“Like a top,” I said. “How about you?”
“I had a wonderful night’s rest.”
“You look fresh as a daisy.”
“Do I really?”
“You sure do.”
“Donald, I’m glad we got acquainted. I would like to do things for you — well, I feel that you have had the breaks go against you and you’ve been sort of — well, you’re shy...”
“What do you mean, shy?”
“A little while ago, when I was holding your arm, looking at your wrist watch — well, considering the circumstances most men would have crushed me to them.”
I said, “I don’t work that way.”
“You mean you don’t crush women to you impulsively?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t like to try to make passes at a woman with one eye on an alarm clock and my mind on the schedule of an incoming airplane. I like soft lights, dreamy music, an atmosphere of leisure and privacy and—”
“Donald, stop it!”
I looked at my wrist watch. “All right,” I told her. “Do we wash the dishes before we go to the airport?”
“We certainly do,” she said. “I hate to come home to a sinkful of dirty dishes. I always like to keep the apartment neat as a pin. But I just use hot water and just a slight touch of detergent. Thank heavens they have really hot water in this apartment. It’s steaming.”
She turned hot water into the sink, put in a few drops of detergent, took a dish mop, washed the dishes, rinsed them and handed them tome.
“You wipe,” she said.
I wiped.
We were ready to leave at twelve minutes past nine.
Doris gave a quick look around the apartment, said, “You’re going to like Vivian, but don’t you go falling for her, Donald. I’m not ready to share you — not just yet.”
“Vivian’s good-looking?” I asked.
“A knockout. Blonde and lots of this and that and these and those.”
“You’re going to ride with me?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“All right, my car’s down in front. Let’s go.”
She looked at the alarm clock and laughed. “Can you imagine me being so stupid?” she said.
She went over and moved the hands thirty minutes ahead.
“How’s that, Donald, right?”
“Right.”
“All right, let’s go.”
I held the door of the apartment open for her and she walked out past me, elevating her chin and giving me a provocative smile as she brushed past me in the doorway.
We went down in the elevator, got in the agency car, drove to the airport and checked on the plane Vivian was coming in on. It was marked on time.
We went up to the restaurant and had sausage, scrambled eggs and more coffee.
I found the gate that Vivian’s plane was coming in, and Doris and I walked out to meet her.
The plane arrived on time and taxied up to a stop.
Passengers started streaming out, and I spotted Vivian before Doris needed to say a word.
She was a striking blonde in a short raw silk sheath suit of shocking-pink. The unbuttoned jacket swung open to reveal a low-cut neck. The dress itself would have been sacklike on a less well-developed model. Her figure gave it what it needed.
“There’s Vivian now,” Doris said, jumping up and down with synthetic eagerness.
Vivian came through the gate, and Doris gave a little squeal of delight and ran and grabbed her in her arms.
“Vivian!” she said. “You’re looking wonderful!”
Vivian smiled, a slow, languid smile. “Hello, sweetie-pie,” she raid.
“Vivian, I’ve — I have someone here.”
She turned to me. “Donald, this is Vivian. Vivian, may I present Donald Lam, a friend of mine.”
“The latest?” Vivian asked.
“Absolutely the latest.”
Vivian looked me over, then slowly extended her hand. “Hello, Donald,” she said in a deep, velvety voice.
There was a slow, deliberate motion in the way she extended her hand that made the gesture seem significant. It was the way a trained stripteaser can take off gloves so that the action seems packed with dynamite and a bare arm from the elbow to the finger tips seems an immoral display of naked flesh.
“Donald drove me out,” Doris explained. “Heavens, Vivian, you must have left there at all hours.”
“There’s a three-hour time difference,” she said. “And I had to take a puddle-jumper with stops in Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake. It’s two o’clock in New York right now. I don’t mind telling you, darling, I left in the small hours of the morning.”
“How in the world did you ever get up?”
“That’s easy,” Vivian said smiling. “I didn’t go to bed.”
She opened her purse, took out her airplane ticket, detached the baggage stubs, started to hand them to me, then said, “Donald, why don’t you go get the car, and I’ll have a porter rustle up the baggage. You can drive up in front of the loading zone and they won’t bother you just so you raise the lid of the trunk and leave it up. You can park there twenty minutes if you have to, just keep the trunk open and stand by it expectantly.” Her deep blue eyes rested on mine. “Can you look expectant, Donald?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “When I’ve been expectant I’ve never looked at myself.”
“He says the cutest things,” Doris said.
Vivian let her eyes play with mine. “Look expectant for me now, Donald.”
“I might be disappointed.”
“You might be.”
“Donald, you go get the car,” Doris said.
Vivian said, “Don’t be in too big a hurry, Donald. It’ll take ten or fifteen minutes for them to get the baggage off and it’ll take me a minute or two to get it picked out and have a porter get it out to the car.”
“I’ll tell her all about you while you’re gone, Donald,” Doris Ashley said. “That is not all, but almost all. And I’ll also tell her, no poaching on my preserves.”
She smiled amiably at Vivian. “You may trespass, honey, but don’t poach.”
“Where’s the fence?” Vivian asked.
I went to get the car.
It was a long walk to where I had parked it and it took me a few minutes to get through the parking lot, then drive around to a place in front of the baggage unloading zone.
They’d evidently been more expeditious than Vivian had anticipated. They were waiting there with a porter, four suitcases and a handbag.
The baggage was neatly stacked on one of the hand trucks and I handed the trunk key to the porter.
I walked over and held the door open for the girls.
“We can sit in front,” Vivian said, and promptly started for the middle position in the front seat.
It was at that moment I heard the yell from the porter.
I turned around.
The porter was standing riveted, his eyes big as teacups. He let out another yell, turned and started running as fast as he could pump his legs up and down.
“Now, what the hell!” Doris said. “What did you do to him, Donald?”
I walked to the rear of the car.
I saw something in the trunk, something dark. It looked like a trouser leg.
I stepped hurriedly to the rear and got a good look.
The body of Carter J. Holgate was doubled up in a knees-to-chest position inside the trunk.
It needed only one look at him to know that he was dead.
I heard Doris Ashley’s scream in my ears and then the sound of a police whistle. After that people were crowding all around, women were screaming and a police officer was holding me by the arm.
“This your car, Buddy?” he asked.
“This is my car,” I said.
The officer said, “Keep back, you folks. I don’t want anybody around here.”
He blew a whistle.
A man in some sort of uniform connected with the airport came hurrying forward, and a moment later I heard a siren, and a radio car came speeding up, then slowed to a crawl as it pushed its way through the crowd.