the ice cold nude

“You should blame Willie Byers, not me,” I said wearily. “He was the guy who set himself up in the fake tiara business in the first place. I can get real nervous myself, trying to figure out just how many more fake tiaras are likely to turn up.”

Elmo shuddered. “Now you give me another repulsive thought to live with! What I want to know, Mr. Boyd, clearly and concisely, couched in simple English, is just exactly what progress you have made toward recovering my tiara?”

I lit a cigarette and shifted my haunches uncomfortably on the hard seat of the pseudo-antique chair while I tried to dream up something that would sound like a reasonable answer.

“I’m waiting, Mr. Boyd,” he said sharply.

“I’m trying,” I said and shrugged. “I’ll keep on trying.”

The gold-rimmed glasses flashed angrily. “Is that all you have to say?”

“You paid me a thousand bucks, and I get another five if I do the job,” I grated. “So far, in return for that thousand bucks, I’ve been slugged and shot at. I’ve found two corpses and created a third. The way Lieutenant Schell feels right now 1*11 be lucky to ever get out of this town. If you don’t think you’re getting any value for your money, Mr. Elmo, I can quit right now— well, after I’ve given you a couple of suggestions about what you can do with the tiara if it ever is found.”

He looked at me coldly for a few seconds, his face completely bland, then picked up an ivory paperweight from his desk and toyed with it for a few more seconds.

“Mr. Boyd,” he said finally, “I’ll let you in on a secret. My lawyers have found a weakness in the insurance company’s fine print. It looks strongly as if they will have to pay after all. You realize what that means, of course? Once they meet the claim, the recovery of the tiara will

then be their concern, and not mine. Undoubtedly they will also appoint their own investigators at the same time.” “I have a feeling you’re trying to tell me something, Mr. Elmo,” I said gently. “Do me a small favor—put it clearly and concisely, in simple English?”

“Of course.” He smiled thinly. “You mentioned a few moments back that, in return for my down payment of a thousand dollars, you had suffered various indignities and dangers—all in the ardent pursuit of my stolen tiara. 1 am prepared to accept this—though I have some reservations, you understand?—and am also prepared to agree that, as of this moment, I have received adequate service from you in return for the down payment.”

“And?” I prodded.

“As of this moment, your services are terminated,” he said crisply. “Good day, Mr. Boyd.”

“You withdraw your offer of five thousand if I find the tiara?” I asked.

“No.” The gold-rimmed glasses seemed to laugh at me. “I have already withdrawn it. Again—good day, Mr. Boyd!”

“And a Happy New Year to you, Mr. Elmo,” I said courteously. “May your emeralds grow green fungus and your sapphires melt.”

I stopped at the desk of Tamara O’Keefe on my way out. She looked as dazzling as ever, her hair-do a slightly different fantasy maybe, but everything else under that tight black dress looked exactly the same, as far as I could tell.

“Mr. Rutter called about five minutes back,” she said. “I told him you were in with Mr. Elmo, and he said would you call him back before you left?”

“Thanks,” I told her.

“I’ll get the number for you.” She dialed, asked for Rutter, then handed me the phone.

“Boyd?” Rutter’s voice was crisp and executive. “I just had a thought. I’d prefer not to see you out at the plant—it might cause talk and there’s been too much of that already. So let’s make it my house instead.”

“Whatever you say,” I acknowledged politely. I’d already lost one client that morning, and I didn’t figure on losing the other quite so soon.

“Let’s say twelve then?” he queried.

“Fine. I’ll be there.”

“Good.” He hung up.

Tamara looked at me inquiringly. “I have a vague recollection someplace that I have a date for tonight—or do you have a prior engagement to shoot anybody?”

“My recollection of the date is crystal clear,” I assured her. “And even if I had a paid-for-already assassination lined up for tonight, I’d postpone it. I just can’t wait to see you in your Mother Hubbard, a look of absolute delight on your face as you contemplate my early downfall.”

“I have all day to polish my defensive reflexes,” she said calmly. “By tonight they’ll be razor-sharp.”

“Where will I pick you up?”

“It’ll be easier to meet you someplace,” she said. “Why not the Luau Bar?”

“Around eight? That sounds wonderful,” I told her. “I’ll bring my missionary’s enthusiasm along with me. Maybe after three or four of those rum-based drinks, that Mother Hubbard might slip just a little?”

She smiled sweetly. “With the Mother Hubbard, maybe it’s possible.” Her head shook slowly and confidently. “But with little old Tamara O’Keefe—impossible!”

It was, like the guy who married a Siamese twin once said, a matter for conjecture.

It was the same kind of day with the sun shining from a cloudless blue sky, a gentle breeze drifting in off the ocean—the whole bit. The split-level house hadn’t changed, I still had to walk up forty steps to get to it. I sniffed the scent of hibiscus as I pulled the rope that rang the antique brass bell. The same brown-skinned brunette greeted me, only today she was dressed differently. The blue-green satin swimsuit had been replaced by a beach dress made of white sharkskin, with a demure neckline, loose-fitting, and slit wide and high, revealing a disturbing length of bronzed thigh.

The sloe eyes looked at me almost keenly for a while, but this time the profile produced no flicker of approval. I had a sudden, sure feeling that for Myra Rutter, Danny Boyd was strictly past tense.

“Come on in,” she said finally. “James called and said you were coming out. You beat him out here, but I guess he’ll be along any time now.”

I followed her into the house, through to the enormous living room. “Sit down, Danny,” she said. “I’ll make the drinks this time, for a change.” There was a faint, mocking smile on her lips as she sauntered across to the bar. “I’m glad for your sake that you’re on time,” she went on, busy with the glasses. “James hates people who are late for business appointments—I think it’s always just as well to know people’s idiosyncracies, don’t you?”

87

She turned around and walked toward me, carrying the two glasses carefully. The smile on her face broadened. “Especially when you’re working for them. I mean, being nice to the boss is always terribly important to an employee, isn’t it?”

I took the drink from her outstretched hand, and she sat down beside me, but very much at the far end of the couch, and crossed her legs with a deliberate disdain of the startling length of thigh the action revealed.

“Do you find James a hard man to work for, Danny?” she asked casually. “I mean, do you have to call him ‘sir,’ or anything?”

She had given me a stinger without bothering to ask what I wanted. Yesterday I had been a free man and could make my own drinks—today I was her husband’s hired man and I’d damn well drink what I was given. Now I knew why the profile had suddenly lost its appeal.

“Mostly I call him ‘Mr. Rutter, sir’ ” I said idly. “He seems to like that—and I don’t want to lose a wonderful job like this. The fringe benefits are enormous—once I’d signed a declaration promising I wouldn’t try and seduce his wife any more, I got an expense account and six credit cards, a large block of stock, and four weeks every year in Las Vegas with the receptionist, all expenses paid.”