Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 12 Read Online Free PDF

not a movie star. Listen, Fred, if I stay out here, it’s still your office—just make me your chief investigator.”
    “Jesus, Nate, you’re the president of the company!”
    “That’s all right. Even back home I spend my time working cases . . . I just use my clout to pick and choose.”
    Fred contemplated awhile, then shrugged and said, “Might work out at that. We can play this publicity angle better with the Examiner , if that comes to pass, with you doing a ‘private eye to the stars’ number. We could get nice ink out of that.”
    “Maybe.”
    So I had told Peggy that night, in our bungalow, that I had decided to stay in L.A. We’d rent a house and I’d work out of Fred’s office, and she could take a real stab at a career in movies.
    She melted into my arms. “Oh, Nate, you’re wonderful . . . I love you so much. . . .”
    “Why don’t you try to think of a way to properly thank me, then?”
    I cupped her small perfect behind and drew her close.
    “Oh, yes, darling . . .” Her fingers were fiddling in my hair. “. . . but one thing . . .”
    “Yeah?”
    “I think we should start . . . you know, using something.”
    “Huh?”
    “I’m going to get pregnant if we don’t start using some precautions.”
    Over the first weeks of our marriage, we had certainly thrown caution to the wind, with no thought of anything but good old-fashioned honeymooners’ lust. Possibly in the back of my mindhad been the thought of making some little Hellers—I was older than Peg, after all, pushing forty, a returning vet seeking that idyllic postwar world, and settling down had been part of the process.
    But that night I used a Sheik, like old times, and soon she was using a diaphragm. We still made love like honeymooners—well, maybe dropping back to twice or even once a day—and Peggy was constantly affectionate, grateful for the sacrifice I was making for her, and her career.
    On the evening I received the phone call from Beth Short, I had noticed a certain moodiness on Peggy’s part—almost a sullenness, though she hadn’t been unpleasant or anything.
    After I cradled the phone—already starting to work on the story that would allow me to slip away to a pay phone where I could call Beth back and start dealing with this mess—Peggy tossed her movie magazine on the coffee table beside red-painted toes peeking through her sandals, and said those three words again.
    Not “I love you”—the three deadly ones.
    “Can we talk?”
    “Well, sure, honey.”
    “We haven’t had dinner, you know.”
    Somehow it was an accusation.
    “I thought we’d just go over to the Polo Lounge,” I said. “Or maybe order room service.”
    “Let’s go out.” Abruptly, she stood, smoothing her bolero slacks outfit. “I need to go out.”
    So I took her to La Rue, a chic joint on the Strip owned by Billy Wilkerson, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter . Unlike the nearby Ciro’s and the Trocadero, La Rue was chiefly a restaurant, not a nightclub, and the mood was relaxed—no blaring big band, just a piano playing Cole Porter. The only celebrities I spotted were Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles, sharing one of the striped booths; weren’t they divorced? Hayworth looked angry and Welles, heavy-lidded, seemed half in the bag. I knew Welles, having met him in Chicago years before, but he didn’t recognize me, or anyway acknowledge me. I got over it. We moved along to ourown cozy striped booth, where we ate, conversing little. Peg had lobster newberg, which she barely touched, and I had a lamb chop, just picking at the thing.
    We were both preoccupied—I was thinking about that phone call to the Biltmore I was supposed to make, Beth’s hour deadline having nearly elapsed; and Peggy had as yet to elaborate on those three little words: “Can we talk?”
    Finally, after our plates had been cleared and the crumbs brushed from the linen tablecloth and we’d both declined dessert and ordered coffee, I