She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips and chuckled throatily. “Oh, you're like a little boy.”
“The hell I'm like a little boy.”
She laughed; then, looking at my face, with her red lips smiling and her teeth pressed together, she pulled the suit down slowly and smoothly, without hesitation, baring snowy white breasts that jutted from the darkly tanned skin above and beneath them. With the suit down, her body naked to the waist, she paused.
“Shell,” she said, “don't make me do this all by myself.”
I was stalling for time now. “Don't mind if I'm a little slow, Helen.”
“It's all right. I like to do everything slowly, myself.”
“Everything?”
“That's what I said.”
“Is that good?”
“Oh,” she said softly, “it's so good.”
She stood looking at me, her hands still holding the blue cloth bunched low at her waist. I could see the beginning of white skin at her hips where the sun hadn't touched her flesh. She stepped close to me, the tips of her breasts touching my chest, and said again, “Well?”
I couldn't stall any longer, and now I didn't want to. Helen and I were going for a swim. I put my hands on the top of my trunks, hesitated for a moment, and somebody screamed.
I thought, What the hell? Isn't this the idea? And then I heard the scream again. Louder this time, piercing and shrill and with the taut thread of panic and horror in it.
I looked to my left and saw Dot climbing frantically from the pool, stumbling, then getting up and running toward me, her mouth open, still screaming.
She started to run past me, but I grabbed her arm. She screamed again and I shook her roughly. “What the hell's the matter?” I yelled at her. “What's wrong with you?”
She quieted down a little, and breathing rapidly through her open mouth she gasped, “There's someone dead in there. Someone dead!”
All the babble had died down, the shouts and squeals and laughter stopped, and people started gathering around us. I said, “Take it easy, Dot. You must have made a mistake. That's silly.”
She was over her first panic, but her eyes were still staring and her lips twisted as she said raggedly, “No. It's true. God. It's something dead.”
Nobody said a word for several seconds, and suddenly it seemed a little chillier. The sun was lower now, getting ready to dip behind distant trees that cut jagged chunks out of its base. There wasn't any sound except the gurgling of the imitation waterfall. There was tenseness now, all right, and maybe fear. Just like that, in a few seconds, everything had changed.
I said, “What happened? Why do you think there's something ... dead? Where?”
She let out a long shuddering breath. “In the pool. I was going to swim underwater and come out from the waterfall. I thought it would be fun. And I put my hand on it—on a face.”
She turned and pointed at the spot where swirling water dropped into the pool. All of us looked where she pointed, but we couldn't see beneath the rippled and foaming surface of the water. I looked around me. Everybody who had been inside when I arrived was out here now. Genova was the only one fully dressed. Some of the others had swim suits on, some nothing at all. There wasn't anything exciting about the nakedness any more.
Swallow spoke to Dot. “Couldn't it have been a rock? Or something else there?”
She didn't answer, just shook her head.
“Listen, Dot,” I said. “You weren't the only one in the pool. What probably happened was that you touched somebody else swimming underwater.” I tried to grin at her. “Probably some guy made a pass at you. Hell, I don't blame him.”
Nobody even smiled. It was going to take more than feeble remarks to save this party. I glanced around again. Of all the people besides Dot, the only two who were wet were Raul and his redhead. I asked them, “Were either of you down at that end of the pool?”
They both shook their heads. Raul said, “We were under the springboard. And ... there wasn't anyone else in the water yet.”
Louis Genova had been standing on the outskirts of the crowd, a brief case in his hand as if he'd been about to leave. The bastard, I thought, he's not sticking around or joining the party, but he'll stay long enough to get a peek. Now he spoke. “Obviously,” he said in his deep voice, “nothing will be settled by talking. Somebody will have to see if anything is there.”
I think that had become apparent to almost all of us, but nobody wanted to speak up. The idea of a dead thing down there under the water wasn't pleasant.
Genova went on, “Well, which of you men wants to settle this? I can't very well leave till it is settled.” Genova, the boss, the Producer speaking.
Nobody spoke for a few moments, then I said, “O.K. I'll take a look.”
My words were almost like a signal. Helen looped the single strap around her neck and refastened it in silence. The girl with Raul picked up a black swim suit and turned her back, modest now. Dot looked around her as if she were still dazed; her yellow bikini was at the bottom of the pool. She turned and walked toward the house. I looked up at the sun again; it was half hidden behind the trees and a definite chill was in the air.
I walked to the edge of the pool and dived in.
Chapter Four
THE WATER was cold. I felt it close around my body and I opened my eyes as I swam along the bottom toward the cement wall at the pool's edge. Above me the water from the falls made the surface swirl, and the murky illumination that filtered through the ripples and bubbles of foam sent fragile shadow patterns gliding below me like scurrying mice. I swam forward through the thready shadows until I saw a heavier, more solid shadow that didn't move.
I swept my hands through the water hard, then moved them slowly to keep myself at the bottom as I drifted close to the darker shadow. Then my face was a foot away from it and I could see the long cobwebby threads of hair waving idly in the slow currents, and the paler blob of the face beneath it; a woman's face with distended, bulging eyes staring into the water that slid against them and filled the open mouth.
I could feel a shiver of revulsion twist through my body, but for a moment more I looked at her. The almost frightening thought sprang into my mind that maybe she was alive, but then I knew it couldn't be true. Her body was fully clothed and twisted strangely. I could see that a heavy weight held her down below the surface, and that something had cut a mark deeply into her throat. The thought that she might be alive persisted insanely in my mind, and I reached forward with one hand. I touched her neck, felt the heavy wire that was twisted around it and buried in the flesh, then with a bitter moistness in my throat I turned away and kicked to the surface.
The others were standing at the edge of the pool. They moved back as I swam toward them and climbed out dripping. Nobody asked what I'd found; my expression must have made it obvious. They waited.
I gulped air into my lungs and then said, “There wasn't any mistake. There's a dead woman down there. It looks like she was murdered.”
The silence lasted an uncomfortably long time. Finally Oscar Swallow, perhaps impelled by a desire to hear somebody say something, said in a shaky voice, “That's the trouble with Hollywood: Somebody's always crashing the parties.”
Nobody appreciated his remark, but at least it started the others off. Raul groaned, “Oh, God, my God. Murdered!” and King swore softly.
I looked around at all the faces. “Well,” I said, “anyone here know anything about this? Any ideas on how or why a dead woman's in there?”
Nobody spoke. Half of them looked away from me, slowly shaking their heads. “Raul,” I said, “this is your home. You know anything about it?”
“God, no. What a horrible ... No, Shell. I don't understand. I don't get it.”
After a few moments I said to Raul, “I guess I'll have to use your phone.”
He looked at me as if he were startled. “What for?”
“Somebody has to call the police.”
“Oh. Well...�
� He let it trickle off.
Suddenly Douglas King said belligerently, “Call the police, hell! I don't want to get mixed up in this. No sense in any of us getting mixed up in it.”
I was still standing with my back to the pool and the others stood in a little group facing me. I looked at King. “You're no more mixed up in this than anyone else, but we're all involved a little just because we were all here when the body was found. And of course we have to call the police.”
Genova scratched one of his bushy eyebrows and stepped closer to me. “Let's not be hasty about this, Mr. Scott. I can see King's point. Douglas can't afford any adverse publicity right now. Particularly the kind represented by this—this near saturnalia.” He hesitated. “For that matter, neither can I.” He looked around him. “None of us can.”
“It's not a matter of—” I started, but Swallow interposed, “I've done a couple of radio scripts in which bodies were moved from the spot where they were found. If I might suggest—”
This time I interrupted him. “Wait a minute, all of you. What is this? Surely there can't be any objection to calling Homicide.” I looked from one face to another. Nobody came over to my side. One of the girls said, “Can't we just go home? Golly!” There was a little mutter of agreement. With her, not with me.
“Damnit,” I said. “Whether you like it or not, I'm calling the cops. Hell, nobody likes being mixed up in a murder.”
Raul finally spoke up again. “Shell,” he said hesitantly, “why murder? Maybe—”
“No maybe, I'm afraid, Raul.”
He grimaced and shook his head. It occurred to me that several of the people here had good reason for not wanting their names on the front pages—particularly under black headlines either hinting or screaming of not only murder but pagan orgies. King, Genova, Raul. I didn't know about Swallow, though he didn't seem happy. And the girls all seemed to want to go home. I wasn't a very popular guy.
I mentally said the hell with it and took a couple of steps toward the house, but King jumped forward and grabbed my arm.
“Take your goddamn hands off me, King.”
He let go, but he said, “Listen, Scott, just because you got a tin badge of some kind, what the hell makes you think you're running this show? You forget about the cops, fellow.”
Genova stepped up beside him and seconded the motion almost as forcibly. “I agree with Mr. King. I'm afraid I'll have to insist, Mr. Scott.”
“You insist? You insist? And who the hell are you? Will you people get it through your heads that there's been a murder?” I looked at King. “And for your information, friend, that tin badge, as you call it, isn't the only reason I'm phoning.”
“You're not phoning.”
I ignored that and went on, “I'm a licensed private investigator, sure, and I've got to call the nearest authorities when a body's found or I'll never find another job. But any citizen has to do the same thing.”
“Not if nobody else knows about it,” said Genova.
“Raul,” I said sharply, “just for the record, have you any objection to my using your phone and calling downtown?”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “Do anything you want, Shell.”
“Thanks. Well, then—”
“I warn you, Scott.” Genova again. “I must insist that you leave this matter to me. This ... matter is not any of your business.”
“Well, how do you like that?” I said to nobody in particular. “Two seconds more of this and you can damn well bet I'll start making it my business.” I stepped up close to him and looked down at him. King was standing on my right, wiggling some of his muscles. I said to Genova, “And will you please stop warning me? If you've got to insist, insist to the police. As far as I'm concerned, that settles it.”
All I heard after that, for a little while, was King saying harshly, “No, it doesn't,” and then it seemed as if those artistically piled rocks of the waterfall leaped across fifteen feet and banked artistically against the side of my skull. I went sailing backward and my fanny hit the grass and slid a little way and there was a lot of noise inside my head and I wondered where I was at. My ear burned and pain roared along my skull and then I was lying on my back, propped up on my elbows and looking at King, standing six feet from me with the fading sunlight behind him and looking fierce as all hell. I thought he was going to put his foot on my chest and yell like an ape.
I lay there for a few seconds after I could have got up, getting the rage inside me a little more under control, because when two guys who know how have at each other, there's a very good chance one of them will, literally, get killed. But it was becoming apparent that King didn't know how; he was another guy with muscles in his back and head, and he stood over me now in the traditional, slightly modified John L. Sullivan pose. He cut a pretty picture, but if he'd really wanted to discourage me he should have been kicking me or stepping on my face.
When my vision was completely unblurred I could also see the expressions on some of the other faces. Genova's showed open glee, Swallow's an attempt at impassive boredom, and Raul's a worried frown. Some of the gals looked either frightened or interested, and Helen was biting her lower lip and squeezing her hands together in front of her. Right at that moment King cut a much prettier picture than I did.
Genova clapped King appreciatively on one of his mangrove-root shoulders as I got slowly to my feet. King waved Genova out of the way and concentrated on me as I stepped toward him. He was grinning. My hands were down low, almost at my sides, and King must have thought this was going to be a cinch. That was what I wanted him to think. The distance between us narrowed till I was close enough for him to hit me again, and he waved his left hand in what he fondly imagined was a feint and hauled back his big right fist.
I brought my open right hand up and wrapped it around his throat as if I were going to choke him, only I didn't do it slowly and I didn't choke him. As soon as he'd waved that left hand I'd started my right hand up as hard as I could from my side, and I damn near buried its edge between his chin and Adam's apple as he got ready to bust me. He went sailing back with his arms flailing and fell solidly to the ground, out cold before he hit. If he'd managed to club me with that slow right fist it would have been a different story. But as long as he hadn't, I could just as easily have killed him.
He lay on the ground with his head rolled to one side and his legs twisted awkwardly. He wasn't grinning. Nobody let out a peep as I walked up toward the house.
Chapter Five
Two uniformed patrolmen pulled on the rope and the weight at the end of it began slowly rising through the water of the swimming pool as photographers’ flash bulbs popped. It was after sundown, but Raul had turned on the floodlights around the pool and the scene was brilliantly lit. The waterfall was silent now for the first time in days, and at the moment the only sound was the noise made by the two officers as they heaved on the rope that one of them had fastened to the body.
It was about half an hour after I'd phoned the police and there was quite a crowd present. Besides the two patrolmen, who had been first to arrive, there were a couple of plainclothes detective sergeants, technical men from the crime lab, and the coroner. The print men hadn't had much to do while the body was in the water, but they were ready and waiting with the surveyor, who had finished most of his work. Ben Nelson, the captain of the Hollywood Detective Division, was supervising operations in person. I'd hoped that Captain Samson might come out from Central Homicide downtown, but Nelson was a good man and I knew him fairly well.
Most of the party guests were in the living room, but Raul, Swallow, and I were out near the pool. I took Raul aside. “Look, I don't give a damn about those other guys, but this doesn't look good for you. This is your home; she's in your pool. You got any ideas about it at all?”
He shook his head, then pulled nervously at his thick mustache. “Another thing, Raul,” I went on. “You didn't seem too happy about my calling the cops, either.”
He looked at me. “Gue
ss I wasn't too happy. Hell, who would be? But I wasn't thinking straight—I've never been anywhere near a murder before. And what thinking I did was about Evelyn.” He frowned. “God, I guess this ties it with her.”
“Maybe not, Raul. Might be this mess could even help.”
He shook his head and said bitterly, “Maybe, but I'm afraid this wraps it up. I wish—” He broke it off. “I'll tell you something, Shell. I've been—and still am—a goddamned fool.” He shrugged and walked away.
I went to the edge of the pool as the two policemen heaved again and the body slid smoothly from the water as more bulbs flashed. In a moment the dead woman was lying suddenly on the grass. Her body had been weighted with a heavy iron grill, and stiff wire was wrapped around her throat and ankles and then attached to the grill. Oscar Swallow, on my left, took two steps toward the body, then dropped to one knee, staring.
“Zoe!” he cried. “My God! She's killed herself.”
It didn't mean anything to me for a minute, but it finally struck me as such an obviously screwy remark that I walked up beside Swallow and looked at his face. The shock and horror on his features seemed real enough. While I wondered, Captain Nelson's men closed in efficiently around the corpse in the case that was going to raise quite a bit of hell in Hollywood.
An hour later Zoe's body had been wrapped in the gray rubber sheet and hauled away in the wire basket. We were all in the living room again, but it didn't look the same now. All five of the girls sat close together on a huge divan, Raul and I stood behind them leaning against the piano, and King and Genova sat in deep chairs on our left. Swallow sat all by himself at the bar. Captain Nelson, flanked by the two detective sergeants, stood in front of us all with a notebook in his hand.
He and the two sergeants had already talked to us one at a time in another room; now he looked at Raul. “I guess that about does it. Mr. Evans, you got this group together about two this afternoon, except for Mr. Genova, who came a little later, and Mr. Scott, who arrived after four o'clock. Is that correct?”
Way of a Wanton Page 3