Julian had denied Bannerman was an embezzler. What was left?
An expression of incredulity had crossed her face. “You won’t tell me!”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You won’t tell me!” Her hand, no longer calla-like, banged the bar-top venomously. “You — hulking moron! A trained gorilla! And you sit there and refuse to tell me!”
Sheffold put a huge hand over her fist. His unsmiling eyes were fixed on her face. “Don’t say things like that, Mrs. Richards,” he said softly. “You know I couldn’t hit a lady and I’d lose my job if I threw you out. But I can sit here and crush your hand without anybody realizing it.”
She tried to pull away but she was impotent against his tremendous strength.
“You’d have to wear it in a cast,” he said, in a remote voice. “And you wouldn’t like that. Once I had my back in a cast for eight months, and I know about those things. It’s not much fun.”
“Don’t—” she gasped. “Please!”
His hand relaxed slowly, and his head tilted back and then snapped forward like a man who has almost drowsed off. His voice changed suddenly. “If there is another woman, where would they go?”
She cradled the tortured hand. “I don’t know. Perhaps — there’s a cottage above Franklin Canyon. He — goes there sometimes. Why do you want to know?”
“Julian is worried,” Sheffold said. “Somebody should tell Bannerman that Julian is worried.” He laid a gentle finger on her hand. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I wish I hadn’t done that.”
Her head came up. Her mouth was still tormented. “I seemed to have underestimated you, Sheffold. If you like, I can drive you up the canyon in my car.”
He nodded. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”
He started through the bar toward the stairs, and then veered off as Laurel Owens entered from the street. She knew how to dress and to wear makeup. She was sophisticated and glittering now, in a gold-flaked white dress. She belonged here. Pete Sheffold wondered how wrong he’d been. This was not a girl from the Mid-West.
“Hello,” she said. Her smile at least seemed honest. “I came a little early. I wanted to see you.”
“It’s all right,” he said curtly. “Save your eighty-five cents. Julian is going to talk to you.” Her smile was collapsing at the corners as he pushed past her and went upstairs and looked into the office.
Julian still sat at his desk, running an electric shaver over his swarthy cheeks before his midnight descent into his gilded deadfall.
“I’m taking a customer home,” Sheffold said carefully. If Julian read into it that the customer was drunk, it was his own doing. “Mrs. Malcolm Richards.”
Julian nodded indifferently; nothing to indicate he might know about her and Bannerman. He shut off the shaver as Sheffold started to close the door. “Pete — do you think I should call the police?”
Sheffold turned back, his hand still on the doorknob. “Not yet. Not tonight. Is that what you wanted me to say?”
“Yes,” Julian said gratefully. “Thanks, Pete.”
It was the closest he would bring himself to putting his need for help into words. Sheffold looked at him for a long second and what passed for a smile flitted over his lips. Then he closed the door quietly.
Down in the parking lot, Jerry Sims had just brought up Rhoda Richards’ green convertible. He tossed the keys to Sheffold and his eyes were bright and wise.
“Sucker,” he whispered. “Would you still be high-hat if I told you the ante’s up to half of fifty bucks?”
Bannerman’s cottage sat on the prow of a hill, remote, silent and disowned in the white moonlight. The windows were dark. The odor of sage brush was illicit perfume. A loop of driveway encircled the house, widening in front into a parking area. A tree toad objected shrilly as Sheffold stopped the convertible, and then subsided. The distant murmur of the city was audible only if the hearing reached out for it. Nothing, really, penetrated the stillness.
Sheffold mounted the steps, knocked, waited and knocked again. “Mr. Bannerman!” His voice weighted heavily on the silence. “It’s Pete. I have to talk to you.”
The night held its breath, and then let it go again. Far off to the left on a taller mountain an airplane beacon winked a red eye at the moon.
Sheffold said impassively, “Give me your key.”
Her hesitation was almost imperceptible, a reflex action. Then she fumbled in a gold-mesh evening bag and handed it to him.
Sheffold opened the door and clicked on a light switch. Trapped, fetid air escaped past him into the night. There had been no ventilation in there for too long. The room was large, luxurious in its furnishings, uninhabited. Two doors, one opening on to the kitchen, the other a bedroom.
Rhoda said, in a muted voice, “There’s no one. You can see that from here.”
Sheffold crossed the room. The bedroom was empty; the bed hadn’t been made up. He glanced into the kitchen. There was a sink full of dirty dishes, and under that, a garbage can that had needed emptying days ago. Somebody had opened a lot of canned goods, mostly soups. There was a row of empty bottles on the floor.
Sheffold, restless, went back to the bedroom and through it to the bath. Outside, a car’s motor growled around a steep hairpin turn.
He couldn’t find a light switch but he didn’t need it. A window framed a square of immaculate night sky with a tinfoil moon pasted in the center, and pale light gleamed without warmth on white tile. Dirty towels were heaped in the bath tub. Beyond that was a stall shower with a thick glass door.
Sheffold stared at the opaque door while he counted slowly to ten. Rhoda, behind him, tried to push past to see what held his attention, but she couldn’t move his bulk. Presently Sheffold moved across the room till he stood beside the window facing the shower. One of the faucets hadn’t been turned off tightly enough and it bleeped monotonously behind the glass. With his elbow he eased the door open.
“Is there—?” Rhoda’s voice was thin as a breath. “He’s not—”
Sheffold reached in and tightened the faucet absently. He shook his head. The shower, damp and sour, was empty. Rhoda’s hand went to her temple and she swayed.
Sheffold turned toward her just as the glass in the window exploded inward and fiery pain danced along the side of his head. Rhoda screamed once, a brief, smothered sound. The sharp, dry report was a half-beat behind.
Sheffold tumbled forward to his knees, out of range. Something warm and sticky trickled down the side of his face. Mistily he saw Rhoda topple over and wondered how the same shot could have struck her too. He didn’t think there had been more than one.
He shook his head roughly and some of the mist floated away from his eyes. He said sharply, as Rhoda’s form moved toward him in the darkness, “Stay down! Don’t make a target.”
“Oh, Lord,” she sobbed. “I thought you were dead. What happened? In the name of heaven, what was it?”
“Ambush,” he said dryly.
It was flying glass from the window, he decided, that had gashed his head. The shot had missed him completely. Without straightening, he reached into the bathtub and found a towel and daubed at the blood.
Outside, the tree toad was piping its outrage. There was no other sound. A long five minutes crawled away before Sheffold said, “We can’t stay here all night. I think he’s gone anyhow.”
“It was meant for me,” Rhoda said drearily. “He was shooting at me.”
He put an edge in his voice. “You’re over-estimating yourself now. Bannerman doesn’t shoot discarded girl friends. He just says good-by.” Sheffold pushed past her into the lighted living room.