“Thank you,” she said.
I stepped past her and started down the walk.
Chapter Eleven
I anticipated a road block somewhere on the way in, and knew I couldn’t risk the Bel Air route, so I continued side-streeting through Santa Monica and into Venice. It was a long way around but the safest until I took a left turn after I passed the amusement pier and doubled back toward Hollywood. Now I was thankful that L.A. traffic never thins out completely and there are always cars on the streets.
I hit La Brea below Melrose, turned left and pulled up under a street lamp to make a check of the slip of paper in my pocket, its address, and its location on the map of the city which was in the dash compartment. I spread the map and located the street on the valley incline of Laurel Canyon, past the summit. It was ten to one as I folded the map and caught sight of a prowl car traveling north toward me.
Checking the impulse to burn rubber I put the car in gear and slid out from the curb. The prowl car held a steady speed to stay behind me as I continued toward Hollywood Boulevard, then turned left. The car repeated my maneuvers and I began to sweat.
At a red stop they pulled up beside me and I picked up the map from the seat and made a big production of checking it for an address. At least this hid my face until the light changed and I pulled out.
They followed a beat behind me, lagged for a moment, then shagged in on my tail, leaving just enough gap to keep me from making a run for it. If I didn’t make a legitimate stop somewhere soon they’d be stopping me. I had to shake them.
The cutoff to Rampart was only a few yards ahead. I turned left into a sharp uphill grade, formerly a twisting cowpath, but now well-paved. I put on a little more speed and the police car behind me followed suit.
I took a turn and spotted a curve ahead. That had to do it because the first whine of the siren split the air behind me. The cops were through messing around. I took the curve with all I could give it and as I reached the straightaway the car leaped ahead like an antelope. The siren screamed with outrage behind me. I looked behind. The prowler was just clearing the bend.
The chase was on for keeps so I pressed the accelerator to the floorboard and gripped the wheel as I gunned for the summit, burning rubber on every curve as houses blurred past me on both sides.
I hit the summit with the police car only a little ways behind—not far enough but the grade had leveled ahead of me and I counted on that to give me added margin. I hit the level and raced on to widen the gap between us. The cops had just climbed the last sharp rise. I waited for the first curve to put me out of their sight, then looked for a quick turnoff. Nature was with me. There was a street to the left that traveled downhill and in the direction we’d come from. I swung into it, and my tires screamed defiance at the pursuing siren.
It was roller coaster stuff, a greased slide with a sharp turn at the bottom. I burned the brakes all the way down, taking turns on two wheels as the siren continued to shriek above me. I hooked the car to the right and started up the grade again.
I climbed for a bit, turned again, and found myself on a winding, unpaved road and I had moved along it only for several yards before I saw that it was leading me into a dead end. I was headed into a private yard. I cut the lights and engine and coasted into a stop.
The house was a frame affair—or at least it was going to be when it was finished. Half the completed house was being used for living quarters while the second half was being built. A jalopy was parked out front.
I sat there in the darkness, breathing heavily and listened for the whine of the siren. But it was still now. Having lost me, they apparently didn’t want to warn me if they were close. So I sat and waited until I felt it was reasonably safe to start the engine and back up. Then I pulled forward again and around the house and behind the jalopy so that I was covered in case anyone looked in from the outer street. I hoped the people in the house were sound sleepers. A quarter of an hour went by. The night stayed quiet.
By the light of my cigarette lighter, shielded by my hand, I studied the map and traced the streets I had traveled—or calculated I had traveled—and finally decided roughly where I was. To get back to Rampart I had to return to the summit and cross down in the opposite direction. I’d just figured this out when I heard the sound of a car on the street beyond the house.
I flicked out the lighter, eased up for a look, and saw the approaching glow of headlights starting up the hill. It had to be the cops but I sat tight in spite of an impulse to run.
The car came up slowly to the turn-in and stopped. I waited and wondered just what I would do if they came in. Then a spotlight stabbed through the darkness and I ducked down fast. It swiveled up and threw a burning glare directly toward me. I was thankful for the cover of the jalopy. At least it gave me a margin. The light held for several seconds, darted from side to side, across to the house, then returned to its source. I held my breath. A moment later they moved on and I sat up as a jumble of thoughts crowded in on me. The smart thing would be to get out of the hills. But I had to find Haggart. I had to take any chance that was offered because it might be the last.
My thoughts skipped to Liz Wakely. I wondered how she had managed to juggle the purity leagues against the political machine without getting caught in the middle. It was no wonder she had learned to keep her emotions under wraps. I wondered, too, how far her campaign of cold hatred for her father would take her into the world of fast deals and traded information. Maybe she could walk the thin line down the center and keep her balance, but damned few had been able to manage it before her. Maybe she was hard enough, tough enough, but I kept thinking of her standing in the doorway against the dark night.
And I thought of Vicki too, in another doorway, the soft lamplight caressing her hair and face. Was she only discontented with the life that insecurity had chosen for her, or was she afraid? She’d been careful not to mention the name of the man who paid the bills. Maybe it was professional ethics, or maybe it was something else. Maybe her beauty had tricked her into something she couldn’t handle.
I waited long long minutes before I started the engine, backed around, headed out without lights, and took it slow downgrade. I turned left at the bottom of the grade, held straight for a bit, then turned left again and started up.
I was nearly to the top when a pair of headlights appeared suddenly from a side street. I braked to a stop and did a fast impersonation of a parked car. The lights passed me in a rush, traveling too fast to even give me a passing glance but I could hear laughter as they streaked past. It sounded like a bunch of kids on their way home from a party. Then I got out of this section of the hills.
* * * *
Haggart’s place, identified by the name Coulter on the mailbox, was a modest cottage located on the side of the hill with a one-car garage to its left. No lights were on in the house and the drive to the garage was up a steep incline, with stone steps up one side. I passed the place, took the next corner, pulled to a stop where the car would be out of sight, hiked back and climbed the steps. I listened at the side of the house; everything was quiet. I stepped around to the back door and knocked. There wasn’t any answer but I wasn’t expecting any.
The door was locked, all the windows were fastened. I picked up a rock, found a gunny sack in the garage to wrap around it, and broke a kitchen window.
Once inside I stood still for a moment and listened as a car passed on the street outside and kept going.
I left the kitchen and groped through a hallway into the living room. By now my eyes were adjusted to the dark and the light from the street lamp outside and below filtered into the room.
Haggart lived in a sort of style. There were full book shelves all up one wall. The furniture was maple and leather.
I left the living room and started back through the hall. The first door I came to led into a bathroom. The second opened into a bedroom.
I stepped inside, found the windows, pulled the drapes across them, then felt my way back
to the door for the light switch.
The bedroom expressed Haggart’s warped personality a hell of a lot more accurately than the living room, for it was done in a childish oriental emphasized by cheap teakwood and brocade. The bed was a black carved monstrosity and the spread was red satin with a gold dragon embroidered in the center. All the joint needed was a beaded curtain.
The closet revealed three silk kimonos of red, white and black, all embroidered with dragons. I could see the watery-eyed little bastard all decked out in these seductive garments. It made him almost laughable.
Turning from the closet I saw another door in the wall adjacent but found it locked, which made me all the more curious. I looked in the bedside table for a key and found only a half used package of cigarettes. I looked again at the door and realized its hinges would be easy to loosen.
Back again in the kitchen I started a systematic search of the drawers by using my lighter to see with, and one drawer yielded what I wanted: a big screwdriver.
Haggart’s house wasn’t put together too well and the hinges gave without any trouble. I swung the door open and back against the wall, felt along the inside wall for a light switch, finally found one, and flipped on the light.
The walls were painted black and I took in the sinks and equipment of the large and well-fitted darkroom. I wondered about the two red leather chairs and the coffee table, then I saw the screen on the opposite wall. The place doubled as a projection room. Next to the sinks was a massive wooden filing cabinet which meant that I had to cross to it and pull out the drawer.
My stomach turned before I got through the first drawer. Haggart was interested in pictures all right; the cabinet was a file of photographic filth. There were a few “artistic” body shots, both male and female, but the rest of it was out-and-out smut that featured men and women of peculiar and disgusting talents. Many of the shots had been taken in Haggart’s whorehouse bedroom, for the black carved bed could be made to accommodate four.
I flipped through the rest of the drawers. Haggart was a case who even kept pictures of himself. He was no beauty. On the other hand the girls were surprisingly good-looking.
It hit me in a flash and I began to go through the drawers more carefully. Finally I came to it: the section on Mike. I went through the lot, taking my time. You had to give it to Mike; he showed a lot of personality in a picture. Suddenly I was glad as hell he was dead. I almost yearned to have another look at him laid out in his own blood. Back toward the rear of the drawer I found what I was looking for: a picture of Ann Gunther.
It was a smeary job, but recognizable, and that was what counted. The poor kid looked doped to the eyebrows and scared as the devil, but it was probably a greater shock to her when she first saw the print and probably heard them threaten to send it home to her folks. The negative was clipped to the back of the print and I dropped both into a large ash tray on the coffee table, flicked the flame of my lighter and touched off the corners.
I watched them burn, glad that I had taken the risk, glad I could at least do that much for the kid. I watched the photographic blackmail burn down to an ash, then went back to the cabinet again, for there was something else I wanted out of Haggart’s house and I hadn’t found it yet.
The rest of the drawers revealed similar filth, and a batch of envelopes in one drawer with a list of names and addresses implied that Haggart did a neat little side business of selling the stuff to art lovers.
Finished with the file I returned to the bedroom and tried the bureau. There were a few shirts, handkerchiefs and shorts. I patted down the laundry bag hanging on the closet door but there was nothing. I was just about to give up when I noticed the small floor chest. It was under the windows; when I’d pulled the drapes I’d covered it over. The chest was intricately carved, very Chinese, and the smoothly fitted lid wouldn’t give. There was no lock in sight.
Having no time for subtlety I raised the box overhead and smashed it to the floor. The chest landed like a boulder, cracked and burst open and spewed out a length of brocaded yardage, several small pieces of carved jade and an overwhelming odor of incense. It also gave up the black book that Ann Gunther had had with her in Vegas, for on the fly leaf was the girl’s name and address written in the same childish scrawl as used in the note to Vicki.
The book was a sort of diary, with entries under date headings, chronological but not consecutive and it covered a span of years.
The first date was May 16, 1946 and beneath it was written:
“I’m beginning to write this almost five years after the date says, but what I am going to say will be just like it happened. The reason I waited so long to write all this is because even though I knew that what had happened to me was terrible I didn’t know then how a lot of other people like me were going to be mixed up in it. Now I figure that maybe if I keep a record somebody might read it and try to do something about it and the people who are responsible.”
That was the introduction. After that she went into her first meeting with Mike French, the subsequent trip up the hill, the picture, the whole rotten sex setup. And she quoted a reference to Talmadge made by Mike.
I only checked the first few entries, then shoved the book into my pocket. I wondered why it hadn’t been destroyed and decided it was probably because Haggart knew damned well it would be the best protection he could have in case Talmadge ever decided he knew too much and was in the way.
I started out of the room, then stopped short, whirled around and snapped off the light. Outside there had been a sound, as though someone had stumbled in the dark.
Chapter Twelve
I moved to the kitchen window and concealed in the shadow of the house, peered about me. The .38 was ready.
The night was as still and fixed as one of Haggart’s photographs. I listened, straining for any sound at all, but there was none. I glanced in the direction of the garage, and started to climb out the window, then drew back as some sixth sense trembled in warning. I focused again on the garage. There had been a movement, a darker blackness moving inside the shadow. I gripped the .38, held still and waited, and wondered if my nerves were playing me tricks. A minute ticked by: two, three.
Nerves or not, I had to take a chance. I moved back toward the kitchen table, felt around for something to throw, and found what felt like a jar of preserves.
I eased back to the window but held close to the wall, took aim toward the garage, then heaved the jar as hard as I could. It thudded against the side of the building and broke with a shattering of glass to tell me what I wanted to know: there was a sudden stirring followed by footsteps running toward the back of the garage. Whoever it was circled around to put the garage between us, which left me a free path out of the window. I moved fast to throw a leg over the sill, jumped and landed lightly on the balls of my feet, and hugging the shadows ran for the garage.
I moved close to the wall, and treading softly I edged along toward the rear of the garage, staring ahead of me, straining my eyes against the darkness. To come up behind the guy I didn’t dare make a sound. A stick snapped underfoot and cursing my breath, I froze.
I waited, hardly breathing, but the night wasn’t telling any secrets, not to me. Seconds passed before I shoved on, carefully advancing a foot ahead of me, feeling for obstacles. My toe tapped against something that must have been a box. I felt my way around it, moved ahead to the far corner, drew up, and held tight for a moment.
Whoever it was had to be only a few yards ahead of me now. I inched to the edge of the garage and looked around. Below, the street lamp cast a faint glow but enough to have enabled me to see any figure between the lamp and me. There was no one.
I moved on toward the front of the garage, then stopped short for I had only a split second of warning before I heard the sound of a step, then the rushing sound of something flashing toward me through the air. I ducked and a chunk of hard cement hit the wall behind me. I whirled around, sidestepped, and took a wild swipe at him with my gun. I only grazed him
, but it threw him off balance and I grabbed him with my free hand and yanked him out of the bushes for a good close look and it was an effort to keep from shouting with joy because it was Haggart. I put the .38 back in its holster because I wanted to do this job with bare hands.
“Come back for something?” I shook him. “Forget your reading?”
He was breathing through his teeth but a sudden violent twist broke him loose. Haggart started to get away, but I reached out to catch him again as he whirled against me to knock me backwards.
I grabbed for his wrist and, by a miracle, caught it, twisted hard as I landed against the wall and kept on twisting until he gasped with pain.
I got back to my feet, gripped his fingers and spread them, hard. He screamed again as he whirled against me again and brought up his knee. I swiveled away from it but not enough: the blow went into the pit of my stomach and I had to let go of him. My wind was gone and dizzily I saw Haggart rush me, saw the gleam of metal in his hand, a gun held by the barrel, a gun he didn’t have time to right and fire. He swarmed me, anxious to part my hair clear down to the skull. My head cleared a bit, just enough to let me get a hand out in a chop at his wrist, at the same time, stepping back. The deflected blow took me on the forearm, but it threw me off balance.
I stumbled, stepped on a loose rock, and staggered again and the corner of the garage took me across the back of the head. The world dimmed for a moment, but not enough that I didn’t know Haggart was on top of me, still swinging the butt he hoped was going to slice my scalp. I twisted away just in time to miss it. The gun hit the wall close to my ear and as Haggart’s arm came down across my chest I reached out and pulled him close and squeezed the air out of him.
“Okay, killer,” I grunted and squeezed with everything I had. He struggled against me, but I locked arms, held him tight, turned and forced him against the wall. Then I pulled one arm free and gripped Haggart’s wrist until I squeezed the rod out of his hand. It dropped to the ground and lay there to reflect a dull sheen. I yanked on his arm and he dropped to his knees as I stood behind him, sucking the wind back into my lungs. “Rat,” I panted. “Dirty goddamn rat.”
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