Dead Pigeon

by William Campbell Gault

  LARS PHONED A FEW minutes after five o’clock. The Jaguar, he told me, was listed as the property of Turhan Bay. “Now maybe you can tell me what the connection is with Mike’s murder.”

  I told him the theory held by Nolan.

  “You’re reaching, aren’t you? Did one of your brainwashed stoolies feed you that script?”

  “Nope. I dreamed it up all by myself.”

  “Blackmail? Mike—?”

  “It could be a bad script. The lady at the Inner Peace place told me that Bay was a very close friend of Mike’s and tried to help him. What I can’t believe is that he would try to help anybody who couldn’t afford to pay him.”

  “Not unless he had reason to.”

  “He could have reason. Blackmail could be a strong reason for a man as broke as Mike. Mike didn’t even belong to that kooky outfit. And we both know a heavy habit needs heavy money.”

  “That makes sense,” he admitted.

  “And,” I pointed out, “it’s not outside your jurisdiction. Mike died in Santa Monica.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said wearily. “I’ll ask around.”

  “Thanks, Lars. Give my best to your latest.”

  “Latest what?”

  “Female conquest,” I said, and hung up.

  I hadn’t planned to sit through tonight’s lecture. My hope was that I could talk privately with Bay and sort of test the way the wind was blowing.

  The lecture was scheduled for eight o’clock. I phoned at six-thirty and a woman answered. I gave her my phony name and asked if she remembered my visit.

  “I certainly do, Mr. Ramsay,” she said.

  “Could I speak with Turhan tonight before the lecture?”

  “He will be here at seven.”

  The black Jaguar was on the small parking lot that flanked the temple. I parked next to it.

  There was no one in the foyer. I walked down the middle aisle past the rows of benches. There was a closed door in the wall next to the rostrum and voices from behind it. I knocked. The woman I had talked with that morning opened the door.

  “Come in,” she said. And to Bay, “This is Carlton Ramsay.”

  He was standing behind his desk, a thin, fairly tall man with cold blue eyes. He said, “Have a seat, Mr. Ramsay,” and nodded at the woman.

  She left and closed the door. I sat in a straight chair near his desk.

  He stared at me for a few seconds. “That was a strange story you told my secretary this morning. Why would the Santa Monica police claim Mike was murdered if he wasn’t?”

  “It’s possible that he was. It is also possible that he committed suicide. And that is what I hope to clear up. Do you believe he was despondent enough to take his own life?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you think he did?”

  He shrugged. “That’s what I don’t understand. No weapon was found.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Mr. Bay, I worked for the Arden Investigative Service in Santa Monica for twelve years. I finally had to leave the town and the agency. I uncovered some shenanigans that were going on in the Department and was harassed constantly by them after that.”

  He smiled. “And now you are on a vindictive crusade? That is a waste of time and effort. They have the clout in court and they are the law.”

  I agreed with a nod. “And if you think Mike could have committed suicide—?” I took a breath. “But I remember the riot guns the Department used in those days. They were sawed-off shotguns and that was the kind of weapon that probably blew away Mike’s face.”

  He stared at me. “Are you suggesting that—”

  “I’m not suggesting anything, Mr. Bay. You’ve learned all that I know. I want to thank you for the help you tried to give Mike and your kind words about him in your eulogy.”

  I heard the door open behind me and turned. And there she stood in the open doorway, a shade heavier and a touch older, but as beautiful as ever—Crystal Lane.

  She smiled at me. “Brock Callahan, as I live and breathe! It’s been a long time, honey boy.”

  I brushed past her and hurried down the aisle. I was in the car, feeling like a country bumpkin, when Crystal came out the front door. She shouted something I couldn’t understand. I didn’t stop.

  My current investigative techniques were no longer as sharp as they should be. Soft living and too many misspent hours on the golf course in San Valdesto had obviously dulled them.

  I stopped at Denny’s for a glass of Einlicher. He had, he told me, asked around about Bay this afternoon and got a lot of mixed reports on the man. He seemed to have gained favor with the women in the neighborhood, but was not generally admired by the men. I told him where I had been and what had happened.

  Denny sighed. “Have you ever thought of retiring, Brock?”

  “Not until tonight.”

  The man standing next to me at the bar, a large man in cheap clothes, said, “Brock? Brock the Rock?”

  Denny nodded.

  “You were the greatest,” the man said. “Can I shake your hand?”

  We shook hands.

  “This Turhan Bay you mentioned, is he a friend of yours?”

  “No way! Do you know him?”

  He shook his head. “But the wife thinks he’s God. She’s down there right now, listening to his bullshit. He’s really making a lot of money with his blarney. I told the wife if she wanted to contribute to that creep she’d have to take it out of her household money.”

  Denny smiled. “I’ll bet you haven’t been eating too good since then.”

  “No bet,” the man said. “Brock, if you ever tangle with that weirdo, give him an extra shot for me.

  I promised him I would, my ego restored.

  A few beers and two hours of jock talk after that, I left. The night was clear, the stars were bright. I drove slowly and carefully to 332 Adonis Court and turned on the car radio to a local big band station.

  A few minutes after ten o’clock, an ancient but still glossy Volkswagen Bug came down the street and pulled into the driveway. Crystal got out to open the garage door. I left my car before she got back into hers.

  “You dumb jock,” she said. “Why did you take off like that? I explained to Turhan that you were just having fun with him. You were never very good at the con, muscles.”

  “I was doing pretty well at it until you opened your big mouth. How long have you been sleeping with him?”

  “Turhan sleeps at home, smartass. In this house it’s all business.”

  “I know. Lars told me that.”

  “Lars Hovde?”

  I nodded.

  “He should talk! He’s probably slept with every woman in town except for maybe the mayor’s wife.”

  “Crystal, let’s not fight.”

  “Okay. Wait for me on the porch. We’ll have a cup of coffee for auld lang syne and talk about better times and nicer people.”

  The front door opened directly into the living room. It was a very small house, badly furnished in discount house moderne.

  I sat in a plastic-upholstered armchair; she went into the kitchen. If Turhan was raking in the loot he certainly wasn’t sharing it with her. I mentioned this when she brought us our coffee.

  She frowned. “Loot? What loot? In Venice?”

  “The word I got, the man is rich.”

  She shook her head. “His wife is rich. And old!”

  “Did she buy him the Jaguar?”

  “She did. And he bought me the Bug. Brock, so help me, the man really believes what he’s selling.”

  “I’m not sure what he’s selling,” I said. “I couldn’t make any sense out of his talk at the mortuary.”

  She shrugged. “He’s not for everybody.”

  “You and Mike,” I said. “If you’ll excuse my sentimentality, I always thought you two were meant for each other.”

  “Maybe it would have worked out if he had some sense of reality, an instinct for an honest dollar. If we’d have married, I’m sure we would have wound up
on welfare. Brock, it’s easy to be moral when you inherit a fortune.”

  I smiled at her. “Your round. I apologize. What I can’t believe is that Mike would sink low enough to peddle dope.”

  “I don’t know that he did. Do you?”

  “Not for sure. Does Bay?”

  “If he did, he never mentioned it to me. He tried his damnedest to get Mike off the stuff. Mike destroyed himself, Brock.”

  I nodded. “ ‘A million dollars of promise worth two cents on delivery.’ ”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a line from a book by Mark Harris. Mike could have made a good living, even in those days, as a pro quarterback.”

  “Maybe. You had a pro career and wound up as a private eye in a two-bit office. Tell me—if your uncle Homer hadn’t died where would you have wound up?”

  “Still in the two-bit office,” I admitted. “Let’s talk about better times and nicer people.”

  Which we did.

  When I got up to leave, she said, “Keep in touch, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “I suppose you’re still happily married?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” I said.

  Nolan had told me it was Bay who had the big-money account at his office. Now Crystal had told me it was his wife who was rich. Both could be right; it was possible they had a joint account. In this chauvinistic world, the husband’s name was al­ways the top name on a joint brokerage or bank account. Jan had pointed that out to me soon after we were married.

  I thought of phoning her when I came back to the hotel, to learn how her aunt was doing, but decided against it. Late-night phone calls are too often frightening to the callee.

  I recorded the things I had been told today and the things I suspected, trying to find a pattern. I had no way of knowing how many of the things I had been told were lies. When I learned which of them were, it should help to narrow the search.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NOLAN HAD TOLD ME that Bay had a big account at his brokerage. Crystal had told me that Bay’s wife had the money. Both stories could be true—or false.

  Because of the time zones, brokers in California had to come to work a lot earlier than those in New York. I phoned Nolan before breakfast and told him what Crystal had told me.

  Mrs. Bay, he informed me, was still with E.F. Hutton and had been for many years. He said, “I hope you didn’t mention to Crystal what I told you about Bay’s account. It is none of her damned business!”

  “I didn’t mention it and I won’t,” I promised.

  “Brock, I don’t want you to mention it to anybody. That is why I was so hesitant about telling you what I did. I went out on a limb for you because of the way we both feel about Mike.”

  “I appreciate it, Joe,” I said, and hung up.

  A stockbroker with both a heart and ethics? He could be unique.

  I had breakfast at the hotel and went to my room. The morning was gloomy and overcast and I had nowhere to go.

  What Nolan had just told me was added to the record. No pattern emerged. If Crystal had told the truth about Bay’s slim pickings in Venice, he had to have another source of income. And if Nolan knew that it came from a doubtful source, he could be in big trouble with the SEC. If he pried into it and Bay learned that he had, it could lose him the Bay account. That put him between a rock and a hard place.

  The morning Times financial page reported that two more of our eminently respectable brokerage houses were now under investigation by the Feds for illegal insider trading. Maybe Joe had called it right; he had gone out on a limb. But not for me.

  I was learning nothing here in the room. At eleven-thirty I drove out to Ye Sandwich Shoppe in the hope that Lars would show.

  On my second cup of coffee, he walked in. He looked sour.

  “Don’t sulk,” I said. “I’m buying today.”

  “It’s been a bad morning,” he said. “Anything new by you?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing important.” I told him about my trip to the temple last night and what Bay had told me before Crystal walked in and made me look even more foolish than usual.

  He ordered a beer and sipped in silence. After several minutes I asked, “What’s bugging you, buddy?”

  “For one thing,” he said, “my job. I’m still six years short of pension time and still a sergeant. And today I learned that a kinky killer I put away is now out on parole. Maybe you remember him?”

  “Maybe if you tell me his name.”

  “Carlo Minatti, known in the trade as Kooky Carl. Do you remember him?”

  I shook my head. “Italian. Mafia?”

  “Nope. Strictly independent. This I need in my declining years? Jesus, Brock, I’ve been a sergeant for twelve years and they aren’t going to let me get any higher, not in this town, not with Slade in charge.”

  I said nothing.

  Over our sandwiches he said, “The way I see it, I’m going to have to get to him before he gets to me. And then, about an hour ago, I remembered something else. His favorite weapon was a sawed-off shotgun.”

  “You think he might be the man who blasted Mike?”

  “I doubt it. But he could be. He was always for hire.”

  “I’ll go along with you this afternoon,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly! You’re not even carrying, are you?”

  “No. I didn’t have any reason to bring my ancient Colt .45 down here just for the funeral. We’ll take my car. It doesn’t smell of cop.”

  “And you are not a cop.”

  “Right. But this Minatti could be the man we’re both looking for.”

  He studied me for seconds before he finally said, “Okay.”

  Lars has this theory that male convicts who have been on a restricted diet of pederasty in jail hunger for a return to female company when they are released. And female informants are usually less stubborn than males. The first two female stops were fruitless. When he told me to head for Venice, I reminded him that Venice was out of his jurisdiction.

  “Not today,” he said. “I’m off the clock. This one is personal.”

  Which could get him into a lot of trouble. I didn’t voice the thought.

  We made three stops in Venice, all of which were likewise fruitless. Then we headed for Denny’s.

  Why, I wondered, would a man who just got out after a long stretch in prison risk going back in? I was assuming that Minatti could be the man who killed Mike. I voiced the thought to Lars.

  “Because,” he explained, “they have to eat and pay rent, just like us solid citizens. What other trade do they know?”

  “Did you question his parole officer?”

  “He’s the man who alerted me. Minatti missed a visit this week and he had moved from the original address he gave the officer.”

  Denny was laying out ten-dollar bills on the bar to an enormous black man in an expensive suit when we walked in.

  They both turned to stare at us. Denny smiled and said, “Just paying the rent, boys.”

  Lars smiled back at him. “Of course. We’re here for the Einlicher.”

  Denny laid the last tenner on the bar and the man walked out. He went to the tap and poured us two beakers. “On the house,” he said. “There were two guys in here asking about you this afternoon, Brock.”

  “Asking what?”

  “They wanted to know where you were staying in town. One of them left his card.” He took a card from the back bar and handed it to me.

  Dennis Sadler, the card read: Arden Investigative Services. My lie to Turhan Bay had come back to haunt me.

  I handed the card to Lars and told him the story I had fed Turhan Bay.

  “This one is in my jurisdiction,” he said. “We’ll drop in on the way back and straighten them out.”

  Another beer later we did. The head man at Arden was short and pudgy. I have forgotten his name. He explained to us patiently that Arden never revealed the name of a client.

  Lars flashed his badge and said, “
We know his name, that freak who runs that crazy cult. What I’m here to find out is why your stooges are harassing Mr. Callahan.”

  The little man glared at Lars. “My agents are not stooges and I do not consider an investigation a harassment.”

  “And I suppose you don’t consider Mr. Bay a con man?”

  “I certainly do not, and neither does my wife. And as for your friend there, he lied about his identity and in his statement that he used to work for this agency.”

  Lars smiled. “Are you trying to tell me that none of your agents has ever been guilty of lying?”

  “No more than your friend has. I remember him now. He had a one-man office in Beverly Hills some years ago.”

  Lars nodded. “He did. But aren’t we all on the same side of the law? You can’t possibly believe that Bay is.”

  “I do, and so does my wife.”

  “And did Bay ever tell you about his previous pseudonyms?”

  “I don’t know he had any. Could you name them?”

  Lars shook his head. “That would be Department business. But, for your information, he had several.”

  The little man glared at us as we went out. He was still glaring when I closed the door.

  Lars was chuckling. “What a con man, right?”

  “There were three of us in the room,” I said, “including one police officer. When did you dream up that pseudonym bit?”

  “It was only a ploy. I wanted to keep that little bastard off balance.”

  When I dropped him off at the station, he gave me the picture of Minatti he had been carrying for identification to his informants. “Maybe you’ll have more luck,” he explained.

  I stopped on the way back to the hotel to see if Crystal was home. The garage door was open and the garage empty. I rang her bell three times with no response.

  For a girl who had inhabited some luxurious suites and impressive homes, the cheaply furnished cottage had to be a depressing comedown. Crystal was flighty; but not dumb, and she had a sound regard for the dollar. It was unlikely that she shared the belief of the little man at Arden regarding Turhan Bay. Honest and dedicated men were not her quarry—unless they were also rich. Bay, she had claimed, was not.

  There was nothing to add to the record except for the shotgun hit-man item. I would remember that without recording it.