though. It’s something I watch for, too. I won’t represent a hophead, that’s my professional ethics. Unless he or she is-” He searched for the right word.
“Successful?”
“Yeah, already established. Then it’s not my responsibility.”
“Was Holly established when you took her on?”
“Hell, no. She was nowhere, from nothing. That’s what grinds me. She’d never had a decent part. She owned the clothes on her back, and that was all. But I saw something there. I got an X-ray eye for talent. I recognized something unique there, I nurtured it like a flower.” His voice took on a lilting lyricism. “I got her fixed up with a wardrobe, I taught her to talk. Christ, I
“You what?”
“Pygmalionized her. It’s a literary allusion, from a play. Like playing God, you know? I even gave her a name and a biography.”
“Didn’t she have one of her own?”
“We all do, but about hers she wasn’t talking. She wouldn’t say a word about her family, or where she was from. If she had a family, she was ashamed of them. Or maybe she thought they’d get in her way. When I tried to press her on the point, she flipped her little lid.” He paused, idly fingering a copy of
“Do you know anything about them at all?”
“Not a thing, Bill. Far as I know, she never heard from a relative, and didn’t want to. She used the Holly May name for all transactions.”
“What was her original name?”
“Let me think.” He screwed up his face in a chimpanzee expression. “It was an unusual name, completely impossible for any serious purposes. I dreamed up the Holly May name to suit the personality I tailored for her. Holly May-Holly Day-Holiday. Get the connection? Holiday. A girl you could have fun with.” He fell silent.
“Dotty,” he said then. “Dotery. Dee-oh-tee-ee-are-wy.” He saw the change in my face. “Is there something there?”
“Could be,” I said suavely. “Dotery” was one of the names on Mrs. Weinstein’s list. “You said that most of Holly’s friends, her male friends, were older men?”
“That’s right. She liked to be fatherized. A lot of actresses are like that, I don’t know why.”
“Didn’t she have any young men in her life?”
“Oh, sure, she wasn’t strictly from Electra. I’d see her with younger escorts on the Strip from time to time. One boy she was very much interested in, for a while. She didn’t confide in me, but I notice things.”
“When was this?”
“I used to see them last year, last spring and summer, in the clubs. Rubbing knees under the table, stuff like that. I don’t know how long it went on.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t remember. She introduced us once, when I ran into them in Vegas. But I didn’t pay him much attention. To me he was just another bum-the parking-lot attendant with a pan.”
“Does the name Larry Gaines mean anything? Or Harry Haines?”
“Maybe. I can’t say for sure.” He was being careful.
I brought out my picture of Larry Gaines, got up, and laid it on top of the
Speare studied the picture. “It’s him.”
“What were they doing in Las Vegas?”
“Making music.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“It stands to reason. I was having a drink with Holly in her hotel room. Dreamface walked in on us-he had his own key. He was going to throw a punch in my direction, till Holly explained who I was.” He grinned. “Her personal eunuch.”
“All this is very interesting.”
“Why? Is it still going on? Are they still making music?”
“I’d better not answer that.”
“It’s perfectly all right, Bill. I admire a man of discretion.
That suited me.
chapter 19
THE TRAFFIC ON Wilshire and San Vicente alternately raced and crawled. It was past five when I got back to my office. Belle Weinstein was waiting at her desk.
She smiled rather thinly at me. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gunnarson, I had no luck with your list. I didn’t have a chance to go through all the books. The telephone company tossed me out at five.”
I hated to give up on my idea. At bottom, I suppose, I was trying to justify my withholding of evidence from Wills.
Mrs. Weinstein saw the look on my face, and screwed up her own in commiseration. “If it really is so important, I think I know where I can get hold of some more directories. Velma Copley at the answering service has a fairly complete file.”
“Try her, will you? It really is important. Just between you and me, it’s the only important case I’ve had to date.”
“I’ll get over there right away.” She rose and took up her purse from the top of the desk. “I nearly forgot, a Dr. Simeon called. He said that he was going home for dinner, but he’ll be back at the hospital after dinner, if you want to talk to him.”
“Did he say what his findings were?”
“No. Is he the doctor who is looking after Mrs. Gunnarson?”
“God, no.” The very suggestion shook me. “Her doctor is Trench.”
“I thought so.”
“Dr. Simeon is the pathologist who does the official postmortems. I’ll meet you here after I have dinner and talk to him.”
Sally was sitting under the lamp in the living room with blue knitting in her lap. She was counting stitches, and she didn’t glance up. In the light falling softly on her, she looked like a pre-Raphaelite painting of herself. I stood and watched her while she finished counting.
“I’ll never learn to knit properly,” she said. “
“I don’t loom. I’m not smirking.” I bent over and kissed her. “I was just thinking how lucky I am to have you to come home to. How did I ever trick you into marriage?”
“Ha,” she said with her wonderful slow smile. “I was the one with the wiles and the stratagems. You’ll never know. But what a perfectly lovely thing to say to me. You must have had a good day.”
“As a matter of fact it was a lousy day. The craziest mixed-up day of my life. What makes me feel so good now is the contrast.”
“We’re full of ornate compliments.” She gave me a long, encompassing look. “Are you all right, William?”
“I’m all right.”
“I mean really. You seem sort of peaked and fixed.”
“I’m fixed on you.”
But it didn’t sound right. I tried for her mouth again. She held me off and studied me. It was good to be looked at by such grave, bright eyes, but it made me nervous. I think I was afraid she’d see too much reflected in my eyes. The thought of Speare intruded like an odor.
“What happened today, Bill?”
