On the lounge was the morning newspaper. GERMANY CONSIDERS INVASION OF ENGLAND, was the headline, and the story under it, with a photograph, was TROTSKY ATTACKED, DIES OF WOUNDS. She swept the newspaper and current history on the floor and motioned for me to sit on the leather lounge. I did.
She stood in front of me for about a minute and then, slowly and deliberately, unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor. Beneath it she wore a pink slip.
“Are we going swimming?” I asked.
She shook her head no and unbuttoned her white blouse. The bra matched the slip and her skin was tan and smooth. It was happening, but I couldn’t figure out why and didn’t want to ask. Brenda Stallings, the beautiful blonde who had appeared in front of me in theaters ten times her own size in love scenes with Gable and Freddie March, was looking at me as if I were Flynn.
“I don’t get it,” I said reluctantly as she bent over to unbutton my shirt. “I’m not giving you the photograph.”
She smiled and finished unbuttoning my shirt. Then she leaned over and put her mouth against mine. She caught mine open. To say I was excited would be as useless as saying FDR wanted a third term.
“I don’t want the photograph,” she whispered.
She unzipped my pants and helped me out of them and then stood back to drop her bra and slip so that I could see her. Her breasts stood up and the hair between her legs was golden yellow. If she’d asked then, I would have gladly given her the photograph and the hell with the case, Adelman and Flynn.
I dropped my drawers and sat naked on the lounge looking at her as she walked toward me, the light from the pool reflecting against her browned body.
She leaned over me again gently touching the stitches in my head. Then she kissed them and pushed me on my back on the lounge.
“How did you break your nose?” she whispered, returning to my face.
“Accidents,” I said, thinking of other things.
“You’ve had a violent life haven’t you?” she said, her wide blue eyes inches from mine and her body on me.
“More than most,” I said. I knew I was sweating.
She was up on top of me with a push, and I felt myself entering her. She was soft, wet and warm and moving rapidly. I was confused and barely in control. I don’t know how I knew she was ready, but I knew, and it was just in time. I let go and she groaned happily. She leaned forward and kissed me again for a long time before getting off of me and moving away.
“That was nice,” she said, putting her clothes back on.
I followed her lead and began to dress. I think I was shaking, but I don’t think I showed it.
When I was dressed and standing, she moved close to me and put her arms around my waist. I put my battered nose into her hair and smelled perfume or sweat.
“We’ll have to do this again,” she said taking my hand and leading me to a door at the back of the pool house.
“The sooner, the better,” I said. She kissed my cheek and opened the door. About ten yards in front of us was a gate. It looked like the rear of the house.
“You can go through there and around to the front for your car. Next time we’ll meet at your place.”
“I don’t think you’ll like it,” I said, grinning at her stupidly.
“I’ll like it,” she said moving away and back to the pool house.
Then I heard the voice, a girl’s voice from the house or the pool. I couldn’t make out the words.
Brenda looked suddenly nervous and waved goodby. Something was strange. I took a step toward her and not toward the gate. She started to close the pool house door. I put my hand on it, and we repeated the scene we had gone through at the front door.
“I want you to leave, Mr. Peters,” she whispered urgently.
“I thought I was Toby, and we were in love,” I whispered back, forcing my way into the pool house past her. She followed me to the door.
On the other side of the pool, across from us stood a girl in a blue dress. She was looking into the sun and squinting at us.
She took a step or two toward us around the pool, and I could see that she looked about 14, a little older than she did in the photograph with Flynn. I fingered the picture of the girl’s head I had in my pocket as she walked toward us, a slight touch of curiosity on her face.
“Mother,” she said, looking at Brenda, “you weren’t in the house, so …”
“That’s all right, Lynn,” said Brenda brightly. “Mr. Peters is from Warners. He was talking to me about a picture. Well, Mr. Peters, perhaps you could call me later, and we’ll finish our talk. I think we can work something out.”
She shook my hand and smiled as if nothing had happened. I had been taken, but not far enough. She had wanted me out of that house when the girl came home, and she knew the way to get me out. She hadn’t batted an eyelash when I had showed her her daughter’s picture.
“Your mother is a very fine actress,” I said to the girl.
The girl looked childish and innocent. Her eyes scanned me, my clothes and my scars with some question about my credentials as a studio executive, but she was too polite to say anything.
“Brenda,” I said, taking both of the woman’s hands. “I’ve enjoyed our talk, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say later. I’ll call.”
“Please do,” she said, guiding me back through the house. The girl trailed behind us.
As I stepped out the front door and down the stairs I looked back at the mother and daughter. The girl was shorter than her mother, and dark like her father. They both smiled and waved.
“I hope to see you again, Mr. Peters,” Lynn said politely.
“You will,” I said, with a wink and a return wave. Brenda was still smiling politely. The world continued to smile at me, and I didn’t know what the hell it was all about.
As I walked toward the street, I heard the distant growl of the two friendly dogs. I hurried along and went out of the metal gate, closing it behind me just as Jamie and Ralph appeared. I didn’t know if Brenda Stallings would have called them off this time, and I didn’t want to find out. I’d had enough excitement for one afternoon.
5
My office was in the Farraday Building on Hoover near Ninth, not far from my apartment. I don’t know who Farraday was, but the building bearing his name deserved to be condemned in 1930 or restored as an historical relic.
The Farraday Building was a four-story refuge for second-rate dentists, alcoholic doctors and insolvent baby photographers. My rent was paid not to the management but to Sheldon Minck, one of the dentists. I sublet a side office from Sheldon, who had been one of my first clients when I became a private investigator. I tracked down deadbeats who didn’t pay their bills. I threatened to forceably remove their bridgework if they didn’t spit up what they owed. I did pretty well until one fat woman in North Hollywood hit me in the face with a bottle of Fleischman’s Gin. Sheldon fixed my teeth, and we had become something like friends.
There was an echo and smell of Lysol when I walked through the lobby toward the fake marble stairs. I could hear the faint snoring of a bum somewhere in the darkness. I ignored it and started walking up the three flights.
Very few potential clients came to my office. If a client called, I met him at his home or business or a cafe or coffee joint.
Fading black, block letters greeted me on the pebble glass door:
SHELDON MINCK, D.D.S., S.D.
Dentist
TOBY PETERS
Private Investigator
The S.D. after Sheldon’s name didn’t mean anything. He thought it might give him an edge with off-the-street patients. It was probably the only office in California where you could get your teeth filled and your runaway grandmother found in one visit.