Way of a Wanton (19 page)

Nicely phrased, I was thinking, but none of it very new. I waited for him. He said, “And it really makes little difference whether or not you believe me, Mr. Scott. As for last night—” He went ahead and described in detail the television show he had watched, explaining that even if he couldn't prove his statements, because he was alone, neither could it be shown he was anywhere else. Precisely, he pointed out, because he
was
home. He finished, “And finally, you must have forgotten that I could not possibly have killed Zoe.” He shrugged. “And as for shooting at you—great Scott, I've never shot at a thing.”
 

I'd have liked it better if he'd said he had never shot at anybody. But he had, it would seem, spoken freely enough. I told him, “O.K., Swallow. I'm naturally anxious to learn who shot at me. So I can shoot him.”
 

He grinned agreeably. “I hope you find him, Scott.”
 

“I probably will. Oh, something else I've been meaning to ask you. You know, naturally, that Zoe headed for Raul's Thursday night.” He nodded and I said, “What's this about her intention to run you out of town? Doesn't that—”
 

I stopped. Swallow had, momentarily, lost some more of his poise. At least he looked much less agreeable for a brief moment, but he recovered quickly and smiled. “Run me out of town? I've never heard anything so idiotic. What on earth would give her that idea?”
 

“That's what I was wondering.”
 

He didn't say anything. I asked him, “And speaking of shooting, since you're the screen writer, maybe you'd know why Zoe had a ‘Jungle Girl' shooting script in her things.”
 

He shrugged and said loftily, “Why shouldn't she have a copy? They're free.” He chuckled but it didn't quite come off.
 

I didn't say any more, hoping he'd go on, but he merely waited for more questions, if any. We spent a few more minutes talking, but nothing important developed. Finally I left him, to watch the shooting, and Swallow went back to his pouting brunette. The other one was with a bunch in front of the cameras by now.
 

I waited while the scene was shot, then hunted up Raul again. King was with him, still looking surly.
 

“How's it going?” I asked Raul.
 

“Hi, Shell. Smooth enough. Just going over a scene with Doug. Come along if you want.”
 

King gave me a look that was apparently intended to scare hell out of me, so I said, “Sure, thanks.” I grinned at Raul. “Got to learn more about the business I'm in.”
 

King spoke for the first time. Obviously referring to my detective business, he said, “It's about time, Scott.”
 

I ignored him and walked on the other side of Raul as the three of us started walking deeper into what everybody called the jungle. Quite a jungle it was, too. The prop men, carpenters, gardeners, and others of Genova's crew had labored long over one area here, adding trailing vines and brush and clearing “animal” paths through one section. We walked along one of the paths, and as we passed a tall, sturdy tree Raul jerked a thumb at it and said to King, “That's the second tree. There's the rope you'll use, right off that platform.”
 

I looked up as we went by. Boards had been nailed together to form a platform about twenty feet up in the tree, a bit like tree platforms I'd built when I was a kid. We walked on without speaking until Raul stopped at the base of another huge tree with a wooden ladder leaning against one side of the trunk.
 

He grinned at me as I stopped beside him. “Your education commences, Shell.”
 

Then he turned to King and I listened, fascinated, as he talked. “O.K.,” Raul said, “you're getting away from the great apes, see? They're mad at you. You leap up into this tree here and let out one of those aaah-eee-aaah noises.”
 

So King was going to leap into the tree. I counted the rungs in the ladder: twelve of them. Nice leaping.
 

Raul continued, “You hear them coming. There's ten of them, too many for you to handle, and besides, you know the cannibals are burning the women at the stake up ahead of you. And you've got to save your mother before her turn to get toasted. You're really in a spot.”
 

Mentally, I agreed. It would seem that Bruta was going to have a lot on his hands.
 

“We'll cut in a shot of the women here—they hear you yelling and know they're practically saved, see? Then your mother clasps her hands and sobs, ‘Bruta!' Then we shoot you"—I was thinking that here was an excellent idea—"and you grab the rope and swing over to that other tree, grab the rope there, and swing off. That takes you right out into the clearing and you let go and drop down by the stake where the doll is burning. OK?”
 

“O.K.,” said Bruta.
 

“Now,” Raul said, “we've got it all cleared away through here"—he pointed down the line from this tree to the other one—"and we'll shoot from an angle so it looks like you're brushing limbs and having a hell of a time. But there's nothing to it: Just swing, swing, plop, and she's all over.”
 

“Nothing to it,” said Bruta.
 

They stood facing back toward the set and talked some more. I wandered off a few feet to their left, looking the place over. I noticed a thinning of the brush ahead of me and my eyes caught a hand-painted sign just as Raul yelled, “Hey, Shell, watch your step. Hell of a drop there.”
 

I told him thanks and examined the sign, which was a warning to anybody who might trot carelessly through the brush. I went through, carefully, and took a look. Raul hadn't been kidding. There was a natural open space here, and about fifteen feet from the sudden edge of the thick brush the ground dropped down in a sheer, dizzying fall to sharp rocks below. The cavity was no more than twenty-five or thirty feet across, but it was twice as deep, as if the earth had split at this point and been pulled apart. I edged closer to the brink of the cliff and peered over, and the sudden dropping off of solid ground made me feel lightheaded and dizzy.
 

I looked down to the rocks below, thinking that here was a made-to-order spot for somebody to have an accident. Me, maybe. An unreasoning fear swelled in my throat as I remembered I wasn't armed and that both Raul and King were somewhere behind me. I swung around, staring, but nothing was near me except the edge of brush a few feet away. I could hear the two men talking industriously. I walked back to them feeling silly, but still a little weak in the knees.
 

When I came up, King looked at me and said, “For God's sake, shamus. You still around? Why don't you crawl off in the bushes? Go fall off a cliff.”
 

“Why don't you shut your face, King?”
 

“Well,” he said slowly, “if that don't beat all.” He was starting to grin at me. “I guess we can't be friends.”
 

He turned and faced me, squaring his shoulders. I stepped up in front of him and looked down at his eyes, an inch or two below mine, and much closer together.
 

“Listen, friend,” I said quietly, “it's time I squared you away on something. The only reason I didn't mess up your stupid face yesterday is because Genova thinks I'm trying to ruin his goddamn movie. I'd love to put you in a plaster cast, and the only reason I don't do it right now is because I don't want to disappoint your public. Even idiots deserve a break.”
 

He blinked at me, surprised at my sudden outburst, then he grew his sneer again. “Sure,” he said. “Sure. Well, how about right now, us two—”
 

“Doug,” Raul said beside us, “for God's sake forget it, will you? You too, Shell, how about it? Have a goddamned duel if you want to, but do it next week. God knows we got enough trouble.”
 

I turned away from King and stepped back. “Sure, Raul. Sorry I popped.”
 

“You back down goddamn easy,” King said.
 

I said an unclean word. The main trouble with this boy was simply that he
was
a boy; he'd never grown up. If he had a problem, he hit it. “O.K., King,” I said. “You got me scared. I'm in a purple funk. Now beat it before I get over it.” I was right on the edge of forgetting all my fine resolutions.
 

Raul took King's arm and tugged at him. “Come on, Doug. They must be about set up by now. Come on, let's get back there.”
 

King slowly cleared his throat and looked all around, looked at me, looked around some more, then he spat at his feet. He turned and stalked away, King of the Jungle.
 

I watched them till they got out of sight, then turned my hands over and looked at them. They were wet, shining with perspiration. The muscles in my face felt tight and drawn.
 

I turned around and walked in the opposite direction from them, away from the cameras and crew and Genova and King and all the rest of them. I was getting pretty sick of the whole mess; the case, the people, all of it. I walked aimlessly for a while, then suddenly realized where I was headed. I was almost to the lake, the little quiet lake that Helen had mentioned.
 

I stopped for a moment, then kept on walking, knowing now where I was going.
 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirteen

 

I DIDN'T see Helen. Not right at first, that is. What she had referred to as a lake was an oval body of water about fifty yards across and twice as long, and it had another body in it that I didn't spot immediately: Helen's. The lake was surrounded by trees that blocked the water from sight until you were almost on its edge, and this was a cool, quiet spot, as Helen had described it. I walked to a big boulder near the edge of the water and sat down on it, the sun pleasantly warm on my face.
 

“Hello-o-o! I wondered if you'd come.”
 

I didn't locate the source of the voice right away, but I knew it was Helen. I looked around the lake, then spotted some ripples almost at the far edge opposite me, nearly fifty yards distant. Right in the center of the ripples was Helen's head, but she had her silver-blonde hair tucked into a white bathing cap.
 

She laughed and the happy sound floated across the water. “Come on in,” she called. “This is wonderful!”
 

“I can't, Helen. No suit.”
 

She laughed delightedly. “You're one of Raul's
prudes,
” she shouted, then turned and began swimming toward me, her arms flashing in a smooth, strong crawl. As she drew near I could see that she was wearing a brief, white, two-piece suit that gleamed through the water. When she got closer I could see that it was skin-tight. I remembered Helen's saying something at our first meeting about being darkly tanned except for “two white strips; little narrow white strips.” I took a good look. No wonder it was skin-tight: it was skin.
 

She stopped swimming about ten yards out in the water, then came in another yard or two till her feet touched the lake's bottom. “Hi,” she said. “Neither do I. Have a suit, I mean.”
 

“You know,” I said, “I think I find that interesting. I had almost guessed.” I could see the pale gleam of her flesh under the water, distorted by the refraction of light. Not too distorted.
 

“You coming in?” she asked me. She chuckled. “You don't know how good it feels. You'll like it, Shell.”
 

“Bet I would. Uh, I dunno.”
 

“I've been all alone here. Not a soul but me—and you, now. It's like being cut off from the rest of the world. Come on in, I'll race you across.”
 

I didn't say anything, just looked at her as she smiled at me. She gave a little push with her feet and floated toward me, almost up to the very shallow water extending a few feet inward from the lake's edge. Then she curled around and floated on her back, kicking her feet and pulling her arms slowly through the clear water as she moved away from me again and stopped about where she'd been before. If that
was
a suit, it was the goddamnedest suit I'd ever seen.
 

“I hoped you'd come, Shell. Hurry up.” She paused for a long moment. “Hurry up and get undressed. You can't swim in all that. Well? Last chance, Shell. Better hurry.”
 

She turned and began swimming lazily toward the center of the lake. I thought about all this for a minute. Come to think of it, I'd given this lovely little doll a pretty bad time. I hadn't meant to, but if I ran away again she'd think I didn't like her, that something was horribly wrong with her. She'd start wondering what she'd done to deserve this. She might start thinking she had no sex appeal. She might lose her grip on reality, that was what. Yes, sir, she'd go mad. I certainly couldn't let her go mad.
 

The water sure did look good. I got up and went over behind my boulder and took off my clothes. I had it figured out now: I
owed
it to Helen. Hell, I owed it to me.
 

I was all ready to go, but I still stood behind the boulder. Right then I thought of Sherry, but it seemed a little late to back out now. To be perfectly frank, I didn't intend to back out. Still, I wanted to be sure I had this all figured out logically. I was sure I did, but I was convincing myself. From about twenty yards out Helen called, “Hurry
up!"
and that finished convincing me.
 

I ran pell-mell around the boulder and my feet splashed in the water. Helen squealed. I let out some sort of squeal myself. Then I dived in and started swimming toward her.