the ice cold nude

“Not if you take a long sea voyage,” I assured her.

I left her still thinking about it, and I could tell she was thinking hard because of the disturbing thought waves that rippled the front of her orlon sweater. Back in the car, I checked Rutter’s address, which was south of Santo Bahia, and that meant at least an hour’s drive from the Poolside plant, which was due north. I stopped off for lunch on the way at one of those chintzy inns which specialized in nothing but pancakes, and the waitresses were all blue check gingham and adenoids.

It was around one-thirty in the afternoon when I reached the Rutter house—a split-level perched thirty feet above the road with a magnificent view of the coastline and Pacific. The sun shone radiantly from a cloudless blue sky and the breeze was a gentle zephyr off the ocean—a typical California day straight out of a tourist folder. I climbed the forty steps that led up to the house, figuring it would be just my luck to get a coronary on a day like this.

There was a double garage to one side of the house, flanked by a concrete drive, and I could see the shimmering blue surface of a back-yard pool, half hidden by a corner projection of the house. A carefully polished antique brass bell tolled loudly when I pulled the rope, startling a somnolent bee into hurried flight. The scent of hibiscus was heavy in the air. I leaned against the porch, lit a cigarette, and waited happily, with all the time in the world right there in the palm of my hand. Two, maybe three, peaceful minutes drifted by.

“I’m sorry,” a lazy voice said out of nowhere. “It’s the maid’s day off and I was out at the pool.”

I turned around real slow, nervous that the illusion the voice had created would vanish when I saw its owner, but one fast look was enough to make me stop any worries whatsoever. A tall, brown-skinned brunette was standing there, watching me with sloe-eyed detachment. She wore a blue-green satin swimsuit, softly shaped to flatter a tautly-curved figure that was in no need of flattery. Her legs were slender bronze pillars, supporting a beautiful temple to Venus, created in living flesh.

Her knowing eyes watched my reactions, lazily acknowledging the worship that was their due. They flickered once as they noted the profile with approval, then returned to a timeless contemplation of their own temple’s perfection.

“I am Myra Rutter,” she said. It was more an announcement, with trumpets playing someplace in the background, than a statement. “Are you something interesting, like an escaped sex maniac? Or merely dull, like a salesman?”

“I’m Danny Boyd,” I told her. “I’m something fascinating, like a private eye and—before I met you—I wanted to talk with your husband.”

“James had to go out to the airport or something,” she said coolly. “Why don’t you talk with me, Mr. Boyd, instead? I’m sure you have plenty to talk about—I can see the ego oozing out of your ears. I could possibly even offer you a drink as a bribe?”

“A drink would be the icing on the cake,” I said gallantly (D. Boyd is not above messing up a metaphor in times of stress). “Just the view from where I’m standing right now is bribe enough.”

She shook her head in wry amusement, and her long glossy black hair shone with myriad lustrous highlights. “Nobody can have everything,” she said, almost to herself. “With that profile, I guess it wouldn’t be fair to hope for sophistication, too. Let’s go around back to the pool.”

I followed her obediently, my gaze riveted on the rhythmic undulations of those impudently rounded, blue-green satin buttocks.

“Would you mind not panting quite so loud, Mr. Boyd?” she asked in a mocking voice, without bothering to turn her head. “I know it’s a wonderful view up here, but after a while you’ll find you get used to it.”

We came around the side of the house to where a wide concrete patio encompassed a free-form pool, which gave the impression it had been designed by some latter day Pythagoras during a bad attack of delirium tremens. A couple of chairs were set up at the edge of the pool beside an outdoor table, and within reaching distance was the fanciest drink wagon I ever did see. It was all chrome and rubber wheels, littered with a profusion of bottles; it obviously manufactured its own ice and—I wouldn’t have been real surprised—spoke four foreign languages while it mixed a martini.

“We call it home,” Myra Rutter said as she relaxed comfortably into a chair. “I guess because that’s as good a four-letter word as any. Make yourself a drink, Mr. Boyd, and while you’re at it you can make me a stinger, very, very cold.”

I made her the stinger and gave it to her, then made myself a bourbon on the rocks and sat down facing her.

“You have a very nice setup here,” I said approvingly, “but there’s one thing missing.”

“You’ll have to wait for the sun to go down before we can show the stag movies,” she said indifferently. “Or did you have something else in mind?”

“No plastic gizmos?” I shook my head sadly. “It’s not the Poolside spirit, Mrs. Rutter. I’m surprised at you— the president’s wife—not having the whole pool just loaded with plastic ducks and elephants and rafts and boats and—”

“The rest of the crap?” she said crisply. She recrossed her knees so her right kneecap had its chance to worhip her left. “I just remembered that I read something about you in last night’s paper, Mr. Boyd, only it’s not a distinct memory because the cook was wrapping the garbage at the time. Something about Mr. Elmo hiring you to recover his stolen tiara?”

“You must read fast,” I said admiringly. “That’s the size of it, as the man said.”

“And you’re from New York, and all. My!” The dark eyes glinted with derision. “What do you think of California, Mr. Boyd? I love New York, of course, it’s a wonderful place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Have you seen Disneyland yet?”

“I had it on my agenda,” I told her amiably, “but now I’ve seen you, I'm beginning to wonder if I need to make the trip south?”

“Danny Boyd?” She savored the words for a moment, like a doubtful oyster in her mouth. “I don’t like it much. We’ll shorten it to Danny so it’s only half-bad.”

“Gee! and Gosh!” I gurgled. “You mean I can get to call you Myra, Myra? I’d like that a whole lot. Myra sounds much better—Myra Rutter sounds like something that got chewed up in the garbage disposal unit.”

She laughed at that—full red lips pulled back over white, predatory teeth—and I wondered if her husband was out of his mind leaving a dish like this alone in the house for even five minutes.

“All right, Danny,” she said finally. “Tell me about the tiara. I’m fascinated, I really am. Are you hot on the trail of a heist mob—or maybe this is a lone wolf? I’ve got it!

A gentleman thief, and he wears a white silk scarf and suede shoes all the time?”

“If you want the truth,” I said reluctantly, “he’s a mad scientist who discovered a secret cream he rubs all over himself. It makes him invisible and gives him the advantage of being able to walk straight through walls at the same time. Fortunately I found a jar of the cream in his laboratory he must have overlooked.”

“How will that help you catch him?”

“Catch him?” I looked at her scornfully. “Are you out of your mind? I’m going to join him!”

She studied me in silence over the rim of her glass for a few moments before she spoke again. “This mad scientist doesn’t have the name Rutter, by any chance?”

“Not unless you know something I don’t,” I said. “Then why did you want to talk with my husband, Danny?”