Strip for Murder (3 page)

“Yates hung out at the—what did you call it?”

“Afrodite, downstairs on Sixth. Poor man's Mocambo—birds behind glass, tropical. Jungle atmosphere. Bunch of hard boys hang out there, too, which makes me wonder. Maybe Yates was on a job, huh? And he got somebody piqued at him. You going out there?”

“Maybe. Depends on what I run into.”

“You'll go out there. I know you, Shell. You get anything, let me know.” He laughed like crazy.

I hung up. I'd finished dressing and was strapping on my gun harness when the phone rang. I grabbed it and said hello.

“Mr. Scott?”

“Yeah.”

“This is Miss Redstone. I need some help, right away. Can you come to see me?”

“Well, hi. Sure, I wanted to talk to you this morning anyway. What's the trouble?”

“I'll have to explain when you get here. But somebody's tried twice to kill me. I'm sure of it. You
are
a detective, aren't you?”

“Yeah, but how did you know? And I thought you were mad at me. Last night—”

“Mother told me; she just phoned me. Look, you'll have to hurry. And I only have a minute. Do you know anything about calisthenics?”

“About what?”

“Calisthenics. Exercises, jump up and down. Mother said you were full of muscles, and that you were an ex-Marine. And I thought surely you'd know some exercises.”

“Baby, I know lots of exercises. It depends—”

“I've got to run. I'm at Fairview. You know where that is, don't you?”

“Uh...”

“You go out Figueroa and swing off at Maple, then turn left when you hit Traverse Road. About half a mile down there's a fence along the road and a wooden sign over the gate. You can't miss it. Can you get here in half an hour?”

“I could, but wait a minute. What do you mean, somebody tried to kill you?”

“They tried to gas me, and they tried to roll a rock on me. I'll have to explain it all when you get here. You will come, won't you?”

Something was buzzing around in my head, but I couldn't figure out what if was. One of the things she'd said had set off a little bell; which thing, though, I couldn't recall. She'd said so many odd things. “I suppose so,” I told her. “Incidentally, I repeat, you don't seem to be angry with me this morning.”

“Why should I be angry with you, Mr. Scott?”

“I just thought you would be. And I don't get this calisthenics business. What's that got to do with helping you?”

“We can't let anybody know you're a detective. What's your first name? Shell?”

“Yeah. From Sheldon, if that—”

“Good. We'll call you Don. Don Scott. I'll have to introduce you as the health director. So they won't be suspicious. See you here, then. I've got to hurry.”

“Yeah. Health director, huh? Don Scott, huh? You know, you don't make a damn bit of sense.” But I was talking to myself. She'd hung up.

I put the phone back in the cradle and sat down while I fumbled through my thoughts. That had been a strange conversation, and one of the strangest things was that the gal hadn't sounded much like Vera. Come to think of it, she hadn't sounded much like Vera at all. And then I got what had been buzzing in my skull. She'd said to turn left off Maple at Traverse Road. I got out the clipping Mrs. Redstone had given me. Yeah, Traverse Road was where Paul Yates had got it. Where he'd wound up face-down in the dirt.

I sat another minute, wondering, then got up, stuck my .38 Special in its holster, climbed into my coat, and left the apartment.

The intersection of Maple and Traverse Road was little more than a bump in Maple. I swung right on the rutted, dusty dirt road and drove a quarter of a mile slowly, then parked. From Samson's description, I knew this was about the place where Yates's body had been found, and I got out of the Cad and stood in approximately the same place where Yates had been standing a couple of mornings ago at about two A.M. It gave me a creepy feeling for a moment, but then I concentrated on the countryside. And countryside it was; I was only about five miles from the Civic Center, but it could have been fifty. A split-rail fence bordered the dirt road; beyond it, grass sloped gently uphill to massed trees. It was green and cool, and there wasn't even any smog out there.

I figured Yates must have been standing just about as I was, looking toward those trees. Somebody by the fence or even a couple of hundred yards away might have drawn a bead on him and squeezed the trigger. It seemed like a funny place for a guy to stand at two in the morning. Of course, he wouldn't have known he was going to be shot. But there wasn't anything out here except dust, grass, and trees, and I wondered what Yates had been waiting for. I got that creepy feeling again, a little tightening of my chest muscles. I trotted back to the Cad, climbed in, turned around, and drove back down Traverse Road.

My speedometer showed I'd gone six tenths of a mile beyond the Maple intersection when I saw the sagging gate. A weathered, faded sign arching over it said, “Fairview.” I parked next to it, got out, and stood before the gate, but I didn't see anybody. I couldn't get rid of that sensation of tightness, a crawling of hairs on the nape of my neck.

A length of chain was looped a couple of times around the end of the gate and the fence post, an enormous padlock securing it. Beyond the gate a path was worn, faintly yellow in green grass, going straight ahead for ten or fifteen yards and then curving left behind thick shrubbery and trees. Nobody was in sight.

I looked around for a doorbell—a real city boy, that's me. A tarnished cowbell hung on a frayed rope near the chain and padlock, so I grabbed it and gave it a couple of yanks. Sound clanked over the hills. Nothing happened. A minute passed, and then I heard a whisper of noise, like somebody running.

Then, with startling, almost overwhelming suddenness, a naked tomato swished out from the trees and loped around that curve in the path, straight toward me. Yeah, naked, stark staring nude.

Well, you should have heard me. I let out one hell of a noise.

Chapter Three

She was a little dark-haired doll and nobody I knew, but you can bet it was somebody I wanted to know.

She wasn't in any terrific hurry; nobody was chasing her. Not, I thought dazedly, yet. She ran right up to the gate and stopped. At least she stopped running, but it was quite a spell before she stopped moving completely.

“Hi,” she said.

I still had some of that tightness in my chest, but that seemed to be the least of my worries. I said, “Hello there!”

She smiled, and it seemed to me that she smiled all over. “You're Mr. Scott?”

“Yes. Sh—er, Don Scott. You call me Don.”

“Fine. We were expecting you.”

Wow, I thought. Maybe my reputation had preceded me. If this was what happened when I was expected, I was never going anyplace again without letting people know well in advance. Hell, I'd flood the States with posters: scott is on his way! I said, “Great. Good. I'm ... We? Who's we?”

“Miss Redstone told me to meet you and let you in.” She stuck a huge key into the padlock, unlocked the gate, and swung it open. It was a monstrous key, and she must have been holding it in her hand all the time, but I'd missed it. “Come on in,” she said.

I sprang inside like a gazelle. This gal was about five feet tall, in her early twenties, and cute enough to have looked delectable in red wool BVDs. But in all that sunlight, she was sensational. Maybe she was small, but she had more curves than the Long Beach Fun Zone, and she looked like more fun, too.

She smiled at me again, looked me up and down, and said impishly, “My, you're bigger than the last one. You'll do.”

“Do?” I said hoarsely. “Do ... what?”

“You're the new health director, aren't you? The last one got hurt. He's in the hospital.”

“What ... How was he hurt?
Where
was he hurt?”

She blinked. “A rock fell on him. Didn't you know?”

I pulled myself together a little, remembering that phone conversation this morning. “Oh, yes. That rock. Well...”

Man, I was really at a loss. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I did know, though, that what I was preparing to do was almost surely not what I was supposed to do. The little gal fixed that for me. She damn near fixed everything for both of us.

She turned her back to me and locked the gate. I guess that's what she was doing to it. Then she turned to face me again and said, “You go ahead, Mr. Scott. There isn't much time. Just follow the path, and after about a hundred yards you'll see the buildings. On the left, the long low green room is where you change. You can take off your clothes in there, then go to the main building. It's brown. You can't miss it.”

“OK, thanks. Incidentally, I don't think I caught your name.”

She smiled again. She smiled a lot. But, then, I had been smiling quite a lot myself. “I'm Peggy.”

“Swell. Hope I ... see you again soon, Peggy.”

“Of course. We'll get together later.”

I let out another sound, much softer than the first one, but of the same species, then I whirled around and started running up the path, trying to remember where she'd said to go. Most of what she'd said had been just words; listening to her had been like watching TV with the sound off. She'd said to go to some kind of green room up yonder and ...
No!

I spun around and raced back to the gate. “Let me out!” I shouted.

Peggy stood a few yards away, eyeing me curiously. “What?”

“I've been stabbed,” I said.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, woman. I mean there's been—is—some confusion. What do you
mean
by telling me to go up there and take off my clothes?”

She laughed. “Don't be silly. You didn't expect to keep them on, did you?”

“Lady. Miss. Peggy. Are there people up there?”

“Certainly. About a hundred. All the permanent members of Fairview.”

“Come on, tell me the truth. Don't they have their clothes on?”

“Of course not. How silly!”

“Where am I?” I cried. “What is this place? What have I got into? Are you ... nudists?”

She winced slightly. “Nobody calls us nudists. We're naturists. Health culturists. Sunbathers. Stop pulling my leg, Mr. Scott. Surely you—”

“Level with me now. You're
nudists.
”

She shook her head, then laughed slightly. “Well, I suppose in a sense you could call us nudists, if you must have it that way.”

“Well,” I said, “I have to go. Really I do. It's been fun, but I really do—”

She was frowning. “Mr. Scott, are you serious? I thought you were joking.”

I let go of the padlock and said, “What's the matter? I'm not irreplaceable, you know. But neither am I expendable. So—”

Her face was all twisted up. She acted like a babe about to break into tears. “You
are
serious,” she said. “Oh, how terrible! You know we can't get anybody else. Everything will be ruined. The Convention's just day after tomorrow and everybody's worked so awfully hard. You've
got
to help out. It'll break their hearts. Oh-h...”

“Hey, relax, honey. You—” I broke it off. This little gal seemed to think I knew a hell of a lot more about what was happening here in Fairview than I actually did know. Maybe it wasn't so smart to show my ignorance so obviously. I said, “I'm sorry, Peggy. It's just that I have a previous ... engagement.”

Her face stayed twisted up for a while, then it smoothed and she glared at me. “You're not going to do it. Most of us have planned a whole year for this. Now you stand right there, Mr. Scott, while I go get Miss Redstone. She'll straighten you out.”

She whirled and ran off up the path, arms flying, legs pumping, really in a hurry. I let out a big sigh and fumbled in my pants for cigarettes, lit one, and dragged deeply while I tried to calm down and think logically. It didn't work. Perhaps it was just as well. No matter how calm and logical I'd got myself, what happened next would have sent me straight back to wild and goofy.

Peggy came flying into sight again and cried, “Oh, good, he's still there!” Then she stopped and stood just off the path, panting hard, and I could hear more feet pattering behind her. And then it happened.

Another naked woman happened.

But simply to say “another naked woman” is like saying Mount Everest is higher than some hills. Again it was a woman I'd never seen—and it sure as hell wasn't Vera Redstone—but I knew this one wasn't getting away from me. Nor was I considering getting away from her. I even took a couple of steps forward as she ran up and stopped in front of me.

She was maybe five-six, with hair like copper and brass melted together by the sun, with eyes a bright, clear blue, with long dark lashes sweeping up from smooth lids. She was deeply bronzed by the sun, and from her tiny waist and flat stomach clean lines swept up to big firm breasts and curved down around sleek, generous hips. She was the picture of health and beauty and sex and sheer joy of living all wrapped up in a completely appropriate frame.

She said softly to me, “Don't say anything.” Then she turned her head, the fine lustrous hair flashing in the sunlight, and said, “Go back, Peggy. Mr. Scott and I will follow you.”

Peggy nodded, trotted out of sight.

The girl said, “You almost ruined everything, Mr. Scott. Peggy's all mixed up.”

I found my voice. “She can't be as mixed up as I am.”

“I'm sorry. I guess it's my fault, really. I was in such a rush when I phoned you, and I'm so worried, too. About ... well, when somebody's trying to kill you, you're not always as intelligible as you should be.”

“Miss,” I said, “you're not Miss Redstone. I mean Vera. When she—you phoned, I just assumed it was Mrs. Poupelle. That was the only Miss Redstone I ever heard of.”

“Vera's my sister. I'm Laurel Redstone.”

“Then who the hell is Sydney?”

She laughed. “I'm Sydney. You must have got that from Mother. My full name's Sydney Laurel Redstone. Ever since high school I've been called Laurel—by everybody except Mother. We'll have to hurry now, Mr. Scott, I shouldn't have been gone this long.”