Too Sweet to Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

water.
    The scent of jasmine and sandalwood blended with the thick hanging fog. Standing a few feet from Easy on the moon-colored sand was a tall slender man of forty. He was tanned and narrow-faced, wearing a short-cropped blond wig. He had the same color hair as the cowboy actor’s fat poodle. “I thought we had satisfied your curiosity via the telephone, Mr. Easy,” he said in his careful voice.
    “You’re Montez, huh?”
    “I am Cullen Montez, yes. Private secretary to Leonard Nordlin.”
    One of the large men flanking Easy asked, “Is the senator any better, Cullen?”
    Montez said, “I’m afraid not, Neil.” To Easy he said, “I can assure you Jill Jeffers, as she now prefers to call herself, is not in Carmel. Nor has she been here recently.”
    “I’m trying to confirm that.”
    “Let me make something quite clear to you, Mr. Easy.” Montez touched his fingertips to the corner of his eye. “My employer is quite seriously ill. Your barging around Carmel, waving Jillian’s picture, stirring up speculation … none of it helps, Mr. Easy.”
    “The guy in the trick suit,” said Easy.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “The hotel clerk who looks like Zorro on a bad day. He’s the one who told you I was in town.”
    “You can see what I mean now, can’t you?” Montez let his little finger slide down from his eye to rest at the edge of his small thin mouth. “Everything gets back to us quite rapidly. So far I’ve been able to screen all your talk about Jillian’s supposed vanishment from Mr. Nordlin.”
    “I don’t have to ask any more questions …”
    “Splendid.”
    “If you’ll co-operate with me, Montez.”
    “I am co-operating. I’ve come out at this uncomfortable hour to have this amiable chat.”
    “Jill called someone from Carmel this past Saturday,” said Easy. “I want to know where she was.”
    “Has it occurred to you Jillian or this person she supposedly called may have been lying?”
    “It occurs to me everybody I’ve talked to all day may be lying,” Easy told him. “You seem to be plugged in to the village communication system here in Carmel, Montez. Why don’t you ask around?”
    Montez smiled a small thin smile and the tip of his little finger slipped into his mouth momentarily. “I already have. I’m concerned about the girl’s fate much more than you. Should she be in trouble, which is highly likely knowing her, it could well produce unpleasant news. Unpleasant news of such a magnitude I might not be able to keep it from my employer.”
    “You’re afraid she’s killed herself?”
    “With Jillian, whom I know a good deal better than you or your anxious client, the possibility of suicide is always present. I needn’t cite the tragic maternal precedent.”
    Easy shifted one foot on the gritty sand. “So what did you find out?”
    “It is as I told you. Jillian has been nowhere near Carmel in quite some time,” Montez assured him. “Now I suggest you return to your unkempt little VW and tool back to the Land of the Angels, Mr. Easy.”
    Easy looked from the sweet-smelling Montez to the two men framing him. “What happens if I don’t?”
    “Ha, ha,” repeated one of the large men.
    Fog came spinning between Montez and Easy, briefly blurring the private secretary. “A great many unpleasant things can reward stubbornness.” Montez took his hand away from his face and reached inside his suit. From a flat black wallet he took ten fifty-dollar bills. “Would five hundred dollars give you sufficient reason to go away?”
    Easy caused a frown to touch his forehead. “I have a client.”
    “You won’t be betraying your client, since I can positively assure you Jillian is nowhere near Carmel.” He pushed the ten bills toward Easy.
    Finally Easy said, “Okay, I’ll go look someplace else.”
    Montez’s smile grew a fraction broader. “Very good, Mr. Easy. You’ve done the sensible thing.”
    Easy took the money and put it in his own wallet. “Good night,