“After nine o’clock, yes.”
“I’ll either drop in and see you or give you a buzz,” I said.
I hung up, waited until eight-twenty and drove out to the Miramar Apartments. I had no trouble finding a parking place and tapped on the door of Doris Ashley’s apartment promptly at eight-thirty.
She had on a filmy negligee and as she opened the door the light from the apartment silhouetted her figure through the diaphanous, fluffy folds of the garment.
“Donald!” she said. “You’re early!”
“Eight-thirty?” I said.
“That’s what I told you, eight-thirty, but it’s only eight o’clock and—”
“Eight-thirty,” I said.
“What!” she exclaimed. “My alarm clock just went off. I set it for quarter to eight.”
I looked at the alarm clock by the bed. It now registered two minutes past eight o’clock.
I said, “What did you set it by last night?”
“The alarm? I set it at seven-forty-five.”
“No, when you wound the clock and set it, what did you set it by?”
“Why, by the television. I was watching a program and—”
“You set it half an hour slow.”
“I couldn’t have! Let me see your watch.”
She came over and stood close to me, and I held my wrist watch up so she could see it.
She took my wrist in her hands, held my arm close to the negligee, said, “Well, for heaven’s sake, what do you know!” She stood there for a moment, then said, “Donald, I’ve got to get some clothes on. There’s coffee in the percolator in the kitchenette. Will you keep an eye on it and I’ll... I’ll get some clothes on right quick. I’ll run in the closet and dress.”
She made a dash for the closet, stripping off the negligee as she opened the door.
I had occasional tantalizing glimpses of her moving past the door, attired in panties and bra, and then she was out in the apartment with street clothes and neatly shod feet.
I gave a little wolf whistle.
“Donald!” she said. “Get your mind on what we have to do.”
I said, “It’s a little difficult... Those are certainly neat shoes. What are they, alligator skin?”
“Yes. I like alligator skin. I’m very partial to it. I like alligator skin and a brown shade of stockings.”
She raised her skirt a little, looked up at me and smiled. “You like?”
“I like.”
She said, “I’m ravenously hungry. I was only going to have a cup of coffee but I think I’ve got to have some toast and just a little bacon. Do you suppose there’s time?”
“Oh, sure there’s time,” I said. “We’ll make it down okay; in fact we could have breakfast here if you wanted.”
“No, I like to eat at the airport while we’re waiting but we could have just a snack here.”
She hurried out to the kitchen.
I walked over to the closet where she had been dressing. Feminine garments were hanging in the closet and there was an open drawer filled with intimate feminine lingerie.
I found a rack of shoes at the end of the closet and hastily picked up one of the alligator shoes and looked at the place of manufacture.
It was Chicago, Illinois.
I picked up another one. That was Salt Lake City, the same shoe store that had been stamped in the shoe I had found at Holgate’s office.
“Donald, where are you?” she asked.
I hurried out of the closet.
“Coming,” I told her.
“Do you want to make the toast while I cook the bacon? I have an electric bacon cooker here that is supposed to get it just right — and there’s an electric toaster. There’s some bread in there.”
I got the bread out of the breadbox, dropped two slices in the electric toaster and pushed down the lever which made the contact.
The electric bacon broiler did its stuff, and the aroma of bacon and coffee mingled in the little breakfast nook.
“Donald,” she said, “I’m sorry about Dudley.”
“That’s all right.”
“He... he took advantage of you. I wouldn’t have had that happen — well, I know that he put you in a position where you had to say you had seen that accident.”
“I’ve got news for you, Doris,” I told her.
“What?”
“I did see the accident.”
The platter she was holding over the stove to warm all but slipped from her hands. “You what!” she exclaimed.
“I saw that damned accident,” I said. “It was just one of those peculiar, crazy coincidences that wouldn’t happen in a million years. Of course I didn’t have the faintest idea at the time that you were interested in it or were ever going to be interested in it, but — well, it happened. I saw it, that’s all.”
She hesitated a moment, recovered her self-possession, put the bacon on the platter and laughed throatily.
“Donald,” she said, “you are a card. It’s all right, Donald, you don’t have to fool me. You know, Vivian is the girl who was involved in that accident and — well, she’s probably going to ask you about it.”
“Is that why you wanted me to meet her?”
“Heavens, no. I wanted to see you, that’s all. I — Donald, why didn’t you call me more than once last night?”
“I did, but you weren’t home.”
“I told you I was getting cigarettes.”
“I called you again, and again. You didn’t answer.”
“Why, Donald, you must have had the wrong number. I was sitting right here by that telephone the whole blessed evening — and I made an excuse to get rid of Dudley.”
“He wasn’t here?”
“No.”
“You weren’t together?”
“No, and I’ll tell you something else, Donald. I don’t know that I’m going to be with him too much. I became involved with him and — well, it’s getting to a point where it’s leading to things I don’t like. Dudley is — well, he’s possessive and he’s ruthless. You’ve probably seen enough of him to realize that.”
I looked at her shoes. “You certainly have pretty feet.”
She laughed and made a playful kick. “Can’t you get your mind on anything higher than my feet?”
“You buy these shoes here?”
“No. These were given to me by a girl friend. Why do you ask?”
“Your girl friend from Salt Lake?”
She showed surprise. “She lived there for a while. Why, Donald?”
“I like shoes.”
“You’re not one of those goofs that go crazy over women’s clothes, are you, Donald — women’s panties and things like that? I’ve heard that when men are shut up in prison their desires sometimes takes strange slants. Donald, tell me about it.”
“About what?”
“What it’s like to live without women.”
“It’s hell.”
“Do you go crazy when you get out?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“I’ve forgotten how to act.”
“I’ll have to give you a memory course. In the meantime we have a plane to meet.
“Now, take your bacon and put it right on the toast, Donald, and then put another piece of toast on top and make a toasted bacon sandwich. It’s a wonderful breakfast — only we’ll have another breakfast out at the airport. This will be a breakfast hors d’oeuvre, kind of a preliminary. Do you like preliminaries, Donald?”
“I love them.”
“Sometimes,” she said somewhat wistfully, “I think the preliminaries are more interesting than the...” She hesitated, trying to find the word she wanted.
“The main event?” I asked.
She laughed and said, “You certainly have a quick wit. Do you like cream and sugar in your coffee?”
“Not now,” I said. “Later on when we have breakfast at the airport. Now I’m drinking it black.”
“You look wonderful this morning, Donald. Did you sleep last night?”