the ice cold nude

“I feel the same way about you as I did yesterday,” I said truthfully. “And my feelings toward you have nothing to do with it at all.”

“Then—why?”

“Can’t you understand?” I snarled. “I don’t want that son of a bitch doing me any favors!”

I finally got to eat lunch—with Patty Lamont in her hotel room—off a room service cart. Patty was wearing a soft and feminine dress, along with a soft and feminine outlook. There was an uneasy feeling growing in the back of my mind that maybe the previous night had been a mistake. She was showing all the unmistakable signs of being a firm adherent to that unnerving theory that having once given her all, it automatically made for a permanent and binding relationship. It shows first in a whole pattern of small things; by the time we had finished eating and she had ignored my request for black coffee, calmly explaining it was bad for my nerves while she poured cream into the cup, alarm signals were ringing all over.

“What kind of a morning did you have, darling?” she asked, all wide-eyed attention while I took a shuddering sip of coffee.

“Just a morning,” I said sourly. “Elmo figures the insurance company will have to pay up now his lawyer’s after them, so he doesn’t need me any more.”

“But he can’t do that!” she said indignantly. “It isn’t fair after all you’ve been through.” She batted her eyelashes modestly. “Of course, I know that a lot of what you did last night was for me, but even so!”

“Then I saw Rutter out at his home,” I said casually.

97

“He said something real interesting—that the beauty contest wasn’t really his idea in the first place.”

“I guess he told you it was mine?”

“Uh—yes,” I said sourly. “You never told me it was your idea, Patty.”

She bit her lower lip, looking down at her hands, studiously avoiding my gaze. “I was too ashamed, Danny,” she said in a low voice. “You see, it wasn’t my idea in the first place at all.”

“Oh, no!” I groaned. “It wasn’t Rutter’s idea in the first place—it was yours. Now it isn’t yours. How many goddamned people are involved in the idea? What did you have going for you—a chain letter or something?” “Please, Danny?” Her voice was gently reproving. “You mustn’t use bad language like that, darling! It was Louise’s idea. She mentioned it casually one night, and I got enthusiastic because it sounded so good. I said I’d tell Mr. Machin in the morning and see what he thought about it. Louise said why give it to him and let him have all the credit, why didn’t I wait until I had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Rutter on his own.”

Patty blushed, then looked at me appealingly. “I know I wasn’t very loyal to poor Mr. Machin,” she said softly. “But when I told Mr. Rutter and suggested he should pretend it was his own idea, he was so nice to me—and, well, after all, he is president of the company.”

“Sure,” I said. “I wouldn’t worry about it, honey.” She brightened up immediately. “Danny, how long will I have to stay cooped up in here?”

“Until the cops get a line on Estell,” I said promptly. “I figure it won’t be too long. There aren’t that many places in a town this size that he can hole up in. Maybe I’ll hear something this afternoon from Schell.”

“I hope so!” she said fervently. “I feel if I don’t get out of this room, I’ll go crazy!”

“It won’t be too long, honey.” I patted her hand absently. “But this is a hell of a lot better than Marty Estell.”

She shuddered. “I’ll have nightmares the rest of my life about that man!”

“In a couple of weeks you’ll have forgotten his name,” I told her confidently. “I guess I’d better move along and see Schell I have to give him a written statement about last night and I don’t want him any more mad at me than he is right now—if that’s possible.”

“What time will you be back?” she asked casually.

I was on my feet and running. “Hard to say,” I told her as I reached for the door. “But don’t worry—you just sit tight!” Then I was out into the corridor with tie door shut behind me before she could pin me down any further.

There was a faint dew of sweat across my forehead when I got into the elevator. I prayed that Schell had already gotten a line on Marty so Patty could go back to her own apartment right away—she was acting like we were married already, or something. The “or something,” I could see very clearly now, had been a bad mistake.

It took a hell of a long time down at police headquarters. Schell played it in slow time, deliberately, giving me the treatment all the way down the line. After I’d dictated the statement, and it had been typed up so I could sign it, he went through the whole thing, word by word, three times. By then it was five o’clock and I needed a drink.

“Lieutenant,” I growled at him, “I know you hate me, and I can understand it even. But if we go through that statement one more time I’m going to have hysterics all over your office. You don’t want that, do you? I mean, like everything’s so neat and tidy in here, it would be out of place. We’d both be embarrassed.”

“Justifiable homicide for a guy with a private license isn’t good, Boyd,” he said coldly. “Even with impeccable witnesses to swear the man had no alternative but to kill —that it was strictly self-defense. But with no witnesses?” He shrugged meaningfully.

“It’s my day for the cryptic ones!” I muttered. “Lieutenant, you’re trying to tell me something?”

“I think you’re in trouble,” he snapped, “big trouble. I also think you’re holding out on me a little, Boyd. You’ve got some information somewhere that we haven’t. I’m telling you now, if you don’t cooperate fully with us, I’ll throw the book at you on this Ungar killing.”

“I always cooperate with you, Lieutenant, you know that already,” I said reproachfully. “I’m not holding out a thing.”

“Okay,” he rasped. “So we’ll play it the hard way!” “You’d have me real worried about that justifiable homicide if it wasn’t for a couple of points,” 1 told him in a mild voice.

“What points?”

“Well, like Patty Lamont will testify to what happened in her apartment with Ungar and Estell,” I said gently. “And how I gave them a fake address but they caught onto that later—and how I went to Byers’ apartment to protect him against them just in case they had caught on.” Schell snorted violently and I chose to ignore it.

“Then there’s Ungar’s record,” I continued happily. “I remember what you said last night, Lieutenant—‘He’s got a long-playing record, you name it, he’s done it!’ And those two slugs Estell fired at me must have been in the wall, so your ballistics expert would testify they didn’t match the slugs out of my gun, wouldn’t he?”

Schell snarled something deep in his throat and glared at me ferociously. “You’re going to outsmart yourself, Boyd, any moment now!”

“Have you got anything on Estell yet?” I asked hopefully.

He shook his head. “Either he skipped out of town last night—ran out of Byers’ apartment and just kept on running—or else he’s made himself invisible. I know this town and the people in it. I’ll stake my badge we’ve covered every possible place he could hide out, at least twice already!”

“Yeah,” I said sympathetically. “How do you figure the whole case now, Lieutenant? Does Rutter still rate as a suspect?”

“What do you think?” he asked in a nasty, suspicious voice.

“I figure he does,” I said firmly. “Did you check on him for an alibi for the time Byers was killed?” “Should I?” He played it nonchalant, making it a throwaway line, while he watched me like a hawk.