End of a Call Girl

by William Campbell Gault

  He yawned. “No money. They give me presents. They love to give me presents; that’s half the kick in it for them.”

  “Either your fees are too low,” I suggested, “or you aren’t getting enough business. You should be able to afford a better apartment.”

  He smiled. “Nope. This is the right setting. They can look down on me. They can feel superior. I think they need to.”

  Blond and tanned and muscular, he relaxed in the contour chair, the all-American boy. Through the window beyond him, this clear day, I could see Catalina.

  I asked, “Would you be this casual if I’d come up here with a Department badge? You can’t be covered as well as you seem to think.”

  He yawned again. “Nobody with a badge has come up here yet. I’m supposed to worry about things that don’t happen?”

  “Nobody with a badge knows about you yet,” I explained to him. “But you’re going to be a prime suspect when they do.”

  He looked at me curiously. “Are you going to tell ‘em about me?”

  “I have to. I’m working with the police.”

  He stretched and smiled. “I’ll bet. You’re threatening me, Puma. But I’m not impressed. So long, big boy.”

  I stood up. “Then there’s nothing about the death of George Ryerson you want to comment on?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I wish he was still alive, so that chubby wife of his wouldn’t be so hot about rushing me to the altar.”

  I left him without saying good-bye. I went out onto the railed runway and down the wooden steps. I was in my car and closing the door when I saw Tom Talsman.

  He hadn’t seen me. He was looking at the three names on the stucco wall. Then he went up the steps.

  Now, there was a pair who deserved to meet each other, an arrogant duo destined to be soul mates. I got out of the car and went up the steps again quietly.

  I stopped on the top step, around the corner from the runway, and heard Talsman say, “Don’t get smart, blondie. I’m armed.”

  “Prove it,” said Leslie Colt.

  And then, a second later, I heard the thump and I looked around the corner to see Tom Talsman on the runway, blood dripping from one corner of his mouth. His.32 was also on the runway and Colt stooped to pick it up.

  He emptied it, and as Talsman rose groggily to his feet, Colt handed it back to him. And said, “You’re lucky. You caught me on a weak day. Now, if you’re out of sight in five seconds, I might not even belt you again.”

  I went to the bottom of the steps to wait for him.

  In a few seconds, he came slowly around the corner, holding carefully onto the guard rail with one hand, holding a handkerchief to his bleeding mouth with the other.

  I said amiably, “This investigation game can be rough at times, can’t it?”

  He said nothing. He came to the bottom and stopped, to glare at me.

  I asked, “Who gave you the lead to him?”

  “None of your damned business,” he said hoarsely.

  “You’re mistaken. It is my business. But not yours. You’ll never be any good at it, Tom. Your attitude’s wrong.”

  “Drop dead,” he said harshly.

  “What can you achieve?” I asked him. “You’re going to wind up walking on your heels, the way you’re operating. But maybe, if you tell me what you know, between us we can find a murderer.”

  “I know who you’re working for,” he said. “Get out of my way, Puma.”

  I stood to one side. “Talsman, I’m working with the Department, right now.”

  He went past me without another word. He climbed into a three-year-old Cad at the curb and gunned away. I drove to the nearest drugstore. From there, I phoned Captain Jeswald. I told him about Leslie Colt and Mrs. Ryerson and gave him the gist of my conversation with Colt. I added the Talsman epilogue and said, “Aren’t you glad I’m on the case now? I’ll bet this is all new to you, eh, Captain?”

  “We’ll bring Colt in,” he said stiffly. “Keep us informed, Puma.”

  “Yes, brother.” I said humbly. “Onward with Delta Kappa Epsilon.”

  “Don’t give me that, Puma. You could have stayed with the Department, you know.”

  “I’ll keep you informed,” I promised, and hung up.

  It was after four o’clock, now, and I was hungry. I phoned to see if Mary had returned from Palm Springs and she had.

  “I’m hungry,” I told her. “Have you got anything good to eat in the house?”

  “One of those small canned hams and some beans. And a loaf of kosher rye bread. How does that sound?”

  “Start opening the ham,” I said.

  Ten minutes later, when she opened her door to me, I could smell coffee and nail polish. I bent to kiss her and she gave me a cheek.

  “Cool today,” I commented.

  “I don’t want you to get any ideas,” she explained. “I’ve a date for dinner.”

  I followed her to the dining area. She had made me two sandwiches. She went to the stove to get the beans as I sat down.

  “Who is the date?” I asked. “The rich man who likes skinny girls?” “No.”

  She brought me the beans and sat down across from me to pour herself a cup of coffee. She looked at me tenderly. “Isn’t it strange what good friends we are? And a few days ago, we hadn’t even met — ”

  “Nothing like a weekend in Palm Springs,” I said, “to cement a friendship.”

  Her voice was low. “I wish you wouldn’t be cynical.”

  I looked into her big brown eyes. “I apologize. When did you get back?”

  “This morning. I drove in with Leonard.”

  “Leonard — ?”

  “The head waiter, you know — that glossy man who looks like a B picture heavy. I guess he comes into town often for Jack.”

  “Is he your date for dinner?”

  She laughed quietly. “Oh, you are worried. We’re not married, you know, Puma. We’re not even engaged.”

  “No,” I agreed. I sighed. “This is good ham.” I ate some beans. “I saw Tom Talsman about an hour ago. I hope he isn’t going to give Jean any more trouble.”

  Mary seemed to stiffen. “Is there any reason why he should?”

  “I don’t know. Do you know of any reason?”

  She shook her head slowly. Then, suddenly, her eyes narrowed and she looked at me suspiciously. “Joe, are you — interrogating me? Is that why you came here today?”

  “Of course not. I wanted to see you. But I have a feeling that even if you knew something that might help to solve a murder, you’d shut up about it rather than cause Jean any trouble. Is that correct?”

  “That,” she said calmly, “is probably correct. But I swear to you that I don’t know anything about Jean that would help to solve a murder.”

  “You can’t be sure,” I argued. “You don’t know what apparently innocent fact might be a key.”

  “All right, Puma, we’re not going to fight again, are we?”

  “No,” I said wearily. “Mary, I’m working for that man you admire so much, that catch, Jack Ross. Fight him if you have to fight somebody.”

  She reached over to pour me a cup of coffee. I nodded my thanks.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  “It’s all right.”

  “No. I keep being suspicious of you and running down your profession and it’s not right. Joe, that dinner date — it’s purely business.”

  “You don’t owe me any explanations.”

  Her voice sharpened. “Stop sulking, right now! Puma, you’re a big, damned baby.”

  I laughed. “It’s part of my charm. Now tell me about Jean.”

  “Believe me, Joe, there’s absolutely nothing to tell. That’s the gospel truth.”

  “Okay, tell me about Tulare, and why you have this phobia about being manhandled.”

  “Shut up,” she said lightly.

  I held my cup out. “More coffee, please?”

  She poured me more and added some to her own cup. She look
ed past me at the gray day outside. “Why aren’t we rich?”

  “You could be,” I said. “You could marry money. You could get almost any rich man you wanted and do him proud.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know them. They’re cagey, unless you get them in college. And most of the ones I’ve met are so damned dull!”

  “Why the blues?” I asked. “Because of Jean and her catch?”

  “I suppose. That’s envy, isn’t it? And envy’s petty.” “Petty and universal,” I said. “Why don’t we neck?” “Oh, shut up. Tell me, who do you think killed Ryerson?”

  “I haven’t the beginning of an idea. But I’m sure that at least one person other than the killer knows and that gives me hope.”

  “Why are you sure of that?”

  “I’ve been lied to so often. A clean case wouldn’t bring forth this many lies.”

  She turned around to look at the clock on the kitchen wall.

  “Don’t rush me,” I teased her. “I’m on the way.”

  She made a face. “You can stay and relax if you want. I have to take a shower and fix my hair and do a million little things.”

  I finished my coffee. “I’m going. Could we maybe See a movie or something this week?”

  “I’d love it. Joe, be careful, take good care of yourself.”

  She came to the door with me and I kissed her on the forehead and thanked her for the meal. I went to the car feeling as I had all along; Mary knew more about Jean than she would reveal to me.

  • • •

  This whole thing had started with Jean and a highly involved date at a motel. Unless the time of Ryerson’s death was an almost impossible coincidence, the fact of his death had to be connected with that motel date. That was the only logical sequence to examine and it was leading me nowhere.

  And staying on the logic kick, Leslie Colt could seem like a logical suspect to the police, but I felt certain he would have no compulsion to kill Ryerson.

  Unless he was a better actor than I imagined, he had no great lust for George’s widow and no apparent motive beyond her inheritance. Logically, he wouldn’t kill to get something he already had, the widow’s body. And the money he could get through marrying her, he didn’t intend to try for. He had had no motive for murder.

  At least that was the impression his words and his attitude had left me with and I believed him for the moment. The police would learn if he had an alibi for the time; they would undoubtedly get more polite answers than I had.

  The five o’clock traffic was jammed and tedious as I drove over to the office. There, I typed up the reports of the day and addressed one copy to Jeswald.

  It was dark when I finished and the building was quiet. I took advantage of the quiet to once again review all the reports from my first and only interview with the deceased George Ryerson. Damn it, if these were the people involved in his death, a pattern should show somewhere. Nothing …

  I phoned the Hollywood Station. Sergeant Lehner was there and I asked him if they had wormed anything out of Leslie Colt.

  “Only some scandal,” he answered. “We’ve got Mrs. Ryerson down here, too. Where’d you get this lead?”

  “From an informant I’d rather not reveal. A true innocent, believe me, Sergeant.”

  “The guilt or innocence of an informant would be our decision, Puma.”

  “Not this time. What do you think of Colt as a suspect?”

  “Not much, but he’s the best we have, I’ll admit. We’re checking out his alibi right now. Listen, Puma, I want the name of that informant.”

  “That’s too damned bad. You wouldn’t even have the name of Leslie Colt if I hadn’t given it to you. I can’t work with any effectiveness unless you let me protect certain people. Now, we can argue this out in front of the Chief, or I can withdraw from the case. You have your choice of those two alternatives or the third one of permitting me certain freedoms. You decide; I don’t like the case enough to make an issue of it.”

  Silence.

  I said patiently, “I’m waiting, Sergeant.” “All right,” he said angrily, “you win. Some day, Puma, I’m going to catch you with your pants down.” “Maybe.” I hung up.

  In my office, the desk lamp made a circle of light in the dark room. From the hallway, came a muffled, dragging sound and the hair seemed to bristle on the back of my neck.

  I took my.38 from a desk drawer and went quietly to the door. The dragging sound was getting nearer and I jerked the door open quickly and stepped out into the hall, my gun ready and anxious.

  The cleaning woman looked at me bewilderedly, the big pail on casters she’d been dragging rocked gently from her sudden stop. She looked at the gun in my hand and took a backward step.

  “What’s wrong, Mr. Puma?”

  “Nothing,” I said gently. “Nerves, I guess. I’m sorry.”

  She smiled. “It’s a bad time. Miltown, that’s what you need, Mr. Puma.”

  I went back into my office and slumped in the chair again. Where was the key to this tangle; where was the obvious lead? The word motive came back to haunt me, taunting me with its implied pun. Auto-motive — ? That was part of it, but not the revealing whole.

  That pail on casters had almost triggered the subconscious mind into spewing up the key I sought. Wheels, was that it? It certainly wasn’t soap, detergent, mop, brush or broom. The mobility of the contraption had been the trigger. The casters had been the elusive suggestion to the key I was seeking.

  I lived in a realist’s world; the imagery and creativeness of my unconscious mind was atrophied from lack of use. Back in my realist’s world, I went down to my workaday Plymouth and drove over to humdrum National Boulevard.

  A quarter of a block from the triplex abode of Eileen Rafferty, I parked and waited. The stars were out and the night was clear. Lights glittered from all the picture windows in the housing tract and lighted planes took off from and descended on Santa Monica Airport. There had been a light, too, in the apartment of the redhead, though that didn’t mean she was home. I had nowhere else to go; I waited.

  I wondered if Mrs. Ryerson’s grilling by the police would get to the newspapers. Not that I worried about her reputation, but the redhead had told me the widow had two children. It would be hard on them.

  Down the block, a three-year-old Cadillac pulled to the curb in front of Eileen Rafferty’s place. A man who looked like Tom Talsman got out on the street side and went up the walk to the rear unit.

  In a few minutes he returned, and the lights from a passing car revealed to me that the man was, in truth, the ubiquitous Tom Talsman. In two minutes, this ineffective investigator had learned what I should have learned before I staked out.

  Miss Rafferty was not home.

  The lights of his Cad went swooping past as I ducked below the level of my windshield. When he was out of sight, I turned the Plymouth around and headed for home.

  I was frustrated and unhappy as I pulled the Plymouth onto the vacant lot next to my apartment building. I was a fairly new tenant and all the garages had been occupied when I’d rented my apartment. I hadn’t inquired since if there were any now vacant. I got out, and was locking the door on my side, when a voice from the dark said, “Welcome home, Puma. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  I turned to face two men. I couldn’t see their faces clearly. Both of them were shorter than I but both of them also looked extremely broad.

  “Business?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual.

  “Yeah. One grand. Just to keep your nose out of the Ryerson kill. It’s worth a grand to us.”

  “I can’t do that,” I explained. “The Chief of Police has given me permission to work the case. He’ll think it’s mighty strange if I withdraw now.”

  “You don’t have to announce you’re quitting. Just get onto another line of investigation. A bum like you should know how to goof off.”

  I said, “I must be getting close to the killer, or you boys wouldn’t be worried. Look, I’m working for
a rich man. Maybe you could pick up a profit coming over to our side.”

  “Twelve hundred we’ll give you. Fair enough, shamus?”

  “I can’t sell out,” I said patiently. “This is my trade and I intend to stay in it. But you boys are just working for money; you’d be smart to string with me.”

  “Twelve hundred, Puma? This is your last chance.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  The one on my right came in first, crowding me against my car. I felt the door handle in my back and he hooked a left into my belly.

  I lifted a knee and heard him grunt. I put my head down and felt the top of it crash his face. He started to curse and I found his throat with my right hand and tried to tear out his Adam’s apple.

  He gurgled out a choked scream — as the other man sapped me from the side.

  Redness flooded my brain, but I was still conscious as I went down, conscious and powerless. As soon as I was prone, they began to kick me.

  The last thing I heard, before a shoe caught my chin and brought oblivion, was the voice of the man whose throat I had held.

  “God-damned snooping shamus,” he was muttering.

  SEVEN

  OBLIVION is supposed to be black, but mine was red. There were undoubtedly many emotions contributing to my state of mind but the dominant emotion was hate…. I came to at the Georgia Receiving Hospital on a hard bed in a small room and looked into the sardonic face of Sergeant Lehner.

  “Recognize either one of them?” he asked me. “No. How do you know there were two?” “One of your apartment tenants drove onto the lot as they were leaving. He got there a little late, huh?” “I guess. How bad am I?”

  “Three cracked ribs, a badly lacerated side. The doc isn’t sure how serious the concussion is.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Almost two hours. Is your headache bad?”

  “Uh-huh. Did you get any kind of description?”

  “Not much. What did they want, Puma?”

  “They wanted me to get my nose out of the Ryerson murder. I tried to buy them over to our side.”

  “What made you think they were for sale?”

  “Isn’t everybody? Sergeant, I don’t know who they were or who they were working for, if anybody. And I don’t want to talk about them now. You know as much about them as I do.”