investigation?'
'Not exactly. This is an unofficial visit, more or less.'
'I see. Well-what brings you to me?'
'I understand you knew Paige at one time.'
'Unfortunately, yes. How did you discover that?'
'From Russ Dancer.'
'Oh? And what led you to him?'
'Paige had one of Dancer's books at the motel,' I said. 'A paperback, published in 1954, called The Dead and the Dying. Do you know it, Mr. Tarrant?'
He shook his head. 'I don't have much time to read, and I don't usually go in for the kind of things Russ Dancer writes, anyway. Why would Paige have a copy of one of Russ's old books?'
'That's a question that has no answer just yet'
'Doesn't Dancer have any idea?'
'No, he doesn't.'
'That's rather odd about the book,' Tarrant said. 'I can't imagine Paige being interested in anything of Dancer's; the two of them never got along.'
'You mean there was hostility between them?'
'I suppose you could say that.'
'What was the cause of it?'
'I don't remember exactly.'
'A woman?'
'It might have been.'
'Was it an open hostility?'
'How do you mean?'
'Did they have words, something more maybe?'
'Words, I guess. It's pretty hazy in my mind. Why don't you ask Russ about it?'
'I'll do that-or the police will.'
Tarrant gave me his loose smile. 'How about a drink? I could stand another one.'
'I don't think so, thanks.'
He shrugged and drained what was left in the highball glass. 'I'll fill up again, if you don't mind. Sunday is the only day I get to relax, and I always manage to relax a little better with a few drinks inside me.'
'Sure,' I said.
He turned and crossed to the overhang of the second-tier balcony and under it and through an open sliding- glass panel, into a lounge or game room. I had a glimpse of a long bleached-mahogany bar and a couple of ivory- leather stools and what appeared to be a felt-topped card table. I walked over to the terrace railing, in front of an arrangement of patio furniture, and put my hands on the redwood planking and looked over and down. It was a long way into the oak-floored canyon below. I had never been much for heights, and I stepped back a little and gazed across the gap at a lupine-and poppy-strewn meadow that stretched from the top of the ravine wall toward the horizon. It did not quite make it; chaparral and pine took over, and leaned up to touch the white- streaked blue of the heavens.
Tarrant came back after a time, with a full glass, and I said, 'Nice view you've got,' because it was the thing to say-and because it was.
'The finest in the valley, for my money,' he agreed. 'That's why I saved it for myself.'
'Do you operate your realty office from here?' I asked him. 'I noticed the signs out front.'
'Mostly. I keep a small office and a secretary in Cypress Bay, of course.' He had some of his fresh drink. 'Was there anything specific you wanted to know about Walt Paige-or just general impressions? I really don't know much about him.'
'Well, were you surprised to learn of his return to this area?'
'Surprised and not at all pleased. I never particularly liked him, to be frank. He was arrogant and overbearing, and we were hardly more than civil to one another.'
There was something in the way he said it that made me ask, 'Was this morning's radio report the first you knew of his return?'
'No. He made a local call to me here, four or five weekends ago.'
'For what reason?'
'He wanted to rent a piece of property in Cypress Bay that I happened to be handling.'
I frowned. 'Real estate or a private home?'
'Neither. A small vacant shop on Balboa, off Grove.'
'What sort of shop?'
'It was formerly a newsstand,' Tarrant said. 'The previous owner had gone out of business the week before, due to a lack of funds and some hard luck with vandals.'
'Did you rent the shop to Paige?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'To put it simply, I didn't like the idea of him settling in Cypress Bay; he wasn't the kind of man you like to see in your community. So I refused rental to him.'
'How did he react to that?'
'He didn't like it, naturally.'
'Was he abusive?'
'Not really. He tried to talk me into reconsidering, but when he realized I wasn't having any, he broke the connection.'
'Did you hear from him again?'
'That was the one and only time.'
'Is the shop still unrented?'
Tarrant moved his head negatively. 'Central store property in Cypress Bay is in heavy demand, and I've never had any problem renting vacancies; that's why I could afford to refuse to do business with Paige. I rented the shop two days later, to a party from Los Angeles.'
'Did Paige tell you why he wanted it?'
'He said he had come into a small amount of money, and had always liked Cypress Bay, and was interested in going into business there. He didn't say what sort of business, but I assumed it was another newsstand that he had in mind; the shop is too small for much else.'
I tried to make something out of all this, and made nothing at all. I said, 'Do you know if he contacted anyone of a mutual acquaintance while he was in Cypress Bay the past five weekends?'
'Such as who?'
'Russ Dancer, Robin Lomax, either of the Winestocks.'
'Not to my knowledge, no.'
'Paige had been seeing a woman during these weekend visits of his,' I said. 'It's possible she was one he knew when he lived here previously. Any idea who she might be?'
'He had quite a string of conquests to his credit, from what I gathered,' Tarrant said. 'I never knew what any of them saw in him. How do you know he was seeing a woman in Cypress Bay?'
'There were indications.'
'Indications?'
'Facts that haven't been made public.'
'Oh-I see. No, I don't know who she might be. Do the police think she killed him?'
'There's the chance of it.'
'And they have no clues to her identity?'
'Not at the moment, anyway.'
'Frankly, I hope they never find out,' Tarrant said. 'If she killed Paige, she did the world something of a favor.' He had a little more of his drink. 'You were working for Paige's young wife, according to the radio. Divorce evidence?'
