The Monet Murders (27 page)

“Hiya, Sparky,” she yelled. The Mexican hat dancers didn't notice. The noise of the band drowned out her all-purpose greeting.

She was wearing a dress made out of silver sequins, as far as I could judge, and her hair had been recently re-platinum'd to match. Somehow the silver motif accented her flawless complexion. For a woman with a few miles under her keel, she remained astonishingly youthful and vibrant looking. I felt the stirrings of impure thoughts.

She came bouncing over to the table, smiling flirtatiously, innocent of underwear.

“You look lovely,” I said, truthfully. A little gaudy, maybe, but lovely nonetheless.

“Thanks. Who's your friend?” she asked as she sat down and poured herself a drink. “Is he alive?”

“In a sense. He's a writer.”

“Too bad for him. I hear those guys make decent money, but they get fired all the time. Makes ‘em nervous.”

“I've heard that too.”

“And when it comes to getting a little action, writers are way down on the totem pole. Even producers' nephews have more pull with the girls, you know? Nobody jumps in the sack with a writer except the girls who just got here from Akron, or some place in Ohio. They're still dumb enough
to believe everything people tell them. It doesn't take them long to get wise, though. Personally, I'd rather sleep with a private dick than a writer any day.” She winked elaborately and patted me on the knee. “I speak from experience, too.”

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” She examined the sleeping Hobey with a critical eye. “He's not bad-looking, though, in a faded sort of way.”

I had a feeling Hobey would have appreciated that. He was at the stage of life and career when even halfhearted compliments were welcome. What's more, I also had the feeling that he was reveling a little bit in his failures. Or maybe wallowing was a better word. His alter ego, Hobey Baker, was an “athlete dying young” as well as a war hero, and so appealed strongly to this Hobey, who was neither an athlete nor a dead hero, but who was feeling the clammy hand of creative failure, which to him was another kind of death. This wasn't amateur psychology on my part; he'd told me as much one night as we split a bottle of gin.

“How's the screen test coming?” I asked Catherine. “Scheduled yet?”

“No. We decided it wasn't necessary. You know?” She smiled slyly. “I mean why bother? We both knew I'd pass. You think Marion Davies had to take a screen test? Not hardly. I'll say this for Manny, though. He didn't take much convincing to see that light. Not after last time. He knew it was either the green light for Catherine or the highway for Shorty.”

“Well, that's a step in the right direction.”

“You said it. Tomorrow I'm going to start electrocution lessons. Ha, ha! That was his word. He meant elocution, of course. Manny don't always get his English straight. I think he thinks in
Jewish and then translates it in his head before he talks English. Sometimes it comes out somewhere in the middle, especially when he's talking fast.”

“I've noticed.”

“And speaking of English, there's this guy from London who says he's a lord somebody. Lord Helpus, most likely. He's going to be my teacher, but if you ask me he's probably a phony. I mean, if he's such a high-and-mighty lord, why is he giving ‘electrocution' lessons to anyone, let alone someone like me, just starting out?”

“It does make you wonder,” I said. And she was probably right. The town had more than its share of “aristocrats” who began life selling vegetables in Covent Garden and picked up their accents listening to the BBC, before coming to sunny California where no one minded a phony as long as he had a plausible story. “But I'm sure you'll do well with your lessons.”

“I think so too. But if it don't work out, I guess I can always be a private dick's girl Friday. I can chew gum, sit on your lap, and crack wise with the best of them. Whaddayah think, huh?”

“Can you type and take shorthand?”

“No. Does it matter?”

“Not a bit. The job'll be there if you need it, but I don't think you will.”

“Me neither. If I flop as an actress, I'll probably marry Manny. It'd just be another kind of acting, and I won't need lessons for that.”

“Since you mentioned it, what exactly does this private dick's brand-new ace assistant have to report?”

“The things I do for love,” she sighed, insincerely. “For example. To get anywhere at all, I had to spend the afternoon in bed with Tony.”

“Nice for him.”

“I know. But not so great for me. I told myself what I was doing was a little bridge maintenance. You know, keeping that bridge open in case this deal with Manny falls apart, which I don't think it will, but you never know. But that was a pretty big pothole I filled up, let me tell you. Tony must've spent the morning eating oysters.”

“I've heard they do work.”

“They work for him, that's for sure. But after a couple of hours the oysters wore off and he passed out, which was just a little too convenient, if you ask me, because he didn't have to explain why there wasn't something sparkly in a velvet box for me as a present in exchange for what had just happened. Not that he was expecting me that day or anything, but you'd think a guy like Tony would have a stash of sparklers set aside for just this kind of last-minute thank-you. Maybe dip into that safe where he keeps all the jewelry people leave behind when they can't pay their gambling debts. You'd think he'd unbuckle a bit, and I'm not talking about his pants, which he unbuckles PDQ, like everything else he does when it comes to the bedroom.

“But no dice. No ice. I'm beginning to think he's as cheap as Manny Part One. So I listen to him snore for a minute or two and then get up and get dressed and go into the casino to find this guy Al Cohen, who was off duty just then and standing at the bar drinking straight gin with an olive in it. They call it a martini so people won't think you're a lowlife drinking straight gin, but that's all it is. So I go up to him and say ‘Hiya, Sparky. How's tricks?' and he brightens up and smiles real wide because he's always had the hots for me, you know?”

“Who could blame him?”

“I know. Well, anyway, he offers to buy me a drink and I ask for a Manhattan on the rocks, which is not straight bourbon because you mix in sweet vermouth which makes it elegant, along with the cherry. So we get to talking, and sooner or later the subject comes around to the high-rollers table, which is where Al almost always works. So I ask him about the guys who are regulars there. Turns out it's usually the same crew—a couple of producers, a pansy director, and this guy Watson. And Tony, of course, although he don't always sit in, but he's there regular enough, because these other mugs lose money like it's going out of style.

“And, to make a long story short, it turns out that this guy Watson is the biggest mug of them all and is into Tony for over a hundred grand, which doesn't sound like much in Hollywood but turns out to be a big number for this guy who is living ahead of his means. Seems like the real estate business ain't what it used to be.”

“What
is
?”

“You should know better than to ask that one, Sparky.”

“I take it back. But you're the exception that proves the rule.”

“You said it. Anyway, Tony's been stringing him along for a few weeks now, but Tony ain't what you call a patient guy—don't I know it—and lately when he greets this guy Watson he's not so friendly like he used to be when Watson was paying up for his losses with real money, not markers. Even said something one time having to do with knees. Tony, I mean.”

“As in the breaking thereof?”

“Sure. What else could he mean? I mean he likes
my
knees, and the less said about that the better. Anyway, Al said the
last time Watson came out to the boat and lost big was when Tony mentioned knees, and Al said Watson turned whiter than gefilte fish and said he'd come up with the money in a couple of days, but that was more than a week ago and Al said they hadn't seen Watson since then and he was pretty sure Tony hadn't seen the money either.”

“Interesting. I wonder if Watson owes money to the other regular players.”

“I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised.” She fired up a Lucky Strike and then smiled at me in a way that reminded me of the old expression “butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.” “So, did I do good, or what?”

“You did good. Thanks.” I'd leave explaining the difference between adjectives and adverbs to her speech teachers. Besides, I liked the way she talked, her husky voice always tinged with teasing or innuendo. I could live with a few grammatical errors.

“You're welcome. And the way I see it, you owe me dinner.”

“You're on. What would you say to a little lobster?”

“I'd say ‘Hello, Pee Wee, where's your big brother?' But if you throw in some caviar and champagne, I guess I'll get by. But I wouldn't count on hanky-panky afterwards. I should give it a rest, after this afternoon.”

“I understand.”

She affected a pout. It was nicely done.

“Don't be
too
understanding, Sparky. It hurts a girl's feelings. Besides, I bounce back quick, so you never know.”

Just then Hobey gave a little lurch and opened his bleary eyes. He looked at Catherine and, after focusing, smiled sweetly.

“Hello,” he said.

She evaluated him for a second. “You know, for a writer, he's pretty cute.” This as an aside to me.

“Am I in heaven?” he asked, blinking.

“Not yet, Sparky, but if you play your cards right, you never know.” Apparently, she was starting to bounce back already. Or, more likely, she was just being herself; she couldn't really turn it off. Anyone in pants, not counting girls in slacks, was a conquest needing to be made, if only for the sport of it.

Hobey stared at her like a spotty freshman gazing at the prom queen.

“Hello,” he said again.

“Kind of short on vocabulary for a writer,” she said.

“He gets better,” I said.

By way of proof, he stood up a little shakily and smoothed his hair.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “I'm Hobey Baker. I'm an all-American football player. I play for the Princeton Tigers. We are undefeated.”

“Pleased to meet you, Hobey. I'm Catherine Moore, the actress. And for your next game, I think you should wear a helmet.”

“For you, I will. Would you like to hear the Princeton fight song?”

“Not particularly.”

“As you wish.” He stared at her for a few moments, trying to think of what to say next. “Then perhaps a line of poetry, something appropriate to your loveliness.”

“That'd work better. As long as it doesn't start ‘There was an old hermit named Dave.'”

“As a matter of fact, I know that one, or one like it. But it would hardly be appropriate to your loveliness.”

“You got that right,” she said.

With a drunk's natural lack of self-consciousness, he put one hand over his heart, extended his other arm, and reached back into his store of memories for an appropriate line.

“‘Away! Away! For I will fly to thee, not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, but on the viewless wings of poesy, though the dull brain perplexes and retards; Already with thee! Tender is the night.'”

“That's good, though it doesn't make much sense,” she said. “The way he talks, he could teach electrocution,” she said to me, grinning. But I could see that she kind of liked him. Well, he could be charming when he tried. As for her earlier remarks about Hollywood girls not going to bed with writers, I knew Catherine better than to put much stock in that. It also occurred to me that a night spent with Catherine might do Hobey a world of good, maybe dispel some of the blue devils he was half courting, half hating.

Having finished his opening number, he gaped at her with an expression that signaled devotion mixed with shyness and lust.

“Is it a vision, or a waking dream?” he asked, taking her hand and kissing it in the approved continental manner. “Fled is the music,” he said, gesturing to the mariachi band, who had finished “La Cucaracha” and were taking a break. “Do I wake or sleep?”

I couldn't be sure, but I think she actually blushed. Of course, it could have been the gin.

“Smooth talker,” she said, looking at him through lowered lashes that looked almost real in the soft glow of the pool lights.

So the three of us had dinner together. Although we were having lobster, Catherine refused her bib, no doubt because it interfered with our view of her breasts. Hobey refused one also, which he later regretted when he spotted his shirt and knitted tie with lobster juice and melted butter.

I was eager to hear the finish to Hobey's reasoning for suspecting Charles Watson, but he was too busy admiring Catherine to be much interested in art theft. Obviously, Catherine's information about Watson's poker losses strengthened his possible motive for stealing the Monet and selling it. What better way to raise six figures in a hurry? But Hobey was more interested in Catherine than in mystery plots, and I can't say I blamed him. They were chatting gaily and apparently had more or less forgotten I was there.