by K. K. Beck
“Melanie Oakley,” mumbled Quentin.
“What kind of business?” asked Melanie.
“We’re here giving you a word to the wise,” began Fontana. “Is there somewhere more private where we can talk?” He glanced meaningfully over at Nick and Callie, who were standing there listening. Duncan Blaine had collapsed in his old chair by the table and was smoking a cigarette and gazing glassily into the middle distance. “Private? I suppose so,” said Melanie, thoroughly confused, “but you’d better tell me what it’s about.”
“I know it may seem unusual just dropping in like this, but I’m representing an unusual party,” said Quentin. “The owner of the rights to the Kali-Ra novels by Valerian Ricardo.” With as much dignity as he could muster, he went over to the edge of the lily pond, squatted there and fished out his briefcase. When he rose holding it, water streamed noisily out the bottom around the hinges onto the brick terracing.
Kevin interrupted. “So do you still want me to throw them out?” he asked.
Nick said to Callie, “But Uncle Sid’s books are in the public domain!”
“Things are not always as they appear,” she replied, sliding her green eyes over the dripping form of Quentin Smith, who in turn stared at Nick and said, “Uncle Sid?”
Rosemary came onto the terrace, folded her hands and said, “Dinner is ready.” She turned to Vince, then eyeballed the soggy Quentin. “Are they staying?”
Vince Fontana smiled. “Sure, that’d be nice. Just to show there’s no hard feelings.”
“Okay,” said Rosemary coldly, “so two more places.”
Vince Fontana slapped her heartily on the back and said, “My driver’s parked out in front. Maybe you can feed him in the kitchen or something.”
“Yeah, okay.” Rosemary turned back to Melanie. “What about Mrs. Ricardo? Is she sick or what?”
Melanie glanced over to where the doctor seemed to be giving some instructions to Nadia and Glen. Lila still looked pale. Maybe she could be talked out of joining them at the table where she would no doubt harangue Duncan, snipe at Glen Pendergast, and shriek at Nick’s girlfriend. Melanie took in the rest of the assemblage, including Duncan, who now seemed to be draining the dregs of other people’s drinks from the table in front of him. The chances were good that a sit-down meal with this cast of characters would end in disaster.
It was time for some command decisions. To Rosemary she said, “Things are a little confusing tonight. Maybe we should have a kind of casual buffet thing. Set it up in the dining room, okay?”
She now addressed Vince Fontana and his waterlogged friend. “I can’t think what we have to talk about but I will give you a few minutes in the office.”
She asked the doctor how Lila was and he told her that it looked as if she had just fainted and should get some rest. She could come to his office tomorrow for some tests. Melanie thanked him and asked Rosemary to show him out.
To Lila, she said firmly, “We’ll bring you dinner on a tray in the guest cottage.”
“We can’t leave her alone,” protested Nadia.
“Why don’t you go with her and make sure she’s comfortable,” said Melanie. “Let me just see what Mr. Fontana here wants.”
Kevin was still hovering around, and as she left with Fontana and Quentin Smith, she said over her shoulder, “Thanks a lot, you can go,” though what she was thanking the phlegmatic security guard for she couldn’t imagine. If there were any real trouble around here, she’d have to handle it herself, as usual.
CHAPTER XVII
THE DISAPPEARING DINNER GUESTS
After Melanie had left with Vince Fontana and his drenched associate and Nadia had led Lila away to the kitchen to get her a plate of something, there were only four people left on the terrace.
Duncan Blaine, still seated but listing a bit, seemed to be approaching a comatose state. Glen Pendergast, clearly uncomfortable at the prospect of making small talk with him, sidled over to Callie and Nick. “Well,” he said nervously, “I guess we wait until someone calls us for dinner.”
Nick shrugged and said, “I guess so.” He cleared his throat. “You know a lot more about Uncle Sid than I do. I assumed all his stuff was out of copyright, but that guy with Vince Fontana said he represented the copyright holder. What’s the deal?”
“Beats me,” said Pendergast. “I was told the novels were all out of copyright when I wrote my book a couple of years ago. Frankly, Lila here tried to convince me otherwise, and when that didn’t work, she threatened to sue me for mental anguish.”
“You’re kidding,” said Callie.
Glen Pendergast rolled his eyes. “She had some lawyer make a big deal out of the fact that the guys who invented Superman got a lot of cash when the movie was made, even though they had no immediately apparent legal claim to the material, and said I could get creamed in a jury trial with a hysterical, impoverished little old lady sobbing on the witness stand.
“I got so paranoid I tracked down the last copyright holder, and wrote them asking if I needed permission to quote from the books. Some outfit in the Bahamas or someplace like that. I got back a short, polite note saying it was in the public domain. Lila denies it, but she or Valerian Ricardo must have sold the copyright.”
“But what does Vince Fontana have to do with it?” said Callie. “This is all too weird.” She turned toward the professor. “So you never found out exactly what happened with the rights?”
Pendergast shrugged. “My book was a literary and cultural study, not a biography. As far as the copyrights went, I wasn’t interested in anything other than avoiding trouble with quoting the material. And believe me, the combination of loony Lila and her lawyers seemed like big trouble.” He suddenly looked concerned. “I’m so sorry poor Nadia has gotten into her clutches. I know it’s only because she’s such a sweet, kind, trusting person.”
Suddenly, Duncan Blaine, ambulatory once more, loomed up behind them. “That Ricardo woman is trouble all right,” he said. “She should be put down like a dog. It’s disgusting to think that an old bitch like that is in a position to destroy the career of a sensitive and gifted artist!”
“Oh,” protested Glen Pendergast, “I’m sure Nadia’s career is safe. She’s a powerful icon in today’s popular culture.”
“She’s a silly cow,” said Duncan. “It’s my career I’m talking about, you twit! Don’t you know who I am?” He lurched toward Pendergast in a menacing way.
The professor flinched. “I just remembered I have to make a phone call,” he said, beating a retreat through the French doors into the house.
Blaine turned to Callie and Nick and said in a surprised tone, “I believe that I am drunk.”
“Maybe you should lie down or something,” said Callie.
“Nonsense. I should work. I do my best work when I’m completely pissed. I’m a prisoner in this fucking house until I finish this screenplay. I shall go to my room and write my way to freedom.” He zigzagged his way across the terrace toward the house.
Alone with Callie, Nick felt suddenly overwhelmed. Dusk had fallen and above them a few stars and a sliver of moon had emerged. The air was heavy with that scent of jasmine again.
He turned to her, and heard himself say, “I know this sounds nuts, but you know, you actually remind me of Kali-Ra.”
She brushed a strand of dark hair from her face and smiled at him.
“I don’t mean that I think you’re the personification of evil or anything,” he added hastily. “It’s just that here, in the moonlight, with that outfit and everything, and when you joke around sometimes in that voice—”
“I am Kali-Ra,” she said. “Await me here. I have work to do.” She started to flit away.
“Wait!” he said. “Where are you going?”
She turned and raised a slim, pale hand. “It is not yours to ask, Raymond Vernon,” she said dramatically, then sprinted, gazellelike across the lawn and around the corner of the house.
He stood there for a moment wo
ndering whether to follow her. She really was a fascinating person. In this atmosphere, Nick began to feel, anything could happen. He could run after her, catch her, roll around with her in some bosky corner of the estate, make mad passionate love to her under the starlit California sky—
These thoughts were interrupted by Rosemary, who came out to say, “Okay. Dinner’s all set up in the living room. Where did everyone go?”
“I’m not sure,” said Nick.
CHAPTER XVIII
A SCREAM IN THE NIGHT
Meanwhile, in her office, Melanie was explaining to Vince Fontana and the man with him, who appeared to be named Quentin Smith, that under no circumstances was she prepared to negotiate anything until the lawyers had a chance to look things over.
“Listen, Vince,” said Quentin nervously, “we can’t approach anyone directly without their attorney. I mean—”
“Hey!” said Fontana, “I’m not talking about the actual deal. I’m here as a goodwill gesture to say that certain associates of mine who have strong ties to show business are interested in these negotiations going off without a hitch.”
“Just what is your interest in this matter?” asked Melanie. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Hey!” barked Vince, “I’m trying to warn you.” Quentin wished he wouldn’t begin all his thoughts with “Hey!”
“Warn me about what?”
“About maybe some bad shit happening if the party Quentin here represents is crossed. These are fair people but they’re hard people. I grew up with these people. They’re my people, capisce? That’s why I’m in a position to know how tough they can be. But if I tell them that I spoke to you and you’re willing to pay what these rights are worth, no bad stuff has to happen.”
“What kind of bad stuff did you have in mind?” said Melanie.
He shrugged and raised a knowing eyebrow. “Accidents on the set. Maybe a lot of downtime. Union troubles. You know how that can all add up. My friends are very powerful.”
“Who are your friends exactly?”
“Hey, do I have to spell it out to you? Didn’t you ever go to the movies?” He began to hum the theme from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
Suddenly they heard a scratchy sound at the French windows, as if a branch were scraping against it. The men had to turn to look, but Melanie was facing the garden and she alone saw the shadowy figure moving quickly away from the window. “Look!” she said. “Did you see that? There was someone lurking in the shrubbery.”
“Hey, I tried to get them to wait until I talked to you,” said Vince in a sad voice. “Be reasonable! Make a deal with the kid here.”
Melanie ignored him and reached for the phone to call Kevin in the carriage house. She frowned. There was no answer. She put in a call to Tom Thorndyke with the speed dial.
Quentin’s head was pounding again. “I’ll be right back,” he mumbled, staggering out of the room. He was going to check and see if Vince Fontana’s muscle-bound chauffeur was still at his post or if he was cruising the grounds and thrashing around in the bushes, trying to scare Melanie Oakley. He had to be stopped, or they’d all be put in jail for extortion.
The long black car was still parked in front of the house, but the driver was gone. Quentin peered nervously into the front seat. The book the driver had been reading was lying there. It appeared to be some kind of physiology textbook, open to a page illustrating the skeletal structure of the knee. Quentin had a horrible feeling the thug was reading up on how to maim people.
He also noticed a car phone. The car was open and he slid into the front seat and picked it up. He felt compelled to call Margaret. She’d probably still be out having dinner with that prosecutor, but he could call her machine and at least hear her voice. It would be so soothing to hear Margaret’s voice.
* * *
When confronted with the fact that all the dinner guests had disappeared, the housekeeper had simply shrugged and led Nick into the living room, a vast space filled with pale sofas and chairs and low tables and lit by candles in silver candelabra. Above the fireplace was a huge portrait of Nadia in a black evening gown holding an ostrich feather fan. After examining the room with a certain amount of awe, Nick went over to the buffet table along one wall where a meal was laid out.
This was a hell of a note, he thought. Here he was at a Hollywood dinner party and he was eating all alone. It was weird, but what else was he supposed to do? Anyway, he was starving.
He filled himself a plate of some kind of sauteed chicken thing with mushrooms and a salad of avocados and yellow tomatoes and set it down on a coffee table by a picture window overlooking the garden. He supposed Callie would reemerge at some point, and the others too. He went back to the buffet and helped himself to wine.
In a way, it was rather restful to be alone. He had been reeling at the day’s events and a little quiet time was welcome. He couldn’t believe he’d woken up in Minneapolis this morning. It seemed a lifetime ago. Since then, so many strange things had happened, and now he was sitting here all by himself in a movie star’s living room, staring into a moonlit garden with the odd feeling that anything could happen to him. And it was all because of Uncle Sid.
Just then, Nadia and Lila walked slowly by the window. Nadia was carrying a tray. Presumably they were headed toward the guest house. Lila had certainly been a disappointment. She hadn’t told him anything of interest about Uncle Sid and then she’d turned on poor Callie in that irrational way. She was clearly nuts. That nice Melanie Oakley had come right out and said so, and Duncan Blaine and Glen Pendergast had said she was big trouble too.
One of Uncle Sid’s books lay on the coffee table, and Nick picked it up and began to read as he ate his chicken.
“I don’t like it,” said Raymond Vernon, as he smoked a Balkan Sobranie and paced in front of the huge fireplace. “I sense a strange presence here at the Old Priory. Can’t you sense it, inspector?”
The detective sipped his brandy. “Steady, old chap,” he said. “I know you’ve had a bit of a scare, but we captured the queer leopardlike creature with the jeweled collar that was roaming the grounds. Odd business, I agree, but it’s all quiet now.”
“Too quiet,” said Raymond Vernon with the grim fatalism of one who has faced evil personified, not just once but many times. Suddenly his head rose and he stood as still as a deer in the forest. “There it is, that strange scent. A musky, Oriental sort of scent. Inspector, she is here, I know it! Up to her old mischief.” His heart began to race as it always did when he sensed he was soon to come into the presence of the Queen of Doom. That scent was as much her signature as the sacred gong with which she summoned her slaves.
“Nonsense, old man. Your nerves are shot,” said the inspector.
Just then, the deadly quiet of the night was rent by a woman’s terrified scream.
As he read these words, Nick heard a shattering crash, followed by a woman’s terrified scream, and he froze for a second. He must stop reading these damn things. They were beginning to seem real. But then it occurred to him that he had heard an actual scream and that it had come from outside.
CHAPTER XIX
THE INTRUDER’S CLUE
He ran back out onto the terrace. There were more screams now, and muffled hysterical sobs coming from farther away in the garden. He ran toward the sound.
A moment later, along a gravel path, he encountered Nadia Wentworth clutching Lila Ricardo to her chest and pointing up at the roofline. At their feet lay a fallen tray and dinner plate surrounded by a massive pile of ceramic shards, glazed in jade green. He peered up in the direction she was pointing. There was a balustrade with a row of giant Ali Baba–style jars high above them. One of the row was missing.
“There’s someone up there,” she said. “I swear I saw someone moving around up there. He tried to kill us.”
“I was worried about the emanations around here,” said Lila, her eyes glittering in a way that made Nick feel she’d gotten some kind of sick th
rill from her experience.
“We’d better go inside,” he said. “And call the police.”
“Could it be,” Nadia gasped, “one of the slaves of Kali-Ra?”
“Calm down,” said Nick, who began to wonder if she actually had seen anyone. “You’re in shock. Maybe it was one of those earthquakes they have here.”
“My dear,” said Lila to Nadia, “the slaves of Kali-Ra aren’t real in anything other than a spiritual, symbolic sense. Although I have sometimes wondered if Valerian knew more than he let on.”
“For heaven’s sake,” said Nick impatiently, “get inside. There are a lot more of those jars up there waiting to fall or be pushed!” He led the two women back up the path, where they encountered Melanie Oakley, trailed by Vince Fontana, who seemed to be puffing a little to keep up with her. Melanie stared with horror at the jagged remains of the heavy jar and glanced back up at the balustrade.
Now, Callie and Glen Pendergast were coming down the path toward them. “What happened?” asked the professor. “I heard a scream. Nadia! Are you all right?” Nadia began sobbing quietly, and Pendergast surprised Nick by putting his arm around her in a protective way, while Nick explained what had happened.
“Nadia says she saw someone up there,” he said. “Somebody should call the cops.” He turned to Pendergast. “Meanwhile, let’s go up there and check it out.”
“Absolutely,” said Pendergast, who released Nadia and looked surprised he’d had his arm around her in the first place.
* * *
At the same moment that Nadia Wentworth’s scream had rent the night air, Quentin Smith was sitting in the front seat of Vince Fontana’s car, babbling hysterically into Margaret’s voice mail about how he had been taken against his will to Nadia Wentworth’s house by Vince Fontana and his chauffeur, who seemed to be psychopaths. “Jesus, Margaret,” he said. “I just heard a woman scream. That thug must be working over Nadia and her assistant. I gotta go.”