Dead Pigeon

by William Campbell Gault

  I said, “I had no idea Mike was into the heavy stuff. Marijuana, I knew about that. He was smoking that when we were roomies.”

  “That damned fool,” he said. “The golden boy! The way I see it, he killed himself.”

  I said nothing.

  “Any other favorite suspect?” he asked.

  “A man named Clauss.”

  “Emil Clauss?”

  I nodded. “Do you know the man?”

  “All my brethren know him,” he said. “A vicious cop and on the take. But he never bothered me. The small dealers were his bread and butter. Beverly Hills was not on his beat.”

  “The search is out for him, Tony. Maybe you have friends who can help us.”

  “I’ve never been a stoolie,” he said, “but maybe in this case. A crooked cop who blew away an unarmed dealer? I could switch. I’ll ask around. Leave me your phone number.”

  “I’m staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

  “So was I,” he said sadly. “For years. And now this!”

  I couldn’t see Gorman as a killer. Asking the man at the desk for Tony’s alibi would be ungracious. I didn’t need to. He informed me that Tony had been sound asleep the night Mike was killed.

  I drove out of the Valley sun and headed back down toward foggy Santa Monica. Clauss had probably killed that unarmed drug dealer because he didn’t pay off. It had lost him his job and turned him more vicious than ever. Both Denny and Heinie had confirmed that Mike was far from solvent; he couldn’t even pay his bar tabs. That would be pickings too small to interest Clauss. But Clauss was not a rational man.

  Crystal was out in front, clipping her solitary rosebush. “Now what?” she asked.

  “I thought maybe I could take you to some expensive place for lunch.”

  “Are you coming on to me?”

  “Nope. Just a friendly visit to an old friend.”

  “You could have dropped the ‘old.’ I have to be back here at two-thirty. Turhan’s coming then.”

  “For an afternoon quickie?”

  She glared at me. “For our meditation session, you foul-minded jock! Turhan has helped me through some bad times, just as he tried to do for Mike. You can leave now.”

  “I apologize, Crystal. Please?”

  “Okay, okay! Maybe you had a right. I’ll admit I’ve never been the village virgin. I’ll have to change. You can watch a game show on the tube. That should fit your mentality.”

  “I love ’em,” I lied.

  She was wearing a blue silk sheath and blue pumps when she came out again, a welcome change from today’s silly fashions.

  In the car, she said, “Do you remember when you asked me if I lusted for Turhan and I said I did?”

  “Yes.”

  “I lied. He’s gay.”

  “And married—?”

  “His wife’s a lesbian.”

  “Let’s hope his devoted followers never learn that. I’m almost beginning to believe he means what he says, even if I don’t understand it.”

  “It’s kind of complicated. He has this belief that ours can’t possibly be the only planet in the universe. That would be sheer arrogance. There must be thousands of inhabited planets out there somewhere. And a lot of them with a more advanced civilization.”

  “I sure as hell hope so,” I said. “I ain’t too crazy about this one.”

  The sun came out. The food was fine, though not exactly geared to my peasant palate. We talked of other times and old friends, and where were they all today? As some sage has said, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

  I took her home in time for her celestial seance and drove to Denny’s.

  The bar was lined with males, except at the far end where Denny was paying off a female winner.

  She left with a handful of twenties and I took her place at the bar.

  “Did you get a chance to check out Gorman?” he asked.

  I nodded. “He’s clean.”

  “Clean? A drug pusher, clean? What kind of talk is that?”

  “He wasn’t a pusher; only a dealer. And he confined his trade to rich suckers.”

  “That’s better, but still not clean. Anything new on the murder?”

  I shook my head. He set a glass of Einlicher in front of me. I asked, “Did you ever pay off Clauss?”

  “Never! For my puny take? And a lot of my customers are mean and tough and they don’t like crooked cops.”

  He went down to the other end to serve a customer. The place was getting noisy and crowded, I finished my beer and left.

  Gorman had been cleared. So had Carlo Minatti. That left us Clauss as our prime suspect.

  The longest line of connections on my sheet was Gillete, Tucker, Bay, and Nolan. If Clauss was the who, what was the why? Motive, means, and opportunity are the deadly triplicate that a prosecutor requires for a Murder One conviction. What was the motive?

  I’d had almost a week of frustration, leading nowhere. My image of Mike had deteriorated in that time. Peter Scarlatti was probably right; I was a victim of the Sam Spade syndrome. Mike was my Archer. Archer had been Spade’s partner; Mike had been my roomie.

  Denny had not paid off Clauss. But Denny, so far as I knew, did not deal in drugs. Gorman had told me the small dealers were Clauss’s bread and butter. That description would include Mike. It wasn’t likely that he would get the Beverly Hills trade.

  Did he, I wondered, know that Turhan Bay was homosexual? If he did, it would be a motive for blackmail. That, I decided, was taking my image of Mike to a new low. And the possibility of Bay hiring a vicious killer like Clauss was highly unlikely.

  It was possible that if we ever found Clauss, we would have the who. But we wouldn’t have the why. To paraphrase Sherwood Anderson, I wanted to know why. What was Emil’s motive?

  The bullet from a pistol or rifle can be matched to the gun. But not a shotgun. Clauss obviously knew that. It could be the reason the shotgun was his choice.

  CHAPTER TEN

  GORMAN PHONED IN THE morning to tell me that all he had learned about Clauss so far was that he had a son named Emil. The word he had on him was that they had never got along since Clause’s wife had divorced him.

  “Is she still in town?”

  “No. She moved to Bakersfield right after the divorce.”

  “No other children?”

  “None. And there’s no listing for young Clauss in the phone book. The only other word I got was from a doubtful source. I was told he used to live in the Brentwood area. At that time he was driving a red Porsche with wire wheels.”

  Clauss, who couldn’t pay his rent, had a son who lived in Brentwood and drove a Porsche. I could understand why young Emil had no listing in the phone book.

  I ate breakfast at the hotel and came out into a sunny day for a Sunday tour of Brentwood. Back and forth I drove, on the main streets and the lateral streets, hoping against hope I would spot a red Porsche with wire wheels.

  On one of the lateral streets off Wilshire, about three blocks from Bay’s house, my luck held. A car of that description was parked in front of a two-story stucco apartment house.

  There were five names on the mailboxes in the vestibule. There was one blank space. I pressed the button next to that one. There was no answering buzz on the locked door nor any answer on the vestibule phone.

  I went out to sit in the car. I sat and sat and sat and wished I hadn’t given up smoking.

  A few minutes before I had decided to leave, a stocky young man in tennis shorts and carrying a racquet came out of the building and headed for the Porsche.

  I walked across the street as he was about to get into the car. “Are you Emil Clauss?” I asked.

  He nodded and smiled. “And I know who you are. I grew up watching you perform at the Coliseum. Are you the man who rang my bell?”

  I nodded.

  “If I had known it was you, I would have answered. But too damned many cops have been ringing my bell lately.”

  “Looking for your father?”


  “Right.” He frowned. “Wait—didn’t you work as a private detective after you left the Rams?”

  “I did. I’m retired now. I live in San Valdesto. But a very good friend of mine was killed and I came down to investigate it.”

  “And that’s why you’re looking for my father. He could have done it. Jesus, he put my mother into intensive care.”

  “So far,” I said, “he is only a suspect. We have to remember he could be innocent.”

  “Not of beating up my mother. The last I heard about him, he was boarding in some house in Venice with a former hooker.”

  “He’s left there. And stiffed the lady for room and board. If you get any information on him, please phone the police.”

  “No way! I’ve had a belly full of cops. I’ll phone you. This friend you mentioned, was that Mike Gregory?”

  I nodded.

  “That damned fool.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “No, but I watched him on the tube that day he beat Cal. And he winds up a dead derelict on the beach. What a waste!”

  “Drugs,” I said.

  He nodded. “Drugs and dumb jocks. But not in tennis, not yet.”

  “Not yet,” I said, and told him where I was staying.

  Clauss, so far, was only a suspect. We were running out of those. Gorman’s innocence had been certified. The Fresno police had established Carlo Minatti’s. If Clauss made that an unholy trinity, we were out of suspects, the end of the road.

  There were old friends in town I probably should have visited, but I had been in the car too long. Crystal was the closest.

  She was out on her small front lawn, in shorts and halter, digging up dandelions.

  She stood up and stared at me. “Twice in two days? I’m beginning to think you’ve got the hots for me.”

  “Not in any vulgar way. I am only a worn-out traveler seeking pleasant company.”

  “The Sunday blues,” she said. “I get ’em, too. Maybe we should go to church.”

  “I’d prefer the beach.”

  “So would I,” she said. “We can walk there from here. I could use the exercise.”

  “Let’s go.”

  She packed a lunch, including four bottles of beer. An old blanket and a large parasol made up the rest of our luggage.

  The beach was jammed. We walked to the far end, to a more sparsely populated area and set up the parasol and spread the blanket and sat down to watch the waves come in. It was nirvana time, a haven from the external realities.

  “That friend of yours, that Lars,” she said. “How can you stand him? He’s a slob.”

  “Because he busted you?”

  “And propositioned me. It would be like being run over by a truck. He’s so big and gross.”

  “Lars propositioned you?”

  “He did. Don’t you dare mention it to him!”

  “I won’t. I know he’s a horny guy. But he is also an officer of the law. Why didn’t you report him to his superiors?”

  “And have him put me on his enemy list? No, thanks.”

  I said, “Lars isn’t as big and gross as Terrible Tim Tucker. Did you ever meet him?”

  “Turhan’s cousin? A long time ago. Turhan looked him up when he first came out here. I guess they didn’t hit it off. Isn’t he a boxer?”

  “A former wrestler, now a bodyguard for a local hoodlum.”

  She looked at me suspiciously. “Are you interrogating me? Are you suggesting that Turhan might have something to do with Mike’s murder?”

  “Of course not! Don’t be so damned suspicious. I’m your friend, Crystal. Let’s go wading.”

  I took off my shoes and socks, she her sandals, and we splashed along in the shallow water all the way to Muscle Beach. I was more bushed than she was when we got back. Which she pointed out.

  I tried to think of some acerbic comment to make about that. None came to mind.

  We ate the sandwiches and drank the beer and watched the waves roll in, the swimmers and the waders and the young splashers, back again to nirvana time.

  When we got up to go, I suggested that maybe a dinner and a movie might be a pleasant way to end the day.

  She shook her head. “Some other time. Turhan is giving a talk tonight on world peace. Maybe you’d like to come with me?”

  “Not tonight.”

  We walked back to her house in silence. I had the feeling she was miffed. Before I got back into the car I asked her if she was.

  She sighed. “Nostalgic, I guess. Were things really better when we were younger or is that only what I want to believe?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t mind being young again.”

  “You weren’t rich then.”

  “But I was handsomer.”

  She kissed me. “You’re handsome enough for me. If your wife ever divorces you, put me on top of your substitution list. Thanks for today, Brock.”

  “And thank you. Any time you have need of me, holler.”

  She smiled. “I will. You’re not nearly as heavy as Lars.”

  “You are a vulgar woman, Crystal Lane.”

  “I know.”

  “What a waste” young Clauss had said about Mike. The same could apply to Crystal. Pretty and smart and stylish, a victim of unsuitable suitors. It would be unfair to accuse her of having a love of money, the core of all evil. She didn’t love money, only the spending of it.

  I was having my predinner drink in the dining room when Joe Nolan walked in. He saw me and came over.

  “May I join you?” he asked. “My wife is out of town, visiting relatives.”

  “So is mine. Be my guest.”

  He shook his head. “This one’s on me again. I can pretend you’re a client and put it on my expense account.”

  The waiter came. He ordered mineral water. He sighed. “I thought I didn’t need AA but I was wrong. Is there anything new on Mike’s murder?”

  “Nothing. I have a feeling I am going down a dead-end road. And the Santa Monica police seem to have dropped it from a low priority case to a no priority case.”

  “How about that Gillete person you mentioned. Isn’t he a suspect?”

  “Not to the Santa Monica boys. But, of course, he is out of their jurisdiction.”

  “And Turhan? You don’t think he was involved in any way?”

  “Not so far.”

  He smiled again. “I’ll bet you think that blackmail theory of mine was dumb. My wife claims I read too many mystery novels.”

  “It wasn’t dumb, now that I’ve learned more about Mike. I still hope to do a little more digging on Bay. But that could cost you a wealthy client, couldn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. If he goes to jail the account would still be mine.”

  I frowned.

  “That was cynical, wasn’t it?” he asked. “My wife also claims I have a macabre sense of humor.”

  “I agree with your wife,” I told him.

  He left before our dessert arrived. He explained that he had a ticket for a Springsteen concert.

  He went to the concert. I went up to my room. What had I learned today? I had learned that young Clauss hated his father, Turhan Bay was lecturing on world peace tonight, and Nolan was back in AA. I consoled myself with the thought that Sunday was not supposed to be a working day.

  Lars had settled on Clauss as his target. But all of them—Nolan, Bay, Crystal, Gillete, and Tucker—could be involved, one way or another, with the death of Mike Gregory.

  Clauss was the logical choice at the moment. But how were the others involved? Tucker could be a logical suspect, or any hit man Gillete could hire.

  It might have been Clauss who had conked me in that rooming house. My choice would be Tucker. Tucker was the muscle man. Luplow hadn’t been shot; he had been beaten to death.

  There was, of course, a possibility it was both the muscle and the hit man. He was mean enough. And the sound of a shot in that second-story room was bound t
o alert the tenants. If there had been any roomers on the first floor, they could have identified the killer when he came clattering down the stairs.

  The noise of a rumpus on the floor above would probably sound to them like just another family dispute.

  There were too many “ifs” and too many “maybes” in this case. It was after midnight when I finally fell asleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE MORNING TIMES REPORTED that the man who had killed Barney Luplow was now in jail. Lars would not learn from Luplow where Clauss was hiding.

  I thought of phoning him to tell him what young Clauss had told me yesterday, but decided not to. I was still angry about what Crystal had told me. Lars claimed he hated crooked cops. Sexual favors, apparently, did not qualify as extortion to a fornicator.

  I phoned Dennis Sadler and suggested we ride together today.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at the hotel in an hour.”

  I had finished breakfast and was out in front of the hotel when he drove up the driveway in a dark-yellow Chevrolet two-door sedan. The town was loaded with that model. It was the kind of inconspicuous car the smart investigators favored for shadowing or surveillance.

  “How was Palm Springs?” I asked.

  “Perfect! Domestic harmony has returned to our house.”

  “And your mother-in-law?”

  “Hopeless. Where first?”

  “The Valley. Studio City.”

  Traffic heading into downtown Los Angeles was heavy. It was light on our trip to the Valley. The Bentley and the yellow pickup truck were parked in front of the Gillete garage.

  We drove past, made a U-turn at the nearest intersection, and parked on the far side of the road across from the house. We had a clear view of it from here, parked behind a hedge.

  Dennis asked, “What makes you think Gillete could be involved in your friend’s murder?”

  “Tim Tucker, Bay’s cousin. I met him first when I came here to check on Bay. But the second time I ran into him was in a small bar in Venice, a long way from here. I don’t know if he was looking for me or if it was only a coincidence. My guess is that he followed me. Then Gillete phoned me to apologize for the fuss Tim and I had at the bar. I wondered why.”