Buyer beware

12

I drove from High Grade headquarters directly to Belle Dee's address.

She lived in one of a line of old four-story brick apartment buildings on Lampan Street, in a neighborhood in the gray area of urban decay. Several small businesses were hanging on in the block-a men's clothing store, a jeweler, a secondhand shop, and on the corner a little Italian restaurant with an unappetizing, mottled red sign that was supposed to represent a pizza. There were a few clusters of the young and denim-clad on the sidewalks and an old couple walking a big, fine German shepherd.

Belle Dee lived on the third floor, up steep and newly painted creaking stairs. The still-drying paint overpowered some of the normal apartment scents of cooking, and lingering disinfectant. I found the door with Belle Dee's number on it and knocked, experiencing my "nobody home" feeling.

No answer.

When I knocked again, louder, the door across the hall opened and a stocky man with a bushy head of hair and a large brown mustache looked out at me. Aside from the fact that he was barefoot, he was fully dressed in tan slacks and a silky shirt with swirling orange designs all over it.

"You looking for Belle Dee?" he asked, smiling.

I told him I was.

The smile got wider. He was justifiably proud of his teeth. "You're not a process server or anything, are you?"

"No, I was told to look her up by a mutual friend." I let him make what he wanted of that. He decided he wanted to believe me.

"She's probably working at the Poptop Club," he said, stroking his brown mustache, "about four blocks east on Delorel. Easy to find."

He was right about the Poptop Club's being easy to find. It dominated the block of seedy buildings with a tall sign that proclaimed it to be the home of "the biggest and the best."

There was no sign of either of those as I entered and looked around. I was in a long room, bar to the right, tables and chairs to the left and booths along one wall. At the end opposite the door was a raised stage with a purple-curtained backdrop and some speakers aimed out over the tables so that no one could escape the sound. There was another platform, about eight feet off the floor, behind the bar and supported from the raised ceiling by heavy silver-colored chains.

The Poptop must not have had much day trade. It was peopled only by a bearded, purple-shirted bartender and two customers morosely sipping beer in one of the booths. I walked to the bar and ordered a bourbon and water, which I needed.

"I was told I could find Belle Dee here," I said to the bartender when he set my drink on its coaster.

"You can, but it'll have to be after five."

"She wait tables here?"

"That and dances," the bartender said. "All the girls here double up."

"I checked her apartment. Any idea where I can find her now? It's important to her."

"She might be at the beach. Spends a lot of warm days there."

"Which part of the beach?"

"Why? You going to look for her?"

"Probably." I sipped my drink, which was on the weak side.

"Wish I was going with you," he said.

While I finished my drink, he described Belle Dee as a tall, blue-eyed blonde with dark eyebrows and long hair, and he gave me easily understood if overstated directions to her favorite strip of beach.

"You can't miss her," he said, as I got down off my bar stool to leave. "She's got… you know." He cupped both hands about six inches from his chest. "Outstanding!" he added.

I nodded knowingly.

It was a warm day and there were a lot of outstanding "you knows" at the beach. I stood for a while and watched but could not determine which belonged to Belle Dee.

I gave up trying to figure it out, bought myself a hamburger and Coke for lunch and sat watching a young boy trying vainly to bury his overweight father in the sand. The boy was about the age my own son would be. I pushed away the maudlin mood that threatened to envelope me, leaned back and watched wisps of white cloud over the sparkling lake water.

The breeze off the lake was a soothing massage, and the shouts and laughter of the bathers were pleasantly muted by vastness. I could understand why Belle Dee liked it here. I stayed longer than I should have.

It cost me a two-dollar cover charge when I returned to the Poptop Club that evening. The personality of the club seemed to have changed with the setting sun. Now it was crowded, the only light coming from candles on each table and flickering purple flashes of brilliance in time to the frenzied music bursting from the band on the rear stage. Dancers writhed about the small, crowded dance floor between tables and bar, and several fantastically built waitresses in skimpy but unimaginative costumes wove among the tables with trays of drinks. I took a table near the booths, and one of the waitresses appeared immediately to take my order.

When she returned with my bourbon and water I told her I wanted to talk to Belle Dee, repeating it several times so she could read my lips.

"You'll have to wait!" she shouted through the din. "… dances next!" She pointed toward the suspended platform behind the bar.

I sipped my weak drink and waited, and within a few minutes there was a blast of music, the suspended platform was spotlighted and Belle Dee danced.

She was tall, and her long blonde hair swaying in rhythm to the music made her seem more graceful than she was. Her spectacular, gyrating body was probably the siliconed product of science, and the amazing thing was that she managed to keep everything from going in the same direction at once, maybe for fear the building would shift.

She finished her dance to loud, enthusiastic applause punctuated by shouts, whistles and a few remarks she pretended not to hear. Ten minutes later she appeared at my table in street clothes, a surprisingly plain blue dress with a sash belt and flat shoes. "I don't know you," she said.

"You know Victor Talbert. I'd like to talk to you about him." I waved a hand for her to sit down.

"Police?"

"No." I caught the attention of a waitress and bought Belle Dee a drink-one I'd never seen before, tall and tropical and made with gin. "My name's Alo Nudger," I said. "I'm a private detective, and I promise that nothing you tell me will be used to harm Victor."

"He's not married, is he?"

"No. He's involved indirectly in what I'm working on. How long's it been since you've seen him?"

She trained almond-shaped blue eyes on me as if she'd just noticed me across the table; there was an emptiness in them; they were doll's eyes. I didn't think she was going to answer, but she did. "It's been… three, four months, maybe."

"You were seriously involved with him, weren't you?"

"We had it going between us, but we weren't serious."

I thought about asking her what the hell that meant, but decided against it. She must have seen the puzzlement in my eyes.

"Vic wasn't serious about me," she said, "and he knew I wasn't about him. I was interested in fun and he was interested in what interests all men."

I nodded. "An honest arrangement. Did Talbert have any enemies you can remember?"

She laughed-a musical laugh, but it was the blues. "Vic was too much of a square head to have any enemies. He played life right out of the rule book, an upstanding, ambitious citizen. If you cut him he'd bleed apple pie."

"Then he wasn't into drugs, that sort of thing?"

"Too straight for that, straight but nice. He didn't even drink heavy."

"How'd you meet him?"

"Oh, something like the way I met you. He came in here one night, wanted to talk to me. Next night he was back. I liked him, but I saw he was gonna get hurt. He was too afraid of failing at anything-he wanted to be a success so bad it burned. The hell with that kind of stuff."

I smiled at her. "He doesn't sound like your type."

When she smiled back I could understand what Talbert had seen in her. She had that bony symmetry beneath velvet skin that inspires casting directors. "Don't get the idea Vic doesn't know how to have a good time," she said. "I think he has to cut loose now and then, uptight as he is."

"Did he come in here often?"

"Quite a bit. But not in the last few months."

"Didn't you wonder where he was?"

"I didn't care. That was our arrangement."

I felt almost a cruel desire to shock her, to instill some feeling into her beauty. "Talbert is dead. He was murdered."

Immediately I regretted the bluntness of my words, but I honestly didn't know if I'd reached her or not. She lowered her head so I couldn't see her eyes, and a tightness crept into her features. Then she raised her head and looked directly at me. "No kidding!"

"Any idea who killed him?" I asked.

"None. He must have been mistaken for somebody else."

I ordered us each another drink. "Did you know any of his friends?"

She shook her head no. "It was just me and Vic."

"Did he ever mention Joan Clark?"

"Not that I can recall."

"What about the name Congram?"

Something like recognition came into her eyes. "That's.right, yeah. Vic knew somebody named Con-gram; really thought he was important, from what I gathered. But he only mentioned the name a few times. I didn't pry." She drained half of her fresh drink. "Dead, huh?" I wasn't sure, but I thought her eyes glistened with more than their usual moisture. Or the light might have done her a favor.

The band, which had been taking a break since Belle Dee's dance, blasted out with another discordant specialty.

"They're lousy," Belle Dee said, "but lousy with a beat. Listen, I've got some of Vic's stuff at my apartment. What am I gonna do with it?"

I swirled the ice in my glass to appear disinterested. "What kind of stuff?"

"Clothes, mostly. Just stuff he left there."

"Mind letting me look it over?"

"I don't know if I should."

"I'll bet you do a lot you shouldn't."

She laughed her blues laugh. "You're right; it doesn't make any difference to me. I can let you look at the stuff when I get off at midnight." She finished her drink and stood, attracting eyes. "I gotta get back to work."

I told her I'd see her at twelve.

She smiled and turned toward the crowded dance floor, disappearing in a blast of flashing blue light and drums.

I made my drink last another twenty minutes and left.

The hours remaining before it was time to meet Belle Dee I spent in my motel room, lying on my back in bed and trying to figure out where events were taking me.

How was it going to set with the law when they found out I'd withheld the information that Branly was actually Victor Talbert, that I'd gone through some of his effects? I knew that eventually it would all have to come out; I didn't think even Carlon could keep that from happening. I hoped he could; I hoped I wasn't being cynical enough.

I thought about Belle Dee and then Lornee. The coldness grew in my stomach, and blood pulsed in my ears. I concentrated on the fifty thousand dollars.

At ten thirty I phoned Dale Carlon and filled him in on my activities, and I asked him if he could smooth the way for me to talk to someone at First Security Trust about Talbert's loan application. Carlon told me he'd see what he could do and then call me in the morning.

It was almost twelve thirty when Belle Dee fished a glittering jeweled key ring from her purse and let us into her apartment on Lam pan Street.

We were in a small living room, furnished glass-topped and chrome modern. A jaggedly designed tapestry hung on one wall above a long black-vinyl sofa that couldn't have been more than six inches off the floor. Beneath the clear glass top of a coffee table before the sofa was a plastic flower arrangement.

Belle Dee tossed her purse onto a chair and went into the kitchen. She returned in less than a minute with two glasses containing generous measures of bourbon on the rocks and held out one of the drinks for me. I accepted that and her offer to sit on the low black couch.

"Vic's things are in the other room," she said. "I'll be right back."

I sat and watched her walk into what I assumed was the bedroom. The low sofa was more comfortable than it looked, and there was a pleasant, faintly perfumed quietness about the apartment that was relaxing.

Belle Dee returned carrying some folded clothes, an attache case and a pair of shiny black wing-tip shoes. "This is all Vic left, Mr… Nudger?"

"Call me Alo."

"That sounds foreign."

"Sometimes I think it is."

She handed Talbert's possessions down to me then sat next to me on the sofa while I examined them. I was disappointed to find that the attache case, a metal-trimmed, expensive model, was empty but for a black knit tie. The clothing promised little more-a wrinkled pair of slacks, neatly folded undershirt and a white windbreaker. The pants pockets were empty, but when I felt inside the jacket pockets my fingers touched a thin, stiff rectangle of cardboard. I withdrew my hand without it, set the folded clothes aside and finished my drink.

"Mind?" I asked, holding out the glass.

Belle Dee checked her own near-empty glass. "I could use a refill myself."

When she'd disappeared into the kitchen, I drew the business card from the jacket pocket and examined it before slipping it into my own pocket. It was a plain white card engraved only with GRATUITY insurance. No address, no phone number. On the back of the card a name was penciled in angled, hasty print: Robert Manners. Another Victor Talbert AKA?

Belle Dee returned with the drinks and sat next to me again on the sofa. "Did anything of Vic's help?"

"Hard to say. It was worth a look."

"You can take it all with you if you'd like."

"I'd keep it if I were you. Eventually the police might want it."

She made an expression as if she hadn't thought of that and raised her glass to her lips. There was a softness in her eyes, maybe from the bourbon, and I fancied I could feel the heat from the closeness of her lushly perfect body.

"Ever get tired of living alone?" I asked.

"Everybody does sometimes."

I reached out and traced the line of her pale cheek with the backs of my fingers. She drew away, more with the change in her eyes than any motion of her head.

"I'm not lonely tonight," she said, "only sometimes." A smile to show me she regarded the effort as a compliment.

I returned the smile with a futile one of my own and stood.

"Thanks for showing me Talbert's effects," I told her. I let her know where I was staying and asked her to contact me if anything else about Talbert came to mind.

"If you have any more questions," Belle Dee said, "come around to the club."

We both knew the answer to the current question was no, so I said good-night and left.