“Do you honestly expect me to believe you mean that?”
“You’re damn tootin’ I mean it, Layton,” the redhead said. “Sure, I attract men. I’m the girl of their dreams — their sex dreams. But somehow there’s never a wedding ring mixed up in it.”
“I thought Tutter wanted to marry you.”
Her lips twisted. “So did I. But I was kidding myself. I realize now that he conned me into thinking of myself as a bride on the basis of a few vague promises that didn’t add up to a thing. How in hell could he marry me when all along he was living with his wife and enjoying every minute of it?” She grabbed for another cigarette and Layton lit it for her. She began to smoke in quick, bitter spurts.
“So you’ve come around to believing that Nancy King was telling the truth.”
“Yes. The police checked her out. Can you imagine that bastard playing me that way — and me falling for it?”
Layton said nothing.
“Maybe I was lucky at that. If I’d found out beforehand what a sucker he was playing me for, I might have been tempted to go after him with an ice pick myself. As it is” — she shrugged again — “it’s left me free to hop right into bed with somebody else.”
“With an old man?”
“Hubie?” Lola showed her white teeth. “He’s not so old where it counts. And these old bucks can be mighty grateful to a girl for making them feel twenty-one again. He’s been very generous to me.”
“I take it you and Stander got together again on his initiative, not yours?”
“Yes, Mr. Layton,” Lola Arkwright said icily. “I don’t call men, they call me. When the day comes that I have to do the calling, you’ll find that I took an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.”
“It sort of surprised me,” Layton murmured, “that he’d risk going back to you so soon after King’s death.”
That seemed to please her. “Hubie’s always had a big thing for me. He never really gave up after I left him for Tutter. I had to keep saying no.”
“And you don’t think he might have killed King to change your no back to a yes?”
“Men don’t kill for the likes of me. I told you.”
“What’s the matter with the likes of you? You’re attractive, you have brains—”
The redhead laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re on the make, too.” She shook her head. “In Hubie’s book I’m an occasional night’s fun. In my book he’s the guy who pays my bills. That’s all it ever was and all it ever will be.”
“Well, the stories jibe,” Layton said. “That’s about what Stander told me, too.”
“What do you mean?” Lola said. “What did Stander tell you?”
“He ridiculed the idea that he would commit murder over you,” Layton said; he had to keep his voice flat and dehumanized to be able to say it at all. “I think I can quote him verbatim: ‘The Lolas in this town are a dime a dozen. I could have all the Lolas I want by snapping my fingers. She happens to be handy, that’s all.’”
She jumped off the divan as if he had slapped her. She stood over Layton, white-faced, with clenched hands.
“Hubie said that? To you?”
“Yes, Lola,” Layton said.
“You’re lying in your teeth!”
“Didn’t you just tell me practically the same thing?”
She was shaking in her fury. “The—!” she said thickly. “A dime a dozen, am I? That’s going to cost him a hell of a lot more than a dime! He’ll be crawling on his belly — without that corset he wears! — before I’m through with him!”
Layton sat quietly.
She stopped shaking and sat down suddenly. “Maybe Stander did kill Tutter. Tutter had something on him.”
“What?” Layton asked.
“I don’t know exactly. But after he was fired Tutter told me he could pull Hubie down with him if he wanted to — and George Hathaway, too, come to think of it.”
“They were in on the payola?” He wondered how much she knew.
She looked at him then, as if she had forgotten he was there.
“I talk too much,” Lola Arkwright said. “So maybe Hubie did stick that thing into Tut. That leaves Tutter with his toes turned up and Hubie still able to write checks. He sure as hell wouldn’t be able to after a visit to the gas chamber. Nice to have seen you, Mr. Layton.”
Layton got up and went out.
14
It was after eleven when Layton drove away from the Pagoda Apartments. Turning west on Sunset, he turned off at Lomitas and headed for Crescent Drive.
Hubert Stander’s house was a mammoth three story of elderly vintage surrounded by elderly eucalyptus trees and elderly box hedges. To one side of the vast lawn glimmered a swimming pool of an outmoded type beside which a stout woman sat sunning herself.
There were no cars either in the driveway or at the curb. Since the two Homicide men had not yet arrived, Layton drove past without hesitation. On Santa Monica Boulevard he found a cheap restaurant and had an early lunch.
It was almost noon when he returned to the Crescent Drive house. This time a shiny Ford sedan was standing at the curb, and two men with their hats in their hands were talking to the woman in the lawn chair. Layton spotted Sergeant Trimble’s scar. He parked behind the Ford and crossed the lawn to the pool.
The detectives glanced around at his approach.
Trimble said, “I thought you’d turn up. You work all day Sunday, too?”
Layton smiled. “That makes three of us.”
Winterman ignored him.
The woman was about fifty, Layton judged, a fifty gone to blubber and pot. She had a fat, bland, pleasant face framed by dull dark hair turning dirty gray. Her stout figure was encased in a modest blue sun suit through which he could see the ribs of an old-fashioned corset. Her shapeless bare legs were lumpy skinned, with an intricate network of varicose veins that made them look like old maps.
“Jim Layton, Mrs. Hubert Stander,” Trimble said. “Layton’s from the Bulletin.”
“How do you do, Mr. Layton. My goodness! Police officers, now a reporter. What on earth is this all about?”
“Tutter King,” the one-eyed detective said.
“How silly of me not to have guessed,” Mrs. Stander exclaimed. “Hubert’s one of your witnesses, isn’t he? So sad, such a young man committing suicide.”
There was an air of good-natured vagueness about her, as though she were constantly peering at things she did not quite understand but was ready to take on faith.
Trimble said, “You say, Mrs. Stander, that your husband flew to Las Vegas yesterday evening. Do you happen to know why?”
“I believe Hubert mentioned that it was at Mr. Hathaway’s request. Some act or other they’re considering putting on at KZZX. Hubert enjoys talent scouting, and Mr. Hathaway often asks him to take such trips.”
So that was how Hathaway knew of Stander’s extramarital activities, Layton thought. He was Stander’s regular alibi.
“But why do you want to see my husband?” the stout woman asked. “I thought Hubert had answered all your questions.”
Ed Winterman said, “There’s a couple more we thought of.”
She looked puzzled. “Well, he ought to be home any minute now.”
“Oh, Mrs. Stander,” Layton said, “did you happen to be watching The King’s Session with Mr. Stander Friday?”
“No, I missed it,” she said sadly. “I always miss everything exciting. Mr. Stander watched it alone.”
Layton caught Trimble’s good eye, and Trimble nodded for him to keep going. “I suppose he always watched the show.”
“Heavens, no, Mr. Layton. Hubert isn’t interested in such childish things as dance music. He watched Tutter King’s show Friday because he was afraid the young man might make some tactless remark over the air — being fired, you know, his last show, and so on. As it turned out, Hubert had good reason to feel apprehensive.”