The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction

Feeling more cheerful, I chalked up her conduct as a feminine whim. The waiter brought another drink, and I sat alone at the table, looking around the club.

Across the room I could see Mauri Malcolm, the club owner. He was chatting lightly with the patrons and at the same time trying to estimate the evening’s take.

The thought of Mauri’s expenses made me quite cheerful again. Inwardly, I congratulated myself. I had expanded with more restaurants instead of doing what most restaurant owners did. Malcolm could have the headaches that went with this smart supper club.

I scanned the room. Two thirds of the tables were filled, but I knew that wasn’t enough. I had seen the fixed smile nightclub owners get just before their baby folds. Mauri Malcolm was wearing it now.

I got back the feeling I’d had earlier. I was Dick Roney, thirty-six. No debts. A large bank balance, and the loveliest girl in the world who would change her mind as soon as . . .

I saw the other girl. Mauri Malcolm was bending over her table with the special smile he reserved for beautiful women.

I pushed back my chair, got up and circled the dance floor. The girl in organdy did not look in my direction. She was leaving the room. I caught up with her in the heavily carpeted hall. Here, close up, she looked even more like Elaine Watkins, and so I said, “Miss Watkins!” in a loud tone, and waited for her to turn.

She did, but it was obvious from her cool stare that she’d turned because of my voice, and not because of the name. She looked through me with an expression that said she didn’t know me and didn’t care to. Then she went into the powder room, and the door swung shut in my face.

I went back to my table, trying to seem poised and at ease. But I imagine I had the hang-dog look of a heel who had just made an unsuccessful pass at another man’s wife.

Shortly after that, I paid the check and ambled out of the club. The Century bar was down the street, and I picked up two more drinks there.

But somehow, I couldn’t relax. It wasn’t my night to be out on the town. Something – my anxiety about my housekeeper – was urging me to go home.

I went, driving with unconscious haste. At the house, I put the car away, and entered very quietly. Just inside, I paused and listened, then walked toward the housekeeper’s room.

Elaine Watkins was in bed. I saw that by the light of the street lamp that shone through the open window. The covers were well down from her shoulders, and the filmy, shadowy fabric of her nightgown was rising and falling as she breathed. The tempo was regular, almost hypnotic. It was, I realized, high time I got out of there.

Moving quietly down the hall, I turned the thing over in my mind. Either the girl had come in early, or she had not gone out at all. There was, of course, no reason why my housekeeper should not spend her evenings at Mauri Malcolm’s club. I knew Malcolm slightly. We had been business rivals before Malcolm sold a group of three restaurants to plunge more heavily on the nightclub.

Malcolm was as honest as any businessman, and there was no reason why the girl shouldn’t know him. There was also no reason, as far as I was concerned, why a model should not accept expensive clothing – if that was the life she wanted. But models who wanted that life did not take jobs as housekeepers. Not for two hundred a month.

Entering the library, I switched on the light and headed for the sideboard. Mixing a drink, I thought of Lola. I’d phone her early tomorrow and straighten everything out.

I turned, sipping from the tall glass, enjoying it and the soft play of light on the polished wood. The lighting was subdued, and that too added something to my feeling of quiet peace. This was the place to come back to, the house for a man who had everything. Here, in my own home, even the shadows were warm and friendly.

Except for the new shadow. It was one I had never noticed before. There was, in fact, no reason why it should be there behind the wing-backed chair.

I moved. The shadow did not. I took a long, deep pull on my drink and held the glass in my hand, as I knelt to inspect the body.

Then I stood up and switched on a floor lamp. The man on the floor was Mauri Malcolm. He had been shot in the head.

I listened, and there were no sounds. All through the house there was still the same silence that had, only a moment before, given a feeling of peace.

Then, very loud in the stillness, a phone dial whirred in another room. Walking softly, I followed the sound.

I went through the hall to my bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. Shoving gently, I opened it.

My housekeeper was sitting on my bed. She was wearing the same transparent nightgown I had seen when I came in. Over it she had donned an equally transparent wrapper.

“Yes!” she was saying. “It was Mr Roney! I was asleep and they awoke me up with their quarreling. Then I looked in and saw Mr Roney fire the gun, and—”

“Wait a minute!” I yelled. I crossed the room and snatched the phone from her hand. “Hello. Who am I talking to?”