The Case of the Vanishing Beauty (5 page)

"I don't know why. That's what I'm trying to find out. I hoped you might help me."

"I wish I could help. If I can help you, you tell me and I will."

"Thanks, Lina. Maybe you can later."

"This is the first time."

"First time what?"

"That you have called me Lina."

"I haven't had much chance to talk to you, Lina."

"We must find more time. I think you are very nice, Shell. Your name, too, is for you. You are big and strong, and even with the nose and the ear you are nice. Yes. A little mean-looking, maybe, but most nice. But you must let your hair grow. So pretty. You will let it grow for me, no?"

"No,"

She cocked her head on one side and frowned at me. "But why?"

"I like it this way."

"Poof! Well, you are still nice. You think I am nice?"

Did I think she was nice? Brother! My tongue was starting to stick again. I grinned at her. "You'll do."

"Do! What kind of talk is this? Men say to me, 'You are like a goddess, Lina; your eyes are like the heavens,' and other things they say. You say, 'You'll do. I missed you, no. Put on the brassiere.' What is the matter with you?"
 

"Maybe I'm scared of you."

"Scared." She narrowed her eyes and peered at me. "Well, Mr. Scott, you wait. I will scare you to death."

I didn't say anything.

"The brassiere," she said. "I did not put it on. You are old-fashioned. This blouse." She sat up straight so I could get a good look.

I got a good look.

"You like?"

I nodded. I was all wound up like spaghetti.

"Look. It is a peasant blouse. I can wear it like this"—she pulled the top up high around her neck; looked good, too—"or I can wear it like this." She pulled it down over her creamy shoulders, down, down. Good God! Was she never going to stop? Down. "So. You like, Mr. Shell Scott?"

I used up half my store of French. "Oui," I sighed. That's one word you can say when your tongue's stuck.

"Oh!" Her eyes sparkled. "You speak French?"

"Oui."

"Ooh. Merveilleux! Quel homme remarquable, Monsieur Scott. Quels autres talents cachés avez-vous?"

"Uh, oui."

She frowned and looked at me strangely. "Comment? What a remarkable man you are! So well you speak French, you must also speak Spanish, no?"

"Si."

"Eres un marrano cochino. Verdad?"

"Si, si."

She laughed lightly, leaned
forward across the table, and said, "I just told you, Mr. Scott, that you are a dirty pig. You are a big faker, no?"
 

"I'm a big faker, yes. Please, not a dirty pig."

She tossed her head back and laughter rippled out of her throat and past her red lips. Guys at the next tables turned and looked at me as if they wished I'd dissolve. Lina stopped laughing and said, "We will have fun."

"Sure. Tell me something, Lina. How come you're working here, letting a guy toss knives at you? You and Miguel been working together long? You a team?"

"No team, Shell. That Miguel!" She screwed up her face in disgust. "It is like this. I am a singer. I come here to work—oh, two months ago. This Miguel and a Ramona, his partner then, they do the knife act. One night Ramona is not here. Later we find she had run away with a man and she is married. The husband will not let knives be thrown at her."

"A logical development," I said.

"Then Maggie says will I do the act? I tell her no, but finally she says I will get twice the money—from fifty dollars to one hundred dollars. For one week. So I say all right. Well," she shrugged her shoulders, "it is so good for the crowd they have me stay—but I make Maggie give me one hundred and fifty dollars. Six weeks now we have done the act. I do nothing; just stand there."

"Doesn't it scare you?"

"No longer. At first, a little, but not now. Miguel, he is at least good with the knives. Always just so."

"This your home town, Lina? You live here?"

"I was born in Venezuela, but I have lived here for many years. I am at the Coronet Hotel on Western Avenue." She leaned forward, grinning up at me. "Room Forty. Alone. You must visit me."

"Uh-huh. Right now I've got to visit the boss. When's the show?"

"It finished just before you came. The last one is at one-thirty. You watch me."

"I'll try." I nodded to the door on the right of the orchestra. "That go back to the boss's office?"

"Yes," she said. "Straight back. It says on the door, 'Private.'"

I winked at her and walked over to the door. Inside was a short hallway with a yellow light burning over a door at the end. A faded wooden sign on the door said, "Private."

I knocked. The floor shook a little under my feet, then the door was opened and Mrs. Remorse roared, "Whadda ya want, Mac?"

"I'd like to talk to you."

"Well, don't just stand there. Get your behind inside." Only she didn't say behind.

It was a small room with a low pine desk opposite the door and, behind it, an overstuffed chair big enough to support Maggie's remarkable bulk comfortably. Two other wooden chairs, one in front of the desk, and that was all.

Maggie spilled herself into the overstuffed chair, pointed at the chair in front of the desk, and said, "Squat, Mac."

I squatted.

The guy I'd seen talking to Maggie earlier, the one Lina called Juan Porfirio, was standing by the desk. I took a good look at him. He was close to five-eight, give or take a little, and thin. But he looked wiry, as if he kept himself in shape with handball and steam baths. He looked middle-aged, but the olive skin of his face and neck was firm. He was dressed in a suit that probably cost more than any I own—which means he put out a good-sized bundle of cash for it. His hair was black, thick, and graying slightly at the temples, and his lips were thick, too full for the rest of his face. He looked like a vest-pocket edition of the "sensual Latin." He was Mexican or some kind of Latin, and he looked pretty sharp.

He nodded at me as I sat down, then said to Maggie in a voice thick with a Spanish accent, "Thank you very much, Mrs. Remorse, for your time. I must leave now." He turned and went out.

"Now whadda ya want?" Maggie roared.

"A very strange thing happened," I told her. "Most peculiar. Miss Martin, the young woman I was with earlier, and I spent an hour or so here—"

"Spit it out, man. Get to the point. I'm a busy woman."

She wasn't so busy, and she wasn't much of a woman, but I didn't say so.

I said, "Nuts."

Her head jerked and the fat on her face wiggled. For a second I thought she was coming across the desk to sit on me and kill me. Then she grinned and chuckled.

"Oke, Mac," she hiccupped. "Get on with it."

"I'll tell it my way, Mrs. Remorse. As I said, a strange thing happened. Miss Martin and I left your place here, and inside of not more than two minutes a car came alongside and shot at us. With real guns. She was killed. I could have been, too, but I was lucky. Now, isn't that strange?"

"Sure is. So what?"

"Well, it happened right after we left this club of yours. I'm pretty sure nobody followed us out here. I thought maybe you could give me an idea how it happened somebody knew we were here. Seems funny we'd be picked up right when we left."

"You're dumb. You're dopey, Mac. Now I dunno this chicken from sour apples, see? An' if somebody wantsa scrag her, I don't give a goddamn. They coulda pumped both of ya an' I'd sleep nights. See? But what's to stop some wiper from seein' the chickie here? Or somebody from callin' somebody? You never hear about no phones, Mac? Huh, Mac?"

"You've got a point. But I wanted to ask. Mind some more questions? Just for laughs?"

"Hell, no, sweetie-puss. Strangle yourself. Ask me anything except how old I am. Yaaaah!' The "yaaaah" was Maggie laughing. She slapped herself on the stomach with a blow that would have caved in my ribs, and shook all over, wheezing and guffawing.

I looked at her for a moment before I said anything. She was a woman, I was thinking. I was born of a woman. Georgia was a woman. And Lina. The lovely, heart-stopping Lina. I wondered how Margaret Remorse got the way she was; if she'd ever played jacks or made dresses for dolls. It seemed silly as hell, looking at her, but she was a kid once.
 

"Pretty good spot you've got here," I said. "How long you had it?"

"Since '45. Come up and bought it. Little gold mine."

"Came up from where?"

"Mexico, dearie. Mexico City. I was married down there in '34. Man loved me."

I felt funny for a minute. She said, "Man loved me," and her face got different, sort of soft, as if she was remembering something she thought she'd forgotten. Then she spoiled it.

"He was a son-of-a-bitch," she roared. "Chased all the damn chippies in Mexico. Plenty of 'em, too. He kicked the bucket. Heart attack. And I got his insurance. Only thing I ever got outa the son. Hey, Mac." She leaned forward. "They thought I poisoned the son-of-a-bitch. Dug him up and found out what he died of. Heart attack! Yaaaah!" and she was off again.

She'd been smoking a brown, funny-looking cigarette out of a pack I'd noticed on the desk. It was a peculiar-looking pack, green with black lettering and a colorful picture of some kind on it, so while she was roaring and wiping her eyes and her hamlike hands I snitched one of the cigarettes and dropped it in my coat pocket. That's called being a detective.

I waited for the ripples to subside and said quickly, "How about Narda?"

She squinted at me and pushed her lips out like pork chops. "What the hell's Narda?"

"Skip it. I guess that's all. Thanks for your time."

"You through?"

"Yeah, I'm through."

"Good-o. Now you listen to me, Mac, and listen good." She leaned forward till her huge breasts flattened on the top of the desk. I thought of Lina again. Lord!

"You been throwin' your weight around," she bellowed. "You come in here and make cracks. I'm not so dumb, smart-pants. Now you scram. You scram outa here, and don't bother me no more. See?"

I didn't have time to answer. The door behind me opened and I twisted my head around to look. It was the knife-thin, zoot-suited Miguel Mercado. He flicked his eyes over me, glanced at Maggie, hesitated, then said, "Sorry. Didn't know you were busy." He stepped back out into the hall and yanked the door shut behind him.

I said, "So long, sweetheart."

"Wait a minute."

"Yeah?"

"I want you should understand what I meant. I don't like a smart-pants comin' around botherin' me half to death. You gonna bother me any more?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe, hell. Stay outa my way. See?"

I grinned at her, then turned and went out. Halfway down the hall I stopped and yelled back, "Oh, I forgot," then turned and half ran out into the night club proper. I saw Lina right away. She was sitting at the same table where I'd left her, an almost full cocktail in front of her. I got over there fast.

"Honey," I said. "Want to help?"

"Honey," she purred. "That is better, Shell." Then she looked at my face. She caught on quick. "Yes," she said. "What is it?"

"I think Maggie might make a phone call. Get in there quick before she can. Try to keep her from calling. But, honey, don't get in trouble. Let it drop if it looks fishy. Now, scoot."

She smiled at me as if her heart was on her lips. "Yes, querido."

Lina headed for the door to Maggie's office and I beat it outside. I'd parked thirty or forty feet from the entrance to El Cuchillo, but I stopped just outside and looked to my right down Adobe Street. The only car in sight was just turning into Chavez Ravine Road and traveling fast. All I could see was the taillight, but that was all I needed if I was right. I sprinted down to the Cadillac, ripped it into gear, and gunned down the street. It wasn't raining now, but the streets were still wet and the Cad's tires hissed on the pavement. When
the car ahead turned off on Elysian Park Avenue, then, at its end, turned right into Sunset Boulevard, I got a good look at it. A brand-new Kaiser, either black or a dark shade of blue or green. I dropped back as far as I could going out Sunset Boulevard, but kept him close enough so I could catch him if I had to.

He turned right on Glendale Boulevard and I knew for sure that I was following Miguel.

Chapter Five

WHEN HE TURNED left on Duane Street and started up the steep hill, one more link fell into place. The address I'd got from Samson, the address of Narda's religious organization, the Inner World Society of Truth Believers, was 6417 Silver Lake Boulevard—and the boulevard was just over the hill.

Silver Lake Boulevard is a long, curving street fronting the Silver Lake Reservoir, and when we turned off Duane I was sure we were getting close to the 6400 block. A little more than a half a block ahead on the right I saw a big two-story building set back off the road behind an enormous patch of green lawn. In the darkness it looked like part of a Hollywood set for The Thief of Bagdad. It was practically a temple, with rounded domes on the four corners of the roof, and lofty spires, half dissolved in the darkness, jutting up toward the muddy sky.