Way of a Wanton (6 page)

“That's not what I meant. I mean these fish are pretty colors. Regular riot. You really should see them. All kinds of tropical—”
 

She broke in, “All right, Shell. I'll come see the things if you'll just stop talking about them.”
 

I didn't even get to tell her about my new
Rasbora heteromorpha
. But we found other things to talk about until I pulled up in front of the Spartan Apartment Hotel on North Rossmore. When I opened her door she got out and smiled at me, then waved toward the Wilshire Country Club grounds across the street. “Isn't that where your sun worshipers are said to worship?”
 

“Yes, indeed. Shall we reconnoiter? Perhaps we can have a subcult of moon worshipers.”
 

She gave me a low ha-ha and walked around the car. I picked up my key at the desk and guided Helen up to my combination living room, bedroom, kitchenette, and bath. My phone was ringing as I unlocked the door, but it stopped when we went inside and I flipped on the lights.
 

I told her to make herself at home, and headed for the kitchenette and bourbon. Behind me she let out a little squeal and said, “Oh, they
are
pretty.”
 

I turned around. The two fish tanks are just inside the living room at the left of the door. The aquarium lights were still on as I'd left them earlier, and Helen was bent over, peering in at the riot of colors.
 

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “The goddamn fish.”
 

She smiled wickedly at me, then returned to contemplation of the tanks. I went to the kitchenette, returned with two highballs, and handed her one.
 

“Just happened to have some scotch and soda,” I said, then spent a couple minutes explaining what she was looking at, and led her to the oversized chocolate-brown divan in front of the ersatz fireplace.
 

“Aren't you going to tell me more about fish?” she asked, smiling.
 

“Later, later.” I sat down beside her. “How do you like the place?”
 

“Nice. What I've seen of it.”
 

“I'll show you the rest in a minute.”
 

She sipped at her drink, then placed it on the low black coffee table, leaned back against the cushions of the divan, and stretched her long legs out in front of her, high heels sinking into the thick shag nap of the gold carpet. Her eye caught the bright nude on my living-room wall and she said, “That looks like something painted at Raul Evans's pool.”
 

“Doesn't it? Not nearly as nice, though. Say, Helen, you were at Raul's party Thursday night, huh?”
 

“That's right. It was a much milder party; mostly business.”
 

“This Zoe didn't show up?”
 

She shook her head. “No ... I know you're a detective. Are you working?”
 

I laughed. “Not on the case. But almost everybody there is good and griped at me for getting the cops in.”
 

She nodded. “And the newspapermen.” She made a face. “I can't wait to see the papers. They dredged up Dot's yellow bathing suit, you know. The reporters will have a field day with that.”
 

“Yeah.” Actually I didn't much care about the men at the party, except for Raul. Both he and Evelyn had been damn nice to me in the past, and anything I could do to help either one of them I'd have been glad to do. And, being me, I'd enjoy helping the women. That made me recall Sherry, and I also thought of something Captain Nelson had told me. It had occurred to me that Sherry might very well be a nickname for Sherrard.
 

I asked Helen, “This Sherry that was in for a little while in the afternoon—what's her full name?”
 

“Lola Sherrard. Why? You want to look her up in the phone book?”
 

“No, just wondered. She was Zoe's roommate, huh?”
 

“That's right.”
 

“And who's this Bondhelm that everybody likes not at all?”
 

“I don't know exactly. He's got money in ‘Jungle Girl.' Anything else, Detective Scott?”
 

I grinned at her and put my drink on the table beside hers. “I'm sorry. I guess I particularly resent the afternoon's grisly complications because they interrupted a highly entertaining episode.”
 

She smiled, her lips thinning. “It's a shame we didn't get our swim. You don't even know if I
can
swim. I might have sunk right to the bottom.”
 

“No matter. I wouldn't have let you down.”
 

She chuckled and looked sideways at me from the dark brown eyes. “I'd have died if you had.” She laced her hands behind her head and wiggled slightly against the cushions of the divan. I leaned closer to her and she didn't move, just smiled up at me.
 

“Well, hell,” I said, “I don't have a pool, but I've got a tub.”
 

She laughed and wiggled.
 

Her face was only a few inches from mine; I looked at her parted lips and leaned closer to them and the goddamn phone rang. I thought: The hell with that noise, and kept on leaning. The phone kept on ringing. Helen's eyes widened, then narrowed again, and she unfolded her arms and put them around my neck, still smiling as she eased her body lower on the divan and pulled me down to her. The smile went away as I pulled her against me and pressed my lips to hers. Her arms tightened, pulling me against her with surprising strength, and I could feel the fluid curve of her breasts against my chest. Pretty soon I didn't know if that ringing was the phone or something inside my head. After long seconds she pulled her mouth from mine and frowned.
 

“Will you turn that thing off, or break it?”
 

“Come on.” I got up and pulled her toward the bedroom.
 

“Isn't the phone in the front room?”
 

“Uh-huh. Extension in here.” As a matter of fact, there was. The lousy phone was still ringing as I turned on the bedroom lights and walked to the thing. I picked up the receiver and growled, “Yeah?”
 

“Mr. Scott?”
 

It was a man's voice. I told him I was Shell Scott while Helen scooted up on the bed and lay down with her head on the pillow. Watching her, I listened as the voice said, “This is Peter Bondhelm, Mr. Scott. I've been trying to get in touch with you. I have a proposition that I believe will interest you.”
 

I almost told him I thought I had a proposition that interested me a hell of a lot more than anything he could offer, but I said, “What is it?”
 

Helen kicked off her high-heeled pumps and, lying on her back, pulled her feet up under her. The hem of her white dress slid noiselessly up from her knees, baring a long, curving length of golden thigh.
 

Bondhelm had said something to me, but I hadn't the faintest idea what it was. I asked him, “What was that again? I'm sorry, I missed it.” Helen wasn't looking at me; she lay relaxed, one knee swinging slightly back and forth while she stared at the ceiling.
 

Bondhelm said, “I want you to come right out to my home if you possibly can, Mr. Scott. It's in connection with the murder of Zoe Townsend. I'd like you to undertake an investigation for me.”
 

Right now what I wanted to investigate wasn't a murder. I said, “Well, I'm tied up at the moment. Just what is it you want?”
 

“I'll explain all that here, Mr. Scott. I'm at sixteen-twenty Temple Hill Drive.”
 

There was a long pause while neither of us said anything. Helen's knee kept swinging gently. Then Bondhelm said, “There should be at least ten thousand in it for you. Possibly more. A great deal more.”
 

This wasn't quite as intriguing as Helen's thigh yet, but it interested me; over there on the bed, though, was something inflation hadn't affected. I forced myself to look somewhere else. That helped, and almost immediately I wondered how it happened that Bondhelm already knew about the murder. There weren't any papers on the streets yet and I was pretty sure it wouldn't have hit the radio or TV broadcasts this soon.
 

I asked him, “Ten thousand what?”
 

“Dollars, Mr. Scott. Nice, fat dollars.”
 

“Not so fat these days. How about a cost-of-living differential?”
 

He let out a little sputter. “I don't understand your attitude, Mr. Scott.” His voice hardened a little. “I'm offering you good money to conduct an investigation.”
 

I kept my eyes on the ash tray by the phone's base. I wasn't my usual self; ordinarily a ten-thousand-and-up fee would have sent me scampering. And I was curious to know what Bondhelm's interest in this was. I was trying to figure out how much I'd have left after taxes, and if, considering everything, it was worth it, when Bondhelm said impatiently, “Mr. Scott! I am going to hire an investigator. I had hoped it would be you. However, I want somebody tonight. Well?”
 

I squeezed my eyes shut. Five agonizing seconds went by. “O.K.,” I told him. “I'll talk it over with you—if it won't take too long.”
 

“Fine. The time it takes depends on you. Sixteen-twenty Temple Hill Drive. I'll be expecting you.”
 

He hung up. I slowly replaced the receiver and walked over to the bed. I sat down beside Helen and worked up ten per cent of a grin. “Honey,” I said, “I give you my house. I've got to take off for a few minutes. Won't take long. Be right back. You sit tight. Yessirree.”
 

She kept looking at the ceiling and sighed. I said, “I'm about to make lots of money. I'll wine you and dine you. We'll throw money away. I'll buy you some fish.”
 

I still hadn't moved her. I said, “You relax. Freshen up. Look the place over. Have a drink. Huh?”
 

“Get lost,” she said.
 

Her knee stopped moving. I reached over and gave it a small push, hoping that would start it going again. It didn't. I patted her knee gently, then bent and kissed the smooth skin just below it. Right away I knew that was a mistake, and I got up. “Be right back,” I said.
 

She finally turned her head and looked at me. She smiled a little, but it was apparent she wasn't hilarious. “Don't be too long, darling,” she said softly.
 

“I'm practically back.” I hadn't worn my gun to the afternoon party, so now I went to the bureau drawer and took out the short-nosed .38 Colt Special and the leather holster. I took off my coat, strapped on the gun with great deliberation, then put the coat back on.
 

“See,” I said. “Important business. Very hush-hush. Secret Service.”
 

She smiled a little more broadly. “All right. But, as I said, don't be gone all night. I've got a big day on ‘Jungle Girl' tomorrow.”
 

I wouldn't have minded a big day on Jungle Girl myself. I said, “Don't go ‘way,” blew her a kiss, and took off.
 

The address Bondhelm had given me was a two-story stucco building on the corner of Temple Hill Drive and North Beachwood Drive, about three miles from my place. I made it there in four minutes. A man opened the door when I rang.
 

“Mr. Bondhelm?” He nodded, and I said, “I'm Shell Scott.”
 

“Fine. Come in, please.” He was a monstrous man, perhaps an inch shorter than I, but with the kind of fat that usually comes more from glandular trouble than over-eating. He shut the door, then walked ahead of me into a room off the hall we were in. He walked ponderously into the room, turned around in front of a mammoth overstuffed chair, aimed his gigantic fanny at it, and fell backward. Air whooshed upward from the cushions as he let out a sigh, then looked up at me from eyes half hidden in the folds of fat in his cherubic face. Perspiration gleamed on his pink cheeks and forehead. So this was Peter Bondhelm. He made me think of a slug.
 

He was slow-moving, but he was fast when it came to explaining what he wanted of me. He nodded me to a chair already placed opposite his, and when I sat down he said with surprising rapidity, “I know of the night's events and that you were present when Zoe Townsend's body was discovered. I want you to find out, if possible, who murdered the girl, and report to me. The sooner the better. I'll pay you well.”
 

He stopped. I asked him, “She was—that is, did you know Miss Townsend?”
 

“Never saw her.”
 

I let it ride. “You said something about ten thousand dollars. Or more.”
 

He bobbed his head. He lifted one pudgy hand to a table alongside his chair, picked up some folded papers, then bent slightly forward and extended them toward me. As I took them he said, “I am the major financial backer of the movie ‘Jungle Girl.' I own seventy-five per cent of the stock—seventy-five of the one hundred shares—and Louis Genova owns the remaining twenty-five. I have executed that written assignment, which you hold, transferring two shares of my stock to you. The two shares in the production are your fee if you take the case.”
 

He was beaming at me as though he'd just informed me I was his heir. I looked at the top paper, written in a sloppy hand and beginning, “I, the undersigned, do assign and transfer...” and going on to say that stock was transferred to Sheldon Scott.
 

“Hey,” I said, “wait a minute. What the hell is this? I thought you said
dollars.
”