The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs

by Howard Fast

  “You’re gay.”

  “And what you don’t know about gay, Mr. Detective, would fill a book. Sure I’m gay. That doesn’t mean I can’t fall in love with a woman. That doesn’t mean I can’t stop being gay.”

  “But she didn’t marry you?”

  “She would have. She just said that she saw too much of that kind of marriage end up as tragedy. She didn’t want to do it to me or to herself.”

  “So she married Billy Fuller.”

  “Yes.”

  “They were married six months. What broke up that marriage after six months?”

  “Why don’t you ask Mitzie? Why don’t you ask Fuller?”

  “You know damn well that I asked them and that I got nowhere.”

  “Maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe there are some things that even cops don’t have the right to know.”

  “Granted. I’m not curious, Cooper, and I’m not peddling gossip. I could guess the answer to the question I asked you, but it’s no damn use for me to guess. I have to know.”

  Cooper sat with his legs stretched out, staring at his clasped hands. The moments ticked by. Finally he said, “You really think this creep intends to kill those dames?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Mitzie?”

  “Yes, Mitzie.”

  “Okay. Here it is. Mitzie was a hooker, a hundred-dollar-a-night hooker. Billy Fuller married her without knowing that. Can you imagine what it did to a man with Fuller’s phony macho when he found out? I’m amazed he didn’t try to kill her right then and there. Oh, he slapped her around all right. She showed me bruises the size of purple plums. But mostly he cried. Mitzie said if the little bastard weren’t so impossibly nasty, she would have felt sorry for him. That after he used her for a punching bag.”

  “How did he find out?”

  “You always got a good friend who’ll tell you what you don’t have to know.”

  “But when she was married to him, she had stopped?”

  “Hooking? Yes, of course.”

  “I’m not up on all the folkways. Now exactly when did she begin to work as a prostitute?”

  “Is that important?”

  “Yes, very.”

  “Mitzie is twenty-nine. She came to Los Angeles about eight years ago, dreaming the old impossible dream. And it is impossible, believe me. She worked around as a waitress, and that’s when I got to know her, maybe six years ago when she was waiting a joint around the corner. I talked her into a job here, because I wanted her around and because I thought she was the prettiest kid I ever saw. Well, she was already turning a trick every now and then, and after she left here, she didn’t go back to slinging hash.”

  “She became a full-time prostitute.”

  “If you want to call it that.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “I don’t call it. To me, it’s no worse than being a cop.”

  “We won’t discuss that. You said she was a hundred-dollar-a-night girl. You don’t walk the streets and pick up hundred-dollar customers. Did she have a pimp?”

  “No!” Cooper snapped. “She hated their guts.”

  “Then how did she work?”

  “Do you know a place called The Bar?”

  “Just that, The Bar?”

  “That’s right. It’s in Hollywood, up on a hill to the left as you drive into Laurel Canyon. A driveway up to a parking lot, and then from the parking lot up a staircase. It’s got a lot of color and a wonderful view of the city lights. It’s a bar and restaurant, and the food isn’t bad, and it’s the kind of place people go when they don’t want to be seen. There’s always two or three girls working out of the place, and the guy who runs it, George Denton, is pretty decent to the girls. It brings him trade. There’s no cheap pickup. I suppose you could call George a pimp, because if a guy wanted something, George hustled it, but he never took more than ten percent from the girls. Mitzie worked out of that place until she met Fuller. I guess she met him two years ago. He gave her a couple of small parts, but she was no great shakes as an actress.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Masuto rose and held out his hand. “Thanks, Cooper.”

  Cooper took his hand. “Forgive me for not getting up. I’m washed out. I work my ass off in this place, and I don’t know for what.”

  Masuto let himself out, closing the door behind him.

  A strange world, Masuto thought, wherein he earned his daily bread, a world of sunshine and palm trees and million-dollar mansions where a girl with the face of an angel was a hooker and a Zen Buddhist was a cop and a grocery store in Beverly Hills sold tomatoes for a dollar and seventy cents a pound and a boutique sold dresses that weighed less than a pound for three thousand dollars. But, he wondered as he got into his car, was any world less strange? On a planet gone mad and apparently intent upon destroying itself, was Beverly Hills abnormal?

  He maintained his sanity and his equanimity by refraining from judgments. He did his work, and although it was past quitting time, he still had work to do.

  He drove north to Santa Monica Boulevard and then to Sunset Boulevard, through the Strip into Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Somewhere in back of his mind was a recollection of a place called The Bar. It went back through the years, but the more he plucked at it, the more it eluded him.

  There on his left was the modest sign and the arrow. THE BAR. He turned onto the driveway and drove up to the parking lot, a high angle drive about a hundred yards long. Half a dozen cars were already there. Against the wall of the hill, a wooden staircase went up another forty feet or so.

  Masuto climbed the staircase. From the landing at the top, the view was magnificent, the whole of the Los Angeles bowl spread out in front of him, glittering in the night like some vast jewel. He was never unconscious of the beauty of Los Angeles. The beauty resisted the most fervent march of tackiness and bad taste that the development, which is euphemistically called civilization, had ever produced. The beauty fought back, even, as Masuto thought in his more optimistic moments, as truth and decency fought back.

  He looked at the view for a moment or two more, and then he went inside. Like most Los Angeles restaurants, the place was underlit. Lamps on the tables, a few lights at the entrance, but for the most part a muted interior. There was a bar, a screen, and a dozen tables. At the far end, a spinet piano at which a black man improvised the blues.

  A tall, good-looking man of about fifty, dark-haired, with a long, narrow face that had become habitually fixed in an expressionless mask, wearing working evening clothes, approached Masuto. He studied the detective, examining his battered tweed jacket, his wrinkled gray flannel trousers, and his tieless shirt.

  “Can I help you?” The noncommittal question which left a variety of outs.

  Masuto showed his badge.

  “Would you come into the light?”

  Obligingly, Masuto put the wallet which contained his badge under the reservation light. “Detective Sergeant Masuto,” he said. “Beverly Hills police.”

  “Aren’t you out of your territory, Sergeant?”

  “Mr.—”

  “George Denton.”

  “I see. This is your place?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Now I’m sure,” Masuto said, “that you know enough about the way the law functions in Los Angeles County to know that I can go anywhere in the county in pursuit.”

  “Is that what you’re doing?” Denton asked sardonically. “Hot pursuit? Isn’t that what the law says?”

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “Well, look around you. I know every customer in the place. No criminals. So unless you got a warrant, I’d rather not have the fuzz around. It gives my place a bad name.”

  “Your place has a bad name.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just this,” Masuto said quietly. “You’re running a classy whorehouse. Now I don’t mind you defending your business, but don’t knoc
k mine. I’m a mild-mannered person, but I’ve had a long day, and I’d just as soon come down on you like a ton of bricks as not. I don’t owe you one damn thing, and if you think I couldn’t smash this joint and close up your lousy business, just try me. And if you think I’m off my own turf, I’ll pick up that phone and have two black-and-whites here in five minutes, and then you can tell your story to the L.A. cops.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. Hold on.”

  “And you’ll address me as Sergeant Masuto.”

  “Okay, Sergeant. Okay. Look, I run a quiet, decent place here. No one gets cheated and no one gets rolled. I been in business twelve years and I never had no trouble. You can’t blame me for getting a little riled when a Beverly Hills investigator comes in and starts asking questions. My God, why would you want to close me up? I’ll show you places in Beverly Hills with five times the action we ever have here.”

  “I don’t want to close you up. I want some information.”

  “Okay, Sure. Come over here and sit down.” He led Masuto to a small table near the bar. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No, thank you. Do you know Mitzie Fuller?”

  “She was Mitzie Kogan when I knew her. That was before she married Billy Fuller. I suppose he found out that she had turned a few tricks, and that finished their marriage. She was a good kid. A real beauty. A real strawberry blonde beauty. But she hasn’t been back here since she met Fuller. She told me she wasn’t coming back. I was glad. I wished her luck.”

  “That was how long ago?”

  “Almost two years ago.”

  “And before that, how long did Mitzie work out of this place?”

  “Three years, give or take a few months.”

  “How did it work?” Masuto asked. “I mean, what time did she turn up?”

  “Between eight and nine most of the time. You can see, there’s not much action before then. Of course, there were nights when she’d come in at six or seven and just hang around listening to Joe over there playing the piano. She was crazy about his blues, and you don’t hear much blues these days, nothing but rock.”

  “Joe was working here then?”

  “That’s right. I keep my help. That ought to say something about the kind of a place I run.”

  “Would Mitzie stand at the bar or sit at a table?”

  “Sometimes the bar, sometimes a table, sometimes up there with Joe. It would depend. Say, what’s she into? I’d hate to see that kid get hurt.”

  “So would I.” Masuto took a picture out of his pocket. “Do you know this man?”

  “I know him,” Denton said, studying the picture. “His name was Smith, but that ain’t his name. Nobody’s name is Smith.”

  “Do you know his real name?”

  “No. I’m not curious about the customers’ names.”

  “When did he first come here? Can you remember?”

  “Jesus—who can remember? Maybe four years ago, maybe a little more. He gave Mitzie a short fling. Then he turned up with a girl, and after that, no more Mitzie. Mitzie left him alone. Like she never saw him.”

  “He came back with the girl—or was that the last time?”

  “He came back, two or three times a week. Why not? My food is as good as anything in L.A. and the prices are not out of line. I don’t bother people and I don’t ask questions.”

  “Didn’t he use a credit card?”

  “No, cash. Always cash. That’s all right. This is a place where men come with other men’s wives. It happens. I handle a lot of cash.”

  “Always with the same girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how long did that go on?” Masuto asked.

  “Maybe nine months.”

  “And what did he call the girl? And what did she call him? If they were here that many times, you must have heard names.”

  “Yeah. She called him Jack and he called her Kate.”

  Masuto took out of his pocket the picture of Kelly—Catherine—Addison that Beckman had lifted from the album in Laura Crombie’s bedroom. He put it in front of Denton.

  “That’s the girl.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  He put the picture back in his pocket. “What was their relationship?” he asked Denton.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. You watched them night after night. Were they sleeping with each other?”

  Denton shrugged. “I’d say so. I don’t know what the kid saw in him, except that he was good-looking and knew his way around. These stupid kids go for older men. I didn’t like him. I felt he was a bastard. So did Mitzie. But what the hell, it was no business of mine.”

  “Can I talk to Joe?” Masuto asked, nodding at the black pianist.

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s his memory?”

  “Better than mine.”

  He took Masuto over to the black pianist. “Joe, this is Sergeant Masuto of the Beverly Hills police.”

  Joe nodded and went on playing. “A Nisei. They’re beginning to integrate.”

  “Talk to him.”

  “I’m not crazy for fuzz,” Joe said.

  “I said, talk to him.”

  “Okay, boss. I’ll talk.” He stopped playing. Masuto took out the two pictures. Joe nodded. “That’s right. That’s the poor kid who went off the road up on Mulholland. Her name was Catherine Addison. You remember,” he said to Denton, “I told you about that.”

  Denton didn’t remember. He wasn’t covering, Masuto decided, he just hadn’t remembered. He remembered now.

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant,” he said.

  “He don’t read the papers. I do,” Joe said. “I think I told him but I’m not sure.”

  “Was she here the night she died?” Masuto asked him.

  The black man closed his eyes and with one finger began to pick out a mournful tune on the piano. Masuto waited. Denton turned away to deal with a customer.

  “Yes,” Joe finally said.

  “And the man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they happy?”

  “What’s happy, Sarge? Who’s happy? No, they was not happy. The kid was crying. She came to me and asked me to play ‘Blues in the Night.’ I ain’t crazy for it, but I played it.”

  “Was Mitzie here that night.”

  The black man’s eyes turned cold, as if he had pulled a film over them. “I don’t know nothing about Mitzie.”

  “I like Mitzie,” Masuto said. “I’m trying to save her life. Maybe what you tell me could save her life. That’s the truth.”

  He thought about it for a while, his finger picking out a tune again. Then he said, “Yeah, Mitzie was here. Mitzie came over to me and asked me if I knew why the kid was crying. I remember because we never saw her again. We never saw Smith either.”

  “You wouldn’t remember what time that was?”

  “Jesus, man, you want a lot, don’t you? That was over three years ago. All right, I can tell you this. It was before the tables began to fill, so maybe it was before eight o’clock.”

  “Thanks, Joe,” Masuto said.

  “No sweat. Only don’t make it hard for George. He’s a decent man.”

  Chapter 14

  The Killer

  “Am I going to have trouble?” George Denton asked Masuto.

  “Not unless you make it for yourself. I’m not a vice cop. Now I have to use a telephone.”

  “Sure—sure, Sergeant. Use this one right here.”

  Masuto dialed Laura Crombie’s number. It was busy. He dialed it again. Busy. He was becoming increasingly nervous, increasingly irritated. Couples were coming into the restaurant now, an occasional single woman, an occasional single man. The women were good-looking, the men well-dressed, middle-aged. An open menu told him that the least expensive entree was twelve dollars.

  He dialed again. Beckman answered. “Masao—thank God! We been turning the town upside down for you.”

  “What happen
ed?”

  “Mitzie’s gone.”

  Masuto controlled an impulse to explode with anger. “All right,” he said evenly. “Tell me exactly what happened, short and quick.”

  “She got a call from someone said he was Wainwright, and he said he was calling for you, and she was to meet you.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. All the ladies know is that it was a bar.”

  “God damn you, where the hell were you?” Masuto demanded.

  “In the can, taking a crap.”

  “Oh, great—in the can!”

  “There are times when you got to.”

  “And you called Wainwright and it wasn’t Wainwright.”

  “Right. Jesus, Masao, who would think of it? She saw a chance to get sprung and she shot out of here in that yellow Porsche of hers. We got out an All Points. What do I do now?”

  “Don’t let either of those women out of your sight, if you have to tie them up. Wait a minute. What did she say—a bar or the bar?”

  “Hold on.”

  Masuto heard Beckman calling out to the women, “What did Mitzie say—a bar or the bar?”

  And then in the phone, “Masao, they think she said The Bar.”

  “All right. Tell Wainwright to put everything he has on that yellow Porsche.”

  Masuto slammed down the phone and bolted out of the door of the restaurant. Below him, he saw the yellow Porsche pull into the parking lot. A man stood there. As the yellow car stopped, the man opened the right-hand door and got in. Masuto was already racing down the stairs, three at a time, as the Porsche pulled out of the parking lot.

  Masuto took the last six steps in a single bound, ran to his car, started the motor, and then found the narrow driveway blocked by an incoming car. He waited, cursing himself for being a fool, for not having a second man in the house with Beckman, for not seeing the whole pattern and anticipating what would happen—and most terribly for a death that he could have prevented.

  The driveway was clear, and he shot down it to the Laurel Canyon intersection. The Porsche was nowhere in sight. He had two choices. He could turn right down into the city of Los Angeles, and if the Porsche had gone that way, it was hopeless even to dream of finding it. That might be the clever turn for the Porsche if the man knew he was being followed. But there was no reason for him to suspect that he was being followed. On the other hand, if Masuto turned left, the road led up to Mulholland Drive, and in the past there was a connection with Mulholland Drive.