I put my hand on the door, then hesitated. To hell with it, I thought. This house was a jungle and animals will be animals.
I moved on down the hallway, stopping at the next door. The room beyond it was dark. I reached in, switched on the light. Dianne sat in a huge leather chair by wide French doors. She looked at me.
“Sex,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “It comes and it goes.”
“It only comes around this house,” she said. She curled her long legs beneath her, settling more firmly in the chair. There was a vague familiarity about her, something I couldn’t place.
The room, apparently, was the library. Three walls were lined with books, hiding behind glass cases. The books were unused.
“They came with the house?” I asked.
She grinned. “Let’s be friends.”
I moved over to the chair, sat on its arm. I leaned down, tipped her chin up, kissed her on the mouth; her mouth moved under mine, her fingers dug into the back of my neck—then she pushed me away.
“No,” she said. “Not here. Not in this house.”
“Any time, any place,” I said.
She looked up at me and I moved away. She lit two cigarettes, giving me one, and we watched the clouds of smoke form and disappear.
“What did you mean out there?” I asked. “About the line.”
Her eyes hovered uncertainly on mine. “A kiss and then a question. Is that the way you work?”
“The kiss was for free,” I said.
She looked at the tip of her cigarette and shrugged. “You’re the third detective Claire has hired to find out about Harrison.”
An idea struck me head-on. I didn’t like it. “Was Jocko Quinn one of them?”
“You asked Claire that this afternoon.”
“I’m asking you now.”
“Yes,” she said. “He was the second one.”
“Dianne,” I said, “friend Jocko is no longer with us. Someone put two thirty-eight slugs in him this evening and left his body in my car.”
There was nothing on her face. Nothing.
“Who was the first one, Dianne?”
“A Harry Dexter,” she said, “A poor little man. He was killed in an auto accident.”
I could have kicked myself all the way to Hollywood and Vine. A hundred ideas flashed across my mind and all of them melted down to this—I was a pigeon.
“You talk too much, Dianne!”
I turned around. Claire Harding stood in the doorway. Her face was flushed, whether from drink or from something else I didn’t know.
“Look, baby,” I said, “I don’t like you.”
A smile touched her lips. “That’s understandable,” she said. “Not many people do.”
“You could have told me about these other two guys.”
She shrugged.
“I’ll mail you your check.”
“You’re quitting?”
“Naturally.”
She walked across the room, stopping before Dianne. She touched the younger girl’s head affectionately; she was nearer to being a human being at that moment than at any other time I had seen her.
“Have it your way, Mr. Phelan,” she said.
“I will.”
I left the room and the house.
4
I OPENED THE DOOR TO MY OFFICE, stooped down to pick up the morning mail. The first three envelopes held bills. The fourth envelope interested me. It was small and my name and address were scrawled across it in a childish hand. The writing belonged to Jocko Quinn. I opened the envelope and a key fell out on the desk. There was nothing else. The key was the kind used for rental boxes in bus and train stations. The number on it was 3752. I started to dial the Hollywood bus terminal.
“Good morning.”
I looked up. Dianne Cochran stood in the doorway. She looked fresh and animated—curiously better than she had last night, in that house. Her blue suit was expensive and in good taste.
I searched through my wallet for the check, found it. I put it on the desk.
“Is this what you came for?”
She shook her head. “No. May I sit down?”
I shrugged. She moved into the chair opposite me.
“You’re a hard man, Mr. Phelan.”
“Just an act, for my customers’ benefit.”
“I guessed as much.”
“Okay,” I said, “let’s have it.”
“Have what?”
“Whatever it’s going to be. The pitch. I’ve heard them all in this business.”
“There’s no pitch, Mr. Phelan,” she said. “We need your help. It’s that simple.”
“We?”
“Yes. Mother and I.”
That stunned me. I looked at her. There was a resemblance—I had noticed it the night before, but had not added it up.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Mr. Phelan. I’m not.”
“Why should I be embarrassed?”
“Most people are, when they find out. You see, I was born out of wedlock. There’s a name for people like me, but I don’t like to use it.”
“I don’t blame you.”
She seemed to think that over.
“People make mistakes,” I said.
She nodded. “Mother was only 17. She didn’t know any better.”
That was one way to put it. I said, “I understand.”
But I didn’t. Just why she should be telling me this, I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know, either.
The telephone rang. I was thankful for that.
It was my answering service. A Mr. Carter had called. He would be a little late in paying his bill. I had tailed his wife for a week. She hadn’t done anything wrong—apparently Mr. Carter wasn’t happy about it. I hung up the phone.
“We’re willing to raise the fee, Mr. Phelan—to twenty-five hundred.
Twenty-five hundred wouldn’t take me to the Riviera, but it could mean Mexico City for a few weeks. I took out a scratch pad and a pencil and began doodling. I made a large circle, then a smaller one; I put a nose on the smaller one, then ears on the outer one. She smiled.
“That’s a bad habit,” she said.
“All habits are bad,” I said.
She held out a cigarette. I didn’t move. She frowned at me, lighting it herself.
I pulled out a pipe, filled it, lit it. My clouds were bigger than hers. That didn’t give me any satisfaction.
“Miss Cochran,” I said.
“It was Dianne last night. That’ll do this morning, too.”
I said, “A jinx seems to