Now, ten minutes later, I twisted my tiller, scooted around a series of curves that slanted upward in tilted coils like rope a careless giant had tossed away. And presently I came to my destination.
Heinrich had a layout in keeping with his lofty position as head cheese of a major studio. It was a cubistic stucco affair on three different levels, as if the architect had melted it and let it drip down the face of the hill until it congealed there in an unsymmetrical jumble of gray blocks.
An abrupt driveway angled to a parking area in front of the garage, which might have held ten Cadillacs if you squeezed them in with a shoe-horn. From this terraced plateau, monolithic steps led up to the next level. You didn’t really need an alpenstock to make the climb.
At the top of the steps there was a flat expanse, part patio, part lawn, part flagstones, part garden and part swimming pool. Lake Michigan was bigger than the swimming pool. Skirting it, you came to the house itself, its main entrance recessed in a sort of embrasure. By that time you were ready for artificial respiration.
I thumbed the bell-push, waited for my pulse to get back down out of the stratosphere. By and by the chrome-plated door opened and a stuffed shirt in butler’s livery inspected me with the cordial sunny warmth of December in Siberia.
“Yes, sir?” He let the words slide past his sinuses, like a repressed whinny.
“Mr Heinrich,” I said, and briefly flashed my badge.
“The master is not at home, sir. And if I may say so, sir, I find your approach to be most crude in its subterfuge.”
“Hah?”
“The badge, sir. A special, I believe. Not a genuine police shield at all.” He leered at me. “You are not the only impostor who has tried to obtain an interview on false credentials. Most of them pretend to be gas meter readers, telephone repairmen and termite inspectors. I give you credit for more originality,” he added grudgingly. “But the fact remains that actors, musicians and scenario writers seeking employment with Paragon must see Mr Heinrich at the studio, not at his residence. Good night, sir.”
6. Body on the Lam
As that butler said “good night” he started to close the door in my face, very politely, very properly. And very firmly.
I leaned against its velvety chromium surface, just as politely and twice as firmly. I’m a patient guy, but I was fed up with people giving me the brushoff. I reached around the edge of the portal, harvested a fistful of the butler’s livery and hauled him up close to me. I thrust my kisser two inches from his, so he could smell the Scotch on my breath.
“Pal,” I said, “I’m coming in. If you insist on it I’ll trudge the length of you like a welcome mat, but I’m coming in. I’ve got to talk to Heinrich and I’ve got to have permission to prowl the property. Do you take me to your boss right now or shall we wrestle for it?”
“He – he’s not home!” he squawked, flapping like a hen laying a square egg. “Let go of me!”
I shook him a little, just enough to make his tonsils rattle.
“Don’t lie to me, baby. There’s a killer loose. He’s looking for your employer and he’s toting a thirty-eight for a divining rod. Take me to Heinrich. Pronto.”
“He’s out. There’s no-nobody home except Mrs Heinrich and myself. The rest of the household staff have the evening off. You let g-go of me or I’ll call the p-police!”
“I wish you would,” I said grimly. “Maybe they’ll listen to you. They wouldn’t to me.”
Still holding him, I shoved him backward into a reception hall that needed only a layer of turf to make it a polo field.
“But first take me to Mrs Heinrich,” I said. “That’s assuming you were levelling about her hubby not being home.” I kicked the door shut behind me, listened for the click that satisfied me the latch had snapped. “Meanwhile, don’t let anybody else in. Except the cops, of course. I wasn’t fooling about a killer being loose.”
He flapped some more. “You c-can’t—”
“Don’t be tiresome,” I said. “I’ll even let you announce me to the lady. Nick Ransom is the handle. Maybe she’ll remember me from the days when she was an extra named Marian Lodge and I was a stunt man around the lots.”
“But – but Mrs Heinrich doesn’t like to be disturbed during her star bath.”
“Star bath?”
“Like a sun bath, only at night. Something about the cosmic rays. She read it in a book.”
I took this in stride. The night was so full of whacky events I was growing calloused to it. And Marian always had a bird-brain.
“We’ll disturb her anyhow,” I said. “Get going.”
Muttering, he led me along the reception hall to a corridor, and along that to a stairway, and up this to a level which seemed to project outward into empty space. Actually it was a glassed-in-solarium with the domed roof rolled open; a basking room built out over the cliffside with no visible means of support, ending on a sheer drop down into the next precinct.
The butler cleared his throat apologetically, spoke my name and scuttled away with his coat-tails dipping lint. He never did phone Headquarters, the heel. He was all bluff and no hole card.
I stood there trying to adjust my eyes to the dark. There was movement on something that might be a chaise longue. You couldn’t quite tell in the blackness. The movement was white, though. Fascinatingly white. And a drawling she-male voice said:
“Nick Ransom, of all people. This is a surprise. Imagine, after all these years. And just as rugged as ever.”
I went toward her, wondering how she could spot my ruggedness in a room as dark as the bottom of the La-Brea tar pits. Presently my glimmers got their second wind and there was just enough starlight to show me the shapely outlines of a jane on a daybed. Just to make sure, I lit a match on my thumbnail.
Then I said: “Yipe!” and my flabbergasted exclamation blew out the flame.
The doll was Marian Lodge, all right; Marian Heinrich, now. Brunette, statuesque, relaxed, and utterly uninhibited.
She laughed. “Shocked, Nick? That’s out of character.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting—”
“To get the full benefit of star bath rays you must have them flow over you like sea foam. All over you. Over all of you. Come sit by me, darling.”
“No,” I said firmly, “I’ll talk from here. It’s serious, and I want to keep my mind on it.”
“Silly boy.” Silk whispered intimately and a zipper wheeked. “Now you can be serious. Come kiss me hello.”
I sidled closer, cautiously.
“That was years ago. Before you got married. Speaking of husbands—”
“Let’s not.” She sat up, snared my fingers, tugged me down on the cushions. “Husbands bore me. Especially mine.”
“Where is he tonight?”
“Out chasing, I suppose. As usual. Don’t worry, he won’t bother us. He never gets home until late. Kiss me.”
I could be as persistent as she was. “Any way of getting hold of him by phone?”
“Heaven forbid.” She hauled at my wrist. “I’m so glad you came to see me, Nick. Like old times.”
Old times, my elbow. I’d been on two mild parties with her and she wanted to build it up to a feature production. In technicolor. What she was doing with my captured hand would have made a wooden Indian throw away his cigars. I was no wooden Indian, though. I was a private eye hunting a homicidal madman. “Cut it out, tutz,” I said. “I want to ask you something.”
“The answer is yes. Now kiss me.”
“Remember Ronald Barclay?”
“Do I! Mmm-mmm. I adored that man. Kiss me.”
By main strength, I got my fingers away from her. “Did he ever make a pass at you?”