Nightshades (Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini Page B

with a personalized license plate that said FAST UN. You couldn’t see the back end of the house from the road, because of the way it was built and because of oak and pepper trees that crowded in close on both sides; but you knew there would be wide balconies on at least two levels, with a sweeping view of the town and the mountains and Mt. Shasta in the distance.
    I found a dirt turnaround to park in nearby, walked back and down some stairs to the front porch. A little card above the bell read: NO SOLICITORS. I pushed the bell anyway and stood there waiting.
    The door opened before long and I was looking at the woman in the photograph on Frank O’Daniel’s desk. The dark hair was piled up on her head and fastened with a barrette; she was wearing a tank top and a pair of white shorts that revealed a lot of skin the color of burnt butter. She had very good legs.
    She let me look her over for about five seconds, while she did the same to me. I was more impressed by what I saw than she was, but not by much. Her expression was even more snooty than it had seemed in the photograph.
    She said finally, “Yes? May I help you?”
    “If you’re Helen O’Daniel, maybe you can,” I said, and I told her who I was.
    The name worked a kind of metamorphosis on her. The snootiness vanished, her mouth got smiley, she put a hand up to touch her hair; she went a little soft-looking, too, at least around the edges. She wanted to do all of that slowly and subtly, so it didn’t look like she was putting it on just for me. But she wasn’t good at that sort of thing. It all seemed to come at once, like a quick-change artist shedding one costume for another: within the space of two heartbeats I was looking at a completely different version of Helen O’Daniel. I doubted if I was going to like the second one any better than the first.
    “Forgive me,” she said, “I didn’t mean to sound rude. It’s just that there have been so many interruptions today . . . and I wasn’t sure if you’d call first . . .”
    “I probably should have,” I said, “but your message said to drop by.”
    “No, it’s perfectly all right. I’m glad you did. Come in—we’ll talk out on the deck.”
    She led me through a maze of white, hairy-looking furniture, suspended mobiles made out of silver doodads and colored glass, big tropical plants with thick trembly leaves that had the malevolent look of carnivores. Most of that stuff was in a massive living room or family room or whatever they call them. Part of its outer wall was made of sliding glass, open now; the other part was a brick fireplace with some weird abstract paintings mounted above the mantel. The deck beyond was about what I’d expected: a wide balcony complete with a tinted-glass sunroof and a view that had probably added another twenty thousand to the price of the house.
    Mrs. O’Daniel stopped in the middle of the room and faced me again. “I was just about to have a gin and tonic,” she said. “Will you join me?”
    “Thanks, no.”
    “Something else, then? I have just about everything . . .”
    “Nothing right now.”
    “Well. Excuse me just a second?”
    “Sure.”
    She went out of the room through a doorway beyond the fireplace, rolling her hips a little the way she had on the way in. It wasn’t an exaggerated roll, but I thought that it was deliberate. Whatever her reasons, Helen O’Daniel was about as subtle as an elephant’s hind end.
    I decided I didn’t want to keep on standing there like another piece of furniture. Besides which, the nearest tropical plant seemed to be looking at me in a hungry sort of way. So I went and examined one of the hairy items. It was large, it was oddly shaped, it had tufts of white furry stuff sticking out of it. It looked like nothing so much as a giant rabbit that had been decapitated, stuffed, and turned into a chair.
    Helen O’Daniel was still out in the kitchen; I could hear her rattling ice. I wandered over to the fireplace for a