Free Bad Samaritan by William Campbell Gault

you start on football with him, mister!”
    “I promise you I will not start on anything with Paul Pontius. Get going on that drink—I want to take a shower.”
    “I’ll make it. But before your shower, I want to hear about your day.”
    I started with Nowicki and worked my way through Vista Court and lunch with Juanita to Peter Allis. I mentioned the visit to Danning Villwock’s mountain retreat, but eliminated the important thing he had told me.
    “What does Juanita look like?” she asked me.
    “She’s a big woman, but I suppose some might find her attractive. She’s about fifty years old. Her enchiladas are—well, almost up to yours.”
    “You meant better.”
    “Call it a draw.”
    She sat there on our twenty-seven-hundred-dollar sofa, and said, “Three babies and a mother in one room without a tub or shower?”
    “In Los Angeles, I’ve seen eight in one room with a public toilet down the hall. I imagine we could see a lot worse in India.”
    “This isn’t India.”
    “Not yet. Who else is going to be at the dinner?”
    “Just Skip and June.”
    “Hasn’t Glenys got a new man?”
    “Not yet. But I’m helping her look.”
    I thought about Glenys while I took my shower. A strange habit of mine, every time I take a shower my thoughts turn to women. It started in junior high school.
    This Glenys was a tall, slim and elegant lady. The first and superficial impression one would get from her spinster attitudes on so many subjects was contradicted by her history.
    She had been paired with some monumental studs when she lived in Beverly Hills, men who certainly weren’t after her money. The only fortune hunter in the succession was the only man she had ever married. That marriage had lasted two days (and one night).
    Her sister, June, was more standard, the sunny outdoor girl, the cheerleader type. Skip must have been the personification of all the college heroes she had rooted for. A dozen times since we had moved up here, she had told me how wonderful I had been to keep Skip out of jail—for her.
    He, too, must have remembered the debt. He was standing in the entry hall when the butler opened door. “I want to apologize, Brock,” he said. “But jeepers, when I saw you standing there with Vogel—”
    “I understood and so did Vogel. We were both wrong about him, Skip.”
    “One of us still is.” He punched my arm. “Did you give up golf?”
    “Temporarily. I decided I was too young to retire.”
    “Lay off, buddy. Each to his own. Anything new on Mrs. Marner?”
    I shook my head.
    “Why couldn’t it be suicide? She had cancer, you know.”
    “According to the doctors. According to Maude it was gas, from all that Mexican and kosher food she was always eating.”
    Then Glenys was coming to greet me. “My favorite vulgar person,” she said, and kissed me. “Don’t spill your cheap cigar ashes on my antique Kashan, shamus.”
    I would have topped her—if I could have thought of something. We went into the intimate little forty-foot living room. June Lund was in there, tanned and trim and smiling. And Mr. and Mrs. Paul Pontius.
    I remembered him as gray haired and fat. He was about as fat as an N.F.L. center. On sober reappraisal he was gray haired and big.
    He shook my hand and smiled. “Phyllis warned me not to mention football. But Skip told me you’re the famous Brock the Rock. Even when I was a 49er fan, I admired you, sir.”
    “Thank you,” I said. “Now that you’ve moved down here you might change your allegiance. This is going to be a Ram year.”
    “I’m afraid it is. You remember Phyllis, don’t you, my wife?”
    I remembered Phyllis. I hadn’t been that drunk. She was red haired and statuesque, right out of the Folies Bergères, Las Vegas edition.
    She gave me her glittering show-girl smile. “I remember you well, Brock,” she said sweetly. “I hoped to see you sooner.”
    Two women in succession had left me without answers. “Thank you,” I said humbly.
    We sat