The ice cold nude

chapter seven

Like the song said, I didn’t know what time it was, only for different reasons. It felt like I had lived a whole lifetime in Willie Byers’ apartment already. The police routine had rolled through the whole lengthy process, from flashlight bulbs popping to the guys from the meat-wagon carrying away their grisly clients. But Lieutenant Schell still paced up and down the room like everything was still brand new and he was surprised.

“It’s like living a nightmare over again!” he stormed. “You only came into Santo Bahia yesterday—and in that little time you manage to come up with three corpses! Two homicides and one justifiable homicide—or that’s your story, without witnesses. I promise you, Boyd, if I can’t get you into the gas chamber, I’m going to see you locked away for a minimum of two thousand years! I’m going to—”

“Promises, promises!” I snarled at him. “It was your idea in the first place bringing me back here, remember? You were the smart one who had it all figured out—and what happened to that guy you were going to have tailing me all the time?”

“That was just a gag to keep you on your toes,” he snarled right back at me. “We got other things to do in the department. But if I’d ever dreamed what would happen when a maniac like you was let loose in town— “You know something?” He covered his face with his 78 hands and groaned in despair. “Thirty-six hours back, the only problem I had was a stolen tiara. Then you arrived and what have I got now?”

“Two unsolved homicides and one justifiable,” I said promptly. “You sure little Willie didn’t kill himself?”

“I’m sure,” he said sourly. “No powder burns on the side of his head. I wish he had suicided, it would make things a hell of a lot easier for me.”

“Do Marty Estell and Pete Wotzis have a record?” I asked hopefully.

“Sure,” he grunted. “It’s Pete Ungar and he’s got a long-playing record—you name it, he’s done it! Marty’s a lot smarter—only one conviction out of twelve arrests. He did two years upstate for assault with a deadly weapon.”

“You know their records already,” I said obviously, “so you knew they were in town.”

“I know everybody who’s in town,” he snorted. “But I didn’t figure them in the Elmo job, it wasn’t their kind of operation. More likely if they’d planned to heist that tiara, they would have gone in through the store’s armor-plated window—with Marty using Pete as a battering ram.”

“You didn’t know that Marty was Louise Lamont’s boy friend?”

“So you could get lucky and walk in on Pete the first time you went calling on the girl,” he growled. “I don’t have that kind of luck.”

My watch said it was long past midnight and right then I wouldn’t have been excited if the real tiara had materialized six feet up in the air.

“Lieutenant,” I said politely, “I’ve been through the whole thing three times already. You mind if I go now?” “Yeah,” he said in a flat voice, reminiscent of Marty Estell, “I mind.”

“Okay,” I shrugged helplessly. “You play pinochle?” He stopped pacing up and down for a moment, and stared at me distastefully instead. “It’s the missing pieces that can drive you crazy.” His voice was morose as he talked more to himself than to me. “So Louise Lamont was shacking up with her boss, Rutter, and she figured to make some hard cash out of it—okay. The blackmail attempt on Rutter’s wife bounced right back into her face and she goes out on her ear. She hears about the beauty contest, or maybe it was her own idea, and cons Rutter into letting her enter, with the promise she’ll win it—or else she’ll smear his reputation in all the places it’ll hurt most. This I understand—it’s logical, even.” “I know what you mean,” I said glumly. “It’s the stinking coincidences, along with the bits missing, that make it real tough. She happened to go to some art classes where she happened to meet Willie. Then Poolside happened to dream up a publicity scheme with Elmo’s jewelry store, using that tiara. And Willie happened to be the guy who made that tiara.”

“If you keep on, I’ll start in screaming,” Schell said pitifully. “So let’s accept all those coincidences and pretend they could happen to anyone. Then Louise and Willie cook up a scheme to rob the store. Willie makes a paste imitation, and Louise switches it for the real thing while she’s posing for publicity pictures—okay?”

“I know,” I said sympathetically. “So if it was Willie who killed her because he found out Marty Estell was beating his time—why did he leave that second paste imitation on top of her head? And what the hell did they need two fake tiaras for in the first place?”

“It’s a good question,” Schell grunted. “And I got one even better—if it was Willie who killed Louise, then who killed Willie? And if it wasn’t him, then who killed the both of them?”

“And where’s the genuine tiara anyway?” I finished for him.

The Lieutenant closed his eyes for a long moment. “I’m tired,” he said, his voice thick with self-pity. “I work too many hours for not enough money, my wife’s about to divorce me—and the selfish citizenry doesn’t give a goddamn. I’m going home and sleep for maybe three days.”

“It sounds like a great idea,” I said wistfully. “You mind if I come along, too?”

“You’ll enter my house over my dead body!” he snarled.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I mean, can I leave when you leave?”

“I guess so.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic. “You still driving that rented convertible?”

“That’s right.”

“Then there’s still a faint hope you might run it off the road and kill yourself.” His voice brightened a little at the thought. “You wouldn’t consider leaving a signed confession with me, for use only under those conditions, I guess?”

“You guess right,” I assured him hastily.

“Then you might as well get the hell out of my sight,” he grunted. “I can feel sick to my stomach without looking at you.”

“You’re a great guy, Lieutenant,” I told him as I headed toward the door. “Be sure and call me if you break a leg on the way home or something—right now I could use a good laugh.”

It was almost two in the morning when I got back to the hotel. The desk clerk stifled a yawn while he hunted for my key, and I took the opportunity to check the register. A Miss Patty Lamont had checked in okay and was in room 704. After I’d gotten the key, I went straight up to her room and knocked gently.

“Who’s there?” she called in a tremulous voice from behind the closed door.

“Me, Danny Boyd.”

The door swung open quickly and she almost pulled me inside the room. “Danny!” Her eyes were moist as they searched my face. “I was nearly out of my mind wondering what happened to you.”

She was wearing fancy baby-doll pajamas—hot pink roses printed on cool white nylon froth—which ended at the top of her smooth thighs. Her black hair had been combed out so it kind of floated around her head. The scent of subtle, fragrant perfume lent an added excitement to the curved body outlined beneath the froth. There was a time, I remembered, when I’d figured Patty Lamont just didn’t have what it takes, the way her sister Louise had—and I must have been out of my mind.

Her fingers dug gently into my shoulders. “I thought something terrible must have happened. Thank Heaven you’re all right, Danny. What took you so long? It seems like hours and hours since you left the apartment.”

“You’d better sit down, honey, this is going to take a while,” I told her, and gently lifted her hands from my shoulders.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her elbows on her knees, her chin propped in her cupped hands, and listened attentively while I told her what had happened from the time Marty Estell opened the door of Willie Byers apartment until I left the unhappy Lieutenant Schell and came back to the hotel.

Her eyes were wide with shock by the time I had finished telling the story. “I still can’t believe it,” she said slowly. “Byers dead, and you had to kill that horrible giant of a man. And Marty Estell got away?”

“I wasn’t real sorry to see him go,” I admitted.

“Do you think he killed Byers?” she asked thoughtfully. “I mean—when he didn’t find the tiara there maybe he got so mad he never stopped to think?”

“Could be,” I said. “But I don’t see Marty Estell trying to fake it afterwards so it looked like suicide.”

“Why not?” Patty asked logically.

“It’s a good question,” I said sourly. “Now I’m so confused, I don’t know what the hell to think any more.” “Did you tell Estell the truth in my apartment, Danny? You know, your theory about Byers and Louise working together to steal the tiara, and then he killed her when he found out about Marty Estell afterward?”

“Sure, I did,” I growled. “And it worked real fine right up to the time I saw little Willie dead!”

“Then who else but Marty Estell could have killed him?” she persisted with that damned logic.

I shrugged wearily. “I give up. I guess the best thing I can do right now is get some sleep. With Marty Estell still running loose, I think you’d better stay on here in the hotel for a while, honey.”

“You don’t think there’s any chance of him finding out I’m here, Danny?” she asked nervously.

“No,” I said, too confidently, then pulled a fast switch. “I don't think so, anyway, but there’s always a chance. You want to keep your door locked, honey.”

“I won’t sleep all night,” she whispered. “It’s been bad enough the last few hours, waiting to find out what happened to you. Now I think it’s going to be even worse.” She got off the bed and kept walking until she was in my arms, real close so I could feel the warmth of her body through the thin nylon and the firm weight of her breasts pressing against my chest.

“I’m so scared, Danny,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me now. Stay here the rest of the night?”

“Sure, honey,” I said tenderly. “You were going to have to throw me out, anyway.”

Patty kissed me with the kind of abandoned passion that always denotes unconditional surrender. I appreciated it a hell of a lot because it never happens often enough in any man’s life—and at the same time I got an additional kick out of it, because for the first time that night Marty Estell had done me a real big favor.

I got two frantic phone calls the next morning, much too early, one from each of my clients. They both demanded to see me at once if not earlier, and in a moment of weakness I set up early appointments with the two of them. So around ten that morning, I was sitting in Mr. Elmo’s office, trying hard to keep my eyes open, and even harder to listen to what he was saying.

Elmo hadn’t changed any—I don’t know why I figured he might in a couple of days—he was still the same little man in a dignified black suit, and his gold-rimmed glasses still glittered furiously whenever he looked in my direction.

“I am completely baffled, Mr. Boyd,” he said coldly. “I hired you to recover my stolen tiara, as I remember? All that has followed in the subsequent two days is a bewildering—and nauseating—rampage of mayhem and murder. Is it too much to ask whether you are still employed in an attempt to recover the stolen jewelry, or are you merely using that as an excuse to conduct some personal vendetta of your own?”

“I did find a tiara,” I said defensively. “How was I to know there were two phonies loose?”

He closed his eyes as if he’d suddenly been knifed. “Please don’t mention that,” he whispered. “When I remember how delighted I was to receive your call and hear the apparent good news—and afterward, when Miss O’Keefe told me the hideous truth—” He shook his head sadly. “At a conservative estimate, Mr. Boyd, I would say you took ten years off my life at that moment.”

“You should blame Willie Byers, not me,” I said wearily. “He was the guy who set himself up in the fake tiara business in the first place. I can get real nervous myself, trying to figure out just how many more fake tiaras are likely to turn up.”

Elmo shuddered. “Now you give me another repulsive thought to live with! What I want to know, Mr. Boyd, clearly and concisely, couched in simple English, is just exactly what progress you have made toward recovering my tiara?”

I lit a cigarette and shifted my haunches uncomfortably on the hard seat of the pseudo-antique chair while I tried to dream up something that would sound like a reasonable answer.

“I’m waiting, Mr. Boyd,” he said sharply.

“I’m trying,” I said and shrugged. “I’ll keep on trying.”

The gold-rimmed glasses flashed angrily. “Is that all you have to say?”

“You paid me a thousand bucks, and I get another five if I do the job,” I grated. “So far, in return for that thousand bucks, I’ve been slugged and shot at. I’ve found two corpses and created a third. The way Lieutenant Schell feels right now 1*11 be lucky to ever get out of this town. If you don’t think you’re getting any value for your money, Mr. Elmo, I can quit right now— well, after I’ve given you a couple of suggestions about what you can do with the tiara if it ever is found.”

He looked at me coldly for a few seconds, his face completely bland, then picked up an ivory paperweight from his desk and toyed with it for a few more seconds.

“Mr. Boyd,” he said finally, “I’ll let you in on a secret. My lawyers have found a weakness in the insurance company’s fine print. It looks strongly as if they will have to pay after all. You realize what that means, of course? Once they meet the claim, the recovery of the tiara will

then be their concern, and not mine. Undoubtedly they will also appoint their own investigators at the same time.” “I have a feeling you’re trying to tell me something, Mr. Elmo,” I said gently. “Do me a small favor—put it clearly and concisely, in simple English?”

“Of course.” He smiled thinly. “You mentioned a few moments back that, in return for my down payment of a thousand dollars, you had suffered various indignities and dangers—all in the ardent pursuit of my stolen tiara. 1 am prepared to accept this—though I have some reservations, you understand?—and am also prepared to agree that, as of this moment, I have received adequate service from you in return for the down payment.”

“And?” I prodded.

“As of this moment, your services are terminated,” he said crisply. “Good day, Mr. Boyd.”

“You withdraw your offer of five thousand if I find the tiara?” I asked.

“No.” The gold-rimmed glasses seemed to laugh at me. “I have already withdrawn it. Again—good day, Mr. Boyd!”

“And a Happy New Year to you, Mr. Elmo,” I said courteously. “May your emeralds grow green fungus and your sapphires melt.”

I stopped at the desk of Tamara O’Keefe on my way out. She looked as dazzling as ever, her hair-do a slightly different fantasy maybe, but everything else under that tight black dress looked exactly the same, as far as I could tell.

“Mr. Rutter called about five minutes back,” she said. “I told him you were in with Mr. Elmo, and he said would you call him back before you left?”

“Thanks,” I told her.

“I’ll get the number for you.” She dialed, asked for Rutter, then handed me the phone.

“Boyd?” Rutter’s voice was crisp and executive. “I just had a thought. I’d prefer not to see you out at the plant—it might cause talk and there’s been too much of that already. So let’s make it my house instead.”

“Whatever you say,” I acknowledged politely. I’d already lost one client that morning, and I didn’t figure on losing the other quite so soon.

“Let’s say twelve then?” he queried.

“Fine. I’ll be there.”

“Good.” He hung up.

Tamara looked at me inquiringly. “I have a vague recollection someplace that I have a date for tonight—or do you have a prior engagement to shoot anybody?”

“My recollection of the date is crystal clear,” I assured her. “And even if I had a paid-for-already assassination lined up for tonight, I’d postpone it. I just can’t wait to see you in your Mother Hubbard, a look of absolute delight on your face as you contemplate my early downfall.”

“I have all day to polish my defensive reflexes,” she said calmly. “By tonight they’ll be razor-sharp.”

“Where will I pick you up?”

“It’ll be easier to meet you someplace,” she said. “Why not the Luau Bar?”

“Around eight? That sounds wonderful,” I told her. “I’ll bring my missionary’s enthusiasm along with me. Maybe after three or four of those rum-based drinks, that Mother Hubbard might slip just a little?”

She smiled sweetly. “With the Mother Hubbard, maybe it’s possible.” Her head shook slowly and confidently. “But with little old Tamara O’Keefe—impossible!”

It was, like the guy who married a Siamese twin once said, a matter for conjecture.