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jaunty.
    “You don’t want to rent anything,” she said. “You’ve got everything—right?”
    “I’m missing facts.” Dave laid a card in front of her. “I need to see Jack Fullbright, please.”
    She read the card and her face straightened. She looked up gravely. “About poor Jerry? There’s nothing wrong with his life insurance, is there? There couldn’t be. I paid his premiums. The bills came here. I paid them with the rest.”
    “It’s not that,” Dave said. “It’s his death that’s got something wrong with it.”
    “Everything,” she said. “He was a fine man.”
    “His personal accounts came here,” Dave said. “You paid all his bills for him—household, and so on?”
    “That’s right” She tilted her head, frowning. “I don’t understand, do I? I mean, it says here you’re an investigator. Death claims. What does that mean?”
    “Nothing, if you go out quietly in your bed,” Dave said. “If you end up the way poor Jerry did, somebody like me comes around to look into why and how. Is Jack Fullbright in, please?”
    “Oh, I’m sorry.” She glanced at the telephone on her desk. “He’s on overseas with London. A shipment got lost. A crew on their way to the north of Norway for a documentary about Lapps or reindeer or moss or something. What do you bet the equipment’s in Rio? Luckily, we didn’t ship it—they did. Now they want replacements by air freight—at no extra charge.”
    Dave looked at the glowing button on the phone. “How long can it take?”
    “Till Jack wins,” she said. “Look—the police already investigated. That lovely tough man with the big shoulders and the broken nose. Lieutenant what?”
    “Barker,” Dave said. “Ken Barker.”
    “He seemed to know his job,” she said. “Do you always go around checking up on him?”
    “He’s overworked,” Dave said. “He can give any one case only so much time. Los Angeles is big on people killing each other. Happens every day. Sometimes twice. He has to keep moving on to the next one. I don’t.” Dave glanced behind him. Against a wall of combed plywood, tacked with typed price lists and with calendars big on the phone numbers of sales representatives and freight haulers and small on dates, stood two chairs with split Naugahyde seats. They were heaped with American Cinematographer and Stereo Review magazines. “Which means I can wait.” He set one of the stacks on the floor, sat down, lit a cigarette with a slim steel lighter, and smiled at her. “All right with you?”
    “Maybe I can help,” she said “I hope I don’t look it, but I’m the man of all work.”
    “I’ve been to his bank,” Dave said. “The computer printouts puzzle me. I need to see his canceled checks.”
    “Oh.” She gave a little doubtful shake to her head. “I guess I couldn’t authorize that, could I?”
    “Who is Mrs. Dawson’s doctor?” Dave said.
    “Dr. Spiegelberg. Irwin. Out near USC.”
    “She didn’t change lately? To a Dr. Encey, out near UCLA?”
    She blinked surprise. “Not that I know of. Maybe the bill just hasn’t come yet. Did you ask her?”
    “I don’t believe her,” Dave said.
    “Oh, my!” Her eyebrows went up. “What kind of nasty, suspicious mind have we here? Not believe Mildred Dawson?”
    Dave looked for an ashtray. “When she tells me he gave her a prescription for birth-control pills?”
    “Ha!” She had a fine big laugh. “You’re kidding. Just flick the ashes on the floor. It’s fireproof.”
    “Where did he keep the girl friend?” Dave asked.
    “Girl—” She looked genuinely shocked. “Oh, no, my dear, gorgeous Mr.”—she peered through the amber lenses at his card—“Brandstetter, baby. Absolutely not. Never in a million years, love.”
    Dave shrugged. “His wife’s half paralyzed. She’s a lot older than he was.”
    “You don’t know Jerry Dawson. There was an obsessively religious man. I’m not talking about Sunday. I’m talking about Monday, Tuesday,