Tanner nodded. “Yeah, but very old and very Greek.”
The girls squealed in despair. There was some kind of communication gap here.
“I’ve never been to a Greek disco before,” the prettier one said.
I nudged Tanner. “Let’s keep moving,” I said. There was no contest. It would have been too easy.
Tanner nudged me back. “We can nail them, old buddy,” he said in a mock whisper.
I grabbed Tanner’s arm and said, “Come on, champ.” To the girls I said, “Good night, ladies. Don’t you know the dangers of chance sexual encounters?”
I hauled Tanner away against his protests and left the girls with a look of wide-eyed wonder on their faces. Defender of the innocent, protector of a maiden’s chastity. Was I a man living in the wrong century?
“Laura told me Wheelock called Alicia a couple of months ago,” I said.
Tanner raised his eyebrows. “And she doesn’t know where he is?”
I shook my head.
“Fond of the sauce, he was. The guy could always drink you and me together under the table.” He paused. “Think he whacked Alicia?”
“I don’t know. The odds are good. She didn’t want to go out with him. You know what a hard head he was.” I pictured Wheelock’s face. Flat, cold, smooth with deep-set eyes. “He was capable of it.”
Tanner nodded. “Maybe. Let me make some calls. You never know. He might turn up under some rock.”
CHAPTER XVII
Justine rolled over on her side and gave me one of those sleepy, satisfied smiles. The pink satin sheet had fallen away and exposed her tired left breast.
I smiled back at her. She wasn’t bad-looking for her age. You could see she’d once been able to turn heads on the street but time and some of life’s little disappointments had etched their passage on her face.
She ran the tips of her fingers over my face and lips. Long ruby-red nails, beautifully manicured. The final chords of a Mozart concerto echoed through the house. It was a long piece with violas and woodwinds. I used to know which one, but now I forget.
I leaned over and nuzzled her neck. Her perfume smelled good, but it wasn’t Shalimar. She put her arms around me and pulled me to her. The motion was feminine, eternal, giving.
I hadn’t meant it to turn out this way when I called her at Chisolm’s office. I was trying to find whatever I could without being too obvious, but soon we were sliding down that slippery slope. Now I was flat on my back in Chisolm’s bed with his secretary and his house was wide open to me. Chisolm and his wife were out of town for the weekend and Justine just sort of hinted that her mother wouldn’t take it too kindly if she brought a man home to spend the night. My place, of course, was being painted, as it always is when such a need arises.
She climbed out of bed with a sigh and padded off to the bathroom. Her buttocks were a little too full and her thighs were cratered with what was popularly called cellulite, but you could see she worked out regularly. She was limber and in reasonably good shape. I guessed she was in her mid-forties.
She blew me a kiss as she closed the bathroom door. I lay back in the bed. It was a custom-made job, as big as a Civil War battlefield. I wondered if Chisolm kept a box score of his sexual encounters with his wife-or if he even had sex with her.
The ceiling was lavender, just like the walls. The room looked like some kind of training ground for the Sex Olympics. Mirrors, exercise equipment, bidet, the works. At the foot of the bed was some kind of a roll bar whose use I couldn’t figure out.
I tossed back the sheets and got dressed. By the time she came out of the bathroom I was standing by the window with my jacket and tie on and a really strong craving for a cigarette. She raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. She was wearing a white satin robe that had a fluffy collar and cuffs like the heroines used to wear in those films noir of the forties. Mrs. Chisolm’s maybe?
“I guess I should get dressed too,” she said as she brushed her hair back with long slow strokes.
“Tempus fugit,” I said.
“I know, I know,” she nodded. “We’ve stayed longer than we should have.” She finished the last slow strokes and said, “Do you think we could have one more drink?”
I spread my hands. “Sure, if you make it as good as the last one.”
She giggled like a teenager. Some women never lose that quality. She snapped off a sharp military salute. “Yes, sir. An extra dry martini coming right up.” Without makeup her skin looked drier and sallower, the way Irish girls look as they age.
The martini was better than the first one, or was it just that booze tastes better after the act?
As she sipped her drink, her eyes questioned me. “Was it wrong to do it or was it just wrong to do it here?”
“Neither,” I said. “No one was hurt and there was no damage, if you don’t count the stained sheets.”
She reddened. The flush was apparent through her translucent skin. “Oh, don’t be concerned about that. I’ll have them cleaned and the bed made like new before they get back.”
I had the feeling she’d done this before. We carried our drinks down an endless corridor and went down two steps into a sunken living room. The house was done in a slick modern style that suited Chisolm. There were huge abstract paintings on all the walls. Each room had its own fireplace and they were so clean it was apparent they had never been used.
We lingered another half-hour over the drinks. Our conversation was the talk of two solitary souls who knew the words would be the last between them.
When I stood up, she got to her feet and went down the hallway back to the bedroom to get dressed. After she was gone, I had a chance to scope out the alarm system and the window locks. I left one of the living room windows open a crack.
She must have sensed something because she was back faster than a thoroughbred out of the gate.
“Ready, dahling?” she said, and she held the ah just a split-second longer than necessary.
I nodded. As we stood in the entranceway, she flicked on the alarm and checked to see that the red dot was lit.
“We have forty-five seconds to get out,” she said with a wistful grin.
I grabbed her. “Just enough time for a goodbye kiss.”
Her lips were soft. And, as I turned her around, I shut off the alarm. It was a long and deep kiss. When it was time, I turned her again and led her out the door.
Before an hour had passed I was back inside the house. It was one of those contemporary colonials that was neither contemporary nor colonial, just a bastardized edition of some architect’s vision. Like Chisolm, the house was ostentatious. It stood on the crest of a small hill in the center of four acres of neatly-tended grounds. What percent he owned and what percent the bank owned was a question to speculate on.
I had all the time I needed to inspect the house. There was nothing unusual in the standard hiding places. He had a safe in his office that was easy to locate. It was behind a false front of the Harvard Classics and, knowing Chisolm the way I thought I did, there was only one reason for him to have the Harvard Classics in his home-as a false front for a safe.
I didn’t even try to crack it.
The house was large-too large for just two people. I went through every room. The interior was expensively detailed, with hand-carved moldings and plaster walls. You could see that these were people who entertained a lot, and extravagantly. The house seemed designed for that. One room served as a photo gallery and there I got a lot of views of Mrs. Chisolm. She looked a few years older than her husband, not unattractive, with a patrician solidness about her. I might have recognized her face from some society photos I’d seen in the Times. She had a square jaw and a clear intelligence in the eyes-or was it just arrogance?
I’d have to find out more about this babe. The green-eyed monster was a nasty son of a bitch. If she didn’t know her husband had broken up with my wife…