There’s Always A Price Tag

Chapter One

On a hot night in June I happened to be lounging outside one of those lush Hollywood niteries that have no free table unless you have a five-figure income, when a tall man in a tuxedo came through the revolving doors as if shot out of a gun.

I could see by his rigid stare and the stiffness of his facial muscles that he was plastered to the hairline. He was a middle-aged bird with a complexion like an overripe plum, raven black hair with a white streak in it and a moustache not much bigger than a well-fed caterpillar. Before his complexion had turned sour on him, he must have been handsome, but that raw mauve skin spoilt any claim he might now have had to a Hollywood Adonis.

He came down the six shallow steps that led from the nightclub as if they didn’t exist, and headed towards the main street that was loaded with fast-moving traffic.

I should have minded my own business and let him walk to his death. If I had done so I should have kept out of a lot of trouble, but instead, just as he reached the kerb, still going fast, and just as a big Packard, going a lot faster, would have nailed him if he had taken another step forward, I reached out, grabbed his arm and jerked him back.

The Packard went past with a swish of tyres. The driver, a dark, fat man with sideboards and Latin eyes, showed by the way he bared his teeth and by the way his eyes popped out that he knew how close he had been to a manslaughter rap, but he didn’t stop.

The drunk leaned against me, his knees buckling.

‘Gee, kid!’ he said, ‘that was too damned close. Where did that jerk spring from?’

I shoved him off, steadied him and got ready to move on, then I paused. I was impressed by the cut of his tuxedo, his gold wristwatch and the rest of his trappings that reeked of money. If there’s one thing that has an irresistible fascination for me besides a lovely woman, it’s the reek of money.

So I paused, and as he swayed towards me, I put out a hand and steadied him.

‘You saved my life,’ he said. ‘That car would have had me if you hadn’t been so quick. It’s something I won’t forget.’

‘Do you know where you are going?’ I asked, taking most of his weight on my outstretched arm.

‘Of course I know where I am going. I’m going home if I can find my car.’

‘Are you driving?’

‘Certainly I’m driving.’ He blinked at me, then grinned. ‘Okay, so I’m a little high, but who cares?’

‘You can’t drive the way you are,’ I said.

‘Maybe you’ve got something, but I can’t walk, can I? So what do I do?’ He drew away from me, swayed uncertainly, caught his balance and gave me a wide, charming smile. ‘Now look, kid, see this thing through. Be a pal. You saved my life. Now help me find my car. It’s a cream-and-blue Rolls: a convertible and hand built, and I’m not kidding.’

I looked up and down the street, but there was no cream-and-blue convertible Rolls in sight.

‘Where is it?’

‘Somewhere around the back. Let’s steady each other and go and look for it.’

I gave him my arm, and we went around to the parking lot at the back of the nightclub in short, jerky rushes. He nearly had me over once, and he did fall himself, but we finally reached the car.

The Rolls, cream-and-blue, its hood down, looked very, very lush. It took the colour out of my bile just to look at it. For what it was, for the care and loving attention the builders had lavished on it, whatever it cost was a give-away price.

‘Come home with me,’ the drunk said, moving like a sleepwalker around to the driving seat. ‘Come and have a drink. It’s the least I can do for a guy who saved my life.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ I said, ‘but you’re not driving. You’re not going to knock the gloss off this beauty.’

There was something in my voice that made him stare, then he laughed.

‘You think she’s sweet, don’t you? Well, so do I. Can you handle her?’

I told him I could handle her.

‘Okay, kid, then take me home.’ He weaved his way around to the off-side door, opened it and poured himself into the seat. ‘256 Hill Crest Avenue: second on the left off Sunset Boulevard.’

I opened the heavy coach-built door and eased myself on to what felt like a small, suspended cloud. By the time I had started the engine, he had passed out. As soon as his head touched the padded headrest, his eyes snapped shut and life ceased to exist for him.

There was a licence tag on the wheel. I took a look at it. I learned his name was Erle Dester and that he did live at 256 Hill Crest Avenue: one of the plushiest residential districts in Hollywood. You couldn’t live on that avenue unless you had a lot of folding money.

As I edged the Rolls through the parking lot exit, I had the half-formed thought that I wasn’t wasting my time.

The Rolls drove itself. We went up Sunset Boulevard with no more noise nor commotion than a leaf driven before a wind. I took the second turning on the left as directed and swept up the steep avenue for a couple of miles while I watched the number plates outside the various plush estates clicking up to the two hundreds.

‘The gate by that street lamp,’ Dester said, lifting his head. The short drive in the warm night air seemed to have done him some good.

I slowed down, swung the car through the gateway, up a long twisting drive, lined with French poplars and on to an open tarmac by the side of an ornate Spanish-style house with an overhung balcony and wrought-iron lanterns at the front door. It was too dark to see much of the house, but what I could see of it told me it was in keeping.

I cut the engine and waited, my hands on the steering wheel, while I looked at the lighted lanterns and wondered what the next move was going to be.

Dester heaved himself upright, opened the car door and got out. I got out too.

‘Well, here we are, kid,’ he said, propping himself up against the car. ‘Who did you say you were?’

‘My name’s Glyn Nash,’ I said.

‘Glyn Nash? I reckon to know most people in Hollywood, but that’s a new one on me. Never mind, I know it now. I’m Erle Dester. Maybe it’s a new name to you. Well, come on in, Mr. Nash. This should be lots of fun. When I tell my wife that but for you she’d be a widow now, she’ll be all over you.’ He laughed, throwing back his head. ‘This should be something.’

He started off unsteadily, climbed the steps to the front door more by luck than judgment and produced a key. After two unsuccessful attempts to find the keyhole, he handed the key to me.

‘You try. I bet you’re smarter at this than I am.’

I unlocked the door, pushed it open and followed him into a dimly lit hall. The modern wall clock told me it was five minutes after one o’clock a.m.

‘My wife may have gone to bed,’ Dester said. ‘She reads in bed. Do you care for reading?’

‘I can take it or leave it,’ I said.

‘Me... I leave it, but Helen reads all the time.’ He led the way into a long, low-ceilinged lounge that was big enough to accommodate fifty or sixty people and still leave room for a few more. The decor was modern: the lounging chairs and sofas were in cream leather; the carpet and drapes were maroon. There was a television projection set; an elaborate radio and gramophone combination with a six-foot high corner horn, and a built-in bar before which stood a dozen high, cream-leather stools.

Dester headed for the bar like a homing pigeon, reached for a bottle of Vat 69, made two highballs and set them on the bar counter.

‘Are you in the movie business, Mr. Nash?’ he asked, cautiously climbing on a stool and resting his elbows on the bar.

‘I’m in the advertising racket.’

‘Is that right? I’ve often thought of going into that racket myself. I guess there’s plenty of money to be made in commercial television these days. You in that?’

‘I sell space.’

He grimaced.

‘That could be a tough job, couldn’t it?’

I said it was a tough job.

He looked at me then. Maybe the whisky fumes were lifting from his brain. He certainly seemed to be sobering up. I could tell by his expression, he was seeing me for the first time. He was seeing the suit I had been wearing hard for the past three years; the shirt I had intended to wash yesterday, but hadn’t got around to, the shoes that had taken me up and down hundreds of stairs and into hundreds of offices and out again, usually empty handed.

‘You look as if you’re having a rough time, kid; are you, or isn’t it my business?’

I nearly told him it wasn’t his business, but I remembered in time that this might be the opportunity I had been waiting for for three long years.

‘Sure it’s rough, but that’s my funeral,’ I said. I had long learned that the rich boys are always on their guard against the fast touch, and I didn’t want to scare him so early in the game.

He took a small drink, set down the glass and blotted his mouth with a white silk handkerchief. There was a sudden faraway look in his eyes. He could have been going back into a coma or he could have been thinking: it was hard to tell.

‘What do you earn a week if that’s not being too personal?’

‘Twenty bucks if I’m lucky. This is a paid-by-results job. I’ve had a bad week and didn’t earn anything like that, but I’m still trying.’

He stared at me.

‘Can anyone live on twenty bucks?’ He produced a heavy gold cigarette-case, took out a fat cigarette with a tricky monogram on it, lit it and stared at me as if I were something out of a zoo. ‘Look, I’d like to do something for you. After all you did save my life.’

He was coming to it faster than I had hoped.

‘You don’t have to do that. Anyone would have done what I did,’ I said.

‘I’d have been a dead duck by now if it hadn’t been for you,’ he said, frowning. ‘That was a close thing. Besides, I like the look of you. I’m short of a chauffeur: a guy who can make himself useful around the house: throw a meal together, take me around, look after the Rolls. How would you like to help me out? I’ll pay fifty a week and all found. Any good to you?’

I had hoped he was going to slip me some folding money with a nice speech about my bravery. I hadn’t bargained for a job; especially a chauffeur-cum-handyman job where I’d be at his beck and call twenty-four hours of the day. I’ve seen how some rich men handle their chauffeurs. If I had to work I wanted to have set hours, not to be at the beck and call of a guy like Dester.

I opened my mouth to tell him no. I intended to be polite about it in the hope the folding money would come as a consolation prize, when a woman’s voice said from behind me, ‘Don’t be absurd, Erle. We don’t need a chauffeur.’

I turned.

Have you ever fiddled with an electric fitment and got a shock up your arm? Of course you have; you know the kind of jolt it gives you: something you can’t control; a jolt that hurts, but doesn’t bruise; something that hits your muscles and leaves you a little breathless.

She was around twenty-six or seven, tall and slim with copper coloured hair and the cream-white complexion that goes with that coloured hair. Her eyes were large, and as green and as bright and as hard as emeralds. She wasn’t beautiful in the accepted Hollywood standard of beauty. She had too much character, and her mouth was a shade too thin and firm for real beauty, but there was that thing about her that lifted her right out of the usual run of beautiful women and made her sensational.

She had on a simple white negligée that reached from her throat to her feet and covered her arms. Around her slim waist was a gold chain, the only ornament she wore.

‘Helen, my dear, I want you to meet Glyn Nash. You’ll be happy to hear he saved my life. If he hadn’t grabbed me as I was crossing the road, you would have been a widow right now. It was the quickest thing I’ve ever seen. I brought him back because I know you will want to thank him.’

She turned and looked at me. ‘I’m sure my husband is exaggerating,’ she said, her strangely pale face expressionless. ‘Did you really save his life?’

‘Go on, tell her, Nash. She won’t believe me,’ Dester said and laughed.

‘Well, he certainly wasn’t looking where he was going,’ I said, feeling a tight band across my chest as I looked into those big emerald green eyes. ‘I guess he would have been killed if I hadn’t...’ I stopped then because an expression of cold, ferocious hatred jumped into her eyes. It wasn’t something I was imagining. It was there, and it sent a chill up my spine.

Then the green eyes went as expressionless as two bits of glass. She gave me a slow, cool smile.

‘How clever of you,’ she said.

‘Don’t you want to thank him?’ Dester said, a sneer in his voice. ‘Well, never mind. I’m grateful to him. I owe him something. He handles the car beautifully. Simmonds has quit, so he can have his job if he wants it.’

She had moved over to the bar where the light fell directly on her. I caught a glimpse of her shape under the misty folds of the negligée: a shape that sent my blood racing through my veins.

If I took the job, I’d be right next to her: day in, night out, and I wanted to be next to her more than I wanted anything else in the world.

‘I’d like the job,’ I said, pulling my eyes away from her with an effort. ‘I’d be glad of it.’

That’s how it started. That’s how I walked into trouble.

My words seemed to hang in the air.

Helen — I’ll call her that since that’s the way I thought of her as soon as I knew her name — poured herself a brandy, then she turned and leaned her lovely back against the bar so her round, full breasts, under the soft folds of the negligée, pointed at me.

‘But, Erle, although I’m sure he is most suitable, don’t you want to take up his references?’ she said, and a cold little smile hit her mouth just to take the curse off it.

‘Oh, we can go into that later,’ Dester said impatiently. ‘I’m going to do something for this guy: he saved my life. When can you start?’ he went on to me.

‘Whenever you wish... sir.’

I remembered the sir a little late. He didn’t notice it, but she did. She would always notice little things like that.

‘You can start right now by putting the car away.’ He leaned across the bar and unhooked a key. ‘There’s an apartment above the garage. Here’s the key.’ He tossed it to me. ‘Make yourself at home. You’ll find a uniform there. It should fit you. If it doesn’t, take it to Myer on 3rd Street. He’ll fix it for you.’

I caught the key.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We are right out of staff at the moment,’ he went on. ‘Mrs. Dester has everything to do. I want you to help her — keep the place clean, keep an eye on the garden, clean the windows: that kind of thing. Think you can do it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s fine. We don’t eat here. You’ll have to get your meals out or buy the stuff you want and cook it in your apartment. I’ll settle the bills.’ He yawned. ‘Well, I guess I’ll turn in. I’ve had quite a day.’ He gave me a fatuous smile. ‘You’ll be happy with us, kid. We know how to look after our employees: look after us, and we’ll look after you.’

‘Yes, sir. Good night.’ I looked at Helen. ‘Good night, madam.’

She didn’t say anything; her green eyes hated me, but that didn’t bother me: don’t they say hate is cousin to love? I was in and next to her. The rest depended on how I played my cards. I’ve been pretty successful with hostile women: that’s about the only thing I can truthfully say I have been successful with up to now.

I went out of the lounge, leaving behind me an atmosphere you could lean against, into the hall, down the steps to the three-car garage. I put the Rolls away. Right by it was a two-seater Cadillac, and by the Cadillac, a Roadmaster Buick. Dester hadn’t mentioned these two. It looked as if I had some washing and polishing on my hands.

Right now I didn’t care. I climbed the steep stairs that led to the apartment above the garage. It wasn’t quite as plush as I had expected, but it wasn’t bad: a lot better than the room I had been living in. The last occupant had quit in a hurry. He hadn’t bothered to clean up before he went. There were the remains of a meal on the table; the ashtrays were crammed with stale-smelling cigarette-butts. Dust lay like a grey cloak over everything.

I still didn’t care. I’ve lived rough for so long, another man’s dirt and leavings didn’t trouble me.

I stripped off the sheets and dropped them on the floor. I took off my jacket and shoes, pulled my tie and prepared to settle down on the blanket I had spread over the mattress when I heard a movement on the stairs. I put on my shoes again, went to the bedroom door as Helen opened the outer door and came into the sitting room.

She had put on a black silk wrap over the white negligée. She stood in the doorway looking at me, her big emerald green eyes expressionless. I waited, looking at her from across the room, knowing she hadn’t come because she had suddenly fallen for me: even for me that would be a shade too fast.

‘Yes, madam?’ I said, my voice nicely modulated, my manner nicely humble.

‘Oh, Nash: I don’t think you need stay,’ she said, her voice colder than a Siberian wind and as penetrating. ‘Mr. Dester isn’t well tonight. Of course he is grateful, but he doesn’t need a chauffeur.’

I leaned against the doorpost and tried to look as if what she said made a lot of sense to me.

‘If you’ll excuse me, madam,’ I said, ‘but Mr. Dester engaged me. It’s his business to tell me if he wants me to stay or not.’

‘Yes.’ She looked as if she were talking to an idiot child. ‘But he isn’t quite himself tonight. He doesn’t want you here.’

‘Perhaps he will tell me that tomorrow morning when he is more himself.’

The green of her eyes seemed to deepen.

‘I’m only telling you this for your good,’ she said. ‘The other man left because he didn’t get paid, because he didn’t get any sleep, because he found my husband impossible to work for.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that, madam,’ I said. ‘Right now I’m glad to have a roof over my head. Getting paid wouldn’t bother me one way or the other. I’ve done without sleep for so long, a little less wouldn’t bother me either, and I’d like to judge for myself if the work is impossible or not.’

She lifted her elegant shoulders.

‘You don’t look like a fool, but apparently you must be.’

‘You’ll have the opportunity to judge me better when you know me better, madam,’ I said.

‘I’m telling you!’ she said, her voice suddenly harsh. ‘You’re not wanted here! My husband was drunk when he engaged you.’ She held out her hand. Between her long, slender fingers was a hundred-dollar bill. ‘Here, take this and get out!’

And that’s what I should have done, but I was still trying to play it smart.

‘I haven’t earned it, madam,’ I said. ‘Thank you all the same, but if you’ll pardon me, Mr. Dester’s the one to tell me to go.’

The glitter suddenly went out of her eyes.

‘Then if you must be stupid, be stupid.’ She came further into the room. ‘There’s nothing here for you, Nash. I can imagine a man like you would naturally jump to the conclusion that there will be easy pickings in a job like this, but you are making a mistake. There are no easy pickings.’

‘I just want the job, madam,’ I said. ‘I’ve always wanted to drive a Rolls. I don’t know what you mean by easy pickings.’

She laughed then, tossing back her splendid head and showing me the white column of her throat.

‘It’s a nice act, but it doesn’t come off. There’s nothing here for you. We have no money. In a few weeks, Mr. Dester will be unemployed. We can’t afford servants anymore. I do all the housework. It is only because he was drunk tonight that he offered you this job. You won’t get paid, so don’t imagine you will.’

That jarred me a little, but it also aroused my curiosity.

‘I don’t know anything about that, madam. It isn’t my business. Mr. Dester gave me the job. It’s up to him to tell me he doesn’t want me.’

She gave me a contemptuous look.

‘All right, if that’s the way you want to act don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ She moved about the room, keeping in the shadows. Suddenly she said, ‘Did you really save my husband’s life tonight?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘A Packard, going at forty miles an hour, would have nailed him if I hadn’t pulled him out of the way. He said if I hadn’t been so quick you would have been a widow by now.’

She paused. Her face was like chiselled marble as she stared at me.

‘Was that what he said?’

‘Yes.’

There was another long pause while we looked at each other, then I decided to dig a quick one in under her guard.

‘If I had known you wanted him to die, I might not have pulled him out of the way, madam.’

Her expression remained the same, but her eyes lit up. Perhaps her face went a shade paler. It was difficult to judge in the light that threw shadows on her.

‘Really, Nash?’ Her voice was a little more than a whisper, like the dry rustle of leaves, and it gave me a spooky feeling. ‘That’s very interesting.’

She turned and went silently out and down the stairs.

One of the few things the Army taught me that made sense was the value of knowing your enemy.

It seemed to me that Helen must have had a pretty urgent reason for wanting to get rid of me, and I was now curious to find out what that reason was. I was also curious to find out why she hated her husband so badly she wanted him dead. The setup was intriguing. I decided I’d be Dester’s chauffeur for a week or so. The change from tramping the streets, trying to sell space, would be welcome. I had nothing to lose at fifty a week and all found, and with any luck I might have a lot to gain. Even if Dester hadn’t any money as she had said, and I didn’t believe her, I would at least have a roof over my head, and food.

I got up around six-forty-five the next morning, cleaned the apartment, put new sheets that I found in a closet on the bed, got rid of most of the traces of the last occupant, and then tried on his uniform. It was brand new, and it fitted me as if it were made for me: a light grey whipcord double-breasted jacket, riding breeches, knee boots and a peaked cap with a cockade on it: quite an outfit.

In one of the pockets of the jacket I found a soiled envelope. On it was scrawled: Ben Simmonds. 57a Clifford Street, Hollywood.

I remembered Simmonds was the name of the chauffeur who had left Dester’s service. I wondered if he was still living on Clifford Street. It seemed an idea to have a talk with him.

At eight-fifteen I went over to the house and around to the kitchen door.

There was no sign of life in the kitchen and no sign of any food, but I could smell coffee coming from upstairs.

Standing against the wall was an eight-foot-long deep-freeze cabinet that could have held enough food to feed a large family for a year.

Before I had hooked up with Solly and his advertising racket, I had spent two dreary years trying to fiddle deep-freeze cabinets to hick farmers in the Ohio farming belt. The sight of that big freezer brought back memories that made me wince, but that didn’t stop me from opening the lid and looking inside. It was as bare as the back of my hand and I shut the lid with a grunt of disgust. That cabinet must have cost a whale of a lot of money: it was a rank waste to leave it empty.

In the pantry I found a half-bottle of cream and a jug of yesterday’s coffee. I was heating up the coffee when the kitchen door pushed open and Helen came in.

She was wearing a black wool sweater and pale blue slacks. She had a figure that looked provocative in slacks. I looked at her, feeling again that tight grip across my chest.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked curtly, staring at me.

‘I just looked in for some coffee, madam,’ I said. ‘I hope I’m not in the way.’

‘I don’t want you in the house, Nash,’ she said, moving to the door. ‘Your job is to drive Mr. Dester to the office. Keep to your own apartment.’

Well, at least she was now admitting I had a job here; that was a concession.

‘Isn’t there anything I can do for you, madam?’ I said. ‘Nothing in the house you want done?’

‘Not by you. Keep away from here,’ and she went out.

I drank the coffee, washed up the cup and then went back to the garage. I got out the Rolls, washed and polished it, then drove it around to the front entrance. By then it was a few minutes after ten o’clock.

I sat at the wheel and waited.

At half past ten, Dester came down the steps. He was wearing a pearl grey lounge suit and a slouch hat, and he had a briefcase under his arm.

‘Morning, Nash,’ he said as I slid out of the car and opened the door for him. ‘That uniform looks pretty well. Did you get breakfast?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The bright sunlight wasn’t kind to him. His complexion looked like raw meat and his eyes were bloodshot and watery.

‘Do you know where the Pacific Studios are?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s where I work.’ He got into the car and relaxed on the back seat. He seemed glad to take the weight off his legs. ‘Hurry it along, kid. I’m a little late.’

I drove him to the studios; pushing the pace, but not overdoing it.

The guard opened the double gates. I noticed he didn’t salute Dester as I drove past, and I thought that was odd.

Dester directed me to the big office block that stood away from the main studios. I pulled up outside the entrance.

‘Pick me up here at four o’clock. You can go back now and help Mrs. Dester in the house.’

‘She tells me she doesn’t want any help, sir,’ I said.

He seemed not to hear me. I watched him climb the steps to the entrance of the building, then disappear through the swing doors. I got back into the Rolls and drove down to the main entrance. The guard opened the gates. He didn’t even bother to look at me. I wondered what one needed to have besides a Rolls to get a little respect from this guy.

When I had got some distance from the studios, I parked the car and went to an eating joint and bought myself a breakfast. I had fifteen bucks to last me until Dester produced something. I laid out five bucks on a small store of food, coffee and groceries. These I carried to the car, then I drove over to Clifford Street that happened to be four streets away from my own apartment house.

I pulled up outside 57, and rang the bell of Apartment ‘A’. After a few moments a buzzer sounded and the front door clicked open.

Simmonds had a couple of rooms on the third floor. He was standing in the doorway waiting for me as I came up the last flight of stairs: a guy about my build with grey hair and a lined, humourous face. As soon as he saw the uniform I was wearing he grinned: it was the kind of grin you reserve for suckers, but that didn’t bother me. I grinned back.

‘I’m Dester’s new chauffeur as if you need to be told,’ I said. ‘I’ve looked in for some information.’

‘Come on in,’ he said, opening the door. ‘There’s a sucker born every minute, but don’t think you’re the only one. I kidded myself I had landed on the gravy train when I took that job: I know a lot better now.’

I walked into a room that was coated with dust and smelt the same way as the apartment over the garage had smelt before I had cleaned it.

‘I’m not kidding myself,’ I said, putting my cap on the cleanest part of the table. ‘I know I haven’t got myself anything to shout about, but it suits me as a temporary job. My name’s Glyn Nash.’

Simmonds waved me to a chair and went into the far room. He returned with two cups and a pot of coffee.

‘It’ll be temporary okay,’ he said, taking the cigarette I offered him. ‘I bet you’ll be out by the end of the week. No one has stuck longer except me. I lasted two weeks.’

‘What’s wrong with the job?’ I asked, accepting the cup of coffee he shoved at me.

‘Plenty: a combination of rats and a sinking ship and Mrs. Dester. Have you run into her yet?’

‘Sure; she’s already told me I’m not wanted.’

‘Then take the hint, pal: quit before you hit trouble. That dame can make plenty of trouble. I was mug enough to stick after she had told me to get out. She nearly had me on a stealing rap.’

That jolted me. ‘What was that again?’

He grinned, showing tobacco-stained teeth.

‘That’s right. She gave me a hundred-dollar bill to settle the gasoline account. I thought it was funny because Dester pays the accounts when he does pay them. I’ve got a suspicious mind, and I’m glad of it. I trusted her the way I’d trust a rattlesnake. I went over the bill very, very carefully. She had pricked a cross in it with a pin. It didn’t take me a couple of seconds to figure out what the next move was to be. I had just time to shove the bill into the fire when two dicks walked in. They went over me and the rooms with a tooth comb, but they didn’t find the bill. They told me she had complained that she had been missing money for some time, and she thought I was the guy who was helping himself. It was a close thing, and when they left, I packed and got out fast.’

I stared at him, remembering how she had offered me a hundred-dollar bill the previous night.

‘What’s the idea? Why doesn’t she want her husband to have a chauffeur?’

He shrugged.

‘Three months ago, they had a cook, a houseboy, and two maids,’ he told me, ‘as well as a gardener and a chauffeur. Then all of a sudden she got rid of them all, closed up most of the rooms in the house and ran the place herself. Dester tried to keep a chauffeur, but sooner or later she fixed it that the guy couldn’t take any more of it and quit. Don’t ask me why. I wouldn’t know.’

‘She says Dester hasn’t any money.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that. Maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s the answer, but she doesn’t strike me as the type to run a house on her own just because he hasn’t any money.’

She didn’t strike me as the type either.

‘Who is Dester anyway?’

‘You mean who was he,’ Simmonds said, finishing his coffee and pouring himself another cup. ‘One time he was chief executive producer for Pacific Studios, one of the biggest shots in the movie business. He’s washed up now. They haven’t renewed his contract. It runs out in a month or so; then he’ll be nobody. He goes there every day and sits in his office, doing nothing. No one takes any notice of him. He’s just sweating out his time.’

‘Why doesn’t he look for some other job?’

Simmonds laughed. ‘Haven’t you cottoned on to him yet? He’s a lush. No one wants him. The only time he’s sober is when he wakes up in the morning. He starts boozing at breakfast and goes right on until he falls into bed. I guess if I had married that redheaded bitch, I’d be a lush too. He’s crazy about her. From what I hear she has her own room, and he hasn’t been inside it since a few days after they married.’

‘Who is she and where does she come from?’

‘I don’t know. They’ve been married about a year. Since then he’s been going downhill fast. The movie business doesn’t want him anymore. When his contract runs out, he’ll be broke. So don’t kid yourself you’ve got yourself a permanent job. You’ll be lucky if you hold it a week.’

‘He can’t be broke. He’s got three cars and that house. The Rolls would fetch twelve thousand in the open market.’

‘I hear he’s up to his eyes in debts, but I could be wrong,’ Simmonds said. ‘But it’s my bet as soon as he leaves the Studios, the wolves will move in, and when they do, there won’t be anything left. I’d like to see that redhead earn her living. She’ll find it tough after the way he’s poured money into her lap.’

‘Did you get paid?’ I asked.

‘Sure, but I had to ask for it. Dester never remembers trifles like paying his servants.’ Simmonds looked at a cheap alarm clock on the bedside table. ‘I’ve got to be moving. I’m going after a job this morning: driving two old ladies. I guess it’ll be a nice change after driving a drunk. You have a sweet time ahead of you. If he gets home by one o’clock he calls it an early night.’ He stood up. ‘But don’t think I dislike the guy. I’m sorry for him. When you can catch him sober, you couldn’t wish for a nicer guy to work for. The trouble is you don’t often catch him sober. It’s a knock out that a woman could ruin a man as fast as this redhead has ruined him. She must be crazy. By fixing him, she’s fixed herself out of a big, juicy income, and that doesn’t make sense to me. From what I’ve heard it is due to her he started to hit the bottle. I can’t figure out what her game is.’

As I drove over to my apartment house to collect my few belongings before returning to the Dester residence, I couldn’t figure out what her game was either, but I was now determined to find out.