'No! I don't have enough left to put up a front for her, too. I mean, let bygones be bygones.'
She made a unsettled movement toward the cypress hedge, as if the place might betray her into further candor. She could handle the dangers of a hotel room, but not the demands of the wild outer night.
Her feeling turned against me. 'Why did you bring me here?'
'It was your idea.'
'But you said that Harry's car-'
'Apparently it's been stolen.'
She backed away from me, stumbling on her heels, into the ragged black branches of the cypress. All I could see was the pale shape of her face and the glints of her eyes and mouth.
'There never was any car. What kind of a car was it?'
'A Cadillac.'
'Now I know you're lying. Where would Harry get a Cadillac?'
'He probably took it off the lot. It's an old one.'
She didn't seem to be following me. I heard her breath coming more rapidly.
'There never was any car,' she whispered. 'You're from Vegas, aren't you? And you brought me here to kill me.'
'That's silly talk, Kitty.'
'Don't you call me Kitty.'
Her voice was taking on more childish cadences. Perhaps her mind was tracking on something that had happened years ago, between the trains rattling her mother's dishes. 'You conned me into coming to this place, and now you won't let me go.'
'Go ahead. Go. Go-go.'
She only backed deeper into the cypress, like a nocturnal animal. Her radio was trilling from the darkness. A gust of her perfume reached me, mixed with the smells of diesel oil and wine and fire.
I saw in a red flash of insight how two people and a set of circumstances might collaborate in an unpredictable murder. Almost, I thought, she wanted to be murdered. She huddled among the shadows, whimpering: 'You stay away from me, I'll tell my old man.'
'Get out of there, stupid.'
The scream for which she'd been tuning up came out. I reached for her blindly and got her by the waist and pulled her towards me. She gasped, and swung the radio at my head. It struck me a glancing blow and fell silent, as if the musical side of Kitty's personality had died a violent death.
I let her go. She ran away gawkily on her high heels, across the multiple tracks, until she was no more than a scrambling shadow, a hurrying sound in the night.
13
ERIC MALKOVSKY's STUDIO in the Village was on the direct route to Martel's house. I stopped to see how he was getting on with his search. He had dust on his hands and fingerprints on his forehead, like a human clue.
'I almost gave up on you,' he said.
'I almost gave up on myself. Did you find any pictures of her?'
'Five. I may have more.'
He took me in to the back of the shop and laid them out on a table like a poker hand. Four of them were pictures of Kitty, in a plain white bathing suit, taken at the Tennis Club pool. She stood and gazed romantically out to sea. She reclined erotically on a chaise longue. She posed dry on the diving board. Kitty had been a beautiful girl, but all four pictures were spoiled by her awkward staginess.
The fifth picture was different. Un-posed and fully clothed in a sleeveless summer dress and a wide hat, she sat at a table with a drink at her elbow. A man's hand with a square-cut diamond on it lay on the table beside her arm. The rest of him was cut off, but Kitty seemed to be smiling in his direction. Behind her I could see the patio wall of one of the Tennis Club cottages overgrown with bougainvillea.
'This is the one she liked.'
Malkovsky showed me the notation on the back: six 4x6 copies @ $5.00 - $30.00 Pd. September 27. 1959.
'She bought six copies, or her husband did. He was in the picture, too, but he made me crop it.'
Why?'
'I remember he said something about beauty and the beast. He wasn't that bad looking but he was older, like I told you. And he'd taken some punishment in his time.'
'What was his name?'
'I don't remember. I suppose I could check it out in the club records.'
'Tonight?'
'If Mrs. Strome lets me. But it's getting awful late.'
'Don't forget you're on double time.'
He scratched at his hairline, and colored slightly, 'Could I see a little of the money please?'
I looked at my watch. I had hired him roughly two hours ago. 'How about fourteen dollars?'
'Fine. Incidentally,' he said with further scratching of his head, 'if you want any of these pictures it's only fair that you should pay me for them. Five dollars apiece.'
I gave him a twenty-dollar bill. 'I'll take the one she liked. I don't suppose there's any chance you could find the rest of it, the part you cropped off?'
'I might be able to find the negative.'
'For that I'll pay higher.'
'How much higher?'
'It depends on what's on it. Twenty dollars anyway.'
I left him rooting enthusiastically among the dusty cartons on his shelves, and drove back into the foothills. This was the direction the wind was coming from. It rushed down the canyons like a hot torrent, and roared in the brush around the Bagshaw house. I had to brace myself against it when I got out of the car.
The Bentley was gone from the courtyard. I tried the front door of the house. It was locked.
There was no light in the house, and no response of any kind to my repeated knocking. I went back to the studio in the Village. With a twenty-dollar glint in each eye Malkovsky showed me the negative of the picture of Kitty.
Beside her sat a man in a striped suit, which was wrinkled by his heavy shoulders and heavy thighs. He was almost bald, but compensating curly hair, white in the negative, sprouting up through his open shirt collar. His black smile had a loose, bland empty cheerfulness, which his narrow white eyes annulled.
Behind him near the patio wall, and out of focus, was a mustached young man in a busboy's jacket, holding a tray in his hands. He looked vaguely familiar: perhaps he was one of the servants I'd seen around the club.
'I should have a name for these people,' Eric said. 'Actually; it's just good luck that I found the negative.'
'We can check them out at the club, as you suggested. Do you remember anything more about the man? Were he and the woman married?'
'They certainly acted that way. She did, that is. He was in poor health, and she fussed over him quite a bit.'
'What was the matter with him?'
'I don't know. He couldn't move around much. He spent most of his time in his cottage or in the patio, playing cards.'
'Who did he play with?'
'Various people. Don't get the idea that I saw much of the guy. The fact is, I avoided him.'
'Why?'
'He was a rough customer, sick or not. I didn't like the way he talked to me, as if I was some kind of a flunky. I'm a professional man,' he asserted.
I knew how Eric felt. I was a semi-professional man myself. I gave him another twenty dollars, and we drove in separate cars to the club.
Ella opened up the records room behind the manager's office, and Eric plunged in among the filing cabinets.
