But Philo Skinner had one bit of unfinished business before the crime was consummated—the letter. He got it out of the glove compartment and checked it over. It was a lulu. Bits of newsprint glued to a piece of plain bond paper, just like in the movies. Only trouble is, he couldn’t find names in the newspaper that worked out. He had smoked dozens of cigarettes and sat up until 3:00 a.m. trying to find something that had a whit in it. The goddamn L.A. Times should print something with a whit but they didn’t. He found the field easy enough. Then he searched futilely for the word bitch in a family newspaper. Then he realized he had to cut one letter at a time.
Philo had worn rubber gloves when handling the extortion note. He was doing fine after he got past the Mrs. Whitfield except that he smoked a butt too far down as usual, and since the gloves had been soaked in rubbing alcohol which he used to swab a tick bite on a Lakeland terrier, he caught his hand on fire. Lucky for Philo Skinner the basin of foamy water was handy. For once Mavis’ failure to clean up didn’t rile him. The burning glove barely singed his fingers.
When he finally got the extortion note glued and trimmed and scrawled with crayon, it said:
Mrs. Whitfield
By now you know you do not have your bitch. Keep the bitch you have until you get orders from me. You will hear from me by phone. I will get your unlisted number by calling Biggs Kennels tomorrow and telling them I am your friend Richard. You will instruct them to give Richard your phone number. Do not say anything more to Biggs or to the police or you will not see your bitch alive.
The Richard was in honor of Richard Burton, whom Philo would do his best to imitate as a retired don in Puerto Vallarta. Wouldn’t it be something if Richard Burton’s villa was the one Philo finally settled in? Wouldn’t that be something?
Everything was going just swell until he encountered the residue of the Super Bowl traffic pouring out of the inadequate access roads to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Philo almost got catatonic again when a Pasadena traffic policeman waved him to a stop when he entered the area of the Arroyo.
A cop! I’ll come peaceably, Officer! I should have realized that crime doesn’t pay!
“Can’t you go around, buddy? Where you heading, Linda Vista?”
“Pardon?”
“I said, can’t you go around? You trying to get up to Linda Vista?”
“Linda Vista.”
“Well go around, buddy! Can’t you see the traffic’s backed up clear to the Bowl? Go around!”
And Philo went around, searching for the address in the dog show catalogue. He went around in a looping circle of ten miles. Philo Skinner ended up on the Ventura Freeway, got off, doubled back, got lost in Glendale, back on the freeway. He rechecked her address, looked at his street map of Pasadena, and was on and off the freeway three more times until he found the Mediterranean mansion.
Philo parked a hundred yards down the road near a score of Canary Island pine trees. Then, after looking in both directions, he moved along the stucco wall and past a wall of oleander, stopping every few seconds to listen for voices or footsteps. Nothing but birds, and sprinklers spraying vast lawns. Nothing but white oaks, pines and eucalyptus. Then he was at the iron gate. Philo stopped, looked both ways again, and broke into a lung-searing lope straight for the front door where he threw the letter. He scuttled back down the driveway, but after fifty yards he stopped. Philo coughed, gagged up a chunk of black phlegm and skulked back to the front door. He picked up the letter, glancing over his shoulder fearfully, and wiped the letter under sweaty armpits to remove fingerprints.
Two minutes later, looking as though he’d run a marathon, he was wheezing, creaking, gasping toward the waiting van where Vickie howled. She knew where she was. Her howls were heartbreaking even to Philo Skinner.
“Please shut up,” he begged. “You’ll be home in a few days. Please shut your trap. Philo won’t hurt you.”
Madeline was laughing and chatting with her friends and well-wishers, waiting in unbearable anticipation for the last stages of the competition.
“Mrs. Whitfield.” Chester Biggs’ face was gray.
“Yes, Chester.”
“You better come. Vickie’s sick.”
Madeline Whitfield’s nightmare began when she tore her panty hose and cut her leg stumbling down the steps of the grandstand. She didn’t remember running with Chester Biggs, banging through the crowds, bumping the stands of concessionaires, almost knocking a photographer on the seat of her pants as she was snapping a Pomeranian bitch for a proud owner who would pay anything to get her picture in a dog magazine and to hell with the bitch. It’s every girl for herself.
The schnauzer looked as though she were dying. Madeline gasped and picked her up from the grooming table against the advice of a veterinarian Biggs had found.
“Vickie, Vickie! Oh, Vickie!”
“I think this animal’s been drugged,” the veterinarian said. He put his hand on Madeline Whitfield’s arm as she held the schnauzer against her face and cried, “Oh, Vickie! Vickie!”
“Ma’am, I think somebody’s drugged your animal.”
“That’s impossible!” Chester Biggs said. “How could anybody drug Vickie? I’ve been right here. Right here all the …” Then he looked at the kennel boy with the skin magazine sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans. “That’s impossible!” he repeated, thinking about the lawsuit she might slap on him. I’ll kill that pimply little son of a bitch! thought Chester Biggs.
The schnauzer’s eyes were glassy and heavy lidded. She was gasping for breath. Her tongue hung to the side frighteningly. Madeline hardly recognized her.
“The animal’s a bit better than she was five minutes ago,” the veterinarian said. “I think she’s going to be all right.”
The kennel boy was already retreating from Chester Biggs, who looked like an English bulldog as he walked toward the horny kid with the magazine, and said, “Come here, Junior, I want to talk to you.”
Fifteen minutes later, the schnauzer was being rushed by Chester Biggs to Madeline’s veterinarian in San Marino, who had been called from home and was in his office prepared to work on the bitch. Chester Biggs had one passing thought while speeding up the Pasadena Freeway. The schnauzer looked different. Almost as though the furnishings were … well, it must be her condition. She whined and squirmed around the floor of the crate.
Madeline Whitfield was sent home by the veterinarian, who suggested she see her doctor for a tranquilizer of her own. She wasn’t in any condition to drive, and was taken home by the pimply kennel kid. He drove Madeline’s Cadillac Fleetwood like it was a hearse, and spoke not a word.
The kid was wondering if he should take a bus clear out of the state. It wasn’t his fault. It was that yawning fur on the broads in that magazine! But before the pimply kid went pushing, he saw the envelope on the doorstep. It had big newsprint letters stuck on it. It said: “Urgent.”
“Mrs. Whitfield,” he said, as Madeline fumbled with her keys and dropped them.
“Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I’m sorry.” She started dropping keys again.
“Mrs. Whitfield, this letter must be for you. It says urgent.”
“Urgent.”
“Mrs. Whitfield, give me the keys. I’ll open the door.”
Three minutes later the pimply kid was high stepping down the road, jumping in the bushes every time a car came by that might contain the murderous dog handler, Chester Biggs.
It took Madeline three minutes to get the letter opened. She was literally bouncing off the walls. There were a good number of chairs, couches, settees in this part of the mansion yet Madeline couldn’t seem to find a place to sit. Finally she sat at the kitchen table. She was holding the envelope in her hand, but she was so numb she didn’t know what to do. She might not have opened the envelope were it not for Philo Skinner’s criminal training at Saturday matinees. The bizarre bits of newsprint brought her around enough to tear it open. She had to smooth it out on the kitchen table. Two of the b’s had come ung
lued and were lying upside down on the table. Coincidentally, both b’s were in the word bitch. The first sentence read: “By now you know you do not have your itch. Keep the itch you have until you get orders from me.”
Madeline began sobbing brokenly. She couldn’t understand why someone would send an advertisement about the itch in newsprint. Madison Avenue! She was succumbing to hysteria and they wanted her to use their vaginal lotion! Oh, God!
Then the Biggs Kennels caught her eye. She got her sobbing under control and started reading from the beginning. She screamed and refused to answer the door when Chester Biggs arrived. It seemed as though he rang for fifteen minutes. Then a short time later the phone rang.
“Mrs. Whitfield!”
“Yes?”
“This is Chester, Mrs. Whitfield. I rang the bell for … You didn’t answer.”
“No.”
“Mrs. Whitfield, I want to come up and see you.”
“How is she?” Madeline said and she sounded calm to Chester Biggs.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Whitfield. She died. Vickie just died!”
There was silence on the line and he said, “Mrs. Whitfield, I’d better come to see you. Right now. Are you all right? Do you want …”
“No, Chester,” she said, staring at the extortion note, reading it word for word again as he spoke.
“Let me come see you, Mrs. Whitfield. I …”
“No, Chester, don’t come. I’m all right,” she said, wiping her runny nose, carefully placing the ugly letter back in the ugly envelope.
“He thinks it was a tranquilizer. Somebody didn’t want Vickie to win. Some filthy devil wanted to win badly enough to … Maybe it was poison, I just don’t know. There’ll be an autopsy here and he’ll send samples to a lab. I think I should call the police, don’t you?”
“No!” she shouted in the mouthpiece causing Chester Biggs’ ear to pop. When he stopped grimacing he said, “Why not, Mrs. Whitfield?”
“Vickie is mine. Was mine. It’s not up to you, Chester. I don’t want to call the police. If somebody wanted to win so badly as to give Vickie a drug, or poison, or whatever it was, so be it. She’s not the first dog to be poisoned at a dog show and it’s just pointless to cause more pain to ourselves by having policemen around.”
“Whatever you say, Mrs. Whitfield, but sleep on it.”
“I’ll sleep on it.”
“Maybe you’ll feel different tomorrow.”
“Perhaps, but I forbid you to call the police.”
“Okay, Mrs. Whitfield. Well, you try to rest yourself.”
“Chester.”
“Yes.”
“One thing. I was contacted at the show by someone who wants … wants a picture of Vickie for a magazine. His name is … Richard something. I forgot to give him my phone number, but he knows you’re Vickie’s handler. He may call you tomorrow. Give … give him my phone number.” And then she began to weep. He didn’t understand a word she said from then on.
“Okay, Mrs. Whitfield. I … well, good night, Mrs. Whitfield. I’m real sorry. The doctor’s gonna keep Vickie here until you decide tomorrow how to, whether to bury Vickie or let him take care of it for you. Good night, Mrs. Whitfield.”
“Wait!” she said.
“What is it, Mrs. Whitfield?”
“I don’t want any autopsy. You bring Vickie home to me right now.”
“Jesus, Mrs. Whitfield, don’t do that. She’s dead. She …”
“Chester, I want her home now. You bring her. I’ll call a pet mortuary and arrange for the burial. I want you to bring her body home. Now.”
It was nearly midnight before Madeline Whitfield summoned the courage to examine the cardboard carton Chester Biggs had placed on the dining room table.
When she touched the little body wrapped in the white towel, it wasn’t as rigid and cold as she anticipated. And she saw almost at once that the dead schnauzer was not Victoria.
Tutu’s heart and respiratory system had been overwhelmed by the drug at the end. She had died in pain, gasping for air. Her eyes drooped and the lower jaw jutted forward in the last spasm. With her whiskers and eyeshades soaked and plastered down, and with her lower jaw jutting, she looked like a little bull mastiff.
9
The Black Marble
Monday morning was very tough for Valnikov. It was even tougher for Captain Hooker, who, like Valnikov, had a devastating headache. But whereas Valnikov’s headache came from a raging vodka hangover, Captain Hooker’s came from problems with his troops. And it was those problems which possibly saved Valnikov’s police career for the moment.
When Valnikov came shuffling into the squad room, Captain Hooker was sitting in his office with Clarence Cromwell and staring in disbelief at Montezuma Montez and Rocco Bambarella. Rocco was called Bullets Bambarella after a gas station holdup in which a robber fired eight shots at him and missed. They found an outline of 9 mm. bullet holes in the wall around Rocco Bambarella. It was only his slow reflexes that saved him. Any man with normal reaction time would have jumped left or right and been killed on the spot. Rocco Bambarella, who shot no worse than anyone else in combat situations, also emptied his gun, missed all six, but saved the day by throwing a full quart of 20W engine oil that coldcocked the bad guy and earned Rocco a commendation and something a policeman cherishes much more—a macho nickname. He was Bullets Bambarella forever.
Valnikov managed a smile and said, “Good morning, Natalie. Did you have a nice weekend?”
“Morning,” she said, dropping her eyes nervously.
But Valnikov was in no condition to detect body language. He lumbered to his table and sat down, sorting through the mound of weekend burglary reports.
Natalie could hear them all hollering, especially Bullets, who said, “Look, Captain Hooker, I don’t care if that Chinaman does sue Montezuma here …”
“Me!” the Chicano cop interrupted. “Why say Montezuma! I wasn’t there with you!”
“You wasn’t there with me?” said Bullets Bambarella in disbelief.
“Bullets, git your shit together!” Clarence Cromwell bellowed in total exasperation. “He wasn’t there with you! You was there with two bluesuits! There was no other detective there!”
“He gave me the tip!” Bullets argued. “Montezuma, you gave me the information from your snitch …”
“My snitch! It was an anonymous call!”
“You’re just protectin your snitch!” Bullets shot back.
“Please, please!” Captain Hooker begged, feeling the pain shooting across his forehead. Then he looked up at the aging black detective, standing just to the right of him. “Clarence, you’re Bullets’ supervisor. Can’t you resolve this so we don’t get another lawsuit? The commander said he’s never heard of a detective division with so many lawsuits.”
“You bring in these fuzz-nutted kids, you git lawsuits is what you git,” Clarence snorted. “I told you, Bullets, you wanna play supercop, you and Montezuma and all these young hotdogs, you go work metro or surveillance or some fuckin glory job. You don’t work divisional detectives!”
“Jesus, Clarence, lemme just explain my side,” Bullets whined, since they all knew that Captain Hooker had spent the weekend on Clarence Cromwell’s yacht and was unofficially only the bosun around here. “See, Clarence,” Bullets explained, “I figured Montezuma gave me straight shit about this Chinaman runnin a printin press for bad checks in the back of his restaurant.”
“Bad checks in the back of a Cantonese restaurant,” Captain Hooker said vacantly, running his delicate fingers through his sparse gray hair. “Deputy Chief Lichtenwalter’s favorite Cantonese restaurant.”
“Well, anyways,” Bullets continued, a bit more uneasy with this latest piece of intelligence. “I wanted to check it out so I called for a few reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements,” Captain Hooker said.
“And we was staked out in the back by the kitchen where they’re throwin all these slimy duck skins out the door. Hit Butch
Janowski right in the hat with one, he was hidin behind a trash can.” Bullets stopped to laugh at the thought of Officer Butch Janowski getting a greasy duck skin right on his bean. Until he saw nobody else was even smiling. “And then we listen and we listen,” he continued soberly.
“You don’t work forgery detail,” Captain Hooker reminded Bullets, who was starting to perspire.
“I know, Cap, but I thought, Jesus, a Chink printin hot checks there! Well, it sounded like a big caper. So I listen and I hear clickety-click-click.”
“Clickety-click-click!” Captain Hooker said, pained.
“Sure!” Bullets explained. “You see, I figure it’s a printin press printin up some bad checks. Clickety-click-click. So, bang!”
“Bang,” said Captain Hooker.
“I just took positive police action and … and I booted the door and it fell right in on this Chink dishwasher, and he does a whoop-dee-doo into the sink and breaks a few … well, several dishes. And egg rolls and fortune cookies start flyin around and all, and uh, this old Chink that owns the place starts screamin and holdin his chest like he’s havin a fit …”
“Or a heart attack,” said Captain Hooker.
“Yeah, but it wasn’t no heart attack, Boss,” Bullets said. “It was more a fit, I would say.”
“And his lawyer just hung up,” Captain Hooker said very quietly, looking ever more like a pale Victorian headmaster. “And his lawyer says two million dollars.”
“Two million bucks,” said Bullets. “What’s that mean?”
“It just means he’s suing the city for two million dollars,” said Captain Hooker, who startled everyone by suddenly standing and staring at Bullets with glittering eyes and shrieking: “BECAUSE YOU LITERALLY SCARED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THE OLD CHINAMAN!”
“Easy, Cap,” said Clarence Cromwell, gently placing Captain Hooker back in his chair and squeezing his shoulders reassuringly. “Easy, Boss, it’s gonna be okay. Easy does it.”
“But I’m retiring in a matter of weeks!” Captain Hooker cried. “You know I can’t take this kind of tension, Clarence!”
The Black Marble Page 15