We'll Always Have Murder

by Bill Crider

  101

  CHAPTER

  18

  Charles Orsini, Charlie O., had as much power as Jack Warner.

  Maybe more. But you couldn’t tell it by his office. The carpet was thin. The desk was cheap veneer. There was only one small window, and there was no view, or at least not one we could see, because it was covered by Venetian blinds that hung at a slight slant.

  Charlie O. sat behind the desk. His hair was still black, or maybe he colored it. His cheeks were pink, and he looked freshly shaved. I thought I could smell a faint odor of bay rum in the air. He was big, but not like Mike and Tank. He was built more along the lines of Sidney Greenstreet, though he wasn’t nearly as charming.

  He might have been more charming if he hadn’t been holding a

  .38 revolver that was pointed at my belt buckle.

  “I told you I never wanted to see you in here again, Scott,” he said.

  His voice was hoarse, as if he had a cold, but he didn’t. That was just the way he sounded, as if he’d gargled razor blades at some time or other. “For that matter, I don’t want to see you anywhere.”

  “Where’s Herbie?” I asked. “He’s usually the one with the gun.”

  Herbie was Orsini’s personal bodyguard. He also did some of the dirty work that Mike and Tank didn’t get around to.

  “Herbie isn’t feeling well this evening,” Charlie O. said. “But I know how to use a pistol, so I don’t need him.”

  I didn’t know whether he could use a pistol or not, but we were 103

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  only about ten feet from him. It would be hard for him to miss me if he pulled the trigger.

  “We’re here about Frank Burleson,” Bogart said, ignoring the pistol.

  “The word is that he owed you money.”

  Charlie O. moved the pistol so that it pointed at Bogart’s belt buckle instead of at mine. I confess that I felt a little bit relieved.

  “I don’t go to the movies, Mr. Bogart,” Charlie O. said. “And although I know who you are, I’m not as easily impressed as most of my employees. I must say, however, that I’m flattered you’ve deigned to visit my little establishment. That’s the only reason I haven’t shot Scott.” He turned the pistol back to me. “That doesn’t mean I won’t shoot him later, of course.”

  Charlie O. might have sounded as if he was joking, but I knew better. It wasn’t warm in the room, but a drop of sweat slid down from my left sideburn onto my cheek.

  I heard the door close softly behind me. The faint notes of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” were cut off completely. I didn’t have to look to know that Mike and Tank were standing by the door, just waiting. Nothing that happened in that room would bother them.

  They’d seen it all before. I could hear Mike’s adenoidal breathing.

  “We wanted you to tell us about Frank Burleson,” Bogart said. “Not show us how tough you are.”

  I wondered if he was really as calm and assured as he seemed or if he was just playing a role. It all came down to the same thing in the end, I suppose.

  Charlie O. put the pistol down on the light-blue blotter that covered about half his desk. I was tempted to wipe away the sweat that had now trickled down to my jaw, but I didn’t do it.

  “You don’t know about Scott and my daughter, do you,” Charlie O. said.

  Bogart looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I just shrugged.

  “Laura,” Charlie O. said. He picked up the pistol and aimed it at me again. “That’s her name. She won’t come near me. Your fault, Scott.”

  I decided that if Bogart could be a hard guy, so could I. I said, “It’s not my fault that you’re a bookie, a shylock, a pimp, and God knows what else.”

  I thought for a second that he might pull the trigger. I even thought I saw the knuckle of his trigger finger turn white as it tightened, but 104

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  maybe not. I have a vivid imagination in situations that involve my own personal survival. After a few seconds of silence, he took a deep breath, pursed his lips, and put the pistol down again.

  “You are correct, Scott. As much as I hate to admit it, you are correct. I’m all those things, and several more that you neglected to mention. A man has to make a living, after all, and he does what he can. Laura would have found out sooner or later, no doubt. I was just hoping it would be later. Much later. You didn’t have to tell her.”

  I’d been right about him, and he was right about me. I’d told her because I was in love with her and wanted to save her from what I considered the evil influence of her father. You’d think she’d appreciate it, maybe even thank me. That is, you’d think that if you’d had as much experience with women and with being in love as I’d had, which up until I met Laura was no experience at all.

  She didn’t appreciate what I told her at all, and when I proved it to her, she appreciated it even less. She never wanted to see her father again, which was fine with me, but she never wanted to see me again, which wasn’t. That’s when I started drinking myself into insensibility and almost beyond. Luckily, there was a spark of consciousness somewhere that didn’t flicker out, and I was able to get hold of myself, sober up, join the Army, and go off to get myself shot up on Saipan. Maybe I’d been hoping the Japs would kill me, but that didn’t work out, either.

  “I’m sorry I told her,” I said.

  Charlie O. looked at me with understandable skepticism.

  “I mean it. I shouldn’t have done it. It cost me as much as it did you.”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Oh, no, it didn’t. She was my daughter, Scott.

  To you, she was just another broad.”

  If he hadn’t had the gun, if the two goons hadn’t been standing at my back, maybe I’d have gone for him then.

  Or maybe not.

  “She was never that,” I said evenly.

  He shrugged ponderously, which was the only way he’d ever be able to do it.

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ve both lost her now. What’s this about Frank Burleson?”

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  Bogart didn’t miss a beat. “We want to know if he owed you money.

  A lot of money.”

  “He did. Nearly ten thousand dollars. The police have already been here to ask me that. Naturally I lied to them.”

  “But you wouldn’t lie to us,” I said.

  I don’t think he liked my tone.

  “I never liked you, Scott,” he said. “Not in the least. Even before you cost me my daughter.” He picked up the pistol. “Don’t make me angry now, not when I have a gun in my hand.”

  “I have another question,” Bogart said, whether to distract him or because he really wanted to know, I wasn’t sure. “What’s your connection with Thomas Wayne?”

  Charlie O. looked interested. “What makes you think there is one?”

  “Everybody in Hollywood knows where Wayne got the money to start his studio.”

  That wasn’t true at all, but everyone had heard the rumors, which I suppose amounted to the same thing.

  “You and Wayne are bound to know one another,” Bogart continued. “You have some friends in common.”

  “Mere speculation, but I can see where it’s leading.”

  “Where do you think that is?”

  “Burleson needed money. He was trying to get it any way he could because he was afraid of what might happen to him if he didn’t pay me.” Charlie O. looked beyond us at Mike and Tank, who were of course the ones Burleson would have been afraid of. “Frank was right to be afraid. But he wasn’t blackmailing Thomas Wayne, and Wayne didn’t ask me to kill him.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it, though,” Bogart said.

  “Let’s just say that I like to keep informed.”

  “Let’s say more than that,” I put in, having just had a thought. Or made a guess. “Let’s say that Wayne got in touch with you because Burleson was blackmailing his stars. He mig
ht have asked you to do something about it.”

  Charlie O. put the pistol back down and rested his folded hands on it. “You may or may not be correct. I wouldn’t tell you if you were.

  But think about this: if I’d had Burleson killed, who would I have sent?”

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  He didn’t really expect me to answer that, and I didn’t. I just stood and listened to Mike breathing.

  “Whoever it might have been,” Charlie O. continued, “he would never have been a professional, not someone careless enough to leave the murder weapon lying on the floor of Burleson’s room. That smacks very much of amateurism, to me. Or of a frame. Don’t you think so?”

  I did. I’d thought so all along, but Bogart’s enthusiasm for putting the blame on Charlie O. had carried me away, though it was my fault for mentioning it in the first place.

  “We made a mistake,” I said. “I apologize.”

  “No we didn’t,” Bogart said. “He knows more than he’s telling.”

  “I always do,” Charlie O. said. “I know many things, none of which are any of your business, or Mr. Scott’s business. And now I have a question for you, Mr. Bogart?”

  Bogart twisted his ring and gave Charlie O. a straight look.

  “What makes you think I’ll answer you?”

  “You don’t have to answer me. I’m merely curious. But it would be a courtesy if you did.”

  “O.K. Let’s hear the question.”

  “What’s your stake in this? Why are you associating with a cheap studio peeper? For that matter, why is either of you interested in Frank Burleson?”

  Bogart smiled. “He tried to blackmail me. I didn’t like it. Now he’s dead, and someone’s trying to pin it on me.”

  Charlie O. thought about that for a second. Then he said, “The gun left at the scene. It was yours?”

  I started to say no, but Bogart was too quick for me.

  “Yeah. It was mine. Now you know something the cops don’t know.”

  “I appreciate your trust, and I will respect your confidence.”

  I knew he would, mainly because he’d never told the truth to the cops in his life.

  “And now,” he said, “I think our little tête-à-tête is over. There is, however, one bit of unfinished business to take care of.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I heard Mike—or Tank—move behind me.

  “Mr. Bogart,” Charlie O. said, “you and I have nothing more to say to one another. I’m going to ask Mike to escort you back to the club while Tank has a few words with Mr. Scott about my daughter.”

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  I knew what that meant. Orsini hadn’t been able to get to me when his daughter departed for parts unknown because I’d joined the Army.

  When I came back, he’d more or less lost interest. But now that I was right there and handy, he was going to give me what he thought I deserved. Most likely, Tank was going to crush my kidneys or some other essential part of my anatomy that was even more sensitive to pain than my kidneys.

  “I think I’ll stick around,” Bogart said. “I’d like to hear about your daughter.”

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” Charlie O. said. “I don’t think that would be wise at all.

  And then I heard Tank make his move.

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  CHAPTER

  19

  If you’re going to act at all in a situation like that, you have to act fast.

  Bogart did. He turned and punched Mike in the balls. I don’t think he meant to hit him there, but Mike was tall and Bogart wasn’t, and it just happened. Or maybe it was deliberate.

  Either way, it surprised the hell out of Mike, who made a sound like a big cat whose tail has been slammed in a car door and folded in the middle.

  I was as surprised as Mike, though not in nearly as much pain and not too surprised to drop to the floor. I wasn’t a second too soon because Charlie O. fired his .38 right at the spot where I’d been standing.

  Tank, unfortunately for him, had been right behind me, and the bullet intended for me hit him.

  He was even more surprised than Mike had been. My ears were ringing from the sound of the shot in the small room, but I thought I heard him say, “Oh, shit.”

  I didn’t worry too much about him. Considering what he’d been planning to do to me, he deserved whatever he got.

  I jumped up to go for Charlie O., but Bogart was already there, twisting his arm and trying to get the pistol away.

  Mike was still in the same spot where he’d been when Bogart hit 109

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  him, bent over and clutching his stomach. I wondered why, since it wasn’t his stomach that had been hit. He was making retching noises, and probably the smell of gunpowder didn’t help him any.

  Tank was still standing, too, but he wasn’t bent over. There was a wide dark spot on his suit, and when he put his hand to it, it came away wet and red.

  Charlie O. might have been fat, but he was strong, and he actually lifted Bogart up off the floor with the arm that Bogart was hanging onto. I put my fingers on a certain spot on Charlie O.’s neck and pressed hard, partially paralyzing him as the pain shot through him.

  He dropped the pistol, and Bogart let go of his arm to pick it up.

  As soon as he got it, he handed it to me. Maybe he didn’t want to shoot anybody.

  I did. I wanted to shoot Charlie O. and Mike, though that would hardly have been fair. I even wanted to shoot Tank, which also wouldn’t have been fair, so of course I didn’t. It wouldn’t have done any good anyhow, and it would just have made Charlie O. even angrier than he already was.

  Which was very, very angry. As the pain faded from his body, his face got mottled and purplish. I thought for a second that he might have a serious stroke, but once again he managed to get himself under control.

  It took a while. This time he had to take several deep breaths, and I didn’t think he’d be able to do it, but when he finally spoke his voice was steady.

  “I should call a doctor for Tank.”

  I stood beside him with the pistol pointed at his head.

  “Go ahead. But be careful.”

  Tank was very still. Blood dripped off his fingertips to the rug, but he hadn’t fallen yet.

  Mike tried to straighten up, couldn’t, and moaned loudly.

  “Be quiet, Mike,” Charlie O. said.

  He dialed the phone that was on his desk, and after a few seconds he spoke softly into the receiver. He’d know a doctor who’d come quickly and without question and keep his mouth shut about anything he did or saw.

  When he was finished giving instructions to the doctor, Charlie O.

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  hung up the phone. He looked at me, and then he looked at Bogart, who was breathing harshly at my side.

  I knew how Bogart felt. I felt a little edgy, myself.

  “I underestimated you, Scott,” Charlie O. said. “I underestimated both of you. I thought Mr. Bogart would be another Hollywood creampuff, and I thought you’d lost your guts after the war.”

  “I didn’t lose them. I tried to drown them with whiskey. I guess it didn’t work.”

  Bogart lit a cigarette with hands that were just as steady as mine, which wasn’t saying much, but at least the pistol didn’t waver, and he put the flame to the Chesterfield without having to try twice. He waved the match out and pitched it into a wastebasket by Charlie O.’s desk. He exhaled a thin stream of smoke and said, “I think it’s time for us to go.”

  I thought he was absolutely right. I told Mike to get over beside Tank. He just looked at me, so I didn’t worry about him anymore. He wasn’t going to try to stop us.

  I moved away from Charlie O. Bogart came along, and we went to the door. Before I opened it, I said, “No hard feelings.”

  “None,” Charlie O. said. “If things had turned out differentl
y, I don’t suppose you would have complained.”

  “I probably wouldn’t have been in any condition to complain,” I said.

  His mouth twitched. Maybe it was a smile.

  “Possibly not. You’ll leave me my pistol?”

  “You can get another one,” I said.

  He nodded and waved a hand dismissively, as if he hadn’t really expected to get the .38 back.

  I opened the door. The thin strains of “Night and Day” wafted up the stairs.

  Mike moaned a little in the wrong key. He was bent so that his knees were almost touching each other.

  Tank still hadn’t moved. Maybe he couldn’t believe what had happened to him. Or maybe his brain had finally locked up for good.

  “We’re even, Orsini,” I said. “Tell your boys that. I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder for them.”

  “I’ll tell them, Scott. You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours.”

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  It sounded sincere, or as sincere as Charlie O. ever got.

  “Frank Burleson’s death is none of your concern,” Charlie O. continued. “Forget about it.”

  First the cops, then the gangsters. Nobody wanted us to find out who killed Frank.

  “We’ll think it over,” I said, and closed the door behind me as Bogart and I left the office.

  “I could use a drink,” Bogart said when we were in the hall. “Or even two drinks.”

  “We’d better not stop here for one. I know what Charlie O. said, but I’d just as soon not put him to the test so soon.”

  Bogart nodded. I slipped the pistol into my jacket pocket. We descended the stairs and went down the hall. The band was playing “Me and my Shadow” now. A few couples were dancing. No one noticed me and Bogart as we walked around the edge of the room.

  Leo was still on the door when we went out.

  “You have a talk with Mr. Orsini?” he asked.

  “We had a wonderful conversation,” I said. “Mr. Orsini was very cordial.”

  “Yeah. He’s a nice guy. See you around, Mr. Scott.”

  Not a chance, Leo, I thought.

  We stopped at a drugstore and bought a bottle of Scotch. Bogart paid.

  He didn’t even think to ask about putting it on the expense account.