Dead Hero

by William Campbell Gault

  “I promise. Ann, Tony’s trying to be a rock, too.”

  She shook her head once more. “He’s sick. He frightens me.” She put a bill on the bar, patted my hand, and walked out.

  Both men at the bar watched her round little rump until it was out of sight behind the closed door. Then they sighed and ordered more beer.

  The bartender served them and came down to where I sat. “I’m glad she’s gone. Wasn’t that Ann Bogaro?”

  I nodded.

  “If her brother found her here,” he said, “hell would really pop. Right?”

  “Right,” I said. “I guess I could drink another beer at this price.”

  He brought it to me and then went to serve the five people at the big round table in back. The two men began to discuss the Dodgers. I sat quietly, trying not to think of Ann Bogaro, aged twelve.

  Chapter 14

  PARETTI CAME IN just before midnight. I told him about my adventure with Kostic and gave him Ann’s message.

  He listened in dull lethargy, his eyes shadowed with fatigue, stroking his pockmarked cheek absently, like a tailor fingering a fabric.

  When I had finished, he said, “I prowl the town for that bastard and he looks you up. I wish he’d have looked me up! At least we know he’s around.”

  “And why? “I asked.

  He frowned. “I don’t follow you.”

  “Would you hang around town if the police were trying to pin a murder rap on you?”

  “Do you think he knows that?”

  “He hasn’t looked you up,” I pointed out, “so he must know you suspect him. And he sure as hell hasn’t been available to the police.”

  “So — ?”

  “So why is he in town? Could he be waiting for a payoff?”

  Paretti looked at me doubtfully. “From who?”

  “From the person who killed Scooter. Turk could have been a witness to that murder when he went to muscle Scooter. He could be blackmailing the killer right now.”

  “But why kidnap you?”

  “Because if I learn who the killer is, Turk has nothing to sell. He had to find out what I knew.”

  “And you think he killed Dawn for the same reason, to protect what he has to sell?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  Paretti expelled his breath wearily. “He’s not all there, you know. He got out of the army on a Section Eight. You’re lucky to be alive, Brock.”

  “He got the jump on me twice,” I admitted. “Maybe next time it will be my turn.”

  “Or mine,” Paretti said. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at me. “So Ann told her hotheaded brother she still liked me?”

  I nodded.

  “I’d better stay out of sight.”

  I nodded again.

  “He blames me for what happened to Ann,” Paretti said musingly. “She sure as hell didn’t look like fourteen when I met her. And you can believe this or not, Brock, she was no virgin even then.”

  “Tell your priest,” I said. “I’m just a hired hand.”

  “I don’t have a priest,” he answered. “Not any more. All right if you learn anything, they’ll take the message here. Good night.”

  I left him there with his conscience, such as it was, and went out into the shadows of an ugly world. A wino snoozed with his back up against the anchor; across the street a pair of teen-agers in club jackets eyed him speculatively.

  I shook the wino awake and drove him down to the mission on Quinientos Street before going back to my garage apartment.

  The Dunnes’ dinner guests were still there, laughing and drinking. I parked where I wouldn’t block any of the cars and went around to the back door of the garage. I felt a little foolish about it but I kept my gun in my hand as I went up the steps in the dark.

  The apartment still held the heat of the day. I turned on the brightest lamp, opened a couple of windows, and went back to check the lock on the door.

  A putty knife would open it; I jammed a chair under the knob.

  That irrational ex-fighter was both a threat and a hope, perhaps our only hope. Galveston Jones’ optimism could be restricted to the fire; there was still no reason to believe that the fire and the murder were connected.

  It was as logical to assume Kostic had not killed Scooter as it was logical to assume he had killed Dawn Donovan. But both of these assumptions could be in error.

  The sounds of the party were remote and constant; I lay in the hot room too tired to think, too nervous to sleep. I was not a stranger to violence nor innocent of the world’s cruelties. Why the jitters?

  Cumulative? I had the same occupational exposure as the municipal man, a constant contact with all the wrong people, case after case, day after day. This dirty-window view of the world could lead to the deadliest of all diseases — cynicism. I didn’t have the emotional qualifications to make a successful cynic.

  My groping mind went back to the lunch at Cini’s with Horse and came forward slowly, trying to remember words and attitudes, trying to trace a pattern.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing….

  I dozed and heard Scooter saying, “You run your dirty little business and I’ll run my own love life.” I saw the rock behind which I had crouched and the white Peugeot. I saw the light go out in Scooter’s bedroom. I wondered how the Malones were making out in La Jolla.

  These were the involved people; what had steered me toward Paretti? Deputy Anthony Bogaro had done that. I thought about Tony’s unnamed witness, the woman who had seen Turk leave Dawn’s apartment. What am I, Joan of Arc?

  It was a gray sleep and I wakened to a gray morning. Fog shrouded the eucalypti at the back of the lot and drifted lazily over the pool. From the street in front of the house came the grind and clang of a rubbish truck.

  Hunger pangs knawed at me, my stomach rumbled. I shaved and bathed my face in cold water, trying to decide which blind alley I would explore today.

  I knew a few stoolies, but I doubted if they would have a line to Kostic. Kostic was not a professional hoodlum; the way he had handled that gun last night had convinced me it was a weapon strange to him.

  I was buttoning my shirt when I heard the footsteps on the stairs. I picked up my gun and moved over to the door.

  From the other side Maggie Dunne called, “Ready for breakfast? It’s too nasty for a swim this morning.”

  “I’ll be right down,” I promised.

  I was surprised to discover it was nine o’clock; it didn’t seem possible I had slept for eight hours.

  The morning Times made no mention of Kostic in its extensive coverage on the death of Dawn Donovan. The “Mr. Goley of the Dodgers” gambit was not given as much play here as it had enjoyed in yesterday afternoon’s Hearst paper.

  From the kitchen Maggie said, “Bob told me you visited that girl yesterday.”

  “I’m glad your husband doesn’t work for the State Department,” I commented. “Khrushchev would have a pipeline to the Pentagon.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Like a million other artificial blondes.”

  “Do you know who killed her, or why?”

  “No.”

  She brought my eggs and toast and sat down at the other end of the table with her coffee. “You’re still depressed, aren’t you?”

  “Still — ? Was I depressed yesterday morning?”

  “You must have been, “ she said. “ You cried. Remember — you blamed it on the chlorine?”

  I looked at her.

  She smiled at me.

  I said, “I’m frustrated. That makes me conscious of my inefficiency and depresses me. What’s your excuse, Mrs. Robert Emmet Dunne?”

  “Excuse — ? For what? Do I act depressed?”

  “You drink a lot.”

  “Who doesn’t? I have a husband, Mr. Callahan, who makes tons of money and still manages to owe every merchant in town. He’s so busy exporting charm he hasn’t any left for domestic consumption. He is also sterile.”

  “Impotent
or sterile?”

  “Sterile. I would have made a good mother, don’t you think?”

  “I’m sure you would. Have you considered adopting a child?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “It isn’t the same.” She sipped her coffee. “Couldn’t we talk about something more interesting?”

  “You’re a good cook,” I said. “You’re extremely attractive. You have excellent taste, so far as I can tell with my bad taste.”

  “Keep talking,” she said, “and I’ll take up chiropody. How’s your toenail?”

  “Much better, thank you.”

  The phone rang and she went to the kitchen to answer it. She said “Hello” and “Yes” and then covered the mouthpiece and looked at me. “A man named Galveston Jones wants to know if a Mr. Callahan is here.”

  I nodded and went to take the phone.

  Jones asked, “Will you be there around noon?”

  “I’ll arrange to. Have you learned anything?”

  “Not quite enough yet. I should know more by noon.”

  “About the fire or the murder, Mr. Jones?”

  “The fire,” he said. “You’ve got your murderer, haven’t you?”

  “Not in hand. We have a man on the loose Bogaro is determined to pin it on. I have no interest in the fire.”

  He said stiffly, “You’re an investigator licensed by the state. You are also a citizen, I hope. You have an interest in any and every crime, Mr. Callahan.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said humbly. “About noon, then, sir?”

  “Make it twelve-thirty,” he said and hung up.

  Back in the breakfast room Maggie Dunne asked, “Is there really a man named Galveston Jones?”

  “He’s an actor,” I told her. “I don’t know what his real name is. He’s trying to get me a small part in a picture.”

  She sniffed skeptically.

  “Thank you for the breakfast, Mrs. Dunne. I wish we had met ten years ago.”

  “Were you thinner then?”

  “I was harder. I was never thin. Chin up, now!”

  She made a face and I went out.

  It was only ten o’clock; I had two and a half hours to fill. I drove out to Brentwood.

  In the slum area of this upper middle-class district, near the Veteran’s Hospital, Whitey Baird lay on the iron bed in his sour-smelling, badly furnished room.

  Whitey was an albino who caddied when some club was hard-pressed for help, pimped when he could find a willing girl, and acted as an informer for private investigators only. He was a true free-enterprise stoolie, with nothing but scorn for the official police.

  He rose from his bed and swung his feet to the floor as I came in. “If it’s about Scooter, I ain’t heard nothing. That was too bad about him.”

  “I’m looking for a man named Kostic, Turk Kostic,” I explained.

  He frowned. “That punchy pug that hangs around the Anchor?”

  I nodded.

  “He kill Scooter?”

  “I doubt it. He kidnapped me last night.”

  The frown deepened. “You — ? What is he, a homo?”

  “He’s a muscle who used to work for Joe Paretti. Joe’s looking for him, too.”

  Whitey’s pink eyes were suddenly guarded. “Paretti? I heard around there’s a chance he could have hit Scooter.”

  “It’s possible. Do you think you have any chance of getting a line to this Turk?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. There’s always a chance. You want to pay like a — a retainer?”

  I gave him a five. I told him my telephone number.

  “Get to work now,” I said. “No booze until you phone me.”

  He nodded.

  In the car again, I started for the Coast Highway without really knowing why, with a hazy, half-conceived notion of looking up Bogaro at his home in Topanga or phoning the station from Malibu.

  And then, as I cut down to the canyon from San Vicente, down the road Kostic had ordered me to take last night, a pattern came into my consciousness from left field.

  Love or money. It’s always love or money and why couldn’t it be both? It was only a theory, born in the unconscious, buttressed by dreams, nourished by my lowbrow faith in the divine hunch.

  Not love or money, love and money. Scooter was a man, all man, loaded with love (lust) and money.

  I turned up Avalon Lane through the charred hills. The fog was lifting; Ruth and Edwin Junior would have a fine afternoon for the beach.

  The slight breeze from the ocean stirred the black ash, swirling it in the road ahead of me, littering the windshield with ebony feathers. Money, money, money….

  From the concrete slab floor I could see the mist still hanging in the pockets of the valleys, hugging the shoreline. From where I stood the view was clear above the fog, almost all the way to Topanga Canyon where the Bogaros lived.

  Past the scorched rock of the fireplace I could not see Avalon Lane for a quarter of a mile, though the highway below was in full view.

  What did I have beyond the hunch? The knowledge that a lie had been told to me. It is not illegal to tell a lie, except under oath. It is not even mildly incriminating to tell a lie to an unofficial snooper. I had nothing beyond the hunch. Defense attorneys do not worry about the prosecution’s hunches.

  I went down the road again and back on the highway to a narrower road that led to the canyon below Big Rock Mesa. It wasn’t much of a trip by car; on foot it would be even shorter.

  Again, I had bolstered the theory without improving the prosecution’s case. Cases are won on evidence, not surmise.

  Old Galveston Jones was a pro; I was sure he would have his solid evidence. While I had gone stubbornly and ineffectively around the circle of deceit, Jones had been out collecting the facts, the substantiation necessary to go into court and win.

  I could understand now why he hadn’t phoned me until this morning; he must have been partially suspicious of me. His problem was not my problem. His was the fire, mine the murder.

  It was almost twelve now and time to start back to Beverly Hills.

  Chapter 15

  JONES DIDN’T SHOW at twelve-thirty. He phoned about one and told me he’d be busy in Pasadena for a few hours and he couldn’t be sure when he’d be able to see me.

  I said, “You’re suspicious of me, aren’t you? “

  A pause. And then a guarded, “Should I be?”

  “If I were in your position, I would be. And I think I know why. The light hit me a couple of hours ago. Why dont you come here about four o’clock?”

  “Why?”

  “I can help you,” I said. “And then maybe you can help me. You’re not really stuck in Pasadena, are you?”

  He said cryptically, “I’ll see you around four.”

  I was just going out when my phone rang.

  It was Whitey Baird. He said, “You’re in luck. I got an address.”

  “So, let’s have it.”

  “For a lousy fin?”

  “If the address pays off I’ll give you another fin.”

  “Big deal! “ he said. “I want another twenty.”

  “I’m not on an expense account, Whitey. It would be my money.”

  “Good-by,” he said.

  “All right, all right,” I said quickly. “Another twenty. “ He gave me the address and added, “It’s the back house on a lot near Linnie Canal. The house looks empty, but it isn’t. When do I get the twenty?”

  “When I get Kostic,” I told him and hung up.

  I phoned the Malibu Station and Bogaro was available. I gave him the address and explained about it being the house at the back of the lot.

  “You want to come along?” he suggested. “You owe this bum a few lumps.”

  “I’m working with Jones on something else. Tony, if you get Kostic, just hold him for a while. Don’t tell him about that witness you have. Don’t let him know you suspect him of killing Dawn Donovan.”

  “Are you nuts? Why e
lse would I pick him up?”

  “Tell him you’re holding him for the Calvin murder, that you know he went up to see Calvin that night. Sweat him on that. And then, later, suggest you’ve got a witness for that murder.”

  “I don’t dig you,” Bogaro grumbled. “What in hell are you getting so damned tricky about?”

  “Trust me?” I asked quietly.

  “Okay! “ he said irritably. “I can’t argue now. Call back before five, understand?”

  With a rational man the trickery I planned might not work. But with a punchy ex-pug, loaded with resentment? I could hope.

  At the credit bureau I learned what Galveston Jones must have learned earlier. I also learned something he hadn’t bothered to inquire about, not being concerned with the murder. I learned the name of a bookstore.

  At the bookstore in Hollywood my luck was good. I ran into a communicative saleswoman with the reputation for having a fabulous memory.

  She was a thin girl with a flat chest and beautiful eyes. She said, “Isherwood, oh, yes! Are you a fan of his, too?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “At the moment, I’m more concerned with his audience than the author, the kind of customers he has.”

  “Credit information?” she asked doubtfully. “You’d have to see our Mr. Elwood about that.”

  I shook my head. “This is a comprehensive survey being made by a few publishers to determine what type of audience certain authors appeal to. I’ve already discussed it with Mr. Elwood and he referred me to you. He said your memory was unusual and you maintained a personal contact with your customers.”

  She smiled modestly. “It’s not really my memory. I keep a card file of my customers’ favorite authors. I send them notices when their favorite comes out with a new book.”

  “That’s very interesting,” I told her. “In the dozens of bookstores I’ve canvassed during this survey, this is the first example of real imagination in merchandising books. Could I see those records of yours?”

  “Of course,” she said. “But let’s not tell Mr. Elwood, shall we? I mean, if all the salespeople here were to use my little system — ”