Death Spins the Platter

13

Stander made a remarkable recovery. Almost as he whirled and recognized his accoster the fear began to drain out of his face, to be replaced by calculation.

“Good reflexes, Mr. Stander,” Layton said. “I’m kind of glad you’re not carrying a weapon.”

The steel eyes bored into him. “You’re like the rest of your tribe, Layton. Peeping Toms, the lot of you. Where’s your photographer?” He actually glanced around as if to spot a camera with a telephoto lens aimed at him from some distant vantage point.

“If I were after that kind of story,” Layton said, “I’d have been in the bedroom of the apartment with a photographer fifteen minutes ago.”

“Bedroom of what apartment? What are you talking about?”

“Now, now, Mr. Stander.” Layton smiled. “This isn’t worthy of you. I’m referring, as you very well know, to the bedroom of apartment sixteen. What you tell your wife and servants about where you spend your weekends is of no interest to me — except as it may have a bearing on Tutter King’s murder.”

“Murder.” KZZX’s chairman of the board reflected. “You use the word, Layton,” he said slowly, “as if it were an established fact. Have the police decided it was murder?”

“I’ve decided it was murder, Mr. Stander.” It was interesting to Layton that the tall man made no further attempt to play the innocent about his tryst.

“On what grounds?”

“On a number of grounds. The one that brought me here this morning is particularly interesting.”

“And that is?”

“Your tie-up with Lola Arkwright.”

Stander regarded him with great frankness. “I don’t suppose it would do the slightest good to assure you that I dropped into Miss Arkwright’s apartment this morning on a business matter—”

“Carrying an overnight bag, and sneaking out the back door smelling of just-applied after-shave lotion?” Layton shook his head gravely. “Not the slightest good.”

“I thought not.” Stander’s tone was actually regretful. “Layton, how much do you know?”

“About you and Lola? Pretty much the whole story, Mr. Stander.”

“Who told you?”

Layton shook his head.

“I take it, then, you consider that King, Lola, and I formed the usual triangle?”

“I don’t consider it, Mr. Stander. I know it.”

“As a result of which, I further take it, you believe I had a motive to kill King?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Not a bit of it.” Stander took Layton’s arm and companionably walked him away from the entrance to the courtyard. “If you’ve dug up this much about me, Layton, you must also have found out the kind of background I come from, the social circle in which Mrs. Stander and I move?”

Layton nodded.

“Then you must know how little this Arkwright girl means to me.”

“No dice, Mr. Stander,” Layton said. “Tutter took her away from you. Here you are, less than forty-eight hours after his death, back in her bed. That doesn’t sound to me like disinterest.”

“I’m disappointed in you, Layton,” the man of distinction said. “Of course I’m not disinterested. The girl is sexually attractive to me, and she’s compliant. But if you think I’d commit minder over her, you’re a very naïve young man. The Lolas in this town are a dime a dozen. I could have all the Lolas I want by snapping my fingers. She happens to be handy, that’s all. I’ll admit it was very foolish of me to take up with her again so soon after King died, especially under the circumstances. But I give you my word it was folly, nothing more sinister.”

“Have you told Lola any of this?” Layton murmured.

Stander’s expression lost its friendliness. He pointedly glanced at his watch.

“By the way, Mr. Stander,” Layton went on, “the police know all about this, too.”

The tall man’s cold eyes flickered. He turned on his heel and began to walk away.

“Oh, before you go. There’s one thing more.”

Stander stopped in mid-stride. He turned around and came back.

“You’re beginning to annoy me, Layton,” he said. “What is it this time?”

“You had another good reason for wanting Tutter King out of the way. Especially before he could make that surprise announcement he’d promised for the end of his show.”

Stander stood very still. “And what was that?”

“Your involvement in the payola mess. You had an understanding with King that you’d keep your mouth shut about his payola graft if he’d plug the discs of the Southwestern Recording Company, in which — under cover — you hold the controlling interest. You could hardly have been unaware that that might have been the little surprise good old Tutter had in mind for his swan song on KZZX.”

The chairman of the board blinked quite rapidly. That’s the killer, Layton thought — the one he didn’t expect. Layton could almost hear the gears whirring and meshing under the gray hair. He could only admire the quiet way in which Stander asked, “Who told you that libelous story?”

“A reporter is like a prospector, Mr. Stander,” Layton said. “He doesn’t advertise where he’s struck pay dirt. He just cashes in on it.”

He was almost sorry he had put it that way; a flash of hope glittered for an instant in Stander’s eyes. “Am I to take that, Layton, as a bid for a bribe?”

“It was an unfortunate figure of speech, Mr. Stander. Among my few assets is an itchless palm.”

“Incorruptible, eh?” Stander sneered.

“The last honest man,” Layton said, nodding.

Stander studied his tormentor for a long time. Then he said, in the same unnaturally quiet tone, “I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other,” and stalked away.

The millionaire’s parting words had left an ominous echo behind.

As if it had been a declaration of war.

The front door to apartment 16 opened before Layton could take his finger from the bell button. Lola was dressed in a black skirt, a white blouse, and open-toed sandals that revealed immaculate little feet with toenails painted the exact red of her hair. She had carefully combed and brushed her hair and made up her face.

“I thought you were in such a hurry to talk to me,” she said, stepping back. “I was ready five minutes ago and you didn’t answer my signal.”

Layton walked past her into a two-level living room. Everything in the room earned his respect, from the art on the walls to the wall-to-wall nylon carpeting on the floor. The furniture was exquisite. If the whole apartment was like this, the rent must be astronomical. With Tutter dead, it must have been a relief to Lola that Stander was willing to take her back, complete with monthly bills.

“You didn’t say where you were,” Lola said. She had shut the door and was standing flat against it, watching him.

“Out back,” Layton said, “talking to Stander.”

After a moment the redhead shrugged and strolled over to a divan and flung herself on it. She reached for a cigarette and a lighter. Layton took it from her and held the flame to the cigarette. She nodded and lay back, inhaling.

“You may as well park it, Fido,” she said. “You’re a tough hound to shake.” She patted the divan.

Layton sat down in a nearby chair. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Don’t you have anything to say?”

“Yes.” She laughed. “I’d like to have seen Hubie’s face.”

“Hubie,” Layton said. “And what does Hubie call you — Lollipop?”

“Something like that,” Lola said lazily. “I thought you were working on the case.”

“I am.”

At that she sat up and flicked her ashes into a tray and pulled her skirt down over her knees. “I don’t think that’s funny, McGee. What’s the angle?”

“The angle is this,” Layton said patiently. “I think Tutter was murdered. Tutter took you away from Stander. Tutter dies with an ice pick in his heart. Before he can be buried Stander spends the night with you.”

She crushed her butt out with slow, remorseless pressure. “That smells, do you know that?”

“I can’t help its odor. I’ve just strung a few facts together. How do they stack up to you?”

She sank back against the wall and regarded him quite steadily. “Stupid,” she said. “Do you honestly think any man would commit murder over me?”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe you mean that?”

“You’re damn tootin’ I mean it, Layton,” the redhead said. “Sure, I attract men. I’m the girl of their dreams — their sex dreams. But somehow there’s never a wedding ring mixed up in it.”

“I thought Tutter wanted to marry you.”

Her lips twisted. “So did I. But I was kidding myself. I realize now that he conned me into thinking of myself as a bride on the basis of a few vague promises that didn’t add up to a thing. How in hell could he marry me when all along he was living with his wife and enjoying every minute of it?” She grabbed for another cigarette and Layton lit it for her. She began to smoke in quick, bitter spurts.

“So you’ve come around to believing that Nancy King was telling the truth.”

“Yes. The police checked her out. Can you imagine that bastard playing me that way — and me falling for it?”

Layton said nothing.

“Maybe I was lucky at that. If I’d found out beforehand what a sucker he was playing me for, I might have been tempted to go after him with an ice pick myself. As it is” — she shrugged again — “it’s left me free to hop right into bed with somebody else.”

“With an old man?”

“Hubie?” Lola showed her white teeth. “He’s not so old where it counts. And these old bucks can be mighty grateful to a girl for making them feel twenty-one again. He’s been very generous to me.”

“I take it you and Stander got together again on his initiative, not yours?”

“Yes, Mr. Layton,” Lola Arkwright said icily. “I don’t call men, they call me. When the day comes that I have to do the calling, you’ll find that I took an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.”

“It sort of surprised me,” Layton murmured, “that he’d risk going back to you so soon after King’s death.”

That seemed to please her. “Hubie’s always had a big thing for me. He never really gave up after I left him for Tutter. I had to keep saying no.”

“And you don’t think he might have killed King to change your no back to a yes?”

“Men don’t kill for the likes of me. I told you.”

“What’s the matter with the likes of you? You’re attractive, you have brains—”

The redhead laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re on the make, too.” She shook her head. “In Hubie’s book I’m an occasional night’s fun. In my book he’s the guy who pays my bills. That’s all it ever was and all it ever will be.”

“Well, the stories jibe,” Layton said. “That’s about what Stander told me, too.”

“What do you mean?” Lola said. “What did Stander tell you?”

“He ridiculed the idea that he would commit murder over you,” Layton said; he had to keep his voice flat and dehumanized to be able to say it at all. “I think I can quote him verbatim: ‘The Lolas in this town are a dime a dozen. I could have all the Lolas I want by snapping my fingers. She happens to be handy, that’s all.’”

She jumped off the divan as if he had slapped her. She stood over Layton, white-faced, with clenched hands.

“Hubie said that? To you?”

“Yes, Lola,” Layton said.

“You’re lying in your teeth!”

“Didn’t you just tell me practically the same thing?”

She was shaking in her fury. “The—!” she said thickly. “A dime a dozen, am I? That’s going to cost him a hell of a lot more than a dime! He’ll be crawling on his belly — without that corset he wears! — before I’m through with him!”

Layton sat quietly.

She stopped shaking and sat down suddenly. “Maybe Stander did kill Tutter. Tutter had something on him.”

“What?” Layton asked.

“I don’t know exactly. But after he was fired Tutter told me he could pull Hubie down with him if he wanted to — and George Hathaway, too, come to think of it.”

“They were in on the payola?” He wondered how much she knew.

She looked at him then, as if she had forgotten he was there.

“I talk too much,” Lola Arkwright said. “So maybe Hubie did stick that thing into Tut. That leaves Tutter with his toes turned up and Hubie still able to write checks. He sure as hell wouldn’t be able to after a visit to the gas chamber. Nice to have seen you, Mr. Layton.”

Layton got up and went out.