Kill Me Tomorrow by Richard S. Prather Page A

huge swimming pool, admiring it and the tall thin palm trees bathed in colored lights, the jets of water arching through the now-cooler air at one end of the pool, I could hear music from the five-piece group in the main dining room.
    Still playing—but not for long. In Arizona the bars—and practically everything else—close up at one A . M . But there remained forty minutes before the cocktail lounge shut its doors, and that’s where I was headed. I was looking forward to a cool bourbon-and-water, but even more to seeing Paul Anson. If I knew Paul—and I did know Paul—he would be either in or at the bar, very likely with some young, fascinated, unsuspecting, or possibly even happily suspecting, lovely.
    Paul was a little older than I, like me a bachelor. He was a damned fine doctor, one of the best in his business but forever studying, trying to add to his already encyclopedic knowledge of medicine and psychology. But that was his profession; life was his hobby.
    There were times when I felt he confused “life” with “girls,” for he seemed to spend almost as much time operating on tomatoes as prescribing variously tinted and shaped pills for variously tinted and shaped patients. When I walked into the bar he was—I said I knew him—thus engaged. He was standing near the bar, looking down at a girl seated on one of the stools.
    She was sitting with her back to the bar and her front to Paul—and it was a front to conjure with—gazing at Dr. Anson with what appeared to be hypnotic rapture.
    I walked up next to them. She was a doll, a gorgeous blond creature—which failed to surprise me—about twenty-five years young, blue miniskirt hiked more than halfway up peachy creamy thighs, swooping rounded blue neckline low enough to reveal much of a bosom as maxi as her skirt was mini.
    Neither of them noticed me.
    Paul, at six-three, was an inch taller than I am, and he bore a faint but noticeable resemblance to a younger and leaner John Wayne, a resemblance which he did all in his power to emphasize. He was bent slightly forward, eyes on the lovely’s moist, parted lips, murmuring, “… you’ll love Los Angeles, my dear. And of course Hollywood—I can’t believe you’ve never been to Hollywood. Why—”
    I leaned closer and said, “Miss, he’s not John Wayne. Not his brother, either. He isn’t even a cousin.”
    She got a sort of blank look on her lovely face, then swept her eyes and long-long lashes toward me.
    â€œHis real name’s Homer,” I said. “Homer Kludd.”
    She looked up at Paul again. “What’s with him?”
    â€œI don’t know. Never saw him before, my dear.”
    â€œOf course he hasn’t seen me,” I said quickly. “I’m with the Watchdog Society. And we’ve had our eye on this bird for a long time. A long time—”
    She looked at me suspiciously. “You don’t … look like a—what? A Bird Dog?”
    â€œWatchbird. And we’ve had our eyes on this dog for twenty, maybe thirty years. This man Kludd is a notorious lecher with more than a hundred citations in our files, which are incomplete. I felt it my duty to warn you—”
    â€œPlease mind—your own—business!” she said.
    â€œWell, can I leave you one of our tracts?”
    Paul laughed and socked me on the shoulder. “Damn, it’s good to see you again, Vivian. I already heard a few things about you and a very female movie star. None of which I believe, needless to say.” He glanced, grinning, at the girl and said, “Janelle, it’s OK. He’s a friend of mine.”
    It was disgusting what those few words—from him—did to her.
    â€œOh!” she cried cutely. Then she grabbed my hand in both of hers and kind of kneaded it and hugged it and squeezed it, and cried “Oh!” again and then “I’m sorry ,