My legs were aching from my squatting position. I rose to a half crouch, taking a final moment to fix the death scene in my mind—searching always for some small, significant bit of physical evidence, so far overlooked. Then, gritting my teeth, I grasped the slack of the leather jacket at the shoulder, braced myself and heaved.
The body was limp and boneless as a bundle of discarded clothing heavily weighted with some strange, nonhuman mass of liquefied flesh. Rigor mortis had come and gone.
As the body flopped on its back the legs straightened, crossing at the ankles, grotesquely casual. A six-inch circle of blood was caked almost exactly in the center of the torso. He’d bled very little; the bullet had probably pierced the upper part of the heart. Staring full into his face, I continued my dispassionate assessment: Features regular, eyes brown, hairline slightly receding. No visible scars or marks. I could have added: Lower lip bitten through, mouth gaping. Tongue swollen, also badly bitten. Mouth and chin bloody. Eyes very wide, pupils rolled up to expose the whites.
He’d been shot in the back, probably killed by a single bullet. The force had thrown him forward against the stairs. He’d struck his chin on the topmost of the four stairs, biting his tongue and lip. It was the blood from the mouth that had streaked the oyster-colored carpeting; the blood on the chest was unsmeared. As he’d died, he’d slumped down the stairs, one at a time.
“What’s that?” Culligan asked, pointing to a folded sheet of paper that had been concealed between the body and the wall. It was ordinary unlined paper, neatly folded in quarters. I could see the impression of typewriting.
I lifted the paper by a corner, carefully unfolding it until I held it by two corners, suspended by thumb and forefinger above the victim’s body. Leaning together, Culligan and I read:
Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief …
This is your first chance. If the City of San Francisco pays $100,000.00 there won’t be a dead lawyer. If you want to pay, call Patrick’s Attick. The message is, “We have seen the light. We repent. Hallelujah!” Call between 7 A.M. and 8 A.M. You will be contacted.
THE MASKED MAN
“Jesus,” I heard Culligan mutter, “that’s a new one, all right.”
In unison we reread the extortion letter. “The Masked Man,” Culligan said, slowly shaking his head in soured wonderment. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
I read the message for a third time, slowly. It was a carefully typed letter, neatly centered on the page. The paper, I knew, would be almost impossible to trace. Without doubt, the note was written on a rental typewriter, in a public place.
“Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief,” Culligan snorted. “Christ, that’s a nursery rhyme, isn’t it?”
Two
“CANELLI’S LUCK IS HOLDING,” Friedman announced. “He found the Masked Man’s gun an hour ago. In some bushes. It figures.” He allowed a moment of silence to pass, watching me as I leafed through a sheaf of expense vouchers. Then: “It’s an army-issue .45, as you may or may not already know. Canelli phoned me the serial number, and I put it in the works. When the print-out comes through, I told Intelligence to give you the call.”
“Good.” I initialed the vouchers, dropped them into my Out basket and swiveled to face Pete Friedman, my senior co-lieutenant. A few minutes ago, Friedman had knocked once on my door and entered uninvited, as always. He’d come down the hall to theorize—as always. It was a ritual that had evolved during the year since I’d made lieutenant. I’d taken over the job as outside man, in charge of investigations in the field. Friedman was the inside man: coordinating, analyzing, allocating manpower—and theorizing. And it was Friedman’s firm contention that he could best theorize in my visitor’s chair—the only chair in the bureau, Friedman maintained, that could properly accommodate his two hundred and forty pounds in suitable style and comfort.
Now, grunting laboriously, Friedman leaned across the mound of his stomach to sail a Xerox copy of the Ainsley extortion letter across my desk. “What’d you make of it?”
“To tell you the truth,” I admitted, “I haven’t been able to give it much thought. There were twelve—twelve—message slips for me when I got back here. What’d the lab say about it?”
“Not much that’s likely to help,” Friedman answered, extracting a cigar from his vest pocket and beginning the inevitable process of rummaging haphazardly through his pockets for matches. I pointedly pushed an ashtray across the desk—realizing the futility of the gesture. Invariably Friedman tossed his match in a long, smoking arc toward the general direction of my wastebasket. The disposition of his cigar ash was equally predictable, falling unnoticed from his cigar and bounding off his chronically ash-powdered vest to the floor.
“Cheap dime-store typing paper,” Friedman said, still rummaging. “The typewriter was a Royal electric model, anywhere from eight to twelve years old. It was a pretty good typing job, as you probably saw, but probably not a professional job, according to the lab. The touch was a little too uneven, they say. There’s a difference, apparently—even if the machine is electric.” Having finally found his match, Friedman lit his cigar—sailing the match, sure enough, toward the wastebasket. I watched the match strike the wall a foot wide of the basket and fall to the linoleum floor.
“I’ve got a hunch,” Friedman said, ignoring my loud, elaborate sigh, “that this case could be a real son of a bitch.” He pointed to the Xerox copy. “Mark my words, this guy is smart. And he’s determined, too. Unless we get lucky, he could cause us a lot of trouble.”
“I think,” I answered, “that you’re jumping to conclusions. Anyone could’ve killed Ainsley, and left the note for a blind.”
Friedman shrugged. “Each to his own theory. I have to remind you, though, that most muggers, for instance, don’t leave extortion notes. Also, most crooks just plain aren’t imaginative enough to come up with a name like the Masked Man.” He aimed his cigar at me. “Whoever wrote that note means business. He wants money—a lot of money.”
“Personally,” I said, “I think you’re reading a lot into that note.”
Friedman raised a pudgy palm in complacent benediction. “Just wait. We’ve got a real red hot on our hands. When he raises the ante, remember that you heard it here first.”
Not replying, I sat staring at an indecipherable notation I’d made on my calendar for today, heavily circled and marked “4 P.M.” The time was now quarter to four.
“Meanwhile,” I heard Friedman say, “touching all bases, I’m ready to hear about the lissome Mrs. Gordon Ainsley. I understand Culligan interrogated her.”
“Listen, Pete”—I pointed to an overflowing In basket—“it’s getting late, and I’m snowed under. And, as it happens, Ann’s birthday is Wednesday, and I don’t have a present for her yet. So, since you’ve already decided that the murderer is some underworld genius, how about—”
“How is my favorite schoolteacher, anyhow?”
“She’s fine. But I’ve got to—”
“If you’ll take my advice, you’ll marry her. I’ve known you for ten years, Frank and I—”
“Twelve years,” I said automatically.
“And I can tell you,” he continued blandly, “that you’ve never been happier than since you met Ann.” He hunched slightly forward, prepared to lecture me: “You see, your problem is that you’re essentially a moralist. And a moralist, as you doubtless know, has a lot of trouble living with himself, especially if he’s a defeated moralist, which is what a lot of divorced people think they are. However, a lot of those people get remarried and live happily ever after. It could happen to you.”
As he paused for breath, I stared pointedly at my In basket, then at my watch.
“Okay,” Friedman said, once more raising his hand. “Tell me about the victim’s wife. Then I’ll go quietly.” As he gestured, an inch-long cigar ash fell to his belly-bulged vest, then to the floor.
“Why don’t you wait for Culligan’s report?” I asked shortly. “He’s typing it now.”
“Culligan has no imagination. Just give me the rough picture.”
I sighed, resigned. I’d given up trying to recall what I was supposed to do at four o’clock. “Well,” I said, frowning as I formulated my impressions, “it’s pretty obvious that the Ainsleys had one of these open marriage things going. She was very honest about it, Culligan says—very forthright. Ainsley was apparently a very successful surgeon—and very successful with the girls, too. He was forty-two years old, and good-looking. They have two teenage girls, both of them away at school. According to Mrs. Ainsley, she and her husband were simply taking separate weekends, which they often do, she says.”
“Did she discover the body?”
“Yes.”
Friedman nodded ponderously, gesturing for me to continue. I knew that mannerism; he was lapsing into his Holmesian mood. His eyes became hooded under lazily lowered lids; his broad, perpetually sweat-sheened face settled deep into the folds of his hopelessly jowl-mashed collar. It was a pose that always irked me. Before he’d decided to cut his losses and become a policeman, Friedman had spent two unsuccessful years in Hollywood, making the rounds of the casting offices with a sheaf of 8 x 10 glossies. Something about my visitor’s chair apparently evoked Friedman’s fondness for the theatrical.
“They lived in a ground-floor flat,” I continued. “A very elegant flat in Pacific Heights. What happened, I think, was that Ainsley was gone from Saturday morning until Sunday night, when he returned about eleven. He was shot in the back as he was entering the door, I’d say.”
“He was shot once through the heart,” Friedman said, still with his eyes closed.
“Yes.” I hadn’t known it for sure, but saw no point in admitting my ignorance. “If I had to guess, I’d say the murderer was hiding in the shrubbery when Ainsley came home, and shot him when he opened the door, probably from a range of about ten feet. Then the murderer stepped out of hiding, entered the foyer and tucked the note down beside the body. Then he—”
My phone rang.
“Lieutenant Hastings,” I answered.
“This is Sergeant Halliday, Lieutenant. From Intelligence. I just heard on that Ainsley gun, and Lieutenant Friedman said I should call you.”
“Right.” As I said it, recollection of the 4 P.M. calendar notation suddenly came clear. That morning, I’d left my car to be serviced. So, to shop for Ann’s present, I must first pick up my car on Van Ness Avenue, then drive downtown before the stores closed. I’d lost another hour.
Aware that Sergeant Halliday was waiting for me to say something more, I pulled a note pad toward me, motioned Friedman to an extension phone and told Halliday to make his report.
“The pistol was stolen in that National Guard Armory robbery up in Seattle seven months ago, Lieutenant,” Halliday said. “On March eighth. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“There were seventeen .45-caliber automatics, eight M-1 rifles, three M-16 rifles and one M-70 rocket launcher stolen, for God’s sake,” Halliday continued. “We checked with the Seattle authorities, then double-checked the FBI’s computer. And, out of everything stolen—not counting this pistol, which is recovered—there’re nine .45s, three M-1s and one M-16 still unaccounted for. But”—I heard papers rustle—“the funny thing is, Washington lists the serial number for the Ainsley gun as being already recovered.”
“What?” Surprised, I raised my eyes to Friedman, who was shrugging at the news.
“That’s right,” Halliday said. “For once, the FBI doesn’t have all its ducks lined up, it looks like.”
“Give them time,” Friedman dryly interrupted. “They’ll get them in line.”
“Huh?” Halliday asked, surprised. Then: “Oh, hello, Lieutenant Friedman.”
“Hello, Halliday. Sorry. Proceed.”
“Well, there’s not really much more that I can tell you,” Halliday answered. “Except that a couple of months ago, we heard through two separate informants that Floyd Ferguson had a few guns from that National Guard robbery. Do you know about Ferguson?”
“No,” Friedman answered for both of us.
“Well,” Halliday said, “Floyd Ferguson hasn’t been in town more than about six months, so it’s not surprising that you don’t know about him. But down in Los Angeles, Ferguson used to move a lot of illegal guns. Mostly he used to work for the big boys—organized crime. In fact, he’s supposed to have supplied the guns for that armored car robbery about a year ago. But then, so the story goes, he got into a beef with one of the Mafia types down there over a girl. Ferguson is a flashy, good-looking black dude, and this Mafioso wanted Ferguson’s hide, because of the girl. So, also being a smart black dude, Ferguson came up to San Francisco while he could still make the trip.”
“Do you know what he’s been doing in San Francisco?” I asked.
“Yeah, it so happens I do. He started screwing around with another white girl up here, and he’s got another white guy sore at him. The white guy is Frank Moran, that numbers guy who operates in the Tenderloin. So, if you want me to, I can talk to Moran.”
“An excellent idea, Halliday,” Friedman said. “If Moran doesn’t know what’s coming down, he can find out inside an hour. And you can tell Pickles, as we used to call Moran when I was in Vice and Pickles was running a string of girls—you can tell Pickles, for me, that if he doesn’t give us a little help on this gun thing, we’ll have him downtown for questioning every time there’s a corpse found anywhere in the Tenderloin, whether or not there’s a numbers connection. And that’s at least one corpse a week, at the going rate.”
“Right, Lieutenant. Got you.”
“Good,” Friedman answered. “Is that all?”
“That’s all.”
“Then we can let Lieutenant Hastings get on with his, ah, shopping. Keep scratching, Halliday. And keep us posted.”
Three
BY NINE-THIRTY THE next morning, working for an hour without interruption, I’d emptied my In basket and crossed off three of the day’s four calendar notations. I was leaning back in my chair with my eyes closed when my interoffice phone rang.
“It turns out,” Friedman’s voice said without preamble, “that Pickles Moran, at age fifty-two, is head over heels in love with a girl half his age—who, it seems, is turned on to Floyd Ferguson. Which is to say that Pickles will do anything in the world, even if it’s legal, to help us put Floyd Ferguson away, provided Halliday makes it easy enough for Pickles to retain his image as a fearless cop-hater—which Halliday has done, with some coaching from me.”
“Is Ferguson ready to talk about the gun?”
“That’ll be up to you. Ferguson is in custody. Halliday and Company caught Ferguson last night with Pickles’ girl in bed and an M-16 rifle wrapped in a bath towel and stuffed in the closet, courtesy of Pickles. So, this morning, Ferguson is willing to listen to reason.”
“All right, I’ll talk to him. What about you?”
“With luck, Markham and I are about to wrap up that Fillmore thing, which turns out to be a standard husband-and-wife beef that got nasty. So, as always, I leave the glamour case to you.”
Thinking of Friedman’s fondness for the limelight, I snorted.
“Hello, Lieutenant.” Halliday admitted me to the interrogation room, nodded dismissal to an Intelligence detective and gestured to a long, lanky black man seated at his loose-limbed ease in the straight-backed metal prisoner’s chair.
“This is Lieutenant Hastings, Ferguson,” Halliday said. “He runs Homicide, along with Lieutenant Friedman. So, if you’d like some free advice, don’t screw the dog with the lieutenant. In Homicide they’ve got nothing but heavy time to hand out. And you can’t afford it.”
“Man, who’s talking about screwing the dog?” Ferguson protested, speaking in a soft, plaintive ghetto croon. “I mean, there I was listening to a little music and entertaining a friend last night, and the next thing I know, Jesus, you guys’re busting down the door. I mean, Jesus, I was just—”
“You’re forgetting about that M-16, Ferguson. Which is ten years, mandatory minimum. Or, for you, maybe a life sentence, since this is your third fall.”
“Man, I keep telling you—” Ferguson rolled his eyes up to the ceiling in a pantomime of deeply aggrieved innocence. Dressed in a studded denim jacket, purple velour slacks and gleaming wet-look black boots, Ferguson could have been a rock musician, resting in the wings between sets. His long, expressive face was framed in a closely cropped beard, elaborately trimmed. His eyes were quick and shrewd, contradicting a studied laziness of speech and gesture. Ferguson had heard all the questions, and knew most of the answers.
“I keep telling you,” he repeated. “There’s this dude named Homer Granville, who crashed with me for a coupla days last week, on his way down south, I think he said. Or maybe it was east. I forget. Anyhow, Jesus, Homer must’ve wrapped that mother-loving M-16 up, like you found it, and stuffed it down in that closet there, and took off. Homer’s like that. He’s always been like that. I mean, with Homer, it’s always screw-your-buddy week, for sure. See, he’s one of these real mean, sly dudes who always—”
Hiding Place (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 18