Four.

This gal was not the gal of my deductions. This was a white-toothed Latin with luminous eyes, with long black hair hanging heavy on her neck and curling thickly forward over one shoulder, with skin smooth as cream from contented cows, b.r.e.a.s.t.s that were high wide and handsome, narrow waist, flaring hips, everything there, yes indeed.

"Wow," I said again. "You can't be Lolita Lopez - so who are you?"

"But I am Lolita Lopez."

"No!"

"Sure I am, Daddy, honey. You want to come in or something?"

She was a criminal, all right. Her eyes were at least a misdemeanor, and those wicked lips were felonious. I looked at the ceiling. She was sensational, yes; but I was, after all, practically engaged to Doris Miller. At least we were going steady. Well, I liked her. h.e.l.l, I was working for her, wasn't I? That was it - everything I was doing I was doing for Doris Miller; everything was my duty.

I looked at her again.

She wore skin-tight blue Capris, nothing on her feet except red nail polish, a billowy white blouse beneath which there was nothing billowing but Lolita, and all in all she was clearly the best argument against girdles since volleyball in nudist camps. And a pretty good argument simply for girls. Just standing there she looked hot enough to bake potatoes, and if she started running around the room it was eight to five she'd burn the joint down.

She was looking me over with approximately the same attention I was giving her. I get a lot of sun, and against the deep tan of my face, my white hair and obtrusive brows sometimes seem about to flee my chops and fly at people. Then there's the slightly broken nose and snipped ear, plus the fact that I have been hit in the middle of all that with everything from bra.s.s knuckles to the right-front fender of a stolen Buick. Consequently, when a babe eyeb.a.l.l.s me for the first time I never know what she may do.

This one smiled. "Well," she said in a warm, husky voice, "are you just going to stand there?"

"I'm not just standing here. I mean, I'm . . . doing a lot of thinking. I've been thinking . . . Wow, you're Lolita Lopez, huh?"

"I'm Lolita. So who are you, Daddy, honey?"

"Why, I'm Sh.e.l.l Scott."

She inclined her head to one side and peered up at me through black lashes several inches long. Pretty long anyway. "So? Are you selling subscriptions or something?"

"Subscriptions?" I shook my head. "Forgive me, I'm not usually so disjointed . . . You see, I meant to catch you with your, uh, guard down, but you turned the tables on me, I hope to shout you did. I mean - well, you're not what I expected; this is very unusual, like bald toupees or finding out elephants have amnesia, or . . . Well, I just didn't expect such a girlish girl." I stopped, took a deep breath and started over.

"Miss Lopez, I am a private investigator, and I have come here to investigate you . . . oh, fooey. It's no use. I'll leave and come back in five minutes, O.K.?"

"Don't you dare leave," she said. "Come on in, Mr. Scott."

"Sh.e.l.l. We may as well start right off like that."

"Sh.e.l.l, then." She smiled. "I don't know what we're talking about. Haven't the littlest idea. But it's fun, you know? Isn't it fun?"

"It's pretty close."

"Aren't you coming in?"

Believe it or not, I was still standing out there in the hall. "Fine, yes," I said. "I believe I will come in and just let nature take its curse."

"Crazy." She smiled, white teeth gleaming. "We could make beautiful music, you know? We could, Sh.e.l.l. I'll bet."

"I'll bet. I can hear the bongos."

"We could even make cla.s.sical music." Her black eyes sparkled.

"You like cla.s.sical music, huh?"

"Sure, I really go for that jazz. Maybe you'd like a drink."

"Would I! Do you have any bourbon?"

"Sure, I've got practically everything."

"Lady, there is nothing practically about it. Wow, tell me, are you really Lolita Lopez?"

She laughed and went off somewhere, presumably to fix drinks. And I had time to think a little. And I couldn't think even a little. But finally one thought stirred: This was the G.o.dd.a.m.ndest interrogation I had ever conducted. If I was really conducting it. Well, something electrical was going on, and I was a pretty good conductor, my circuits all tw.a.n.ging like bowstrings in an archery tournament.

You've got to stop this nonsense, I told myself. And then I asked myself: Nonsense? But this girl, this Lolita, was - the enemy. I had to fight her, beat her down, overpower her, win the battle, make her talk, make her confess, hug her and squeeze her - no, I was getting it all mixed up again. Remember: She is the enemy! You've got to fight her, beat her down, overpower . . .

Thank goodness, Lolita came back in right then.

She was carrying two highball gla.s.ses and gave me one. I drained half of it in one mighty slurp and then cried, "Gah! What was that? That couldn't have been bourbon and water."

"You didn't say water," Lolita told me. "You asked if I had bourbon. So that's bourbon."

"So that's bourbon," I said. "Well, I don't know why in h.e.l.l I've been drinking it all these years. I mean, I always take it with water. Boy, it's hot, isn't it?"

"Take off your coat."

"I mean the bourbon's hot. Going down. And I mustn't take off my coat. I know better. Probably I should take pills or something, but - "

"Sit down here, Sh.e.l.l. By me." She was on a long, soft-looking divan, patting the cushion beside her.

"No you don't. You don't trick me with that stuff," I said. Then added, "I don't think." It was pretty tricky stuff.

I sat down on the divan - a yard or so from Lolita - then asked her if she'd pour a little water into my bourbon, about a quart or so. She walked away again, with my gla.s.s, and I carefully did not watch her slinking barefootedly over the carpet. When she came back with my gla.s.s brimful, I was just about back to abnormal.

Lolita sipped her drink. "You're an investigator? Is that what you said?"

"Right, a private detective."

"Is that why you came here? Because you're a detective?"

"Right again." I threw it all at her in a bunch, to see how she'd catch it. "It's about Frank Quinn. Casey Flagg's murder. Ross Miller. And you, and Chester Weiss."

"Oh," she said. She caught it neatly enough. The only change was a little crease that appeared between her eyebrows.

"I suppose you know Chester's dead."

That one she fumbled. Right in the middle of a sentence. "He is? That's too bad, he seemed a very - "

Bang, she stopped. Head tilted slightly, mouth open, one dark brow raised. She just froze like that. Only for a second or two. Not long. Long enough. Then she went on as if nothing had happened, completing the sentence, " - nice little man." She paused. "What . . . how did he die?"

"I think he was murdered."

"Murdered? He was really murdered?"

I eased back a little. "That's only what I think. Police say it was a natural death. Heart attack."

I waited, but she didn't add anything. So I went on, pleasantly, "I've been employed by a client who believes Ross Miller innocent. So I'm trying to contact people who gave testimony at the trial, see if I can't dig up something - anything - which might help Miller. At least get him a stay of execution." I paused, let the silence gather a little. "He's going to die Wednesday morning."

She moistened her lips but didn't speak. I said casually, "The California Penal Code puts it simply enough. 'The punishment of death shall be inflicted by the administration of a lethal gas.' Sounds almost cute, doesn't it - 'the administration of a lethal gas'? Doesn't sound very gruesome, like hacking a guy's head off, say, or burning him at the stake. But it's pretty gruesome. Take it from me."

I lit a cigarette, let the gray smoke bubble past my lips. "The gas is cyanide, and I've seen people dead of cyanide poisoning. They get the most peculiar bluish color. There's a word for it in fact, cyanosis - "

"Don't tell - I mean, why tell me all this, Mr. Scott?"

I smiled. "Sh.e.l.l, huh?"

"Yes. I meant Sh.e.l.l." But she didn't sound as if she meant it. Not any more.

I said, "I thought you ought to know, Lolita. Miller's in prison, in part because of your testimony. And they don't tell you, during the trial, precisely how the convicted man will die. Merely 'in the manner prescribed by law', or something happy like that. It sounds almost as if they're going to put the guy to sleep, the way they kill kittens."

Right then, for the first time, she got pale. Really pale. She closed her eyes and her lips looked dry.

I went on, "And the members of the jury, unfortunately, are not required to stand up and say right out loud in open court, 'We are going to kill this man'. They merely say, 'We find the defendant guilty', and such jazz. Of course, some of the cats deserve to die; but some of them don't. And if there's even a chance Ross Miller is innocent - "

"Please, Sh.e.l.l. This is quite unnecessary." She looked straight at me, black eyes appearing even darker, larger, in the whiteness of her face. "If you want to ask me any questions, ask them. All right?"

"All right. Now, Miss Lopez, you testified - "

She was game. She smiled, kept looking at me and interrupted, "It's Lolita."

I grinned. "Of course. Lolita. You testified that Frank Quinn was here, with you, at the time of Flagg's murder."

"That's right. He was here." She paused. "Really, I told everything I knew during the trial. There's nothing I can add. I don't know anything about what happened that night, who shot Mr. Flagg or anything."

"Uh-huh. Well, Chester Weiss testified that he took Miller up to Flagg's penthouse, and took n.o.body else up there. But just before he was mur - before he died, Weiss admitted perjuring himself. He stated that he took Frank Quinn up to the penthouse, right at the time Flagg was murdered. If Quinn was up there, he couldn't very well have been here with you at the same time, could he?"

"No. So he couldn't have been in the penthouse. I told you, Mr. Quinn was here."

Silence, for half a minute. I pulled at my bourbon and water, and Lolita sipped at her own drink. Then I said, "That's the way you want to leave it? There's nothing you want to add?"

She shook her head. That thick ma.s.s of black hair flipped over her shoulder. I snubbed my cigarette out in a tray and stood up. "Well, thanks. I guess that's all. For now."

She walked with me to the door, opened it, closed it gently behind me as I walked down the hall.

The Spartan Apartment Hotel, on North Rossmore in Hollywood, is where I live, the three rooms and bath I call home. I went up to the second floor and let myself inside the apartment. No guys with bombs or machine guns were waiting for me, so I mixed a small drink, then fed the fish.

Inside my front door, against the left wall, are the two fish tanks, one a small guppy tank and the other a twenty-gallon community aquarium. I finished my highball, watching the mollies and red swordtails, shark-like panchax chaperii and the magnificent cornflower-blue betta, losing myself in that smaller, cleaner world for a while.

Then I waved good night to Amelia, the brightly bawdy, yard-square nude voluptuous on my living-room wall; Amelia, who looks like - and maybe is - somebody's secret vice. Then I showered, turned out the lights, and went to bed.

It took me quite a while to get to sleep.

The next morning, Sunday a.m., I hit the joints on lower Main and Spring, in Boyle Heights, out on Central Avenue. I talked to men in bars and barber shops, cheap hotels, union hiring halls, even to businessmen, attorneys, other private detectives. All the time I had to keep looking over my shoulder, making sure that n.o.body was aiming at the back of my fat head. I asked questions about Quinn, Flagg, Weiss, even Heigman and Lolita Lopez. And I came up with a blank, nothing.

I did some checking on Ross Miller, learning only that the more I found out about him the more innocent he seemed. He was a law school honor graduate with a twenty-two-year-old sister, Doris Miller, which I knew, and a thirty-year-old fiancee, Jane French, which I hadn't known. I tried to locate the fiancee, but couldn't, so I phoned Doris. She told me Jane French had gone back to her home in Kansas City; it hadn't seemed likely that there was going to be a wedding.

It still didn't seem likely. At two o'clock in the afternoon, after five hours of legwork, digging, questioning, I had no more than when I'd started out in the morning. Then came the break. I'd been looking for a middle-aged ex-con named Pinky, a man who'd sold me information in the past. I knew Pinky was very friendly with a guy named Shadow, a hood on Frank Quinn's payroll. So there was a chance Pinky might know something about Quinn that I could use. I found him in a beer joint named Jerry's over on Figueroa.

Jerry's was one of those places where drunks go to spend their unemployment checks, a dark, clammy dive sour with the smell of burps. Diseased-looking linoleum covered the bartop and tops of the tables, and there was either old sawdust on the floor or the termites had gone crazy down there. Pinky was sitting alone at a table, an empty shot gla.s.s in front of him.

I walked over to him and said, "h.e.l.lo, Pinky."

He looked up and waited for his eyes to focus on me. Then he smiled. One of his front teeth was gone. "Scott," he said. "Well, ain't this the nuts. I been wonderin' who was gonna buy the next drink."

I sat down, called the bartender over, ordered a beer for me and a shot of rye for Pinky. He looked the same as when I'd last seen him, two or three months before. Thin, unshaven, with unhealthy puffs like wrinkled blisters under his eyes. I filled him in, told him I was representing Ross Miller, and hoping to stick Quinn one way or another, preferably with K. C. Flagg's murder, but that anything tying Quinn to Flagg might help.

"So far n.o.body's been able to tell me anything more than that they knew each other," I said.

"More'n that, Scott." Pinky sipped his rye like wine, rubbed his lips together. "It ain't generally known - which it wouldn't be - but Casey was Quinn's bagman."

I smiled. A bagman is a payoff man, the intermediary who carries money - graft, loot, bribes, the proceeds of crime - between one man or group and another.

"Who got paid off?" I asked Pinky.

"Some pretty big apples, the way I get it - legit dudes." He paused. "I can give you a coupla names, coupla guys Flagg paid off for Quinn. No skin off me - but it'll cost you a case of Old Overholt, Scott."

"You've got it."

"Ira Semmelwein and John Porter. The payoffs were from Quinn through Casey, made once a month. Probably to plenty others, but them's the only ones I know about." Pinky tossed off his rye, reckless with it now that there was a whole case in the offing. "Here's something for free," he said. "I hear Quinn makes the payoffs himself since Casey got fanned. Way it reached me, he holds some kind of meeting with his boys every month or so, but that might be a wrong steer."

"You know what the payoffs were for?"

"Nope. That's it, Scott."

Pinky had already earned his case of rye, but there was more to come. I tossed some names at him without reaction. But then I said, "A guy named Heigman testified at the trial, said he sold Miller the gun used on Flagg."

Pinky grinned, sticking his tongue into the empty s.p.a.ce where he'd once had a tooth. "Don't know where you'd find him, but I know why you won't."

"That sounds sort of fatal," I said.

"Sort of. You know a butcher name of Papa?"

"Papa Ryan?"

"Yeah. Well, Papa did a job of work on Heigman a few months back. So you can understand why n.o.body's seen him around for a few months."