her breasts said this was a moment she had thought about and planned. She tried a tiny smile and said, "Kelly?"
"Let's keep it Mr. Smith. I don't want to be friendly with the help."
She tried to hold her head up and keep the smile on, but I saw her eyes go wet.
I tipped her chin up. "Now that we've exchanged nasties, everybody's even. Think you can smile again?"
It came back, crookedly at first, but there it was and she was something so damn crazy special I could hardly believe it.
"Mr. Smith . . ."
I took her hand. "Kelly. Let's make it Kelly, sugar."
Before I knew what she was going to do it was over, a kiss, barely touching, but for one fraction of an instant a fierce, restrained moment. We both felt it and under the sheer midnight of her blouse a ripple seemed to touch her shoulder and her breasts went hard.
She went with me, out to the truck, waiting while I went into police headquarters. I asked for Captain Cox and when he came said, "I want to lodge a complaint against two of Mr. Simpson's employees. One is Nat Paley, the other a stranger."
Cox's face drew tight. "About your brawl, I suppose."
"That's right. They attacked me on the street. I recognized Paley and can identify the other by sight."
Nodding, Cox said, "We checked that one through already. The housekeeper whose place you used called us. Another party down the street thought he recognized one of Simpson's cars. However, Mr. Simpson himself said none of his cars was out and all his employees were on the premises. A dozen others can vouch for it."
"I see."
"Anybody else to back up your side?"
I grinned at him. "I think it can be arranged."
"You're causing a lot of trouble, Mister," he told me.
My grin got big enough so he could see all the teeth. "Hell, I haven't even started yet."
Dari and I drove through town and picked up a macadam road leading into the hills. Below us to the right Lake Rappaho was a huge silver puddle. Two lesser roads intersected and joined the one we were on.
At the next bend we came upon the outer defenses of Simpson's place. A sign read Hillside Manor Private. It was set in a fieldstone wall a good 10 feet high and on top were shards of broken glass set in concrete. That wasn't all. Five feet out there was a heavy wire fence with a three-strand barbed wire overhang.
"Nice," I said. "He's really in there. How long has it been like this?"
"Since the war. About '47."
"This guy Simpson . . . he's always had the place?"
"No. There was another. It changed hands about ten years ago. That is, at least the owners changed. But the visitors; they're always the same. You never see them in town at all. They come and go at night or come in by the North Fork Road or by Otter Pass. Sometimes there are a hundred people up there a week or two at a time."
"It can accommodate that many?"
"At least. There are twenty-some rooms in the big house and six outbuildings with full accommodations. It's almost like a huge private club."
"Nobody's ever been nosy enough to look inside?"
After a moment she said, "They caught Jake Adler in there once and beat him up terribly. Captain Cox has been in a couple of times, but said he saw nothing going on. Several years ago two hunters were reported missing in this area. They were found dead a week later . . . fifty miles away. Their car went over a cliff. The police said they had changed their plans and decided to hunt elsewhere."
"Could have been."
"Possibly. Only one of them made a phone call from the hotel the day they were supposed to have disappeared."
I looked at her incredulously. "You report that?"
"They said I wasn't positive enough. I only had a photograph to go on and in brush clothes all hunters tend to look alike."
"Nice. Real nice. How can we get a look in there then?"
"You can see the house from the road a little way up. I don't know how you can get inside though. The wall goes all the way around and down to the lake."
"There's an approach on the water?"
Her forehead creased in thought. "There's a landing there with a path leading through the woods. It's well hidden in a finger cove. Are you . . ."
"Let's see the house first."
We found the spot. I parked the car and stood there at the lip, looking across a quarter-mile gulf of densely wooded valley at the white house that looked like a vacation hotel.
A few figures moved on the lawn and a few more clustered on the porch, their dark clothes marking them against the stark white of the building.
Behind me, Dari said, "A car is coming."
It was a blue sedan, an expensive job, the two in front indiscernible in the shadows. But the New York City plate wasn't. I wrote the number down and didn't bother putting the pencil back. Another plume of dust was showing around the Otter Pass intersection and I waited it out. We were back to black Caddies again and this one had four men in it and upstate New York plates. Fifteen minutes later a white Buick station wagon rolled past and the guy beside the driver was looking my way.
Harry Adrano hadn't changed much in the five years he had been up the river. His face was still set in a perpetual scowl, still blue-black with beard, his mouth a hard slash. And Harry was another number in a crazy combination because wherever Harry went one of the poppy derivatives was sure to follow.
Very softly I said, "Like Apalachin . . . I got to get inside there."
"You can't. The main gate is guarded."
"There's the lake . . ."
"Somebody will be there, too. Why do you have to go inside?"
"Because I want to get the numbers on any cars that are up there."
"You'll get killed in there."
"You know a better way?"
The smile she gave me matched her eyes. "Yes. Grace Shaefer was in town yesterday. She'll be making herself available for the . . . festivities there."
"Do you think she'll go along with that?"
Dari's smile changed. "I figure you'll be able to coax her into it."
"Thanks," I said.
I took her arm and headed for the car. Before we reached it I heard tires digging into the road up ahead and tried to duck back into the brush. It wasn't any good. The black Cad swept by going back toward town and both the guys in it had plenty of time to spot the two of us, if they had bothered to look. It didn't seem that they had, but Benny Quick was driving and that little punk could see all around him without moving his head.
We waited, heard the car fade off downhill, then got in the truck. At the Otter Pass turn-off, fresh tire tracks scarred the dirt and a broken whiskey bottle glinted at the side of the road.
Just beyond the North Fork Road, the road turned sharply, and that's where they were waiting. The Cad was broadside to us and Benny was standing beside it. If we were just casual tourists, it would look like a minor accident, but anything else and it was a neat trap.
I braked to a stop 20 feet short of the Caddy and stuck my head half out the window so the corner post covered most of my face. Benny Quick tried to adjust a pleasant smile to fit his squirrelly expression, but did a lousy job of it.
But Benny wasn't the one I was worried about. Someplace nearby the other guy was staked out and there was a good chance he had a rod in his fist. I tugged the .45 out and thumbed the hammer back. Beside me Dari froze.
I put on the neighborly act, too. "Trouble, friend?"
Benny started toward me. I opened the door of the cab and swung it out as if I were trying to get a better
