“Come on in the bedroom,” she panted.
Reluctantly, but still too much a gentleman to demur, I followed her.
“Aren’t you" going to take off your clothes?” she asked huskily.
I took a long look at her and swallowed hard. “Yeah. I guess so.” I felt like telling her it would have been a lot easier on me if she’d stayed dressed and kept her glasses on. I pulled off my jacket and tie, hung them over a chair and started to unbutton my shirt.
That was a mistake. The gun was still in the-jacket pocket. Now Donna was between it and me, nibbling at my ears while I continued to undress. Thus I had no chance to grab for it when the unexpected happened.
The unexpected was Dwight Floyd Rank. He came through the French doors which led from the bedroom to the terrace of the beach house. He came through by hitting the door with his shoulder and crashing into the room. He came through waving a gun. In my eyes the gun made him an A-Number-One candidate for the role of Castor Oil with Donna Carper his stooge for setting me up the way she had. But when he spoke, the conclusion I’d jumped to began sliding out from under my feet.
“I caught you!” he yelled. “I caught you in the act!”
“Not really,” I protested. “We hadn’t even begun to--”
“Dwight!” Donna’s scream overrode my objection. “What are you doing here?”
“Ha!” he sneered. “You didn’t expect me, did you? Of course not! You thought you could be unfaithful and I’d never know."
“Please be careful how you wave that gun around,” I suggested.
“I’m going to kill both of you for this!” he announced.
“He will, too,” Donna sobbed. “He’s my lover and he’s insanely jealous!”
Suddenly the whole situation had an all-too-familiar ring to me. It was a repetition of my first night in Hollywood; that’s what it was! Only now it was Rank and Donna instead of Happy Daze and Misty Milo the way it had been that night. The realization filled me with a sudden suspicion. “Is this another one of Happy’s gags?” I asked angrily.
“This is no gag!” Donna assured me. “He means business!"
“That’s right!” Rank confirmed her words, slipped the safety catch off, and pointed the revolver at us. “But if it’s of any interest to you, Happy Daze did tip me off to your assignation.”
“Why would he do that?” I wondered aloud.
“Please, Dwight, don’t do anything foolish,” Donna pleaded.
“Steve, I always thought you were my friend,” Rank said through clenched lips. “How could you double-cross me like this with the woman I love?”
“It wasn’t easy,” I told him, looking at Donna with distaste.
“Yes,” he granted, following my glance. “I see what you mean. I'm obsessed, but there’s really no excuse for you.”
“Is that any way to talk about the woman you love?" Donna sobbed.
“Yes, my dear. It is. I may be obsessed by you, I may love you, but I’m not blind. Let’s face it. Donna, you're a pig!”
“If she’s such a pig, then how come you care enough about her to commit murder?” I asked.
“Because she’s my pig,” he told me. “She's not much for looks, and no heroine out of books, but she’s my pig. And that’s why I’m going to kill you, Victor!” He leveled the gun at my chest and his finger tightened on the trigger.
CLUNK! '
In the nick of time! A hand had reached through the French doors. It was holding a brick. The “CLUNK!” was the sound the brick made as it connected with the top of Rank’s skull. It was followed by a thud as Rank’s body hit the floor. Happy Daze stepped over it as he entered the room and set the brick down on a table.
“You can say what you want about my routines,” he opened, “but you’ve got to admit my timing is the best in the business.”
"Baby," I told him, “I’m your staunchest fan from here on in.”
“This place is getting like Grand Central Station,” Donna observed. “What are you doing here?"
“Man! How do you like that?” Happy reacted to her indignant tone. “Talk about looking gift horses in the old craw! Is that any way to greet the man who just saved your -life?”
“Not my life,” she told him. ”Steve’s life. Dwight never would have hurt me."
“I’m not sure that distinction is going to add much to our friendship.” I was miffed now myself. “Still-—” I turned to Happy “if you hadn’t sicced him onto us in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to save my hide. What did you want to do that for, anyway?”
“It was Misty’s idea," Happy admitted.
“But why?"
“Well, she convinced me it would be a funny gag,” he said, looking a bit shamefaced. “I mean, she knew about Donna and Rank and she said it would be a gasser to have Dwight catch you with Donna. I never dreamed he’d be mad enough to kill you.”
“But Misty did,” Donna said. “She knows Dwight and she knows how he’d react to finding me with another man. She set it up deliberately.”
“Yeah. I’m beginning to think you’re right,” Happy said. “The way I see it now, she did it out of jealousy. She was jealous of another woman having Steve, so she set me and Dwight up as a pair of patsies to see that Steve got punished. Man! Hell hath no fury--!"
I wasn’t sure he was right about Donna’s motive. It could have been jealousy. I'd known her to be jealous in the past. But jealous enough to kill? I wasn’t sure. There was also the strong possibility that if she was Castor Oil she’d tipped off Dwight as a convenient way of getting rid of me.
Still, the incident had ruled out two of my suspects. Rank couldn't be Castor Oil. He’d never have wasted time pretending to be jealous if he was. He'd simply have killed me without any preliminaries. And Happy was out, too. If he was Castor Oil, or even an underling as I'd suspected before, then he never would have stepped in with that brick to save my life.
Right now Happy stepped out, dragging Rank with him. The three of us had agreed that the best thing by far was to keep the whole incident quiet. Happy obviously felt that Rank and himself had both been used, and now his conscience was bothering him about conking Rank with the brick. He said he'd take him to a doctor he knew and then back to his place to sleep off the blow. Donna and I watched them go, and then, once again, we were alone.
Trouble hadn’t improved her appearance. And it certainly hadn’t increased my ardor. On the contrary, I just wanted to get dressed and get out of there. Right now Misty was the one I wanted to tackle. Right now she looked to be Castor Oil.
“You’re not going!” Donna was distressed.
Well, after what’s happened—"
“But that doesn’t make any difference. Not the slightest. Let’s just pick up where we left off.”
“I don’t think—”
“Now, let’s see!” She overrode my objections. “You were standing here-—” She pushed me back to where I’d been standing when Rank made his entrance. “—and I was right here, nibbling on your ear.” She got between me and my jacket with the gun in it again. And I was just about to—” She stepped back, took the gun out of my jacket and pointed it at me. “—do this. Hands up, Steve.”
“Look, we’ve had enough games with guns already.”
“This is no game. Put your hands up.”
I put my hands up. “Now what?” I asked.
“Now we wait.”
“For Castor Oil?”
“You’ll find out.”
“Or are you Castor Oil?” I persisted.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out. Just sit down on the edge of the bed quietly and keep your hands over your head.” Donna wiggled the gun at me.
I did what she wanted. “Are you going to kill me?" I inquired. I’ll admit to a certain vested interest in the question.
“Eventually, I suppose." She yawned.
“Why not do it now and get it over with?”