Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Fenced-In Woman

“All men want something,” she said, smiling. “I hope what you want is something I can give. Something easily accessible.”

She moved seductively toward him, then laughed and said, “Oh, let’s forget it. Come down to earth. What do you want, Perry Mason?”

He said, “I want to know whether you know a Nadine Palmer.”

“Palmer, Palmer, Nadine Palmer,” she said, squinting her eyes thoughtfully and frowning slightly with an effort of recollection.

Slowly she shook her head. “The name means nothing to me,” she said. “I might recognize her if I saw her. I know lots of people that are faces without names. Does she live here?”

“She lives in Los Angeles.”

Again Genevieve shook her head.

“Do you know Loring Carson?” Mason asked.

Her eyes snapped up to his with hard appraisal, the pearly teeth vanished from behind the red lips.

“I know Loring Carson,” she said.

“Have you seen him lately?”

She frowned. “It depends on what you mean by lately. I saw him... Well, let’s see. He was here last week... I think it’s been about a week since I’ve seen him.”

“He’s dead,” Mason said.

“He’s... he’s what! ”

“He’s dead,” Mason said. “He was murdered today, late this morning or early this afternoon.”

“Loring Carson dead?”

“That’s right. Murdered.”

“Who killed him?”

“I don’t know.”

She lowered her eyes. For some ten seconds her face remained expressionless, then she sighed, raised her eyes to Mason and said, “All right, he’s dead. He’s gone.”

“He was a friend?” Mason asked.

“He was a — a good guy; let’s put it that way.”

“You knew he was having trouble with his wife?”

“Virtually all men have trouble with their wives sooner or later. All the men that I meet do.”

“He gambled quite a bit?” Mason asked.

“We don’t discuss the affairs of customers publicly, but he gambled quite a bit.”

“And won?”

“He was a good gambler.”

“And that means what?”

“Doing just what I told you. There’s no secret about it. Plunge like the devil when you’re hot, lay off gambling when you’re cold. Do that and you’ll win, at least in Las Vegas. But people can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Carson wasn’t like that?”

“Carson was a good gambler and when he was cold, he... he’d do what you’re doing.”

“What?”

“Take me out of circulation and buy me drinks.”

“The management permits that?”

“Look, Mr. Mason, let’s be frank. You’re grown-up and I’m grown-up. You’re a big boy and I’m a big girl. The management doesn’t make much profit on the sale of drinks. The management puts out food, entertainment and lodging as cheap as possible.

“On the other hand, the State of Nevada is largely supported by taxes levied on the profits of gambling establishments. All this glitter and luxury is supported by one thing: the gamblers who don’t know how to gamble, the gamblers who lose.”

“There are gamblers who win?” Mason asked.

“There are gamblers who win.”

“Consistently?”

“Consistently.”

“And, I take it, what you’re leading up to is that when a gambler is active and patronizes the tables, the management has no objection if you take a little time out to be with him.”

“Under those circumstances,” she said, “the management loves it. Now then, Mr. Mason, you’re too smart a man to go back and start plunging and lose very much money. You and I will go back. If you’re cold, you and I are going to part company. If you’re hot, I’ll be with you for a while. Something seems to tell me you’re not going to be hot. I think you’ve made your pass at Lady Luck.”

“And you think Lady Luck is going to turn a cold shoulder on me?”

“Lady Luck is a woman,” she said. “Lady Luck is intensely feminine. You gave Lady Luck an opportunity to smile at you and she did more than smile. She jumped in your lap. You indicated that you were gambling with only half of your mind on what you were doing. You were thinking of me. You were more interested in me than you were in Lady Luck.

“All right, you’ve had your tête-à-tête with me. When you go back to the table, something seems to tell me Lady Luck is going to be cold as ice.”

“And if that happens?”

“If that happens, I’ll drift to the perimeter and vanish. You’ll find yourself with another hostess, provided you’re gambling enough to be important enough to attract a hostess. If you’re not, if you show signs of quitting when you’re cold, you’ll probably find yourself wandering around with no one taking very much interest in you.”

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Mason said.

“Business,” she said. “Now what do you want?”

“I want to know if Nadine Palmer gets in touch with you,” Mason said. “Nadine is a very personable young woman, well put together. I have every reason to believe she flew over here this afternoon from Los Angeles and I think she’s looking for you. If she gets in touch with you, I’d like to know what it is she wants.”

The waiter brought their drinks. Mason clicked glasses with Genevieve. “Here’s how,” he said.

“I know some cute answers to that,” she said, “but somehow I think they’d be wasted and... Look, Perry, I am going to be frank with you. That news about Loring Carson was quite a jolt to me.”

“Were you fond of him?”

She hesitated a moment, then raised her eyes deliberately to Mason.

“Yes.”

“Intimately so?”

“Yes.”

“Let me ask you this: Would you have become the second Mrs. Carson?”

“No.”

“May I ask why?”

“I have my work, he has his. I’m a wonderful playmate. I’d probably make a damn poor wife. He was a showman. He could treat a girl swell. I think he’d be lousy to a wife.

“Some men are like that. They’re essentially salesmen. They like to sell their stuff and feel that they’re getting an order on the dotted line, but when they’ve bought the merchandise, when it’s in the house with them all the time, when it’s eating with them, sleeping with them, traveling with them, they don’t have any incentive to sell. And when they can’t strut their stuff selling, they get bored. After they get bored, they get unresponsive. A man who’s unresponsive is a net loss to himself and to the world.”

“You don’t seem to have a very high idea of marriage,” Mason said.

“It’s all right,” she said, “for some people.”

“Carson wasn’t the type?”

“I don’t think Carson would ever have been happy with any one woman until after he passed... oh, probably fifty, and by that time it would have been too late.”

“For marriage?”

“For me. He’d have married some younger woman, someone in her twenties or someone in her early thirties who persuaded him she was in her late twenties.”

“And then?”

“Then Carson would have wanted to settle down. He’d have felt that he’d hit the jackpot. The woman would have seen Loring getting old and slowing down. She wouldn’t want to get old and slow down.”

“And so?” Mason asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, finished her drink.

Mason tilted his glass, said, “Let’s go back to the tables. Will you let me know if Nadine Palmer gets in touch with you?”

“For how much?”

“For two hundred dollars,” Mason said.

“I’ll think it over. It depends on what she wants. Is it something I could make money out of?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not going to lie to you, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I hate liars. I’ve given up a lot of things coming over here to Las Vegas and being a hostess, but I’ve gained certain things. One of them is the right to be free, and the right to be free gives me the right to be frank. Thank God, I don’t have to lie anymore and I’m not going to do it.”