Darkest Hour

by Nielsen, Helen

  Simon suddenly knew that she had it for Buddy. The very turn of her body told him that. He remembered the sound of a woman’s laughter in Buddy’s dressing room the night he called trying to locate Whitey, and it sounded, in retrospect, much like the sound of Bonnie Penny’s laughter. And yet he remembered the feeling he’d had of her that day at the Seville—of a protective distance, a deliberate policing of his actions when he went up to Monterey’s room and his thought—what was it—yes, that she must be the manager’s girl. He glanced across the pool and saw that Whitey had quit his chair and was standing at the edge of the water, his canned cola in hand, watching the swimmers. It seemed a good time to get serious.

  “Is room four-sixty-four at the Seville available?” he asked.

  Bonnie came down from the stratosphere. “You don’t want that room!” she said.

  “Why not? I have to spend the night somewhere. It had a nice view.”

  “But it’s—morbid! You know Monterey slept in that room!”

  “Did you go to his funeral?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “Whitey did.”

  “I told you! I’m not his—” Bonnie didn’t finish. Simon had placed a hand on her still-damp thigh. He gave a little pressure and watched her eyes look swiftly across the pool to where Whitey still stood searching the waters. Simon grinned. First impressions could be true.

  “I remember,” Simon said, “you free-lance. Now, tell me, are you a reader of Chic magazine?”

  “Are you taking a poll?”

  “Of a sort. Did you see the current issue with the spread on Max Berlin?”

  Bonnie laughed. “Oh, him!”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, it’s just advertising, isn’t it? I mean, if you have the contacts you can get anything printed anywhere.”

  “He’s a successful man.”

  “Hooray! There’s nothing like the American dream.”

  “You’re right. I haven’t seen anyone who has it willing to give it up, and I’ve seen fewer who don’t have it who aren’t willing to sweat for it. Now that we’ve established that you know who Max Berlin is, I can ask if you’ve ever seen him at the Seville Inn?”

  Bonnie’s expression didn’t change, but he felt her thigh muscles contract under the pressure of his hand. “I don’t see why that should interest you,” she said.

  “Then you did see him?”

  “I didn’t say that! You change the subject so quickly. You don’t give a person time to think. I don’t even know why—” Bonnie didn’t finish the statement because the atmosphere had suddenly chilled. Simon looked up as Bonnie looked up, and both of them saw Buddy, whose trumpet practice had ceased without their notice, glaring down at them with an expression of outraged masculinity.

  He rolled a cigarette between his fingers. “Does anybody have a match?” he asked.

  The flush under his baby skin wasn’t sunburn. Simon removed his hand from Bonnie’s thigh to ease the tension. “Sorry, I never carry them when I swim,” he said. “Smoking under water is bad for the lungs.”

  Buddy held the cigarette before him like the proverbial candle that is supposed to light the darkness. He was pouting now and that made him seem about fifteen and a half years old. “I’ll ask Alex,” he said, but he didn’t move from behind Bonnie’s chair. Simon leaned closer to Bonnie and whispered “cradle snatcher!” and then leaped to his feet and dived into the pool. He swam the full distance to the opposite end before turning around, and by that time Bonnie and Buddy had gone off into the sunset together like the fade-out in some movie and Whitey, alone, still nursed his cola and stared pensively at the cool blue.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The pale Miss Hawks was on duty when Simon checked in the Seville Inn. He carried a small overnight bag and asked for room four-sixty-four.

  Miss Hawks didn’t bat an eye. “I’m sorry, Mr. Drake,” she said, “but that room is occupied.”

  “You remember me,” he said. “That’s nice—or did somebody telephone and tell you to expect me?”

  She didn’t flush; she didn’t seem to have enough blood. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “I just recognized you—that’s all.”

  “How about room four-sixty-two?”

  “There is no room four-sixty-two. It was made into a maintenance storeroom several years ago. I can give you four-sixty-eight in the same wing but closer to the elevator.”

  “Fine,” Simon said. “I know the way. I’ll take myself upstairs.”

  The room was identical to the one Monterey had occupied except that the location of everything in it was reversed and the color scheme was brighter. The same heavy arched door opened off the brick terrace, the vaulted ceilings and adobe-style fireplace gave the interior the feeling of a cloister, and the same French-type windows led to a tiny balcony at the rear of the room. Simon opened the windows and stepped out onto the balcony. He tried to calculate which identical balcony within vision would belong to room 464 but couldn’t. It was too early to count lighted windows, and so he went back inside and relaxed until darkness came.

  When he could see patio lights reflected in the terrace windows he got up and drew the drapes. They were of a heavy brocade fabric, fully lined, and only when they were drawn did he turn on the lights. He then stepped out onto the terrace, closing the door behind him. As he had hoped, the windows showed light in spite of the lined drapes, and that meant the window of 464 would also show light if the occupant was up and stirring. He walked down the open terrace until he found the room. The windows were dark and the drapes were open. He peered inside and could make out the dim forms of the furnishings and the carefully made bed. It appeared to be vacant. He returned to his own room and put in a call through the desk to 464, and, after a while, was told that 464 didn’t answer, which was the answer he wanted. He unlocked the overnight case and removed a pair of rubber-soled canvas shoes, a heavy black sweater and a pocket flashlight. The wind had risen and the air was cold, and he was glad he had brought the sweater. The rubber-soled shoes were to provide better footing, and the flashlight was for searching out whatever Monterey had taken from Kwan that was important enough to cause three additional deaths. His previous search of the room had been hampered by the dutiful presence of Bonnie Penny and his own inability to foresee what a chain reaction Monterey’s death would create. The last items taken from the bag were a strip of celluloid and a coil of coated wire attached to a strong grappling hook. Thus attired and armed Simon returned to 464 and forced the lock with the celluloid strip.

  Rooms on the top level were expensive and so it wasn’t surprising to again find the open terrace deserted; even so, Simon drew the heavy drapes as soon as he was inside. He then turned on the flashlight and played it about. There was no sign of recent occupancy: even the ashtrays were clean and the matchfolders were in place. The chair with soiled upholstery had been replaced. Fresh hotel stationery was in the desk drawer; the closet was empty and all towels were in place in the bathroom. Simon checked the air ducts, the toilet tank, the fireplace chimney, and looked under the mattress. He went over the carpet, carefully searching for significant bulges and finally, satisfied that Monterey had left nothing inside the room, he took the chair replacement away from the desk and went out to the tiny rear balcony.

  The drop to the street seemed steeper at night. Cars parked on the narrow avenue that serviced the rear of the hotel had shrunk to the size of wind-up toys; the rare pedestrian was a walking doll. Orange Street, the thoroughfare at the end of the hotel, was a neon-lighted-tunnel promoting drive-in hamburgers, laundromats and used cars, and the never-ending music on the mall gave the whole garish display the air of a cheap carnival. No light shone out on the balconies at any of the rooms within Simon’s range of vision. He could act without arousing suspicion. He placed the chair with its back against the balcony wall and climbed up on the seat. The chair was higher and steadier than a luggage rack; the rain gutter was within easy reach. Monterey,
always his own stunt man, could have used the rain gutter to pull himself up to the roof, but Simon needed the support of the wire. He pocketed the flashlight and swung the grappling hook up over the ridge of the tile roof. It caught and held firm. Using the wire he pulled himself up. The pitch was low and, once he’d obtained footing, it was possible to creep along the edge of the roof keeping one hand on the taut wire and using the other to direct the beam of the flashlight along the rain gutter. The Seville Inn had good maintenance. The collection of debris was sparse enough to make any unusual object visible. Simon wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but it would be small—something Monterey could have carried on his person or concealed in a suitcase. It might be drugs or account books or even a weapon, and it would be recognizable because it didn’t belong in a rain gutter. Simon moved slowly, never looking away from the gutter, ignoring his aching leg muscles until he reached the far edge of the roof where it terminated in a sheer drop to the chapel courtyard.

  A group of tourists holding candles in their hands had congregated in the courtyard in front of the chapel. Simon switched off his light and watched. In a moment of panic, he seemed sure they had stopped to look up at him, but then the fire bearers moved silently into the mouth of the chapel. A gust of wind caught up a discarded newspaper and flared it across the deserted courtyard. Simon relaxed. The night tour would keep everybody busy while he completed his search. Sure now of his footing, he walked the complete distance to the opposite end of the roof and resumed the flashlight examination of the gutter, working his way back toward his starting point. He found nothing. It was worse than disappointing; it was humiliating. He knew Monterey had opened the French windows and placed the original chair on the balcony because both the chair and the soles of Monterey’s shoes had been stained with oil. But why put the chair on the balcony if not to gain access to the roof, and why gain access to the roof if not to hide something? Simon switched off the flashlight and put it back in his hip pocket. It was too chilly for mental monologue and his legs were beginning to cramp from crouching. He reached down and grabbed the frame of one of the open windows preparatory to a leap down on the chair, and then noticed that the chair was gone. Someone had moved it.

  Simon let go of the window frame and leaned back against the tiles. A maid would have turned on the lights. A maid would have closed the window because the night was cold. A maid would walk about in the room without fear of being heard, but no maid had taken the chair from the balcony. Simon listened and heard nothing but the faraway sounds of the traffic on Orange Street and the inane musical accompaniment from the mall. Getting back into the room was easy: he had only to grab the window frame and jump down on the balcony; but now that he fully understood why Monterey had used that oil-stained chair, returning to the room was out of the question. The window was Monterey’s escape route from a room watched by the kind of methodical assassin who had stuffed Eve Necchi’s body into the shower at Motel Six. Such a humorist would have let Monterey know he was cornered by some device as cute as this one. No, there was nothing hidden in the rain gutter because Monterey had taken to the roof to escape.

  Simon grabbed hold of the coated wire and hauled himself up to the ridge. The downward slope was shorter and steeper and the sole access to the terrace was a narrow steel service ladder at the far right end of the wing. Simon loosened the hook and coiled the wire in a loose loop with the hook hanging free to form a weapon. He could see no one on the terrace, but that didn’t rule out a reception committee under the overhang. He walked the ridge line to the ladder and climbed down.

  From this end of the terrace he could see the iron railing around the stairway where Monterey had plunged to his death. It was at least twenty-five feet from where he stood, and Monterey must have stood in the exact spot watching, as Simon watched, for a sign of life among the shadows. Twenty-five feet to the stairway and at least a hundred feet back along the open passageway to the elevators—it wasn’t a difficult choice to make. He began to edge his way along the side of the building toward his room, but the recessed doorways were the danger spots and he stopped short of the first to take stock. This was the game played for keeps: that bomb in the Rolls was no toy. He uncoiled more wire and swung it out against the spot where he estimated the door would be, but what the hook caught wasn’t wood paneling—it was human flesh. Simon’s left hand shot out and grabbed a throat covered with heavy wool. A turtleneck sweater. Rosencrantz or Guildenstern—Hannah hadn’t identified them—was too busy clawing the grappling hook out of his stomach to fight as Simon’s blow hurled him backward across the terrace against the iron railing. Simon stepped forward.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “Who told you I was here?”

  They were perfectly good questions, but before Simon could get an answer an arm swung out of the shadows behind him and narrowly missed his head with the barrel end of a snub-nosed revolver. Simon grabbed the arm with both hands and smashed the wrist against the railing. The gun dropped to the tile steps, bounced into the stair well and hurtled downward, setting off a deafening explosion. The shock reaction lasted just long enough to give Simon a head start on the long sprint to the automatic elevator. The mayhem twins had left it open. He stepped in and punched the down button. With any kind of luck at all he might make it to the stair well before the two thugs recovered their senses and retrieved the gun. If it was Sam Goddard’s gun he would have a nice souvenir to take back to the Enchanto police station. But Simon’s luck was running out. The elevator doors opened on a lobby filled with the chapel tourists—walking at a tourist’s rate. Simon shouldered his way through the crowd and sprinted to the arcade. All of the shops were closed at this hour, but the windows were lighted and the tile floor on which Monterey had met his death was clearly visible. The gun was gone. Simon looked up to the top of the winding stairway and saw that the iron gate on the fourth-floor level stood open, marking the route his attackers had taken to retrieve the weapon. He was too late: they were gone.

  But there would be a bullet. Simon followed the slope of the tile floor to the center drain and searched the trap for the shell casing. Kneeling, he saw that a ceramic planter outside a florist shop was shattered on one side. He moved to the planter and dug the shell out of the earth with his fingers: a .38 center-fire casing that, if it matched the one he had found at the scene of Sam Goddard’s accident, could pretty well identify the men who had reported the accident to the police. It was nice to know that Rosecrantz and Guildenstern were such good citizens.

  Simon never returned to his room. He found a porter in the hotel lobby and told him that he had been called back to Marina Beach. “My bag and coat are up in my room. Here’s the key. Get them for me while I settle my bill.” The key was wrapped in a five-dollar bill which was baggage insurance in any locality. While the switchboard put in a call to the garage to have Simon’s car brought around to the front door, he reassured Miss Hawks that nothing was amiss with the hospitality of the Seville Inn. It didn’t seem polite to point out that she had lied about the occupancy of 464. Miss Hawks acted only under orders. She wouldn’t tell him a thing. “There is one thing you can do for me while I’m here,” he added. “Will you see if Mr. Monterey left anything in the hotel safe the night he checked in?”

  “Oh, he didn’t!” she insisted. “I was on duty that night—”

  “Not when Monterey checked in,” Simon reminded. He gave her his most beguiling smile. “Humor me,” he urged. “I’m a friend of the family and they’re very sentimental about such things as old tear-stained bank books and insurance policies.”

  It was an unethical procedure but Simon could have brought out the rebel in the D.A.R. Miss Hawks, without knowing why, whipped off her glasses and hurried back into the office. Moments later she returned with an expression of pained disappointment. The cupboard was bare. Miss Hawks took it as a personal failure. Simon’s mind was already busy in another direction.

  “You told Lieutenant Rickey that Monterey returned to th
e hotel shortly before two o’clock. How can you be so sure of the time?”

  Miss Hawks smiled wanly. “Because Kenny Walsh was still playing in the Old Seville Bar. The electric organ. He doesn’t finish until two o’clock.”

  “The electric organ,” Simon repeated. Obviously, the candlebearers had to have someplace to go after the chapel tour.

  “Syncopated,” Miss Hawks said.

  “How far is it from here to the Gateway Bar?” Simon asked.

  “How far? I don’t understand—”

  “Monterey left the Gateway Bar at about twelve-thirty. How far?”

  “I’m not sure. I can give you a city map.”

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had all night,” Simon said.

  He didn’t want to overtax Miss Hawks’ nervous system so he took the map with him when the porter came down with his bag and coat. He went outside where the Jaguar was waiting at the curb and drove slowly on well-lighted streets all the way to Whitey Sanders’ motel and bar, where he parked opposite the parking lot. The place was swinging at this hour. Word of mouth was making Buddy Jenks an overnight sensation and the Grand Tourismo set were hubcap to hubcap outside the bar. In the fifteen minutes Simon spent watching the lot he saw the La Verde police prowl car pass the entrance twice. That made Officer Quentin’s prompt arrival at the scene of Hannah’s car accident fall in the realm of logic, and a police car would have held as much terror for Monterey if he had killed Kwan in San Diego as the presence of his would-be assassins. Simon switched on the motor and moved slowly down the street. The Gateway was located on the off-ramp of the freeway—obviously, Monterey hadn’t run up the ramp. He had fled down the street toward the center of town. He would have turned on the first side street to avoid a well-lighted artery. Simon turned down the first side street and followed it to the first through street, arriving just as a cross-town bus pulled away from the corner stop. The bus was more than half empty and was labeled “Orange Street—Airport Blvd.” After it was gone he parked and walked across the street to the bus stop. It had a nice bench with a metal canopy and a box attached containing the daily schedule. He read the schedule by the light of the street lamp. The last bus departed from this corner at 2:36 A.M.