I took my shower and shaved. The lip had gone down; it was hardly noticeable now. I put on my shorts and a pair of socks and pulled the bed down out of the wall. I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure all the angles in the deal and where I was likely to get hooked.
Then I got up and found a huge, detailed map of L.A. in the bureau. I checked all the roads leading to Playa del Rey. My best bet, I decided, would be to take the Coast Boulevard out, after getting the boodle. Going back on Culver Boulevard would be the expected maneuver, and that’s the way the police would come if Roland should be silly enough to call the law—after I robbed him. And then I remembered there was no phone in the place. He couldn’t phone for the law and anything else would take too much time.
I took out my .38 and checked it. I wore it very little in this business. The barrel had a few specks of rust in the rifling. That didn’t matter; it was more for show than blow.
At seven-thirty I swung the Chev into the underground parking station of the showplace apartment near the strip. There was an elevator from here and I took it.
Jean opened the door to my ring and her hand rested for a second on mine. “On time, Mr. Puma. I hope you’ve brought good news.”
This for Willi’s ears, no doubt. I said, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say my news is good, Miss Roland.”
I followed her through the entry hall into a high, brightly decorated living room. The place was furnished in standard organic modern; molded plywoods and tubular furniture, all functional. Latex cushioning, shaggy rugs. In a glass brick wall, an ebony fireplace glistened in the subdued lighting. The wall to the right of this was the view wall, a thermopane window overlooking the city lights behind the apartment.
Jean was wearing a dress of brilliant green, a ribbed and rustly material that whispered against those smooth thighs.
“Drink?” she asked. “Scotch, bourbon, martini, manhattan—?”
“Bourbon,” I said. “A shot, and some water to chase it home.”
Jean smiled, and then there were footsteps on the parquet floor of the entry hall and I turned to face a girl. She was wearing black slacks and a white turtle neck sweater. If she was trying to look mannish, the sweater was a mistake, or she should have worn a tighter bra. She had black, tightly curled hair on a small, beautifully shaped head. She had eyes of a clear and disturbing dark blue and fine features, as cleanly etched as a newly minted dime.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but certainly not this. The girl’s animal attraction seemed to fill the room.
Jean said, “Miss Willi Clifford, may I present Mr. Puma? He’s the man who’s worked so hard for me.”
Willi said “How do you do?” very primly and showed absolutely nothing on that clear face.
“Howdy,” I said. “Some spot you girls got here.”
Willi didn’t wince. Her eyes went to Jean and came back to me. She smiled. “We like it.”
Jean handed me my drink, and said, “Mr. Puma, you’re satisfied with everything you investigated so far, are you?”
“Everything I could see,” I said. “Everything I could check. If I was just the cheap, ordinary kind of private eye, lady, I’d say: go ahead, sink your dough.”
“I realize you’re competent,” Jean said. “You were very highly recommended to me. What—disturbs you about the picture, there?”
“I don’t know.” I paused like the true ham. “It might seem like I’m trying to stretch the job, Miss Roland, but I’d like a little more time on it. It’s not the fee, you understand; I’d be glad to cut that for this extra time. I just don’t want you to rush. That is, if you intend to put any important money into it.”
“I intend to put about ninety thousand dollars into it,” she said. “And my father plans to invest considerably more.”
“Well, then,” I suggested, “forty bucks a day isn’t going to hurt you. Not if it means you’ll be sure. There’s a saying in this town, Miss Roland, that when Joe Puma’s satisfied, everybody’s satisfied.”
Jean met my gaze evenly. “I can well believe that.” She turned to Willi. “What would you like to drink?”
Willi smiled. “Nothing, thank you.”
I wished she’d look at me like she’d looked at Jean. I sat on the davenport next to her, just close enough to annoy her. There was a book on the coffee table in front of us, and I picked it up. The Grass Harp. I put it down again.
Her voice was cool and amused. “Read much, Mr. Puma?”
“Just Pegler,” I said. “He’s enough for me. With Spillane.”
“You’d like Nietzsche, then,” she said quietly, “and Mein Kampf.”
“I read that last,” I said. “They can say what they want about Hitler; he had some good ideas.”
“He had one excellent idea,” she agreed.
I beamed at her. “Yeah? Which one was that?”
“Committing suicide.”
Then a maid was coming in with some canapes and the door chime sounded. Jean went to open the door. It was Charles Adam Roland, bringing his radiance into the room with him. Cultured, witty, his white hair making him look as sexless as a saint, he was more Miss Willi Clifford’s type.
At dinner, they chatted and I sat ponderously and smugly silent. The names they used were none I knew, Kafka and Vidal, Proust, Joyce, Buechner. Jean joined in the conversation from time to time and tried to include me. Without much success.
Over the coffee, Jean said quietly, “Father, I’ve decided to wait a few more days.”
He frowned, and well-bred concern dimmed his radiant face. “I see—I—” He looked at me. “You aren’t satisfied with your investigation, Mr. Puma?”
I coughed and looked judicial. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”
His smile was thin. “Do you mind telling me what you would say exactly?”
“I’d say it doesn’t hurt to wait.” My chin out, my mouth pursed in thought.
“Doesn’t hurt whom, Mr. Puma?”
“Anybody that’s going to drop ninety grand, that’s who.”
“I see.” He smiled tolerantly at Jean. “You’re afraid your impetuous father is rushing you, are you? You’ll remember how doubtful you were about the Calvin Brass Company, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Jean’s gaze avoided his.
“And I took three million out of that. Net.”
“I know.” She looked at him squarely. “And lost it in South America.”
He bulged a jaw muscle and looked faintly noble. “Lost it? The money is gone, but it was spent fighting a tyranny, a vicious dictatorship. I hope I never grow greedy enough to consider that lost money.”
A marine color guard and Old Glory flying in a cloudless sky couldn’t have added a thing to the moment. Silence, though I thought I could hear a flare of trumpets in the background.
I said, “If it was my three million, they could have all the dictatorships they wanted in South America.”
Willi Clifford took her admiring eyes from Roland and fastened them disdainfully on me. She opened her mouth to say something, and then must have decided against it.
Jean said, “Dad, it’s—I—Oh, wouldn’t it be all right if I waited a few days? Certainly that couldn’t hurt.”
“It could, if there was a leak,” Roland said. Very plainly, for all to see, he looked at me and back at Jean. “A leak could undo six months of negotiation and cost us a potential fourteen million dollars.”
Now, Jean looked at me meaningly. “I don’t think we need fear a leak, do we, Mr. Puma?”
I didn’t look at her as I said, “Not from me, that’s for sure. Nobody has to worry about Joe Puma squeaking. And you’re smart to take my advice, Miss Roland.”
I looked at Roland belligerently. He indicated with his eyes that I should head for the door.
I said, “Don’t like to eat and run, but there’s a man I have to see. I’ll get in touch with you, Miss Roland.” I nodded at Willi and the old man. “Glad to have been with you both.
” I didn’t sound like I meant it.
Jean went to the door with me. There, she pressed my hand and said quietly, “I’ll phone you, first chance I get.”
I winked at her and went out.
Outside, it was a clear night and the traffic on Sunset was heavy. If they’d wanted me to play the heavy for Willi, to get Willi to hate me, it should have been a successful dinner.
I thought of stopping in at Herbie’s for a drink, but decided against it. I listened to the radio for a while, and then made a drink, and then turned in. About fifteen minutes after I hit the hay, a slow rain started pattering on the roof.
I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I was thinking of Jean when I did. And I woke up smelling her perfume. I wondered if I’d left the door unlocked, and tried to think back, and remembered that I hadn’t checked it, at any rate.
And then, in the darkness a flash of headlights went by, and I saw Jean standing there, next to the bed. She was naked, and her slim tall body was beautiful in that quick show of light.
Her chuckle, and her low voice. “Move over, you slob.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE HAD A YOUNG girl’s body, firm and responsive, smooth as well-worn ivory. She was strong for her slimness, and active. It had been no time to ask questions before, but now, as we lay becalmed in the dark room, I asked, “How about Willi?”
“She took a plane for ’Frisco a few hours ago. I just had to see you.”
“A plane for ’Frisco? Don’t tell me the mark’s flown the coop?”
“She’ll be back. An aunt is very sick. We got the phone call right after you left.”
Jean’s voice had been too casual. I was almost sure she was lying. But why, why, why?
And then, in her next words, the tip-off. “It’s just as well. Deutscher seems to have disappeared, anyway, and Dad’s leery of going ahead without him.”
That was it, Deutscher. And that meant, to me, that perhaps Willi hadn’t gone to ’Frisco. And perhaps it wasn’t only Charles Adam Roland who was working with Deutscher; perhaps Jean was, too, and she’d been sent to lie to me.
I said easily, “Do we need Deutscher in this?”
Her hand was locked in mine, and she squeezed it. She chuckled. “In this? In this bed, do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, grumpy, I know what you mean. I don’t know if we need Deutscher or not. But Dad seems to think we do. Dad says he’s very solid with the law.”
“As I told your dad this afternoon, the law is looking for Deutscher right now. That’s how solid he is.”
A silence, and then, “Papa never told me that.”
I matched her silence. “Maybe you’re not in his confidence.” And maybe you are, I thought. And I’m not.
She squeezed my hand, again. “Joe, somebody has to trust somebody in this affair. Why can’t it be us?”
“It can be. Did Willi really go out of town?”
Her hand left mine. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
“It seemed simple enough to me. Everything going so smoothly at dinner, and now this, and on top of it I hear that Deutscher is missing.” I took a breath and smelled her perfume. “It could be that Willi is supposed to be missing until your papa finds Deutscher.”
“But I was there when she got the phone call. Do you think I’m lying?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Are you?”
“You son-of-a-bitch.” I could see her sitting up in the darkness of the room. I heard the springs squeak as she slid over to the edge.
“I apologize,” I said. “Come on back, Duchess.”
She didn’t come back, right away. She said, “I’m going to put a long distance call through to ’Frisco. I want you to talk to Willi.”
“Save my money,” I said. “I believe you, honey. Have I ever doubted you before?”
She came over to take my hand again.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Not out loud, but I get the feeling you don’t even trust yourself.”
I laughed. “You can’t blame me for that. I’m not a trustworthy character.”
“I think you are.” She fumbled for my cheek and patted it. “Let’s go to sleep.”
There’d been a lull in the rain; now it was starting again. I fell asleep.
In the morning, she was gone, but there was a note on the kitchen drainboard:
Honey:
You looked so peaceful, I didn’t wake you. Had an appointment at the beauty shop at ten. Please stay out of trouble until we’re clear.
Jean
I tried to stay out of trouble, but it’s a hard town for that.
There were no eggs left; I dressed and went out for breakfast. After breakfast, I took the Chev over and had her greased and the transmission and differential checked. I had new plugs put in and a new fuel pump put on. Neither the California nor the Mexican desert is any place to have the fuel pump go bad. I hadn’t decided which way I’d head, but south or east would mean desert.
Then I went over to the office to check the mail. And then I came home, and there was trouble, waiting.
The Moose was sitting on my front stoop. And then I saw the old Lincoln out at the curb, and the man who sat behind the wheel. I’d seen him when I parked, but it didn’t make sense until I tied it up with the Moose waiting so casually in front of my door. He had his hands out of his pockets, and he was smiling. Which meant nothing, except he wasn’t going to shoot me this particular minute.
I should have gone back to the car, and driven off. If he’d let me. But he was smiling.
I stopped about three steps from the door, and said, “Revenge, Jelko?”
He shook his head. “Revenge? Hell, no. I knocked you colder than a haddock. Why should I want revenge?”
I looked out at the Lincoln. “Who’s your friend?”
“I don’t think you know him. What’s the matter, Puma, you nervous?”
“Shouldn’t I be? You’ve never been here before.”
“You never interested me before. Cheap peeper, scratching for peanuts. Now, you interest me.”
“Why?”
“That Jean Roland doesn’t mess with minor league Hawkshaws like you. Not unless there’s a buck in it somewhere. So I went back to see Little Phil, to find out what the attraction is. And he sent me to see a guy, and the guy didn’t like what I had to say at first, but now he wants to see you.”
“What’s the guy’s name?”
“You’ll find out when we get there.”
“I’m not going any place, Moose.”
He grinned at me. “What a short memory you’ve got.”
“I remember the punch,” I said, “and there’s one thing you overlooked. A boxer’s fists are a lethal weapon in this state. If I wanted to send you up for a stretch, I could do it. I didn’t, because we were both drunk, and I may have been partly to blame. But I can still bring the charge, if you get out of line.”
He chuckled. “You scare the hell out of me. Okay, let’s run down to the station, and you can make the charge.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll meet you down there. The police know about the fight, already. I’ve talked to them about it.”
He studied me for seconds. Then he said, “You’re sure hard to get along with. Let’s stop and pick up Deutscher on the way. He’s in this pitch, too, isn’t he?”
“Deutscher’s in ’Frisco,” I said.
Moose smiled. “Is he, now? We know better than that, don’t we, Puma?”
The edges of everything seemed to get sharper. I could see the man in the Lincoln smoking calmly and I could hear the traffic noises a block down and see the pupils of Moose’s eyes.
His voice was quieter. “I’m not armed and neither is my buddy. We don’t want your money or your neck—just a few words with the man Little Phil sent me to.”
“And you don’t want to mention his name?”
“Not yet.”
“I’m not armed, either,” I said. “I�
��d feel better, armed.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
I went past him and unlocked the door. He didn’t move. I went into the dim living room, and he stayed out on the porch. The gun was in the bureau and I took it out of the holster a second and weighed it in my hand.
I was protected now, armed. I could very easily tell him to go to hell. That mention of Deutscher could have been a shot in the dark on his part, just waiting for a reaction. But I couldn’t be sure and if I showed any interest, that would be a giveaway. I couldn’t be sure, and I couldn’t ask.
I put the gun in the holster, and took off my jacket and strapped the holster on. My shirt was wet and sticking to me, though it wasn’t that hot out.
I was putting on the jacket again when Moose looked in the open doorway. “You can phone the law and tell them who you’re with, if you want to.”
Maybe it was a bluff, a way of making me feel safe about getting into that car with the two of them. And maybe he knew I wouldn’t holler copper because he knew about Deutscher.
Standing where I stood, I couldn’t know. And I figured he wasn’t bright enough to pull that colossal a bluff. I said, “I don’t need any law, now that I’ve got the .38.”
He nodded. “None of us are anxious to see cops. Not when there’s a buck to be made.”
He must have learned about Willi Clifford. Or the unnamed man must have heard about it, and they were all declaring themselves in. A buck to be made. That was the nub of it, and until they learned from me exactly how the buck was to be made, I was safe.
Once they learned, and discovered I wasn’t indispensable to the plan, my life wouldn’t be worth a nickel. But there’d be no muscle until then, I told myself. I figured Moose right enough on it, but the Mr. Big in the deal wasn’t thinking about the money to be made. He was thinking of his neck. That’s where I figured it wrong.
We went out, and I walked down the walk to the car, and the blond, round-faced man behind the wheel leaned over to open the front door on the curb side.
Moose said, “As long as you’re nervous, where would you like to sit, Joe?”
“I’m not nervous any more,” I said, “but it’s too hot for three in the front. I’ll sit in the back, alone.”
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