LITMIR.BIZ

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that cost?”

      “Three thousand dollars, and my cut is twenty-five percent.”

      “Seven hundred and fifty bucks,” I already reckoned.

      Shona nodded. “That’s it, and I had him all lined up. He’d promised to sign on the dotted line. He was going to bring his check last Wednesday night.”

      “Other words, you’re willing to spend fifty bucks locating the buy because he’s worth seven hundred and fifty to you?”

      “That’s it, Mr. Moran.”

      TWO

      I STEERED over onto Fourth, past the Poinsetta Apartments. Should have been P-o-i-n-s-e-t-t-i-a but the landlady couldn’t spell. I’d lived there for the last three years and still had the apartment key on my chain.

      So in the next block I nosed the Chev into the Tiki-Tiki Club parking lot. Shutting off the motor, I twisted in the seat so’s to face Shona. Sure, she’d told a cold-boiled, business tale. But she’d a hot sexiness, too, and it made me feel as if I’d swallowed a corkscrew that stayed stuck in my throat.

      I asked, “Did Westburne make a verbal contract with you in front of witnesses?”

      “No, we talked in the practice room.”

      “Then all you’ve got is your word against his. He’s probably changed his mind and ducked out. You can’t hold him. Might as well hang onto your fifty bucks.”

      Her voice went husky. It slurred, “You find him, Mr. Moran. I’ll handle him from there on.”

      “What makes you so sure? . . . Never mind answering that yet. Tell me while we catch a drink here.”

      “Wait’ll I fix my face.”

      She dug into her mesh purse. I switched up the dome light, watched while she mended her lipstick. Her mouth was a bit too big for prettiness, but in my experience that’s a sign of a passionate nature. Her hair was chestnut colored, so thick she struggled to drag a comb through it.

      The corkscrew turned against my tonsils. Maybe I’d have to take the insane risk of sticking around ’Diego long enough to locate Westburne, if that’s what I had to do to make the grade with Shona.

      We went in through the Tiki-Tiki’s side entrance, into the Hawaiian Room. The place makes a play for Navy brass. Officers on shore duty come in there and soak up the tropic atmosphere of fishnets, palm fronds, an electric waterfall behind the bar. Then a nice feature of the place is Babe, the well-stacked “Polynesian” hostess from Lemon Grove that I used to romance before she married the club bouncer, Nick Alession.

      Babe guided us to the quiet corner booth, and over by the bar stood Nick bugging his eyes out approvingly at Shona . . . slitting them when he saw me. On her wedding night Babe must have confessed her past to the guy. No other reason why he’d suddenly taken to hating me.

      Nuts to Nick. I’d picked here because if a few drinks made Shona playful, it was only a lurch and a stagger to my apartment. I watched her settle into the booth, and when she dropped the fur cape off her shoulders my appreciation went up ten points. Sm-o-o-th. The bald commander at the table nearest our corner thought so, too. He stared until Shona gave him the eye right back, and a smile to go with it.

      It doubled me up how the commander got gray to his gills, swinging his attention fast to the middle-aged dame across the table who was probably his wife. We ordered gin-and-quinines from the grass-skirted waitress.

      I said, “The more you tell me about this Westburne bird, the faster results you’ll get. No sense wasting my time and your dough digging up stuff you already know about . . . so, shoot.”

      “He filled this in at the front desk,” She opened the purse and slid a pale blue card across the booth.

      It said: SHELDON SCHOOL OF THE DANCE. . . . Enrollment application. There were a lot of spaces below that, most of them blank. The filled-in part told me that Alan J. Westburne was a white American male, 51, residing at No. 21, 2814 Los Gatos Street.

      He hadn’t committed himself on the angles that’d really help me . . . nothing here about his occupation, employment, references. “Shutmouth bastard, huh?”

      “He paid cash,” Shona explained. “That on the card is for credit references.”

      “People dance on tick? What’s the country coming to?”

      “Well, parents that bring in kids for tap and ballet lessons pay a little down and the rest on time. Mr. Westburne wasn’t so closemouthed. He told me a lot about himself.”

      We had time out while Grass Skirt served the drinks.

      “Card here’s dated February 12,” I noticed.

      “Uh, huh. Lincoln’s birthday, a Friday night. The advantage of Friday night is a new student gets to meet all the instructresses, pick out the one he likes, and Westburne picked me.”

      “I could put my finger on a couple of reasons.”

      She said, “The other girls have those, too . . . I was a little extra nice to him. I just came out here from Minneapolis because I didn’t want to take another of those winters. Being new here, I had to build up my own following. And, well, it’s supposed to be a half-hour lesson, but a man Mr. Westburne’s age isn’t in shape to take a solid thirty-minute workout. We rested and talked and I asked him the usual questions. In a diplomatic way.”

      “What way is that?”

      “Why, instead of asking where he worked, I’d wonder if he had a hard day at the office. Instead of asking if he was married I put it, did Mrs. Westburne enjoy dancing.”

      Shona toyed with her glass.

      “Westburne just recently came out here from Chicago. He had a furniture business there. He and his partner disagreed, and finally he sold out to the partner. He and Mrs. Westburne had the idea of buying a trailer and knocking around seeing the country, then suddenly she died. Her name was Frieda. They never had any children. He was all by his lonesome, out here thinking of buying a small retirement business, and he was looking around too at back-country ranches. And he told me a lot of other little stuff that I’ve got written up in my diary.”

      “How come he rated space in your diary?”

      “I make notes about all my students,” Shona said. “That way I can refresh my memory, and I don’t make the mistake of trying to discuss the furniture business, for instance, with some man who’s really a paving contractor.”

      I could see how they might all look pretty much alike to her, and certainly Westburne sounded average as hell. Only one detail in the picture seemed phony.

      “Age 51’s pretty young to be retiring,” I said.

      “He may have shaded that a little, been a few years older,” she admitted. “Anyway, he’s a nice guy, a successful man with plenty of money, but at the same time a shy, lonely kind of sad man. He reminded me of a stray pup I picked up once when I was a kid . . . you know the wistful look a lost dog has? It’s pretty rough on a man over fifty when his fife busts up . . . his marriage, his business. I think through dancing Westburne hoped to overcome his shyness and make some new social contacts. I think that’s really why he was willing to sign up for the life membership, and it wasn’t so dumb, because sometimes it really works out that way.”

      I studied Shona as she talked, decided there was a lot of maternal instinct in her make-up.

      “Something’s happened to him,” she worried. “When he missed last Wednesday night, well, I thought he had a cold or the flu or something. I kept expecting he’d phone, but he didn’t. Tonight when he didn’t appear again, I took a cab out to 2814 Los Gatos.”

      Natch, I knew she’d done that. Nobody spends fifty smackers on a detective without first doing a little checking up on anything as elementary

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