She was a delectable cookie, fashioned for man’s sampling. Now she was dead. Could I find the man who had done it?
It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dim light in the Golden Goose. Then it took a while longer for me to recognize Gil Foster sitting alone in a rear booth. In the three years since I last saw him Gil had grown deep sideburns, added a moustache, and mod-styled his hair.
I picked up my beer and carried it over to the booth.
“Hello, Gil,” I said.
He jumped as though I’d blown a police whistle in his ear. For a couple of heartbeats he stared at me wildly, then his face relaxed as recognition came.
“Dukane, you bandit. What brings you downtown?”
“Would you believe I happened to be passing by?”
“No.”
“You’re right. Lillian called me.”
He dropped his gaze to the tabletop. “You mean my wife had to get a private detective after me? What more does she want? She’s got the kids, the house, the station wagon, the bank account.”
“Come off it,” I said. “Lillian called me as a friend of the family, not a detective, and you know it. She has an idea you’re in some kind of trouble, and she asked me to see if I could help.”
“I’m sorry, Dukane,” he said. “Sit down. I guess I’m just surprised to see you.”
“Yeah, it’s been a long time.”
“Lil and I talked about having you over for dinner a hundred times, but... well, you know how it is.”
I knew all right. Old friends from the husband’s bachelor days don’t fit into the family scene. I said, “It was a surprise to hear you’d moved out.”
Gil tried to toss it off casually. “It’s no big deal, really. The marriage got stale. Boredom breaks up more couples than infidelity, you know. What gave Lil the idea that I was in trouble?”
“She said you suddenly stopped coming around to see the kids.”
“It was doing more harm than good. She’s got to understand that I’m living a different life now.”
“So I hear. She said you had a place in Manhattan Beach, the Surf Apartments.”
“That’s right. I moved in two months ago after a few weeks in a furnished room in Hollywood.”
“Are those swinging singles places as much fun as they look like in the ads?”
Gil shrugged and glanced at his watch. “It depends on where your head is at.” He looked up at me and his eyes narrowed. “How did you find me here, anyway?”
“I went to your office first. Your secretary said I might find you here celebrating your promotion. Does that mean your name will go on the door — Prescott, Steams, and Foster?”
“Not quite. It means that starting next week I’ll handle some of the bigger institutional investors and turn my individual accounts over to a new man.” He glanced at the time, which was a quarter after two.
“You’re keeping your celebrating nicely under control,” I said.
But Gil wasn’t listening to me any longer. His attention was directed over my shoulder toward the door. I turned around in time to see a beautifully packaged blonde heading our way.
Gil stood up and let the girl in on his side of the booth. He introduced her to me as Bunnie Moran, a neighbor of his at the Surf.
Bunnie smiled and frisked me with het sky-blue eyes.
“You’re the first old friend of Gil’s I’ve met,” she said.
“Gil and I haven’t seen each other for quite a while,” I said.
“How nice that you should run into each other here.”
“Yeah.”
There followed one of those dead silences in which everybody feels paralyzed. I drained my beer and stood up.
“I’ll be on my way. Take care, Gil.”
“So long, Dukane,” he said with obvious relief. “We’ll have to get together soon.”
“Sure. Nice to meet you, Bunnie.”
The girl switched a smile on and off and dismissed me from the scene. Before I reached the door Gil was talking intently to her while Bunnie looked straight ahead.
Manhattan Beach, twenty miles south of downtown Los Angeles, is known for broad sandy beaches and airline stewardesses. The Surf is a new apartment complex half a mile up from the ocean. It was built in the shape of a square donut, and covered an entire block.
I walked in through a gap in the donut. Beyond the heavy tropical vegetation of the inner court I could see a sparkling blue swimming pool. The individual apartments, each with it’s own patio or balcony, ringed the court. As I stood peering around, a well-tanned girl in a tiny swimsuit strolled over to join me. She had green eyes and a good honest smile.
“Are you looking for an apartment?” she asked.
“It’s a thought.”
“My name’s Rachel Coombs. You’ll like it here.”
“Mine’s Dukane, and I’m liking it already. Are you the manager?”
“No, that’s Aaron. You’ll find him cleaning up the game room from last night’s party to get it ready for tonight’s party.” She pointed to a section of the building on my right with a glass door facing out on the court.
I thanked Rachel Coombs and watched with appreciation as she swung away toward the pool.
The game room was maybe half as long as a football field. A long bar stretched across the far end. In the center was a dance floor surrounded by night club style tables and a bandstand. Near the door three young men shot a bored game of pool.
A bulletin board just inside the entrance was thick with tacked-up announcements and messages. A typed schedule informed me that in addition to the party tonight, this week’s activities included scuba diving lessons, a pingpong tournament, a class in yoga, a Synanon-type encounter group, and a folk song festival.
“Can I help you?” said a mild voice behind me.
The speaker was a head shorter than my six feet three. Something about him seemed out of balance, then I saw that his fight sleeve was pinned up and empty.
“You’re the manager?” I asked.
“That’s right. Aaron Judd.”
“My name is Dukane.”
“I have a couple of singles available — that’s with the sofa-bed — and a really nice bedroom one. I don’t suppose you’re looking for anything bigger than that?”
“To tell the truth, I’m not looking for an apartment at all.”
“Oh?” The wide welcoming smile slipped away.
“What I’m after is some information about one of your tenants — Gil Foster.”
“Are you police?”
“I’m a private investigator, but this isn’t exactly business. Gil Foster is an old friend of mine.”
“What is it you want to know?” As he talked, Aaron Judd walked back to the dance floor and started up an electric floor polisher. I followed. “Foster has been here two months now. Pays his rent on time. He’s a little older than most of the tenants, about your age. We don’t get many over thirty here. At least not many who’ll admit it.”
“Do you know of any trouble Gil might have been in?” I asked.
Judd snapped off the polisher and looked at me closely. “What kind of trouble?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
He started the machine again. “If he was, I don’t know about it. It’s not my job to nose into people’s private lives.”
“Signing up some new talent, Aaron?” It was Rachel Coombs, now wearing a short velour robe that still showed plenty of leg.
“Not this time,” Judd answered.
To me the girl said, “Aaron hates to rent to good looking fellas. He wants us girls all for himself.”
The manager grinned self-consciously. “I... I better go see about the lights by the pool.” He stashed the floor polisher and hurried out.
“How come you decided not to move in?” Rachel asked. “Don’t you like us?”
“What I’ve seen I like just fine, but I’m happy where I live now. What I really came here for was to ask about a friend of mine, Gil Foster. Do you know him?”
“Uh-huh. Gil doesn’t seem like the type for this place, somehow. Oh, he dresses mod and talks hip and all that swingin’ bachelor hype, but it doesn’t go well on him. Maybe I’m just talking sour grapes since he was grabbed off as soon as he moved in.”
“By Bunnie Moran?”
“That’s right, dear Bunnie. Do you know her too?”
“Just barely. What kind of a girl is she?”
“It wouldn’t be fair for me to tell you. I’m prejudiced. But if you’re really interested, ask superstud over there at the pool table.”
Following Rachel’s glance, I saw that two of the pool players had gone away, leaving a well-built-individual with an arrogant mouth and a cascade of black curls over his forehead.
“That’s Ken Tregorian,” Rachel continued. “He was pretty tight with Bunnie until your friend moved in.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Hey,” she stopped me as I turned. “Come to the party tonight, why don’t you?”
“Maybe I’ll do that.”
I sauntered over to the pool table and watched enough of Tregorian’s cue handling to know I could beat him one-handed if I tried.
“Want to shoot a game?” he asked without looking up.
“Why not?”
After I purposedly muffed a couple of easy shots Tregorian relaxed and became more talkative.
“You movin’ in?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Too bad. There’s plenty of broads available.”
“I hear you do all right.”
“Oh, let’s say I get my share. You a friend of Rachel’s?”
“Just met her.”
“Nice legs, but she’s a little square. Know what I mean?”
“She said you used to go with Bunnie Moran.”
“Not ‘go with,’ man. Big Ken doesn’t ‘go with’ anybody. We had a few chuckles is all.”
“And she left you for a guy like Gil Foster?” I said.
“Come on, man. Bunnie’s a purpose girl. Foster bought her pretty things and paid her rent. Me, I get it for free or I don’t play.”
“You say Gil Foster pays Bunnie’s rent?”
“Sure. I don’t know who was keeping her before he took over, but it wasn’t Bunnie and it sure as hell wasn’t me. I’ll tell you one thing, though, the guy wasn’t getting his money’s worth. I ought to know. Know what I mean? Foster at least keeps her close to home. No more playin’ around.”
“That’s tough.” I ran the table in a hurry then and went out to my car, leaving superstud to wonder how I got good at pool so fast.
I ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Beverly and tried to come up with some words for Lillian Foster to the effect that she could quit worrying about her husband. On the surface it looked like the only trouble Gil was in was that he was being taken for a ride by Bunnie Moran. Still, I had an uneasy feeling that something more was going on. Maybe it was for that reason, or maybe because of the green eyes and long legs of Rachel Coombs, I decided to go to the party at the Surf Apartments.
It was nine o’clock when I got there, and the party sounds spilled out of the building into the street. Inside cigarette smoke fogged the air faster than the air conditioner could pump it out. A stereo set with the volume at agony level screamed from the bandstand. A tangle of bodies jerked and writhed on the dance floor. On my way to the bar I passed Ken Tregorian with a girl on each arm laughing hysterically at whatever he was saying.
I got a bourbon and water at the bar and pushed over to join Aaron Judd, who sat at the far end with a cup of coffee.
“Back again?” he said.
“So it seems. I haven’t seen Gil Foster around. Is he here?”
Judd waved his arm toward the packed dance floor. “I think he’s out there somewhere.”
I recognized the pair of legs coming toward me. They grew upwards into a short yellow dress topped by the green-eyed face of Rachel Coombs.
“Hi,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it.”
“Come on and dance with me.”
“To this?”
Rachel took my hand and tugged me out into the mob. “It’s easy, you’ll see.”
Aaron Judd gave me a sympathetic look as I let my glass down and followed Rachel. She went into some pretty sexy gyrations while I shuffled my feet and wished I was somewhere else.
Nobody paid any attention to my clumsiness, and I had a chance to look around for Gil. Finally I saw him across the floor with Bunnie Moran. They were over by the door to the court, and they were yelling at each other. At least I assumed they were yelling. I couldn’t hear anything over the music, but their jaws were going at the same time and Gil was turning red. They were loud enough at least to attract the attention of the nearby dancers.
When Gil saw people watching he leaned closer to Bunnie and jabbed his finger toward the door. She flung a couple of last words at him and sailed out into the jungle. Gil whirled away from her and elbowed his way toward the bar.
Shouting into the din of the stereo, I thanked Rachel for the dance and followed Gil. My partner danced on without me.
Gil had thrown down one straight whiskey and was calling for a second by the time I reached his side. He turned an angry face toward me.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Learning to dance. What was the beef with Bunnie?”
“None of your business, Dukane. Why don’t you butt out?”
He had me there. I had done as much as I promised Lillian, and from here on it was none of my business. I said, “All right, Gil. I’ll see you around.”
He put a hand on my shoulder as I started to leave. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I do want to talk to you about it, but not now. Maybe later, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
Gil made a weak attempt at a smile and took off through the crowd toward the door Where Bunnie went out. I lit a cigarette and let the party eddy around me. When Rachel didn’t show up again I crushed out the butt and headed for the street door. I was halfway across the room when the amplified music was ripped down the middle by a piercing sound from out in the court.
A scream.
I raced out the door and along the path in front of the patios. Rounding a corner, I almost knocked down a plump girl in a flowered dress. She filled her lungs for another scream, but held it in when I grabbed her by the shoulders. I started to ask what the trouble was, but I looked into the apartment off the nearest patio and saw for myself.
Gil Foster stood in the open doorway. His face was pale and dead sober. He held his hands awkwardly in front of him as though they belonged to somebody else. They were stained blood red.
“What happened?” I said.
Gil shook his head as though denying the words even as he spoke them.
“Bunnie’s in there. She’s dead.”
I stepped past him into the apartment. The only light came from the colored bulbs out in the court. I moved in to have a closer look at what lay on the sofa. Bunnie Moran looked up at me with eyes that would see no more. The front of her sweater was soaked dark with blood. Just below her left breast was a hunting knife, driven in to the hilt.
People were starting to gather outside on the patio to peer in. I located Aaron Judd and told him to keep people out of the apartment while I called the police. On my way to the phone I passed Ken Tregorian, superstud, being sick into the swimming pool.
The police arrived and took statements from the party guests while a team from the crime lab went over the scene. I hung around eavesdropping, and what I heard didn’t sound good for Gil. Quite a few people saw the argument he had with Bunnie. She was killed in his apartment, and he was seen coming out with blood on his hands.
Gil himself seemed to be in shock. He answered questions in monosyllables, not always making sense.
Finally the coroner’s people took away the body and Gil was driven off in a police car. When I had a chance I called Lillian and told her what had happened. She took it pretty well and said she would have her lawyer come down to. Manhattan Beach in the morning. I wished her luck and started to hang up, but she stopped me.
“Dukane, will you go down with the lawyer to see Gil?”
“If you want me to, but I don’t know how I can help.”
“Please,” she said. “Gil will need all the support he can get.”
“I’ll be there,” I said. “Have your man give me a call when he’s ready to go.”
As I hung up I saw that the party was coming back to life. I got out of there and went home.
Gil’s attorney was a pink-faced young man named Wallach. I met him at the Manhattan Beach police station and we waited together for them to bring Gil put. They let us use a small bare room behind the jailer’s desk, and Gil told us his version of what happened at the party.
“We had a big fight on the dance floor, Bunnie and I. An argument, I mean. I guess everybody in the world saw it. I told Bunnie to go wait in my apartment and I’d come out in a minute and we’d finish it in private. I had a couple more drinks — we were both pretty smashed already — and went on out through the court.
“The lights were out in my apartment, but I could make out Bunnie lying on the sofa. I thought maybe she’d passed out there. I called her name but she didn’t answer. I went over and touched her to wake her up. My hands came away wet with her blood.”
“What was the argument about?” I asked.
“Is that important?”
“It might be,” Wallach put in. “Was it just a lovers’ spat?”
Gil didn’t answer for several seconds. When he did his voice was flat and weak.
“I’m afraid there was more to it than that. It will all come out Monday anyway, so I guess there’s no use trying to hide it. I’ve been embezzling money from my firm, selling off stocks in my accounts without the owners’ knowledge. I gave most of the cash to Bunnie. It was supposed to be a loan to help her set up a modeling agency. When I got my promotion I knew there would be an audit before I turned the accounts over to a new man, and the shortage would be discovered.
“I told Bunnie I had to have the money back right away. She stalled me for several days, then finally refused outright, shying as far as she was concerned it was a gift. I was making one last try to talk her into it last night. I guess I didn’t do so good.”
While Wallach talked legal strategy I went over Gil’s story in my mind, and had to admit that he didn’t do good at all. When they took Gil back to his cell a man from the district attorney’s office stopped in looking pleased with himself.
“As a friendly tip,” he said to Wallach, “you’d better plead your man guilty. I could convict him right now of Second Degree, and all I need is a solid motive to make it Murder One.”
“I’ll need time to study the evidence,” Wallach said, but he didn’t sound hopeful.
“We have plenty for you to study,” the D.A.’s man said cheerfully.
“What was the official cause of death?” I asked.
“A single stab wound that penetrated the right ventricle of the heart. Death was almost instantaneous.”
“What about the weapon?”
“A cheap hunting knife, available at any sporting goods store.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Not on the knife. The handle was wiped clean, but we won’t need them to build a case against Foster.”
Wallach hung around to see what bail arrangements could be made, but an idea was starting to grow in my head so I left and drove to a shopping center on Pacific Coast Highway. There I made two purchases at a sporting goods store and carried them with me in a paper bag to the Surf Apartments.
I found Aaron Judd one-handling a mop over the dance floor in the party room while Ken Tregorian idly poked balls around the pool table. Neither had a greeting for me. I walked carefully across the wet floor and talked to Judd.
“Quiet around here today.”
“It always is the morning after a party,” he said.
“I suppose so. Are the police around?”
“No. They finished up in Foster’s apartment about an hour ago and left.”
“Would you mind letting me into the apartment?”
“What for?” he asked, eyeing the paper bag.
“I want to try something.”
Tregorian sidled over to listen in.
“You can help too,” I told him.
“What do you mean ‘try something?’ ” Judd said.
“Come on,” Tregorian put in. “It might be kicks.”
“All right,” Judd agreed after a hesitation. “It better not take long, though, I’ve got other work to do.”
“It won’t take long,” I assured him.
As we crossed the court Rachel Coombs came out of the building and fell in beside me.
“I thought I saw you drive up,” she said. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Sure,” I said, “right after we’re finished here. Come on along.”
Judd let us into Gil’s apartment with a passkey. The police had tidied up somewhat, but you knew they had been there. Fingerprint powder smudged the wall here and there, a dead flashbulb had rolled into a corner, and a sheet was thrown, over the sofa where Bunnie Moran had died.
Rachel hung back as I walked up to the sofa, but the two men followed closely.
I opened the bag and took out a styrofoam belly board, the kind small children use for surf riding. I laid it flat on the sofa. Then I pulled out the hunting knife I had bought and plunged it hilt-deep into the board, leaving it there.
Rachel gasped. The men watched me silently.
“What’s that supposed to prove?” Tregorian said.
“Wait and see. Now pretend for a minute that this is the dead Bunnie Moran. The killer would not want to carry the bloody knife out of the room and risk meeting somebody, but he doesn’t want to leave his fingerprints either. So what he does is wipe the knife clean. Let’s see you do it, Tregorian. Wipe the prints off the knife.”
“Like hell I will. Not until you tell me what this is all about.”
“Do you have a special reason for not wanting to touch the knife?” I said.
Tregorian glared at me for a moment, then he reached down and yanked out the weapon. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and vigorously wiped the handle while holding the blade, keeping cloth between his fingers and the steel. When he finished he tossed the knife back onto the sofa and pocketed the handkerchief.
“Well?” he said.
I turned to Rachel. “Did you see anything unusual in the way he did that?”
The girl shook her head, watching me with large green eyes. “I’m not sure what you mean, but it looked all right to me.”
“How about you, Judd?” I asked.
“So he wiped off the knife. What do you want me to say?”
“So we all agree that the actions were natural,” I said. “Just about anybody wanting to wipe his fingerprints off would have done it pretty much the way Tregorian did.”
I picked up the knife and stabbed it once more into the styrofoam board.
I turned to face Aaron Judd. “Now you do it.”
He didn’t move. Slowly Judd’s head rolled and he looked down at his empty sleeve.
“A man with only one arm couldn’t do it that way, could he,” I said.
Working left handed I drew out my own handkerchief, leaned down and wiped the knife handle clean. The blade stayed sunk in the belly board. “That’s the way you would do it, isn’t it, Judd?”
“What of it?” he snapped.
“When Bunnie was found the knife was still in her. There was only one wound, so it hadn’t been pulled out, then stuck back in. The handle was wiped clean by a man who couldn’t use two hands. You, Judd.”
“I had no reason to do that,” he said. “I liked Bunnie.”
“It was more than ‘liked,’ wasn’t it, Judd? Weren’t you paying her rent before Gil Foster took over?”
Judd sagged as though the vital juices were seeping out of him. “She told me she would be my girl. Not many girls will even look at a guy who’s... crippled. Not girls like Bunnie, anyway. I never tried to own her or anything like that. All I wanted was just to come and see her once in a while. Bunnie didn’t want anybody else to know about us, but that was all right with me.
“Then she met that Foster guy someplace and talked him into moving here. He started paying her rent and giving her other money besides. I couldn’t match that. Bunnie cut me off without so much as a thank you. It kept eating at my mind. I wanted to hurt her back somehow. Then I saw her go to Foster’s apartment alone last night while he was at the bar. I got my knife and I came out here and I killed her. I slipped out and hid in the bushes just before Foster came in and found her.”
Tregorian stared at us with his mouth open. Rachel turned away and seemed to be crying. I took Judd, now docile as a child, back to his office and called the police. After they came and took him away I put in a call to Lillian and filled her in.
“I don’t know what will come of the stock shuffling business,” I said, “but maybe Gil can work something out with Prescott and Steams. Anyway, good luck. To both of you.”
“Dukane, I don’t know how to thank you. If we ever get our lives straightened out again, Gil and I, we’re going to want to see a lot more of you. Promise now, you hear?”
“Sure,” I said, knowing I would probably never see either of them again. “Good-by, Lillian.”
As I walked out of the Surf I saw that Rachel Coombs was waiting at my car. She had changed into a green pants suit that matched her eyes.
“I didn’t get that chance to talk to you,” she said when I reached the car.
“That’s right. What was it about?”
“About apartment hunting. I’ve had enough of the swingin’ singles atmosphere. I thought you might have some ideas about where I could look for another place. Maybe closer to your neighborhood?”
For a minute I looked down at her, then I grinned. “Yeah, I might have some ideas. Let’s have lunch and talk about it.”
Rachel smiled back and slid into the Chewy next to me. She smelled like spring flowers, and all of a sudden I felt a whole lot better.