Deep Without Pity | Page 6

had too much makeup, though, and her body was too clearly developed. She was wearing blue jeans and something I think they call a tube top, that had no other means of support than what she provided herself. She gave me a broad, slightly coy smile. "I'm Charlene Desmond."
"Daniel Sloane. May I sit down?"
"Sure." I took off my coat and sat in the only real chair in the room. She turned and stared at her mother until the older woman left. "Mother has been such a help this last week I can hardly believe it. But she does go too far sometimes. Drink?"
"No thanks," I said. It was too early for me by about five hours. There was a table to my right, by the front window, and she stood at it and poured coke over some bourbon. Light from the drawn Venetian blinds made intense stripes across her hands.
"I expect you've had a good share of visitors lately," I said.
"Yes," she said, and took a big slug of the drink. If it weren't for the violence of her makeup and the lines it didn't quite hide around her eyes, I could have taken her for a teenager. "It's pretty exciting, really. I'm used to attention--" here a not-quite-shy smile-- "you know...but not anything like this."
"Do you mind if I ask you some questions?"
"That's what I figured you were here for. What sort of questions?"
"I'm a private investigator. I'm trying to clear Mrs. King."
"Oh." She looked down at her glass and shook the ice cubes around in it. She seemed almost embarrassed that I had brought up the idea of the murder.
"How did you get drawn into all this?" 1 asked.
She shrugged, still looking down. "The usual way, I suppose. I came in from the pool when his regular secretary got married, and I just stayed on." She stubbed out the remains of one cigarette and lit another with a lighter sitting on the table. It was a standard Zippo, with a lightning bolt insignia on it. It was an exact duplicate of the one on Jason King's desk. "Then he asked me out--l guess I'd been there about a week--and I knew better than to say no. I'd had enough trouble getting on there in the first place."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, my typing's not very good." She showed me her dimples. "But I have a nice telephone voice, and a good memory."
Her flirting was irritating, not so much on a personal level, but because she didn't seem to be able to turn it off. "How did you finally get hired?" I asked, leaning back and propping my head up with one arm.
"Mr. Crabtree needed somebody one day while I was there trying to get in, and took me. He didn't even know I wasn't in the pool. Then they sort of had to let me in. It's complicated. Like a union, sort of." She finished her drink and went over to get another one. "Sure you won't join me?" she asked.
I shook my head. The inertia was starting to get to me, and I felt like I was wasting my time. The woman was shallow and a little on the cheap side, but she didn't strike me as a killer. She lit another cigarette and I asked her about the lighter.
"Did that belong to Jason?"
She looked down at it as if she'd never seen it before. "I suppose so," she said. The whiskey seemed to be affecting her. "The Thundermugs...must have been his outfit, huh?"
She reminded me of a high-school kid just out for the summer. She seemed disjointed, adrift in the moment. It was all a big vacation, and Jason King had paid the bill, first in publicity and now with his life.
By the third drink she was talking about King without being prompted. She had the conversation under her arm and was running with it.
"He was a nice man. Not a big spender, but not a tightwad. He'd take me out sometimes. Sometimes we'd go to his house. He lives out by the lake. Once we went down to the beach by his house, it was late at night, and we made love right there, in front of God and everybody,"
I'd had enough. I stood up and looked around for my coat.
"You can knock it off now, Ms. Desmond," I said. "You were no more Jason King's mistress than I was. You don't know enough about him to talk for a full minute without repeating yourself There's no beach by King's house. There's a rocky ledge, but believe me lady, I wouldn't try it. The reporter that bought your story should be kicked out on his ass."
She sat up, stunned. She looked as though I'd hit her. "Now look here," she said, her words a little slurred.