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DANCE WITH THE DEAD

by Richard S. Prather

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Copyright (c)1960 by Fawcett Publications, Inc. Copyright renewed 1988 by
Richard Scott Prather

Mystery/Crime



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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original
purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk,
network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international
copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.



* * *



Other works by Richard Prather also available in e-reads editions CASE OF THE
VANISHING BEAUTY BODIES IN BEDLAM EVERYBODY HAD A GUN FIND THIS WOMAN THE
SCRAMBLED YEGGS WAY OF A WANTON DAGGER OF FLESH DARLING, IT'S DEATH TOO MANY
CROOKS ALWAYS LEAVE 'EM DYING PATTERN FOR PANIC STRIP FOR MURDER THE WAILING
FRAIL HAVE GAT-WILL TRAVEL THREE'S A SHROUD SLAB HAPPY TAKE A MURDER, DARLING
DOUBLE IN TROUBLE



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_Dedicated to_

all those who are

in love with love

and have eaten in the Banyan Tree



* * *



*ONE* We were having dinner in a banyan tree. Neither of us had ever eaten in a
tree before. More accurately, we hadn't had dinner at all yet. But our
white-turbaned, dark-skinned waiter had just preceded us in near-darkness up
the wooden steps leading to the tree house, carrying a huge silver tray laden
with roast squab stuffed with wild quail eggs, mangoes and broiled bananas,
liqueurs and champagne. Now he turned on a soft light, placed the tray on a low
table before the narrow Persian couch covered voluptuously with soft and
colorful pillows, waited while Loana and I sank into the pillows, and said,
grinning as if he were going to drink it himself, "Shall I open the champagne?"
"Yes, indeed!" I said. "Open away." As he lifted the bottle from its silver ice
bucket I looked at Loana, close on my left. It had to be close. The tree house
was only about eight feet long and four feet wide, but with all the comforts
you seldom find at home -- such as Loana. Gorgeously Polynesian Loana Kaleoha.
With volcanic eyes and breasts. With lips as hot and red as the devil's
derriere. With eye-wrecking curves that must have been shaped by a blowtorch.
With _me_. Happily with me: Shell Scott. We were in Don the Beachcomber's Tree
House in the Banyan, in the heart of the International Market Place at Waikiki.
I was a bit dizzy, and Loana was part of the reason. But before coming outside
and climbing up into the Banyan Tree we had sat at Don the Beachcomber's Dagger
Bar down below and nearby. We'd had _Puka Pukas_ and _Nui Nuis_ and a Cobra's
Fang or two. Then we'd moved to our table in the adjacent Bora Bora Lounge and
consumed a Zombie and Skull-and-Bones while I'd cooked the _pupu_ -- tender
chunks of marinated sirloin speared on bamboo skewers and broiled over glowing
charcoal in a miniature _hibachi_ on our table. All those drinks were more than
a little loaded with rum, so we, too, were now more than a little loaded with
rum. "Loana, my sizzling Oahu tomato," I said, "shall we let the food cool
while we have a glug of Mumm's?" She smiled, white teeth flashing, devil-red
lips parting hotly. "Why not?" Long, darkly curving lashes veiled her black
eyes. "It's either that or we let the champagne get warm." "What an unthinkable
thought. Cold squab, yes. But who ever heard of hot champagne?" There was the
satisfying _thoop_ of the cork leaving the bottle's mouth, then the liquid
gurgle as our waiter poured two glasses brimful of the bubbling wine. He put
the bottle back into the ice next to another quart of the bubbly, stepped to a
small record player on my right. In a moment soft music washed over us, strings
singing in the night, the sound of surf breaking on sands, crystal voices
singing Polynesian songs that were old when Hawaii was young. I grinned at
Loana, so relaxed my veins seemed to be collapsing, and said, "Here we sit,
high over the world." "High, anyway." "Honey, let's live here. Far from the
madding madness." "Far?" She laughed softly. "With a thousand people walking
around down there?" "Far enough. They can't see us." They couldn't. They were
there beneath us, all right, hundreds of citizens, lovers, husbands and wives
and kids and tourists, strolling from shop to shop in the Market Place, but
they couldn't see or hear us. We could see them, though, if we wanted to. This
little house, lodged securely high in the Banyan Tree, had segmented thatched
walls, foot-wide panels of which could be pushed out by hand if you wanted to
peek at the citizens. We didn't want to peek at the citizens. The waiter
coughed gently and when I glanced at him he was holding open a small door in a
cabinet beneath the record player. "The phone, sir," he said. "Phone?" "Yes,
sir. If you wish anything else, phone and I will attend to it." I thought about
that. I rather liked it. "You mean, if we want more champagne or something I
just pick up the phone?" "Yes, sir. As I leave, I must make certain that both
gates are locked behind me. I cannot come back up unless you call and ask for
me." He wiggled a key ring in his hand and grinned that champagne-drinking grin
again. "In fact, sir, unless you call me ... you cannot get out." He followed
his grin through hanging bamboo beads which were both entrance and exit of the
little house, and I heard him going down the wooden steps. There was the click
of the gate midway up the stairs, and a minute later I heard the soft clink of
a chain. The bottom gate, at ground level, was quite sturdy, I remembered,
chained and padlocked. I glanced at Loana. "You're trapped. I may tear out the
phone." "Let's," she said. "We can set up tree-housekeeping. I'll be the Oahu
Tarzan and swing yodeling from limb to limb every day, gathering mangoes and
fighting off apes." "Good. I'll bind your wounds and be your ... who is it?"
"Jane. Me Tarzan, you Jane. Now _there's_ a line for you." "You still insist
that you really _do_ fight apes, Shell?" "But of course, Jane." I struck my
chest rather severely, and let out a small yowl. "When I must -- but tonight,
no. And not in trees. Tonight we drink champagne." We did. We finished the
first glass and I poured a second, thinking somewhat sourly of what Loana had
said. I had told her I was a private detective, and -- facetiously -- that I
fought apes for a living. But in a sense it was true: I seem to run up against
many individuals who, in the evolutionary race, appear to have got stuck on the
starting blocks. Ape-like humans such as Slobbers O'Brien and Danny Ax, Ed
Grey, and alliteratively -- and accurately -- named Biff Boff. Hoods, one and
all. And some of those hoods had been trying to kill me for the last few days.
They were still trying, and getting better at it. My home is in Hollywood, and
the office of _Sheldon Scott, Investigations_, is in Los Angeles, so here in
Honolulu I was a long way from my balmy Southern California beat; but the apes
with guns had caught up with me even here. Right now the cylinder of the
short-barreled .38 Colt Special resting in the clamshell holster beneath my
gabardine coat held two recently-emptied cartridge cases along with the three
live pills still in the chambers. I had been shot at, slugged, sapped, attacked
from numerous directions and generally half-mutilated already; but all that, I
told myself, was in the days recently passed and the day here in Honolulu just
ending. There would undoubtedly be more of the same tomorrow -- but, with any
luck, not tonight. Tonight there were soft music and soft pillows, champagne
and squab -- and Loana Kaleoha. One of the reasons I'd come to Hawaii was to
check up on Loana, confirm or erase suspicions I'd had about her. But those
suspicions had developed before I'd met her, talked to her, and I felt sure now
that she couldn't be the gal I had been trying to find. A gal so gorgeous and
exciting couldn't be mixed up in the ugliness of these past days -- kidnaping
and murder, violence and threats.... I pushed my mind away from all that. It
could keep for an hour. Hell, a man has to eat. Loana held out her empty glass.
"Where were you?" she asked me. "Your eyes had a glazed, far-off look." "The
glaze is from _Puka Pukas_ and _Nui Nuis_," I said. "But I have definitely been
too far-off." I moved closer to her, and she helped by sliding an inch or two
toward me. I could have shut my eyes, I think, and known she was there. I think
I could have felt the heat of her. It was as if the blowtorch that might have
fashioned her fantastic curves had left most of its heat inside her. It oozed
from her sun-browned flesh, flashed from her eyes, burned on her lips. Loana
was a dancer, a Tahitian dancer, and she was much like that dance itself --
sensual, exciting, pulse-stirring, savagely beautiful. She was tall, with black
hair hanging in a long lustrous loop over one smooth brown shoulder. Thick
lashes fringing black eyes, brows like black spurs. But she was soft, too, her
curves melting, her voice like the rustle of black lace; and there was a
sweetness about her that tugged at your heart while the eyes and mouth, boldly
thrusting breasts and hips, tugged at your eyes. We must have made quite a
contrast, quite a pair. She was dark, smoldering, beautiful, with hair black as
the first sin. But I have short-cropped stand-up hair which, at thirty, is so
blond and sun-bleached that it's white, and obtrusively white eyebrows that
look bent and pushed down at their ends; a broken -- gently broken, I call it
-- nose; skin tanned almost as dark as Loana's. She was tall enough, but just
the right size next to my six feet, two inches and two hundred and five pounds.
I was still wearing the beige gabardine suit I'd worn on the plane, but Loana
had on a dark blue _holomuu_ splashed with white plumeria blossoms. Around her
neck and caressing her breasts was the _lei_ of small vanda orchids she'd been
given earlier in the Bora Bora Lounge. I look about as soft and feminine as the
Rock of Gibraltar after a bombing attack, but Loana was the eternal woman, the
ultimate in femininity, a Polynesian Eve in a _holomuu_. And a _holomuu_ is not
to be confused with a _muumuu_. Ah, no. The _muumuu_ was introduced to these
happy islands by a shivering missionary who thought in his goofy way that
nudity and semi-nudity, bare flesh, glorious and innocently beautiful bare
bodies were -- for the birds. The bad birds. The birds which cleverly go around
dropping things on missionaries. It is not now known whether this cat took
showers with all his clothes on and his eyes squeezed tightly shut, but he clad
those wind-brushed bodies and sun-caressed skins in billowing goonysacks, the
_muumuu_ -- like an Yves Laurent creation, the original sick sack, a
straight-up-and-down shapeless monstrosity which covers a woman up practically
to her ears and leaves all beneath it a matter for hopelessly dismal
conjecture. But from it grew -- to prove that you can't keep a good idea down
forever -- a kind of fitted, clinging garment called a _holomuu_. Fitted in a
fashion to cause welcome fits, to make eyeballs need Band-Aids, to make the
graves of wildly twirling missionaries pop open in censored eruptions. Looking
at Loana in her _holomuu_, which seemed merely to emphasize the proud swelling
of breasts, the taut flatness of stomach, the eternally provocative thrust of
hip and thigh, I could almost forgive that bloody missionary. Almost. By the
time we'd finished our first bottle of champagne, I _had_ forgiven him. For
some minutes now Loana and I had been chortling and yipping, guzzling and
nuzzling, laughing and talking in such happy abandon that our tree house must
have been wobbling on its limbs. I got up once and turned the records over, and
it was either the tree or me that was wobbling on its limbs. But I made it back
to the voluptuously-pillowed couch and said to Loana, "Heigh-ho, hey, boy. Give
me a tree any old time." The conversation was occasionally a bit disjointed,
but neither of us seemed to mind. Occasionally we had looked at the food, and
now Loana bent over the tray and unwrapped the foil from the little squabs. She
touched one with a long finger. Then she looked at me. "Squab's getting cold,"
she said brightly. "Isn't that grand?" "Grand. Would you like a bite?" "Yeah.
So bite me." She bit me. My blood was sizzling in my veins as if it were
carbonated. Champagne bubbles were popping in my arteries, silver explosions
like bursting flavor buds conspiring with rum to get my plasma loaded. And then
Loana got up, and in the very confined space of our locked-up little room, did
a little Tahitian dance for me. Although, truly, there is no such thing as a
little Tahitian dance. When she sat down by me again she finished the last
swallow of her champagne. Not once had she said, "It tickles" -- bless her --
but now she said, "My nose itches." "That means you're going to kiss a fool!" I
cried. "Kiss me, you fool." I kissed her. I'm no fool. "Ah, us fools!" I cried.
"My nose itches all over." And there we went again. Then I said, "Loana, how
would you like to try on a hula skirt?" "Oh, Shell. Don't be silly. Where would
we get a hula skirt?" "Who's silly?" I looked around for the package. Before
meeting Loana I had done a small amount of shopping and had purchased two grass
skirts to take back to the mainland. I knew I'd brought the package up with me,
and suddenly I spotted it, over in the corner by my shoes. "There it is," I
said, and grabbed it, feverishly tore at the wrappings. Loana said, but with a
smile, "Only women wear grass skirts like those." "That was in the old days, my
sweet. When Kamehameha was king. These are the new days, the Shell Scott days,
the days when _everybody_ wears grass skirts -- we'll fix that missionary." I
thought: if we stop to think about it, we'll never do it. Not up in a tree
right out in the open air in the middle of Waikiki, not with hundreds of people
around all unaware, not with -- oh, the hell with it. I ripped open the package
and handed Loana one of the hula skirts, kept the other for myself. She said,
"You mean you bought these and brought them up here? Why, Shell, you _planned_
it!" "No. Really, no. Honest. I just happened to have a couple with me." I
swallowed. "I mean, I was shopping. Oh, I don't know -- it's fate, that's it,
fate. It's like a command. This was meant to be." She laughed. "You mean
something horrible will happen to us if we don't put them on?" "I ... well,
something horrible may happen to me. Honest Injun. I mean, honest Tahitian ...
honest. Oh, pour some cold champagne on me, baby. Hit me with the bottle or
something." "Kiss me, you fool," she said. "My nose itches." Then she gurgled
throatily, squeezed her black eyes shut and said, "I got it backwards that
time, didn't I?" "Honey, you got it frontwards." And then, all of a sudden, we
were getting into those hula skirts. You wouldn't believe what a scene it was.
For one brief moment -- actually, one of the last brief moments of sanity left
to me, though I couldn't possibly have anticipated what was going to happen --
for that brief moment I thought I must be dreaming it. Imagining it. This
couldn't be ... could it? But it was. In half a minute Loana, now with the
grass skirt low on her hips, and only the delicate petals of vanda orchids upon
her brazen breasts, sank back into the massed pillows behind her. It was a
sight that seemed to get me drunk and sober me up at the same time. Behind my
back the records turned, music poured soft upon us, the sound of surf, the beat
of winds, the sighing, sobbing voices. When Loana spoke again it was different
from the words we'd lightly used before, and the words had a different sound.
"Kiss me. Shell," she said. Her voice rustled like black lace in darkness.
"Kiss me...." * * * *

After a while I opened the second bottle of champagne. We were laughing again.
I poured both our glasses full and leaned over the silver tray of food. I
unwrapped the foil, looked at the cold, cold, cold squabs. Examined the
lovingly prepared slices of fruit, the nest of limp potato sticks.

"Got to eat something," I said. "What will the cook think? By golly, I'll have
a wild quail egg." "I'll have a wild quail egg, too." "It sounds a bit odd,
when I hear you say it, Loana." "I'll have one anyway." We had them. One
apiece, that was all. There's a time for wild quail eggs and a time _not_ for
wild quail eggs. I guess I just wasn't ready for it. The thing was delicious,
but I couldn't get all wrapped up in it somehow. And I was dizzy. Dizzier than
before. "I think my blood is burning, Loana," I said. "That's my trouble --
fired blood. It is flaming like oil and the frantic corpuscles are stampeding
for exits. Got to get some air. That's what I need, air." I stood up and my
legs seemed to be moving independently of each other, as if one leg was all
foot. "My head has gone to sleep," I said. "I -- oops!" My foot, or leg that
was a foot, had hit a toppled champagne bottle and the bottle went rolling
toward the bamboo-bead-draped exit. Loana sat up straight. "Air?" she said, in
a kind of horrified tone. "What?" "Air?" "What in hell are you talking about?"
"You said you were going to get some air." "Oh, yeah. For my corpuscles. To
give me new vim. You know, fresh air. This is all beat up in here. It's like
inhaling exhales." "But you can't go out on a limb like _that!_" "Lady, I've
been out on limbs you wouldn't believe.... Oh. I see what you mean." She threw
my grass skirt at me, her aim lousy as gals' aims always are, and I leaped for
it, grabbing and clutching -- and staggering. As I gripped it my foot-leg
landed on that champagne bottle and I felt myself soaring, sailing through the
air. I know I couldn't have sailed or soared very far, but it seemed I was a
rocket swooshing through space. Then my thigh slammed against something. In the
mush which at that moment was my brain, I barely realized that the little
things slapping at me were bamboo-curtain beads, and that the smack against my
thigh was the wooden railing around the small deck outside the tree-house
entrance. Or, in this case, exit. There was time for no other even vaguely
clear thought, because as the railing collided with my thigh I felt myself
going over it, pinwheeling, spinning dizzily, letting out a great shocked
sound. Loana yelled something from behind me, and it seemed way off behind me,
but all I could make out was part of a phrase: " ... don't go..." I started to
tell her I didn't _want_ to go, but it was too late. I was going. There was a
wild eternity of sight and sound and banging sensations. I refused to admit
that I was falling out of the Banyan Tree, plummeting from on high down into
Waikiki, simply refused to admit it -- but it didn't make any difference. That
is exactly what I was doing. I seemed simultaneously to be going in several
different directions. My head hit a solid limb and zigzag blotches flashed
before my eyes. For one horrible instant there was the dear, even though
mercifully brief, sight of people below me somewhere, people casually gadding
about, strolling and looking into shop windows. I grabbed frantically at limbs,
twigs, even leaves. But they were not fig leaves. Not with _my_ luck. In the
last kaleidoscopic moments of my fall, a hundred, a thousand remembered scenes
ripped like successive small explosions through my mind. It is said that in one
second a man can dream events it would take him a month to live, and if that
was what was happening to me I only wished I was dreaming. Even while the hard
ground rushed up at me, those memory explosions blossomed in my mind. Hollywood
... Las Vegas ... the nudity of women ... the lean hard faces of men ... blood
spreading over a dead man's back ... the sound and sight of gunshots ... and
all those lovely lovelies....



* * *



*TWO* I had never even heard of a banyan tree when Webley Alden phoned that
night to say he was in trouble and to ask me for help. It was a Thursday night,
August thirteenth, and I was at home -- the Spartan Apartment Hotel in
Hollywood -- trying once again to breed _Hyphessobrycon innesi_. I've kept
tropical fish for years, bred a dozen varieties, but my several attempts to
breed the Neon Tetra, which isn't really a Tetra but a Characin, have been a
story of frustration, failure, defeat. Breeding neons had become a symbol, a
goal, a challenge. And this time I was going at the job with grim
determination. The two tropical-fish tanks are at the left of the front door,
but I'd set up alongside them a third one, a 20-gallon tank containing neutral,
sterile water at 78 degrees, and conditions just right for breeding the vivid
little fish. So I thought, anyway. The damned fish didn't seem to think so. It
was a fine big pair of neons, well conditioned on live daphnia and brine
shrimp, the female heavy with spawn, and they had been dancing about in what I
hoped was flirtatious fashion for two days now. But nothing had happened. I was
about to pour a slug of bourbon into the aquarium, thinking that if they got a
little giddy... And then the phone rang. It was Webley Alden. Webb, an old
friend. He was thirty-eight, a bachelor, wise, witty, lusty, likable, enjoyable
to be around. Webb didn't live in Hollywood, but in the small city of Medina,
part of L.A. County and only a short hop outside the L.A. city limits.
Originally a commercial photographer and a good one, he had made several
improvements in then-existing camera and developing equipment, and perfected a
compact movie projector which could be used for showing both eight- and
sixteen-millimeter films; from royalties on his patents he had become a
millionaire. His financial interests now ranged from stocks and bonds and real
estate to the publication of a most stimulating magazine. He was a gourmet, a
connoisseur of wine -- and women. Always women. He was a rogue, a rake, a roue.
Cultured, gentle, even reserved. But still: a rogue, a rake, a roue. So, with
that background, it was not surprising that the magazine Webb published was:
_Wow!_ Wow! -- The Magazine For Red-Blooded Men. Even white-blooded men, of
course, have heard of _Wow!_ by now, and it's eight to five that half of them
surreptitiously peek at it on the newsstands. Possibly no other magazine in the
history of publishing had experienced such sudden and soaring success in one
year. Several other people besides Webb had money in the magazine, but he was
the driving force behind it and that was a large part of the reason for
_Wow!'s_ success. But the main reason was the full-page photos of beautiful
women. And the beautiful women did not have many, if any, clothes on. _Wow!_
was not a fashion magazine. Moreover, there was no question that the biggest
single reason for the publication's sudden and enormous acceptance by the male
population of the U.S.A. was a single feature: the three-page, full-color
gatefold center in the magazine. For twelve months that large foldout had
invariably been a photograph of a lovely woman, nude, and -- in whatever pose
or posture -- facing _away_ from the camera. The feature had come to be called,
perhaps a bit indelicately, the "Fanny of the Month" -- though it was captioned
in the magazine's pages as "Women With _Wow!_" It was not surprising that Webb
took every one of those pictures himself. I grinned, thinking about it. All
things considered, I thought Webb was one of the most interesting and congenial
men I'd ever met, and I was delighted to hear his voice on the phone. Until he
told me what was wrong. After the helloes, brief this time, he said, "Shell,
could you come over right away?" I glanced at the neons, getting very frisky.
"Sure. What's the matter?" "It's something I don't want to talk about on the
phone. But ... well, I've just come back from Honolulu. Got in a few hours ago.
And I -- I seem to have misplaced my wife." I blinked. "Your wife?" I thought
he was pulling my leg. "Since when have you had a wife, Webb?" "We were married
in the Islands this morning, came in by jet. Come over, will you? Ill tell you
what I can then. It's ... perhaps it's nothing, Shell, but I can't take the
chance." "On my way," I said, and hung up. I grabbed my coat and took off. As I
went out I trickled a few drops of Canadian Club in with the neons. Maybe it
would work; I'd tried everything else. It was a hot August, and I had the top
down on my Cad, letting the warm wind brush over me while I drove. I slowed
down as I neared Webb's hillside home. I'd had trouble here on a case once, and
the local police had since looked upon me with a dim eye. Especially a
detective sergeant named Parley, who had given me the uncomfortable impression
that he would enjoy shooting me in or out of the line of duty. With any luck I
wouldn't even see a member of the local law, but I pulled the Cad down below
the legal speed inside Medina's city limits, just in case. Webb lived at 947
Poinsettia Drive, at the highest elevation in Medina, parallel to Azalea Street
beyond it. The Drive curved up a steep bill and ran along its top, multilevel
houses there having a fine view over the lights of Medina to the spread-out
glitter of Los Angeles -- when the L.A. lights could be seen through Death's
halitosis: smog. The house was low, hugging the hill's crest, modern in design.
I parked in front, on Poinsettia, and walked up split-driftwood stone steps to
his front door. Webb was waiting there for me. He was tall and very thin, with
a mobile, humorous, angular face that warmed with a smile when he saw me and
said hello. We went into his front room and he said, "Something for your
hangover, Shell?" "I don't have a hangover tonight." "We can fix that.
Bourbon?" "Fine, thanks." He walked to the bar in a corner. This was a big
room, the front wall almost entirely glass to take advantage of the view below.
The room was cluttered, with books and magazines in evidence everywhere, some
opened flat and others stacked in bunches, a half-full coffee cup on a small
table. At other spots were things Webb had picked up at one place or another in
the world: a stone Mexican idol in one corner, a Kwan Yin, African masks, a
Balinese headdress. Against one wall was a magnificent five-foot-tall wood
carving of Pan, arms outstretched. It was new; I hadn't seen it before. I
commented on it, and Webb said he'd just brought the carving back from Hawaii.
The effect of the room, to me, was one of pleasant clutter, but directly ahead,
opposite the front door, was Webb's studio, and it was chaos. The wide double
sliding doors were open and I could see into the room. I walked past a low
curved divan and glanced into the studio. On the left were Webb's four-by-five
Speed Graphic on its heavy tripod, lights and reflectors, a couple of
spotlights on a ceiling beam overhead. Insulated electrical wires lay in
disarray on the bare, uncarpeted floor. Boxes of cut film, stacks of negatives
and enlargements, cameras, a strobe light, more books and magazines, were in
shelves, on tables, even on the wooden floor. Two doors were open in the left
wall. One led into Webb's darkroom; the other, on the right, into a bedroom.
"One of these days I'm going to do something about that mess." It was Webb,
speaking behind me. I turned and took the proffered highball as he went on, "Be
a bit like sluicing out the Augean Stables, won't it? Unfortunately I have no
rivers to squirt through it. Naturally that's why I haven't done the job."
"You'll never do it, Webb. You're an unreconstructed hobo. You don't really
_like_ living in houses." He grinned. "I suppose you're right. You can't fold
up a house like the Arabs.... Now, there's an idea. Fold-up houses -- square
tents, double thicknesses of canvas with insulation built in ... prop them up
anyplace ... use them for rags when you're tired of them." He gulped half his
drink. "I give you the idea out of the badness of my heart." "I'm practically a
millionaire. Before extortion." "Ah, yes. You refer, of course, to America's
Storm Troopers -- the tax men?" "Of course. But thanks, anyway." We walked back
to the curved divan, sat facing the view. Webb glanced at the phone a couple of
times, as if expecting it to ring. I waited for him. Finally he looked at his
watch, finished the highball in his hand and turned to me. "Well, here it is. I
got married this morning in the Islands. After the ceremony there was a small
_luau_, then Mrs. Alden -- " he seemed to savor the words, roll them on his
tongue -- "and I flew here by jet. Landed at L.A. International at nine p.m.
And I ... I lost her." I didn't say anything. The lines in his angular face
seemed to deepen. After a moment of quiet he said, "She left me to freshen up a
bit after the flight. I waited. She never returned. I looked around, paged her,
for an hour or so. Finally I decided she'd somehow become ... confused. Or
couldn't find me. That perhaps she had come here to my -- our home. That was
the whole point of flying straight here, to start out in our home. Bride across
the threshold and all that. But she wasn't here when I arrived. So I
immediately phoned you." He started to drink from his glass, realized it was
empty and walked to the bar. "It's probably nothing at all," he said. "Some
silly thing. But I can't help worrying, maybe she's hurt, there could have been
an accident...." He came back with his fresh drink, sat down again, waited for
me to speak. I said, "It's ... odd. I can run up to the airport, Webb. Start
checking there." From the breast pocket of his coat he pulled a folded check,
banded it to me. It was made out to me and in the amount of one thousand
dollars. I started to protest, but he said, "Don't be an imbecile. I know you'd
do it without a retainer. This check isn't for your benefit; it's for mine. If
it's unnecessary for you to spend any money, you can always give it back.
That's just in case..." I said, "What can you tell me about her? Anyone I know?
Do you have a picture of her?" "Not a picture that would do you much good in
this case." He smiled oddly, glanced at the phone again. "I really don't know
much about her, Shell. I met her when I did a shot of her for the book. She
came here to the studio, and I was -- well, completely captivated by her then.
Last week we met again in Honolulu. I asked her to marry me. She wanted to
think it over, next day said yes, and this morning we were married. Civil
ceremony, then a little _luau_ afterwards." He shook his head, frowning. "But
there was a peculiar thing. It didn't impress me then, but now..." "Peculiar?"
"Well, during the _luau_ I took some movies. She turned away. Didn't seem to
want pictures taken of her. Even asked me to stop -- and asked that I please
keep the marriage secret. Just for a little while. She suggested we announce
our marriage at the Anniversary Party next week." He fell silent again. His
last remark, about the Anniversary Party, puzzled me. I knew that in a week or
so there was to be a party celebrating the just-completed first year of
_Wow!'s_ publication. The magazine's editorial staff, cameramen and others
including all twelve of the lovelies who had been featured in the first twelve
issues, were to be present. A handsome "Personality" named Orlando Desmond, on
whom _Wow!_ had done a profile recently, was to supervise or "em-cee" the
festivities, and Webb would cut a birthday cake or something like that. But why
announce the marriage there? Webb went on, "There was something she had to ...
arrange, she said. Explanations, something, I don't know. It seemed a good idea
at the time." He looked at me, his eyes tired. "Possibly she was in some kind
of trouble even then, didn't want to tell me about it." "Or maybe she's at the
airport right now, wondering where the devil her new husband is. You say you
photographed her here? For the magazine?" "Yes. The gatefold, you know." It
fell into place then. "You mean she's one of the..." I paused. "The 'Women With
Wow'? The big center spread?" "Yes, you've seen it, Shell. It was the one with
-- " The phone rang. Webb's face underwent an almost remarkable transformation.
The lines in his face smoothed, the tired look left his eyes and he smiled
broadly. "I knew she'd call ... silly of me..." He was moving across the room,
long legs swinging. The phone was on a wooden shelf at the side of a small
bookcase against the wall; he grabbed it, said, "Hello?" Then he was silent for
several seconds. His back was toward me, but I saw his shoulders slump. His
whole frame seemed to sag. "What?" he said, his voice so soft I could barely
hear him. Then his tone strengthened. "Why, you must be -- _what?_" He stopped
speaking again. I got up, walked across the room to stand by him. His face was
ashen, mouth open, lips slack. Shock dulled his eyes. He listened, then said
rapidly, "Yes. Yes, of course. I will. No, you can be sure -- wait, _please
wait, don't_ -- " I heard the click as the other phone was hung up. Webb didn't
move. "What's the matter?" I asked him. Slowly he put the phone down, failed to
get it in place and it fell clattering to the shelf beneath. He groped for it,
dropped it onto the cradle. "It's incredible," he said softly. "Incredible."
"Webb, what is it? What the hell's wrong?" He merely said again, "It's
incredible." Then he turned the shocked eyes on me. "She's been ... kidnaped."
* * * *

Ten minutes later that was still all I knew. We were sitting on the divan
again, but Webb would hardly speak to me. Finally it became clear that he was
deliberately refraining from telling me anything more.

I said, "Webb, for Pete's sake, be sensible. If she's actually been snatched
you've got to call in the local police, at least, let them bring in the FBI --
" "No," he said almost angrily. "I told you. I'm going to do exactly what they
said. If I don't, they might kill her." "But that's always the threat -- "
"When I get her back, Shell. When I get her back. Then I'll do anything you
want me to. But not until then." "At least tell me something more about her.
You haven't even told me her name, Webb. What does she look like, where's she
from, how did -- " "No! I don't want you to do _anything_, Shell. Can't you get
it through your head? I don't _want_ you to know, I don't want you --
investigating, stirring things up. That's precisely what they told me not to
do." "You say _they_ told you not to?" "They -- he, what difference does it
make? It was a man who spoke to me, and he said, 'we've got her,' so I assumed
there were more than one involved. But the rest of it was very clear. He told
me exactly what to do and when, amount of ransom money, that if I didn't follow
instructions to the letter she'd be killed; I'd ... never see her again." His
face twisted. We were silent for a while. Then I said casually, "Webb, I won't
argue with you any more. But I still say you can't handle hoods this way -- if
that's what it is. Can you tell me how much the guy on the phone asked for?" He
didn't bridle at the question, just asked, "Why?" "If this is a mob thing,
professionally pulled off, the asking price would most likely be fat -- you're
a likely enough target _if_ they knew you'd just gotten married. But if the
amount was only a few thousand, maybe five or ten grand, it could be this isn't
so bad as it looks, just an amateur -- " "The amount was two hundred thousand
dollars." Webb didn't add anything to that. He didn't have to. I said, "How
could anybody have known you were married? You said the ceremony was this
morning." He shrugged. "I don't know. Perhaps someone in Honolulu ... I
purchased plane tickets for Mr. and Mrs. Webley Alden, of course. That's all I
can think of." "How about those films you took this morning, after the wedding?
You bring them back with you?" "No, I dropped them in the mail over there.
They'll be processed in Honolulu, airmailed here. Shell, I think you'd better
leave." I got up. "If there's anything you want me to do -- " "Just do nothing.
Promise me that." "I think it's a mistake -- " "I don't give a damn what you
think! It's _my_ wife they've got ...." He let it trail off. "Promise me you'll
do nothing about this, tell no one. Not as long as there's a chance I can get
her back unharmed." "Okay, Webb." I sighed. "You've got my word." At the door
he put a band on my shoulder and said gently, "Ignore anything I might have
said ... if I barked at you." I grinned at him. "Absolutely not. Somehow I'll
get even." He smiled. "I had to bark at someone." But then his features grew
slack again. "This was supposed to be..." He hesitated, went on, "...my wedding
night." * * * *

I didn't hear from Webb during the next day. I went downtown to my office, but
couldn't concentrate, kept thinking of what had happened the night before.
After I reached the apartment I showered and ate, fussed around, swore at the
damned Neon Tetras -- the bourbon hadn't helped a bit. Probably should have
used gin. Be a great laugh if I had two males in there. If so, one of them was
the fattest male neon in captivity.

I kept thinking about Webb. And his wife. I wondered if she was alive. I hadn't
wanted to mention it to Webb last night, but I knew of kidnap cases in which
the victim was murdered immediately after the snatch. And the ransom, if paid,
was thus paid for a corpse. Whatever had happened in the last day or so to the
girl who was now Mrs. Alden, she must have been a lively live one before.
Because Webb had told me she was one of the "Women With Wow" featured in his
magazine. And they were _all_ live, lithe, lissome and lovely. And, in a way,
they were all famous. Little more than a month after that first issue had hit
the stands, an agreement had been made whereby the girls featured in the
magazine would appear in Las Vegas at the Algiers, the big hotel-nightclub
there run by a hard-boiled hoodlum type named Ed Grey. They were featured in
the show, as in the magazine.... My own phrase whispered through my mind again.
Hard-boiled hoodlum type? Grey was that, for sure. I wasn't certain that he
held the controlling interest in the Algiers; most of the Vegas clubs are owned
by syndicates. But I did know he owned outright another club called the _Pele_
-- in Hawaii. But maybe I was reaching for answers now, straining for them
because of my unease, my jitteriness. I was jittery enough. I grabbed the phone
and called Webb. He answered immediately, after the first ring. "Shell here,
Webb," I said. "I finally had to give you a call and -- " He interrupted. "It's
all right, Shell." His voice was brisk and bubbling. "She's back. Everything's
fine. We'll have you over for dinner in a few days." "Wonderful! Webb, that's
marvelous news. But, look, my friend. Now that she's ... Webb? Webb?" He'd hung
up. It puzzled me. But then I realized Webb would hardly have much enthusiasm
for lengthy phone conversations if his bride had just been carried wiggling
over the threshold. I hung up, mixed a drink. But there was a little bubble of
worry in me. No matter _what_ Webb was doing, it wasn't like him merely to say
a word or two and hang up without even saying goodbye. It was almost as though
somebody else had broken the connection. It wasn't like Webb at all. If he
hadn't wanted to talk, he probably wouldn't have answered the phone in the
first place. That bubble swelled in me. Maybe his wife wasn't really back, and
he'd just said that to keep me from thinking there was anything to worry about,
or check on. Maybe I was nuts, too. But I used the phone, called again. The
line was busy. I waited five minutes, tried again. Still busy. That bubble of
worry broke and a cold unease settled in my belly and loins. I put on my gun
harness, shoved the Colt Special into its clip. Maybe I was nuts; but I was
going to find out, one way or the other. Lights burned brightly in Webb's
house. I parked on Poinsettia, at the foot of the stone steps, got out and
stood next to the car. Now that I was here, I was almost ready to think that
only my overactive imagination had sent me on the wild drive from my apartment.
Webb would really appreciate me, I was thinking, if I barged brightly up to his
front door when all he wanted was to be completely incommunicado for a week.
And then I heard the sharp, nerve-slapping sound. It came from above me, from
somewhere inside Webb's house. Unmistakably clear in the quiet night, hard and
flat and ugly. A gunshot.



* * *



*THREE* I leaped forward, my legs driving me up the stone steps as a second
flat slap of sound followed like an echo almost immediately after the first.
"_Webb!_" I shouted. My voice, feet slapping on the steps, made a lot of noise;
but I wanted to be heard. I shouted Webb's name again, jumped the last few feet
to the front door and slammed into it. The door was locked. There had been no
sound except the two rapid shots. I kicked at the door, and the lock gave with
a sharp crack. My momentum carried me past the door, into the cluttered front
room. Lights blazed in Webb's studio. I staggered, caught my balance without
slowing, kept racing forward. The light came from photographic bulbs in their
reflectors on my left in the studio. Something sprawled on the floor -- a body,
one arm outflung. Movement wavered on my right as I jumped into the studio,
feet sliding, pulling the .38 from under my coat. A man was just going through
a door there, slamming it hard. As it crashed shut, motion danced in the corner
of my eye, something moving on my left. I jerked my head toward that blur of
movement. She was almost out of sight, passing through the side studio door
into the adjacent bedroom. I got barely a glimpse of her, but I saw her for a
split second. It was a woman, nude, something trailing from one hand -- a
length of cloth, maybe a robe. Before that had time to register, the window in
the right wall, next to the door through which the man had gone, shattered with
a splintering crash. Simultaneously there was the sound of a gunshot. Something
plucked at my sleeve. I let my legs drop from under me, hit the floor, snapping
an unaimed shot at the window. I hit hard, rolling, crashed into a reflector,
felt bunched electrical cord against my leg and foot. A length of cord pulled
against my ankle and the lights went out. In the sudden blackness I saw a spurt
of flame from the window as the man fired again. Prone on the floor, I pointed
my Colt at the spot where the fire had blossomed, squeezed the trigger once,
and again. I heard the thud of feet pounding alongside the house, started
toward the side door. My leg hit something in the dark and I fell. When I got
up there was no sound outside -- then a car's engine caught, roared. I made it
to the door and through it as the engine whined, accelerating. When I reached
the rear of Webb's property the sound was faint. Below me on Azalea and a
hundred yards to my left, headlights flashed as the car swerved around a bend
in the road and out of sight. The shriek of tires skidding on asphalt floated
back to me through the still air. A minute later I was back inside the house. I
felt my way through the studio, found the electrical cord I'd kicked loose,
fumbled along the wall for the outlet. As my fingers touched it, I heard a
noise behind me. It was a scuttling sound, as if a great crab were crawling
over the bare floor, claws clacking softly on the wood. Then a sibilant hiss.
Hair stirred at the back of my neck and a moist coldness touched my spine as I
realized what it was. It was the man there, not dead, his fingers digging at
the wood, clawing, clutching. I pressed the plug into its socket. Lights blazed
again. I turned to look at the man. Light came from two portable lamps in their
conical reflectors, one still erect on its adjustable steel-tube stand. The
other had fallen, lay still burning on the floor. Its beam slanted weirdly over
the man's face. The man was Webb. He lay flat, chest pressed against the floor,
left arm extended straight above his head, right bent back so that his hand
almost touched his shoulder. His face was toward me, stark in the white light,
and his eyes were open. Both his hands, the one over his head and the other
brushing his right shoulder, moved mechanically, the fingers arching like white
spurs, clawlike, scraping against the floor. There was no other motion, no
other sound, only the hands and fingers scuttling, as if they possessed a
separate life, were independent of the dying body holding them, pulling them
with it toward death. Once, twice, once more they scraped against the floor,
digging tiny lighter furrows in the dark wood. Then they stopped, and died.
"Webb," I said. I spoke to him, but I knew it was useless. I knew he couldn't
hear me, knew he was dead. But I said, as if he were sitting across from me in
his living room, "Webb, old friend. Come on. You're not going to die. Come on,
Webb." I touched him, felt for the pulse in his wrist, in his throat, but it
was gone. Blood stained the back of his white shirt. Two amoebic rings of red.
One for each of the sounds I'd heard, one for each of the shots that had sent
bullets into Webb's back. I left him where he was, stood up. The one lamp still
standing on its base poured bright light over the corner where Webb had taken
so many of his pictures. It fell on the carved-wood statue of Pan I'd seen in
the front room last night, on the fleshy, grinning lips, the knowing,
heavy-lidded eyes. Behind the figure, hiding the intersection of the walls, was
draped a heavy red velvet curtain. Facing the curtain was Webb's four-by-five
Speed Graphic, cable release dangling from its shutter. The cut-film holder was
in place at the camera's back, and on a chair nearby lay one of the holder's
two dark slides. I picked up the plastic slide, slid it back into place and
then removed the film holder, held it in my hand as I walked toward the bedroom
into which the girl had run. Just inside the studio, to the right of the
bedroom door, was a small table piled high with books, several boxes of
Ektachrome cut film, and a stack of four-by-five film holders. I placed the
holder I'd taken from the Graphic across those already on the table as I walked
into the bedroom. The door leading to a garden in back stood open. On the bed,
loosely bunched, were a woman's clothes. White brassiere and step-ins, a green
sarong-type dress. On the carpeted floor beneath them were green high-heeled
pumps and a pair of nylon hose. I looked at the dress. The label at its
neckline bore the name "Kapiolani Fashions." I went into the living room and
walked to the phone, intending to call the police. But then I hesitated. This
was Medina. Of all the cities in California, it had to be Medina. Two years ago
I'd broken a case here, exposed a burglary ring. My local client had lost fifty
thousand dollars' worth of jewelry and furs, and after two months of work I'd
wrapped it up. The ring had been composed of two ex-cons who'd done big time
for burglary -- and three police officers. Three of Medina's local law. One of
the policemen -- since convicted and sent to San Quentin -- was a young officer
named George Farley. He had a brother on the local force, a detective sergeant
named Bill Farley. The sergeant had been cleared of any complicity in the
crimes himself, but hadn't had a pleasant time of it. He had sworn that I'd
framed his brother. Maybe he even believed it, unable to accept the fact that
his brother was a thief. Two years ago Sergeant Bill Farley had been a homicide
cop; I wondered if he still was. One thing I did know: he hated my guts. I
picked up the phone, dialed Operator. But then I heard a siren. The sound
increased, nearing Webb's home. Somebody must have reported hearing gunshots. I
hung up, walked to the door as a police radio car stopped in front of the
house. As two officers started up the steps another car parked behind the first
one. The two policemen had revolvers in their hands. I stepped back into the
room, told them that a man had been killed and his body was in the next room.
One of them asked me who I was and what I was doing here. He kept his gun on
me. I said, "I'm Shell Scott. I'm a friend -- " But that was as far as I got.
"Scott," someone said from the doorway. Just the one word, but it was delivered
like one of the least pleasant four-letter words. Two men in plain clothes
stood in the doorway now. The man in front was Bill Farley. Five-ten or
-eleven, wide, solid, with a thick rubbery face. He stepped into the room,
pulling a snub-nosed revolver from a belt holster. "Scott," he said again, with
a kind of satisfaction. The officer I'd spoken to told Farley what I'd said and
Farley strode heavily into the studio, came back and sent the other
plainclothesman in there. Then he waved his revolver at me and said, "Get those
hands up, Scott. Over against the wall." "Not so fast, Farley -- " "_Up_ with
them." His small eyes looked hot. I bit back the words that started out, slowly
raised my hands. Following Farley's barked instructions I stood away from the
wall, leaned against it while he shook me down. He took my .38 from its
shoulder clip, stepped back. "Empty your pockets," he said. I dropped my arms
to my sides and looked at him. "Don't push this too far, Sergeant."
"Lieutenant. Empty the pockets." "You're wasting a lot of time. About five
minutes ago a man shot Webley Alden. I didn't get a look at his face, but he
took off in a car down Azalea. And there was a girl here -- " "You going to do
what I told you, Scott?" "Farley, you damn fool. I got here right after -- " He
grinned, took a step toward me, raising his left hand. I balled my right hand
into a fist. "Shell." The other plainclothes officer spoke softly from the
studio doorway. I hadn't taken a look at him after spotting Farley's face, but
now I recognized him. He was another of the men I'd met during that case two
years ago, but he and I had hit it off well. He was a pleasant young guy named
Dugan, not at all like Farley. I pulled my fist open again. Farley had wanted
me to hit him. It was all over his face; he could have had a lot of fun with me
then. I turned away from him, jamming my teeth together, pulled everything from
my pockets and slammed the stuff in a pile on a table. One of the other
officers was talking on the phone. Farley took his time looking through my
belongings. I tried once more. "Farley -- " "Lieutenant Farley." "_Lieutenant_
-- Farley. While you're giving this marvelous imitation of an idiot, whoever
killed Webb is getting clear the hell out of Medina." I paused, breathing
heavily. "Though if he's got any sense he'll stay here in town. Where he's
safe." Farley grinned, hefted my Colt in one big hand, snapped open the
cylinder. He knew better than to throw the cylinder out hard like that. He
weighed about two hundred pounds, and he was solid. He looked thick and slow,
but very strong. The grin bunched thick buttons of muscle at each side of his
mouth, adding to the rubbery, muscular look of his face. "Just fired," he said
with oily satisfaction. "Three times." He snapped the cylinder back in with a
vicious twist of his wrist. The palms of my hands were moist. "You want to hear
what happened, Farley?" "I'll hear it downtown." "You're not taking me in."
"I'm not?" "Why, you club-brained, miserable ... Farley, your skull must grow
in solid clear to the middle. If you -- " "Keep that yap shut." His face was
tanned, but it seemed to get darker, as if black blood were gathering under the
rubbery skin. "Open your mouth again and I'll shut it myself." So that's the
way it was going to be. I looked at Farley. "I guess you'll have it your way,
friend. For a while. I'd better use the phone." "What for?" "To call my
lawyer." "You'll need one. You can call him from downtown." Sure, I thought.
One of these days. Before we left I looked back once at Webb's body. Men were
in the room, drawing chalk lines, taking flash pictures, making diagrams and
notes. It seemed obscene, somehow. And as we went out and down the stone steps
I thought of Webb's last words to me on the night before this. It was to have
been his wedding night, he'd said. Tonight was more like it, I thought. Tonight
his wedding night. And death his bride. Farley shoved me in the back with the
flat of his hand. We went down the steps, into the police car, and drove toward
the Medina jail. * * * *

From eight-thirty Friday night until nearly nine a.m. Saturday morning they had
me in an interrogation room, while teams of officers took turns hammering
questions at me. The same questions, over and over. With the wooden chair
starting to feel like needles under me and the light like a small sun in my
eyes. After a while I stopped saying anything in reply except: "I've already
answered that nineteen times, you miserable imbeciles."

They didn't learn to love me. But at nine o'clock Saturday morning they let me
go. I had the help of a smart and influential attorney, but mainly they just
didn't have anything on me. My story held up, and the bullets in Webb's back
were from another gun than mine. One of the slugs I'd fired at the window had
dug into its wooden frame and checked with a test bullet fired from my
revolver. At nine o'clock I had my belongings back, even my .38 Colt Special,
and was ready to leave. Farley escorted me to the door. He seemed wide awake,
full of energy. He'd enjoyed his turns with me in the back room. He said,
"Advice, Scott. Stay a long way from Medina." "You go to hell." It bounced off
him. "Don't mess around in this case. It's a police matter now. I don't want
you fouling it up." Farley never swore at me, and it wasn't even so much what
he said; it was the way he said it. As if the words got slimy in his mouth. I
said, "Hasn't it seeped into that solid-bone brain of yours yet that maybe I
don't give a damn what you want?" "Just stay clear out of this town, Scott.
Don't argue about it. Do it. Keep your nose out. Stick it in, and I'll slap you
in a cell so fast -- " "On what charge? Doing my job?" "I'll find a charge." He
grinned, flesh buttons bunching around his mouth. "I'll find a couple." And,
undoubtedly, he was the guy to do it. He made me feel as if I'd eaten some
underdone vulture, feathers included. I looked at him, at the thick rubbery
face and small eyes, and said, "Farley, you really get the prize. All my
working life I've worked with the police. With guys who get too little money
and too much guff, do a big job with little credit. I've met hundreds of cops,
known dozens well, and liked them all. My best friend in L.A. is the Captain of
Homicide. I like cops. I've known maybe half a dozen all told that turned my
stomach. But, friend, you are the end." I paused. "And I'll bet even you know
which end I have in mind." I thought he was going to hit me. Or, rather, hit at
me. But be thought better of it, let his little eyes bore into my face. I
turned and went out, the taste of vulture in my mouth. * * * *

Just before nine-thirty I drove along Poinsettia, past Webb's home. A police
car was parked at the base of the stone steps and two officers stood alongside
it, talking. I drove on around to Azalea, parked at the rear of Webb's place.
No officers were in sight back here. I lit a cigarette, smoked it while trying
to make sense out of what had happened.

The car that had left in such a rush last night could have gone anywhere from
here; undoubtedly the killer had been in it. But the girl had been nude,
carrying a cloth or robe. Even in a robe she'd have been too conspicuous to get
far. So where had she gone? In the car that had raced through the night? Or,
more likely, she'd just run, getting away from the violence and gunshots --
naturally enough. But to where? I thought back to the scene in the studio.
Camera and lights had been set up as if Webb had been about to take -- or had
just taken -- some shots of the girl. Of his wife, apparently, since on the
phone, minutes before, he had told me his wife was back. But the whole
situation puzzled me. Either Webb's wife had just come home, and he was taking
pictures of her; or the girl who'd been present was _not_ his wife. The first
of those two possibilities was conceivable, even though it seemed more than a
little goofy; but if the model was not his wife, then who in hell had it been?
And why in the name of sanity would Webb, under the circumstances, have been
taking photos -- especially of someone _not_ his wife? Something else bothered
me, too. If Webb had paid the ransom, and his wife had been released, why was
he killed? I stubbed out my cigarette, left the car and walked toward the rear
of Webb's house. I knew what Farley would arrange for me if a report reached
him that Shell Scott was still snooping around, but I wouldn't get answers to
all those questions merely by thinking about them, and the hell with Farley. I
went in through the same door the killer had used for his sudden exit last
night. In the empty studio, chalk lines on the floor marked the spot where
Webb's body had been. I saw the lines that had been traced around his hands and
arms, remembered the clawing fingers. Then I stepped past the chalk lines,
stopped before the bedroom door. The clothing was gone now from the bed. But
the cluttered table next to me appeared undisturbed. The books and boxes of cut
film were still on it. And the stack of four-by-five film holders. The top one
was placed at an angle across the others, as I had placed that one last night.
Undoubtedly it was the one I'd removed from Webb's Graphic. A film holder holds
two four-by-five pieces of cut film, one in front and one in back, protected by
dark slides which are removed when the film is to be exposed. One of the slides
had been out of the holder last night, and I had replaced it myself before
taking the holder from the camera. So there was a good chance that one of those
films _had_ been exposed. Possibly both of them. If both, once developed, were
blank, they would then match my state of mind. But if even one had been
exposed, some of the vital answers might well develop along with the picture.
In color, at that. I put the film holder into my coat pocket, turned and walked
rapidly toward the side door. As I passed the entrance into the living room the
front door opened. "Hey!" somebody yelled. I didn't even look toward him. I
jumped to the door, through it, sprinted for the Cad; I was in it and grinding
the starter before the man got outside after me. As the engine caught I put the
Cad in gear and glanced toward the house. It was a uniformed policeman there,
but I couldn't make out his features. I hoped he couldn't identify mine. The
Cad was moving forward and I slammed the gas pedal to the floorboards. * * * *

The Spartan Apartment Hotel is on North Rossmore in Hollywood, across from the
Wilshire Country Club. A few blocks farther down Rossmore is the Eagle Photo
Supply, where I've bought cameras and film and had some of my own photographic
work done. I left the film holder there with a middle-aged man named Harold,
who handled developing jobs, told him to develop both films and, if there was
anything to print, make prints as soon as he could. Then I drove back down
Rossmore to the Spartan.

I parked opposite the Spartan, got out and angled back across the street,
trotting toward the hotel's entrance -- and from somewhere on my left came the
gunshot. The slug whipped past my head, glanced from the Cad's hood behind me
and smacked into a tree, the four separate sounds blending into one. I was in a
half-run two or three yards from the car and all I did was go instantly into a
_whole_ run, left my feet and dived through the air, hit tumbling on grass
beyond the curb. I came up next to the Spartan's wall, gun in my hand. There
were no more shots. I could hear two or three cars moving in the area. One of
them came down Rossmore from the east and rolled past. An old lady was driving
it, with an air of cautious desperation. A minute later I'd found the hole in a
tree across the street, sighted back from it over the furrow on my Cad's hood.
The shot had come from near the intersection of Rossmore and Clinton. Probably
from somebody in a car there -- a car long gone now. I looked around the
intersection but nothing was there. No car, no man -- or woman. No cartridge
case on the ground. I had learned one thing, though. When Webb's killer had
taken his first shot at me last night he had been in darkness, but I had been
bathed in very bright light. At the time, and since, I'd wondered whether or
not he'd gotten a good look at me. Now I knew. He had. * * * *

In my apartment, even after a cold shower, I was still burning. I felt as if
the top of my head might pop off like a bony skullcap. I was hot enough to be a
fire hazard.

These last fifteen hours or so had really lit me. The kidnaping, Webb's murder,
the unpleasantness with Farley, the miserable Medina can. Webb was dead and
twice now I'd damn near been killed myself. Somebody was going to pay if I had
to wade through boiling horse manure swarming with heat-resistant piranhas. I
dressed in the bedroom. On the dresser was a folded slip of paper I'd put there
last night. It was the thousand-dollar check Webb had made out to me, given me
at his home. It wasn't really mine yet, but I stuck it into my wallet. I'd cash
the check -- when I earned it. I used the phone to call a bank in which Webb
had kept a large chunk, of his money. I got the manager. He knew me and gave me
the information I asked for. Webb had appeared at the bank yesterday morning
when it opened, withdrawn one hundred and sixty thousand dollars he'd had on
deposit in cash, and cashed bonds in the amount of forty thousand dollars more.
Total: Two hundred thousand dollars. So he'd paid the ransom. I scrambled some
eggs that wound up looking and tasting like liquid yellow latex, and brewed
some coffee. I could still see Webb's fingers, clawing behind my eyes. I forced
them away by watching the neons for a while. Nothing. Maybe they weren't both
males; maybe they were both females. Maybe they were fish missionaries. Maybe
they weren't _trying_. I took my gun kit into the front room, sat on the big
chocolate-brown divan, then cleaned, oiled, and loaded my Colt. Quite clearly,
Webb's killer was now trying to kill me. I didn't have the faintest idea who he
was. But there did appear to be one way to wind up all the threads: find the
girl who'd been at Webb's last night. Webb had apparently been taking, or about
to take, her picture shortly before he was killed. It seemed to me now that the
girl must have been Webb's bride. Logic said he wouldn't have been focusing the
lens of his Graphic on anybody _but_ his bride under the circumstances, and
from now on I meant to go ahead under that assumption -- and with the hope that
she was still alive. So, assuming that much, and knowing Webb himself had told
me his bride was one of the twelve _Wow!_ girls, the rest of it seemed simple:
get the names and addresses of those twelve girls and ask each one if she'd
married Webb. The one who said yes could give me the rest of the answers. It
really did seem like a simple operation. The editorial offices of _Wow!_ were
on Tenth Street in Medina. I phoned them. I got a man with a fluting voice, and
when I asked him for the names and addresses of the "Women With Wow" the
fluting veered an octave to piccolo. That was _simply_ out of the question,
_unthinkable_, and so on. I could understand the reaction. Probably eighteen
thousand men before me had tried to get those names and addresses, for
different reasons. But I said, "Look, I'm Shell Scott. I'm a private detective
investigating Webb's death." "Aha!" "He was a good friend ... what in hell do
you mean, 'Aha'?" "Scott, eh? Lieutenant Farley informed us that you might
approach us. He also informed me that if you did -- " "Never mind. I can
guess." "I shall be forced to inform Lieutenant Farley -- " I hung up while he
was still fluting. Farley was becoming a boil that needed lancing. But there
were other ways. More simple ones, in fact. When people get married they put
names and addresses on wedding licenses. See, simple. I put in a long-distance
call to the City Hall in Honolulu. A clerk there informed me that marriage
records were on file at the Bureau of Health Statistics in the Board of Health
Building, and gave me their number. I called it. While waiting for a man at the
other end of the line to get the information I'd asked for, a new thought
occurred to me. Webb had been killed the day after his marriage, true; but he
_had_ been married. And that meant his wife would inherit well over a million
dollars -- or, at least, whatever the Storm Troopers left of it after estate
and inheritance taxes. Oddly, I hadn't thought of that angle until now. And it
gave me a peculiar prickling sensation along my spine. Then the man was back on
the line. A couple of minutes later I hung up the phone, puzzled. About as
puzzled as I get. There was no record of a Webley Alden being married in
Honolulu. No, not on the thirteenth. Nor the twelfth, or eleventh.... I frowned
at the phone. Webb would surely have used his real name. And Webley Alden _was_
his real name -- at least it had been during all the years I'd known him. He'd
told me himself that he'd been married on Thursday, the thirteenth of August --
had, in fact, taken some movies after the ceremony. Movies. I called the Kodak
Company in L.A. They told me that Kodachrome films -- which I knew Webb used --
mailed in prepaid mailers in Honolulu would have been processed at Kodak Hawaii
Limited on Kapiolani Boulevard there. I called Kodak Hawaii Limited in
Honolulu; the films had been processed and sent out airmail in the usual
fashion. Tomorrow was Sunday; that meant the films would be delivered to Webb's
home in Medina on Monday. At two p.m. the phone rang. It was Harold at Eagle
Photo. I said, "Anything on those films?" "Was on one, Shell. Just took the
print out of the wash water. Other film was unexposed. But one of these is
enough. Where'd you get it?" I felt a quick ripple of excitement. "What was on
it, Harold?" "A babe. Naked babe. Beautiful job, too. Whoever took this one's a
pro." "What does the girl look like?" He laughed. "I don't know how to describe
her." Whatever he was thinking seemed to amuse him even more and he laughed
again. "Come on down and take a look." "I'll be there in three minutes. Or
less." When I trotted into Eagle Photo Harold was waiting for me. I followed
him down into the basement darkroom where he did his work. "There she is," he
said, pointing at the wall. He'd scotch-taped the four-by-five color print
against the wall's dark wood. My eyes fell on it. And clung. Harold was saying,
"It's still a little damp. Just took it off the dryer. Nice?" "Nice." It was.
Looking at the brilliant, sharply focused print, I forgot for a moment why I'd
been so anxious to see this. Forgot my hope that it could lead me to Webb's
wife, to the woman who'd been present at the moment of murder last night.
Forgot that this was a clue. It was all of that; but it was more. It was a
fanny. A marvelous, jaunty, virtually effervescent behind; an undulatory
aphrodisiac; a most daring derriere. That, at least, was the center of
interest, but after its first impact upon me I noted that there was more to the
picture. The photo was of a woman, nude, her back to the camera. And, beyond
her, Pan. Pan, the goat-footed god. It was the carved-wood statue I'd seen in
Webb's living room and later in his studio. The thick, leering lips, the almost
real eyes slanted sideways toward the woman's bare flesh. The projecting arms
were outthrust, one at either side of the woman's slender waist, the hands
cupped as if moving to pull her toward him. I couldn't tell anything about the
woman herself, her face, color of her hair or eyes, nothing about her
appearance -- except for that vital area, the center of interest. The woman's
body was visible only from a point halfway up her back down to the middle of
her thighs. Pan's head was tilted to one side, as if he were leaning away to
peer at her. One shaggy goat foot and cloven hoof was raised in the air, just
visible at the bottom of the print. In the background, the red velvet drapery
I'd seen in Webb's studio seemed melting red shadows. And suddenly I realized
this was precisely the kind of photo Webb had used in the magazine, in _Wow!_,
for that three-page spread featured each month. I thought, ... ? What in the
hell? On his _wedding_ night? Something was fractured here. But Harry was
saying, "Want me to retouch this?" He pointed at the left side of the center of
interest, that charming derriere. Four small brown spots there formed an
irregular rectangle. Freckles. "I should say not," I told him. "That's the most
important part of the picture." He goggled at me. "You sick? There's more
important things than freckles." "Not in this shot." It was true. But that
question mark loomed even larger in my mind, and the questions came back. Why
would Webb have taken this kind of picture -- _any_ kind of picture -- on the
very night when his blushing bride had been returned to him? Webb had greatly
enjoyed his photographic work, sure; he had even been a little eccentric; but
not that eccentric. He had not been the kind of guy who would order a martini
just to get an olive. Whatever the reason, this picture, clearly, had been
taken by Webb last night, shortly before he'd been killed. So this was the girl
I had to find. My other leads to her had so far come to nothing, led me
nowhere. And it could be that none of those other leads would pan out, that
they would fade away into nothingness. But even if so, all would not be lost.
Now I had something solid to go on, something tangible. Maybe I still didn't
know what the rest of the woman looked like, but I had a start. Not exactly a
head-start, but a start. I knew where to go from here. I had a clue. I had a
picture of her fanny. All I had to do was -- find it.



* * *



*FOUR* In the apartment once more, I mixed a drink, then got out my back issues
of _Wow!_ Okay, so I'm a subscriber, and go to hell. In the front room with the
very frisky, possibly half-drunk, still childless Neon Tetras, I settled on the
big chocolate-brown divan, plopped my color print and twelve issues of _Wow!_
on the highball-glass-scarred, scratched, cigarette-burned, kicked, and
fallen-down-over coffee table, lit a cigarette, had a sip of my
bourbon-and-water, and began the hunt. The first issue of _Wow!_, the September
issue, had appeared one year ago. The twelfth issue, August, had only recently
disappeared from the stands. In each of those issues the highlight had been the
photo of a different girl. For the first three months, September, October and
November -- or the months of autumn -- brunettes had been featured. The
following three winter months, black-haired gals. Spring, blondes; and redheads
for summer. It was a rather neat angle. Neater was the fact that in none of the
twelve featured shots, though most were full-length photos, was the model's
face in view. Occasionally a half profile, or a face veiled with the model's
hair, but never a recognizable collection of features. It had been Webb's idea
-- well-publicized in the magazine's pages -- that exactly one year after each
model's first featured appearance in _Wow!_ the same model would again be
featured. But on the second occasion she would be facing the camera instead of
turned away from it. And each of the models was so frankly delectable that
hundreds of thousands of guys were waiting in fevers of impatience for the
head-on, you might say, shots of September, October, November, and so forth; to
get, in a word, the rest of the picture. And a lot of good that did me.
Assuming that the girl in my four-by-five print was Webb's wife; and knowing
he'd told me she was one of the twelve Wow girls, I figured all I'd have to do
would be to match my color print with one of the twelve photos in _Wow!_ If the
vital area of the color shot matched the same area of June, then June was my
gal. Only it wasn't that easy. I went through all twelve back issues and there
wasn't a freckle in the lot. And without freckles -- well, let's tell the whole
truth: there just isn't that much difference in the things. Especially in these
superb examples, which were all edging toward, if not actually sitting on,
perfection. They might vary a shade, a jot here, a tittle there, but hardly
enough for positive identification. The absence of minor blemishes puzzled me
until I remembered Harold's asking me if I wanted the shots "retouched."
Undoubtedly any little flaw would have been retouched on the prints or
transparencies before engravings were made for the magazine; and I knew Webb
would have done all that work himself, in his home, if it were done at all. But
I couldn't go back to his home for a while, that was sure. But I wasn't
stumped, hadn't come to a dead end, so to speak. There was one avenue of
investigation yet remaining. The twelve Wow girls themselves. No, I wasn't
stumped. I just didn't exactly know how to go about it. * * * *

I hated to do it, but after some serious thought I called the Medina police.
Farley was in charge of the Webley Alden case, and I had to talk to him. It
wasn't pleasant.

I told him that the witness to the crime, the girl I'd mentioned in my
statements last night, was one of the twelve girls featured in _Wow!_, and
explained how she could be identified by those four vital freckles. Even as I
said it, my words got slower, weaker, and sort of limped one after the other.
Put into blunt words, to Farley, it sounded most peculiar even in my own ears.
He roared at me for half a minute, then said, "You damned maniac! I guess I'm
supposed to go all over California pulling pants down, huh? You'll have to
figure out a better way to make me look like a raving idiot -- " "You figured
that out yourself years ago. All you have to do is get a police matron to -- "
"Drop it, Scott. If I hear even one word out of you again I swear I'll lock you
up. For vagrancy if I have to. Obstructing justice." He snorted for a few
seconds, then shouted, "_For perversion!_" He was losing his grip, but after a
struggle he controlled himself. He said slowly, heavily, "Scott, where'd you
get this idea, anyway? What're you trying to pull? What're you _really_ trying
to pull?" I started to tell him, then stopped suddenly. I could not tell Farley
about the photo I had. I'd neglected to mention removing the film holder from
Webb's camera last night; and if I now told him I'd sneaked into Webb's home
today and stolen that film from under the eyes of the police... I said, "It --
I just know it, that's all." "Sure. Like you knew Webb was married. His _bride_
kidnaped. Probably a jealous husband shot him. I checked personally with
Honolulu -- even though I knew you were lying. There's no record Alden was
married there. Believe me, Scott, any more of your games and you'll play the
games in a cell. A _padded_ cell." "Webb didn't actually say he'd been married
in Honolulu, Farley, but in the 'Islands.' He might have tied the knot on one
of the other islands -- " "I told you to drop it, Scott. Listen, I got a call
from _Wow!_ saying you'd been bugging them. I warned you -- " He broke it off
as if something else had occurred to him. It had. He said slowly, "I also got a
report somebody busted into Alden's place at nine-thirty this morning. Where
were you then?" "Knock it off." "You got sprung at nine. It could have been
you." "Sure. It was me. Of course. I _want_ to go back to your cozy clink. Your
big boniness figured it out." The heavy sarcasm didn't quite convince him, but
he dropped the subject. I was starting to feel as if walls were closing in on
me. When he began chewing my ear again, I hung up. Well, I'd known it even
before the call. But it was a sure thing now. I would get no help, no
cooperation, from the Medina law; trouble I would get, no more. Anything that
had to be done I'd have to do myself. Okay. So be it. I turned to the issues of
_Wow!_ again. Beneath each featured shot was one name identifying the model. On
an adjacent page was further information about the shot, including the full
name -- or at least professional name -- of the girl. Starting with September,
the models were: Sue, Jeannette, Eve, Raven, Loana, Dottie, Janie, Alma, Gay,
Candy, Pagan, and Charlene. I checked the info on the adjacent pages of the
magazines and started transferring it to a blank piece of paper. When I got
through I had a list including the twelve months and twelve names:

Autumn -- (brunettes)

September: Sue Mayfair

October: Jeannette Dure

November: Evelyn Jans (Eve)

Winter -- (black hair)

December: Raven McKenna

January: Loana Kaleoha

February: Dorothy Lasswell (Dottie)

Spring -- (blondes)

March: Janie Wallace

April: Alma Vellor

May: Gay Bennett

Summer (redheads)

June: Candice Small (Candy)

July: Pagan Page

August: Charlene Lavel

When I'd finished my list, I looked it over. So far that was all I knew about
them. Except that one of them had four freckles. The problem now was to find
them. I did know where one of the twelve girls could be found, since I knew
that following her month in _Wow!_ each girl spent the succeeding month at the
Algiers in Vegas. This was August; thus Miss July would be appearing at the
hotel. I checked my list, called the Algiers, asked for Miss Pagan Page. It was
too early in the day for any of the showgirls to be present, so I left my name
and number, with a request that Miss Page phone me when she came in. I found
one of the names in the L.A. phone book, another in the City Directory. These
gals could be scattered all over, I was thinking; there ought to be an easier
way ... and then a name floated into my thoughts: Orlando Desmond. If anybody
knew where all twelve of the girls were currently, he would know. The _Wow!_
Anniversary Party was, or at least had been, scheduled to come off in about a
week, and Desmond was the boy chosen to oversee all the dandy activities. He
had been chosen by vote of the twelve Wow girls themselves -- which will give
you an idea that the instinct Desmond brought out in women was not merely the
maternal instinct -- and had, therefore, been in touch with all of them during
the last few days and weeks getting things lined up for the ball. Desmond lived
in Medina. So that's where I was going -- back to Medina. I decided to take my
color picture along. On the way out I put some fat, live daphnia into the
neons' tank; nourishment for mama and papa. Or mama and mama. Or papa and papa.
Some detective. I peered sourly at them and went down to the Cad. * * * *

Orlando Desmond was called, in some circles, Dream-Eyes Desmond. He was a young
and handsome bachelor who made feminine hearts go pitty-pat in a chorus like
bongo drums stretching dear across the land. He'd made three movies in
Hollywood, been in a couple of teleplays televised live from New York, and two
or three times a year he "guested" on one of the numerous specials, singing a
song or two and mentioning his latest movie or play seventeen or eighteen times.

He was a "Personality" and actor, but primarily his fame grew from his singing.
At least that's what it was called. Young women squealed and old women
slobbered when he went bee-bee-bee -- he didn't go boo-boo-boo -- but to me his
songs sounded like a small cat being crushed between two dogs. Or maybe I
simply have no appreciation for the finer things. The house was barely inside
the Medina city limits, two stories of rock and redwood, striking and
attractive. I'd heard there was a protected swimming pool behind the house
somewhere -- it was rumored that he swam there with lovelies, if not in the raw
at least in the medium rare -- but the pool wasn't visible from the front door.
Orlando was, half a minute after I rang. He looked sleepy and tired, and he
blinked at me while I told him I was Shell Scott and wanted to talk to him.
Finally he said, "Shell Scott? You're a detective, aren't you?" "That's right.
I'd like a little help from you, if you don't mind." His expression said he did
mind, but he opened the door wider. "Is it in connection with Webb's death?"
"Yes. You heard about that?" "Papers had it this morning. And the police just
left here. I got rather tired of being questioned -- by the police." I didn't
say anything. Desmond led me inside, up a flight of cantilevered steps into a
really beautiful living room. In the rear wall huge sliding glass doors opened
onto a tiled patio roofed over with bamboo strips, sunlight slanting down
through them onto the colored tile. A massive couch squatted next to a modern
black fireplace on my right. Beyond the patio, through a lot of big green
leaves and fern fronds, light glinted from the surface of a swimming pool. I
told Desmond I liked the room, the whole place in fact, and he thanked me
without scowling. He seemed almost pleased, as if his shorts had just stopped
pinching. If he wouldn't sing, we probably wouldn't actually come to blows. He
was a handsome devil, there was no denying that. About thirty, my age, possibly
two or three years older. He was a couple of inches over my six-two, slender
but well put-together, tanned the color of mahogany and with thick brown hair
waving dizzily over his scalp. He wore a white chenille robe belted loosely
around his waist, and open leather sandals. We sat in comfortable brocaded
chairs and he said, "Well, what is it, Scott?" There was a splash in the pool
then, several yards out past the patio's edge. I squinted that way but caught
just a glimpse of black, and what looked like a swinging arm. Or leg. Into my
mind, leaping wildly, came those rumors I'd heard about Desmond. I pulled my
eyes back and said, "I understand you're sort of in charge of the Anniversary
Party set for next week. Or is that off now?" He shook his head. "No, it's not
off. The magazine will continue to be published. Without Webb, unfortunately.
The decision was made to go ahead with the party, at Mr. Whittaker's home here.
I'll be there." "Then you've been in touch with the twelve -- twelve stars of
the party. Know where to reach them." He nodded again and I said, "Could you
give me their addresses?" "Well ... I could," he said slowly. "It's information
usually kept quite restricted." "All I want to do is ask each of them a
question or two. As I said, it's in connection with Webb's death. I might get a
lot of help from one of them." He frowned for a while, then said, "Well, in
that case I suppose it's all right." He stood up. "Let me get my little black
book." As he walked out of the room there was another splash from the pool
area, but I couldn't see much through the massed ferns and tropical plantings.
In a moment Desmond was back. His little black book was red, and about the size
of an L.A. city directory. I got out the list I'd made from _Wow!'_s pages.
Desmond read off the addresses and phone numbers and I jotted them opposite the
names of the models. Then I took the four-by-five color print from my coat
pocket, handed it to him and said, "Would you do me a favor and take a look at
this?" He casually glanced at the picture. But then his eyes sort of riveted
upon it and after a few seconds he said, "Do _you_ a favor?" Expectantly I
asked, "Do you know who it ... she is?" He shook his head, seeming slightly
dazed. Ah, these men, they're all the same. "No ... but I'd like to." He
paused. "What prompted you to ask if I knew her?" "Well, I think she's one of
the 'Women With Wow,' and since you've been in ... communication with all of
them for some time, I thought, oh, one of them might have ... dropped a hint."
That, I decided, was unclear even to me. But Desmond got it. "Ah," he said.
"Ah, no. But possibly I could help you with a few discreet ... inquiries." "An
excellent idea." "I presume you want to talk to each of the girls?" "That's
right." "Well," he smiled finally, "at least I can help you there. Give you a
start, that is." He looked toward the pool and called, "_Raven!"_ Raven? On my
list was Raven McKenna -- December. Right then I discovered something about my
thinking. I had by now memorized the list of names and, whenever I thought of
one of the gals, into my mind popped the corresponding photo of her which had
appeared in _Wow!_ I've mentioned that in none of those photos was the girl's
face showing. So, horrible thought though it may be to some, each of those
lovely girls was, to me -- a fanny. Whenever I thought of one of the names,
_bang_, that's what flashed into my mind. How could it have been otherwise? It
was all I had to go on. Believe me, friends, it could have happened to anyone.
It could have happened to _you_. And I remembered December. Ah, how well I
remembered December. Raven McKenna was, in the December fold-out photo, shown
in the act of climbing from a swimming pool. Nude, as all the models were in
such shots, she was going up the ladder, and the photographer had obviously
been in the water, cooling off and shooting up. Let's be honest. There are
myriad kinds of beauty. Sunsets and sunrises, a schooner on a blue sea with its
spinnaker billowing, forests, mountains, all those wonders of Nature. But a
shot like December has a natural attraction all its own. I remember when I
first lamped that shot I had thought: if that's December, there'll be no winter
this year. And now from the pool a clear feminine voice answered: "Yes?" "Just
a second, Scott," Desmond said. "She's probably all wet, can't come in." He
walked out. I sat there, thinking. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Then
Desmond called, "Scott?" "Yeah?" "Come on out. Might as well talk here at the
pool." I sprang up and zipped from the living room into the patio, across it
and along a path of redwood rounds set in green dichondra, huge philodendron
leaves and fern fronds slapping at my arms, and into the cleared area where
Orlando Desmond's swimming pool was. Overhead was a latticed roof, to keep the
direct rays of the sun out -- or to beep people living above from staring in.
The pool was free-form, large, the water clear and sparkling, blue-tinted from
the reflection of the pool's tiled walls. Desmond sat in one of several deck
chairs next to a round metal table, and standing near him, facing me and
leaning back against the table, was Raven McKenna. Let me tell you. We have
come far from the day when a sight to drive men into frenzy was a girl with her
shoes unlaced. We have come _far_ -- and I've come farther than most. But the
sight of Raven McKenna in a black one-piece swimsuit was enough to make men
come unlaced. She was tall, the mass of lustrous hair, heavy with water now
from the pool, as black as the back of beyond; with bright lips and sparkling
black, eyes, a question in the eyes and the answer on her lips; and she was
curved in so many directions she looked sprained. When Raven McKenna was born
and the doctor said, "It's a girl," he hadn't known the half of it. The
doctor's massive understatement had been made, I guessed, about twenty-two or
twenty-three years ago, and it had been just long enough. Desmond waved a hand
casually at the girl and said, "Raven, Shell Scott." She smiled brilliantly and
stepped toward me. The swimsuit she wore was different from most others I'd
seen, and looked as if it were made from jersey. Jersey is not like most
cloths, not thick and concealing; jersey is usually used for blouses or
dresses, not for swimsuits; jersey is thin, soft, clinging; jersey should be
used for swimsuits. Even dry that cloth would have molded itself to Raven's
body, but now soaking wet it seemed almost to follow the delicate contours of
each pore, to melt into the skin. Then Desmond finished the introduction.
"Scott, Raven McKenna." "I remember December," I said. "I mean, I remember
Raven -- How do you do, Miss McKenna?" "Mr. Scott." She smiled, teeth brilliant
in the deep tan of her face. "How do you do? Won't you sit down? Orlando said
you want to talk to me." We sat around the metal table. Raven crossed her legs.
Both Desmond and Raven waited for me to get on with it. Quite suddenly the type
of interrogation I'd previously planned for the Wow girls assumed new and
appalling dimensions. It had been much easier with Orlando. I cleared my
throat. "Miss McKenna, do you -- " I stopped. I couldn't go through with it.
Besides, she'd probably deny it anyway. I took another tack. "Can you tell me
anything about Webb's marriage?" She frowned slightly. "Webb's what?"
"Marriage. Two days ago, in Hawaii." "Married! Webb? Webley Alden?" She seemed
to think I was joking. "Uh-huh." "Why, no. Are you sure?" "Yeah. I'm trying to
find the woman he married. Thought I'd start here with you." Frowning, she
said, "Why in the world me?" Desmond broke in then. "That why you wanted the
addresses of the twelve girls featured in _Wow!_ this past year, Scott?"
"That's right," I said. "At least that's part of it" "And Raven's one of the
twelve, of course." I nodded. Raven said, "He certainly didn't marry me."
Suddenly she laughed, looked sideways at Orlando. They exchanged a glance, a
private thing that didn't include me, as if they had a secret I didn't share.
Undoubtedly they had plenty of secrets I didn't share. Then, still appearing
amused, she said, "I assure you, Mr. Scott, it couldn't have been me." "Can you
prove it? That, for example, you weren't in Hawaii two days and more ago?" "Of
course I can prove it -- if I have to. I've been with Orlando much of the
time." That glance between them again. "Is it so important?" "Pretty
important." The eyes stopped flashing and she smiled at me. "Let me know when
you want proof." I'm not sure what I might have said then, but Desmond
interrupted. He was looking at me with dawning comprehension on his handsome
face. "Scott," he said slowly. That photo ... I recall now you said it was --
one of the twelve, you thought?" "That's right." "Yes, I see. Well, it's not
... Raven." He smiled with what I thought unnecessary smugness. "Couldn't be,
old man. I can guarantee it." He could, could he? Old man, was I? He was still
smirking, sort of dopily, I thought. I felt the faint stirring of an atavistic
impulse, the waggling neurons of deeply buried racial memory, a cave-mannish
instinct, a faint urge .... A faint urge to hit him right in the mouth. But he
was going on. "Hope that makes your job easier, Scott. And, naturally, if I --
learn anything, I'll let you know, old man." He was talking down to me now. "On
the other hand, if you get to the bottom of this -- ah, settle the matter
yourself, I'd be interested in knowing what you ... what the answer is."
"Yeah." Raven looked from Desmond to me. "What in the world are you two talking
about?" Desmond said abruptly, "Anything else, Scott?" It was one of the nicest
ways he could have said, "Why in hell don't you blow, bud?" I said, "Guess
that's all for now. Thanks a lot for the info." Raven said to me, "Would you
like a swim?" I grinned. "Well ... I didn't bring my suit," I said slyly. "Oh,
that's too bad." I got up. Desmond shook my hand and said to call on him if
there was anything else he could do. Raven stood up gracefully, walked to the
edge of the pool and leaned forward. Then she gave a little jump, and dived in.
When she leaned forward, I, too, gave a little jump. I would have given much at
that moment if she hadn't been wearing the swimsuit. And it's not what you
think. At least, not entirely. Hell, maybe Desmond was lying. I walked to the
patio and out through the house and down to the Cad, thinking that at least I
was making a little progress. Now whenever I thought of Raven McKenna, of
December, I would see black hair and dark eyes, a black jersey swimsuit and so
on. That was progress?



* * *



*FIVE* By seven o'clock that night I had covered a lot of ground but seemed no
closer to finding my girl. I'd located nobody at L.A. International Airport who
remembered Webley Alden and his bride. I had managed to talk with the
stewardess who'd been on the flight Webb and his new wife had taken from
Honolulu to L.A.; she vaguely recalled Webb and a woman, but had only the
haziest memory of the woman and couldn't describe her. I'd satisfied myself
that there was as yet no trace of the girl at the morgue or in local hospitals.
Then, in my apartment, I tried to reach the _Wow!_ girls by phone. Of the
twelve, the only one who lived in the Islands was Loana Kaleoha, so my first
call was to her home in Honolulu. I got no answer there; but I did manage to
talk with several of the girls. One, Evelyn Jans, had been married for two
years, which let her out. I checked further to be certain, and she'd definitely
been in Michigan for the last month and a half. She couldn't possibly have been
in Hawaii to marry Webb, so on my list I drew a line through the name of "Eve,"
or November. June's Candice "Candy" Small was working as a model in a women's
clothing store on Hollywood Boulevard and had been present each working day for
the last three weeks, so a line went through her name. Sue Mayfair, September,
lived in Hollywood. I gave her a call and she was home. She sounded very
pleasant, said that she disliked the name Sue and asked me to call her Blackie.
I didn't argue; nor did I tell her why I'd called, just that I wanted to talk
to her. She asked me to come by and see her. About eight? Fine, I said, about
eight. I'd learned that Miss October, Jeannette Dure, was starting an
engagement tonight, Saturday, at the Club Parisienne, a small and intimate spot
on Highland Avenue featuring dancing ecdysiasts -- strippers -- the club being
only about a mile from Blackie's address. The first show would start at nine p.
m., so I could see Blackie and then have time to catch Jeannette's act right
afterwards. Little by little, I figured, I'd get there; just keep plugging
away, nose to the old grindstone. There had been no reply to my call to Pagan
Page, Miss July, so I phoned the Algiers again and asked for "The Wow Girl,"
which was the title each girl carried for the month during which she appeared
at the hotel. After two or three minutes a soft voice said, "hello?" "Miss
Page?" "No, this is Charlie. Who's this?" "Shell Scott. But ... Charlie?"
"That's just a nickname. It's Charlene. Charlene Lavel." "I thought you sounded
more like a chick than a Chuck. But I understood Pagan Page was appearing at
the Algiers this month." "She was, but I had to take over for her." I frowned
at the phone. "What happened to Pagan?" "All I know is that I wasn't supposed
to start here until the first of September, but Ed called me and asked if I'd
come up a couple weeks early." "Ed Grey?" "Yes. The boss." "I know. How long
ago was this, Charlie?" "Last night." It was like getting a small electric
shock. "Last night, huh?" I said. "Where's Pagan now?" "I don't know. Nobody
told me anything, just that I was to start work." That was very odd. Each of
the girls, I knew, put in a month for five grand, which isn't hay. I wondered
what had happened to Pagan, why she'd suddenly dropped out of the show. I said
to Charlie, "I'll be in Vegas soon, probably tomorrow night. If you hear any
more about Pagan, I'd much appreciate your passing it on to me then." "I guess
I could. But probably I won't hear anything. Want me to ask somebody?" "No.
Don't stick your neck out. It might -- and I'm serious -- be very dangerous.
I'll talk to you when I get up there. Okay?" "All right. 'Bye." We hung up. I
thought for a while about Ed Grey. He was a hood. But a respectable hood now,
his days of personally muscling citizens largely behind him. Today he was
tuxedoed, affluent, beaming. He owned -- or at least fronted for -- the
Algiers, and I knew he made a mint from the place. And again I thought of
Grey's club in Hawaii. I filed it all away to play with later, and got ready to
call on Sue Mayfair -- Blackie. Before leaving I glanced at the photos of
Blackie in the September issues of _Wow!_ Issues, plural, because Blackie had
been the first Wow girl, a year ago, and consequently -- in line with the
policy Webb had inaugurated before his death -- had started out the second
year, again as September. A year ago she'd been phographed in a green and bosky
glade, facing a small silver stream which trickled down a gentle slope. One leg
had been outstretched, the toes dipping into the cool-looking stream, her body
bent slightly to the side as though to help her keep her balance. Now, a year
later, she graced the three-page foldout in _Wow!_ in the same pose, at the
same stream. The picture had been shot from the opposite side of the stream
this time, and the front view of Blackie Mayfair was almost enough to get the
magazine confiscated by everybody from the local police to the Washington
Senators. A strategically placed limb, bearing a few green leaves, barely
forestalled official action. Blackie was a doll. Gorgeously contoured, of
course; but also with a cute gamin face showing the start of a merry smile, and
fluffy brown hair loosely waved. She looked fresh and healthy, happy and free,
as if she belonged in that glade, with Nature's green around her and the silver
stream to bathe in. I glanced at my watch, then put my four-by-five print into
my coat pocket and went down to the Spartan's lobby. I took my time reaching
the Cad, looking around carefully and casing the area. Nobody shot at me this
time either. I tromped on the gas and headed for Blackie. She lived in an
apartment building a couple blocks off Sunset Boulevard. I took the elevator to
her floor and pressed the buzzer before her apartment. It was just eight p.m.
She opened the door and smiled. "Hi. You must be Shell." "That's me. I
appreciate your agreeing to see me." "It's a pleasure. Gee, you're a big one,
aren't you?" She looked me up and down, then said, "Come on in, Shell." Blackie
was a little shorter than I'd expected her to be, but she looked -- and acted
-- warm and wonderful. She wore faded blue jeans and a heavy old cotton sweater
that had shrunk enough from repeated washings, and was tight against her large
breasts and little waist. She looked clean and sparkling, as if from repeated
washings, too -- but _she_ hadn't shrunk. Her hair was black, not brown as it
had been in the photos I'd seen, cut fairly short but still gently waved. It
was a sweet, mischievous face, with plump lips and blue eyes bright as tears. I
went inside. Soft dance music was playing from a hi-fi outfit somewhere, and
there was a faintly perfumed scent to the air. Not cloying, but delicate and
pleasant. Like the scented air, the living room in which we stood was soft and
feminine, a comfortable blue divan with thick cushions, soft-looking chairs, a
deep-piled pale blue carpet. Pastel paintings were on two of the walls. In
front of the couch was a walnut coffee table, low and narrow. We sat on the
divan and talked for a few minutes, just getting-acquainted conversation. She
told me that she was a model, posed for photographs sometimes, often modeled
clothing, had worked part-time as a cocktail waitress and had done a little TV.
She was waiting for the break, the job that would really get her started.
Blackie was easy to talk to, relaxed as the jeans and sweater she wore. "How
was the month at Vegas?" I asked her. "Algiers? Oh, that was grand. I loved
it." The bright blue eyes danced. "I've had a lot of offers since then. One
good TV thing may come from it. You ever see the Algiers acts?" "Strangely
enough, no. Not yet." "Well, each of the girls who goes there from _Wow!_ has
three bits, you know, during the show. Like one of mine was, I was on stage in
a beautiful evening gown. Just _fabulous!_ Only it didn't have anything except
the front half to it. And when I turned around and walked off -- well, some of
the customers just _squealed!"_ I was becoming infected by her enthusiasm.
"I'll bet they did!" I said enthusiastically. But then I got a grip on myself
and said, "Ah, but the reason I came up here, Blackie, is because of Webley
Alden." "What about Webb?" "You didn't marry him a couple of days ago, did
you?" "Marry him?" She laughed delightedly. "I didn't many _anyone_ a couple
days ago. Why?" "Somebody shot him twice in the back last night." I threw it at
her purposely. And as far as I could tell, her shock was genuine. She hadn't
read the newspapers, hadn't heard about it. "Gee, Webb," she said finally. "He
was such a nice guy." "That he was." She shook her head. "I've got to have a
drink after that. How about you, Shell?" It was okay by me. She fixed me a
bourbon-and-water, a gin-and-tonic for herself. Then she sat down next to me
again and said, "I only saw him twice, when he took the pictures for the
magazine. But I sure liked him." "The last time you saw him then was when he
took the latest September shot?" "Uh-huh." She grinned. "You've seen them?"
"Oh, yes. That first shot was one reason I subscribed to _Wow!"_ "Oh, you're
sweet!" It was hard to carry one line of conversation on to its logical
conclusion with this gal, but I said, "When did Webb take the September shot?
The last one." "Two or three months ago. Quite a while." "And you're sure you
haven't seen him since then?" "Sure I'm sure. Does it make any difference?"
"I'll be frank, Blackie. I want to know if there's _any_ chance you could have
met Webb in Hawaii during the last week or so. If you could have married him
there, come back with him day before yesterday, and been in his house last
night." It did sound a little peculiar at this moment, but I knew it had
happened. _Somebody_ had met him and married him, come back to California with
him. Blackie looked at me. "Have you lost your marbles?" "No." "Are you
kidding?" "Nope." So she told me what she could. But the upshot of it was that
she couldn't _prove_ anything. It was just silly, that was all. No, she hadn't
been working for the last couple weeks or so, just taking it easy, lolling
around the apartment reading and resting. Waiting for a call. "It's been kind
of dead," she said. Then she brightened and smiled. "That's why I thought I
might be glad for you to come up, when you called. I _am_ glad." I grinned at
her. "So am I." Then I took the four-by-five color shot from my coat pocket and
put it on the coffee table before her. "Just about the time Webb was shot,
Blackie, he took this photo -- of somebody. The girl was there when it
happened. Whoever killed Webb has been trying to put a few bullets into me,
too, so you can guess how important it is for me to find the girl. That one." I
pointed to the picture. "Trying to _shoot_ you?" "Yeah." After a long pause she
took the color print in her hand, looked at it. "Who is it?" "That's what I'm
trying to find out. I'm pretty sure she's one of the Wow girls." "Well, I sure
don't know which one." After a moment she said, "Gee, she's pretty, isn't she?"
Then she laughed. It struck me as funny, too, and we laughed together. I
pointed out the freckles. Blackie didn't know anybody with freckles. In a
moment she shook her head, passed the photo back to me and I returned it to my
coat pocket. We'd finished our drinks, so without any comment she made a couple
more and came back. She was frowning. "Shell, those -- freckles. I know how you
could find them." "You do?" "Sure. Next Saturday's the Anniversary Party, you
know." "Uh-huh." "Well, one of the reasons for the party is that all twelve of
us girls are to be there. And they're going to take a big picture of all of us
at once -- for the magazine. And all sorts of people are going to be guests."
"Like who?" "Well, us girls. Mr. Whittaker -- he has money in the magazine and
the party's to be at his home. Orlando Desmond, naturally. Some reporters, lots
of people from the magazine, editors and all. And Mr. Grey and people from the
Algiers." "Why Grey?" "Well, the girls always go there after their month in the
magazine, you know. Besides, he _wants to_ come." "Uh-huh. That figures. Who
else?" "You." "Me?" "Sure. That's how you find the freckles." "Do that again."
"Well, this _picture."_ She grinned. "You know what _Wow!_ is famous for."
"Yeah. Yeah." "Saturday night, all twelve girls are to be ready and pose for
this _fabulous_ picture. We all twelve line up in a row and sort of bend
forward -- just a little, you know. Away from the camera. Can you imagine?" "I
can _see_ it." "And we'll all be wearing turtleneck sweaters and high-heeled
shoes. I almost forgot that." "And that's the best part." I blinked. "Wait! Say
that again." "We'll all twelve be wearing turtleneck sweaters and high-heeled
shoes. That's all. Then they take the picture for the magazine." "You ... it'll
never be printed." "Maybe it will. Even if it isn't, it ought to make a nice
picture." Blackie had a pretty good gift for understatement, herself. Slowly it
seeped in. I went over what she'd just said, and over it once again. When the
vista finally solidified in my noodle, my senses reeled. I'll be truthful about
it. I could see them there, gleaming in rosy light. Twelve of them spun around
in my brain like lemons on a slot machine -- only, of course, there were no
lemons in this bunch. No, this was a massive jackpot, an unbelievable vista of
... I shook my head and it went away. I shook my head again, but it wouldn't
come back. "Blackie..." I said. "Blackie..." "Yes?" "Blackie..." "What is it,
Shell?" "Blackie..." "You need another drink, maybe." "That's it. Boy, do I
need a drink." She brought me a dark bourbon-and-water and I said to her,
"Blackie ... Ah, this is really going to happen? I mean -- well -- you know --
all the -- " "Yes. I've got my costume ready already." "Ready already?" "Yes.
In the bedroom." Did I detect something sly in the tone she used? I looked at
Blackie. She wrinkled her nose -- and you can bet that was the only part of her
that wrinkled -- and smiled mischievously. I _had_ detected something. "Well,"
I said, "that's swell. Yes, that's ... swell." "I really don't know about it,"
she said. "I mean, I said I'd do it -- all the girls said they'd do it -- dear
old _Wow!_ and all, you know, don't let the magazine down." "Well, hardly."
"But, gee, I get all -- you know, when I think about it. Just in front of a
camera isn't so bad, it seems like ... like..." "Like _Wow!_" "Yes, but at the
party with _all_ those _people_ around -- maybe I chewed off more than I can
bite." "Oh, I don't -- what?" "It's something a girl has to get used to. So
during the day I try it on a couple times and walk around. Just to get the feel
of it." I drank some bourbon-and-water which went down like water-and-water.
"The turtleneck sweater, you mean? And high-heeled shoes?" "Uh-huh. I figure if
I do it a little at a time then I won't be so embarrassed Saturday night."
"That makes sense. Sort of try it out alone first?" "Yes. Than maybe with just
one person looking. Then a couple, if I can find them." "Oh, you can find
them!" "Then I'll be ready for the party." "That's very dear thinking, Blackie.
Like wading into the water instead of splashing in all in a frenzy, like. Might
keep you from getting all jazzed up and drowning, or is that ...?" "That's
exactly what I thought. So far I've just walked around here alone. Now I'm
ready to try it with somebody." "Blackie..." "You wouldn't mind, would you,
Shell?" "Mind?" "Helping me? I've just _got_ to do something to -- to overcome
my shyness. Get ready for the party, and the -- the big push Saturday night."
"I'll do anything I can, dear. You can get ready for the -- the big push with
me, if you'd like. I know what it is to be shy ... I think. Why, it's just like
meeting the kids in school, kid, and then you maybe even _like_ school...." I
had to stop, my mind had gone gooey on me. I didn't know what I was saying.
"Oh, thanks, Shell," Blackie said. "You're a real friend." And with that she
jumped up and trotted off into the bedroom. Before I finished my drink, which
was pretty fast, she was back. I'd heard a drawer or two slam, and some soft
rustling noises, and then she stuck her head around the door and peeked at me.
I peeked at her. She said, "Close your eyes, will you?" "Close my _eyes?_
That's sort of defeating -- " "Just at first. So I can get, oh, into the swing
of it." "O-h-h-h," I said, sort of long drawn out. "Promise?" "Okay, I
promise." And I closed my eyes. On a case like this, I was thinking, I suppose
something like this was bound to happen. I heard her walking around, but I
didn't peek. I had given my word. And I wanted it back. After what seemed a
long, long time, when she still hadn't told me I could open my eyes, I said,
"Well, hell, you could at least _describe_ it to me." "Well, it's just like I
said, Shell. I've got on the turtleneck sweater -- it's blue, by the way."
"Blue." "Uh-huh. And high-heeled pumps. They're blue, too. And that's all. You
know, Shell, it really feels good, too. You can feel the breeze and all." "I'll
bet." She sighed. "I guess I'm ready now." "I guess I'm ready now, too." "You
can open your eyes." They were already halfway up. And then they went the rest
of the way, almost with a snap, like defective window shades go and spin about.
Blackie had just passed in front of me, going from my right to my left. She
walked across the room, clear to the wall, hips swinging in the graceful,
sinuous movement as old as woman and as new as I felt. She started to turn.
Blackie, in tight blue jeans and that old sweater, had been gorgeous, shapely,
more woman all by herself than in most complete chorus lines -- but now, in her
"costume," she was undulatory adrenalin, an ambulatory coronary. I looked at
her as she walked back across the room and past me, hips moving with that
infinitely provocative sway and swing, big breasts trembling beneath the
sweater. Twice she walked the length of the room and then as she reached the
far wall again I said, "Blackie, I'd better tell you something." She turned,
her back against the wall, laughing. "You don't have to tell me." And this time
she walked toward me.



* * *



*SIX* I made it to the Club Parisienne just in time for the second show. After
leaving Blackie I had almost decided to let the Club Parisienne go hang. At
least until tomorrow night. But time was of the essence. With guys shooting at
me and getting close, I couldn't wait for the grand conclusion of my search
until the Anniversary Party a week away. I couldn't lie down on the job at this
point. No, I had to keep plugging ahead, nose to that old grindstone. Work,
work, work. Ah, the life of a private eye -- it's rough. But after all, I
thought, you've got to go sometime, and it's a wonderful way to die. Hell, it's
a wonderful way to _live!_ But I was a little worried. Blackie was now
positively crossed off my list. But if I kept eliminating girls this way, the
girls would eliminate me. Such were the philosophical thoughts dancing in my
head as I parked the Cad and started walking the half block to the Club
Parisienne. And because of those thoughts I was more preoccupied than I would
normally have been. The memory of that wicked slug snapping past my head this
afternoon had almost been shoved clear out of my head. I wasn't even thinking
about guns, or tough guys. So I walked right into them. Later I would wonder
how it had happened that they were there, in the alley close by the Club
Parisienne. Later -- there wasn't time for that kind of thinking then. I saw
the first guy, lounging against the brick of the building. It didn't mean
anything. Just a guy to me. I was walking along Highland, and the club was
thirty or forty feet ahead. Hot, loud music pulsed inside the Parisienne, loud
enough to be dearly heard even here. The gaudy neon sign above the entrance
spilled pale colors over the sidewalk, on the man leaning against the building;
reached out softly to touch me. I was walking across the alley's mouth. The man
was just past the alley, a cigarette hanging from his lips. The alley's
darkness grew into deeper blackness on my right. When I was centered before the
alley, foot swinging forward in a step, somebody out of sight in the alley's
blackness said sharply, "Scott! Shell Scott." I turned to look, peered into the
darkness. I felt, more than heard, the man move away from the wall on my left.
I'm an old hand at this business. I have been jumped a time or two, and if I do
say so myself, I've learned. The hard way, maybe, but I've learned. Even on top
of all the unarmed defense and judo training and bloody rip-gut fighting I got
saturated with in my years as a Marine, I've had cons and muscle men and punk
hoodlums in my hair, and picked up some new tricks from them. But this time I
was as wide open as a Vassar sophomore. My thoughts hadn't come back from that
lotus land where they'd been floating in perfumed pastures -- not, at least, as
far as a dark alley and a swinging sap. I stared into the alley. The man moved
on my left. I heard him. But dimly, dully. I kept staring too long -- almost
too long. The sap must have been swinging down, almost against my skull, before
I woke up. I moved then, in a hell of a hurry, down and to the side, legs
bending and then the muscles tightening hard and tensed to spring. It helped.
Not enough to get me out of the way. The sap landed, slammed the side of my
head. My movement had kept the leather-wrapped bat from hitting me solidly,
squarely. The blow struck as my skull was moving away from it and I didn't go
out. But it was enough. The muscles in my legs just wouldn't spring. I felt my
knee hit the cement beneath me. I had no memory of falling, just the sudden
sharp pain in my knee. For a moment I couldn't move. A hand slapped my coat
pockets. "Got it," the guy said softly. I couldn't see him, but I knew he was
lifting the sap again. I heard him grunt. And I heard the quick shuffling of
feet deeper in the alley. Sudden alarm sent a current of energy through my
body. Somehow I knew -- the quiet, swift attack from the side, the quick
purposeful movement of those others toward me -- that this wasn't just a
beating or mugging. These guys were out to kill me. It gave me enough strength
to fall prone on the cement and roll. The sap came down silently again, but
barely slapped my back as I fell. I rolled farther -- into the alley. As I came
over onto my knees I thudded against the legs of a man. I got one hand against
the asphalt below, swung the other balled into a fist up between those legs.
The guy vomited noise, and I rolled again. This time I got onto my feet.
Something flashed in the dim light, slashed toward my face. I jerked my head
and it scraped my chin. I could see the man before me, not clearly, but well
enough to set him up. I slapped my left hand across my body, grabbed the hard
object he'd tried to fait me with, yanked up. His arm went into the air. He was
wide open for a split second. It was all the time I needed. I swung in toward
him, right hand open, palm up and fingers stiff, driving for the soft,
unprotected solar plexus, that vital little spot beneath the inverted V of the
ribs. My fingers went in hard. Hard enough. One soft sound he made, and then he
fell. The man I'd first hit with my fist was bent double, staggering along the
sidewalk, half trotting. As my eye caught him he went out of sight. I got
barely a glimpse of him -- past the bulk of the third man, close on my left
now. I didn't see the sap, but that third man must still have had it in his
hand. The movement of his body, the dropped shoulder, told me he had it, was
slamming it toward me again. I fell backwards, kicked his kneecap. He slammed
down over my other foot. I rolled to my feet, slapping the .38's butt under my
coat as he got to one knee, nipped the gun out. As he started up again, toward
me, I moved my right foot out to steady myself, aimed at his chest and pulled
the trigger. The gun cracked, but the shot went past him. When I'd moved my
foot it had thumped into the man lying unmoving on the asphalt, jarring me and
ruining my aim. I missed, but that was enough for him. He turned and ran. I
jumped to the alley's entrance, but he was almost at a car parked down the
street past the Parisienne's neon sign. I heard the engine roar as he jumped
through the car's already open door. The staggering guy must have made it to
the car, started it, while that third man and I were still scuffling. I leveled
my gun at the car, then let it drop as two men came out of the Parisienne's
entrance, weaving drunkenly. The car sped away. I stepped back into the alley,
leaned against its brick wall. Three of them there'd been. Waiting for me. Not
a shot had been fired except for the one I'd triggered at the last man. Nobody
seemed to have noticed the single sharp sound, half muffled in music from the
club. The three who'd been here must have wanted this to be done silently,
without attracting attention. It could have been handled that way. If that
first blow had landed squarely, the second and third and fourth from the sap or
a gun butt would have spilled my brains from the shattered skull case. And why?
Not a sound during the whole time except the scuffling, the grunts, the scrape
of feet on asphalt. And the man's yell when I'd hit him. Then I remembered the
two soft words, "Got it." I felt in my pockets. The photo was gone. That little
four-by-five color photo. I couldn't figure it. This cold-blooded -- and
professional -- attempt at beating a man to death? For that picture? Maybe. But
there was sure more to this than I'd guessed. I'd got a glimpse of one man's
face, the guy who'd tried to sap me, the one I'd fired at and missed. A stupid
face, big loose lips. A big guy. I'd seen that face before and after a few
seconds I remembered who he was. Slobbers O'Brien was his name. He was a mugg.
I didn't know who he worked for, but I knew the kind of work he did. Especially
now I knew. The two people who'd come from the Parisienne were passing the
alley now, a yard or two from me. One of them stopped, stabbed his mouth with a
cigarette and flicked on a lighter. The glow warmed the alley's mouth. I looked
down at the man still near my feet. He didn't move. Probably he was dead. He
had fallen hard on his face, and blood had spilled from his mouth. It lay in a
glistening black pool touching his lips. There would be a lot more blood, from
his burst aorta, spilled inside him. The lighter flicked out and the two men
walked away. I knelt, felt for the man's pulse. But he was dead. I grabbed his
arms, dragged him far down the alley, dumped him by a trash can. Then in the
flickering fire from my lighter I looked at his face. Somewhere in my mind
memory stirred. I'd seen those features, too, but I couldn't place them. I went
through his pockets. A sheaf of bills held with a metal clip, that was all.
Nothing else, no identification. I left him there, walked to the front of the
club. In the brighter light at the entrance I checked my clothes, couldn't find
any rips, or smears of blood. My bead throbbed painfully, a grinding ache
pulsing against my skull. Inside the club a high-voiced master of ceremonies
was saying something in a tone of sheer happiness. Then the music swelled
again. I heard some whistles. Slow, draggy music with a heavy beat that's like
a trademark for a certain kind of dance, vibrated in the air. On my right was a
signboard telling some of the exciting things to be seen inside. On my left was
one of the exciting things. It was a life-size photo of a lovely girl wearing,
as far as I could tell, only a white-fox stole. It covered up enough of her so
that you could see only that there was quite a bit of her. Slanting across the
front of the photo was the name: Jeannette Dure. Jeannette. October. And into
my mind, _bang,_ a long-limbed, lissome, lovely lass lying on her side -- back
to the camera, of course -- front to the leaping red flames in an open
fireplace. Everything was red, the fire, the highlights in her rusty brown
hair, the sheen of her skin, even the shadows of the dusky room were suffused
with the reddish glow. It was the kind of item the devil would keep in a
separate room of hell -- adjoining his own. I lit a cigarette, dragged the
smoke deep, and went inside.



* * *



*SEVEN* The Club Parisienne looked about as much like Paris as I look like
Whistler's Mother. I think it was one of those deals where the new management
takes over and keeps the old sign to save on expenses. Though I'd not
previously visited the Parisienne, I had heard about it. That's why I hadn't
visited it. This had come to be the end of the line for gals who had stripped,
and stripped, and stripped, until it just wasn't worth it any more, whereupon
they had taken their sock full of money and retired to a farm someplace with
their old G-strings and memories. Once in a while it was even suspected that
some of the gals had come back to the Parisienne from the farm. It got so bad
that when a girl came out to dance the customers didn't yell, "Take it off!"
but "_Keep it on!_" Until about three months ago, that is. Then the management
had inaugurated the policy of paying _one_ good gal good money to put on an act
which would at least take a customer's eyes off the ice in his glass. The
reason? Nobody was coming to the Club Parisienne any more. So, innovation.
Nothing else had changed, the usual gals stomped about and cracked their joints
waggishly, but now there was something, not just to listen to, but to _see._
Three months ago, I'd heard: good. Two months ago: great. Last month: terrific.
And now: Jeannette Dure. Jeannette Dure, the prize of the pack, the pick of the
peelers, the peak of the peek. Jeannette Dure -- October. Here, the girls
danced on the bar. Here, whatever the girls did, they did it on the bar. The
ceiling was low, and when the gals really got wound up they could put their
arms over their heads and press their hands on the ceiling for leverage. It
was, understandably, a pretty wide bar. It was also U-shaped, and there was a
lot of it. But not a stool was empty. And to see what I had come to see, it
wouldn't do to be way off at one of the tables. I found the headwaiter. Yes, I
wanted a seat at the bar; no, I didn't want to kick some poor devotee of the
dance away; yes, I had ten dollars. Lovely, an extra stool squeezed in at the
bar would be lovely. So I sat at the bar between two guys who may not even have
known I'd squeezed in, and ordered a drink. The two guys were looking, not at
the gal dancing, but at the entrance through which -- soon, now, their
hopefully bugging gazes told me -- Jeannette would sinuously glide. I could
understand why they weren't watching the current performer. The current
performer was about out of current. She had by now taken off all her clothes
except for the bare minimum required by law, but even without it this gal would
have had the bare minimum required by law. She was acting pretty sporty up
there, but she had no visible means of sport; and she didn't look nude, she
just looked bald. I closed my eyes, gulped some bourbon, thinking: here's not
looking at you, baby; and when I opened them she was gone. Down went the music,
on came the happy M. C., on with him and up with the music. From the draped
curtain yards to my left, and onto the bar, came a woman. Jeannette? No, not
Jeannette. This was not October. Or if it was, it was October of 1897, which
was a bad year to begin with. She sidled around with a sort of "Oh, pfui!"
attitude, to the strains of Oriental music. She started out in an Egyptian
costume, and she should have left while she was merely behind. This one looked
like _Big_ Egypt. I figured her measurements were about 40-30-40, but,
unfortunately, not in that order. It ended. All things pass. It seemed to take
a hell of a time, though. And then down with the music, on with the M. C., off
with him. And up with the music. But this time there was a difference. Even the
music had a different beat. It was a slow, sweet melody I'd never heard before.
Sweet, but with. a hot gut-bucket rasp barely audible, weaving through it like
whispers in a bedroom; the sweetness of sex, the rasp of a voice tight in a
soft throat. The curtains parted on my left, and Jeannette was there. Still in
shadow, dim, not dearly visible. But the white fox wrap bloomed in the dark.
Then she came on. Slowly, proudly, with a flair and an air of unconcern, almost
as if she were alone and these hundreds of hot eyes were not upon her. She
strutted, nude flesh gleaming where the white stole didn't hide it, long brown
hair forward over one shoulder, long lovely legs flashing with each strong
step. You wouldn't think a woman could do what she was doing. Could step out
onto a bar -- not a stage or dance floor -- a bar, ringed with guys breathing
beerily through open mouths, lusting for her even now when she'd not completed
even a quarter circuit of the track, in a dive, a dump, following the women
who'd just been out here before her, and still look like a queen. But she did
it. There were no yells, no whistles. The men sat quietly, just looking. She
was beautiful, with high cheekbones and full parted lips, she had a marvelous
figure, yes; but she had something more. She had authority, command. And she
liked what she was doing. I liked it, too. She walked once around the bar,
moving the white fox over her skin like a caress, as if it gave her a sensual
pleasure that thrilled her from head to toes, and in between, especially in
between. Then her movements quickened a little, the white wrap moved farther
from her body, more daringly. I'd have sworn she had nothing on under the wrap,
nothing at all, but I might have been wrong. She never completely got rid of
the white fox stile, but at the end it was only a prop, a flailing white blur
in the soft lights. Jeannette seemed to tremble, to quiver, more an emotion
than a movement, as if a shudder started inside her, reached her flesh, reached
all of us watching her. She was out there quite a while. She was the star, what
everyone had come to see. At the end she was motionless for a moment, limp,
appearing exhausted. But then she straightened up, the firm breasts thrust
forward, light caught the smoothly flaring hips, and she walked off.
Unconcerned again, trailing the white fur behind her. The place started
thinning out fast. I'd seen what I'd come to see, and there had been a
spotlight on part of Jeannette part of the time. She was in the clear. But I
went back and talked to her, to be sure. No, she hadn't married Webley Alden.
No, she hadn't posed for a picture lately. Of course, I'd already known that.
But it was a lovely talk. I left, after the crowd. Then I crossed Jeannette
Dure, October, off my list. And put her down on another one. The next morning,
Sunday, I woke up, after eight hours of sleep, with that glad-to-be-alive
feeling. I wondered why for a bit, then realized it was because I wasn't dead.
My head hurt, my knee hurt -- I hurt in several places. But I was alive and
ready to go again. No bullet holes were in me. Today, I thought, to the
Algiers. To Charlene Lavel -- and Ed Grey. But first I had a chore. That dead
face I'd seen in the alley last night, I had seen somewhere when it was alive,
I felt sure. And if the man was, as I also felt sure, a hoodlum of any local
note or renown, then his chops should be in the Mugg File down at the LAPD
Along with Slobbers O'Brien. So after a breakfast of coffee and sticky mush, I
headed down the Hollywood Freeway toward L.A. and the Los Angeles Police
Building. It took me three hours, flipping the big pages of the Mugg Books,
looking at the faces. Ugly faces, handsome faces, every kind of faces. And then
I saw him. The guy in the alley. His name was Danny Ax. Twice arrested for
homicide, twice acquitted. Arrested on ADW, acquitted. Assault, charges
dropped. One bit at San Quentin for shooting a man in the stomach. The man
lived. Danny got out in a year and a day. He wouldn't get out this time. And
then the memory threads tied in their knot. I remembered where I'd seen him,
where I'd heard the name. Las Vegas. Supposed to work for Ed Grey. I've always
liked the drive from L.A. to Vegas. Through only a few towns after San
Bernardino, but a lot of flat, dry desert, much of it on four-lane freeways.
Then, like a concrete and neon oasis: Fabulous Las Vegas. That's what they call
it there. And they're right. It is fabulous. The town is lousy with hoods, but
there are a lot of good, clean people there, too -- most of them, in fact. The
citizens of the city are like citizens anywhere else, with kids, schools, a
whole raft of churches, up in the morning and to bed at night like the rest of
us. But the town never sleeps. The clubs stay open, the wheels spinning. All
night long the money pours over the tables; the white, powdered breasts spill
over the low-cut gowns; the liquor flows over the bars. Old women play slot
machines for hours, wearing gloves to protect their withered hands. But you
can't help getting caught up in the pleasant tension, the telepathy of
excitement, the sense of big things doing, something always going on. I don't
gamble much; in a goofy kind of way I like to earn my dough, not win it. But I
love to stand at the wheels or crap tables, placing a bet now and then, and
drinking in the pulse of the town, smelling it, feeling it at the base of my
spine. I had a little different feeling this time, as I came over the flat
desert down the long road that ends in the Strip. A tightness at the base of my
skull and in the muscles of my back. There was too little I knew about what was
going on. Why the kidnaping ... murder ... shots at me. And that alley play
last night. The case was getting more complex, not the simple affair it had at
first appeared to be. I had by now either talked to by phone or seen nine of
the Wow girls. All of them had denied any knowledge of Webb's marriage. So
either the girl I was after was one of the three I'd been unable to contact --
Loana Kaleoha, Dorothy Lasswell, Pagan Page -- or else one of the nine others
was lying. Or... An odd thought struck me then. Or Webb himself had been lying.
But that didn't make sense, and I shrugged it off. Maybe Charlene Lavel could
tell me a little more. I drove past the Dunes, Sands, Flamingo. Up ahead I
could see the top of the Algiers. Ed Grey's little 500-room hideaway. Where the
Wow girls wowed 'em. Let me tell you how it happened that the girls went from
the pages of _Wow!_ to the stage of the Algiers. It's a short story of now, of
this year, and of Las Vegas today. Las Vegas keeps getting just a little
bolder. A little more push of the customer instead of pull. A little more
naked. A little harder. And the Algiers is a big part of it. It started when
the Vegas clubs had a little war, sort of friendly. As more and more hotels
went up on the Strip, competition for the tourist and gambling money got more
intense. The shows in places like the Riviera, Desert Inn, El Rancho Vegas, all
the rest, were what pulled the money-spenders into the clubs. The club with the
best-pulling show usually pulled in the most gamblers. And that's where the
money is on the Strip, in gambling, from the gamblers. Soon the club owners
were spending so much money for the shows, the top acts, that it would have
been difficult for them to pay more without printing it themselves. An
agreed-upon price ceiling went out the window fast. Show costs soared.
Something else was needed. The next angle was to add something to the show
itself. Came the Stardust Hotel -- and the Lido de Paris. The shapely _femmes_
from France. When the first bare-breasted French lovely cavorted out onto the
Stardust stage, U.S. entertainment history was made. Bare breasts, ah ... how
to fight this? Another club followed with bare-breasted showgirls, then
another. It was still good fun, but the novelty was wearing off. It wasn't an
exclusive drawing card any more. What next? Where would it all end? You guessed
it. Ed Grey subscribed to _Wow!_ When he lamped that first glorious behind
beckoning so coyly and yet shockingly from the pages of _Wow!_ a great light
went off in his head. It is said that, in the presence of three witnesses, he
leaped straight up in the air shouting: "That's it! That's it! _Fannies!_" It
was thought for a while that Grey would have to be put away, be put under
observation -- but it was not Ed Grey that was put under observation. No, then
it was that he and Webley Alden got their heads together. Came the agreement
whereby for five thousand dollars a month the Wow girl would, immediately
following her appearance in the magazine, when interest was at its peak, so to
speak, grace the stage of Ed Grey's Algiers. Well, you know how it worked out.
The girls were a huge success. It became necessary to tip headwaiters as much
as forty dollars for a good seat. It was a natural. Built-in publicity for both
the magazine and Algiers. So far, Grey's was the only club which featured ...
well, what Grey's club featured. But soon, inevitably, others would invade the
field. Grey didn't have a patent on it. So in a few more months the novelty,
the exclusiveness, would wear off again. And, I wondered: what next? I pulled
into the curving drive before the enormous and ornate facade of the Algiers.
I'd been here before, but only as a stop on the Strip, while roaming the town,
hitting the bars and clubs. I'd even seen Ed Grey, though we hadn't met. Always
smooth, well-groomed, slim as a dancer, he moved sometimes through the rooms,
looking over the house and estimating the take. He was affable, smiling, but
he'd never spoken to me. He was going to speak to me this time. The Algiers was
big, not the biggest spot on the Strip, but it had 500 rooms for guests, and
offered plenty of entertainment. The big room, for the dinner crowd and main
show, was the Arabian Room, which would seat over a thousand people; and there
were three smaller cocktail lounges, the Casbah. African Room, and the Oran
Bar. The hotel's facade was modern-Vegas, a lot of rock in shades of brown and
beige, vertical yard-wide strips of wood running up and down its face, sand
color alternating with charcoal. A bit gaudy. But Las Vegas is a bit gaudy. It
was about seven-thirty p.m. when I parked my Cadillac in front of the Algiers.
Five minutes later I had a drink in the Oran Bar, then started looking for a
guy named Dutch, one of my friends who worked the Vegas clubs. I knew he was
currently here at the Algiers -- more important, he had eyes and ears that
didn't miss a thing, plus the inquisitiveness and curiosity of a writer. If
there was news to be had, I could get it from Dutch. The entire center of the
Algiers was one huge oval room filled with roulette wheels, dice and blackjack
tables, slot machines lining the walls -- all the accouterments of easy money
the hard way. The Arabian Room and smaller lounges all were reached from the
central gambling area. In order to eat or get a drink or see a show, the
customers had to pass by and among the wheels and tables on their way in, pass
them again on their way out. And all the long way in and out they listened to
the click of the little ivory roulette ball, the cry. "_There's a winner!_" the
laughter and drunken conversation of sober people, the even louder cries and
whoops of drunks, the whir of the slots -- the Algiers siren song. But here
there were no masts to chain yourself to, and these cats were none so strong as
Ulysses. So a lot of fun was had in the Algiers. But a lot of money was lost
here, too. A lot of self-respect. A lot of wives, and husbands. A lot of
dreams. I got a few silver dollars from a redhead at one of the change booths.
Her green eyes were heavily ringed with dark pencil, thin painted lines
slanting up at their corners to make them look even larger, her dress green
velveteen cut very low. Her big green eyes looked tired; her big half-bare
breasts looked bored. As if they'd been the life of too many parties, and known
too many small deaths of mornings after. She smiled at me and said "Hi," and I
said "Hi," and walked away. It started settling in my bones then. This wasn't
going to be a happy trip. The people milled around me, the wheels gleamed in
the light, laughter spilled on the air. But I couldn't shake the feeling. I
wandered around. My silver dollars melted away, foolishly in the slot machines,
a bit less foolishly on number seven at roulette. Then I spotted the guy I
knew, short, square-faced, happy-go-lucky Dutch. He was dealing at one of the
dice tables. I got some five-dollar chips, stepped up to the table near him.
His fingers moved like a magician's as he stacked chips, pushed two short
stacks to a winner, relaxed. He caught my eye then, raised a brow and nodded
but didn't speak. The stick man, wielding his long L-shaped stick expertly,
scooped in the dice, passed them down to a fat man. "They're coming out," he
said. The next shooter was fat, but he had a pinched face and a worried
expression. He didn't look like a winner to me. "Twenty dollars they don't
pass," I said, and dropped four of my chips on the Don't Pass line. He rolled a
nine. Then five ... five ... eight ... seven, "Seven a loser," the stick man
said. Dutch added four more chips to mine. "Buy you a drink?" I said. "Sure."
He glanced at his watch. "I've been on third base ten minutes now. Ten more and
I get a twenty-minute break. How you been, boy?" He didn't expect an answer. I
left my money on the Don't Pass line. The next shooter rolled a four and then a
seven. I picked up my eighty bucks, told Dutch I'd be in the Oran Bar, and
left. When Dutch slid onto the black leather stool next to me he'd sloughed off
his job like a snake leaving its skin. He was relaxed and grinning. "Out
amongst 'em again. Shell, you old rip?" "Business, Dutch. I'm about to please
Ed Gray like cyanide in his soup. You might get a little poisoned yourself just
being seen with me." "Ah, nuts to them all. I can always go back to the farm."
It was a standard phrase of his. Except for his work here on the Strip, the
only time he'd been outside the city limits of anyplace was when on his way to
another city. But at least he wasn't worried about talking to me. So I said,
"What's with Danny Ax and Slobbers O'Brien?" "What's with 'em? I don't know,
chum. They hang around here to fetch and carry for Ed. Bums, both of them. I
wish that Ax cat would drop dead." "He did. Last night in an alley." "Who
what?" "I leaned on him too hard in a soft spot. He was at the moment trying to
beat my brains out. Along with Slobbers and another egg. I didn't catch his
name." Dutch whistled softly. "Then what in hell are you doin' here?" "They do
work for Ed Grey? Slobbers too?" "Yeah. Some work they do." "So I've got to ask
Ed about that." "Ask Ed?" He pulled his brows down and looked straight at me.
"Scott, if the squirrels around here are smart, they'll store you away for
winter. Don't let Grey's looks fool you." "They don't." I knew what Dutch
meant. Grey could be a nasty surprise, like breaking a tooth on a marshmallow.
He didn't look tough, but he was. His boys did jobs for him, but nothing he
couldn't do as well -- or better -- himself. I went on, "How about this Pagan
Page? I get the word somebody had to replace her. How come?" "I don't know. She
was here till Friday night." He thought a minute. "Actually, the night before
was her last show. She did the Thursday night shows, and Charlie started
Saturday. Nobody did the bits Friday night." "No word why she left so
all-of-a-sudden?" He shook his head. "And you haven't seen her around, heard
anything about her since?" "Not a whisper. Maybe she and Ed had a beef. Lovers'
quarrel." "Lovers? Was it like that?" "_Ed_ is like that. He likes variety. But
he gave her the orchid-and-champagne campaign, pretty trinkets -- the lavish Ed
Grey act. He's good at it. It usually works." "Did it work with Pagan?" He
rubbed a finger alongside his nose. "You've got me. All I know is they spent a
lot of time together. But Ed's always spending a lot of time together -- with
somebody. Just so it's not his wife." "That's right, I'd forgotten he was a
married man." "So has Ed." Dutch glanced past me. "You mentioned Charlie. There
she is. A lot of the gals come in about this time for a drink or two before the
first show. It's at nine." It was just eight p.m. now. I looked toward the
front of the room. A striking redhead was coming in the door. She was a big
girl, naming red hair cut short, a pretty rather than beautiful face. She wore
a smoothly-fitting white-nylon cocktail dress with thin rhinestone-beaded
straps over her bare shoulders. She walked past us and down toward the other
end of the bar, slid onto a stool. She was Just close enough so I could hear
her say, "Fix me a martini, Tom. Dry. No vermouth." "Show's going great," Dutch
said to me. "So I've heard." "No kidding, this is the biggest thing that's hit
Vegas yet. If the Arabian Room was twice as big we could fill it. Especially if
we had another month like February." "What was so special about February?"
"Biggest draw we ever had, that's all. Even bigger than the month before when
that Raven dish was here with Orlando Desmond." "Desmond? I heard he did a
month or so in the club. He was here when Raven McKenna starred, huh?" "Yeah.
Em-ceed and sang. Sang -- he sounds like Little Bo Peep, don't he?" "I'm on
your side. Tell me more about those big months." Raven McKenna was _Wow!'s_
Miss December, and thus would have appeared here in January. So in February it
would have been Miss January. January, _bang,_ a black-haired lovely lying nude
on the black lava sands of Hawaii's Kalapana Beach, face down and a long brush
of hair hiding her face. White froth of surf bubbling up her rounded brown
calves. Loana Kaleoha. Dutch was saying, "The McKenna dish was here the fourth
month, when the thing was building up. It was great, all right, and the money
poured in. Never better since, except for when that Hawaiian honey was here.
Kalu -- Kala -- " "Loana." "Yeah. Oh, brother. I've been here a year and a
half. I've seen them all. But that one is not to be believed." "It would be
pretty hard to top Raven McKenna, Dutch. Or even Blackie, Sue Mayfair, if you
ask me." He was nodding vigorously. "True, true. But the prize still goes to
Loana." "This January show. Anybody notice Desmond?" "The babes, they all go
for him. Even like his singing. He's a pretty good draw himself -- maybe it's
the way he wiggles his lips when those noises come out. But _I_ noticed him. He
dropped a lump. Several lumps." "At your table?" "At all the tables. He
couldn't even hit cherries on the nickel slots." "He drop much?" "Many G's, I
hear. _Many_ G's. One of the big ones." "Pin it down." "I'd have to guess." "So
guess." "Maybe a hundred thou. Could've been more. Like I said, one of the big
ones." "This was during his M.C. job here, huh?" "And since, half a dozen
times. You know, they get the fever. And they always come back to get even."
"Did Desmond? Get even, I mean?" Dutch shrugged. "He must've. When they get
into Ed for that much, he takes a personal interest -- and I guess you know how
personal Ed can get." "Sometimes he gets so personal he kills you. You know if
he put any pressure on Desmond? That kind of pressure?" "Maybe. Those are
always private conversations, chum. But he talked a time or two to Desmond I
know, and the boy came out of the office looking scared white." Dutch swallowed
some of his drink. "That's how come I figure Desmond must have managed to pay
off. He's still around, still pretty. Besides, he got lucky a time or two at
the tables after that. Not as lucky as he was unlucky, maybe, but it probably
helped." "Did any of this happen just recently, Dutch? The last week or so?
Even the last few weeks?" "No. This was all two, three months back. Desmond did
a free month here about April or May. Ordinarily he'd have pulled down maybe
thirty thousand for a month, but the scuttlebutt is it went to cover his
losses." "Did you see Webley Alden up here much?" "Alden?" The brows came down
again. "I heard. That's what's on your mind, huh?" "Part of it. A lot of it.
Did Webb come around?" "Few times. Maybe he dropped some lumps, but so what? He
uses gold like it's brass. Did, anyway. He wouldn't have missed a ton or so.
Besides, he was never one of the plungers." Dutch glanced at his watch. "Got to
go." He paused. "You're really going to play it hard with Ed?" "I'm not going
to hug and kiss him." Dutch looked at me and said cheerfully, "Well, it's not
so bad, Scott." He grinned. "After all, you've got a whole life behind you." I
scowled at his retreating back, then walked along the bar and stopped next to
the ample redhead. "Hello," I said. "Charlene Lavel?" She was cool. "I'm Miss
Lavel." "I'm Shell Scott. May I buy you a martini? Dry?" The ice thawed. "Oh, I
talked to you on the phone. I thought maybe you'd seen the act last night and
-- wanted to get to know it better." I laughed. "I haven't seen it, Miss Lavel.
But wild hearses couldn't keep me away tonight. I'll be ringside." "Charlie.
Forget that Miss Lavel jazz." She looked me over and said, "You can buy me that
drink, Mr. Scott." "Shell." We worked into the drinks with casual conversation,
then I mentioned Webb. Since talking to me, Charlie had read about his murder,
but said she knew nothing of his marriage or anything else, only what the
papers had reported. And the news stories had carried only details of the
murder and murder scene, not the info I'd given Farley and the Medina police.
Then Charlie said, "I didn't ask any questions about Pagan, Shell. I got to
thinking of what you'd said about it could be dangerous. And just the act I do
is danger enough for me." I grinned. "When I told you that, I was guessing. But
I'm not guessing any more. So don't ask questions of anybody. It's enough if
you tell me what you know now." She shrugged. "I don't really know anything. Ed
called me Friday night. Asked me to fill in for Pagan." "He say anything about
why she couldn't finish her month?" "No. Just that I'd have to be ready the
next night. Wanted me for the midnight show Friday, but I couldn't make it. He
also said he'd pay me as much for the two-week fill-in as for the whole month
of September. Another five thousand -- that was all I needed to hear." The rest
of it was merely an echo of what I'd already heard from Dutch. No news of Pagan
since then. Charlie didn't much like Ed Grey, but she sure liked ten thousand
dollars. "That Ed's a little too smooth," she said. Then she smiled at me. "I
like a few rough edges on a man." "What's Grey like? Around you, and the girls,
I mean." "Slick as oil. I can tell you that much after being up here two days.
Never comes right out with anything, not in so many words. But you can't miss
the message. I mean, he doesn't reach out and grab you. But you always think
he's going to." "He's married, isn't he?" "Yes, but I don't think it bothers
him. I guess when they said 'I do' he put the ring in her nose. I hear she's a
little mouse. Don't get me wrong, Ed hasn't really pulled anything with me. I
just know he would if I unlocked the door." She smiled. "Woman's intuition
maybe." I looked at my watch. "I'd better try to get a table for the show,
Charlie. I've got a hunch..." I stopped. The last thing she'd said stuck in my
mind. "What was that about unlocking the door? Figure of speech?" "No. I guess
you wouldn't know about that." She finished her Martini. "When the girls from
the magazine first started here, the good dressing rooms were all in use -- we
were something new, you know, in addition to the acts already here. So they
fixed up a big beautiful room for us, best of them all. Real star stuff. Next
to Ed's office -- I think it was part of his office once. Anyway, there's a
connecting door." She grinned. "That's the one I keep locked." "Uh-huh." I
wondered how many of the other girls had kept it locked. I thanked Charlie for
her help and said I'd see her later. "You'll see me, all right," she said
grinning. Before nine o'clock I'd asked for Ed Grey a couple of times and been
told he wasn't at the club yet; and I had a table in the Arabian Room. But it
was not, as I had so optimistically told Charlie my table would be, at
ringside. It was way the hell in back and off to the side. I had a feeling that
the show was in Las Vegas and I was sitting in Reno. Bills peeking from my palm
had no effect on the captain; there was nothing he could do at this late hour,
he said. I went out to the Cad, in the luggage compartment of which I keep
numerous items of equipment useful in my work. The item useful tonight was a
small pair of binoculars which folded up into a small box about the size and
shape of a cigarette case. I dropped it into my pocket, went back to my table
in Reno, and ordered dinner. Dinner was fair, the service threatening, and the
show was great. I finished eating before the first segment of Charlie's act,
and ordered coffee. Then Charlie came on. Her first bit was simple. She merely
took off her clothes. Strike the "merely." The gimmick was that she started the
act wearing street clothes -- trim gray business suit and white blouse,
high-heeled shoes and nylons, pink underthings -- and the action took place in
what looked much like a normal well-furnished bedroom. A gal doing a strip,
taking off the fancy outfits you see in burlesque clubs, prancing about the
stage and emitting high-pitched noises the while, that is one thing. But a
luscious, healthy, marvelously stacked gal disrobing in her bedroom, that is
another. In effect we were all turned into Peeping People, watching Charlene
Lavel take off her clothes in her bedroom. Only, somehow, it was legal. Came a
moment when Charlie was clad only in the briefest of pink step-ins, and it was
clear that soon they were going to be step-outs. When she placed her hands at
their top, sort of dilly-dallying around with them in horrendously titillating
fashion, I got out my little collapsible binoculars. I felt pretty sure about
Charlie already; but what it boiled down to now was freckles. Charlie's back
was to the audience, though it seems doltish to refer to the view Charlie
presented as her back, and her hands moved on the pink nylon top of the
step-ins. Down they went, down, down they slid ... then just a bit more
dilly-dallying ... and down, down.... all ... the ... way down. She stepped
from the pink wisp of cloth, stood erect and stretched as if yawning. But you
can bet nobody _else_ was yawning. Then she bent forward to pick up the
step-ins from the floor. I was madly twirling the focusing dial on my
binoculars. Something was wiggling up there. _Zoom,_ there it was! Just a bit
blurred yet, then sharp -- and blurred again. Too far! I twirled the knurled
dial back. Ah! I had it. Never before had I realized how immensely powerful
these little bits of binoculars were. From about four inches away I searched
for freckles. Not a one, not a one. Good old Charlie! I mentally cried. I knew
she was a good one. No freckles on Charlie. It seemed suddenly brighter. I
thought maybe my eyes had busted, but then I heard a whooping sound from very
near. I realized Charlie was no longer in my binoculars and glanced toward the
whoop, and wished _I_ was no longer in my binoculars. Two tables away a fat,
lard-faced guy was pointing at me and whooping something. Heads at other tables
turned. People looked at me and appeared to be greatly amused. I snapped my
binoculars shut and, since the thing does look a bit like a cigarette case,
snatched at it as if plucking cigarettes from it. It was no use. I wasn't
fooling anybody. I looked guilty. I felt guilty. Hell, I _was_ guilty. An
uneasy moment; it got worse. Because of the pointing and such, heads had
turned, and one of the heads was at a table next to the wall. Not far from me.
It was a man, smooth-faced, impeccably dressed, sitting with a shapely platinum
blonde. Ed Grey. He was lifting a bite of food to his mouth and when his eyes
fell on me he got a look as of sudden stabbing pains. As if he'd swallowed the
fork. I dropped the binoculars into my pocket, got up and walked to Grey's
table. On the way I passed the lard-faced guy and said casually, "Were you
calling me?" He didn't say anything. But I'll bet it was a long, long time
before he whooped. Then Ed Grey was looking up at me. Composed. Pleasant
Charming. "Mr. Scott, isn't it?" "Yeah. But Danny Ax didn't tell you." He was
hard to ruffle, but that ruffled him. His face wrinkled, but he ironed it out.
"What do you want, Scott?" "I want to talk to you." "We can't talk here." "I
didn't mean here." He looked at his half-empty plate, then threw his napkin on
top of it. "Let's go to my office." The platinum blonde spoke querulously,
"But, Eddy, you can't go off and leave -- " "Oh, shut up." I grinned at her.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow -- " "Knock it off, Scott." Grey was losing his
usual air of affability. That was fine with me. He stalked off. I turned to
follow him as the platinum blonde, still bugging me with her big eyes, said,
"What in the hell did you say?" I waved at her and followed Ed Grey. I wasn't
about to let him talk to one or a dozen of his boys while my back was turned.
Another brief act had been concluded and now Charlie was back on stage again,
doing something. Even so, I didn't look. Charlie, after all, would be here for
another six weeks. And that was six weeks more than I could be sure of. I kept
my eyes on Grey. He walked through the big main room to the club's rear, across
a hallway, and into a spacious office, dark carpet on the floor, walnut-paneled
walls, leather chairs and a small brown desk with a padded swivel chair behind
it. On my right was another door, now closed, probably the one leading into the
girls' dressing room. Grey sat down behind the desk and I took a chair in front
of it. Ed Grey was close to six feet tall, maybe an inch less, slim. Straight
brown hair lay flat on his head and a neatly trimmed brown mustache adorned his
upper lip. His eyes had the hard, shiny and glassy look, of cheap artificial
eyes, and were an odd bloodshot brown like curdled Coca-Cola. He wore a dark
brown suit and a beige tie. His tie clasp and the too-big links in his
shot-forward French cuffs looked like, and probably were, solid gold. He said,
"What do you want?" "You know what I want. I just came here to talk to you
about it." "Tell me more." "Start with Danny." "I don't know any Danny." "Not
any more you don't. Keep sending friends like that to see me and you'll lose
friends fast. If I'm lucky." "Lucky." He sneered. "I've heard that word a lot
around here." "Not from me you haven't. The Danny is -- was -- Danny Ax." He
shrugged. "So?" "Try Slobbers O'Brien then." "I don't know any ... what did you
say his name was?" "You know him. He works for you." "The hell he does. You got
it wrong this time." He spoke vehemently, positively. I wondered if I could be
wrong. I said, "Let's talk about Pagan Page then." It was a shot in the dark.
It landed. I couldn't tell if it did any damage, but it stung him a little. He
leaned forward sharply, one hand sliding flat on the desktop. Then he settled
back in his chair. "Pagan. Now there's a beautiful girl. Wish she could have
finished her month. Supposed to be here all during August, you know." "Yeah, I
know. Why isn't she?" "You've got me. She didn't say, just told me she was
leaving. Next I knew she was gone. Had to scramble to get Charlie in." He
paused, the hard brown eyes on me. "If you just came here to talk big and
tough, I've still got time to finish my meal. So -- " That was as far as he
got. The door behind me opened and somebody came in fast. I looked around as
the man walked up to the desk and leaned over it, saying, "Boss, Willie just
told me he seen Shell -- " He turned and lamped me and his mouth dropped open.
Uh-huh. Slobbers O'Brien. He was called Slobbers largely because his lips were
kind of loose on his chops. In fact, they looked as if they were going to fall
off. His expression said that he couldn't get two points on an IQ test without
cheating. His head didn't come to a point, but his neck came to a lump.
Slobbers O'Brien who didn't work for Ed Grey. No, Ed didn't even know a
Slobbers O'Brien. Slobbers gasped hugely when he saw me. Then he gasped again,
much more hugely, as I came out of the chair and landed my right fist in his
stomach. As he doubled over, I bounced a high hard one off his cheekbone. He
went backward flailing his arms. There was a sharp sound on my right. Grey was
digging into a desk drawer. I jumped around the desk, got next to him as he
yanked out a small pistol. I smacked it aside with the back of my left hand,
and put everything I had into a right to the side of his head. I was a little
off balance, without real leverage when I swung, but it was enough to slam him
against the back of his swivel chair and send the chair over with him. Grey
sprawled on the carpet, rolled over slowly, movements not coordinated, as feet
thumped in the hallway outside. I swung around as two men came in. They were in
a hurry, but there were no guns in sight yet. I yanked out my .38, stepped back
to the corner of the room where I could cover them all. I waited. No one spoke.
Apparently there weren't going to be more reinforcements. So I said to the guy
farthest from me, "Shut the door, friend." He pushed it closed with his foot.
Grey got shakily to his feet, leaned forward with his hands on the desk. A
discolored blotch was already showing high on his left cheek. He was going to
have a beautiful black eye. Beautiful to me, not Ed Grey. He stared at me, ran
his tongue around the inside of his mouth. "Let me introduce you to Slobbers
O'Brien," I said to him. Slobbers was still prone, unconscious. Grey didn't say
anything. I could see his cheek muscles moving as he shoved his jaws together.
The other men weren't moving at all. I recognized one of them. A mean, deadly
little hoodlum called Wee Willie Wallace. The name was misleading; it sounded
harmless. I knew a lot about the history of Wee Willie. He was only about four
inches over five feet tall, and scrawny. A little man, but the kind of guy who
sends chills up and down your spine. He was about fifty years old, white and
unhealthy-looking, the skin of his face very smooth and an odd ugly white, as
if blanched and peeled like an almond. He combed his thin black hair straight
back, flat on his small head. The hair looked dirty. He had white flecks like
dandruff in his thin eyebrows, and the eyes of a corpse. Willie was a
professional killer. Not muscle, not the lead pipe or extortion or clever con
for Willie; he was a specialist. He killed people. He liked it. Wee Willie
Wallace was a classic case for Krafft-Ebing or Kinsey, Stekel or Freud. He had
little use for women. He detested dirty jokes, pornography, conversations about
sex. But he truly enjoyed killing, the act of killing, enjoyed it in a most
peculiar way. Stated simply, whenever Willie killed a man he achieved a sexual
climax. The blunt phallic bullet penetrating living flesh, ripping arteries and
smashing bone, held for Willie the warped intoxication of rape. He'd worked for
half a dozen mobs to my knowledge. Now he was working for Ed Grey. The other
man who'd come in with him was a stranger. I kind of wished they were all
strangers. And I decided to go. I'd learned all I was going to learn here
anyway. At least for now. I waved my gun toward the wall and Wee Willie and the
other guy moved over there quietly. Then, finally, Grey spoke. "Take a good
look at this bastard," he said, and his voice was like ice breaking up in
Alaska. "Pass the word around. Next time you see him, no matter where it is,
kill him." I started wondering how I'd get outside. Once on the road, in the
Cad, I'd take my chances. But I wanted out in the open, not cooped up in here
with no telling how many more of Grey's guns handy. I looked around the office.
As far as I could tell, the only way Grey could get in touch with people
elsewhere in the club was by using the phone on his desk. So I said to him,
"Pull that phone cord loose." "You go to hell, punk." "Ed," I said quietly,
moving the gun around until it was pointed straight at him. "I'm not like you.
I need a very good reason for shooting a guy. You're not there yet. But you're
very close. The phone, Ed." He burned. For a while he didn't move, just burned
and glared at me. Then with a convulsive movement he grabbed the wire, yanked
it free. I stepped to the door. "All of you stay in here for a while," I said.
Then I jumped into the hall, slammed the door shut. And stood there. I even
moved a little closer to the door, gun held not quite six feet up its front. It
took about two seconds. Then the door was yanked open and Wee Willie Wallace
started to leap into the hallway. A snub-nosed .38 revolver was in his hand,
but it wasn't pointed at me. It wasn't going to point at me. He stopped so
suddenly his feet slipped and he cracked into the doorframe. I had to lower my
Colt to get it pointed at his head, but that took no time at all. Willie froze.
He started looking even sicker than usual. He loved killing, yes; but the idea
of getting killed, no. When he'd first jumped toward the hallway his lips had
been loosely pulled apart, a fleck of saliva on the lower one, and there had
been something like a light in his eyes. But the light went out, those eyes
actually seemed to die. The eyes of a corpse get a kind of gray film over them,
sink into the skull; that's what seemed to happen to Willie's eyes. He rolled
them sideways in his pasty white face, sideways toward the bore of my gun. I
said, "You want to be with Danny, don't you?" He didn't quite turn green, but
he changed color. "Back in there," I said. "And _stay_ in there." Willie's
breath hissed through tightly pressed lips like gas leaking from a balloon. He
backed inside, slammed the door shut. I put my gun away and strolled through
the club. Snatches of conversation floated to my ears. A young guy and girl
were sitting at a table. She reached over and hit him lightly on the lips with
her fingers. He, agonized: "Hey, you hurt me on the damn _mouth._" She,
shocked: "Oh! You said a naughty word. I'll never speak to you again." He,
repentant: "Let's have another drink, honey." She: "Oh, what the hell." And at
another table, two men talking, one saying, "Then, just as I started getting
hot, I went broke." I reached the front door, went through it. The doorman
nodded at me, and smiled. I headed for my Cad. It was just like taking a walk.



* * *



*EIGHT* At ten-thirty Monday morning I was driving up Poinsettia in Medina,
nearing Webb's home. I had found out that mail was delivered in this area at
about eleven a.m. In the next delivery the films Webb had taken in Hawaii
should arrive -- and I meant to get them. At the beginning they hadn't seemed
very important, but now it was likely they could bring a lot more order into
what was rapidly becoming compounded confusion. First, of course, I had to get
the films. There was a lot of water in the street near Webb's place. A police
car was parked at the base of the stone steps. About half a block this side of
the house a man and woman stood at the edge of the road. I pulled to a stop and
leaned out. "What's going on up there?" The man spoke. "Had a fire last night."
He pointed. "Where Mr. Alden lived." "What time was that?" "Three, four this
morning. Quite a bit of excitement for a while. Sirens, fire engines. They got
it out before it burned the place down." That was all he knew. I thanked him
and drove ahead, parked behind the police car. It was empty. I walked up the
steps, knocked. A plainclothes officer came to the door and I was happy to see
it was Dugan. He shook his head when he saw me. "Shell, you're sticking your
neck out coming here. Farley thinks you set the fire." "He probably thinks I
burned Rome. What's the story?" He glanced around, then gave me the info. The
fire had been incendiary, set by somebody. It had started in the studio and
darkroom, consumed almost everything in there and part of the bedroom before
firemen arrived and put the blaze out. I said, "What was destroyed?" "About all
the photographic equipment, files, some statues and stuff Alden picked up one
place and another." "Including a lot of prints and negatives." "Yeah." He
grinned. "I read the magazine myself. Hate to think of all those pretty
pictures going up in smoke." "You're not alone." I hated it more than he did,
and for a different reason. I was thinking especially of twelve transparencies
and prints from which featured gatefolds had been made. "I'd like to take a
look. Okay?" Dugan was uneasy. "Farley's out back somewhere. He sees you, he'll
have a hemorrhage." "That wouldn't drive me wild with grief. But it'll only
take a minute." He hesitated. So I said, "I think I know why the place was
torched." He frowned. "Yeah? Give, then. Why?" "You won't believe me." "Try me
out." I shrugged. "Four freckles." He didn't believe me. But he jerked his
head, saying, "Make it snappy," and I went in. I crossed the smoke-darkened and
water-stained living room, stopped in the studio. It was a wreck, as was the
darkroom. There'd be nothing useful to me here now. I looked at the spot where
Webb's body had lain that night, started to turn away. Then I stopped. A large
chunk of charred wood lay on the blackened floor. It was what the fire had left
of that magnificent carved-wood Pan. At first it merely depressed me, but then
I felt a little tingle at the back of my neck. I was beginning to get it. I
thanked Dugan for letting me look, and he walked down with me to the police
car. That was the moment Farley chose to put in an appearance. "Hey!" from the
top of the steps. "_Scott,_ what the hell are you doing here?" I said quietly
to Dugan, "Thanks for keeping me from slugging that lunkhead the other night.
Keep him off me, or so help me I'll bust him one this time." I meant it, but
even as I finished speaking I changed my mind. The mail truck was in sight two
houses down the street. No, I wouldn't bust Farley one. He came storming down
the steps and stopped in front of me. Grinning, he said, "Well, I told you to
stay the hell away from here." "Oh, nuts, Farley. You can't keep me out of
Medina. I just heard about the fire -- " "I don't give a damn what you heard,
Scott." His voice wasn't raised, and he spoke slowly, but the words came out
even more slimily than usual. "If you can't keep out of my -- " Dugan broke in
quietly, "He was just leaving, Bill. I met him at the door and, uh, told him
he'd better leave." "He probably came back here and lit the place last night.
If I could prove it ... I knew we should have kept the place staked out." He
looked at me and said something else, but I didn't get the words. Looking
beyond him, I saw the mail truck pull up before Webb's mailbox, a few yards to
the rear of my Cad. The driver leaned through the truck's window, pulled the
front of the mailbox down, then pushed the incoming mail inside it and closed
the box again. I saw some letters or bills. And two square yellow boxes, easy
to identify. In them would be two one-hundred-foot rolls of sixteen-millimeter
Kodachrome film. Webb in Hawaii. Webb after his wedding. Farley was still
talking, his voice rising a little. "...I could run you in." I'd noticed
something else, a little strange, I thought. A black Lincoln was parked across
the street, less than a block distant and facing away from us. The guy behind
the wheel had watched the progress of the mail truck, too, was still looking in
this direction. I wasn't able to make out his features. But I had a hunch if I
could get close enough I'd know him. Farley put his big hand on my arm. I shook
it away. "Keep your paws off me. And stop running off at the mouth or run me
in. But remember, you had me in that can of yours once and had to let me go.
Try that too often and you'll wind up sergeant again." His lips twitched.
"Sure. You'll have my badge. You might even ride me to Q. You're good at that,
punk." * * * *

I sure wanted to sock him. "Listen, loudmouth -- " I started, but choked it
off. "Farley, I'm not even talking about me. You keep making mistakes and it's
going to be as obvious to everybody else as it is to me."

Dugan was saying something to Farley again, but I didn't hear the words. I was
wondering how to get those films. The police would check all incoming mail,
under the circumstances. Unless I got those movies now, somehow, I wouldn't get
them at all. I walked to the Cad, sat behind the wheel. Then I took my notebook
and pen from my pocket, scribbled a fast note, waited till Farley was looking
in the opposite direction, and stepped from the Cad again. I walked rapidly to
the mailbox, opened it, grabbed the film boxes and stuck them beneath my coat,
under my arm. Farley let out a yell and came running toward me. I had the note
extended in my right hand, inside the mailbox, when he grabbed my wrist. "You
bastard," he said, veins bulging in his forehead. "What're you doing?" I didn't
tell him. I wanted him to figure it out for himself. Or, rather, to think he'd
figured it out. He snatched the note from my fingers and looked at it. His face
got red. He looked as if he might have that hemorrhage. He crumpled the note in
his hand, balled the hand into a large fist, even hauled it back an inch or
two. But then he controlled himself with an obvious effort. "All right, Scott,
get out of here," he said, almost quietly, but his voice sounding as if it were
ripping his throat. "You don't know how lucky you are. Once more, you mess in
this again, I'll fix you myself. One way or another." He ran his tongue over
his lips, but the lips stayed dry. "Beat it." I walked to the Cad. He didn't
stop me. The films felt like a scorpion under my arm. All I had written was:
"Dugan -- if that bone-brained ass Farley is stupid enough to run me in again,
call EXbrook 7-8669. Ask for Dr. Paul Anson. He's a psychiatrist. Eight to five
we can get Farley committed." It wasn't particularly clever. Dr. Anson isn't
even a psychiatrist. But it had worked. Parley hadn't asked me if I'd taken
anything _out_ of the mailbox. I drove down the street, turned around in a
driveway and drove back past Webb's. Farley glared at me. I grinned at Farley.
The black Lincoln was still in the same spot. I slowed as I went by. Two men
were in the front seat of the car, but not looking at me. Looking the other
way. I was going fast enough for the tires to skid, and I hit the brakes hard,
leaned on the horn. In the middle of the tire-shrieking and horn-blasting I
yelled, "Look _out!_" Cooperatively, they looked out. Out at me, faces leaping
practically apart. The one on this side yelled, "Hey-HAA!" which didn't really
mean a thing, except that he was more than a little startled. His lips damn
near flew off his face. Yep, again. Slobbers O'Brien. The other flying-apart
face was on the chap I'd seen with Wee Willie Wallace in Grey's office last
night. I drove on. They didn't follow me. Probably they were sitting there
waiting for their pants to dry out. * * * *

In downtown L.A. I drove along Broadway past Third Street, parked in a lot
between Third and Fourth, and walked back to the Hamilton Building carrying the
sixteen-millimeter movie projector and screen I'd rented. Up one flight in the
Hamilton is the office: Sheldon Scott, Investigations. I picked up the
newspaper from the bench outside my door, unlocked the office and went inside.

I'd been here yesterday, briefly, to feed the guppies in their ten-gallon tank
on top of the bookcase, and now I sprinkled some more dried daphnia on the
water's surface, watched the fish leap and frisk about. Several little baby
guppies leaped and frisked with them. Guppies are viviparous, live bearers,
breeding all the time. Not like those damned egg-laying neons. I set up the
projector and screen, darkened the office and started the film, settled back in
my swivel chair. The first reel was tourist stuff, waving palms, vivid blue sea
and white beaches, a fern forest. Expertly done, but not especially interesting
to me at this point. But the last fifty feet of the second reel was
interesting. It was the _luau_ and after-the-wedding shots. I ran it three
times. The only person I knew or recognized was Webb himself. There was one
shot of him, probably taken by his bride, wobbling and clear off center as --
for some weird reason -- films and snapshots taken by women almost invariably
are. But Webb was waving one arm, laughing, talking and gesticulating
energetically, some kind of drink in a pineapple held in his other hand. It
made me feel, for a moment, a cool rush of sadness when I saw how very happy
he'd looked. But I shook the feeling off and concentrated on the rest of it. It
was easy to pick out, from the action in the films, the man who'd performed the
marriage. Webb had said it was a civil ceremony, so the man wouldn't be a
minister, though he held a black Bible; probably he was a justice of the peace
or judge. He was tall, even thinner than Webb, black-haired and black-browed,
even dressed in a black suit, but nodding and smiling. Half a dozen guests, no
more than that. The cooked pig and other food on big leaves. And Webb's brand
new young wife. There were two brief shots of her. In one her hands were over
her face, back to the camera. The other was, again, a shot of her retreating
back. She wore a brightly-splashed blue and yellow dress. Not much help. But at
least I knew where to get the help now. All I had to do was locate one or more
of those guests, or the man who'd performed the marriage, in Hawaii. From them
I could find out for sure who the girl was, at least what she looked like; they
could identify her. I still didn't know where the marriage had taken place, but
I felt sure there'd be records somewhere in the Islands. And, of course, that's
where it had all started. Everything kept pointing back to Hawaii. The films
told me one more thing about the girl Webb had married. Her hair was black. I
took out my list again. Spring, blondes; Summer, redheads; Autumn, brunettes;
Winter, black hair. Winter: December, January, February. Raven McKenna, Loana
Kaleoha, and Dorothy "Dottie" Lasswell. I hadn't seen or talked to Loana or
Dottie yet. The phone number and address I had for Dottie were San Francisco
numbers, and I had called without success. Now I tried once again and got her.
And got the same story I'd received from other Wow girls: she had read about
Webb's death, but it couldn't possibly have anything to do with her; she didn't
know anything about his marriage. Dottie had been working for the last month,
she said, at Bimbo's 365 Club, the theatre-restaurant on Columbus Avenue in San
Francisco. I hung up and tried to get Loana again, in Honolulu, but without any
luck. She and Pagan Page were now, of the twelve girls, the only ones I hadn't
talked to. If they, when I did manage to question them, denied knowledge of
Webb's marriage or murder ... what then? It would mean that one of the twelve
had lied to me. Probably one of the black-haired gals -- three out of twelve, I
was thinking. But then I remembered Sue Mayfair. Blackie. Blackie? She was
September, Autumn, a brunette. I picked up the phone, dialed her apartment.
When she answered I said, "Shell here, Blackie." "Oh, hello. Come on over. I'm
practicing." "You're -- ah. I want to ask you a question." "Ask it here."
"This'll only take a minute. It ... would take longer there. Look, in _Wow!_
you're pictured as a brunette. How come?" "I was a brunette then. Any more
questions?" I frowned. Women are so ... so simple sometimes, I thought. "Yes,"
I said, "but how come your hair's black now?" "I dyed it." See? Simple. I said,
"Why?" "I need a reason?" I said, "Goodbye, Blackie," giving up. "Hey, wait a
minute. Aren't you coming over?" "I can't at the moment." "When will I see
you?" "Soon, I hope. But I'll be out of town for a few days." "Where?" "Hawaii.
Not for long, though." "Oh, Hawaii! Wish I were going." "Come to think of it,
so do I. But I'll give you a call when I get back." "Don't miss the Anniversary
Party." "Don't you worry! I'll be there." I thought about it and added,
"Somehow." "And I don't want you looking at any other women at the party." "I
... well, now. Under the circumstances, I can hardly ... that's not very -- "
"Oh, silly." She laughed merrily. "I was kidding. Of course you'll look. That's
the whole idea." "Blackie, I have some serious thinking to do..." "Well, _do_
it. 'Bye." She hung up. Ah, nuts, I thought. You can't win with these babes.
Then I smiled. But it sure is fun losing. From my desk I got a pen and some
sheets of paper. When I'd told Blackie I had some serious thinking to do, I had
been serious. That figures. But I intended now to line up everything I knew or
had guessed, including what I'd come up with this day, jot down all the salient
points of the case and see what they looked like on paper. Often when you get a
problem down in writing it's easier to put the separate pieces together and get
a logical answer. Besides, once it's written, you don't have to hold all the
pieces in your conscious mind -- and on many occasions your subconscious, or
unconscious, will dredge up the truth and ease it into your waking thoughts.
It's a technique I've often tried; it works. And I like to think that's why
some people call me the Unconscious Detective. Before beginning I called L.A.
International Airport and asked for space on the first flight to Hawaii I could
get. A jet was leaving at eight in the morning, and I reserved a seat. Then I
started writing. I began with the information Webb had told me -- marriage in
Hawaii, to one of the Wow girls, flight home, kidnap and ransom call -- added
the time of my arrival at his home, and his murder, Friday night. I made a
separate note about the big wood carving of Pan he'd brought back with him,
used in the photo he'd taken immediately before his murder, the Pan now
destroyed by fire. A paragraph covered the photo itself, the freckles, the loss
of it in the Parisienne alley when Ed Grey's hoods had jumped me. I hit all the
other high points, then to it all added my list of the twelve names. I had by
now, after personal investigation and for the most convincing reasons,
eliminated September's Blackie, October's Jeannette, and August's Charlie. For
other reasons I had eliminated Eve and Candy, Janie and Alma. Heavy lines were
drawn through all seven of those names. Of the five remaining I had talked to
all except Pagan and Loana, and the three I'd talked to had either cleared
themselves, or lied. I noted that info after the appropriate names, and after
Pagan Page I wrote "Missing from Algiers since the 14th." The last notation I
made was "The girl in the film taken after Webb's wedding has black hair.
Possibly dyed. Nuts." I had several ideas, pretty fair conclusions, I thought,
and I wrote some of them down. But mainly all I was trying to do now was line
up the facts. That I did, and as thoroughly as I could. I studied the whole
thing for a while, the picture getting clearer. Then I folded the pages and
stuck them into a desk drawer. Before leaving I glanced through the newspaper.
On the second page was a story about the discovery of a man's body in an alley
near the Club Parisienne. Apparently he'd been found too late for the story to
get into the paper yesterday morning. With the peculiar logic of newspapers,
the two-column cut heading the report was a picture of Jeannette Dure. The
excuse was that she had been doing her act a few feet away at about the time
the man must have met his death. The implication was that he might have come
out of the club for air and died happy. I read on. The dead man was an
ex-convict, Daniel Axminster. Police were investigating. There was no mention
of Ed Grey. But neither was there mention of Shell Scott, so I came out ahead.
I flipped the pages, but nothing else interested me -- until I reached, oddly
enough, the movie section. Halfway down a column titled "Hollywood Highlights,"
a familiar name caught my eye: Orlando Desmond. The paragraph stated: "Your
reporter has _another_ exclusive for you today!" Needless to say, "Hollywood
Highlights" was written by a woman. The paragraph continued: "Orlando Desmond,
singing sweetheart of millions, and Raven McKenna, rising Magna starlet and
former model, were secretly married in Las Vegas six months ago. Love blossomed
between them when both were appearing at Las Vegas' Hotel Algiers, and
immediately after their Algiers engagement they were married in the 'Little
Church on the Strip.' Following the ceremony, the lovebirds flew to Mexico City
for their honeymoon. When surprised by your reporter early this morning -- "
I'll bet they were surprised, I thought -- "thin and lovely Raven -- " I had it
on good authority that our reporter weighed two hundred and twelve pounds --
"said, 'I'm glad it's out. Now we can stop pretending.'" I read that line
twice. Then I read on, "Handsome heartthrob Orlando merely said, 'Give us a
break.' Shed a tear, girls -- and boys. That's Hollywood!" To nobody in
particular I said, "That's Hollywood!" Married, huh? No wonder he'd been able
to be so "helpful." I remembered, too, those glances between them, as if they'd
had secrets I didn't share. But it figured. Both of them had been in the same
show, and I had a rough idea of what Raven's act must have looked like. I'd
seen part of Charlie's and, though delightful, she wasn't really in the same
class with Raven McKenna. Besides which, Orlando would have been on the _stage_
with Raven. No wonder "Love blossomed between them." That's Hollywood! I added
this new info to my four pages of notes, left the newspaper on my desk, and
locked the office. I drove to Medina. When Desmond answered the door he looked
even more sleepy and tired than he had the last time I'd been here. He said
dully, "Oh, Scott." As if he wanted to hit me on the head with a beer bottle.
"You might as well come in. Everybody else has." He was wearing a Chinese silk
robe, and an air of impending collapse. In the living room he said, "I suppose
it's about that damned column this morning." "Yeah. Just thought I'd check at
the source. I'll be out of here in a minute, Desmond." "Good." Raven came in
from what I guessed was the bedroom. She was wearing a robe, too, shimmering
white cloth hanging like a Grecian tunic and held together by a blue cord at
her waist. Thin -- hah. "Hello, Mr. Scott." She smiled wearily. "I'll bet I can
guess why you're here. Well, it's all in 'Hollywood Highlights.'" "It's true,
then." "Of course. I told that prying old bat -- " she smiled stiffly -- "that
dear reporter, I was glad she'd snooped out the story. And I am. Now we can
stop sneaking around, pretending to be just good friends." She looked at
Orlando, her eyes soft. "I'll get out of your way," I said. "But as long as I'm
here, you might be able to give me a little help in another direction, Miss
McKenna. I mean, Mrs. Desmond." "Sure." She looked at Orlando again. "Mrs.
Desmond. It's about time I heard that." I said, "Do you know any of the other
girls who were featured in the magazine? And went on to the Algiers?" "A
couple. Why?" "How about Pagan Page?" She shook her head, black hair brushing
the white of her robe. "No, I never met her." I looked at Desmond, and he also
shook his head. "How about the Hawaiian girl? Loana." "I met her the night I
left. The last night in January. There was a big party at the Algiers, and she
was there. She started the next day, you know." "Uh-huh. Can you tell me
anything else about her? Did she stay in California long?" "I don't know any
more, Mr. Scott. She was at the party. We said hello, that's all." Raven
paused. "She's very beautiful, and seemed awfully nice. But that's really all I
know." Desmond had nothing to add. He hadn't even caught her act. "We ... had
other things on our minds," he said. "Did you want to see the girl?" I nodded.
Raven said, "You'll have to go to Hawaii." "Yeah, I know." Desmond said, "I
gave you her address there. But she's working now at the _Pele._ Just started."
"_Pele?_ That's Ed Grey's club, isn't it?" "Yes." "How come she's at Grey's
place?" "Why not? Several of the other girls have done shows at the _Pele._
They've all put in a month at the Algiers, you know -- most of them jump at the
chance for an expense-paid trip to Hawaii. And Loana lives there; her home's in
Honolulu." "Makes sense." It did. I thanked them and stood up to go, but
Desmond said, "The reason I asked, Scott, you'll be able to meet Loana if you
want -- and all the rest -- at the party next week." "I'm afraid I can't wait
that long. But it is still on?" "Yes. Saturday night at Sy Whittaker's place
here. I can get you in. Should be worth seeing." He paused then, sort of
glowering, looked at Raven. "Damn it, I don't like the idea of your being
there. You know what I mean!" "You didn't mind before," she said. "That was
before!" "Well, I can't back out now." There was a little friction building up,
but then Raven laughed merrily, realizing what she'd just said. The expression
had been apt. "Well," Desmond said shortly, "we've got to get back to bed." His
mouth pulled down at the corners. "I mean, we've been kept up half the night
with this thing." "Thanks again. I may take you up on that Saturday invitation.
If ... I'm around." His mouth pulled down again. He glowered at Raven. Then he
glowered at me. I left. The next step, I thought, was Hawaii. It had all
started there in the Islands; records would be available for inspection there.
Maybe I could locate that judge, or a wedding guest. The _Pele_, Ed Grey's
nightclub, was near Honolulu. Besides, Loana was there. And I was looking
forward to meeting Loana.



* * *



*NINE* Before turning in that night I stepped down the hall and knocked on Dr.
Paul Anson's door. Paul is the doctor I'd mentioned in my note which Farley had
grabbed. Not a psychiatrist -- though well up on things psychiatric -- he's an
M.D., a movie-colony doctor. Which is to say his patients number many Hollywood
personalities. Which is also why he's well up on things psychiatric. He's also
a good friend of mine, very lively outside the office. I heard his footsteps,
then the door opened. "Shell," he said. "Run out of bourbon again?" He was tall
and rangy, with a faint resemblance to John Wayne, which resemblance he did all
he could to make less faint. "Nope," I said. "Favor." I had the projector and
two reels of film in one hand, screen in the other. "I'm flying to Hawaii in
the morning. Would you hang onto these things for me?" He looked at them. "Ah,
feelthy movies. Of course." "They are _not_ feelthy movies. They're clues.
Somebody just might blow up my rooms while I'm gone, and these with it." "Glad
your rooms are down the hall, pal." He took the stuff from me. "And would you
look in on the neons a time or two?" "Haven't those little devils cooperated
yet?" I shook my head sadly. "No. I've ... done everything I can." He laughed.
"No mother could have done more. I'll watch them. And I'll feed them all for
you. Of course, you'll have to pay. Bring me back a hula skirt." "Done." "Any
nice skirt will do, just so she can hula." "Doctor, you ask the damnedest -- "
"No, seriously, a real hula skirt. One of those grass things. Little gal I know
is going over on the Matsonia next month. Wants to learn to hula _first_.
Crazy." "I'll bring a couple -- you can learn with her." I left him beaming.
Obviously that thought had not occurred to him. * * * *

The Pan-American jet took off from L.A. International at eight the next
morning, Tuesday the eighteenth. Barely more than five hours later we were over
Oahu, coming in to a featherlight landing at Honolulu International Airport.
With California still on Daylight-Savings-Time foolishness, there was a
three-hour time difference, and it was ten-fifteen a. m. in Honolulu.

In the Cloud Room inside the small terminal I had a cup of rich coffee and
ordered ham and eggs. When the waitress brought the breakfast to my table,
there was a small, delicately colored vanda orchid on my plate. It seemed to
start the day right, to say in a friendly way, "Welcome to the Islands." I had
brought along with me a small photo of Webley Alden, and magazine reproductions
of photos of all twelve Wow girls. Some of those twelve shots, which I'd cut
from various magazines, weren't very good, but they were the best I'd been able
to get my hands on, and much better than nothing at all. Even the ones -- such
as Loana's -- in which the faces were veiled by shadows or partly turned from
the camera, would be enough for identification, I thought. That is, if I found
anyone who had actually seen the girl with Webb, or at the wedding. I talked to
my waitress and others, numerous airline employees, men at the baggage counter
and ticket window, showed my pictures. But nobody remembered Webb or any of the
girls. I grabbed a cab and headed for a look at the fiftieth state, at the
streets of Honolulu, the sands and sea of Waikiki. At people and places, a
judge, maybe. And Loana Kaleoha. The cab driver took me from the airport up
Kamehameha Highway and into Dillingham Boulevard, and I began feeling buoyed up
and energetic, enjoying the ride. The first really strong impression I got was
of the remarkably clean air. Clean, clear, sweet. Lining streets we drove along
were lovely bright flowers, trees in blossom, thin-trunked coconut palms with
leafy fronds swaying like hula skirts in the wind. The trees and flowers were
colorful as guppies, some even as bright and vivid as neons. And I couldn't
help wishing it wasn't a case that had brought me here, wasn't murder and
ugliness. That I was here for fun, to lie on warm sands, ride and walk the
streets, swim, drink in the bars and clubs. But I got out of the cab on the
corner of Queen Street and Punchbowl Street at the civic center in Honolulu,
and walked into the Kapuaiwa Building -- the Board of Health Building. The
Bureau of Health Statistics was on the first floor. No flowers for me there. A
bright young guy with a happy smile gave me all the cooperation I could have
hoped for. But no help. There simply wasn't any record of Webley Alden's
marriage. I asked him, "What if it was on one of the other islands? Kauai or
Hawaii, say. Would the records be on those islands?" He shook his head. "By now
they should be on file here." "I know he was married here somewhere. I remember
he said it was a civil ceremony. Maybe a justice of the peace -- " He was
shaking his head again, smiling. "We have no justices of the peace here. If it
was a civil ceremony it could have been performed by a circuit court judge or
district court magistrate commissioned to perform marriages." I left, puzzled.
And a little worried. I knew Webb had been married on August thirteenth. And
somewhere here in the Islands. That should have been all I needed to know. I
found a phone. In twenty minutes, by calling one hotel after another, I learned
where Webb had stayed while here. A Webley Alden had been registered at the
Hawaiian Village Hotel for a week, from August sixth through the night of
August twelfth. That checked out all right. But it also made it appear that
he'd spent all his time in or near Honolulu. I headed for the Hawaiian Village.
The cab drove slowly past the shiny aluminum dome at the entrance to the big
pink hotel, along a cool tree-shaded drive into a lavish profusion of tropical
planting, trees, brilliant flowers. The driver curved around, let me out at the
entrance. Coconut palms seemed everywhere, fronds waving overhead against the
blue sky. The beauty of the hotel and grounds was stunning. So was the beauty
of the girl behind the desk. She was dark-skinned, dark-eyed, dark-haired, as
so many of the women were here. A red hibiscus blossom was behind her right
ear. Some members of a convention had just left, a day early, and I had no
trouble getting a room. As I signed the registration card an idea started
growing. The girl behind the desk was the one I'd talked to on the phone. I
asked her if I could see Mr. Webley Alden's registration card, and after a few
more words she found it, handed it to me. I took Webb's check from my wallet,
put the wallet back. It was the check for a thousand dollars which he'd made
out to me -- how long ago? Five nights ago now. I compared his signature on it
with the one on the registration card. They were the same. And another idea
died a-borning. I jammed the check into my trousers pocket, wondering what was
wrong. Something was goofy about all this. I couldn't pull the threads
together. They floated in my mind like cobwebs. And I had the odd feeling that
I knew enough now. If I looked at the picture in just the right way I'd see it
all. The pictures, including the one of Webb, didn't do me any good here,
either. I showed them around, asked questions, then followed a bellboy up to my
room. I flopped on the bed, pulled the phone over on my chest, and called the
_Pele._ Loana was appearing there nightly now. This would be her fourth night.
She wasn't there at this hour, but I had her home phone number. I tried it out.
She was home, just getting ready to leave, she said. I couldn't tell much about
her on the phone, except that her voice was low and sweet and soft. I told her
who I was and mentioned Webley Alden's name. She asked me how he was. "He's
dead," I said. "Didn't you know?" "Dead? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know." She
sounded subdued, but not greatly shocked; about what I would have expected from
someone who had not known him well. I started to tell her he'd been murdered,
but decided to let that and the rest of my questions wait until I could see
her. I said, "I'd like very much to talk to you, Miss Kaleoha." She laughed.
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's just that everyone from the mainland. pronounces
my name that way." I'd said something vaguely like: _Cal_-ee-Aha! Her
pronunciation was more like: Kah-lay-_Oh-h ..._ hah. But with a golden softness
in her tone, a fluid whisper, that made it sound like another language
entirely. But of course. It was another language entirely. She added, "Please
call me Loana." "Loana." It rolled pleasantly on my tongue. "Could I meet you
somewhere today?" "Well, I..." She hesitated. "I've so many things to do this
afternoon. Would tonight be all right? At the _Pele?_" "Fine." "If you'd like.
I'll see that you have a good table. We could talk after one of my shows. I'm
on at nine and eleven." "Nine okay?" "Of course. You'll have a table reserved.
Just give your name to Chuck at the door. Nine, then, Mr. Scott." I knew that
Ed Grey owned the _Pele_, and it didn't seem a good idea to let any of the
people there know in advance that Shell Scott was going to drop in. Not all, of
course, but some of the _Pele_ employees might be like some of the Algiers
employees. So I said, "Would you mind having that table held simply for a
friend? I mean, without mentioning my name?" "Well ... all right. Just tell
Chuck you're the man I was expecting." "Right. By the way, call me Shell."
"Till tonight, then, Shell." We hung up. I know there's no explanation of it in
physics textbooks, but I'd swear some kind of Loana-electricity came over the
wires and through my ear and started recharging my battery. I said, "Whoo!" and
headed for downtown Honolulu. * * * *

I spent most of the afternoon looking for and talking to judges commissioned to
perform marriages. There were only a handful of district court magistrates and
I managed to contact all but one of them. I hunted down several of the more
numerous circuit court judges. None of them had officiated at Webb's marriage;
none of them recognized his photograph. I decided to make one more call, then
get on to other things I wanted to do.

This one was a circuit court judge who had been described to me as tall and
thin, dark-haired, with a rather large beak. It sounded enough like the man I'd
seen in Webb's films that I was hopeful. I hadn't called on him yet because he
lived quite a distance out of town, well up Tantalus Drive in what I'd been
told was a realty beautiful residential area. It was inland from the city -- or
_mauka_. My driver explained that few Honolulu streets run north-south or
east-west, and directions are thus usually expressed as _mauka_, toward the
inland; _makai_, toward the sea; _waikiki_, toward Diamond Head; and _ewa_,
toward the Ewa district Northwest of Honolulu. So we headed _mauka_. I'd
noticed a car following us for a while. It didn't mean a thing to me. It was
just a brown beat-up old Chevrolet sedan that I'd seen a time or two. Maybe it
was because I was so completely out of my element, away from the hard, frantic
streets of Los Angeles, but it never occurred to me that there might be a tail
on me. Something like that seemed so unlikely here. Besides, my ham-and-egg
orchid had clearly said, "Welcome to Hawaii." The drive up Tantalus was
beautiful. The farther we went up the mountain, the greener the view became.
Trees joined branches overhead, dropping a rain of shadows in pools upon the
road. At a curve, where there was a thick carpet of green grass on our right,
and a great mass of fernlike trees and drooping plants that looked exotic to
me, I asked the driver to stop. Hell, _grass_ looks exotic to me. I got out,
wondering why I'd been pounding cement in smog-smothered Los Angeles when all
the time _this_ had been here. I walked over the grass toward the drooping
exotic things. The brown Chevy passed my parked cab. In a minute I heard the
dash of gears, as if the Chevy were maneuvering, turning around. I fingered the
exotic item. The little leaves were soft, smooth. I felt like eating a hunk of
it. Man, I was really about to go Hawaiian. But then I straightened up. This
was a fine way for me to be mincing about. Back to work, I thought. But the
work came back to me. The Chevy was moving fast as it returned down Tantalus
Drive. I was halfway across the grass, walking toward the cab, when the other
car came level with me. The rear window of the sedan was open and a guy sat in
back. Something long and tabular was sticking out of the window. I thought idly
that it looked a bit like a long bean-shooter. But not even in the
flower-smelling state I'd sunk to could I fail to recognize murder when I saw
it. Especially when the guy to be murdered was me. Perception was delayed a
little, but it came. Awareness didn't just filter into my brain. It slammed in.
It rammed my brain and nerves like a hammer. I dug one foot into the grass,
snapped my leg and leaped, diving for the ground. The rifle cracked while I was
in the air and the slug whispered past my head. I hit the grass skidding, had
the Colt in my hand as I heard the car's engine-whine sing higher. Another slug
spat from the rifle. It hit the grass a foot in front of my face. The cold burn
was all through me, in my gut, chilling my face, pulling at my nerves. I took
my time. My glance fell over the hammer of my gun, the sight, touched the car.
Gently I squeezed the trigger. Already the Chevy was too far from me, but I
thumbed back the hammer for the shade of extra accuracy that would give me,
eased my finger down on the trigger again. The crack of my shots was somehow
not loud here, perhaps muffled by the massed growth of shrubbery and trees.
Echoes came back to me. The car was gone, fishtailing around a curve a hundred
yards away. I felt fairly sure I hadn't hit anyone in the car. Might have hit
the car itself, but I couldn't even be certain of that. On my knees, I looked
at the brown furrow in the grass. And I shook my head hard. I'd been off guard,
for sure. It wouldn't happen again. Bean-shooter, huh? Well, in a way it was.
That bastard had been shooting at me, and he'd been aiming at my bean. Only
then did it filter in. Shooting at me -- here? Why shoot at me? Who in Hawaii
wanted to kill me? One thing was sure: somebody here did, really did, want to
kill me. I went back to the very frightened cab driver, mumbled an unbelieved
explanation. We drove a little farther up Tantalus Drive and I talked to the
judge. He wasn't the one. He was just a tall thin guy with a large beak.



* * *



*TEN* Late in the afternoon I took a cab up fashionable Kalakaua Avenue, the
main street of Waikiki, to the International Market Place. The Market Place is
not a building, but an open-air area of green grass and curving walks, many
shops and booths and clubs. And it is what its name implies: International.
Facing it from Kalakaua, I looked at the totem poles on my left, garishly
painted, contorted faces carved upon them. Farther left and extending from the
Avenue into the grounds was Don the Beachcomber's Bora Bora Lounge, in which --
according to a sign outside it -- was the famous Dagger Bar. On my right was
the first of many little stores and shops. This one was Polynesian, crammed
with idols, wood-carvings, jewelry in glass cases, a model outrigger canoe in
the front window. Beyond it, all around and in the Market Place, were other
booths and shops, Korean, Japanese, Hawaiian, Philippine, and more. Directly
ahead as I looked in from the Avenue, and about fifty feet away, was a huge
banyan tree. Its massive gnarled trunk was centered in the open space between
the shops, and its great canopy of leafy limbs formed a roughly oval shape
above. Dozens of aerial roots grew from its branches and extended down to the
ground below, forming other smaller trunks. Beneath the tree was a small pool,
an attractive Japanese-type bridge over it, a plume of water dancing in its
center. And there appeared to be something up in the tree. It looked almost
like a little house up there. A tree house? In the heart of Waikiki? I walked
closer for a better look. This I had to see. At the tree's base was a painted
wooden sign. Beyond the sign there was a wood-and-bamboo gate about two feet
wide and four or five feet high. A chain was looped around a post of the gate,
a padlock through the chain's links. And, believe it or not, beyond the gate
reed-enclosed wooden steps led clear up into the banyan's limb to -- a tree
house. I could see it up there, maybe four feet by eight feet and six or seven
feet in height, a peaked roof above the walls. I wondered if somebody lived up
there. I read the sign. It said: TREE HOUSE

Stairway to

The World's Most Exclusive Restaurant

Created for those in love with love

CAPACITY 2

High in the giant banyan tree you taste

Succulent cuisine prepared by master chefs

And sip nectar of the gods while peoples of

The crossroads of the world stroll below.

For Information: Phone 937-377

Ask for: Don the Beachcomber "himself"

Somehow that sign, the little tree house, gave me the biggest kick I'd had
since reaching Hawaii. I didn't have the faintest idea who Don the Beachcomber
was, had never met him, but any guy with the wildness and imagination to build
a couple-sized restaurant up in a tree in the heart of Waikiki ... well, he got
my vote. That little house made me think of the vanda orchid on my plate this
morning, the blazing orange-red poinsettias and delicate plumeria blossoms that
were by now familiar to my eyes. And it made me think of Loana. All I knew of
Loana was what I'd seen in a couple of photos, heard over the phone, but
somehow she seemed part of the vanda orchids and plumerias, and Don the
Beachcomber's Banyan Tree House. Three minutes later I'd talked to a handsome
young guy named Skip inside the entrance of the Bora Bora Lounge and had
reserved the Tree House for dinner this evening. It made me feel rather
expansive, reserving a whole house -- a whole tree for that matter. I paid in
advance, just in case Loana went into shock at the sight of me, or couldn't get
away, or wasn't hungry, or didn't like tree houses. If I had to, I was going to
eat up there in that dandy little house alone -- although that thought made me
very sad. The young guy asked my name. And memory sent a bullet swift past my
ear. I said, "Just put it down as me and a friend." He put something down,
without a blink. He asked me when we'd be ready for dinner -- apparently they
actually served a marvelous dinner up there -- and I told him it would be well
after nine p.m., but probably before midnight. He explained that they liked to
have everything ready, the squab with a just-right, crisply-golden texture, the
_pupu_ marinated, the champagne chilled ... until my tongue was hanging out
moistly. By golly, I thought, if Loana can't make it I'll eat _both_ meals. I
walked on through the Market Place, soaking up the sights and sounds and
smells. Then, in a simple open booth, I saw a man working on a small carving
held in his big hand. He scraped the dark wood with a little curved piece of
metal. Around him were heads, busts, carved animals, bookends, all kinds of
carvings, all of them beautifully done. There was a small head of Pan with
features much like those on the big Pan Webb had brought back from Hawaii. I
stopped and talked to the wood-carver. He was wide-shouldered, with strong
hands and a strong face. His eyes looked as if they had seen all the secret
places of the world, and enjoyed them all. Suddenly I realized that _his_ face
was like that face of Pan, as if he'd used his own features as a model. He was
the man I'd been looking for here. "Yes, the Pan," he said, motionless but with
his hands still poised on the small carving. "I sold it to him. Didn't remember
his name." "Webley Alden. Six-three or so, thin, thirty-eight years old."
"Yes." The wood-carver nodded. "An interesting face. I'm glad he bought the
Pan. Him, not somebody else. He wasn't like most of the others." He grinned
oddly. "That one I didn't really want to sell. Much of me in that, much of me."
I thought of the Pan, charred and unrecognizable now. "The man who bought your
work is dead," I said. "He was killed." He moved for the first time, put the
little carving down. "I'm sorry." He peered up at me. "Is that why you came
here?" "Yes. When he bought the Pan, was anybody with him?" "A woman." The
little shock leaped in my nerves. I showed him my pictures. He recognized Webb
easily. But he looked at the others for a long time, then shook his head. "No.
I couldn't say. I remember ... an impression. But not enough to help you."
"Tell me anything you can. What do you remember?" He thought. "Tall, fairly
tall. Beautiful body. Beautiful. A beautiful woman." He was silent for a few
seconds. "Black hair. I'm not sure of the rest. Dark eyes, maybe. Maybe blue
... brown ... I'm not sure. But she was beautiful." "Could she have been
Polynesian? A Hawaiian girl?" "I've no idea now. I don't recall." "If you saw
her again, not just a picture. Do you think you'd recognize her?" "It's
difficult to say. So many pass by here. I might. I might not. I don't know." I
thanked him, told him I might talk to him again, and walked on. I was about to
stop for a drink and to rest my feet when I remembered the promise I'd made to
Dr. Paul Anson. Two hula skirts for Paul. Coming up. After asking at a couple
of places I was sent to a small shop loaded with jewelry and sarongs, _muumuus_
and tea-timers. They had some "grass" skirts. A Japanese girl showed them to
me. Somehow I'd expected little thin strips of grass, like weak broom straws,
but these were big, long, fat green leaves. And there were a _lot_ of them. You
couldn't see much of anything through this sort of thing. I asked the girl,
"Are they all made like this? I mean, so ... un-transparent?" She didn't
understand. So I said, "Aren't there any a little -- wispier? With more ... of
less? Ah, more revealing?" "Oh. Well, these are what most of the dancers wear."
"They are?" "Yes. When they do a hula. They're made out of _ti_ leaves."
"That's the kind I want. Tea leaves." "These are _ti_ leaves. From the _ti_
plant." Somehow we got it straightened out. There were other, more fragile
skirts available elsewhere, but these were all the girl had. I bought two of
them and the girl wrapped them neatly. Paul, I figured, could slice them up a
little before he gave them to his gal. * * * *

The Pele was clear out past Diamond Head, a big place surrounded by a lot of
palms and ferns, with several little pools over which were small arched
bridges. It was near the sea and I could hear the muffled boom of breakers. At
eight-forty-five p.m. I went inside. On my left was a long bar, crowded at this
hour. Ahead was a big room, the dining room. The smooth, polished guy inside
the dining room entrance was Chuck. I told him Loana was expecting me, and he
escorted me to a table at front and center, next to the dance floor.

I beamed. Loana had more than kept her word. The floor of the club was built in
tiers, ascending higher the farther the tables were from the dance floor. No
matter where customers sat, they would have a good view of the show. Not as
good as mine, however. The ceiling was thatched below the wood so that the
feeling was of being in a large and luxurious beach shack. Around the walls
were spears and clubs, some paintings of island scenes, fish nets and oddly
shaped lamps made from shells. Candles, most of them lighted, were on each
table. The room was nearly filled, and the soft hum of conversation rose and
fell around me. A waiter wearing a white jacket and small plaited-straw hat
handed me a menu. I looked over the list of drinks and, with the feeling that
this was not a night for great caution, ordered a Panther's Blood. I didn't
order any food. Blood would hold me till Banyan time. My drink arrived in a
tall highly polished tube of bamboo. A flower was sticking up out of the top.
Even as I looked, the flower wilted. That should have warned me. It didn't.
Gayly I glugged, thirstily, in manly fashion, about half the drink. It went
down like a two-hundred-proof transfusion. I rose two inches off my chair and
said, "_Hoo-hah!_" I sank back, with the definite impression that I was getting
numb all over. The waiter was still standing next to the table. Grinning. He'd
watched this happen before. A sadist. I said, "What's _in_ this curdled lava?"
"Rum," he said, "many kinds. Vodka, Cointreau, cognac, a little fresh capsicum
-- " "It's fresh, all right." " -- gin and vermouth." "Uh-huh. After it's all
made, you pour a martini on top. Nothing else in it, huh? No embalming fluid or
such?" He was still grinning. "Only the blood of a freshly-killed panther."
"You didn't kill this one; it's alive. It bit me." He walked away, rubbing his
palms together like a mad scientist. Maybe he'd made the drink; maybe he _was_
a mad scientist. If anybody wanted something more potent than this, I thought,
the waiters would have to go around with big loaded hypodermics, jabbing the
customers. There just couldn't _be_ anything more potent than this. But there
was. I didn't know it right then, but there was. Loana. The lights dimmed. I
shoved my drink clear across the table, thinking I was already going blind, but
it was showtime. A Polynesian M.C. came onto the floor; a spot fell on him. He
talked a little, sang a little. A small girl about five feet tall did a
six-foot hula. A Japanese girl sang a song almost entirely through her nose.
And then the M. C. said, "Ladies and gentlemen, _malihinis_ and _kamaainas -- _
our lovely Loana." She came on. She wore a pale blue _holomuu -- _ the
clinging, fitted gown which many Hawaiians wear, smooth over breasts and waist
and hips, descending gracefully to the floor. The musicians, well to the rear
of the floor, played a song I'd never heard before. Soft, lovely, a little sad.
This was a Hawaiian dance, a hula, not Tahitian. The floor was bare, the
illumination like bright moonlight. And Loana moved like music. Hips slowly
swaying, arms flowing, hands seeming to melt through the air. Her long black
hair floated behind her head and brushed her shoulders and I could see her lips
move as she silently mouthed the words of the song. She was that rare thing, an
entertainer who not only entertained but captured. She was magic, her movements
quicksilver and moonlight, soft as winds, smooth as darkness, as she wove a
spell around the audience, around me. All that from just swinging hips and
moving arms, from rippling hands, and fingers? All that, and more. The hula,
when expertly done, always has a little of that special Polynesian beauty and
charm that is in no other dance; but with Loana it was the true, authentic
magic. My eyes were on her, on her shadowed face and body, but around her I
imagined sea and surf at night, sand beneath her bare feet, trade winds in
sighing palms. All the dances of all the dark-skinned girls with flashing eyes
-- from the old, old days on unnamed islands until now -- all moved in Loana's
blood, in her hips and hands and eyes. When she finished the dance she bowed
forward slightly, arms extended before her, hands touching. The applause burst
and swelled. Loana straightened, dropped her arms, and looked straight at me,
smiling. I nodded, grinned, applauded furiously. The M.C. came back. There was
more. Another song, a guy doing a comic routine. Then a bull-muscled man in a
_lava lava_ did a sword dance, sharp knives flashing as he stamped about a fire
burning in an open black-metal pot on the floor. The fire still burned there
when he left. And then Loana again. Not the Hawaiian hula this time. This time
the Tahitian dance. The tempo of the music quickened, became louder, almost
frenzied. With the beat of drums and click-click-click of wood on wood, the
drum-like plucking of strings, the gasp of horns. Loana came onto the floor
suddenly, almost running, head high, full breasts jutting forward, hips moving,
rocking, rocking to the rapid beat. Her costume wasn't the same. Now she wore
only a narrow printed cloth over her breasts, and two other strips of the same
cloth at her hips, one in front and one behind, knotted together at each side.
It was low on her hips, dipping below the navel in front, looking as if it must
fall from her, slide down her gleaming legs. Not the graceful hula this time.
This time the wild Tahitian orgy of rippling breasts and hips and thighs, the
frantic sexual attack, the hot loin-burning, lusty, Tahitian dance designed to
stir the senses, fire the blood. She moved around the floor then paused near
the fire, its flames licking redly over her quivering flesh, feet planted in
one spot but the rest of her body vibrating, throbbing, the cloth at her hips
billowing, rippling, her breasts trembling. She spun around. And suddenly it
was over. As suddenly as it had begun, she was gone. I didn't move for about a
minute. Then I called the waiter over. He stopped by me, grinning. "Another
Panther's Blood, please," I said. Five minutes later Loana walked along the
edge of the dance floor, stopped by my table. "Mr. Scott?" I stood up and
pulled out a chair. "Shell. Please sit down." She'd changed into another
_holomuu_, dark blue this time, with splashes of white on it. She sat down and
said easily, "What's that?" she was pointing at my drink. "Panther's Blood."
"Oh, dear." "Yeah. There should be a sign: Not one to a customer." She laughed
and I added, "I wasn't going to have another, but after your dances I
weakened." She smiled. "You liked my dances then." I nodded. Her smile widened.
"I noticed that you seemed ... sympathetic." "I didn't know you could see me
that well." "Yes, I was watching you almost all the time." "I didn't
realize..." "Perhaps you weren't looking at my eyes." "Yeah, uh, now that I
think back..." Where do you go from there? But now I looked at her eyes. They
were velvet, almost black, like her long thick hair. Hot eyes, but there seemed
a smile in them, too, as there was on her warm red lips. We talked for a few
minutes, always easily, never any searching for the right word or phrase. There
hadn't been any strain or unease from the moment we'd met. And I liked to
listen to her speak. Her voice on the phone had been sweet and low and soft,
but it was vibrant, golden now, coming from her lips. She laughed easily, and
it was quite a while before I remembered to mention Webb. When I did, I asked
her if she'd seen him when he was here in the Islands. "Yes, I did," she said.
"He'd just arrived, he told me. I only talked to him for a few minutes -- he
wanted to make sure I was going to be at the Anniversary Party, that was all. I
told him I would." "This was when he first got here? That would have been on or
around the sixth or seventh?" "Yes, about then." "Did he talk to you here at
the club?" "No, at my home. I've only been at the _Pele_ for four nights. I
started Saturday." "Where were you working before you came here?" "In the Surf
Room at the Trade Winds during June and July." "How about from the first of
August until you opened here?" She frowned slightly. "I didn't work. Just lazed
around home and on the beach, a little vacation." "You weren't on the mainland
at any time, then?" "No. Why?" I grinned. "Well, I guess you couldn't have
married Webb." "_Married_ him?" She smiled, puzzled. "Of course not. I'm not
married -- and I didn't know he was." "He got married on the thirteenth here.
Flew home and was killed the night after his arrival." She was silent for a
moment. "How was he killed?" "Murdered." She drew back a little, as if in
revulsion at the word. "Murdered? I thought ... an accident or something." "No,
he was shot." I talked to her for another few minutes, but she seemed unable to
give me any help. After their meeting, she'd not seen Webb again, or even heard
about him until I'd mentioned his name, she told me. I asked her about Ed Grey.
She'd met him, and of course knew he owned the _Pele_, but hadn't had anything
to do with the man during her month at the Algiers or since. She didn't like
him at all, she said. And she didn't know anything about Pagan Page. Finally I
dropped it, said to her, "You'll be at the party in Medina next Saturday,
then?" "Yes, I'll take a couple of days off, fly over and back." She smiled.
"Are you going to be there, Shell?" "If I possibly can. If I'm not, detour to
the Spartan Apartment Hotel and say hello." "Spartan?" "On North Rossmore in
Hollywood. That's where I live." "Oh." It was said with a rising and falling
inflection, like the sweep of her long lashes up and down over her dark eyes. I
asked Loana if she wanted a drink, but she said, "Not now. After my next show,
if you're still here." "I'll be here." "I don't have anything to drink while
I'm working. After the last show I usually have something before I eat."
"Dinner! Ah, that reminds me. You haven't eaten?" "No. I never eat dinner until
after the shows." "Then why not have it with me?" She looked at me for a few
seconds, then smiled. "I'd love to. Here?" "I was thinking of something more --
well, like a tree." "A what?" "Tree. There's the wildest little tree house -- "
"Oh," she laughed. "The Banyan Tree. In the Market Place." "That's it, that's
it. Have you been down -- up there?" "No, but I've seen it. Oh, it looks
charming! That would be wonderful, Shell." She reached across the table and put
her hand over mine. The last of my reservations about Loana melted away. We sat
and talked until shortly before eleven, when she had to get ready for the show.
A couple of times we danced together on the small floor, and the vibrations
from both of her previous dances must still have been in the air. In my arms
she was as soft and graceful as that Hawaiian hula, but it affected me
Tahitian. Then she left me to get ready. I sat at the table and waited for the
show. And thought about Loana. Thought of the beauty of her face and body. Of
Loana's golden voice and velvet eyes. * * * *

Later we walked through the Market Place, my arm across her shoulders, her arm
about my waist. When we got near the wood-carver's booth I thought of stopping
there, just to check, make sure Loana wasn't the woman the wood-carver had
seen. But the booth was closed, dark, and the woodcarver was gone.

So we went to Don the Beachcomber's and inside. I confirmed our reservations
for the tree, said we'd be ready in half an hour. Then we stepped across the
room to the Dagger Bar and had a couple of drinks. Loana stuck to a _Puka Puka_
and a _Nui Nui_, but not me. I started with a _Penang Afrididi_ and followed it
with a Cobra's Fang. No sense at all. Or maybe I had in some weird way a
premonition of what was going to happen. Maybe I had a kind, of feverish
feeling that this night was to be different from all the others in my life. Or
maybe I just thought if I could handle two Panther's Bloods I could handle
anything. Those two panthers down there seemed to have spied each other and
killed themselves. Or possibly I'd drowned them with the _Afrididi_ and Cobra's
Fang. Whatever, I was feeling no pain. Loana and I sat at the bar and yakked,
and grinned at each other, and had a delightful time indeed, then walked into
the adjacent Bora Bora Lounge, where our waiter was ready for us at our table.
He handed me a beautiful _lei_ made of those delicately colored and delicately
scented vanda orchids, and I put it around Loana's neck. Then she was seated in
the "Queen's Chair" -- an oversized rattan chair with huge rounded back
extending above her head -- and the waiter told me I could prepare the _pupu._
"Pupu?" He nodded, pointed. On the table was a wee charcoal-broiler gadget,
about two inches wide and three inches long. Coals, already glowing red, filled
the little _hibachi_'_s_ bottom. Placed inside a tube of bamboo were several
bamboo skewers, bits of tender meat already upon them, still in their marinade
sauce. I flopped a couple of the skewers onto the coals, feeling very jazzy,
and the waiter said, "What would you like for your complimentary drink?"
"Drink? Free?" "Yes." "I ... hadn't counted on that," I said, thinking back. I
looked at Loana. She grinned happily and shrugged. "Might as well live," I said
to her. "Might as well," she said. "Even if it kills us." "I'll have a zombie,"
she said. "Loana! You _do_ care!" She laughed. "Even if it kills me." "OK," I
said, looking at the drink list, and recklessly ordered. "Bring me a -- _a
Skull and Bones!_" The _pupu_ was done on one side and I turned it over. A tall
dark waitress wearing an Indian sari brought our drinks. We had a sip and
started on the now-just-right bits of broiled meat. They were delicious. I
piled the rest of them on. While finishing them, and more of our drinks, we
looked at the little menu listing the dinner we were about to be served in the
tree house. It made my mouth water. I looked at Loana. She looked at me. We
smacked our lips -- she delicately, me boorishly. "Let's get up there," she
said. "Call the waiter, call the waitress, let's go." We gobbled the last of
our broiled meat and had another guzzle of the drinks, waving at people. Our
waiter zipped over. In another minute we were outside, standing next to a big
carved idol lighted by the flame of a Hawaiian torch, under the Banyan Tree.
The white-turbaned waiter unlocked the little gate and went up the stairs
first, carrying a big silver tray laden with all that wonderful food, wrapped
in foil to keep it warm. Loana followed him, and I -- not being stupid --
followed Loana. The steps were solid underfoot, and on our right and left walls
of thin bamboo formed a semi-screen around us. Below, out in the open air of
the Market Place, people strolled about, looked in shops. Several were peering
up now, following our progress as best they could. Halfway up, Loana looked
back over her shoulder at me. "Isn't this exciting, Shell?" "You don't know the
half of it." After all, she was not right behind Loana. At the top of the steps
our waiter stopped on a little deck or landing, held aside strips of bamboo
beads, and nodded us inside the little house. I was startled when I followed
Loana in. The room was small -- but exquisite. Against the far wall, which was
not, of course, very far away, sat a low couch. On it were heaped soft pillows,
every shade of the rainbow. Before the couch was a low rectangular table, on
which our waiter placed the tray of food. The champagne bucket went on the
floor. Loana and I sank luxuriously into the pillows, she smiling, me grinning
happily. This, I thought, will be a night to remember. And the waiter said,
"Shall I open the champagne?" It _had_ been a night to remember, too -- until I
stepped on that damned champagne bottle. The damned champagne bottle that sent
me staggering, plunging out through the bamboo-bead curtains, clutching the
hula skirt Loana had thrown me. Out, over the rail, and down. Cracking into
limbs and things solid, whooping and grabbing at leaves.... * * * *

I had grabbed at the last leaf, snapped the last twig, and memory explosions
bloomed in my mind. Everything I'd done in these last few days whirled in a
blur through my brain. You wouldn't believe what all can whirl through your
brain when you're falling out of a tree.

Lights were flashing behind my eyes from the bangs my head had gotten, white
lights and black ones and lots of pretty colored ones. And then _smack -- _
into black. I couldn't have been out very long. Because there were all sorts of
commotion around me when the first faint light filtered back. Those scenes
which had just flitted through my mind danced there a brief moment longer,
blurred and muddled, then melted into mushy grayness. They melted away, gone
completely. I got a very queer feeling. Very queer. Something strange was
happening. A bunch of citizens were galloping around me. I didn't know where I
was or anything, and for a moment I thought maybe I was tied to a stake and
these were natives racing around the fire, about to toss me in a pot and gobble
me up. I had been slammed around so vigorously that, oddly enough, so far
there'd been merely sight without sound. Slowly, then all of a sudden, my
hearing came back. What had before been only extremely rapid motion became
howling pandemonium. Wow, the noise! It clobbered my eardrums as if they were
bongos pounded by wild savages. It was the people -- all those citizens --
shrieking and yowling and hullabalooing. It was horrendous, horrific,
astounding, like an Italian opera -- all the notes at once. There were screams
and wails and hoarse bellows. Dust was rising. But I was not. No, I was not
rising. It was then I realized I was sort of waggling limply around on the
ground beneath a tree, eyeballing those citizens. Drafts swept over me. I
didn't have any _clothes_ on. I added some notes of my own to that opera,
grabbed a green leafy thing that was nearby and hugged it to me as I got to my
knees. What the hell? I thought. And that was all. I couldn't think of anything
else to think. It swept over me clammily that I didn't know where I was. Didn't
even know _what_ I was. Then the final, ultimate horror smacked me like a gob
of wet spaghetti. I didn't even know _who_ I was. I had lost my marble!



* * *



*ELEVEN* That's what it was, all right. I had lost my mind. I was out of my
skull. I had gone cuckoo. I had milk of amnesia or whatever they call it.
Everything got very dear to me then. I could see dearly that everything was as
unclear as it could be. But I could also see the citizens plainly now --
citizens of someplace. Most likely Africa, I figured. Or the wilds of
Afghanistan. Some of the Afghanistanians were coming at me. Most of them were
going the other way. Some were jumping up in little hops, or peering at me
through wide-fingered hands. Who _am_ I? I thought. The queer thing was that I
seemed to know practically everything except that one item -- and where I was,
how I'd got here -- but that was an important item. It was as if everything
which had ever happened to _me_ had been stored in one little spot in my brain,
and that area had been attacked by spot remover. But I knew those people were
-- people. That around me were trees and buildings and so on. That I was, in
fact, sort of waggling feebly around under a huge tree going "Gah ... gah!" as
if I'd just been born here. And that I had sure as hell better stop going
"Gah!" and simply get going. What made up my mind conclusively was the
realization, which arrived with a great sinking sensation, that maybe I _had_
just been born here. Because I'd been flopping on the ground wearing my
birthday suit. Then I noticed the green leafy thing I was holding against me
for protection. Protection for _them._ It was a hula skirt. Great Scott! I
cried mentally. _I_'_m a girl!_ But, no, I wasn't either a girl. Those guys
were running at me, getting close. One of them was another of those things I
could remember: a cop. He was wearing a uniform and swinging a little club. I
also remembered what to do when a cop comes at you swinging a little club. I
did it. I Jumped up, fastening the grass skirt, speedily but securely, around
hips it had not been made to encircle, spun about and _ran._ I ran to a wide
car-clogged avenue and swung right, the sounds of pursuit behind me like the
baying of a famished wolf pack. Feet, I said, whoever's you are, go like crazy!
They were moving wildly, carrying me along like little cheetahs. In the street,
brakes squealed and horns honked. On the sidewalk ahead, open-mouthed people
faded out of my way. I charged ahead, bare cheetah-feet banging hard concrete,
grass skirt slapping my knees, then darted toward a big building on my right. I
had to get out of the street, that was sure. Over the entrance it said, "Moana
Hotel." I raced up the steps, slowed to look back. I shouldn't have slowed. It
looked like a movie of a parade run at triple speed, following me, the leader.
That cop wasn't in front, but he was close behind. With two more cops. I didn't
even stop in the hotel lobby, ran through, out into a courtyard. Wild yowling
and yelling again. Wherever I was, it was the noisiest place you could imagine.
I ran through it, dodged tables, zipped around a big tree. Ahead of me: Ocean.
At last. Now I knew what to do. I'd drown myself. I sprinted forward, felt sand
under my feet. Sand, then the cool wetness of surf. Faint in the darkness ahead
was the pale white foam of breakers. I kept running, then started swimming.
Straight out. It was night, dark and almost quiet here, stars sharp above. I
swam a long time. Then I looked back. Nobody was near me. Stretching from left
to right along the shoreline were big hotels; lights salt-and-peppered the
night, many white ones mixed like confetti with red and blue and green and
yellow ones. Right here, old man, I said to myself, you'd better do some
thinking. Was I an old man? I hadn't run like an old man. I dog-paddled a
while, and now that I was away from the madness back there, getting my wind
back, I started to think. But there wasn't much to think about. It truly was as
if I'd been born under that big tree. Everything before that blurred moment was
blank. Life began for me now, this minute. And it didn't seem, from the life
I'd lived so far, that I had much to look forward to. There wouldn't be
_anything_ to look forward to, however, if I didn't get out of this ocean. I
started swimming again, more slowly this time, angling toward shore so I would
hit the beach half a mile or so from the point where I'd left it. When I
finally felt the wet sand beneath me, I was exhausted. Whatever banging around
I'd had, the flight and long swim, had drained most of my strength from me. My
head felt broken. I sprawled on the sand and slept. When I awoke, it was still
dark. I rolled onto my back, looked up at bright stars in the black sky. And I
was suddenly awake, without any lingering fog of sleep in my mind. I remembered
what had happened -- but only from that moment under the tree until now. The
grass skirt, tightly knotted at my side, was still around my waist. But there
was nothing else, nothing to tell me who I was, where I'd come from, how I'd
gotten here. It was an empty, even frightening, awakening. I ached all over,
and my head throbbed dully in time to the beat of my heart. I started walking
along the beach. Lights of hotels were burning brightly; voices reached me in
the night. For a while I stood in shadow near a group of tables and chairs
before a small building. People were talking there, laughing and having fun.
Before long I knew I was in Hawaii, in Honolulu, on the beach at Waikiki. I
found a path between two buildings, kept walking, keeping to darkened streets
as much as possible. I was more than a little conspicuous, and didn't even know
where I was going. But I knew I couldn't just sit on the beach and wait for the
sun to come up. Not in a grass skirt. Not without knowing more, somehow
discovering a little more about myself. Soon after leaving the beach I learned
a little more. But I didn't plan it. It just happened. I had turned into a
dimly illuminated section of a street that a sign told me was Monsarrat. A
couple of cars passed, kept on going. Then another came by. It was an old brown
Chevrolet, moving fast. The driver was leaning out a front window, looking
toward me, and as the car went by he yelled, "Hey that's him!" Tires skidded on
the road as he hit the brakes. The car came to a sudden, swerving stop. Two
guys piled out of the rear and the car swung around in a U-turn, raced back the
way it had come. Alarm jumped in me. I might even have tried to run, but ahead
of me the Chevrolet slid into the curb and stopped. A man jumped out of the
front seat; another, the fourth, followed him. The last two stood on the
sidewalk facing me. I turned toward them, but twisted my head around for a
look. Ten yards away the two men who'd first left the car were trotting toward
me. Two in front, two in back. And they sure as hell didn't act friendly. The
Chevy's driver called, "Don't shoot. Keep it quiet. He can't have a gun on
him." His voice was not loud, but it carried easily past me to the others. And
I heard it. Don't _shoot?_ I looked around, glanced over the ground. There was
nothing near me I could use as a weapon or club. And nobody had to tell me I
was going to need one. Across the street, a five-foot-high brick wall extended
parallel to the sidewalk before a two-story building. As the men closed in on
me I ran toward two of them, then turned suddenly, sprinted across the street
and stopped with my back to the brick wall. One of the men let out a yell, but
the others ran after me in silence. The main advantage I'd got by running here
was that my back was protected now; but there was another benefit, too. Instead
of reaching me all at once, the men were spread out a little by the time they
got to me. That was the idea. A guy in a snap-brim hat was in the lead,
something held in his upraised hand. Two men were together behind him, and the
fourth was barely starting across the street. The man in front was a big guy,
about my size. He jumped toward me, swinging his arm down in a hard swift
motion toward my head. I could see small teeth in his open mouth, lips pulled
apart and stretched out of shape. I didn't duck. I didn't even reach up to
block the descending arm and hand. Instead I stepped forward, keeping my left
foot planted on the sidewalk and swinging my right foot ahead and around a
little in front of me as my body turned. The move pulled me just enough to my
left so that when I bent forward slightly the gun or sap in the man's hand
merely brushed my back, bouncing harmlessly from the skin. Without being aware
of it I had, when I'd first moved, thrown my right arm across the front of my
body. The hand was open, thumb pulled back from the fingers as far as I could
force it, the hard ridge of muscle at the base of my little finger tight and
ridged. As the blow bounced from my back I swung toward the man, arm whipping
away from my body, eyes following the dipping motion of his head and neck. The
force of his blow bent him forward and I aimed my swinging hand at the base of
his skull. It landed hard on his neck, with a smack like a butcher's cleaver.
He kept going down but I jerked my head toward the other two men, almost on me.
There was a little more light here and I could see them clearly enough. The one
on my left was about my height but maybe fifty pounds under my weight, with
bushy black hair and eyebrows, a big fat spread-out nose and thin lips. Light
glanced from the gun in his right hand, a big automatic pistol The other man
was short and stocky, with a wide square face. He didn't hold a gun. A
long-bladed knife was in his hand, held low, point forward and up. The first
guy I'd hit was still falling when I spun toward the other two, bringing my
right arm back, throwing it forward like a club, hand in an open fist with the
knuckles sticking out. The tall skinny guy with the gun was closer. I dropped
my right shoulder, digging the toes of my right foot against the cement, drove
my hand toward his midsection. I felt the knuckles hit his arm, bounce by and
into his stomach. A strangled sound erupted from his mouth. I clubbed him once
more, in the face this time, as that blade flashed on my right. I jerked my
body, but not quickly enough. The knife sliced across my chest, bounced from a
rib. The stocky man swung back toward me, started the knife ripping toward me
again. But the blade's point was far to my left side. I hit his wrist, forcing
it out and up, swung in toward him pivoting on my left foot and felt my hips
slam into him. I got my right foot planted on the outside of his own right
foot, pointing in the same direction as his, while my right arm went under his
left armpit, fingers clutching the back of his coat. I twisted hard to my left,
pulling with my left hand, lifting him with my right arm. He flew over my hip,
turned in the air and slammed to the street. The fourth man came out of
nowhere, hit me, sent me to my knees. He stumbled, sprawled near me. The man
I'd hit in the stomach was on all fours, the pistol on the asphalt a foot from
me. I scooped it up, dropped flat and rolled aside, yanked at the trigger. The
gun hadn't been cocked, didn't fire. I rolled again, got to my knees, the hard
asphalt grinding skin from them. But the gun was tight in my right hand. As if
I'd done it a thousand times I slapped my left hand over the top of the gun,
flipped back the slide and let it snap forward again. In the same motion I
jerked the gun's muzzle toward a man moving near me and squeezed the trigger.
The automatic jumped, the hard blast sounding like a cannon in the quiet. But
the gun hadn't been aimed close to the man. And now I saw he hadn't been coming
toward me. He was sprinting for the car. Another man, still on all fours, was
scuttling away, also toward the car. But the guy with the knife was on his feet
again. And the knife was still in his fist. He took one fast step toward me,
then another. When he was a yard away, I shot him. The big Colt was almost
touching his breastbone when I pulled the trigger. It was as if I'd braced
myself and kicked him with both feet. The impact of the heavy slug stopped his
forward movement, spun him, even sent him backward. His arms flapped loosely,
knife spinning in the air and slithering over the asphalt. He hit the street,
rolled onto his side and hung there for an awful moment, nearly motionless.
Then slowly his body turned and he settled face down against the pavement. I
swung toward movement on my right. Across the street, the Chevrolet was moving.
I hadn't even heard the engine start. The car's right rear door was open and
one of the two men who'd run had thrown himself inside. He wasn't yet all the
way in, must have fallen flat on the floor by the rear seat. His feet stuck out
past the side of the car, toes pointing downward. As the car leaped from the
curb he pulled his legs in, the door slammed shut. I raised the gun in my hand,
squeezed the trigger, heard the bullet smack into the car. I kept pulling the
trigger until the slide stop caught the slide, held it open. The gun was empty,
but I knew I'd hit the car again. It slid around a corner with tires shrieking.
For seconds longer I stood there in the street. Nearby a light went on in a
darkened building. And then impressions began to flood in on me. Street and
trees, lights, farther down Monsarrat a car's headlights glowed as it came this
way. Then it turned off. I realized that I was standing in a crouch, knees
bent, gun held before me. And that my teeth were jammed so hard together that
thin arrows of pain darted in my jaws. Slowly I straightened up, dropped the
empty gun. I looked at the man in the street, at the other man still lying face
down near the brick wall. I knew the man I'd shot must be dead. I walked to
him, though, touched him. There was a little hole in his chest, an unbelievably
big and ragged hole in his back. The bullet had torn clear through him. He'd
been dead a split second after that .45-caliber slug had touched him. I walked
to the other man, felt for the pulse in his throat. There was no pulse. His
neck was broken. I stood up, dryness in my throat, my skin cold. I raised my
hands and looked at them. They were trembling a little. And I felt as if I were
trembling the same way inside. I realized then that I hadn't been frightened
when those four men had come at me. Maybe there hadn't been time for fright,
but I'd known only a sudden alarm, a quickening of attention and perception.
Not really fright during those swift just-ended moments. But there was fright
now. It was from not knowing who the men were, why they'd come at me ... who I
was, and _what_ I was. Not even knowing how I'd been able to live through those
moments. Except for the painful but not dangerous knife slash across my chest
and side, the skin scraped from my knees, I hadn't even been hurt. I remembered
the ease with which I'd slapped back the automatic's slide, remembered the edge
of my palm cracking against the back of the man's neck -- the man now dead at
my feet. It was bad enough to know I had killed two men. But the worst of it
was the not knowing.... I shook it all out of my head, stood indecisive for a
few more seconds, then bent and grabbed the man at my feet. I dragged him to a
gate in the brick wall, and through it into the grounds before the still dark
two-story building. Quickly I stripped the clothes from him, pulled off the
grass skirt and dressed in the dark suit he'd worn. He'd been big enough; the
suit was a pretty good fit, a little tight in the shoulders. The shoes were too
small, but I got them on. His snap-brim hat fit well enough. I left him there
in his shorts, the grass skirt on the ground near him, then walked to the other
man, started going through his clothes. I heard a siren, raised my head. It was
getting louder, coming in this direction. Whatever papers the other man had
been carrying were in his clothes, which I wore now. So I dug into the pockets
of the man I'd shot, found his wallet and grabbed it. If there was anything
else on him, I didn't have time to look for it I ran back through the gate in
the brick wall, alongside the building and came out on a street named Kaunaoa.
I ran to the corner, turned, kept running for a minute or two. Then I slowed,
walked normally until I could hail a cab. The cabbie, driving slowly up
Kapahulu Avenue, said, "Where to?" "I ... take me to a hotel. Any hotel." I
thumbed through the two wallets. There were a lot of bills. I said, "Make it a
good hotel. Not right downtown, though." "Hawaiian Village is pretty far out.
Nice place, too." "Okay." It was after four a.m. when we got there and drove
along a gently winding drive to the big, impressive entrance. A few minutes
later, registered as John Smith, I was in a sixth-floor room which faced the
mountains. I hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the doorknob, locked the door
and took a look at myself in the bathroom mirror. I wasn't marked up much; the
knife slash on my chest and side was long and painful but wasn't going to slow
me down. I showered the dried sea salt and blood from my body, then sat in
darkness on the cement deck outside my room. The wind off the sea was warm and
strong. I thought for a while about what had happened, then crawled into bed. *
* * *

For a minute or two after awakening I was completely disoriented. The room was
strange. Bright sunlight poured past open draperies before the big sliding
glass door opening onto the deck. When I moved, my head started banging; the
knife slash pulled at my chest and side.

Then I remembered. Honolulu, Hawaii. Me, "John Smith," about half a day old
now. And, considering the kind of muggs who seemed to be after me, not likely
to get much older. I showered and dressed, then at eleven a.m. called room
service and had orange juice, a pot of coffee, and two of the local newspapers
sent up. I had the juice, poured coffee and started looking through the
Honolulu _Star-Bulletin_ and Honolulu _Advertiser._ I didn't have to look far;
both papers had the story front-paged. They were about me, I was sure. It
wasn't the kind of thing that would happen twice on the same night. But there
was no name in the stories. I learned that a man had jumped or fallen from Don
the Beachcomber's Tree House in the Banyan, at the International Market Place,
and disappeared by fleeing into the ocean. There was a possibility that he had
drowned. It was not known who the man was, since he'd given no name to the
waiter who had taken his reservation for the tree house dinner. A fairly good
description of the man had been obtained, however, from the waiter -- and other
witnesses to the event. The waiter had also been able to supply police with the
name of the woman who, presumably, had been dining in the Banyan Tree at the
time of the accident. Her name was Loana Kaleoha, and she was a dancer now at
the _Pele._ When police investigated, however, she had not been found in the
tree house. A waiter stated that during the excitement she had phoned him to be
let out of the house, and had disappeared; she'd been carrying something in her
arms, perhaps a man's coat, he said. The police had so far been unable to find
Miss Kaleoha at home. There was little more to the stories. One of them said
the police had some of the man's clothing at the Honolulu Police Station. A
detective named Robert Wang was on the case. There was no indication that the
police knew anything about the man besides the fact that he'd toppled
indelicately out of a tree, or that they had any interest in him other than the
desire to ask him a few pointed questions. What, then, had sent those four
characters after me last night? I hadn't carefully checked the clothing I'd
taken from the dead man, or the wallets, so I looked over the stuff I'd placed
on the dresser. Besides the two wallets, there was only a pocket comb, gummed
up with hair and dandruff and dirt, a ring of keys, cigarettes, and some small
change. I dropped the comb into the wastebasket and examined the wallets. They
had belonged to men named, according to the driver's licenses, Gordon Vennor
and James Bowen, the former thirty-two years old, the latter forty-one. Vennor
had been the guy with the knife, Bowen the first man who'd reached me there
against the wall -- the first man who'd died. The licenses also gave me their
addresses, both in Honolulu. Nothing else in the clothing or wallets was of
help to me -- except the money. The two men hadn't been going hungry. One
wallet held well over three hundred dollars, the other almost two hundred and
eighty. With the small change, I now had a little more than six hundred clams.
Maybe some day I'd pay back their heirs, but right now I didn't feel guilty
about using the cash. I had a number of bruises, scrapes and aches, and my head
felt pretty well battered, but aside from the physical discomfort I felt fairly
good. I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I was a big
guy, with short white hair and angled white eyebrows looming over gray eyes,
darkly tanned face, my nose a little bent. Somewhere between twenty-five and
thirty-five years old. There were some swellings on my face and forehead, a
bruise on my left cheekbone, but they seemed to fit the face somehow. The white
eyebrows stood out like beacons against the deep tan of my face. I doused them
with dregs of coffee from the pot until they had an odd brownish color, then
put on the snap-brim hat. It helped. Not much. I looked up Loana Kaleoha in the
phone directory, called her number. There was no answer. I left the room, went
down to the lobby and out to the hotel's entrance. Nobody paid more than casual
attention to me. I climbed into a cab. An hour later I'd checked on both Gordon
Vennor and James Bowen. Both had lived alone in sleazy hotels, each in one
cluttered and dirty room. The rooms didn't tell me any more than I'd already
learned from the stuff in their wallets. There was still no answer when I
called Loana again. So I went back to the cab and told the driver to take me to
jail.



* * *



*TWELVE* The Honolulu Police Station was a big cream-colored building at the
corner of Bethel and Merchant Streets. I stood across the street, looking at
the carved wooden doors of the entrance at 842 Bethel, wondering how to go
about this. Farther down the block were a Surplus Center, George's Diner, a
bondsman's office. Directly across from me was the Traffic Court. Behind me on
Merchant doors opened into what were apparently small offices, and over a door
only a few feet away was a sign, "Detective Division." I remembered the name of
Detective Robert Wang had been mentioned in the newspaper reports. So I took a
deep breath, and went through the door beneath the sign, "Detective Division."
On my left another door led into a fairly spacious room in which several men
were standing and sitting behind a long L-shaped counter. I went in, leaned
against the counter and waited for somebody to walk over and put the arm on me.
Nothing happened. Finally a man in a business suit stepped up and asked me what
I wanted. "Bob here?" "Which Bob?" "Wang." He called to a guy across the room
and the guy walked over. Wang was short, with wide shoulders, an Oriental
officer with smooth skin and light brown eyes. He looked at me and said, "Do I
know you?" "You might have seen me around the office, Bob," I said breezily.
_"Advertiser."_ Hell, maybe he had. Practically anything I told him _might_ be
true. "Uh," he said, not very happily. "Another reporter. New man, aren't you?"
I grinned. "Brand new." "What's it this time?" "Human interest stuff. Follow-up
on the Banyan Tree story. Find the guy yet?" He shook his head. "Not yet. But
we'll get him." He sounded so grim about it that I said, "I -- we weren't even
sure at the _Advertiser_ that you'd still be looking for the guy. He didn't do
anything so terrible, did he?" "Maybe. Maybe not. It could be a homicide case
now." "Huh?" "Couple men killed last night out on Monsarrat. Lieutenant dropped
the case in my lap. We want to talk to that tree guy about it." Something must
have happened to my face. I wasn't certain it showed, but it sure felt like it
from inside. Wang said, "What's the matter?" "Uh, nothing. I thought it was
just a novelty story. What makes you think he could have had anything to do
with the killings?" "This character ran from the Market Place wearing a
_ti-_leaf skirt. Next to one of the dead men was -- a _ti-_leaf skirt. And the
dead man was stripped. Looks pretty clear, wouldn't you say? The killer's
probably wearing the dead man's clothing right now." This time I _knew_ a sort
of creeping sickness must have been showing on my face. I swallowed and said,
"Makes sense. Or maybe he just came along, saw the guy, and traded outfits..."
The expression on Wang's face stopped me. I could feel perspiration on my
forehead, at the back of my neck. "No, I guess not," I added lamely. I wanted
out of here now, and fast, but I couldn't turn and run. So I said, "You make
the guy yet?" "Not yet. You know how eye-witnesses are. We've got about
seventeen different descriptions so far. The gal he was up in the tree with
could give us a description of him. A _good_ description." "This Loana?"
"Uh-huh. But we haven't located her yet. Maybe she's with the guy." He paused.
"No matter, I'll have the works on him before the day's over." "Oh? Anything
... in it for me -- us?" He thought about it. "Don't know why not. Come on." I
glanced back at the door leading to the outer world, then followed him across
the room, into a small office. He sat behind a desk, pulled the center drawer
open and took out a slip of paper. "Found the guy's trousers up in the tree
house," he said. "Nothing else, no coat, shirt, nothing. The girl wasn't there
either by the time we checked, and we haven't been able to talk to her, so
we're not sure what happened." Wang kept looking at me curiously, as if trying
to remember where he might have seen me somewhere before. Pretty quick he was
likely to match my chops with one of the descriptions of the escaped killer I
was asking him about. It gave me a singularly nauseous feeling. Finally he went
on, "I figure he's either a guy named Shell Scott, or Webley Alden, or a thief.
One of the boys says Scott's an L.A. private detective. Don't know who Alden
is." I looked at the paper. It was a check made out to a Shell Scott and signed
Webley Alden. Printed on the check was Alden's name and an address in Medina,
California. "How's that again?" I asked Wang. "Some change, a handkerchief, and
this check were the only things we found in his pants. Either he made out the
check himself, or it was made out to him, or he stole the thing." He grinned at
his quip, if that's what it was. Then his grin went away slowly, and he peered
some more at me, finally asked, "_Advertiser_, you said?" "That's right." "What
did you say your name was?" "Uh ... Smith." "Smith? Pretty common name." He
sounded suspicious. Probably I should have chosen something else, but it was
too late now. He sure looked suspicious. So I said, "Yes. Well ... it's my
first name." "_Smith_'_s_ your first name?" "Yes. Smith -- Brown. My parents
had a sense of humor. A lousy sense of humor. Smith Brown. Ah..." He didn't say
anything. "Well, thank you," I said. "Thanks a lot. Detective Robert Wang,
isn't it? W-a-n-g? Want to be sure and spell your name right. I'm very careful
about names -- after what happened to me. W-a-n-g, right?" "Yes. And Robert is
R-o-b-e-r-t." We had lost some of our rapport. I thanked him again, for me and
the Honolulu _Advertiser_, and got out of there. On the street I resisted the
almost overpowering impulse to run, walked a fast block and flagged a cab. I
didn't breathe normally until miles were between me and the Honolulu Police
Station. And even then it was a struggle, because I felt pretty sure Detective
Wang was about now calling the _Advertiser_ and asking for Smith Brown. It was
going to be kind of painful for him. * * * *

The sun was low in the west when I got back to the Hawaiian Village. I'd taken
time to buy and change into a new blue gabardine suit, shoes, everything from
the skin out, including a woven-reed hat with a band colored like a peacock's
tail. I seemed to like colorful things, but that was about all I'd learned --
except for what I'd picked up at the Honolulu Police Station.

I felt that Loana Kaleoha was the quick and easy answer to all this, but I'd
been unable to get in touch with her. So, I had dinner in the Ale Ale Kai room
on the Hawaiian Village's grounds -- ambrosial _mahi mahi_ sprinkled with
crunchy macadamia nuts -- while beady-eyed little birds peered at me from
nearby chairs and tables in the open-air room. Then I found a phone and called
Loana's number again. Again, no answer. I called the _Pele_ and asked if she
was there. She wasn't, I was told, and nobody knew if she would be present for
the floor show later this evening, since nobody had been able to get in touch
with her. Maybe yes; maybe no. Half an hour later a taxi deposited me at the
club. It was out past Diamond Head, a big tropical-looking spot near the sea. I
walked over a narrow bridge and inside. On my left was a long dimly-lighted
bar. A bamboo wall separated the bar from the main dining area of the _Pele._
The dining room contained a lot of tables, most of them occupied, candles
providing flickering illumination. Beyond the small dance floor a combo was
playing soft, lilting music while three or four couples hugged each other
rhythmically. I went back to the bar, obviously a popular spot. It was crammed,
people massed at small tables, bubbles of conversation popping in the air like
champagne corks. There were a couple of empty seats at the bar and I slid onto
a stool. The bartender mopped the bar's surface with a white towel and said,
"Yes, sir. What would you like?" The question jarred me. I didn't know what I
liked. That cold, brain-chilling feeling started creeping up from the back of
my skull again, like an icicle boring into my brain, but I pushed my thoughts
away from that and said, "Same as his," jerking my thumb at a highball before
the man next to me. "Bourbon-and-soda," he said and swiftly fixed one for me. I
asked the bartender, "Miss Kaleoha show up yet?" "You got me. I been too busy
to do anything but mix drinks." He walked toward an impatient customer.
Unthinking, I shoved the woven-reed hat back on my head, then remembered the
white hair, straightened the hat. I finished my drink, pushed through happy
people and found a pay phone in a booth outside the club, made the call to
Loana's number and again got no answer. Wondering where I went from here, I
headed back toward the bar, walking through the dining area next to tables
crowded with the jolly people. And something caught my eye. I was passing by a
table at which a woman sat alone, and she moved so suddenly that I turned my
head toward her. She had jerked back in her chair, as if I'd startled her, and
when I looked down at her face her eyes were wide. She let her breath out in a
soft sigh, then said, "What ... what are you doing here?" She'd _recognized_ me
-- from somewhere. My pulse speeded up. I took a good look at her. She was
gorgeous. Those eyes, still wide, were dark, almost black under black brows,
and her lips were red as wine. She was seated, but I guessed she was fairly
tall, and I didn't have to guess about the astounding figure. She had all the
curves men dream about and some new ones for better dreams. Her skin was brown,
either naturally or from a lot of sun, and the neckline of her electric-blue
dress, cut low, revealed the creamy smoothness of high breasts pushing against
the cloth. I said, "Do you know me?" "Do I ... _what_ did you say?" "Do you
know me?" She didn't answer for a while, looking up at me, the lovely face
perplexed. Then she said, "Of course I know you. What's -- what's the matter
with you?" I swallowed. My pulse was pounding now. There was a highball glass
in front of the girl, another one, half-empty, in front of the seat opposite
her. I said, "May I sit down?" She nodded and I took the chair across from her
and said, "This may sound a little crazy, but I'd very much like for you to
tell me who I am." Her mouth sagged slightly. "You mean you don't know?" "No. I
told you it would sound crazy. I -- well, I fell out of a tree, and something
... happened to my head. Or in it. I can't remember anything about myself." She
shook her head slowly, picked up her drink and swallowed half of it. Then she
turned those flashing dark eyes on me again and said, "_I_ know you fell out of
a tree. The whole island knows it. But -- you really can't remember a thing?"
"Lots of things. Practically everything, I guess, unless it concerns me. And
I've got a hunch I'm either Webley Alden or Shell Scott. But it's only a hunch
so far." Her face was still puzzled. "Why do you say that?" I told her about
the check found in my pocket and added Wang's quip, "Or maybe I'm a thief.
Maybe I stole the check." She was no more amused than I had been when I'd heard
it. I said, "Will you for Pete's sake tell me who I am?" She still seemed
almost unbelieving. "You're _serious_, aren't you?" "Hell, yes. I mean, lady,
you don't know how serious." "And you really don't know who I am?" "No."
"Darling, I'm Loana." For as much as two or three seconds it didn't penetrate.
When it did, though, I felt enormously buoyed up and at the same time let down
a little. Loana Kaleoha -- the woman I'd been trying to find. But also the
lovely I'd been in the Banyan Tree with. I looked at her beautiful face, the
thick black hair, the astounding figure, and I thought: what in hell is the use
of doing anything at _all_ if you can't remember the first thing about it? And
then, dismally, it dawned on me that maybe I would never remember anything of
my past -- because if I had forgotten someone as lovely as this dark-skinned,
dark-eyed, Incredibly fashioned tomato, then I was practically beyond hope. I
sighed and said, "Loana, the suspense is killing me. Who am I?" "Why, darling,"
she said smiling. "You're Webley Alden."



* * *



*THIRTEEN* Boy, did I feel relieved! Now I was getting someplace. I knew who I
was. This was a dandy start, and from here maybe I could dig out the rest of
it. "Loana," I said, "I could hug you and kiss you for telling me that. In
fact, even if you hadn't told me that." She smiled. I smiled. After smiling a
while I said, "You were up ... I was up ... we were up in the tree? Both of us?
Together?" She nodded, still smiling. "What -- how did I happen to pop out of
the thing?" "Well, you ... weren't running away." That figured. I wouldn't have
been. Not from her. I said, "I knew it. I was pretty sure it wasn't anything
like that. But tell me more. What did I tell you about myself? What kind of
person am I -- is Webley Alden?" Webley Alden. I rolled it around in what was
left of my mind, which I hoped had been rather more to begin with, and it
gathered no moss. Nothing stuck to it. Usually, I thought, amnesia cases on
learning some new fact about themselves should find other, related facts,
seeping into memory. But nothing seeped. I was a special case, I guessed. Loana
said, "You didn't really tell me very much. We -- we weren't talking much about
things like ... that." The husky, pointed way she said it stuck me right in the
gizzard. "What ... were we talking about ... doing ... tell me, tell me." She
chuckled softly. "Oh, please!" I groaned inwardly. And even a little outwardly.
"Well, never mind for now. Tell me more about _me_, then, Loana. I must have
told you _something._" "Well, you're a millionaire -- " "Ah!" "And you live in
California." "Medina, yes." I shook my head. "It's not coming back to me,
though. I just saw the name on my check." Right then another thought clanked in
my head. Why had I made out a thousand-dollar check to the other guy, to Shell
Scott? I didn't know yet -- but at least I was a millionaire. Not bad. I was
glad I'd made something of my life. Then, frowning, I said to Loana, "I've
learned a little about me in the last few hours. And some of it I don't know
whether I like or not. So do you know if I made my fortune -- honestly?" "Oh,
yes. You invented something to do with photography and made a lot of money.
Right now you publish a magazine." "A magazine?" "Called _Wow!_" "I don't."
"Yes, you do. That's how we met. I posed for one of the photographs. You even
took the picture." She seemed to be enjoying herself. I blinked. "I'm sorry. I
don't remember. What kind of picture was it?" If I published a magazine called
-- of all things! -- _Wow!_, then I could imagine the kind of picture. She
seemed to think about it for a bit then said, "It was on the big island --
Hawaii -- the black sand beach there, Kalapana Beach. I lay face down on the
sand as surf rippled up around my legs. Of course I didn't have any clothes on
-- " "No _clothes_ on -- " "...and it was in color. Three pages of the
magazine. The gatefold in the center." She said something else but I didn't
hear her. I stood up, saying half to myself, "What a life! Oh, what a life I
must have led!" I beat myself about the head, thinking: come back, come back.
But nothing came back. Finally I stopped beating myself about the head and sat
down. "Tell me some more. Lots more." "That's about all there is, darling."
Darling. Two or three times she'd called me that. There was something between
us, all right. A table for one thing, and I wished it wasn't between us. Even
if I didn't know what had gone on up there, I wished we were back in that
damned tree. It would almost be worth falling out again. I said, "Surely
there's more you can tell me. Anything at all. It might jiggle my memory. Any
little thing..." She wasn't listening. The black eyes were wide once more and
she was looking up at somebody standing alongside the table. I followed her
glance. A man was standing next to the table, looking at Loana. Then his face
turned toward me and his mouth sprang open. This one I'd seen before. So
recently that I could remember him easily. Tall and skinny, with a big
spread-out nose and bushy black eyebrows and hair. And one black eye. I'd given
him the black eye, and undoubtedly his gut was still very tender. The tall thin
bastard who'd reached me, second of the four, last night on Monsarrat. His
mouth was open, thin lips stretching so that I could see the crooked, stained
bottom row of his teeth. I aimed at those teeth as I came out of the chair. The
reaction was automatic. The last time I'd seen him he'd been swinging at me,
then running, and I just picked it up where we'd left off. My legs snapped me
up like springs and my left arm came around in a tight loop with my balled fist
at the end of it. My knuckles landed squarely on his mouth and I felt the skin
over some knuckles split. But that was just a little thing, and what happened
to his mouth was a big thing. It made a big noise, too, like a plank breaking.
He sailed back in the air, smacked into a table. Voices rose, crescendoing. My
hat had fallen off, exposing my white hair, when I'd swung at him, and on my
right in the midst of moving people a man pointed at me and yelled something. I
didn't catch the words, but I got the message. I grabbed the hat, pulled it
onto my head again, straightened up. And another familiar face nearby in the
crowd tugged at my eye. It was the fourth man, the one who'd driven the car
away last night. I started for him, then stopped. There was a hell of a lot of
noise. The bartender was out from behind the bar, coming toward me. Two waiters
were converging on me from another direction, and there was that fourth man,
plus plain drunks who might decide to join in the fray. Behind my eyes floated
Detective Robert Wang's face. And the cream-colored Honolulu Police Station.
And electric chairs, gas chambers, firing squads. I hesitated. I was tired of
running. But even if I knew my name now I still didn't know much else --
including what I might have done to get the tough boys after me. And I _did_
know for certain that Wang wanted to talk to me about two dead men. Especially
now that he would have spoken to somebody at the _Advertiser._ The guy I'd hit
was flat on his back a few feet away. One foot wiggled feebly. I hesitated, but
then both my feet wiggled feebly, and then I gave them their head, if you can
give feet their head. Anyway, I ran. I went past the bar and out through the
entrance of the _Pole_, sprinted to my right along a darkened walk lined with
trees and shrubs. The walk curved and I curved with it, came out onto some
grass. There was no parade behind me as there'd been before, just the usual
yelling. Beyond the grass I ran onto the sands of a beach, skirted some beach
seats and umbrellas and kept running. Several blocks away I puffed into a
street and slowed to a walk. Apparently I'd made it. But I had a hunch it
wouldn't be for long. Oahu was getting a little small for me. * * * *

Later I lay fully dressed on an empty stretch of beach and tried to think. I
was enormously confused. But one hard fact stood out above confusion like
Diamond Head over the sea: I had to find out more about me, my past, what had
gotten me into this mess -- even what the mess was. It was vital, in the strict
dictionary sense: essential to the continuance of life. Not just any old life
-- my life. I simply wasn't going to last unless I learned more, a lot more,
and fast.

Especially here, on Oahu, I wouldn't last. What with Detective Wang undoubtedly
snorting after me now, accompanied by numerous other snorting policemen, and no
telling how many guys with guns eager to use those guns to produce great ugly
holes in me, Oahu was not merely hot but erupting. For an almost superstitious
moment I was appalled by the picture I'd drawn. Surely, whatever I was, I
couldn't have gotten myself into such a stupendous predicament as this alone;
surely evil Fates of some low type must have experimented with me, weaving the
threads of my days into a lumpy Gordian knot. Well, nuts to them. I wasn't
exactly going to run away from trouble; I was merely going to get clear the
hell away from here. If I could. But I needed a goal; not just a place to get
away from, but a place to go. After all, my biggest purpose here had been to
find Loana Kaleoha and talk to her. That I had done, and apparently there was
no more of real value she could tell me. So, away, away! But where away? Well,
what did I have to work with, what did I know? Into my mind came the picture of
that thousand-dollar check. I remembered the address on it: 947 Poinsettia
Drive, Medina, California. And I remembered, too, Wang's reference to Shell
Scott as a Los Angeles private detective. Why had I given -- or planned to give
-- that much money to Shell Scott? To a detective. Maybe I was in trouble. I
laughed sourly at that. _Maybe_ I was in trouble? I tried to line it all up in
my mushy mind, find the best and quickest way of getting to the bottom of
whatever situation I was fouled up in. It seemed to come out clearly enough. I
lived in Medina, near Los Angeles. Scott was a Los Angeles private detective.
If I had hired or even meant to hire him because of trouble I was in, then
certainly I would have told him all about the trouble. I felt better after I'd
figured the thing out. Rather pleased with myself, in fact. I knew how to get
the answers, knew what I had to do. It was simple. It was as plain as the nose
on my face. I had to find Shell Scott.



* * *



*FOURTEEN* The Pan-Am Clipper Rambler came in over Catalina Island and soon I
could see the California coastline ahead, strings of lights webbing the
darkness beyond. It was nearly eight p.m. Thursday night, the twentieth of
August. After coming to my decision last night on the beach I had decided
simply to take the first plane for L.A. I'd been able to get a seat on a prop
job leaving Honolulu Airport at eight a.m., and I had waited till the last
minute, then -- as John Smith again -- walked casually but briskly aboard.
There was one slightly disturbing event. As I'd gone through the gate, two men
leaning against the chain-wire fence bordering the field had stared at me in
what I thought strenuous fashion. I didn't recognize either of them, but I
wouldn't forget them. The contrast between the two men was almost ludicrous: a
very good-looking big guy, tall and strong and with abundant brown hair; and a
very bad-looking little guy, short and weak and with prematurely gone hair.
From the top of the flight stairs I'd looked back to see the little bald man
trotting toward the terminal. Maybe it hadn't meant anything. We pulled in low
over the coastline, the pilot turned north, and soon I could see the lights of
L.A. International Airport below. The plane dropped down, landed easily. I
followed the other passengers out of the plane, and across the field, walked
down the cement ramp to the baggage area. I didn't have any baggage, so I went
straight through to the street outside the terminal, started looking for a
taxi. Something hard nudged my back, but I thought someone had accidentally
planted an elbow over my kidney. I took a couple more steps down the street,
and the nudge got uncomfortable. A big guy loomed on my right, eyes level with
mine. Another was on my left; he clamped his hand tight around my biceps. There
had to be a third guy, too. The one with his elbow in my back. A .38- or
.45-caliber elbow, undoubtedly. I stopped. The gun dug into my spine. A voice
said, "Keep moving. And don't get cute. I could blast you right here and get
away with it." The voice was high, hard and rasping. I looked over my shoulder.
He was quite a ways down, a very short guy. He held a coat looped over his arm,
and the gun was out of sight beneath the coat. The expression on his smooth
white face said that he would be glad to shoot me. He looked as if he might
have barely strength enough to do it. He was not only little but scrawny, the
face pale and doughy, as if blood was a thin tide in him, and the tide was out.
His odd, washed-out eyes gave me a creepy feeling. But the gun was solid in my
back, so I turned and took a step forward along the walk. The guy on my left
was probably not a genius. His mouth was open, and his lips hung down from his
teeth in distressing fashion. Looking at me, with his flappy lips wiggling, he
said, "Ha, ha." The other egg still had my arm tight in his fingers. It burned
hell out of me, but I kept walking. In a few more seconds I was in the back of
a black Lincoln sedan with the loose-lipped character and the third man. The
little bloodless guy held his gun on me while the others wrapped my wrists and
ankles with adhesive tape. The little guy got behind the wheel and started the
car, drove out of the airport and south for a few blocks, then off onto a
darker street. The loose-lipped guy on my left had a leather-wrapped sap in his
big right hand, a partly-empty fifth of bourbon in his left. He tilted the
bottle up, gulped a large shot from it and wheezed mightily, lips flopping
about in unbelievably gruesome fashion. Then he passed the bottle to the egg on
my left and said to him, "Want a snort, Biff?" "Don't mind if I do, Slobbers.
If you left any. Which you prob'ly din't." The guy called Biff took the bottle
and guzzled at it. Apparently the man on my left, with the indelicate lips, was
Slobbers. Biff was a large fat-faced egg with big eyes and wispy hair. His
shoulders were so wide he had to lean forward so there'd be room for Slobbers
and me on the back seat. Slobbers said to me, "Where's the films of the weddin'
in Hawaiya?" "What films? What wedding?" _Splat!_ It was Biff, on my right,
swinging his sap. Not hard, but painfully. "So where's them films?" he asked.
"I already..." I stopped. These muggs were touchy. If you didn't answer right,
they touched you with a bat. And that can make you batty. So I said, "Let's
discuss this sensibly ... gentlemen. Like ... gentlemen. And gentlemen don't
sit around swatting each other on the head, do they?" _Swat!_ This time it was
the loose-lipped sapper, Slobbers. Nothing worked with these guys. Through the
horrible ache in my head I heard Slobbers saying, "That was for fun. And for
the one you hung on me in Ed's office." I said, "I don't know what in hell you
guys are talking about." I looked at the man on my left and said, "And as far
as I know, I've never seen you before in my life." Surprisingly, he didn't sap
me again. He let out a great yok and said to Biff, "Get him. _Get_ him. Who do
you think you're kiddin', jerk? Who in hell do you think you are?" "That one I
can answer. I am Webley Alden." He let out another yok, and this time the
driver and Biff joined in the hilarity. When Slobbers stopped chortling he
said, "Alden! That's a good one. Pal, I almost got to hand it to you, almost.
And I believe I will." He raised his sap. "Wait! You can pound me unconscious,
but all I can tell you is what I know. I am Webley Alden, the millionaire
playboy. Actually, I don't remember anything about -- " "Hold it, pal."
Slobbers wasn't amused now. "I don't know what you're pullin', but it ain't
goin' to work. Just tell us where them films is, and the negative of that
picture Alden took the night he was killed." I looked at him. Then at Biff.
"The night he was ... killed?" I said slowly. "You don't mean tonight, do you?"
There was silence for several seconds. Both men in back with me looked puzzled.
Biff said finally, "Hey, you think he's outa his skull?" "Maybe he's pullin'
somethin'." "Yeah, maybe it's a ... a trap." "But ... how could it be? We got
_him_, don't we?" "I dunno. I hear this bastard is tricky." "You heard right,
Biff. He's up to somethin'." Biff said, "Hey, Willie. That paper still up
there?" Willie spoke. "Yeah, here on the seat." He passed a newspaper back to
us. Biff held the front page before my eyes and turned on the dome light. In
the lower right-hand corner was a story headed, "Last Rites Held For Local
Millionaire." I read the story. It described the funeral, on the day just past,
of Webley Alden. I thought about it. Not very long, though. Either they'd
buried the wrong guy, or... I said, "Is this on the level?" "Come off it,
Scott. It's all on the level except for you, jerk. And you better start
leveling fast." "Scott?" Something began to wobble gently in my skull. "Would
you mean -- Shell Scott?" "Who in hell else would I mean?" Slobbers leaned over
and peered at my face. "Are you tryin' to tell me you don't know you're Shell
Scott? The private eye?" I sighed. So that's who I was. Shell Scott, private
eye. Some detective. I had set out to find Scott, traveled twenty-two hundred
miles to find him. Well, by golly, I'd found him! I said, "Listen, I fell out
of a tree and banged my head; I don't remember anything about myself. Including
you apes." Slobbers said, "Amnesia? Is that like ... like..." "It's when guys
lose their remembering of things," Biff said. "And it's baloney. He just don't
want to talk about nothin'. Pret-ty tricky." Slobbers leaned toward me again.
"Let's try you out on Pagan Page. What for were you askin' around about that
broad? Why her, Scott?" "As far as I know, I never heard of any Pagan Page."
Silence again. The car was off the main highway, now on a lonely road with
little traffic and few lights. Biff and Slobbers passed the bottle back and
forth a time or two, then Biff dropped it onto the floorboards, empty. It
rolled up against my foot as he said, "Let's work the bum over. Maybe that'll
make him talk." I said, primarily to change the subject, "Talk about what?
Which of you brilliant characters thought of this dopiness?" "Why, this was
Ed's idea, pally." "Ed?" "You still gonna claim you don't know Ed Grey? Or us?"
"That's right." "Lemme introduce myself," he said, grinning nastily. "I am Biff
Boff." "Nobody is called Biff Boff." He leaned closer to me. "_I_ am called
Biff Boff." When he said it that way, I believed him. He went on, "And that
there is Slobbers O'Brien. Drivin' is Wee Willie Wallace. It don't ring no bell
in your head?" "There are some bells ringing up there, but that's not one of
them." Slobbers chuckled. "Scott, we know you is supposed to be a regular ball
of fire. Well, we is goin' to put the fire out." Biff chuckled this time. "I've
heard tell sometimes you get a crash on the head and lose your noodles. Well,
sometimes another crash on the head brings them back." He laughed. "Let's help
Scott get his noodles back." I knew he was joking, but Biff gave me a crash on
the head anyway. Slobbers did his bit from the other side. Before you could say
lickety-split I could remember lots of things, but they were all previous blows
on the head. And then ... nothing. I came back from somewhere. Time passed. I
lay there gathering my weakness together. I seemed to be huddled on the
floorboards. Up above me Biff and Slobbers were talking. Slobbers said, his
voice slurred from the liquor, "What you think he was pullin' with the yak?
Think he's stirry?" "No tellin'. Maybe he don't know nothin' about Pagan. There
ain't no way he could know about her ridin' the earie when the boss was talkin'
on the phone them times, is they? He couldn't have been around _too_, could
he?" "Don't seem likely, Biff. But he has to know about them films -- we _seen_
him lift them. Maybe we oughta quit foolin' around and plug him. Willie's plain
dyin' to plug him." "Yeah, he ain't killed nobody in a long time. He really
_needs_ to kill somebody. But if we dump Scott outa the car we could make it
look like a accident." "Maybe it already is," Slobbers said. "I could sure use
another drink." And then I remembered that fifth they'd been guzzling from. I'd
felt it roll up against my foot earlier. Something was lumpy under my thigh
now, but I hadn't even noticed it before. My hands were taped in front of me,
and slowly I moved them toward the thing caught under my leg. It took about two
minutes, but then I had the fingers of both hands around the neck of that
whisky bottle. I felt dizzy still, and full of aches, but stronger. Judging by
the motion of the car we were moving fast. That suited me. I waited. Biff said,
"The bastard may be just restin' down there." "Let's haul him up here and slap
him around a little, get him woke up." I felt hands under my arms, pulling me
upward. I held myself limp until my rear end touched the seat and their fingers
loosened a bit. I could feel the sudden thump of my heart, the prickling
chillness sweep over my skin. I opened my eyes, tensed my muscles and shoved
both legs back against the seat, pressing my feet hard against the floorboards.
The two men let out yells as I pulled from their grip and half fell, half
jumped forward. I brought the bottle up, fingers clamped tight around its neck.
Willie started to jerk his head around as his partners yelled, but he never
made it all the way. As his head turned I was swinging both arms as hard as I
could. The bottle glittered in the faint light, then crashed explosively
against his hairline. He didn't let out a sound. The bottle broke, sharp
fragments flying through the air. "Willie" fell forward and the horn blasted
briefly as his head slammed into it, then he toppled sideways. Our car veered
sharply to the right. Something spun me around. My taped ankles bent. I
couldn't keep my legs under me and went down, knees hitting the seat. Biff had
his left hand outstretched, right hand holding the sap upraised. I was facing
him now. He swung the sap down toward my head. Because I was already falling,
the club missed my skull, thudded against my right shoulder. Pain ran down my
arm, swelled in my wrist and fingers. But I didn't drop the jagged stub of the
bottle. The force of Biff's blow bent him toward me. I brought my hands up
fast, slammed the jagged glass toward his face like a short, ugly spear. It hit
his neck. I felt the slivered shards drive into his throat, felt the resistance
of thick muscle and fragile bone. Felt the muscle and bone give way. The bottle
stub went clear in. My hands stopped against his skin, the glass spear buried
deep in his throat. The blood came out so fast it warmed my hands before I
could jerk them away. He let out a soft sound. Just a little sound, a lot of
blood. On my right Slobbers reached for me, empty hand outstretched. I managed
to grab one of his thick wrists, twisted, felt my slippery fingers slide over
his skin. The car was veering sharply, tires skidding. Slobbers swung his other
hand and it cracked against the side of my face. But then we hit. With the
jarring impact was the sound of fenders and hood buckling, the shrill scream of
metal sliding on metal, the crash and shock as we slammed into something,
lurched, swung halfway around. My back banged into the rear of the front seat
and my head snapped against it too, seeming to split open and fill with the
wild crunching and grating noises around us. Slobbers' body hit the seat ahead
of him, his nose banging into its top. I felt the car tilting over, too far
over. It crashed down on its side, the side nearest my feet. My body lurched in
the air, my legs hit something. I saw Slobbers' body jerk near me, his head
cracking against the doorframe. Suddenly the car stopped moving. Everything was
blurred before my eyes, but I was conscious. The car was on its side, Slobbers
beneath me. I heard one of the car's wheels turning slowly with a low grinding
noise. A piece of glass fell tinkling to the street. I managed to pull my legs
around in front of me. Then I bit at the tape on my wrists, got an edge of it
caught between my teeth, started ripping it free. In less than a minute I had
the tape off wrists and ankles, felt quickly over my body. Nothing was broken,
but I'd picked up a couple more sore spots. Biff had bled enormously. But he
wasn't bleeding now. He was dead. In the dim light I could see the butt of a
gun in a belt holster at his side. I grabbed the gun, a Colt .45 automatic,
stuck it into my hip pocket and tried to stand. I made it, and with my feet on
Slobbers' unconscious form reached the door above me and forced it open. I
waited a while, dizziness blurring perception, then hoisted myself up to the
doorframe, swung my legs outside. We had skidded into one of a row of
eucalyptus trees off the right side of the road, bounced around and slammed
over on the edge of the asphalt. The Lincoln's hood was crumpled back and
slanting up into the air. I dropped to the ground, the impact jarring my head.
Pain lanced through my right shoulder where Biff's sap had struck it. I took a
few shaky steps toward the trees, then started trotting forward into the
darkness. * * * *

It was well into the next afternoon when I got out of a pickup truck in which
I'd hitched a ride into Hollywood. I'd slept for a long time on the back seat
of an old car in somebody's garage, awakened slowly and painfully like a man
coming to in his casket. I'd washed at an outdoor water faucet, later cleaned
up in a gas station rest room, and walked most of the stiffness out of my body
before flagging the pickup truck.

Now I found a pay phone booth and flipped open the phone book. Under "S" I
found what I was after: "Scott, Sheldon, Spartan Apartment Hotel," the address
on N. Rossmore and a phone number. There was also an office number and address
in Los Angeles listed. I jotted both down, and caught a cab. I walked up the
Spartan's cement steps and into the lobby, stopped at the desk. A young man
behind it grinned at me, then frowned. "What happened to you, Shell? You look
like you lost a fight." "I won." He reached into a pigeonhole behind him and
pulled out a key, handed it to me. It was for apartment number 212. I walked up
the stairs, down a hall and stopped before 212; it was as if I'd never seen
that door before. I put the key in the lock, turned it, then stepped inside. On
my left were three aquariums, brightly colored tropical fish cavorting in them.
On the wall at my right was a yard-square painting of a sensationally shaped
nude tomato. There were hassocks scattered on the yellow-gold carpet, a low
coffee table before a squat brown divan, a deep leather chair nearby. The place
looked comfortable, casual, pleasant. I stood inside the door for several
seconds, hoping something in the room would start a faint stirring of memory.
But nothing happened. It gave me a queer, disoriented feeling. And then I heard
a soft sound in the room farthest from me. This was the living room. I could
see into a kitchenette ahead of me and on my left. Beyond it a door was open
before what was obviously the bedroom. I could see a black carpet, a low bed.
The soft sound came again. I walked forward. As I reached the bedroom door a
girl came out through it. We almost bumped into each other. She saw me and
started to jump aside, her mouth pulling open in the beginning of a scream.
"Hold it!" I yelped. "It's me -- Shell. Relax, it's all right." "Shell!" she
gasped. Her lovely face was pale with sudden shock. "You -- frightened me.
I..." She stopped, breathing heavily. I was almost as startled as she was.
"What in blazes are _you_ doing here?" It was Loana. That's who it was. My
Loana Kaleoha. She put one hand to her throat, moistened her red lips. "Shell
... darling. You've got your memory back!"



* * *



*FIFTEEN* "I'm afraid not," I said. How did you get here? What are you doing
here?" Color slowly came back into Loana's beautiful face. She frowned
slightly. "What do you mean, you're afraid not?" "I'm afraid I _haven_'_t_ got
my memory back. Not yet." "But you're ... here. In your apartment." "I know I'm
Shell Scott, but only because somebody told me. Hit me with the first clue, so
to speak. The rest of it's still..." I stopped. "Yeah, and I remember _you_
told me I was Webley Alden." The hand slowly came down from her throat,
brushing the high, Jutting breasts. She wore a pale blue blouse and dark blue
skirt, a cloth belt tight around her small waist. Her black hair was gathered
in a thick mass at the back of her neck. "I know I told you that, Shell. But
there at the _Pele_ it was all so ... strange, and sudden. I honestly thought
you were fooling with me somehow. Well, I -- " she shrugged -- "I just went
along with the gag. What I thought was a gag, anyway." "Loana, I had never been
more serious than when I asked you to tell me who I was." She smiled. "Maybe
_you_ knew that, Shell. I didn't. We'd been ... together not long before, you
know. And everything had been, well, fun and pleasant. I'd never met anybody
who'd actually forgotten everything like that. I thought you were just being
crazy." She smiled, the white teeth gleaming, dark eyes starting to smoke a
little. At least they seemed to smoke a little. "You're kind of crazy, you
know. And you left in a hurry. You do remember that, don't you?" "Yes." It was
true that Loana hadn't had much chance to make explanations once I started
socking guys there in the _Pele._ And right after that I'd taken off, running
like a fiend. Rather nasty suspicions had started swelling up in me a minute
ago; but now the swelling was going down. I said, "Who was that mugg I slugged
there in the bar?" "I don't know. All of a sudden you jumped up and hit him.
There was a lot of noise, and people ran out after you. It didn't seem like a
good place to stay, and I left." I sighed. "I didn't mention it, Loana, but I
_am_ glad to see you. How about a drink? I could use one." I found some fifths
of bourbon, and Coca-Cola in the kitchenette refrigerator. That was all right
with Loana so I made two bourbon-and-Cokes and took them to the divan, sat next
to her. We sipped our drinks and I said, "How come you're here?" "I..." She
hesitated. I didn't know whether it was from confusion, or embarrassment, or
because of some other reason. Finally she said, "I had to come to Los Angeles.
The Anniversary Party is tomorrow night. And I just wanted to see you. I -- I
thought you wanted to see me, too." "I did, I do. My home is your home, stay as
long as you like ... what Anniversary Party?" "Why, _Wow!'s._" She bit her lip.
"That's right. I keep forgetting you -- " she smiled beautifully -- "keep
forgetting. Never mind, that's a long story, too. But I had to be here. All the
Wow girls are supposed to be at the party tomorrow and that naturally includes
me." She paused. "I wanted to see you again. And of course I knew where you
lived, so I came up here." She smiled at me warmly. Perhaps even hotly. "And a
grand idea that was," I said, moving closer to her on the divan. She slid a
little sideways, an act which didn't seem to match her smile. I said, "Loana,
this is Shell, remember? The fellow you came clear up here to see." "I
remember." She glanced at my clothes. "You look as if you had a bad night."
She'd hit it on the head that time. I was wrinkled and crumpled, I had to get
cleaned up a bit, present a more dashing appearance. Right now I looked dashing
enough, but as if I'd been dashed from cliffs upon rocks. But Loana was still
smiling warmly -- or hotly -- so I said, "I am about to take the fastest shower
in the history of plumbing. Don't even move -- I'll be right back. Just sit
there and think wild thoughts. Okay?" She chuckled. "All right, Shell." I raced
around in two or three directions, but found the shower speedily. While hot and
then cold streams of water beat against my skin I wondered what had happened to
the men I'd left in that wrecked Lincoln last night. Biff was dead, for sure.
But probably both Willie and dim-witted O'Brien were very much alive. From that
episode had come several bits I could check on, but the start toward clarity
could come from Loana now that we both knew I wasn't playing some kind of game.
Of course, the way she'd smiled, maybe she was ready for games. In the bedroom
I chose a neatly checked brown sharkskin suit from clothing in the closet. The
gun I'd taken from Biff was still in the pocket of my beat-up trousers, and I
put the .45 on my dresser. I noticed then that the bedroom wasn't very tidy.
The bedclothes were in disarray, bureau drawers were open, and their contents
jumbled. The place was quite a mess. It kind of disappointed me in me. I had
assumed that I was neat. I dressed with great rapidity, then pranced beaming
into the living room. "Loana, my sweet," I said. "How's that for speed? And I'm
now as good as new ... Loana?" She was gone. * * * *

I got the .45 automatic from the bedroom dresser, made sure the magazine was
full, shoved the gun into my hip pocket and called a cab. While waiting I
looked at the three aquariums.

In two of them were a couple dozen varieties of colorful little tropical fish.
The third tank contained only two fish, but they were the most vivid and
striking of the lot, with a brilliant red streak extending from about the
middle of the body back to the transparent tail, and bordering the red above
and extending forward into the eye, an almost electrically luminous blue-green
line. They were beautiful. There was a box of fish food handy -- Salmon Meal
was printed on it -- and I sprinkled some in the water, watched the fish for a
couple of minutes. Then I noticed something in the feathery green grass -- like
stuff on the tank's bottom. I had to lean close and squint in order to find it
again. Some little bits of colorless things were in the grass. Once in a while
one waggled a bit. They were so tiny I could barely see them. Some kind of wee
bug, I supposed. * * * *

Inside the entrance of the Hamilton Building in downtown Los Angeles, on a
large plaque against the wall, the office occupants were listed. My name was
there. I went up one flight and down the hall, found my office. I started to
unlock the door with a key I'd found at my apartment, but the door moved ajar.
It had been forced; inside, the wood was splintered where the lock had torn out.

I went in, dosed the door behind me. The office had obviously been searched. At
my right was a bookcase, an aquarium containing more bright little fish on its
top. But most of the books were out of the case, in a jumbled pile on the
carpet. Drawers were open in filing cabinets against the far wall. Papers were
strewn on the mahogany desk and its drawers were open too. There didn't appear
to have been any vandalism, or wreckage for the sake of wreckage. No papers
torn up or leaves ripped from books. Somebody who knew what he was looking for
had gone over everything in the place. Either he hadn't found what he was
after, or he'd found it at the very last. Because when a guy finds what he's
searching for, he stops searching. And nothing had been missed in here. I fed
the fish some Powdered Shrimp that was on the bookcase, then sat down behind my
desk. _My_ desk. This was my office. I was a detective -- presumably capable of
solving problems. Well, I sure as hell had some problems. Maybe I didn't know
much about them, and everything prior to the Banyan Tree episode was blank; but
I remembered all that had happened since then. It was a start. I rummaged
through the desk, found a pencil and blank sheet of paper. At first I merely
listed the names of the people I'd run into or heard about during the nearly
three days and nights since my flight from the Market Place in Waikiki. I
played around with names for a few minutes, not getting anywhere, then I wrote
down, "Webley Alden." And something happened. In the cells of my brain, in my
consciousness -- or maybe only in the subconscious part of me, something
stirred. It was a weird, not-quite-frightening sensation, as though an
immaterial, intangible breath whispered over some minute convolution of my
brain. I waited. But that was all. Only the indescribable awareness, the
knowledge that something had happened -- or almost happened. I sat in the chair
unmoving, straining mentally to grip whatever it was, but that was all of it,
and it was gone. As sometimes a name will hang on the edge of thought, never
quite dropping into consciousness, and then even the almost-awareness of it
will disappear. I relaxed, slumped against the back of my chair. Not until then
did I realize I had been holding my body rigid, the muscles taut, and that I
was bathed with perspiration. It had soaked through my shirt, and the white
cloth felt cold and a little clammy against my skin. I lit a cigarette, smoked
half of it, then went back to what I'd been doing. Soon the sheet of paper was
filled and I rummaged through the stuff on my desk looking for more. Beneath
some typewritten pages were several sheets folded in half and I unfolded them,
glanced at the first one. There was pen-and-ink writing on it. The name "Webley
Alden" jumped out at me from the top of the page. Seeing it then, after what
had just happened, gave me a physical shock. I started to read. Slowly
excitement built up in me. I glanced from the four pages in my hand to the
sheet on which I had just been writing. The handwriting was the same, my own.
The conclusion seemed inescapable that on these four pages I had, days ago,
done precisely what I'd been doing for the past few minutes: jotting down
facts, salient points, thoughts and conclusions about a case. Obviously it had
been written before the Banyan Tree, and -- the most important item -- it
looked like the same case. When I'd read all four pages I was sure of it. There
were many of the same names, plus others which meant nothing to me now. There
was mention of Webley Alden, of Hawaii and his marriage. Ed Grey's name was
there, and I learned as if for the first time that he ran the Algiers in Las
Vegas and owned the _Pele_ in Honolulu. And more, a lot more. And I got up and
walked around the desk shaking my aching head. What in hell kind of affair had
I gotten myself into? Man, I thought, no matter what else might have gone on
during those dear dead days, they must then have been dear indeed and not at
all dead. Fannies? Freckles? Wow Girls? Blackie, Raven, Jeannette, Charlie? I
sat down, read through the notes again, then tried to line it all up in my
mind: The Before part, or as much of it as I'd just read; the After part, which
I'd lived and remembered; with the Banyan Tree in the middle. For more than an
hour I sat at my desk, making a brief note once in a while, but mainly just
running the threads through my mind, trying to sew the separate parts together.
The ashtray was filled with cigarettes, and I was a little tired when I finally
stood up and stretched, but I felt very good indeed. Because I thought I knew
the answers now. Enough of them, anyway. And I knew what to do in order to get
the rest of them. It wasn't going to be easy. And it would be dangerous;
perhaps fatal. But, if nothing else, I knew it would be interesting. I felt
charged up, exhilarated. Hell, I thought, I might get killed, but it was worth
a try. Who lives forever?



* * *



*SIXTEEN* Back at the Spartan Apartment Hotel, I was trotting up the stairs to
my rooms when a tall, sort of rangy guy on the way down slapped me on the
shoulder. "_Aloha_, Shell," he said cheerfully. "Glad to see you back. And
where are my hula skirts?" I blinked at him. "Your what?" "Don't tell me you
_forgot_ the damn things." Slowly I said, "My friend, I forgot a hell of a lot
more than that." We spent a minute talking on the stairs, then walked up to his
apartment -- only a couple of doors from my own -- and went over it some more
there. I found out he was Dr. Paul Anson, a very good friend of mine. I told
him most of what had happened to me in these last three days, and it was quiet
for a minute or two after I'd finished. Finally I said, "Anyhow, Paul, when I
fell out of that miserable tree I was hanging onto a hula skirt. So I must have
bought the things for you. As to when and where, well, it has slipped my mind."
He looked at me, smoking a cigarette, the smoke curling lazily up from his
nostrils. "Before that it's all blank?" "As if my mind had slipped my mind.
You're the doctor, Paul. Give." He stubbed out his cigarette. "Well, I'm not a
psychiatrist. But my practice is about half pills, half psychiatry. And for
years I've been interested in the brain, as you know." He grinned. "_Knew_, I
mean." "So? What put me into this particular pickle? And how come I remember
nothing about me -- but practically everything else? Does that put me in a
class by myself? At the foot of the class, maybe?" "Not at all. He crossed his
long legs, clasped his hands around one knee. "Nothing about the brain
surprises me much any more. In spite of the enormous amount of work done on the
brain, we still know only a 0 fraction of what there _is_ to know. It's mostly
unexplored territory, 'Unknown' on the mental map. Consider: in the average
brain there are at least ten _billion_ living cells. Approximately four times
the number of people alive on this earth. Somehow -- we don't know how -- those
cells and groups of cells store information, collate it, receive and transmit
messages, allow us to see, feel, act, speak -- and remember." "You don't have
to ease the blow, Paul." He grinned. "Don't get into a sweat. Amnesia can be
caused by brain damage, sure. But also by shock, fever, emotional states,
drugs, pressure on the brain, a lot of things." "And how many of those items
are ... reversible?" I lit a cigarette myself, needing it. "This may not be
much of a brain, but it's the only one I have." "Not ... exactly, Shell. You
can throw away much of your brain and never miss it." "That's a hell of a thing
to say about my brain." "Not just _your_ brain." He chuckled. "Everyone else's,
too. In many cases much of the frontal and temporal lobes of the sub-dominant
part of the brain has been surgically removed without apparent loss of any
normal function of the patient." I looked at him silently for a while. "Aside
from the fact that I haven't any idea what you just said, are you trying in
this ghoulish fashion to cheer me up?" "Well, it's the truth. Of course I say
without 'apparent' loss. There may be interference or loss we can't detect. If
so, it's part of that 'Unknown' area I mentioned." He paused. "You're
right-handed, so the opposite lobe, or left one -- the dominant lobe --
controls your conscious life." "I must have given my left hunk a good smack,
then." "Something happened to it. But my point is that a good part of
everybody's brain, including yours, is like a spare. If there's malfunction in
the, call it vital half, often the 'spare' takes over the job, learns it,
performs it as well as the original lobe once did." I thought about that.
"Sure, fine. If the cells that wiggle my ears go kaput, I can teach the other
side of my head to let me wiggle my ears. But memory -- I can't live two or
three dozen years over again. How old am I, anyway?" "Thirty. Well, it's
reasonable to assume your amnesia was caused by a blow. Maybe there's simply
some pressure on the brain, concussion, a small pool or clot of blood against
cell groups or nerve pathways, a bone chip pressing. If so, there's an
excellent chance a simple operation will remove the pressure. Presto, welcome
back." "Or?" "Face it, Shell." He was sober. "If there's true brain damage,
cells destroyed, that's it. After we're about a year old we don't grow any new
brain cells; and the brain can't repair itself like skin or bone." He dragged
on a new cigarette, not looking at me. Then he added, "But don't forget that's
the worst angle of them all. Could be this is merely due, in whole or part, to
emotional, or psychological if you like, stress or trauma, conversion hysteria.
Could be a lot of things." "Yeah. But how come all that's missing is the thirty
years of Shell Scott? And all the rest is -- or seems to be anyhow -- still up
there." "That's the easiest part. Often people who haven't been in an accident
of any kind are found wandering around in a strange, to them, city. They don't
know who they are, where they came from -- like you. But the rest is intact,
they eat, talk, know how to read and so forth. Consider: all the words you can
_speak_ are stored in a little area of the brain called Broca's Convolution. A
separate bit of the brain stores all the words you _hear_. Another all the
words you read, and so on. If you learn to read, write, speak, and understand
the spoken words of a foreign language, four separate areas of the brain store
each of those separate segments of your knowledge, or experience. If the brain
cells governing your ability to _read_ that foreign language were destroyed or
damaged or even anesthetized, and only those cells, you could still speak that
language, write it, and understand it when it was spoken. Similarly, there's a
little area of the brain which is developed by each of your ten fingers, by the
whole hand, the arm -- and so on. O. K. to here?" "I guess so." "Consider it
all from the opposite angle, then, the one important to you. A brain surgeon
knows the area of the brain which controls, for example, movement of your right
foot. If because of brain damage you became unable to use your right foot, the
surgeon -- simply because of his knowledge, even before examining you -- could
come close to pinpointing the area in your left hemisphere where the damage
must have occurred. That's half the battle. The rest is to repair the damage."
"Interesting. But this repair bit ... even if he knows where the trouble is, he
has to -- get inside there." "Of course -- _if_ the damage is organic." "So
he's got to sort of hack away and haul things about and ... oh-h." It sounded
perfectly ghastly. Paul laughed. "It's not quite like blasting, my friend."
"Well, what _is_ it like, then?" I really wanted to know. I could see
fang-toothed saws whirring, hammers falling, crowbars prying at my giant brain.
But I told myself it couldn't be that bad, probably it was very delicate stuff.
"Well, X-rays of the skull at first," Paul said. That didn't sound bad. "Spinal
tap, electroencephalogram -- or brain-wave -- chart, possibly a
pneumo-encephalogram or arterogram, and after that -- " "Stop!" "What?" "Don't
tell me any more. That's -- that's _murder!_" He shook his head, smiling. _He_
could smile. "You have the usual layman's misunderstanding of technical terms
-- " "Horror is the word. They all sound like diseases." "Shell, sit down.
That's better. Relax. Sit _down_. Now, it's very simple. A pneumo-encephalogram
is simply a means by which brain shadows of the cavities and sulci can be made
to show up in X-rays. We merely take out a little spinal fluid -- " "No, we
don't." -- "and in its place inject air into the spine. It's extremely
interesting. The air goes up the spinal column into the brain and all in and
around the ... Shell ... are you ill?" "No, I feel ... swell." "I thought I was
making you feel better. After all, you _asked_ me." "Yeah, I haven't got a lick
of sense." "Look, Shell, from your description of the way you've acted these
past days, I'd guess that at least part of your trouble, maybe even most of it,
is -- well, psychic rather than physical. So it really may not be so bad. Dr.
Bohrmann at the County Hospital is a good friend of mine, and he's one of the
best brain men in the country." Paul stood up. "He can give you all the
answers, and I'd say Bohrmann's the man for you to see. I'll give him a ring
now and get you over there -- " "Hold it." He swung his head toward me. "What's
the matter?" "Not this instant, pal. I've got a few things to do before we
start parting my head." He started to reply, then stopped, frowning. After a
long silence he said, "I know you too well to argue if you've made up your mind
to do some damn fool thing. But, Shell, I must strongly advise you to get
medical attention right away. There might be arteries or veins blocked, pinched
-- cells not fed _die_, you know. And there's the possibility that another blow
on the head could really ruin you." "Ha! Another blow on the head. It's been
tried already, by experts. And it didn't kill me. Not quite." Paul started to
speak again but I held up a hand. "Really, my friend. I couldn't let the
skull-sawing and whatnot get started just now. I'd be laid up for days,
probably weeks or more. And numerous guys who desire to kill me would most
likely find me. No, after I get through the next day or two, then you may wheel
me straight into Dr. Frankenstein's if you want -- which is what I think you
have in mind. Anyway, forget it for now." I was serious. And for the reasons
I'd given him. But I was also thinking of all those crazy things he'd said. If
ever I had considered checking into a hospital before my job was done, I
considered it no longer. Paul opened his mouth, shut it. "Well, it's your
funeral. But I recall saying the same thing to you before this." He sighed.
"What next, then?" I started telling him what I planned to do, and when I
mentioned the films referred to in the four pages of notes I'd so recently
read, Paul said, "Films? Shell, before you left for Hawaii you asked me to hang
onto two reels of film for you. They, the projector and screen, are in my
closet." I gawked at him, then grinned. "What," I asked, "are we waiting for?"
With the projector and screen set up, Paul switched out the lights and I
started running the films. The last reel showed scenes after the wedding in
Hawaii. Paul pointed out Webley Alden and I thought that he looked very happy.
His bride's face was never visible. But, looking at the faces which were
visible in the pictures, I saw one I recognized. Recognized? It jarred me.
Either one of those cell groups Paul had talked about was sparking normally, or
the face belonged to somebody I had met _since_ the Banyan Tree. Another look
gave me the answer; cells were not sparking. The man who'd caught my eye was in
a black suit, and obviously had officiated at the ceremony; the Bible in his
hand was a prop. Tall and thin, with black hair and brows, with a large beak on
him. A kind of spread-out, fleshy nose. I'd seen him twice, very recently. The
first time had been in the darkness of Monsarrat in Waikiki. And again in the
_Pele_ when I'd slugged him for the second time. Then he'd had a mashed mouth
and a couple of other lumps on his chops. But it was, unquestionably, the same
guy. Before leaving I asked Paul if he knew anything about the photograph
Webley Alden had taken the night he was killed. It was referred to in my notes,
and the goons at L.A. International had asked me about it, but I had no idea
where it was now. Neither did Paul, but he did know I had most of my
photographic work done by a man named Harold at Eagle Photo Supply a few blocks
up Rossmore. I called Harold, got him at the camera shop, and asked him about
it. The way he reacted, the picture stood out in his mind like a beacon. He
still had the transparency and I told him to make a big enlargement from it, at
least life size, larger if he could manage it. Harold said he would have the
job done by morning. It was as simple as that. If only, I thought, the rest of
it could be that simple. But next on the agenda was Las Vegas. The Algiers. And
Ed Grey. * * * *

The Western Airlines DC-6B I'd boarded less than an hour and a half earlier at
L.A. International landed at McCarran Field, Las Vegas, at nine-eighteen p.m.
that Friday night. The next flight back to L.A. was scheduled for
twelve-forty-five a.m. With luck I might be on it.

I took a cab down U. S. Highway 91 to a small cocktail lounge called Cosmo's,
just past the Algiers and on the opposite side of the Strip. In the lounge I
found a pay phone and called the Algiers, asked for Dutch. My notes had
mentioned my getting helpful information from "Dutch," and from "Charlie," one
of the Wow girls. Dutch was voluble and pleasant on the phone. I asked him to
meet me here, without broadcasting news of my presence, and he said he had a
break soon. I had a highball and waited. After he arrived and found me at the
bar it took me another five minutes to explain my situation and convince him I
was serious. I wound it up, "Anyway, that's it. So it would help if you'd tell
me what you told me when I was here before." He looked at me curiously, brows
pulled down, shaking his head. But then he started in. When he'd finished I
said, "Ed Grey was kind of hot for Pagan, huh?" "Hell, he's hot for women --
which is why that dressing room's next to his office, I'll give odds. But Ed
even gave Pagan a ring. I mentioned the trinkets and such last time."
"Engagement ring?" "No, just a ring. Ornamental thing. Snake chewing on its
tail -- expensive enough. Big diamonds for eyes." "Did Pagan wear the thing?"
"Sure, after he gave it to her she was never without it. Real proud of it, said
it cost sixteen hundred bucks." He laughed. "She actually went down to Mason's
here, where Ed bought the thing, and checked up. No glass for Pagan." "You
don't have any idea where she is?" He shook his head. "Nope. Like I said,
haven't seen her since two nights before Charlie took over the act." We
finished our drinks and Dutch left briefly, returned with Charlie. She had a
lot of thick red hair, and there was a lot of Charlie, but it was in the places
where a lot was enough. She sat between Dutch and me and ordered a dry martini,
told me her story, in the meantime ordering another martini. I asked her, "Ed
phoned you to replace Pagan on the night of the fourteenth? You're sure?"
"Sure. Friday night. Next day I started, and that was Saturday, the fifteenth."
"What time of night did he call?" "Around eight p.m. Maybe a few minutes after.
I'd just turned in. Early for a change." "And the last show always starts at
midnight? Seven nights a week?" She nodded. Friday the fourteenth was the night
Webley Alden had been killed. There wasn't much else Charlie could tell me, and
in a few minutes she went back to the Algiers. I told Dutch I wanted to talk to
the switchboard operator in the Algiers, find out if any long-distance calls
had come in on the night of the fourteenth for Ed Grey. He said he'd get them
for me. When I protested that it could get him in trouble if Grey found out, he
said, "It's okay. I know the lass on the switchboard." Dutch grinned. "Quite
well. Besides, nuts to 'em. I can always go back to the farm." He slid off the
stool. "I'll give you a call here with the info." "Okay, Dutch. But tell the
lass to describe a big white-haired guy -- me -- if Grey asks her who got nosy.
One other thing. When Grey leaves the Algiers, does he drive his own car?"
"Yeah, new tan Imperial sedan." "Where does he park it?" "In front of the club.
Just past the loading strip outside the entrance." He left. A few minutes later
his call came for me. "Two long-distance calls to Ed that night, Shell," he
said. "One from Chicago at six-forty p.m. The other from Medina, California at
seven-fifty-two p.m." "Medina, huh?" "Right. No others, though." "One of those
was enough. Thanks, Dutch." I hung up with a very satisfied feeling, looked in
the phone book's yellow pages, found "Mason's Jewelers," and phoned. There was
no answer at the store, but I got David Mason, the owner, at his home. I
described the ring Ed Grey had bought for Pagan Page, explained it had been
purchased sometime during the early part of August, and that I wanted one just
like it. "Would you describe the ring again?" "Serpent with its tail in its
mouth, diamonds for eyes. I think it cost sixteen hundred dollars." "Oh, yes.
I've one identical with it. Perhaps two. I can check tomorrow." "It has to be
tonight. And all I want is the setting." "The setting? _Tonight?_ Do you really
expect me to drive all the way downtown at this hour, and open the store,
merely to sell you the setting?" "I hope you will. It's important." He didn't
say anything, just sort of grumbled. I said, "What's the ring worth -- without
the stones?" "Very little. Perhaps a hundred dollars at most." I didn't have
sixteen hundred, but this I could handle. "I'll pay two hundred for the
setting," I said. He grumbled some more, but finally said he'd do it. * * * *

At eleven-forty-five p.m. -- in a Ford I'd rented from a U-Drive lot -- I drove
up in front of the Algiers. In the Ford's glove compartment were a flashlight
and the loaded .45 automatic I'd taken from Biff.

Dutch had told me Ed Grey was usually in his office at this hour, and when the
doorman stepped up to my car I said, "Ed in his office now? Ed Grey?" "I guess
so. Probably." "Would you deliver a package to him for me?" I held up the small
ring box. In it was the setting I'd bought from Mr. Mason. Around it was a
five-dollar bill. The guy looked at the five. "Sure thing," he said. I gave him
the five. "One condition. Deliver it at exactly twelve o'clock. Exactly. OK?"
"I guess so. Sure. Just so it ain't a bomb or something." I grinned. That's
what I hoped it was. I took a last look at it myself. On the way here I'd
stopped and rubbed the setting in soft earth alongside the road, then put it
back into the ring box. The band was about an eighth of an inch thick,
intricately worked with scales over the snake's body, narrow tail disappearing
into the open mouth. The diamond eyes, of course, were gone; and I had made
sure no dirt remained in the spaces where they had been. The scales and snake's
mouth had retained a lot of dirt, though. I closed the box, handed it to the
man. The tan Imperial was parked a few yards ahead of me. I drove past it, and
back to Cosmo's. From there I called the Algiers at three minutes before
midnight. When he answered I said, "Hang onto something, Ed." "What?" "I've got
bad news for you." "You what? Who is this?" "Shell Scott. But that's only part
of the bad news." "Scott?" He was silent, digesting it. Then he said, as if it
wasn't digested, "What in hell do you want?" "You, Ed. You in a sweat. You on a
slab." "Why, you bastard. I've had enough -- " "Guess what, Ed? I found Pagan's
body." He didn't say anything. For quite a while he didn't say anything. When
he spoke, though, his voice was hard and level. "I always thought you were
nuts, Scott. Now I know it. Make some sense or get off the line." "Try it like
this, then. I got a hunch Pagan might be dead when I began wondering why you
threw so much weight at me even before we met. From right after Webley Alden
was killed, in fact, until now." "You're full of horse manure." "Keep
listening. Webb was killed around seven-thirty on the night of the fourteenth.
Twenty minutes or so later you got a call from Medina. Pagan disappeared that
night, too -- odd coincidence. Nobody's seen her since -- another odd
coincidence. You knew an hour _before_ she was due to go on at nine p.m. that
she wouldn't be going on at all. Now how did you know that, Ed? Suddenly
there's no more coincidence. And _that's_ the odd part." "She just didn't show.
She wasn't around." "She could have shown at nine. Nine-thirty. Even midnight
for the last show -- she wasn't the first act on. You knew she wasn't _going_
to show, Ed." He told me again what I was full of, and he'd gone beyond horse
manure. But he sounded a little shaky. And he was still listening. I looked at
my watch. It was a minute till midnight. I said, "There was plenty of reason
for me to start checking, talking to people, looking for Pagan. And finally I
found her. I'm not really sure why you killed her -- " "Scott, you're clear out
of -- " "But I can make an educated guess. A couple of your boys let it slip
that she was 'riding the earie' while you talked on the phone. So, while she
wasn't in on the Medina business, I'd guess she found out about it -- probably
listening from her adjoining dressing room while you talked to Medina by phone
on the night Webb was killed. Even if she didn't get it all right then, she
could easily have put it together when the news of Webb's murder hit the papers
next day." "Pagan's as alive as you are, jerk. More alive, probably." He
laughed. "And she's sure as hell going to live longer." "I told you I found her
body. It wasn't easy, but I made sure it was Pagan Page. Tell me, Ed. Did she
try a little blackmail? Or were you just playing it safe?" He laughed shortly.
"Scott, I have to hand it to you. You might even be making a little sense if
Pagan was dead. But she's not -- at least not so far as I know. We had a little
... argument, and she took off in a huff. Messed up the show for one night, but
that's all." He sounded fairly convincing; maybe I'd overplayed my hand. But he
hadn't denied getting the call from Medina. And he was still listening. It was
twelve p.m. on the nose. So I said, "Ed, knock it off. I told you I found her
body. It wasn't pleasant -- not after all this time. But I brought back a
souvenir for you. Took it off her finger." "You -- what?" He sounded shocked.
Faintly in the receiver I could hear somebody rap on Grey's door. I said, "That
should be it. Little present from Pagan and me to you." He didn't say anything,
but the phone clattered as it went down on his desktop. There were soft sounds
in my ear, the mumble of voices, then Grey was back on the phone. "Scott ... we
got to talk. Scott, you there?" "I'm here. So let's talk." "I'll meet you
someplace. I..." He stopped. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger. "What
kind of con is this?" It had shaken him, obviously, but he was already pulling
himself together. He said angrily, "This is some kind of jerky trick. I gave
this ring to Pagan, sure. Or ... one like it. This probably isn't even the one
she had." "I took the eyes out, Ed. No point in giving them back to you. And
Pagan doesn't need them now." He laughed again. "What are you trying to pull,
Scott?" Gently, I hung up. Then I went out of Cosmo's, started the Ford, pulled
into U. S. 91, and drove slowly toward the Algiers, heading for desert beyond
the hotel. Well, I thought, maybe Ed would buy it. And maybe I hadn't had
anything to sell. I drove slowly up the highway. The Algiers was on my left,
set back about fifty feet from the street, and as I passed opposite the
entrance doors a man came through them in a hurry. He stopped, spoke briefly to
the doorman, then ran to the tan Imperial and jumped in. The car started with a
shriek of rubber, leaped forward in the curving drive. I stepped on the gas,
grinning. I had hoped to get Ed Grey wondering; but he wasn't just wondering,
he was coming unglued. Relief poured into me like plasma. I was a block south
of the club when Grey's tan sedan skidded into Highway 91 behind me. I kept a
block or two ahead of the Imperial, watching it in my rearview mirror. I raced
by the Sands, Flamingo, Dunes, Tropicana and Hacienda, then past some gas
stations and into darkness of the desert beyond. By then I was going over
seventy miles an hour, but once out of the Strip's traffic Grey's car gained
rapidly on me. I let him pass. Only four or five miles from the Algiers, Grey
swung skidding off the highway into a narrow dirt road. I slowed, gave him
plenty of time, then doused the Ford's lights and turned after him. Far ahead I
could see the flare of his taillights as he braked suddenly, then the car swung
left and out of sight. There was a quarter-moon, barely enough illumination for
me to see the road ahead, a lighter path on the earth. In the darkness I took
the .45 and flashlight from the glove compartment, put the flashlight on the
seat alongside me, cocked the gun and placed it next to the flashlight. I could
feel the slow build-up of tension in my muscles, a not unpleasant tightness
starting to pull at the back of my neck. I made the left turn in the road, soon
saw light gleam dully on something ahead. Then the shadowy outline of the sedan
was visible, and I stopped, got out of the Ford and walked the rest of the way
to the other car. It was the Imperial. Clearly in the night came sounds from
somewhere on my right. I walked toward them, gun in my right hand, flashlight
in my left. My foot hit a small stone, sent it scuttling over the ground. I
stopped. Grey wasn't far from me now. I could hear the grating sound of
something driven into earth, the sharp click of one stone striking another. And
then the smell hit me. The smell of death is acrid, sweetly sickening. It has
an unmistakable fetid sweetness, cloying, like nothing else. As if scented air
were decaying, turning into corruption. It hangs over battlefields in war, lies
trapped within graves in peace. And it was here around Ed Grey and me, filling
the space between us. I walked forward through the pungent stench, moving
slowly, placing my feet carefully. Then I saw him, hunched over, close to the
ground, pawing. I lifted the gun, aimed it at him, finger barely touching the
trigger. I held the flashlight before me but out from my body, then flicked it
on. The brilliant beam washed over him, seeming to hold him transfixed for a
moment. He was bent, a small collapsible shovel gripped in his hands, its blade
half buried in loose earth turned at his feet. Then his shocked white face
snapped toward me. His mouth formed a taut grimace. He lifted the small shovel
quickly, started to straighten up. "Hold it, Grey!" I said. He took one step
nearer, hurled the shovel with all his strength. It pinwheeled toward me, blade
catching the light. I ducked, jumped to the side. Almost in time. The shovel's
handle slammed against my left forearm, numbing the muscles momentarily, and
the flashlight fell against a rock, winked out. I heard the sound of Grey's
running feet. As I started after him a gun cracked. Bright blooms of flame
darted toward me. The bullets were wide by several feet. I dropped to one knee,
snapped a shot toward the place where Grey had been; waited, listening. Then I
heard the engine of his car roar, the crunch of tires on earth. His headlights
were out, but the taillights flared red in the night. As he swung around in a
tight half circle I aimed ahead of the red lights, fired three times. The car
gained speed, then the headlights leaped down the dirt road and the Imperial
raced after them. I let him go. I found a lighter in my pocket, snapped it on
and looked at my watch. It was eighteen minutes after midnight. In twenty-seven
minutes a plane would be leaving Las Vegas for L.A.; I meant to be on that
plane, if I could make it. Very soon a large portion of the hoods in Vegas
would be looking for me. And would know where to look. Getting my hands on Grey
wasn't, at the moment, the important thing. The important thing was done. I
found the shovel, walked to the spot where Grey had been standing. In a few
seconds I'd scraped away the last inch or two of earth. In another half minute
I'd bared part of the arm. What had once been an arm. Now it was
purple-blotched, dark and discolored. Once it had been smooth and firm and
warm, and she had been beautiful. It was pretty bad. I tried not to breathe,
but I had to look. Holding the burning lighter so its flame illumined her arm,
I bent close. On the puffy, bloated hand, nearly buried in the swollen finger,
almost as if it were alive and tightening upon her dead flesh, the metal
serpent coiled. Its diamond eyes glittered brightly in the flame.



* * *



*SEVENTEEN* I got up late the next afternoon in my apartment, showered and
shaved and looked with a dim eye upon my numerous bruises and cuts and bumps.
It was truly a splendid array. But none of it really bothered me except the
almost constant ache in my head. It felt as if either my brain was growing or
my skull was shrinking. For a moment I amused myself with the thought of a
brain growing, and growing, popping out of its skull and slithering over the
landscape, striking down evil citizens with rays of pure noodles, growing and
growing.... But then the thought of Shell Scott, Giant Brain, struck me as
perhaps a bit unlikely, especially since I now had much less than I'd started
out with. So I dressed and forced myself to eat a hearty breakfast, then went
into the living room. I'd made it in time to the plane at McCarran Field the
night before and there'd been no trouble with gunmen there or on landing at
L.A. International. I had rented a Chrysler, driven home. Now, despite the
bruises and aches, I was rested and refreshed, ready for the final act tonight.
Because tonight was Saturday night, the Anniversary Party, the wrap-up, the
unveiling. I grinned to myself, thinking that it would be an unveiling in more
ways than one. And just in case I got killed, I figured I might as well go out
in style. With a flair, so to speak. And the Anniversary Party, from what I
knew of it, sure seemed like the place where anything might happen. But I
needed information, help. I had to trust somebody. I dug up all my notes and
went over them again. One Blackie, the notes told me, was Sue Mayfair, and
after her name was a Hollywood telephone number. The notes told me, too, that
Blackie was a doll, a delight. Just how good a friend she might be the notes
didn't quite say, but it seemed reasonably sure that she was, if nothing else,
not included among my enemies. That was good; I didn't want an enemy helping
me. So I called Sue Mayfair. She seemed pleased to hear from me and said, yes,
she'd been in the Whittaker house, where the party was to be held, once before
at a small cocktail party. And she would be glad to help me any way she could.
It was a rather odd conversation. Once she asked, sort of giggling, if she
should wear her "costume," but I didn't have the faintest idea what she was
talking about. However, she said, sure, she'd be happy if I came over to see
her in half an hour. I hung up, found a bottle of glue in a drawer and dropped
it into my coat pocket. Then I made sure I had the .45 automatic, went through
the first twelve issues of _Wow!_ and tore out the featured gatefolds, and was
on my way. I stopped at Eagle Photo. Harold had the enlargement already framed
and wired for me. It was four feet by five feet, ready to hang on a wall. And
was in a word: splendid. The lovely lines of the woman's nude body were soft
and flowing, the flesh almost melting against the harsher outlines of the
carved-wood Pan beyond her. The hands of Pan reached out as if about to enclose
the wonderfully shapely form, draw it to him, upon him. One hairy leg was
raised, the goat foot gleaming, and on Pan's dark face was an expression of
complete and delighted lechery, the eyes wide and knowing, the thick lips
twisted in a lascivious smile. I gave Harold a check with my thanks, put the
big enlargement in the back of my rented Chrysler, and drove to a sporting
goods store where I bought a box of .45-caliber cartridges. I filled the
automatic's magazine, dropped the gun in my coat pocket, then drove on, with
some anticipation, to see Blackie. * * * *

It was six-thirty p.m. Blackie, wearing a bright print dress with narrow cloth
straps over her smooth shoulders, sat at one end of a blue divan in her
apartment. I sat at the other end. Both of us had highballs, the second for
each of us so far. I had explained the current situation to Blackie. She was
over her first surprise and had filled me in on all that she'd told me before.
Or, perhaps, not quite all, since she'd mentioned nothing about a "costume" or
even hinted at anything which would explain the enthusiasm I'd expressed about
Sue Mayfair in my notes.

Now she had another sip of her drink and said, "Well, you look and talk the
same, Shell. Ill bet you haven't changed a bit." She grinned. "I hope. So
what's next?" "I mean to be an uninvited guest at the Anniversary Party
tonight. But several characters present there will want to shoot me on sight."
"Shoot you? With bullets?" "Bullets, bows and arrows, blowguns, anything they
can get their hands on." I paused. "So, as I mentioned a bit earlier, anybody
who helps me in _any_ way could buy a large hunk of trouble if it got noised
around." "I told you to forget that. Where do I come in?" "Well, these
characters will probably have a hunch I might try to show up at the party. A
couple of the boys could even be on guard outside, that sort of thing. And I
imagine once the party starts all the doors will be locked." "You can bet on
that." She grinned again. "I know you don't remember all I told you before, but
do you know what's supposed to happen at the party tonight? The pictures and
all?" "Yes. That is, I wrote down the salient points and have ... mulled it
over mentally. I know there's to be a photo or two taken of all the girls
featured in the first twelve issues of _Wow!_ Ah, like the individual shots,
but ... all at once." She laughed. "Yes. In high-heeled shoes and turtleneck
sweaters. And nothing else. Did you write that down?" "No ... I merely
indicated that ... ah ... hoo! That's how they'll do it, huh?" "Yes. That's the
costume well all wear." Her eyes were merry. "Costume? Didn't you ask me ...
hoo!" I finished my drink. My mind was wandering down paths which led into
freeways which could make a shambles of an already half-shot mind like mine.
Blackie slid close on the couch, took the empty glass from my hand and said,
"I'll fix us another drink, all right?" "Yeah, fine. But I have to have a dear
head tonight ... hah. Clear head. Sure, fix another drink." She walked toward
the bar and I said, "One other item, Blackie. There's a big photograph, twenty
square feet of it, that I'd like to have on the wall when the party gets going.
But I have to fix it a little first. Okay if I bring it up?" It was all right
with Blackie, so I went down to the car and got the enlargement, my gatefolds
from _Wow!_, and the glue. Blackie had fresh drinks ready when I got back. I
showed her the big framed photo. "Boy!" she said. "That's a good one. Who is
it, do you know yet?" "That's what I'll tell you, and everybody else, tonight."
I explained that my idea was to paste -- on the reverse side of the framed
enlargement -- the twelve gatefolds from _Wow!_ Since the magazine itself, and
the Wow girls, were what the party was all about in the first place, the
collection of twelve photos hanging on the wall should not strike a jarring
note, but instead should seem a natural part of the surroundings. "A sort of
homey touch, hey?" said Blackie. "That's the idea. Assuming I can sneak this
big thing into the house -- and assuming nobody turns the thing over and peeks
at the enlargement on the other side." "Very good," she said. "There's a
madness to your method." "Yes, there's ... Well, I'd better start pasting."
"Let's both paste." It didn't take long, but it was sure fun. You just never
know how much fun your work can be unless you plunge right into it. Blackie and
I both got down on the floor, and snipped and arranged and pasted, and I
decided it would have been great fun to be on the floor with Blackie even if
we'd had nothing to paste. A couple of times she nudged me in the ribs with her
elbow and said something wild. That's the way it went. Then we sat on the couch
and talked. Blackie told me the party would be at a big home in Medina owned by
Mr. Whittaker, he having a chunk of money in _Wow!_ The giddiness was to begin
at eight p.m. in what old Whittaker, with remarkable bluntness, called his
"Booze Room," and from there would progress on into the living room for
talking, drinking, smoking, and no telling. Including taking the pix for _Wow!_
And just possibly some private collections. Blackie described the "fat old
mansion" for me. She would unlock a side door if she-could, so I could sneak in
and skulk about, and with luck hang my picture in the living room. She told me
the library was next to the living room, where tonight I wagered there would be
lots of living, and if all went well I could get in there before the gang
showed up. It sort of amused me to think that I might get killed in -- a
library. Not that I don't read; I read many things. Besides _Wow!_ I looked at
my watch. It was almost seven-thirty p.m. "Time I left," I said. "Gee, I wish
it wasn't so late, Shell." "I wish it was about three in the afternoon --
tomorrow." "If we had time ... I'll bet we could kill a couple more hours
here." "I'll bet we could slaughter them." "Shell, you don't remember anything
at all about being up here before, do you?" "No. Worse luck. Nothing ... at
all." She had put her hand on my leg, an inch or two above the knee. It's funny
about hands. They can do all sorts of things, such as slap you on the back, or
sock you on the jaw, or wave goodbye. Blackie was sort of waving, but it was
not goodbye. The sensation of her gently waggling fingers was not quite like
that of a functional soldering iron, but there was pretty near enough heat
being generated to fuse pants and leg together. She said, "Maybe after the
party we could get together again up here. We can figure out something to do,
I'll bet." "I'll bet." "That's what we'll do then." She grinned. "You're fun,
Shell. You haven't changed. You're more fun than a barrel of monkeyers." "Well,
I ... Would you say that again a little more -- " "So don't get yourself shot
or bow-and-arrowed or anything." "Don't you worry." I paused. "For Pete's sake,
don't mention me to anybody at Whittaker's. That would get me boiled in oil."
"I won't." We made it to her front door. Blackie was going to the ball in her
own car, and as I went out she said, "Remember now. Don't you get shot and
spoil our little party." It occurred to me that if I got shot, it would spoil
much more than our little party. Depending, of course, on where I got shot. But
I grinned at her and said, "Blackie, I wouldn't think of it," and left. I had
been waiting for half an hour in the bushes outside the two-story Whittaker
house in Medina. Now I took the Colt .45 from my pocket, worked a cartridge
into the barrel chamber, pushed up the safety lock and dropped the cocked gun
into my pocket again. The big enlargement lay flat on grass a few feet from me.
A rectangular swimming pool was at this side of the house, about thirty feet
from where I crouched. Blackie had been one of the first girls to arrive. But
in the last half hour I'd heard numerous other cars drive up and even managed
to see some of the arriving guests. The only women to be present were the Wow
girls; all the other guests would be men. Among them I had spotted a face
which, though I'd gotten only a quick glance at it last night in the beam of my
flash, I easily recognized. Ed Grey. With him had been another guy easily
recognizable, big Slobbers O'Brien. Close on their heels had come two other men
I didn't know, but who had the hard dark look of unpleasant people. By now all
the guests were probably inside. All but the uninvited guest: me. It was night,
eight-thirty p.m., and time for me to get started. Carrying the big picture I
walked to the pool, past it, reached the door. Blackie had done her Job and the
door opened noiselessly. I shut it behind me, waited. From another part of the
house I could hear faint conversation and occasional laughter. Unless there'd
been a change in plans, the whole gang would now be in the "Booze Room," which
I understood to be a luxurious room complete with two bars, hi-fi, comfortable
furniture -- everything needed for serious, or light, drinking. From the Booze
Room the guests, suitably lubricated, would ooze to the huge living room. The
girls would change, in one of the adjacent bedrooms, into their "costumes" and
then the fun -- that is, the photographic session, would begin. And probably
everybody would sing, "Happy Birthday to _Wow!_" or do something equally
exciting. I walked forward. Sounds of merriment got a little louder but I
didn't see anybody. After a minute or so I found the living room. Cameras,
lights and reflectors were already there against one wall, but the room was
empty of people. Directly ahead of me was a bare wall of highly polished dark
wood. At its left and right ends were heavy doors, both closed. The room's
right wall was almost entirely glass, the big windows affording a view of the
swimming pool outside. In the middle of the opposite wall, on my left, sliding
doors were open before the library. I could see in their shelves hundreds of
books that nobody was going to read tonight. Several feet beyond those sliding
doors, about half the distance to that bare wall, hung a large painting. It was
almost the same size as the collection I carried, but not nearly as
interesting, since it was an old oil painting of some dead fish and stuffed
ducks. I replaced the fish and ducks with my framed collection. When I stepped
back, the sight of all those Women With Wow at once, was almost overpowering. I
left the oil painting on the floor beneath it, went into the library, closed
the sliding doors and looked around. The shelves held at least four or five
thousand books, the furniture was deep and comfortable in appearance. A cool
breeze came in through two open windows overlooking a group of glossy-leaved
philodendrons. There was the faint scent of tobacco smoke in the library. But
the room was empty now, quiet. I went back to the sliding doors, opened them a
half inch, and waited. About ten minutes after I got into position, the first
of the guests started coming in. Soon there were twenty or so milling about,
others arriving, all of them with highballs or cocktails. I saw Ed Grey clearly
through my half-inch crack in the door. Somebody had obviously given him a
beautiful shiner, not quite concealed now by makeup. It pleased me. Slobbers
showed up, plus the two guys I'd seen follow him inside the house. There were
several other men present, some of them undoubtedly from the _Wow!_ staff, a
professional photographer or two and several amateurs. A man with a notebook in
his hand, probably a reporter, waved across the room and called, "Hey, Desmond.
Couple questions?" A tall, broad-shouldered guy, good-looking and with a bunch
of wavy brown hair, walked to the man who'd called. That would be Orlando
Desmond, Raven McKenna's husband. I recognized him; it figured. The two men
spoke. Orlando threw back his head and laughed, rolling his eyes around the
room, possibly to note the effect on the lovelies of his big white beautiful
teeth. It looked as if everybody was present now, and it was quite a crowd.
Tall men, short men, thick and thin men, reporters, photographers, hoodlums.
All of those, plus. Plus: ten of the most gorgeous gals a man could hope to see
in a long and energetic life. Ten Women With Wow, ten lusty, busty, beautiful,
almost outrageously shapely tomatoes, young and juicy, vibrant and healthy,
exquisitely gowned, exquisitely fashioned. Blondes and brunettes, redheads, and
gals with jet-black hair. All were in cocktail dresses, and the dresses all
looked like the kind which are never thrown on but are sometimes thrown off.
Several black ones, an electric blue, one in vivid orange, a purple and a green
and a beige, one white and one lavender. Cigarettes came away red-stained from
red-stained lips, ripe mouths caressed the rims of crystal glasses, white teeth
flashed in laughter. It was beautiful, wonderful. I was miserable. I wanted to
be out there, flitting like a bee from flower to flower, like a wasp, like a
hawk, like crazy. Like me. But here I stood -- in the _library_. Here I stood,
peeking out at it all. The room buzzed, conversation rose and fell, white
breasts flirted with the necklines of colorful dresses, flesh rippled smoothly
under silk, nylon, jersey, as the lovelies walked in the room. Hors d'oeuvres
were passed around on silver trays. More drinks arrived. I perspired. Man, I
thought, none of those babes had better waltz in here. No, sirree. Even if it
was worth it, that could ruin everything. But nobody came near the library,
except passing by to get a drink or an hors d'oeuvre or a woman. Ten lovelies
-- out of twelve Women With Wow. Which meant that two were missing. One of
those missing, of course, was Pagan Page. A short, globular man I assumed was
Mr. Whittaker called for attention and said a few words of welcome to the
assemblage, then introduced Orlando Desmond. Desmond made a short speech in
which he spoke of the tragic death of Webley Alden and said many flowery things
about Webb as the real heart of _Wow!_ He went on to compliment the girls who
had so successfully raised the circulation of the magazine and the male
population of the USA., and stopped just short of singing a song. Applause.
Then more drinks were passed around. One of the lovelies before my peeking eye
now was Blackie. She walked casually toward the library doors. For a moment she
scared me a bit; I thought she was going to come right in. But she paused a
couple of feet away and opened her handbag, took out lipstick and a small
mirror. While dabbing her lips she said softly, "All right?" I whispered
through the crack, "Yeah. But it's miserable in here." She smiled slightly. "I
know. You want to be out here with -- me." "That's ... close enough. How's it
look?" "Two of the girls aren't here yet." "I can guess. Pagan Page and Loana
Kaleoha." "Yes, how did you know?" "Never mind now. When does the photographic
culmination commence?" "Soon. They aren't going to wait any longer." She
started to turn away -- and I thought of something. Something important, which
I had neglected to mention earlier. "Honey, hold it a minute," I said. She
stopped, pulled a Kleenex from her bag, dabbed at her lips. A couple of the men
across the room were looking at her. One of them was Ed Grey. I started
perspiring again, for a different reason. There were several very rough boys
here, perhaps even one or two more outside, and this thing might get entirely
out of hand. If it did, cops would be a necessity; even if it didn't, once my
bit was finished I would want numerous policemen handy to take over. So I said
to Blackie, "When I spring out of here, the first chance you get, call the
cops, will you? If anybody notices you, it will seem a natural thing to be
doing." "All right. We're only two or three miles from the Medina Police
Station. They should get here quickly. Besides, I know Lieutenant Farley. Not
well, and I don't like him much, but he'll know I'm serious and hurry out." She
moved her mouth around as if checking the lip job while she talked. "Farley?"
It didn't mean anything to me. "Okay, just so some friendly cops get here in a
hurry." She walked back into the roomful of people. I felt better now. I'd have
four or five minutes alone, at least, but that much I wanted and could handle.
And after that, if all went well, I would be joined by police officers eager to
help me gather in the crooks. Something was going on out there. Ah, the girls
were leaving. All ten of them. Going to put on their costumes. I sure wished I
had one of those drinks the guys out there were swilling so happily. I'd have
given much for one puff of a cigarette. But I kept my eye glued to the crack in
my doors. From where I stood, I could look straight at the big windows in the
far wall, beyond which was the pool. The entrance to the living room was on my
right, the bare wall on my left. Left of center in the room, cameras were being
set in place. Apparently the girls, when they returned, would be posed down
there with that bare wall as a background. They'd gone out through the door at
the right end of that wall, and would presumably come back through it.
Fortunately, since I could see that part of the room without opening my doors
any wider. Just for a moment, then, I sort of withdrew from myself and looked
upon all this as if I were outside, floating about in the air somewhere like
that cat in _A Christmas Carol_, and peering down upon all this from my lofty
eminence. And I thought: is it really happening? Is this true life? Can this no
kidding be happening to me? Have I split completely, flipped, snapped? Or is
this real? Are these people really people? But then I snapped back. And I knew
these people were really people. I knew more than that: these girls were really
girls. Because the first one was back with us. The first of The Ten, perhaps
the one ready first, perhaps the most daring -- no matter, she was back. A
blonde. A stupendous blonde. And she was ready for her picture. Everybody else
in the joint was also ready for her picture. She wore -- you know it, friends
-- high-heeled shoes and a turtleneck sweater. The sweater was pink, not that
anybody gave a hoot. She paused in the doorway, not at all ill at ease, and a
kind of soft fluting sound quivered in the room, a sort of sighing ululation
like the flutter of wild parakeet wings. Then the blonde walked from my right
to left along that far wall -- and out of sight. Well, _pfui_, I said to
myself. I peered through the crack and about the room. All the men assembled
here had by now sort of come to attention and stampeded closer to that wall on
my left, and thus nobody was either in front of my doors or to my right. So,
since I was pretty well addled anyway, I slowly slid one of the doors wide
open. The library was dark, and while I stood behind the other door it was
doubtful that anybody would see me even if they looked this way. It was even
more doubtful that anybody would look this way. And now I could see everything,
except for big male backs which sometimes blocked my view. Out came a
black-haired lovely, then a redhead, another redhead, then Blackie, another
blonde, a brunette. It was like madness. Soon there were ten of them there, all
ten of them lined up in a row. And it was not a solemn parade. There was much
laughing and giggling and hootling and wiggling. And all of it was grand,
especially the wiggling. A couple of the girls asked for drinks to sort of
"keep their spirits up" and four guys sprang forward with everything from
straight shots to martinis. I'll admit it, I sort of got lost in the moment. It
was pretty interesting. But all of a sudden it was picture time. Somebody up
front was acting as a kind of director -- it was Orlando Desmond, I noted --
and at a word from him all the girls turned to face the wall. Lights were
moved, cameras on tripods were adjusted. The moment was almost upon me. I took
the cocked .45 from my pocket, thumbed down the safety and stepped from the
library, then moved toward the activity. Nobody noticed me. Six or seven feet
away was the back of the nearest man. Beyond him were several other guys, and
before the wall: girls. Nobody noticed me. I walked up behind the group, then
stepped onto a chair so I could size up the situation, make sure I knew where
everybody was. Still, nobody noticed me. "Okay, now," Desmond yelled. "Lean
over a little more, girls. Just ... a little ... that's it. That's perfect." It
was pretty near perfect, there was no denying that. Probably not even in the
days I had forgotten, I thought, had there been anything quite like this. To
say the girls looked cute in their little outfits would be to do them a
monstrous injustice, but it would be difficult to find the exactly right words
for the vista there arrayed. Guys near me were letting out small yips and
toots, and I could hear some of their enthusiastic comments. A few feet away on
my right stood Slobbers O'Brien and an apelike individual. Slobbers seemed to
shake as he pointed at something. "She got a sort of built-in built-out, don't
she?" he asked wonderingly. I could have looked in dictionaries for a hundred
years without finding those words. But Slobbers, of all people, had said it.
The apelike individual alongside him, gazing strenuously, replied in a soft
thrumming voice, "Yeah ... makes you want more than one, don't it?" Next to him
another mugg said hoarsely, "I wouldn't mind sittin' on that one myself!" And
then Slobbers again: "She really _do_ look like she's cavin' in outwards."
There was more of the same. And all of their comments, all and more, were
justified, more than justified. This was truly an almost unbelievable sight, a
magnificent vista, an epochal moment in the history of vision. On the male
faces near me were expressions of dopey, lip-smacking rapture, as if all five
senses were being gaily diddled at once -- as though, from each rounded square
inch visible yonder, floated perfumed music that gently tickled their taste
buds. This was an assembly line for bloodshot eyes, the anatomical Alps, the
Forward Look in Behinds. Soon we would all need novocain shot in our eyeballs
-- but it was the perfect moment for me. The cameras were ready and the girls
were ready and I was ready, and as the flashbulbs flared I jumped down from my
chair, forced my way through the men and leaped toward the wall on my left. I
reached it, spun around. On my left now were the girls, just becoming aware of
my presence. On my right, the men, all the other guests -- including several
hard faces. Rapidly I scanned the Forward Look in Behinds. There it was. Four
freckles. I'd found the one I wanted. Third from the left. I pointed at it.
"There!" I shouted. I had meant to cry, "She killed Webley Alden." Or, "That's
the villainess." Or something roughly similar. But I got all excited. Hell,
anybody would have got all excited. The silence was stunning. And in the
silence I stood there, gun in my right hand, left arm flung out dramatically,
rigid index finger extended and waggling a little. And I yelled at the top of
my lungs: _"There's the fanny that did it!"_



* * *



*EIGHTEEN* It wasn't what I'd meant to say at all. But it sure caused some
commotion. Gals squealed and sprang about, flung their arms this way and that
way, and their lovely faces took on hosts of strange expressions. Everybody was
shocked. Even I was shocked. But I stood my ground. I aimed my finger, waved my
gun. And I pointed smack dab at lovely Loana Kaleoha. Loana. Who, of course,
was Raven McKenna. Or, rather, Mrs. Orlando Desmond. Webley Alden's wife --
though naturally they were never married. Any more than she'd been kidnaped. It
was really very simple. There were some more screams from the Wow girls and a
sudden shout from a couple of the men. One man -- a tough-looking bruiser who'd
followed Slobbers and Ed Grey inside -- jumped toward me. I aimed the .45 at
his feet and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in my hand and the blast as it
tore a hole in carpet and floor seemed to compress the air in the room, slam it
against our eardrums. A lot of these people had never even heard a gun go off
before, certainly not this close to them. The sound of it here, now, was enough
to freeze them solid. And the men who had often heard guns go off, guys like
Grey and Slobbers, knew the next one could go off at them. So, all in all, the
effect was magical. Every bit of movement stopped. Girls who'd started to run,
girls throwing arms and legs about, girls standing straight and girls bent
forward, girls stooping and springing -- guys, too -- all froze. It was as if
liquid oxygen had been poured over the whole gang of us, and it was a sight
never to be forgotten, like a photograph of a people-explosion, a wildly cuckoo
instant of time trapped and momentarily petrified. While it lasted I said,
"Stay where you are. All of you." My voice sounded flat in the silence. There
was a little thaw then, a little motion. But not sudden, and not vigorous; it
just melted a little around the edges. I centered my gun on Ed Grey's chest and
said, "You, get over there in the corner. You and all your pals -- including
Desmond." They hesitated and I said, very softly, "Move." They moved. Ed Grey,
Desmond, Slobbers, and the two other hard guys. They formed a little bunch in
the corner, near the door through which the girls had gone out and returned.
That put them farther from me, and I made all of them lace their hands behind
their necks, then had the remaining men, including the reporters and
photographers, gather in a second group several feet to their right in front of
the big windows. I stood with my back to the library, near the big framed
picture I had hung on the wall, facing Ed Grey and the bunch he was in.
Trouble, if it came, would be from that bunch, I figured; but I could keep an
eye on the other men easily enough, too. We made quite a crowd. Counting me,
there were twenty-nine people in the room. Ten girls, eighteen men -- and me.
The girls were all in a ragged line on my left now, their faces startled and
shocked. I said to them, "Relax, ladies. You've nothing to be afraid of. At
least, nine of you don't." I caught Raven's eye. "But you, sweetheart, have had
it. The party's over." She looked straight back at me, black eyes burning, but
didn't speak. Seconds passed in silence. When somebody did speak it turned out
to be short, globular Whittaker. "What's the meaning of this?" he said. "This
is ... _outrageous_." His voice wasn't very strong, and it cracked on
"outrageous," but I had to give him credit for the try. I said, "The meaning is
simple, Mr. Whittaker. You're all gathered here to celebrate the magazine's
first anniversary -- and to pay tribute to the late Webley Alden. Desmond over
there even made a nice little speech about Webb, almost a eulogy -- like Brutus
praising Caesar. Because Desmond is the guy who murdered Webb." That unfroze a
lot of tongues. I let the babble die down and said, "That's right. Desmond put
the bullets into Webb's back, but Raven McKenna set it up for hubby. That's why
I'm here now." I paused. "And there was a lot of help from Ed Grey, after the
fact. Including the murder of Pagan Page." Grey spoke then, his voice shaking
with anger. "Scott, you won't get away with this. I warn you -- " "I'd just as
soon let you have one in the guts right now, Ed." I pointed the gun in
.45-caliber emphasis of my words. "Not just for Pagan, either. Add your hoods
from the Algiers who worked me over, tried to kill me here. Your hoods from the
_Pele_ who tried the same thing in Hawaii -- the same ones, undoubtedly, who
helped set up Webb over there." He didn't say anything more. I looked at Raven.
"Some of this only you and Orlando and those muggs -- " I nodded toward the
group Desmond was in -- "will understand. But everybody here will get the
message before I'm through. Enough of it. And that's the idea." I paused.
"Start at the beginning, Raven. Months ago Webb took some photos of you for the
magazine and fell a little. Then he met you in Hawaii, fell the rest of the
way, and popped the question." She interrupted. "This is idiotic. You can't
expect -- " "Knock it off." I looked at her, at the thick black hair and full
red lips, the black eyes burning into mine. After a moment I went on, "Married
to Orlando, secretly, you couldn't marry Webb even if you'd wanted to. But you
must have mentioned the proposal to Orlando -- and Orlando came up with his
bright idea." "Shell, this is crazy," Raven said rapidly. "I don't know what
you're talking about. Webb wasn't ever married. We all know that. He was a
bachelor -- " "Sure, that's the point, sweetheart. You _did_ marry Webb in the
Islands, but the judge was a phony, one of Ed Grey's hoods -- probably from the
_Pele_; when I slugged him there he'd undoubtedly come back to finish his drink
with you, at your table. So, the judge was a phony, the marriage a fake. Why a
fake marriage? And on the very day the 'bride' was kidnaped? Only one answer
makes sense: there was no kidnaping, you just walked out of the airport and
joined Orlando. Which explains why it was so neat and easy. Why the fake
kidnaping? Well, what did you get out of it? That's easy, too: two hundred
thousand clams." While I spoke, Blackie had been edging toward the door on my
left. I caught her eye, nodded slightly. She slipped through the doorway and
out of sight. Orlando Desmond spoke for the first time, and his voice did not
sound like his singing voice. It sounded even worse. Taut, strained, shredded
by fear and tension. "It's not true, Scott. None of it. You're lying. I -- "
"It won't work, Desmond." His face was pale, but his eyes stayed on me as I
talked. "You had your bright idea: fake the marriage, fake the kidnaping, get
the ransom money. You must have needed the money badly. I'd say it was to keep
from getting killed, yourself. I heard Ed Grey just might kill you if you
welshed, didn't pay off the pile you owed him. Even if he didn't knock you off,
he would sure have changed your appearance." "You're crazy. The whole thing's
crazy. You're making a fool of yourself." He licked his lips, his eyes empty. I
went right on, "The fake marriage, the whole con, was out of your line,
Desmond. So you turned to the logical hoodlum -- the one to whom you _owed_ the
money, the guy who'd have an interest in the con's success. Ed Grey. Grey, with
crooks on his payroll here _and_ in Hawaii. And, obviously, Ed went along.
Where did I miss, Desmond? Come on, here's your chance to make a bigger fool of
me. But don't forget there's more -- the films, that photo of your wife, a lot
more." I grinned at him. "Including this: You know damned well I saw you, and a
little bald-headed mugg, Thursday morning at the airport in Honolulu. You sure
saw me -- and let Grey's boys here know I was on my way. I didn't recognize you
then, no. But I can recognize you _now_ as the guy who was at the airport. And
you are Orlando Desmond, aren't you? The guy, undoubtedly, who took that first
shot at me outside the Spartan? Well, Desmond?" He licked his dry lips, turned
toward Ed Grey as if for help. But there wasn't any help coming from that
direction. Orlando stared at me. His face looked crumpled. The nine girls still
in the room, now that Blackie was gone, stood at my left or leaned against the
wall. Things had settled down enough for the moment so that I could actually
enjoy the astounding sight they presented. Their original shock had faded into
mild tension, or in some cases a curious interest. Of the nine, the only ones I
recognized now were Charlie from the Algiers and Raven McKenna herself. Raven,
whom I'd been calling Loana ever since that night in the _Pele_ when, with her
brain working at peak efficiency, she had conned me -- almost enough. Now I
realized she had probably been waiting there in the hope of spotting the real
Loana. And I wondered about the real Loana Kaleoha, whom I couldn't remember at
all. I wondered if they had found her, and killed her. I pulled my eyes away
from the girls, said to nobody in particular, "It all went as planned, up to a
point. But after the ransom was paid, Webb had to be killed. Otherwise he
would, inevitably, have learned of the con. Especially since Raven wasn't about
to establish a happy home with him -- not to mention how Orlando would have
felt about such goings-on. No, Webb had to go." One of the toughs had unclasped
his hands, started to move his fingers down the lapel of his coat. I didn't say
anything. But I shifted the .45 to his chest and waited to see what he'd do. He
did what I figured he would. He swallowed audibly, and laced his hands tightly
behind his neck again. Blackie slid around the door in the corner, looked at me
and nodded. So the law was on its way. I figured I'd have just time enough to
wrap this up before help arrived. I went on, "If it had gone as planned, it
would really have been a beautiful caper. Con Webb into marriage, fake the
kidnaping, get the ransom money, kill Webb. No loose ends; nobody would ever
have known Webb had been married, his wife snatched -- there would simply have
been a dead man, with no clues to who killed him or why. Just one thing went
wrong." I turned to Raven. "Naturally you insisted that Webb keep the marriage
and everything about it secret. But Webb, in a sweat, did tell me a little.
Because he did, I showed up at his home that Friday night, too late to stop his
murder, but in time to scare the killers off. Before they could remove all
evidence that they'd been there -- including the photo Webb took of his 'wife'
just before he died." Raven's eyes widened, slowly returned to normal. I backed
to the wall, stood next to the big framed array of the twelve Wow girls, put my
hand on its base. Raven looked puzzled, and a little frightened. "_This_
picture, Raven," I said, and turned it over. As the big enlargement became
visible there was a sudden murmur of words from the others present. Raven
stared at the enlargement, and her black eyes seemed to get dull, as if the
bright film of moisture on them had dried. "Yeah," I said. "Minutes, or maybe
seconds, before he was murdered, Webb took this photo of the girl who was then
with him. The girl he obviously thought his wife. And it is, unquestionably,
Raven, a picture of you. Clearly, when he was murdered, you were there." "This
is preposterous." Her voice was shaky. "It's your picture, isn't it?" Under the
circumstances, she didn't have a chance in hell of denying that it was. She
said, "Well, I ... if I'd had any idea Webb was going to be ... killed, I'd
have been miles from his home. Your own words prove -- " "Try the rest of it,
Raven. If, during the time you and Orlando were waiting for Webb to pay off, he
hadn't talked to anyone, you could kill him and be sure nobody would ever know
of your almost clever con. If he _had_ spilled, though, you had to know about
it, know who he'd talked to. Besides, Orlando wouldn't have cared to barge in
on Webb with a gun unless he knew Webb was alone at the time. It adds up to
this: you could be safe in the act of killing Webb, and afterward, only by
checking on both those angles _before_ you killed him. And who could most
easily get those answers from Webb himself? Why, the loving bride. In fact,
under the circumstances, Webb would have been suspicious of anybody else
showing up at that time; but he was _expecting_ his wife's return. He'd already
paid the ransom to get her back. And the killer -- Orlando, remember -- would
hardly have walked into Webb's house and shot him while Webb was taking
pictures of a girl. Not unless he meant to kill the girl, too. Which he didn't.
Naturally. The girl was you, Raven." Her big dark eyes were still on the
enlargement. Her voice trembled as she said, "No, I ... that picture was taken
months ago." "The hell it was. Webb got back from Hawaii only the day before.
As you damn well know, he bought that carved-wood Pan in Hawaii, brought it
back with him." I jerked a thumb. "It's there in the photo, proof Webb took
this shot _after_ getting back home. On that last night, in the last minutes he
lived. That's why the Pan had to be destroyed, in a fire, along with Webb's
files and negatives -- and along with me, if you could manage it. That Pan
added another reason why you and your pals were in such a sweat to get the
print and negative from me." I paused, thinking of the mess in my office and
apartment. Marks of fear streaked Raven's lovely face. She worried her lip.
Then suddenly she said, "All right. All _right_, Shell. I was there that night.
I just didn't want to ... get involved. And it wasn't Orlando who shot Webb. I
don't know who it was. When it happened, I was shocked, horrified, and ran -- "
"Nuts, sweetheart. Why don't you call me Webley again, just to make it perfect?
Or tell me you're Loana?" I'd started to tighten up during the last minute or
so. I kept straining to hear that siren, but there'd been no sound of an
approaching police car. It didn't worry me much yet. Things had gone along so
well here that I had become increasingly confident of a happy outcome as time
passed. Perhaps too confident. Maybe I should have known it was too good to
last. I heard a sound -- behind me. A soft sound, hardly noticeable. I started
to turn. The voice was high, flat, rasping. "Don't do it. Drop the heater,
Scott." I recognized the voice. I'd heard it at L.A. International Airport when
he'd had a gun shoved into my back. Willie. Wee Willie Wallace. I knew nobody
had come through the main door on my right. But the voice was behind me. About
where those sliding doors before the library were. He must have been outside,
spotted me through the big living-room windows, and come in through the
library. I should have thought of those open library windows ... but I hadn't.
No more than two or three seconds had passed since Willie had told me drop the
gun. I hesitated. If I didn't drop it, Willie would almost surely shoot me in
the back. And if he did, even in front of all these people, he would probably
get away with it. The claim could always be made, even after what I'd said
here, that I had leaped into a private party, run amuck, yelled wildly. Hell,
it was true enough. Leave out my reasons and killing me could almost be made to
appear euthanasia. The voice behind me was different this time, even higher in
pitch, more twisted, more on edge. "You're askin' for it, Scott. _Drop_ it."
Sweat was oozing from me, but still I hesitated. I couldn't try to turn
suddenly, snap a shot at him. The second I moved he would -- inevitably, simply
using good sense -- let me have it. Even if by a fluke I hit him, by then Ed
Grey and his boys would be blasting away. And I knew, if they got me, they
could _still_ get away with it, keep in the clear. Without me there was no real
proof of what had happened; without me around they could still cover the rest
of it up, literally get away with murder. But I knew, too, what would happen if
I dropped the gun. If I did, I knew I would soon be hauled off into the weeds
somewhere and become weed fertilizer. Maybe it was that thought, depressing in
the extreme, that decided me. Or maybe it was that I'd just come too far, been
through too much, to quit now. I said one word. "No."



* * *



*NINETEEN* At moments of extreme tension or emotion a man holds his breath,
stops thinking. There's activity within the brain, thoughts whirl in it, but
none of it is on purpose. It just happens. My lungs were laboring before I
realized I was holding my breath, must have been holding it, except for that
one word, since I'd heard the first sound at my back. Thoughts spun in my mind
and it seemed a long time before I became aware of what I was thinking. I was
wondering what it would feel like. "What?" The voice behind me was soft.
Surprised. Slowly I let out my breath. "You heard me, Willie. If you pull that
trigger, you'd better use the next bullet to plug the hole in your head."
"What's that?" He sounded unbelieving. He knew as much as I did. All I knew was
that I wasn't going to toss my gun away and let these bastards kill me --
either here, or out in the weeds. And that, soon, I was either going to get
shot or start shooting. But there wasn't a dry inch of clothing on me. I was
sweating like a fat Eskimo at the equator. I knew I couldn't make any sudden
move; but I couldn't just stand here, either. The thing was balanced now, right
on the edge. I didn't know how well-balanced Willie was himself, but I knew it
wouldn't take much for him to push it over. My gun, squarely on Ed Grey's
belly, still held him and the others around him unmoving. By rolling my eyes I
could see all their faces, the other group of men farther to my right, some of
the girls against the wall. All were completely motionless and the faces were
pulled into odd tight shapes, strain showing in all of them. My own face
probably looked like a death mask. It felt like one. "You _want_ to get it? Are
you crazy?" The voice was coming back to normal now. Getting tight and hard.
Getting, in a word, ready. I rolled my eyes to my right, slowly, just a little.
There wasn't a chance I could see Willie without turning my head halfway
around, but I looked in the big windows fronting the pool, hunting for his
reflection. And I found it. He was standing squarely in front of the library
doors, right hand extended. I could tell there was a gun in it, but not what
kind of gun. My mouth was very dry. Willie said, "Nobody can say you didn't ask
for it." The words sent an unexpected shiver along my back. They came out soft
and almost sensual. Warm words now, a kind of breathless whisper. It was the
way another man might have spoken to a woman in bed. I forced words from my dry
throat, and my voice sounded different, unlike my own, the words pinched. But I
spat them out. "Hold it, Willie. You won't make it. You don't know it, you
bastard. But you've got a lot more to lose than I have." The shot hadn't come
yet, but involuntarily I was bending, pushing my spine forward, slightly
arching my back. As I spoke I slowly turned my head, forcing it around toward
Willie. It would have been easier to lift a truck. "I'll lose less than four
days, Willie. You'll lose _all_ your life." It was true. And I think, because
it was true, because I meant it, the message -- even if not its entire meaning
-- got through to him. I'd turned my head around far enough to see him. In a
corner of my eye I could still glimpse Grey and Desmond, the other group of
men, but not the girls. My gun stayed on Ed Grey and the men around him. Their
hands were still behind their necks and they hadn't moved. The tightness
building in me had drawn muscle and nerve all through my body until now it was
actually painful. I could feel the tight bunch of muscle at the base of my
skull, something like a hard ridge along the length of my spine. And I held the
gun so tight it was beginning to tremble a little. I strained my ears for the
sound of a siren, but there was nothing. Willie was about twelve feet away,
feet spread apart, gun thrust before him. The gun was a short-barreled .38.
That helped a little. But not much. I said softly, "You know how long a man can
live with a .38 slug in him. This is a Colt .45 in my hand, Willie. And I'll
use it. If you try it, the first one of your pills better not be off an inch.
You'd better not give me any time at all." My voice was soft as a whisper, but
he heard me. And he understood me. It did me good to see Willie's pale, pasty
face. He looked puzzled, but he also looked hesitant, nervous. Maybe even a
little afraid. Just a little. I said, my voice rising, punching the words at
him, "Yeah, all your life, chump. Maybe there's another life after this one,
but we don't know, do we? I know how we can find out, though. It's up to you,
Willie. We can find out together." He didn't say a word. But he hadn't pulled
the trigger yet. His face was a little twisted. I kept it going. "With you and
the rest here, I won't have a prayer. You can get me, make sure I go. But I'll
make damned sure you go along. I'll take you with me, Willie." His dead-looking
eyes wavered. They flicked toward Grey, then back to me. And right then I knew
I had him. It burned through me suddenly, like fire, like a slow explosion.
He'd waited too long. He'd been fine when he had the initiative, a gun on my
back, when I couldn't see him. But I could see him now, knew exactly where he
stood. I knew now that if he shot me and I lived long enough to pull a trigger
I'd live long enough to kill him. He knew it, too. It seemed to start in his
eyes, spread over his face. He was afraid. It was crazy. Willie had a gun on my
back, his finger touching the trigger, but he was afraid. He wanted to pull
that trigger. He wanted very much to kill me. And he would if I pushed him,
jerked toward him or moved my gun. That would force him, make up his mind. But
he couldn't make the decision himself -- knowing what the decision would mean.
So we stood there. For seconds that seemed like hours. Seconds during which
something grew. There was a weird quality in the room. An unreal but
perceptible feeling, sensation, breath of -- something. Thoughts have a real
force, an impact tangible at times. And all of us in the room had been in a
state of extreme tension for long minutes now. Thirty of us. In each the nerves
growing more taut, pulling tighter and tighter, as if stretched on a delicate
rack. Shock, fear, anger, near panic in some. You could feel it. Like a strange
fog, unseen but felt, chill on your face. You could smell it. Delicately sharp,
add, like the smell of an angry mob. It oozed through the air, touched us all,
affected us all. Everything had an unreal quality, stiff and still. But it
couldn't last. Something had to happen soon. And anything could happen. Then I
heard the siren. Close ... getting closer. The sound increased, nearing the
house, nearing the room. It whined high and then growled low as the car started
slowing to a stop. Willie's face changed, the lips pulled out and down. As the
siren growled in front of the house he jerked his head a little toward it. The
barrel of his gun moved away from me. Only inches, but away. And I thought:
now. I swung my right leg hard, around and behind me, let it pull my body after
it, legs bending into a crouch, the .45 slashing through the air toward him. As
I moved, Willie jerked the .38 in his hand, yanked it back and pulled the
trigger. The gun cracked and the bullet slapped my thigh, but immediately after
that my .45 blasted and the heavy slug caught him in the breastbone. I didn't
look to see what it would do to him. I knew what it would do to him. Before he
started to fall I jerked around, slammed my gun down on the men around Ed Grey.
Grey's hand was at his hip. Slobbers O'Brien had a gun already out, just
clearing his coat. I almost shot him. I stopped the Colt on his belly and my
finger was tight on the trigger when he made a short hissing sound, sucking air
into his throat. He let go of the gun in a hurry. It thudded on the carpeted
floor. I tried to watch all of them at once. Behind me I had heard car doors
slamming. That would be the police. I could hear the sound of men running
outside. Nobody had spoken. One of the girls slumped back against the wall, her
face pale. Nobody else moved. Except Raven. When she did move, I was in a
strange tight mesh of emotions. Above all there was the almost physical sense
of release. I felt with a sudden leaping exhilaration that it was over. Over.
End of the line, the case wrapped up, finished. Just a little longer, only
seconds now, and that would be the end of it. But a kind of hangover from that
earlier odd, tense and drawn-out moment still gripped me. My brain was almost
sluggish, but at the same time I felt crazily like leaping up and clicking my
heels or doing a little jog or time step. I felt good, elated, ready for
practically anything, almost giddy with the sense of release. Thoughts danced
in my head. I wondered what the cops were going to do with all these
half-peeled tomatoes. I wondered lots of interesting things. And right then
Raven moved. She marched toward me, toward the big enlargement on my left, and
under any circumstances whatsoever that would have been an interesting thing to
see. And as she marched she said flatly, "There's just one thing wrong with all
you've said, Shell." I heard the front door crash open. Raven reached the
enlargement, bent forward, peering up at the photograph. Bent way forward.
"Just one thing," she said. "That's _not_ my fanny." Startled, I looked at the
picture, back at Raven. Hell, it was _too_ her fanny. And she had tricked me
with it. Willie had been distracted by a siren. I had been distracted by
another kind of siren. I'll take _my_ kind. A guy has to have one weakness --
and it might as well be a good one. Make that my epitaph. Because Raven's
strength held my weakness just long enough. To my right I heard the ugly click
of an automatic's slide snapping forward. I dropped, whirling, flipping the .45
up in my hand. Screams ripped the air around me. I saw blurred movement as
people started to scatter. People -- but not Ed Grey. He was the man with the
gun, and as I pulled my automatic toward him he fired. The blast banged against
the walls of the room and I heard the slug smack wood somewhere behind me, then
I squeezed the trigger. The 230-grain bullet thudded into Grey's chest, shoved
him backward. His lips were pulled away from his teeth and he went back a step,
one leg outthrust behind him. He seemed almost unhurt, merely off balance, but
then it happened. For half a second he stayed rigid in that awkward pose, but
then something cut the strings, everything gave way at once. His features went
slack, and he fell, straight down, landing in a heap. He started to roll onto
his side, one leg still caught beneath the weight of his body. There was so
much noise, so many screams and such a wild kaleidoscope of movement and color
that I had barely noticed the figures charging in from the entrance to the
living room. Men pounded over the carpet, coming from my right. The police. As
I looked toward them Orlando Desmond shouted, "Look out, Farley, he's got a
gun!" In the lead, ahead of several uniformed cops, was one in plain clothes. A
thick-bodied, hard-faced man, not pleasant in appearance, looking angry, almost
infuriated. He had a gun in his hand. He shouted at me, "Drop it, Scott, or
I'll -- shoot!" And, immediately after "I'll -- " shot me. The slug slammed
into or against my skull, but wherever and however it hit, my skull seemed to
give off a great clanging sound, like those big round gongs struck with big
round gong-strikers. The sound swelled to a great twanging crescendo and hung
at its peak momentarily, and the tangible vibrations seemed to waggle me about
as in animated cartoons animals banged on the head vibrate in sections and then
all at once. There was only a fraction of a second into which all the gonging
and twanging and vibration were crowded, but for that moment of goofy-time
everything was bright, crisp and dear. I saw the vibrations, visible in thin
pink soup around me, people in motion, colors and bright dots dancing. And,
too, for that split second of eternity, I saw -- ten fannies. I thought: _WOW!_
They were all racing about, racing past me and away from me and around me. They
were everywhere -- but still they all seemed to be escaping while at the same
time going every which way. Perhaps that is a normal characteristic of fannies
escaping -- and these were violently escaping -- but whatever the reason, it
was a grand, a memorable, an almost appalling sight. And then the blackness.
But I had bare time for the wisp of a thought. A glancing, fading, barely
perceptible thought. And it was: if even now a thick bullet was slowly crashing
through the convolutions of my brain and this grand sight was to be my last
sight on earth, then so be it. I couldn't kick. I knew somehow, even without
memory of anything but these last few days, that if Shell Scott had to go ...
this was the way Shell Scott would want to go.



* * *



*TWENTY* I don't know how long it was before I realized I hadn't died and gone
to the Hippy Hunting Ground. I wasn't very live, either, but at least life
still flickered. Whatever time it took was a kind of montage, disconnected
sights and sounds and thoughts and smells all jumbled together into a
phantasmagoric oneness. There was the smell of anesthetics. The sound of
voices. Pressures and dull pains. Delirium, too. And once something almost
beautiful happened. Almost beautiful because it was so _ugly_. It was like a
living picture painted by Dali with touches of Blake and El Greco. It was a
ballet in an open theater, on a green landscape flat and eerie like the Ancient
Mariner's rotting sea. I was at stage center, lights blinding me. In from the
wings danced Slobbers O'Brien and Biff Boff in red leotards, pirouetting as
gracefully as two elephants tickling each other. Both of them carried huge
saps. The huge saps were Wee Willie Wallace and Danny Ax. Slobbers and Biff
spun me around, swatting me on the head with the big saps. Somewhere in the
green landscape a thousand-piece orchestra played the Anvil Chorus: _Clang ...
clang ... clang-clang clang-clang_, and Slobbers said, "Dere playin' our song!"
as he and Biff swatted me with Willie and Danny. Suddenly Ed Grey appeared,
slim and horrible in white tights, performing a magnificent _entrechat_ while
carrying a machine gun with which he shot me. Every time one of the bullets hit
me I died, then stood there and laughed at him, and another bullet would hit me
and I'd die again and laugh, over and over. Others came on stage. Webley Alden,
Dutch, lovely girls in high-heeled shoes and turtleneck sweaters, a dancing
carved-wood Pan, and more. And then the worst thing happened, the really
shocking part of it all. I was myself, at stage center; but I was also, at the
same time, the rest of them, all the rest of them. I was the audience, watching
the ballet, I was Ed Grey and Danny Ax and Slobbers and Willie and Biff and the
women and Webb, all of them and myself as well. Mercifully, it went away,
melted into the green landscape. Immediately after that, it seemed, I was
awake. Alert and aware. Dimly remembered were moments when I had been awake
before. I had talked to nurses, doctors -- policemen. Even a sergeant named
Farley who had some sort of apology to make and who seemed in a state of great
unease. And numerous lovelies, I recalled. Some other things, in talks during
those moments of wakefulness, had been made clear. Ed Grey was dead, I knew.
But he'd taken an hour or so to die and in that time confessed to killing
Pagan. From her dressing room next to Grey's office she had overheard Grey's
end of the phone conversation when Desmond called him from Hawaii for help in
setting up the marriage con; after that Pagan had, at every opportunity,
listened on purpose, and had been listening when Desmond phoned Grey on the
night he shot Webb. She had foolishly tried to use her information to squeeze
money out of Grey. Foolishly because, being Grey, he'd seen no other way out
and had killed her. He had strangled Pagan Page. I thought of my ballet, and
wondered if they were dancing together, his fingers buried in her throat, her
eyes glittering like diamonds. Somebody had told me, too, that Orlando had
indeed been in debt to Grey, to the tune of one hundred and forty thousand
dollars. For his help in setting up the marriage con and covering up after the
murder, and for trying to eliminate me, Grey demanded the entire amount of the
ransom from Orlando, and got it. The judge turned out to be a judge after all:
Manny "The Judge" Mack, who'd picked up his legal knowledge in prison
libraries. An old con man named "Doc Wyatt" had given Webb and Raven their
medical exams and blood tests, somehow managing not to slaughter them in the
process. Ed Grey, through his contacts, had arranged the entire marriage fraud,
complete with a genuine marriage certificate which was signed by "Judge" Mack
but never filed, so that at every step it had seemed normal and legal. He'd
almost earned the money Orlando handed over to him. And a fat lot of good it
was going to do him. There was another hazily remembered scene, too. Soon after
my admission to the hospital Dr. Paul Anson had come to see me, and in the
first few minutes remarked that he bore glad tidings. "You're a father," he
said. "WHAT!" "Relax. Sort of. You're the father of twenty-two -- "
"Twenty-_two!_ Oh!" -- "neons." "Who is Neons?" "Fish, you fool. _Your_ fish.
You still don't remember?" "Of course not. We went through that once before.
But I do recall the fish in my apartment. Ah, fish. Oh, boy." "Well, you've
been trying for years to breed neons. And they've hatched, or whatever they do.
I put the parents back into the community tank, and I'll keep dropping your
infusoria tablets and egg yolk in with the babies till you can take over."
"Fine and dandy. Grand. Oh, boy. Fish." "And I'll ask Dr. Bohrmann to come over
and take a look at you." After he left I had lain in a state of near shock,
cold skin, pulse weak and thready. When the nurse came in I had been mumbling,
"Fish ... fish..." But that had been quite a while ago. Now another nurse came
in. She smiled and asked me if I wanted something to eat. Suddenly I realized I
was hungry. Soon there was food before me. But I had less strength than I'd
thought, and at first I ate so daintily that half the time I missed the bite.
But in a few more days I was chewing rare prime ribs with all the old verve. By
then it was time for me to leave. The day I walked down the hospital steps I
stopped for a moment, looked around me at my small chunk of world. The sky had
never before seemed so limitless and blue, the air so clean and good. We
strolled along, arm in arm, and for a minute or two I let my thoughts wander
back over the past month. It had been a good month, all in all. My neons were
thriving, and had good color now. Raven McKenna and Orlando Desmond were in the
can, awaiting trial. All the appropriate people were in jail, and the story was
out of the headlines now. But that magnificent photo of The Ten had actually
made the three-page spread in _Wow!_ Possibly the issue would yet be jerked off
the stands, but publishing history had been made. I'd seen Blackie a time or
two, and that had of course been fun. Referring to the night of the Anniversary
Party she had said, "Shell, you were so _brave!_" and I had replied, "_You_
were so _squaw!_" and we'd let it go at that. Then there'd been interviews with
some of the Wow girls, a sort of gathering up of loose ends, and that had been
fun. Life had, in a word, been _fun_. But never more fun than now. Because we
were walking in scented dusk through the International Market Place in Waikiki,
and the "we" was Loana Kaleoha and me. The real Loana this time, the genuine
article. Gorgeously Polynesian Loana, of the volcanic eyes and breasts and
devil-red lips, of an intoxicating sweetness like honey and wine. Loana, of the
golden voice and velvet eyes. She held my arm tight, softly rounded hip
brushing mine as we walked past exotic and colorful shops. I had flown in from
the mainland today, found Loana at her home. We'd been together for an hour
now, and I'd told her much about what had happened since we'd last been here.
Now she said, "I see. But why did Raven say you were Webley Alden?" "That was
_after_ I told her I had amnesia, remember. I had also told her I thought I
might be either Shell Scott or Webley Alden. She'd already said she was Loana
and, therefore, would naturally be expected to know who I was. The reason she
couldn't tell me I was Shell is simple: that's who I was." Loana's black brows
lowered over the velvet eyes. "Look," I said. "I was out of my skull. And Raven
didn't want me back in it. If I'd managed to get to the cops, for example, and
said 'My name's Scott and I've got trouble in my head,' they'd soon have
checked and learned that was the truth, perhaps even gotten me to a doctor for
some repair. On the other hand, if I'd gone to the law and said, 'I've lost my
mind, but I know one thing: I'm Webley Alden,' they would probably have netted
me and clapped me away forever. It would sure have slowed me down, at least,
and from Raven's point of view anything that slowed me down was good. Anything
that helped to keep me from discovering -- or _re_-discovering -- the truth
about her and her pals was good." Loana smiled. "It worked out all right,
anyway." "Yeah, and the way it worked out proved the rest of it. Once I figured
Orlando and Raven as the two who'd set up Webb, all I had to do was go back
through everything that had happened -- including Raven's act in the _Pele -- _
and fit the two of them in. Some hoods who jumped me outside a club called the
Parisienne and grabbed a photo I had, a couple more muggs waiting at Webb's
home for films to arrive from Hawaii because Raven knew they'd be arriving --
and so on, all the way down the line. Entering Orlando or Raven, or both, in
each case -- not Loana -- was the only way it all fit. And it wouldn't fit any
other way." Loana said, "What ever happened to that big enlargement ... of
Raven?" "Oh, I still have it. Sort of a souvenir." I grinned at her. "I may
hang it on my bedroom wall." Her eyes flashed. "You'd better not!" I laughed,
then said, "You know, that photo puzzled me from the beginning. I was never
able to figure out why Webb, on his wedding night, would have been talking
_pictures_ of his bride. Instead of ... well, instead of. It seemed goofy,
warped even. It just didn't make sense as long as I tried to figure out why
_Webb_ would have done something like that. But it made sense once the night of
August fourteenth became, not a normal wedding night, but part of a murder
plan, mechanics engineered by the bride. Raven, of course, was responsible for
that complication, too. The police got the whole story from her and passed it
on to me in the hospital." Loana looked at me oddly then. She seemed about to
speak, but remained silent. I finished it up, "That night Webb was quite ready
to retire with unprecedented speed. But Raven wasn't about to retire, that not
being included in her and Orlando's plans for Webb's evening. So, pretending to
a shyness she probably hadn't felt since the age of eleven, _she_ suggested the
photographic interlude as a sort of warm-up, a prelude to more fascinating
adventures -- her purpose being merely to keep Webb otherwise occupied until
Orlando could skulk up and shoot him." I paused. "It was fiendish. In fact,
thinking about it since, I've decided it's the most fiendish murder I ever
heard of. Well, if that idea hadn't worked, our bright little gal would no
doubt have thought of something else, but Webb went along with it -- although
I'd guess he thought it not quite cricket. As an added precaution Raven made
sure her face wasn't in the picture, even though she naturally didn't expect to
leave any film in the camera -- a precaution, incidentally, which almost
worked. The whole thing worked, up to a point. And it would have worked all the
way if I'd arrived at Webb's five minutes later." We walked on to Don the
Beachcomber's Bora Bora Lounge and went inside, sat at the Dagger Bar. Loana
ordered a Cherry Blossom and I ordered, after slight hesitation, a _Puka Puka_.
Loana told me what she'd done on that night when I'd clunked my head. Under the
peculiar circumstances, she knew neither of us would want to be identified and
questioned if we could possibly avoid it. So, naturally appalled by what was
either my clumsiness or stupidity, when I lit out over the landscape she'd
gathered up most of my belongings and flown. Sipping her Cherry Blossom she
glanced sideways at me and said, "I went home. I hoped you'd phone, but I
certainly didn't want to talk to anybody else. The next day I noticed two men
watching my house. Ugly-looking men. After what you'd told me about gangsters
hunting you, it ... frightened me." "Yeah, while I was coming to and going out
in the hospital the police told me what they'd gotten from Grey and the others.
Once Raven had told me she was Loana, it wouldn't have done for me to run into
the real Loana, you. So, after another call to Ed Grey, a couple of his tough
boys were dispatched from the _Pele_ gang here to grab you. Maybe just to hang
onto you ... maybe worse." She shivered. "They actually started trying to get
into the house, and _that_ frightened me. I went out the back door, into my
car." She said they'd chased her for a mile or so, but knowing the roads well
she'd gotten away, and had then spent a few days with friends on the windward
side of Oahu. By then I'd made my appearance at the Anniversary Party and she
was no longer in danger. Loana looked at me and said, "You must hate them,
Shell. All of them, after what they did." "No ... not really." From somewhere
came fragments of that goofy dream or delirium I'd had, the weird ballet. "I
don't hate them," I said. "I ... just don't like the way they dance." She
didn't understand, and I didn't try to explain. A little later we were outside
again in the Market Place. The flame of a Hawaiian torch close by turned the
darkness red. Our white-turbaned waiter took out his big key, unlocked the big
padlock at the base of the Banyan Tree. People moved around us, colorful lights
seemed everywhere. A few yards away traffic purred along Kalakaua Avenue. Loana
put a hand on my arm. I looked down at her. The lovely lustrous hair was long,
heavy against her shoulders. She wore a smooth-fitting _holomuu_, a red
hibiscus blossom in her black hair, a _lei_ of vanda orchids around her neck.
"Shell," she said softly. "You haven't mentioned anything about it. And I've
been almost afraid to ask." "Ask away." "Well, all the things that happened
before -- before you fell..." She glanced past me, up toward the little tree
house. "You keep saying somebody _told_ you this happened or that happened. Or
you found out in the hospital. Or you figured it out, it was the way it had to
be." She moistened her lips, looked up at me seriously. "Don't you ...
_remember?_" I started to speak, but she was going on in a rush, "Don't you
remember being here before, with me ... in the tree house and all ... Are you
still -- " I interrupted her. Our waiter had the gate open, was waiting for us.
And I'd given my real name when I'd made reservations for the dinner and
champagne -- I wasn't going to fall out of the tree _this_ night. I said, "They
had lots of time in the hospital, Loana, to hack away at me and probe and peer
and jiggle things about. And they did." "Then do you..." "Yes, my sweet, my
sweet Loana..." I grinned at her. "I remember." Her teeth flashed white as she
smiled. She looked at me for a moment longer, then turned, walked past the open
gate and up the wooden steps. And I followed Loana, happily, up into the Banyan
Tree. * * * *