Curtis Cluff - Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 31, No. 1 — January, 1948)

“Did you exaggerate him much?”

“I didn’t exaggerate at all.”

“Where did you find the model?”

“I painted it several years ago, when I was still in school. Bill was a football star at the University while I was in prep school. He didn’t turn out to be much good as a human being, but how he could run with a football!”

“What happened to him?”

“He was quite a campus hero. When college was over and the newspapers and the glory hunters had gotten in their dirty work, they dropped him. He wasn’t news any more. Bill wasn’t very bright and he couldn’t take it. Anyway, he became a ‘beach boy.’ I suppose you know what that means?”

“Sort of a flunkey for wealthy tourists, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “He was popular with the tourists for a while. But he took on more and more of the standard beach boy attributes and he began to get mean and ugly when he was drinking. Finally, he grew unpopular and the money stopped coming in.”

“Where is he now?”

“He had several run-ins with the police and then he became a bouncer at the Hobron Club. He wasn’t there tonight.”

I thought that over. Bill had descended all the way down the ladder to murder. Thanks to a Mainland shamus who had never even spoken to him, Bill Kahalawai’s troubles were over. I took another drink and turned my attention to the living. “Vecelli seems to be quite a boy. I imagine people who work for him have to toe the line.”

“I imagine they do.” She looked at me slyly. “How is the investigation coming?”

I looked at her ruefully. “There are not many secrets out here, are there?” She smiled. “I check the register at the Hanauma regularly.”

“What did you learn from that?”

“Enough to whet my curiosity.” She tilted her head to one side critically. “You look presentable enough.”

“Is something supposed to be wrong with me?”

Her eyes held secret amusement. “On the afternoon of the same day you got in, a check arrived at the Hanauma paying for your cottage and incidental expenses for one week. The check was signed by Allan Norris. I was curious to know more about the person for whom Norris would go to all that expense — rather than invite him to stay at that enormous house of his. We don’t rent those cottages at bargain rates.”

“I didn’t know about the check. Sometimes I don’t think Norris is very bright.”

She shrugged. “By a strange coincidence,” she made a little face, “I happened to be in Norris’ office yesterday. His secretary didn’t know much, but I saw the address of your Los Angeles agency. After tonight, I can guess the rest.”

“What is the rest?”

“Allan Norris has a screwball daughter and Jocko Vecelli runs the Hobron Club.” She smiled smugly.

I said: “I’ll bite. What has the owner of a nightclub got to do with Norris’ daughter?”

“It’s the second floor of the Hobron Club I’m talking about.”

I looked sheepish. “A guy can’t find out everything in four days.”

Maile was puzzled. “Didn’t you know about the gambling on the second floor?”

I shook my head.

She laughed. “And I thought I was a detective. Well, what are you doing in Honolulu? You couldn’t be loafing.”

“Tell me about Jennifer Norris.”

“You mean the ‘try anything twice’ girl?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jennifer used to say, ‘I’ll try anything twice — I might have missed something the first time.’ She usually lived up to it, too.”

“How?”

“Oh, husbands, automobile accidents, impossible jumps with horses and week-long jags.”

“You thought she had fallen into the foul clutches of Jocko Vecelli and I came out here to get back the I.O.U.’s which would ruin her reputation and her father’s?”

“You make it sound silly but I did think something like that. About a year ago, Jennifer went on a terrific binge and ended up by doing several hundred dollars’ worth of damage in the Hobron Club. Jocko didn’t press charges and Norris paid the damages. It was just before she divorced Walter Kent for the second time.”

I grimaced inwardly. That was another item that Norris had failed to mention. I said: “She was married twice to the same man?”

“I told you she was the ‘try anything twice’ girl.”

“What’s Kent like?”

“Tall, red-headed, sort of dashing — a very complex person. You never know what he’s thinking, yet he makes you believe you’re the only other person in the world when he talks to you. He’s a magnificent horseman, one of the best tennis players in the Islands and a superb swimmer. I seem to be using a lot of superlatives, don’t I?”

“What does he do for a living?”

“You’ll never believe it, but he runs a bookshop.”

I frowned. “You gave me the impression he was the athletic type.”

“I know. That’s what I mean. You just can’t pigeonhole his personality. He owns ‘The Bookshop’, which is all the name it has, incidentally. Have you noticed it on King Street?”

I shook my head and remembered the custom-built convertible I had seen Kent drive away from Norris’ house. “Book stores don’t pay very much as a rule.”

“This one does. He has an extremely attractive house on Wilhelmina Rise and a little place he calls ‘Pali House’ over on the windward side. And the Pali House, my son, is really out of this world!”

“Fancy?”

“Well, out of the ordinary. It’s just the other side of Kaneohe, perched on a sheer cliff three hundred feet above the water’s edge. The house is built on two levels and he used glass wherever possible. Both bedrooms and a large living room have glass ceilings covered by steel shutters. If his guests want to, they can get into bed, press a button and sleep under the stars.” Maile’s eyes travelled to the clock on the mantle. “And speaking of sleep, it’s almost two o’clock. You’ve got to run.”

I said: “Isn’t that kind of abrupt?”

She got off the hikie. “You forget I’m a working girl, Mr. Ford. I’ve got to get my beauty sleep.”

I got up. “Are you suddenly sore about something?”

She laughed. “To tell you the truth, I’m furious. I thought I was going to find out all about you and instead you’ve had me prattling on about nothing ever since you got here.”

“Will you answer one more question before I go?”

“What is it?”

“Was that damsel in distress act real, or did you plan it?”

She pushed me out of the door, laughing. “Let’s leave it the way it is. Maybe you’ll find out before you go back to California.” Her hand brushed the bulge under my left armpit and she stopped laughing suddenly. “I overlooked something, didn’t I?”

“Meaning what?”

Instead of answering, she linked her arm in mine and walked beside me to the driveway. We stopped at the car and her head came up. “You think I’m an awful fool, don’t you?”

Since that is a leading question which has trapped better men than I am, I was smart enough not to answer it. I waited.

“You’re not exactly like other people, are you? There is always something in the back of your mind and you’re always watching and waiting, aren’t you? There’s something hard and menacing about it.” She paused. “I’m not sure I like you,” she said slowly. She moved up close to me, her eyes open wide, searching, as though trying to read my face in the darkness. She shivered.

I put my arm around her bare shoulders. “You’ve got too much imagination.”

She reached up and pulled my head down to hers. Her lips parted and I kissed her. We stood together for a moment and there was no sound except the murmur of tiny waves curling on the beach and the gentle rustling of palm fronds overhead. She broke away. “Call me tomorrow,” she muttered and turning, walked slowly back to the house, her head bowed, the white evening dress flowing like a graceful caress about her body. I watched until she went inside and the terrace light went out. I mopped my perspiring brow with my handkerchief and got into the coupe.