In the pantry I found a half-bottle of cream and a jug of yesterday’s coffee. I was heating up the coffee when the kitchen door pushed open and Helen came in.
She was wearing a black wool sweater and pale blue slacks. She had a figure that looked provocative in slacks. I looked at her, feeling again that tight grip across my chest.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked curtly, staring at me.
‘I just looked in for some coffee, madam,’ I said. ‘I hope I’m not in the way.’
‘I don’t want you in the house, Nash,’ she said, moving to the door. ‘Your job is to drive Mr. Dester to the office. Keep to your own apartment.’
Well, at least she was now admitting I had a job here; that was a concession.
‘Isn’t there anything I can do for you, madam?’ I said. ‘Nothing in the house you want done?’
‘Not by you. Keep away from here,’ and she went out.
I drank the coffee, washed up the cup and then went back to the garage. I got out the Rolls, washed and polished it, then drove it around to the front entrance. By then it was a few minutes after ten o’clock.
I sat at the wheel and waited.
At half past ten, Dester came down the steps. He was wearing a pearl grey lounge suit and a slouch hat, and he had a briefcase under his arm.
‘Morning, Nash,’ he said as I slid out of the car and opened the door for him. ‘That uniform looks pretty well. Did you get breakfast?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The bright sunlight wasn’t kind to him. His complexion looked like raw meat and his eyes were bloodshot and watery.
‘Do you know where the Pacific Studios are?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘That’s where I work.’ He got into the car and relaxed on the back seat. He seemed glad to take the weight off his legs. ‘Hurry it along, kid. I’m a little late.’
I drove him to the studios; pushing the pace, but not overdoing it.
The guard opened the double gates. I noticed he didn’t salute Dester as I drove past, and I thought that was odd.
Dester directed me to the big office block that stood away from the main studios. I pulled up outside the entrance.
‘Pick me up here at four o’clock. You can go back now and help Mrs. Dester in the house.’
‘She tells me she doesn’t want any help, sir,’ I said.
He seemed not to hear me. I watched him climb the steps to the entrance of the building, then disappear through the swing doors. I got back into the Rolls and drove down to the main entrance. The guard opened the gates. He didn’t even bother to look at me. I wondered what one needed to have besides a Rolls to get a little respect from this guy.
When I had got some distance from the studios, I parked the car and went to an eating joint and bought myself a breakfast. I had fifteen bucks to last me until Dester produced something. I laid out five bucks on a small store of food, coffee and groceries. These I carried to the car, then I drove over to Clifford Street that happened to be four streets away from my own apartment house.
I pulled up outside 57, and rang the bell of Apartment ‘A’. After a few moments a buzzer sounded and the front door clicked open.
Simmonds had a couple of rooms on the third floor. He was standing in the doorway waiting for me as I came up the last flight of stairs: a guy about my build with grey hair and a lined, humourous face. As soon as he saw the uniform I was wearing he grinned: it was the kind of grin you reserve for suckers, but that didn’t bother me. I grinned back.
‘I’m Dester’s new chauffeur as if you need to be told,’ I said. ‘I’ve looked in for some information.’
‘Come on in,’ he said, opening the door. ‘There’s a sucker born every minute, but don’t think you’re the only one. I kidded myself I had landed on the gravy train when I took that job: I know a lot better now.’
I walked into a room that was coated with dust and smelt the same way as the apartment over the garage had smelt before I had cleaned it.
‘I’m not kidding myself,’ I said, putting my cap on the cleanest part of the table. ‘I know I haven’t got myself anything to shout about, but it suits me as a temporary job. My name’s Glyn Nash.’
Simmonds waved me to a chair and went into the far room. He returned with two cups and a pot of coffee.
‘It’ll be temporary okay,’ he said, taking the cigarette I offered him. ‘I bet you’ll be out by the end of the week. No one has stuck longer except me. I lasted two weeks.’
‘What’s wrong with the job?’ I asked, accepting the cup of coffee he shoved at me.
‘Plenty: a combination of rats and a sinking ship and Mrs. Dester. Have you run into her yet?’
‘Sure; she’s already told me I’m not wanted.’
‘Then take the hint, paclass="underline" quit before you hit trouble. That dame can make plenty of trouble. I was mug enough to stick after she had told me to get out. She nearly had me on a stealing rap.’
That jolted me. ‘What was that again?’
He grinned, showing tobacco-stained teeth.
‘That’s right. She gave me a hundred-dollar bill to settle the gasoline account. I thought it was funny because Dester pays the accounts when he does pay them. I’ve got a suspicious mind, and I’m glad of it. I trusted her the way I’d trust a rattlesnake. I went over the bill very, very carefully. She had pricked a cross in it with a pin. It didn’t take me a couple of seconds to figure out what the next move was to be. I had just time to shove the bill into the fire when two dicks walked in. They went over me and the rooms with a tooth comb, but they didn’t find the bill. They told me she had complained that she had been missing money for some time, and she thought I was the guy who was helping himself. It was a close thing, and when they left, I packed and got out fast.’
I stared at him, remembering how she had offered me a hundred-dollar bill the previous night.
‘What’s the idea? Why doesn’t she want her husband to have a chauffeur?’
He shrugged.
‘Three months ago, they had a cook, a houseboy, and two maids,’ he told me, ‘as well as a gardener and a chauffeur. Then all of a sudden she got rid of them all, closed up most of the rooms in the house and ran the place herself. Dester tried to keep a chauffeur, but sooner or later she fixed it that the guy couldn’t take any more of it and quit. Don’t ask me why. I wouldn’t know.’
‘She says Dester hasn’t any money.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that. Maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s the answer, but she doesn’t strike me as the type to run a house on her own just because he hasn’t any money.’
She didn’t strike me as the type either.
‘Who is Dester anyway?’
‘You mean who was he,’ Simmonds said, finishing his coffee and pouring himself another cup. ‘One time he was chief executive producer for Pacific Studios, one of the biggest shots in the movie business. He’s washed up now. They haven’t renewed his contract. It runs out in a month or so; then he’ll be nobody. He goes there every day and sits in his office, doing nothing. No one takes any notice of him. He’s just sweating out his time.’
‘Why doesn’t he look for some other job?’
Simmonds laughed. ‘Haven’t you cottoned on to him yet? He’s a lush. No one wants him. The only time he’s sober is when he wakes up in the morning. He starts boozing at breakfast and goes right on until he falls into bed. I guess if I had married that redheaded bitch, I’d be a lush too. He’s crazy about her. From what I hear she has her own room, and he hasn’t been inside it since a few days after they married.’
‘Who is she and where does she come from?’