And kill once more Page 12

  "Feel like an evening swim?" I asked.

  "Sure, Marty. Say when."

  "Now. But not with me. I was thinking maybe you'd go it solo for a while."

  She leaned against the top of a dressing table and gave me the full treatment with those soft blue eyes. "You were going to cut me in," she invited.

  "When I get something," I said. "Remember? So far I'm as close as I am to flying to the moon. Now be a good kid and climb into that fetching white bathing suit, what there is of it, and go take a few dives. It would help if you can manage to look at Widdle now and then."

  She smiled, then let it grow into a grin. "You wouldn't by any chance be thinking—"

  "How about those dives?" I cut in. "Say about twenty minutes from now?"

  "Marty." She came toward me, her eyes asking the question before her lips framed the words. "Marty, it

  isn't Elsa, is it? You're not going to see her, or get out of here with her, or—"

  I put a stop to the questions in the only sensible way a man could. My arms tightened around Kate's slim waist and I pressed her to me, kissed her full and hard on those soft upturned lips and felt their warm answer. A number of seconds passed, every one of them wonderful, and when we parted I stroked her hair and smiled down at her.

  "I missed a lot of words yesterday," I said. "Blonde and beautiful weren't even a good start. We'll have to go into the rest of it some night. Maybe tonight—a little later?"

  "A little later, Marty," she said. I kissed her again, reminded her to hurry into that bathing suit, and let myself out.

  A little later I rapped on Sandy's door. Five minutes more and I was back out on the terrace. Widdle had his magazine again, but now he managed to turn a page every once in a while. I stood beside him and struck a flame, lit my smoke and flipped away the match.

  "What do you hear from Toland? He coming back tonight?" I asked.

  "Haven't any idea, Bowman. Why?"

  "Well, I was thinking of hitting the sack," I said. I wrinkled my forehead and pressed the palm of my hand to my face. "Too much sun, maybe. Just thought I'd tell you, in case anyone wants me. Okay?"

  He gave me a quick hard look, then nodded and went back to his reading. I wandered toward the house, went into the main hall, and then stopped in the living room. I thumbed through a day-old paper until the hands on my watch said seven, stood up, and eased over to the large picture window overlooking the terrace and pool. Kate Weston was poised on the diving board and Widdle's magazine had reached a new low on his lap. I grinned to my-

  self and slipped through the house toward the garage, then out to the big Cad. When Sandy Engle came quietly up to the car I opened the door for her, then closed it noiselessly and slid in behind the wheel. Releasing the hand brake, I let the heavy wagon roll back and when it had gone a few feet I cramped her hard left, kept an eye on the edge of the concrete, then pressed lightly on the brake. She stopped and then, as I released the brake pressure and whipped the wheel to the right, the Cad started down the hill. We let gravity do the honors for half a mile, then wound up the engine and slipped the hydromatic into drive. At the canyon highway we pulled onto the concrete and swung north, the heavy hack rolling smoothly over the road. The summit, then the winding pavement toward Palmdale, and the wan brunette beside me flashed a dubious look my way.

  "This is crazy," she said at last. "It's only been three months since my last check-up. There could hardly be much change in that time. Not enough to show. And in the second place it's Saturday night—after seven and you certainly won't find a lab open at this hour."

  "You came, though," I observed dryly.

  "Yes. Hope against hope, Marty—if there's even a chance that you might be right, but—"

  "No buts. Leave it to Bowman, Sandy."

  "But if they're not open?"

  "We'll open 'em."

  "You don't lack confidence, do you, Marty?"

  I didn't say any more about it and we talked about other things—the years she and Kate had chased around together, her marriage, some of the people she knew back in the city. It was nearing eight when we slid to a stop beside a drugstore in Lancaster. I checked the phone book for an address, then asked the waitress how to get there. We found the X-ray lab locked.

  " 'We'll open 'em,' " she taunted. I got out and went up

  to the door, my eye searching for the emergency address sign most any shop has pasted down in one corner. There were two names—the doctor who must have owned the place and a Mr. Kelson with a phone number and an address. He'd be the technician, our target for tonight. I scribbled his house number and street on a card, then drove to a gas station, took on ten gallons and asked directions.

  It wasn't far. A few minutes later I was rapping on the door of a modest concrete block bungalow near the edge of town. My third try brought a freckle-faced lad of about ten around the side of the house.

  "Pa's out in back. We're gonna barbecue," he said happily.

  I followed him along the new cement walk, through a white wooden gate, and over to the far corner of the lot. A red brick patio bearing unmistakable signs of an amateur's hand stood against a not yet completed block fence and a thin gent in faded Army fatigues bent over the flames of a wood fire. When he turned to give me a 'howdy' I guessed him to be in the early thirties, the gaunt type who, due to premature baldness, probably looked a little older than he really was. On the flat brick counter near him were red hamburger patties, a cellophane package of buns, catsup, and a bottle of hickory sauce.

  "Mr. Kelson?"

  "That's right." He set down a bag of charcoal and dusted his hands on the legs of those faded green fatigues.

  "Marty Bowman," I said. Then: "Your name was on the card down at the lab. How about a little overtime tonight?"

  "Emergency? And from which doctor, Mr. Bowman?"

  "No emergency. Routine chest X-ray. But I need it now."

  "Well, I'd sure like to help you, but unless it's something that can't wait—broken bones or like that, brought in by a physician—we don't open up. You drop by in the morning at nine and I'll get you first thing."

  "Not me. A friend of mine, and we can't wait."

  "What's so urgent about a chest X-ray? And you'll need an M.D. to read it anyway, you know. We can't just—"

  He stopped talking when I brought out my wallet and slid a twenty into my hand. Then I folded the bill lengthwise like a crap shooter and looked at Kelson.

  "Time is money, Mr. Kelson," I said, "and we're in a hurry. I just want the plates—we'll worry about getting the thing read later."

  Kelson's eye was following the green bill and I knew he was beginning to see the light. He raised an eyebrow, then glanced toward his unfinished fence and back to the cash again. It wasn't hard to guess he was seeing twenty more dollars worth of blocks in that wall. I let the bill waft to the ground and was a little slow in bending for it. He got there first. When he straightened up with the cash in his hand, he turned to the freckle-faced lad beside him.

  "Tell your mother to hold those french fries back for about forty minutes. You can drop some of this charcoal on the fire now and it'll be down to coals when I get back. And don't get burned, hear?" He winked at me and walked toward a pre-war Chewy parked in his driveway.

  He looked a lot different in a white jacket. Sandy came out of the dressing room, a plain short hospital gown covering the part above her skirt as she stepped in front of the shining black glass plate.

  I held out a tiny safety pin. "Stick it in the cloth. Low, but not too far down."

  She looked curiously at the pin, then fastened it in the gown. Kelson gave her that breathe-and-hold-it routine twice, then went to process the plates. By the time he came out with them, Sandy was dressed. He handed me the oversized brown envelope, took the ten dollar bill I held out, and began to rummage for change.

  "Eight dollars, Mr. Bowman. I'll get—"

  "Skip it. Tomorrow you can barbecue steak. On Gregory."

  "Thanks. Thanks, but
on who, did you say?"

  "You don't know him, but he's still stuck for it. Good night."

  "Well, thanks." Kelson said, and the door closed after us.

  We got into the car and rolled back to the drugstore, and this time I checked for doctors. Phoning several, I was able to get appointments with two who were home and would see us. The first turned out to be a round little character with a penchant for using more words than were necessary and reasonable. Sandy and I sat down in the office he maintained in the front part of his house and the doctor beamed at us.

  "Ah, yes. Always nice to see two young people so well matched. A blond boy and brunette girl, a nice combination indeed. And now what was this about an X-ray? You have it with you, I see."

  "We thought that might help." I smiled.

  He favored me with a questioning glance, then chuckled. I slid the envelope across his desk.

  "We'd like you to go over these, if you would. We'll wait."

  "Certainly, certainly. Hmmm. Chest X-rays, eh. Yes indeed."

  "That's right, Doc, for one dollar. Like to try for two?"

  He couldn't be ruffled. "A quiz program fan, eh?

  Say, I was listening to a pretty good one the other night. Fella was asked—"

  The doc yacked on while he was getting his light set up, but I'll have to admit that when he put the plate up against the illuminated ground glass, all nonsense ceased. He even forgot what the sixty-four dollar question was. Taking the first plate off, he studied the second, then called us over.

  "You aren't joking, Mr. Bowman? I mean that pin I see is really in the blouse—or was, wasn't it?"

  "Certainly. Don't worry about the pin. The lady put the pin there to be sure there wasn't any switching of film. All we want to know is the condition of the chest. The spots. Are they active or bottled up or what?"

  The doctor didn't even glance back at the plates. He sat his round bottom on the nearest chair and gave us a big grin. "What are we playing, Mr. Bowman? Nobody can say I won't go along with a gag, but—"

  "There isn't any gag. What about the X-ray?" I said it in a hard flat voice and when he turned his smile my way I didn't bounce back with one. His face straightened and he went back to the plate still on his glass, then motioned us over with his finger.

  "This is a pin. You said it was on the dressing gown so we don't have to worry about that, eh? Now as far as the rest of this X-ray goes, there isn't a sign of any chest condition; no scar tissue, even. There is not now, nor has there ever been any tubercular infection in these lungs."

  "Thank you, Doctor. We'll take the films with us, if you don't mind." I slid them back into the envelope and dropped one of Boreland Gregory's twenties on the desk. The doc scribbled a receipt and piled a few bills on top of it, and Sandy and I left without half hearing the patter the doc dished out as we went down the walk.

  When we got back into Kate's big Cad I looked across at Sandy Engle.

  Her eyes were faraway, her head tipped back against the gray leather, and in the half-light I saw the mixed emotions bubbling up from the depths.

  "How can I tell you what I feel?" she asked softly. "I saw those other plates, Marty. I sat in a doctor's office and watched while he traced those shadows. But now—"

  "You put that pin in the gown tonight," I said, easing the car out into the street. "With your own hands, Sandy. I didn't arrange it in the cloth; just gave the thing to you, and you saw it on the plate just the way you had it when he took the picture. There was no possible way I could have switched X-rays. Which means?"

  "I know. The other time was the phoney, Marty. But how? I mean—"

  "Some of it I can tell you, Sandy. Some we can guess, but the rest you'll have to throw in for me. As to the how, there's one way it could have been done, and quite easily. Engle couldn't get Cronk to turn this job. That would have put the doc in position to demand something from George. Hell, if Cronk had known that George was keeping you there—but he didn't. It was a reputable Hollywood physician who read the plate for you, Sandy, but he didn't take it. A local lab did that, and George brought it to the office. Now it's a fair guess that he switched to one he'd gotten from Cronk, but without telling Cronk his reason for wanting it. Simple?"

  "Yes—Marty, it must have been like that. But what about the check films every three months? I've had—"

  "Just down to Newhall and right back. You got the reports later, didn't you? You said so."

  Sandy nodded her dark head slowly. "Yes. And from George."

  "Sure. From George."

  "George. The one who loved me best," she said in

  a strained, mocking voice. "George, who was never afraid to swim with me, never afraid of getting—"

  "Now take it easy, Sandy."

  "Take it easy? Two years, Marty. Do you put someone in jail for two years, frighten her and then say it was all a mistake and to take it easy?"

  I said sternly, "You're getting worked up unnecessarily. That little collection of flagstone and concrete you've got in the hills might be made of the same materials as a jail but it's arranged a hell of a lot differently. You'd best calm down a little, Sandy. I'll phone that second doctor. There's no use keeping the other appointment—if you're satisfied as to what's on the plates."

  "Phone him, Marty. Phone him from a bar, because that's where you're taking me. Fast. Tonight's the night little Sandy climbs down off the wagon."

  "Easy now," I said, smiling. "You could overdo it without too much trouble, you know. You—"

  "I hope to shout in your ear I'll overdo it. And tonight. Two years on lemonade. 'You must conserve your energy, Sandy, dear,' and, 'You'll be better off not to drink anything with alcohol, baby,' and, 'You have to be careful, my love,' and—come on, Marty. Let's find that phone."

  We cruised slowly along a side street and I tried to grasp the change in Sandy Engle. Before it had been hard to picture her as a running mate for Kate Weston; now it was easy. The shy, retiring, and almost torpid Sandy Engle I had known for just over one day had been that way for a brief two years, pressed into the mold by George Engle, urged to avoid any kind of close contact with others. No wonder Kate Weston had been puzzled. 'Sandy likes to get around,' Kate had said, and, 'Sandy's eyes haven't gotten the word, Marty. She wants to get away.' I could understand that now, could see that two years of pressure had built up in the pale and thin bru-

  nette beside me. And it might not be a good idea to let her break the bonds tonight, but from where I stood there wasn't going to be a hell of a lot of choice. Engle had sold her a bill of goods, put her in a hothouse and kept her there until lack of exercise and interest had cut away her vitality by sheer inactivity. Now she was out to recapture two years of living in a single night. I didn't like the sound of it but I couldn't dredge up more than one logical line of reasoning to talk her out of it.

  "Look, Sandy," I said earnestly. "I can see how you feel all right, and no one can possibly say you don't rate a night on the town. A lot of them, maybe, to make up for the time you've been in exile, but think how this is going to look."

  "Let's talk about how it's going to taste, Marty, and the sooner the better."

  I shook my head, hesitated, then smiled in spite of myself. Sandy could have been a hell of a lot of fun before George Engle put her under wraps. She might still be more fun than three drunken monkeys, I guessed, but it would have to be some other night.

  "Put it this way. You've been on the wagon for two years, Sandy, and a few more days won't hurt. Now George is dead and he was your husband. No matter how sore you are tonight or how much you feel you've been cheated and double-crossed, it still wouldn't look just—"

  "Marty, boy, if what I feel for George tonight were put into print it would be banned in a lot of places besides Boston. He—oh, hell, stop being noble. On to the tavern and a new life."

  "But we want to be fair, Sandy. You—"

  "To George?" she gave me a scornful look.

  "Well, no, but to yourself."

&
nbsp; She reached over and patted my shoulder. "In the last two years, Marty, I've downed enough lemonade to keep

  an average-sized orchard in business. Now I ask you, was that quite fair to the farmers who raise rye?" The hand on my shoulder slipped up to my cheek. "You were a hundred per cent right, Marty, lad. We want to be fair. Now can I have that drink?"

  "Well, maybe," I hedged, and turned up toward the main street. "We'll try one for size."

  "Thanks, Marty." Then her face lost its smile again and she stared into the bright cones of our headlights. "There's a lot of things you don't know about George Engle. Or maybe you do. You seem to have come right along in the time you've been on the grounds. I'd like to know how you figured some of it out, and as you said, I might be able to straighten out a few spots for you. I'd sure like to try."

  "You've got yourself a deal, Sandy." I rolled along the main drag for two blocks, then parked the big Cad in front of a cocktail bar and went around to open the door for her. She had that look of eager anticipation in her eye and once again I began to wonder just how good an idea this was and how you shut a determined woman off with a single drink.

  Fourteen

  It was about what you usually find in a bar—dark red leatherette booths with a plastic-topped table big enough to hold four glasses, an ashtray, and the small tray for your change. I managed to stake a claim on one not too far from a neon that gave enough light to enable me to keep an eye on Sandy, something I certainly intended to do. The barhop was cute in a late thirtyish sort of way and walked with an interesting bounce in the right places.

  She slid a tiny paper napkin in front of each of us, then placed a pair of coasters on the table and looked up expectantly.

  "A whiskey highball, please," Sandy said. She was back in the groove all right; you'd never have pegged this for her first outing in a couple of years. I ordered a daiquiri and the waitress nodded, then went toward the three feet of bar roped off for exclusive use of the help. Sandy Engle put her purse on the seat beside her and leaned toward me.