The Shell Scott Sampler by Richard S. Prather

say —”
    â€œAnd the powder I use smells so … I don’t know. You tell me.”
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œI can’t describe it. You tell me.”
    She was wearing a pale-gray dress with a square-cut neckline and inch-wide straps over her shoulders. She slid the strap off her right shoulder and kind of nudged the shoulder—actually the whole general area—at me.
    She smiled. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to say anything. Well, I thought, nothing beats determination. I’d set out to get a smell of her—and here I was: smelling. In no more than five seconds, or ten, or so, I was sure: Caress!
    â€œDoesn’t it smell good?” she said finally. “What does it smell like to you?”
    â€œWho cares.”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œWell, like wild flowers, the carnivorous kind that eat little animals —”
    â€œI’ve got to go.”
    â€œYou’re kidding.”
    â€œI almost wish I didn’t have to go,” she said brightly. “Were you serious about doing something later?”
    â€œYou bet I was serious.”
    â€œWell, like I said I have to meet —” She stopped, her green eyes getting a slightly glazed look again.
    â€œBill?”
    â€œYes. If it wasn’t for him, Bill, we could do something.” She paused, then put the strap back up over her shoulder.
    â€œActually,” she went on, “he can only see me for an hour or two tonight. Just long enough for maybe a drink, and some talk. So if you’re still around, like maybe eight o’clock, we could do something.”
    â€œI’ll be around. Bill can’t stay, huh?”
    â€œNo. He’s got something important to do tonight.”
    â€œHe must be nuts,” I said. “Important like what?”
    But that she wouldn’t tell me. Maybe she didn’t know.
    â€œWell, I’ve got to go soak,” she said. “And powder.” She smiled meaningfully, and left.
    I sat there, smiling meaningfully. And slowly came back to normal. There’s something about green martinis. By the time I’d finished that third one I knew all I needed to know. I knew, of course, that she was Ardith Mellow, and powdered “all over” with Caress! and that Al Ooilbill was William Simms, born Alston Spaniel, and that he had something important—damned important, if he preferred it to being with Ardith—to do tonight.
    But those weren’t the most important things. The important thing was that I knew, now, what I was going to do about it.
    It struck me as a little goofy even after three green martinis, but I probably wouldn’t have thought of it except for them. And Madison’s goofy conditions. And if I hadn’t met Ardith.
    It was a quarter to six p.m. Not much time. In fifteen minutes, or less, Alston was supposed to show up, apparently. But I thought there was time—at least, if Ardith was still soaking, and soaking, in her tub.
    She was. I couldn’t see her, but the door was cracked and I could hear her in there, humming and splashing. I’d run all the way to my Cad, spent a minute digging through the junk in my trunk, found what I was after, and had then run back to the Seawind.
    Ardith’s door had been locked this time, and I’d spent another two minutes picking a lock—not hers, but Alston’s next door, to avoid alarming her. Then through the adjoining door and into Ardith’s bedroom. Right next to the tiled bathroom, in which she still hummed and splashed.
    She’d have to shake a leg if she intended to be all dried and powdered, much less dressed in something zippy, before Spaniel got here. So would I—it was five minutes till six.
    But it didn’t take me long.
    I’d brought up an empty paper sack, and another sack filled with the powder I’d rummaged for in the trunk of my Cadillac. The big box of Caress! was still where I’d seen it