“It was a cover-up, Nate-don’t sugarcoat it.”
“Just as long as Watterson is still having his jacket buttoned up for him, in the back, by valets in white, I’m satisfied.”
“I can assure you our man is still in a padded cell. I even get the occasional postcard from him.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes, that’s one of Lloyd’s hobbies-taunting me with his threatening gibberish.”
“I would think they’d keep the lad away from sharp objects, including pencils.”
“It’s a mental hospital, Nate, not a prison.”
“All the more reason to check up on him, Eliot.”
“I will… What’s wrong, Nate?”
“Wrong?”
“I sense something in your voice. I’m reading a… personal involvement in this thing.”
“I just happened to be with the reporter who stumbled onto the corpse, is all… She was a pretty girl, Eliot, and some twisted bastard butchered her… It’s sickening.”
“I know. I know all too well. I was called to enough vacant lots and the like to view the Butcher’s handiwork… I’ll make sure Lloyd is still inside, Nate. You’ll hear from me tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“Don’t let this get to you. I had my share of sleepless nights myself, thanks to that fiend. We should have put his ass in jail.”
“We should have killed him.”
Eliot said nothing.
“Anyway-thanks, Eliot.”
When his voice returned, the tone had lightened. “You’re still willing to be my best man?”
“What? Oh, sure! When is the wedding, again?”
“January thirty-first, right here in Cleveland. Big church ceremony, the whole shooting match, family, friends. Can you and Peggy still make it?”
“We’ll be there with bells on. I can’t imagine anything keeping me from standing up for you.” Except maybe a jail cell.
“Betty and I are counting on the both of you… Speaking of which, how’s married life treating you, so far?”
“So far, so good,” I said, leaving out a few details.
“Peggy’s a great gal.”
“So’s Betty. I know you two will be happy, Eliot.”
His laugh had a little embarrassment in it. “Well, you know what they say-third time’s a charm.”
This would indeed be marriage number three for Eliot. He was a hardworking, hard-drinking guy and was no doubt not terribly easy to be married to. Wife number one had been his secretary, during the Capone Chicago years, and that marriage had burned out during his tumultuous Public Safety run. I had thought his second marriage, to a terrific girl named Evie-a fashion designer up for the high-flying social life Eliot relished so-would have stuck. But nobody knows what’s really going on inside somebody else’s marriage.
Hanging up, I looked toward Peggy, who seemed, finally, to be stirring. I went in and kissed her neck and her ear and her face, gently rousing her.
“Where have you been?” she asked me, sleepily, violet eyes half-hooded.
“All your life? Or just today?”
“Today’s a start.”
I was seated on the edge of the bed, next to her. “Actually… it was long and kind of unpleasant. I’ll fill you in, but I think we oughta grab supper, first.”
“Ooooo… That unpleasant?”
“Oh yeah.”
Neither one of us was terribly hungry, so we just had sandwiches and iced tea at the Fountain Coffee Shop, which was tucked away under the Polo Lounge stairway. Dressed casually, in a snappy white blouse with brown- white-checked boyish slacks, Peggy chattered about the wonderful buys she’d found, at the after-Christmas sales. I politely listened and did not point out that bargain-hunting in Beverly Hills was a contradiction in terms.
Her hair was down, tonight, brushing her shoulders. All I could think of was how beautiful she was-and how much she and Beth Short looked alike.
Over a piece of strawberry cheesecake we shared off a single plate, Peg began to babble about how excited she was, tomorrow being her first day on the Bob Hope picture.
“I’ll be working with Dorothy Lamour, too,” she said. “And Peter Lorre. I’ll tell you a funny coincidence.”
Not finding coincidences all that funny today, I managed, “What?”
“It’s a private-eye spoof. Isn’t that a riot?”
“Four alarm,” I said.
As we walked hand-in-hand back to our bungalow, enjoying a cool breeze riffling the trees, she frowned up at me. “Here I’ve been babbling on and on about my fun day, and how I’m looking forward to tomorrow… and poor you, you’ve had such a long, hard day… How did you describe it?”
“Unpleasant,” I said.
“Unpleasant,” she nodded. “Tell me about it, darling.”
I waited until we’d made a fire-and had dragged pillows off the couch, to make a cozy nest for us, where we fell into each other’s arms-before I told her.
Told her what I could, that is: that I’d been with that reporter Fowley when the bisected body of a beautiful unidentified woman had been found, and that I would be working with the Examiner on the case.
She knew immediately what I was talking about. Even on Rodeo Drive, newsboys had been hawking the Examiner ’s extra edition, and the case had been all over the radio, as well.
“I heard the grisly details in the car,” she said, sitting up. She was in panties and bra and looked like a bright-eyed girl at a slumber party; I was in T-shirt and boxers and socks, like a pervo pop peeking through a keyhole at his daughter’s girl friends at that same slumber party.
“You don’t seem, uh… bothered at all,” I said.
“Are you kidding? This is a big story! This is going to be the biggest thing since the H-bomb. And my husband’s in the middle of it!”
“I’m glad you’re pleased.”
“This is going to make our business, out here.”
“Our business?”
“Our business, your business! You’ll be the most famous detective in town, you big lug, if you take full advantage. Do you and Fred have a press agent?”
“Not really-that’s why we teamed up with the Examiner.”
“Well, you two may want to think about getting a press agent. God, this is exciting! What a wonderful break!”
“Yeah, I’m, uh, pretty thrilled myself.”
Her brow tensed and she raised a palm, like somebody was swearing her in at court. “Don’t get me wrong… I’m sorry for this poor girl. She was probably no different than me, just another beauty queen looking to make it in the movies or something. But she wasn’t lucky, like I was.”
“How do you mean?”
“She didn’t have you in her life.”
Then she kissed me. Long and hard, her tongue tangling with mine.
The fire cast a glowing, flickering pattern on her creamy-white flesh, as if someone were projecting a film onto her body. The dark bushiness of her pubic triangle teased through the white panties. She sat up and reached behind her and undid her bra; it slipped to her lap, where she brushed it away like a pesky insect.
Her breasts weren’t large-they were merely perfect, delicately veined, pertly symmetrical, hard-nippled. I kissed them, I touched them, I helped her scoot out of the panties and she climbed on top of me, sat on me, riding me slowly, eyes half-lidded, smiling in that distracted way that precedes orgasm, until the smile finally blossomed, her eyes closing, hips accelerating…
