“Cozy,” I said. “Yours?”
“No. Do I look rich? A friend of mine. He’s in La Jolla for a couple of days, but I know where the key is.” “Won’t he care?”
“Of course not. Any time, he told me. Any time. That’s why he showed me where the key is.”
I followed her down a narrow wooden ramp that led from the parking area, at highway level, and around the side of the building to a row of flower boxes set below the windows. The sea air was clearing my brain. And increasing my hunger.
“One, two, three,” she counted and reached under the third flower box for the key while I waited at the door.
The house smelled faintly damp, from the sea, and there was a scarcely perceptible iodine odor. Like the Lopez home, it was short on size but long on quality.
The front of the house faced the ocean and the living room ran along the entire front of the house, the wall toward the ocean all glass.
In the cove-lighted living room, the blonde called Mike said, “Sit right there. I’ll bring you a glass of milk to hold you.”
I sat down and she went quickly to the kitchen and just as quickly returned with a big tumbler of milk.
“I had a boy friend like you once,” she said. “He got sick when he was hungry. Do you?”
“Yes. You’re a saint, Mike. Is that your real name — Mike?”
“It’s real enough for you,” she said. “Over there, from that chair, you can see the lights of Santa Monica. Why don’t you sit over there?”
She went back to the kitchen and I took my glass of milk over where I could watch the lights. I still retained the faintly uneasy suspicion of a possible trap. I was armed, however, so it wasn’t a major concern.
From the doorway, Mike called, “I suppose you like it rare.”
“Bloody,” I said. I finished the milk and went out to the kitchen.
There was a double-door refrigerator-freezer out here, at least an eighteen-footer.
Mike opened the refrigerator door and pointed to about half a dozen steaks in the meat tender. “This week’s,” she said. She opened the freezer door. The meat was wrapped here; the section was jammed full. “All steak,” she said.
“Is that all your friend eats?” I asked.
“Just about. You know what he told me? He said he was a magazine writer for twelve years, and starved. Now, he’s selling that TV like crazy and he swears he’ll eat nothing but steak.”
“One of your — your clients?” I asked.
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shamed me. “You didn’t have to say that. Why?”
“I don’t know,” I said gently. “I apologize, Mike.”
She sniffed. “So he was a client, once. But now he’s a friend. He’s just about my best friend. I don’t think I like you, Joe Puma.”
“You shouldn’t. I apologize again.”
She smiled. “Kiss me, then. Kiss and make up.”
I leaned forward. The face wasn’t much, but that vintage body pressed close and I suddenly felt a great need for a hundred dollars.
She pulled away — and laughed at me. “Surprised you, didn’t I? Get out of my way, now; I’m hungry.” She bent over to put the steaks in the broiler.
I went over to sit in a breakfast nook upholstered in what looked like genuine leather.
“Your friend is doing all right,” I commented.
She nodded, adjusting the broiler level. “You know what?” He wants to marry me. Isn’t that something?”
“You could do worse,” I said.
She faced me frankly. “I wouldn’t do that to him. And besides, who wants one man? I like men. I mean men, not drizzles like that Sylvester. Gosh, I’ll bet he’s steaming now, huh?”
“He and Manny and Al Martino are probably all steaming about now,” I agreed. “Doesn’t that frighten you?”
Her eyes widened. “Should it? What’s going on? Is something going on I should know?”
I shrugged. “I’m not in their confidence. Tell me, what did they want with you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “It was nasty, that’s what it was, and I wasn’t going to do it, anyway.” “Do what?”
She ignored the question. She picked up my empty glass, filled it with milk and brought it to the table. She sat down across from me and slid the glass across. “Drink. You still look weak.”
“Do what?” I asked again.
“You’re a private detective,” she said. “I almost forgot that, for a minute. Drink.” I sighed. I drank.
“Relax,” she said. “Look how cozy we are. Don’t be working all the time.”
“Two people have died,” I said. “They were killed. Maybe you could help me find out why they died and who killed them.”
She shook her head. “That must be another case you’re working on. You must still be drunk.” She took out a cigarette. “Light?”
I found a match and lighted it. She leaned forward, across the table, and those perfect breasts were almost completely in view.
“Steady,” she said. “How can I get a light with your hand shaking all over the place?”
I had a feeling I was going to get nowhere. In an investigative way, I mean. She had undoubtedly learned, early in her career, not to confide too much in people on my side of the law.
We ate steak and toast and milk and I felt better. She suggested we take our coffee into the living room.
In this dim room, looking out at the lights, it seemed her perfume was no longer overwhelming and the silhouette of her perfect body dulled the memory of her immobile face.
I asked, “How long have you known Sylvester?”
“About a month. I met him through Al. Is Al a — a criminal?”
“Not officially, I guess. Do you like Al?”
A few seconds of silence before she said, “I don’t know. He thinks a lot of himself, doesn’t he?” I didn’t answer.
“Of course,” she added, “all men do. I wish I could get along without ‘em.”
I was sitting on a sofa. She came over to sit on the floor near-by, her bleached hair close to my knee. She sighed. “I wish I owned this house.”
“Marry the man and own half of it.” I put a hand on her hair and it wasn’t nearly as lifeless as I thought it would be. “You could make him happy.”
“No,” she said. She shook her head and her hair tickled the palm of my hand. “Do you like Al Martino?”
“Not very much. Are you getting ready to tell me what Sylvester wanted from you?”
“I’m thinking about it,” she said. “Put your hand in my hair again.”
A quickening in me. I rumpled her hair.
From the highway came the sound of a siren, growing, a siren coming our way. It reached a crescendo outside and then grew fainter as it headed north.
“Cops,” Mike said.
“Sounded like an ambulance,” I said. “Tell me about Sylvester.”
She climbed up onto the sofa. “Stop playing detective.” She nibbled my ear.
A trap? Pressure in me, in my legs, my loins, my head. Her hair brushed across my face. Her soft hand slid in under my shirt.
A trap? If it was, they had the right bait. She dug her chin into my chest and laughed softly. “What’s funny?” I asked.
“You, probably,” she whispered. “I’ll bet you’re thinking this is going to cost you.”
“I’m a poor man,” I said, “but attractive. I never pay.”
She squirmed higher, her fine breasts flat against my chest. It didn’t seem like the right time to ask about Sylvester again. To hell with Sylvester. Her mouth enveloped mine.
Trained? Yes. Would that make it repugnant? Not to me.
She squirmed around again and sat up, her back to me. “This reminds me of high school. Unzip me.”
I pulled the tab and the white dress fell away from her smooth shoulders. She stood up and shrugged it off and put it carefully over the arm of a chair.
She reached behind, unhooked her bra, stepped
out of her briefs and turned to look at me. “What are you waiting for? This is not a formal party, Puma.”
I stood up and started to undress. “This sofa’s too small,” I said.
“The floor is clean,” she told me, “and well padded. It’s a wonderful floor for frolics.”
She was a teaser, giggling, withdrawing, squirming, elusive.
Well, what the hell, it had been her idea; I played it coy, as though none of it really mattered, as though I would just as soon go back to the kitchen for another steak.
She quit playing games then and devoted her skill and imagination to fulfilling her primordial need.
We were still recumbent on the well-padded carpeting when she asked, “Why did you talk about murder before?”
I tried to answer, but didn’t quite have the strength.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
I managed to say, “Nothing. I was — thinking. Let me think a moment.”
What I wanted was time to regain enough strength to push air through my vocal cords. I took a deep breath and said, “I think your playmates are involved in murder, in the death of Gus Galbini and Marie Veller.”
“Galbini?” she asked. “Is that the manager of that fighter, of Terry Lopez?”
“He was.”
A few seconds of silence. “I know Terry’s wife. I — knew her, I mean — I knew her a little. About her, mostly.”
“When she got a thousand dollars a night?”
“Poof!” she said scornfully. “Maybe once, from some crazy Texan, or something — but nobody gets a thousand regular.” A pause. “I’ve — been on parties with her, back before I met my friend, here, the one who owns this house.”
“Don’t you go on parties since you met him?”
She frowned. “Well, on dates, like now. But not parties.”
I must have looked puzzled, because she explained, “Every girl has dates, like tonight. Even the big movie stars have dates. But parties — they’re kind of vulgar, my friend told me. I’m too nice a girl for parties, he thinks.” She chewed her lip. “That’s love, isn’t it?”
“Hang onto it,” I advised her. “He sounds like a prince.” I managed to find strength enough to reach the sofa and sit on it.
“Have you got a cigarette on you?” she asked me, and then realized how silly that was. She laughed.
I put on my shorts and went to the kitchen to get my cigarettes. I lighted a pair and came back to hand her one.
“You’re nice,” she said. “I wish you had a house like my friend. Have you?”
“No, Mike; I’m a poor man.”
She sighed. “Most of the nice ones are. It’s a silly world, isn’t it?” I nodded.
“That Galbini,” she said, “did he marry a chunky girl, a Hunkie?”
“A stocky imitation blonde,” I answered. “A Lithuanian. Do you know her, too?”
“I think I’ve seen her around.”
“Is that the girl Sylvester Thornton wanted you to talk about, about Mrs. Galbini?”
A long pause before she shook her head. “Bridget,” she said. “Bridget Gallegher. She used to call herself Flame.”
“And what did he want you to do about Bridget Gallegher Lopez?”
Silence. A big Diesel went blatting past outside, shaking the house, but silence within.
Finally, she said, “It’s not set up, yet. The way it looks, they want to help Terry Lopez get a divorce.”
“How?”
“They don’t tell me everything,” she protested. “But the way it looks to me, this Flame has something on her husband and he hasn’t got the guts to tell her to go to hell. I guess Terry didn’t know about — what his wife used to be. For a chaser, he’s sure dumb about his own wife, huh?”
“They often are,” I said. “But why should Sylvester want to help Lopez?”
“It’s Al who wants to,” she said. “I guess Al wants to be Terry’s manager, but Terry said no dice until you get rid of Flame. I guess this Terry is real gone on some society dame, or something and he wants a clean divorce, with no beefs from Flame.”
“I get it. And what has Bridget Gallegher Flame Lopez got on Terry that Al wants to trade for?”
She shook her head slowly and looked at me candidly. “They didn’t say.”
Another silence except for the hum of tires from the highway and the faint sound of the surf.
She said quietly, “I’m scared. Do you know who murdered Galbini?”
“Yes,” I lied. “When Marie Veller died, I was watching her apartment. I saw her killer leave. It could be and probably is the same person who killed Galbini. But I want to be sure, first.”
“You didn’t tell the police that,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell the police? You’re not a blackmailer, are you?”
“No. I want to keep it quiet long enough to see if it will lead me to the person who killed Galbini.”
“I thought you said it was the same person,” she said softly.
“Probably,” I said. “But I want to be sure.” “Don’t tell me the name,” she said. “I don’t want to know his name. But is it Al Martino?”
“I can’t say, Mike. I don’t want to get you involved.”
“Does Al know you know?” she asked me.
“No, but if he presses you about it, you can tell him I know who the killer of Marie Veller is and I’m not giving it to the police just yet.”
She rose. She said, “I’m going to take a shower. I don’t want to talk about murder.” She picked up her clothes and left the room.
I went into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee and took it back to the living room. If Mike had been sent to trap me, she now had a message to take back to her employers. And even if this adventure had been her idea, they might question her under pressure.
I still hadn’t finished my coffee when she came out again, dressed and sweet and clean.
“Watching the lights?” she asked me.
I nodded.
“I like to,” she said. “Why is that fun?”
“I don’t know, Mike. Ready to go home?”
“I’m not going,” she said. “I’m going to stay here. My friend will be back soon. He was due back tonight.”
“Ye gods!” I said. “He could have walked in on us and caught us on the floor.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she said. “He’s not a gossip.”
chapter fourteen
THE OLD TWO-DOOR WENT CHUGGING DOWN THE COAST Highway, as weary as its driver. The intrigues, the hopes, and machinations of all of them went through my fuzzy mind and spelled nothing.
With what I had learned since Mrs. Galbini had come to my office, I should know more than I did. An intelligent operative would have had a case by now, strong enough to take into court. An intelligent operative would have stayed out of the hay and kept his thoughts above the belt. The poor bastard.
They all went around in my mind and made me dizzy, the Lopezes, the Lefkowicses, Delamater, Galbini, Martino, Mueller, Mary, and Doc Golde. And on the periphery, Linda Carrillo and Mike.
I turned off the highway at the ramp north of Wilshire and headed east, toward home. I had screwed my way to nowhere on Mrs. Galbini’s time. I had charged her a hundred a day and come up with nothing.
It had been a tiring day, I told myself. My instincts were dulled and my rational mind nonoperative. The threads of the whole cloth were down there in the subconscious, tangled tonight, but tomorrow would be better.
Sleep, Puma, and weave a pattern.
I had half expected to see the Lefkowics limousine waiting in front of my igloo, but the street was bare. I went up and to bed and dreamed of Mike.
I wakened less weary but no less confused. The thought came to me, for some reason, that I didn’t want to know who killed Gus Galbini. All through breakfast, this unreasonable thought nagged at me.
I was washing an accumulation of two days’ dishes when someone pressed the button that activated my melodious two-tone
door chime. I went to the door and looked into the unpleasant face of Manny Lefkowics.
“Where’s your cousin?” I asked him. “Still fishing?”
“We’re not unseparable,” he said.
“Its ‘in,’ not ‘un,’ Manny. What’s on your mind?”
“Mike,” he answered. “She here? The boss is worried about her.”
I held the door wide. “Come in and look. I slept alone. Why is Al worried?”
He came in, looked around the living room, went to peer into the bathroom and came back to the kitchen, where I now was.
“Al doesn’t have to tell you why he’s worried, if he is. Where is she, Puma?”
I dried the last dish and closed the cupboard door. I turned to face him. “I don’t know. I left her about midnight.”
“Where?”
“At the bar in the Shorecrest Hotel.”
“What’s your interest in her, Puma?”
I shrugged. “I’d say it was about 38-22-37. What’s your interest in her, Manny?”
“She didn’t come home last night. Did you scare her? Did you tell her to lam?”
“Of course not. You mean she’s missing?”
He nodded, studying me.
“Did you notify the police?” I asked him. “This could be serious, Manny.”
“Cut out the ham,” he said. “You’re annoying me again, Puma.”
“That’s too damned bad,” I said. ‘What am I supposed to do now, tremble?”
Almost imperceptibly, he spread his feet and his broad face was suddenly alert and dangerous. “Last night,” he said quietly, “you sounded like you were getting some sense. What’s happened since?”
“Last night I was drunk. This morning I’m sober and sour and I hate hoodlums. That’s what you are, Manny, a hoodlum. Beat it.”
His hand moved quickly and I wasn’t armed. His hand moved quickly but not quite as quickly as my foot. To put it as delicately as I can, I kicked out and up, my target the vulnerable area where his legs were joined.
I caught him better than I had any right to hope for. He shrieked like a woman and doubled in agony and now the back of his neck was about at a level with my hip.
I chopped down and through and hit the bull’s-eye once more. He crumpled to the linoleum with a thud that rattled the dishes I had just dried.
The Hundred Dollar Girl Page 13
