“I’m sorry, Linda. I’ve got to be going. I just stopped in for a quick one.”
“Wasn’t that Leroy Dane, the movie star, you were with? Harris knows him. Plays golf at the same club. He’s a stockbroker — Harris, I mean. And you, Tom, what do you do? You were going to be a lawyer.”
“I gave that up.”
She drew back and looked searchingly into his eyes. Her voice became throaty. “It hurt you terribly, I know. It’s made you — bitter.”
He shook his head. “I’m not bitter. Oh, I won’t say it didn’t hurt at the time. It did. It hurt like hell. But I had a lot of company. Half the men in my outfit got Dear John letters. We passed them around.”
“You didn’t!”
“It helped. We made jokes about the letters.”
“Oh, Tom!”
He looked at her inquiringly. “What happened to the man you married? What was his name — Newcomer?”
“It didn’t work out. And his name was Newcombe, Glen Newcombe. Tom, I’ve got to talk to you. Later. Harris is beginning to pout. And Nikki seems annoyed. Beautiful, isn’t she?”
Alder looked at the table where Linda’s friends were. Striking was a better word than beautiful. A brunette, in her early thirties. Nikki... the name had a foreign ring and she could have been a Central European. At a distance, she had a regal quality. Her skin seemed flawless, although somewhat on the pale side. Her coiffure was beautifully done, piled high and to the rear of her head.
“Nikki,” Linda repeated. “Nikki Collinson. That’s her husband with her. Walter Collinson. You’ve heard of him!”
Yes. Walter Collinson. He was money — big money. And Linda Foster — if that was the name she was using now — was moving in those circles. Very good. She had progressed from the innocuous, anaemic assistant bank cashier, for whom she had sent Tom Alder the Dear John letter.
He nodded. “We’ll have lunch sometime. I’ll give you a call.”
“How can you? You don’t know where to reach me. You weren’t even going to ask me. I’ll call you.”
She went off, then, rejoining her friends. And she had not asked him for his telephone number.
Chapter 4
Mrs. Woodson managed the El Toro Court for an owner who had a half dozen similar courts, or worse, scattered about town. Not to mention one in Pasadena. For her services, Mrs. Woodson received her rent and an infinitesimally small salary. The bill Tom Alder extended to her equaled one-sixth of her annual salary. So she led him to the door of Apartment C and unlocked it with her passkey.
“The police spent most of the day here. They took out boxes and boxes of letters and things.”
“I’m not going to take out anything,” Alder said. “I just want to look around. Alone.”
She didn’t like the last word, but she’d taken his money. “You won’t be too long?”
He shook his head and she went out. Alder looked around. The room was a small one, a combination living room and bedroom, a davenport serving the latter function. There was the tiniest of kitchenettes and a bathroom, which contained a toilet, a washbowl, and a stall shower. A small desk held a vintage Woodstock typewriter. Cartons and boxes were piled high everywhere.
On the floor was a chalked outline of the late fan secretary’s body. Here she had fallen and here she had been found.
Alder went to the desk. It had been thoroughly ransacked by the police and possibly, before them, by the murderer. It contained bills, receipts, memorandums, letters. Letters from fans of Leroy Dane, Georgia Gale, Tim Greedy. Pictures of all of them. Everything perfectly normal.
No personal letters to Julia Joliet.
No clippings.
The cartons contained fan letters. Hundreds, thousands of them. Many had not been answered, were tied in bundles with post-office twine.
The boxes contained envelopes, form letters, fan club bulletins. Pictures. Big, glossy eight by ten prints, but mostly smaller four by five reductions of the larger prints. Alder appropriated one of the four by fives, hesitated, then folded one of the mimeographed fan bulletins. He put them into his pocket.
He spent twenty minutes in the tiny apartment, took nothing else, found nothing else of interest.
He left the apartment.
That was the first time he saw the big man. He was an enormous man, easily six feet four and weighing a good two hundred and forty pounds. Alder would have guessed him to be in his late fifties. He was quite bald, although a heavy fringe of curling hair kept him from having an egg head. Oddly, he reminded Alder of the pictures he had seen of William Jennings Bryan.
He was coming toward Apartment C, but stopped. “I beg your pardon,” he said in a smooth, mellifluous voice, “could you direct me to, ah, Mr. Klinger’s apartment?”
“I don’t live here,” Alder replied. “Try the manager’s apartment.” He indicated the first door just inside the court.
“Thank you, sir. You’re very kind.”
The door of Mrs. Woodson’s apartment popped open. “There’s no Klinger lives here,” Mrs. Woodson chirped, conceding that she had been listening by a partly opened door.
The big man was concerned. “Why, he told me himself that he lived at the Grecco Apartments. This is the Grecco Apartments?”
“No, ’tain’t, it’s the El Toro. The Grecco’s two streets over.”
“My word! How could I have made such a mistake? I’m so sorry to have troubled you, Madam.” The big man actually bowed low to Mrs. Woodson and not so low to Alder. He walked toward the street, an enormous, dignified man.
Alder looked after him. “Always people comin’ in and out,” said Mrs. Woodson. “One of the reasons poor Julia kept her door locked. She was afraid of strangers.”
“Always?” Alder asked almost absently.
“Lately, anyways. You... you’re finished?”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Woodson.”
“You... didn’t take anything? Nothing that the...” She did not like to say the word, “police”.
Alder shook his head.
Alder liked the stillness of Brentwood at night, but he had never before been so aware of it. There were lights in most of the homes, but the people on his street lived their own lives and had no time for neighbors. Alder did not even know the name of the people who lived just north of him. With those to the south he had a mere nodding acquaintance.
A car was in his driveway, a Cadillac Coupé de Ville. There was a light in the house. He parked his car behind the Coupé de Ville and got out.
He didn’t like it, but he went to the door and pushed the pearl button and heard the chimes in the kitchen. He waited for a moment, but no one came to the door and he took out his key and unlocked it. He went into the house, through the hall, into his book-lined den.
Linda Foster sat in the green leather chair. “You scared the life out of me,” she said, “ringing your own doorbell!”
“A strange car in the driveway, lights in the house,” said Alder, “what did you expect me to do? Walk in and get conked on the head? How’d you get in?”
“Patio door,” said Linda. “I broke one of the small panes and reached in.”
“That’s breaking and entering.”
“Have me arrested.” She raised her right foot, tucked it under her left and regarded him frowningly. “So this is how you live, Tom.”
He shrugged. “I’m a quiet man.”
“Are you?” She studied his face a moment. “I wonder.”
“Can I get you a drink?”
“I’ve had two. Yes, I’ve explored your house. It’s very nice, very expensive, very neat. You’re a good housekeeper, if you do the work yourself.”