I tossed around in bed, first on one side, then on the other, trying to get to sleep.

  I woke up at six feeling just a little more tired than when I had gone to bed and a hell of a lot more frustrated.

  8

  I showered, shaved, had three cups of strong, black coffee, got in the agency heap and drove to the Perkins Hotel.

  There was a message in the box to call Lorraine Robbins at the Miramar Apartments.

  I hesitated a moment whether to call her that early but finally decided that as a working girl, she’d be up.

  I put through the call and she answered almost instantly. “Donald?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Look, Donald, I’m worried about Mr. Holgate.”

  “It’s too early to do any worrying yet, Lorraine. Does he have some appointments this morning?”

  “Yes, he has some appointments with important customers.”

  “Well,” I said, “wait until you see if he keeps those appointments. For all we know, he may be in his apartment sleeping off a convivial evening.”

  “He isn’t,” she said. “He isn’t anywhere.”

  “What do you mean, anywhere, and how do you know he isn’t in his apartment? Perhaps he isn’t answering the phone.”

  “I’ve been up to his apartment, Donald. The bed hasn’t been slept in.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “The manager knows me. I told him that I had some important papers that I had to deliver and asked if he’d open up the apartment for me.”

  “What would you have done if you’d found Holgate snuggled in bed with some beautiful babe?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but I had a definite feeling he wasn’t snuggled in any bed with any beautiful babe. I knew what I’d find.”

  “What did you find?”

  “The bed hadn’t been slept in. No one was there—and of course I wasn’t foolish enough to go into the bedroom while the manager was there. Mr. Holgate has a very fine three-room apartment.”

  “Everything seemed to be in order? Any indication the place had been ransacked?”

  “No. Everything was in order.”

  “All right,” I said, “when I left you last night, did you go right to bed?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know what advice to give you. You are asking me whether you should notify the police. It could be very embarrassing to your boss if the police should be notified and it turned out he was simply on a social engagement.”

  “All right, Donald, I’ll be frank with you. There was one place where I thought he might be, one apartment.”

  “And you got the young lady up out of—”

  “Don’t be silly, I was looking for his car. If he’d been there, his car would have been parked near the apartment house. I went out and covered the place thoroughly. His car wasn’t there.”

  “Then what?”

  “I called his apartment two or three times during the night and of course got no answer. I’m worried.”

  I said, “Wait until those appointments come up. If he doesn’t keep the appointments, and they’re important ones, you’ll know that the police had better be notified.”

  “Well,” she said somewhat reluctantly, “the first appointment is at ten o’clock. I don’t like to wait until then but…well, I guess it is the best thing to do.

  “Are you going to be around here today, Donald?”

  “I’ll be in and out. I’ll keep in touch with you. You’ll be at the office?”

  “After nine o’clock, yes.”

  “I’ll either drop in and see you or give you a buzz,” I said.

  I hung up, waited until eight-twenty and drove out to the Miramar Apartments. I had no trouble finding a parking place and tapped on the door of Doris Ashley’s apartment promptly at eight-thirty.

  She had on a filmy negligee and as she opened the door the light from the apartment silhouetted her figure through the diaphanous, fluffy folds of the garment.

  “Donald!” she said. “You’re early!”

  “Eight-thirty?” I said.

  “That’s what I told you, eight-thirty, but it’s only eight o’clock and—”

  “Eight-thirty,” I said.

  “What!” she exclaimed. “My alarm clock just went off. I set it for quarter to eight.”

  I looked at the alarm clock by the bed. It now registered two minutes past eight o’clock.

  I said, “What did you set it by last night?”

  “The alarm? I set it at seven-forty-five.”

  “No, when you wound the clock and set it, what did you set it by?”

  “Why, by the television. I was watching a program and—”

  “You set it half an hour slow.”

  “I couldn’t have! Let me see your watch.”

  She came over and stood close to me, and I held my wrist watch up so she could see it.

  She took my wrist in her hands, held my arm close to the negligee, said, “Well, for heaven sakes, what do you know!” She stood there for a moment, then said, “Donald, I’ve got to get some clothes on. There’s coffee in the percolator in the kitchenette. Will you keep an eye on it and I’ll…I’ll get some clothes on right quick. I’ll run in the closet and dress.”

  She made a dash for the closet, stripping off the negligee as she opened the door.

  I had occasional tantalizing glimpses of her moving past the door, attired in panties and bra, and then she was out in the apartment with street clothes and neatly shod feet.

  I gave a little wolf whistle.

  “Donald!” she said. “Get your mind on what we have to do.”

  I said, “It’s a little difficult.…Those are certainly neat shoes. What are they, alligator skin?”

  “Yes. I like alligator skin. I’m very partial to it. I like alligator skin and a brown shade of stockings.”

  She raised her skirt a little, looked up at me and smiled. “You like?”

  “I like.”

  She said, “I’m ravenously hungry. I was only going to have a cup of coffee but I think I’ve got to have some toast and just a little bacon. Do you suppose there’s time?”

  “Oh, sure there’s time,” I said. “We’ll make it down okay; in fact we could have breakfast here if you wanted.”

  “No, I like to eat at the airport while we’re waiting but we could have just a snack here.”

  She hurried out to the kitchen.

  I walked over to the closet where she had been dressing. Feminine garments were hanging in the closet and there was an open drawer filled with intimate feminine lingerie.

  I found a rack of shoes at the end of the closet and hastily picked up one of the alligator shoes and looked at the place of manufacture.

  It was Chicago, Illinois.

  I picked up another one. That was Salt Lake City, the same shoe store that had been stamped in the shoe I had found at Holgate’s office.

  “Donald, where are you?” she asked.

  I hurried out of the closet.

  “Coming,” I told her.

  “Do you want to make the toast while I cook the bacon? I have an electric bacon cooker here that is supposed to get it just right—and there’s an electric toaster. There’s some bread in there.”

  I got the bread out of the breadbox, dropped two slices in the electric toaster and pushed down the lever which made the contact.

  The electric bacon broiler did its stuff, and the aroma of bacon and coffee mingled in the little breakfast nook.

  “Donald,” she said, “I’m sorry about Dudley.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “He…he took advantage of you. I wouldn’t have had that happen—well, I know that he put you in a position where you had to say you had seen that accident.”

  “I’ve got news for you, Doris,” I told her.

  “What?”

  “I did see the accident.”

  The platter she was holding over the stove to warm all but slipped from her hands. “You what!” she exclaimed.

  “I saw that damned accident,” I said. “It was just one of those peculiar, crazy coincidences that wouldn’t happen in a million years. Of course I didn’t have the faintest idea at the time that you were interested in it or were ever going to be interested in it, but—well, it happened. I saw it, that’s all.”

  She hesitated a moment, recovered her self-possession, put the bacon on the platter and laughed throatily.

  “Donald,” she said, “you are a card. It’s all right, Donald, you don’t have to fool me. You know, Vivian is the girl who was involved in that accident and—well, she’s probably going to ask you about it.”

  “Is that why you wanted me to meet her?”

  “Heavens, no. I wanted to see you, that’s all. I—Donald, why didn’t you call me more than once last night?”

  “I did, but you weren’t home.”

  “I told you I was getting cigarettes.”

  “I called you again, and again. You didn’t answer.”

  “Why, Donald, you must have had the wrong number. I was sitting right here by that telephone the whole blessed evening—and I made an excuse to get rid of Dudley.”

  “He wasn’t here?”

  “No.”

  “You weren’t together?”

  “No, and I’ll tell you something else, Donald. I don’t know that I’m going to be with him too much. I became involved with him and—well, it’s getting to a point where it’s leading to things I don’t like. Dudley is—well, he’s possessive and he’s ruthless. You’ve probably seen enough of him to realize that.”

  I looked at her shoes. “You certainly have pretty feet.”

  She laughed and made a playful kick. “Can’t you get your mind on anything higher than my feet?”

  “You buy these shoes here?”

  “No. These were given to me by a girlfriend. Why do you ask?”

  “Your girlfriend from Salt Lake?”

  She showed surprise. “She lived there for a while. Why, Donald?”

  “I like shoes.”

  “You’re not one of those goofs that go crazy over women’s clothes, are you, Donald—women’s panties and things like that? I’ve heard that when men are shut up in prison their sex drive sometimes takes strange slants. Donald, tell me about it.”

  “About what?”

  “What it’s like to live without women.”

  “It’s hell.”

  “Do you go crazy when you get out? Sex crazy, I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t act like it.”

  “I’ve forgotten how to act.”

  “I’ll have to give you a memory course. In the meantime we have a plane to meet.

  “Now, take your bacon and put it right on the toast, Donald, and then put another piece of toast on top and make a toasted bacon sandwich. It’s a wonderful breakfast—only we’ll have another breakfast out at the airport. This will be a breakfast hors d’oeuvre, kind of a preliminary. Do you like preliminaries, Donald?”

  “I love them.”

  “Sometimes,” she said somewhat wistfully, “I think the preliminaries are more interesting than the…” She hesitated, trying to find the word she wanted.

  “The main event?” I asked.

  She laughed and said, “You certainly have a quick wit. Do you like cream and sugar in your coffee?”

  “Not now,” I said. “Later on when we have breakfast at the airport. Now I’m drinking it black.”

  “You look wonderful this morning, Donald. Did you sleep last night?”

  “Like a top,” I said. “How about you?”

  “I had a wonderful night’s rest.”

  “You look fresh as a daisy.”

  “Do I really?”

  “You sure do.”

  “Donald, I’m glad we got acquainted. I would like to do things for you—well, I feel that you have had the breaks go against you and you’ve been sort of—well, you’re shy…”

  “What do you mean, shy?”

  “A little while ago, when I was holding your arm, looking at your wristwatch—well, considering the circumstances most men would have crushed me to them.”

  I said, “I don’t work that way.”

  “You mean you don’t crush women to you impulsively?”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t like to try to make passes at a woman with one eye on an alarm clock and my mind on the schedule of an incoming airplane. I like soft lights, dreamy music, an atmosphere of leisure and privacy and—”

  “Donald, stop it!”

  I looked at my wristwatch. “All right,” I told her. “Do we wash the dishes before we go to the airport?”

  “We certainly do,” she said. “I hate to come home to a sinkful of dirty dishes. I always like to keep the apartment neat as a pin. But I just use hot water and just a slight touch of detergent. Thank heavens they have really hot water in this apartment. It’s steaming.”

  She turned hot water into the sink, put in a few drops of detergent, took a dish mop, washed the dishes, rinsed them and handed them to me.

  “You wipe,” she said.

  I wiped.

  We were ready to leave at twelve minutes past nine.

  Doris gave a quick look around the apartment, said, “You’re going to like Vivian, but don’t you go falling for her, Donald. I’m not ready to share you—not just yet.”

  “Vivian’s good-looking?” I asked.

  “A knockout. Blonde and lots of this and that and these and those.”

  “You’re going to ride with me?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “All right, my car’s down in front. Let’s go.”

  She looked at the alarm clock and laughed. “Can you imagine me being so stupid?” she said.

  She went over and moved the hands thirty minutes ahead.

  “How’s that, Donald, right?”

  “Right.”

  “All right, let’s go.”

  I held the door of the apartment open for her and she walked out past me, elevating her chin and giving me a provocative smile as she brushed past me in the doorway.

  We went down in the elevator, got in the agency car, drove to the airport and checked on the plane Vivian was coming in on. It was marked on time.

  We went up to the restaurant and had sausage, scrambled eggs and more coffee.

  I found the gate that Vivian’s plane was coming in, and Doris and I walked out to meet her.

  The plane arrived on time and taxied up to a stop.

  Passengers started streaming out, and I spotted Vivian before Doris needed to say a word.

  She was a striking blonde in a short raw silk sheath suit of shocking-pink. The unbuttoned jacket swung open to reveal a low-cut neck. The dress itself would have been sacklike on a less well-developed model. Her figure gave it what it needed.

  “There’s Vivian now,” Doris said, jumping up and down with synthetic eagerness.

  Vivian came through the gate, and Doris gave a little squeal of delight and ran and grabbed her in her arms.

  “Vivian!” she said. “You’re looking wonderful!”

  Vivian smiled, a slow, languid smile. “Hello, sexpot,” she said.

  “Don’t call me that, Vivian, I’ve—I have someone here.”

  She turned to me. “Donald, this is Vivian. Vivian, may I present Donald Lam, a friend of mine.”

  “The latest?” Vivian asked.

  “Absolutely the latest.”

  Vivian looked me over, then slowly extended her hand. “Hello, Donald,” she said in a deep, velvety voice.

  There was a slow, deliberate motion in the way she extended her hand that made the gesture seem significant. It was the way a trained strip-teaser can take off gloves so that the action seems packed with dynamite and a bare arm from the elbow to the fingertips seems an immoral display of naked flesh.

  “Donald drove me out,” Doris explained. “Heavens, Vivian, you must have left there at all hours.”

  “There’s a three-hour time difference,” she said. “And I had to take a puddle-jumper with stops in Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake. It’s two o’clock in New York right now. I don’t mind telling you, darling, I left in the small hours of the morning.”

  “How in the world did you ever get up?”

  “That’s easy,” Vivian said smiling. “I didn’t go to bed.”

  She opened her purse, took out her airplane ticket, detached the baggage stubs, started to hand them to me, then said, “Donald, why don’t you go get the car, and I’ll have a porter rustle up the baggage. You can drive up, in front of the loading zone and they won’t bother you just so you raise the lid of the trunk and leave it up. You can park there twenty minutes if you have to, just keep the trunk open and stand by it expectantly.” Her deep blue eyes rested on mine. “Can you look expectant, Donald?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “When I’ve been expectant I’ve never looked at myself.”

  “He says the cutest things,” Doris said.

  Vivian let her eyes play with mine. “Look expectant for me now, Donald.”

  “I might be disappointed.”

  “You might be.”

  “Donald, you go get the car,” Doris said.

  Vivian said, “Don’t be in too big a hurry, Donald. It’ll take ten or fifteen minutes for them to get the baggage off and it’ll take me a minute or two to get it picked out and have a porter get it out to the car.”

  “I’ll tell her all about you while you’re gone, Donald,” Doris Ashley said. “That is, not all, but almost all. And I’ll also tell her, no poaching on my preserves.”

  She smiled amiably at Vivian. “You may trespass, honey, but don’t poach.”

  “Where’s the fence?” Vivian asked.

  I went to get the car.

  It was a long walk to where I had parked it and it took me a few minutes to get through the parking lot, then drive around to a place in front of the baggage unloading zone.

  They’d evidently been more expeditious than Vivian had anticipated. They were waiting there with a porter, four suitcases and a handbag.