John D. MacDonald

Six Golden Pennies

He had talked to her lawyer, and now he drove in a rented car across burned land toward the place where she had waited out her residence. A hot wind dried salt crystals along his hairline, flapped the short sleeve of his sport shirt. The highway shimmered ahead. Blue mountain ranges notched a monotonous cloudless sky. He looked at the shadows with an artist’s eye, wondering at the gaudy, improbable blues and purples in those shadows. Lizard land. Baked rock land.

Devlan, her lawyer, had been cool at first, saying, with a patronizing smile, “After all, Mr. Shelby, to be perhaps too frank, she was divorcing you, and she got drunk and she drowned. It is a tragedy. She was young and seemed to be a nice person, and she had a lot of living ahead of her. But not, may I say, with you. That’s why your visit seems to... baffle me a bit. You ask me how she was acting? Normal, I would say, considering this rather abnormal emotional climate.”

Jay Shelby had said, “Mr. Devlan, I had to come here. I don’t pretend to be able to tell you all the reasons. I don’t know them myself. Our marriage was almost good. So nearly good I kept waiting for her to call this whole thing off, this divorce deal. Maybe I should have called her. Maybe she was waiting for me to call her. But I didn’t. You see, I have to know if... what happened to her bears any relation to what I did or didn’t do. Because I keep thinking about it.”

“It was an accidental death. It was carefully investigated, Mr. Shelby.”

“I know all that, but there is such a thing as a death wish. There is such a thing as putting yourself in a situation where something is likely to happen to you.”

“I don’t want to give you advice. I have certain ethics. I try to talk myself out of a case every time. I talked with your wife. She was sincere and determined about that divorce. You have some need to feel guilt. You want to find some way of punishing yourself. I would say you should go back East and forget it, Mr. Shelby. You save the property settlement that was agreed on. It was a tragedy. Wives die accidentally when marriages are good. So your loss is less, is it not?”

“Put yourself in my place, Mr. Devlan. I want to know how she was up to the time it happened. What she was doing. If she was depressed. All I got was the bald report.”

“And if you find out she was depressed? That there was a death wish, as you called it?”

“Then I know I deserve the guilt I already feel. And if it wasn’t that way, then maybe I can be... free of her.”

Devlan sighed. “I guess I know what you mean. Maybe it’s something you have to do. You must understand it is a strange emotional climate out here. Unreal. Sort of a compressed hysteria. Neon and hunger and gambling... She told me you are an artist.”

“An illustrator. I do magazine work mostly.”

“I know. I’ve seen your name.”

Jay Shelby stood up. “Thanks for the information, Mr. Devlan. The Terrace Inn at Oasis Springs. I don’t think I’ll use my own name there.”

Devlan stared at him. “Why, for heaven’s sake?”

“I don’t want people to tell me what they think I want to hear. That’s all. I want to get there while there are still a number of guests who were probably friendly with her. She... always made friends easily. It was twelve days ago. I went to the funeral in Burlington last week. Her people acted as though I’d killed her. That was when I knew I had to come out here.”

He thought of Joan during the hot drive to Oasis Springs. An almost good marriage. Maybe that was worse than a completely bad one. Four years of trying to make it work. Maybe, if they’d tried longer, harder. There had always been an electric quality to her that had made him feel dull, plodding, ordinary, even at that first moment he had seen her, in the shabby little straw-hat theatre in Connecticut, coming on in the second act of a dull play, coming on with that taut walk and the alive face, bringing the audience forward out of dullness with her very first line, making the stuffy theatre recede, and turning the play into something that lived.

He had contrived to meet her, had gone after her with the same doggedness he had gone after everything in his life. She had said no three times, and she had sighed at last and put her hands flat against his cheeks and looked for a long time into his eyes and said yes. Even then it seemed too easy. He had wanted to achieve impossible tasks in her name in order to win her, but she had said yes and it had seemed almost too easy. The contrast between them had been flattering to her. She so slim, so quick-moving, with the mobility of face that could change so quickly, with the hair that always made him think of the stuff they sold during the war for decorating Christmas trees, when tin foil was not available, a pale, white sheen. And he, dark, heavy-shouldered, slow-moving, face like a stubborn mask except when he grinned, arms and hands thickened and toughened by the manual labor he had done during the years when he’d been learning his trade, using what he’d saved for the art classes in Chicago.

There was the old saw about opposites being attracted to each other. Perhaps they were, but opposites did not make a marriage. He liked the silences and the times of snow, midnight creak of an old house. While she would wander from room to room, with a nervous listlessness, snapping cigarettes into the fireplace, then picking out records and stacking them on the machine, dancing, humming to herself, snapping her fingers, alive for a little time.

In her world, he found himself standing in corners, the drink growing warm from his hand, nervous and brittle laughter jangling around him, while Joan would be across the room, the center of a group, glowing at the delighted laughter when she used her special and acid knack of mimicry. In some strange way she was even able to do him, changing her face, walk, posture, exaggerating his slow gestures, his faintly pontifical tone of voice. It always irritated him and amused him.

He was concerned with himself, with the why of existence, with philosophical conjecture, and with good friends who also had that turn of mind, he could talk the night away. But there was no subjective thought in her. Her mind was quick, but her talk and her thinking were anecdotal. She was content to exist without questioning what she was or where she was or why she was. Her mind was quick enough, but she had too much hunger for the aspects of living he considered superficial. And he saw she was limited in her profession by that superficiality. She could give a part sparkle, but she could not give it the depth a true actress could.

For a long time it was the physical togetherness that saved them, and then the outside distortions began to spoil that for them, and there was nothing left but habit and a barren quarreling.

She was apart from him when she had a few supporting roles in plays that never became established. And he suspected her hunger for excitement, for joyous living, had led her into unfaithfulness, but he never checked on her because he was afraid of the violence inside him, the violence that might escape if he ever had proof.

Though he had expected it, and he knew she had, the decision still came as a shock. It was a shock to learn he did not want to lose her. And he knew her own tears surprised her. But he agreed to the settlement and she left, and after five weeks and three days of residence, she was dead. Artist’s wife drowned in resort pool four days before decree. He had closed the house and he was in New York in a borrowed studio, finishing off the assignments the agency had gotten for him, thinking ahead to the trip he had promised himself after it was final.

So the first he knew was when he saw it in the paper. He read it, and he could not believe she was dead. That much sparkling energy could not be stilled, not so easily, so quickly. The friends he cared about said all the right things, and the people he did not care about said the wrong things. He wished he had phoned her the night he had ached for her to come back, ached for the chance for them to try again. She made him feel plodding, humorless. He could have tried harder to be gay, tried harder for the light touch. He could have been more patient with her.

He drove at an even pace, wondering if Devlan had been right about his wanting to feel guilt, wanting to punish himself. It should not be that complicated. Had it hit her harder than she had let him know? Had she wanted death? Could a phone call have saved her? Was it dull, brute pride, then, that had killed her? His hand tightened on the wheel. It was something you had to find out. It was not possible to spend the rest of your life wondering about it. You had to know. And, he thought grimly, the trip was at her expense. It was money she would have had, had she lived. She had been his wife when she died.

Oasis Springs was an abruptness in the burned land. Here bloomed alien flowers, here grass grew with a transplanted lushness. It was new and raw and rich. Two years ago it had been lizard land. Now it was a place of pastels, spun glass, muttering of the air conditioners, motel moderne, bandit clank of the slots. You had six weeks, at special rates, of course, because Oasis Springs was not yet quite fashionable. The blue pools, and horses at dusk, if you preferred, and please ignore the knowing anthracite eyes of the hotel maids of Indian blood if you should happen to have a guest in your room, because Oasis Springs was earnestly concerned that your divorce should be pleasant. You could eat chili or pheasant, steak or a hot dog, bet a dime or a thousand. There were chunky little English cars, and vast pale fin-tailed monsters, and jalopies from out of the burned land, dust-crusted.

He drove down the main street of Oasis Springs at three in the afternoon, and the neon was silent. Two massive women in slacks stared dully at a window display of Indian silver. The shadows were sharp and black. Empty cars baked and glinted in the weight of the sun. A small girl in a white sun suit walked diagonally across the street, pink tongue dipping delicately at the pistachio cone. He stopped for what seemed to be the only traffic light. He could look into a place called the Golden Sixpence. It was darker in there, and people moved about. Ten crap tables. Air-conditioned. Beverages. On the opposite corner was an expensive women’s shop, with scanty swim suits on the bloodless dummies.

He found the Terrace Inn at the west edge of the new town. Beyond it was the emptiness, distant buzzards wheeling, heat shimmer on rocks, and beyond, the timeless mountains, regal in blue. The Terrace Inn stood tall, set back on the improbable transplanted greenness, driveway a curved blazing of marble chips, palms standing in curved postures, in lush daintiness. It stood tall with huge tinted face of glass, with redwood, with cement, with pale stone, with many terraces and suspended steps, and it was all like a color photograph made with film that is not true, the hues too vivid. There was a long carport, redwood uprights and a thatched roof, and he parked there in the shade. As he got out of the car, he saw a bellhop walking swiftly down toward him, a prim servant smile on the husky brown young face.

“Are you staying at the Inn, sir?”

“I’d like to. But you better not take the bag up. I don’t have a reservation.”

“We aren’t full up, sir.”

Jay Shelby unlocked the trunk, and the bellhop lifted the bag out tenderly. They went up to the big glass doors, the boy a few steps ahead. He opened the door and stood aside, and Jay walked into the chillness, the carpeted silence, the blond-wood discretion of the high lobby. An old lady with gold hoops in her ears sat and knitted in subdued yarns. There was faint music of violins. A girl behind glass ticked at a comptometer. He went over to the desk, and the thin, pale man smiled and put the card in front of him.

John Shell, he wrote, New York City.

“A single, Mr. Shell? We have a nice studio room, or a small suite.”

“The studio room, please.”

“If you’ll be staying with us for some time, we have a special rate you may be interested in.”

“I’ll only be here a few days. How much is the room?”

“Eleven dollars a day, sir. Front, please. Mr. Shell will be in six-ten.”

He followed the bellhop back through the lobby, out of the mechanical chill into the still heat of an enclosed court. There was a pool as still as glass in the center, iron tables on the flagstones under vivid umbrellas. From that enclosed space, he could look through an arch into another court, and he saw the plan of the hotel. The rooms were in the two-story structures that enclosed the open courts. There were roofed walkways for each story. The bellhop turned left, and Jay followed him through the shaded heat of the open-sided corridor. The stone court was deserted. One woman lay face down on the low board. She wore a pale-blue bathing suit, and her body was oiled, deeply tanned, very lovely. She heard them and lifted her head. She had a face that made him think of a turtle, sun-dazed, heavy-lidded.

The boy unlocked the door. The room was dim and cool. The boy demonstrated how the wall vent worked for the air-conditioning. He checked lights, towels, explained the studio bed was all made up. Merely remove the cover, sir. The pillow is in this cabinet here, under the lamp. Do you need anything? Ice? All right, sir. This pamphlet tells about the hotel facilities. Thank you very much, sir. I hope you enjoy your stay.

After he was gone. Jay looked out at the pool. Joan had died in that impossible aquamarine. Died under a billion stars. The skin on his shoulders crawled, and he turned away from the windows.

The shower was excellent. The towels were thick and soft. He dressed in gray slacks and a pale-yellow Orlon shirt. He sat on the studio bed and read the pamphlet. It was illustrated with color photographs. The owner had evidently imported hundreds of beautiful people from Hollywood to sit for the photographs. They were all smiling. They were gay. They were happy they could have breakfast up until eleven in the morning in the air-conditioned dining room or just outside the dining room on the Palm Patio. They were delighted that, after breakfast, the management would arrange for saddle horses, if desired, or tours of the surrounding area. And it pleased them that drinks were served at poolside starting at one in the afternoon, and that the cocktail hour was from five to nine-thirty on the Palm Patio. It was indeed splendid that the casino (to the rear of the hotel, just east of the Palm Patio, air-conditioned) was closed only between the hours of ten A.M. and noon, snacks served at all hours. And everything, of course, done with such taste and discrimination, such suavity and distinction.

The fine print said the Terrace Inn was owned and operated by C. Gerald Rice Enterprises, Inc.

Jay flipped a wall switch. Violins entered the room. Soft, as in the lobby. He wondered what room Joan had been in. He wished he had her easy way with people. He did not know where to start, how to start. She had known people who were now in the hotel. She could not live anywhere without meeting people, without getting to know them well. Yet she never seemed to have a true friendship. She amused people. They liked her. And for her, that was enough. He decided to look around. Yet it was an actual physical effort to leave the room. He felt awkward and diffident.

He took his key and went out, and the door snap-locked behind him. The tan woman was still on the diving board. Another woman came toward the pool from one of the rooms on the opposite side. She walked well. She was tanned reddish brown, an Indian color. Her hair was black, her suit was white, and she had a yellow cape slung over her shoulder. He watched her with a painter’s eye, seeing the good bones and articulation, the suggestion of gauntness in her cheeks. She dropped the cape over a chair, took a white bathing cap out of her beach bag, snapped it on and tucked her hair in carefully. She kicked out of her shoes and made quick little steps on the hot stone to the edge of the pool.

“You want I should get off the board?” the other woman said.

“No. Thank you.” Her voice was hoarse-deep, suggestive of the faint affectations of Eastern finishing schools, vaguely Hepburn.

She dived in with sleek competence, and he stood watching her as she made long, slow, tireless strokes, up and down the pool, gliding smoothly through the water. There was about her the look of ritual, of daily habit. He filed the colors in his mind, along with the precise look of her arm as it came out of the water, elbow high, cupped hand reaching ahead. He walked through into the second court, the one called the Palm Patio. It was a little after four. Part of the Palm Patio was roofed with glass. There were many tables, a small cocktail bar. A man in a white coat was transferring shaved ice from a tub on a cart into the bin in the back bar.

He glanced up and said, “I won’t open here for nearly an hour, sir.”

“I know. I was just looking around. I just checked in. I was wondering what people do around here this time of day.”

“A lot of them take naps. We aren’t very full now. A few will be out in the casino this time of day, just horsing around. It picks up later when it’s hot like this.” He picked a fleck of dirt out of the ice, upended the tub, banged on it with the heel of his hand, closed the bin. He gave Jay a sidelong glance. “You staying alone here?”

It was an odd question. “Yes, why?”

“I guess you won’t be lonesome around here.” The man snickered.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“It’s like this. We got maybe sixty women in the place. Most of them are on the six-week rate, and you know why they’re here. Then there are maybe eight couples on vacation, and about six or seven guys getting a divorce. In two days you’ll be hunting a club to beat them off with.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jay asked him.

“Why should I? Most of them are sorry they came here. When they find out it’s sort of dead it’s too late to change to someplace like Reno. They wander around town and get up hen bridge parties and yak all day and feel sorry for themselves. This town hasn’t really gotten going yet. Some of them are pretty terrible, but there are plenty of nice ones, and they’re all restless. A single guy here is like a WAC was overseas.” He looked at his watch. “I guess I could make you a drink a little ahead of time if you want, sir.”

“Martini on the rocks, please. But I don’t want to upset the schedule.”

“That’s okay. Once that sun is far enough gone to shadow the bar, it gets nice and cool here.”

The man mixed the drink with an expert flourish and set it in front of Jay. The small cash register tinkled as it printed the drink price. The man folded the tab lengthwise and placed it on the bartop.

Jay said cautiously, “I’d think some of these women, being restless like you said, might get into serious trouble.”

The man shrugged. “They don't seem to. Anyway, they’re shrewd out at the desk. They don’t let sharpies check in.”

“I stopped in town and asked about a nice place to stay.”

“Any place in town would send you here, sir. House rules, I guess. A man named Rice owns the whole works. He’s sunk a lot into it. He’s trying to get it over the hump.”

“The man I talked to, he said there’d been some trouble out here not long ago. Something about a woman drowning in the pool.”

The bartender’s eyes sharpened. “This fella you talked to, was he working in town? Behind a bar or something?”

“Yes. I don’t remember the name of the place.”

“Then he’s a damn fool. It’s worth your job around here to mention that little deal. Rice doesn’t like that kind of publicity.”

“What did happen?”

The man gave him a long look. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, sir.”

“Okay. I was just curious. I’m not spying for Mr. Rice, if that’s what you think.”

“I don’t think anything,” the man said a bit sullenly. He began to polish glasses. Jay sipped his drink slowly. When it was gone he pushed the glass a half inch toward the back of the bar.

“Another?”

“Please.”

“That was dry enough?”

“It was fine, thanks.”

The man made the fresh drink and put it in front of Jay. He put the tab in the cash register and printed the second drink on it. As he put the tab down, he said in a low voice. “It was just one of those things. A nice gal. One of the prettiest ones we’ve had here. Somebody was a fool letting her get away. How she could keep you laughing. She had me laughing so hard lots of times I couldn’t mix drinks. She played hard. Too hard, maybe. On the go all the time. Too many glasses in her hand, maybe. Not a lush, but you know what I mean. The way I figure it, she came in late with a guy. Both loaded. Horsing around. Maybe there’s some crazy dare about going swimming with clothes on. Or maybe she just tripped and fell in. Anyway, she hits her head. The guy panics. He can’t find the pool lights. He can’t find her. So he beats it. Then in the morning the guy that takes care of the pool sees her. You ought to hear him tell about it. About looking down in the water and seeing her with her eyes open, and that pale hair floating out in the water, all dressed and everything. He just stood there like a woman and yelled his fool head off. If he’d been smart, they could have gotten her out of here before anybody knew a thing. He got fired for being that stupid.”

“They know there was a man with her?”

“One of the women woke up, and she said she heard people talking out there, and one of them was a man. That was three in the morning.”

“But they don’t know who the man was, eh?”

“No. You see she’d gone away for a couple of days, not telling anybody. And nobody knows where she went or who with. She came back in the small hours. They checked the body and found out she was loaded. I don’t know how they do that. Blood check or something. The women still yak about it. Rice hasn’t any way of shutting them up. Look, don’t tell anybody I was talking. I talk too much. My wife keeps telling me that.”

“I won’t mention it.”

The barman looked out across the patio. “Customers. And a couple of them who will maybe demonstrate what I mean. The redhead is a lush.”

Two women came up to the small outdoor bar and clambered onto the stools, saying, “Hi, Tommy.”

“Hello, Mrs. Thorne, Mrs. Northard.”

They were both in their early thirties. The redhead was chunky, and the brunette was spidery thin. The redhead pouted at the bartender. “All the time Mrs. Thorne, Mrs. Thorne. You were going to call me Kitty, Tommy.”

“Gee, they’d fire me, Mrs. Thorne. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”

“If you don’t make me a better Old-fashioned this time, I don’t care if they do.”

“Same for you, Mrs. Northard?” Tommy asked.

Jay was aware of her birdlike, sidelong glance at him. “Today a gin and tonic, Tommy, please.” She turned and gave Jay a bright and toothy smile. “It’s such a refreshing drink, don’t you think so?”

“I guess it is.”

“Would you be a new member of the clan? Getting unhitched?”

“No,” he said awkwardly. “Just a vacation for a few—”

She held a thin hand out. “I’m Dora Northard.”

“John Shell.”

“And this is my friend Kitty Thorne, John. You don’t know how nice it is to see a new male face around this gilded henhouse, does he, Tommy?”

Kitty Thorne leaned across her. “Beware of this wench, Shell. She’s three days from freedom.”

“You shush, Kitty. John, you must come to my party. What is today? Thursday, isn’t it? Sunday is my coming-out party. Sunday I celebrate the severing of the knot. Is that right? Sundering? Severing? Anyway, I’m free after eleven years with the biggest floof in captivity.” Her voice was nervous and thin, too gay and too bright — and much too lonely.

They talked to him. He answered in a noncommittal way, and he saw the others coming in alone, in pairs, in small groups, settling at the tables. A waiter had come on duty. Tommy became much busier. There were bursts of laughter with too thin an edge. The cool shadows grew longer until the sun did not touch any portion of the Palm Patio. Through the glass doors, he could see the dinner tables set in formal pattern of stainless steel on saffron and coral and cobalt grass mats, ready for the careless hunger, drink-sharpened. There were a few couples. There was a tart smell of loneliness here. There seemed to be no pattern of dress. One silver-gray woman with a knife-blade face wore a gold lame evening gown. A great burly young girl with fullback shoulders wore battered denim shorts and a halter, and sat laughing, slapping the table with her hand, impervious to the evening chill. From the bar, he could see through the archway to the pool in the other court, and he saw the pool was empty again, the glass surface darkened by the deepening sky.

He realized with a start that Kitty Thorne, her speech thickened and loosened by a dogged number of Old-fashioneds, was talking about Joan.

“—I tell you, Dora, she was awful nervous before she took off. She had a terrible case of the jitters. She comes back and boom — she’s dead.”

“You imagine things, darling,” Dora Northard said firmly.

“Nuts. I don’t want to try to tell you anything. John Shell, you come with me, because you’ve got a lucky look and I’ve got ten silver dollars.”

He knew he wanted to hear more about Joan. He excused himself, conscious of Dora’s chill glance, of the bartender’s faint shrug of disapproval. They went out the rear exit and along the graveled walk to the casino. Kitty Thorne was a bit unsteady on her feet. The casino was a strange structure. It looked like an oil-storage tank with church windows. The doorman and cashier spoke politely to Mrs. Thorne and nodded at Jay. The slots were along the left wall. Play was very light in the big room. A pretty girl in a jaunty chef’s hat was in charge of a long table that glistened with stainless steel. There were blue flames under bowls and covered platters. One wheel was going, and the chant of the croupier was bored, harsh. A fat woman was feeding the fifty-cent slot. Each time she yanked the handle, she would cover the glass panel with the flat of her other hand, then wait, head cocked to one side, for the clatter of the pay-off.

Kitty walked to the nearest silver-dollar machine, red curls bobbing as she dug in her purse for the coins. She turned and grinned at Jay. “With that lucky look, you just put your hand over mine while I pull the handle.”

He did so. The first four coins were futile. The fifth coin brought up three bells for a pay-off of twenty. Kitty bounced the heavy coins in her hand, lips pursed. “So it’s a fast fifteen profit. Leave well enough alone, I always say. Let’s try this bar on the profits, Shell.”

It was at the far end of the room. He lit her cigarette. He said, “Who were you talking about out there? Somebody who died.”

“That was a shame. A real cute girl named Joan Shelby. She was here getting a divorce. She livened up the joint, and Lord knows it needs it. She had more luck with dates than most of us. She was in town a lot. Then, I don’t know, I figure she got mixed up in something. Anyway, she wasn’t good for laughs the last few days she was around. She went off with somebody, somewhere. Nobody knows who. She was gone for two nights. Then in the morning they found her in the pool, and somebody heard a man talking by the pool around three in the morning. But that could have been anybody. She had a bump on the head, and she was full of liquor. I think they should have looked into it more, but you know how these places are. Accidental death. That’s quick and easy. The only thing they did was check on the guy she was divorcing and make sure he hadn’t come out this way. There was some sort of property settlement lined up, so he would have a motive, maybe.”

It gave Jay an odd feeling. “He hadn’t been out?”

“No. He hadn’t left the East.”

“But if it was an accidental death, why did they even check?”

“Let’s drop it, honey. It depresses me. Another round, George.”

“Not for me, thanks,” Jay said.

The man behind the small bar made an Old-fashioned. Jay noticed the price was considerably lower than at the bar in the Palm Patio. Kitty Thorne suddenly seemed much more intoxicated. She was having trouble holding her head up.

Jay said, “I’m going to go get a jacket.”

She looked at him, frowning in concentration. “Sure. You run along. Nice to meet you, Mr. Something-or-other.” She turned away. “Come on, George.”

He walked toward the main doors. One crap table was in operation. There were more people around the wheel. The fat woman still fed the machine. But the crowd was slim. Not nearly enough, he guessed, to cover the overhead. The stars were out, and the lights had come on in the Palm Patio. They were buried in the palm fronds. They made interesting shadows. The lights picked up the cold gleam of diamonds, the sheen of hair, the bare arms of the women. He got a jacket from his room. He put it on and walked to the edge of the pool. He looked down and saw the reflection of the stars. He lighted a cigarette, slowly. There was a sound of music. An air liner went over. He saw the reflection of the running lights in the still water. He shuddered unexpectedly. Too vivid. All of it. If he’d been a broker or something, a salesman, perhaps her face would be vague in his memory. But he had used her as his model in a lot of his magazine work. She had been nurse, secretary, teen-ager, housewife. She had been blonde, dark, redheaded. And he had learned every line of her, learned the exact turn and cut and relationship of her features, the slender articulation of her wrist. She was graven deep into his memory, and never would she be vague and faceless to him.

He turned his back on the pool and walked to the Palm Patio. Dora was still at the bar. She called him over and introduced a woman with a face like a Bedlington, a gargling voice. He glanced across the patio and saw the dark-haired swimmer. She sat alone at a table, one of the tables close to the glass doors of the dining room. A waiter handed her a menu. He saw, in the lights, the glint of teeth in her dark face as she smiled up at him, a highlight on the cocktail glass in front of her.

“She is pretty, our Duchess,” Dora said.

“Eh? The dark-haired girl?”

“That’s the one. Somebody started calling her the Duchess. She’s nearly through her stretch here, I think. Funny kid. Maybe she had a pretty bad marriage. She keeps pretty much to herself. The only person she ever got chummy with was a girl who drowned here nearly two weeks ago. But Joanie wasn’t quiet and sort of retiring like that one. I never could see why Joanie liked her so well. But then, Joanie could get along with anybody.”

Anybody except me, he thought sourly. “Does the Duchess have a name?” he asked.

“Ellen Christianson. But don’t get any ideas. She’ll put a chill on you that will give you frostbite. I’ve seen it happen.”

He watched her for another few seconds and turned away. It was unlikely, he thought, that any of the women here could add to what Kitty Thorne had told him. The next step would be to see the authorities. Check with whoever had examined the body. Dora talked on, endlessly. He turned back. He was standing in a cone of light. Ellen Christianson was looking toward him. It seemed as though she were staring directly at him. But, of course, that was ridiculous.

He turned back to Dora’s meaningless chatter. He nursed his drink. His lips felt slightly numb, and he knew he had drunk more than he’d intended. Dinner would take care of that. And he did not want to spend the dinner hour with Dora chattering at him, and wondered how he could detach himself.

A waiter came up to him and said, “Mr. Shell?”

“Yes?”

“A note for you, sir. It is from the lady at the table near the second door to the dining room. The lady in white, with the dark hair, sir.”

The waiter hesitated for that careful fractional part of a second that resulted in Jay’s tip, and then walked quickly away. Jay unfolded the note and realized, with sharp annoyance, that Dora Northard was reading over his shoulder.

“If it would not be inconvenient, Mr. Shell, I wonder if you could join me for a few moments.” It was signed “Ellen Christianson.”

Dora gasped sharply and said, “For heaven’s sake, she’s not only human, she’s shameless. You don’t know her from anywhere, do you?”

“I was asking about her because I thought she looked familiar,” he lied.

Dora gave a pout of disappointment. “Oh, well then. Hurry back.”

He walked between the tables, ducking his head away from the edged fronds of the stubby palms. She was watching him approach. He felt an odd, schoolboy shyness.

He went up to the table. She was smiling politely. “Mrs. Christianson?”

“Please sit down for a moment, Mr. Shell.”

“Thank you.”

“Would you like to order a drink?”

“Not right now, thank you.”

She hesitated, and he saw she was quite nervous about having asked him over. That put him at ease. She looked down and turned her empty glass, the stem between thumb and finger.

“Mr. Shell, I am going to feel like all kinds of a fool if I’m wrong.”

“Then I hope you aren’t.”

She raised her eyes to his, slowly. “I pointed you out and asked the waiter to find out your name. I told him you looked familiar. He brought me your name. John Shell. So I wrote the note. If your name is John Shell, this is going to be awkward. Because I think your name is Jay Shelby.”

He thought quickly of the small amount of publicity he received. A few photographs in the backs of magazines, on the contributors’ pages. Or perhaps at one of those parties in New York.

“What makes you think so?”

She smiled quickly, a bit triumphantly. “Then you are, of course, because that’s an abnormal reaction. You would have asked me who in the world Jay Shelby is. But I’D tell you. Your wife was very clever, Mr. Shelby. She could imitate you to perfection. When I heard you speak, I was more positive. I watched you over there, lighting a cigarette. And then, of course, there's the best reason. I was half looking for you.”

“Why?”

She frowned. “Because if the same thing had happened to me, I think I would have had to come out here... just to know.”

“You think we react in the same way, Mrs. Christianson?”

“Joan and I used to ride every morning. Ride and talk. I think I know you quite well. Don’t flush, Mr. Shelby. I liked what I learned. So I was looking. Then that business with the cigarette, the careful inspection of the tip, the solemn inspection of the lighter flame. She had it down perfectly. John Shell. J. S. I decided to send the note when I realized your luggage must be initialed.”

“It is,” he said.

“And... you had to come here, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And thought people would talk more freely to John Shell than Jay Shelby.”

“Right again, Mrs. Christianson.”

“Maybe picking another name was smarter than you knew. I think that if you’d registered under your own name, they’d have discovered there was no room available. They’re so dreadfully afraid of disturbances. The place isn’t well enough established as yet. Artist visits scene of estranged wife’s death. They wouldn’t like anything like that in the papers.”

“I guess I sensed that.”

“Well, I certainly won’t tell anyone. You’d better keep on being John Shell. You look uncomfortable. I do have you at a disadvantage, I guess. I know so much about you and you know nothing at all about me.”

He half smiled at her as he studied her face. From what Dora had said he would have expected a brittleness, a defensiveness, the withdrawal of the introvert using a cool manner to mask inward fears. But this was a good and warm face of a whole woman, with a level eye, composure in the mouth, a look of even, good humor and something that was almost boldness.

“Nothing about you? Let me see. These women bore you. And you feel as if you have a lot of thinking to do. This is a crucial period in your life. The other women seem scared and lonely. You’re lonely, too, but not scared, because this was a decision that was a long time in the making. You are making plans about what you will do when you leave here. You are pretty self-sufficient. And you didn’t call me over here just to prove you’d made a good guess. You called me over here to tell me something — if I turned out to be the right guy.”

Her answering smile was completely gone. “That’s almost too good. I haven’t much advantage left. Do you want the rest of it? So we can start exactly even?”

“Only if it will do you some good to tell me.”

“I guess it will, because I want to tell you. He’s a nice guy. He’s sweet and helpless and hopeless. I’ve got too much strength. Women want to mother him. I did, for too many years. Standing between him and the cruel, cruel world that never took time out to understand him. I had to keep flattering his little-boy pride. But there’s more to life — there has to be — than the sort of affection you have for a weak, sweet child who confesses his sins charmingly and wants to be held tightly and forgiven so he can start all over again. So I ended it. And for a long time I kidded myself, Jay. I told myself I was doing it for his sake, so he could stand alone and learn to be a man. But I know, in my heart, he’ll never be. I know he’ll find some other fool to hold him close and tell him he’s sweet. I know I’m doing it for myself, and I know I was a failure in my marriage, and that’s what I’m trying to get accustomed to... a rather low opinion of myself. So, you see, if he had come out here to get the divorce, and if what happened to Joan had happened to Roger, I would have had to come out here just to find out if there was any way in which I could blame myself for his death.” Her voice had become tense, almost fierce. She lowered her head, then said in a softer tone, “Now I would guess we are even.”

“Can I order a drink for you, Ellen?”

“Please.”

He signaled the waiter, ordered drinks for both of them. She looked across at him and smiled uncertainly. “That was supposed to be a dispassionate account. It started out that way. But it got emotional, didn’t it?”

“Nobody reacts to this sort of thing like a bookkeeping machine, Ellen.”

“I’m just as mixed up as all the rest of them.”

“Not quite.”

“Feeling mixed up has made me quite ritualistic. A set hour for meals. A certain number of hours on a horse, in the pool, a time for sleep. But we want to talk about Joan, not me.”

The drinks came. He said, “Let’s make a bargain. I want to talk to you. But let’s save it. After dinner, we’ll sit out somewhere, or walk, or ride in the car and talk. I want to know about Joan. But we’ve moved too fast so far. You’ve gotten yourself upset. So we’ll make like we’re having a quiet date. Will you be my guest at dinner, Ellen?”

“Thank you. I’d like that.”

Dinner was most pleasant. They moved inside to eat. Though the choice was limited, the food was good, well prepared. They had a corner table for two. At one point he saw Dora Northard come in and flash him a wry smile of accusation. He found Ellen Christianson was very good company. She had a quick mind, a sense of the ludicrous. She had kept her eyes open and her anecdotes of life at the Terrace Inn were full of a sad, wry humor. He talked about his work for a time, and her questions were perceptive. He learned that her father, an executive of a small shipping line, had died the year she got out of school, and his will had left her a small income. She spoke again of the man she was divorcing, but this time with calmness. He had inherited textile money, a great deal of it. She was accepting only the expense money. They had lived in California. After she received her decree, she planned to go East to stay with her sister for a short time and then look for work in New York. Though she had wanted children badly, she was glad now there had been none. He asked her what sort of work she wanted, and she spoke vaguely of trying to get on a magazine, some department that had to do with clothes or decorating, and he found himself speaking a bit too expansively of his contacts and what he could arrange. He stopped when he realized he was sounding too big-wheel.

He liked her face. It had strength and sureness. There was no vapidity in her face, no coyness in her manner. Yet despite her lack of artifice, she was entirely feminine.

She said, over the empty coffee cups, “It is so hard to feel like yourself in this place. Everybody is watchful. And they decide what you are. And they make their decision so obvious that you find yourself trying to be what they have decided you are. Anybody can be a chameleon out here.”

“They call you the Duchess.”

“Good Lord! That’s a little shocking, isn’t it?”

He signed the check, then held her chair back for her. They went out and she said, “Whatever we do, if it’s outdoors, I need a sweater.”

He walked with her to her room and waited out in the shadows until she turned the light off and came out. She had changed to a wool skirt and a cardigan. He walked with her down the covered walkway. She paused and lit a cigarette, her hands cupping the flame, and he looked at her as the flame touched her face with flickering orange light. There was something special about standing near her in the night, aware of her faint perfume, seeing the look of flame against that good face. He felt a sudden surge of excitement and anticipation, then pulled the reins tight and told himself this was an attractive woman and no more.

“What now, Jay? Where do we talk? I know a place I’d like you to see, but we have to drive there.”

He agreed. She directed him. The narrow road turned off the flats toward higher ground. He guessed they were five miles from Oasis Springs when she told him where to turn and park, warning him not to go too far forward because of the sand. He turned off the lights, and they looked at Oasis Springs, like a lighted ship on a calm night ocean.

“Like it?”

“How did you find it?”

“I guess I was looking for a place where I could hold onto my perspective, Jay. It makes it all look tinselly and silly down there, doesn’t it? If you stay down there too long, you begin to think it’s important.” There was a jeweler’s sky over the blue velvet desert, and he could sense the weight of the stone mountains behind them. She settled herself a bit, half turned toward him, her back against the door, drawing her knees up onto the seat, patting her skirt. “About Joan,” she said quietly.

“About Joan. I know what I want to hear, of course.”

“I could tell you what you want to hear. A nice white lie. But it was like this. She was here when I checked in. She hadn’t been here long. I was full of the glooms. I liked her. I needed her kind of brightness and fun. Not the kind the others have. She talked about you, as I said, and about the divorce. I wouldn’t say she was exactly a shallow person. She just existed on a different level from mine. A level of sensation, perhaps. As though she’d do anything in the world for fun and excitement. I think too much. I ask myself why too often. The divorce seemed like a good idea for the two of you. But, you see, she didn’t stay that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Several days before she went away on that trip, or wherever she went, she changed. She acted nervous, depressed. I had no chance to talk to her. I wondered about her. Of course, I never got my chance to ask her. Now do you see what I mean?”

He ran his thumb along the angle of his jaw and heard the soft rasp of the stubborn beard, a small sound in the night stillness. The cooling motor of the car creaked. “It leaves me where I started. Either she changed her mind and wanted me to phone her; wanted to call it all off — or something happened out here. She went away for a time. That makes it seem as though it was something that happened out here.”

“But you don’t know that, do you?”

“No.” His voice was harsh.

“You should find out where she went, and why.”

“Do you know where to start?”

“Here’s all I know about her trip, Jay. She didn’t plan for it. She didn’t take anything with her. She left the Terrace Inn after lunch on a Tuesday. She didn’t come in Tuesday night. She came back during the small hours on a Thursday morning. The police tried to find out where she had been. I know they checked the men she had dated. There weren’t any here in the hotel. There were several in town she had gone with from time to time. They all claimed they hadn’t seen her since the previous weekend. That investigation was kept pretty quiet. Mr. Gerald Rice wanted it played down, I understand. And anything Mr. Rice wants done is done. So I don’t know where your starting point is. I’ve thought about that ever since I saw her there, in the pool.”

“You saw her?”

“I was up early. I was getting dressed when that man started yelling. I came out and saw her. I didn’t know how long she’d been in there. I went in with my clothes on and got her. By then the man from the desk came running out. He pulled her out, and we stretched her out on one of those poolside mattresses. I started artificial respiration, but I could tell by the feel of her it was no good. I kept it up until the emergency car got there with the oxygen. They pronounced her dead. That was when I reacted. I’d been very competent until then. And the shivers started. I couldn’t get it out of my head, the way she’d looked. That sort of helpless and pathetic look of the back of her neck and head, her hair all plastered down. I hadn’t known until then her hair was dyed.”

Jay Shelby stared at Ellen Christianson. “Dyed? You’re mistaken.”

“The roots were dark, Jay. Black.”

“Ellen, I know the color of her hair. I can’t possibly be mistaken. Look, she fell once. Cut her head. It had to be shaved and stitched. We were a long way out of town. I changed the dressings. I saw the new hair growing in where her head had been shaved. So pale it was almost white. Her hair wasn’t dyed.

“But I tell you. I saw it. Her hair was dark near the roots. For a good quarter of an inch. And her eyebrows and eyelashes were dark, Jay.”

“That was her coloring. She liked the contrast. And she did darken them a bit to heighten the contrast. You must be mistaken.”

She said firmly, “The woman I took out of the pool had dyed hair.”

“Then it wasn’t Joan.” he said firmly, and his mind did a curious double-take, like the trained timing of a television comedian. Not Joan. Yet he had seen her, in Burlington, after the barbaric finesse of the undertaker’s art, surrounded by too ripe flowers and much weeping, face pale on the satin pillow. Joan. There could be no resemblance that close — even to the tiny scar on the bridge of her nose, from the time, as a child, she had fallen from a playground swing. He had seen that scar on the body, back there in Burlington, looking at her and knowing that her people were looking at him with hate. There is the one who ruined her life. No, his trained eye could not be mistaken. He had seen the body of his wife.

“I know it was Joan.” Ellen said softly.

“So do I. But for a moment there...”

“It’s a creepy idea that it could have been someone else. I knew she dyed her hair, Jay. She was just clever about keeping it from you.”

He decided not to argue the point. It bad been a time of emotional tension for Ellen. She was mistaken. That was clear.

“Perhaps,” he said, but he could not completely drive it out of his mind. This was an intelligent woman. Intelligent and observing. It didn’t make sense.

“There’s still no starting place,” he said.

“Except one, maybe.”

He turned and looked at her. “Wait a minute, Ellen. Remember? You’re the Duchess. I want to hear what you started to tell me, but I want to know where you fit. This isn’t exactly keeping yourself to yourself.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“I don’t even know that I can explain it, Jay. I spent a lot of time alone. I did a lot of thinking. My mind kept going around and around in the same tired old pattern. Joan used to try to snap me out of it. You see, I was taking myself too seriously. You can’t help doing that. I guess, when you stay alone too much and think too much. When she died, it shocked me. It sort of woke me up. It made me realize I couldn’t spend the rest of my life doing my living on the inside. And it made me feel ashamed and somehow guilty. If I hadn’t been so wound up over myself, I would have been aware that Joan was in some sort of trouble, and I would have made her tell me what it was, and maybe this wouldn’t have happened. I’ve got to start living on the outside again. I’ve got to close some doors in my mind and lock them. I want to help, because... well, call it a penance, Jay.”

“Will you stay in this all the way?”

“I want to know what happened, maybe as badly as you do.”

“A bargain, then.” He took her hand. It was warm and firm. And on impulse, he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her gently toward him. She resisted, her hand against his chest.

“If you want to, Jay,” she said quietly, “but I’d rather not.”

“I’m sorry. Damn sophomore.”

“Not that. It’s this crazy place.” She smiled at him, her face touched by the glow of the dash lights. “About that starting place, look down there. It’s too far to read the sign, but can you see those yellow neon rings, all interlocked?”

He looked toward the town and saw the six yellow rings high above a building.

“That’s the Golden Sixpence,” she said.

“I saw it when I came into town.”

“Like everything else, Jay, it belongs to Gerald Rice. A lot of the places are leased, but he runs that directly, the same as the Terrace Inn. Joan went there a lot. She dated one of the men who operate the place. I met him one morning when he came riding with us. A sort of dumb, earnest type. Steve McGay. He started to kid her about getting her face slapped the night before at the Golden Sixpence. He kept it up until she got annoyed and told him to kindly shut up. A few days later she started getting nervous and depressed, as I told you. I’m not saying there’s any connection. But there doesn’t seem to be any other starting place.”

“Are you sure you want to come with me, Ellen, and point him out?”

“I told you I’m sure.”

“I’m glad you’re with me.” He started the car, and they drove down toward the tangled neon of Oasis Springs, toward the Golden Sixpence, toward the smell of money.

There was a midway flavor about the main street. He found a parking place across the street from the Golden Sixpence. It was brightly lighted, and from the sidewalk it looked crowded. The cashier had chips and silver dollars. Jay bought twenty silver dollars. The room was large. The dealers were women. Deft women in their thirties and forties, neatly dressed, none of them particularly attractive, all looking a bit like teachers in a large grade school. About a third of the games were idle. Ellen paused near the bird cage. They played for a time. She made seven dollars and he lost three, and she insisted on splitting the stakes, so they each had twelve silver dollars.

She gave him a quick glance, and he followed her as she wandered toward the rear of the room. She went up to a thick-shouldered young man in a tweed jacket. He had a brown brushcut, a pleasant open face.

“Hi there, Steve,” she said.

He smiled at her cheerfully. “Hello, Mrs. Christianson.”

“Steve. I want you to meet John Shell.”

The handshake was firm. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Shell. Hope you take some of our money away.” Though McGay had the pleasant, amiable look of a college athlete, Jay noticed that his eyes made quick sweeps of the room, that he seemed very alert and sure of himself.

“Steve, I haven’t seen you since Joan died.”

The smile went away. “That was a terrible thing,” McGay said. A man at one of the tables started complaining loudly. He had a face like an unhappy baby, and he was in his fifties. “Excuse me.” Steve McGay said quickly, and hurried to the table. Jay heard the man saying, “Would I hit eighteen? Would I? I didn't ask for another card, but she hit me anyway. She deals too fast and...” The man quieted down as McGay soothed him, murmured instructions to the dealer. The game continued, and McGay walked slowly back.

“They get nervous.” he said.

Ellen said, “They’re all still talking about Joan out at the Inn. Have they found out where she went on that trip?” “I haven’t heard anything about it,” Steve said. “How’s the play out there? Is it picking up any?”

Jay, watching the man closely, had the curious impression that the change of subject had come a bit too quickly, that the man felt uneasy talking about Joan. And Jay wondered if it was because of instructions passed along from the top.

“What was it you started to tell me that day, Steve? About Joan’s being slapped?”

“Slapped? I don’t think I remember that.”

“Now, Steve!”

“Really, I don’t, Mrs. Christianson. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I hope you’ll pardon me. I’m getting a call from one of the dealers.” He took a step away and turned and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Shell. Good luck.”

Ellen pursed her lips. “Have you got the same feeling I have, Jay?”

“He doesn’t want to talk about her. Orders, maybe.”

“He seemed so uneasy. Of course, he doesn’t know who you are. He might think you’re an investigator or something. I’m going to try to talk to him alone. All right?”

“Go ahead. I’ll try the bird cage again.”

He was exactly even after fifteen minutes of play when she came up beside him and put a dollar on the ace. One showed on the next tumble, and she made a dollar profit. She picked up the money and gave him a sidelong glance, a nod. They walked out of the Golden Sixpence and along the sidewalk.

“He was just as evasive with me,” she said. “It’s very strange.”

“In what way?”

“I got the vague impression he was bothered about it. I asked him to come riding with me tomorrow. He begged off, very nicely, of course, but for a moment after I asked him, he bit his lip as though he might be trying to make up his mind about something — and I wondered if he was wondering whether he should tell me what was bothering him. And decided against it.”

They had walked a half block. They turned back toward the Golden Sixpence. Ellen touched his arm. “There is the local monarch, Jay.”

An expensive black sedan, its chrome shining, had pulled into the no-parking area in front of the Golden Sixpence. A pale, heavy man got out of the car first and glanced up and down the street and turned and held the door open for his companion.

“Mr. Rice?” Jay murmured.

“The smaller one.”

The second man got out. He was medium height, too thin. He had straw hair, a lean, sun-reddened gargoyle face, bad posture, a shambling walk. His suit was baggy and unpressed, a cheap lurid shade of blue. He glanced toward them as he walked to the front door of the place, in the full force of the lights. Jay saw colorless eyes, a mouth crowded with large, discolored teeth. Mr. C. Gerald Rice was almost, but not quite, a figure of fun. He was almost a vaudeville comic. The driver turned the car back out into the slow evening traffic.

“Not what I expected,” Jay said.

“Our local enigma. When he talks, he sounds as if he’s imitating a hillbilly. But I don’t think anybody laughs at him. At least not twice. And I guess it isn’t necessary to say he is very well heeled. The king of Oasis Springs. But he hasn’t got his queen with him tonight.”

“Is there one?”

“She’s not Mrs. Rice. A youngish thing. Slightly on the poisonous side. That’s when I heard him talking. To her. Did you see ‘Born Yesterday’? That blonde with the voice? This one isn’t blonde, but she’s got that voice, with overtones of baby talk. Heaven only knows how C. Gerald can stand that creature around for very long. But she seems to be a regular fixture.”

“Where did he come from?”

“I really don’t know. I heard someone say he was a wheat farmer and that he had good political connections during the war so that he got hundreds of German PW’s assigned to him, and made a killing. He comes to the Inn once in a while to look around. He looks like somebody they wouldn’t let past the desk. And he always has a couple of burly types with him. I guess he hasn’t won many friends, but I’ll bet he’s influenced people. His record must be all right, though. The state is pretty careful about licensing people for gambling.”

“So, another dead end, Ellen.”

“It looks that way.” She scuffed her heel against the curb. “She went out with another one I met. They had dinner at the Inn one night. A nice quiet sort of guy. He owns the drugstore up there in the middle of the next block. I don’t know what good it would do to talk to him, though.”

“We can try.”

The drugstore was new and clean and pleasant. They sat in a booth. A tall thin young man came down the aisle toward the front of the store, and Ellen stopped him by saying, “Good evening, Mr. Hollister.”

He stopped and turned, his smile a bit puzzled. “I’m Mrs. Christianson. Joan Shelby introduced us out at the Inn a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, yes, of course. It’s nice to see you again.”

Jay got up and she said, “This is Mr. Shell, Mr. Hollister. Could we buy the proprietor one of his own sundaes?”

“Coffee, maybe,” Hollister said, grinning. He sat down by Ellen, facing Jay. The counter boy came to their booth and took the order.

“I’ve been telling Mr. Shell about what happened to Joan,” Ellen remarked.

Hollister tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail, frowning. “Hard to imagine her dead. You know, I never went out with any of the divorc—” He flushed and looked uncomfortable. “Not that that isn’t all right, but I just never did until I went out with Joan. She had a soda here, and I was helping out behind the counter, and she told me I didn’t look as if I was having enough fun. Just like that. There was something about the way she said it and the way she grinned at me. I guess I was pretty dull for her. But I did have a good time. We went out twice. It did me good. I’d been working too hard, trying to get this place running right. She was certainly full of life. Gosh, I didn’t know what she’d do next. Crazy, sort of. Then, getting drowned like that. They came to see me, even, to see if I’d been with her. But I’d been working here until midnight when Dolly — that’s my sister — finished her shift over at the Golden Sixpence, and we walked home together and sat around the kitchen talking until nearly three. I could have told them that—”

He stopped abruptly and gave Jay a nervous glance.

“Told them what?” Ellen asked.

Hollister put sugar in his coffee. He smiled uneasily. “I forgot what I was going to say.”

“Mr. Shell doesn’t work for Mr. Rice.”

Hollister’s face changed. “I don’t care about that. All I care about is that I’m pretty close to working for Mr. Rice. The lease contract has a lot of clauses in it, Mrs. Christianson. The less you know or see around this town the better off you are.”

Ellen looked at Jay, and then she said quietly, “His name isn’t Shell. It’s Shelby. He came here to find out what happened to Joan.”

Hollister licked his lips. “You were married to her?”

“In another few days, I wouldn’t have been. But I was. You don’t owe me a thing. But I would like to know what you could have told them.”

Hollister looked into Jay’s eyes for a long three seconds. He sipped his coffee and put it down. “I’ll tell you what I was going to say. It isn’t particularly important. I was going to say that if they looked hard enough, they’d probably find it was one of Rice’s people who was with her. McGay or Rikerd or somebody. She was going around with that crew, and they’re kind of a crummy crew. That doesn’t mean much, but I wouldn’t want it to get back because Dolly is making good money over there, and we need it if we’re going to get on our feet. We had a good place once in Las Vegas, but I was Reserve and had to go to Korea and Dolly couldn’t run it alone. She sold out and took a mortgage, but the people who bought it went into bankruptcy and we lost nearly everything. And unless things pick up here, we’re going to lose the rest of it. Sometimes I don’t care if we do. I just don’t like the way that Rice character comes in here and looks around as if I was working for him. Look, I’m not saying or even thinking anybody killed her. I think she had too much to drink and fell into the pool. But I’ll bet she was with one of Rice’s people, and I’ll bet none of them were questioned very much. Not in this town. Not in this county. And if it had happened next year, maybe not in this state. He’s getting bigger all the time. If this town pays off, he’ll be the biggest man in the state one of these days. You know, it’s kind of funny that she should go out with Rice’s people after what happened over at the Sixpence.”

“What happened?” Jay asked.

“I thought she might have told you, Mrs. Christianson. It was her and that Sheila, Rice’s girl. Dolly saw it happen. They were upstairs on one of the big tables. McGay was there. Dolly said it was really something. Rice doesn’t let his people play his games over there, but he can’t seem to stop that Sheila. Dolly says she’s a pest. She wanders around until somebody starts having a streak, and then she edges in and bets along with them and tries to ride the streak. She was doing that to Joan. Joan thought it would change her luck, and she got good and sore. So when Sheila announced her bet, Joan, you know, took her off. Imitated that voice perfect, Dolly says. Sheila, Rice’s girl, turns like a flash and bangs Joan right across the mouth. Joan hit her back. And then they were rolling around on that thick rug, scratching and yelping and pulling hair. McGay and Rice himself got them apart, and Joan kept right on sounding just like Sheila. Rice told Joan she better leave, and she did. But then she went out with McGay again, and later on I saw her riding with Al Rikerd in one of Rice’s convertibles. That was four or five days before she drowned when I saw her.”

“Which one is Al Rikerd?” Ellen asked.

“I guess you’ve seen him. A tall one with black hair and a white face, and he’s got sort of a mean look.”

Ellen turned to Jay. “I have seen that one. Not the sort of young man you forget in a hurry, Jay. He was at the Sixpence. I kept turning and looking at him, because I couldn’t understand why he seemed so creepy. He stood by the wall. Then I realized what it was. He was absolutely motionless. Just his eyes moved. You know, most people have nervous habits. They fiddle and wiggle and rock and smirk. That young man is utterly still. I imagine it’s some sort of a game with him. Maybe he thinks it makes him look more competent or dangerous or something. If he does, he’s absolutely right. I saw other people glancing at him, too. He seemed to make them uncomfortable. Like he belonged to another species.”

“That’s Rikerd, all right,” Hollister said. “Not that it means anything, but I saw that once before. That stillness. A guy came into my other place, the store we used to have. We stayed open all night. He had coffee. He sat just like that. Like a wax museum. He sat there for an hour and then went home and killed his wife. Like I said, that doesn’t mean anything. It just reminded me. Rikerd isn’t around the Sixpence much. Rice has him doing other things. He does a lot of driving for Rice.”

“Where do you think Joan went when she went away?” Ellen asked.

Hollister shifted uneasily, not looking at Jay. “She could have gone away with one of them, or spent the time out at Rice’s place south of town, but of course I wouldn’t know that. Anyway, she probably wouldn’t go out to Rice’s place because that Sheila is there. A sort of permanent house guest, they say. Dolly says that after that set-to at the Sixpence, Rice must have put his foot down hard, because that Sheila hasn’t been back since, and it’s over two weeks now. Rice ought to throw a tramp like her away, but they say she was with him when he first came out here. I don’t want to sound too fussy, but I just don’t like the way a girl looks in slacks and a fur jacket, and those hats with veils.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to run.”

Jay held his hand across the table. “I want to thank you, Mr. Hollister. And I guess you know that I won’t mention what you’ve told me.”

Hollister had an engaging grin. “If I thought you would, I wouldn’t have told you.” He got up. “Hurry back,” he said.

After he left, Ellen said, “Does that give us any explanation for Mr. McGay’s reticence? He certainly didn’t forget the slapping incident.”

“No reason that I can think of. I like Hollister. But all this isn’t getting us anywhere. Tomorrow I see the law, I think. What sort do we have here?”

“One town cop who handles traffic and so on and practically works for Rice. One branch office, or something, of the county sheriff’s office, with a Hollywood-type deputy in charge. That’s all I know about. The deputy came out to the Inn and made important noises the morning we found her.”

“Will you settle for an early night? I’m pretty tired, Ellen.”

“Of course. I have an early date with a horse. Want to come?”

“They give me a rash. I’ll join you for lunch.”

It was a small building with the deputy, one clerk-jailor, and a smell of cells, whitewash, and chemicals. The deputy was a high, broad young man with a cream-colored Texan-type hat, a creaking pistol belt, polished boots, gold badge on a silk shirt, and a face that looked as if it had been hastily carved from the brown stone of the desert hills.

“Do something for you, friend?”

Jay knew the type. This was one of the great legion who ride the snorting highway bikes, who strut over to the halted car, hand on the gun butt, and demand license and registration. This was one of the big young men who need a uniform, need authority, need the creak of leather, the gleam of boot.

“My name is Jay Shelby. My wife drowned in the pool at the Terrace Inn two weeks ago. I want to know what you’ve found out.”

The man’s eyes were pale. He dropped one haunch on the railing that bisected the room, hard leg swinging. “I don’t get it, Shelby.”

“I understand there was a man with her,” Jay said, concealing his irritation. “I wondered if you found out who he is.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“I got a very brief letter from you people. It didn’t say much. I was curious.”

“You were curious.”

“Let’s not get into a Hemingway routine.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” Jay replied.

“Let me see your identification, friend.” The hard palm was extended.

Jay sighed. He took out his billfold. The man went through it carefully, looking at the membership cards, the credit cards, the Connecticut driver’s license. He inspected the cash, the traveler’s checks, taking his time about it, and handed the wallet back.

“Okay, so you’re Shelby. You got curious. The case is closed, Shelby. Like it said in the letter. Accidental death. Maybe there was a man with her. Maybe there wasn’t. Nobody can prove that. She got a little bump on the head and died from drowning. Her lungs were full of water, and her blood was full of gin. I don’t see the point. She was divorcing you, wasn’t she? It’s over. You ought to be glad. It saved you money, probably.”

“I wonder how carefully you people investigated it.”

The man’s eyes looked even paler. “I don’t think I care for that statement.”

“I can’t help what you think.”

The big man pursed his lips, shrugged. He got off the railing, went through the gate, opened a file cabinet, took a thick folder and tossed it on the desk. “Come on in and look, then, Shelby. Take a good look. This is no hick operation, no matter what you might think.”

He sat at the desk. The man walked out. The room was silent. There were glossy photographs in the folder. They were not good to look at. Not with her drowned hair and her open, blinded eyes. Not with that once taut body so curiously slack and shrunken there on the pool apron in the gay party dress. He felt ill as he read the formal autopsy report. He read the sheaf of signed statements. It had been thorough. Yet they added nothing. He felt an odd sense of irritation. Something about the photographs. He turned back to them and soon found what it was. Her hands. One showed clearly. Nails were painted. They looked black. Red would show up black. She never painted her nails. She said it made her actively physically ill. She kept them burnished, beautifully cared for. But never painted. That made him study her more carefully. It was Joan. No resemblance was ever that close. The pictures were sharp and clear.

He shut the folder and sat there.

“Satisfied?”

Jay looked up. “Yes. It was a thorough job. I’m sorry I bothered you. But I wanted to know.”

“This isn’t a hick operation.”

“I can see that. You didn’t find out where she went when she went away, before she died?”

“No. But I’ll give odds it was just a party. A party for two. One of the motels, maybe. Site was gone for one whole night and most of the next one. That happens around here. She didn’t pack for a trip. We checked the maids on that. Lost weekend. Some of these types that come out here are lost for the whole six weeks. I’d say she came back too tight to risk going to bed and having the room spin. So she walked in the air, by the pool. Maybe she was alone. Maybe somebody was with her. I think she staggered and fell in. If she was alone, that was that. If she wasn’t, the guy got scared and ran.”

Jay got up from the desk chair. “Thanks.”

“That’s okay. Like I said, it’s closed. Why don’t you go home? We want the whole thing forgotten.”

“Orders from Mr. C. Gerald Rice?”

The man moved close. Jay was tempted to step back, but didn’t. A hard knuckle rapped his chest, emphasizing the words. “Get this straight, Shelby. I do my job here. But I don’t take orders from Rice. I was assigned here. If Rice steps out of line. I’ll bring him up short just as quick as I will you. And what you just said was out of line. The sheriff gives me my orders. And if he lets Rice tell him what orders to give me, that’s his business. Is that clear enough?”

“That’s clear enough.”

A small, elderly man came trotting in. He seemed highly excited. He was saying, “Dockerty! Hey, Dockerty!” He wore denims faded to sky-blue, a stubble of white beard, a battered hat. He looked like a movie extra.

“What’s on your mind, Ab? Catch your breath and tell it slow.”

Ab took his hat off and stared into it, breathing heavily. He said, “Well, I guess there isn’t so much of a hurry, anyhow. Dockerty, did I tell you about my dog missing? No? Well, he has been. Four days now. Never gone before. So I figured he went roaming and got hisself snake-bit and couldn’t make it back to the place. Tinney, he’s from that dude layout, he came by this morning, had some of those ladies out for a dawn ride, and he tells me that after sunup he sees buzzards circling off behind Candy Ridge, you know, off there near Tyler’s line where—”

“I know where it is, Ab,” Dockerty said wearily.

“Tinney figured it might be my dog, and he couldn’t go look on account of getting the ladies back for breakfast, so I took off in the jeep and had a hard time finding the place on account of they weren’t circling. They’d settled. I went on up there leaving the jeep and, by heaven, Dockerty, it’s a dead woman.”

Dockerty’s bored air vanished. He took two strides and clapped his hand on Ab’s shoulder and shook him. “You sure?”

“Dead sure. She’s some sun-dried, but by heaven, I know a woman when I see one. Don’t go shaking me, Dockerty. It makes me nervous. It was like this. Somebody piled a mess of rocks on her. I could see the tracks, where coyotes got some of the rock off her, and that’s what brought the birds at sunup. I piled the rocks back on, and I come right here first thing to tell you.”

Dockerty frowned and snapped his fingers, staring at the floor. “Okay, Ab. Your jeep in front? Wait right there. I’ll get hold of Doc and—” He looked at Jay. “You’re through here, aren’t you?”

Jay left. He walked in the molten sun. He drove back to the Terrace Inn. As he parked, Ellen drove up in her small yellow convertible and parked several cars away. She stood waiting for him, smiling, tapping the side of her boot with a small riding crop. The man’s white shirt, collar open, sleeves rolled high, set off the red-bronze tan. Her jodhpurs were faded and battered, and they fitted her snugly, accentuating the long, lean thighlines, the compact hips, her high-waisted, long-legged build.

“Don’t get too close,” she said. “Effluvium of horse. We had a long run, and he got lathered up. Have fun with your Hollywood type?”

They walked slowly, side by side, toward the main entrance of the Terrace Inn. “Not completely a Hollywood type, Ellen. More than that. Don’t let the ice-cream hat fool you. I’m a layman, but I got a look at the file and it looks pretty thorough to me. Now he’s got a lot more on his mind. Look, meet me in the casino bar after you scrub off, and I’ll brief you on the latest murder.”

“Murder! For that I will hurry.”

He was still nursing a cocktail when she came through the casino, wearing a full skirt in gay awning colors, a sheer charcoal blouse. They had the small bar to themselves. She sat on a stool beside him. Her eyes sparkled. “Now a tale of violence, please.”

He watched her face change as he told her. Before he finished, she looked away.

“How dreadful!” she said softly. “I guess you’d have to see Candy Ridge. It’s a stark and lonely place, Jay. A jumble of rocks and ledges, where the wind whines. A dead woman. A bad place to be dead in, Jay.”

“Would it be hard to get a body up onto the ridge?”

“No. One road comes close. It wouldn’t be hard. There’s nothing there. Just the sand and the ridge and some Joshua trees.” She shuddered and then gave him an apologetic smile. “It shouldn’t get me. It’s just a bad place.”

“We’ll drop the subject.”

“Gladly. Gladly. New subject, please.”

“This isn’t exactly a gay subject, but it’s a change. Did you happen to notice whether Joan had taken up wearing nail polish?”

“No. I never saw her wear it.”

“I saw pictures of her this morning. They were quite clear. She was wearing dark nail polish.”

“Then she must have had it on the... last time I saw her. But I can’t remember seeing it. I was pretty upset, you know. I suppose the maid who packed her things would remember if there was nail polish. Then again she might not. Her name is Amparo. Very pretty little thing. But is it important?”

“Only in that it’s so completely uncharacteristic. As though it were somebody else who drowned. But I know it was Joan.”

“You are completely certain?”

He asked the bartender for a pencil and a piece of paper. The bartender gave him an unused check. He tested the hardness of the pencil, and then with Ellen watching over his shoulder, he sketched Joan’s face, quickly, deftly, with the precision of practice and perfect memory, giving her in this sketch a look of breathless warmth. Ellen made a small sound.

“I know her face this well.” he said, and crumpled the sketch.

“That is very well, indeed.” Ellen said. She took the crumpled paper from the ashtray and smoothed it out and then crumpled it up again. “It’s almost indecent the way you can do that. Jay. That isn’t a very good word. Al... well, an invasion of privacy or something.”

He grinned at her, wanting to change the emotional climate for them, and called for more paper. He drew her as he had seen her walking away from him, toward her room, riding crop swinging.

She laughed. “Are they getting that tight?”

“Artistic license.” And he sketched another figure, making the riding pants absurdly baggy, the seat sagging grotesquely. She took the paper and snapped it into her small purse.

“I’ll keep it.”

“I’d like to do one of you some day, Ellen. Your face.”

“Goodness, such a clinical look.”

“I’m looking at the bones. Very nice.” He reached out with a forefinger. “These hollows at the temples, this fullness of your upper eyelids, this long sweep here of the jaw. All very good stuff. Heaven deliver me from painting pretty faces.”

“Sir!” Smiling.

“Handsome faces. Faces with some living in them. Faces with some guts and some loneliness and some strength and some wanting. Anything but the low broad foreheads of the Miss Americas, their infant pug noses, their flat plump Mongoloid cheeks, their eyes that have seen nothing and say nothing, and their big peasant mouths.”

She drew back. “You do get intense.”

“Occupational disease. Skip it.”

“I sort of liked it.”

“You’re easy to talk to, Ellen.”

“I like that, too. And right now I could eat the top right off this bar and the felt off that dice table.”

After they had eaten, she smothered a yawn and grimaced. “A creature of habit. It’s my nap time. Why don’t you join me for a swim afterward? Say about three?”

“Fine. I’ll pick up some trunks in town. And see what I can find out about the lady of Candy Ridge.”

“I don’t think I want to know any more about that lady.”

He drove into town. The town lay asleep in the desert, like some bright, cubist beast. A bored clerk in a small air-conditioned store sold him, reluctantly, a pair of maroon trunks. He carried the small package out to the car. A man stopped him, saying, “Just a minute, Mr. Shelby.” He was a short, fat man in a very gay shirt, pale rumpled slacks. His smile was amiable, his face purpled by the heat, his eyes small and shrewd behind glasses with heavy black frames.

“What can I do for you?”

“You can walk across the street with me and into yonder saloon and let me buy us something remarkably cold.”

“I’m afraid I—”

“And there we shall discuss all manner of things, including, perhaps, your wife and her untimely demise.”

“Who are you?”

“An incipient heat-prostration case, Mr. Shelby.” The fat man headed across the street. Jay followed him. They went into the cool interior of the bar. The motif of the place was ersatz Western. A wall mural depicted various young ladies wearing nothing but bandannas and six-shooters, looking more vacuous than lewd. The bartender had a flowing handlebar mustache.

They picked up cold bottles of dark Mexican beer at the bar and carried them back to the farthest, darkest booth. The fat man wiped his face with a soiled handkerchief.

He said, “I always feel awkward when telling people my business. I dream of being able to say I work for the Russian secret police. Or that I’m a leprosy carrier, or something of equal social acceptability. Instead, I have to say I am employed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Here are my credentials, Mr. Shelby.”

Jay looked at the card enclosed in glassine and slid it back across the table. “I have a man in New York who handles all—”

“No doubt. I hope he is excellent. I hope your conscience is stainless. You don’t flinch as much as most. Ah, this is truly good beer.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “We are not interested in you, Mr. Shelby. We are concerned with a case that, at present dating, is just shy of three years old. It is not a fraud case. Not so far. It is a deficiency case. I shall not mention the name of the taxpayer. I and my, shall we say accomplices, are leaving no stone unturned. In fact, we are peering under pebbles. We need more data to make a deficiency judgment of some two million dollars stick. That, of course, includes penalties and interest. So we peer under even the smallest pebbles. The taxpayer was in contact, in a slightly clandestine way, with your wife. In a most puzzling way, in fact, which I may or may not tell you. Our mutual friend, young Mr. Dockerty, advised me you had been in. He described you efficiently. I could not find you registered anywhere. I seem to be rambling. I will get to the point. Some of the most canny men brag of their canniness to blondes. Most usually to blondes, as a matter of fact. And sometimes divorce is merely a sort of arrangement. The parties concerned correspond. And blondes might write of the important people they have met. You see what tiny pebbles we look under?”

“I think I get what you mean,” Jay said. “We weren’t corresponding with each other. We weren’t... friendly.”

“Hmm. Yet you came out here to nose about?”

“I don’t think that concerns you or your taxpayer, Mr. Goddard.”

“I’ll accept that rebuke, Mr. Shelby, and purchase you another brew as a token of apology.” He waddled to the bar for two more bottles. He came back and sat down with an expansive sigh.

Jay, refilling his own glass, said, “Just exactly in what way was my wife in contact with Gerald Rice?”

“I don’t recall mentioning his name.”

“Oh, come off it, Mr. Goddard. You said you’ve been on this case for three years. He owns this whole Oasis Springs. There isn’t anybody else around here who could come close to fitting a two-million-dollar judgment.”

“Remind me not to keep underestimating artists and writers. The clandestine arrangement was merely that, after a certain scene in the Golden Sixpence, when our Mr. Rice ordered your wife from the premises, he apparently decided he had been hasty. And he sent one of his young men to — forgive the word, sir — procure her. At least, it appeared that way. The young man, a rather unsavory type named Thomas Rikerd, picked her up at the Terrace Inn and drove her to Mr. Rice’s well-fenced place south of town. We have that place under observation, with the aid of a surplus Navy telescope and a long-suffering young man. After several hours, Mr. Rikerd emerged with other persons, and that left your wife and Mr. Rice there the rest of the day. No one left the premises that night. No car arrived or left. Of course, a person could have left unobserved on foot, but it would be a long hike to town, so we will assume no one left. No one arrived the next morning. In the afternoon, a car arrived from town with a driver. It picked up Mr. Rice and drove him into town. Theoretically, your wife was there alone. Mr. Rice returned alone at dusk. The driver turned around and went back, alone. At four the next morning, a car drove in. It is believed that it contained Mr. Rikerd, who had been gone since the previous morning. It is still assumed your wife is there. But that, of course, is impossible, because at three that morning, or thereabouts, she was at the bottom of the pool at the Terrace Inn. That is why we consider it puzzling.”

“Dockerty said he didn’t know where she went.”

“He doesn’t. There is no possible way of proving she was there without giving away our little game of spyglass. And what would it add?”

Jay drew a beer line on the booth top with a wet thumbnail. “I can say this. I saw Rice. I knew Joan. In one word, never. I’m not saying never with anybody. I don’t know that. I sort of guess there were others. But they’d be young, very gay, very pretty, very shallow. Never for money, Mr. Goddard. Never with a specimen like Rice.”

“He has an odd knack of making people do what he wants them to do.”

“He could never have scared her or bullied her. She wasn’t afraid of anything that walks, creeps, or crawls. No. I can’t go along with that. I don’t get this about watching his place. How is that tax business?”

“Lesson number one. There are two ways of setting up a deficiency. You can either go on what we call an income basis — income less expenditures and so forth — or you can go on what we call a net-worth basis. That means you start with a year when you know the taxpayer had nothing. Then you add the total income reported, for all the intervening years. You deduct the taxes paid. You deduct what it cost him to live. Then you deduct everything he has. Cash, land, everything. It should come out zero. If it comes out a minus figure, then that’s the amount of income he didn’t report. The burden of proof is on him in a deficiency case. We’ve had him and his legal talent and his accountants up for hearings nine times in the past three years. We aren’t getting anywhere. We know he rooked the Government. We’ll get the proof somehow, somewhere, sometime, and then we’ll nail him to the wall.”

The mild little man with the amiable smile had suddenly turned into an imposing individual. He said softly, “In the meantime, we are observing his standard of living.”

Jay felt sickened by the implications of Goddard’s story, yet he sensed they could not be true. He did not doubt the actual details of physical movement; it was the assumptions that were wrong. Joan could have done wild things, crazy things — even dangerous things — but never sordid things. She had a pronounced money hunger, yet she could never have gratified that hunger with any action that was not fastidious. Illegal, yes. Soiled and stained, no.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you in any way,” Jay said.

“I didn’t expect you to be able to. This one was a very small stone to look under. We’d hoped to have a chat with your wife. They let things slip, sometimes. Point out a piece of property. Say that it is theirs, with title held by a dummy. Another thing to add to our list. You see, there is no quarrel with current income and tax accounting. All very carefully handled. We’re after the fat years, when he squirreled it away, the years that gave him the impetus to go into all this.” And with a wave of his chubby hand, Goddard included all the forced gaiety of Oasis Springs.

It was nearly three when Jay went into his room. He changed into trunks, went out to the pool. For several minutes he thought he wasn’t going to be able to force himself to dive into the water. He sensed that Ellen had suggested the swim as a way of helping him ease that grotesque image of Joan. And he wondered if Ellen could be watching him from the shadowed room. He gripped the pool edge with his toes and dived. He swam across the pool and back and realized that he was avoiding the shallow end where she had died, so he forced himself to swim two slow lengths of the pool and then it was all right. It was just a swimming pool where water sparkled in the sun. He looked up and saw Ellen standing tall on the pool edge, tucking her dark hair under the bathing cap, smiling down at him. After they were both winded, they stretched out on the poolside mattresses, settling themselves gingerly on the sun-hot rubberized fabric, the first cigarette tasting odd, and he told her of Goddard, and of Joan. Ellen thought for a long time and then agreed that the thought of Joan and Gerald Rice was impossible.

He said, “There’s so many things that just don’t quite fit. Your saying her hair was dyed. That business of the fingernails. This business with Rice. It is all tied up, somehow, with her nervousness the last few days she was around.”

“Don’t get too much sun, dear,” she said, and then gasped and said, “Did you hear that? I hate those meaningless little words sprayed across conversation. Dear, darling, honey. I don’t know where that came from, honestly. I apologize, Jay.”

“If you hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have noticed it. What does that make me?”

“Complacent, perhaps.”

“I’ll make sure I won’t get too much sun, darling,” he said, grinning.

She turned and looked into his eyes, and an awkwardness grew between them. “It isn’t a very good game, I guess,” she said.

“Not very good.”

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he could see her hand, inches from his eyes, resting slack in the sun. There were water droplets on the back of her brown hand. The fine hair on her wrist was sun-whitened, almost invisible, and he could see the pale finger-band where rings had been. He wondered what they had been like, whether she had sent them back, or whether they were in some box and she would take them out when she was very old and try to remember clearly how it had been and how it had failed.

A voice shattered the sultry afternoon silence. “There you are, John Shell,” Dora Northard said. “Hello, Mrs. Christianson.” She wore white shorts and a white halter, and she sat down on a corner of Jay’s mattress, hugging her brown, too-thin legs. Ellen sat up, smiling politely, murmuring a too-polite greeting.

Dora Northard’s eyes had a satisfied, secretive glitter. “I’ve just heard all about the most interesting murder, dears.”

“The woman they found under the rocks at Candy Ridge?” Ellen asked politely.

Dora pouted. “This place is the limit. How do people find out these things, anyway? Smoke signals? I better wake Kitty up and tell her. She hasn’t gotten up yet today, so she can’t possibly know about it. I suppose you know who the girl was, too?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Ellen said. Jay noted that it was said politely, yet with the delicate inference that she couldn’t care less.

“It was Gerry Rice’s girlfriend. That Sheila person. The whole town is in an uproar since they identified her. I heard they’ve been questioning Mr. Rice for hours. They say she’s been dead over a week. It seems she was mixed up in some sort of dreadful scene down at the Golden Sixpence about three weeks ago and after that Gerry Rice had been very annoyed at her. They fought about it. They say his story is that she wanted to go back East, and so he gave her some cash and told her to clear out. She walked right out with her suitcase about midnight, and one of Jerry’s men says he saw her walking along the highway trying to thumb a ride. I guess it wouldn’t take her long to be picked up. Some fiend must have picked her up. They found her suitcase in the rocks near the body. If it hadn’t been for that funny old man and his dog, they’d never have found her, because who would go climbing around all those jagged rocks? I guess the body was in dreadful condition. Absolutely dreadful!” Dora Northard shuddered delicately and licked her thin lips.

Jay saw Ellen’s quick look of distaste, fading as quickly as it had appeared. Ellen stood up, picking up her bathing cap. “That’s very interesting, Mrs. Northard. Thanks for telling us.”

She poised on the pool edge and dove in cleanly, breaking the still, blue mirror of the water. Dora got up and looked venomously toward the pool. “An old friend, you said?”

“An acquaintance,” Jay said carefully.

Dora shrugged. “I’m going to go rouse sleeping beauty. Take care of yourself, John.” She left without looking back.

Ellen swam over and grabbed the pool edge near him, making a face. “Gerry, she calls him. Good old Gerry. I am not going to think about that girl. I am firmly decided that I shall not think about her at all.”

“You saw her?”

“Several times. With him. A wench. A chippy. With a carefully practiced walk and a florid taste in clothes. But alive, Jay. Let’s not think about her. Swim again and then go in, because you are getting disastrously pink, my friend.”

He swam and went back to his room to change, leaving her out there, making her ritualistic lengths of the pool, slow brown arms lifting in the sunshine, cupped hand slipping neatly into the water for the long, slow pull of the smooth stroke while the good legs worked tirelessly.

At five-thirty, when he went to the lobby, the Reno newspapers were on the rack. He bought one. There was a page-one box, show Girl slain. Bottom of the page. With a picture. A glamour pose, and he guessed the rest of the picture had been deleted. Black hair spilling over the edge of a pale couch. Face trying to look sultry, looking merely filled with an animal sleepiness. Sheila Star. A name as phony as the photography. It was routine coverage of the finding of the body, a human-interest angle on the lost dog, the coroner’s estimate that the body had been dead ten days, state and county authorities co-operating in the investigation. It was delicately and indirectly inferred that she had been a guest of someone or other and that she had been on her way back, perhaps, to New Orleans where she had previously been an entertainer. The body had been found near Oasis Springs. Jay could guess the extent of the entertainment. A Bourbon Street dive, perhaps. With a G-string picture of her on the outside poster, eight feet tall. Maybe Gerry Rice, after selling the moist land, had stopped there in New Orleans and seen that poster and acquired her as casually as, back in the lean years, he had acquired a Blue-tick hound to add to the pack he took out after the cats in the swamp country.

He looked at the girl’s face again, at the odd harshness of her features. A greedy, troublesome girl with an empty, whining voice. And all of it ending there, in the rocks, with the vise of the sun clamped tight on the show-girl body. Something about that face puzzled him, but he could not determine exactly what it was. He shrugged away the small feeling of irritation.

Ellen sat in a chair outside her door, waiting for him. She did not notice him arrive. She came to, with a slight apologetic start, got up quickly.

“Deep thought?”

“I guess so. How’s the sunburn?”

“I feel a little warm, but it won’t be sore.”

They walked toward the archway, and she stopped suddenly and said, “Let’s get out of here tonight.”

“Where?”

“Anyplace. It doesn’t really make any difference.”

They went in his rented car. He found a place to park on the main street. The shadows were long and blue, and the first neon was coming on. He remembered the comforting privacy of the booths where he had drunk Mexican beer with Goddard, and he suggested that place. The bar was crowded and the slot machines were busy, but there was an empty booth. She sat across from him. Conversation was aimless and died quickly. She seemed far away from him, and he was amused that his resentment should be so sharp.

“Is something bothering you, Ellen?”

She frowned at him. “No, Jay, I just—”

“You seem pretty remote.”

“I’m sorry. I talked to Amparo today. You know, the little maid who packed up Joan’s things. She’s shy, but she’s really awfully bright. I had a sort of crazy idea and — well it didn’t work, but she said something else that... Jay, does this name mean anything to you? — Lisa Tasher?”

He shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t mean a thing, Ellen. Why?”

“Never mind. It isn’t anything really.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Please, Jay. But I’ll tell you one thing. Joan’s hair was naturally blonde. Pale blonde.”

“I know. But—”

“Now I’m going to stop being moody, my friend. I’m going to be as gay as birds. And I need one more drink before we get to the steak department.”

She was gay. In a way that was a bit forced. After dinner in a place with bare wooden tables called the Chuck Wagon, after steaks and a green salad and coffee, he asked her if she would have a brandy. She did not answer. He looked at her. She was staring down into her empty cup with an odd fixity.

“Hey!” he said softly.

She looked up. “What? Brandy? No, thank you. Jay. But you have one. Will you wait for me here?”

“Of course. But where—”

“I want to ask Steve something. Steve McGay.”

“What is it all about?”

“I’ll tell you later, Jay. Really I will.”

He barely had time to get to his feet before she was gone. He ordered more coffee. He drank it slowly. When it was gone, he ordered a brandy, and made it last. When a full hour was gone, so was his patience. He paid the check and walked up the bright night street to the Golden Sixpence. Play was heavier than the last time he had been in. McGay was watching a roulette table where a flushed woman who giggled nervously was pushing large stacks of golden chips onto the red. The wheel spun. The ball whirled, clacked, teetered, dropped onto a black number. The kibitzers groaned and McGay turned away, expressionless, as the rake pulled the chips toward the house.

“Mr. McGay?”

“What can I do for you?”

“I met you the other day. I was with Mrs. Christianson. My name is Shell.”

“I remember now. What can I do for you?”

“Have you seen Mrs. Christianson?”

“Tonight? I don’t remember her. Maybe she was in. Why?”

“She came here to see you.”

“Did she? She hasn’t yet. You’re free to look around. She may be upstairs.”

“She didn’t speak to you?”

McGay’s square, muscular face was a bit too expressionless. “No. she didn’t,” he said, and turned away. Jay walked away from him. He paused near the door and looked back across the room, the crowded room where the warm hunger-sweat for money was almost tangible, like the heat ripples on a highway ahead of the speeding car. In that instant, McGay looked toward him. Their eyes met, and something twisted McGay’s face as though he were suddenly ill.

Jay walked slowly to his car. He went to the Chuck Wagon. She was not there. He wondered if she was ill, had gone back to the Inn. He drove there, driving too fast. Her room was dark. She was not the sort of woman who would leave him in that manner. She was not thoughtless, not rude.

He drove back to town and looked in the Chuck Wagon again. He walked slowly down the street. He saw the drugstore, remembered the name. Hollister. He went in. A girl in slacks sat at the counter drinking a Coke. A fat man stood by the magazine rack leafing through a comic book. Hollister was behind the counter. Jay took a stool as far from the slack-clad girl as he could get. Hollister came over, smiling.

Jay kept his voice low. “Mr. Hollister, I don’t know what’s going on. Mrs. Christianson went to the Golden Sixpence. She said she wanted to ask McGay something. She said she would come back. That was two hours ago. I talked to McGay. He claims he hasn’t seen her. She isn’t at the Inn. I just — I don’t know what to do next.”

Hollister avoided Jay’s eyes. “Why come here?”

“I thought you’d try to help.”

Hollister flushed. “Go to the police. Go somewhere. Don’t come to me.” The girl put down her empty Coke glass and turned, stared at them. Hollister went over, picked up her quarter, rang it up, put the change in front of her. She took it and went out slowly, a bit reluctantly, staring at Jay.

“McGay says he didn’t see her. Does your sister know her by sight?”

“No.”

“I could describe how she was dressed. Maybe your sister would recall if she was there. That’s all I want to know.”

Hollister looked at his watch. His mouth tightened. “I don’t want any part of this.”

“I know, but—”

“Take the last booth back there. Dolly gets a fifteen-minute break soon. She usually comes over.”

“I don’t know how to—”

“Just go sit in the last booth. Go sit down, for heaven’s sake.”

Jay walked away. It was nearly fifteen minutes before the woman came back and gave him an inquiring look and sat opposite him. She was plump, and her hair was dingy red.

“My brother said I was to answer any questions you want to ask.”

“I just want to know if you noticed a woman come in and talk to McGay a little before eight-thirty. A tall woman with dark hair. Pretty. She had on a fuzzy pink skirt, a black top, and a black stole with silver threads in it.”

Dolly looked at him flatly. “She talked to him upstairs near my table. He took her over in the corner. They talked about ten minutes. Then he let her go down the back stairs. I thought that was strange. They don’t like customers using the back stairs.”

“Where did they go?”

“Down to Mr. Rice’s office, but he wasn’t there then, I don’t think. At any rate, I hadn’t heard he’d come in, and he likes to use the front. He’s got a private entrance in the back, but he always likes to come in the front. Maybe on account of the trouble, maybe on account of that girl getting killed, he wanted to use the back tonight. I don’t know. He usually comes in. Maybe he was there. Maybe he wasn’t.”

“But she did talk to McGay.”

“For about ten minutes, and that was around eight-thirty, maybe a little later. I was getting a heavy play on my table. The only reason I noticed her special was on account of the skirt. That’s Orlon. I’m thinking of making one like that, and I wondered how it washed. Then Steve unlocked the staircase door for her. Floor managers carry keys to that door. I thought you were going to ask something I wouldn’t want to answer the way my brother acted. But that isn’t much of a question. I saw her.”

“McGay told me he didn’t talk to her.”

“Then on account of my job, you don’t tell McGay what I said, will you?”

“No.”

“I got to get back,” she said tonelessly. She stood up, and he thanked her, and she left.

Jay waited a moment and then went to the front of the store. Hollister said, “She’ll claim she didn’t talk to you. So will I.”

“It won’t ever come up.”

Dockerty wasn’t in. He wouldn’t be back until after one. Jay debated going back to town and facing McGay again. But that would be pointless. McGay would deny it again. And there was nothing he could do.

He drove back to the Terrace Inn. The bar in the Palm Patio was closed. He went to the casino. The talkative bartender, Tommy, was on duty. He smiled a greeting.

“Has it been like I said it would be?”

Jay forced a smile. “Almost.” He hunched forward confidentially. “Tommy, how would I go about getting in touch with one of the maids. Her name is Amparo.”

Tommy pursed his lips and shook his head sadly. “Nice, but no dice. She’s got a husband. She’s helping him get through the University of New Mexico. She’s a good kid. She plays dumb. That’s the smart thing to do if you’re a maid. But she’s got a good education herself.”

“Where does she live?”

“Out in back where the maids live. It’s nice there. But like I said, you better skip that idea.”

“Have they got a phone out there?”

“Sure, but—”

Jay put a five-dollar bill on the bar. “Could you get her on the line for me?”

Tommy shrugged. “It’s your time we’re wasting.” He took the phone from under the bar, lifted the receiver. “Jo Anne? Give me thirty-seven, huh? Thanks.” He waited, rattling his fingernails on the bar-top, looking into space. “Who’s this? Carolita? Kid, this is Tommy. Casino bar. Amparo around? Put her on. Thanks.” Again he waited. “Amparo? Yeah. There’s a guy here wants to talk to you.”

Tommy handed the phone across the bar with an ironic bow. Jay stared at him until he moved away, still smirking.

“Amparo, you talked to Mrs. Christianson today. This is a friend of hers. It’s very important you tell me what you told her.” He kept his voice down.

“I do not unnarstan’, señor.”

“Believe me, this isn’t a gag. It’s very important. Mrs. Christianson may be in trouble. I want to see you.”

“You are who?”

“My name is Shell. I’m a guest in the hotel. I’d like to see you right now. It’s very important.”

“Why you no ask her what I say, señor?”

“Because she has disappeared.”

There was a long silence, and then the girl spoke again, the heavy accent quite gone. “There are chairs and tables east of the casino, Mr. Shell. Wait there for me. I won’t be long.”

He hung up. Tommy sauntered back. “Told you, didn’t I?”

“You were right. Well, it was an idea.”

“One on the house? Drown your sorrow?”

“No, thanks. See you.”

“Yes, sir.”

He went out and found the chairs and round metal tables, silvered by faint starlight. After a time he saw her coming, heard the whisper of her steps against the grass. He could not see her clearly, and he got the impression of sturdiness.

“This isn’t some sort of a joke?” she asked quietly.

“The woman who drowned — Mrs. Shelby — she was my wife, Amparo.”

The girl stood motionless, then moved and sat in the chair beside his. “What has happened to Mrs. Christianson?”

“I don’t know. It may have something to do with what you told her today. What did you tell her?”

His eyes were more accustomed to the darkness. He saw the strong, high cheekbones, the stubborn brows. “She wanted to know about Mrs. Shelby’s clothes. She wanted to know if there were any clothes there when I packed her things that hadn’t been there before. I didn’t understand what she was driving at. I was Mrs. Shelby’s room maid. I told her there were no extra clothes as far as I could see. Then she asked me if there was any blonde dye or nail polish. I couldn’t remember either. But speaking of dye made me remember. The bathroom was cluttered with badly stained towels. It hadn’t occurred to me before.

“Then I realized and told Mrs. Christianson that perhaps Mrs. Shelby had tinted her hair black and had rubbed the tint out that night she drowned. Mrs. Christianson kept asking me questions about what I found when I packed her things. There was nothing strange. Then I remembered and told her about the hotel stationery. She had put used sheets back in the desk drawer. Three sheets, and on them she had written over and over again, Lisa Tasher, Lisa Tasher. There was nothing else I could tell Mrs. Christianson. Would that get her in trouble?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really know.”

“If she has disappeared, you should go to the police. You should go to Dockerty.”

“There’s no one else. I wish there was.”

“Why? Don’t low-rate him, Mr. Shelby. He is tough and honest, and he is good with my people. He is — how do you say it? — his own man.”

He stared at the girl in the darkness. “Why do you put on that accent, Amparo?”

She stood up. “Ees local color, señor. Ees más fácil. Let me know about Mrs. Christianson. I will worry. She is a nice person.” She went silently into the darkness. Moments later, across the lawn, a door opened and brightness silhouetted her for a moment before she closed it behind her. He looked at the luminous hands of his watch. Dockerty would not be back yet. He went to his room. He opened his suitcase and took out the small picture of Joan in its silver frame. It had been pure habit, packing it, taking it from his bureau top, dropping it in the suitcase open on the bed. He studied her face. He turned the frame over, pulled out the tiny nails, took the photograph out from behind the glass and laid it on the desk blotter. He had brought no materials with him. There was a bottle of ink on the desk. He improvised a brush, using a twist of tissue. With practiced deftness he turned her into a brunette. He wiped the ink away, dissatisfied with the hair style, and tried again. On the third attempt he stared at the altered photograph, and sat there, quite motionless, until the ink dried. He picked it up carefully, folded it into the newspaper, and left the room.

The lights were bright in the office. Dockerty sat behind the desk, his shirt open to the waist. He yawned. “Okay, okay,” he said. “You’re repeating yourself. And maybe you’ve been out in the sun without a hat. And maybe you haven’t been getting the rest you came for.”

“Look,” Jay said with great patience. “I told you. McGay lied to me. I have a witness to that.”

“Whose name you will not give.”

“Because I promised.”

“What do you think this is? A Scout jamboree? With oaths?”

“I can’t help that.”

“You say this Mrs. Christianson may be in a jam. So you want me to help. So you tie my hands by being a Boy Scout. Skip that for a minute. Go back to this other business.” He picked up the altered picture of Joan Shelby and placed it beside the newspaper cut of Sheila Star. “I tell you there’s no resemblance.”

“I tell you, you didn’t know her. You didn’t know how clever she was. She was an actress. She could change the way she walked, talked. She could wear the habitual expression of the person she was imitating. Good Lord, she could imitate me so well that people could guess who it was. I know this for a fact. Tint her hair, give her some sort of a veil to help the illusion — and I happen to know that Sheila Star liked veils — dress her the way that girl dressed, and I’ll bet she could convince casual acquaintances that she was Sheila Star.”

Dockerty sighed. “For a minute I’ll go along with you, just to show you it doesn’t make any sense. Your wife died first. Suppose it was the other way around. Suppose somebody killed Sheila Star. Then to give themselves an alibi, they want her seen someplace after she’s dead, I could go along with that, fantastic as it seems. But your wife died first! So there’s no point in it. Now, is there?”

“There’s some point that we don’t understand. Take that nail polish Joan was wearing. She never wore polish, and Sheila Star always wore very dark red polish, according to you.”

“We’ve been through that, friend. Too many times. You still don’t give me any basis on which I can take action. You want me to go out to Rice’s place and ask him to give up this Christianson woman he has locked in the back room or someplace, and I have to tell him my reason is because your wife got herself up to imitate Sheila Star. He’d laugh so hard he’d fall down.”

“Joan imitated Sheila’s voice one night at the Golden Sixpence. Rice heard it. It gave him an idea. That’s why Joan was at Rice’s house when she was away.”

Dockerty sat up. “Who says that?”

“A man named Goddard. A tax man.”

Dockerty stood up. “Why, that fat little son of a— Why didn’t he tell me that?”

“He has a man watching Rice’s place. He didn’t want to spoil that. And he didn’t think the information mattered.”

Dockerty was silent for several moments. “Up until we found the Star girl, he was right. But finding her changes things. Put another woman in the picture, and it gives a motive for getting rid of the Star girl.”

He opened a desk drawer and looked at a list, banged it shut, and started buttoning his shirt. He put his hat on. “Come on, Shelby.” Dockerty drove poorly, riding the clutch, accelerating raggedly. They drove into a pastel motel, found Room Nine. Jay, obeying orders, stayed in the car. Dockerty banged on the door until the lights went on and the door opened and Goddard, in violent pajamas, stared puffily out at him. They talked in low tones. At one point Dockerty raised his voice and Jay heard him say, “—don’t care if you represent the UN. This is my town, and anybody who conceals evidence in my town gets treated like any other criminal.”

Dockerty came back, got behind the wheel, and said, “He’ll be right out.”

“Then where do we go?”

“The Golden Sixpence. Want to tell me the name of that witness?”

“I told you I can’t.”

“Boy Scout,” Dockerty muttered, his voice bitter.

Goddard came out. He stared at Jay. “Thank you, Mr. Shelby. Thank you very much indeed.”

“Get off his back,” Dockerty said. “It isn’t his fault. It’s yours.” And as they drove, he briefed Goddard, covering tersely the clues that pointed to an impersonation. Goddard suddenly became alert.

Dockerty pulled up behind the Golden Sixpence and hammered at the rear door. After a long wait a voice called out, “Go around front.”

“This is the law. Open the door.”

The door opened. It was fastened with a chain. McGay looked out through the crack. He shut the door, and they heard the chain being unhooked. He opened the door.

“What do you want?”

“Is Rice in there?”

“He went home.”

Dockerty put a heavy hand on McGay’s chest and pushed him back into the hall. “Where’s Rice’s office?”

“That door, but—”

The office was empty. Steve McGay gave Jay a curious sidelong glance. Dockerty gave McGay another shove, and the husky man half fell into a leather chair. The office was quiet, discreet, like a banker’s private office.

Dockerty looked heavily at McGay. “I suppose you know you’re mixed up in a filthy mess. You and Rice and Rikerd.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The bottom is going to fall out, McGay. And Rice is setting it up so it’s going to fall on you. Isn’t that right, Goddard?”

The fat man wore no smile. “That’s a good way to put it, Dock.”

“I don’t like to see anybody set up as a fall guy,” Dockerty said.

Steve McGay looked up at them. “He can’t do that. I tell you I don’t know anything.”

“You look nervous, McGay. For a man who doesn’t know anything.”

“I got to get back on the floor.”

“That can wait. This place may be closed by tomorrow.”

McGay looked down at his knuckles. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay,” he said.

“Then let’s have it.”

“It isn’t much.”

“Let’s have it, anyway.”

“It started with that wacky blonde. I was getting interested. I think I would have made out. Then there was trouble here, with her and Sheila. The next thing that happens is that I get orders from Rice to leave her alone. Rikerd starts dating her. That makes me sore. I asked Rikerd the score. He told me to shut up about it, it wasn’t what I thought. A few days later there was orders to stay away from Rice’s place. So I did. And I got a raise, for no special reason. They find the blonde in the pool at the Inn. It didn’t smell right to me, somehow. I talked to Rice. He told me my nose was too long. Sheila never came around after that scrap with the blonde. I can’t figure that. She was always in the driver’s seat with Rice. I couldn’t see him keeping her away from here. He ran everybody else, but he always did like she said. I could never figure that, she being a tramp. Rice tells me if anybody, anybody at all, asks about the blonde, I’m to tell him. That seemed funny, too. I went riding with the blonde and a woman named Ellen Christianson the morning after the scrap here. That was the last time I saw the blonde. Then the Christianson woman asks about the blonde the other day. I told her nothing, and I didn’t tell Rice about her asking. She came tonight. Rice was here. I sent her down the back stairs. She was asking me crazy questions. No sense to them. I told her Mr. Rice wanted to talk to her. She went down. I came down here to the office a half hour later. Rice was here alone. He was shaky. I never saw him look that way. I asked if he saw the Christianson woman. He cursed me out. Then he cursed Rikerd out. He was drinking. He never drinks. He told me Rikerd was too quick with his hands, and he was going out to the house, and I should get back on the floor where I belonged. It made me nervous. All that about Tom Rikerd being quick with his hands. With Sheila dead and the blonde dead, and that Christianson woman being no chippy, being somebody with class you could spot across a room, it made me nervous. And him drinking made me nervous. Then he came around and I brushed him off, told him I hadn’t seen the woman. I’d been nervous all night. Something is going on. Something I don’t know about. I don’t want to get caught in the middle here. It’s good pay, but it isn’t worth that. That’s everything I know. I came down here a little while ago to look around. I nearly dropped dead when the car came in. I thought it was him coming back, and he’d see the office lights through the steel shutters. But it was you.”

“Find anything?” Dockerty asked.

“Not a thing,” McGay said.

“And that’s everything?”

“So help me. I just don’t want to get caught in the middle if—”

“Stick around. Do your job. Stay in town. Forget we called.”

“Sure,” McGay said eagerly. “Sure.”

Twenty minutes later, Dockerty drove up Rice’s driveway. A gateman tried to block the way, and Dockerty drove directly at him. The man jumped wildly aside at the last moment. Lights were on in the house, gleaming between heavy draperies. The gateman came hurrying over and stopped yelling when he saw who got out from behind the wheel.

Dockerty knocked at the door. He found the bell button and put his thumb on it and kept knocking while he held the bell down. It was a long, low stone house, unpleasantly fortresslike in appearance. The front door was massive.

After what seemed a long time, bright floodlights went on, momentarily dazzling them. The door opened. Rice looked out at them. He looked small. His clown face looked bleak. “Goddard. Dockerty. And who are you?”

“Jay Shelby. Joan’s husband,” Jay said. Rice peered at him with no change of expression.

“Want something?”

“Is there a Mrs. Christianson in there?” Dockerty asked.

“Yes. She’s here. Why?”

“Can we see her?”

“Come on in, if you want.”

They followed him down a hall, into a den. The decor was overpoweringly Western. Remington prints. Wooden hooves on the chairs. Upholstery of black-and-white cowhide. Branding irons hanging on one wall. A vast fireplace with the mounted head of a Brahman bull over it. The big room made Rice, in his cheap shiny blue suit, look more shrunken and out of place than ever. Several doors opened off the high-ceilinged room. Ellen sat in one of the grotesque chairs. She seemed very still. There was a puffed purpling bruise on her left cheek.

Jay went to her. “What happened?”

She gave him a thin, even smile. “I tripped. Clumsy, wasn’t it.”

“Why didn’t you come back?” Jay asked.

Her eyes met his and moved away. “Mr. Rice asked me to come out for a drink. I’m sorry. I forgot about you.”

“I don’t believe that,” Jay said heavily.

“You can see she’s okay,” Rice said. “We’re having a quiet drink. Now why don’t you run along?”

“I think I’ll stay a while,” Dockerty said. He picked a chair.

“Nice place you got here, Rice,” Goddard said. “Restful. I’m staying, too.”

Jay moved back from Ellen. He stood near the door. He couldn’t understand her actions. They had to be based on fear. Rikerd had been quick with his hands. Too quick. There was a long silence in the room. Rice spat in the fireplace and sat down. He moved slowly and carried himself curiously, hands held out from his sides. There was nothing restful in the silence.

“Where’s Rikerd?” Dockerty snapped.

Rice jumped. “I... I don’t know. He went out. A date, maybe.”

“You never have him working at any gambling place because then we’d have to fingerprint him. Isn’t that right? You know he was in Joliet, don’t you?”

“He never mentioned it,” Rice said.

“Don’t you check on the people you employ?”

“I’m a good judge of human nature.”

The silence came again. Dockerty was sprawled in the chair, thumbs hooked in his belt.

“How come you didn’t tell me that Joan Shelby spent her little holiday right here in this house, Rice?”

Rice stared at him. “She didn’t. I’m telling you the truth.” He squared his shoulders. “You have no right to come in here and try to push me around, Dockerty. I can—”

“Get me fired? Take away my badge? You’re a big man, aren’t you?”

“At the moment,” Goddard said, with a sweet smile.

The sense of strain was curious. Jay saw that Ellen sat too still. He sensed he should break through that reserve. He said, “I talked to Amparo.”

Her eyes flicked toward him and then away. She did not answer.

“I got the same reaction you did,” he continued. “The hair tint. The nail polish. Just enough similarity in build and the shape of the face. She could have done it. Easily. But why?”

“I don’t know what in the world you’re talking about,” Ellen said quietly.

“All that I can see,” Jay continued relentlessly. “All but the why of it. Would that name have anything to do with the why? That name she wrote? Lisa Tasher? Who is that?”

Goddard heaved himself out of the chair and went over to a desk in the corner of the room. He found a pencil and paper and said. “Spell that for me, Shelby.” Jay spelled it, and Goddard wrote it down. He grinned at Dockerty. “Come here. Dock. Show you something.”

The two men went over to the desk, Dockerty casually, Rice cautiously.

Goddard said, “Ever play anagrams? Look here. I’ll print another name right under it. Sheila Star. Then cross out the letters. Works, doesn’t it?”

Jay saw Rice take the pencil. “Wouldn’t this work, too?” And he printed something on the paper, stepped back, his posture strangely rigid. Dockerty looked at the thing he had written, said, “I see what you mean.”

Dockerty, with soft creak of leather, moved over toward Ellen Christianson. Jay watched him, puzzled. Dockerty bent over the girl, one hand on the arm of the heavy chair. And with a sudden wrench he yanked the chair over, spilling the girl out so she rolled toward the fireplace. But even before the thud of the heavy chair hitting the rug, Dockerty had spun toward the door to the left of the fireplace, gun miraculously in his hand, crouched tensely.

“Rikerd!” he called sharply. “Out!”

Jay saw then the way the door stood ajar, saw the blackness of the room beyond. The shot had a ringing, metallic sound, making Jay remember, absurdly, a Fourth of July long ago when they had set off the cherry bombs in an old oil drum. He stood frozen and saw Gerald Rice wrench around in a clown dance, flapping his arms as he jiggled backward on his heels, banging his hips against the desk so that both feet flew up, and dropping heavily in a sitting position, an expert comic who had just been thumped with a bladder. Even as he danced back, before he fell, there were three much heavier explosions, thick-chested, big-muscled, and authoritative. Dockerty followed up his own shots by kicking the door open and running headlong into the dark room beyond. There was a sound of smashing glass and ripping wood, and a delayed tinkling as glass fell. Then another shot flattened by the open air. And Dockerty’s voice, thinned by distance, yelling, “Stop! Stop, Rikerd!”

Goddard sat behind one of the heavy chairs like a fat, wary child. Ellen knelt by the fireplace. Rice sat in front of the desk, knees pulled up, palms flat against his chest, eyes closed, mouth shaped into a quinine bitterness. Goddard grunted slowly to his feet as Jay went to Ellen. She stood up shakily, and he held her in his arms. She was trembling and sobbing and shuddering all at once.

Her teeth were chattering as she said. “He said to s-send you away or he would k-kill both of us and—”

“It’s okay now,” he said, and holding her, he looked down over her shoulder at the top of the desk, and he saw where Goddard had printed Lisa Tasher and Sheila Star, and where Rice had scrawled “Rikerd gun behind girl.”

Goddard had moved cautiously through the open door into the dark room. His voice had a hollow sound as he called. “Both gone through the window, it seems.” Following his words, there was another distant shot. There was a curious finality to the sound of that single shot. The other shots had been questions. This was an answer.

“Help me,” Rice said in a dry and ancient whisper.

Goddard came back. He squatted on his heels in front of Rice. He gently pulled the man’s hands away, parted the suit coat. There was blood on the white shirt. It tore easily, as though it were very old, had been washed many times. Rice kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Jay could see the small angry bullet hole. It was high on the right side of the chest, just in from the shoulder, an inch below the collarbone. Though probably very painful, it was certainly not serious.

“How bad is it?” Rice whispered.

Goddard flashed Jay a warning glance and then said, “It’s bad, fella. I don’t think you’ve got much time left.”

“Get a doctor.”

“What was Sheila holding over your head, Jerry? Old records?”

“Duplicate books. In my... handwriting. I gave them to her... to burn three years ago. Fool... trusting her.”

“She put them in a lock box?”

“Yes... back East. Then... moved them to a Reno bank. Bragged about it. Said... a lawyer had a letter to... to you people to mail if anything... happened to her. Found out the name she used. Lisa Tasher. Rikerd found out for me. When is the... doctor coming?”

Dockerty appeared in the doorway, his stone face bleaker than ever. Goddard held a finger to his lips. Dockerty nodded, moved a bit closer. Ellen had stopped trembling. Jay liked the way she felt in his arms. Tall and firm and warm now. And her dark hair, close to his nostrils, had a clean, spiced fragrance.

Rice started talking again, in the stillness of the room. “I had to get those books. Proof of fraud there. And maybe a two-million judgment and a jail term. I... got the idea when I saw... the Shelby girl. About... the same size and shape as Sheila. And she... could talk that same funny way. Worth a chance. But... she said no. Finally said yes when the offer got up to... five thousand and after I explained... Sheila was blackmailing me. I didn’t say... how. Rikerd drove... her to Reno. Anybody seeing her leave would think... it was Sheila. Rikerd took her to Reno. Phoned me it worked but... Shelby woman took box to one of those rooms... studied books... figured it out... The pain is terrible! I’m getting weaker.”

“What did Rikerd do?”

“Crossed me, too. Should... have gone myself. He took books and rented a box of his own... another bank. Shelby woman knew that. He brought her back to... the Inn. She wouldn’t take... money. Said she was... going to cops. Went in and... rubbed tint out. Rikerd waited. Called her out and... argued some more... too quick with his hands... knocked her into the pool. Where’s that doctor?”

“On the way,” Dockerty said. “I phoned him.”

Rice opened his eyes and looked at Dockerty. “Dock, I didn’t want killing. Too much... at stake here. But it was... too late. And Sheila knew what the Shelby woman had done. Kept her locked up here. Argued with Rikerd. He said we... had to do it. There wasn’t any... other way. So I... I let him do it, Dock. Then that old man found... the body. I knew then it was... going to blow up. Couldn’t run. Everything I own is... right here. Then this woman... friend of the Shelby woman, came around. Questions, questions. And... Rikerd hit her before I... could stop him. Crazy, I think. Said that once... you’ve killed one, it might as well be two or three or fifty. If Shelby woman hadn't gotten nosy... it would have worked fine... she did fine... practiced signature using Sheila’s signature to see how she made the letters. Vault guard didn’t... suspect a thing. I’m getting weaker, boys.”

“You agreed the Star woman had to be killed?” Dockerty asked gently.

“Tom Rikerd said... nothing else we could do.”

Dockerty turned a hard smile toward Goddard. “That makes him mine.”

“I think there’s enough of him to go around, Dock. We’ll take the money and you take what’s left.” Goddard stood up and looked down at the man who thought he was dying. He said, “Funny, isn’t it, how little there is left — once you take the money away.”

Dockerty shifted his belt, snapped the holster flap down over his revolver. “The other one had an easier way out, Goddard. I tried for a shoulder. Forgot this thing throws a bit high and to the right.”

The afternoon was still and hot. A clerk brought the statements, and both Ellen and Jay read them carefully and signed the required number of copies. The clerk had giggled unpleasantly as he told them of Rice’s consternation on finding his wound was slight. And he had giggled again as he gave a too lurid description of the damage Dockerty’s 357 Magnum slug had done to the skull of Thomas Rikerd, graduate of Joliet, graduate of Oasis Springs, graduate of life. They were glad to see him go.

They sat outside Ellen’s room. He smiled at her and said, “That is a black eye of truly magnificent scope. A veritable sunset.”

“Flatterer.”

They sat in the shade and silence, easy with each other. He took her hand. “I’m packed. I’ll be leaving.”

“Free of that... guilt, Jay?”

“Free of one kind. Not completely free of another. The kind that says you didn’t try hard enough.”

“You’re not alone.”

He released her hand. “I know. It’s hard to think of anything that ends without sadness. I was going to take a trip. I guess this was it. Now I want work. Tons of it. I’m going to see the art directors and my agent and load myself.”

“And then?” she asked softly. “Leading-question department, I guess.”

“I’ve got the address.”

“And if I’m not quite ready yet?”

“I’ll wait around until you are. We want no rebounds, Ellen.”

“No rebounds,” she repeated. She stood up. “No, don’t get up, Jay. This is the way I want it. No more words.” She leaned over his chair, and with her hands light on his shoulders, she kissed him with a sudden warm intensity. Then she was gone, and he could not be sure he heard her whisper, “I’ll be ready.”

Her door closed gently. He sat there for a time, and then he looked at his watch and got up and walked across the open court, passing the green-blue mirror of the pool where a woman lay on the low board like something newly dead. He phoned the desk from his room, and while he waited for the bellhop, he thought ahead to the work he would do. He had a lust for the work he would do. He wanted to be out of this place. A mountain of work, and she would be on the other side of it. And by then it would be time. And this time it would work, because there was a sense of inevitability about their rightness for each other.

Content

John D. MacDonald
Six Golden Pennies