After Midnight (13 page)

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 swinging 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.”

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 through.

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?”

“No. But I have a nose. I can recognize the scent of marijuana, and I know where it leads. Did Wanda Call know what kind of place she danced in?”

“The kid? She was a baby! For her the world began yesterday every morning.”

“And she never had a blast?”

“Never! Me neither. I lost a husband that way. Once you’ve been dragged down that route, you never go back again.”

“And what about Roger Warren?”

“Why ask me about Roger Warren? I never slept with him. He was just a good looking young guy out for kicks. That’s all I know. Now clear out of here. I’ve got a number in five minutes.”

Simon didn’t move.

“Roger was a rebel,” he said. “Rebels sometimes go to extremes.”

The noise Simon had locked outside when he came into Clarissa’s dressing room suddenly grew louder. He turned about just as the door opened and the man he had seen with Clarissa in Duane Thompson’s office before the hearing stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and the noise receded. Then he stood glaring at Simon.

“Eddie,” Clarissa whined, “this is Simon Drake. He’s been pumping me about Wanda and Roger.”

“Why?” Eddie demanded.

Simon remembered Hannah’s
idée fixe
and grabbed it to lean on.

“Personal reasons,” he said. “I’ve got a thing going for Wanda. I wanted some background material before I make my move.”

“He’s lying!” Clarissa said. “He’s been pumping me about marijuana and heroin—”

Eddie was a small man, neat and conservative in a black suit and a white shirt with a narrow gray silk tie. He might have been a bank clerk or a shoe salesman. But now, because Clarissa had spoken two words, his eyes hardened and the muscles about his mouth pulled back until his lips disappeared.

“Drake,” he said quietly, “I think it’s time for you to leave now.”

“That’s what I told him,” Clarissa said.

“Shut up! You told him too much! All women talk too much! Now, Mr. Drake, take your love life problems somewhere else. We’ve got a show to put on.”

“Is it your operation?” Simon asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Simon had touched a raw nerve somewhere, but he wasn’t sure where it was. He had to try bluffing.

“You’re too scared not to know what I’m talking about,” he said.

The bluff didn’t work.
“I’m
scared?” Eddie echoed.

“You’re
crazy. You’re the one who should be scared. Let me tell you something, Mr. Society Lawyer. This isn’t your turf. Things here aren’t the way they are in Marina Beach. You step on somebody’s toes and you get stepped on right back. Like, I know a guy who made trouble for himself on the dance floor one night. Now that music is wild, man. It does things to people inside like that Frenchman, Ravel, did with his Bolero. I got a kid sister in high school. She tells me this Frenchy wrote something that drove people so nuts they tore up the hall the first time it was played. Well, it’s that way here.”

“I don’t watusi,” Simon said.

“But you got an eye for dames, right? So you’re innocently walking across the dance floor and somebody thinks you’re getting fresh with his girl. You keep on walking and you go outside to get your car. But this guy I’m telling you about never made it. One of those Caddys the boys were parking got out of hand and ran right over him. He was in the hospital three months, Mr. Drake, and he’s never going to walk again without crutches.”

“You’ve made your point,” Simon said.

Eddie’s lips came back and parted in a brief, humorless smile.

“That’s the legal mind for you,” he said. “It digs. Take your chick, Mr. Drake. She’s been hurt and needs protection. Take her and close the door on the past. Okay?”

Eddie wasn’t the talkative type. He hadn’t said one word more than was absolutely necessary to convey an important message. Abruptly, he dismissed Simon. He turned to Clarissa.

“Get dressed for your number,” he ordered, “and tonight give it some feeling. Give it some soul.”

Clarissa picked up a purple velvet and sequin-studded G-string and looked questioningly at Simon.

“She wants to dress,” Eddie said. “She’s modest.”

That wasn’t at all what the look meant. Clarissa was merely obeying her predatory instinct.

“You might stick around out front, Mr. Drake,” she suggested, “and catch my act.”

“No, thanks,” Simon said. “When you’ve had it all with the
hors d’oeuvres
, why wait around for the
entrée?”

Simon left the dressing room feeling as secure as a South Vietnam government. He walked back across the floor the way he had come—threading through the hysterically writhing bodies and keeping alert for the one who might have been ordered to give him some memories to take home. A man who wasn’t apprehensive in such an atmosphere shouldn’t be out without a nursemaid. He made it to the street without incident and stood close to the side of the building while the boy brought the Rolls from the back lot. He was a huge, blunt featured oaf with hair hanging to his neckband and totally expressionless eyes. Simon didn’t leave the shelter of the building until the boy was out of the car and standing with his hand outstretched for the tip.

Simon gave him a dollar.

“Big shot!” the boy said. “Wanna sign my autograph book?”

“Don’t brag so much,” Simon answered. “I know you can’t read.”

He was safely behind the steering wheel by that time with the motor ticking smoothly and everything under control for an instant departure. He released the brake and shot forward into a street that was completely empty one moment and then, suddenly, wasn’t. Simon hit the brakes and stopped inches away from the sedan that blocked his exit. At the same instant, a blinding light beamed on the windshield of the Rolls directly into his eyes. He ducked away from the light and brought one hand up to protect his face from an expected blow. Instead, there was only a soft male drawl at the window.

“There can only be one Rolls this red even in Southern California.—Simon Drake?”

It was the accumulation of shocks that caused Simon’s arm to drop limply on the steering wheel. The repetition of “Infidelity” at the supper club; the brake failure with the Jaguar and the pursuing car; and, recently, Eddie’s lecture on the pitfalls of his own particular jungle. All of these added up to a reaction that made the man who now stood at the window of the Rolls look beautiful. He wore the uniform of the state police.

“Mr. Drake,” the officer said, “I’ve got orders to take you back to Marina Beach. The authorities up there are looking for you.”

Simon vaguely remembered Hannah’s message from Duane Thompson.

“Why?” he asked.

“There’s been another violent death.”

And then Simon could hear nothing but the way the door of the house on Seacliff Drive banged in the wind—until he remembered that the lock had caught on the door before he left Wanda alone, and Duane Thompson had been calling for him even before he returned to The Mansion.