“I’ll make a deal with you, then. Tell me where Wilma works and I’ll get out.”
Helen hesitated only a moment. “All right, she works at the Halsey-Wilshire.”
“What department?”
“The glove counter.”
Peel picked up the telephone directory and turned to the H’s. Helen let him start to dial the number before she exclaimed, “All right, she works for a talent agency on the Strip — The Horatio Oliver Agency.”
Peel grinned. “This time I think you’re telling the truth.”
“You’d find out, anyway.”
“That I would. Thanks for the workout.”
He went to the door and gripped the doorknob. Then he turned. “You wouldn’t care to split a hamburger sandwich and a bottle of beer with me this evening?”
“I have a date — at the Mocambo,” Helen Gray replied coldly.
“I was afraid of that,” Peel said and went out.
He walked down the five flights of stairs and was so wrapped in thought that he didn’t see the man who was leaning against an apartment house on the opposite comer, reading a newspaper. Nor did he see the man fold the newspaper and follow him down toward Hollywood Boulevard.
9
On Hollywood Boulevard Peel stopped for a moment, undetermined as to whether to go to his hotel on Ivar and have a short nap, or go and call on Wilma Huston at her place of employment. Duty finally won and he cut down Las Palmas to Sunset where he stepped aboard a bus. The man who had followed him from the Lehigh Apartments had to run to catch the same bus.
After the bus passed La Cienga, Peel watched the buildings as they whizzed by; almost every one bore the signs of Hollywood agents. The signs were big; their owners intended them to be seen.
The Horatio Oliver Agency sign sprawled across a two-story building in the last block of the Strip, just before Sunset Boulevard turned into Beverly Hills.
Peel swung off the bus at the next stop and walked back. He entered the Oliver Building and climbed the stairs to the second floor, entering a modernistically-furnished reception room. A switchboard was behind a glass partition.
Wilma Huston was at the switchboard.
A frightened look came to her face as she recognized Peel.
“Hello,” he said quietly.
“I told you I’d get in touch with you.”
“I know,” Peel replied, “but I thought you’d be glad to know that that little job’s taken care of already. Jolliffe won’t bother you any more…”
She stared at him in amazement. “But he… he’s dead.”
“That’s why he won’t bother you any more.”
“I… I saw it in the paper after I called at your office.” A shudder ran through her body. “It’s horrible.”
“Ain’t it?”
The switchboard whirred and Wilma plugged a connection.
“Horatio Oliver Agency,” she said into a mouthpiece. “Just a moment, please.” She made another connection and spoke again. “Dorothy Lamour calling you, Mr. Oliver…”
“No kidding!” said Joe Peel.
Wilma put down the telephone mouthpiece. The interruption had steadied her. “I’m sorry, Mr. Peel, I can’t talk to you here…”
“It’s almost lunch time,” Peel suggested. “How about then?”
“I don’t go until one…”
“Good,” said Peel, “I’ll meet you downstairs at one…” As Wilma frowned “There’s some things I’ve got to tell you… about Jolliffe…”
She nodded. “All right”
It was twenty minutes to twelve by the clock in the reception room. Peel made a note of it and left the agency offices.
Standing in front of the building he saw the sign, across the street, of Ole’s Swedish Baths and was reminded of the aching muscles in his body, mememtoes of last night’s outing on Mulholland Drive. He crossed the street and descended a flight of stairs into the baths.
An attendant led him to a booth containing a cot and some coat hangers. He gave Peel a towel and a pair of crepe-paper slippers.
Peel stripped and, completely nude, carried the towel with him into the hot-air chamber, a narrow room containing three tiers of unpainted wooden benches. The temperature in the room, according to a thermometer on the wall, read 182.
Being midday Peel was the only occupant of the room, but after he had been seated in the chamber for a few moments another man came in. He was tanned, well-muscled man of about thirty and he brought with him a copy of Adventure Magazine. He climbed on the top tier and seated himself.
Peel, seated on the lowest bench, shook his head. The higher you got the hotter it was in the chamber and he could scarcely breath down where he was. The man above was apparently a Swedish bath ‘regular.’
Five minutes in the room and Peel could stand it no longer. He got up, opened the door and stepped into the shower room. He drew great lungfuls of the comparatively cooler air.
A short, amazingly well-built attendant in white duck trousers and singlet, came into the room.
“You’re hardly wet,” he commented.
“I think I’ve got enough,” said Peel.
“Take five minutes more,” the attendant urged.
Peel went back into the hot-air room. The man on the top was reading placidly. Peel gave him a sharp look, started to seat himself on the lowest tier, then looked up at the other man again.
“Don’t I know you?” Peel asked.
The man looked down at Peel. “I get around; maybe.” He went back to his reading.
Peel sat down and leaped up instantly. The bare plank was so hot that it had scorched him. He paced up and down on the tiled floor as the perspiration poured from his body.
Then he could stand it no longer and burst from the room. In the shower room the muscular attendant looked condescendingly at him.
“That ain’t hardly enough; whyn’t you go into the steam room for ten minutes?” He nodded toward a heavy wooden door which had a glass panel in the top of it, but was so clouded from steam inside the room that it might just as well not have been there.
Muttering under his breath, Peel headed for the steam room.
“Ten minutes in there, a nice shower and then I’ll give you a good rubdown,” the attendant said, cheerfully.
Peel pulled open the steam room door and stepped into steam so thick he couldn’t see two inches in front of his eyes. He reached out with his hand.
“Anybody in here?”
There was no reply and Peel concluded that he was the sole occupant. He inhaled steam, choked and cleared his throat and inhaled more lungfuls of steam. Ahead was dim light and he groped toward it.
His fingers touched hot wet tile and he stopped.
Behind him the steam room door opened, banged shut. Peel turned.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” said another voice.
Then suddenly Peel remembered where he had seen the man in the hot-air chamber. He was the man who had come out of Wilbur Jolliffe’s office the day before, the furtive man with his coat collar turned up.
And just as he remembered that, a fist swished through the thick steam and almost drove Peel’s Adam’s apple through his spinal cord. Peel went back against the tile wall, bounced off it and into a fist that bent him double.
Gasping in anguish, Peel’s arm flailed out and encountered hot, wet flesh. He clawed for it, secured a slippery arm and endeavored to wrap his other arm about a torso.
A powerful arm circled his head, pulled Peel to the other man’s body.
“Teach you to mind your own business,” a voice gritted in Peel’s ear. It was followed by a fist in Peel’s face.
“Lemme go,” Peel choked.
“Get out of town,” exclaimed the other man. “Get out of town and stay out, if you know what’s good for you.”
Peel tried to wrestle with the other man, but could obtain no grip on the slippery body. He dropped to one knee and a hard fist smashed down on the back of his neck. Peel’s chin hit the floor.