77 Sunset Strip Read online

  “No,” I smiled. “I think I’ve placed it. Room three-o-four, the Lennox Arms Apartments.”

  She wasn’t prepared. I had been a man trying to pick her up. And now I was suddenly something else again. Her face broke up. The smile slipped away and there was nothing there but blank eyes and lips that were trying to get back into the smile and not making it. The fingers of her slender hands groped and found each other and pulled tight until the knuckles showed white.

  “Who are you?” she croaked.

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Wouldn’t it save time if you just told me?” She was taking hold again and my big gun had already been fired.

  I said, “I know all about the deal with Dorothy, and I’m cutting myself in.”

  Her lower lip sucked in suddenly under her teeth.

  It wasn’t very becoming, but she wasn’t thinking about how she looked. She might have been thinking about being sick. The shadows in her cheeks were green. She threw me a glance that she probably thought was innocent cunning, but it didn’t come out that way.

  She said, “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “Would you rather I talked to someone else about it?”

  She let go of the lip. It was cherry red and bright. And then it was all over. I was all through. A very ordinary-looking man in a gray suit and hat came into the bar and walked around to the end where the service drinks were set up. The tall thin barkeep walked over to him and they talked. Fear, or caution, or long experience with them, or the way his eyes went over the people at the bar, told me he was a cop. If I got up now and walked out, he might not see me. I was only five feet from the alcove between bar and lobby.

  I said, “I want to get something. It’ll make it easier for us to bargain. Be right back.” I stood up and walked out. I went up the stairs and started through the lobby. The high-hipped man who had been with the blonde the night before was coming from the desk. I walked over to him. -

  I said, “Your wife asked me to meet you. She’s gone to another bar.”

  He looked at my lapel, then at my face, then back at my lapel. Maybe he was looking for a fraternity pin. He said, “What is this, a gag?” He raised a hand to his tie. I noticed the hand. It was broad and fat. “I hope not. Does she pull gags like that?”

  He glanced at my face again and started to walk on by me. The desk clerk was staring at us. I put my hand on his arm. Any moment now the man in the gray suit would be coming through. And here I stood in my gray flannels and dark hair and early thirties. And the man with the face you would never remember was going to give me trouble. The face was getting red. I noticed irrelevantly that he was a young man. His hair had probably started to recede in college, and I figured his chin had begun receding even before that. Both processes appeared to be still going on. And we were still standing there in the center of the lobby under the strong lights.

  I said, “Go on in and see for yourself. She’s not in there.” I hadn’t talked loudly, but my voice seemed to echo around the place.

  The man said, “Thanks, I’ll do that.” He went on by me and I watched him disappear into the bar. I didn’t think he’d find his wife in there. She probably went out the other way five seconds after I left. But I didn’t expect high-hips to come back either. I went over and sat in a comer near the front door, out of the way. I heard footsteps on the tile stairs from the bar. The man in the gray suit came into the lobby. He waved at the clerk and said, “Keep ’em open, Harris.” The clerk nodded and said nothing. The man in the gray suit went by me and out the front door. I looked up. The clerk was staring at me roundly. He thought he knew who I was. But he wasn’t having any arrests made. Not at the Desert Inn.

  High-hips came back. He hurried over to me, working his face into a worried frown. “Where’d she go? And who the hell are you?”

  “She’s at a bar downtown. I’ll tell you who I am on the way over. Shall we take your car or mine?” I didn’t have a car. But I didn’t think he’d want to ride in it anyway.

  “We’ll take mine.”

  We went outside. Tamarisks lined the walk, heavy and dark. I suddenly realized the woman would be in the car. She would see us coming. She would have a gun. I fell back a step and took out the .38. I put it in my side pocket with my hand on it. He turned off the sidewalk and started across the moonlit street. There was a gray car at the curb. I couldn’t see if anyone was in it or not. I brought the gun out and held it at my side. We reached the car. It seemed empty. I went around and got in at the other side. I noticed the car had Arizona license plates. I looked into the back seat. Nothing back there but the cold Arizona climate. We pulled out from the curb and I decided to take a chance.

  I said, “How come the Arizona plates?”

  “It’s a rented car. We came down by plane.”

  “Your wife’s at the Paddock. Know where that is?”

  He shook his head.

  “Drive down to Campbell,” I said, “and turn left.”

  When we were on Campbell, he said, “Now suppose you tell me how you got into this.” His voice was loose and moist and a little loud.

  “She was seen going into the Lennox Arms. I guess she figured she needed help.”

  The car suddenly lost speed as his foot froze above the accelerator. Then it picked up again and he said, “And you’re an attorney?”

  “Not exactly.”

  The car came to a stop this time. “I don’t like this one bit,” he whined. “We’re going back. We can call the Paddock.” He started the car and swung it in a screaming U-turn. I lifted the automatic and put the cold barrel against his cheek where he could feel it and see it and smell it. He jerked his head away and stared at the gun. The car began to angle off toward the curb going fast. I whipped the wheel around and he gripped it and kept the car straight. His chin moved, but he didn’t say anything.

  I said, “We’ll go down and take a look at the river bed. It’s nice and private there.”

  He licked his lips and said, “Assault with a deadly weapon and kidnaping. I believe the penalty for kidnaping is the gas chamber.” His voice didn’t waver.

  I said, “That’s in California.”

  He said, “In Arizona it’s still going to cost you plenty.”

  I said, “Look, Dorothy put the finger on you two before you got to her. So let’s get squared away.”

  His chin caved in and disappeared into his collar. The car wavered a bit on the road, then straightened again and slowly picked up speed.

  Finally he said, “Where’s Muriel?”

  “Don’t worry about Muriel. She’s all right. You’ll be all right, too, if you don’t try to be cagey. There are one or two parts to the story that aren’t clear yet. You’re going to clear them up for me.”

  “Where do you come in?”

  “Turn here. I think it’ll take us down there.” We turned onto Country Club Road. There was no traffic here, and after a few miles the road ended where the white dry river bed lay. Beyond it the desert was spiked with a million saguaros. I said, “Let’s see how much of the truth you’re willing to tell. Start at the beginning of the story. I know that part. When you start ad-libbing, you want to be real sure it’s in the part I don’t know yet.”

  He turned and leaned against the door and looked at me while a sickly smile swelled his cheeks and put a dimple in one of them. “You know,” he smirked, “I think you’re bluffing.”

  “Maybe. But I’ve got a thirty-eight in my hand, a murder charge hanging over my head, and a nervous tic. I’m also slightly unbalanced, they tell me. So let’s hear the story . . . from the beginning.”

  “What is there to tell? Dorothy left home, and Muriel came after her. Is there something wrong with that?”

  I shook my head. “Already it stinks. But begin at the beginning. Begin when Muriel and Dorothy were ten years old.”

  I was just scattering my shots, being as obscure as I could without seeming to. But I hit something.

  He said, “O
h, you mean Muriel’s dominating Dorothy.” He chuckled. “That’s just Muriel. She dominates me too.”

  We waited. He didn’t go on. I’d have to take another shot into the dark. Mentioning money is usually a good play, and this time it looked safer than usual. Where there’s murder that isn’t colored by sudden fury, where there is perfection and care, there is usually also money. Lots of money.

  I said, “Tell me about the dough.”

  He licked his lips. “I probably don’t know any more about it than you do. Their father left most of it in a trust fund for Dorothy, and it’s still there.”

  “Why? Why the trust fund?”

  He waited a long while. I moved the gun up and let him look at it. “Because of Muriel.” He sounded a little bitter. He was getting interested in what he had to say. “Muriel pushed Dorothy around until the old man couldn’t stand it any longer. He called Muriel into his study one day—I’ll never forget it; I was in the library and heard it all—and gave her a terrible tongue-lashing for the way she treated Dotty. Nobody ever talked that way to Muriel. No, not to Muriel. She told him off. She gave him two for one. The next day lie had a trust drawn up giving almost everything he had to Dorothy. They had the accident about a year later.”

  “Yeah. I’d like to hear your version of that too.”

  He grinned. “I know she didn’t tell you about that. She won’t talk about it to anyone.”

  “But you will.”

  “They had an accident, that’s all. Truck hit them. Old man Dreves died instantly. Dorothy was unconscious for several days, but apparently wasn’t hurt. That was about two months ago.”

  “I’m allergic to weasel words. What does ‘apparently’ mean?”

  “Why, uh . . . They let her out of the hospital. But when she got home she acted different, cried a lot, seemed suspicious of people.”

  I leered and said, “Anybody in particular?”

  He paused, then he made a noise that I suppose was meant to sound like an amused chuckle. “She seemed to think Muriel was harboring a grudge because Dorothy got the bulk of the estate. But I happen to be a functioning member of society with a quite sufficient income.”

  “It doesn’t exist.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “A quite sufficient income.”

  He made the dry sound in his throat again and said, “I see. You’re a philosopher.” He had told me practically nothing, yet the dark I had been shooting into was beginning to show some shadows. I decided to take a shot at one of the shadows.

  I said, “Then all those things Dorothy told me about Muriel weren’t true. She was just suspicious. She just imagined all those things.”

  He was quiet for a while, then he licked his lips tentatively and croaked, “I don’t know what you’re getting at. But this seems as good a time as any to inform you that I am an attorney. I assure you that nothing

  Dorothy has said since the accident could possibly be given any weight. Absolutely none at all.”

  He seemed pleased. The shadows were taking on a green and nasty hue. I said, “Did you or Muriel take Dorothy to a doctor after you noticed she seemed changed?”

  “We were planning to when she disappeared.”

  “It was a matter of some thirty days before she left home.”

  “She’s of age, my friend. We had no rights—or responsibilities—in the matter.”

  “That’s fine,” I whispered, “that’s just fine. I think it’s time for us to talk about the events at the Lennox Arms Apartments, room three-o-four.”

  No hesitation now. It came back fast, with a slight twitter in it, “I don’t get your meaning.”

  “Your wife did, very clearly.”

  He moved on the seat. He said, “I see,” vaguely, and brought his knee up a little onto the seat, the foot hanging loosely over the edge.

  I grinned. “Don’t try it.”

  “Wha—what?”

  I started to explain that it wouldn’t pay to try to make use of the free foot, but I never got the chance. He made use of it, brought it up swiftly against my arm and lunged with a great wheezing grunt. I brought up a knee. Then I brought down the gun. There was no hat, no hair, just skin and skull, and the hollow sanguinary sound. Then there was silence that swelled slowly into a myriad desert sounds.

  I dragged him out of the car and away from the road. I went through his clothes. His name was Harvey Small, of the firm of Collins and Small. A key with numbered tag on it was in a side pocket along with a five-day-old telegram which said simply LOCATED PARTY IN TUCSON REPORTING DETAILS IN PERSON TOMORROW.

  I left the telegram and took the key. There was nothing else that meant anything to me. In the back seat of the car there was a blanket. I took it out and laid it gently over Mr. Harvey Small.

  I parked a block away from the Desert Inn. There were several keys attached to the ignition lock. I tried some of them on the glove compartment, got it open, and looked through it. A package of gum, a screw driver, a pair of pliers, and a flashlight. I put the gum and the flash in my pocket and went down to the hotel.

  I had to break a latch on one of the gates. It snapped loudly and I stepped into the walled village. The noise of the breaking latch still echoed down the dark walks. I waited. I looked at the plastic tag on the key. Number 4-B. I walked on. 12-C was lighted brightly, emitting a discreet and muted sound of music. An elderly Couple went into 9-C and nodded to me politely. I told them it was a nice evening and they agreed that it was. I got into bigger numbers on the next turn, went back and tried it another way. 4-B was dark. There was light in a cottage at the end of the walk and at the other end an electrolier fought the darkness and the futile attacks of a pair of moths.

  I knocked lightly at the door. Silence. Somewhere down the walk a door opened, closed. The unhurried shush of feet on the walk. I jammed the key into the lock and turned. It stuck. I took it easy. It still wouldn’t turn. The people were coming by. They could see me now. They either knew the Smalls or they didn’t. I stood there as if I had just rung the bell for a Sunday call. They were going on by and I could feel their eyes on my back. I suddenly felt like a man wearing footpads and carrying a three-way jimmy. The steps died away in the direction of the lobby, moving leisurely. I tried the key again and it turned and I went on in.

  I locked the door and pulled the Venetian blinds tight. I sent the spot from the flashlight around the room, keeping it low, playing it over the couch and the chairs. No one in the room. The spot picked up the legs of a desk. It was open and covered with legal-size paper carrying single-spaced typing. The first line on one of the sheets put a neat round period to the story Harvey had told without meaning to tell. It said, “I, Dorothy Dreves, do hereby . . .” And then I knew that it did much more than that. It told me the answer. The answer to the locked room, the missing key, the girl . . .

  The sound was within the room, hardly a sound at all, a noise like the parting of lips, the falling away of some soft garment. It came again, harsher now, a breath drawn quickly in a dry throat. I turned. Or that was what I told myself I would do: turn and jump aside and send the light blaring into the room. I turned. I turned many times in a great hot falling spiral, escaping pain and never escaping it, and escaping it at last in darkness.

  FIFTEEN

  I woke up with the sweat standing-in great globules on my forehead, gritting my teeth. My jaws ached. The room was gray and the room was empty. Nobody lived in this room any more. I stumbled into the bathroom. Blood was caked across my left temple. I washed it off, feeling the mushy swelling underneath. My knees suddenly buckled and I fell to the floor. After a while I got up and went in and lay on the davenport. This was all the bloodshot hung-over hours in one concentrated package.

  Harvey would have been home by now. I didn’t hit him as hard as his wife hit me. So Mr. and Mrs. Small had checked out and Bailey was lying in cottage 4-B of Tucson’s Desert Inn and it wasn’t costing a cent. Pretty soon the maid would come in and have me removed with the rest of
the dirty linen. And then I remembered why I had moved so slowly last night when the sound came. It was because the answer had suddenly come to me. I needed only one piece to be sure of it. The piece was Dr. G. E. Slocum. If I found there what I thought I’d find, I could stop worrying about whether they hanged you or gave you gas in Arizona. I would have other things to worry about, like finding the Smalls before they planed out or crossed Nogales’s main stem into Mexico.

  It was six a.m. I groped my way up the side of the davenport. I waited for the room to stop rising with me. I made it to the door without too much trouble and looked in my pockets for the key. It was gone. My wallet was gone, and the keys to the car. I looked around and found the wallet on the floor. I had a hard time getting it. A cold thin little thought slid into my mind and then out again. No, they wouldn’t have tipped off the police. They had their own problem to worry about. Besides, who was afraid of the police? There wasn’t anything missing from the wallet. I went back to the door and tried it Locked, of course. I pulled up the blind, unlocked the window and put my head out There was cold sunlight and silence. I put out a foot and a leg, and then another leg, and lowered myself to the ground. The cold air cleared my head. No one around. I didn’t think anyone saw me. I went down the walk and out one of the gates. The gray car was still sitting where I’d left it.

  The glove compartment was still unlocked. I got the pliers and the screw driver, lifted the hood and went to work. My fingers were still stiff and I had to look at things over an edge of pain that kept rising. But after a while I had it so I could do without the key. I got in and drove away from there. I stopped at a service station on Campbell and looked up the phone number of the Municipal Airport. A nice warm voice said, “Good morning.” I asked her if any air-line planes had left since midnight and when the next plane was due out. She told me one had left for Los Angeles at four a.m. and the next plane out would be leaving on the New York run at seven-ten. Another for Los Angeles at eight-forty.

  I said, “Can you tell me whether Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Small were on that four-o’clock plane?”