I took his gun out of its holster and went to call the police.
Captain Apoyan put his fingers together and looked thoughtful.
I said, “You look like a merchant about to sell me an Oriental rug.”
He smiled. “Kashan, Bokhara, Ispahan, Sarouk?”
“You’re smug,” I said. “You won’t even rise to an insult. Why?”
“I’m glad to see you on our side again,” he said. “You wouldn’t admit the kidnaping, but now you’ll sign an assault with a weapon complaint. Why?”
“Never mind why, but I’ve always been on your side. And you know damned well I have. But when I promise something, the promise is important, no matter to whom it’s given. You know, at breakfast I had a feeling I didn’t want to know who killed Galbini. Now I realize why that was.”
Captain Apoyan waited patiently, his fingertips still pressed together.
“I wanted it to be Lefkowics and I knew it wasn’t. That’s personal vengeance, isn’t it?”
Apoyan nodded slowly and smiled blandly. “And of course you would never be guilty of personal vengeance, would you?”
I didn’t answer.
He said quietly, “Have you considered that this complaint on Lefkowics is simply your word against his? He claims you told him to come in and he never took his gun out.”
“He has to be punished,” I said. “Ask him if he’d rather I filed a stronger complaint.”
Apoyan’s eyes narrowed. “Like — kidnaping?”
“I’m not saying. You ask Lefkowics and get his answer. You tell him it would be best all around if he’d plead guilty to this morning’s charge.”
“Now, wait,” Apoyan said, quickly. “We’re either legal or — ”
“We’re just,” I finished for him. “You can’t prove I’m doing anything illegal. He’s got a lawyer to worry about that. It’s your business to enforce the law, Captain, not interpret it.”
“There are times when I don’t like you,” he said.
“And other times when you need me,” I added. I stood up. “Well, if anyone wants me, I’ll be at the office for at least an hour.”
“Don’t hurry back here,” he said. But he winked.
I went out into a real Chamber of Commerce day, clear, clean, and sunny, without a trace of smog, a warm Miami-type day. I wasn’t any closer to a solution than I had been last night, but the day made me feel that I was.
At the office, I opened all the windows to let in this wonderful day. Then I sat down to bring my reports up to date. I was steadily typing my way toward my meeting with Mike when the phone rang.
It was Apoyan. “Manny wants to know if you’ll settle for assault — without a weapon.”
“I don’t know. What do you think, Captain?”
“You told me he never got his gun out. You’d have to repeat that in court. You wouldn’t lie under oath.”
“He’ll plead guilty to unarmed assault?”
“Yup.”
I accepted that. We take what we can get, on my side of the law. My fingers went back to the machine, building the case up to Mike. When I got to Mike, I would have to improvise; Mrs. Galbini wouldn’t be interested in all of that interrogation.
I was discreetly through the Mike interrogation and working into this morning’s visit from Manny when I heard footsteps in the hall. It could be a patient of Doctor Graves, but I also had the uncomfortable feeling that it could be Manny’s belligerent cousin.
I was reaching for my gun when Barney Delamater appeared in my open doorway.
He looked at me blankly. My hand was under my jacket.
He said, “You got a gun under there?”
“I was reaching for an eraser,” I said lamely. “I can’t seem to find it on my desk. Come in.”
He came in and sat in my customer’s chair. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his bald and perspiring head.
“Nervous, Barney?” I asked him.
“I don’t like what’s been happening,” he admitted. “What’s this I hear about Manny Lefkowics?”
“He’s pleading guilty to assault. That isn’t much.” “And Gus? What have you learned about his death?” I stared at him, saying nothing.
“Look, Joe,” he said pleadingly, “maybe I got on the wrong side of the fence for a while. But you know I’m no hoodlum.”
“You will be, if you keep hanging around with them.”
“What can I do, insult ‘em? They ask me to a couple poker games, what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. I’m not your keeper. What are you here for?”
“I want to know what’s going on. First Gus and then Joey Veller’s sister — How do we know who’s next?”
I smiled at him. “We don’t. You thought Martino would take care of me and now you see one of his stooges heading for the clink and you think maybe you joined the wrong side. Right?”
“Nothing like that,” he said grimly. “I just wasn’t comfortable with those people.”
“All right,” I said, “tell me about them, tell me everything you know about them and Galbini and Mueller and Golde and this new organization Martino’s trying to set up.”
He told me what he knew. None of it was anything I didn’t know or hadn’t assumed. Lopez would be built up with stumblebums and they were trying to get control of Mueller.
“And Terry’s wife?” I asked. “Why the freeze on her? Does she think her husband can make it on his own strength?”
“That’s another deal,” Barney said. “This Lopez wants a divorce, see, but his wife doesn’t. That’s Martino’s job, to get him the divorce.”
“I don’t follow you.”
Barney took a deep breath. “Lopez didn’t know about what a — a tramp his wife had been. Now he’s in love, I guess.” He shrugged. “So Al’s getting him grounds.”
I kept my gaze on Barney’s face and said slowly, “The way I heard it, Bridget Gallegher Lopez has got some kind of bind on Terry. And that’s why Al has to scramble.”
Barney frowned. “Bind?”
“Something she knows. Something, maybe, she knows that the police would like to know?”
Barney stared at me blankly. “So help me, I never heard that.”
I asked, “Who’s Terry in love with?”
“I don’t know that, either. But I heard it’s a big family in this town. You know — society.”
“That’s what I heard, too,” I said. “Barney, you haven’t told me anything I don’t know.”
“I can’t help that,” he said. “I told you what I know.”
We sat there, for a few seconds, in an uncomfortable silence. Half-assed friends, I had called us, and that’s the way I felt now; I half trusted him.
He broke the silence, finally. “You don’t trust me.”
“Not this morning. Maybe later, but not this morning. So long, Barney.”
He stood up, stared thoughtfully at me for a couple of seconds, and then went out without saying anything.
I went back to my report — and the phone rang. It was getting to be a busy morning.
The voice of the girl called Mike asked cheerfully, “What are you doing?”
“Sitting here, swamped in nostalgia, reliving the memory of last night.”
She chuckled. “Has anyone asked for me?”
“Manny Lefkowics.”
A moment’s silence, and then, “I’m still at our love nest. My friend went out to get some coffee. He came home right after you left.”
A licentious question occurred to me, but I didn’t voice it. I asked, “Are you going to stay there for a while?” “That would be smart, maybe, huh?”
“I think it would. Have you decided not to be an anti-character witness for Flame Lopez?”
A pause. “What have I got against her? She never did me any harm. Right?”
“You’re a citizen,” I said. “I’m proud to be your friend.”
She chuckled again. “I’m going to miss you. I’ll have to give you up, Puma; I�
�m going to marry my friend.”
“Wonderful,” I complimented her. “He’s a lucky man.”
“They all were,” she said. “Carry on, big boy, and don’t lead with your chin.” She hung up.
A moment of despondency came to me; the best ones always got married, and not to me. Maybe, if I asked them? No, it would be unfair to the others, so patiently waiting their turn.
I finished the typing and got up to stretch. Everything was there, the dialogues and monologues, the lies and evasions, the truths and half-truths. Everything was there but the answer.
I phoned Captain Apoyan, but he was out to lunch. I got Sergeant Dugan, and asked him: “How about that steak knife? Was it ever identified?”
“Yup. One of a set — owned by the deceased. You figure it.”
“Anything else I should know, Marty?”
“Nothing. But maybe you know things we should?”
“I wish I did. I have a feeling something’s going to come, though. There’s a light about to burst in my brain.”
“Okay, swami,” he said wearily. “Call us when you light up. We’ve got a whole damned city to watch.”
Every day, they had it, violence and lies, indignant citizens and double-talking politicians and larceny, rape, and child-beating day in, day out. What a life. And we paid them peanuts, screaming about taxes and making the Vegas hoodlums rich.
Citizens: we had no right to the name, a country without shame.
I went out to lunch.
While I ate, I ran them through my mind again, searching for the elusive obvious. The threads began to come unsnarled, ready for the loom. An image began to appear in the pattern, the image of a chaser. Not Puma.
I went back to the office and sat, adding it up. What could I prove? To know is one thing; to make it stick in court is far more difficult. Even a confession is meaningless unless a prosecutor can document it. And even documented, how about the jury? They are not always reasonable people, those peers.
I phoned Apoyan to see if he would be in and found out he would be. I went over to the West Side Station and found him in consultation with Dugan.
I spelled it out for them, incomplete as it was, built of hunches and suspicion, reason and lies, a doubtful finger pointing at a doubtful killer.
When I had finished, Apoyan said, “Well, maybe — ” Marty Dugan frowned and shrugged. They looked at each other.
Marty said, “I suppose I could run out there and throw my weight around — ”
“Let me be the front man.” I suggested. “I’ll check out what I can the rest of the afternoon and then we’ll set it up for tonight, Puma and the Department, working trustingly together.”
“You’re that sure?” Apoyan asked. “You’re going to put that much into a hunch?” I nodded.
Apoyan looked at Marty again and Marty shrugged again. “What else have we got? It could easily be the way he sees it.” His shoulders sagged. “Overtime, it means. All right.”
“And don’t tell Trask about it,” I said. “I want to protect that Carrillo girl as much as possible.”
I went out into the bright day and to work.
The neighbors were no help; they weren’t nosy neighbors. I finally came face to face with Doc Golde, and he was no help, either. He was going along with the mob until he felt it was safe to pull out. He had not, he told me, ever intended to let Al Martino get any piece of Hans Mueller.
To Marie Veller’s neighbors then and no more luck. All these people had been questioned by the police; I had hoped that if they knew something they would be more frank with a private man.
The way it seemed now, the lie I had left with Mike would never leak back to her former playmates. She was entering a new life and she would feel no compulsion to confide in her former friends. So that bit of sneaky Puma deception would probably be wasted. That’s what I thought, making my rounds in the sunny afternoon.
At four o’clock I was in Mary Loper’s neighborhood, so I stopped in.
“You!” she said. “You were supposed to phone me yesterday afternoon.”
“I did, Mary. At three o’clock, just as I promised. And I let the phone ring ten times.”
“You couldn’t have tried me at three-fifteen, I suppose?”
I didn’t answer.
“And last night?” she asked. “At the Western Vista Motel again, no doubt?” I shook my head. “You weren’t home,” she said. “I was working.” “Huh!” I sighed.
“To hell with you,” she said. “You’re never around when I need you.”
“Simmer down,” I said. “We’re not married. We’re not even engaged. I’m not even leashed. Simmer down.”
A silence. The sun flooded the little patio and I closed my eyes against its glare.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Are you sick?”
“Despondent. I’ve a job to do tonight that I don’t want to do.”
“What kind of job?”
I opened my eyes and smiled at her. “A private job. Is there a beer around anywhere?”
“Well!” she said. “Master Puma! I’m not a maid.”
I continued to smile. “You’re not even a maiden. Why do you have to hate me? Didn’t you learn all about me from Mary Pastore? Did you think I was something I’m not?”
She glared at me for seconds and then said wearily, “Get your own damned beer.”
I leaned forward on the chaise longue, as though to rise. I groaned and rubbed my back.
“All right, damn it,” she said. “Sit there. I’ll get it.”
In a few minutes she came out from the house again with two cans of beer. We drank in silence.
The beer and the sun soothed her, making her more reasonable. I told her about some of my adventures and Martino’s plans.
“And tonight you’ll be busy again?” she asked.
“For a while. If I’m through early, should we go and listen to Shearing again?”
“Maybe,” she said. “I may be busy. Phone, first.”
Dignity, the girl had. And many other charms. I went back to the road, learning nothing, leaving me with my naked hunch, not knowing that Mike had helped in her innocent way.
I ate at Cini’s, a 100 per cent Italian dinner. I phoned my answering service from there and learned that Bridget Gallegher (Flame) Lopez had phoned me three times and Mrs. Galbini once.
I phoned the West Side Station and then headed for Westwood.
She opened the door and looked at me doubtfully. “Where’s Terry?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Lopez. May I come in?”
“Of course,” she said. “I phoned you this afternoon.”
“I know.” I came into the living room and sat on a love seat. She sat in a near-by chair and stared at me.
I said nothing, waiting for her.
“My husband left about half an hour ago,” she said. “To see that girl.”
“What girl? The girl you tried to learn about by hiring me?”
She shook her head. “That isn’t why I hired you. If it is, why did I fire you? You never found out her name.”
“I didn’t, did I? Why did you phone me three times this afternoon?”
“I want to know what’s going on.” She licked her lips. “What am I, an outcast? They’re trying to force me out of Terry’s life, aren’t they, his new criminal friends?”
I nodded. “I guess they are. How did you find out?”
“A girl phoned me,” she said, “a girl I — used to know. She told me that Thornton wanted her to tell Terry some — nasty things about me, but she wasn’t going to do it.”
I said, “Terry’s kind of innocent, isn’t he? And still, he’s not exactly a Boy Scout.”
She said nothing, staring at me as though trying to read my mind.
I said, “What else did Mike tell you?” She didn’t answer.
I leaned back in the love seat. “I should have realized, when you were so quick to be Terry’s alibi, that an alibi works two ways. If he was with you,
then you were with him, each covering the other.”
She said nothing.
“I should have realized,” I went on, “that when Terry suffered the worst humiliation of his career — and didn’t come home to you, you’d realize this new girl was not just a passing fancy.”
“What’s her name?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter. If anyone would know her name, though, it would be Gus Galbini, wouldn’t it? Though you probably went to Galbini’s love nest expecting to find Terry and the girl. Instead, you found Gus. You tried to force him to tell you where Terry was. He probably told you that if you didn’t leave Terry alone, he’d tell Terry about your background. It might even be grounds for divorce, your not telling Terry about your background.”
Her bosom rose and fell. She stared at me as though in shock.
“Where did you get the gun?” I asked her.
She ignored the question. She said, “You weren’t watching Marie Veller’s place. That was a trap, telling Mike that, wasn’t it?”
I shook my head.
“If you knew,” she said, “you’d have told the police. You always work with the police.”
“Always,” I agreed. “Right up to the second it starts to cost me money.”
“Blackmail,” she said hoarsely.
I said nothing.
“What’s the girl’s name?” she asked. “It’s a big name, isn’t it? It’s probably a name somebody would pay to keep clean, keep out of the papers.”
“Possibly,” I agreed. “Was it an accident, your killing Gus? Did you take the gun along, hoping to use it on Terry’s girl and then use it to threaten Gus, to get her name from Gus?”
A pause, and then, “I don’t have any money. But there’s money to be made here, somewhere in this mess. You’d know how to milk it, wouldn’t you?”
“Was it an accident?” I asked again. “Where’s the gun?”
“They’re trying to get rid of me,” she said softly, “and you want to help them. You! I thought you hated hoodlums. You’re working for them, right now, aren’t you?”
I shook my head. “How much money did Marie Veller want?”
She stared at the floor.
“Miss Veller,” I went on, “knew what you were. So she was armed when you came over, armed with a knife. But she was no match for you, was she?”
The Hundred Dollar Girl Page 14