Kitty Thorne leaned across her. “Beware of this wench, Shell. She’s three days from freedom.”
“You shush, Kitty. John, you must come to my party. What is today? Thursday, isn’t it? Sunday is my coming-out party. Sunday I celebrate the severing of the knot. Is that right? Sundering? Severing? Anyway, I’m free after eleven years with the biggest floof in captivity.” Her voice was nervous and thin, too gay and too bright — and much too lonely.
They talked to him. He answered in a noncommittal way, and he saw the others coming in alone, in pairs, in small groups, settling at the tables. A waiter had come on duty. Tommy became much busier. There were bursts of laughter with too thin an edge. The cool shadows grew longer until the sun did not touch any portion of the Palm Patio. Through the glass doors, he could see the dinner tables set in formal pattern of stainless steel on saffron and coral and cobalt grass mats, ready for the careless hunger, drink-sharpened. There were a few couples. There was a tart smell of loneliness here. There seemed to be no pattern of dress. One silver-gray woman with a knife-blade face wore a gold lame evening gown. A great burly young girl with fullback shoulders wore battered denim shorts and a halter, and sat laughing, slapping the table with her hand, impervious to the evening chill. From the bar, he could see through the archway to the pool in the other court, and he saw the pool was empty again, the glass surface darkened by the deepening sky.
He realized with a start that Kitty Thorne, her speech thickened and loosened by a dogged number of Old-fashioneds, was talking about Joan.
“—I tell you, Dora, she was awful nervous before she took off. She had a terrible case of the jitters. She comes back and boom — she’s dead.”
“You imagine things, darling,” Dora Northard said firmly.
“Nuts. I don’t want to try to tell you anything. John Shell, you come with me, because you’ve got a lucky look and I’ve got ten silver dollars.”
He knew he wanted to hear more about Joan. He excused himself, conscious of Dora’s chill glance, of the bartender’s faint shrug of disapproval. They went out the rear exit and along the graveled walk to the casino. Kitty Thorne was a bit unsteady on her feet. The casino was a strange structure. It looked like an oil-storage tank with church windows. The doorman and cashier spoke politely to Mrs. Thorne and nodded at Jay. The slots were along the left wall. Play was very light in the big room. A pretty girl in a jaunty chef’s hat was in charge of a long table that glistened with stainless steel. There were blue flames under bowls and covered platters. One wheel was going, and the chant of the croupier was bored, harsh. A fat woman was feeding the fifty-cent slot. Each time she yanked the handle, she would cover the glass panel with the flat of her other hand, then wait, head cocked to one side, for the clatter of the pay-off.
Kitty walked to the nearest silver-dollar machine, red curls bobbing as she dug in her purse for the coins. She turned and grinned at Jay. “With that lucky look, you just put your hand over mine while I pull the handle.”
He did so. The first four coins were futile. The fifth coin brought up three bells for a pay-off of twenty. Kitty bounced the heavy coins in her hand, lips pursed. “So it’s a fast fifteen profit. Leave well enough alone, I always say. Let’s try this bar on the profits, Shell.”
It was at the far end of the room. He lit her cigarette. He said, “Who were you talking about out there? Somebody who died.”
“That was a shame. A real cute girl named Joan Shelby. She was here getting a divorce. She livened up the joint, and Lord knows it needs it. She had more luck with dates than most of us. She was in town a lot. Then, I don’t know, I figure she got mixed up in something. Anyway, she wasn’t good for laughs the last few days she was around. She went off with somebody, somewhere. Nobody knows who. She was gone for two nights. Then in the morning they found her in the pool, and somebody heard a man talking by the pool around three in the morning. But that could have been anybody. She had a bump on the head, and she was full of liquor. I think they should have looked into it more, but you know how these places are. Accidental death. That’s quick and easy. The only thing they did was check on the guy she was divorcing and make sure he hadn’t come out this way. There was some sort of property settlement lined up, so he would have a motive, maybe.”
It gave Jay an odd feeling. “He hadn’t been out?”
“No. He hadn’t left the East.”
“But if it was an accidental death, why did they even check?”
“Let’s drop it, honey. It depresses me. Another round, George.”
“Not for me, thanks,” Jay said.
The man behind the small bar made an Old-fashioned. Jay noticed the price was considerably lower than at the bar in the Palm Patio. Kitty Thorne suddenly seemed much more intoxicated. She was having trouble holding her head up.
Jay said, “I’m going to go get a jacket.”
She looked at him, frowning in concentration. “Sure. You run along. Nice to meet you, Mr. Something-or-other.” She turned away. “Come on, George.”
He walked toward the main doors. One crap table was in operation. There were more people around the wheel. The fat woman still fed the machine. But the crowd was slim. Not nearly enough, he guessed, to cover the overhead. The stars were out, and the lights had come on in the Palm Patio. They were buried in the palm fronds. They made interesting shadows. The lights picked up the cold gleam of diamonds, the sheen of hair, the bare arms of the women. He got a jacket from his room. He put it on and walked to the edge of the pool. He looked down and saw the reflection of the stars. He lighted a cigarette, slowly. There was a sound of music. An air liner went over. He saw the reflection of the running lights in the still water. He shuddered unexpectedly. Too vivid. All of it. If he’d been a broker or something, a salesman, perhaps her face would be vague in his memory. But he had used her as his model in a lot of his magazine work. She had been nurse, secretary, teen-ager, housewife. She had been blonde, dark, redheaded. And he had learned every line of her, learned the exact turn and cut and relationship of her features, the slender articulation of her wrist. She was graven deep into his memory, and never would she be vague and faceless to him.
He turned his back on the pool and walked to the Palm Patio. Dora was still at the bar. She called him over and introduced a woman with a face like a Bedlington, a gargling voice. He glanced across the patio and saw the dark-haired swimmer. She sat alone at a table, one of the tables close to the glass doors of the dining room. A waiter handed her a menu. He saw, in the lights, the glint of teeth in her dark face as she smiled up at him, a highlight on the cocktail glass in front of her.
“She is pretty, our Duchess,” Dora said.
“Eh? The dark-haired girl?”
“That’s the one. Somebody started calling her the Duchess. She’s nearly through her stretch here, I think. Funny kid. Maybe she had a pretty bad marriage. She keeps pretty much to herself. The only person she ever got chummy with was a girl who drowned here nearly two weeks ago. But Joanie wasn’t quiet and sort of retiring like that one. I never could see why Joanie liked her so well. But then, Joanie could get along with anybody.”
Anybody except me, he thought sourly. “Does the Duchess have a name?” he asked.
“Ellen Christianson. But don’t get any ideas. She’ll put a chill on you that will give you frostbite. I’ve seen it happen.”
He watched her for another few seconds and turned away. It was unlikely, he thought, that any of the women here could add to what Kitty Thorne had told him. The next step would be to see the authorities. Check with whoever had examined the body. Dora talked on, endlessly. He turned back. He was standing in a cone of light. Ellen Christianson was looking toward him. It seemed as though she were staring directly at him. But, of course, that was ridiculous.