“He didn’t give you any reason?”
“He just hit me across the mouth,” she said casually. “There is never a dull moment in the Rutters’ lives— many sordid, but none dull.”
It was the kind of comment that didn’t call for an answer, and I didn’t try and dream one up. I drank some more bourbon instead, and felt the sun steadily getting hotter on the back of my neck. I loosened the knot of my tie and unbuttoned my shirt collar.
“You’re not dressed for sunbaking,” she observed. “Why don’t we go inside the house? It’ll be cooler there.” “Fine,” I told her.
We stood up together and suddenly we weren’t going any place. Her sloe eyes seemed transparent as she stared at me, her lips slightly parted, and I could see the well-banked furnace that burned steadily in back of them. She took the two steps it needed to cut down the distance between us to maybe a decimal point. “Danny?” Her voice was husky and triumphant at the same time, and there was no real question there at all. Her hands reached up and seized my earlobes painfully with each thumb and index finger pinching tight, pulling my head down toward hers. Those pouting lips pulled back again into a smile and a moment later the sharp white teeth clamped firmly into my lower lip. She hung on long enough for me to be in two minds whether to whoop or merely scream, then let go abruptly.
“Make us a fresh drink, Danny,” she said softly, “then come on into the house.” She turned away from me without waiting for an answer, and I was lost again in the torrid vision of those undulating satin clad curves as she walked toward the house.
I watched until she had disappeared inside, then made the fresh drinks with my hands shaking a little and twenty different—though allied—thoughts pulsating through my mind at the same time. Then I carried the jiggling glasses slowly, because I didn’t want the liquor all spilled by the time I got there, and it seemed to take a hell of a long time before I reached the open door.
The open glass door led off the terrace into a vast, strictly modem living room—and another door took me into the hall. I stood there for a moment, feeling a vague kind of empathy with Goldilock’s trauma in the bear house, then I heard Myra’s slightly muffled voice call, “Danny? I’m in here.”
“Here” figured to be the guest room, air-conditioned and the shades drawn, with pink broadloom on the floor and little fat cherubs depicted in gold on the walls. A blue-green satin swimsuit lay on the carpet, clashing with the color scheme. Myra stood beside an oversized couch, her arms raised above her head, stretching luxuriantly. Two horizontal strips of white across her nude body made a startling contrast with the deep bronzed tan that covered the rest of her. Her raised breasts, the nipples hard and pointed, were an arrogant challenge to the virility of all mankind—and I was mankind’s elected gladiator, I realized with a sudden surge of vitality.
She dropped her arms to her sides, then sauntered across and lifted her glass out of my hand. “You certainly took your own damn time about making fresh drinks,” she said casually. “What kept you?—stage fright?”
I reached out with my free hand and ran it slowly down across the swelling curve of her flank, then exhaled softly. “I heard about Venus rising out of the sea,” I said wonderingly, “but who’d believe a plastics outfit would come up with something like this?”
She smiled lazily. “It’s all real, Danny. You’ll find out!”
The bourbon I didn’t need right then, so I put the glass down on the bureau, and stripped off my clothes. By the time I’d finished, Myra’s empty glass stood beside my full one, and she lay on the couch, her head cradled in her hands, watching me with approval.
“Just don’t talk, Danny,” she said in a soft voice. “If I want sweet music when I make love, I can always switch on the radio.”
“What’s to talk about?” I asked hoarsely as I advanced ; toward the couch. “California weather is all the same the 1 whole year round, right?”
One time when I was in a poker game with four other guys and it had gotten kind of dull, we started swapping embarrassing experiences—like the time one guy had try- j ing to explain to his wife he was sure it was her looking for a lost earring under the bed, with only her legs sticking out, and that playful tweak of his fingers was meant as an expression of his love for her, not the maid, but his wife never did believe him. Although, he’d allowed, he’d had a hell of a time with the maid for the next six weeks.
Right then I suffered the kind of embarrassing experience that’s just too painful to recount, even to a bunch of old buddies over a poker game. I was bent—well, crouched even—over the couch when it happened, and that’s a hell of a position to be in with no clothes on. A door slammed suddenly someplace in the house, achieving the effect of freezing me rigid in that stooped-over position. Then the sound of tramping feet came rapidly closer, the door of the guest room was flung open, and for a couple of seconds that lasted longer than eternity there was a dreadful silence.
“So sorry,” a cold masculine voice said. “Should 1 apologize for having gotten home too early—or too late?”
I managed to unfreeze my aching back muscles and straighten up painfully. All I wanted right then was a jar of vanishing cream from my mythical mad scientist friend.
Myra turned her head and stared over my shoulder at the source of the interruption. “You’re very gauche, James,” she said and yawned. “You could at least call before you come home unexpectedly!”
“I’ll remember it the next time,” the male voice said icily. “Would you care to introduce me to your naturalist friend? He’s apparently suffering from some kind of seiz-* ure at the moment.”
“Of course.” Myra smiled gently, then raised herself on one elbow. “This is Mr. Boyd, and he’s a private detective hired by Elmo to recover the stolen tiara.” “Indeed?” The male voice registered polite interest. “I must say he appears to be dedicated in his search—leaving no woman unturned, as it were?”
“Danny”—Myra smiled sweetly at my frozen face— “this is my husband James. I don’t think a handshake is necessary, but it would be polite if you turned around and gave him another viewpoint, don’t you think?”
“The introductions can wait, Myra,” Rutter said crisply. “I think we should go into another room and leave Mr. Boyd to dress.”
“All right,” she said indifferently. She swung her feet onto the floor, then stood up. “I’ll freshen up the drinks while we wait, Danny.”
Right then I would have liked to say something—anything at all—but my vocal chords were still completely paralyzed along with the rest of me. I heard the faint rustle as Myra picked up her swimsuit and I heard them walk out of the room. The door closed after them, and all was silence except for the sound of my knees knocking together. Then I suddenly came to life in one convulsive tremor, and made a dive toward my clothes.
chapter five
I was knotting my tie when I heard a couple of sharp, rapping sounds from somewhere else inside the house. Maybe a minute later I was fully dressed, so I stepped out of the guest room not at all sure exactly what awaited me, like a brace of loaded pistols.
Rutter was waiting for me in the living room. A tall, huskily built guy who looked like he could go fifteen rounds with about anyone you cared to name. His thick black hair was streaked with gray, and the gray was repeated in his eyes, which held all the warmth of a tombstone carved out of granite. He was massaging the back of one hand with a set of well-manicured fingers when I came into the room.
“Sit down, Boyd,” he said almost cheerfully. “I want to talk with you.”
I sat on the edge of the chair and fumbled for a cigarette while he still massaged busily.