The ice cold nude

chapter nine

I finally got to eat lunch—with Patty Lamont in her hotel room—off a room service cart. Patty was wearing a soft and feminine dress, along with a soft and feminine outlook. There was an uneasy feeling growing in the back of my mind that maybe the previous night had been a mistake. She was showing all the unmistakable signs of being a firm adherent to that unnerving theory that having once given her all, it automatically made for a permanent and binding relationship. It shows first in a whole pattern of small things; by the time we had finished eating and she had ignored my request for black coffee, calmly explaining it was bad for my nerves while she poured cream into the cup, alarm signals were ringing all over.

“What kind of a morning did you have, darling?” she asked, all wide-eyed attention while I took a shuddering sip of coffee.

“Just a morning,” I said sourly. “Elmo figures the insurance company will have to pay up now his lawyer’s after them, so he doesn’t need me any more.”

“But he can’t do that!” she said indignantly. “It isn’t fair after all you’ve been through.” She batted her eyelashes modestly. “Of course, I know that a lot of what you did last night was for me, but even so!”

“Then I saw Rutter out at his home,” I said casually.

97

“He said something real interesting—that the beauty contest wasn’t really his idea in the first place.”

“I guess he told you it was mine?”

“Uh—yes,” I said sourly. “You never told me it was your idea, Patty.”

She bit her lower lip, looking down at her hands, studiously avoiding my gaze. “I was too ashamed, Danny,” she said in a low voice. “You see, it wasn’t my idea in the first place at all.”

“Oh, no!” I groaned. “It wasn’t Rutter’s idea in the first place—it was yours. Now it isn’t yours. How many goddamned people are involved in the idea? What did you have going for you—a chain letter or something?” “Please, Danny?” Her voice was gently reproving. “You mustn’t use bad language like that, darling! It was Louise’s idea. She mentioned it casually one night, and I got enthusiastic because it sounded so good. I said I’d tell Mr. Machin in the morning and see what he thought about it. Louise said why give it to him and let him have all the credit, why didn’t I wait until I had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Rutter on his own.”

Patty blushed, then looked at me appealingly. “I know I wasn’t very loyal to poor Mr. Machin,” she said softly. “But when I told Mr. Rutter and suggested he should pretend it was his own idea, he was so nice to me—and, well, after all, he is president of the company.”

“Sure,” I said. “I wouldn’t worry about it, honey.” She brightened up immediately. “Danny, how long will I have to stay cooped up in here?”

“Until the cops get a line on Estell,” I said promptly. “I figure it won’t be too long. There aren’t that many places in a town this size that he can hole up in. Maybe I’ll hear something this afternoon from Schell.”

“I hope so!” she said fervently. “I feel if I don’t get out of this room, I’ll go crazy!”

“It won’t be too long, honey.” I patted her hand absently. “But this is a hell of a lot better than Marty Estell.”

She shuddered. “I’ll have nightmares the rest of my life about that man!”

“In a couple of weeks you’ll have forgotten his name,” I told her confidently. “I guess I’d better move along and see Schell I have to give him a written statement about last night and I don’t want him any more mad at me than he is right now—if that’s possible.”

“What time will you be back?” she asked casually.

I was on my feet and running. “Hard to say,” I told her as I reached for the door. “But don’t worry—you just sit tight!” Then I was out into the corridor with tie door shut behind me before she could pin me down any further.

There was a faint dew of sweat across my forehead when I got into the elevator. I prayed that Schell had already gotten a line on Marty so Patty could go back to her own apartment right away—she was acting like we were married already, or something. The “or something,” I could see very clearly now, had been a bad mistake.

It took a hell of a long time down at police headquarters. Schell played it in slow time, deliberately, giving me the treatment all the way down the line. After I’d dictated the statement, and it had been typed up so I could sign it, he went through the whole thing, word by word, three times. By then it was five o’clock and I needed a drink.

“Lieutenant,” I growled at him, “I know you hate me, and I can understand it even. But if we go through that statement one more time I’m going to have hysterics all over your office. You don’t want that, do you? I mean, like everything’s so neat and tidy in here, it would be out of place. We’d both be embarrassed.”

“Justifiable homicide for a guy with a private license isn’t good, Boyd,” he said coldly. “Even with impeccable witnesses to swear the man had no alternative but to kill —that it was strictly self-defense. But with no witnesses?” He shrugged meaningfully.

“It’s my day for the cryptic ones!” I muttered. “Lieutenant, you’re trying to tell me something?”

“I think you’re in trouble,” he snapped, “big trouble. I also think you’re holding out on me a little, Boyd. You’ve got some information somewhere that we haven’t. I’m telling you now, if you don’t cooperate fully with us, I’ll throw the book at you on this Ungar killing.”

“I always cooperate with you, Lieutenant, you know that already,” I said reproachfully. “I’m not holding out a thing.”

“Okay,” he rasped. “So we’ll play it the hard way!” “You’d have me real worried about that justifiable homicide if it wasn’t for a couple of points,” 1 told him in a mild voice.

“What points?”

“Well, like Patty Lamont will testify to what happened in her apartment with Ungar and Estell,” I said gently. “And how I gave them a fake address but they caught onto that later—and how I went to Byers’ apartment to protect him against them just in case they had caught on.” Schell snorted violently and I chose to ignore it.

“Then there’s Ungar’s record,” I continued happily. “I remember what you said last night, Lieutenant—‘He’s got a long-playing record, you name it, he’s done it!’ And those two slugs Estell fired at me must have been in the wall, so your ballistics expert would testify they didn’t match the slugs out of my gun, wouldn’t he?”

Schell snarled something deep in his throat and glared at me ferociously. “You’re going to outsmart yourself, Boyd, any moment now!”

“Have you got anything on Estell yet?” I asked hopefully.

He shook his head. “Either he skipped out of town last night—ran out of Byers’ apartment and just kept on running—or else he’s made himself invisible. I know this town and the people in it. I’ll stake my badge we’ve covered every possible place he could hide out, at least twice already!”

“Yeah,” I said sympathetically. “How do you figure the whole case now, Lieutenant? Does Rutter still rate as a suspect?”

“What do you think?” he asked in a nasty, suspicious voice.

“I figure he does,” I said firmly. “Did you check on him for an alibi for the time Byers was killed?” “Should I?” He played it nonchalant, making it a throwaway line, while he watched me like a hawk.

“I don’t know,” I said vaguely. “I was just curious, that’s all. Just for laughs, let’s presume he did kill Louise Lamont because he couldn’t stand her blackmailing tactics any longer, when they indirectly involved him in the tiarra theft? Maybe he didn’t know about Byers’ relationship with Louise—but she could have told Byers about him, right? Then, after she was dead, Byers could have decided to venture into the blackmail business on his own account—threaten to expose Rutter to the cops—” “Police!” Schell grated.

“—police, so Rutter figured the only alternative was to knock off Byers too, and if he made it look like suicide, you’d think that little Willie had murdered Louise, then taken his own life.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Schell said, but his voice was only half-hearted.

“You’re probably right,” I said smoothly. “Not that it would do any harm to pull Rutter in and ask him some questions—it might give him some respect, if nothing else.”

“Respect for what?”

“I hear he’s shooting his mouth off all over town about the bungling incompetence of the police force in general, and a certain lieutenant in particular,” I said mildly. “But I guess you’re above that kind of thing, Lieutenant, and it doesn’t worry you, right?”

“Oh, he is, is he?” Schell snarled. “The big fat slob! Just because he owns a plastics plant, he figures he’s a big-shot? We’ll soon pull him into line!”

“Well, of course,” I murmured, “it’s none of my business, but—”

“You’re damned right it’s none of your business!”

He scowled at me for about ten seconds, then shrugged in frustrated fury. “All right! What?”

“I was just thinking,” I said in a tentative voice. “He’s the kind of guy who uses authority to bulldoze anybody who’s smaller than he is—and that’s the only kind of treatment he’d respect. I mean, like if you played it very tough, very official—that kind of jazz—it would make a bigger impression on him.”

“Yeah,” Schell said, nodding slowly. “For once in your stupid life, you make sense, Boyd. I’ll play it so tough, he’ll figure the Gestapo must have been a bunch of boy scouts!”

“Well”—I kind of slid onto my feet—“if you don’t need me any more, Lieutenant?”

“Who needs you?” he said disgustedly. “You think I have nothing better to do all afternoon than waste my time talking to a homicidal maniac? Get out!”

I got back to the hotel just in time to have a quick shower and change my clothes, then get down to the Luau Bar by five of eight. At eight exactly, Tamara O’Keefe took off her mink jacket and slid into the alcove seat beside me. She wore a magnificent flamingo-colored velvet sheath; it was strapless, and cut low enough in the bodice to reveal the beginning of the entrancing cleavage between her full breasts.

Her full red lips parted in an innocent smile. “I see you approve of the Mother Hubbard,” she said calmly. “But I give you fair warning, Danny Boyd, that if thus one slips only a couple of inches even, I’m in real trouble.” “It makes for a fascinating challenge,” I said wistfully.

The waiter placed a coconut half-shell in front of her, and a martini in front of me. A whole new fantasy in ti-tian danced in front of my eyes for a moment as she bent her head and looked doubtfully at the drink.

“Just what is this?” Her voice was loaded with suspicion.

“It’s a combination, my own invention,” I said proudly. “You take one part ‘Virgin’s Downfall,’ and one part, ‘Missionary’s Delight.’ Then you mix well together and squeeze half a passion fruit into it.”

“It has a name?” Tamara asked in a disbelieving tone. “I’m glad you asked,” I said modestly. “I call it ‘Paradise’! And I did it all for you.”

“I’m flattered,” she said tersely. “You're sure its real name isn’t ‘Mickey Finn’ or something?”

“How could you think such a thing of a simple Manhattan boy like me?” I asked sorrowfully. “And it’s much too early in the evening for a mickey, anyway.”

She tasted the drink, talang one very cautious sip— then took another with a critical look on her face. Finally she took a deep swallow and leaned back against the padded seat with a happy smile on her face.

“It’s good,” she said with a luxuriant sigh. “I needed something to cheer me up tonight.”

“Bad day?”

“I'm beginning to wonder if I'll be out of a job soon —things is tough in the jewelry business.” She made a face. “They have been for some time.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “I bet Elmo’s relieved now it looks like the insurance company will pay up.”

She gave me a puzzled look. “What do you mean—-now it looks like they’ll pay up?”

“Wasn’t there some trouble about the fine print?” I said patiently. “The insurance company refused the claim but now Elmo’s lawyer’s found an angle to force—” “Oh, that!” she said impatiently. “That was just some bug Mr. Elmo got into his head without any reason. The insurance company queried the claim, but they always do—that’s what the lawyer says, anyway—he was positive they’d pay up but Mr. Elmo just wouldn’t listen to him!”

“Maybe that will make the difference?” I said. Tamara looked doubtful. “I’m not too sure that it will from the state of the books right now—although I must say it doesn’t seem to worry Mr. Elmo any. He’s almost revoltingly cheerful at the moment.”

“Let’s not ruin the evening discussing the revolting Mr. Elmo,” I said firmly. “Let’s talk about more exciting things—like your imminent downfall.”

“It will take a lot more than this phony drink of yours to accomplish that, Danny Boyd,” she said with smug confidence, and drained the coconut empty, just to prove her point.

“The only thing wrong with this nice secluded alcove,” I said, some thirty seconds later, “is it’s so damned secluded even the waiters don’t see it, and if I don’t get any service within the next five seconds I’ll stand on the table and—”

“And what?” Tamara asked curiously.

I was transfixed, my eyes dilated with horror, all powers of thought or movement completely paralyzed. Bearing straight down on us, with a beaming smile of recognition plastered across her face, was Patty Lamont. Too late I realized I should have called her; too late I realized the stupid risk I’d taken in agreeing to meet Tamara in the bar of the same hotel.

I stumbled awkwardly to my feet as Patty reached the table and mumbled incoherently at her for a while.

“A wonderful thing happened, Danny darling,” she said in a bubbling voice. “I called Lieutenant Schell about thirty minutes back and he says the police are sure Estell left town, and it’s quite safe for me to go back to my own apartment. So I came down here just on the chance you might be having a quick one before dinner—and here you are!” Her voice finished on a triumphant note.

“Yeah,” I said hoarsely. “Here I am. Oh, Patty—this is Miss O’Keefe, and Miss O’Keefe, this is—”

“Hi, Patty!” Tamara said brightly.

“How are things with you, Tamara?” Patty slid smoothly into the vacant space on the other side of the table.

“You two know each other?” I gurgled.

“Are you kidding?” Tamara said calmly. “We were in high school together.” Her face sobered and she touched Patty’s hand for a moment. “I was dreadfully sorry about Louise.”

“Thank you, Tam!” Patty blinked hard. “I try not to think of it now, it’s all been so horrible!”

“Of course, honey,” Tamara said warmly, and squeezed her hand firmly.

The waiter finally appeared and I reordered the same, then looked inquiringly at Patty.

“Danny!” she said fondly. “You aren’t going to have another drink before dinner, are you? You can have too much of a good thing, you know.” She caught the look in my eye and paled a little. “Well, whatever you like, dear, of course. I won’t have anything, I’ll just sit here and wait until you’re finished.”

I didn’t have to look to see the question mark on Tamara’s face, I could feel it. The waiter came back with the new drinks and there was a kind of leaden silence for a while.

“What a funny coincidence that you and Danny should know each other without me knowing about it,” Patty said brightly, and I figured I hadn’t known when I was well off with that leaden silence.

“No so funny,” Tamara said in a neutral voice. “Santo Bahia isn’t all that big a town.”

Patty’s eyes were moist as she looked directly at me, and now they were back to where they started out in my life, as wet black olives.

“I didn’t think we had any secrets from each other, darling?'’ A faint blush stained her cheeks. “Oh! That was a very indiscreet thing to say, wasn’t it?” Her hand descended on my forearm and grasped it firmly. “But I really don’t care who knows about us, Danny, do you?” “This all sounds very fascinating,” Tamara said in a dangerously brittle voice. “Do tell me some more, honey.”

It was now or never again for Boyd, I realized. All it needed was another five seconds at most, to blow the whole deal.

“Patty!” I said quickly. “Why don't you collect your things and go on over to your apartment right now? I’ve still got a couple of things to do, but I’ll call you when I’m through and—and—”

“Well,” she said doubtfully. “I thought we’d have dinner—maybe Tam would have dinner with us, darling? That would be loads of fun and—”

“Now!” I nearly choked on the word. “The things I have to do won’t wait.”

“Well, all right.” She stood up reluctantly. “I’ll run along then. It was wonderful to see you again, Tam. Don’t keep Danny too long from his business, will you?” “You can bet on that!” Tamara said coldly.

There was another long, leaden silence after Patty had gone. I finished my martini and signaled the waiter, then saw that Tamara’s drink was practically untouched.

“Fm intrigued, Mr. Boyd,” she said in a remote voice. “What are you striving for?—a harem?”

“Look!” I said desperately. “After what happened last night, I figured she’d be safer in the hotel, so for some strange reason she figures this is tantamount to a proposal of marriage, or something!”

“From the way she’s talking now, I feel sure you’ve achieved the ‘or something’ already!” she snapped.

“You went to high school together?” I said feebly, t^ing to change the subject. “How many years is it since you last saw her?”

“It’s precisely three weeks since I last saw Patty,” she said frigidly. “We are very old friends, Mr. Boyd. That is why I can judge her reactions, and what must be in back of them, with absolute accuracy. I guess I should congratulate you on already achieving one downfall?” “Old friends, eh?” I said, groping blindly for any straw. “The whole bit, like lunch twice a week and a movie the last Friday night of each month?”

“The whole bit!” she snapped. “We are very close, Mr. Boyd. I know almost as much about the internal working of Poolside Plastics as Patty knows about the internal workings of Elmo’s jewelry store!”

“How about that!” I babbled.

“How about getting up on your cloven hooves, so I can get out of this seat and go home?” she said savagely.

“Tamara, honey!” I pleaded. “You’ve got this thing all wrong—honest!”

“No,” she said grimly, “I’ve got this thing all right, and honest is the last word I’d use to describe it!” “You’re jumping to conclusions, doll,” I said, desperately. “Believe me, I don’t have any feelings toward Patty other than—”

“Are you going to let me out of here?” she said in a quiet voice that held undertones of frightening ferocity. “Or do I have to scream for the waiter and clobber you with my purse?”

“Okay,” I said bitterly. “If that’s the way you want it, but you’re making a big mistake!” 1 climbed wearily onto my feet.

“I made that in coming here in the first place!” she snapped, then brushed past me and walked toward the door at a fast clip.

By the time the paralysis wore off, she had disappeared out of sight. I ran like a maniac and caught up with her on the sidewalk outside the hotel, still walking at a furious pace.

“Tamara!” I yelped breathlessly. “Hold it a moment.” “Get away from me or I’ll call a cop!” she said crisp-

iy-

“Please, honey!” I grabbed her arm and forced her to stop for a moment. “Just answer me one question?”

“It had better be good.” Her foot tapped the sidewalk menacingly.

“If you know so much about the internal workings of Poolside, whose idea was it to hold the beauty contest?” She looked at me like I’d finally blown a hole clean through the top of my head, and maybe 1 had. “It was Patty’s idea,” she said. “She was very proud of it.”

“So whose idea was it to combine with Elmo’s jewelry store and use the tiara for publicizing the .contest?” Tamara smiled faintly. “That was Patty’s, too. Only this time she was cute and gave it to her own boss, Machin, to use as his own idea. I’d told her about Mr. Byers making the tiara two or three months before, and the day I mentioned he’d finished it, she suddenly got the idea of—”

“Thanks a lot,” I told her. “You’ve been a big help, Tamara, a big help!”

She looked at me blankly. “Where are you going now?” “I’m not sure,” I said honestly. “Maybe out of my mind.”