Gat Heat Page 3

  “I know not,” he said.

  “You know not? Don’t you work here?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “But Mr. and Mrs. Whist have not been in residence for nearly a month.”

  “They moved? Checked out?”

  “No.”

  “Then where are they?”

  “I know not.”

  It may be that I am not the most patient chap in the whole wide world. I flipped out my wallet, flapped it open to my private detective’s card and dangled it before the desk man’s eyes; then I leaned on the counter, maybe even a foot over the counter, and said, “Look, friend, maybe you’ve got nothing else to do, but I should like enormously either to see the Whists or determine before the dawn where the hell they have got to. So will you give it to me all in one gob?”

  He grinned, and seemed to stand at ease. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  I grinned back at him. “I know not.”

  “They took a six-month lease on their penthouse,” he said. “It expired night before last, but—” He broke off, flipped through some cards, then went on, “Last night they were here was four weeks ago.”

  “They didn’t check out? Didn’t give up the suite, I mean?”

  “No.”

  “Skip out on the bill?”

  “No, nothing like that. They paid the six months in advance. I recall asking the bell captain about them a few days ago. He said that when the Whists’ luggage was taken to their car, Mr. Whist, after presenting him with a handsome gratuity for his aid, indicated they were going on a short vacation.”

  “I don’t suppose they said where.”

  “No.”

  “Well, if their lease has expired, what about the stuff still left in the suite?”

  “Nothing is left. They took everything with them.”

  “All? Clothing, the works?”

  “All. Which, I presume, is why Mr. Whist presented the bell captain with such a handsome gratuity.”

  “I heard you—” I smiled—“the first time.”

  He smiled. “Splendid. The night they left, that was the night of the fire in their bedroom.”

  “The night of … in the bedroom?”

  He nodded.

  “What the hell were they doing?” I paused, held up a hand. “I know—you know not. What kind of a fire? Huge conflagration? Sheets of flame leaping and crack—”

  “No, no. The bed burned, that is all.”

  “That’s all, huh? Did it discomfit the Whists?”

  “They were not in the room, not even in the suite. According to Mr. Whist, when he and his wife returned from dinner in the Tongolele Room, here in the Norvue, they discovered the fire. Apparently it began in a nearby wastebasket, into which he had emptied an ash tray before leaving the suite. It would seem there was still a cigarette smouldering in the ash tray.”

  “Only the bed was damaged?”

  “The mattress and bedclothes were ruined and the bed frame was charred. One wall was scorched considerably. That was all, other than a little smoke damage. Members of the staff were able to prevent the blaze from spreading.” He paused. “Mr. Whist was very apologetic. Of course, he paid handsome—paid for all the damage.”

  “Good for him. And then they left, huh? On this—vacation?”

  “Yes, later that same night.”

  “Maybe they wanted to sleep in a bed that hadn’t burned up.”

  He agreed that was possible.

  “You haven’t seen them since?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “And you’ve no idea where they are now?”

  “No,” he repeated.

  I shrugged. That was enough for the moment—especially since I was probably wasting my time to begin with. So I thanked the desk man and left. Left—after, of course, presenting him with a handsome gratuity.

  I tooled the Cadillac back down to Vine, took a right and followed Vine into North Rossmore. The Spartan was only a block ahead on my left when I noticed that cock-eyed light again. At least I thought I did.

  A small Corvair was directly behind me, but a block or so back one car had pulled out to pass another and then pulled in behind the small job. It was the second car back now, but when the driver had pulled into the left lane the headlights bounced on my rear-view mirror, and the left light was high, glaring.

  I felt that queer, cool-nettle prickling beneath the surface of my back, as if the temperature of my spinal column had dropped a degree or two; I reached under my coat and rested my thumb on the butt of the Colt Special, handy in its clamshell holster there.

  Then I slowed down, let the Corvair creep up on me, creep up and pass. I went on past the Spartan to Beverly Boulevard, pulled up at a stop sign there. The other car idled behind me, but I wasn’t able to see who was at the wheel. I didn’t delay overlong at the stop, just sat there a few seconds and then swung left into Beverly, as if heading back toward L.A.

  The other car—it was a dark sedan, a late-model Dodge Polara—turned right, away from me. That wasn’t what I’d expected. I drove on slowly, watching the Dodge as long as I could. It kept going straight up Beverly. Then I turned, headed back to the Spartan.

  So, maybe I was nuts. Maybe it was a coincidence. Or even a different car with a cock-eyed headlight.

  And maybe not.

  Home is apartment 212, three rooms and bath complete with two tropical fish tanks, Amelia—jazzy nude in bold oils—on the wall, yellow-gold carpet with thick shag nap on the living room floor; and on the carpet a low, chocolate-brown divan, two leather hassocks, the much-scarred coffee-and-booze table, and in the air—faint but still detectable by an expectant nostril—the scent of soft, and sweet, and spicy, and slinky perfumes and sprays and lotions.

  Or maybe I imagined it. Lots of memories in that room. In all the rooms.

  In the kitchenette I mixed a short bourbon-and-water nightcap, then showered, wrapped a towel around my middle and went back into the front room. For ten minutes I sat before the two aquariums, watching the little devils dart after the threadlike tubifex worms I fed them, and thinking about the three or four hours just past, the murder, nudity, people, motive, means, opportunity, Sybil, Mrs. Halstead, a car with a cock-eyed light.

  After ten minutes of watching and thinking, I’d come to one firm conclusion. I was going to have to hospitalize the inch-long Microglanis parahybae bouncing himself on sand at the bottom of the community tank. Apparently he’d picked up some Ichthyophthirius.

  5

  I yawned out of bed when the second alarm exploded clangorously, planted my feet on the bedroom’s black carpet, and swore dully.

  One reason I like to stay up all night is because awakening is such a severe shock to my nervous system, and probably to my spleen, kidneys, and bladder. And one reason it’s such a shock is because I so often stay up all night.

  I pressed my hands against my head and sort of molded it back into shape, put the coffee pot on to perk and prepared to face the new day, slowly gathering my strength. For breakfast I had three bites of gummy mush with four cups of coffee. And began feeling almost alive.

  This morning, after ablutions and shaving and such, I dressed in a lightweight, pale blue-green suit which, I knew, shimmered in the sunlight like clabbered electricity—which is more gorgeous than it may sound—added an appropriately lichenous tie, combed my hair with three fingers, and then checked my gun.

  Ordinarily I carry an empty chamber under the .38’s hammer since I would hate accidentally to shoot off a chunk of my latissimus dorsi or something even more desirable; but this morning I dug a box of cartridges from the dresser drawer and slid a sixth fat pill into the cylinder.

  It wasn’t that I had a premonition.

  There was no creepy “feeling” that I might need to use even one, much less six, slugs during the hours ahead. At least there was no conscious awareness of any below-the-mind’s-surface whispering.

  Oddly, though, I felt more comfortable, a little more at ease, when I pressed the fully-load
ed Colt Special back into its holster.

  Then I phoned the L.A.P.D., got Homicide, and talked to Captain Samson for a minute. He knew about the Halstead murder, of course, but said there wasn’t much on it yet. I told him I’d be down within the hour, and hung up.

  On the way out I checked the two aquariums again. All was well in the small guppy tank, but my inch-long catfish in the big tank was clearly unwell. It was the Ick, all right: I could see the little white specks on his fins.

  Trouble, trouble. I was going to have to give a treatment to the whole damned tank. If I wasn’t careful, the little beggars could wind up with Saprolegnia. Then I would be in a pickle.

  I netted the brown and pinkish-gray scavenger and put him in a separate temperature-controlled bowl, added a teaspoonful of two-percent Mercurochrome to the water in the community tank and a couple drops to the sick bay, then turned the thermostat up a couple of degrees and headed for downtown L.A.

  Phil Samson, Central Division Homicide Captain, is more than just a good cop—though he is that, he for sure is that. He is also one of the most rigorously principled and finest men I’ve know in my thirty years. He’s hard-boiled, yes, tough, at times unrelenting; and he takes no guff from anybody. And he will give a hood not an inch or even a quarter of an inch if the hood deserves no extra measure. Thus he would not by today’s standards be judged compassionate, and today’s counterfeit Solomons would—and have—reviled him as “unfeeling” and brutal.

  There is not, however, a brutal or calloused cell in his big, hard body. He is simply efficient, dedicated, and abysmally honest, a man who believes justice is a virtue.

  Probably he’d had his usual five or six hours of sleep, but Sam nonetheless looked wide awake. And—as usual—as if he’d just finished shaving, his pink face healthily glowing, brown eyes sharp and alert.

  “And there he is,” Sam said, looking up from stacks of papers on his desk as I came in. “There he is, the only private detective-nudist in the Western States.”

  “My, you’re giddy this morning,” I said. “What happened? Some crook actually get sent to the slammer?” I pulled a wooden chair over, sat down straddling it and leaned on the back. “Besides, I was not one of the nudists, Captain.”

  “Got the reports right here—”

  “I was not—”

  “Sheldon Scott, once again caught with his pants down—”

  “No, that was the other citizens. Me, I was the one who broke it up. Where were you while I was acting as the city’s conscience—”

  “You’re working for the Halstead woman?”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m up so early. Lieutenant France told me last night a team was checking the Smiths—the couple who left the party early. They get anything?”

  Sam rubbed his iron-gray hair vigorously. “Doesn’t look like it. Rawlins was out to see them already this morning, just called in. He agrees with Lieutenant France they look clean.”

  Rawlins was a sharp, good-looking lieutenant who worked out of Central Homicide, one of Sam’s top investigators. I not only liked him, but had a high opinion of his ability and judgment.

  “What was the Smiths’ story?” I asked Sam.

  “Simple enough. Wife saw Halstead’s legs sticking out from under some bushes, and thought he was snoozing, or maybe just resting up, so she tickled his feet.”

  Sam scratched his hair, then stuck out his chin—which closely resembles the back end of a dump truck—and scratched under it. “Tickled his feet. What kind of people are these?”

  “Darlings,” I said. “So, she tickled his feet. And?”

  “Naturally he didn’t let out a giggle or anything. So she gave him a yank.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Grabbed one of his legs and yanked it.”

  “Yeah, they’re a playful bunch. About then she must have begun getting the impression something was amiss, I’ll bet.”

  “It looks like she figured out all of a sudden he was deader than a mackerel. Well, she didn’t quite faint, found her husband and told him they had to leave right away, convinced him; they hightailed it out, and it wasn’t till they were maybe halfway home—with him chewing the hell out of her, I gathered—that she told him what happened.”

  “Sounds straight enough. About the way it would’ve happened, I’d guess, if one of those gals stumbled over the dead host. Either that or lots of screaming. So they just forgot about it?”

  “Something like that. Afraid to get involved. After awhile they figured out somebody would find the body before long, and realized they shouldn’t have taken off in such a rush. Might look suspicious; they were involved just by having been there.”

  “Must have been about then the Hollywood police drove up to their house.”

  “Right. The woman had a small attack of hysterics, almost went up the walls. But Mr. Smith filled the officers in. Same story they got from the wife. Once she came down from the ceiling.”

  Sam scratched under his chin again.

  “You got the Ick?” I asked him.

  “Ick? What the hell’s Ick?”

  “It’s what you and my catfish have got, I think. If you start breaking out in little white spots, be sure to take some Mercurochrome and raise your temperature ten or fifteen degrees—”

  “I am impressed,” he said, “with the sudden deterioration of your brain. I shaved too close this morning.”

  “No, it’s the Ick—”

  He scowled fiercely—which was something, since often when he smiled it was a fierce thing—and pulled a long black cigar from his middle desk drawer. That was ominous.

  Those cigars were dandy cigars just as long as he didn’t light them. But once lit, the odor of decaying mold and flaming skunk gas replaced all oxygen in the near atmosphere, whereupon I inevitably left.

  “I was kidding,” I said. “Sam, I’ll be gone in a minute.”

  “You bet you’ll be gone in a minute.”

  “Anything else from Hollywood—or Rawlins?”

  “Odds and ends. Victim didn’t seem to have any real enemies, nobody that stands out, anyway. Pretty well liked. Successful investor, owned a lot of blue chips and several thousand shares of speculative aerospace stocks, good marriage, lots of friends.” He shrugged. “Something’ll turn up.”

  “Yeah. How about the party? Had they been sneaking up on the deviltry for a year and a half, or was it just—”

  “Spur of the moment. The Halsteads had a couple named Bersudian over for bridge, got to drinking and called the Smiths. A little later they phoned Mr. and Mrs. Pryer, and it happened two other couples were with the Pryers. So they all went over.”

  “No friction anywhere in the bunch, huh?” I paused. “Of course, I didn’t get the impression they despised each other.”

  Sam shook his head, stuck the cigar in his wide mouth and growled around it, “Haven’t turned up a thing yet. Maybe he threw the rock ’way up in the air, and when it came down—”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I see no advantage in having a police department at all—”

  Sam lit a match.

  “Don’t, Sam. Ah, have a heart, old buddy—Sam.”

  Holding the match poised, he said, “You have been milking my brains, yet have not even once told me how to solve the case. Or that you have already overcome its perplexities. This isn’t like you, Shell.”

  “I know. Well, there are two or three little tidbits you might want to check on.” I paused. “I might have stumbled on something that wasn’t repeated after the police arrived.” He’d blown the match out, so I continued, “I told the officers about the dandy nudist camp, didn’t I? I’ll admit they probably would have, ah, uncovered that intelligence themselves, but I saved them a little time, didn’t I? Maybe a week? Besides, I left out how it must have happened. The way I figure it, they were all sitting around in the house watching TV commercials, some of those real good ones, and they all got so charged up—Sam. Sam—don’t. There were some other couples who maybe were at the party earlier
last night. Before I got there. Maybe. Also there’s an intriguing item concerning people named Whist.”

  “Well, hurry up,” he said.

  I told him all I knew. It didn’t take long.

  At that point Sam lit his cigar. But by then I was ready to leave anyway. And Sam, of course, was aware of that.

  Mrs. Riley came to the door when I rang.

  I still hadn’t found any trace of Mr. and Mrs. Whist, though I’d tried. I’d put some lines out among individuals who’d proved efficient at digging up odd bits of info for me in the past, but without luck so far. I had, however, already talked to Mrs. Bersudian, and to Mr. Warren in the plush offices of his law firm. I had also called at the Sporks’ residence, but found nobody at home; Sybil hadn’t even been in the back yard.

  I’d come up with nothing concrete, that is, nothing I hadn’t learned last night or from Samson this morning; but one of the case’s intangibles had taken on a little more importance in my mind.

  It was so intangible that I didn’t even know what the hell it was. But it had become increasingly evident that nearly all of the people I’d talked to were twitchier than bats in the moonlight. It was difficult to get anything out of them except an impression that they weighed every word at least twice before reluctantly using it.

  That’s not uncommon when people talk to an investigator, but this was something more; and I had the feeling that nobody had yet told me all that could be told. Mrs. Riley wasn’t much different from the rest of them. But, at least, before the interview was over I’d learned one item of exceeding interest.

  I hadn’t phoned before dropping out—I rarely do when on a case since an individual unprepared for interrogation has less time to prepare a possibly phoney story—so at the door I identified myself and told Mrs. Riley why I was there.

  She was pleasant enough about it. Sometimes you find a door slammed in your face, or get hit with a mop. But Mrs. Riley smiled and asked me inside.

  She was a handsome gal about thirty, or perhaps two or three years over the mark, slim and curvy and with a lazy, languid way of moving. She was wearing a simple but bright print dress and had a pink bandanna over her hair, which appeared to be put up on those big plastic curlers, judging by the lumps in the bandanna. Either that, or she had a very funny head.