Linda stopped the Fleetwood convertible in front of the house without turning into the driveway. She leaned back and looked at the house and then looked at me.

"It's a new section of the Springs, darling. I rented the house for the season. It's a bit on the chi-chi side, but so is Poodle Springs."

"The pool is too small," I said. "And no springboard."

"I've permission from the owner to put one in. I hope you will like the house, darling. There are only two bedrooms, but the master bedroom has a Hollywood bed that looks as big as a tennis court."

"That's nice. If we don't get on together, we can be distant."

"The bathroom is out of this world-out of any world.

The adjoining dressing room has ankle-deep pink carpeting, wall to wall. It has every kind of cosmetic you ever heard of on three plate-glass shelves. The toilet-if you'll excuse my being earthy-is all alone in an annex with a door and the toilet cover has a large rose on it in relief. And every room in the house looks out on a patio or the pool."

"I can hardly wait to take three or four baths. And then go to bed."

"It's only eleven o'clock in the morning," she said demurely.

"I'll wait until eleven-thirty."

"Darling, at Acapulco-"

"Acapulco was fine. But we only had the cosmetics you brought with you and the bed was just a bed, not a pasture, and other people were allowed to dunk in the swimming pool and the bathroom didn't have any carpet at all."

"Darling, you can be a bastard. Let's go in. I'm paying twelve hundred dollars a month for this dive. I want you to like it."

"I'll love it. Twelve hundred a month is more than I make being a detective. It'll be the first time I've been kept. Can I wear a sarong and paint my little toenails?"