They had walked a half block. They turned back toward the Golden Sixpence. Ellen touched his arm. “There is the local monarch, Jay.”
An expensive black sedan, its chrome shining, had pulled into the no-parking area in front of the Golden Sixpence. A pale, heavy man got out of the car first and glanced up and down the street and turned and held the door open for his companion.
“Mr. Rice?” Jay murmured.
“The smaller one.”
The second man got out. He was medium height, too thin. He had straw hair, a lean, sun-reddened gargoyle face, bad posture, a shambling walk. His suit was baggy and unpressed, a cheap lurid shade of blue. He glanced toward them as he walked to the front door of the place, in the full force of the lights. Jay saw colorless eyes, a mouth crowded with large, discolored teeth. Mr. C. Gerald Rice was almost, but not quite, a figure of fun. He was almost a vaudeville comic. The driver turned the car back out into the slow evening traffic.
“Not what I expected,” Jay said.
“Our local enigma. When he talks, he sounds as if he’s imitating a hillbilly. But I don’t think anybody laughs at him. At least not twice. And I guess it isn’t necessary to say he is very well heeled. The king of Oasis Springs. But he hasn’t got his queen with him tonight.”
“Is there one?”
“She’s not Mrs. Rice. A youngish thing. Slightly on the poisonous side. That’s when I heard him talking. To her. Did you see ‘Born Yesterday’? That blonde with the voice? This one isn’t blonde, but she’s got that voice, with overtones of baby talk. Heaven only knows how C. Gerald can stand that creature around for very long. But she seems to be a regular fixture.”
“Where did he come from?”
“I really don’t know. I heard someone say he was a wheat farmer and that he had good political connections during the war so that he got hundreds of German PW’s assigned to him, and made a killing. He comes to the Inn once in a while to look around. He looks like somebody they wouldn’t let past the desk. And he always has a couple of burly types with him. I guess he hasn’t won many friends, but I’ll bet he’s influenced people. His record must be all right, though. The state is pretty careful about licensing people for gambling.”
“So, another dead end, Ellen.”
“It looks that way.” She scuffed her heel against the curb. “She went out with another one I met. They had dinner at the Inn one night. A nice quiet sort of guy. He owns the drugstore up there in the middle of the next block. I don’t know what good it would do to talk to him, though.”
“We can try.”
The drugstore was new and clean and pleasant. They sat in a booth. A tall thin young man came down the aisle toward the front of the store, and Ellen stopped him by saying, “Good evening, Mr. Hollister.”
He stopped and turned, his smile a bit puzzled. “I’m Mrs. Christianson. Joan Shelby introduced us out at the Inn a few weeks ago.”
“Oh, yes, of course. It’s nice to see you again.”
Jay got up and she said, “This is Mr. Shell, Mr. Hollister. Could we buy the proprietor one of his own sundaes?”
“Coffee, maybe,” Hollister said, grinning. He sat down by Ellen, facing Jay. The counter boy came to their booth and took the order.
“I’ve been telling Mr. Shell about what happened to Joan,” Ellen remarked.
Hollister tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail, frowning. “Hard to imagine her dead. You know, I never went out with any of the divorc—” He flushed and looked uncomfortable. “Not that that isn’t all right, but I just never did until I went out with Joan. She had a soda here, and I was helping out behind the counter, and she told me I didn’t look as if I was having enough fun. Just like that. There was something about the way she said it and the way she grinned at me. I guess I was pretty dull for her. But I did have a good time. We went out twice. It did me good. I’d been working too hard, trying to get this place running right. She was certainly full of life. Gosh, I didn’t know what she’d do next. Crazy, sort of. Then, getting drowned like that. They came to see me, even, to see if I’d been with her. But I’d been working here until midnight when Dolly — that’s my sister — finished her shift over at the Golden Sixpence, and we walked home together and sat around the kitchen talking until nearly three. I could have told them that—”
He stopped abruptly and gave Jay a nervous glance.
“Told them what?” Ellen asked.
Hollister put sugar in his coffee. He smiled uneasily. “I forgot what I was going to say.”
“Mr. Shell doesn’t work for Mr. Rice.”
Hollister’s face changed. “I don’t care about that. All I care about is that I’m pretty close to working for Mr. Rice. The lease contract has a lot of clauses in it, Mrs. Christianson. The less you know or see around this town the better off you are.”
Ellen looked at Jay, and then she said quietly, “His name isn’t Shell. It’s Shelby. He came here to find out what happened to Joan.”
Hollister licked his lips. “You were married to her?”
“In another few days, I wouldn’t have been. But I was. You don’t owe me a thing. But I would like to know what you could have told them.”
Hollister looked into Jay’s eyes for a long three seconds. He sipped his coffee and put it down. “I’ll tell you what I was going to say. It isn’t particularly important. I was going to say that if they looked hard enough, they’d probably find it was one of Rice’s people who was with her. McGay or Rikerd or somebody. She was going around with that crew, and they’re kind of a crummy crew. That doesn’t mean much, but I wouldn’t want it to get back because Dolly is making good money over there, and we need it if we’re going to get on our feet. We had a good place once in Las Vegas, but I was Reserve and had to go to Korea and Dolly couldn’t run it alone. She sold out and took a mortgage, but the people who bought it went into bankruptcy and we lost nearly everything. And unless things pick up here, we’re going to lose the rest of it. Sometimes I don’t care if we do. I just don’t like the way that Rice character comes in here and looks around as if I was working for him. Look, I’m not saying or even thinking anybody killed her. I think she had too much to drink and fell into the pool. But I’ll bet she was with one of Rice’s people, and I’ll bet none of them were questioned very much. Not in this town. Not in this county. And if it had happened next year, maybe not in this state. He’s getting bigger all the time. If this town pays off, he’ll be the biggest man in the state one of these days. You know, it’s kind of funny that she should go out with Rice’s people after what happened over at the Sixpence.”
“What happened?” Jay asked.
“I thought she might have told you, Mrs. Christianson. It was her and that Sheila, Rice’s girl. Dolly saw it happen. They were upstairs on one of the big tables. McGay was there. Dolly said it was really something. Rice doesn’t let his people play his games over there, but he can’t seem to stop that Sheila. Dolly says she’s a pest. She wanders around until somebody starts having a streak, and then she edges in and bets along with them and tries to ride the streak. She was doing that to Joan. Joan thought it would change her luck, and she got good and sore. So when Sheila announced her bet, Joan, you know, took her off. Imitated that voice perfect, Dolly says. Sheila, Rice’s girl, turns like a flash and bangs Joan right across the mouth. Joan hit her back. And then they were rolling around on that thick rug, scratching and yelping and pulling hair. McGay and Rice himself got them apart, and Joan kept right on sounding just like Sheila. Rice told Joan she better leave, and she did. But then she went out with McGay again, and later on I saw her riding with Al Rikerd in one of Rice’s convertibles. That was four or five days before she drowned when I saw her.”