Double

The woman brought her attention back to me. Her anger was gone, but some of the fright still clung to her expression. She was nice-looking in a severe sort of way, with sculpted, close-cropped brunette hair frosted with gray and a well-preserved figure; she could have been anywhere from forty to fifty. One of the convention name tags was pinned to the front of her beige suit coat: Elaine Picard — Chief of Security Operations, Casa del Rey, San Diego.

“Thank you for stepping in,” she said. “It really wasn’t necessary, but thank you anyway.”

“Well, I don’t like to see women being mauled. Especially a friend of a friend.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t—?”

“I noticed you talking to Sharon McCone a while ago,” I said. “Sharon’s a friend of mine.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, she and I used to work together. Are you with the convention too, then?”

“Yep. Also from San Francisco.”

I told her my name and she nodded, but she was only half listening to me. Her thoughts were elsewhere, probably on the guy named Rich. She was still rubbing at her forearm.

I said, “Did he hurt you much?”

“What? Oh, my arm. No, it’s all right.”

“The way he was hanging on, he might have broken something.”

“I doubt that. He always stops short of committing a felony in front of witnesses.”

“Does that mean he’s bothered you like this before, in public?”

“Yes. He’s a nuisance.”

“Old boyfriend?”

“No. Just... an acquaintance.”

“Maybe you ought to get a restraining order to keep him away from you.”

“Restraining order?” She smiled faintly, almost painfully, as if something had struck her funny in a macabre sort of way. “No, he’s not dangerous. I can handle him.” She paused, as if the conversation was making her uncomfortable, and then said, “Well. If you’ll excuse me?” and gave me her hand.

“Sure. Nice meeting you, Miss Picard.”

“Yes. Same here. I’m sure we’ll see each other again during the convention.”

Before she left, she detoured to the bar and told the bartender to pour a round of drinks on the house and to tear up my tab. So I nursed a third bottle of Miller Lite — Kerry wouldn’t have approved, but what the hell, I had to get some pleasure out of this weekend — and when it was gone it was almost five o’clock and the Cantina Sin Nombre was filling up with thirsty conventioneers. I fled to my walk-in luxury closet upstairs.

The bed was soft, at least. Hard beds play hell with my back, and I don’t care what anybody says about them being good for you. I sat on it and picked up the telephone and called the Bates & Carpenter ad agency in San Francisco. And, wonder of wonders, Kerry was not only in but available.

“Well, I’m here in San Diego,” I said when she came on the line. “Safe if not sound.”

“That’s good. How was the flight?”

“Okay. They gave me a clunker to drive at the airport, so I’m right at home on that score. But the hotel’s too fancy. I feel like I ought to be using the service entrance. Besides, I can’t figure it out.”

“Figure what out?”

“The hotel. It looks like Wuthering Heights but it’s got a Spanish name and so does its bar and nightclub, and the band that plays here is called the Mexican Bandit Band. What do you think that means?”

“I don’t even want to guess,” she said. “How’s the convention so far?”

“It hasn’t started yet. But I met a blonde with a forty-two-inch bust who wants me to come up and service her later. I guess I might as well do it.”

“What kind of service?” Kerry said. “The Private-Eye Special — in at ten, out at ten-oh-five?”

I sighed. “I hate snappy comebacks,” I said.

“That’s because you can never think of one yourself.”

We went on like that for a while, bantering the way lovers do, and by the time we said good-bye I was pining away for her. Who needed a blonde when you could run your fingers through rich red hair as soft as velvet? Who needed a forty-two-inch bust when you could snuggle up to seven inches less around the chest but a whole lot more elsewhere, all of it slender and smooth and—

Cut it out, you horny old fart. It’s only Friday and you just got here.

I tried to call Eberhardt, to find out if any business had come our way during the day and to tell him what a terrific time I was having so he’d want to go to next year’s convention; that way I could get even with him. But he wasn’t at the office. And he wasn’t home yet either.

Which left me with nothing much to do except to read one of the pulps I’d brought along as trade items for Charley Valdene. At six o’clock I got up, not without great reluctance, and combed my hair and put my suit coat back on and rode the elevator down to the mezzanine.