you were at his apartment. They will find the picture on you.”
She motioned me up the stairs inside the house. I walked five feet in front of her, trying to decide when to make my move.
She turned lights on ahead of us and guided me at gunpoint into her bedroom. It was nice, soft and white with fur all around.
“How about some answers before you shoot me,” I said.
“I don’t plan to
“Glad to hear that,” I smiled, but I didn’t ask what she planned to do. “First, you hired Delamater to get Lynn’s picture from me, right?”
“Right,” she said, knocking everything but a framed photograph from her dressing table, while keeping the gun leveled at me. “I remembered him from the studio and that he had been in trouble. Charlie also knew him vaguely. Next question.” She moved across the room carefully and turned over a chair. She was lying about Delamater, but I couldn’t figure her angle.
“Why did your husband visit you yesterday?”
She shook her blonde hair, and I could see her reflected endlessly in mirrors opposite each other on the wall. She was a spot of silken black and gold in total whiteness.
“He wanted me to pay him for the negative of Lynn,” she said.
“Nice man,” I said.
She hurled a perfume bottle at one of the mirrors, shattering pieces around the room. I covered my head.
“Did you pay?” I asked.
“I said I would,” she whispered, looking around the room for something else to break.
“But, instead you told somebody,” I guessed. “Somebody who knew where to find Harry, went to the studio, killed him and took the negative, right?”
She looked weak and pale. If my life weren’t on the line, I would have felt sorry for her.
“He … Harry wouldn’t give up the negative,” she said so softly that I almost missed it.
“So, the same person who killed Cunningham killed Harry,” I went on, looking for something to throw or a light switch I could hit. “In both cases, they were killed to keep the negative of Lynn from being used for blackmail.”
She nodded. Peter Lorre had been dead right. I’d have to look him up and tell him if I survived.
“Brenda, didn’t you know that photograph was a fake?”
She looked at me suspiciously.
“It’s a fake and we can prove it. All you had to do was ask Lynn, your own daughter.” I walked slowly toward her. “Don’t you even talk to her?”
The gun lowered slightly, uncertainly, as she spoke.
“We … we don’t talk much, especially not about …”
“You thought it was real?” I was a few feet from her. “You and whoever committed two murders weren’t close enough to Lynn to even talk to her.”
“She, she doesn’t trust me,” Brenda Beaumont almost cried. “She knew about Charlie and me, and others. I thought Charlie had gotten to her. I knew how … how charming he could be.”
The gun was aiming at the floor, and I was a few feet from her. I glanced around the room without moving my head. Then I saw it. My eyes focused on the photograph on her dressing table. It was the only thing still standing on it, a picture of Brenda, Harry, Lynn and a man, in better days. It was obviously a family portrait. The whole thing was suddenly clear to me. I knew who had killed Charlie Cunningham, taken a shot at Flynn and murdered Harry Beaumont.
Brenda looked up and saw my eyes. She followed them to the picture and knew that I knew. I pushed her and dived for the hall. She fired and missed me as she fell against the bed.
I went down the stairs three at a time and hit the bottom one when the second shot came. At first I thought she had missed again. I was still running, and I felt nothing. Then, as I hit the door to the garden, I felt it. It was a slight itch in my back. My shoulder was suddenly numb. I tried to reach for the door with my right hand, but it wouldn’t move. I had taken a bullet somewhere in the back, and I was scared as hell.
Behind me I could hear Brenda Beaumont padding down the stairs. I opened the door with my left hand and ran into the darkness near the pool.
Behind a row of trees I looked back and saw her perfect outline against the light from the house. She was looking frantically around. Then we both had the same idea. She started toward the barking dogs in the pool house. She was going to let them out to finish me. I ran along the trees about even with her, as she hurried toward the pool house.
She heard me and took another shot in my direction. The time she took gave me a few steps on her. I kept running. As I hit the back gate, I could hear her opening the front door of the pool house and Jamie and Ralph streaking for my scent.
I fumbled at the gate with my left hand and slammed it behind me as the dogs turned the corner. They leaped at the fence, but I was outside. I could see the blood seeping through my new jacket.
The light went on in the pool house, and the back door opened. Brenda Beaumont took another shot at me, but she was in panic now. One of the dogs whined pitifully and went down. The other dog stopped barking and turned curiously toward the fallen partner.
I didn’t wait for her to take another shot. She might eliminate all of her watchdogs, but she also might hit me again. Dogs began barking and wailing all over. I ran as fast as I could into the trees.
The numbness was spreading as I ran. I was losing blood fast, but I had to make a call to Flynn. If I didn’t make the call, there might not be an Errol Flynn by morning.
I managed to stumble into a street, but I stayed in the dark in case Brenda had wandered out after me. Her story was still good. Blackmailer shot.
The world was going dark, and I had visions of the inkwell. Taking a swim in it seemed a good idea, very comforting. I stumbled along to an intersection. I was heading for a house with a light on when I fell in the street. Somehow I had to get up and get to a phone, but I couldn’t.
The car came around a curve, and I could see its lights coming toward me. The grill was a great chrome grin. My eyes closed, and I heard a screech of brakes. Then as I plunged into the inkwell for cover, I heard a car door slam in deep water. Koko the Clown greeted me and took my hand. I told him I had to get to a phone, but he paid no attention.
Koko led me to a drawing board the size of The Brown Derby. Brenda Beaumont stood looking at the board; Lynn Beaumont had her back turned. A huge hand came down from the sky and drew a cartoon of Cunningham on the board. Brenda stepped forward with an eraser and rubbed out the cartoon of Cunningham. Koko winked, and the huge hand came down and drew a cartoon of Harry Beaumont sneering. Brenda stepped forward and erased it. The huge hand came down a third time and drew a cartoon of me. I became the cartoon figure and saw Brenda walking toward me with the eraser. I looked up and pleaded with the cartoonist to let me go. He said he couldn’t help me. I had been created to amuse Brenda and Lynn. But Lynn’s back was still turned. Brenda stood in front of me, and I tried to turn and run into the picture. I felt the eraser touch my right shoulder, and the world went blank and white.
13
The world was white, with a thin crack in it. The crack twisted to a corner, and my eyes followed it. I discovered that the world was a hospital room and I was in bed.
My brother stood next to the bed, his hands folded in front of him. He was looking down at me. His tie was back on, and his shirt was fresh. Seidman stood next to him.
I tried to say something, but my mouth was so dry nothing came out. Phil poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the table next to me. He handed the glass to me and I tried to reach out with my right hand. Nothing happened. I panicked and touched my right arm with my left hand to be sure it was there.
