Ron Goulart - John Easy 03 - The Same Lie Twice

by Ron Goulart

  “You can’t think of any special place,” asked Easy, “where he might have hidden the file drawer stuff, or where he might have told the girl to wait for him?”

  “Screw the girl,” said Lana. She gave a raspy sigh, slouching further down into her fat chair. The glass dropped from her thin fingers and she abruptly commenced snoring.

  Cherries and bourbon splashed across the frayed rug. “Leave it for the cleaning woman,” said Easy.

  He left Moseson’s sister asleep, faintly illuminated by the glow of the giant radio. Old dance music filled the room as he let himself out into the night.

  His usually dusty Volkswagen had been washed a bright glistening black by the day of rain. Easy had parked the car at a weedy curb above the ocean. There were still not many houses along here. Hilly fields rose up on his right as he drove away from the cottage.

  Five blocks from the place a big gray car, a knocked-about Cadillac, came up suddenly on his left. The windows of the big car were steamed over, masking whoever was in it.

  The car began nudging Easy’s VW, harder and harder.

  Easy saw a Mercedes coming along the otherwise empty night street from the opposite direction. He honked his horn and waved.

  There was enough room, even with the lumpy Cadillac roaring beside Easy, for the Mercedes to pass. Which it did.

  When the two cars were alone again the heavy one swung hard into Easy. It pushed him right off the slippery street, up across the buckled sidewalk and into a field of high grass.

  X

  DOORS SLAMMED IN THE big gray Cadillac. Easy dived out the passenger side of his car, leaving the black door flapping. Head tucked low, he galloped uphill through the high, wet grass. He jabbed his right hand to his shoulder holster and slid out his .38 revolver.

  He heard a grunt and he was tackled from the left. Going down, Easy swung out with his gun hand.

  “No guns, we don’t want guns.” Someone else grabbed his hand, tearing the gun from his grasp. “It makes for noise.”

  Easy rolled and tumbled downhill, kicking at the man who had him gripped around the thighs.

  The other man, the one who didn’t want noise, came hopping after them. He caught hold of Easy’s hair and tugged.

  Easy stopped rolling. He kicked again, then took hold of the ears of the man he was tangled with.

  The man slammed his crewcut head twice into Easy’s groin.

  His companion banged Easy against the side of the head with the barrel of Easy’s revolver.

  The rain kept coming down, making more mud all around them.

  Whacking Easy once more, the man with the gun explained, “We want to talk to you, Easy.”

  Easy got a new grip on the man who was on top of him. He tossed him away from him. Easy shoved with one foot and came up facing the one with his gun.

  “Don’t try any Chinese stuff or I’ll shoot your balls off,” warned the man. He was heavy and dark, about thirty. His hair was unrumpled, curly. He wore a dark suit and a dark turtleneck sweater. He smelled strongly of pine.

  A pickup track was slowing below on the black street. The pine-scented man glanced for an instant toward it. Easy jumped in, chopping his gun from the man’s hand. Snatching the .38 up out of the grass, Easy took off toward his Volkswagen.

  The crewcut man tackled him again before he reached the flapping door. The rain made a snug tin-roof sound on the unreachable car.

  “Jesus, but you’re a hard man to talk to,” said the one with the curly hair. The pickup truck had driven on by and the wet street was silent again.

  Across the road the ocean was slapping at the narrow beach. Easy got up clear of the tackling man again, and took a deep breath. He felt like he was inhaling fog.

  “What we have to say is simple,” began the pine-scented one, “go home.” He had a gun of his own, a snubnose .32, in his hand now.

  “Yeah, that’s all.” The smaller man pushed out of the mud. The front of his black raincoat was splotched with it. “I’m going to have to have this dry-cleaned again, Rudy.”

  Rudy smiled at Easy. Rain was hitting down hard on his head but it didn’t harm any of the curls. They remained taut and upright. “We’d like you to keep away from our town, Easy.”

  Easy still held his .38. He looked from it to Rudy’s gun. “Who’re you delivering messages for?”

  Still smiling, Rudy said, “Maybe we’re with the San Ignacio Chamber of Commerce.”

  “Or the Better Business Bureau,” laughed his associate.

  “The idea we want to get across is that you forget about Moseson,” said Rudy. “Forget about his next of kin. Whatever you’ve got to do, do it elsewhere.”

  “You could have a much better time in Hollywood,” said the other man. “You wouldn’t get hurt so much.”

  “Okay,” said Easy. “I’ll start home right now. Nice talking to you.”

  “One further item,” said Rudy. “We want to see what kind of notes you’ve been making around town. You don’t mind if we search you before you go on home.”

  Easy shook his head. “Nope, there’s not going to be any searching done.”

  Smiling more broadly, Rudy said, “You figure it’s a Mexican standoff, right? You’ve got me covered, I’ve got you covered. We’ll hang around here in the soaking wet until one of us gives in. What you haven’t taken into …”

  From behind Easy a third man swung something hard and heavy. Easy took two steps at Rudy before he fell.

  “Shit, he splashed more mud on me,” complained the man with the shortcut.

  XI

  EASY FROWNED AT THE two aspirins sitting in the palm of his hand. He shifted his head slowly to the right. Jill, in tight plaid slacks and a white cable-stitch pullover, was bending over the stark black woodbox next to her enormous livingroom fireplace. When she stretched a smooth patch of tan back showed between the edge of the slacks and the edge of the sweater. Easy returned to watching the pair of aspirins. “Getting hit on the head should slow down your sex drive,” he said.

  Jill carried a composition log two-handed to the big white stone fireplace, tumbled it onto the wadded up pages of the LA Times. “This is the first time we’ve used the fireplace. What did you say?”

  Easy placed the aspirins under his tongue. He swallowed them along with a half a glass of water. “I was reflecting on the fact that getting hit on the head and left in the mud and stepped on by hoods in expensive Italian shoes hasn’t made me any less horny.”

  Jill faced him, smiling, brushing at her long blonde hair. “You’re supposed to remain quiet and relaxed,” she said. “I still think you ought to let me call a doctor.”

  “Nope,” said Easy.

  “You might have a concussion.”

  “I don’t.” Easy shifted in the black leather chair. He was wearing a yellow terry robe and a pair of fuzz-lined slippers. Hanging on a diningroom chair near the fireplace were the clothes he’d been wearing when the three hoods jumped him. His $250 sport coat had muddy toe tracks up its back and it had been slashed along the seams.

  Jill bent for another log. A larger stretch of bare back showed this time. “Do you have any idea why they attacked you?”

  “Maybe the bowling alleys are closed tonight.” Easy stood up tentatively. He got the impression his head was suddenly shrinking and decided to sit down again.

  “But it has something to do with Joanna?”

  Easy said, “Everything that happens in San Ignacio looks to have something to do with Joanna.”

  “Have you talked to Jim? He phoned here a couple of times this afternoon,” said Jill as the second log fell into the fireplace. “He stayed home from work today.”

  “Nan talked to him, filled him in on what we know for sure so far.”

  “How much is that?”

  Easy rested his chin on a fist. “Mostly negatives. We know she’s not in the local morgues, hospitals and jails.”

  “That’s positive in a way.”

  “It doesn’t mean she’s
not dead someplace we haven’t thought of checking.”

  “Do you think she’s dead, John?”

  Easy said, “Probably not. But she’s been hanging around with people who are dead now.”

  Jill walked over and sat on a footstool near his chair. “Who, who’s dead?”

  “A guy named Phil Moseson,” Easy answered. “Ever hear Joanna mention him?”

  “No. I haven’t seen much of either Joanna or Jim the past year or so,” said Jill. “I had problems of my own, as you know.”

  Easy rested a hand on her shoulder. “Joanna had a thing going with Moseson, it looks like Moseson got killed last Friday.”

  “The same day Joanna went away,” said Jill. “Could she have …?”

  “Killed him? No, it isn’t likely. Moseson was worked over, questioned.”

  Jill shivered, shaking her head. “It’s messy, isn’t it? Whatever Joanna’s into.”

  “Moseson was in the process of blackmailing some of San Ignacio’s prominent citizens,” Easy said. He told Jill what he’d found out from Moseson’s sister. “The guys who leaned on him were probably trying to discourage him. It’s almost certain they wanted to know where he stashed what he had to sell.”

  Jill looked up at him. “John, they might be the same men who did this to you.”

  “That occurred to me,” said Easy. “And another thing, too. If Moseson told them, where the blackmail material was before he died, then they have it by now. If he didn’t, they’ll want to talk to Joanna. To find out if she knows.”

  “Do you think they may be looking for Joanna, too?”

  Easy glanced again at his ripped coat.

  “The only things they lifted off me were the notes I’d made today and the picture of Joanna.”

  Jill asked, “Are you going to tell Jim all this?”

  “Eventually,” said Easy. “Right now I’m going to manage the news some. Benning doesn’t have to know everything just yet.”

  “No matter what happens, though,” Jill said, “they’ll never be able to put everything back together, will they?”

  “I don’t know exactly what they had before, but I think it should stay tumbled down.” Easy put his other hand on her other shoulder and drew her up to him. “Enough shop talk for tonight.”

  Turned sideways in his lap, the girl said, “You have an erection again.”

  “No, it’s the same one I had this morning. I can’t seem to get rid of it.”

  “Even after all that’s …”

  A loud thumping began on the front door. The chimes bonged.

  Easy set the girl on her feet and got up. “Wait right here.” His head felt a slight bit better now and he was able to walk over to his shoulder holster and grip out his .38 revolver. He moved on slippered feet into the white-carpeted foyer.

  The chimes continued bonging, playing their four note tune over and over.

  Easy thumbed the gold lid off the judas hole and looked out.

  Jim Benning, his thin hair wet with rain, was standing there in the night. He raised his fist again and hammered on the door as Easy watched.

  Unhooking the chainlock, Easy opened the door six inches. “Closed for the night,” he said out at his anxious client.

  “Jesus, Easy, why don’t you return my calls?” asked Benning, leaning hard against the door.

  “I’ve got nothing new to report to you,” said Easy. “Call me in the morning.”

  “For Christ sake,” said Benning, “my wife’s in some kind of terrible trouble probably and you’ve got time to come over here and screw your brains …”

  Easy let go the door and took hold of his client by the collarbone. “You’ve got me mixed up with your family doctor,” he said evenly. “I’m not on twenty-four-hour call.”

  Benning gave a wet dog shake, pulling free of Easy. After a few seconds he asked, “What happened to your face? And your head, those bandages in back there?”

  “Tomorrow,” Easy told him. “Come in at ten and we’ll talk.”

  “Have you found her?” Behind Benning a steep flight of buff-colored stone steps dropped away. A long curving gravel walk wound toward the low stucco wall around Jill’s grounds.

  A night blue Chevy Camaro drifted by the open wrought-iron gateway, lights off. “You come over here with somebody?” Easy asked, nodding at the silent car.

  Benning turned toward the faraway street. He caught a glimpse of the tail end of the Camaro. “That’s another thing,” he said.

  Easy pulled him inside the foyer, fisted the door shut. “Someone followed you?”

  “I think so,” said Benning. “Oh, hello, Jill.”

  “Hello, Jim.”

  Easy was watching out the spy hole. “Tell me about that car.”

  “I thought maybe you had one of your associates tailing me,” said Benning. “You know, you don’t tell me what you’re up to and I have to guess. There was somebody fooling around at our house, too.”

  “Fooling around?” There was no further sign of the dark car.

  “About two hours ago.” Benning noticed he’d splashed rainwater on the white carpeting and he rubbed at it with his foot. “I’m fairly sure somebody was prowling around outside our place, in the driveway and out back.”

  “You see them?”

  “No, but I heard somebody pretty sure. When I got the floods on they weren’t there,” said Benning. “What’s all this got to do with Joanna?”

  Easy left the door. He put both hands, the one with the .38 and the one without, in the pockets of his robe. “I’ll get dressed and escort you out to your car.”

  “Who are those people?”

  “I don’t think they’ll try anything with you.”

  “Who are they?”

  Easy was in the living room, pulling on his trousers. “I’m afraid,” he said, “they’re looking for Joanna, too.”

  XII

  THE CAR RADIO WAS saying, “… according to San Ignacio police the body was discovered early this morning by a neighbor who was returning Miss Moseson’s lost monkey. Lana Moseson, an attractive brunette in her late thirties, had been brutally beaten and then strangled. Police as yet will not say whether this brutal slaying is linked in any way with the murder last week of Miss Moseson’s brother, Philip Moseson, prominent San Ignacio accountant. Six school children fatally injured in bus crash. That story after this word from Norm’s Burger Pit in …”

  After clicking off the radio, Easy swung out of his VW. His office parking lot was still damp in the clear morning. He emerged from the car, rubbing at the sore spots on his head.

  In the unseen driveway between buildings a soggy flapping sound began. A few seconds later Hagopian came jogging into view, his scuffed black briefcase tucked under his arm. “Not even winded,” he said, grinning. “And I jogged all the way from the cab to here. Did those guys you told me about last night step on your face in the course of their work?” He swung a finger in the direction of the fresh abrasions on Easy’s rough face.

  “They may have. I slept through part of it.”

  “You’re looking even more knocked about than usual this morning. If you drove a substantial car instead of that Nazi tin can goon’s wouldn’t have such an easy time of shoving you off into culverts.”

  Heading for the rear door of his office, Easy said, “Where’s your car?”

  “Jem lost one of the fenders,” said Hagopian, strolling alongside. “Actually, she’s got the fender and she isn’t sure where the rest of the Jag is. Do you know much about mesmerism?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m wondering if it’s possible to be hypnotized by bouncing tits,” said Hagopian.

  Easy unlocked the door to his private office and swung it open. “Good morning,” he said to his secretary.

  “Which might explain,” continued Hagopian, “why I give my car away so readily.”

  Nan Alonzo let go of the airconditioner knobs. “You’ve been getting phone calls,” she told Easy.

  Resting his
left buttock on his metal desk, Easy picked the scatter of blue phone memos up off the blotter. “Jim Benning called to say nobody’s … what? What’s this word?”

  “Lurking,” replied his short broad secretary. “Nobody’s lurking. He wanted you to know and he wanted to ask if we had anything more about his wife. Poor guy.”

  Easy let himself down slowly into his chair. “I’m starting to feel like Typhoid Mary,” he said. “People I talk to are dying.”

  “Who now?” asked Nan.

  “Moseson’s sister.”

  “You saw her last night, didn’t you?” asked Nan.

  “Yeah, right before the hoods saw me.”

  “How was she killed?”

  “I just heard a short report on the news. But it sounds like the same style of killing they used on her brother.” He glanced at the second memo. “That must be what Lt. Alvin wants to see me about.”

  “He told me it was only routine.”

  “I don’t much like his idea of routine,” said Easy.

  Hagopian bounced on the sofa a few times before settling down with his old briefcase on his knees. “You implied last night the San Ignacio cops might be in on what happened to you.”

  Easy made a compact ball of the message from Lt. Alvin. “Those guys got on to me when I left Lana Moseson’s. It’s probable they were lurking around outside her cottage. Alvin knew I was heading there. Right now it seems safer not to trust him.” Easy frowned at the next phone message. “Gladys Waugh, huh?”

  “She has a very mysterious voice.” Nan hurried over to make a quick delicate adjustment to the airconditioner.

  “That’s because she’s a witch.”

  “I drew the dollar sign next to her name because I think she wants to sell you something,” explained Nan.

  Nodding, Easy said, “Yeah, I want to see her this morning. Sooner or later those goons are going to try to contact her.”