This Girl for Hire Read online

  “Have you ever been back to the mainland?”

  “Sure. A month later for a final examination of my face.”

  “Any other time?”

  “Two weeks ago. I picked up a few supplies and came right back.”

  “Did you go to Hollywood?”

  Rod hesitated, then said, “Yeah. I wanted to see my agent, but it was too late. He’d already left the office.”

  “Go any place else?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, I stopped for a couple of drinks.”

  “Where?”

  He hesitated again. “The Golden Slipper. That was my old hangout before—”

  “Did you see anyone you know?”

  Rod laughed half-heartedly. “Are you kidding? You couldn’t recognize a Siamese twin in that place, even if it belonged to you.”

  “What time was it?”

  “I don’t know!” Rod said harshly. He crossed toward the kitchen, then whirled around. “All right, I did see Swanson. He was sitting at the bar. I talked to him for a few minutes. He was so swacked I doubt if he remembered it afterward. He was taking a drink back to Aces at the studio. I wouldn’t have thought a thing about it except Bob kidded me about the broken-glass incident. He said it was lucky I wasn’t taking the drink to Sam or I might slip in a little poison to even the score.” Rod stopped and wiped his hands over his face. “Hell, that’s insane!”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Have you ever been back to the Golden Slipper since that night?”

  “No.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Dammit! Of course, I’m certain.”

  “Have you been in Television Riviera?”

  “No!”

  “Not even the day after the last Swanson show?”

  “No! What would I be doing there?”

  I said quietly, “You originated the show. Doesn’t it bother you not to be part of it any more.”

  Rod shook his head. “Aces gave me a raw deal, sure. Okay. But I never should have been in bed with his wife, so we’re even.”

  “Are you in love with her?”

  “If I were, don’t you think I’d be out looking for her right now?”

  “Depends on what kind of a man you are.”

  “Try me sometime!”

  “I already have. You saved my life. I still haven’t thanked you for that.”

  “You can return the favor by taking me off the hook. I don’t want to kill anyone.”

  I stared at him and in the distance, through one of the windows, lightning touched the dark sea and then disintegrated. I closed my eyes, but the picture clung to my retina like the image of Herb Nelson’s body, which was imprinted indelibly upon the mirror of my mind.

  “Answer me one thing,” I said. “Have you ever worked with Herb Nelson?”

  He hesitated for an instant. “Too bad about him, wasn’t it? I—I thought he was one tremendous actor. No, I never worked with him on anything. I only wish I had. The last I saw or heard of Herb Nelson, he was working as a bartender’s assistant at the Golden Slipper.”

  “What time is it?”

  Rod peered at the kitchen clock. “Twelve-thirty.”

  “Have you got a boat?”

  “Sure,” Rod said. “I got a boat. What about it?”

  “Could you get us out to Hell’s Light?”

  He did a double-take and then grinned. “Are you kidding? In this storm? We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “Sounds as if the wind’s eased up.”

  Rod walked outside to check the weather. I knew I’d better get back to the ship as soon as possible. In all the confusion of wind, rain and whiskey, Sam Aces stood a good chance of getting what someone had been trying to give him for several weeks. A lesson in not breathing!

  Rod came in from his weather inspection. “You’re right,” he said. “The wind’s down considerably. So’s the water. I think we can make the yacht if you want to try.”

  “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  We dressed warmly and started down the face of the hill toward the water. Rain sifted through a sky cross-patched with thick black clouds and intermittent stars. His boat, a small cabin cruiser, was stored in a deep ocean cave below the house. Rod lowered her into the water by pulley and cable and we climbed aboard, nearly being thrown into the water, as a big wave smashed into the cave. It took a few minutes to navigate out into the open sea, then we turned toward the faint, distant lights of Aces’ floating funland.

  Waves, blown gayly by the wind, crested over our bow, but Rod kept the cruiser straight on course. We approached the yacht from the stern. She was impressive in the storm, her gleaming white sides sloping up into the dark sky. Somebody lowered the landing for us.

  It was wild, but between Rod and several of the yacht’s crew, they managed to secure the boat and raise her up out of the water. The float was lifted again.

  The swimming-pool bar was jammed. We didn’t even make a dent in the mad conglomeration. Max Decker, flushed, filled and fat, squandered his weighty load on two bar stools, spilling over both. Ann Claypool was providing most of the entertainment with a rock-and-roll version of the bump and grind.

  Ann was dancing on top of the bar and her wiggle was a smash hit. All she wore was a blue denim yachting cap. The headdress looked familiar. It had the word CAPTAIN sewn across the front. Sam Aces had been wearing that cap earlier, but there was no sign of the producer. There was no sign of Bob Swanson either.

  Joe Meeler seemed to be the only sober one in the place. I asked him about Aces.

  “Last thing I know,” Joe said, trying to talk above the din, “Swanson and Aces took off for a little stroll around the deck. Lord, you woulda’ thought they were a couple of queers, they were so palsy-walsy.”

  “Have you seen Lori Aces?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Joe said. “She came back with the camera crew late this afternoon. They had one helluva time in this storm, believe you me.”

  When I got back to the edge of the pool, even Rod Caine was gone. I started for Aces’ cabin. This looked bad. Swanson was out for a promenade with Sam while Rod Caine was rendezvousing with Lori.

  I suddenly felt as ridiculous as a jockey seeing his horse break from the starting gate and finding with horror he’s still in the chute.

  I banged on the producer’s cabin door. There were no lights on inside and the door was locked. I ran forward, hammering on doors, trying knobs. One opened and I entered hurriedly. The bed was occupied by two-bit players scrambled together like two crisp pieces of bacon fried into an egg. They didn’t even look up. I raced out. The wind was rising again and so was the sea. Whitecaps crackled in the churning water below. I wondered if Sam Aces were down there.

  There was a light in my cabin. I opened the door. Aces was sprawled across my bed, legs and arms hanging limply over each side. My heart sank to my knees. I stepped inside and slammed the door.

  Aces sat up, stretched, yawned and peered at me. “Where you been, Honey?” he asked. “I been worried about you.”

  “Sam, I thought you were dead! Where’s Swanson?”

  “You got me,” Aces said, grinding to his feet. “We got to be as thick as thieves in the bar. Then he suggested we take a walk. I didn’t like the sound of that, but I went along. When we got out on deck, I don’t know whether it was the ship pitching or old B. S. pushing, but I damn near went over the railing. That’s when we quit being friends.”

  “How’d you get in here?”

  Aces tried to shake some of the whiskey out of his cranium. “I don’t know exactly. I remembered your gun and that’s about all I remember until now. What time is it, anyway?”

  “About two o’clock.”

  “How’d you get back to the ship?”

  I told him the whole story, including the part about Lori’s picture in Rod Caine’s drawer.

  “You mean that son-of-a-B is aboard my ship?” Aces roared.

  “Someplace,” I said. “I lost him in the shuffle. But I got a h
unch where we might find him.”

  We headed for the swimming pool. Wind and rain swept the decks wildly, pushing us around like paper dolls. Rod was sitting at the bar with Lori.

  Aces waded over with me and grabbed Rod by the arm.

  “Get out of here, Caine! Get off this ship before I throw you off!”

  Rod didn’t ruffle a feather. He gently lifted Sam’s hand away and said, “Now, that isn’t being very hospitable, is it, Mr. Aces? Is that all the thanks I get for bringing your blonde bombshell back to her base?”

  “Don’t do me any favors, Caine. I don’t need your kind of help. Now get out of here!”

  Lori tried to intercede. “Sammy, please! Rod saved Miss West’s life. Let’s let bygones be bygones.”

  “No!” Aces roared.

  His voice barely caused a ripple in the noise and confusion. Ann Claypool, still dancing and singing on the bar, was shouting her lungs out. And beyond, in the wet darkness, the storm was creating its own impossible clamor.

  Rod grinned, his usual grin, and quietly mixed Aces a drink. Then Swanson appeared out of nowhere, breasting the water in his inimitable muscular style. He looked at Caine, then at Aces and exploded wildly.

  “Let me at him!” he roared. “Let me at Caine! I’ll kill the bastard!”

  He flailed and stumbled around drunkenly but never even got close to Rod Caine. Sam Aces intervened with a smashing blow to Swanson’s mouth that caught the muscle man completely offguard. He stood for an instant, eyes widened, blood spilling from the wound, then slowly submerged in the water of the swimming pool. Rod helped me drag him to the side of the pool.

  “What is this?” I said to Caine. “You and Swanson were supposed to be pals. What happened the night in the Golden Slipper that you haven’t told me about?”

  Rod shook his head. “Nothing. I told you everything. Now forget it!”

  I shook my head angrily. Rod Caine wasn’t telling me half what he knew. Had he seen Swanson put something in Aces’ drink? Or was it the other way around? Or was it that everyone had a hankering to hang one on the capricious Mr. Caine’s jaw? But the biggest riddle was why Sam Aces suddenly stepped in between the two and lowered the boom on Golden Boy.

  Swanson was all out of the fighting mood when he came to his senses. He growled a few times and skulked off to his cabin. Rod was about to head back to the beach when things really went haywire.

  Aces stopped him. “I’m sorry I flew off the handle, Caine. Why not stay the night? You’ll have a tough time making shore the way the storm’s going now.”

  Rod accepted gratefully. We joined Lori at the bar again and immediately Decker floated over. There was one thing about Max Decker. Drunk or sober, he didn’t have to shout to be heard.

  “Good to see you again, Rodney,” he bellowed, pumping Caine’s hand. “I thought maybe you were dead.”

  This time it was Rod’s turn to get nasty. He didn’t hit Decker, but he might as well have. He gave the big man one of the roughest five minutes on record. When it was over, everyone seemed willing to call it a night, but we got naked little Annie instead. She obviously knew Rod Caine well.

  She flopped into his lap. “Hi, honey man! I been missing you, where you been?”

  “In a clothing store,” Rod quipped. “Why don’t you try one for size?”

  “Now, sweetie,” Ann said drunkenly, “when the public clamors, you got to give them what they want. Isn’t that right, Sam boy?”

  Before Sam Aces had a chance to answer, Lori cried, “Can it, Claypool! Can it and sell it on Main Street where you can make yourself a buck.”

  The two gals were about the same size and weight. I thought for a second they’d square off in another fight but they never had a chance to get up out of their corners.

  Sam Aces suddenly turned green, grabbed his throat and screamed as if he’d just swallowed a pint of broken glass.

  The bar patrons stopped dead in their drunken tracks. Aces lurched through the water toward me with a tall orange drink in his hand and as I tried to catch him, he went down. I got the drink instead.

  While I juggled the glass, Aces sank and came up again, still screaming, still off balance. Several people tried to stop him, but failed in their efforts. He crawled up the side of the pool, staggered, fell and got up again, finally disappearing onto the storm-drenched upper deck.

  “He’s poisoned!” someone yelled.

  Rod Caine ditched Ann in the pool and came after me. Apparently he wanted Sam’s glass, but I wasn’t about to give it up.

  Clutching the glass firmly, I waded to the edge of the pool and started after Aces. Caine was hot on my heels. So were a few others, including Decker, Meeler, Ann Claypool and Lori Aces.

  If there was poison in the glass, I had to get the contents to a safe place. More important, I had to find Aces and dig up an antidote in a hurry.

  A light burned in a cabin up ahead. I recognized it as Aces’ and turned in. The bit players were gone. I went into the bathroom, opened the cabinet and took down a small ceramic figurine used for storing old razor blades. The container was almost empty.

  I shook out the blades and poured the contents of Aces’ glass into the narrow slot. Replacing the piece of pottery, I noticed a bottle of orange-colored medicine bearing the label, Suspension Co-Pyronil Antihistamine. It looked like concentrated orange juice. A bright thought struck me. I poured a small quantity of the thick liquid into Aces’ glass and added water. What a break! It looked enough like the original contents of the glass to fool any one.

  Suddenly the cabin was swarming with people. Caine extracted the glass from my hand and grinned.

  “I’ll take care of this,” he said. “I can analyze it at my place tomorrow. I’ve got lab equipment there.” Lori stood behind Rod.

  “‘Remind me to analyze you sometime, Mr. Caine,” I said. “Especially if we find Sam Aces dead.”

  We split up and searched Hell’s Light. The wind, rain and darkness made it difficult. I finally tried my own cabin. The door was banging loudly in the wind and it was pitch dark inside.

  The hair on the back of my neck began to twitch. And with good reason. Something was hanging from the ceiling. A rope with a body attached to it. Caine appeared behind me in the open doorway, a flashlight in his hand.

  “What’s the matter?” he shouted over the roar of the storm.

  I didn’t have to answer. The flashlight beam caught the round white face under the rope. It was Bob Swanson.

  EIGHT

  I SWITCHED ON THE CABIN LIGHT. GOLDEN BOY WAS hanging from a rope looped through a metal ring in the ceiling. The cord was hooked under his arms. We lifted him down.

  “What the hell do you make of this?” Rod peered at me through narrowed eyes.

  I examined Swanson’s head. “Big lump, here, over his right temple. He must have been struck by a pretty solid object.”

  Swanson began to make sounds. He opened his eyes and looked at us. “What hit me?”

  I grinned. “From the looks of the lump, I’d say the Twentieth Century Limited. Where’d this happen?”

  He looked about the room dazedly. “Right here. I was going through some of your drawers.”

  “What for?” I demanded.

  “Your gun,” Golden Boy grunted. “I knew you had one. Lori told me you did. I wanted to find it so I could blow his brains out.”

  “Whose brains?” Rod asked.

  “Aces’! That dirty bastard!” Swanson tried to get up. “I’ll kill him, so help me, I’ll kill him!”

  “You wanted to do the same thing to Rod Caine twenty minutes ago,” I said. “What is it with you, anyway?”

  Swanson felt the lump over his right ear. “Caine knows why I said that to him. That’s not important now. Aces is. He’s hit me for the first and last time. When I see him I’m going to put a hole right through his middle.”

  “Who do you think jumped you in here?” I asked. “Did you see or hear anything?”

  Golden Boy grimaced.
“No. I was bent over. There was a lot of noise outside from the storm. I didn’t even hear the door open.”

  “Serves you right for going through a lady’s drawers,” I said. “‘Did you find the gun?”

  “Do you think I’d still be here if I had?” Swanson tried to stand up, but his legs were like rubber.

  I gazed about the room. A chair was overturned a few feet from where the rope dangled from the ceiling. Then I spotted a piece of pipe lying under the edge of the bed. I picked it up in a small towel and showed the weapon to Caine.

  “Half-inch,” Rod said quickly. “Looks like a fitting for a gas or steam line.”

  Swanson grabbed the pipe before I could stop him. “So that’s what hit me! Wonder it didn’t crush my skull.”

  “I’ll go along with that,” I said angrily. “With as few brains as you’ve got I’m surprised you weren’t flattened right down to your oxfords.”

  “What do you mean by that crack?” he howled.

  “If you hadn’t smeared your fingerprints all over the weapon, we might have found your friend.”

  Golden Boy groaned, touched the patch on his eye and said, “This is all your fault! Everything’s gone wrong since we hired you!” He staggered through the door into the drenching rain.

  Rod helped me search the yacht but we found no trace of Sam Aces. About four o’clock we checked the bar again. Everybody had gone to bed.

  Exhausted, I slumped clown on the edge of the pool and glanced at the weary-eyed writer. “Well, what do you think?”

  “Maybe it’s all a joke,” Rod said, stretching his arms. “We’re not absolutely certain there’s poison in that glass. Maybe he took one of his own small boats.”

  “None of the boats are missing.”

  “Okay,” Rod continued. “Maybe he swam to shore.”

  “Very funny!”

  “He was drunk. Maybe he carried his joke too far.”

  “Listen,” I said. “I don’t care how drunk he was, nobody would go into the water during a storm like this.”

  “A good swimmer might. I’ve seen a lot of fools attempt it.”

  “Not Sam Aces,” I insisted. “He can’t swim a stroke.”