Date for Murder by Louis Trimble Read Free Book Online Page B

that shaded them from the street. Mark went in through his door, Babe through hers. The connecting door was open.
    He grinned at her. “Wait till I get my shoes off and I’ll start the coolers,” he said.
    Babe snorted. “I can fix my own, Lothario.” She slammed the connecting door, and he heard the click of the lock as she turned the key. He laughed out loud, and her voice cursed him from the other room.
    He took his shoes off and rubbed his feet, swollen from the heat. He got up from where he had been sitting on the bed and pulled down all the shades so it was dark enough to need the light overhead. He switched on the cooler, and the moist air began to take the oven temperature off the room, and he felt he could breathe again. He crawled wearily out of his clothes, realizing for the first time how tired he was. He slipped on the bottoms of a pair of red striped pajamas over his long body. He glanced at his watch as he turned off the light. It was quarter to eight.
    He lay with his eyes closed, letting the cool air wash over him, when the sound of the lock clicking back stirred him to full wakefulness.
    “Honey?” Babe said.
    “Yeah?”
    “You awake?”
    “Now I am.”
    He heard the door open and her bare feet pattering. “I’m sorry,” she said.
    He put his arms around her, closed his eyes and fell asleep.
    The pounding on his door drew him achingly from the beginning of hard, complete sleep. Slowly he opened his eyes to stare into the near darkness of the room. He realized someone was at the door and turned to look that way.
    “What the hell?” he called sleepily.
    “Telephone, Mark.” It was the voice of his ancient landlord. “Some woman. Says it’s important.”
    “Right with you,” Mark called. He noted without surprise that Babe had gone.
    He stumbled to the door, found slippers and bathrobe in the dark and opened the door. The heat and blinding sunlight made him throw one hand before his eyes. He took it away slowly, opening his fingers one at a time to let the light filter in slowly. When his eyes were better adjusted to the glare, he staggered through the sand to the office, a hundred yards away.
    “Hello?” His voice was still thick with sleep, but his eyes were opened enough for him to see it was eight-thirty. He had had forty-five minutes of sleep, and now this!
    “Mark? This is Idell Manders.” He caught no lightness in her tone. And without even seeing her he could guess that the cord in her throat would be pounding and the depths of her dark eyes would hold those pinpoints of fear he had seen before. It was thick in the timbre of her voice.
    “Yes, Miss Manders.”
    “You said once you would help me if I needed it. I do need it.”
    “Right away?” he asked.
    “Please,” she said. “At once, Mark. I can’t tell you now. Hurry.”
    He heard the click of the receiver at the other end and hung up. He yawned and scratched his tousled yellow hair. Now what the hell? And what would Babe say?
    He went back to his room and raised the shade nearest his closet. Babe’s voice came sleepily from her room. “Now what?”
    “I’m going to the Manders’,” he said. “Some trouble.”
    “You bastard,” she said cheerfully, frowned and went to sleep.
    Mark slipped into fresh duck pants, a clean polo shirt and thrust his stockingless feet into a pair of hard-soled moccasins. He grabbed up his Panama style hat, patted his pockets to make sure he had transferred everything from his other trousers and went out.
    The coupé rumbled angrily beneath the unaccustomed pressure on its throttle, but it made the mile trip in good time, coming to a stop with a gravel-spitting skid at the top of the drive. Mark hopped out and started up the front steps. He turned as Idell came around the corner of the house.
    “Thank you,” she said, squeezing his fingers. And somehow he felt this was a different kind of squeeze from the others she had given him. That had been flirtation; this was something