a vast sparkling sea. Pelicans were playing tag with the breaking surf, flying just under the curl of the white-lipped waves. Yachts, like a child’s toy boats, floated out there just between me and the horizon. I felt like I could reach out for one, pluck and examine it, sniff it maybe, like King Kong checking out Fay Wray’s lingerie.
“Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Cafe,” as a billboard on the hillside behind it so labeled the place, was a sprawling two-story hacienda affair, as big as a beached luxury liner. Over its central, largest-of-many archways, a third- story tower rose like a stubby lighthouse. There weren’t many cars here-it was approaching ten a.m., too early for the luncheon crowd and even I didn’t drink cocktails this early in the day. Not and tell, anyway.
She was waiting in the otherwise unpopulated cocktail lounge, where massive wooden beams in a traditional Spanish mode fought the chromium-and-leather furnishings and the chrome-and-glass-brick bar and came out a draw. She was a big blonde woman with more curves than the highway out front and just the right number of hills and valleys. Wearing a clingy summery white dress, she was seated on one of the bar stools, with her bare legs crossed; they weren’t the best-looking legs on the planet, necessarily. I just couldn’t prove otherwise. That good a detective I’m not.
“Nathan Heller?” she asked, and her smile dimpled her cheeks in a manner that made her whole heart- shaped face smile, and the world smile as well, including me. She didn’t move off the stool, just extended her hand in a manner that was at once casual and regal.
I took the hand, not knowing whether to kiss it, shake it, or press it into a book like a corsage I wanted to keep. I looked at her feeling vaguely embarrassed; she was so pretty you didn’t know where to look next, and felt like there was maybe something wrong with looking anywhere. But I couldn’t help myself.
She had pale, creamy skin and her hair was almost white blonde. They called her the ice-cream blonde, in the press. I could see why.
Then I got around to her eyes. They were blue of course, cornflower blue; and big and sporting long lashes, the real McCoy, not your dimestore variety. But they were also the saddest eyes I’d ever looked into. The smile froze on my face like I was looking at Medusa, not a twenty-nine year-old former six-grade teacher from Massachusetts who won a talent search.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. Then she patted the stool next to her.
I sat and said, “Nothing’s wrong. I never had a movie star for a client before.”
“I see. Thanks for considering this job-for extending your stay, I mean.”
I was visiting L.A. from Chicago because a friend-a fellow former pickpocket detail dick-had recently opened an office out here in sunny Southern Cal. Fred Rubinski needed an out-of-towner to pose as a visiting banker, to expose an embezzler; the firm had wanted to keep the affair in-house.
“Mr. Rubinski recommended you highly.” Her voice had a low, throaty quality that wasn’t forced or affected; she was what Mae West would’ve been if Mae West wasn’t a parody.
“That’s just because Fred hasn’t been in town long enough to make any connections. But if Thelma Todd wants me to consider extending my stay, I’m willing to listen.”
She smiled at that, very broadly, showing off teeth whiter than cameras can record. “Might I get you a drink, Mr. Heller?”
“It’s a little early.”
“I know it is. Might I get you a drink?”
“Sure.”
“Anything special?”
“Anything that doesn’t have a little paper umbrella in it is fine by me…. Make it rum and Coke.”
“Rum and Coke.” She fixed me up with that, and had the same herself. Either we had similar tastes or she just wasn’t fussy about what she drank.
“Have you heard of Lucky Luciano?” she asked, returning to her bar stool.
“Heard of him,” I said. “Haven’t met him.”
“What do you know about him?”
I shrugged. “Big-time gangster from back east. Runs casinos all over southern California. More every day.”
She flicked the air with a long red fingernail, like she was shooing away a bug. “Well, perhaps you’ve noticed the tower above my restaurant.”
“Sure.”
“I live on the second floor, but the tower above is fairly spacious.”
“Big enough for a casino, you mean.”
“That’s right,” she said, nodding. “I was approached by Luciano, more than once. I turned him away, more than once. After all, with my location, and my clientele, a casino could make a killing.”
“You’re doing well enough legally. Why bother with ill?”
“I agree. And if I were to get into any legal problems, that would mean a scandal, and Hollywood doesn’t need another scandal. Busby Berkley’s trial is coming up soon, you know.”
The noted director and choreographer, creator of so many frothy fantasies, was up on the drunk-driving homicide of three pedestrians, not far from this cafe.
“But now,” she said, her bee-lips drawn nervously tight, “I’ve begun to receive threatening notes.”
“From Luciano, specifically?”
“No. They’re extortion notes, actually. Asking me to pay off Artie Lewis. You know, the bandleader?”
“Why him?”
“He’s in Luciano’s pocket. Gambling markers. And I used to go with Artie. He lives in San Francisco, now.”
“I see. Well, have you talked to the cops?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to get Artie in trouble.”
“Have you talked to Artie?”
“Yes-he claims he knows nothing about this. He doesn’t want my money. He doesn’t even want me back- he’s got a new girl.”
I’d like to see the girl that could make you forget Thelma Todd.
“So,” I said, “you want me to investigate. Can I see the extortion notes?”
“No,” she said, shaking her white blonde curls like the mop of the gods, “that’s not it. I burned those notes. For Artie’s sake.”
“Well, for Nate’s sake,” I said, “where
“I think I’m being followed. I’d like a bodyguard.”
I resisted looking her over wolfishly and making a wise-crack. She was a nice woman, and the fact that hers was the sort of a body a private eye would pay to guard didn’t seem worth mentioning. My fee did.
“Twenty-five a day and expenses,” I said.
“Fine,” she said. “And you can have any meals you like right here at the Cafe. Drinks, too. Run a tab and I’ll pick it up.”
“Swell,” I grinned. “I was wondering if I’d ever run into a fringe benefit in this racket.”
“You can be my chauffeur.”
“Well…”
“You have a problem with that, Mr. Heller?”
“I have a private investigator’s license, and a license to carry a gun…in Illinois, anyway. But I don’t have a chauffeur’s license.”
“I think a driver’s license will suffice.” Her bee-stung lips were poised in a kiss of amusement. “What’s the real problem, Heller?”
“I’m not wearing a uniform. I’m strictly plainclothes.”
She smiled tightly, wryly amused, saying, “All right, hang onto your dignity…but you have to let me pay the freight on a couple of new suits for you. I’ll throw ’em in on the deal.”
“Swell,” I said. I liked it when women bought me clothes.
So for the next two months, I stayed on in southern Cal, and Thelma Todd was my only client. I worked six days a week for her-Monday through Saturday. Sundays God, Heller and Todd rested. I drove her in her candy-
