Carnival of Death (11 page)

“Just a minute, please,” the voice answered him.

It was cold waiting in the night, but the barman at the lodge had been right about one thing. Even with a closed door between them he could smell the scent of the expensive perfume affected by the Banks woman.

Daly waited the requested minute, two minutes, listening to the furtive scurrying on the far side of the door. Then, becoming impatient, he raised his hand to knock again and there was a metallic snick as the bolt on the inside of the door was drawn and the same male voice said pleasantly, “Come in, Mr. Daly.”

Daly turned the knob he was gripping and opened the door. After the almost stygian darkness of the outside night the brightly lighted interior of the cottage blinded him for a moment. The studio-type room was overwarm and reeked of perfume. A small fire was burning in a fieldstone fireplace.

As he entered the cabin, Daly said, “I’m sorry to disturb you. But …”

He stopped speaking as he realized he was, seemingly, alone in the room. There was no one in front of the fireplace or in either of the two overstuffed chairs. A woman’s intimate garments and a green wool dress were dropped carelessly on a huge white bearskin rug beside a rumpled king-sized bed, but no one was occupying the most obvious, and most obviously recently used, piece of furniture in the room.

Daly transferred his attention to a partially closed door on the far side of the room. “What’s the big idea? This isn’t a raid. All I want is to …”

Before he could complete the sentence, the click of a light switch plunged the room into darkness. Daly sensed motion to one side of him. He turned instinctively and the viciously swung barrel of a heavy revolver crashed against his head, the force of the blow numbing him with pain. He tried to call to DuBoise and couldn’t The pain was too intense. In desperation he thrust out his hands in the sudden darkness to grapple with the person who had attacked him and felt soft fur. Then one of his groping hands closed around an even softer, bare, well-rounded piece of flesh that could only be a woman’s breast.

The contact seemed to amuse the woman. She laughed softly as she took his hand from where it was and slid it down her nude body to the juncture of her thighs.

“Nice?”

Only half conscious, his knees giving under him, Daly heard the male who had spoken before say tersely, “Okay, Thelma. Stop amusing yourself by giving the sucker a cheap thrill and let’s get out of here.”

“All right,” the woman agreed.

Then, still pressing Daly’s hand to her body, she beat at his head again and again with the barrel of the pistol she was holding in her other hand.

• • •

Four sounds intruded on Daly’s returning consciousness. He could hear a car motor being raced. He could hear gunfire. He could hear Gene DuBoise cursing in French. Closer by he could hear the crackling of flames and was suddenly aware of intense heat. Then the sound of the car motor died away, strong hands grasped his arms and, still swearing, DuBoise dragged Daly’s limp body through the open door of the burning cabin, across the small porch and out into the snow.

When Daly could speak he sat up and asked, “Did they get away?”

“Yes,” DuBoise said, “I’m afraid so. I knew something was wrong as soon as the light went out, but by the time I waded back here they were out the door and halfway to the Volkswagen. Then when I started after them, the woman turned and did her best to kill me. She shot at me four times, all of them coming so close I swear I could hear the blessed angels whispering, ‘
Bonsoir
, Gene.’”

Daly scooped up a handful of snow and held it against his throbbing temple. “I don’t suppose you saw her face.”

“No. It was too dark. All I could see was that she was wearing a fur coat and there didn’t seem to be anything under it.”

With DuBoise helping him, Daly got to his feet. “There wasn’t. And for some reason, she made certain I knew it.”

He stood looking at the burning cottage. It was apparent, judging from the rapidity with which the dry wood was burning, that in the short time he’d waited on the porch Miss Thelma Banks and her boy friend had drenched the floor and walls and furnishings with kerosene or some other highly inflammable liquid, knowing the reek of perfume would cover the smell. Then, before leaving, to effectively obliterate any trace of their presence they had either raked the fire out of the fireplace or tossed a lighted match onto the fluid-soaked blazing bed.

As Daly watched, part of the roof of the cabin fell in. He winced. If it hadn’t been for DuBoise, he would probably still be in the cabin. Miss Thelma Banks played for keeps.

I
T WAS
seven o’clock Monday evening when Daly awakened. He had reason for sleeping so late. It had been early afternoon before he’d gotten to bed. After he and Gene had phoned the fire department from the ski lodge, both the Big Bear City police and — when they’d returned to Los Angeles — the local homicide squad had questioned them for hours.

“Now tell us this, Mr. Daly. If you and Mr. DuBoise thought this Thelma Banks might be even remotely connected with the looting of the armored truck, why didn’t you come to us instead of going to the cottage alone? Are you certain she and the man with her tried to kill you? Isn’t it possible they were just another pair of cheaters who panicked when their rendezvous was interrupted? Level with us now, Daly. Are you sure you aren’t blowing this thing up just to make a sensational program for one of your television shows?”

Daly’s head ached, his mouth was filled with phlegm. He wished he had a cup of coffee but was reluctant to get up and make one.

On the credit side, he and Gene, for what it was worth, had learned that not even the Big Bear City real estate firm which owned the burned cabin had ever met their tenant. They had advertised it in an issue of the Los Angeles
Sunday Times
and their amorous tenant had rented it by mail, paying the first month’s rent, as well as subsequent ones, by postal money order.

Daly swung his bare feet to the floor and sat up on the edge of his bed. All he and Gene had gotten out of the long, cold drive was the ride. His chest itched. He scratched it and started to get to his feet, then sat back and covered his lap with the sheet as Terry turned on the ceiling light, then came over to the bed carrying a tray containing a pot of coffee and the evening papers.

“It’s all right,” she smiled. “I’m a big girl now.” She set the tray on the night stand. “Besides, everyone thinks you sleep with your telephone girls. And if instead of first standing me up for dinner, then patting me good night Friday morning and flying to Las Vegas with Gene you’d have come up to my apartment and seduced me, you wouldn’t have gotten into this mess.”

Her logic was confusing but pleasant Daly studied the girl’s face as he sipped the cup of coffee she poured him. Terry Carstairs was one of the nicest telephone girls he’d ever had on his program. She was pretty. She was young. She was shapely. She was his if he wanted her. Unfortunately, he had a conscience. Terry wouldn’t demand it but she was the marrying kind and, being a three-time loser, he didn’t know if he could afford to pay any more alimony.

“I’ll keep you in mind,” he said dryly. “On the other hand, just to strike a balance, I think there should be one of everything, even in Hollywood.”

“One of what?” Terry asked.

“In your case, I hope, a virgin.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” the girl pouted. “What if the trade papers ever found out? I’d be laughed out of town.”

The coffee was strong and fresh. It tasted good. Terry refilled Daly’s cup, then drew a slipper chair up to the bed and sat facing him. “Is it really true what it says in the paper, Tom?”

“Is what true?”

“That all the woman in the cottage was wearing was a fur coat.”

“That’s right.”

“How could you tell in the dark?”

“Let’s just say,” Daly said, “that when I grabbed at her in an attempt to keep her from beating my brains in, I discovered that from the waist up she was built like an Italian movie star. And, as if that wasn’t enough, she moved my hand to make certain I had no doubts.”

Terry’s cheeks colored. “You don’t have to be so graphic.”

Daly picked up one of the newspapers on the tray. In spite of what he and Gene had tried to do, Mickey and Paquita Laredo had been indicted and bound over for trial on three counts of murder in the first degree.

The pictures on the front page of the paper intrigued him. Accepting the older Kelly brother’s contention that the dead guard had been a ladies’ man, with everything to live for, an enterprising photographer had found, or taken, pictures of five girls with whom Kelly was reputed to have been on more or less intimate terms. Then the art department had arranged them in a heart-shaped mat, with the dead guard’s picture in the center.

All of the girls pictured were young. All were passably pretty. All of them had nice figures.

Terry hitched her chair closer to the bed. “Say. I have an idea. Maybe one of them was jealous of Kelly. Maybe he did her dirt and she killed him.”

“That could be,” Daly said. “Now all you have to do is figure out how she got that chloral hydrate into the paper cup of pink lemonade that Paquita Laredo served him. Also why she picked that particular time.”

Terry shook her head. “I’m not that smart. I’m just your telephone girl. I merely relay the questions. But could the mysterious Miss Banks have been one of Kelly’s girls?”

Daly glanced back at the pictures. “It’s possible, but not probable. From what information we have, Thelma is a pro.”

“Even so,” Terry insisted. “No girl, not even a call girl, likes to be jilted. So once you figure out how she could have poisoned him, all of the girls that Kelly played around with automatically become suspect.”

“It’s a theory,” Daly admitted.

Terry insisted, “It’s more than a theory. That’s the way life is. Do you think the girl in the cottage was involved in the robbery of the armored truck?”

“In some way. At least she had guilty knowledge. Otherwise she wouldn’t have tried to burn me with the cottage and fired four shots at Gene.”

“Then there you are.”

“Where?”

“While you actually didn’t see the girl, you know what kind of perfume she uses and what sort of a figure she has. So, to identify her, all you have to do is make a round of all of the girls Kelly knew, close your eyes and — ” Terry stopped talking, embarrassed. “No. That wouldn’t work very well, would it?”

“I’m afraid not,” Daly said, dryly.

He glanced at the other newspapers. Outside of the indictment of the Laredos, there was little in any of them he didn’t already know.

The police were still trying to locate the elusive Dr. Alveredo and now a Tommy and a Miss Thelma Banks. There were the usual comments by well-meaning civic leaders decrying the teen-age riot fomented by the thrown money. The leaders of two of the Cuban exile groups in Miami had wired denying any guilty knowledge of the robbery. One of the lesser papers had devoted a few inches of its second page to a small picture of and an interview with the unattractive young woman he and DuBoise had met in Captain Franks’ office.

The armored car firm’s garage cashier and head tally clerk wasn’t any more prepossessing in print than she had been in person. Her background, as detailed in the story, was as drab as her appearance. The newspaper gave her age as twenty-seven. She’d worked for the firm for nine years, starting as a filing clerk in the main office shortly after she had graduated from high school. She’d told the reporter much the same story she’d told in Captain Franks’ office.

While she had never known the dead guard socially, she’d liked him very much. He’d been the only one of the guards, the only man in the office for that matter, who hadn’t treated her as if she were a computer with legs. He’d always had a smile for her and something friendly to say. Because she had done him little favors, once he had brought her a box of candy and another time he had given her flowers. Kelly’s death had upset her greatly and she hoped whoever had killed him and robbed the truck got the full punishment that he or she deserved.

There was something about the printed interview that bothered Daly, but he couldn’t figure what it was, unless it was Miss Lindler’s entire lack of color. Even her reactions were gray.

He looked away from the paper as Gene DuBoise came in. “How cozy,” the other man smiled. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No, darn it,” Terry sighed. “Nothing.”

“Did you just get up?” Daly asked him.

“I’m afraid not,” DuBoise said. “As a matter of fact,
I
haven’t been to bed. While I know how you feel about the Laredos, as long as this thing has come up, I figured we might as well boost your rating a few points by cashing in on it.”

“How?”

“By canceling the guests scheduled for tonight and substituting others who are a bit more topical. One of them, a Miss Polly Madden, was one of Kelly’s girl friends.” DuBoise found the girl’s picture in the heart-shaped mat of pictures. “That’s Miss Madden right there. Your second guest will be a Spanish-speaking priest who, while he wasn’t in on the invasion, was jailed in the same jail where most of the brigade spent eighteen unpleasant months. And while he doesn’t know anything about that business on Saturday morning, he will be very happy to tell your viewers that in his opinion, from what he knew of the men by close association, none of the members of the invasion brigade, including Laredo, are psychologically capable of plotting such a thing as the robbery of an armored truck. As the good father put it, the members of the brigade are patriots, not brigands.”

“And my third guest?” Daly asked.

“This one you won’t believe.”

“Try me.”

DuBoise was proud of himself. “
Senorita
Luisa Vinifreda Teresa Garcia.”

“You’re joking. You have to be.”

“No. The kid is going to cost us five hundred dollars for the one show, but I figure she’ll be worth it. I know they’re not supposed to be, but nine out of ten criminal cases are pre-tried in the newspapers and by public opinion. And I’m hoping the child will sway a lot of sympathy to our clown friend and his pink
limonada senora
.”