Gat Heat (19 page)

But such junk flew from my thoughts quickly. Because all of a sudden several things happened. A whole bunch. And all of them very peculiar.

The lovely stopped in mid-stretch. Her arms still lay at her sides, but the hands suddenly opened wide, fingers stretching.

At that moment I heard thumping footsteps behind me in the lobby, somebody coming in a hurry over the carpet.

The girl sat up in one quick, almost spasmodic movement, “like a Jack—or, rather—Jill-in-the-box.

“
Will Dilly Pickle …
”

In that one quick movement she swung sideways on the chaise longue, facing away from me, and swept the straw hat from her head. I couldn't see her face but she looked good from the rear, smooth golden-blonde hair still swinging heavily from her movement.

Whoever had been running over the carpet went through the twin doors a few feet to my left, and on outside. From the corner of my eye I could see him trotting toward the pool. He was a well-built man wearing a yellow silk sport shirt and bright yellow Bermuda shorts, thick-soled sandals on his feet. He was grinning, waving and yelling something, apparently waving and calling to somebody at the far end of the pool.

The girl stood up, started turning toward the lobby.

And then I recognized the running man.

It was Edward Walles. Or Ed somebody—if his name was Ed.

I took a step to my left toward the doors he'd gone through, starting after him—he'd stopped near a redheaded girl sitting at the pool's edge with her legs dangling in the water, and bent down beside her.

But that was the only step I took. I just froze there, motionless and gawking.

I even forgot about Ed Walles. Only for a little while, but for that short length of time I truly forgot about him.

Because I got a good look at the girl's face as she swung toward the lobby—and then turned quickly away.

It was a beautiful face, and my previous thought that perhaps she'd hidden her kisser because it was unkissable must have been one of my major errors of the day. It was a face that went with the body, that matched or even surpassed it, a face to conjure with and dream on.

It was also a face I had seen before. When she had been staring down at “my” body in front of the Hamilton Building.

I got it then. Or at least some of it. But at first only one thought swam in my brain. One sentence, five little words.

Dilly Pickle was a
girl
.

16

She was still standing next to the chaise longue, looking toward the pool, when I walked up behind her. I'd taken off my sunglasses, no need for them now.

“Hello, Dilly,” I said.

She turned, raising her eyes to my face.

I waited for the shock to register, for her features to change, perhaps almost “melt” as they had a few hours earlier.

She blinked gray-flecked hazel eyes at me once, and then the reaction started. There was some shock—or at least surprise—but it wasn't what I'd expected.

The soft eyes widened suddenly. The moist, warm-looking lips parted. “Ohh-hh,” she sighed, raising a hand to touch her cheek. And “Ohh-hh,” again.

“Surprised, huh?”

“Ohh-hh—Shell! I mean … Mr. Scott. My goodness, oh, dear, my goodness.” She waggled her fingers together in what seemed pretty confusion, wrists vigorously joggling her breasts, which seemed also to waggle in pretty confusion.

“Where did
you
come from?” she asked breathlessly.

“From in front of the Hamilton Building, Dilly. I guess you could almost say I rose from the dead.”

“Don't—don't remind me of that, Shell—Mr. Scott.”

“You might as well call me Shell, Dilly.”

“I'd love to, Shell … Why do you keep calling me Dilly? Is that what you said?”

“That's it.”

“But why?”

“What else? Clearly that's who you are. Unfortunately for both of us.”

I meant the last part, especially. Because this one was truly outstanding, choice, transcendental, almost a new and improved second sex, a gal the like of which even I had rarely looked upon. And it was with sticky gob of sadness indeed, you can bet, that I realized there could never be anything between us. At least, not anything
good
.

Not even a gal as gorgeous as this one could send hoods to shoot the hell out of me and expect all to be forgiven, just because she looked sexy enough to be illegal, with a figure that could be seen and still be disbelieved, and with a love-in-the-moonlight light in her eyes, and skin smooth and warm as sun-stirred honey, and yummy-plump lips—

“I'm who?” she said.

“Hmmm? What?”

“Who did you say I am?”

“Dilly. You're Dilly Pickle.”

“Di—
what?
”

The fools were still paging her.

“
Will Dilly Pickle please
…”

I should have told them to turn it off after a minute or two.

“You mean the whatever … the
whoever
they're paging?” she asked me wide-eyed.

“That's it. And don't try to trickle me, Di—don't try to diddle—just don't, that's all.”

“But my name is Burma. I don't understand.”

“Burma—hah!”

“Not Burmaha. Burma O'Hare. My daddy's Ragen O'Hare.”

I looked blankly at her.

“You must know him, Shell. He's a reporter on the
Herald-Examiner
. That's how I happen to know all about you and all your wonderful cases. From him, my scrapbooks.”

“Scrapbooks?”

She lowered her eyes and looked away.

“Listen,” I said, “if we're going to talk nonsense, we can do it on the way downtown.”

“Oh, all right,” she said and smiled.

She had marvelous teeth. Perfectly even and almost luminously white, their clean look accentuated by the ripe redness of her sweetly curving lips.…

Why was she smiling?

“We can even chat while you're mugged and booked,” I said. “This isn't actually an arrest—not yet. The police can handle that formality. So I don't think I have to tell you you're not supposed to say anything, or confess, or even feel guilty, and that you can have a lawyer, and even if you can't afford one we'll get you some. Shall we go?”

She looked at me with what seemed a great lack of comprehension in her eyes.

“Police?” she said. “What police?”

“The ones I'm taking you to. So they can jug you.”

She stepped to the chaise longue, brushing past me, turned and sank down upon it. She crossed her ams beneath her breasts, reaching up to grip those smooth bare arms beneath her shoulders—at the same time lifting her bosom approximately three inches into the air. At least.

I was still thinking about her brushing past me and, at the some time, noting the remarkable things she could do with her anatomy, which she was holding way up there with her arms, when she flung her arms out to the side. Woweewow. Truly remarkable. They were alive. Birds, trapped in a downy nest, spreading their wild wings to fly—

“I don't
understand,
” she cried. “What do you
mean?
”

“Just a second,” I said. “Half a sec.”

She pulled her arms back in, clutched them beneath her shoulders again.

“Hold still, will you?” I said.

“What do you
mean?
”

“Just hold still, that's all. Don't go flanging—”

“But—
police?
Why
police?
”

For a moment she appeared to go slightly out of focus and then the double image blended into one again, like when you're using a range finder atop a camera.

I gave my head a little shake and said, “Come off it. I saw you down at the Hamilton Building. A few minutes after two p.m. it was. You can't deny it, Dilly.”

“Of course not—quit calling me Dilly, will you? Why would I deny it?”

“You took off like a scared rabbit, for one thing—one of many. Before I'd even seen that dead guy lying there in pools of blood—”

“Please, don't remind me. Shell—I thought it was you!”

“Yeah, that's what I figured. You and a couple other—”

“And then, when I saw you—alive!—I nearly fainted.”

“Yeah, I remember. That's the very first thing that got me suspicious—”

“At first I couldn't believe it. But when I realized it was you standing there next to me, truly
you,
it was like waking up from a bad dream, from a nightmare. I was so relieved, so happy—”

“Hey, hold it. Cool it a minute. Something is cracked. How could you be relieved? You called Hazel and made the appointment with your sexy voice. You
wanted
me dead there, lying in pools of blood—”

“Oh, how cruel!”

“Didn't you?”

Her face twisted a little, and her eyes seemed to get mistier. “You know I didn't, you must know. When I saw you—him, but I
believed
it was you—lying there in pools of blood, I thought my heart would break.”

“Let's go through that again. In a bit more detail, Dilly.”

“
Quit calling me Dilly!
”

I looked around. Everything seemed normal. The sun was a bit lower, its beams filtering through the branches of the trees and dancing on the pool's surface. People frolicked in the water. Didn't see Ed Walles, though.

Yeah, Ed. Where had he got to?

I was going to have to get on Edward's track right away. But one thing at a time. I was having enough trouble with this one. This one, who sure didn't seem to like it when I called her Dilly Pickle. That I could understand, if it wasn't her name. Who, with any other name, would want to be called Dilly Pickle? But if she wasn't Dilly, I was going to be sinking for the third time in confusion. I'd have to start all over again.

She had to be Dilly, though. It made sense, very good sense—at least it had just a little while ago. When I'd been standing in the lobby and experienced my little revelation, when the thought “Dilly Pickle was a
girl
” swirled in my mind, it had there been swirling with at least four or five other dim elucidations which made it transparently apparent—then, at least—that he
had
to be Dilly.

Of course, if she
wasn't,
if she was really Rangoon O'Toole, or whatever she'd said, that meant …

Yes, it meant that my sticky gob of sadness could dissolve. It meant there might yet be the possibility of something between us, something
good
between us.

I looked down at her again, musing.

She was saying, “I didn't mean to shout at you, Shell. But my name
is
Burma O'Hare. It's a
good
name. I
like
it. And if you can't call me Burma, don't call me anything.”

“I guess it doesn't make much difference what I call you,” I said.

She reached forward and took my right hand in both of hers—my left hand was still hanging onto that big Bolex, which was getting pretty heavy—and said, “I guess I should confess, Shell—”

“Well, it's about time—”

“—how I've felt about you all these years. I might as well get it off my chest, even if it means nothing to you.”

She said a lot of queer things. Did a few, too. For example, when she'd mentioned getting someting
off
her chest, she'd got something on it instead. She'd leaned forward and risen to her feet, and somehow had unconsciously pulled my hand close to press the back of it against her left breast.

That white jersey didn't merely look thin, it
felt
thin; it felt like
nothing
. The sensation was much like having one's hand pressed against bare skin with a faint warp and weft in it.

She dropped her right hand to her side, but kept the other one holding mine against the warp and weft, and looked up at me. “But I can't tell you here, Shell. Not with all these people near, maybe listening. I'd be too embarrassed. Can we walk a little way?”

“O.K., if you'll explain what you're getting at.”

We walked the length of the pool and then over a graveled path toward a small bridge arching above a narrow stream a few yards ahead. Beyond the bridge was a narrow path, a kind of “lover's lane,” winding through green growth beneath overhanging limbs of densely growing trees. A few little birds fluttered and hopped from limb to twig.

As we walked Dilly explained in a quiet voice that though we'd never really met before, she felt she knew me intimately. She'd known about me a long time, a
long
time, had followed my career, read about some of my cases in newspapers and magazines. She did seem to know a lot about my cases, including some of the real good ones.

We went over the little bridge and started down the little path, out of sight of those others behind us now. Dilly was still holding my hand. And, still unconsciously I guessed, pressing its back against her left breast. I wondered if I ought to say something to her about it. But I didn't want to make a big thing of it and maybe embarrass her. She'd said just talking about this was embarrassing for her.

Burma—or Dilly, whoever she was—continued, telling me she'd thought about me often and often, even at night, lying awake in bed. She never did actually come right out and say
what
she was thinking, lying there nude in the sack—she didn't quite say nude, either, I don't believe; it was certainly the impression I got, however—but it wasn't anything hateful, I was pretty sure.

She'd actually kept the newspaper stories and such in scrap-books, she admitted. Two were filled already, and she was working on the third one. While confessing this, I noticed she often looked behind us, and glanced all around occasionally. Probably watching the birds in the trees, I thought. She was a gal who would like birds.

Birds, I thought. What was it I'd been thinking about birds?