by Roy Huggins
There was another silence, and then there was a plaintive, gentle click, and I suddenly felt very much alone. I put the receiver back on its hook and stepped out and paced around the lobby for a while, thinking about nothing at all. Then I went upstairs. I used the old You-Ought-to-See-the-Other-Guy gag when Hazel saw my face.
I called Quint at the City Hall. He was at Georgia Street, and the operator got him for me over there.
I said, “This is your latest Brutality Victim, Quint. Where does the line form for complaints?”
“I wouldn't want to tell you. Not over the phone.”
“Don't thank me. I'm not in the mood for it, but I've found your killer for you.”
“Who?” He wasn't interested. He was just playing straight man.
“Her name is Mrs. Ralph Johnston. Lives at 1104 Duarte Road, but I think she's skipped out.”
Quint was interested now. “You found my killer for me. And you think she skipped... You didn't give her all the damned time in the world, did you? Shamus, this is it... Your number's up. You'll be looking for a job as a bell hop next month—if you're not working hard to become a trusty.”
“Take your foot off my neck. As far as I know she's only been gone a few hours, and in her own car.”
He was settling down again. “You got evidence? Or are you just getting rid of one of your women?”
“Nope. No evidence. Just a hunch. I could be wrong.”
“Naw. None of that. You wrong?”
I hung up and stared at the phone for a while, then I got an envelope out of the drawer and dropped a business card into it along with the blue chip with the elaborate design. I sealed the envelope and put it in my pocket and went out the door.
Chapter Nineteen
THE ADDRESS ON BUCKLEY was a white colonial house with two high columns on either side of the front door holding up a porch roof about the size of a bridge table.
An old woman with a face like clabbered milk opened the door and said “Yes” at me in a sour voice. She was dressed in white, and she had a straw hat on her head with a string around it tied under her chin.
I tried to smile but my lip wouldn't let me. “Is Miss Neher in?”
“What's your business?”
I took the envelope out of my pocket. “Would you give this to her—and ask her if she can spare a couple of minutes of her time?”
She took the envelope, looked at it, looked back at me, sneered, and closed the door in my face.
I waited. A couple of sleek cars drove by, rolling down the hill toward Sunset. From somewhere up the hill came the noise of a radio on full volume, and there was a heady scent of magnolia in the still air.
The door opened and the sour voice told me to come in. I stepped into a cool hall and the old woman pointed at some French doors leading outside and said, “She'll see ye. She's in the yard.”
The yard was what nice people would call a garden. It was a kind of flowered atoll, stretching greenly downward and ending at a thick long row of red geraniums that grew in a circle and came around along the house. The only break in the thick growth was at the French doors. Beyond the red bank of flowers, the hill continued upward and became part of the rolling green waste of Brentwood. There were no other houses beyond this one.
In the center there was a little grouping of canvas beach-chairs around a low redwood table, and there was a large green mat on the grass beside the chairs. Irene Neher was sitting in one of the canvas pieces that was almost like a chaise-longue. When I got close she stood up, her fists clenched at her sides. She wore a white halter and shorts that made the tan of her skin deeper than I remembered it, but she was one of those rare women whom clothes don't help a bit. Her face was a little too thin and hard around the mouth, but the hair still held its new-peeled willow beauty. The eyes said she was still young enough to walk away from a hangover. They were brown eyes, and they were afraid of something.
I stopped when I got to the table and looked at her. I still couldn't smile and I waited for her to get things started. She just stood, a little stiffly, and apparently not breathing. She looked at me steadily enough but there was a shrill scream lying somewhere behind her dark eyes. I was afraid it wasn't too far behind.
“What do you want?” Her voice was nice but she slurred the words and the question sounded more like “Whu' chew wawnt?”
The blue chip was lying on the table. I looked at it and said, “Not very much.”
She sat down and folded her hands in her lap.
“Sit down, Mr. Bailey,” she said in a stage whisper. “Were you... were you the one in the room?” I sat down. “How did you know anyone was in the room?”
“Why, I locked it! And those chips are worth fifty dollars apiece. I know how many I had.”
I leaned back and looked at her admiringly. “You certainly keep your head when you have a snout full. I didn't think the chip would mean a thing to you.”
“I guess you know—or you wouldn't be here—how much it means to me to keep this... this episode of last night quiet. But... I can't pay you very much, Mr. Bailey. At least not at one time.” She was leaning toward me, her long legs held tight together and her hands clasped on her knees. Her eyebrows were raised at the inner ends almost in a burlesque of tragedy. “Maybe we could agree on so much at a time...?”
I scowled and said, “How much could you give me this trip?”
She caught her breath and said, “A thousand dollars?”
“In cash?”
She nodded her golden head earnestly.
I shook my head slowly and stared at her. She dropped her eyes to her hands and started playing with her fingers.
“Honey,” I said, “you're the softest touch since O'Hoolihan bought Brooklyn Bridge. Who lets you play house out here all by yourself?”
She looked up at me and her slender face relaxed and the fright hiding in her eyes suddenly disappeared and something else began to dance faintly behind them.
“Then... then you aren't here to blackmail me?”
“No, baby. I should; just to teach you a lesson. But I don't want your thousand dollars. I think you ought to put it in a bank. Or better still, buy some bonds with it.”
She looked at me for a long while. She dropped her eyes to my feet and started there, sweeping slowly up and bringing them to rest on my face again. Then she leaned back in the canvas chair and laughed. It wasn't pretty laughter but it was loud and genuine. She raised one slender leg and slapped the thigh. Then she looked at me again, her eyes dark and shimmering, her face flushed and warm and pretty but still hard around the mouth.
“But you really believed I had the grand. Didn't you?”
The softness had gone out of her voice. It was almost raucous now.
“Why not,” I said. “It fits the rest of your screw-ball act. What was the idea?”
She stood up and yelled, “Hey, Jesus, bring us out some liquor.” Jesus was somebody's name and she gave it the English pronunciation. She sat down again and let her legs fall where they might.
“Was it fun?” I said.
“No. You got out of character too soon.”
“What if I hadn't? It might have made me mad when the sweet touch turned sour.”
She reached under the chair. A Luger was large and ugly in her tiny hand. “This was for when I got bored with you.” She laid it on the table.
A little Filipino boy with a round cherub's face brought out ice, whisky, glasses, and White Rock on a large tray. He put it down on the redwood table and went away again.
She mixed a couple of judicious drinks, gave one to me, and laid the other on the grass beside the green mat.
She gave me a level stare and said, “All right. How in hell did you get into that room?”
“Secret.” I tried to grin.
“You might at least have had the decency to cover me up. When I woke up there were two flunkies in the room drooling at me.”
“I did. You probably kicked it off again.”
“
Oh,” she said softly, and cocked her head at me.
“You know, you interrupted my afternoon communion with Sol. Is your business going to take very long?”
“It shouldn't.”
“Well.” She gave me a slow smile. “I guess I haven't anything to hide from you anyway. Have I, darling?” Then she turned her back to me and stepped over to the green mat. She untied the halter and dropped it on the grass, unhooked the white trunks, dropped them, stepped out of them, and without coyness lay down on the mat on her belly, her blond head toward me.
I said, “Do you have much trouble here with low-flying planes?”
She took a long drink from her glass and ignored the question.
“Now,” she said, “just what can I do for you?”
I decided not to make anything out of that. I said, “It's kind of simple. I was away from Los Angeles for over a year. Just got back about six months ago and I've sort of lost touch with the fringe-boys. Would you like to tell me who operates the Cheviot Drive place?”
“Why?”
“Do you have to know?”
“And even then I doubt if I'll tell you.”
I half-smiled. “It's nice to know that you can tell me —if you decide to.”
She looked up at me and squinted one eye against the sun. She said, “I like you. I think you're a square guy even if you do look like a punch-drunk pug. If you work it just right I might tell you a lot of things.” She smiled, then put her face down on the mat and pulled back her hair so that her shoulders were bare to the sun.
“I'm really a very handsome guy,” I said. “I just got worked on last night—out at the Cheviot place.”
Her head lifted a little and then settled down again. “Go on,” she said.
Without going into too much detail I told her about Red and how I happened to be in the room with her.
“You mean they fell for that hoary gag?”
“You've got to admit it had several new twists this time.”
“Yup. I guess it did.” She had raised her head again and she was chewing on a piece of grass and frowning. “Something's funny there. I don't know any of those guys.”
“Go out there often?”
She squinted at me again, took a drink and said nothing. Somewhere in the house a vacuum cleaner throbbed rhythmically, and I could still faintly hear the sound of the radio up the street.
Finally she said, “I think somebody's cutting capers out of school. I know a party who wouldn't like that at all.”
“You mean someone else runs the place for the man that owns it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Know the guy? The owner, I mean.”
“Kinda.”
“Could you sort of let his name drop? I'll forget where I picked it up.”
She put her head down. “I'll do more than that for you, Mr. B., but first I gotta get in my half-hour, back and front.”
“Listen, honey, there's nothing I'd rather do than sit here watching you lap up vitamin D while I do the same with your liquor. But I've got a lot to do yet today. Be a nice girl and do your good turn first.”
She looked at me again with her mouth open and both eyes squeezed almost shut. “Well I'll be damned,” she mumbled. Then she rolled over, pulled on the shorts, picked up the halter, tied it on without turning her back and strode into the house. I followed her.
She went to a phone in the hall and dialed a number.
“Bruno?... Thiz Boots. Know anyone named Stuart Bailey?... You do... You want'm for something? Really? Well, Spiros must be rentin' concessions. Three guys had him out to the Cheviot Club last night and tried to kill'm... Yup. Sure.”
She pushed the phone at me. “He knows you.”
“That wouldn't be Bruno Des Noyers?”
“None other.”
I took the phone. “I don't know why I didn't look you up in the first place. But I thought you got religion.”
“I did, Stu.” The voice was high, sharp. “Got a nice little legitimate investment firm.”
“Uh-huh. Three floors of the Easterbrook Building.”
“Hah hah! But what's this about Spiros?”
“I don't know any Spiros. Has he got red hair?”
“No. He runs the joint out there for me. Boots says he went over you.”
“A big red-headed guy did. He had a couple of torpedoes with him but he didn't really need them. I'd like to get a round-trip ticket into the Club. Tonight. How about it?”
“Uh... sure, Stu. I owe you something for that Markham deal but I wouldn't want any rough stuff out there.”
“You don't owe me a thing, Bruno. But if you can fix your end of it there won't be any trouble from me. I just want to find out what it's all about.”
“So do I, brother. Consider it fixed.”
“I'll rely on that.”
“Don't worry, slug. Thanks for the chance to repay you. I'd just about given you up.”
“Thanks. By the way, what became of Barky Northwick?”
There was a little pause that might not have meant anything. Then he said, “He drew a couple of years at the College. Don' know if he's out or not.”
“Oh.”
“Lemme talk to Boots. Good luck, Bucko.”
I handed the phone to the girl. She said: “Thanks, honey... Huh?... Oh. Why, he saw my car out there when he was gettin' away. He got my name off the steerin' wheel... What for?... Well, if you say so... G'by.”
She hung up and grinned at me. “He wants me to go with you tonight to make sure Spiros behaves.”
“That'll be fine,” I said. “Promise me something.”
“Sure. What?”
“That you'll keep your clothes on.”
She made a face at me and said, “What have you got on Bruno?”
“Nothing. He was being framed for something he didn't do a few years back and I turned up the man who actually did it. I was working for someone else and I got paid for it.”
She smiled and made a little noise in her throat. “You're a sleuth, huh?”
I headed for the door. “That I am, baby. And I gotta get to sleuthing. Got lots of work to do.”
“Wait! Where'll I see you?”
I turned and looked at her. “Hm. I guess I have to take you. They'll be expecting you with me, probably.”
She put out her under lip and glared at me. “You don't have to if it's going to kill you.” She walked over to the door, one finger in her mouth, her head down so that she looked at me from under her golden eyebrows.
I patted her on her firm little hip and said, “Be ready to go early. I'll call you.”
She smiled and took the finger out of her mouth. “You don't have to come way out here. Where d'you hang your sack?”
I wrote my address and telephone number on a slip of paper for her, and then, as an afterthought, asked her the phone number of the Cheviot Club. She gave it to me and I left. I drove too fast into Hollywood. It was past three o'clock.
Chapter Twenty
THE NORTHWICK ADDRESS in Hollywood turned out to be a liquor store. I parked in a ten-minute zone and went in. It was a large store with a long counter at the back and a gray-haired man in a dark suit sitting behind it. I didn't recognize him until I was up to the counter and he was standing up and coming toward me.
His face and body, even his hair, had grown thin and he was an old man now, although I knew he wasn't much over forty.
“Greetings, Barky. Remember me?”
He looked at me, his face as gray and bleak as the tall rocks at Laguna. Then he gave me a tight-lipped smile and said, Sure. What's it with you?”
“Same old thing. How's the world treating you?”
The smile pulled down a little at the edges and he moved his head to take in the liquor store. He said, “Not as good as when I used to sell the stuff wholesale.” Then he laughed a dry cackling laugh that stopped as abruptly as it began. “What'd ya like? I got some imported scotch. Seein' it's you, I'll give it to you at the ceiling price.”
“Thanks, but I dropped in to see you, Barky. I don't like scotch anyway.”
“Yeah? What about?”
“I'm running something down for your friend Mrs. Cabrillo. I thought you might like to help me.”
The smile dropped and his eyes went blank. He didn't say anything.
I said, “You were out of these parts for quite a while, Barky. They tell me you were at Quentin. Is that right?”
“That's wrong,” he said quietly without moving his lips.
“Don't want to help me out for Mrs. C, huh?”
“How can a guy be a shamus for as long as you and still live?”
I smiled. “I used to worry about that myself.”
“Anything else on your mind?”
“I guess not, Barky.” I turned and started back to the door. Halfway back I stopped and said, “Ever know anyone named Gloria Gay?”
He licked his lips and said nothing.
I was out the door when I heard his, “Hey, Bailey.”
I went back in and stopped at the door.
“Com'ere,” he said, and jerked his head toward his right shoulder. I went back over to the counter and leaned on it.
He looked me over carefully and said, “What's this about Gloria Gay?”
“What about her?”
“I used to know her. In Long Beach. She danced in a couple o' my clubs.”
“That's nice.”
“What's up with her?”
“Nothing, if that's all you know about her.”
“I might know a little more.”
“I can't promise you anything, but there's a chance the dope might be worth something to you.”
He didn't say anything, just looked at me for a long while. Then he said, “I'm gonna tell ya, just because it's so screwy. Been botherin' me all day.”
I waited. I could feel my mouth getting a little dry.
“She called me up this morning. About nine o'clock.” He stopped to see how I would take that.
I nodded and said, “When was the last time you heard from her?”
“That's the funny thing. It's been years. Before I... went out of the state.”