Free Murder Is My Dish by Stephen Marlowe Page A

or six apartments of the size to which I was accustomed, a couple of open suitcases, partly packed, and a Hollywood actress named Kiki Magyar standing near the terrace doors and watching the rain come down.
    Kiki Magyar turned around and came over to me. I held a dripping hat in my hand. She wore a diamond on hers which made the fire on the hearth look like an afterthought.
    She was one of those timeless women who happened to be in the chronological neighborhood of thirty-five. She could have been twenty-five or forty-five and would probably go on effusing sex till fifty-five. She was Mittel Europa’s answer to Marilyn Monroe, and knew it, and let you know it by the way she walked, and smiled, and talked. She did such a good job of it I never even remembered what she was wearing.
    â€œMorning, Miss Magyar,” I said.
    She squeezed my hand. “Ah, but you recognize me.”
    â€œIf Mr. Lequerica—” I began.
    â€œMy hosban ees packing,” she interrupted me with the accent she had made famous in the movies because it came from absolutely nowhere. “May I help, Meesta Drum?”
    â€œLeaving town?” I asked. “In this gorgeous weather?”
    She rewarded me with her deep-throated, bubbly laughter. “We spend the holidays in my hosban’s contry, yes?”
    â€œIf you say so, Miss Magyar. Look, I’m sorry to bother you and I realize your husband has never even met me, but he was instrumental in getting me the case I’m working on, and I’d like to see him about it.”
    She patted my shoulder and her beautiful green eyes got slightly luminous. It was a good trick. “Ah, he knows,” she informed me. “He knows of you. He knows you’re here. I show him your card, yes?”
    â€œSure,” I said. “Now if you’ll—”
    â€œHah-nee, please. All morning rings the telephone. All morning come the newspaper people. My hosban, he’s mad now. You see the newspapers? It—how you say—besmear his contry’s name. He say, ‘Kiki, you kiss the detective good-by for me.’ He very mad. He call for cop so reporters don’t pestair him. Now I kiss you good-by, hah?”
    The kiss, such as it was, was a check warmed by and folded between the cleavage of her breasts. She gave it to me. It was made out to cash for five hundred dollars.
    I looked at it and said, “I’ll still have to see him.”
    That was Lequerica’s cue, and he entered on it, through a door in the wall to my right. He was a tall, heavy-shouldered, narrow-hipped, long-legged fellow with glossy black hair, a Harris tweed suit, flashing dark eyes and the kind of looks which probably did for the women what Kiki Magyar’s did for the men. He offered a hand and a polo player’s clean, rich-living smile and said with no accent at all, “Drum, it’s a real pleasure. Pres Baylis has told me a great deal about you, all of it good. I’m sorry if Mrs. Lequerica gave the impression I was so much in a hurry I couldn’t afford a few moments for you, but we do have a plane to catch.”
    He was a smooth one. In one breath he charmed you, said he was delighted to see you and let you know, all smiles, you could only have a moment or two of his time.
    â€œPapers giving you a bad time?” I asked.
    He shrugged and showed me his teeth again. He looked at Kiki Magyar, who went through the door he had used and closed it behind her. “A man in my position’s used to it,” he told me.
    â€œDo you think Caballero’s dead?” I asked suddenly.
    I watched for a break in the smooth façade, but there wasn’t any. He was a man who showed the world plenty of glittering surface and nothing of what was underneath. His type would make a good diplomat or a good gigolo. He was both, the latter despite or perhaps because of Kiki Magyar and the three wives who had preceded her.
    â€œCertainly not,” he said.