Although Bertha always looked immaculate, her apartment was always in a perpetual mess, and now, plus half opened suitcases, clothes all over it was in even a worse mess.
“Throw something on, baby,” I said. “We’ll eat out. I’ve things to talk about.”
She gave me a quick probing stare, then went into her bedroom. She returned, dressed and immaculate in under ten minutes which was a record for her.
“Something happened?”
“Yeah, but it’ll keep. We’ll go to Chez Louis. We can talk there, and baby, I need a sleeping companion.”
“No problem.” She hooked her arm in mine. It wasn’t until we had reached the Maser that I understood her docile performance. Usually, we would always have an argument about where we were to eat. I gave a wry grin as I helped her into the car. She was already imagining I was worth a million dollars.
It wasn’t until we had settled in the small restaurant which was half empty and had ordered blue crab and steaks stuffed with oysters that I told her the news.
Fortified with a champagne cocktail, she listened without popping with her eyes.
“Could be a coincidence,” she said when I was through.
“Could be hell! Highbee the night before last. Jimbo last night,” I said. “I told you, babe, these guys are lethal.”
“They can’t do anything to you.”
“I hope not.”
“Then the sooner you talk to Hamel, the safer it’ll be for us to pack and blow.”
“I can’t talk to him yet.”
“Why not?”
“The wife of his attorney and his wife’s best friend has died,” I explained patiently. “This isn’t the moment to get to see him. It’s going to be a real job anyway to see him without this complication.”
She attacked her crab.
“What’s the complication about seeing him?” she asked finally.
“I can’t just drop in.” I explained to her about the security of Paradise Largo.
“Man! What it is to be rich!” Bertha sighed.
“Sure is. So I’ll have to wait for the dust to settle, then I’ll try getting him on the phone. I’m not going to write... that’s evidence if it turns sour.”
She continued to eat, but I could see by her frown she was thinking. When she laid down her fork, after making sure there wasn’t a morsel left, she said, “Attend the funeral.”
“What the hell should I be doing attending Penny Highbee’s funeral?”
“Didn’t your Agency ever do work for Highbee?”
“Come to think of it, a good dozen jobs.”
“So... showing the Agency’s respects.”
“What makes you think Hamel will be there?”
“Bart! If he isn’t, it doesn’t matter. If he is, you tell him you need to see him urgently. He’ll fix a date. Anyway, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
I didn’t dig the idea, but decided it would be better than trying to get through on the telephone.
“I don’t know where the funeral is to be or where.”
“God give me strength!” Bertha moaned. “You’re a goddamn detective, aren’t you? Find out!”
Glenda Kerry looked up from the mail spread out on her desk and gave me her cool, impersonal stare.
“Hi, delicious,” I said. “Here I am: all ready for work. What’s cooking?”
“You have the Solly Herschenheimer stint, starting at midday today.”
I stared at her.
“You wouldn’t be kidding?”
“They asked for you. Why, I can’t imagine. I was going to give it to Chick, but they wanted you.”
“Is this good news! Naturally, they wanted me: I’m educated and handsome. Okay, I’ll be there dead on the nail.”
The Solly Herschenheimer stint, as it was known in the Agency, came around every year. It was the softest job the Agency had ever landed. I never found out what Herschenheimer had to pay, but I was sure it was plenty. That didn’t worry me: the job was a pushover and the food out of this world.
Solly Herschenheimer was an enormously wealthy eccentric with a rooted idea that he was in constant danger of being assassinated. No one, including Chief of Police Terrell, was able to convince him otherwise. He refused to name his enemies, and the general opinion was that he was a harmless nut case. He lived like a recluse and employed two bodyguards who were supposed to be on constant watch against an attack. When the time came for one of the bodyguards to take his vacation, the Parnell Agency was called in to supply a substitute. I had been lucky the previous year to get the job, and now, I was getting it again.
The job was a vacation in itself. There was nothing to do except wander around the grounds of the big house, watch T. V. in the evenings and eat enormous luxury meals Herschenheimer’s butler, Jarvis, provided. The only drawback to the job was the old nut frowned on liquor, but the guards supplied their own, and no bones were broken.
At the end of two weeks, when the guard returned, the substitute received a $200 took which alone made the job the ambition of all operators working for the Agency. To land this plum twice running was indeed a gift from the gods.
“You know Mr. Herschenheimer has moved residence?” Glenda asked.
“I didn’t. Where’s he now?”
“Paradise Largo. He’s been there for the past three months. That’s where you are to report.”
I wondered immediately if his new place was near Hamel’s residence. With a feeling of excitement, I realized, working on the Largo, could give me the chance of calling on Hamel without attracting attention.
The cards seemed to be falling my way.
“Okay, lovely,” I said. “I’ll get moving.”
I had learned from Fanny Battley that the Highbee funeral was taking place at 10.30. I would have time to attend, and still get to my new job by midday.
As soon as I arrived at the cemetery, I saw that Bertha’s idea of contacting Hamel was a non-starter. At a rough guess, there were some three hundred mourners milling around. I waited, trying to look sorrowful, my eyes searching for Hamel. It was only after the burial that I did see him. He was with Nancy who was in total black. He had his arm around her as if supporting her.
I edged my way through the crowd until I was close enough to get a good look at her. What I saw shocked me. She looked like a ghost: white, her eyes sunken, her lips trembling, and tears made her face glisten.
I saw this was no time to ask Hamel for a date. As I began to move away, Nancy suddenly collapsed. Hamel caught her up in his arms and carried her down the pathway between the graves and to a waiting car.
There was a movement in the crowd and a few hushed voices. I watched the car drive away.
“Mr. Anderson...”
I turned to find Mel Palmer regarding me.
“A sad occasion, Mr. Anderson.” He looked as sad as a man who has picked up a $100 bill. “We all have but a short time to live... sad.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m afraid it has upset Mr. Hamel, but fortunately, his book is now finished.” Palmer positively beamed. “The book is a major triumph! The best he has ever written!”
“Right now, he seems to have a problem with Mrs. Hamel. She seemed also upset.”
“Yes... yes.” He was obviously not interested in Nancy. “But time is a great healer. She will make new friends.”
Spotting someone he knew, he nodded to me and hurried away.
I walked thoughtfully back to where I had parked the Maser. I was puzzled. I was certain Nancy was Lucia Pofferi: a vicious, two-time murderess, and yet I was sure her show of grief wasn’t faked. The answer to this oddity could be that Pofferi had given her no inkling he was going to kill the woman who had befriended her, but when the faked accident had happened, Nancy had guessed the truth. This could prove interesting. Would this ruthless act of murder turn her against Pofferi?