Wife or Death (3 page)

Angel's blue eyes widened. “Why shouldn't they, for heaven's sake?”

“As a matter of fact, Cor,” George Guest said, “you and I were invited first. I was dancing with Ardis Wyatt when she invited us. Angel was dancing with Norm Wyatt. When we traded partners, Ardis and Norm told Angel to bring Jim along, too.”

The tune the orchestra had been playing came to an end, and the musicians began to pack their instruments. Denton realized that he had been listening to “Good Night, Ladies.”

And he hadn't danced a single dance, he thought ruefully.

“Is it that late?” Corinne asked in a surprised voice.

George pushed his sleeve back and looked at his watch. “Sure is. Five past one.”

Angel jumped up. “We'd better start for the Wyatts', then. Ardis said to come over right after the dance. And I promised her to help set up the buffet.”

“Buffet?” Denton said. “That sounds like a lot of people.”

“Well, sure, darling! It's not just us four. It's going to be a regular party.”

Corinne said doubtfully, “One of those all-night whing-dings … I don't know, George. Church in the morning—”

“Oh, Corinne, don't be a party pooper,” Angel cried. “It'll be more fun. Everyone who's anyone is going to be there.”

Everyone who's anyone … Angel, like so many people from the shanty side of the tracks, was rigidly class-conscious. Denton had been unable to make her understand that in Ridgemore a social aristocracy did not exist. There was little real money in town, and the closest thing to “society” was the group of merchants and professional people with sufficient income to afford membership in the Ridgemore Country Club. Since the club dues were only two hundred dollars a year, and the board of governors included the local fish dealer and the owner of the Ridgemore Sanitation Company—the fancy name by which he operated his private garbage-collection business—this was hardly restrictive. But Angel had never been able to grasp the democratic level of the community; she insisted, characteristically, on conjuring up an elite so that she could place Denton and herself within its exalted ranks.

In the early days of their marriage this had both amused and touched Denton. Angel had never been communicative about her background, even to him, but he did know that she was the youngest of the ten children of a Pennsylvania coal-miner, and that she had run away from home at the age of fifteen. Her marriage to him had enabled her, for the first time in her life, to enjoy what she insisted on regarding as social prestige, and he had been indulgent of her airs. Now he was neither amused nor touched, just indifferent.

“George and I will get your coats,” Denton said to Angel and Corinne, “and meet you at the front door. Come on, George.”

George Guest got up with undisguised relief.

3

Outside, the air was still. The threat of rain and thunder rumbled in the west. As Denton held the car door open for Angel, he looked speculatively skyward.

“Maybe we'd better make a run for home,” he suggested. “It's going to storm.”

Angel regarded him as though he had suddenly grown a second head. “And miss a party at the Wyatts'? Don't be silly, James!”

Shrugging, Denton closed the door, rounded the car and slid under the wheel. Across the parking lot he saw George Guest's car back out from its space. Denton waited for him to drive out of the exit gate before he followed.

A few big raindrops started to fall as the two cars parked in the Wyatts' driveway. The two couples dashed for the protection of the porch.

The Wyatt house was a modest old two-story frame on a hill overlooking the river. Ridgemore occupied hills and valleys; it was an up-and-down town, with hardly a street outside the business district which ran on the level.

Norman Wyatt was Ridgemore's local-boy-who-made-good. One of the nation's most successful TV producers, his legal residence was Hollywood; but he still hung on to his old family home in Ridgemore. His swank hunting lodge in the mountains high above the town was a sort of toe-scuffing advertisement of his fame.

The Wyatts visited Ridgemore about three times a year. Hunting lodge aside, they were the exception that proved the Ridgemore rule of classlessness. Norm Wyatt, looking older than his forty years, was a soft-bellied bear of a man who loved to entertain the old friends of his Ridgemore youth; he had never outgrown his beginnings. His wife Ardis, a year or two his senior, came from another world. She was a handsome, imperious woman with the tailored ease of manner that only a lifetime of unlimited means could have produced—gracious, without airs, equally at home in jeans on a horse or at a society soiree in a Givenchy gown. Ardis Wyatt was the daughter of Gerald Trevor, multimillionaire president and chairman of the board of Trevor-United Studios, of which Norman Wyatt was executive vice-president.

Wyatt, still in his Henry VIII costume, greeted the Dentons and Guests at the door.

“You're the first.” He waved them into the old Wyatt living room, grinning his warm, homely grin.

Ardis Wyatt was made up as Queen Elizabeth I; the costume was startlingly suited to her. “Hi,” she said. “You girls are conscripted. Off to the kitchen!” And Angel and Corinne trotted across the dining room after their queenly hostess to help set up the buffet. It was characteristic of Ardis that at her informal get-togethers—in Ridgemore—she did most of her own work.

As the three women disappeared behind the swinging kitchen door, a tall, trim, courtly-looking, white-haired man in his late sixties came down the stairs from the upper floor. He wore the costume of a Confederate general.

Norm Wyatt said, “You fellows know my father-in-law, don't you?”

“Oh, yes,” Jim Denton said.

“We met last year at the club, Mr. Trevor,” George Guest said. “George Guest?”

“Of course.” Trevor obviously did not remember him. “It's nice to see you both again.”

“Enjoy the ball, Mr. Trevor?” Denton asked, just to say something.

“Very much—Jim, isn't it?—except that I made the mistake of wearing a costume requiring a dress-sword. I spent most of the evening tripping over it. Just shed it upstairs.”

“I know what you mean.” Denton unbuckled his own sword and stood it in a corner.

“Gerald always has himself a time when there are gals around,” Wyatt chuckled. “Regular old rip. What'll you have to drink?”

Denton and George Guest both said bourbon and soda, Trevor, Scotch on the rocks. They gathered at the bar as Norman Wyatt went behind it to fix the drinks.

“You're becoming almost a resident, Mr. Trevor,” Denton remarked. “Isn't this your third visit this year?”

“I've got in the habit of tagging along with Ardis and Norman whenever I can,” the tycoon said. “Like most obsolete old nuisances.”

“Don't believe a word of it,” his son-in-law said. “We practically have to kidnap him to keep him out of the clutches of those Hollywood babes. Here we can keep an eye on him.”

Trevor smiled his reserved smile. “I'm afraid I'm beyond the age when you have to worry about romantic involvements, Norman.”

Wyatt served the three men and started to mix himself a Scotch and water. “Listen to that innocent tone. I saw you charming the pants off the girls tonight. Jim, you'd better keep an eye on Angel when Gerald's around. He danced with her twice.”

“Three times,” the old gentleman said promptly. “Norman is jealous because I cut in. Charming girl, your wife, Jim. Twenty—well, even ten—years ago you'd have had to watch me.”

“I'm not the least bit worried, Mr. Trevor,” Denton said Delphically. The millionaire gave him a keen look.

George Guest said hastily, “Norm, how long are you planning to stay this trip?”

“I ought to get back to work in a couple of weeks, but Gerald would throw a fit if I dragged him away before he got in some deer. He's hotter about hunting than I am. And he's the big wheel, so I have to humor him.”

“Norman likes to preserve the fiction that I still run things,” Trevor said fondly. “If you're really that eager to get back to work, Norman, you can leave tomorrow.”

“And miss the deer? Don't be silly!”

The tycoon and his son-in-law exchanged affectionate grins. The inevitable opinion in some quarters that Norman Wyatt owed his success to his marriage to the daughter of the head of Trevor-United Studios was not shared by Denton. It had always seemed to Denton that if Wyatt had charmed himself into his present position, he had charmed the father as much as the daughter.

The doorbell rang and Wyatt came from behind the bar to answer it. As he opened the door the sky lit up and there was a great rumble of thunder, and a crash. Fat Clara Sommers, standing on the porch with her husband, shrieked and nearly bowled Wyatt over in her panic to get indoors.

Her equally fat husband roared with laughter. “Never knew you could move that fast, Clar'. You looked like a cat with a scalded tail.”

“That hit awfully close,” Clara Sommers panted. “Did I hurt you, Norman?”

“Think nothing of it.” Wyatt was peering out, and Denton strolled over to join him. By the light of the street lamp before the house they could see the long spattering drops still coming straight down.

Wyatt said, “That was close,” and shut the door.

Ardis Wyatt, Angel and Corinne had hurried in from the dining room. The three women looked frightened.

“What was that?” Ardis gasped.

“The crack of doom,” Denton said.

“No—seriously. That sounded as if it missed us by a hair.”

Norm Wyatt said, “A miss is as good as her smile. Come on, Ardis, light up!” His wife smiled faintly. “You kitchen help ready for a drink?” He went back to tending bar.

Apparently the buffet was ready, for Ardis and Corinne and Angel remained in the living room. Wyatt had just finished preparing drinks for them and the Sommerses when the other guests arrived.

Most were married but two unaccompanied men showed up.

One was young Arnold Long. He had completed his hitch for Uncle Sam less than a year ago, and Denton suspected that he and the United States Army had parted company with equal pleasure. Arnold was good-looking in a sharp-eyed, oily-haired way; he was shrewd, ingratiating and without ambition. Apparently he had no plans for going to work, for he was running around town in a brand-new white Avanti, the rakish gift of his mama, usually heading its futuristic fiberglass body for some leafy bower in the hills with one of the girls employed in Long Senior's small machine-parts factory. As far as Denton had ever been able to make out, young Arnold's sole genuine enthusiasm was for seducing factory girls in lovers' lanes; he had been invited here by the Wyatts, Denton was sure, only because they were fond of his father. Mr. and Mrs. Long were in bunny costumes; their son wore a scornful dinner jacket. He looked well in dinner jackets.

The other bachelor was Matthew Fallon, a lank and sad-eyed man with a horse face and uncombable red hair. In his late thirties, Fallon drew a cartoon strip for a newspaper syndicate. His hobo get-up was remarkably realistic.

Jim Denton got on the end of the buffet line, and by the time he had helped himself to ham and turkey and potato salad he found all the living room chairs occupied. So he stepped into the hall and sat down with his plate on the second step of the stairway.

“That's a fine place to sit, Jim.”

Denton looked up; it was Queen Elizabeth. “Hi, Your Majesty. This isn't my night for pushing ladies off chairs onto their duffs.” He moved over. “Aren't you eating?”

Ardis Wyatt sat down beside him. She had a drink in her hand. “Speaking about duffs—no.”

“Don't give me that. Your fanny isn't any bigger than mine.”

“That's what I mean. You're getting editorial spread, Jim.”

“The hell I am. Though this potato salad could do it. It's delicious.”

“Don't thank me,” Ardis laughed. “On ball nights and such, when I have people over afterwards, I have my food catered. I wish I had your wife's figure.”

Denton said dryly, “Well, she certainly isn't making any secret of it.”

Gerald Trevor's daughter glanced at him, and away. “I think,” she said lightly, “that Angel's made a conquest.”

He nearly said, “Which one?” Angel, who carefully counted calories, was neither eating nor drinking. She was standing near the bar talking animatedly to Matthew Fallon and old Gerald Trevor. Instead, Denton said, “It's my guess your father's the one who's made the conquest, Ardis. After all, he's a pretty big shot in show business.”

“You're kidding,” Ardis Wyatt said.

Denton laughed. “How do I know what I'm doing?”

Norman Wyatt went to answer the doorbell. Ralph Crosby, purpler-faced even than he had been at the country club bar, walked in with elaborate steadiness. He was very drunk. The rain had begun to come down tropically. The district attorney stood dripping, his black hair plastered to his forehead, and staring around.

“Ralph, you're soaked,” Norm said quickly. “How about coming upstairs? I'll give you a change of clothing.”

Crosby stooped carefully to inspect the sopping legs of his farmer's overalls. “Little water never hurt anybody,” he said, and pursed his lips. A trickle ran down his forehead and dangled at the end of his nose. “Gimme a drink.”

Wyatt hesitated, then returned to his post behind the bar, Crosby in his wake. The D.A. stopped abruptly behind Angel Denton; she was still chatting with old Trevor and the cartoonist.

Crosby said in a very loud voice, “Hey, you. Angel.”

Angel half turned. Gerald Trevor seemed startled and annoyed. Matt Fallon looked disgusted.

“Hello, Ralph,” said Angel pleasantly. “Something on your mind?”

“Wanna talk to you.”

“Well, I don't want to talk to you,” Angel said, still pleasantly. “And not so close, Ralph, please. You're all wet. And you smell. Excuse me?” And she undulated across the room toward Thad and Clara Sommers.