2

They were all naked. It was that kind of party. Even the dead guy was naked.

Clothes were scattered around, as if a hurricane had hit the wash basket. None of the guests I glimpsed were jumping about vigorously, at least not at first, but all of them looked as if they’d really been living.

Except for that one guy. You couldn’t really say he was living.

Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him. Of course, he wasn’t actually right out in plain sight, being half hidden among bushes and ferns and big-leafed tropical plants, which lined a narrow winding path. Also it was night, after ten p.m. on a balmy Friday evening in July; but there were plenty of garden lights spilling reds and yellows and blues and greens all over the landscape, and it was difficult to miss him entirely.

Even so, I walked past him myself, thinking he was passed out, or sleeping and dreaming sweet dreams. But I have seen a lot of dead guys, and there was something about the way he lay on the grass under a hydrangea bush.…

I didn’t spot him right away.

I’d come in the side gate into the six-foot wall, through the radiantly-blossoming garden, and walked over a white gravel path to the side of Mr. Halstead’s big hilltop house in the Hollywood Hills, and stopped for a moment near the forty-foot long free-form pool. So the first person I saw was the gal in the pool.

I knew it was a gal right away.

I can usually tell gals from other things without much difficulty, but the deduction was made easier because she seemed to be wearing the standard outfit here: nothing.

She was swimming lazily in the pool, sort of swirling around like a sleepy otter, and for a moment I wondered if I should take off my shoes—at least—and jump in and rescue her. There was a chance she was drowning.

Only a bare chance maybe, but it was worth considering.

In a matter of life and death you can’t overlook anything.

I knew I’d never forgive myself if a gorgeous babe like that drowned right in front of my eyes.

But then she saw me and said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said. “You couldn’t be drowning, could you?”

She swam toward me, reached the edge of the pool, and climbed out. “Whoo!” I said.

She said, “I couldn’t be what?”

“Never mind, you’ve answered the question. Boy, I hope to shout you’ve—”

“What was that other thing you said?”

“What other—oh, you mean Whoo?”

“Yes. Was that it?”

“Yeah, that was it. Well, I was just making conversation.”

She seemed to expect me to say something else. So I said, “Ah … Uh …”

This gal was quite a number. Quite a lot of numbers. Like, maybe 66 inches tall, 125-130 pounds, 39-24-37, and 25-30 years old; and her parts added up to more than the sum of her numbers.

Finally she asked, “What are you doing with all your clothes on?”

“Beats me.”

“I don’t remember you. Should I remember you?”

“Not yet.”

“I didn’t think so.” She looked me up and down attentively. “I think I’d remember if I had. Who are you?”

“That’s not important. Whoo are you?”

“I’m Sybil Spork.”

“Sybil Spork? That’s … ugh. Well, I’m pleased to meet you, anyway, Miss Spork. Or Sybil. May I call you Miss? I mean, may I call you Sybil?”

“Why not?” she said. “Only it’s not Miss. I’m Mrs. Spork. Did George invite you?”

“Mr. Halstead did.”

“Well, he might have told somebody! Who are you?”

“I’m Shell Scott.”

That shook her up. She stifled a yawn, squeezed her eyes shut, then stretched langorously and let her arms flop to her sides. “Well, see you around,” she said.

Then she walked past me and headed for the house.

It was a long, low pink job that looked sort of Spanish-Mediterranean, with thick cement arches and a red tile roof, about thirty yards away and half hidden behind clumps and masses of Southern California flora. I watched Sybil until her delectable Southern California fauna disappeared in the masses of flora, then I started after her.

I had to go to the house anyway. There, presumably, was where Mr. Halstead would be awaiting me. Probably soused to the gills. Passing a hydrangea bush, I walked past a heavy-set and hirsute individual lying face-down on the grass, three or four feet off the path; and I took two more steps before I stopped.

Then I turned around, looked at the guy again, went back and knelt by him. No pulse. No heat, no electricity, no zip. No more parties for this one.

Somebody let out a lusty whoop. From where I squatted I could see one small segment of the swimming pool and the blue-tiled deck next to it. As I looked toward the whooper, he came into view pursuing a short, shapely redheaded gal who dived into the pool. The man, a tall, large boned, dark-skinned egg with an enormous amount of black hair waving over his scalp, stooped and picked up a red and green beach ball. When the gal swam to the edge of the pool, he let out another whoop and whomped the beach ball down on her head. Then he jumped in at her. She climbed out and raced away. He climbed out and raced after her.

The dead guy lay with his legs extended toward the path on which I’d been walking, his head and shoulders half hidden by drooping shrubbery. A white bath towel was crumpled near him. I moved alongside him until I got a look at his head. He had a lot of wavy dark hair, but it was crushed in at the base of his skull. So, of course, was the base of his skull. There was quite a bit of blood.

I moved back to the path and walked toward the house again, wondering if this explained why Mr. Halstead had called me. It seemed a logical deduction. At first. A little more than half an hour earlier I’d been in my apartment at the Spartan Apartment Hotel, relaxing with a bourbon and water while watching the tropical fish frolicking in the community tank, when Halstead phoned. He’d sounded somewhat unraveled and, speaking very softly after identifying himself, had merely asked me if I would come to his home on a matter of the “greatest urgency,” and as speedily as possible. He hadn’t told me what was so urgent, explaining only that it was a matter of “peculiar delicacy.”

Which made me wonder if me wonder if my deduction was so logical after all. A man with his skull bashed in wasn’t what I would have called a matter of “peculiar delicacy.” Moreover, thinking of the people flitting nudely about, I had a hunch the party was supposed to have ended at least half an hour ago. But Halstead had told me he would meet me in his den and there explain everything in detail, so I let the hunch simmer.

This was the rear of the house, so—following Halstead’s instructions—I walked to the end of the path and over a bricked patio to the rear door, through it and inside. Stairs rose on my left, and I went up them to the closed door opposite the head of the stairs. I knocked, waited, knocked again, and then went in.

It appeared to be the den, all right: large, masculine, with a dark cork ceiling and cedar-paneled walls, two small bookcases, a few hunting prints, and a hideous etching of some dead ducks. The carpet was shaggy and brown, and the couch and several chairs were big, squat, heavy. There was a desk in one corner, a few papers on its top, and a TV set glared from the wall. But that was all. No Halstead, nobody.

I went downstairs again, out the back door and stood for a moment, thinking about that hunch. In a few seconds there was the soft pad of feet behind me. As I turned, the door opened and out came a gorgeous naked tomato. It was the same one who’d been alone in the pool.

“Whoo!” I said.

She was eating a big, red, juicy-looking apple. “I still don’t know what that means,” she said.

“Well,” I said, “ah … Uh …”

“Want a bite?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

She handed me the apple. I handed it back. “No, thanks.”

“But you said—”

“I changed my mind. I thought it was a tomato.”

“You don’t know what you want, do you?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Where’s Mr. Halstead?”

She lifted her brows and rolled her eyes, thinking. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Haven’t seen him for a while.”

“How long a while?”

“Hour or so.”

“How about Mrs. Halstead? Do you know where I could find her?”

She turned and pointed with her apple. And quite a lot of tomato. “Right down the hall there,” she said. “Second door on the right.” Mrs. Spork—or, as I preferred to think of her, Sybil—added, “At least she was. I saw her go in there a while ago.”

Then she took a big crunchy bite out of her apple and walked past me. I watched her till she reached the pool and jumped in feet first, apple and all. You aren’t supposed to swim right after eating, I thought. But, then, these people seemed to do lots of things people aren’t supposed to do.

Musing thus, I walked down the hall to the second door. It was open. The room was a bedroom, and at first I thought there was nobody in it. But there was one person, a woman—presumably Mrs. Halstead—in the bed. I walked over there.

She was sleeping in the nude beneath a pink sheet and spread, both of which had been pushed, or slipped, down to her waist. She was a strawberry blonde about thirty years old, with a pretty face and at least half of a splendid figure.

It was a jolly sight, but you don’t stand around staring at sleeping tomatoes when their covers have slipped. Not much, you don’t. But it didn’t seem right not to let her know somebody was here—especially under the circumstances.

So I cleared my throat. Not very loud. In fact, I couldn’t hear it myself, which proabably explained why she didn’t wake up.

I cleared my throat again, then hummed a jazzy little tune. Didn’t do any good. So I reached over and waggled her shoulder a bit.

She opened her eyes, blinked.

“Hello,” I said brightly. “Are you Mrs. Halstead?”

She said something like, “Glammbl,” and her eyelids went up and down about eight or nine times, very slowly, and the last time were either staying down or moving so slowly I couldn’t detect any movement whatever.

She knew I was there, though. I was still kind of shaking her shoulder. “Hey,” I said. “Hey. All sorts of things are going on around here. Things you ought to know about. Hey.”

She got her eyes open again.

“Are you Mrs. Halstead?” I said. “You better be. I’m not going to look much longer. I’m going to say the hell with it, and go for a swim or something.”

“Who are you?” she said, sort of mushy.

“I’m Shell Scott.”

“I’m Mrs. Halstead.”

“How do you do?”

She made a little effort to cover herself up. Not much. She sort of plucked at the pink sheet, but not very pluckily.

“There’s a dead guy out there,” I said, pointing.

“What?”

“A dead guy. He’s out there near the path. Under a hydrangea bush.”

“A what?”

“A hydrangea bush.”

“No—there’s a what out there?”

“A dead guy. I thought you ought to know about it.”

For some reason, I counted the seconds as she stared with her eyes—finally—wide open. You know the way you count seconds; that’s the way I was doing: One-two-three-four; two-two-three-four; three-two-three-four; four-two-three—that was all.

By my count, it took three and three-quarters seconds, and then zowie! She was standing about fourteen feet from the bed—behind me, even—sort of in a crouch and yelling, “Dead? DEAD? Dead?”

I’m not certain I even saw her move. One moment I was looking down at her, kind of waggling her shoulder, and then she was behind me making an awful racket.

“You ought to at least put some shorts on,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I sure like it.”

She looked down at herself.

One-two-three-four; two-two—zowie!

Yeah, back in bed. Covers up under her chin. Couple more of those and she’d be wide awake. Or clear over the hill and halfway down the next valley. Never did see a gal move like that.

“Who’s dead?” she asked me.

“Beats me. I just got here. Your husband phoned me about half an hour ago and asked me to come out. But I’m beginning to doubt—”

“George phoned you?”

“That’s right. Didn’t you know?”

She shook her head. “Why would George phone you? Especially tonight …” She let it trail off. She got a kind of tortured look. After a few seconds she said, “Did you … see anybody else outside? Or—inside? Any—people?”

“Some.”

“What … ah … how did they look?”

“Naked. That’s the best one-word description I can think of. I suppose that’s what you meant. Aside from that, well, they looked … happy, I guess.”

She blinked her eyes some more, rapidly this time. Then she said, “Who did you say you were?”

“Shell Scott.”

“Why did my husband call you?”

“He didn’t explain. He was going to tell me the details when I got here. I’m a private investigator, and he merely—”

“You’re a detective?” I nodded, and she said, “My God. What in the world would George want with a detective?”

I shrugged. Mrs. Halstead was wide awake now, and apparently trying to think about three or four things at once. In a moment she said, “Dead … Were you serious? Somebody’s dead?”

“Yes, I was serious.”

“Shouldn’t we do something?”

“Sure we should. That’s why I came in here and waggled you.”

“Waggled?”

“I’ll turn my back if you want to put on a robe or something. Of course, if you don’t give a hoot—”

She gave a hoot. I turned my back, and in half a minute she was clad in a rosy-pink bathrobe and following me down the path outside.

“There he is,” I said.

She stepped off the path, parted the shrubbery, and looked down at the dead man.

Then she turned and stepped back by me. “That’s George,” she said. “It’s my husband.”

Her tone was level, soft and apparently controlled. Her features weren’t twisted into an expression of pain or shock. But I waited a few seconds before saying anything. And then there was no need to say anything.

Her lips puffed very slightly as breath pushed through them. Her head rolled to one side. Then she collapsed and fell suddenly, loosely, like an empty sack.

But I’d had a hunch she might keel over, and was able to catch her as she fell. Which made two of my hunches, so far, which had been proved correct.

I carried Mrs. Halstead into the house, laid her gently on the bed, and waited for her to come around again.