I said that sounded fine and she headed for the living room and I went out back to the pool. The party was beginning to pick up. I walked past Dorothy Tremaine and almost didn’t recognize her. She was wearing big black-framed glasses and a baggy black sweater and toreador pants. She played wisecracking secretaries and I was surprised how young she was. I didn’t try to talk to her. She looked like she thought she was incognito. I saw a driver I knew from Republic and we gave each other the raised eyebrows and then chatted awhile, but he was just there to drink and chase kittens, or so he said. I saw a couple more people about as well-known as Neale and Tremaine, and some players who were just half-familiar faces, but you couldn’t think what they’d done, and some gaudy specimens who must have been choreographers or designers, and some set dressers and grips and a couple guys who might’ve been artists, the new kind, that try to look like dockworkers. People were beginning to get just-nicely, and I thought I might find a loose thread to pull on pretty soon if I kept my wits about me this time. I’d finished my drink, a short gin, and I thought I’d go fill the glass up with water somewhere so I’d look like I was still drinking. The kitchen wasn’t anyplace obvious, because when they built this house, that was somewhere only servants went, so I worked my way toward the back and finally found it past a maid’s room and a little swinging door. There was a woman in there wearing not much and holding a knife. “Do you want a sandwich,” she said.
I said I did.
Her face was broad across the brow and cheekbones, young and coarsely pretty, with a turned-up nose and fine-grained pink skin. She had a nice shape and plenty of it. In a few years she’d have more than she wanted. Her nails were gnawed short, with little bits of flaked-off red polish on them, and she wore a satin kimono patterned with dragons and gold clouds, which she wasn’t too fussy about keeping closed in front. There was a big stack of sandwiches at her elbow. She seemed to like making them. She didn’t offer me one of the sandwiches in the pile. She took a loaf and sawed off a couple fresh slices. She made them a little thicker than the others. She set them side by side like it was important where they went, then looked over the cheeses and meats she’d set out on the counter, knife poised, drumming the fingers of her plump left hand thoughtfully on the cutting board. “How’s Miss Godalmighty?” she said absently.
“Who?”
“Your date. Miss High and Godalmighty Bellinger.”
“Oh. Fine, thanks. She sends her love.”
“You like tomatoes? Some people are allergic, but I think they’re good.”
“I like tomatoes.”
“What she probably likes is you’re not an actor.”
“That’s it.”
“I guess she’s not too high and mighty for a place like this.”
“I guess she isn’t. What did she turn you down for?”
“What?”
“I said, what did she turn you down for? Or did she just turn you down, period?”
The girl in the kimono didn’t say anything, just kept slicing tomatoes.
“Me, I’d cast you in a minute,” I said. “Lucrezia Borgia. Salome. Medea. Of course, you might have to put some clothes on.”
“Most guys wouldn’t complain. Clothes’re just a bourgeois convention anyway. You look really silly, all got up like that.” She pointed the big knife at my nose. “You’re teasing me,” she said with satisfaction.
“Careful with that knife.”
She laughed and flicked it at the ceiling. It whirled end over end, a rising, glittering circle of steel, and she caught it easily by the handle as it fell. “I don’t have to be careful with knives,” she said, suddenly cheery. “Anymore there’s none of the good salami left, but this ham’s pretty nice.”
“That’ll be fine.”
She began shaving off slices of ham. She had that kitchen all set up the way she wanted it. She went with the house, all right. “Friend of Nancy’s?” I said.
“That girl doesn’t know who her friends are.”
“No?”
“She’s gotten very bourgeois. Anymore I’m the only one’ll tell her the truth, and she doesn’t like that. Oh, no.”
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Maddy.”
“Maddy what?”
“Maddy nothing.”
“Do you want to know my name?”
“I know your name. You’re Suit Man. Having a good time tonight?”
“Sure.”
“How come you’re not having a good time?”
“Do you always disbelieve what people tell you?”
“Mostly. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“I think we’re having a good party tonight. How come you’re not enjoying it?”
“Oh, I dunno. Doesn’t seem like it’s really gotten cooking yet.”
“Oh. Well, he’ll be in later.”
“Who will?”
“I told you, later.”
The sandwich was finished. She took a big bite and began chewing. I said, “Wasn’t that going to be my sandwich?”
“You didn’t really want it,” she said with her mouth full.
“You know, you’re right,” I said, and went out to find Miss Godalmighty.
Lisa Rae was in the glassed-in gallery that ran along one side of the pool, talking to Graham Neale. He was standing in a pose he’d made slightly famous: hands in his pockets, feet planted, looking solid and bluff and reliable. He was smiling down on Lisa Rae like a doting uncle, but his face was blotchy and damp-looking and there didn’t seem to be much behind the smile. Ten years ago Neale had been a popular second lead. He was the guy in the bomber crew who died big in the last reel and the hero avenged him, or he’d lose the girl to the hero and have the rueful closing line as the hero and the girl strolled off together. He’d lost more girls than anyone else in pictures. He held the record. He looked up and saw me looking, and then Lisa Rae turned and smiled. She patted his cheek and said something and trotted over to me, and Neale grinned at me and turned to amble off. “Did you make all the girls think you liked them?” she asked, tapping a forefinger against my tie and smiling.
She’d gotten a bit of glow on.
“Knocked ’em down like ninepins,” I said.
“He’s coming by later,” she reported.
“So I heard. Who’s coming by later?”
“The fella you’re looking for.”
“Right. What’s his name?”
“Nobody wanted to say much if I didn’t already know.”
“That’s okay.”
“I guess this sleuth stuff’s harder than I thought.”
“Well, they didn’t want to tell me, either. Neale wouldn’t say?”
“I’m the last person Grammy’d tell. The very last. He loves me, he truly does, but tonight he hates me. Because I caught him in a place like this and wasn’t surprised.”
“I can see where that might sting.”
“So I don’t have much information for you. Are you very disappointed in me, Mr. Corson? Now, what’re you smiling about?”
“You pulled my file,” I said.
“I did. How come that surprises you?”
“I’m surprised you thought to do it.”
“Why? I’ve been thinking about you, Mr. Corson.”
“Nice things, I hope?”
She shook her head. Our faces were very near now.
“Bad ideas,” she murmured. “I get the worst ideas. The... worst.”
I kissed her. She was gripping my lapels, hanging on.
After a while we stopped kissing.
“Lisa Rae,” I said. A little tendril of hair had come loose, and I tucked it back where it belonged.
She took my nose between her thumb and forefinger and tried to straighten it out, and then she poked a little here and there at my face, and all the time her lips were moving around like they were remembering kissing me. She poked at my cheek.