1
From where I lay in lazy ease on a poolside chaise longue, I could see a gaggle of Bikini-clad Hollywood houris squealing and splashing in the water. On the blue-tiled deck across the pool from me half a dozen bare-midriffed nautch girls wiggled, doing what comes nautchurally.
Flame from burning torches wavered in the soft, warm wind; thin, oddly melodic music swelled from strings and reeds and pipes, filling the desert air with an almost scented sound. It was music to my ears, balm in my eyes, perfume for my nose—something fun for practically all of me.
This, I thought, was how I hoped to live when I died. With luck, however, I wouldn’t get killed tonight. Tomorrow, maybe.
I had been shot at already, earlier this evening, and I had seen sudden, brutally ugly death. But it was difficult to dwell on death in the midst of so much life; and there was really no reason, I told myself, why a man shouldn’t enjoy his work.
This was the pre-opening party, the night before the grand opening of Palm Desert’s newest and most luxurious hotel, the Kubla Khan: staggering millions of bucks’ worth of cabanas, rooms, suites, a grand ballroom and dining rooms and a convention hall, swimming pools, cocktail lounges, domes and minarets and spires. It looked like something from the Arabian Nights, plucked from the East and plunked down in the Southern California desert.
At the moment it had more of a carnival air than it would after this upcoming weekend. Colorful silken streamers were laced overhead, hanging from poles, fluttering in the sage-and-jasmine-scented breeze; and scattered about the lushly landscaped grounds were several booths, in most of which lovely ladies sold souvenirs and goodies, passed out promotional literature, or just looked gorgeous.
Nearly all of the two hundred guests were in costume, most with at least some flavor of the East—saris from India, fezzes from Turkey, robes from Morocco, even one gal wearing a Balinese dancer’s headdress. I looked rather resplendent myself, I thought, with my six feet, two inches and two hundred and six pounds clad in a long scarlet jacket and keen white pants with little red stripes down their sides, on my chest lots of crackerjack medals and hero awards—also rented, of course—and, concealing my short-cropped and springy white hair, a wildly impressive white turban.
The effect of sheer beauty was perhaps marred only by the bent-down-at-the-ends inverted-V eyebrows over my gray eyes, since those brows were also obtrusively white and thus, in a bad light, might give rise to suspicion that part of the turban had fallen off and stuck on my forehead. And naturally, nothing could be done about my twice-broken and still bent nose, the bullet-clipped ear top, the fine scar over my right eye, and the general impression of recent catastrophe I’ve been told I sometimes present. But I felt, nonetheless, that I had done the best I could with myself; and I was enjoying the evening. So far.
Tonight’s festivities were not open to the general public—which, ordinarily, would have left me out—but were exclusively for invited guests. Tomorrow the hoi polloi could get in but only after the official ceremonies and ribbon-cutting at noon—which ceremonies would be attended by Hollywood stars and TV celebrities, political personalities who would probably make speeches, numerous VIP’s and potent people. There would be all kinds of reporters and columnists and such; the Mayor of Palm Springs would be present, and would make a speech; even the Governor of California would be in attendance if he could get here, and would make a speech.
All of that would be followed by booze in the six bars, buffets by the two swimming pools, dancing to three bands, and what might turn out to be the most stupendous beauty contest in the history of voluptuous statistics.
That was where I came in.
I was going to be one of the judges of that stupendous beauty contest.
At least that was my “cover.”
It is known throughout most of Southern California that I am a private detective—the Shell Scott of Sheldon Scott, Investigations—but it is also known that Shell Scott would practically dislocate his jaw saying “Yes!” if asked to judge a stupendous beauty contest. It was thus the sly hope of my client—who was already in jail; I wasn’t doing too well for him yet—that celebrants hereabouts would assume I was merely here for eyeing and not private-eyeing.
Naturally, then, I had to do a lot of eyeing. It was easy.
Most of the lovelies who would display their epidermis, charms and doodads in the contest tomorrow were already displaying not merely the hot hors d’oeuvres but practically the full course, and I’d been having lots of fun. For example, at two adjacent booths were a gal selling kisses and a gal selling cookies, and I wasn’t going to buy any cookies.
If my client could just get sprung from the can before he had the cerebral hemorrhage which had presumably been creeping up on him earlier, and I could keep getting missed when guys shot at me, and solve two murders by noon tomorrow—yeah, I had nearly sixteen hours in which to do all that—I figured I could really enjoy this affair.
For a moment I thought of my client, and wondered if the local law really believed he’d been murdering people. I kind of wondered if he had, myself. It occurred to me that if he had killed two people, or even only one, maybe I shouldn’t have taken the case.
I had taken it, however, so it was up to me to earn my hundred dollars. Or ten thousand dollars. It depended. Part of it depended on my getting up off my behind, leaving this dandy chaise longue, and doing something extremely clever—as soon as I thought of something. Part of it depended on Ormand Monaco.
Ormand Monaco was the owner of the Kubla Khan, the guy responsible for this Oriental saturnalia. He was the guy who very much wanted to be here greeting his guests, beaming upon assorted beauties, drinking his prize brandy and taking well-deserved bows. He was also the guy now languishing in the bastille, my apoplectic client.
He had not been apoplectic when he phoned me this afternoon. Not at all. He had been almost calm. Worried, yes; concerned; but not really in a sweat. Not then. Not when he’d hired me to bring peace and gladness into his life.
He’d called me from Palm Desert at 2 p.m. This afternoon, Friday, a zesty Friday in September. I’d finished reading a book and was intently watching, as is my custom when affairs are not pressing, the fish atop my office bookcase; Fish—guppies. I’m nuts about guppies.
The phone rang. I walked to the big beat-up mahogany desk and grabbed the receiver. “Hello,” I said. “Shell Scott.”
The voice was mellow, pleasant, almost drawling. “Mr. Scott. My name is Ormand Monaco. . . .”
2
I knew the name Ormand Monaco.
Most people in this part of the world knew it. I guess people even in that part of the world knew it. Lately the name—and the name of his new hotel near Palm Springs, the Kubla Kahn—had been much in the news, especially in the society and movie-TV columns.
“How do you do, Mr. Monaco,” I said, wondering what a guy who was supposed to have several million dollars, two Continentals and a Cadillac, three still-friendly ex-wives and numerous possibilities in the running for number four, plus a fantastic hotel in Palm Desert would want with me.
He told me. “I’ll get right to the point,” he said. “I presume you know I am about to open the Kubla Khan here in Palm Desert?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve seen a little more in the news about various wars, but except for—”
“The Khan will open to the public tomorrow, but I have invited approximately two hundred guests to a more intimate frolic tonight.”
I liked that: “more intimate frolic.” The more intimate frolics get, the better I like them. It was going to be quite a bash, undoubtedly. Stupendous beauty contest and everything. I was beginning to hope Mr. Monaco had called to invite me. Could it be?
“These guests will be primarily members of the fourth estate,” he went on. “Newspaper men and women, columnists, television commentators. And personal friends of mine like the Palm Springs Mayor and the Governor of California.”
“That’s nice,” I said glumly.
“And of course Mr. Simon Leaf and members of his entourage.”
Simon Leaf—as all who can read the papers without wiggling their ears knew—was, in his own words, a dynamic, forceful, brilliant genius. He had produced several movies, among them the award-winning Rape!, and was now preparing to take over the television industry. At least he was scheduled to produce—in fact was in the act of producing—a television series already set for prime time later in the silly-Nielsen season. It was tentatively titled “Flesh,” a subject which it was presumed would be of some interest to a number of citizens even though they might be possessed of less dynamism, force, brilliance, and genius than Simon Leaf. Which is not to imply that Simon Leaf was not himself interested in flesh. There had been rumors which I will not repeat, in case the kiddies are listening.
Oddly, I was remembering that the prime reason for the much-heralded Kubla Khan contest was to uncover wildly shapely and luscious tomatoes who would be rewarded with parts in the TV series, while perhaps in return Simon would be rewarded with parts of the wildly shapely and luscious tomatoes, when Mr. Monaco said, “I presume you are familiar with the talent search which will be concluded here tomorrow?”
Talent search, he called it; but I said, “I am indeed.”
“It is to be the culmination of tomorrow’s festivities. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that the proceedings be conducted with dignity and efficiency, with all propriety, and without even the breath of scandal. Do you understand?”
“Yeah. I guess. On the other hand, I’ve seen some of Mr. Leaf’s epics and got the impression he should rename Simon Leaf Productions and call it Fig—”
“Mr. Scott, levity is—”
“Maybe a little scan—”
“Mr. Scott!”
“Yes, sir?”
“Mr. Scott, I have been informed of your ability, integrity, courage, and occasionally unorthodox methods of achieving results satisfactory to your clients. I am assured you fear neither God nor Devil, man nor beast. That is why I phoned you. However, I have also been informed that on occasion your tongue runs away with your mouth, and that you have been known to be blunt to the point of producing physical pain in the ears of individuals to whom you were not even speaking. I must, nonetheless, ask you to shut up, since when I speak, I do not enjoy hearing anybody else speaking.”
I had to chuckle. This Monaco could get revved up and stop drawling after all, and I liked him better when he did. “I’ll do my best, sir,” I said.
“Splendid. Now, you can understand that with several score representatives of the press, television commentators, and a number of important personages present, anything untoward which might occur tonight or tomorrow would inevitably receive the widest publicity. Further, adverse publicity of any nature might well be damaging to the success of this enterprise—damaging and possibly fatal.”
He paused.
“Yes,” I said.
“Thirty-six lovely girls arrived here at the Khan Wednesday and yesterday. They are the contestants selected from all over the country to participate in the finals of the talent search tomorrow. One of them seems to be missing.”
He paused again.
“Seems?” I said.
“I spoke to her when she arrived Wednesday morning. She is an extremely beautiful girl. I have as yet found no one who has seen her since Thursday, yesterday. She did not sleep in her bed last night.”
“Well, if she’s such an extremely beautiful tomato, perhaps—”
“Mr. Scott.”
“Yeah.”
“She has apparently not been seen today by anyone here so far as I can discover. Perhaps there is no need for concern. But I have several million dollars invested in the Kubla Khan and therefore am concerned. I want you to find out what has happened to the girl—if anything. Guests are already arriving. The private party begins at eight tonight. Tomorrow at noon the grand-opening ceremonies will be held here. Clearly time is of the essence. Will you come immediately?”
“Immediately.”
“Excellent. It is essential, of course, that there be no scandal or unpleasant publicity which can by any means be avoided, not even the hint of scandal. Therefore I do not wish it known that I have employed you, Mr. Scott—”
“Hey, wait a—”
“Or any other detective. Knowledge that I have employed an investigator would inevitably give rise to the conclusion that I wish something investigated. Is that clear?”
“Clear.”
“Thus your alleged purpose in coming to the Kubla Khan will be to participate in the judging of tomorrow’s talent search. Naturally you will thus be free to mingle with—”
“I’m going to be a judge?” I said.
“—all the guests, attend the party, the various ceremonies and functions, and should be able—”
“I’m going to be a judge,” I said.
“—to ask certain questions without appearing to be conducting an inquiry. In your official capacity you would naturally be interested in the whereabouts of Miss Jax.”
“Miss Jax?”
“Jeanne Jax. She is the missing girl”
“I’ll find her.”
“That’s the spirit. I will be in my home, at the end of Yucca Road here in Palm Desert, until 5 p.m. When you arrive I will give you any other information you need, and we will discuss your fee.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“I shall expect you, Mr. Scott?”
“I’ll be there before five, Mr. Monaco.”
He added a few bits, told me to bring a costume for the party tonight, impressed me with the essence of time and such. Then we hung up.
“I’m going to be a judge,” I said.
Palm Desert is only a ninety-minute drive from Los Angeles, but before leaving town I had to stop at home, which is the Spartan Apartment Hotel on North Rossmore in Hollywood, where I packed some clothes and grabbed needed odds and ends such as razor blades and swim trunks. Then I stopped at a costume-rental shop on Sunset Boulevard, and was on my way.
By 4:30 p.m. I was zooming along Desert View Drive in my robin’s-egg-blue Cadillac, with the top down and a hot wind like a sauna on my face. According to Monaco’s directions, I figured I was six or seven miles from his home, and the Kubla Khan should be only about a mile ahead.
And then there it was.
I’d driven through Palm Springs and veered left, and for several miles had been traveling through a lot of nothing except gently rolling desert, sage and shrubs and sand, but suddenly on my left appeared the Kubla Khan.
First I saw the huge central dome, as smooth and sensually rounded as a woman’s breast, then a few tall and subtly phallic spires almost but not quite like Indian minarets. And green all around it—green of grass, of trees, of feathery palm fronds and large-leafed plants.
It was truly a beautiful sight, but strangely jarring. After the modern streets of Palm Springs, the smart shops and almost futuristic buildings, this looked like something slipped from a warp in time, unreal in the California desert. As I drove past I could see the wide front of the main building facing east, wings at the north and south slanting slightly back toward shadowed mountains behind it. On left and right were a few scattered buildings, separate and small, shaped like little mosques. As that view faded behind me it left strange, exotic words floating in my mind, names like Srinagar, and Samarkand, and Xanadu.
Xanadu . . . I remembered a girl in harlequin glasses, languorous on my living-room divan, quoting something like that to me. “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, where Alph the sacred river ran . . . “
Whoosh! A guy went past me like a bat out of hell, going like sixty—no, more like ninety; I was going about sixty myself. I guess it was a guy. The dark-blue buggy was close on my left and then swinging in ahead, swaying a bit from side to side, so speedily that I didn’t even see who was driving or recognize the make of car. Must have been a brand name, though; it was really going.
Just for the hell of it I shoved the accelerator down, curious to know if the daredevil was really hitting a hundred miles an hour. A mile slipped under the wheels, then two, and I was holding steady a couple of blocks behind him. The speedometer needle wavered from ninety-five to ninety-six. Nope, not quite a hundred, but quite a hurry. I wondered if the rest of the local citizens drove like this on the long, straight desert roads.
There wasn’t much traffic. Me and the car ahead, and one other buggy about a mile farther on. We’d been gaining on that third car steadily, but less rapidly now; I assumed its driver had spotted the maniacs behind him in his rear-view mirror and was trying to get out of the way.
And then I started wondering what the hell.
I knew Monaco lived at the end of Yucca Road, a one-lane road running left off Desert View Drive. It was about two miles up Yucca to his home, and there was only one turnoff, a dirt road swinging left about halfway up Yucca. I was already slowing down so I could turn on Desert View without leaving the road, and possibly the earth, and it was clear the car in front of me had already begun braking. That farthest car ahead had already swung left and was out of sight behind a good-sized hill, the kind of thing we call a mountain in California.
Were we all going to the same place? Must be a real exciting place, we were all in such a hurry to get there.
Yes, that’s where we seemed to be going. I swung into Yucca, last in line. Ahead and on my left the hill—it was called Moss Mountain—blocked out the sinking sun. The road wiggled like a snake, rising slightly but steadily. I never did see both cars again, but caught a glimpse of the nearer one a couple of times. Nearly a mile up Yucca the road straightened for two or three hundred yards, and I gave the Cad more gas, feeling some curiosity about the dark-blue buggy now visible ahead of me.
But then the driver braked suddenly, skidded, slid left and seemed to disappear into the mountain. I slowed, came almost to a stop at the spot where he’d turned. Dust rose and swirled lazily above a dirt road there, which rose toward a depression in Moss Mountain, perhaps the lowest spot along its rim. Near me I saw a weathered sign in the shape of an arrow pointing up the road, and the words harding ranch in black paint on the sign.
Maybe it was Papa Harding racing home to Mama. After a year at sea. Maybe not. I kept going on up Yucca Road. In another minute I caught sight of Monaco’s house, though house doesn’t seem quite the word.
It sat cupped in a hollow on the side of Moss Mountain, almost like a miniaturized—and Westernized—version of the Kubla Khan. There must have been forty rooms inside the place and the entire stock of seventeen nurseries outside it. A big chunk of the house jutted out toward me in apparent defiance of gravity, suspended in air, and beneath it was about an acre of water, either an emperor-size swimming pool or a shallow artificial lake. Tall palms rose near the water and behind the house. A black-topped drive curved past the water and ended in a hundred-foot circle at the base of stone steps leading up to the entrance.
In the circle was parked a three-year-old Buick coupé, its left-hand door open. I drove up near it, parked, and got out of the Cad. Above me, with her back to the big carved-wood doors, a woman stood, staring down at me.
I waved; she didn’t. But, after staring at me for a few seconds longer, she moved from the door and started down the stone steps.
I walked forward to meet her, but she was at the bottom of the steps by the time I reached them—skipping along at a pretty good pace, she was—and the lovely started to skip right on by me without a word.
Lovely she was, too. Tall, maybe five-eight, wearing a pale-blue skirt over flaring hips and a white blouse over raring breasts, a tan leather belt cinched tight around a waist that couldn’t have been more than twenty-one inches around. In one hand she clutched a big leather handbag the same color as the belt. Her big breasts trembled under the white cloth as she hurried past me.
“Hey,” I said, “wait a shake. Where’s the fire? Hello.”
“Hello.”
She stopped briefly, let vivid blue eyes rest on my face, then glanced around, once up toward the house, then back down the road. Her hair was cut short but was thick and full, the color of harvest-time wheat.
“Nobody home?” I asked.
“No.”
“That’s funny. Mr. Monaco said he’d be here. Were you supposed to see him, miss?”
She turned and started walking toward her car.
“I’ll be seeing him later,” I said., “If you’ll give me your name I’ll tell him you—”
She’d climbed into the Buick and pulled the door shut.
Great. Luscious gal like that, and she’d said two words to me. “Hello” and “No.” I’d goofed; she’d looked lovely enough to be one of the “talent search” contestants, eager for fame and adoration, and I hadn’t even thought to tell her I was a judge. Of what use is power if you don’t use it? I asked myself.
I went up the stone steps, found a bell button, which looked a bit like a belly button, with a pearl in it, and pushed it tentatively. Somewhere inside the house a gong boomed, sort of a twuuungg, like you’d expect to hear when Fu Manchu glides through the silken curtains.
The fluttering echoes died. Nothing. I started to twungg the button again and noticed one of the big double doors was not completely closed. I pushed it and it swung open. Funny. If Monaco wasn’t home, it seemed odd he’d leave a lavish joint like this unlocked.
Below me tires crunched in bits of loose gravel on the drive. The noncommittal tomato had started her car, was heading down the blacktop toward Yucca. I shrugged, turned back to the door and looked at it, then walked inside.
“Hello!” I yelled. “Anybody home?”
Silence. Heavy silence, that was all. I walked forward over white spongy carpet, my feet barely whispering on the thick nap.
“Hello!”
If there were forty rooms in this place, it would take a while to look through all of them. Be hell if I found a dead body. Like Monaco’s, say. Or any kind of dead body.
I stood still for a moment, listening. Then I sighed, took a step forward—and felt my spine stiffen.
I’d heard a sound. Two sounds, actually. Flat, heavy, one right after the other. Not in the house—outside, down the road.
And I’d heard that sound too many times not to know what it was. Gunshots.
3
The front door was still open behind me. I spun around and jumped to it, through it and down those stone steps three and four at a time. I was in the Cad, jabbing my key at the ignition, when I heard the third shot, louder in my ears now that I was outside the house.
I cramped the wheel, raced down the drive to Yucca and into it, tires skidding. I pushed the gas pedal for half a mile, then hit the brakes. The Buick coupé was off the road on my right, fender crumpled against a huge boulder, the side of Moss Mountain dark in shadow beyond it.
As the Cad slowed I looked toward the car, around it, up the slanting side of the hill. But nothing moved that I could see. I stopped near the Buick, eased my .38 Colt Special from its clamshell holster and got out of the car, keeping low.
Nothing happened and I ran to the Buick, shoved my head past the open window and yanked it back out involuntarily.
It was awful. Half her head was gone. Blood was all over. Above the dashboard, at the base of the window, was a ragged segment of curving bone, and on it a hank of hair the color of harvest-time wheat.
I started back toward my Cadillac, and the radio-phone under its dash. The sudden sight of the girl so messily dead had shocked me, and I guess I let my guard down. The hiss of the slug near my head and the crack of the gun seemed simultaneous.
I hit the dirt and rolled, got my feet under me and stayed crouched for a moment close to the side of my Cad. The shot had come from my left, somewhere up on the hillside. I cocked the .38, then raised up, stood motionless for a second and stepped suddenly to my right.
Whoever was trying to kill me would have missed me even if I hadn’t stepped aside. The bullet was high overhead; he’d probably jerked the trigger convulsively.
But I saw the flash this time.
The rim of the hill was only about two hundred feet away, and the dart of fire blazed briefly below the rim. I had my arm extended, Colt cradled in my fist, and I swung it left a bit and up and squeezed off three shots before ducking down again. There were two more shots and I heard a clunk, but neither slug came close to me. I moved to the Cad’s rear bumper and poked my head up again—and saw him.
Only for a moment. He was high above me, outlined against the still-bright sky, running. It was a man. I snapped another shot at him but knew I missed; the slug kicked up dirt near the hill’s rim, hit a rock and whined away. Then the man was out of sight. But by then I was running myself.
I fell twice going up that damned Moss Mountain, slick leather of my shoes slipping on rocks. But I got to the top bleeding only from the palm of my left hand. And a lot of good that speedy climb did me. The far side of the hill was little different from the first side, slanting down for two or three hundred feet to a dirt road, with dust swirling lazily above it. Far to my left a car raced away, going like sixty; or maybe like ninety.
I swore, wrapped a handkerchief around my left hand, and started down the mountain.
Before the deputies arrived I looked at the dead woman again. And at her car. She’d been hit in the chin with one slug, and there was a bullet hole in the right-hand door of the Buick, opposite where the driver would sit. So that explained the third shot.
Obviously one of those first two bullets had hit the car and the other bad slammed her chin like a club; that would have sent her off the road, probably knocked her unconscious. So the killer had run to the car from wherever he’d been lying in wait and had, in order to be very very sure, carefully fired another slug into her brain. They must have been heavy-caliber bullets, I thought. And for a moment I thought of something else: how lovely that face had been.
Within minutes after I’d used the radio-phone in my Cad to call the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department office in nearby Indio, the first black-and-white sheriff’s car arrived. In it was a tall, burly sergeant named Torgesen, who turned out to be the day-watch commander, still working. Right after him came another car driven by a deputy called Mike.
Torgesen spoke briefly to me and asked a few questions, looked into the Buick, glanced around. Then the sergeant walked over to me, notebook and pencil in his hand.
“You say your name’s Scott?”
“That’s right. Shell Scott.” I showed him my wallet card attesting to the fact that I was a private investigator licensed by the State of California.
He looked at it, rolled his eyes up to my face, then back to the card. “L.A., huh?” he said gently.
“Right.”
“What was your relation with her, Scott?” He moved his head toward the blue Buick.
“No relation. Never saw her before. Sergeant.”
“You know who she is?”
“Nope. I told you, I heard the shots while I was up at Mr. Monaco’s place, got here as fast as I could. As you can see, it wasn’t fast enough.”
The deputy called Mike had walked up to us while I was speaking. When I mentioned again that I’d been at Monaco’s house, he and the sergeant exchanged quick looks.
Mike said, “No registration in the car. Her bag’s open, bunch of junk spilled on the floor mat.”
Torgesen nodded, looking at me. “You touch anything, Scott?”
“Not me. I looked inside the car, that’s all.”
“You saw the man who killed her?”
“I saw a man, and he must have been the killer. He took a bunch of shots at me then scrammed over the hill.”
“What did he look like?”
“Beats me. I got just a glimpse of his back when he took off. Guy in a dark suit, and that’s it.”
“What were you doing at Monaco’s?”
My client—that is, my client then—had stressed his desire that nobody know he was hiring an investigator. But I couldn’t very well hold back that information now. So I said, “Mr. Monaco phoned me earlier this afternoon and asked me to meet him here before five o’clock . . . .” I let it trail off, wondering why Monaco hadn’t been there to greet me.
Torgesen was apparently thinking along the same lines.
He said, “Mr. Monaco told you he’d be at his home until five?”
“That’s what he said.”
“You say the place was empty, right?”
“No. What I told you was that I found the door open and went inside. Before I could look around the place I heard the shots.”
“The woman was at the door when you got there?”
“Yes. But she would hardly have had time to go in. I got there shortly after she did.”
He chewed on his lower lip, jotted a line in his notebook. Torgesen glanced down Yucca Road. A white car was coming toward us. When it got closer I could see it was a new Lincoln Continental.
Still looking at it, Torgesen said to me, “You’ve got no idea where Mr. Monaco was when you were up there, huh?”
“No idea. I suppose he could have been in the house.
That joint’s big enough—”
“No, here he comes now,” Torgesen said. “He always drives that big Connie.”
The Continental slowed, then stopped as it drew abreast of us. I saw a man looking out, an expression that might have been alarm on his narrow tanned face. His eyes fell on me, and the white hair and brows, plus my size, must have told him something, but I couldn’t tell from his expression if it was something he’d been eager to hear. Then he parked, stepped out of the car and walked toward us, and I was getting my first look at Ormand Monaco.
He was tall and had pretty good shoulders, but he looked unusually lean and elongated, as if he was originally half that size and had been stretched. He looked like a man with narrow bones covered by only a little flesh, and thin fat. But he was not a bad-looking man. In fact, he possessed a rather cadaverous handsomeness like a starving Basil Rathbone or one-half of a Vincent Price. He was wearing a pearl-gray suit, beautifully tailored and faintly iridescent, a soft white shirt, and a gray tie with a knot in it the size of a bean.
He stopped before us, glanced at me and then turned to the sergeant. “It’s Torgesen, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s the matter here?”
“There’s been a shooting, Mr. Monaco.”
Monaco had slightly wavy gray hair, full at the temples—perhaps to make his head look wider—and delicate brown brows flecked with gray. The brows pulled down over dark, almost black eyes, and without speaking he stepped toward the Buick. Torgesen followed him, and I tagged along.