Gat Heat

by Richard S. Prather

  Mrs. Halstead seemed preoccupied. She folded her hands in her lap, rolled the green eyes toward me. “Have you found out anything yet, Mr. Scott? Do you have any idea who killed George?”

  “Not so far. You might say the middle of the picture’s still fuzzy, but I’m getting developments around the edges. Like, I finally figured out what Mr. Pryer meant last night when he said the Whists and Rileys dropped out. I thought he meant they came by, dropped out here for a while during the evening. I didn’t realize he meant they’d dropped out of the club.”

  The flush was slow, but unmistakable. It would have been clearly evident from a distance of ten yards. The pink rose from her neck over her face and disappeared up past her hairline. If she’d been as bare as when I first saw her in her bedroom, I might have been able to watch the color rise from her toes clear up to her face.

  “Club?” she said. After a considerable silence.

  “Yeah. Sex club, swap club, health club; I don’t know what the hell you call it. So the Rileys and Whists turned in their … well, whatever. Membership cards? Name’s not Whist, by the way—it’s Walles. That ring any bells? And who else is in the group besides those who were here last night? Other than the Kents and Nelsons mentioned last night, I mean.”

  She stood up. She played with her fingers for a while, not looking at me. Then she sat down. And looked at me.

  “How did you find out? Who told you?”

  “Never mind that.” I wasn’t going to tell her about Aggie. “It wasn’t one of the group, one of your friends. I know that you, or your friends, have had enough pull—or luck—to keep the spicy details about last night from getting into the papers. But I got the background, all of it, from one of my sources.”

  “All right. So what?” A modicum of belligerence, that time.

  “Nothing what,” I said. “Just quit holding out on me, dammit. If, that is, you want me to stay on the case.”

  “Of course I want you to. But, oh, dear—it didn’t seem important … germane, I mean; I didn’t think it could have any bearing on what happened to George.”

  “Let me make up my own mind about that, will you? While I’ve still got it.”

  “I … should have told you, I guess.”

  “You know damn well you should have told me.”

  “Do you have to swear at me?”

  “I’m not swearing at you. I’m just swearing. For the hell of it, O.K.? It isn’t every day I’m practically killed by having my brains—”

  “Don’t—I understand. I forgot about that.”

  “Maybe you forgot. O.K., Mrs. Halstead. I think it would be nice if we could sit here for a few minutes while I say nothing at all, but just listen.”

  She cooperated nicely. I’d say she talked for three minutes straight, somewhat stiffly at first but quite free-wheeling toward the end. I figured she was telling all of it, leaving nothing out. She did, though; she left something out. Of course, I didn’t know that right then.

  When she stopped, either for breath or because she was finished, I said, “O.K., fine and dandy. Wish I’d known all this several hours ago—but no matter now. Question: You and Mr. Halstead had not commenced this fairly recent, ah, group activity before you met the Whists?”

  “No, they were the first couple we … Just a moment, didn’t you say something about their name not being Whist? You said so many things then that I got a little confused.”

  “I said their name is Walles. W-a-l-l-e-s. They gave you a phoney.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I’m still trying to find out. In case I don’t already know. Which maybe I do. The name Walles means nothing to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ve met Ed, but not his wife. Not yet. I know you told me what she looks like, but describe her again, will you?”

  “She’s quite lovely, taller than I am, blonde hair and brown eyes. I don’t know, I can’t think of anything but what I’ve already told you.”

  “Any special marks, scars, that sort of thing?”

  “No. I will admit, she’s got about the most beautiful figure I’ve ever seen.”

  This Marcelle had to be something, I thought, because Mrs. Halstead herself wouldn’t have to take a back seat to many. She was going on.

  “She’s just a lovely woman, that’s all.” A pause. “I could tell you more about Ed.”

  “I think I know enough about Ed. Well, O.K., Whist or Walles, they were the first couple you and your husband joined in, ah, merrymaking and frolic?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whose idea was it?”

  “Why … I really don’t know. It just, well, it just came up. Sort of in the conversation, very light and joking at first. Then, later, not joking.”

  “Somebody must have made the first pitch, or pointed comment.”

  “I suppose. I simply don’t remember. It may sound strange to you, but it seemed to happen very naturally.”

  “It came suddenly from outer space. Neither you nor your husband had ever even thought of such a thing, then boom, zowie—”

  “I didn’t mean that. We, George and I, often had long, lazy talks. And we’d discussed that sort of thing. Not so much as if it might ever involve us, but as part of the … sociological landscape, you might say. That is, we’d thought about it. To me, it was academic—I couldn’t have cared less, frankly. But George, well, it wasn’t academic to him. It was out of the classroom and into the playground, for George. Especially once he’d seen Marcelle …” She bent forward and picked up a bit of the dichondra; rubbed it between her fingers.

  I found the pack of cigarettes in my pocket, offered her a smoke. She shook her head. I lit up and said, “Then I take it I’ve got all the names and addresses which are—germane. The ones you gave me last night.”

  “That’s right.”

  “O.K., you and the Walleses—then known as the Whists—to start with. Next, the Bersudians.”

  “Yes, it was as if they’d been reading our minds—for weeks. George merely dropped a hint, and they picked it up and ran to the goal line. Angelica was all over George, just like that.”

  I smiled, a sort of sappy smile. “Angelica, hmm? I’m going right out to see her. From here, I mean. I mean, I already had planned to see her. Next. Planned it before I got here.”

  Mrs. Halstead managed to work up the best smile I’d seen on her pretty face since meeting her.

  “Of course,” she said, in that disturbingly squishy tone women sometimes use when inserting among the sincere syllables an inaudible “Ha-ha, you’re full of baloney.” But then she went right on, “A while after that Ed and Marcelle brought the Rileys around, just casually, once or twice, then as—part of the merry group.”

  “Yeah, but from what you’ve said, the Rileys were the only couple introduced into the group by the Walleses. The rest were drawn from among your friends or acquaintances. All of the others.”

  She looked at me for a few seconds, pursing her lips. “That’s true.” She paused. “You know, I never realized that before. I never even thought about it. And it was Ed—” she chopped it off.

  “Ed what?”

  “Just … nothing. Well, he and Marcelle were the first ones to drop out. Then the Rileys. And they’re the only two couples who did. I don’t suppose that means anything.”

  I didn’t suppose so, either. But somehow I didn’t think it was what she’d started to say.

  But, enough had been said, it seemed. So after another minute I thanked her for her time, and her frankness, apologized for having to bother her with so many questions, and left.

  I had already talked once with Angelica Bersudian earlier this day, Angelica of the bosomy bosom and slumbrous eyes, but that had been a brief and fruitless dialogue. Merely a few questions, her expressed sorrow that she knew nothing that might help me, though she did wish she could be of help, she surely did—that sort of thing. I hadn’t even gone inside the house, but simply stood by the door for three or four minutes asking
my routine questions.

  But I had not known then what I knew now.

  I supposed, soon after the shock and upheaval of last night, all of the concerned couples had reached an agreement—if, as seemed more likely, it hadn’t been reached long before—that none of them, under any circumstances, would say a thing about the “private and personal” matters which, presumably, could have no vital bearing on the matter of George Halstead’s murder. For, should one spill, all would be in the soup.

  I didn’t know for sure. But certainly there’d been no peep about it until I’d gotten the inside info from Agatha Smellow.

  Come to think of it, I owed Aggie a lot. Not only the lead which I was now following but the fact that her martini, her plea for “Just a little while longer,” had spared me the unpleasant—if not actually fatal—experience of getting four fat bullets in my back, one in my neck, and two in my head.

  The Bersudians lived in Westwood, about midway between the Los Angeles Country Club and the UCLA campus. I was driving out Wilshire Boulevard when I got that funny feeling again—while checking the rear-view mirror.

  A dark sedan had been weaving in and out of traffic, keeping close but never directly behind me, usually the second or third car back. There was really nothing to connect it with the dark sedan with the cock-eyed light, which had been behind me last night. But it was a Dodge Polara. I’d noticed this buggy minutes ago, before turning west on Wilshire.

  It was probably maw and paw and the kids out for a Saturday afternoon drive—“Younguns, thet thar’s whar Stony Virile, the big moonpitcher star lives”—but so vivid was memory of Porter’s head in my head that I was leery of maw and paw and even the kids. So I slowed, made sure I was the last car through the next light just as it turned from yellow to red, and stepped on the gas. I didn’t spot the dark Polara again.

  In two more mintues I was at the Bersudians’ pink stucco villa, or whatever it was. A big joint, it looked as though it should have had canals around it and a condola parked in front.

  I almost felt like whistling the Venetian national anthem as I walked up the pink sidewalk to the ornately carved front door.

  I almost felt like whistling something else—like weee-weeoo—when Mrs. Bersudian opened the door. Because she was something else.

  “Angelica,” I said. “Weee-weeoo.”

  “Mr. Scott.” She smiled. “Hello, there. Why did you whistle?”

  “Did I whistle? I thought I was just thinking. Boy, I’ve got to watch my thinking.”

  “What can I do for you this time?”

  “Well, uh, there have been some more developments in the case. And how. So I figured we’d better lay our cards and things on the table … just be frank as hell, I mean. Well, that’s not exactly what I mean. I think we ought to talk about it, though, whatever it is.”

  “I do too, Mr. Scott. Come in, please. I hope you’ll excuse the way I’m dressed. I was out in back by the pool, getting some sun.”

  I’d guessed she must have been doing something like that. I had for a certainty noticed what she was wearing. It wasn’t much. At least, not for a gal the size and shape of Angelica Bersudian. In fact, it wasn’t quite enough. Not if she was trying to hide the facts of life, anyhow. It was a polka-dot bikini big enough for three dots.

  “Well, don’t just stand there making that funny noise, Mr. Scott. Come on in.”

  I went inside and she shut the door, then walked past me, calling over her bare shoulder, “Shall we go out in back by the pool?”

  “Fine. Anywhere. You go ahead. I’ll just follow till you stop moving.”

  We walked through the house, outside into a large patio partially covered by sections of thin bamboo strips overhead, and past a stone barbecue with a portable wooden bar next to it. Near the sparkling blue swimming pool was a pink chaise longue, on which Angelica sort of arranged herself very attractively. I sat in a big wicker chair facing her, and watched her for a while.

  Finally she said, “I know why you’re here.”

  “Boy, I’ve got to watch it—or maybe stop watching—”

  “Ann phoned me.”

  “Ann? Mrs. Halstead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Busy girl, isn’t she?”

  “She told me you were there with her. And … what you talked about. So I guess now you know everything.”

  “Well, not everything. But quite a bunch.”

  “I hope you don’t think we’re terrible.”

  “Terrible? Did you hear me say terrible? I’ll admit, you’re quite a bunch. But, ah, erum …”

  “I’m glad you came back. My husband’s at his office, and I didn’t have anybody to talk to.”

  “Well, golly—”

  “And my conscience has been bothering me.”

  “It has, huh? Well, I suppose you could try kicking the habit. Seems sort of drastic, though. Maybe you could just kick it a little—”

  “Because I did leave some things out when I talked to you before.”

  “Yeah, I know—”

  “I don’t mean what you discussed with Mrs. Halstead. Not that other thing. I mean, something from last night. I didn’t mention it because I was afraid it would lead to the other thing. Of course, now you know about the other thing, it doesn’t make any difference.”

  It didn’t make much difference what she said, either. That low, humming voice of hers scratched my ears the way you do to a dog’s head. I don’t mean it was a scratchy voice. It was just that—well, I liked it a lot.

  I said, “What other thing?”

  “You know. Sex.”

  That was exactly what Agatha had said, using a different language. Mrs. Bersudian, whose husband was at his office, sounded like a gal who would take three or four olives in her martinis.

  “Let’s see if I’m getting this,” I said. “Are you implying … inferring? Are you saying you have information relative to the slaying of Mr. Halstead which, if conveyed to me, might assist me in my conduct of this here investigation?”

  “My, you sound formal all of a sudden.”

  “I’m trying to, Mrs. Bersudian—”

  “Call me Angelica. My husband, who is at his office, calls me Angel. But that’s probably too intimate. So call me Angelica. Will you, Shell?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Call me Angelica.”

  “Sure. Angelica.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I was just calling you Angelica.”

  “You said something a moment ago about … would you say it again?”

  “I’m afraid that will be impossible.”

  “Well … We don’t seem to be getting anywhere, do we?”

  “You hit it on the head that time.”

  “I know what’s wrong. You’re embarrassed!”

  “Where’d you get that idea?”

  “I mean, because of the … other thing. Because you know all about it now, you’re embarrassed. You don’t want to talk to me about it.”

  “Where’d you get that idea?”

  “I know! Would you like a drink? Maybe a martini?”

  “How are you fixed for olives?”

  “Oh, I’ve got bottles and bottles of them. From Italy, those great big juicy ones!”

  “I knew it.”

  “They’re stuffed with pimientos.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You haven’t really told me yet. Would you like one?”

  “I sure would. Probably I shouldn’t, but—”

  “Fine, I’ll be right back, Shell.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the kitchen.”

  “What for?”

  “To get the ice.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you’re way ahead of me, at that.”

  “Well, I have to get some ice. You want it cold, don’t you?”

  “Cold?” I said. “Cold? Well, wouldn’t that frost you?”
/>   “It has to be cold. Otherwise it’s no good.”

  “You know, I’m swinging around to the idea that the world’s going to hell. If this is what we’ve come to—”

  “You just sit there and let me take care of everything.”

  “O.K.”

  “I’ll be back with yours in a minute.”

  “You mean yours, don’t you?”

  “Do you like it sweet or dry?”

  “What kind of dumb question is that?”

  “Well, people are all different, Ask any bartender.”

  “I will not ask a bartender.”

  “Some people like theirs stirred a lot, and some don’t like them stirred at all.”

  “The world is going—”

  “And some even like them shaken with cracked ice.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Pretty quick I’ll believe anything.”

  “Personally, I like mine very dry, and only stirred three or four times.”

  “Well, I’ll see you around, Angelica. I’ve got a case out there somewhere, Duty calls—”

  “Oh, Shell—have one drink, first. Just one martini. And I truly do have something to tell you about last night.”

  “Say that again.”

  “I truly do have something to tell—”

  “No, that first part.” I swung my head in a 180-degree arc for a few seconds, then I said, “Never mind. Just a moment.”

  I got up and walked back toward the stone barbecue, stopped at the portable bar, opened its little door. There I found several bottles; I selected a quart of gin and a bottle of vermouth, which I looked at long and hard. “Uh-huh,” I said to myself. “How about that?” I said to myself.

  Then I went back and sat down and said, “Well, better get cracking, Angelica. Round up that ice, hey?”

  A few minutes later we were sipping delicious, cold martinis and nibbling big, fat, green, pimiento-stuffed olives, and Angelica was saying, “There, that’s better. Shall I tell you about last night now?”

  “Sure. I’d be fascinated. Lots of fun, huh?”

  “I was with Mr. Halstead. Not my husband. Because, well …”

  “He was at his office?”

  “No, he was, oo, talking to Mrs. Warren. Anyway, I was with George when we heard a car coming up the road. We could see the glow from its lights, too. Right then George got this phone call.”