I went back to the car, gave a nod to the cop ambling out of the station, and paid off the attendant. Neither of them gave me a second look as I pulled out onto the highway and swung into the lower road that hugs the beach into Malibu.
Continuing north I checked the numbers, left the settlement and connected with the highway again, and drove about an added half mile.
It was some beach house. A mile to the east it would be a town house. Two stories, with your own private ocean in the backyard. Everything green and white, neat and dignified. Lots of expensive shrubbery planted in bricked-in beds. I got out of the car and trotted up the steps thinking that papa Talmadge was shelling out a hell of a tally for a daughter who judged him the creep of the age. Irony.
I rang the bell and presently the door opened about three inches and a plump motherly woman with grey hair peered out at me. The door stayed at three inches which was no tribute to my open, honest face.
“Yes?” she inquired.
“Is Miss Wakely in?” I asked. “I’m Mr. Burnham. I’ve come about her insurance.”
“Is Miss Wakely expecting you?”
“No,” I said, “but I happened to be out this way to see another client and there was a matter the company wanted me to see her about. I know I should have called ahead, but would you mind just telling her I’m here? She might be able to spare me a moment.”
She looked at me as though she were trying to remember something, then nodded. “I’ll see,” she said, “if you’ll wait a moment,” she closed the door in my face.
Time wore on, which proved that Elizabeth Wakely apparently was not the girl to make snap decisions about seeing people. But when the old girl returned she opened all the way.
“Miss Wakely will see you,” she said. “Please come in.”
I thanked her with a nod and followed her inside. Miss Wakely—or Miss Wakely’s decorator—had a fine taste for originals, both in modern and classic. The Matisse above the period telephone table looked authentic. The same was true on a larger scale in the living room where the furniture was a miraculous blend of custom-made modern and antique. The wall toward the sea was half glass so you had a view of a section of walled-in terrace.
“Miss Wakely’s just finishing her sun bath,” the housekeeper said. “If you’ll be seated, she’ll be right in.”
I stayed on my feet and marveled at all the beauty that could be achieved through filth and corruption. And it was a laugh that Talmadge was probably the only guy in town who couldn’t get inside the place.
I was thinking about this with a smile when the mistress of the house approached from across the terrace. Liz Wakely was tall, almost statuesque, and she moved with an arrogant, regal assurance that made me think of classic poetry. All that expensive schooling hadn’t done her any harm.
Approaching the doorway she paused to fasten a white jersey beach skirt around her slender waist. But the glimpse I had of her legs before the skirt covered them was a revelation. The halter, that was the upper part of her costume, had its work cut out for it. And she made her entrance by brushing a lock of flame-red hair as she came into the room. Coming toward me she dropped a pair of dark glasses onto a chair and held out her hand. Whatever else Liz Wakely was, for certain she wasn’t a limb, on her father’s side, off the old family tree. “Mr. Burnham?” The gaze from her grey eyes was direct. Her hand was cool in mine.
“Yes, Miss Wakely,” I said, “I just happened to…”
“You’re new with, the company,” she smiled, crossed to the divan and sat down. Crossing her legs she leaned over to the end table and fished a cigarette out of the silver box. I flipped my lighter and crossed to her as she looked up at me. “I don’t remember you around the Mutual office.”
“I’ve only been with the company a couple of weeks,” I said.
“Or a couple of minutes?” she looked at me from the corners of her eyes after exhaling. “Say about ten?” She smiled. “I don’t carry insurance with Mutual, Mr. Burnham. Or is it Mr. Walters?”
Her eyes never left me as I helped myself to one of her cigarettes. I lit up then at her invitation and sat down beside her.
“And shall I call you Miss Talmadge?” I asked.
She didn’t even flinch. “You’ve been doing some research,” she observed. “If you need money and you’re thinking of blackmail you’ve come to the wrong woman.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t time for blackmail.”
“According to the papers,” she said, “you haven’t time for much of anything. I’m right in assuming this isn’t a social call?”
“Right on the nose. How’d you recognize me?”
“I never forget a face and I saw you once in Vegas.” A hard look embittered her eyes. “I never do business with anyone connected with my father.”
“Then you’ll do business with me.”
“Oh?”
“We had a little meeting this afternoon and I worked over one of his boys. So I’m sure we’re not speaking.”
“Did you do the killings in Vegas?”
“No.”
She studied me for a moment. “I take it you were figured for the rap, but you declined?”
I nodded.
“I thought it was that way.”
“Your father wouldn’t or couldn’t give me the protection I need to clear myself. Who knows why? Is he scared because something slipped? Anyway,” I said, and spread my hands, “he figured to let me take it.”
“He’s really got you on a very shaky limb.” She mashed the cigarette in the tray. “How do you plan to come down without having your neck broken?”
“By lining up the party or parties who’re responsible for the killings.”
“Responsible? You mean my—father?” She spit the word.
“I think I do.”
“You and I can do business—I think.” She nodded. “Any ideas how you want to operate?”
I nodded in turn. “The boy or boys who did the actual slaughtering must be local.”
“You’re probably right,” she said. “Still, that’s the hard way to go about it. If you could get a witness to Talmadge’s murder order—” She heaved a sigh because this was a random wish. “I think there was only one killer.”
“I want the guy who cut the girl’s throat,” I said. “I want my hands on his windpipe.” My voice trembled as I looked at her. “Can you help me?”
“Someone in town’s bound to know what triggerman was in Vegas night before last,” she said. “It’ll take checking.”
“I’m in a hurry,” I reminded her.
“I’ll do my best,” she said. “I can’t help you enough, believe me.” She leaned forward and her eyes made me edgy. “If helping you helps me too—”
“I hope you never get mad at me, lady,” I said. “You hate awful hard.”
Liz made a motion with her hand as she looked out toward the sea. “It depends on how you look at it, Walters. Maybe I don’t hate hard. Maybe I just love hard.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“You called me Miss Talmadge.” She still stared out the window and her voice was far off in distant memory. “The name is Wakely. Once someone named Welles worked for my father. One night I kissed him goodnight and fifteen minutes later I was looking at his body in a tangle of wreckage at the bottom of a ravine. Welles—his real name was Wakely.”
I stared at her for a moment. “You were married then?”
She nodded. “The same night he was killed. We planned to get out of town, fade away somewhere where we could be happy—but my father ran him off the road.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter now.” She turned again to me and managed a thin smile. “If you think you know a way to hurt my father—I’m your girl. I’ll give you cover,” she promised. “Once Talmadge gets wind you’re looking for his trigger the man’s life won’t be worth ten cents. My father’s resourceful. Destroying human evidence doesn’t trouble his conscience.”
“Talmadge has a rival who’s squeezing him out of narcotics.” Her smile thanked me. “Apparently the rival’s too strong for him to handle. Nobody knows who it is,” she answered my look of inquiry, “so that places him pretty high up.”
“He’ll fall too,” I said.
“My connections are with a certain official element—call it corrupt, if you want to be brutally frank,” Liz said. “However, by virtue of this very corruption I’ve access to information from both directions. Indirectly, I could even pick you up protection from Talmadge’s competition,” she suggested.
“I’ve had enough protection from the rackets.” I bowed. “I’m not having any more.”
“I like you better every minute, Walters,” she said. “Of course you’re a fool, or you wouldn’t be here. But I think you’re on the right side of things.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
The slow look contained a hint of challenge. Then she raised her arm to the back of the divan and let her hand hang limp. “Doing business with you should be a pleasure.”
“No reason why not,” I got to my feet. Whether it was being offered or not, this was no time for divan dalliance. “When can you get the information?” I asked.
“Sometime tonight,” she said. “How can I get in touch with you?”
“You can’t.” I shook my head. “I’ll check with you.”
“You could stay here,” she suggested. “I haven’t had a dinner guest all week.”
“Thanks a lot.” I was grateful. “But I’ve gotta keep moving. Not that I don’t trust you,” I apologized, “I just get nervous sitting around.” Liz started to get up but I motioned her back. “I can find my way out.”
“Can you find your way back?” she smiled at me.
There was no question of her sincerity. “I can do that, too.” I flipped her a salute. “You’ll be hearing from me, General.” All the way out to the hall I could feel her eyes on the back of my neck.
Liz Wakely—the easy way she walked and the careful modulation of her voice. Maybe it was finishing school training, maybe it was some inner control, but I wondered what you might find if you ever broke through that reserve. I thought of her long, beautiful legs and her slim graceful body. She was luscious enough to make me wish for the time to try. I hate to turn down a challenge, especially when it’s offered in a beautiful woman’s smile.
Chapter Seven
Dusk was over the ocean as I headed toward town. People were on their way home from work and Wilshire Boulevard, filled with cars, reminded me somehow of a busy cattle chute in a slaughterhouse. That was my mood as I drove toward the Vanguard.
Everything, but everything, depended on my finding the trigger who had knocked off Mike and slaughtered Ann Gunther. And I had to find him fast before I forced my luck; if the cops didn’t pick me up, Talmadge’s boys would. I passed a parked police car and pulled up at a light. My nerves were beginning to speak up. Things were getting tighter. Maybe I was a fool to try fighting my way out when struggling, like in quicksand, would only sink me deeper.
It wasn’t until halfway into the next block that it began to register with me, because it was one of those feelings you get when you’ve been vaguely aware of something for some time, but you haven’t really taken the trouble to notice it. Now I glanced into the rearview and checked the tan Chevy coupe that was stopped practically on my tail. It had been following me even before I made the turn from the Coast Highway onto Wilshire.
I made a right turn at the next block, held steady to this course for two blocks and turned left. The coupe, as if being towed, came along with me, although it dropped back a little. Now I settled back, pressed down on the gas pedal, and cut straight across the nearest main thoroughfare and headed north. The coupe stayed just within sight in the mirror. Ahead of me was a green light and I raced for it, then slowed down at the last moment, timing it as close as I dared. The light turned red and, gunning the car as I prayed that no motorcycle cop was staked out for traffic violators, I hit the intersection only an instant before the traffic poured in from the sides.
I put a block behind me before I glanced in the mirror again, saw the coupe still with me, and wondered if there was a rod on the back of my head.
I drove north toward the Hollywood Hills, then turned west along the Sunset Strip, because whoever was driving wouldn’t dare make his move while we were in heavy traffic. And whoever it was, I wanted a look at them.
Now I headed north through a district of big houses, sloping lawns, and twisting streets into the hills. And at a corner I swung hard, a move the coupe driver didn’t expect because he was in the traffic flow at the corner and dropped behind. The street I’d chosen blind-curved to the right and took me out of sight of the coupe. Ahead of me was a big home with tall porch pillars, a circular driveway, and a shielding hedge across the front. Perfect. I slid into the drive, pulled in behind the hedge, slammed on the brakes and heard gravel spit under the tires. A break in the hedge gave me a view of the street and I didn’t have to wait long before the coupe whipped around the curve. The driver was pressing too hard for the hook ahead and the guy at the wheel had to brake and shift to make it without losing traction. In that split moment of pause he glanced around, down the rise, and I got a good look at his face before he moved out of my line of vision.
I was disappointed: the driver was just another punk. Then it hit me, hard. He was a small unhealthy character with a pock-marked face and dishwater eyes, probably the beast Gwynn had seen outside the Taylor Hotel. But the coupe was gone by the time all of this soaked in.
I turned and saw a gardener in overalls coming toward me across the lawn. “Wrong address!” I yelled at him and gunned it for the street.
In the next half hour I covered every dead end on the hill but never saw the coupe again. So I worked my way out and back toward Sunset, cursing myself all the way down the hill. For it seemed as if the one man who could pull me out of this mess had been dumped right in my lap and I’d thrown him off my trail. The only consolation was he apparently wanted to find me just as bad as I wanted to find him. Logic told hope he would show up again. If he was after me things weren’t too good for him either. If I didn’t play ball, probably he was next in line for the Talmadge chopping block. The best thing that could happen for him—as well as Talmadge—would be for the cops to pick me up out of a gutter too dead to talk, which I had to hope wouldn’t happen.
I doubled back to the Vanguard, pulled the car into the underground parking lot, and got out before the attendant could get a close look at me. I hoofed it to the elevator, pressed the button, and snapped my fingers, impatient to be started up to Vicki’s apartment.
* * * *
I pressed the bell, waited and a moment later the door opened and there she was—behind her a background of music—a dark vision in a green skirt and a white blouse, both clinging to her like dying lovers. Vicki was glad to see me, and showed it as she took my arm to draw me inside.
“I’ve been listening to the radio and dying,” she said. “The news bulletins,” she explained. “The call is out for you. A bartender in a place called the Glass Garter identified you. Said you attacked and nearly killed one of his customers.”
“More or less,” I said, “but identification was bound to come. If not from the bartender from a fat somebody named Sam Talmadge who’s determined to throw me out to the cops—preferably dead,” I concluded.
Vicki was thoughtful as I sat down and told her of the meeting at the Glass Garter, my interview with Liz Wakely, and the tag I’d played with the milky-eyed character. She listened carefully. Standing at the picture window, her eyes searched the horizon.
“Why don’t you clear out, Steve?” she said finally. “Move fast and you can get out of the country.” She turned toward me. “You wouldn’t have to go alone,” she said slowly, “if you didn’t want to.”
I shook my head. “I’m playing this o
ne out. All or nothing. But thanks—sincerely—for your interest.”
“It scares me, Steve.”
“I want the guy in the coupe. I think there’s a personal matter between the two of us. I get him or he gets me.”
“Or the cops get you and you take a frame,” Vicki said.
“I never figure to lose until I’ve lost,” I said. “Until then I’m winning.”
“You’ve gotta handle it your way.” She managed a smile, then said, “Hungry?”
“Hollow.”
“You’ll never believe it,” she told me with conscious lightness, “but it’s a hand-me-down from my distant past. I broil a mean steak.”
“Great.” I made smacking noises with my lips.
“Sit tight, then.” She started toward the kitchen. “I don’t do this for everyone.”
“Just fugitives?”
“Just you.”
I leaned forward on the sofa, laced my fingers, and concentrated on the view. Night was coming on, and the city once again began to glitter. Out there they were hunting for me. When the good smell of cooking began to drift in from the kitchen, my thoughts turned to another apartment—in Vegas. Gwynn belonged to someone else now. I tried to think about other things.
When dinner was ready Vicki brought it in on trays and we ate from the coffee table, picnic style. The steak was thick and rare and she knew what to do with a baked potato. There was hot berry pie and strong black coffee to go with it. She was a girl who knew how to do everything the way a man likes it best. If she wanted to she could’ve had a trunk full of testimonials.
“I’m the last guy in the world a smart girl would be having dinner with right now,” I said.
“Maybe.” She looked up at me.
“Then you don’t know what you’re doing? You know you’re harboring a criminal—technically.”
“The pleasure’s all mine.”
“The car’s hot with Talmadge’s hoods now,” I reminded her. “That leads them straight to you.”
“I guess I am a gambler after all,” she said. “You’re out to set yourself free. Maybe I’m just trying to hitch a ride on your wagon.”
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