During lunch I discovered that Sharon had a crush on Howard Farrell. He seemed to be her luncheon guest rather than Manners’, which didn’t surprise me. He didn’t seem the sort of man the president of Effington Steel would cultivate, but he did fit the picture Manners had given me of his daughter’s friends.
I got the impression that it was a one-sided crush, however. The girl directed most of her conversation at him, but he virtually ignored her. He was more interested in discussing horses with me, particularly in discussing Ethyl’s Boy.
For a member of the idle rich, Farrell struck me as unusually interested in accumulating more money the easy way. He seemed to think that since I had come clear from New York to play Ethyl’s Boy, I must have some inside dope. He wanted to get in on a good thing.
Having done a pretty thorough job of reasearch, I accommodated him. “Ethyl’s Boy is a class A trotter,” I said. “But he was against too stiff competition at Batavia Downs. He’s never managed to come in better than fourth. That’s why his owners moved him down here. There isn’t a trotter in the area who can beat his time.” I quoted the times of the horse’s last few starts at Batavia Downs and compared them to the times of the top-money trotters currently running at Everglade Raceway.
Part of my material I had gathered merely by reading the local sport columns, part through briefing by Carl Lincoln, who follows the races. I had it down pat enough to sound like an expert.
“You think he’ll come in Monday night?” Farrell asked.
I shook my head. “They’ll hold him back for a few days to build his odds up,” I said, quoting Carl. “If you’re really interested, I’ll let you know when I think he’s ready to go.”
He was more than interested. He was eager. He wrote his telephone number on a card so that I’d be sure to phone him when the time for the killing was ripe.
Manners, obviously uninterested in all this horse talk, was silent most of the meal. Sharon, equally uninterested, did her best to swing Farrells’s attention to herself. When this failed, she finally switched tactics and decided to make him jealous. All of a sudden she became ovewhelmingly interested in me.
When we finished eating, she drained her coffee cup almost at a gulp, bounced up and said, “Let me show you around the place, Mr. Rudd, while the old men are finishing their coffee.”
My coffee was barely touched, but I obligingly rose. Chummily she took my arm and led me toward the terraced flower gardens at the rear of the place. Farrell frowned after us, but I don’t think it was because of jealousy. I think he resented her carrying me off and interrupting our conversation about horses.
CHAPTER IV
There were three terrace levels, with a drop of about two feet between each level and with three stone steps leading from one level to the next. In the spring and summer probably the place was a riot of color, but now only asters were in bloom. Still it was a very pleasant spot.
Sharon paused at the second level and seated herself on a stone bench. I sat next to her and drew out a package of cigarettes.
“Thanks,” she said, accepting one and leaning forward to accept a light also.
After lighting my own cigarette, I glanced back toward the picnic table. Just our heads could be seen from there, I noted, and both Manners and Farrell were looking our way. It seemed probable that Sharon had chosen this spot so that Farrel could see us tête-à-tête on the stone bench, but could only barely see us.
“It’s nice here,” I said. “Are you the gardener?”
She shook her head. “There’s too much work connected with gardening to suit my taste. It’s father’s hobby. He has a man in to help him some.”
“What are your hobbies?” I asked.
“Anything that’s fun. Men, parties, dancing in my bare feet. Currently I’m thinking of developing an interest in horses.”
“Oh? When did you decide this?”
“During lunch. Would you like to be my tutor?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m planning to go see the local debut of Ethyl’s Boy Monday night. Want to come along?”
“I’d love it.”
“Will Farrell mind?”
She frowned at me. “What concern would it be of his?”
I shrugged. “I got the impression there was something between you. If you’re engaged or something, I wouldn’t want to cut in.”
“I don’t know what you mean by something, but you don’t see me wearing a ring, do you?”
“No,” I conceded.
“Then we have a date for Monday evening.”
“Monday is a long way off,” I said. “An empty weekend looms before me. Do you have a dinner engagement tonight?”
“Not dinner. There’s a sort of tacit understanding that I see Howard on Saturday nights. I don’t have definite plans made with him for tonight, though.”
I said, “If he expects to see you, wouldn’t he be upset?”
“He’ll probably be relieved,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “He’s in the process of developing another interest.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You mean you have a rival?”
“I’d hardly call her a rival,” she said with disdain. “To have a rival, you first have to feel interest yourself. Howard is merely a friend.”
A friend she was nuts about, I thought. She was eaten up with jealousy because Howard Farrell was chasing another woman, and was using me solely to give him a dose of his own medicine. But I didn’t care what her motive was, so long as the situation gave me an in.
Later, when we had rejoined the others, it became even more obvious that I had gauged the relationship between Farrell and Sharon correctly. When the maid came out to clear the table, Farrell took it as a signal to make his excuses and break away. He said he thought he’d run out to the country club and try to scare up a game of tennis. In a halfhearted manner he asked Sharon if she’d like to come along.
“No, thanks,” she said a trifle distantly. “We’d have to take separate cars, because I’d have to come home early enough to dress. I have a dinner engagement.
He looked surprised. “Won’t I see you this evening, then?”
“I hardly think so,” she said primly. “After dinner I thought I’d show Matt some of St. Cecilia’s night spots.”
Up to now I had been Mr. Rudd. All of a sudden we were on a first-name basis.
Farrell merely glanced at me and shrugged. His indifference suggested that Sharon was wasting effort in trying to make him jealous. The situation had all the earmarks of an ending affair. It seemed apparent to me that Farrell had given the girl a tremendous rush at some time in the past, but now had lost interest and was trying to get off the hook as gracefully as possible.
He said, “I’ll give you a buzz, then. Thanks for lunch, Mr. Manners. Nice to have met you, Rudd. Don’t forget to phone me when you think Ethyl’s Boy is ready to go.”
“Sure,” I said. “Nice to have met you, too.”
Sharon’s gaze burned after him as he walked over to climb into the Jaguar parked in front of my rented car. He pulled forward to where the graveled driveway widened in front of a double garage, swung in a U-turn and drove the righthand wheels off on the grass to pass my Ford. He threw a final wave, but Sharon didn’t wave back.
As soon as Farrell was out of sight and my usefulness as a foil was over, Sharon said abruptly, “I was out pretty late last night, Matt. So if you want me to stay awake this evening, I’d better get an afternoon nap. Will you excuse me?”
Her father frowned at this unhostesslike behavior, but before he could open his mouth, I said quickly, “Of course, Sharon. I’d like a little visit with your father anyway. Suppose I pick you up about six-thirty?”
“Fine,” she said without much interest, and walked on into the house.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into modern youngsters,” Martin Manners said apologetically. “That was inexcusably rude. But nowadays they all seem to think they can do anything whim strikes them to do. Old-fashioned courtesy
seems to be out of fashion.”
I said, “She’s upset She has a crush on Farrell and he isn’t reciprocating.”
“I know,” he said gloomily. “She usually has a crush on some worthless young idiot. Normally she’s the one who tires of them, but this time I detect the symptoms of young Miss Sharon being scorned. Probably it’s good for her, though I don’t understand why Farrell would want to let her go. I’ve been afraid he’d try to talk her into marrying him. I had him pegged as a fortune hunter.”
“Isn’t he one of the idle rich?” I asked in surprise.
“He’s idle enough, but he’s far from rich. His grandfather had money, but his father managed to get rid of most of it. He gambled on a falling stock market after World War Two and became a Wall Street bear. When the market boomed, he was wiped out and committed suicide. He left some insurance, all neatly tied up in monthly payments so that Howard can’t get hold of the principal and gamble it away like the old man did, but it’s only enough to get by on. I understand Howard owes half the people in town.”
“Yet he’s still accepted by the country club set?” I inquired.
Manners raised his eyebrows. “His family had social position,” he said as though this made it self-explanatory.
“Is Farrell one of this Isobel Whittier’s social clique?” I asked.
“A charter member, from what I understand. I believe he introduced Sharon to the group.”
That was interesting, I thought. If I couldn’t get Sharon to take me to one of the Whittier woman’s parties, perhaps I could wrangle an invitation through Farrell.
I left a few minutes later. Manners walked me over to my car and, as I started to climb in, said in seeming afterthought, “About expenses, Sergeant. Here’s some money, and you can keep track of what you spend of it.”
He handed me a sheaf of bills. Spreading them, I counted ten fifties.
“Five hundred,” I said. “Okay, I’ll render you an expense account and the change when the operation is over. Thanks for the lunch.”
“You’re welcome,” he said politely.
When I returned at six-thirty to pick Sharon up for our dinner date, Manners wasn’t home. Sharon said he too had gone out for dinner.
Sharon wore a white dinner gown of the strapless type, exposing cream-smooth arms and shoulders and the top quarter of plump but firm breasts. Her rival must be a raving beauty, I thought, for Farrell to want to ditch Sharon for her.
Since I was supposed to be a stranger in town, I let Sharon do the directing. She steered us to the Embers for dinner, afterward to a series of night spots for drinking and dancing. We ended up at the Peacock Inn in time to catch the midnight floor show.
During the early part of the evening the girl wasn’t a very stimulating companion. She seemed withdrawn almost to the point of depression. The most I could say for her was that she was polite, because she didn’t even intimate that the reason for her lack of gaiety was that she was with me bastead of with Howard Farrell.
Alcohol seemed to have a relaxing effect on her, though. She could down more whisky and soda than any girl I ever bought drinks for, but she didn’t get drunk. They just made her sparkle more and more as the evening progressed. By the time the floor show at the Peacock Inn ended at one A.M. she was having a ball. When I asked her to dance, she kicked off her shoes and danced in her stocking feet.
She even got around, as most women do when they get a little cockeyed, to commenting about my eyes. I think women have to be a little drunk to see whatever it is they imagine they see in them.
“You know what?” she inquired as we floated across the dance floor in an alcoholic cloud.
“What?”
“You should have been a woman.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say,” I told her.
“I mean your eyes. It’s a shame to waste eyes like that on a man. Most women would trade a ring finger for such big brown expressive eyes. You could drown a girl in those eyes.”
“Which one do you like best?” I asked. “The left or the right?”
She giggled. “You get awfully silly when you drink, Matt.”
I got her home at two-thirty. The porch light was on, but she switched it off as soon as we stepped onto the porch. There was no moon, so this made it pretty dark. She leaned against me and put her head on my shoulder.
“Thanks for the nice evening, Matt,” she said. “I had fun.”
“So did I,” I told her. “Shall we try it again tomorrow?”
“If you’d like. Do you play bridge?”
“Sure.”
“Then pick me up at noon and we’ll lunch at the country club. Sunday afternoons they have duplicate play.”
Farrell would probably be there, I thought, and she wanted to parade me before him. I said, “All right.”
She lifted her face to give me a good-night kiss. I dipped my head to give her a cousinly peck, but she wasn’t settling for that. Sliding her arms about my neck, she jammed her mouth against mine and opened her lips wide.
Maybe she was in love with Howard Farrell, but this didn’t make her allergic to other men. What happened during the next few minutes had nothing to do with her wanting to make Farrell jealous, because he wasn’t there to see it. She just liked to neck. Our lips had hardly come together when her pointed little tongue began to explore the inside of my mouth.
After a time I tested her reaction to more intimate caresses. Her only reaction when I ran my hands over her body, touching her here and there through the cloth of her gown, was to tighten her arms about my neck. But she gave her head a little shake and pushed me away when I started to undo a zipper.
“Not here,” she said. “Father’s been known to step outside and suddenly switch on the light if I tarry too long on the porch. He gets angry if I’m half undressed.”
There was an implied promise in her words, suggesting she was accustomed to dispensing sex casually providing circumstances were right. I said, “Let’s go somewhere else.”
With a little laugh she gave me a quick kiss on the nose. “Not tonight, Matt. See you at noon tomorrow.”
Turning, she pushed open the door and quickly slid inside, making a little face at me just before she closed it.
Driving back to the hotel, I mused that there was a factor in this operation which Sharon’s father obviously had not considered. If it was true that Isobel Whittier dispensed marijuana and aphrodisiac-flavored wine at her parties, it was probable that they ended up as sex orgies. And it was highly unlikely that I’d receive an invitation to one without first having seduced Sharon, because people don’t get invited to such social affairs without first demonstrating more than a passing interest in sex. I couldn’t see any other way to get inside Isobel Whittier’s house.
The things police officers have to do in line of duty.
CHAPTER V
SUNDAY AFTERNOON at the Riverside Country Club I made a little progress with Sharon by impressing her with my bridge prowess. We drew a doctor and his wife as the other pair on our duplicate team. Apparently they weren’t very expert, for they let us down by taking two bad swings at their table. But Sharon proved to be an adept player and we fitted together beautifully. On one hand we earned a swing of eight hundred points when I executed a difficult squeeze play to make four hearts, while the other half of our opponents’ team went down on the same hand at the other table. Our swing wasn’t enough to offset the bad play of the doctor and his wife, however. We failed to win any prizes.
I did win an expression of admiration from Sharon, though. She asked, “Have you ever competed in national tournament play, Matt?”
When I shook my head, she said, “You could, you know. Why don’t you?”
“It’s just a game,” I said. “I don’t want to make a career of it. I don’t want to make a career of anything.”
She understood that, because it fitted her own philosophy of life.
Howard Farrell wasn’t at the country club for lunch, but he showed up in
time for the duplicate bridge session afterward. He had as his partner a woman introduced to me as Eva Arlington, whom I gathered was a widow and a chronic habitué of the club. She obviously wasn’t Sharon’s rival, for she was pushing seventy. Whoever Farrell’s current flame was, she didn’t seem to be present, because he paid no particular attention to any woman there.
Isobel Whittier didn’t seem to be present either, for Sharon led me around and introduced me to everyone there before play began, and her name wasn’t mentioned.
Sharon didn’t have much chance to flaunt me in front of Farrell during the tournament, because he and his partner were playing at another table. She made up for it by putting on something of a performance in the bar afterward.
Farrell and his elderly partner drifted up to the bar next to us. I pulled out a stool for Mrs. Arlington and ordered them both drinks. Up to that moment Sharon had been treating me rather as though I were a visiting relative: pleasantly, but hardly as though I made her heart palpitate. But the instant Farrell seated himself at the bar, we became lovers. Sharon’s stool inched over next to mine until our thighs pressed together and she leaned toward me to coo adoringly in my face.
What she said wasn’t nearly as romantic as her tone and expression indicated, but that didn’t matter because she spoke in a low tone only I could hear. “May I have another cocktail, Matt?”
We were drinking dry martinis. Noticing Mrs. Eva Arlington, who sat immediately next to me, was straining to hear what was said, I put my lips next to Sharon’s ear and intimately whispered back, “One or two olives?”
The little phony blushed as though I had made an indecent suggestion, then threw a quick glance at Farrell, seated beyond Mrs. Arlington, to judge how he was taking the performance. He obviously caught the byplay, but if it bothered him, you couldn’t tell by his expression. He seemed entirely content to let me usurp the girl’s affections.
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