Vein of Violence

by William Campbell Gault

  “A number of them. I doubt if there’s a murderer in a carload of them, though.”

  “Murder is a state of mind,” I said. “There must have been a few enemies in the gang. There must have been some feuds you know about.”

  “A thousand,” he agreed. “But how many of them were current, I couldn’t know. One thing about Hollywood feuds, most of them are highly impermanent. And quite a few of them, of course, exist only in the minds of the publicity men who spawn them and the gullible fans who read that garbage. I can’t honestly think of a single person at that party who hated Mary Mae enough to do what was done. She wasn’t — indiscriminately malicious, you know. She made the right enemies and none of the important ones would be invited to her party.”

  Perhaps, I thought, Miss Thorne would invite the important ones. If she knew she was to inherit all that money. …

  “What are you thinking?” John Davenport asked.

  “Something I’m not free to voice.” I stood up. “Well, good luck with your new career.”

  “Thank you,” he said. He looked uncomfortable for a moment. “I suppose Mr. Gallup won’t be financing any picture, now.”

  “I doubt it.”

  He cleared his throat. “In the event you see him, you might mention that I have a rather — interesting part in ‘Playhouse 90’ Thursday night. It could — lead somewhere. “

  “I’ll be sure to tell him,” I promised. “He’s a great fan of yours.”

  He had been a star in a medium run by fools and was now trying to get a new start in a medium run by thieves. Some life. And still young men aspired to be actors.

  It was six o’clock and most of the going-home traffic was already home. To my right, now, were the stone pillars that flanked the driveway leading to Homer’s horror.

  A car coming from the other direction had stopped, its signal flashing, waiting to turn into the driveway. It was a Merc with Florida plates, and though I didn’t get a clear look at the driver, what I saw of him convinced me it was Everett Milgrim.

  I had an impulse to go back but a stonger impulse to feed my growling stomach. I drove on, toward Carl’s Steak House.

  Carl’s steaks were nothing special but he had Einlicher and it was a benediction I owed myself after the frustrating day. I sipped and thought of Everett Milgrim.

  Homer and Aunt Sheila wouldn’t be moving in for another week. Which meant that Everett had gone there to see either Joyce Thorne or Raymond Yoshida. I had to assume it was Miss Thorne.

  And from there I had a choice of two assumptions. Everett had gone to see her one of two ways — invited or uninvited.

  Miss Thorne, despite her air of cool competence, was on the lamb side of my ledger and I had a pathological compulsion to always protect the lambs. Against the lions or the wolves or even a fox like Mary Mae’s no-good brother, Everett.

  So two Einlichers and one T-bone later, I was again chugging down Sunset, the flivver complaining of these extra hours of labor. It was dark now, and a thin rind of moon looked compassionately down from a star-speckled sky. It was a sumptuous, silky night, an M-G-M epic type of night, the kind of nights we used to have before the corn-belt invasion.

  I turned off Sunset into an even older world, between the stone pillars, and the rasp of gravel under my retreaded tires whispered sadly, longing for the feel of buggy wheels.

  It seemed cooler suddenly, the stars hidden by the poplars overhead, the thin moon lost behind the towering castle at the end of the road. There was a dim light in the apartment over the garage and a brighter light showing in Miss Thorne’s cottage.

  There was no sign of the Florida Mercury. I parked just beyond the drawbridge, in the shadow of an immense bird of paradise tree, and walked quietly back toward the garages. I wanted to see the parking area on the far side.

  There was no Mere here either. From overhead came the sound of music, oriental music, dissonant, with a complex rhythm, and a shadow moved behind the lighted window above. I walked carefully back toward the cottage.

  The door chime was audible from where I stood. In a few seconds, a voice said, “Who is it?”

  “Brock Callahan, Miss Thorne.”

  A pause and, “Just a minute, please.”

  Footsteps, going and coming, and when she finally opened the door, she was wearing a robe.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Were you about to retire?”

  She shook her head. “I was about to change. I intended to go out for dinner, but I don’t think I will. Come in.”

  I came into the gabled living room. All the drapes were drawn except one at the far end of the room.

  “Sit down,” she said, and I sat on a soft, long sofa upholstered in a flowered, nubby fabric.

  “Drink?” she asked.

  I shook my head and wondered at the change in her. She hadn’t been this cordial this morning. I said, “I was driving past here on my way to dinner when I saw a car turn in. I have reason to think the driver was Everett Milgrim. Did he come to see you?”

  Her blue eyes grew wide and she said quietly. “No, he didn’t. Was it a cream-colored car with a Florida license?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He went to see Raymond,” she said. “Mr. Yoshida. He spent almost an hour there. Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. He’s — not the most solid citizen in the world, this Milgrim, you know.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “I know. I — need a drink.” She turned and went toward the dining L, out of my range of vision.

  A phone rang and she must have picked it up in there, because I heard her say, “I’ve decided to stay home.” Pause. “No, not tonight.” Pause. “Do that.” Pause. “Please, don’t be a pest. Good night.” The clack of the phone being replaced on its cradle.

  She came back into the room, a long glass in her hand, an amber liquid, loaded with ice cubes.

  “Two-bit producers,” she said. She lifted the glass. “Phooey!” She drank.

  “They’re used to better treatment in this town,” I said. “You never know when one of them might connect.”

  “This one never will. He never gets out of the bedroom long enough to function. Are you sure you don’t want a drink, Mr. Callahan?”

  “I rarely drink,” I said. “Perhaps, later.”

  She sat in the chintzy, upholstered chair and the robe fell away from her leg. The ivory of her skin glowed in the light from the far end of the room. An indoor girl, a hot-house flower….

  “I treated you badly this morning, didn’t I?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m used to it. Are you frightened tonight?”

  She stared, then nodded. “Perceptive, aren’t you? I suppose that’s a requirement of your — profession. It is a profession, isn’t it?”

  “It depends on who’s running it, I guess, Miss Thorne. To some it’s a trade and to others a racket. I try to stay professional, but it isn’t always easy. Tell me, how close were your mother and Miss Milgrim?”

  She said slowly, “I think my mother was as close to Mary Mae as any person ever was. People — confided in my mother.”

  “What’s her background — Mary Mae’s, I mean?”

  Joyce Thorne paused, sipping her drink thoughtfully. “I suppose it sounds disloyal, but I’d call it a pseudo-Southern, small-town gentility. She played the — the vulnerable daughter and took some satisfaction, I’m sure, in her brother’s role of the spoiled son.”

  “Pseudo-Southern — ? You mean she wasn’t from the South?”

  “Northern Indiana. Is that the real South?”

  “I suppose not. It’s a Big Ten state and I’ve always considered that the Middle West, but I’m thinking athletically, I guess.” My glance moved to the ivory calf and returned to her blue eyes. “She really didn’t hate her brother then?”

  She frowned. “I’m no psychiatrist. But I think she was glad she had a relative to hate. I had a feeling she would have felt worse without a worthless relative. Does that make sens
e?”

  “I don’t know. Would it be like a — a martyr complex?”

  She shook her head. Then she smiled. “Perhaps it made her feel more authentically Southern, having a worthless brother. Her ideas of authenticity came from a wide background of reading among the second-rate female historical novelists.”

  This cool dissecting of a shallow personality was different from her morning’s declaration of love for Mary Mae. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “I’m shocking you,” she said.

  “Ah-no.”

  “I loved her. But that wouldn’t make me blind. She was kind to me and never once made me feel inferior in any way. I — loved her and always will.”

  “And why are you frightened tonight?” I asked.

  She stared at the floor. “That — castle. Those shadows. And my God, it — happened last night, didn’t it? I’m not steel.”

  A light flashed across the one undraped window and brought both our heads around that way. It was a headlight from Sunset Boulevard that had reflected off the windshield of my car out in the courtyard.

  Joyce Thorne expelled her breath slowly. “Is that your car out there?”

  “Yes. Didn’t you see me drive up?”

  “I must have been in the bathroom.” She stood up and went over to pull the unpulled drape. Her silk robe swished softly as she walked.

  “I need another drink,” she said, and went into the dining L again.

  My God, it happened last night, didn’t it…. She was so right. I had assumed Everett Milgrim had flown out as soon as he was notified. I had assumed that in my office. But he was here with his car. He hadn’t driven out here in that length of time; he must have been in town before Mary Mae was killed.

  Joyce Thorne came back with a new drink and I asked her, “Was there some kind of crisis looming in the Milgrim family?”

  “No. Not to my knowledge.” She sat in the chintzy chair again and the robe slid higher this time. “Why?”

  “I wondered why her brother was in town. Do you know how long he’s been in town?”

  She shook her head.

  “This morning you told me he’d been notified. Who notified him?”

  “Miss Milgrim’s attorney. A man named McAllister; I forget the name of the firm. They’re on Beverly Drive.”

  I put the name down, the efficient investigator, trying not to think of that lustrous thigh now visible.

  She said, “You went to visit my folks this morning, didn’t you?”

  “This afternoon,” I admitted. “I thought your mother could give me some revealing information on Miss Milgrim. Your mother’s quite a girl.”

  She nodded and smiled.

  “Still frightened?” I asked her.

  She nodded again. “That Yoshida — Is it bigotry to be afraid of him?”

  “Partially, I suppose. Has he ever given you reason to be afraid of him?”

  “N-no. He has a rather superior and enigmatic smile and I never thought he had the — humility you’d expect from a gardener, but he’s certainly never been insolent.”

  I said nothing. And for seconds, she said nothing. The silence seemed to make her nervous; she pulled the robe over her leg and glanced briefly at the window at the far end of the room. She picked at some lint on the robe.

  “Well,” I said, “I’d better be going.”

  She looked up quickly. “Not yet — You don’t have to go right now, do you?”

  “Not if you’re still frightened. Would you feel better if I slept here tonight?”

  Some color in the ivory cheeks and her chin lifted.

  “I’m a well-trained domestic animal,” I assured her, “and come only when called. You needn’t fear me.”

  “What would people say?” she asked softly.

  “What people? Yoshida?”

  She nodded.

  “He’d gossip, probably,” I agreed. “Why don’t you go to a hotel for the night?”

  “No. I — wish you’d have a drink.”

  I didn’t know where we were heading, but it looked like an interesting road. “Okay,” I said. “Bourbon and water, light on the bourbon.” I was getting to be a real soak.

  So we sat and talked, but not about the murder. She told me about her five years at UCLA and I gave her the highlights of my stellar career at Stanford and with the Rams. We got to be friends, kind of.

  Don’t get me wrong; no woman can buy me with her body. But only a prude would discourage them from trying.

  NINE

  A LADY OF decorum in the drawing room, a cool, intelligent and articulate beauty, this Joyce Arden Thorne, gracious hostess, efficient secretary. A woman, you would guess, with her emotions under proper discipline and a not-too-obvious eye for the main chance.

  In the bedroom, she was savage, withdrawing, squirming away, staging it as though it were rape, with many hoarse protestations followed by even more furious demands and soaring co-operation. In the drawing room, adjusted; horizontally, a complex savage.

  Spent, scratched, one ear bitten, in the servants’ cottage, quiescent and bewildered, I lay next to the marble and pink body.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she said quickly.

  “I haven’t the strength for an idea. What ideas shouldn’t I get?”

  “Any romantic notions — or hopes. This was — medical. “

  I said nothing.

  “A girl can stay bottled up just so long. You arrived at a fortunate moment.”

  “For whom? For you or for me?”

  Silence from her and then a small, smothered laugh. “I deserved that, I guess. I’m tired. Are you tired?”

  “I’m tired. I’ll find another bed. If you have any further demands, ring for me.” I took a blanket along and went out to the soft, long couch in the living room.

  There, as I settled down, I thought of the two-bit producer and wondered if I had robbed him of the sustenance of all two-bit producers. I had other hobbies but producers were inclined to be single-minded about their recreational pursuits.

  Well, it was too late to help him now; I stretched and yawned and tried not to think of Jan. That was always the hardest part, trying not to think of Jan. I am monogamous by instinct, but Jan is emotionally erratic, with long barren stretches for which I must maintain outside sources.

  Women…. The poor bedeviled devils. … I fell asleep feeling sorry for the producer.

  In the morning, I woke early. From far below, on Sunset, a siren wailed and it might have been that which had wakened me. There was no sound in the house.

  The blanket was stifling me, the pillow I’d borrowed from her bed was wet with perspiration. She had probably forgotten to turn down the thermostat last night. I rose and went to the bathroom.

  I found a razor and shaved. I showered and dressed and went out to the living room again. Still no sound from her and an unreasonable nervousness moved through me and I went to her open bedroom to check.

  She was lying on her bed, uncovered, unclothed, as naked as I had left her last night. She had a beautifully shaped body and at the moment it was as quiet as statuary. I stared, searching for a sign of her breathing.

  She opened her eyes and said, “Voyeur? Close the door, please, from the other side of it.”

  I closed the door and went to the kitchen. I drank two glasses of milk and rummaged for some eggs and bacon. There were both and I took them out and opened some more cabinet doors until I found the toaster and the bread box.

  I heard the water running in the bathroom as I was taking the butter out of the refrigerator. I went into the living room with yesterday’s afternoon paper.

  She came in there about five minutes later to ask, “Does all that preparation in the kitchen mean you planned to have breakfast here?”

  “If it’s all right with you,” I answered. “I hate those drugstore lunch-counter breakfasts.”

  She sighed. “I hope you won’t think it’s unduly maidenly of me, but I’ve never faced a man over a breakfast tab
le in my own place before.”

  “Okay,” I said, “I’ll go.”

  “No. Stay. I suppose it’s good training for marriage.”

  It was a mistake. She was strained and embarrassed, as though I had uncovered a major character defect in her.

  We were on our coffee when her door chime sounded. She looked doubtfully at me and then at the clock above the sink. It was only eight o’clock.

  A pause, and then she rose and went to the door.

  I could hear our visitor’s voice from where I sat. It was Homer. He said, “We wanted to look at the house, but we forgot to bring a key. We thought you might have one.”

  We, we, we…. Who was “we”? He and Aunt Shelia? Or he and Aunt Shelia and Jan? Jan would recognize my car. And then I realized Homer would too. He had recognized it on the parking lot.

  Joyce said, “I have a key. Wait; I’ll get it.”

  I had an impulse to go out to talk with him, but an even stronger impulse to sit where I was sitting.

  Joyce brought the key and Homer thanked her. And then added, “By the way, is that Mr. Callahan’s car in the court?”

  I started to get up — and Joyce said, “I think so. He was measuring the moat a little while ago, over there near the drawbridge. He might be talking with Mr. Yoshida. He spent a lot of time with him yesterday.”

  Homer thanked her again and I heard the door close.

  Joyce came back to the kitchen, her color high, her eyes avoiding mine. She walked right over to a drawer and took out a small, ten-foot steel measuring tape.

  She said hoarsely, “Mr. and Mrs. Gallup are out there. And Miss Bonnet!” She set the tape on the kitchen table noisily. “I hope you overheard my explanation.”

  “I did,” I said. “I — uh — ”

  She picked the tape up again and slapped it into my hand. She pointed. “The back door. Right there!”

  It was kind of undignified, I thought. I hadn’t been the aggressor last night. A guilty participant, yes, but most of it had been her idea.

  I said, “Good morning,” stiffly and went out the back door.

  From the rear of the castle, I heard the racket of a power mower, and I worked that way, trying to keep as much shrubbery as possible between me and any views from the castle.