The ice cold nude

chapter ten

“Danny!” There was a delighted smile on Patty’s face as she opened the door of her apartment and saw me standing outside. “You have been quick! I only got here myself about fifteen minutes back. Did you bring Tam along with you. She peered hopefully over my shoulder. “She had other plans,” I snarled.

“Well”—she almost smirked—“I can’t say I’m sorry, darling. That means we can be alone, doesn’t it?”

I stepped past her into the apartment and she closed the door. “It’s stupid,” she chattered on as she led the way into the living room, “but I feel as if I’ve just come back from a long vacation or something, instead of just having been away for one night.”

I stopped for a moment in the center of the room and lit a cigarette, then started on a detailed inspection of the walls. Patty sat on the couch and decorously pulled her skirt down over her knees.

“Did you get your important business finished, darling?”

“I think so,” I said. “You know, I hadn’t realized what close friends you are with Tamara until we got to talking about it after you’d gone.”

“Ever since high school, Danny,” she said gaily.

“She figures she knows as much about Poolside as you do about the jewelry store,” 1 went on. "So just for a gag 103

I asked a couple of questions, to prove it. She scored a hundred per cent with both answers.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was a riot. Whose idea was the beauty contest, I asked, and right away she said it was yours.”

“I never told her that it was really Louise’s suggestion,” Patty said in a small voice. “I was so ashamed afterwards when Louise blackmailed Mr. Rutter into letting her enter.”

“Then I asked Tamara whose idea was the promotion gimmick using Elmo’s tiara,” I said. “Right away she told me it was yours, too. But you got real cute that time and gave it to your boss, Machin.”

The silence was just a fraction too long before she answered, her voice elaborately casual. “Tamara always exaggerates wildly, darling. I bet she thought she was being a loyal friend, giving me all the credit!”

“I didn’t have that feeling about it—more like she was telling the simple truth,” I said indifferently.

“Oh—Tam was notorious for it, even at school, darling. I remember once when the seniors were—what are you doing, Danny?”

“Looking for some unique works of art, honey,” I told her truthfully. “You must have saved something from the work you did in those two months at the art academy?” “Are you out of your mind?” she laughed uneasily. “I never had an art lesson in my whole life! Louise did, you said so yourself last night when Estell was here.”

I turned around and looked at her as she sat on the couch. She was sitting in a bolt upright position, her spine like a ramrod, her clasped hands folded neatly in her lap. Her lips parted in a smile, but the dark eyes were cold and watchful.

“A couple of things about last night worried me,” I said. “When I got to Byers’ apartment and Marty Estell was there waiting for me—with a corpse on his hands— how could he be so damned sure I’d be there? How could he be sure I’d get out of those straps in the first place?—or that I wouldn’t have called the cops right away instead of going out there myself.”

She shook her head gently. “I’m sorry, darling, but I don’t understand what it is you’re trying to say.”

“I’ll make it real simple,” I said patiently. “The one big danger to you was Willie Byers, and you wanted him put out of the way. Marty Estell was looking to avenge Louise, and get his hands on the tiara, so you argued that it must have been Willie who killed her, but Marty still wasn’t convinced. So you came up with the bright idea of having me prove it to him, but how could you get me to it? You had a sudden inspiration and rigged that whole scene in here last night. I fell for it just fine. With Pete Ungar playing the heavy about to subject you to indescribable torture, I spilled the whole thing, like how I was convinced it was Byers.

“The only thing was the bathroom scene, honey, when you got out of those straps a little too damned easy. Then you talked me into leaving you here to get a cab to the hotel—and once I’d gone you called Byers’ number, figuring Marty would have done the job by now, and you could tefi him I was on my way alone, and he should try and fake Byers’ death to look like suicide.”

“Danny!” She looked at me, horror-stricken. “It’s not true!”

“You must have hated your sister a hell of a lot,” I said soberly, “to want to destroy her the way you did. It wasn’t the tiara or the hope of whatever money you’d make out of its theft, was it? The only thing that ever mattered was the total destruction of Louise.”

She lifted one hand in front of her face as if to ward off a blow. “I think you’re insane!” she said thickly.

“Louise trying to blackmail Myra Rutter made no sense at all,” I said. “Until I remembered it was only a voice on the phone that said it was Louise calling. So it was awful easy to break up Louise’s affair with Rutter and get her fired at the same time, wasn’t it?”

She turned her head away from me suddenly. “I’m not going to listen to any more of your madness!”

“You don’t have any choice,” I said. “Tamara would have told you all about Willie Byers—what kind of a man he was—lonely, sex-starved, desperately wanting company. A man who went to art classes once a week—and a man who was making a diamond tiara that would be worth a fortune.

“So you dreamed up a lulu. The idea of winning herself a beauty contest by simple blackmail—and a contest run by Poolside, at that—would be irresistible to Louise. Then you suddenly got interested in art and met Byers at the academy. To become his mistress would be no problem. Talking him into making a fake tiara could have been—but a threat of walking out on him I guess was enough. You even posed nude while he painted a life-size portrait.” I laughed shortly. “I remember you proudly telling me that both you and Louise had identical vital statistics!

“You sold the tiara promotional gimmick to Machin, and with Elmo in the financial doldrums, as Tamara had told you, you knew it wouldn’t be hard for Machin to sell him on the idea. Louise jumped at the idea of switching the fake tiara for the real one while she was posing for the publicity photos, along with the other girls—so everything was fine.”

I took time out to light a cigarette. Patty still had her head averted, but every taut line of her body said she was listening with complete attention.

“About then, the trouble started, maybe?” I continued. “Louise had gotten herself a new boy friend—Marty Estell—and she told him about the deal. How she’d give you the real tiara as soon as she could after she’d made the switch—you’d give it back to Willie and he’d break up the setting, reshape the stones, and sell them that way. Only Marty nearly died laughing—why give it back to you and split fifty-fifty on the sale of the stones? Why not let Marty get rid of it and keep all the profit?—the hell with Patty and her boy friend. When did Louise tell you that, honey? Right after you’d given her the fake tiara ready to use? So you couldn’t stop her by tipping off the police, because she’d involve you and Willie along with herself?”

She turned her head suddenly and stared at me with a baleful glitter in her eyes. “Aren’t you forgetting one very important thing in all this crazy nonsense, Danny?” Her voice was diamond hard and modulated in a flat monotone. “Louise was Byers’ girl friend—not me!”

“Louise never met Byers in her whole life,” I snarled. “You registered at the art class as Louise. You were

Louise to poor' little Willie the whole time—when he painted that nude portrait, you were still Louise.”

A faintly superior smile showed on her face. “I don’t know how you can make sense out of all that, Danny, because I certainly can’t.”

“It’s not real hard—it only needs one cheap little trick, really, when you come to think about it.” I said evenly. “Something like a blonde wig!”

“Don’t be so ridiculous, Danny!” She laughed too loudly, while her eyes hated me with maybe the same kind of black, implacable hate she’d had for her sister.

“A beautiful setup from your point of view, honey,” I went on in a tired voice. “You’d established a whole separate life for Louise that she never knew existed. She thought Byers was your boy friend—he knew Louise Lamont was his girl friend, and partner in crime. So then, after the tiara was stolen, you could murder your sister and feel pretty sure that Byers would be the guy who went to the gas chamber for it. When you pretended to be worried about your sister you pointed me in Byers’ direction—you’d seen him so many times in Louise’s apartment, you said. Sure, you mentioned Marty Estell, too, so you weren’t too obvious—-but Willie was the vulnerable guy once anybody looked at him real close. That portrait on the wall, for example—that looked like Louise for sure. Then the art academy would have Louise’s name on the register.”

“You’re crazy, Danny!” she hissed. “You’re sick! Why do you hate me like this? Because I let you make love to me last night?—is that it? Just because you possessed me, now you have to destroy me?”

“I was thinking about Marty Estell on my way over,” I said, grinning bleakly. “Marty still hasn’t got the real tiara—or avenged Louise’s death. I don’t think a guy like Marty would blow town and quit so easily—I think he’s still right here in town, holed up someplace. Then I got to thinking what would be the safest place to hide for a guy like him? Where’s the one sure place nobody would ever dream of looking?”

“I’m not interested in Marty Estell right now,” she said quickly. “It’s all those lies you—”

“Honey,” I said softly. “I’d be real nervous if I were

you—about the chances of Marty finding out you not only killed Louise but conned him into killing Byers for you—and conned him out of that tiara at the same time!” “1 didn’t!” Her voice was suddenly shrill with fear. “1 didn’t do any of those things and you can’t—”

There was no sound, no rustling or even a murmur— only the voice, very close and almost talking directly into my ear.

“You wouldn’t do anything stupid, pal, like grabbing for your gun?” he said in a conversational tone.

I lifted my hands slowly in front of me until they were chest-high. “Not me, Marty,” I told him. “I wouldn’t be that stupid!”

“Yeah,” he said without any inflection.

He moved around in a slow semicircle to a spot about midway between where I was standing and Patty was sitting on the couch. The gaunt face looked as if it had somehow achieved the impossible in the last twenty-four hours and shrunk even more. The caved-in cheeks were a sickly gray color, and the flaming thatch of red hair looked obscenely alive in contrast, as if it were feeding on the body’s vitality and slowly but surely starving it to death.

“Marty!” Patty looked at him with glowing eyes. “I thought you were never coming out of the bedroom!” “What need?” The side of his face twitched violently. “Boyd’s been busy talking to me all the time and I could hear him real well in there.”

“He’s crazy!” she said contemptuously. “Just because I went to bed with him last night, he’s gone berserk!” “You live in a real dream world, baby,” he said slowly. “You really figure that’s a big deal with a guy like Boyd? —or me, even? With a dame like Louise now, maybe that was different—she could do things to a guy’s feelings somehow. She could set you on fire. One look from that baby and it was like somebody lit the fuse and the bomb went up. But—you?” He shook his head slowly. “You just don’t have it, baby, you never did. The body’s the same like Louise’s was.” He studied her dispassionately for a long moment. “Real good—nice and round, firm in the right places—but it’s what you’ve got inside that makes the difference. Right, Boyd?”

“Sure,” I agreed with him. “Last night I figured she could turn it on and off like a light switch, and when it was on, it was for real—but it wasn’t.”

Patty nearly choked with fury. “How dare you!” she whispered blindly. “How dare you talk about me like this! As if I was-—a—an animal!”

“It’s important, baby,” Marty said in the same flat voice. “Real important. That was the difference between you and Louise. She could get any guy she wanted, and real important guys, too—like this big wheel, Rutter. Even me—I’m quite a catch in my own way. But you had to settle for the leftovers, doll. The squeezed-out, tired old guys who’d take anything they could get and be grateful—guys like Byers, huh?”

She put her hands to her ears and pressed them tight against the sides of her head. “I won’t listen to any more,” she said in a stifled voice. “I don’t hear a word you’re saying!”

*‘I don’t care too much whether you hear me or not, baby,” Estell rasped. “I just had to figure out why you hated Louise that much, and that’s the reason. So now we all know, right, Boyd?”

“Right,” I said.

The side of his face twitched again. “So I owe you, doll.” His voice had smoothed out again into a monotonous dirge. “I owe you for Louise—for the tiara I never got—and for conning me into knocking off Byers. It’s just the way Boyd said it was.”

Patty’s hands dropped to her lap as she suddenly lifted her head and stared into his face. “Marty?” The apple in her throat jumped convulsively. “You wouldn’t—” “You’re kidding, doll?” Again the sudden nervous spasm disfigured the side of his face. “With all I owe you— and after Byers, I got nothing to lose!”

“Danny!” The black terror-stricken eyes were riveted on my face for the brief instant it took for hope to swing back to despair.

“You’re asking him?” Estell laughed briefly, with a weird cackling sound. “Baby—he set it up!”

Slowly she came onto her feet and started to walk toward him with careful, mincing steps—like a ballerina about to step out onto the stage. “Marty?” She breathed his name reverently, like it was etched in stardust around her heart. “This is so stupid—I mean, for us to quarrel. I can be another Louise to you, if you let me, or maybe even more—”

“Tell Louise hello for me, huh?” he said easily.

The gun in his hand bucked suddenly, and the room was suddenly engulfed in a cataclysm of exploding sound and flame. He fired four shots into her body at close range and the impact drove her backward onto the couch. The violence and the fury died away slowly, while her body sprawled grotesquely across the couch, the head hung down over the edge, her mouth gaping open. The staring eyes still mirrored that last split second of absolute disbelief.

“You know something, pal?” Marty Estell looked at me with no expression on his face at all. “You bother me.” “How’s that?” I asked.

“Like I told the broad, you set this up—you figured I was hiding out isu.the bedroom for sure and I’d hear whatever you said, right?”

“That’s right, Marty,” I agreed.

“You figured this would happen—or something like it, huh?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But it happened, anyway.”

“So you let me jump you,” he went on easily. “You had it all doped out so good up to here, I’d kind of like to hear the rest. What do you figure will happen now?” “I’m going to take you, Marty,” I said confidently. His face twitched. “Axe you crazy? I’ll gun you down before you got a chance!”

“I can take you any time, Marty,” I said, with the same confident tone. “You want to know why?”

“So tell me?”

“Remember last night in Byer’s apartment—when I pulled a gun?”

“I remember,” he said laconically.

“You chickened out, Marty.” I grinned at him. “When you saw Pete had gotten it—or he was about to—you quit. You ran the hell out of there before it could happen to you.”

“I wasn’t taking any chances!” he snarled. “You think I’m stupid or something?”

“Not stupid—just yellow,” I sneered. “I got that same thirty-eight in the shoulder harness, Marty, right now. You’ll get the first shot in, sure, but then we’re even.”

“All I got to do is squeeze the trigger, Boyd,” he said tightly, “but 1 like to hear you talk—for a little while.” “I got a crazy idea that now 1 know where that tiara is,” I said. “But I don’t plan on telling you, Marty.” “You—” His jaws clamped tight. “So it won’t do you any good where you’re going, Boyd!”

“It’s someplace where you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting at it, anyway,” I said. “You want to know where? You’ll die laughing, Marty, it’s—”

I jumped—lately I was getting good at it. I jumped sideways toward the couch in a giant, convulsive leap that carried me maybe six feet away from where I had stood the moment before. Marty’s reactions were slow— too slow by maybe one-fifth of a second—and that was because he’d been listening too hard. So the slug aimed for me hit only the space where I’d been, and plowed on into the far wall. By the time Marty was lining up for a second shot, I had the .38 out in my hand and I pressed the trigger before he did.

My shot took him in the chest. The gim spilled from his hand while his eyes contemplated eternity. Then, rath- | er than fall to the floor, he seemed to melt away like an iceberg drifting into the Gulf Stream.

After I’d made real sure he was dead, I picked up the phone and called police headquarters.

Lieutenant Schell wasn’t exactly enthusiastic when he heard my voice. “The hell with you, Boyd,” he said sharply. “I’m busy right now.”

I had a sudden inspiration. “With Rutter?”

“Yeah,” he growled reluctantly.

“He’s there with you right now?”

“Yeah!”

“Lieutenant,” I said quickly. “Give me two minutes conversation with him, then come back on the line and I’ll wrap up the whole deal for you.”

I listened to his heavy breathing for a few seconds. “All right!” he said finally. “But if you’re kidding about this, Boyd, I’ll have your hide!”

“It’s on the level,” I assured him.

I waited a little while and then a frantic babble of sound broke loose in my eardrum.

“Boyd? Is that you, Boyd?” the voice babbled. “This is Rutter—you were goddamned well right in everything you said about that lieutenant. They’ve had me down here for over an hour already, and they keep asking the same questions over and over and it doesn’t seem to matter what the hell I answer, they won’t believe me!” His voice climbed half an octave. “Boyd! You’ve got to do something about it—they’re going to crucify me!”

“I think I can help you, Mr. Rutter,” I said in a polite, respectful voice, befitting an employee addressing his superior.

“You can?” He sounded pathetically grateful. “That’s wonderful—marvelous!”

“Do you have your checkbook with you?”

“Have my checkbook?” he repeated in a bewildered voice. “Why, yes, I do, but how—”

“You write me a check for five thousand dollars, Mr. Rutter,” I said briskly. “Put it in an envelope and give it to the Lieutenant. Ask him to give it to me when he sees me. Then put him back on the phone and I guarantee you’ll be a free man within five minutes.”

“Five—five thousand dollars?” His voice shook slightly. “What is it for?”

‘That was the price we agreed on,” I reminded him. “Once I know the lieutenant has your check, I’m sure I can lead him straight to the real murderer.”

“Well,” he said, and gulped noisily. “That’s wonderful, Boyd. You’re sure?”

“You can always stop payment on the check if I turn out to be a liar!” I reminded him.

“I’ll make it out!” he said hastily. “Right now. You hang on, Boyd, don’t go away!”

“I’m not going anyplace, Mr. Rutter,” I said gently, “and neither are you until the lieutenant has that check.” This time I waited maybe thirty seconds, then Schell came back on the line. “I think maybe this Rutter has flipped,” he said sourly. “He just wrote out a check, shoved it into an envelope, and insisted I take it, with his instructions to give it to you the next time we meet.

If I didn’t do it, he’s babbling something about you won’t tell me who the real murderer is.”

“He’s got his wires crossed on that one, Lieutenant,” I said quickly. “But the rest is fine. Please bring the envelope with you when you come.”

“I’m not going anyplace!” he roared wildly. “What the hell makes you think I’ll leave—”

“I’m calling from Patty Lamont’s apartment,” I told him. “Whatever you say is okay with me, Lieutenant, you know that. But what will I do about the two bodies in here?”

“You can—” He stopped for a couple of seconds and his voice was a cry of agony when he spoke again. “What bodies?”

“Don’t you mean ‘Whose bodies?’ Lieutenant?” I asked, like real polite.

“Who do those bodies belong to?” he whimpered. “Patty Lamont—she killed her sister and conned Marty Estell into killing Byers for her,” I explained. “So he hid out in her apartment and killed her in revenge. Then I kind of didn’t have much choice about killing him—it’s a very complicated deal, Lieutenant. Why don’t you come on out here and I’ll explain it in detail?”

“You move a muscle before I get out there and I’ll have you shot on sight!” he choked. “Maybe I’ll do that anyway!”