“Thanks,” I said. “This is a fifty-buck suit.”
He shook his head. “A fifty-buck suit and a six-year-old junker and a two-bit office. A man with your guts — it sure as hell beats me.”
“It’s a disease,” I explained, “called honesty.”
“I know,” he said. “We got an uncle like that, huh, Jack?” He put a hand on my back. “Get in, get down, and shut up.”
I didn’t make the entire trip on the floor, this time. After we were well away from the neighborhood we’d left, Manny said, “Okay, Puma, you can get up now.”
I straightened up and moved into the seat beside him. He handed me my gun and then the cartridges which he had removed. I put the gun into my holster, the cartridges into my jacket pocket.
From the front seat, Jack said, “What happened up there?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Manny said.
In the rearview mirror, I could see Jack’s glance meeting Manny’s. I gave my attention to the passing cars. We were on Wilshire, heading west toward Brentwood. The place we had come from was therefore closer toward downtown.
There were a zillion restaurants in western Los Angeles; I would probably never see that steel door again.
“You’re quiet,” Manny said.
“For a change,” Jack added.
“I’ve been thinking about Al,” I told him. “He’s not really a pro, is he? Bugsy was.”
“Bugsy’s dead,” Manny answered. “You worry about your problems, Puma, and we’ll take care of ours.”
I went back to watching the traffic, glad to be alive, looking forward hungrily to a big lunch.
The car swung off Wilshire and went whispering down the tree-lined side street toward my car. We were moving briskly; Jack didn’t see the Department car ahead of mine until it was almost too late.
Then he hit the brakes and the tires squealed.
“Keep going,” Manny ordered. “Park behind Puma’s car.”
“You crazy?” Jack asked. “You can’t trust that peeper, Manny.” He turned around. “He’s got us cold; we couldn’t beat this one.”
“Park behind Puma’s car and let him out,” Manny said.
It was too late, now. Sergeant Marty Dugan had stepped from the curb behind the Cad and he came up to show his belligerent Irish face in the window next to Jack.
He had a gun held high and he motioned for Jack to lower the window. The power window slid down noiselessly. Sergeant Dugan leaned in and grinned at me.
“Cold, huh? Kidnaping, right, Joe? Thornton won’t beat this one.”
In the great silence that followed, I said, “I wasn’t kidnaped.”
Marty’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie, Joe. That Veller woman saw it all. You were sapped.” He reached in and took the keys from the ignition. “Get out, all of you.”
We got out slowly and stood in a row on the curb side of the Cadillac. A uniformed officer was there, now, his gun drawn.
“Turn around,” Dugan said harshly. “Put your hands up on the top of the car.”
“This is silly, Marty,” I said. “Shut up and turn around!”
The three of us turned and he relieved us of our guns. We turned back, as a detective I knew only slightly came over toward us.
“Get that woman out here,” Marty told him. “I want her to identify these men.”
Cars were slowing, their occupants rubbernecking. The uniformed man went out to wave them on. On the sidewalk up the street a ways, a knot of citizens had gathered.
“Marty,” I said, “get some dignity. We could do all this down at the station.”
He glared at me, all friendliness gone. “For the last time, Puma, shut up!”
I inhaled and stared at the sidewalk.
“You couldn’t lick ‘em,” he said, “so you joined ‘em.”
I looked up and stared at him. I thought of his visit to me this morning and felt shame.
“Or maybe they scared you,” he went on. “You were scared enough this morning.”
“I was hungry this morning. I’m hungry now. How long will this farce last?”
His face tightened and he took half a step toward me. There was a tense moment all around and then Miss Veller came along the sidewalk, a shawl over her shoulders, her thin face anxious. The detective was with her.
“Are these the men you told us about?” Dugan asked. “Would you identify them?”
For a split second, Miss Veller’s glance rested on the gleaming Cadillac, as though in speculation. I don’t know what she was thinking but she could have been thinking about the money Jack had mentioned when we were all in her apartment.
Whatever she was thinking, nobody was prepared for what she said. She said, “I think I recognize Mr. Puma. These other men I don’t know.” Her look at Marty was innocent and anxious. “Isn’t the tall one Mr. Puma?”
He said quietly, “Miss Veller, you know them all, all three of them. I want the truth. You don’t want trouble and I want the truth.”
Her chin went up. “Whose truth? Yours or mine? I’m telling you my truth.”
“One more chance,” he said grimly. “Who are they?”
“I think the tall one is Mr. Puma,” she said. “He is a friend of Mr. Delamater’s.”
The detective said, “Why don’t we take all of them, including Miss Veller, down to the station, Sergeant?”
Marty said nothing, nor did he move.
I said, “And then Thornton will come down and Apoyan’s blood pressure will go up again, and what will be gained?” Marty said, “Thornton? Will he be representing you, too?” “Never,” I said. “Why not?”
“I’m not a hoodlum, Marty.” “Prove it,” he said.
“Look it up,” I said. “Half the stations in town and downtown, too, look it up.”
“Anybody can change,” he said. I said nothing.
Manny said, “Whatever we do, let’s do it quick. I don’t like to be stared at by all these damned yokels.”
Dugan ignored him. He said to me, “I suppose you made some kind of deal. They gave you some information and you promised them secrecy.” I shrugged.
“A promise to scum like this,” he said, “doesn’t have to be honored.”
I said nothing.
Miss Veller said, “Is that all? I’m getting cold.” “You can go,” he said.
She went back toward the house and Marty took the Lefkowics guns from his pocket. He threw them on the grass of the parkway in front of their feet. “Beat it. And stay out of my sight.”
They picked up their guns and climbed back into the Cad. Nobody said anything as they drove away.
When they were out of sight, Marty handed me my gun. “Empty, huh? All right, let’s have it now. They’re gone.”
“You know better than that. I have to work my way. Unless I want to go out of business or die suddenly, I have to work a special way. But don’t ever be confused about what side I’m on. Are you hungry?”
“I haven’t had lunch,” he said. “Why?”
“I’ll buy you a hamburger,” I said. “I want to talk about some angles.”
He looked at the detective and the man nodded. “I’ll carry on here.”
As we walked over to my car, I asked, “When did Miss Veller phone you?”
“About ten minutes ago. Why?”
Ten minutes. She had waited long enough.
I didn’t answer his question. I put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll talk over the hamburger. I’m so hungry I’m sick.”
He shrugged off my hand and stepped into the Plymouth.
We went to a drive-in but ate inside, at the counter. I ordered four hamburgers and a double order of French fries; Marty had a cheeseburger.
Without in any way indicating I had been kidnaped, I told him about the restaurant and the rooms above with the phones. And I said, “It looks to me like Al Martino wants to muscle into the local boxing picture. Maybe Barney Delamater will be a partner, or maybe just a stooge.”
“
Where is this restaurant?” he asked me.
He’d backed me into a corner. Could I tell him I’d made the trip on the floor of the Cadillac?
“Well?” he prodded.
“When I told the boys I wanted to see Martino,” I answered, “they said they’d take me to him, but I couldn’t watch the route. I kept my eyes closed.” He used a vulgar word.
“I couldn’t even tell you what the front looks like,” I went on. “We came in at the back entrance, through a steel door behind a lattice work fence. It was a U-shaped court off a dead-end alley, somewhere on the west side of town.”
“You went through all this in ten minutes?”
“Miss Veller lied about that,” I said, “and she’s the one I want to talk about. I want a round-the-clock surveillance on her.”
“From us, I suppose? While you’re out hobnobbing with hoodlums — ”
I said nothing, annoyance growing in me.
“Give me one reason,” he said bitterly, “why we should cooperate with you.”
“Because I can’t watch Miss Veller twenty-four hours a day. Even I have to sleep and eat and go to the bathroom.”
He munched on his cheeseburger. He sipped some coffee. He said nothing.
“I have a very strong hunch,” I explained, “that she’s planning blackmail. It’s our first break, Marty.”
“In your opinion,” he said. “You’re not running the Department. We already have a choice suspect.” He paused. “We learned something about Terry Lopez.”
“What?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
“He didn’t go home after the fight. His alibi is cracked.”
“He admits it?”
Sergeant Dugan made a face. “He won’t even admit his name. We got this from — one of our informants.” “You got him in custody?”
“Not yet. We’re doing to him what you want us to do to Marie Veller. He’s our break.” “Why watch him?”
“Because he’s probably tied up with your friends, with Martino and his torpedoes. When we get that tie-up, we’ve got a case.” He paused. “On all of them.”
I didn’t argue any more with him. He wasn’t in a reasonable mood.
After dropping him off, I drove to the nearest drugstore to call Apoyan, but he wasn’t at the station. I thought of going back to begin my vigil on Marie Veller, but it seemed logical to me that she wouldn’t be contacting anyone so soon after a visit from the police.
I called my phone-answering service and was told that Mary Loper had phoned at one o’clock and would expect a return call. It was now three.
I phoned her; there was no answer.
Had she, I hoped, regretted her cruel treatment of me this morning, her unjustified jealousy? Or did she have something important to tell me? With the new police interest in her brother, it was possible she wanted to talk about him.
Perhaps she figured I had a pipeline into Headquarters, that I had some influence that might get her brother off the hook. No, that was unfair and absurd. My attitudes were too cynical from constantly dealing with the wrong people.
I went back, intending to park somewhere near the Galbini apartment house so I could watch Marie Veller. Instead, I saw her when I was still two blocks from her place. She was walking toward San Vicente.
I gave her two blocks and kept her in sight all the way to the grocery store in the small shopping district off the Boulevard. Here, I waited until she went in and watched to see if she was taking a basket.
She was and that meant at least ten minutes of shopping. I went into the liquor store next door, to phone Apoyan again.
He was in, now, and he said, “Sergeant Dugan told me what you wanted. I can give you one man for one night, tonight, from six until six tomorrow morning. And that’s it.”
“Don’t say you’re giving him to me, Captain,” I told him. “I get paid whether this case is ever solved or not.”
“All right, I’m not giving him to you. But that’s as far as I can go, just the same. And I shouldn’t do that. I haven’t half enough men for this kind of operation.”
“Okay, Captain. I’ll handle it until six, then.”
The call had only taken a minute; I phoned Mary again and was lucky, there, too. She was home.
She said, “I want to talk with you, about Terry.”
“I’ll be busy until six, Mary. Can’t you tell me over the phone?”
“Not — exactly,” she said. “Six o’clock? If we’re friends again, you could come here for dinner.”
“We’re friends,” I said. “See you a little after six.”
Mary and I were friends again, but I had lost Sergeant Dugan. It was a fair enough trade. I went out to the car.
In about ten minutes, Marie Veller came out with her groceries and started walking toward home. I followed discreetly.
It was now three-thirty. Not another soul entered or left her building until almost five o’clock. And then a Pontiac convertible pulled up in front of the building and Mrs. Galbini got out of the car and went in.
I sat where I was for five minutes and then walked over to climb into the front seat of the Pontiac.
In another ten minutes, she was out. She opened the door of her car on the street side, saw me for the first time and drew back.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said. “Were you in to see Miss Veller?”
“I stopped in there,” she admitted. “I came to see Mr. Thompson on the second floor. He’s two weeks behind; his rent was due on the first.” She slid in behind the wheel.
“Why did you stop in to see Marie Veller?” I asked.
“Because she knew Gus better than any other tenant in the building. And she knows more about what went on in that place than any other tenant. I thought she might have seen something the night it happened, something she didn’t tell the police.”
“She probably did,” I said. I told her about my morning.
“Lefkowics,” she said, frowning. “I never heard Gus mention that name.” She looked at me anxiously. “Is this — do you run into these kind of people in all your — cases?”
“No. But I usually do, when murder’s involved. What did Miss Veller tell you, if anything?”
“She told me to leave. She said she was too nervous and sick to talk to anybody. We’ll see if her attitude changes when I cut out the free rent.”
“Was it completely free?” I asked. “Maybe Miss Veller just didn’t pay in cash.”
She shrugged. “Who knows, with Gus? Though he had better than that at home. Or am I wrong?” She looked at me frankly.
“You’re right,” I said. “But men are strange creatures.” She sighed. “Don’t I know it? Are you — watching Miss Veller?”
“Until six. Then the L.A.P.D. will take over. I think she could be a key to this case.”
“And after six?” she asked me, and her gaze was even franker.
“Right after six,” I said embarrassedly, “I have an appointment with an — informant. For a hundred dollars a day, Mrs. Galbini, I feel I ought to put in more than eight hours.”
“A female informant, probably,” she said. “Well, for a hundred a day, I suppose I have no right to expect more than investigation. Carry on, big boy.” She started the engine and stared straight ahead.
I climbed out and said, “So long.”
She nodded, without turning her head, and the Pontiac took off with a squeal of tires.
I went back to my heap reflecting that Mrs. Galbini was now a well-to-do widow and I was a damned fool. And also it came to me that Mrs. Galbini had a very strong motive herself for the murder of Gus. Money, money, money, money, money.
The rest of my watch was uneventful. At a little before six, a Detective Schultz appeared.
I asked, “You boys don’t put in twelve hour shifts, do you? I suppose there’ll be somebody else here in the morning, when I relieve.”
“There may be somebody else,” he said. “I work until midnight on this, unless Sergeant Dugan needs
me on that Lopez stake-out.”
“Captain Apoyan,” I protested, “promised me twelve hours coverage here.”
“Beef to him, then,” he said wearily. “I just follow orders.”
I should have beefed, but I didn’t. I was looking forward to seeing my Mary again and fed up with beefing.
chapter ten
ON THE RED BRICK PATIO, THE CHARCOAL WAS ALREADY lighted and on the door a note said: Martinis in the refrigerator. I’m in the shower. Mary.
I went into the kitchen and found the pitcher of martinis. I poured one over a whole tumbler full of ice cubes and listened to the sound of the shower through the thin walls, the shower caressing that slim and lovely body.
It became too much for me, this auditory voyeurism, so I took my drink out to the patio and relaxed on the chaise longue.
There were no pink clouds tonight, just the cool breeze coming from the ocean and the yellow pallor of smog to the east. From this height, I could see over the top of it, like a yolk-heavy frosting on a cake.
The faces of all of them went through my mind, the beseeching, the bedeviled and the bellicose faces I met in my constant merry-go-round. Such a wearisome way to make a living, listening to their lies and threats and gossip.
Mary wanted to talk about Terry. I wondered if she wanted to tell me the worst kept secret in town, that his alibi was cracked.
I remembered Sergeant Dugan in my office saying, with his hand on my shoulder, “Joe, if you get in trouble, just call us at the West Side Station and we’ll send a platoon.” I had asked for one man and they had bitched and finally sent a man subject to being called away.
Words, words, words, words, words.
What was it to me, the death of Gus Galbini? Why did I work tonight?
“Quit muttering,” a voice said, and I looked up to see Mary smiling at me, a drink in her hand.
“I’m brooding,” I told her. “I only do it about once a day. You look fresh and beautiful.” I paused. “And friendly.”
She made a face. “I want to take you over to meet a girl tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to bring you over. Steak, again?”
The Hundred Dollar Girl Page 9