After Midnight

by Nielsen, Helen

  Mayerling stopped smiling.

  “Roger Warren,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Now why would a nice customer ask about Roger Warren? You’re not a reporter. I can always tell a reporter. Yes, now I recognize you. You’re Simon Drake.”

  “Thanks,” Simon said. “Recognition is sweet. But getting back to Roger Warren—”

  “Why, Mr. Drake? You won the case. Why get back to Roger Warren?”

  “Because he was murdered. Because, before he was murdered, he worked in this store. Was he a good salesman?”

  “He was adequate.”

  “Only adequate? Why did you hire him?”

  “His appearance was good—and his manners. Politesse is observed at The Profile.”

  “But Warren lived high. Did you wonder how he did that on his salary?”

  “Considering his background—no.”

  “He was disinherited.”

  “I didn’t know that until after his death.”

  “Did he have a special clientele—any unusual friends?”

  August Mayerling met Simon’s calculating stare with eyes as bland as a purebred Weimaraner. Politesse was being observed at The Profile where everything was as nice and fragrant as an orchard in full bloom.

  “I can’t say that I noticed,” Mayerling murmured. “The shirt, Mr. Drake, is imported—from Italy.”

  It was exactly five o’clock when Simon returned to the house on Seacliff Drive. The drapes were still drawn and every light was burning. Wanda came to the door in a tangerine chiffon robe that hit her just below the knees. She wore nothing on her feet.

  “I just stepped out of the shower,” she explained. “It’s been a rough day. Last night I took a couple of pills and slept, but about ten-thirty this morning the world fell on me. I didn’t think you were coming.”

  “Why not?” Simon asked.

  “Because that’s how I felt—as if everybody and everything was gone and nobody was ever coming back.”

  “I know the place you mean,” Simon said. “I’ve been there a few times myself. Now go back to the bedroom and put on your sexiest dress. I’ll mix you one martini.”

  “One?” she echoed.

  “They come that way, too. As an appetizer—not a pool to drown in. Olive or onion?”

  “Just over ice,” she said.

  Simon went to the bar. The bamboo wrapping paper was still in the wastebasket. He folded it carefully and put it inside the knife drawer. Then he found the gin and vermouth and went to work. When Wanda returned wearing a simple black sheath and a pair of red, spike-heeled slippers, her martini was waiting.

  She drank slowly—like a lady, not a lush.

  “Did you know The Profile was a fairy haberdashery?” Simon asked.

  She nodded.

  “Roger told me Mayerling was fruity. Roger was navy. He was used to that sort of thing.”

  “And you were show biz. But what about your sawdust trail background? Didn’t it rebel?”

  Wanda smiled. “Forgive and forget,” she said. “Especially when you can’t take on the whole world. Why did you go to The Profile?”

  Simon wasn’t ready to answer that question. He took the empty glass from her hand and placed it on the bar top.

  “I needed a new cravat,” he said. “Let’s go. We have a reservation for a pair of beautiful steaks.”

  The best way to succeed at anything without really trying was to combine pleasure with business. The supper club to which Simon took Wanda had been established before the government cracked down on income tax deductions. They had a second martini while the chef singed the steaks, and listened to the smooth combo that worked on a platform just above a small dance floor. When the waiter served them, Simon passed the surreptitious note to the leader and then watched Wanda’s reactions when the music began to play. “Infidelity.” After the first few bars, the theme got to her. She looked up at Simon, questioningly.

  “You asked to have that played,” she said. “Why?”

  “You played it at The Cove,” Simon reminded her. “I’ve been curious ever since. When did Roger start singing it in the shower?”

  “Weeks ago.”

  “How many weeks ago?”

  She frowned. “Is it important?”

  “It may be. Was it as long as a month ago?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Try. Wanda, when you put the coin in the juke box that day you knew what you were playing, didn’t you?”

  She lowered her eyes. Simon didn’t mind. They were too large for comfort anyway.

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “You knew that a piece called ‘Infidelity’ was the song your husband had been singing around the house. Did you ask where he learned it?”

  “Yes. He gave me some vague answer—on the car radio. Something like that.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “No. Roger wasn’t the singing type. He was too upset because of the way his father reacted to our marriage. He resented me for it, and when he started singing I resented him. I thought he’d found some other woman who made him feel happy.”

  “You really are insecure!” Simon said. “Why didn’t you ask him about it?”

  “I did—indirectly. I went to a record store and hummed a few bars of the song. They recognized the melody and sold me a record. I brought it home and gave it to Roger, and then we had a big row. It ended with him smashing the record. He said I was behaving like a schoolgirl.”

  “Did you believe him then?”

  The combo finished “Infidelity” and swung into something more familiar. A few couples left their tables and started to dance. The floor was dark except for a revolving light that rotated about the dance area. Wanda watched the dancers and one finger tapped idly on the table.

  “No, I didn’t,” she said.

  “Is that the real reason you left the yacht the day of the murder?”

  “Mr. Drake—” Wanda tossed her head peevishly—”why are you doing this? We won the case.”

  “We won a preliminary hearing—and that’s all we won,” Simon said. “Now, since you’re not under oath and no court secretary is taking notes, why don’t you tell me what you were too frightened to tell me before?”

  “All right, I was jealous,” Wanda said. “I took the commander’s needling as long as I could and then went up on deck for air. The sailors came by in the rowboat and whistled at me, so I jumped overboard. I knew they would pick me up. They rowed ashore. By that time, I was dry and they were thirsty, so I stayed wtih them. I wanted Roger to see me with them when he came in so he could be the one who was jealous—for a change.”

  “Now that,” Simon said, “makes sense—feminine style. Getting back to the record in the juke box. Think now—did you hear it played at any time during the afternoon?”

  “Yes—twice. Twice in succession. I tried to see who made the selection, but there was a Sunday afternoon crowd. Then Roger came in—”

  “While the record was playing?”

  “I think so. It’s hard to remember. I was nervous because I knew Roger would be mad. Is it so important, Mr. Drake?”

  “It might be. The record might have been the signal for a contact.”

  “What kind of contact?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Forget it. We came here to have some fun. Dance?”

  Now he was speaking the native tongue of Wanda Warren. In a moment they were on the floor and conversation was superfluous. They were a natural combination: smooth, easy and no strain. Then, two numbers later, just when Simon was thinking of divorcing Hannah for a later model den mother, the combo pulled a switch. “Infidelity.” They danced. The combo played “Infidelity” again.

  “Mr. Drake—” Wanda began, “that’s—”

  “—our song,” Simon responded, “and they’re overdoing it. Let’s get out of here.”

  Simon dropped the bill for the waiter on the table, picked up Wanda’s wrap and led her to the door. As they stepped outside, the combo was swingin
g into a fourth consecutive rendition of “Infidelity.” A broken record belonged in the juke box. Somebody was trying to tell them something.

  The parking lot attendant brought the Jaguar and Simon helped Wanda inside. His nervous system was fully alerted now. He scanned the parking lot as he folded in behind the steering wheel. There were no unnecessary shadows. No unusual movement. He started the motor and pulled out onto the highway.

  “Mayerling and The Profile,” he mused aloud. “Bamboo wrapping paper and a fishing pole that didn’t fish.”

  “What are you grumbling about?” Wanda asked.

  “I’m not grumbling. I’m adding. A tennis trophy in a fishing tackle box. A fishing trip once a month…. Who set the dates for those Sunday forays to the yacht—Roger or the commander?”

  Wanda was trying hard to follow his line of reasoning. “Who set the dates?” she echoed. “I don’t know. I never asked.”

  “Was there any kind of sequence? Was it any certain Sunday of each month?”

  “I don’t think so. I never thought about that. We just went whenever Roger said it was time to go. It was all his idea.”

  “What else do you know that you should have told me when I first took your case?” Simon asked.

  “All I know is that we’re being followed,” Wanda said.

  She was right. A pair of headlamps were showing in the rear view mirror. Simon increased speed and the headlamps remained in the mirror. But the Jaguar could do one hundred and sixty on the open road, and whatever was behind wasn’t in the same league at all. They lost the lights within the first mile. In the second they reached the fringes of a new suburban development and Simon eased down on the brake pedal. There was no response. He stomped on the pedal and it flapped against the floorboards like a broken wing.

  “What’s wrong?” Wanda asked.

  “Fasten your seat belt,” Simon ordered, “—now! And hold on to your head.”

  They hit the first intersection in the development at maximum speed. Luckily, it was behind schedule and a month short of occupancy. There was no traffic or pedestrian problem—just a matter of holding to the road when Simon grabbed the emergency brake lever and pulled back with all his strength. They burned at least two ply off the tires and narrowly missed both curbs before the Jaguar came to a stop in the middle of the road.

  Simon looked at Wanda. She had braced herself against the dashboard with both hands. Her head hung forward between her arms.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She raised her head and felt her neck.

  “It’s still on,” she said, “and it moves.”

  “Fine. Now, sit tight.”

  He started the motor and moved forward slowly, one hand on the brake lever. It was an upper bracket development and the houses had real garages instead of carports. Simon turned in at the first likely driveway and drove into the garage. He pulled on the brake, switched off the lights and made a dive for the overhead door. Luckily, it had been hung. He pulled the door down and waited in the darkness for a full minute before the roar of a motor signaled the passing of the pursuing car.

  Wanda was at his side as the sound disappeared in the distance.

  “Mr. Drake,” she whispered hoarsely, “I’ve been thinking. If that song ‘Infidelity’ was a contact—and if someone Roger contacted for some reason heard your request playing, wouldn’t that someone think you knew something you don’t?”

  She was so close and Simon Drake never kissed a woman once. He kissed her again.

  “Mrs. Warren,” he said, “I’m with you—all the way.”

  THIRTEEN

  Simon waited until the pursuing car was out of earshot before opening the overhead door. He left the Jaguar in the garage and took Wanda with him to the nearest telephone booth. There he called a cab and rode with her to the house on Seacliff Drive. It was early—just a little past eight. All of the neighbors’ houses were lighted and their television sets aglow. It was just a big, warm, friendly community of upper bracket income earners filled with brotherly love. Simon deposited Wanda at the front door and prepared to leave.

  “Mr. Drake,” she coaxed, “I want to talk to you. I don’t understand—”

  “Neither do I,” Simon said. “That’s why we can’t talk tonight. Lock the door as I leave.”

  “But I can’t be in danger, can I?” she protested. “I mean, if anybody wanted me out of the way I would have been killed with Roger.”

  It was too complicated to explain, and just enough fear to make her cautious was better than immobilizing panic.

  “Lock the door anyway,” Simon said. “It bangs in the wind and keeps the neighbors awake.”

  He waited until he heard the lock catch and then took the cab to The Mansion. Upstairs, he found Hannah working on her memoirs.

  “Simon,” she called out, as he entered the room, “where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “I have to borrow your car,” Simon said bluntly.

  “Borrow my car? Why? What’s happened to yours?”

  “A slight accident—almost. No cuts, bruises or broken bones. Did you reach the Harbor Master?”

  “He’s calling me back. And there is something wrong, Simon. I get vibrations—”

  “At your age! Bully for you!” Simon said.

  “Be serious! What did happen to your car?”

  He had to sketch the day in for her. They had been a team too long to have secrets. She listened and absorbed—her wise eyes brightening with interest. The Profile intrigued her.

  “Was Roger Warren a fairy?” she asked.

  “What an awful thought!” Simon said. “But Wanda would have told me—”

  “Not necessarily. A woman has pride. I once worked with an actress who married one by mistake. She almost killed him when she caught him with his ‘girlfriend.’ Afterwards, she spent several years in and out of sanitariums.”

  “Occupational disease,” Simon observed. “And stop trying to pin Roger’s death on Wanda. She was with me tonight when the brakes went out.”

  “It could have been an accident.”

  Simon kissed Hannah on the top of her head. She was a gallant lady determined to save him—and his career—from conniving women with suddenly dead husbands.

  “Don’t forget to put me in your memoirs,” he said, “—unexpurgated. And don’t wait up for me.”

  “Simon!”

  Her voice impaled him in the doorway. He had a Pavlovian reaction to that imperious tone.

  “What I wanted to tell you was that Duane Thompson called twice. He wants to see you.”

  “Thompson? What about?”

  “He wouldn’t say—but he sounded upset.”

  Simon glanced at his watch. Thompson would keep. He had other plans.

  “If he calls again, tell him to take a tranquilizer,” he said.

  There were a number of things Roger Warren could have done with a rented white boat on four Sunday afternoons. He could have put in at one of the several small boat landings up the coast from Marina Beach, or he could, conceivably, have returned to a previous haunt. Until Hannah’s friend, the Harbor Master, reported on the third possibility, Simon could only play the odds as they came up on the tote board. The Club Mobile in Santa Monica was a long shot, but it was a better bet than an evening with Duane Thompson.

  Simon drove the red Rolls northward through the art colonies, the yacht harbors and the once-upon-a-pre-war-time country towns that had blossomed into mighty cities. Cow towns, peopled almost overnight with levi-clad men and women lately from the fruit ranches of Texas and the parched farmlands of Oklahoma who brought their mores and their morals, plunged their hands deep into the trough of production and profit, and came up with the lusty new world that space itself could not contain. Anything that grew so rapidly, grew awkwardly. From the Freeway, the world was a Disneyland of lights and color, but, by the time Simon reached his destination, the gay frosting had worn off the world and the basic jungle was showing th
rough.

  He turned into the parking lot at Club Mobile and delivered the Rolls to a burly attendant.

  “When you search the glove compartment for goodies,” he said, “see if you can find my briar pipe. It’s been missing since the last time I used this car for pub-hopping.”

  It was that kind of neighborhood. The parking lot boys made more from what they could steal from the cars than they picked up in tips, and the crowd that turned the dance floor into a forest of wriggling flesh could find all the Terpsichorean joys they were looking for in any flourishing massage parlor. But the owner of the club was hip. Two new billboards flanked the entrance. One featured an old picture of Wanda in her cage-wriggling days; the other was a blow-up of Clarissa Valle on the witness stand at Wanda’s hearing. Fame and glory came in devious ways.

  A group of long-haired guitarists were accenting the “go” in A-go-go when Simon entered the club. He skirted the melee and made his way to the dressing rooms in the rear. He rapped once just below the new star on Clarissa’s door and entered. Clarissa was seated in front of the dressing table attired in a purple feather hat and pale orange lipstick.

  “Hey, I didn’t say I was decent!” she protested.

  “I don’t ask personal questions,” Simon said. He tossed her a chiffon robe that was draped over a screen and waited until she had secured her dignity against invasion. “I came to talk about Roger Warren,” he said. “It occurred to me that the club is close to the beach and he might have seen Wanda in her cage before that ‘chance’ meeting at the seashore.”

  “It’s possible,” Clarissa admitted. “Boys do find ways of meeting girls they want to meet. It’s an old tribal custom.”

  “But it’s getting tougher. I just walked through the club. I can’t tell the boys from the girls any more.”

  “You’re not that old!” Clarissa said.

  Simon ignored the analysis.

  “I don’t think they can, either,” he added. “That crowd on the floor will never make the Junior JayCees or the Future Farmers. Half of them are on pot. The other half are working their way up to Synanon.”

  “What are you,” Clarissa demanded, “a scout for J. Edgar?”