Death Spins the Platter

7

They got into Layton’s shabby car, and Nancy King, said she lived on Chapter Drive.

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“Near the Valley country club,” she said. “I’ll tell you when to turn off Ventura. It’s about fifteen miles out.”

During the first part of the long drive down Ventura Boulevard, she was withdrawn. Almost as if I weren’t here, Layton thought, beginning to feel foolish. What the devil did I expect — chit-chat?

When they reached Encino he cleared his throat. “It’s after six. How about something to eat?”

She shook her head. What a damfool thing to suggest! Layton told himself savagely. He stepped on the gas. But as they approached Tarzana he became aware, in a sort of panic, that she was — very quietly — crying.

“Wouldn’t you like to stop at least for a drink?” he asked in desperation.

“I’m sorry.” For an instant she touched his arm with her slim gloved hand. Then she fumbled in her bag and brought out a ridiculous wisp of handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. The faintest of scents invaded his nose. “This is pretty selfish repayment for your kindness. Thank you, but I’d rather get home.”

Layton felt confused. He never felt confused. What in the world is happening to me? he thought. He tried to think of something to say, but his brain seemed wrapped in fog.

“Selfish?” he finally said.

“The tears are more for me than for Tutter, I’m ashamed to say. I was feeling sorry for myself because I’d so looked forward to a new life together.”

“Aren’t all tears selfish?” Layton said fatuously. “You don’t have to feel guilty, Mrs. King.”

“How do you stop?” She stared at the thinning traffic. “I keep thinking how unfair it is that it should happen just now. It wouldn’t have been nearly so overwhelming if Tutter had died before this payola nightmare came up. At that time I had no real hope of our living like normal married people.” Her hands convulsed for a moment. “And now you’ll think me dreadful.”

“I think you’re honest,” Layton heard himself saying, in a warm tone. “I’d say you’ve earned the right to feel cheated after all these years of being hidden away like a — like a doll in a closet.” Like a doll in a closet! The next thing I know, he thought, I’ll be spouting poetry. He struggled to reassert the reporter in him. “Mind if I ask you a personal question, Mrs. King?”

She glanced at him. “It depends on the question.”

“Why did you put up with that invisible-wife routine for so long?”

The attractive widow was silent. After a while she said, “I suppose, basically, because Tutter insisted. As I told those detectives, I don’t know how much Tutter was making, but it was obviously a great deal. To protect his income, he said, he bad to preserve his public image as a bachelor.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Layton said. “What good was the money to you when you couldn’t enjoy the life it forced on you? Or was the money an end in itself?”

He had not intended to say that, and he was not surprised when her tone turned cold. “I’d have lived with Tutter in a bungalow court, Mr. Layton. But he wouldn’t have been happy.” Then the ice melted. “I can’t blame you for thinking that. These are expensive clothes. The fact is, I loathe the kind of social life Tutter had to lead in Hollywood. I was actually glad not to have to be part of it. We had our own close friends.”

Apologies. But, all of it. The real reason she let him make a prisoner out of her, Layton thought bitterly, was that she loved the bastard. Why didn’t she say so?

He shook his head clear and promised himself that there would be no more nonsense.

“What flogs me is how you two managed to keep your marriage out of the papers all these years,” Layton said in flat tones. “Didn’t he ever take you out?”

She sensed his change of mood, and it seemed to puzzle her. “Often. But it was always to out-of-the-way places where we wouldn’t run into the Hollywood crowd or the teenage autograph hounds. Sometimes, of course, it didn’t work. When he had to introduce me to somebody he knew, he’d say I was his sister.”

“His sister!” Layton gripped the wheel. “And you took that?”

“I’d have taken anything Tutter dished out, Mr. Layton,” she said in a quiet voice. “Better slow down. We’re near my turnoff.”

At her direction Layton turned left off Ventura.

“It’s still a little way,” Nancy King murmured, smiling. “Aren’t you sorry now you volunteered to take me home?”

Layton mumbled something, and she gave him another puzzled look.

He was soon wrestling the curves at the edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, where Wells Drive twisted and turned uphill and down like a roller coaster. When they finally got to Chapter Drive, Layton said politely, “It’s isolated, all right.”

“Tutter thought it was perfect,” she said. “Practically no neighbors, he said, but only a short distance from civilization.”

Tutter thought, Tutter said. To hell with Tutter.

The house was one-story, ranch style, built into the side of a hill too small to be a mountain but big enough for city legs. A small level lawn had been gouged out of the hill, too; the inevitable swimming pool, free form, glittered in its green setting like a crazy-cut jewel.

To hell with Tutter and to hell with you, Layton thought as he pulled the old Plymouth up in her driveway. From now on one of the other guys can run with the ball on this one. But he was only mildly surprised to find himself following her into the house when she offered him a drink.

“I don’t want you to think I’m a complete ingrate,” she said with a smile. She was damn pretty when she smiled. Damn pretty. “What will it be?”

“Bourbon and soda,” he said.

He sat down in a beautifully flowing Danish modern chair while she stripped off her gloves on her way to a little gem of a bar. The living room was full of odd, delicate pieces, graceful and functional, unmatched but simpático; there were vases and vases of fresh flowers, and an eternal sort of view through the picture window that occupied most of one wall. The room was exquisite. Her taste, of course, not his. Layton refused to grant the late Tutter King taste.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess,” Nancy said, busying herself at the bar. Layton could see no sign of a mess. “Light on the soda?”

“Please.” When she brought him his drink and had sat down opposite him, he said, “Going to keep living here, do you think?”

“Depends.” She leaned back, and Layton studied the improbable mass of glossy black hair above the pale, brooding face. Suddenly she took a sip. “I don’t know how much Tutter’s left me.” She laughed. “I don’t even know if this house is clear or mortgaged.”

“You don’t seem to know much of anything where your husband was concerned.”

“The perfect wife.” She laughed again, and in the middle of the laugh she started to cry again.

Layton sat perfectly still. Tears became her, he decided. A woman ought to cry; it emphasized her. It emphasized her most when she did it against a manly chest. I wonder what would happen if I offered mine, he thought. Right now. Then he saw Tutter King lying on the floor of dressing room 1 at KZZX, all the air let out of him by the ice pick. Layton, I always knew you were a heel, Layton said to himself, but this is just plain perversion. The guy isn’t buried yet...

“Beg pardon?” he said.

“I said it was thoughtful of you to go wandering off somewhere while I acted female again.” She set her drink down on a low coffee table and rose. Mechanically, Layton got to his feet, too. “I’d like to show you something, Mr. Layton.”

“How about Jim?” Layton said. “It’s okay. Your husband called me that.”

She gave him a startled look. But then she smiled and said, “All right, Jim. But that’s a two-way street. Mine is Nancy.”

“I know,” he said absurdly.

He followed her down a short hall into a bedroom. She’s female, all right, he thought. This is where she kept demonstrating it. Now she’s got to show me the scene of the marital crime, to prove to me that the crime was recurrent, and what a willing victim she was.

To hell with her, he thought again.

Here the room conformed. The bed was a typical Hollywood enormity of blanched oak, with matching dressers and a vanity. One of the dresser tops displayed a pair of yellowed ivory hairbrushes, men’s; a cuff link and stud box; a man’s wristwatch, thin and golden... Layton turned away. The other dresser had nothing on it but a photograph of Tutter King in a frame also thin and golden. On the vanity stood a clutter of jars and boxes and bottles.

“So?” Layton said curtly.

She crossed the room and opened the sliding panel of one of twin closets. The closet was full of men’s suits, sports jackets, sports shirts, slacks, topcoats. More than a dozen pairs of men’s shoes were neatly arranged on a floor rack. There were at least a hundred neckties on a tie rack.

“So?” Layton said again.

She left the closet door open and went to the dresser with the men’s articles on top. She began to open drawers. Layton saw men’s shirts, socks, underwear, accessories; most of them were monogrammed TK. When she shut the bottom drawer and rose, she turned to Layton and said, “Now do you see?”

“See what?”

“That the Arkwright girl was simply not telling the truth. If Tutter hadn’t been living with me, as she claimed, would he have kept all these clothes here? I’m sure the police won’t find half as much when they look over his Hollywood apartment.”

“Mrs. King,” Layton began.

“I thought it was to be Nancy, Jim.” The dark eyes that searched his face had a sudden anxious shimmer.

“Nancy.” Layton forced a smile. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I believe you.”

“I’m so glad. For a moment...” In her earnestness she stepped closer to him and put her hand on his arm. The faint scent she wore filled his head. How do I get out of this? he thought wryly. “During the week he came home almost every night. He’d even spend an occasional weekend here, when he got fed up with the Hollywood rat race. It’s true,” Nancy King added reasonably, “that he often didn’t get home till quite late; sometimes after midnight. But he was usually home by ten-thirty or eleven; once in a while he’d be as early as nine. And of course he often didn’t leave for the station until almost one in the afternoon. So we really had a lot of time together.”

A lot of time together! She had sold herself that bill of phony goods; now she was trying to sell it to him. Okay, I’m sold, he thought, I’m sold, I’m sold. How do I get out of here?

Layton stepped back and brought his arm up to look at his wristwatch. Her hand fell to her side. “I’m afraid I’ll have to be getting back, Nancy. You going to be all right here — alone?”

“Haven’t you forgotten that I’ve spent a good many years of days and evenings here — alone?” She was regarding him curiously. “Jim, have I said or done something to offend you?”

“Offend me?” He managed to grin. “Of course not. Anyway, a reporter can’t afford the luxury of taking offense. Can I help you during the next few days, Nancy? They’re going to be rough — the rest of the news hounds, the funeral, and all—”

“I did offend you,” she said. She sounded distressed. “I didn’t mean to, Jim. It’s, been so long since anyone’s been that kind to me... I mean...”

“Think nothing of it,” he said lightly. “Part of my job.”

“Oh,” she said.

“If you want me, yell. You can always get a message to me through the Bulletin.”

“Yes, Jim.”

The drink was still in his hand. He drained the glass and looked around for a place to set it down. She took it from him gently.

“Well,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you, Nancy. Chin up.”

“Yes, Jim,” she said again. “And thank you. So much.”

And that’s that, Layton said to himself as he drove away, knowing that she was watching him from her doorway with that same puzzled, slightly anxious look.

He had to tussle with the weak new Layton inside to keep from looking back.

He won, but it took everything he had.

Layton passed up the countless epicurean palaces along Ventura Boulevard which served superb food at superb prices in favor of a homely little Italian restaurant he knew outside North Hollywood, where he could dine just as superbly on a reporter’s salary. But tonight the lasagna tasted like rubber cement and the espresso like boiled roofing tar; the only reason he finished the meal was to spare Mama Ludofacci’s easily bruised feelings.

He phoned his office before he left. The King case had kicked up a storm, he learned; reporters for rival newspapers were running around wildly, trying to catch up with the Bulletin; the big cheese, it seemed, had been overheard to make a complimentary remark about one Jim Layton, an unprecedented event in the Bulletin’s history. There was nothing new.

It was only after he hung up that Layton realized he had said nothing at all about the deceased’s secret home on Chapter Drive, or that he had just come from a tête-à-tête there with the widow. The realization did not buoy up his sunken spirits.

Later, he found himself surveying his three-room apartment on Seventh, near Parkview, with a sour eye. It had always seemed to him a comfortable, even an attractive, place from which to tell the world to take a flying leap. Now it was all wrong, a flophouse with shabby furniture, bad Modigliani and Dufy reproductions, and a mountain of sterile second-hand books and far-out hi-fi recordings. It was all male, and it all stank.

Why, for God’s sake, Layton thought, I’m living like a pig. Crushed, butts in the browned-up ash trays, empty beer cans lying around like corpses, that soiled shirt I forgot to take to the laundry hanging from the three-way lamp — why am I tossing away my hard-earned dough on that drab who’s supposed to keep this joint clean?

This angry thought reminded him that Luella might be a drab, but there were plenty of women in the world who could take a dirty flop like this and make something warm and clean and beautiful out of it. And thinking about this untapped supply of female paragons naturally led him to thoughts of the strange, pale, black-topped female living alone in her lovely ranch house remote in the Valley, mourning a skunk who hadn’t deserved to lap the lees of her bath water.

At this point Layton abruptly went to bed.

To hell with her!