“Isn’t he, though?”
“What about Dick Ryan, was he a slob, too?”
“
“That’s what I’m here for, lady. Do you think I enjoy working evenings?”
This time she nearly got up. “Well, of all the!” She dug her nails into the tablecloth. “There’s a million men who’d be damned glad to trade places with you right now.”
“Sure.” I nodded. “I know all about that. Your Mr. Costigan has done a good job for you on the glamor angle. Now, about Dick Ryan—”
“You don’t like me, do you?”
“I never said that.”
“What’s the matter? Are you a qu—”
“Careful,” I told her. “Want me to get up again?”
“Oh, hell!”
“You know what I’d do if you were mine?” I said. “I’d wash your mouth out with soap. You swear too much, young lady.” I smiled. “Outside of that, I like you fine.”
“Well, that’s certainly a load off my mind.” But she relaxed and lifted her glass. “You know, you’re kind of attractive, the way you get mad.”
“Thanks. How about Ryan, now. Was he attractive when he got mad, too?”
She groaned. “For—”
“Careful!” I said. “No profanity. Not before dessert. Or will you settle for another drink instead? Good.”
I ordered, and the waiter went away.
“All right. You win. I’ll tell you what I can. But it isn’t much. Suppose you’ve read up on the case?”
I nodded. “Got everything they printed. And I checked with Homicide on it, too. I don’t expect you have anything to add to the story you told them. What I’m interested in is a new lead.”
The drinks arrived.
“Seems to me the way to figure things out is to find out more about Ryan himself. What kind of a guy he was, what was eating him that made him get loaded that night, things like that.”
“I see.” Polly Foster twirled the maraschino cherry in her glass. “Ryan was a louse from the word go, if you must know. Strictly a bad casting. He was a conceited ham, he was a tomcat who’d prowl anybody’s back fence, he was a lush, he was a double-crosser, and—”
“He was also your lover,” I said, softly.
She made a gesture midway between a shrug and a wince. “All right, if you want to be blunt about it. He was. I suppose you can’t figure out why.”
“Yes I can. I’ve seen his pictures.”
“Funny.” She stared down into her drink. “You get so used to the type that after a while you forget there are any right guys left. And of course, there’s always a line, some kind of phony front to fool you. Then afterwards, when you find out, you figure what the—” She smiled. “Whoops, nearly got the soap there, didn’t I?”
I picked up her glass and held it out to her. “Wash your mouth out with this, instead,” I said. “I’ll order another.”
She was beginning to get a glow, and that was good. “You know the last time anybody told me that?” she said. “Fifth grade. Old lady Perkins. Kid in back of me dropped an eraser down my neck and I hollered at him.”
“I’ll bet they were all trying to drop things down your neck,” I told her. “Even when you had brown hair.”
“How’d you know my hair was brown?”
“Just guessing. Complexion. Am I right?”
“Right.” She lifted the new glass. “You’d make a good detective.”
“Don’t know about that. I’m not getting many leads on this case.”
“But there’s nothing to tell. Honestly.” She leaned forward. “You know it all. Ryan went to his trailer that night, after we finished shooting.”
“Anything happen during the day to make you suspicious?”
“You mean, to make me think he was in trouble? No. But he acted kind of sulky. I knew what that meant.”
“What did it mean?”
“He wanted me out of the way. Some other woman on the string.”
“Who?”
“How would I know? He had plenty of choices. That boy played the field.”
“What about Estrellita Juarez?”
“Could be.”
“And you think he was just putting on an act, pretending to be angry so that you’d leave him alone that night?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t actually quarrel or anything like that?”
“Of course not.”
“Did he quarrel with anyone at all before he went off and started drinking?”
“No. He said something to Tom Trent, but I don’t know what it was. Nothing serious, because Trent was willing to come with me when we went over to the trailer after dinner.”
“How did Ryan greet you?”
“He didn’t talk much. Just offered us a drink. We sat down and talked.”
“What about?”
“Trent was trying to get him to lay off the bottle. Because of the next day’s shooting schedule.”
“What did Ryan say to that?”
“If I told you, you’d wash my mouth out with soap.”
“Did Ryan seem nervous or upset?”
“Well, he kept looking at his watch.”
“As if he were expecting someone?”
“He said he was waiting for Joe Dean to get back. Joe was his valet, you know. He’d driven Abe Kolmar into town for an early preview. When Dean showed up, he brought Juarez with him.”
“Do you think that was the deal? Dean had been told to bring Estrellita Juarez to the trailer for Ryan?”
“The way it looked, she was Dean’s girl.”
“Could that have been for your benefit?”
“Maybe. But if it was, Ryan went too far. Because he got a skinful and fired Dean, and he kicked Juarez out. But you already know that.”
“Sure. And he hit Trent, too.”
“Hit him? He damned near broke him in half.”
“Why?”
“He had a skinful, like I said.”
“But there must have been some reason. Was it because Trent objected when Ryan threw Estrellita out?”
“Partly. But I guess it really started when he tried to pitch me out, too.”
“In other words, they had a fight over you.”
“I don’t know. There was so much noise, and then they started swinging, and I got out of there.”
“Statement says Ryan told you to go. Said he expected company.”
“I don’t know. I was crying, it all happened so fast.”
“Were you drunk?”
“No more than I am now.” Polly Foster stared down at the new Manhattan. “Hey, you’re getting me loaded!”
“Sorry. You don’t have to drink it.”
But she did. “Who cares? Feels good. You treat a girl right, Mr. Clayburn. Mark, isn’t it? Person’d never know you were just being polite, that you hated every minute you had to sit here with little old me.”
“Don’t rub it in,” I said. “I apologize. I know I have a temper.”
