Trouble in Rooster Paradise (28 page)

I noted subsequent payments from H.R. in the
months that followed. It was similar, with a few other initialed
entries. For a little seductive flirting and a fervent one-nighter,
Christine’s cut was none too shabby. Not bad if you could still
stand yourself afterward. I could only imagine what Guy de Carter’s
take was. I didn’t find Christine’s bankbook when I searched her
room. My guess was de Carter stole it off her the night he’d killed
her.

There were only a few such assignation entries
over a stretch of several months, which told me that the girls had
been selective and had apparently cultivated their prey slowly and
carefully. In the entries for the last couple of weeks, Christine
had written of a “special” project.

A few diary entries sandwiched in between
shakedowns puzzled me. Then they started to trouble me. Finally
they just made me ill.

B. sensed trouble with Tubby. We backed
off.

B. wants M. to continue after Eyebrows and
wants me on Slick.

B. promises more $ for Slick. I think he’s
special somehow.

The note about Eyebrows was fairly recent and
had to refer to Addison Darcy’s bristly brows. Maybe both girls had
been assigned to try and seduce Darcy, but for some reason Meredith
had apparently seemed more suited to the task. Or perhaps Christine
was a better choice for the man she called Slick. But why no
initials for Eyebrows and Slick? And who was B?

I went back and studied the previous entries
until something stood out. I looked for a peculiar quirk in her
bookkeeping and found it. For some reason Christine didn’t use the
victims’ initials until after a triumphal tryst and payment had
been made. Prior to that she used pet names like Jowls, Bugeyes and
Tubby—tags obviously drawn from the physical characteristics of the
marks.

Her handlers were another matter. They were
known simply as B and G throughout. I’d met only two people in
Christine’s circle these past few days whose first initial was B.
Blanche Arnot and Britt Anderson.

I drove to the nearest payphone.

I didn’t reach Milland, but got his partner
Bernie Hanson.

“
Do us both a favor, would you
Bern?” I said.

“
Oh yeah? And what favor might that
be?” he asked in monotonic solemnity.

“
It has to do with those
registration records for late model Packards. Could you check on a
name for me?”

“
Well ….” he said, drawing out
the word to two slow syllables. “I suppose I could do
that.”

Don’t beat yourself up over it, Bern, I thought
but didn’t say. Self-control is the better part of
favor-begging.

After five minutes that seemed like fifteen,
Hanson returned to the phone and confirmed what I
suspected.

I’d worked with Lou Boyd for almost a month,
when in an outpouring of youthful idealism I’d told him that our
job was to pursue the truth.

“
Nah, Gunnar lad, it ain’t as noble
as all that,” Lou had said with a wry smile. “We dismantle lies. If
we’re lucky, the truth—or a pretty close second—comes crawlin’ out
of the rubble.”

In homage to Lou, I had my pile of rubble. And
in a nod to Mrs. Berger’s hootchie-cootchie days, my close second
was slithering out from the debris on its belly like a
reptile.

H
ardy Lindholm was
chapfallen.

“
Just in the nick of time, old
thing,” Walter said as we drove off. “It’s my own fault. I know
better. I should always let him win more than I do.”

Walter was happy to take a ride. Relieved was
more like it. He and Hardy had played a fatiguing thirty games of
checkers. Walter had won most of them, but defeat didn’t sit well
with Hardy. The old Swede’s identity and self-worth came from
winning parlor games. Walter had agreed to a colossal rematch. A
frazzle-haired Hardy had just put on a fresh pot of coffee when I
showed up.

I updated Walter as we rode along.

“
You said you wanted to meet her,” I
said, heading us to Laurelhurst.

“
Yes,” he said gravely, “but I had a
different idea as to when and why. A very different
idea.”

I parked in her driveway. Her garage was a
separate building outside her fence. The door had a series of small
windows at the top. Before we passed through the wrought-iron gate,
I peeked inside and saw the dark and unmistakable outline of a
Packard.

I rang the buzzer.

Walter presented the left side of his face to
the speakeasy peephole as its grated window rasped
opened.

“
Oh, it’s
you
, Mr. Nilson,”
Blanche Arnot said in a cheerful voice.

“
Yes. I’ve brought a friend. May we
come in?”

“
By all means.”

She winced on seeing Walter’s scars, but
quickly reshaped her welcoming countenance. She didn’t seem to need
an explanation of my friend, and I didn’t feel like offering one.
She had a coat on and looked all dolled up and ready to
leave.

“
Are we keeping you from something?”
I asked.

“
No. Nothing that can’t keep a
little while longer.”

She seated us in the living room.

“
Now, to what do I owe this second
visit—and so deliciously soon at that?” she asked.

“
You drive a Packard.”

“
No … no, I don’t.”

“
There’s a Packard in your
garage.”

“
Yes, that’s correct.”

“
You’re saying you don’t drive. Is
that the case, Mrs. Arnot?” said Walter.

She looked at Walter like an approving school
marm. “That’s correct. I regret I never bothered to learn. The car
in the garage was my husband’s. Henry bought it the fall before
last, just before the heart attack took him.”

“
Has someone used your car recently,
Mrs. Arnot?” Walter asked.

“
Why yes. It was just returned
today. It’s been loaned out this past week.”

“
Who borrowed it?” I
asked.

She noticed the edge in my voice and looked at
me curiously. “I didn’t meet the young man. He’s one of Britt
Anderson’s friends. She told me his car is at the mechanic’s. I
loaned it out as a favor to her. I trust her
completely.”

I’d been pretty certain that my rough draft was
ready to be inked in. When you’ve convinced yourself that all the
evidence fits the way you want to look at something, you really
hate anything that detracts.

“
So,
Britt
dropped the car
off?” I asked as my throat reached for my heart.

Mrs. Arnot shook her head. “I’d given her the
keys. She passed them on. That way her friend could take the car
and bring it back at his leisure. I saw it in the garage just a
little while ago when I went to get my garden hose. It wasn’t in
there this morning, so I imagine the young man dropped it off this
afternoon sometime. You see, I don’t lock my garage. A thief is
welcome to whatever he finds in there. Locks only dissuade the
honest and the maladroit.”

I was watching her closely. She was serene. Her
equanimity was alarming. She might just as well have been talking
about her grocery list. Her blithe comments came across with a
convincing guilelessness. Another hypothesis began to bud that
upset both my theories and my stomach.

My skin had those frosty quivers you get that
start at the base of your spine and run to the back of your head.
My neat little picture of things slipped right off its drawing
board and went gliding to the floor, destined for the ash
heap.

“
But why all this interest in my
Packard, Mr. Nilson?”

Walter Pangborn to the rescue.

“
Because I might be interested in
buying it,” he said. “I’m afraid my DeSoto is on its last set of
whitewalls.”

She was deliciously amused.

Walter asked Mrs. Arnot a few more questions
about her car, which gave me time to digest what I’d
learned.

Sick. Disgusted. Those words work. Add a
healthy dose of angry. That probably covers it.

It’s the kind of thing that happens when you
bring your glans in as a consultant. And I’d known better. A
passionate bond and a protective male urge clouds the wits and any
pretense to professional judgment.

I kept thinking how I’d screwed up and then
some.

My mind was elsewhere, but I vaguely made out
that Walter had shifted from automobiles to questions about Mrs.
Arnot’s days in the
Ziegfeld Follies
.

I forced myself to swap my prejudices for a
stab at objectivity. My brain started sketching away at a new
picture. It was impressionistic and it wasn’t the least bit pretty.
Revolting was more like it.

I struggled with the idea that Britt had used
and manipulated me from the start. I rethought all my encounters
with her. Innocent actions now seemed malevolent. That first
day—those times she’d buttonholed Meredith. I had to figure that
they had nothing to do with consoling or bucking up a friend. It
now seemed clear that Britt had been cautioning
Meredith—
warning
her. I envisioned Britt carefully choosing
her girls—making sure they were the type who weren’t likely to
crack from the strains of the racket she was running, yet at the
same time could be easily controlled by her and Guy de
Carter.

I felt outclassed and outsmarted. Gunnar the
Rube. It now appeared that Britt had set me up with Guy de Carter,
and then gave him the lowdown on who I’d interviewed and
when.

I remembered now her talking on the phone when
I was in her bed, or so it had sounded. Talking with de Carter, no
doubt. Probably warning him of my plans to squeeze Meredith for
more information. Meredith had gone from asset to liability in a
hurry. It made sense that she’d had de Carter go take care of
Meredith while she’d waylaid me till morning.

I figured Britt had finagled me into going over
to de Carter’s houseboat and then called someone to bushwhack me.
Either that or maybe she’d tailed me and sapped me herself. She’d
killed de Carter and taken the photos from my coat. Then she’d
tried to frame me. There was a disturbing kind of logic to it
all.

And there was no point in asking
why.

I had a sudden sense of knowing Britt less now
than when we’d first met. It was like we’d become different people
to each other—or at least she was different to me. A familiar
stranger. A lethal one.

I don’t remember if there was a lull in the
conversation or whether I was rudely interrupting when I suddenly
asked, “What was the name of Alexis’ fiancé?”

“
Pardon me?” said Mrs.
Arnot.

“
The man who broke up with Britt’s
aunt—what was his name?”

“
Why, Mr. Nilson, she was engaged to
Addison Darcy. Addison Darcy Junior, that is.”

“
Son of the same Addison Darcy in
the store with you the other day?” I asked, knowing the
answer.

“
That’s correct,” she said, giving
us a sad smile. “Alexis was devastated when her Addie—her
Addison—broke off their engagement. But I think it was when she
learned he’d been killed in the war that she was completely
overcome with despair. Why do you ask, Mr. Nilson?”

“
Why did he break off their
engagement? Did Alexis ever say?” But again, I already
knew.

Mrs. Arnot nodded.

Her mouth formed a sardonic smile. “His father
pressured him into it. He didn’t want his son to marry beneath him.
He threatened to disinherit young Addison.”

“
Britt knew all this, of course?” I
said.

“
Why yes. Most
definitely.”

“
It must have aggravated Britt to
see the elder Darcy frequent the store.”

“
You mean did she blame him for
Alexis’ ruin?”

I nodded.

“
Yes, I suppose she did. No, that’s
not correct. I
know
she did.”

“
Care to explain?”

Mrs. Arnot told us that as she watched Alexis
begin to decline she also watched Britt nurture a hatred for both
the Darcy men.

“
I used to tell Britt that it was a
foolish waste of emotion and energy. But you can imagine how that
went over.” Mrs. Arnot shook her head sadly, her lips puckering.
“She became consumed by her feelings. At one point, I actually
feared that she might do something rash.”

I asked what she meant.

“
Oh, I don’t know. I’ve seen people
try and take justice into their own hands before. I’m sure both of
you have seen the same. Britt commented more than a few times how
she’d like to see both the Darcy men dead. Her words disturbed me.
Shook me up, really. I suppose I feared that she’d turn her words
into action. It was foolish of me, though, the way matters have
turned out. Why, had it been in operation a mere five years ago,
Britt would never even have considered working at Fasciné
Expressions—what with its affiliation with Darlund Apparels. Some
young people can be so deliciously resilient. I’d say she’s made a
lot of progress. I suppose it was when word came of young Addison’s
death that things reached a turning point for Britt.”