?” she cooed. “He’s out—if you call San Francisco out. Most people think it’s'definitely in”

I tried to ignore the taut thrust of her bosom against the black silk dress but who can ignore nature? “I wanted to ask him some questions,” I explained. “1 guess they’ll keep. When does he get back?”

“Tomorrow evening,” she said, “but you can wait in his office if you like.”

“I’d rather go buy myself a drink,” I grunted.

She glanced up at the wall clock thoughtfully, then tapped a pencil idly against her front teeth for a few moments before she made up her mind.

“You’re right, Mr. Boyd,” she said decisively. “It is drinking time—almost. I feel I should repay your offer of the Boyd good neighbor policy with an invitation to share the O’Keefe mutual hospitality plan. You buy me a drink and maybe I can answer some of your questions. How about that?”

I looked at her suspiciously. “This isn’t just a gag, or something?”

“I never joke about drinking,” she said haughtily. “Do we have a deal, or don’t we?”

“You bet your life,” I said.

“Then give me five minutes to put on a new face.”

“I like the old one just fine.”

“With that profile you’re naturally biased in favor of tired old faces,” she said tartly. “I’ll be back.”

It took her around ten minutes, of course, before she was ready, then I drove her to the hotel and we went into

the Luau Bar. The Polynesian waiter, who looked more like he was born in the Bronx, showed us to a nice secluded corner alcove. Alter the drinks were served, Tamara lit a cigarette and leaned back against the plush upholstery. “You want to ask your questions now, Mr. Boyd?”

“Danny is the name,” I said.

“Okay—Danny.”

“How long has Willie Byers been with the store?” “Around five years, I guess.”

“You know him well?”

She made a face. “Well enough. He's one of the dangerous ones—the leer is concealed!”

“Huh?” I gurgled.

“It’s a little hard to explain.” She thought for a moment. “Take you as an example—you’ve got an open leer on your face the whole time so a girl knows she’s got to be real careful whenever you’re within striking distance. But there are some men who seem harmless, and they can be deadly, because they catch you off guard. If you see what I mean?”

“And Byers is one of those?”

“That’s how I figure him. I remember one day when we were alone in the vault—”

“Go on,” I said eagerly.

“Never mind!” she said in a brooding voice.

“You never had a date with him, then?”

She gave me a look of complete contempt. “With that? I’d rather sit home knitting in the Y.W.C.A. than go out with Willie Octopus.”

“Maybe he’s a real riot with all kinds of other women, and you’re the odd girl out who finds him absolutely resistible?”

Tamara blinked rapidly. “Are we talking about the same guy?—Willie Byers?”

“I was hoping you’d know something about him,” I said in a discouraged voice. “His hobbies, recreations— any scandal—the whole bit.”

“I found his main hobby that day in the vault,” she said bitterly. “He does have one other, he’s always talking about it—painting. He even goes to an art class one night a week.”

“You don’t know where?”

“He did mention it.” She wrinkled her lovely forehead while she tried to remember. “The—Peerless Academy —or something like that. A brilliantly original name, anyway.”

I saw her glass was empty, like mine, and signaled the waiter.

“Why all the interest in little Willie, anyway?” she asked.

“Whoever made that first fake tiara was smart enough to fool even your Mr. Elmo, right?” I said. “Then last night, a second fake appears on top of a corpse’s head.”

She shuddered faintly. “I don’t care to think about that.”

“Whoever made thpse fakes was an expert, wouldn’t you say? It was an expert who made the original— Willie Byers.”

“You don’t think little Willie made those two paste imitations? That’s ridiculous.” She shook her fantastic hair-do carefully so it wouldn’t come tumbling down around her ears. “He’d drop dead of fright if somebody stopped him in the street and asked for a match! Sorry, Danny, you’re way out in left field on that one.”

“Maybe. But I figure there’s more to Willie than meets the eye.”

Tamara shuddered again, daintily. “I hope I never get to find out.” Her face brightened as she picked up her new drink. “I love these rum-based drinks, don’t you? With all the cute names they give them, and all. What’s this one called?”

“ ‘Virgin’s Delight,’ ” I said, straight-faced.

She bit her lip and looked at me out of the corner of her eye for a moment. “You made that up!” she finally accused me. “Let me look at the menu.” She scanned the printed page eagerly. “You did—it’s not here.” She giggled suddenly. “The kookiest name here is ‘Missionary’s Downfall’—but not a thing about virgins.”

“Guess again,” I said. “They’re one and the same. The missionaries made the virgins wear Mother Hubbards so they wouldn’t look so sexy, and the virgins knew the reason, of course, and only felt sexier, and there you have the missionary’s downfall.”

A slow grin curved the comers of her mouth. “Some missionary you’d make!”

“Give me a chance to make a pagan convert and have dinner with me?” I suggested.

“Not tonight.” She shook her head, for a moment there I thought I detected a faint note of regret in her voice. “I have a date already.”

“Willie, I suppose,” I grunted sourly.

“Believe it or not, I have to go home tonight for dinner —it’s my kid sister’s birthday.”

“Don’t you go home every night?”

“Only to my apartment normally—I’m what they call an independent girl.”

“So why don’t we have dinner tomorrow night? Or is that your kid sister’s kid sister’s birthday?”

“No—that’s Friday,” she said happily. “All right—tomorrow night’s a date. Will it be formal?”

“Just wear your Mother Hubbard, honey,” I said, “and I’ll be wearing the same old leer.”

We finished our drinks and she had to go. I walked with her to the door and saw her disappear into a cab with a flurry of skirts that exposed a pair of beautifully dimpled knees. The world was suddenly a lonely place after she’d gone. I went up to my room and looked through the phone directory until I located the “Peerless Academy of Art.” With a name like that, I figured they must charge fifty cents a lesson at least.

A nasal feminine voice answered, reciting the full name of the academy like it was a call to arms.

“Lieutenant Schell, police,” I said in a harsh voice. “You hold a weekly painting class down there, right?” “Oh—er—yes, Lieutenant.” Her voice quavered nervously. “Every Tuesday night. Mr. Callahan teaches, and I must say he’s an excellent teacher. The fee is—”

“You figure a cop has time to paint?” I growled.

“Oh—er—I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I thought—”

“Don’t,” I said succinctly. “Just get your list of pupils out. I want to check a couple of names.”

There was a frantic rustling noise at the other end of the line, and I sat wondering if she was sorting through papers on her desk, or if she’d just lost her girdle. Finally she said she had the list right there.

“Is a guy named Byers listed?—Willie Byers?’*

“Just a moment, Lieutenant, I’ll have to put on my reading glasses first.” There were more frantic whispering sounds. “Ah!” she said in a relieved voice. “That’s better.” So I sat and wondered some more for a few seconds. “Yes, yes, Lieutenant. Here it is—Wilhelm Byers. He seems to be one of our best pupils. Never misses a class and always pays each quarter promptly in advance.”

“Can he paint?”

“I really wouldn’t know,” she said blankly. “You’d have to ask Mr. Callahan about that.”

“Never mind,” I snapped. “How about the women pupils? Do you have a Miss Lamont listed by any chance?”

“Let me see now. “More rustling. “Yes, we do—that is, we did. She only attended a few classes apparently, Lieutenant.”

“That’s Louise Lamont?”

“Yes, it is. But according to the list we haven’t seen her in the last three or four months. When they drop out like that, they don’t usually come back. But still—if you want to leave a message for her, Lieutenant?”

“No, thanks,” I said tersely. “I know where she is right at this moment.”

“Oh, really?” The curiosity was hot in her voice. “Where, Lieutenant?”

“The morgue,” I said, and hung up.

I lit a cigarette and figured it all made for a neat tie-up between Louise and Willie. For a guy who was normally repulsive to women—and I’d take Tamara O’Keefe’s word on that—to have something exotic like Louise Lamont within reach would be worth any effort, including the making of two fake tiaras. So the next time I called on Willie, like within an hour or so, I guessed I wouldn’t treat him gendy, virus or no virus. The phone rang imperatively, breaking my obvious line of thought.

“Mr. Boyd?” a whisper asked when I answered. “Sure,” I said. “Who’s this?”

“Patty Lamont,” the whisper said. It had a kind of eerie quality that prickled my crew cut. “I have to see you, Mr. Boyd, right away. Would you please come

straight to my apartment? You do have the address—I gave it to you yesterday, remember?”

“Sure, I have it,” I said awkwardly. “But I have to go out right away, Miss Lamont, and it’s important. Maybe we could make it sometime tomorrow?”

“No!” The whisper became a frantic, imploring voice. “It has to be now, right away, Mr. Boyd. There’s not a minute to lose! Believe me, I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s a matter of life and death!”

“Are you sick or something?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you any more now,” she said hysterically. “But you must come—now!11 There was a sharp click as she hung up.

I replaced the phone and thought the hell with it, and with Patty Lamont, too. Then I remembered what Machin had said—she’d been very close to her sister and the shock of hearing about Louise’s murder had broken her up completely—and I figured I had to show up, however stupid her imagined emergency might be. Willie Byers could wait a couple of hours, at that.

chapter six

When I arrived outside her apartment, the door was half-open, but being real polite 1 pressed the buzzer and waited.

“Mr. Boyd?” Patty Lamont’s voice called from somewhere inside.

“Sure,” I called back.

“Please come right in—the door’s open.” Her voice sounded shrill with the hysteria still hovering around the edges.

I pushed the door open a little wider and stepped into the apartment. A runaway truck slammed into the back of my neck and sent me sprawling onto the floor. Before I had a chance to think, it circled around and slammed into my ribs a couple of times, rolling me across the carpet, then came to a sudden stop sitting on my chest. Fingers like steel hooks ripped open my coat and explored under each arm with ungentle thoroughness, checked all my pockets, then patted my legs like they were granite to be sculpted with a couple of hammers. While I was still wondering if anybody had gotten the number of the truck, the weight was suddenly lifted from my chest.

“Okay, Marty,” a sandblasted voice growled. “The punk’s clean.”

I sat up quickly, which was a mistake, and waited for the room to stop jazzing around. When it finally did, I got

61

a clear glimpse of the two guys looking down at me with concentrated venom in their faces. One I recognized already—the runaway truck that masqueraded as a human being and was named Pete. The other one I hadn’t met before.

The second guy was around average height but so thin it made him look taller. His gaunt face, with its hollow cheeks and bloodless lips, looked like a textbook illustration of malnutrition. The deepset eyes were pale blue and I wondered for a moment if he’d stolen them from a morgue. There was a wiry thatch of red hair on top of his head and it didn’t help the overall picture at all. The most charitable thought 1 could come up with right then was his doctor must have ordered him destroyed at birth, but somebody goofed.

“How do you like that, wise guy?” Pete asked happily. “And I ain’t even started yet.”

I hauled myself onto my feet, then noticed for the first time that Patty Lamont was sitting on the couch, watching me with fear-frozen eyes. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Boyd,” she whispered. “They just pushed their way in here and they made me call you. I didn’t want to, but the big one—hurt me!” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed convulsively.

“Shut up,” the cadaverous character said, without any particular inflection. “Or if you don’t, I’ll have Pete arrange it for you.”

Patty managed to stifle her sobs down to an incoherent murmur, and he nodded, apparently satisfied.

“You must be Marty Estell?” I said.

“Sure,” he said, nodding. “And you’re the flip private eye from the East. I’ll tell you a funny story, pal. When Pete claimed he’d found this guy beating my time with Louise, I didn’t believe it, even.”

“I got into town the same day Pete and I had the argument,” I said easily. “I pride myself on being a fast worker—but not that fast!”

“So—” he shrugged his thin shoulders indifferently— it’s old friends and that kind of jazz— who cares? Louise figures to get real smart and double-cross me, so she needs help.”

“Maybe you’re not right out of your mind?” I suggested pleasantly. “Just got a couple of hinges loose?”

Pete moved fast for all his bulk, and a hamlike fist buried itself in my solar plexus. For a timeless moment I figured I was about to die—and for another timeless moment worried in case I didn’t. Bent double, with both arms wrapped across my middle, I managed to stagger to the couch and flop down on it beside Patty Lamont.

“How do you get that way, being rude to the boss?” Pete asked in an aggrieved voice. “Ain’t you got no respect?”

“I’m not even sure if I’ve got insides,” I wheezed painfully.

Marty EstelTs face twitched suddenly. “Let’s get to the point, shall we?” he said in a flat voice. “I’m not here for my health, Boyd. I want the tiara.”

“Don’t we all?” I wheezed.

Pete started lumbering toward the couch, his eyes staring greedily through the coarse black hair that hung down over his forehead.

“Lay off!” Estell said curtly, and the giant came to a reluctant stop. “There’s plenty of time for that,” Marty continued. “Maybe Boyd doesn’t realize his exact situation?”

“Have Pete slam you in the gut the way he did me,” I suggested balefully, “then ask a stupid question.”

“You and Louise double-crossed me out of that tiara,” he said, ignoring my suggestion. “Then you double-crossed her, grabbed the ice for yourself, and gave her a bullet between the eyes in ever-loving memory.” He shook his head slightly. “Do you think that was nice, Boyd?”

“I found her body in the shower, with the tiara sitting on her head,” I snarled.

“Oh, sure.” His face twitched again suddenly. “You played it real cool—the real tiara in your pocket and the fake on top of her head—then call in the cops and walk out of there while they’re still busy looking for clues or something.”

The volcanic eruption in my insides had quietened down to an occasional spurt of molten lava, so I managed to straighten up slowly.

“You’re”—I stopped suddenly when I saw the gleam in

Pete’s eye and quickly rephrased the words—“mistaken. I only came into Santo Bahia because Elmo hired me to get back his stolen tiara. I had a list of all the people who were in the room when the switch was made. Louise’s name was on that list. It so happened I called on her while Pete was there and he didn’t wait to hear any explanations. That’s all there is to it.”

Estell stood, his face expressionless, as if he was considering the reasonableness of my explanation. For a few moments I figured the Boyd logic might prevail, even, but then he shook his head again.

“The way Pete tells it, you were real nervous and jumped him first opportunity you got, when he wasn’t looking,” he said. “I don’t believe in coincidence, pal. So I had Pete keep an eye on your hotel—and who does he see real cozy in the bar last night but you and this snotty-nosed broad!” He gestured contemptuously toward Patty.

“Then you’re the guy that finds Louise’s body and the stolen ice yet—only the way it turns out it’s not the genuine tiara after all. You spent all day running around in that fancy convertible, then you’re back in the bar again, only with a different broad—that redhead from the jewelry store. It all stacks up to a hell of a lot more than coincidence, pal.”

“Coincidence or no,” I snarled at him, “it’s the truth.” “Maybe I should take him apart a little more, boss?” Pete asked hungrily. “See what falls out when we open him up a little?”

“It would be a long and tedious process,” Estell said in the same flat monotone. “We don’t have the time. There’s a quicker way.” His right hand slid inside his coat and reappeared holding a .38, and a moment later I was looking straight down the barrel.

“Don’t think I won’t use it, pal,” he said easily. “You don’t want to believe me, that’s fine—just remember you can only be wrong once.”

He didn’t need to convince me. From the first time I’d seen those pale blue eyes that had been dead for a long time already, I’d picked him for a psycho killer, which is one stage worse than a pro. However uncomfortable, at least you know where you are with a pro—these are mostly the competent guys who kill for money and take an assignment the same way a photographer would. But a psycho like Marty Estell would likely kill his mother if she didn’t have his dinner ready on time.

“Yeah,” he said flatly, still watching my reactions. “I can see you’re about to take my word for it, huh, Boyd?” He didn’t bother to look in the giant’s direction. “Pete!” “Yeah, boss?”

“Work the broad over,” Marty suggested evenly. “Maybe the big private eye will get a real kick out of that.” “This is the kind of work I call real pleasure,” Pete said throatily.

He came toward the couch with both his hands outstretched in front of him, the fingers quivering with eager anticipation. Patty thrust herself against the back of the couch, her eyes dilating with horror. “No!” she whimpered. “You can’t—” The broad, stubby fingers hooked into the collar of her blouse and ripped it open right down the front, exposing the lacy black bra beneath.

“Relax, baby,” Pete almost chuckled. “You could get to like it, even.”

Again the fingers worked, and Pattie screamed thinly as the brassiere was literally torn off her body. He knocked her hands away with a scornful gesture as she tried to cover her exposed breasts.

“Hold it,” Estell said. “You want to change your mind, Boyd? From here on in, it’ll get real interesting.”

Patty’s face was a deep scarlet color with mortification, and terror glistened wetly in her eyes. I looked at her exposed bosom, the twin ivory mounds so softly feminine and completely vulnerable, and I knew I couldn’t let those obscene squat fingers violate her any further.

“I didn’t kill Louise and I don’t have the tiara,” I said to Estell. “But I can tell you who did kill her, and who’s got the tiara now.”

“So tell me?”

“You tell Pete to move away from the girl first.”

He shrugged impatiently. “You want to get sentimental about that sniveling broad?”

“The same way you want those diamonds,” I told him. “Okay. Get the hell out of the way, Pete.”

The giant moved away slowly, giving me a look of

animal-like hatred on the way. His fingers were still twitching as he backed off, and I figured maybe one day soon I might get lucky and do the world a favor at the same time.

“All right,” Marty said. “Now let’s hear it”

“The guy you want is Willie Byers,” I told him.

“Byers?” He looked questioningly at the giant, who stared back blankly and shook his head. “Who the hell is Byers?” Marty said coldly.

“He works for Elmo,” 1 said. “He’s the guy who made the original tiara and—”

“And he’s the man who was seeing an awful lot of I Louise a few months back,” Patty said suddenly in a \ cracked voice. “I knew he was no good for her the very first time I saw him! She wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell-—”

“Shut up, will you?” Estell snarled at her. “Boyd’s telling the story.”

Patty froze fearfully, her mouth hanging wide open. Then her whole body started to shake convulsively. 1 went on with the story, giving Estell every detail because I had to have him convinced, the way I was convinced. Byers was the expert and who better to make a paste imitation of the real tiara? The painting on his wall that had to be Louise Lamont—the art classes that both of them had attended. How she must have suckered him into the plot by dangling her dazzling body in front of his eyes. Then somehow he must have found out about her and Marty Estell and realized just how he had been suckered—so he’d killed her and taken the stolen tiara for himself.

There was an agonizing silence after I stopped talking. I watched Estell’s face but it remained completely expressionless—I might just as well have watched the wall. Then one side of his face twitched suddenly. “You got this Willie Byers’ address?” he asked.

“Sure—right here.” I took out my wallet and read out loud.

“You figure it is this Byers character, boss?” Pete asked dubiously. “You figure Boyd’s leveling with you and it's not just a stall?”

“I think there’s a reasonable chance he’s telling the truth,” Marty said flatly. “That’s why we’re going to find out.”

“Sure—anything you say,” Pete said hastily. “But what about these two?—tie broad and all? She could give us a lot of grief if she calls the cops.”

“We’ll leave them here,” Marty said. “If Boyd’s right and we lift the ice from this Willie Byers, we won’t be back. If he’s been kidding us a little, then we’ll be back for another little chat. So we got to make sure they don’t go anyplace meantime.”

“Scout’s honor?” I queried.

“You’re a very funny man, pal,” he said softly. “I got a good mind to come back here anyway and have Pete work you over some more, just for kicks.” The pale blue eyes were even more remote as they looked straight through me for a while. “Pete,” he said slowly, “look around and see if you can find anything to tie them up with.”

The giant hunted through the apartment, noisily opening closets and desecrating Patty’s bedroom. Around five minutes later he triumphantly emerged from the bedroom, carrying a bunch of luggage straps.

“You sure took your goddamned time,” Marty said thinly. “Take the broad into the bathroom and tie her to the faucet.”

Pete smiled nastily at Patty. “On your feet, baby!”

She stood up slowly, trying to pull the shredded blouse across the front of her. Pete grabbed her arm, nearly jerking her off her feet, and propelled her toward the bathroom. “You got no reason to feel shy, baby,” he bellowed, “I seen it all already!”

Another sixty seconds of miserable silence, then he returned with a satisfied grin on his face. “She’s fixed up real good, boss,” he said smugly. “Tied so tight she can’t blink even.”

“All right,” Marty nodded. “Now take care of Boyd and snap it up, will you?”

“Sure, sure,” Pete mumbled hastily.

He did a good job all right—my hands strapped behind my back, both my ankles and my knees strapped tight together. The leather dug cruelly into my flesh and I figured I didn’t have a hope in hell of moving one solitary muscle even, until someone untied the straps again.

“Where will I put him, boss?” Pete grunted.

“In the bathroom with the broad,” Estell snarled. “Where the hell else? They can keep each other company, and we’ll leave the radio on when we go, in case they start yelling any.”

The giant picked me up like I was a trussed fowl, threw me over his shoulder, and carried me into the bathroom. There was a bath and shower combination; Patty’s wrists were strapped to the shower faucet and she . was standing with one side pressed against the tiled walL Pete propped me in a standing position against the side of the bath and chuckled loudly. “Ain’t nothing like being really clean, pal!” Then he nudged my shoulder with the palm of his hand and I toppled sideways into the bath, banging my head painfully against the side. I lay full-length with my head close to Patty’s feet, writhing impotently while the sound of his raucous laugh faded into the other room. The door slammed shut after him, and a few seconds later the radio flooded the whole apartment with loud jazz.

“Danny?” Patty’s voice sounded remote from where I lay. I squirmed a little, twisting my neck, until I could look up at her face.

“Yeah?”

“I’m terribly sorry I got you into this!”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, I told her in a slightly terse voice. “You didn’t have any choice.”

“You’re very kind,” she said softly. “That was the first thing I thought when I met you, do you know that? Under that awfully good-looking and tough guy facade, I said to myself, there’s a wonderful soft, kindly man!”

“I don’t wonder you get into this kind of trouble if you go around saying things like that to yourself all the time!”

I grated. “How about we try and figure a way out of this?”

“I’ve tried.” Her body jerked suddenly as she pulled against the straps that held her wrists to the faucet. “But I can’t loosen them at all.”

“Well, keep right on trying, Patty,” I snapped. “We don’t have too much time before the boys will be back

—and frankly, I don’t want to be here when they arrive.” “Maybe they won’t be back?” she said hopefully. “If your theory about that Mr. Byers is right, they’ll—” “They’ll be back,” I said bleakly. “You remember when Estell asked for Byers’ address and I read it out loud to him?”

“Of course, but what difference does that make?”

“It wasn’t Byers’ address I read out loud,” I snarled. “It belonged to one of the other finalists in the beauty contest. I bet she’ll be about as surprised as Marty and Pete when she opens the door.”

“You fool!” she almost spat the word.

“Maybe you’re right,” I acknowledged. “But keep pulling against that faucet while you call me names, honey, because time’s running out on us fast.”

Her body jerked frantically as she threw her weight against the straps for maybe a minute, then suddenly went limp. “It’s no good, Mr. Boyd!” she said tearfully. “They don’t give at all.”

“You could call me Danny, after all we’ve been through together,” I said. “And keep pulling away—it’s the only hope we’ve got.”

“I’ll try,” she said, and sniffed loudly.

“That’s the girl,” I said encouragingly.

The faucet made a faint clanking sound as she jerked the straps again. “These straps will cut right through my wrists if I keep on much longer!”

“So what’s losing a pair of hands compared with your whole life?” I snarled at her. “Keep pulling.”

Maybe five minutes later when I was about ready to tell her to turn on the faucet because death by drowning would be infinitely preferable to Pete, she suddenly yelled excitedly.

“Danny! They slipped a little.”

“So pull some more,” I said fiercely.

The clanking sound was stronger, then Patty suddenly squealed in triumph. “I did it! I did it! I’ve got my hands loose, Danny!”

“So don’t just stand there making a big deal of it,” I yelled at her. “Get me loose.”

She got down onto her knees awkwardly and after what felt like a hell of a long time, managed to get my wrists

fret. 1 massaged the circulation back into them, then undid the straps around my knees and ankles. My walk back into the living room was strictly Chaplinesque, until the blood had gone down to my toes and back up again a couple of times.

Patty sank wearily onto the couch and heaved an immense sigh of relief, then remembered too late that the sigh was not only audible but visible, too. Maybe she saw the look of admiration on my face, because she blushed a fiery red and covered herself with her arms.

“You know something, Patty?” I told her. “You have a beautiful body—you should be proud of it.”

For a moment a look of pride showed in her dark eyes. “Louise and I had exactly the same measurements," she said shyly. 44We could wear the same size dress and everything. We used to borrow each other’s clothes all the time and—” Her voice stopped suddenly and she fumed her head away. 1 figured the memory of how Louise had died was still a hell of a lot too close for comfort.

“We still have a problem that's likely to return pretty soon,” 1 said briskly. “So we’d better get the hell out of here fast before we have company.”

“But where—”

“HI get you a room at the hotel for the night,” I said. “1 don't want to bring the cops into this just yet— 1 want to get to Byers first.”

*'111 go get some clothes together and I guess I'd better put some on as well.” She looked down at herself, then added daringly, “I bet the clerk wouldn't give me a room if he saw me like this!”

“Don't sell yourself short, honey,” I said mildly, “he might give you a whole suite yet.”

“Danny!” She gave me a delighted smile, then vanished into the N*droom. I lit a cigarette while 1 waited and I was just mashing the butt when her head suddenly reappeared around the door.

“Danny,” she said excitedly, “I just checked my watch.”

“And how is it?—still working?” I growled.

“You don't understand!” If she stamped her foot I didn't hear it but then maybe she wasn't wearing shoes right then. “Ifs only fifteen minutes since they left." she continued rapidly. **and that address you gave them is a twenty-minute drive ax absolute minimum—one way. So they can't possibly get back in less than another Twenty-five minutes, not counting the time it takes them to realize you gave them the wrong address. Why don’t you go straight over to Byers' place now? You don’t need to wait for me—I can get a cab to the hotel. ”

“Sure, but—” I said doubtfully.

“But nothing.” Her voice was determined. “You do as I say, because you're only wasting time waiting here for me—m be at kast another ten minutes."

“Okay.” I finally agreed. “But you make that ten minutes an absolute deadline.”

“I wffl."

She suddenly darted out from behind the door and ran barefoot toward me. A sheer nylon slip openly proved the rest of her figure was equal to the perfection of what I had already seen. She ran straight into me, threw her arms around my neck, then kissed me fiercely on the mouth. For a short time we were molded together in a businesslike clinch. Then she broke free and ran back to the bedroom, her face glowing like a danger signal.

I walked out of her apartment with that old. old gag running through my mind—“When is a broad not a broad^0" Fd forgotten the punch line but it hardly mattered. and besides, I was punchy enough already. You never know where your fun's coming, and that's a fact.

The last time I was in Santo Bahia Td learned the hard way that the guy who's real smart carries his gun under his armpit, and not in the suitcase back at the hotel. Now Td learned it over again from Marty Estell and the lesson hadn't been any easier to come by. So I stopped off at the hotel first, went up to my room, and put on the shoulder harness under my coat. The weight of the .38 was comfortably reassuring as I rode the elevator hack to the lobby again. All in all. the detour hadn't taken more than ten minutes at most and I figured it had been worth it. Not that I expected any real trouble from little Willie, but sometimes you never can tell until it's too late.

The first time I'd visited his apartment house, the peace and quiet surrounding it—both inside and out—had seemed both dignified and elegant. This time I wasn’t too sure. The subdued hush that pervaded the atmosphere was more in keeping with a morgue than a place where people lived-

When Byers’ door opened so promptly to my discreet buzz, I figured maybe he was lonely and I’d get a warm welcome—well, some kind of welcome—almost any damned kind of welcome except the one I got. The door opened wide like WhoooshI and there I was staring down the barrel of a .38 that seemed somehow familiar. With a hell of an effort I raised my eyes and stared into the bloodless death mask that Marty Estell passed off as a face.

“Come right on in, pal,” he said tightly. “We’ve been expecting you right along.”

I did like I was told—who argues with the wrong end of a gun?—and he slammed the door shut behind me. The gigantic Pete stood solidly in the middle of the room, soiling its elegance, while the flamboyant, sprawling nude still dominated one wall.

“You were expecting me?” I said blankly to EstelL “How? You have a crystal ball, maybe?”

“The phony address didn’t fool me one minute,” he said coldly. “But I knew the name was right—it checked out with the broad—so we looked in the phone book before we took off. Then once we got here and found what you’d left for us, pal, I knew it had to be either you or the cops knocking on the door. And cops make a hell of a lot more noise than you did.”

“It’s like I’m confused, Marty,” I said honestly. “Figuring out the address was a phony, I can understand. Whatever it was I left for you here, I don't understand. How you knew I’d get out of those straps that Pete tied so tight he nearly severed some arteries—this I don’t understand, either. Or the optional bit about it had to be me or the cops?”

“I guess Pete softened you up more than I figured,” he said. “Maybe we should refresh your memory, pal?” He gestured with his gun toward the bedroom door. *’In there, huh?”

In there was the bedroom and it contained all the things you expect to find, including a bed. The unexpected lay on the bed, flat on his back, legs neatly together, fully dressed, one arm outflung, the other in a crooked position, the hand near the head, the gun on the pillow, and the bullet hole two inches above his right ear.

In death, Willie Byers looked even less impressive than he had in life, which was saying a hell of a lot. The graying brown hair looked like chaff the cattle had rejected a couple of weeks back, and the vacant expression on his face was a memory to keep even a morgue attendant awake nights.

“You think I killed him?” I said incredulously.

“Who else?” Marty said flatly.

“I wish I could remember what it was I ever did to you, that you hate me so much?” I said feelingly.

“It was real neat,” Marty said. “If the phony address worked, we’d be gone long enough for you to figure a way out of that bathtub. If we were smart and found the real address, we wound up with a corpse—so we’d beat it fast and keep right on running. Or you could have pulled a switch, called the cops and let us be taken right here with a body in the bedroom.”

I took another look at the mortal remains of Willie Byers. “Don’t you think he suicided?” I asked cautiously.

“Like I said, real neat,” he repeated. “You told us the whole bit, remember? Louise and Byers pulled the job between them. Then he knocks off Louise for all the reasons you said—his nerve cracks and he puts a slug into his brain. Real neat. Only one thing missing, pal, and that’s the ice. Where’s the tiara, huh?”

This time there was nothing I didn’t understand and it made me feel kind of nervous. Marty had me figured as the mastermind who double-crossed his girl, took the tiara away from her, then killed her—and this was only a starter—then knocked off Willie Byers and made it look like suicide. Yeah, there was one more thing— maybe I’d intended to stick him with a murder rap if the cops wouldn’t buy the suicide bit.

“You mind if I have a cigarette?” I asked him.

“Yeah—” he nodded “—I mind. I got other plans for you, pal. Like we’ll go back into the living room and you tell us what you really did with that ice?”

His wish was the .38’s command, so we went back into the living room. “Sit down,” Marty told me, and Pete cuffed my shoulder a second later, sending me backwards at a fast rate until the edge of my knees hit the couch and I was sitting down already.

“Let’s keep it simple,” Marty said. “You tell us, or Pete takes you apart, like before. Only this time there’s no dame—only you.”

There was no chance of convincing him I didn’t know where that damned tiara was, so all I could do was play it cagey. “What’s the percentage in it for me?” I asked him. “What happens if I do tell you where the ice is stashed?” I figured it might help a little if I spoke his language for a while.

“You save yourself a whole mess of grief, pal,” he said. “If you don’t tell me now, you will pretty soon. Nobody can stand up to a workout from Pete for too long without spilling their guts—trouble is you maybe won’t be able to put them back by that time.”

“This I dig,” I said fervently. “But what happens then?” “I owe you for a whole lot of trouble, Boyd.” The side of his face twitched violently. “Like you killed my broad and heisted the ice from under my nose—you know just how much trouble you caused me already. So I pick up the gun from in there” —he nodded toward the bedroom—“use it on you, wipe off the prints, stick it in your mitt, and we walk out.”

“The cops won’t buy it,” I said in a sneering voice. “They’ll have the same problem you got, Marty. Where’s the ice? Where’s the red tiara all this time?”

“It won’t worry me too much if they buy it or not, pal,” he said flatly. “But I think they will—my bet is that’s the gun you used on Louise and the three slugs will match up. So maybe you dropped the tiara over a cliff or something—who’s to know?”

He glanced at the heavy, oversized watch on his wrist. “You got five seconds before I tell Pete to go, pal. And once he starts, I’m not about to stop him even if you’ve told where the ice is stashed five times already!”

In a tactical situation, I didn’t have much advantage with Marty standing directly in front of me, his gun pointing straight at my chest, and Pete standing to one side only six feet away.

“Okay,” I said nervously. “You win, Marty. Now can I light a cigarette while I talk?”

“What difference? But don’t stall, pal!” For the first time there was the faintest animation in his voice.

“I’m not stalling,” I told him, while I slid my right hand gently inside my coat.

“Hold it!” Pete shouted. “Boss—maybe he’s got a gun?”

“Sometimes you’re so stupid I wonder how you ever learned to eat all by yourself!” Marty said bitterly. “What was the first thing you did when he walked into the broad’s apartment?”

“I slugged him!” Pete said triumphantly.

“Okay—so I boobed,” Marty said flatly. “After you slugged him—what then?”

“I frisked him, of course,” Pete answered in an injured tone of voice. “In case he was carrying a—oh, yeah! I see what you mean.”

My fingers wrapped around the butt of the .38 in a loving but firm grip. “That painting of Louise up on the wall in back of you, Marty,” I said. “You take a real good look at it?”

“I got no time to waste with paintings!”

“Right in back of the painting is a wall safe,” I lied. “And that’s where I stashed the ice.”

“Here?—in Byers’ apartment?” The doubt showed in his eyes, but the impulse to find out was irresistable. “Pete! Take a look.”

The giant lumbered across to the painting, got both hands under the massive frame, and gave it a sudden upward jerk. It moved fractionally and the veins stood out in his forehead as he tried again. This time it moved all right. There was a sound of ripping plaster as the supports tore away from the wall, then the whole damned thing came crashing down onto the floor. It was the noise, I guess, that made Marty turn his head away.

“He’s lying, boss!” Pete stared at the blank wall not long enough, then swung around in time to see me pull the .38 out of its harness. “Look out!” he bellowed frantically.

Marty Estell moved faster than any guy had a right to move, throwing himself sideways so the two shots I fired at him missed and plowed more plaster from the wall. Then I didn’t have time to worry about him any more—Pete,was lumbering toward me, moving real fast and only six feet away. His large and brutal hands were extended in front of him, reaching for me in lusting anticipation. I knew if once those squat obscenities of fingers got hold of me, he wouldn’t stop until some time after I was dead.

It was like shooting at the side of a house from maybe four feet away—I just couldn’t miss. The first shot hit him squarely in the chest and I relaxed my pressure on the trigger. He kept on coming and I fired again and hit him in the chest a second time. He still kept on coming and sudden terror engulfed my mind. The third shot took him in the throat and for a moment of sheer insanity it was raining blood. Then the lights went out.

I didn’t think—the compulsive reflexes took over, hounded by a flood of adrenalin. I went off the couch in a froglike leap the moment before it shuddered with a splintering sound as Pete’s huge bulk cannoned into it. When I started to think consciously, I found myself on my hands and knees, straining my eyes in what I vaguely figured was the direction where I’d last seen Marty Estell heading. It seemed like reckless suicide to think even, in case he heard the sound, never mind breathe.

How long I stayed that way I wouldn’t know but after what felt like a couple of long nights in a row, I realized there was a faint sliver of light showing from the corridor outside. Marty had slammed the door shut in back of me when I first came in, I remembered, and now it was open. So he was either playing it awfully cute, or he’d gone. There was one sure way to find out—I fired another shot and started rolling at the same time. I rolled maybe ten feet and there was still no answering shot. Nobody could play it that cool, I figured, so I climbed onto my feet and headed toward the fractionally open front door and the light switch beside it.

In the sudden harsh illumination, the room looked like a battlefield—the huge painting face down on the floor, the plaster wall in back of it chipped and scarred. There was no sign of Marty Estell and I guessed maybe he chickened out when he realized Pete wasn’t going to be any more help at all.

I walked across to the couch, which had been slammed up against the opposite wall, and looked down at Pete. He was on his knees, his body bent forward across the couch, with his face buried in the plump cushions. Both arms were still outstretched in front of him, and the rigid fingers were half-buried in the back of the couch where they had punctured the upholstery. It was about where my face would have been if I hadn’t made that froglike leap at the last moment. Where his face was buried, the cushion was saturated with a glistening wet stain.

chapter seven

Like the song said, I didn’t know what time it was, only for different reasons. It felt like I had lived a whole lifetime in Willie Byers’ apartment already. The police routine had rolled through the whole lengthy process, from flashlight bulbs popping to the guys from the meat-wagon carrying away their grisly clients. But Lieutenant Schell still paced up and down the room like everything was still brand new and he was surprised.

“It’s like living a nightmare over again!” he stormed. “You only came into Santo Bahia yesterday—and in that little time you manage to come up with three corpses! Two homicides and one justifiable homicide—or that’s your story, without witnesses. I promise you, Boyd, if I can’t get you into the gas chamber, I’m going to see you locked away for a minimum of two thousand years! I’m going to—”

“Promises, promises!” I snarled at him. “It was your idea in the first place bringing me back here, remember? You were the smart one who had it all figured out—and what happened to that guy you were going to have tailing me all the time?”

“That was just a gag to keep you on your toes,” he snarled right back at me. “We got other things to do in the department. But if I’d ever dreamed what would happen when a maniac like you was let loose in town— “You know something?” He covered his face with his 78 hands and groaned in despair. “Thirty-six hours back, the only problem I had was a stolen tiara. Then you arrived and what have I got now?”

“Two unsolved homicides and one justifiable,” I said promptly. “You sure little Willie didn’t kill himself?”

“I’m sure,” he said sourly. “No powder burns on the side of his head. I wish he had suicided, it would make things a hell of a lot easier for me.”

“Do Marty Estell and Pete Wotzis have a record?” I asked hopefully.

“Sure,” he grunted. “It’s Pete Ungar and he’s got a long-playing record—you name it, he’s done it! Marty’s a lot smarter—only one conviction out of twelve arrests. He did two years upstate for assault with a deadly weapon.”

“You know their records already,” I said obviously, “so you knew they were in town.”

“I know everybody who’s in town,” he snorted. “But I didn’t figure them in the Elmo job, it wasn’t their kind of operation. More likely if they’d planned to heist that tiara, they would have gone in through the store’s armor-plated window—with Marty using Pete as a battering ram.”

“You didn’t know that Marty was Louise Lamont’s boy friend?”

“So you could get lucky and walk in on Pete the first time you went calling on the girl,” he growled. “I don’t have that kind of luck.”

My watch said it was long past midnight and right then I wouldn’t have been excited if the real tiara had materialized six feet up in the air.

“Lieutenant,” I said politely, “I’ve been through the whole thing three times already. You mind if I go now?” “Yeah,” he said in a flat voice, reminiscent of Marty Estell, “I mind.”

“Okay,” I shrugged helplessly. “You play pinochle?” He stopped pacing up and down for a moment, and stared at me distastefully instead. “It’s the missing pieces that can drive you crazy.” His voice was morose as he talked more to himself than to me. “So Louise Lamont was shacking up with her boss, Rutter, and she figured to make some hard cash out of it—okay. The blackmail attempt on Rutter’s wife bounced right back into her face and she goes out on her ear. She hears about the beauty contest, or maybe it was her own idea, and cons Rutter into letting her enter, with the promise she’ll win it—or else she’ll smear his reputation in all the places it’ll hurt most. This I understand—it’s logical, even.” “I know what you mean,” I said glumly. “It’s the stinking coincidences, along with the bits missing, that make it real tough. She happened to go to some art classes where she happened to meet Willie. Then Poolside happened to dream up a publicity scheme with Elmo’s jewelry store, using that tiara. And Willie happened to be the guy who made that tiara.”

“If you keep on, I’ll start in screaming,” Schell said pitifully. “So let’s accept all those coincidences and pretend they could happen to anyone. Then Louise and Willie cook up a scheme to rob the store. Willie makes a paste imitation, and Louise switches it for the real thing while she’s posing for publicity pictures—okay?”

“I know,” I said sympathetically. “So if it was Willie who killed her because he found out Marty Estell was beating his time—why did he leave that second paste imitation on top of her head? And what the hell did they need two fake tiaras for in the first place?”

“It’s a good question,” Schell grunted. “And I got one even better—if it was Willie who killed Louise, then who killed Willie? And if it wasn’t him, then who killed the both of them?”

“And where’s the genuine tiara anyway?” I finished for him.

The Lieutenant closed his eyes for a long moment. “I’m tired,” he said, his voice thick with self-pity. “I work too many hours for not enough money, my wife’s about to divorce me—and the selfish citizenry doesn’t give a goddamn. I’m going home and sleep for maybe three days.”

“It sounds like a great idea,” I said wistfully. “You mind if I come along, too?”

“You’ll enter my house over my dead body!” he snarled.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I mean, can I leave when you leave?”

“I guess so.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic. “You still driving that rented convertible?”

“That’s right.”

“Then there’s still a faint hope you might run it off the road and kill yourself.” His voice brightened a little at the thought. “You wouldn’t consider leaving a signed confession with me, for use only under those conditions, I guess?”

“You guess right,” I assured him hastily.

“Then you might as well get the hell out of my sight,” he grunted. “I can feel sick to my stomach without looking at you.”

“You’re a great guy, Lieutenant,” I told him as I headed toward the door. “Be sure and call me if you break a leg on the way home or something—right now I could use a good laugh.”

It was almost two in the morning when I got back to the hotel. The desk clerk stifled a yawn while he hunted for my key, and I took the opportunity to check the register. A Miss Patty Lamont had checked in okay and was in room 704. After I’d gotten the key, I went straight up to her room and knocked gently.

“Who’s there?” she called in a tremulous voice from behind the closed door.

“Me, Danny Boyd.”

The door swung open quickly and she almost pulled me inside the room. “Danny!” Her eyes were moist as they searched my face. “I was nearly out of my mind wondering what happened to you.”

She was wearing fancy baby-doll pajamas—hot pink roses printed on cool white nylon froth—which ended at the top of her smooth thighs. Her black hair had been combed out so it kind of floated around her head. The scent of subtle, fragrant perfume lent an added excitement to the curved body outlined beneath the froth. There was a time, I remembered, when I’d figured Patty Lamont just didn’t have what it takes, the way her sister Louise had—and I must have been out of my mind.

Her fingers dug gently into my shoulders. “I thought something terrible must have happened. Thank Heaven you’re all right, Danny. What took you so long? It seems like hours and hours since you left the apartment.”

“You’d better sit down, honey, this is going to take a while,” I told her, and gently lifted her hands from my shoulders.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her elbows on her knees, her chin propped in her cupped hands, and listened attentively while I told her what had happened from the time Marty Estell opened the door of Willie Byers apartment until I left the unhappy Lieutenant Schell and came back to the hotel.

Her eyes were wide with shock by the time I had finished telling the story. “I still can’t believe it,” she said slowly. “Byers dead, and you had to kill that horrible giant of a man. And Marty Estell got away?”

“I wasn’t real sorry to see him go,” I admitted.

“Do you think he killed Byers?” she asked thoughtfully. “I mean—when he didn’t find the tiara there maybe he got so mad he never stopped to think?”

“Could be,” I said. “But I don’t see Marty Estell trying to fake it afterwards so it looked like suicide.”

“Why not?” Patty asked logically.

“It’s a good question,” I said sourly. “Now I’m so confused, I don’t know what the hell to think any more.” “Did you tell Estell the truth in my apartment, Danny? You know, your theory about Byers and Louise working together to steal the tiara, and then he killed her when he found out about Marty Estell afterward?”

“Sure, I did,” I growled. “And it worked real fine right up to the time I saw little Willie dead!”

“Then who else but Marty Estell could have killed him?” she persisted with that damned logic.

I shrugged wearily. “I give up. I guess the best thing I can do right now is get some sleep. With Marty Estell still running loose, I think you’d better stay on here in the hotel for a while, honey.”

“You don’t think there’s any chance of him finding out I’m here, Danny?” she asked nervously.

“No,” I said, too confidently, then pulled a fast switch. “I don't think so, anyway, but there’s always a chance. You want to keep your door locked, honey.”

“I won’t sleep all night,” she whispered. “It’s been bad enough the last few hours, waiting to find out what happened to you. Now I think it’s going to be even worse.” She got off the bed and kept walking until she was in my arms, real close so I could feel the warmth of her body through the thin nylon and the firm weight of her breasts pressing against my chest.

“I’m so scared, Danny,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me now. Stay here the rest of the night?”

“Sure, honey,” I said tenderly. “You were going to have to throw me out, anyway.”

Patty kissed me with the kind of abandoned passion that always denotes unconditional surrender. I appreciated it a hell of a lot because it never happens often enough in any man’s life—and at the same time I got an additional kick out of it, because for the first time that night Marty Estell had done me a real big favor.

I got two frantic phone calls the next morning, much too early, one from each of my clients. They both demanded to see me at once if not earlier, and in a moment of weakness I set up early appointments with the two of them. So around ten that morning, I was sitting in Mr. Elmo’s office, trying hard to keep my eyes open, and even harder to listen to what he was saying.

Elmo hadn’t changed any—I don’t know why I figured he might in a couple of days—he was still the same little man in a dignified black suit, and his gold-rimmed glasses still glittered furiously whenever he looked in my direction.

“I am completely baffled, Mr. Boyd,” he said coldly. “I hired you to recover my stolen tiara, as I remember? All that has followed in the subsequent two days is a bewildering—and nauseating—rampage of mayhem and murder. Is it too much to ask whether you are still employed in an attempt to recover the stolen jewelry, or are you merely using that as an excuse to conduct some personal vendetta of your own?”

“I did find a tiara,” I said defensively. “How was I to know there were two phonies loose?”

He closed his eyes as if he’d suddenly been knifed. “Please don’t mention that,” he whispered. “When I remember how delighted I was to receive your call and hear the apparent good news—and afterward, when Miss O’Keefe told me the hideous truth—” He shook his head sadly. “At a conservative estimate, Mr. Boyd, I would say you took ten years off my life at that moment.”

“You should blame Willie Byers, not me,” I said wearily. “He was the guy who set himself up in the fake tiara business in the first place. I can get real nervous myself, trying to figure out just how many more fake tiaras are likely to turn up.”

Elmo shuddered. “Now you give me another repulsive thought to live with! What I want to know, Mr. Boyd, clearly and concisely, couched in simple English, is just exactly what progress you have made toward recovering my tiara?”

I lit a cigarette and shifted my haunches uncomfortably on the hard seat of the pseudo-antique chair while I tried to dream up something that would sound like a reasonable answer.

“I’m waiting, Mr. Boyd,” he said sharply.

“I’m trying,” I said and shrugged. “I’ll keep on trying.”

The gold-rimmed glasses flashed angrily. “Is that all you have to say?”

“You paid me a thousand bucks, and I get another five if I do the job,” I grated. “So far, in return for that thousand bucks, I’ve been slugged and shot at. I’ve found two corpses and created a third. The way Lieutenant Schell feels right now 1*11 be lucky to ever get out of this town. If you don’t think you’re getting any value for your money, Mr. Elmo, I can quit right now— well, after I’ve given you a couple of suggestions about what you can do with the tiara if it ever is found.”

He looked at me coldly for a few seconds, his face completely bland, then picked up an ivory paperweight from his desk and toyed with it for a few more seconds.

“Mr. Boyd,” he said finally, “I’ll let you in on a secret. My lawyers have found a weakness in the insurance company’s fine print. It looks strongly as if they will have to pay after all. You realize what that means, of course? Once they meet the claim, the recovery of the tiara will

then be their concern, and not mine. Undoubtedly they will also appoint their own investigators at the same time.” “I have a feeling you’re trying to tell me something, Mr. Elmo,” I said gently. “Do me a small favor—put it clearly and concisely, in simple English?”

“Of course.” He smiled thinly. “You mentioned a few moments back that, in return for my down payment of a thousand dollars, you had suffered various indignities and dangers—all in the ardent pursuit of my stolen tiara. 1 am prepared to accept this—though I have some reservations, you understand?—and am also prepared to agree that, as of this moment, I have received adequate service from you in return for the down payment.”

“And?” I prodded.

“As of this moment, your services are terminated,” he said crisply. “Good day, Mr. Boyd.”

“You withdraw your offer of five thousand if I find the tiara?” I asked.

“No.” The gold-rimmed glasses seemed to laugh at me. “I have already withdrawn it. Again—good day, Mr. Boyd!”

“And a Happy New Year to you, Mr. Elmo,” I said courteously. “May your emeralds grow green fungus and your sapphires melt.”

I stopped at the desk of Tamara O’Keefe on my way out. She looked as dazzling as ever, her hair-do a slightly different fantasy maybe, but everything else under that tight black dress looked exactly the same, as far as I could tell.

“Mr. Rutter called about five minutes back,” she said. “I told him you were in with Mr. Elmo, and he said would you call him back before you left?”

“Thanks,” I told her.

“I’ll get the number for you.” She dialed, asked for Rutter, then handed me the phone.

“Boyd?” Rutter’s voice was crisp and executive. “I just had a thought. I’d prefer not to see you out at the plant—it might cause talk and there’s been too much of that already. So let’s make it my house instead.”

“Whatever you say,” I acknowledged politely. I’d already lost one client that morning, and I didn’t figure on losing the other quite so soon.

“Let’s say twelve then?” he queried.

“Fine. I’ll be there.”

“Good.” He hung up.

Tamara looked at me inquiringly. “I have a vague recollection someplace that I have a date for tonight—or do you have a prior engagement to shoot anybody?”

“My recollection of the date is crystal clear,” I assured her. “And even if I had a paid-for-already assassination lined up for tonight, I’d postpone it. I just can’t wait to see you in your Mother Hubbard, a look of absolute delight on your face as you contemplate my early downfall.”

“I have all day to polish my defensive reflexes,” she said calmly. “By tonight they’ll be razor-sharp.”

“Where will I pick you up?”

“It’ll be easier to meet you someplace,” she said. “Why not the Luau Bar?”

“Around eight? That sounds wonderful,” I told her. “I’ll bring my missionary’s enthusiasm along with me. Maybe after three or four of those rum-based drinks, that Mother Hubbard might slip just a little?”

She smiled sweetly. “With the Mother Hubbard, maybe it’s possible.” Her head shook slowly and confidently. “But with little old Tamara O’Keefe—impossible!”

It was, like the guy who married a Siamese twin once said, a matter for conjecture.

chapter eight

It was the same kind of day with the sun shining from a cloudless blue sky, a gentle breeze drifting in off the ocean—the whole bit. The split-level house hadn’t changed, I still had to walk up forty steps to get to it. I sniffed the scent of hibiscus as I pulled the rope that rang the antique brass bell. The same brown-skinned brunette greeted me, only today she was dressed differently. The blue-green satin swimsuit had been replaced by a beach dress made of white sharkskin, with a demure neckline, loose-fitting, and slit wide and high, revealing a disturbing length of bronzed thigh.

The sloe eyes looked at me almost keenly for a while, but this time the profile produced no flicker of approval. I had a sudden, sure feeling that for Myra Rutter, Danny Boyd was strictly past tense.

“Come on in,” she said finally. “James called and said you were coming out. You beat him out here, but I guess he’ll be along any time now.”

I followed her into the house, through to the enormous living room. “Sit down, Danny,” she said. “I’ll make the drinks this time, for a change.” There was a faint, mocking smile on her lips as she sauntered across to the bar. “I’m glad for your sake that you’re on time,” she went on, busy with the glasses. “James hates people who are late for business appointments—I think it’s always just as well to know people’s idiosyncracies, don’t you?”

87

She turned around and walked toward me, carrying the two glasses carefully. The smile on her face broadened. “Especially when you’re working for them. I mean, being nice to the boss is always terribly important to an employee, isn’t it?”

I took the drink from her outstretched hand, and she sat down beside me, but very much at the far end of the couch, and crossed her legs with a deliberate disdain of the startling length of thigh the action revealed.

“Do you find James a hard man to work for, Danny?” she asked casually. “I mean, do you have to call him ‘sir,’ or anything?”

She had given me a stinger without bothering to ask what I wanted. Yesterday I had been a free man and could make my own drinks—today I was her husband’s hired man and I’d damn well drink what I was given. Now I knew why the profile had suddenly lost its appeal.

“Mostly I call him ‘Mr. Rutter, sir’ ” I said idly. “He seems to like that—and I don’t want to lose a wonderful job like this. The fringe benefits are enormous—once I’d signed a declaration promising I wouldn’t try and seduce his wife any more, I got an expense account and six credit cards, a large block of stock, and four weeks every year in Las Vegas with the receptionist, all expenses paid.”

Myra sipped her drink slowly, then shrugged. “I’m disappointed in you, Danny. I was impressed with that act you put on at the pool yesterday. For the first time in my life I thought I’d met a man who wasn’t scared of my husband. Then I found out James used one of the oldest techniques going—if you can’t beat them, buy them—and now you’re just another employee!”

I heard the front door open and close, then the sound of swift, confident footsteps coming down the hall. A moment later Rutter came into the room, saving me the chore of countering Myra’s interpretation of the deal I’d made with her husband.

“Glad you got here, Boyd.” The slate-gray eyes stared at me with their usual arctic warmth. “One thing I always insist on is punctuality.”

“Yes, Mr. Rutter, sir,” I said politely, and Myra giggled suddenly.

His eyes narrowed and a faint flush showed up under his tanned skin. “Are you trying to be funny?” he grated harshly.

“Your wife was just explaining to me, before you came in, that you always like an employee who’s both punctual and polite,” I said easily. “I was on time already, so now I’m trying the politeness jazz because I’m plugging for a raise and promotion to an executive level where I can get to make my secretary on company time.”

“What kind of crap is this?” he rasped. “You don’t work for me and you never will—Hell can freeze over first! We agreed on a proposition, that’s all. If it works out, you get paid—and if it doesn’t, then the hell with you, Boyd! Understand?”

I nodded gravely, then looked at Myra with a deadpan face. “Understand?” I asked her.

“Understood!” She nodded gravely in return, but there was a sudden flicker of interest in her eyes.

“Are you two fried already?” Rutter asked in a bewildered voice. “At midday, by God! Just how long have you been here, Boyd?”

“Maybe ten minutes,” I said, “but I’m a fast drinker.” “But not on stingers,” Myra added. She got onto her feet gracefully and lifted the glass out of my hand. “What would you like to drink, Danny?”

“A vodka martini would be fine,” I answered, “with no fruit or vegetables.”

“You can get me the same,” Rutter growled. He watched her walk across to the bar, the comers of his mouth turning down at the studied deliberation of her swiveling hips. “Why can’t you ever get dressed properly in the daytime?” he asked irritably. “What the hell is that thing you’re wearing, anyway? It’s indecent!”

“It’s a beach dress, darling,” she said, with her back turned toward him as she made the drinks. “An awful lot of people wear them—mostly girls, of course.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” he snarled.

“Just factual.” Her voice was unconcerned. “What would you like me to wear around the house?—a ball gown?”

“Something like most of the other women wear—a blouse and skirt maybe—I don’t give a goddamn, just so you don’t expose quite so much of yourself the whole time.”

“You want me to play Louise Lamont for you, darling?” she purred silkily. “I’m flattered! I guess a girl has to be in a blouse and skirt before she looks sexy to you. If you like, I’ll carry a pad and pencil around with me all the time I’m in the house, and we can make love in shorthand—that’s your special kick, isn’t it?”

“You filthy slut!” he said thickly. “Just keep right on going and you know what you’ll get, don’t you?”

She turned around with a drink in each hand and smiled at him with open derision. “Are you going to be athletic again, darling, and slap me in the teeth?”

I figured this was about where I came in the previous day, and working through that routine again held no enchantment in store.

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about anyway?” I asked quickly.

Rutter snatched the drink out of his wife’s hand, then glared at me while he tried to contain his fury. “About what happened last night,” he said finally. “I read what the papers said, but that wasn’t too much. You were right in the middle of it, weren’t you?”

“Too close for comfort,” I agreed.

“So I wanted to hear it from you—in detail.”

Myra put the fresh drink in my hand, then sat down, real close beside me this time, with her thigh pressed firmly against mine. I shifted uneasily, then launched into the story I was getting tired of hearing myself.

Rutter gaped at me for a few seconds when I finally got through with all the detail. “My God! It’s fantastic.” “You’re not telling me a thing,” I said feelingly.

“So all the time Louise was working with this Byers character,” he said slowly. “Then after they*d gotten the tiara, Byers found out she was cheating on him with Estell? So he killed her and last night when Estell couldn’t find the tiara in Byers’ apartment he got so mad about it he killed him. Is that the way you see it, Boyd?”

“It’s logical,” I said. “But where’s the real tiara?”

“How the hell would I know!” he snapped.

“It was a rhetorical question,” I said wearily, “but never mind. What I mean is, you’d expect Byers to have it. The police ripped his apartment into small pieces but they haven’t found it.”

“Maybe he hid it somewhere?” Rutter said vaguely. “The hell with the damn thing. I’m not concerned about that. What I want to know is how the police feel about it? Has Byers being murdered taken me off the hook?” Having lost one client already that morning because he figured he didn’t need me any more, I wasn’t about to create the same feeling in the only client I had left.

“No,” I said shaking my head regretfully. “The way Schell sees it, you killed Louise okay, but she’d already told Byers too much about you and how she’d blackmailed you into the contest deal. So he figures you had to shut Byers’ mouth permanently before he decided to talk to the police.”

“He must be out of his mind!” Rutter said uncertainly. Then a sudden suspicion showed in his eyes. “Wait a minute—if Schell’s so goddamned convinced I did it, why didn’t he question me about it? I haven’t heard from him even in twenty-four hours—he hasn’t even asked me for an alibi for whenever Byers was killed!”

I shook my head admiringly. “That Schell! He’s a very subtle cop. You see how cute he’s playing it? He figures he wants you feeling nice and safe—confident you’ve gotten away with it and all—then at exactly the right psychological moment he’ll jump on you with both feet!”

Some of the color ebbed from Rutter’s face, and he finished his martini in two quick gulps. “The man’s a maniac!” he said thickly. “You’ll have to work fast, Boyd! Either prove that Byers killed Louise and Estell killed Byers, or come up with whoever killed both of them. Either way I don’t give a damn—just prove my innocence, that’s all!”

“I’m working on it,” I said with a hell of a lot more confidence than I felt. “While I’m here, I’d like to check a couple of facts over with you.”

“Sure,” he said eagerly. “Anything, anything at all.” “Yesterday you said the beauty contest was your idea maybe, or maybe it was Louise’s idea in the first place. You didn’t remember, you said, and you got awful vague very quick—like the question embarrassed you somehow.”

“Is it that important—who came up with the idea first?” he snarled.

“I think it is,” I snarled back at him. “But it’s your neck we’re trying to save, not mine!”

“All right,” he said reluctantly. “It was an embarrassing question and I guess I’ll have to tell you why. One morning I went to see Machin in his office and he was out. I got talking to his secretary—Patty Lamont— Louise’s sister. She suddenly came up with the idea of a beauty contest as a promotional gimmick and it sounded good to me. I told her what I thought, and she should tell Machin about it. Maybe her boss didn’t rate with her right then, because she kind of giggled nervously, then said why didn’t I tell Machin about it, and pretend it was my own idea. The obvious implication was it would worry the hell out of Machin that he hadn’t thought of it first. So that’s what I did—I have to admit the idea of putting one over did appeal—”

“Naturally,” Myra said.

“What about the promotional tie-in with Elmo’s jewelry store? was that Patty’s, too?” I asked.

“No, sir!” He shook his head firmly. “Like I told you yesterday, that was definitely Machin’s.” His chest expanded suddenly as he took a deep breath. “Is all this so terribly significant?”

“Very,” I said, making like mysterious. “I have a feeling it’s vital.”

Rutter suddenly thrust his empty glass toward Myra. “Get me another drink,” he said shortly. “I need it.”

She got up from the couch, took the glass from his hand, and did a slow-motion jiggle across to the bar, it was wasted on Rutter—he didn’t even notice it.

“Did you ever get to see any of Louise’s paintings?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “She never had any—liked to keep her walls clear, she always said.”

“I mean anything she painted herself while she was going to those art classes?” I persisted.

He did a double take. “Louise—art classes!” He laughed shortly. “You’ve got the wrong girl, Boyd. Television was a little too intellectual for her, even. She never went to an art class in her life!”

“Sure, she did,” I said. “That’s where she met Byers.” “You can prove that?” he asked eagerly.

“Sure—I checked with the academy yesterday. They have her name on the register.”

“That’s good.” He took the fresh drink offered him by Myra without even noticing it, and drank greedily. “That’s good work, Boyd! Keep at it—I want results before that fool of a lieutenant does anything stupid.” “Sure I will,” I said solemnly.

He finished the drink and put the empty glass back into Myra’s hand. “Another?” Her voice was sardonic.

“No”—he glanced at his watch—“I have to get back to the plant. Any more questions, Boyd?”

“No, that’s all,” I told him.

“Well,” he smiled, almost happily. “I can see you’re making progress and I’m impressed!”

“I even made lunch for you,” Myra said coolly. “You might as well stay and have it, now you’re here.”

He checked his watch again, then shook his head. “No time. I’ve got an appointment at two and this guy’s important to me—can’t afford to be late. I’ll have to run.” “All right.” Myra shrugged resignedly. “I tried to be the good little housewife.”

“And you did very well, my dear,” he said, good-hum-oredly. “I should get home around seven tonight.” He started toward the door at a fast pace.

“Hold it!” I got onto my feet. “I’ll walk down with you, Rutter.”

He hesitated for a moment, without turning his head to look at me. “No need to do that, Boyd.” His voice was immensely casual. “I brought you all the way out here in the first place—it doesn’t seem fair to hound you right back, somehow. Why don’t you stay for a while and eat some of that lunch Myra’s got all ready?” His laugh was fine, but a fraction off key, “You’re my private army, Boyd, and an army always marches on its stomach, right?” He’d reached the door by then and kept right on going, walking very quickly. A second later I heard the front door shut.

The room was suddenly very quiet. I sat down on the couch again, lit a cigarette, picked up my half-finished drink, and finally looked up to meet the steady gaze of those sloe eyes.

“So what’s for lunch?” I said awkwardly.

Myra smiled slowly, her eyes wryly amused at the embarrassed nervousness of my voice.

“Congratulations,” she said. “You just got promoted to be an executive of the company!”

“You mean you have an executive lunch waiting in the kitchen?”

“You know damn well exactly what I mean, Danny Boyd,” she said calmly, “and it has nothing to do with lunch.”

Her eyes were getting that transparent look again revealing the well-banked furnace that must bum unceasingly in back of them. She came across to the couch and sat down beside me, her hands folded in her lap. “I’ll wait,” she said in a demure voice.

“Huh?”

“Until you’ve finished your cigarette—and your drink.” “Then what?”

She thought about it for a moment then stood up again. “I’ll give you a little demonstration and maybe you won’t take so long about that drink.”

She folded one arm behind her back and unzipped the beach dress, shrugged her arms clear, then let the dress fall slowly to the floor. That left her wearing a white bra and nylon briefs that fit snug and were very brief.

“Now you get the idea?” she said, grinning at me satani-cally. “Don’t try to kid me you didn’t get the idea right from the start?”

“How could I miss?” I said. “It was handed to me on a large plate.”

“James isn’t exactly the subde type, is he?” She was genuinely amused. “Suddenly he has great faith in you —the thought of that big rough lieutenant is enough to make him turn green!—and right now you’ve got him convinced that you’re the only one who can save him. So for the moment anything you want is yours for the asking, or like now, you don’t have to ask, even!”

I finished the drink, mashed the cigarette, and got onto my feet. Myra swayed a little toward me, enough to throw her off balance so she had to lean her whole body hard against mine.

“Why don’t we go into the guest room?” she asked in a soft voice. “I guarantee this time there will be no interruptions!”

“It’s a wonderful thought, honey,” I said sincerely, “and I could only wish there had been no interruptions yesterday.”

A puzzled look showed on her face for a moment. “What are you talking about, Danny?”

I put my hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back into an upright position again. “I’m sorry about the lunch,” I said lightly, “but I have to go now.” She still didn’t get it. “What’s the matter with you?” Her voice was tolerant. “Didn’t you get all the signals loud and clear? James gave you the royal invitation along with the royal approval. This is official, Danny! You have the master’s consent.”

“I know,” I said regretfully. “That’s the trouble with it.” Myra frowned. “Trouble?”

“I’ve met some sons of bitches in my time,” I grated, “but I’ll be damned if I’ll take any favors from the biggest I ever met—one who figures he’ll make me a present of his wife without even consulting her first!”

She laughed with tolerant amusement. “Who the hell cares one way or the other, Danny? Never mind James— if I didn’t go along with the deal, it wouldn’t work whatever he said. So forget him!”

“It’s not that easy, honey,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

The smile slowly faded from her face. “You mean you’re not going to—you won’t?”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, “and I won’t.”

“I’ve met some strange ones in my time,” she said slowly, “But, brother! You top them all.”

I walked around her and kept on going toward the hall and had reached the front door when I heard the soft patter of feet coming along behind me. I had the door open when she called out, “Danny!”

I turned my head and looked at her. Her face was very pale under the tan, and there was nothing in her eyes but a sudden unsureness.

“Danny,” she said tautly, “it won’t make any difference—you know that? He’ll believe it happened, anyway.” “I know,” I said dully.

“Well, then?” She faltered for a moment. “Why are you running out on me?”

“I’m not sure I can explain it to make sense,” I said carefully. “I know he’ll believe it happened, anyway— and I want him to.”

“I just don’t understand you at all, Danny Boyd,” she said bleakly. “Maybe I don’t appeal to you any more, is that it?”

“I feel the same way about you as I did yesterday,” I said truthfully. “And my feelings toward you have nothing to do with it at all.”

“Then—why?”

“Can’t you understand?” I snarled. “I don’t want that son of a bitch doing me any favors!”

chapter nine

I finally got to eat lunch—with Patty Lamont in her hotel room—off a room service cart. Patty was wearing a soft and feminine dress, along with a soft and feminine outlook. There was an uneasy feeling growing in the back of my mind that maybe the previous night had been a mistake. She was showing all the unmistakable signs of being a firm adherent to that unnerving theory that having once given her all, it automatically made for a permanent and binding relationship. It shows first in a whole pattern of small things; by the time we had finished eating and she had ignored my request for black coffee, calmly explaining it was bad for my nerves while she poured cream into the cup, alarm signals were ringing all over.

“What kind of a morning did you have, darling?” she asked, all wide-eyed attention while I took a shuddering sip of coffee.

“Just a morning,” I said sourly. “Elmo figures the insurance company will have to pay up now his lawyer’s after them, so he doesn’t need me any more.”

“But he can’t do that!” she said indignantly. “It isn’t fair after all you’ve been through.” She batted her eyelashes modestly. “Of course, I know that a lot of what you did last night was for me, but even so!”

“Then I saw Rutter out at his home,” I said casually.

97

“He said something real interesting—that the beauty contest wasn’t really his idea in the first place.”

“I guess he told you it was mine?”

“Uh—yes,” I said sourly. “You never told me it was your idea, Patty.”

She bit her lower lip, looking down at her hands, studiously avoiding my gaze. “I was too ashamed, Danny,” she said in a low voice. “You see, it wasn’t my idea in the first place at all.”

“Oh, no!” I groaned. “It wasn’t Rutter’s idea in the first place—it was yours. Now it isn’t yours. How many goddamned people are involved in the idea? What did you have going for you—a chain letter or something?” “Please, Danny?” Her voice was gently reproving. “You mustn’t use bad language like that, darling! It was Louise’s idea. She mentioned it casually one night, and I got enthusiastic because it sounded so good. I said I’d tell Mr. Machin in the morning and see what he thought about it. Louise said why give it to him and let him have all the credit, why didn’t I wait until I had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Rutter on his own.”

Patty blushed, then looked at me appealingly. “I know I wasn’t very loyal to poor Mr. Machin,” she said softly. “But when I told Mr. Rutter and suggested he should pretend it was his own idea, he was so nice to me—and, well, after all, he is president of the company.”

“Sure,” I said. “I wouldn’t worry about it, honey.” She brightened up immediately. “Danny, how long will I have to stay cooped up in here?”

“Until the cops get a line on Estell,” I said promptly. “I figure it won’t be too long. There aren’t that many places in a town this size that he can hole up in. Maybe I’ll hear something this afternoon from Schell.”

“I hope so!” she said fervently. “I feel if I don’t get out of this room, I’ll go crazy!”

“It won’t be too long, honey.” I patted her hand absently. “But this is a hell of a lot better than Marty Estell.”

She shuddered. “I’ll have nightmares the rest of my life about that man!”

“In a couple of weeks you’ll have forgotten his name,” I told her confidently. “I guess I’d better move along and see Schell I have to give him a written statement about last night and I don’t want him any more mad at me than he is right now—if that’s possible.”

“What time will you be back?” she asked casually.

I was on my feet and running. “Hard to say,” I told her as I reached for the door. “But don’t worry—you just sit tight!” Then I was out into the corridor with tie door shut behind me before she could pin me down any further.

There was a faint dew of sweat across my forehead when I got into the elevator. I prayed that Schell had already gotten a line on Marty so Patty could go back to her own apartment right away—she was acting like we were married already, or something. The “or something,” I could see very clearly now, had been a bad mistake.

It took a hell of a long time down at police headquarters. Schell played it in slow time, deliberately, giving me the treatment all the way down the line. After I’d dictated the statement, and it had been typed up so I could sign it, he went through the whole thing, word by word, three times. By then it was five o’clock and I needed a drink.

“Lieutenant,” I growled at him, “I know you hate me, and I can understand it even. But if we go through that statement one more time I’m going to have hysterics all over your office. You don’t want that, do you? I mean, like everything’s so neat and tidy in here, it would be out of place. We’d both be embarrassed.”

“Justifiable homicide for a guy with a private license isn’t good, Boyd,” he said coldly. “Even with impeccable witnesses to swear the man had no alternative but to kill —that it was strictly self-defense. But with no witnesses?” He shrugged meaningfully.

“It’s my day for the cryptic ones!” I muttered. “Lieutenant, you’re trying to tell me something?”

“I think you’re in trouble,” he snapped, “big trouble. I also think you’re holding out on me a little, Boyd. You’ve got some information somewhere that we haven’t. I’m telling you now, if you don’t cooperate fully with us, I’ll throw the book at you on this Ungar killing.”

“I always cooperate with you, Lieutenant, you know that already,” I said reproachfully. “I’m not holding out a thing.”

“Okay,” he rasped. “So we’ll play it the hard way!” “You’d have me real worried about that justifiable homicide if it wasn’t for a couple of points,” 1 told him in a mild voice.

“What points?”

“Well, like Patty Lamont will testify to what happened in her apartment with Ungar and Estell,” I said gently. “And how I gave them a fake address but they caught onto that later—and how I went to Byers’ apartment to protect him against them just in case they had caught on.” Schell snorted violently and I chose to ignore it.

“Then there’s Ungar’s record,” I continued happily. “I remember what you said last night, Lieutenant—‘He’s got a long-playing record, you name it, he’s done it!’ And those two slugs Estell fired at me must have been in the wall, so your ballistics expert would testify they didn’t match the slugs out of my gun, wouldn’t he?”

Schell snarled something deep in his throat and glared at me ferociously. “You’re going to outsmart yourself, Boyd, any moment now!”

“Have you got anything on Estell yet?” I asked hopefully.

He shook his head. “Either he skipped out of town last night—ran out of Byers’ apartment and just kept on running—or else he’s made himself invisible. I know this town and the people in it. I’ll stake my badge we’ve covered every possible place he could hide out, at least twice already!”

“Yeah,” I said sympathetically. “How do you figure the whole case now, Lieutenant? Does Rutter still rate as a suspect?”

“What do you think?” he asked in a nasty, suspicious voice.

“I figure he does,” I said firmly. “Did you check on him for an alibi for the time Byers was killed?” “Should I?” He played it nonchalant, making it a throwaway line, while he watched me like a hawk.

“I don’t know,” I said vaguely. “I was just curious, that’s all. Just for laughs, let’s presume he did kill Louise Lamont because he couldn’t stand her blackmailing tactics any longer, when they indirectly involved him in the tiarra theft? Maybe he didn’t know about Byers’ relationship with Louise—but she could have told Byers about him, right? Then, after she was dead, Byers could have decided to venture into the blackmail business on his own account—threaten to expose Rutter to the cops—” “Police!” Schell grated.

“—police, so Rutter figured the only alternative was to knock off Byers too, and if he made it look like suicide, you’d think that little Willie had murdered Louise, then taken his own life.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Schell said, but his voice was only half-hearted.

“You’re probably right,” I said smoothly. “Not that it would do any harm to pull Rutter in and ask him some questions—it might give him some respect, if nothing else.”

“Respect for what?”

“I hear he’s shooting his mouth off all over town about the bungling incompetence of the police force in general, and a certain lieutenant in particular,” I said mildly. “But I guess you’re above that kind of thing, Lieutenant, and it doesn’t worry you, right?”

“Oh, he is, is he?” Schell snarled. “The big fat slob! Just because he owns a plastics plant, he figures he’s a big-shot? We’ll soon pull him into line!”

“Well, of course,” I murmured, “it’s none of my business, but—”

“You’re damned right it’s none of your business!”

He scowled at me for about ten seconds, then shrugged in frustrated fury. “All right! What?”

“I was just thinking,” I said in a tentative voice. “He’s the kind of guy who uses authority to bulldoze anybody who’s smaller than he is—and that’s the only kind of treatment he’d respect. I mean, like if you played it very tough, very official—that kind of jazz—it would make a bigger impression on him.”

“Yeah,” Schell said, nodding slowly. “For once in your stupid life, you make sense, Boyd. I’ll play it so tough, he’ll figure the Gestapo must have been a bunch of boy scouts!”

“Well”—I kind of slid onto my feet—“if you don’t need me any more, Lieutenant?”

“Who needs you?” he said disgustedly. “You think I have nothing better to do all afternoon than waste my time talking to a homicidal maniac? Get out!”

I got back to the hotel just in time to have a quick shower and change my clothes, then get down to the Luau Bar by five of eight. At eight exactly, Tamara O’Keefe took off her mink jacket and slid into the alcove seat beside me. She wore a magnificent flamingo-colored velvet sheath; it was strapless, and cut low enough in the bodice to reveal the beginning of the entrancing cleavage between her full breasts.

Her full red lips parted in an innocent smile. “I see you approve of the Mother Hubbard,” she said calmly. “But I give you fair warning, Danny Boyd, that if thus one slips only a couple of inches even, I’m in real trouble.” “It makes for a fascinating challenge,” I said wistfully.

The waiter placed a coconut half-shell in front of her, and a martini in front of me. A whole new fantasy in ti-tian danced in front of my eyes for a moment as she bent her head and looked doubtfully at the drink.

“Just what is this?” Her voice was loaded with suspicion.

“It’s a combination, my own invention,” I said proudly. “You take one part ‘Virgin’s Downfall,’ and one part, ‘Missionary’s Delight.’ Then you mix well together and squeeze half a passion fruit into it.”

“It has a name?” Tamara asked in a disbelieving tone. “I’m glad you asked,” I said modestly. “I call it ‘Paradise’! And I did it all for you.”

“I’m flattered,” she said tersely. “You're sure its real name isn’t ‘Mickey Finn’ or something?”

“How could you think such a thing of a simple Manhattan boy like me?” I asked sorrowfully. “And it’s much too early in the evening for a mickey, anyway.”

She tasted the drink, talang one very cautious sip— then took another with a critical look on her face. Finally she took a deep swallow and leaned back against the padded seat with a happy smile on her face.

“It’s good,” she said with a luxuriant sigh. “I needed something to cheer me up tonight.”

“Bad day?”

“I'm beginning to wonder if I'll be out of a job soon —things is tough in the jewelry business.” She made a face. “They have been for some time.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “I bet Elmo’s relieved now it looks like the insurance company will pay up.”

She gave me a puzzled look. “What do you mean—-now it looks like they’ll pay up?”

“Wasn’t there some trouble about the fine print?” I said patiently. “The insurance company refused the claim but now Elmo’s lawyer’s found an angle to force—” “Oh, that!” she said impatiently. “That was just some bug Mr. Elmo got into his head without any reason. The insurance company queried the claim, but they always do—that’s what the lawyer says, anyway—he was positive they’d pay up but Mr. Elmo just wouldn’t listen to him!”

“Maybe that will make the difference?” I said. Tamara looked doubtful. “I’m not too sure that it will from the state of the books right now—although I must say it doesn’t seem to worry Mr. Elmo any. He’s almost revoltingly cheerful at the moment.”

“Let’s not ruin the evening discussing the revolting Mr. Elmo,” I said firmly. “Let’s talk about more exciting things—like your imminent downfall.”

“It will take a lot more than this phony drink of yours to accomplish that, Danny Boyd,” she said with smug confidence, and drained the coconut empty, just to prove her point.

“The only thing wrong with this nice secluded alcove,” I said, some thirty seconds later, “is it’s so damned secluded even the waiters don’t see it, and if I don’t get any service within the next five seconds I’ll stand on the table and—”

“And what?” Tamara asked curiously.

I was transfixed, my eyes dilated with horror, all powers of thought or movement completely paralyzed. Bearing straight down on us, with a beaming smile of recognition plastered across her face, was Patty Lamont. Too late I realized I should have called her; too late I realized the stupid risk I’d taken in agreeing to meet Tamara in the bar of the same hotel.

I stumbled awkwardly to my feet as Patty reached the table and mumbled incoherently at her for a while.

“A wonderful thing happened, Danny darling,” she said in a bubbling voice. “I called Lieutenant Schell about thirty minutes back and he says the police are sure Estell left town, and it’s quite safe for me to go back to my own apartment. So I came down here just on the chance you might be having a quick one before dinner—and here you are!” Her voice finished on a triumphant note.

“Yeah,” I said hoarsely. “Here I am. Oh, Patty—this is Miss O’Keefe, and Miss O’Keefe, this is—”

“Hi, Patty!” Tamara said brightly.

“How are things with you, Tamara?” Patty slid smoothly into the vacant space on the other side of the table.

“You two know each other?” I gurgled.

“Are you kidding?” Tamara said calmly. “We were in high school together.” Her face sobered and she touched Patty’s hand for a moment. “I was dreadfully sorry about Louise.”

“Thank you, Tam!” Patty blinked hard. “I try not to think of it now, it’s all been so horrible!”

“Of course, honey,” Tamara said warmly, and squeezed her hand firmly.

The waiter finally appeared and I reordered the same, then looked inquiringly at Patty.

“Danny!” she said fondly. “You aren’t going to have another drink before dinner, are you? You can have too much of a good thing, you know.” She caught the look in my eye and paled a little. “Well, whatever you like, dear, of course. I won’t have anything, I’ll just sit here and wait until you’re finished.”

I didn’t have to look to see the question mark on Tamara’s face, I could feel it. The waiter came back with the new drinks and there was a kind of leaden silence for a while.

“What a funny coincidence that you and Danny should know each other without me knowing about it,” Patty said brightly, and I figured I hadn’t known when I was well off with that leaden silence.

“No so funny,” Tamara said in a neutral voice. “Santo Bahia isn’t all that big a town.”

Patty’s eyes were moist as she looked directly at me, and now they were back to where they started out in my life, as wet black olives.

“I didn’t think we had any secrets from each other, darling?'’ A faint blush stained her cheeks. “Oh! That was a very indiscreet thing to say, wasn’t it?” Her hand descended on my forearm and grasped it firmly. “But I really don’t care who knows about us, Danny, do you?” “This all sounds very fascinating,” Tamara said in a dangerously brittle voice. “Do tell me some more, honey.”

It was now or never again for Boyd, I realized. All it needed was another five seconds at most, to blow the whole deal.

“Patty!” I said quickly. “Why don't you collect your things and go on over to your apartment right now? I’ve still got a couple of things to do, but I’ll call you when I’m through and—and—”

“Well,” she said doubtfully. “I thought we’d have dinner—maybe Tam would have dinner with us, darling? That would be loads of fun and—”

“Now!” I nearly choked on the word. “The things I have to do won’t wait.”

“Well, all right.” She stood up reluctantly. “I’ll run along then. It was wonderful to see you again, Tam. Don’t keep Danny too long from his business, will you?” “You can bet on that!” Tamara said coldly.

There was another long, leaden silence after Patty had gone. I finished my martini and signaled the waiter, then saw that Tamara’s drink was practically untouched.

“Fm intrigued, Mr. Boyd,” she said in a remote voice. “What are you striving for?—a harem?”

“Look!” I said desperately. “After what happened last night, I figured she’d be safer in the hotel, so for some strange reason she figures this is tantamount to a proposal of marriage, or something!”

“From the way she’s talking now, I feel sure you’ve achieved the ‘or something’ already!” she snapped.

“You went to high school together?” I said feebly, t^ing to change the subject. “How many years is it since you last saw her?”

“It’s precisely three weeks since I last saw Patty,” she said frigidly. “We are very old friends, Mr. Boyd. That is why I can judge her reactions, and what must be in back of them, with absolute accuracy. I guess I should congratulate you on already achieving one downfall?” “Old friends, eh?” I said, groping blindly for any straw. “The whole bit, like lunch twice a week and a movie the last Friday night of each month?”

“The whole bit!” she snapped. “We are very close, Mr. Boyd. I know almost as much about the internal working of Poolside Plastics as Patty knows about the internal workings of Elmo’s jewelry store!”

“How about that!” I babbled.

“How about getting up on your cloven hooves, so I can get out of this seat and go home?” she said savagely.

“Tamara, honey!” I pleaded. “You’ve got this thing all wrong—honest!”

“No,” she said grimly, “I’ve got this thing all right, and honest is the last word I’d use to describe it!” “You’re jumping to conclusions, doll,” I said, desperately. “Believe me, I don’t have any feelings toward Patty other than—”

“Are you going to let me out of here?” she said in a quiet voice that held undertones of frightening ferocity. “Or do I have to scream for the waiter and clobber you with my purse?”

“Okay,” I said bitterly. “If that’s the way you want it, but you’re making a big mistake!” 1 climbed wearily onto my feet.

“I made that in coming here in the first place!” she snapped, then brushed past me and walked toward the door at a fast clip.

By the time the paralysis wore off, she had disappeared out of sight. I ran like a maniac and caught up with her on the sidewalk outside the hotel, still walking at a furious pace.

“Tamara!” I yelped breathlessly. “Hold it a moment.” “Get away from me or I’ll call a cop!” she said crisp-

iy-

“Please, honey!” I grabbed her arm and forced her to stop for a moment. “Just answer me one question?”

“It had better be good.” Her foot tapped the sidewalk menacingly.

“If you know so much about the internal workings of Poolside, whose idea was it to hold the beauty contest?” She looked at me like I’d finally blown a hole clean through the top of my head, and maybe 1 had. “It was Patty’s idea,” she said. “She was very proud of it.”

“So whose idea was it to combine with Elmo’s jewelry store and use the tiara for publicizing the .contest?” Tamara smiled faintly. “That was Patty’s, too. Only this time she was cute and gave it to her own boss, Machin, to use as his own idea. I’d told her about Mr. Byers making the tiara two or three months before, and the day I mentioned he’d finished it, she suddenly got the idea of—”

“Thanks a lot,” I told her. “You’ve been a big help, Tamara, a big help!”

She looked at me blankly. “Where are you going now?” “I’m not sure,” I said honestly. “Maybe out of my mind.”

chapter ten

“Danny!” There was a delighted smile on Patty’s face as she opened the door of her apartment and saw me standing outside. “You have been quick! I only got here myself about fifteen minutes back. Did you bring Tam along with you. She peered hopefully over my shoulder. “She had other plans,” I snarled.

“Well”—she almost smirked—“I can’t say I’m sorry, darling. That means we can be alone, doesn’t it?”

I stepped past her into the apartment and she closed the door. “It’s stupid,” she chattered on as she led the way into the living room, “but I feel as if I’ve just come back from a long vacation or something, instead of just having been away for one night.”

I stopped for a moment in the center of the room and lit a cigarette, then started on a detailed inspection of the walls. Patty sat on the couch and decorously pulled her skirt down over her knees.

“Did you get your important business finished, darling?”

“I think so,” I said. “You know, I hadn’t realized what close friends you are with Tamara until we got to talking about it after you’d gone.”

“Ever since high school, Danny,” she said gaily.

“She figures she knows as much about Poolside as you do about the jewelry store,” 1 went on. "So just for a gag 103

I asked a couple of questions, to prove it. She scored a hundred per cent with both answers.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was a riot. Whose idea was the beauty contest, I asked, and right away she said it was yours.”

“I never told her that it was really Louise’s suggestion,” Patty said in a small voice. “I was so ashamed afterwards when Louise blackmailed Mr. Rutter into letting her enter.”

“Then I asked Tamara whose idea was the promotion gimmick using Elmo’s tiara,” I said. “Right away she told me it was yours, too. But you got real cute that time and gave it to your boss, Machin.”

The silence was just a fraction too long before she answered, her voice elaborately casual. “Tamara always exaggerates wildly, darling. I bet she thought she was being a loyal friend, giving me all the credit!”

“I didn’t have that feeling about it—more like she was telling the simple truth,” I said indifferently.

“Oh—Tam was notorious for it, even at school, darling. I remember once when the seniors were—what are you doing, Danny?”

“Looking for some unique works of art, honey,” I told her truthfully. “You must have saved something from the work you did in those two months at the art academy?” “Are you out of your mind?” she laughed uneasily. “I never had an art lesson in my whole life! Louise did, you said so yourself last night when Estell was here.”

I turned around and looked at her as she sat on the couch. She was sitting in a bolt upright position, her spine like a ramrod, her clasped hands folded neatly in her lap. Her lips parted in a smile, but the dark eyes were cold and watchful.

“A couple of things about last night worried me,” I said. “When I got to Byers’ apartment and Marty Estell was there waiting for me—with a corpse on his hands— how could he be so damned sure I’d be there? How could he be sure I’d get out of those straps in the first place?—or that I wouldn’t have called the cops right away instead of going out there myself.”

She shook her head gently. “I’m sorry, darling, but I don’t understand what it is you’re trying to say.”

“I’ll make it real simple,” I said patiently. “The one big danger to you was Willie Byers, and you wanted him put out of the way. Marty Estell was looking to avenge Louise, and get his hands on the tiara, so you argued that it must have been Willie who killed her, but Marty still wasn’t convinced. So you came up with the bright idea of having me prove it to him, but how could you get me to it? You had a sudden inspiration and rigged that whole scene in here last night. I fell for it just fine. With Pete Ungar playing the heavy about to subject you to indescribable torture, I spilled the whole thing, like how I was convinced it was Byers.

“The only thing was the bathroom scene, honey, when you got out of those straps a little too damned easy. Then you talked me into leaving you here to get a cab to the hotel—and once I’d gone you called Byers’ number, figuring Marty would have done the job by now, and you could tefi him I was on my way alone, and he should try and fake Byers’ death to look like suicide.”

“Danny!” She looked at me, horror-stricken. “It’s not true!”

“You must have hated your sister a hell of a lot,” I said soberly, “to want to destroy her the way you did. It wasn’t the tiara or the hope of whatever money you’d make out of its theft, was it? The only thing that ever mattered was the total destruction of Louise.”

She lifted one hand in front of her face as if to ward off a blow. “I think you’re insane!” she said thickly.

“Louise trying to blackmail Myra Rutter made no sense at all,” I said. “Until I remembered it was only a voice on the phone that said it was Louise calling. So it was awful easy to break up Louise’s affair with Rutter and get her fired at the same time, wasn’t it?”

She turned her head away from me suddenly. “I’m not going to listen to any more of your madness!”

“You don’t have any choice,” I said. “Tamara would have told you all about Willie Byers—what kind of a man he was—lonely, sex-starved, desperately wanting company. A man who went to art classes once a week—and a man who was making a diamond tiara that would be worth a fortune.

“So you dreamed up a lulu. The idea of winning herself a beauty contest by simple blackmail—and a contest run by Poolside, at that—would be irresistible to Louise. Then you suddenly got interested in art and met Byers at the academy. To become his mistress would be no problem. Talking him into making a fake tiara could have been—but a threat of walking out on him I guess was enough. You even posed nude while he painted a life-size portrait.” I laughed shortly. “I remember you proudly telling me that both you and Louise had identical vital statistics!

“You sold the tiara promotional gimmick to Machin, and with Elmo in the financial doldrums, as Tamara had told you, you knew it wouldn’t be hard for Machin to sell him on the idea. Louise jumped at the idea of switching the fake tiara for the real one while she was posing for the publicity photos, along with the other girls—so everything was fine.”

I took time out to light a cigarette. Patty still had her head averted, but every taut line of her body said she was listening with complete attention.

“About then, the trouble started, maybe?” I continued. “Louise had gotten herself a new boy friend—Marty Estell—and she told him about the deal. How she’d give you the real tiara as soon as she could after she’d made the switch—you’d give it back to Willie and he’d break up the setting, reshape the stones, and sell them that way. Only Marty nearly died laughing—why give it back to you and split fifty-fifty on the sale of the stones? Why not let Marty get rid of it and keep all the profit?—the hell with Patty and her boy friend. When did Louise tell you that, honey? Right after you’d given her the fake tiara ready to use? So you couldn’t stop her by tipping off the police, because she’d involve you and Willie along with herself?”

She turned her head suddenly and stared at me with a baleful glitter in her eyes. “Aren’t you forgetting one very important thing in all this crazy nonsense, Danny?” Her voice was diamond hard and modulated in a flat monotone. “Louise was Byers’ girl friend—not me!”

“Louise never met Byers in her whole life,” I snarled. “You registered at the art class as Louise. You were

Louise to poor' little Willie the whole time—when he painted that nude portrait, you were still Louise.”

A faintly superior smile showed on her face. “I don’t know how you can make sense out of all that, Danny, because I certainly can’t.”

“It’s not real hard—it only needs one cheap little trick, really, when you come to think about it.” I said evenly. “Something like a blonde wig!”

“Don’t be so ridiculous, Danny!” She laughed too loudly, while her eyes hated me with maybe the same kind of black, implacable hate she’d had for her sister.

“A beautiful setup from your point of view, honey,” I went on in a tired voice. “You’d established a whole separate life for Louise that she never knew existed. She thought Byers was your boy friend—he knew Louise Lamont was his girl friend, and partner in crime. So then, after the tiara was stolen, you could murder your sister and feel pretty sure that Byers would be the guy who went to the gas chamber for it. When you pretended to be worried about your sister you pointed me in Byers’ direction—you’d seen him so many times in Louise’s apartment, you said. Sure, you mentioned Marty Estell, too, so you weren’t too obvious—-but Willie was the vulnerable guy once anybody looked at him real close. That portrait on the wall, for example—that looked like Louise for sure. Then the art academy would have Louise’s name on the register.”

“You’re crazy, Danny!” she hissed. “You’re sick! Why do you hate me like this? Because I let you make love to me last night?—is that it? Just because you possessed me, now you have to destroy me?”

“I was thinking about Marty Estell on my way over,” I said, grinning bleakly. “Marty still hasn’t got the real tiara—or avenged Louise’s death. I don’t think a guy like Marty would blow town and quit so easily—I think he’s still right here in town, holed up someplace. Then I got to thinking what would be the safest place to hide for a guy like him? Where’s the one sure place nobody would ever dream of looking?”

“I’m not interested in Marty Estell right now,” she said quickly. “It’s all those lies you—”

“Honey,” I said softly. “I’d be real nervous if I were

you—about the chances of Marty finding out you not only killed Louise but conned him into killing Byers for you—and conned him out of that tiara at the same time!” “1 didn’t!” Her voice was suddenly shrill with fear. “1 didn’t do any of those things and you can’t—”

There was no sound, no rustling or even a murmur— only the voice, very close and almost talking directly into my ear.

“You wouldn’t do anything stupid, pal, like grabbing for your gun?” he said in a conversational tone.

I lifted my hands slowly in front of me until they were chest-high. “Not me, Marty,” I told him. “I wouldn’t be that stupid!”

“Yeah,” he said without any inflection.

He moved around in a slow semicircle to a spot about midway between where I was standing and Patty was sitting on the couch. The gaunt face looked as if it had somehow achieved the impossible in the last twenty-four hours and shrunk even more. The caved-in cheeks were a sickly gray color, and the flaming thatch of red hair looked obscenely alive in contrast, as if it were feeding on the body’s vitality and slowly but surely starving it to death.

“Marty!” Patty looked at him with glowing eyes. “I thought you were never coming out of the bedroom!” “What need?” The side of his face twitched violently. “Boyd’s been busy talking to me all the time and I could hear him real well in there.”

“He’s crazy!” she said contemptuously. “Just because I went to bed with him last night, he’s gone berserk!” “You live in a real dream world, baby,” he said slowly. “You really figure that’s a big deal with a guy like Boyd? —or me, even? With a dame like Louise now, maybe that was different—she could do things to a guy’s feelings somehow. She could set you on fire. One look from that baby and it was like somebody lit the fuse and the bomb went up. But—you?” He shook his head slowly. “You just don’t have it, baby, you never did. The body’s the same like Louise’s was.” He studied her dispassionately for a long moment. “Real good—nice and round, firm in the right places—but it’s what you’ve got inside that makes the difference. Right, Boyd?”

“Sure,” I agreed with him. “Last night I figured she could turn it on and off like a light switch, and when it was on, it was for real—but it wasn’t.”

Patty nearly choked with fury. “How dare you!” she whispered blindly. “How dare you talk about me like this! As if I was-—a—an animal!”

“It’s important, baby,” Marty said in the same flat voice. “Real important. That was the difference between you and Louise. She could get any guy she wanted, and real important guys, too—like this big wheel, Rutter. Even me—I’m quite a catch in my own way. But you had to settle for the leftovers, doll. The squeezed-out, tired old guys who’d take anything they could get and be grateful—guys like Byers, huh?”

She put her hands to her ears and pressed them tight against the sides of her head. “I won’t listen to any more,” she said in a stifled voice. “I don’t hear a word you’re saying!”

*‘I don’t care too much whether you hear me or not, baby,” Estell rasped. “I just had to figure out why you hated Louise that much, and that’s the reason. So now we all know, right, Boyd?”

“Right,” I said.

The side of his face twitched again. “So I owe you, doll.” His voice had smoothed out again into a monotonous dirge. “I owe you for Louise—for the tiara I never got—and for conning me into knocking off Byers. It’s just the way Boyd said it was.”

Patty’s hands dropped to her lap as she suddenly lifted her head and stared into his face. “Marty?” The apple in her throat jumped convulsively. “You wouldn’t—” “You’re kidding, doll?” Again the sudden nervous spasm disfigured the side of his face. “With all I owe you— and after Byers, I got nothing to lose!”

“Danny!” The black terror-stricken eyes were riveted on my face for the brief instant it took for hope to swing back to despair.

“You’re asking him?” Estell laughed briefly, with a weird cackling sound. “Baby—he set it up!”

Slowly she came onto her feet and started to walk toward him with careful, mincing steps—like a ballerina about to step out onto the stage. “Marty?” She breathed his name reverently, like it was etched in stardust around her heart. “This is so stupid—I mean, for us to quarrel. I can be another Louise to you, if you let me, or maybe even more—”

“Tell Louise hello for me, huh?” he said easily.

The gun in his hand bucked suddenly, and the room was suddenly engulfed in a cataclysm of exploding sound and flame. He fired four shots into her body at close range and the impact drove her backward onto the couch. The violence and the fury died away slowly, while her body sprawled grotesquely across the couch, the head hung down over the edge, her mouth gaping open. The staring eyes still mirrored that last split second of absolute disbelief.

“You know something, pal?” Marty Estell looked at me with no expression on his face at all. “You bother me.” “How’s that?” I asked.

“Like I told the broad, you set this up—you figured I was hiding out isu.the bedroom for sure and I’d hear whatever you said, right?”

“That’s right, Marty,” I agreed.

“You figured this would happen—or something like it, huh?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But it happened, anyway.”

“So you let me jump you,” he went on easily. “You had it all doped out so good up to here, I’d kind of like to hear the rest. What do you figure will happen now?” “I’m going to take you, Marty,” I said confidently. His face twitched. “Axe you crazy? I’ll gun you down before you got a chance!”

“I can take you any time, Marty,” I said, with the same confident tone. “You want to know why?”

“So tell me?”

“Remember last night in Byer’s apartment—when I pulled a gun?”

“I remember,” he said laconically.

“You chickened out, Marty.” I grinned at him. “When you saw Pete had gotten it—or he was about to—you quit. You ran the hell out of there before it could happen to you.”

“I wasn’t taking any chances!” he snarled. “You think I’m stupid or something?”

“Not stupid—just yellow,” I sneered. “I got that same thirty-eight in the shoulder harness, Marty, right now. You’ll get the first shot in, sure, but then we’re even.”

“All I got to do is squeeze the trigger, Boyd,” he said tightly, “but 1 like to hear you talk—for a little while.” “I got a crazy idea that now 1 know where that tiara is,” I said. “But I don’t plan on telling you, Marty.” “You—” His jaws clamped tight. “So it won’t do you any good where you’re going, Boyd!”

“It’s someplace where you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting at it, anyway,” I said. “You want to know where? You’ll die laughing, Marty, it’s—”

I jumped—lately I was getting good at it. I jumped sideways toward the couch in a giant, convulsive leap that carried me maybe six feet away from where I had stood the moment before. Marty’s reactions were slow— too slow by maybe one-fifth of a second—and that was because he’d been listening too hard. So the slug aimed for me hit only the space where I’d been, and plowed on into the far wall. By the time Marty was lining up for a second shot, I had the .38 out in my hand and I pressed the trigger before he did.

My shot took him in the chest. The gim spilled from his hand while his eyes contemplated eternity. Then, rath- | er than fall to the floor, he seemed to melt away like an iceberg drifting into the Gulf Stream.

After I’d made real sure he was dead, I picked up the phone and called police headquarters.

Lieutenant Schell wasn’t exactly enthusiastic when he heard my voice. “The hell with you, Boyd,” he said sharply. “I’m busy right now.”

I had a sudden inspiration. “With Rutter?”

“Yeah,” he growled reluctantly.

“He’s there with you right now?”

“Yeah!”

“Lieutenant,” I said quickly. “Give me two minutes conversation with him, then come back on the line and I’ll wrap up the whole deal for you.”

I listened to his heavy breathing for a few seconds. “All right!” he said finally. “But if you’re kidding about this, Boyd, I’ll have your hide!”

“It’s on the level,” I assured him.

I waited a little while and then a frantic babble of sound broke loose in my eardrum.

“Boyd? Is that you, Boyd?” the voice babbled. “This is Rutter—you were goddamned well right in everything you said about that lieutenant. They’ve had me down here for over an hour already, and they keep asking the same questions over and over and it doesn’t seem to matter what the hell I answer, they won’t believe me!” His voice climbed half an octave. “Boyd! You’ve got to do something about it—they’re going to crucify me!”

“I think I can help you, Mr. Rutter,” I said in a polite, respectful voice, befitting an employee addressing his superior.

“You can?” He sounded pathetically grateful. “That’s wonderful—marvelous!”

“Do you have your checkbook with you?”

“Have my checkbook?” he repeated in a bewildered voice. “Why, yes, I do, but how—”

“You write me a check for five thousand dollars, Mr. Rutter,” I said briskly. “Put it in an envelope and give it to the Lieutenant. Ask him to give it to me when he sees me. Then put him back on the phone and I guarantee you’ll be a free man within five minutes.”

“Five—five thousand dollars?” His voice shook slightly. “What is it for?”

‘That was the price we agreed on,” I reminded him. “Once I know the lieutenant has your check, I’m sure I can lead him straight to the real murderer.”

“Well,” he said, and gulped noisily. “That’s wonderful, Boyd. You’re sure?”

“You can always stop payment on the check if I turn out to be a liar!” I reminded him.

“I’ll make it out!” he said hastily. “Right now. You hang on, Boyd, don’t go away!”

“I’m not going anyplace, Mr. Rutter,” I said gently, “and neither are you until the lieutenant has that check.” This time I waited maybe thirty seconds, then Schell came back on the line. “I think maybe this Rutter has flipped,” he said sourly. “He just wrote out a check, shoved it into an envelope, and insisted I take it, with his instructions to give it to you the next time we meet.

If I didn’t do it, he’s babbling something about you won’t tell me who the real murderer is.”

“He’s got his wires crossed on that one, Lieutenant,” I said quickly. “But the rest is fine. Please bring the envelope with you when you come.”

“I’m not going anyplace!” he roared wildly. “What the hell makes you think I’ll leave—”

“I’m calling from Patty Lamont’s apartment,” I told him. “Whatever you say is okay with me, Lieutenant, you know that. But what will I do about the two bodies in here?”

“You can—” He stopped for a couple of seconds and his voice was a cry of agony when he spoke again. “What bodies?”

“Don’t you mean ‘Whose bodies?’ Lieutenant?” I asked, like real polite.

“Who do those bodies belong to?” he whimpered. “Patty Lamont—she killed her sister and conned Marty Estell into killing Byers for her,” I explained. “So he hid out in her apartment and killed her in revenge. Then I kind of didn’t have much choice about killing him—it’s a very complicated deal, Lieutenant. Why don’t you come on out here and I’ll explain it in detail?”

“You move a muscle before I get out there and I’ll have you shot on sight!” he choked. “Maybe I’ll do that anyway!”

chapter eleven

I parked the convertible right out front of Elmo’s jewelry store and we got out. Schell was still speaking to me, but only just. When he’d gotten out to Patty Lamont’s apartment I’d altered the facts just a little—not so much the facts really—just the sequence of events. The way I’d told it to him, I hadn’t even remotely suspected that Marty Estell was hidden out in the apartment, listening to my every word from the bedroom. So I was stunned when he suddenly appeared from nowhere and gunned down Patty. But what choice did I have but to gun down him before he got around to me?—and I was lucky at that. I was almost sure the lieutenant didn’t believe a word of it, on principle if nothing else, but he couldn’t disprove it.

We stood on the sidewalk for a moment while he scowled at me. “I’ve strung along with you on this, Boyd,” he said bleakly. “But if you don’t deliver, so help me, I’ll—1”

“I’ll deliver,” I said, keeping my crossed fingers behind my back.

“I set up the appointment with Elmo,” he said, still not real sure. You would have figured the guy didn’t trust me or something. “You make me look like an idiot and I’ll—”

“I know,” I said with immense restraint. “You keep on telling me.”

We went into the store and were greeted by a magni-

119

ficent redhead with a real way-out hair-do—or the lieutenant was greeted, to be accurate. 1 was ignored like a frozen clam that’s passed beyond its prime. “Mr. Elmo is expecting you, Lieutenant,” she said, smiling warmly at him. “Please go striaght in. Is that the murderer you have with you?”

“No.” Schell scowled at me. “Just a piece of garbage that’s been rejected by the city dump.”

He stalked ahead of me into Elmo’s office and I trailed along behind, too dispirited even to notice the taut curve of Tamara’s dress exactly where a dress should be tautly curved.

Elmo stood up to greeet the lieutenant and he looked like an overweight sparrow as he leaned across his desk to shake hands with the law.

“Always a pleasure to see you, Lieutenant!” The gold-rimmed glasses flashed warmly. “I see you had quite a night last night?”

“I’d call it that,” Schell grunted. “You know Boyd, naturally? It’s a misfortune shared by too many people in this town!”

“I thought I had seen the last of him yesterday,” Elmo said in tones of infinite sorrow. “But still—won’t you sit down?” He plunked back into his own chair before I could peek and see how many cushions it took to raise him above the level of the desktop.

The lieutenant sat in the pseudo-antique and I sat on something designed by a medieval torturer. There was a silence while Elmo looked expectantly at the lieutenant.

Schell finally cleared his throat irritably. “I’m humoring Boyd—the last time before I have him committed,” he said finally. “He figures he knows where that tiara is, but he’s got an obligation to tell you before anyone else —so we compromised and now he’ll tell both of us at the same time.”

“Indeed?” The glasses flashed in my direction. “This sounds most interesting, Mr. Boyd.”

“I hope it is,” I said politely. “You’ll have to ride along with some of it, Mr. Elmo, because it won’t make any sense to you, but it will be the lieutenant.”

“Maybe!” Schell muttered darkly.

I lit a cigarette, which is kind of hard with crossed fingers.

“Patty, complete with a blonde wig, set herself up with Willie Byers as her own sister Louise—right?”

“I got that,” the Lieutenant grunted.

“Everything was fine. Willie made the fake tiara and Patty passed it on to her sister. Then Louise and Marty told her the hell with her—they weren’t handing over the real tiara once they got their hands on it. They were going to keep it and whatever money they made on it. That put Patty in a real jam. She couldn’t go back to Byers and say Louise had double-crossed her—because she was Louise to little Willie—right?”

Schell’s face- contorted for a moment. “I guess so,” he said after a while.

“So she talked Willie into making a second fake tiara —she must have had a good excuse that some dreadful accident had happened to the first one. She’d tried it on in the bathroom and lost it in the plumbing or something—” “She’d need something better than that!” Schell said in a pained voice. “Oh, all right—she came up with something that was good enough for litde Willie to swallow.” “It wouldn’t be too hard,” I said. “Remember, he was crazy for her.”

“Are you talking about our Mr. Byers, by any chance?” Elmo asked suddenly. “It doesn’t seem possible!” “Willie was more sinned against than sinner, Mr. Elmo,” I said solemnly. “Anyway—” I turned back to Schell. “Then, I guess Patty worked on him some more —as Louise, she would have to make the switch—and told him it was too dangerous. Too many things could go wrong—what if she fumbled it at the crucial moment and was caught? What if the switch was discovered before she’d gotten out of the store and they insisted that everybody there be searched? She had a brand new idea, much better and much safer—foolproof in fact.” “Can’t you condense this a little?” Schell snarled at me. “I’m going around in circles already!”

“Patty knew from her good friend and confidante, Tamara O’Keefe,” I said cheerfully, “that Elmo’s jewelry store was in a bad way financially—like just about flat broke.”

“You are gravely misinformed, Mr. Boyd,” Elmo said acidly. “I shall investigate the source of these scurrilous rumors immediately!”

“You want to do it real fast, Mr. Elmo,” I said politely, “Because I have a feeling you won’t be around very long after this morning.”

“Get to the point!” the lieutenant snapped.

“She told Willie about this—suggested he approach Elmo with a nice snug little larceny proposition. That Elmo should switch the fake tiara Byers would give him for the real one, before the beauty contest people ever arrived. Then Byers should spot the fake in the window later that morning and it would appear one of the beauty contest people must have stolen the tiara. The insurance company would pay up and they would divide the money equally. Elmo would still have his tiara, and later, Byers could take the stones out of the setting and rework them into another piece of valuable jewelry.”

“Lieutenant,” Elmo said sorrowfully, “I’m afraid this man is insane.”

“So am I,” Schell said hopelessly. “Is there more to this, Boyd?”

“It was kind of cute,” I said in genuine admiration. “So the real Louise Lamont comes into the store with the first fake tiara, and neatly switches it for the second fake tiara. I bet Patty spent the whole day screaming with laughter. So when Louise got back to Marty Estell, the fake wouldn’t fool him for too long, right? So once he discovered they’d been gypped, he’d start looking for whoever double-crossed him. The logical suspect would be Louise herself—and that’s what Patty hoped for. But when Marty didn’t kill her sister, she had to do it herself.”

“And she put the second fake tiara on Louise’s head as a pointer toward Marty Estell?” the lieutenant asked.

“As a second bet maybe,” I said. “But that tiara was pointing right at Byers. Patty figured you’d be convinced that it was Louise who had stolen the tiara, double-crossed her partner with a second fake, and had been murdered for her trouble.”

“Lieutenant,” Elmo said frostily, “you surely don’t expect me to sit here and calmly listen to these monstrous allegations against my own integrity?”

“You’ll listen to Boyd until he’s finished,” Schell said curtly. “What else, Boyd?”

“Elmo yelled loud and long the insurance company wasn’t going to pay the claim,” I went on. “But his lawyer told him they’d pay from the very beginning—it was just a smoke screen. Asking your advice on a private eye was another smoke screen. As soon as he decently could, he told me the insurance company was paying the claim after all—his lawyer had somehow come up with a gimmick, so his deal with me was off. No five grand if I found the tiara—I could keep the grand he’d already paid me.”

“We can check all this later,” Schell said abruptly. “Where’s the real tiara?—that’s what I want to know.” “I figure it’s where Marty Estell was,” I told him.

He gaped at me. “Marty’s in the morgue!”

“The same theory applies,” I added quickly. “Where was the safest place for Marty to hole up—the place that nobody would think of looking? Back in Patty La-mont’s apartment.”

“The tiara’s not there,” Schell said in a defeated voice. “We ripped the whole place apart.”

“It’s the principle, Lieutenant,” I reminded him. “If you were Mr. Elmo now, and you had a hot tiara to hide someplace nobody would ever dream of searching for it— where would you put it?”

Schell looked at me for about five seconds, then nodded slowly. “Mr. Elmo,” he said formally, “I’d like to take a look inside your vault.”

The jeweler seemed to shrink suddenly to an even smaller size. He took off his gold-rimmed glasses slowly and put them on the desk, then rubbed his eyes with trembling fingers.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s there. Boyd was right about the deal Byers suggested to me—and I took it. I was desperate—not that it’s any excuse of course.”

“You want to come and get it for us now, Mr. Elmo?” Schell suggested firmly.

“Of course,” he nodded. “I can see I sadly underestimated you, Mr. Boyd.”

“It was that crack about having reservations as to whether you'd received sufficient services for that thousand dollars,” I told him sincerely. “It worried me—a dissatisfied client is always bad for business.”

Elmo smiled bleakly. “I can see 1 should have kept my big mouth shut—as you might put it, Mr. Boyd.” “I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. “Otherwise I probably never would have gotten your tiara back for you.”

Schell got onto his feet and gestured to Elmo. “Let’s go open that vault,” he said crisply.

The little man got out of his chair and made his way around the desk, and I watched the two of them walk toward the vault. Elmo wore elevator shoes, I noticed, and they brought him to somewhere real close to five feet. I figured Schell could have the rest of it, and if I moved real quick right now I could be out of town before he’d even had time to notice.

My fast getaway got sabotaged almost before it got started. I stopped beside the desk of a redhead who was studiously ignoring me.

“School’s out, honey,” I said. “Everybody go home.” “Are you talking to me?” she said in a frigid voice. “It’s a long story, but it’s true,” I said in a kindly voice. “Your Mr. Elmo stole his own tiarra and the Lieutenant’s on his way now to get it out of the vault. I don’t think Mr. Elmo will be back for some time.”

Her eyes widened as she lifted her head and looked at me. “Is that true, Danny? You wouldn’t kid me about something like that, would you?”

“It’s true,” I told her. “You hear about Patty?” “Yes,” she said, nodding gravely. “Was that what fouled up our date last night?”

“I had a long inner struggle,” I said modestly, “but finally I had to give in—catching a murderess and a murderer was just a shade more important than keeping that date with you.”

She thought about it for a while. “I’d like to believe that,” she said finally. The great thaw had hit. The icicles were gone from her voice, and now her tawny eyes radiated awarmth that was almost fiery even.

“Poor Danny,” she said suddenly. “What bad luck— finding out your client was the thief!”

“I had another client,” I said smugly, “and he paid off like real handsomely.”

I showed her Rutter’s check for five grand and her eyes widened again. “Danny! That’s an enormous amount of money.”

“Big enough for a vacation,” I said casually. “I was thinking of Acapulco maybe—the Bahamas—you decide.”

“I couldn’t do that,” she said wistfully. “It wouldn’t be fair for me to choose where you spend your vacation.”

“Who’s talking about my vacation?” I asked sharply. “I’m talking about our vacation!”

The gleam in her eyes was suddenly subdued by a caution signal. “Danny Boyd,” she said slowly, “are you making me some kind of proposition?”

“What else?” I said smoothly. “You name it—we go there!”

“Somewhere along the line there has to be a price tag,” she said regretfully, it seemed to me.

“I was thinking of someplace where they have rum-based drinks superior to the Luau Bar,” I admitted.

I watched in silent fascination while maybe a dozen different emotions played tag back and forward across her face. Finally, a steady, resolute determination won out over all the others, and she sat up straight, squaring her shoulders.

“I’ve made up my mind, Danny,” she said in a taut voice.

“Okay, honey,” I said with genuine regret. “It’s your life and you got the right to make your decisions.”

“All my life I’ve prided myself on being alert,” she said, ignoring my comments completely. “The straight pass, the underhand, the clandestine—I could pick ’em all from way back.”

“It must be something of a record for a redhead stacked the way you’re stacked honey,” I said dismally.

“And where has it gotten me?” she asked in fierce rhetoric. “No place! Danny Boyd, we’ll go to the Bahamas!” “Well, I tried,” I said. “It’s too bad you—what?”

She smiled at me triumphantly. “We are going to the Bahamas. I’ll have a bag packed in an hour! I’ve spent all my life fending off guys like you and where has it gotten me!—a lousy job in a crummy jewelry store where the boss turns out to be a thief! So now I’m going to find out what happens to a girl when she doesn’t resist a pass!”

“I can t^ll you right now, honey,” I said truthfully. “But I figure on saving it for the Bahamas!”

Content

the ice cold nude

chapter two

chapter five

chapter six

chapter seven

chapter eight

chapter nine

chapter ten

chapter eleven