Obedience

by Joseph Hansen

  “You’re the one who’s gone to all the trouble.” She picked up a spoon and tasted her vichyssoise. “Heavenly,” she said. She tilted her head, looked at him doubtfully. “Lindy Willard? Honestly? I thought she was dead.”

  “She’s alive.” Dave tried his soup. “Cotton leaving her bed when he did may keep her that way. But I hope she finds a buyer for the Starlady tomorrow, and clears out.”

  “She could go to New York too, couldn’t she?” Tracy Davis said. “Sing in nightclubs there?”

  “She’s taken against flying,” Dave said.

  Mel Fleischer opened the door himself. It was a heavy carved door of pale reddish wood, with black, hand-forged hardware. Fleischer was sixty-five, a successful banker. Once lean and patrician, he was jowly now and paunchy. He and Dave were of an age, but the years were treating Dave differently—turning him reedy and brittle. Dave’s friendship with Mel dated back to high school. A horizontal friendship, fumbling and funny to remember, but the affection had been real and had never waned.

  Mel’s house crowned a ridge near the HOLLYWOOD sign in the hills overlooking the city. The house was 1920s Mediterranean, thick chalky-white walls, red tile roofing, a round tower for a circular staircase of glazed painted tiles, unmistakably California. Nothing else would do for Mel Fleischer. California was the true love of his life. He collected paintings by California artists.

  Some of the young ones he helped with money. He sat on the board of the L.A. County Museum, and owned shares in galleries along La Cienega Boulevard and in Beverly Hills.

  “Dave, good. I’m glad you’re early.” He enclosed Dave in a bear hug, and led him out of the circular entry hall down terra cotta tile steps into a vast living room. “I can’t think how long it’s been since you were here.” Thick black rough-hewn beams crossed overhead beneath a pitched roof. Against the white walls hung big handsome paintings, brown hills under wide skies; horses in long, sloping meadows, mountains in the background; the rickety trellis of the old Angel’s Flight tramway in Downtown L.A.—each picture carefully lighted. But Mel had left space for bookshelves, all the same. Dave smiled to himself again.

  “Too long,” Mel said. “Sit down, sit down.” He waved a graceful hand, and started off down the long room. He was genuine and funny, but there’d always been something queenly about his bearing, a hint of the Ronald Firbank cardinal. The ragbag look of his fashionably loose slacks, broad-shouldered blouse didn’t change that. Dave grinned. Mel called back, “Makoto’s still in the shower. What will you drink to pass the time until he makes his spectacular entrance?”

  “Brandy, please.” Dave sat on a seventeenth-century chair, all black lathe-turned wood and gold-shot red brocade, complete with fringe. “It’s generous of you to lend him to me for a night. It’s good of him to take the time.”

  “He’s happy not to have to be reading student essays on The Imaginary Invalid.” Glassware chimed in the shadowy distance. “He says they’re no better than they were five years ago. And very little different. Sometimes I find him staring at the printouts that list his students. Looking for familiar names. He’s sure those who sat in his classes long ago have in some mysterious way come round again.” Mel handed Dave brandy in a snifter. He dropped onto a couch of the same style as Dave’s chair, lifted his own glass, smiled. “Here’s to old times.” He tasted the brandy, and looked wounded in his feelings. “You might have brought me Cecil to help pass the lonely night.”

  “He’s working, and if he wasn’t, he’d insist on going with Makoto and me. What’s wrong?”

  An imperious finger pointed. “You’re wearing a gun.” Mel looked severe. “You didn’t say this would be dangerous.”

  “It won’t be.” Dave stood, shed his jacket, unbuckled the holster, handed it to Mel. “Here, you keep the gun.” He put his jacket on again. “I’m happy to be rid of it.”

  The gun horrified Mel. He dropped it on the couch. A step sounded on the stairs. The circular tower echoed. Mel turned to the short, muscular young man who came in, “Don’t you know my dear old friend here is insanely reckless? He’s nearly gotten himself killed a dozen times. Makoto, I refuse to let you leave this house with him.”

  “Relax,” Makoto said, “it’s only for a couple of hours. All we’re going to do is lose a little of Dave’s money.” When Dave had met him, ten years back, Makoto’s English, learned in a Japanese classroom, had been hard to understand. Now there wasn’t a flaw in it. He’d been a college student then. Now he was an instructor, teaching French literature. His passion at that time had been rollerskating, and he had dressed for it. Now he wore a dark suit and tie, dark shoes, very conservative. He came back into the lamplight, carrying a drink. He asked Dave, “Do I look okay?”

  “Just right,” Dave said. “If no one tries to strike up a conversation with you in Vietnamese, you’ll be perfect.”

  “I’ll zap ’em with French.” Makoto leaned by a rounded, adobe-style fireplace, and sipped his Coke. “Vietnamese speak French. At least, they used to.”

  “We’ll hope we don’t have to lean on that,” Dave said. “But it’s nice to have it. In case.”

  Mel said fretfully, “I just don’t understand this at all. Dave, what are you up to? You were going to retire. Now here you are plunging into murky opium dens in search of the infamous Dr. Fu Manchu. Will you never grow up?”

  “Thanks for the brandy.” Dave rose and gave Mel’s shoulder a comforting pat. “Don’t worry. At the first sign of trouble, I’ll drag Makoto away. I promise.”

  “I could lose both of you at one blow.” Mel pushed up off the couch. “I’ll wear a groove in this floor pacing till you’re back safe and sound.” He wrung his hands. “I’ll be listening to the radio for news bulletins, with my heart in my mouth.” He blinked back imaginary tears, and hugged Makoto hard. “You be careful, now. Do you hear me?”

  “See you at two-thirty,” Makoto said, kissing him, and led Dave quickly out into the night.

  Makoto braked his sleek new Accord in front of Mel’s house and checked his watch. He grinned at Dave. “Made it,” he said. “I always like to keep my promises. Even though he’s probably sound asleep.”

  Dave was dead tired. He pushed open the door on the passenger side, got out, and stretched. Over the shaggy dark ridge of the hills came a glow from the boulevards of the San Fernando Valley to the north. Above, the sky was thick with stars. The air was cool and crisp. It was quiet. He shook Makoto’s hand, thanked him, walked to the rickety Valiant—it wouldn’t have done to drive it on this expedition—eased his weary self behind the wheel.

  Framed in the lighted doorway, Makoto lifted a hand in good-night, stepped inside and closed the door. Dave coaxed the rattly engine of the old car to life, and started down the narrow, parked-up shelves of street, lit by intermittent lamps shining through tree branches. Unlikely as it seemed, all these hairpin curves would finally get him out of the hills. He had to believe that. He wanted very much to be home. Makoto would have driven him, but that would have left the Valiant parked in front of Mel’s house. Shocking. Unthinkable.

  With Makoto at his side, he’d run into no trouble gaining entry to the Vietnamese clubs on Tracy Davis’s list. Old mansions, back rooms of shops, in Monterey Park, at the beach, in the heart of L.A. In five clubs in three hours tonight, he had seen as much green baize as in his whole life, had played more poker hands than in the Army, had rolled more dice, and stared half hypnotized at more roulette wheels than in all the movies of the 1930s. Makoto and he between them had dropped almost a thousand dollars. That had been vital. Baiting a trap, you should look as if you’re doing something else. With serious intent. Maybe they’d overdone it. Porcelain-skinned, dark-eyed, mustached little men in tight tuxedos had four times out of five smiled, bowed, shaken their hands, and invited then back as they’d left.

  They hadn’t overdone it. He knew this a half hour later when he creaked the Valiant up the steep grade of Horseshoe Canyon Trail, and the jittery headlights sho
wed him a black stretch limousine parked at a tilt on the broken road edge opposite his driveway. He geared the Valiant down and climbed toward the parked car slowly, squinting ahead, trying to make out whether or not anyone was inside it. The streetlight was behind him, down where two trails met, and the branches of trees shadowed it, so he got no help from there. The Valiant’s yellow beams glanced off a dazzlingly clean windshield. Heart thudding, he drove past the limousine. If anyone was inside, he couldn’t see him.

  Thirty yards up the trail, he swung the Valiant in at Wilma Vosper’s driveway, backed it up, sat in the middle of the road, motor idling, frowning. Wilma Vosper’s raggedy little dog began to bark inside the house. He didn’t want to wake her up, and he eased the Valiant down the trail and halted it beside the drop into his bricked yard. He didn’t want to look, but he looked. And made out the boxy shape of Cecil’s van parked in its usual place, beside the long row of French windows that walled the front building. Sometimes these days when half the crew at the television station was away, he worked very late. Why couldn’t tonight have been one of those times?

  Dave took a deep breath, and jounced the old car down into the yard. He parked it beside the van, got out, closed the door. It was pitch-dark. Cecil was good at remembering to turn on the ground lights. So somebody else had switched them off. He had expected that someone else—just not so soon. He smiled sourly to himself. It damned well was time he quit. The spring in his step wasn’t all he’d lost. The spring in his brain had snapped. A simple phone call could have warned Cecil away, and he hadn’t made that call—it simply hadn’t crossed his mind. He touched his side. His gun. He’d left it at Mel’s. And simply forgotten. Wonderful. Grimly, he crunched over the uneven bricks, rounded the shingled side of the front building, walked into the courtyard where the big oak loomed.

  Beyond it the windows of the rear building showed light. Dimly. Through closed curtains. The lantern over the door was dark. He had been surprised there once before. Just a couple of years back. Lurkers had knocked him on the skull while he was pushing his key into the lock. He winced, remembering how his head had ached afterwards. He peered around him, stepped to the slatted bench that circled the thick trunk of the oak. Plants sat there in plastic pots. He picked one up, and lofted it across the courtyard. It struck the door with a thump.

  The door burst open, a rectangle of yellow lamplight fell onto the bricks, and a slim little man in black jumped out, and crouched in the light, an Uzi in his delicate hands. His doll face scowled. Pretty as poison. He aimed the gun rigidly at Dave. Dave held up his hands. “Don’t shoot,” he said. “I’m unarmed. I live here.” The youngster came out of his crouch, Dave walked toward him. The doll-boy jerked the gun to point Dave at the door. Dave passed him, and walked into the house, the guard behind him, poking his spine with the nose of the Uzi. Dave looked for Cecil, didn’t see him. He saw a squat, middle-aged Asian in a dark pin-striped suit, who got up out of one of the leather wing chairs that flanked the fireplace.

  Dave asked him, “Where is Cecil Harris?”

  “Asleep.” The man jerked his head to indicate the loft. The lamplight slid off his greased hair. He came toward Dave with a hand held out. He had a good tailor. A correct inch of shirt cuff showed from under his jacket sleeve. “My name is Don Pham, Mr. Brandstetter.” The voice was deep, rough, the accent unmistakable, but the inflection American.

  Dave didn’t shake the hand. “What have you done to him?” He started for the raw pine stairs to the loft.

  Pham caught his arm. “Don’t worry. He’s all right. He was very tired. That was easy to see. When we arrived, he got excited.” Pham smiled tenderly. “We gave him something to calm him down. He’ll be fine in the morning.”

  “If you’ve hurt him—” Dave began.

  Pham tilted a face pitted with smallpox scars. He said, “What reason would I have to hurt him?” He glanced up at the loft again, and his expression made Dave a little sick. Pham asked, “Have I overlooked something?”

  “It’s late, and I’m tired myself.” Dave moved toward the bar. “If this is going to take long, I need a drink.”

  Pham followed him, the doll-boy close behind. “Have a drink, by all means,” Pham said. He watched Dave find the Glenlivet bottle, a glass, ice cubes. He waited while Dave poured whiskey into the glass, corked the bottle, set it back. “No, thanks,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “I don’t use it,”

  Dave only grunted. He started to leave the bar, and Pham reached into a pocket and drew out a paper. Dave knew that paper. His hand went toward his own pocket, then stopped. Someone had bumped into him at the last club. A pickpocket, right? Right. Pham’s mouth twitched. He opened the paper and flattened it on the bar.

  “San Pedro County,” he read aloud, “Office of the Public Defender. Tracy Davis.” He blinked at Dave. “How did you come to have this list? What interest does the Public Defender have in Vietnamese gambling clubs?”

  Dave shrugged. “I’m just a hired hand. The Public Defender wanted me to visit those places, I visited them.” He sketched a smile. “Investigators gather facts. Lawyers put the facts to work. You’ll have to ask the lawyers.”

  “I don’t think so,” Pham said. “After I was handed this list tonight, I made a phone call to a—friend in the police department. Tracy Davis has been assigned the case of the man accused of the murder of an important member of the Vietnamese community—Le Van Minh. She’s trying to shift the blame from her client to one of us. True or false?”

  Dave drank from his glass. “Why would she do that?”

  “Why would you eat lunch at Hoang Pho?”

  “Four wealthy Vietnamese were murdered there, and it’s near the Old Fleet Marina, where Le was killed.” Dave wanted a cigarette. He’d smoked the pack he’d taken with him. He bent to get a fresh one from under the bar, and the doll-boy made a sound in his throat and stepped close. Dave held up the cigarette pack. The boy glowered. Dave opened the pack, got a cigarette, and lit it. Pham was watching him. Dave said, “I’m not comfortable with coincidences. They always start me looking for the real story.”

  Pham smiled. “Not just another story? Ms. Davis wants her client freed. Isn’t that why she’s paying you?”

  Dave read his watch. Cotton’s DC-10 was thirty-two thousand feet above the black and slumbering Mississippi River by now. He drank from his glass again, and jerked his chin at the bodyguard. “What if I told you that a witness saw two men like your dainty friend here running away from the Old Fleet Marina at the time Le was murdered?”

  Pham stared at him without expression. He seemed not to breathe for a minute. He chose his words carefully. “I would say that the witness misunderstood what he saw.”

  Now it was Dave’s turn to stare, his turn to measure his words. “You mean that they were in fact there? But not to kill Le? Is that what I’m to understand?”

  “You are to understand,” Pham said, “that they did not kill Le Van Minh. On that you have my word.”

  “I take the word of people I’ve learned to trust,” Dave said. “I don’t even know you, Mr. Don.”

  The smile was crooked and came and went quickly. “My family name is Pham. I have Americanized the order of my names, and dropped the middle one. So, I’m Mr. Pham, but call me Don—I like the name Don, don’t you? So American.”

  “You’re in the gambling business,” Dave said.

  “And the prostitution business.” Pham nodded. “And the protection business, and the drug business.” He gave a short, sharp laugh. “No, I’m not incriminating myself. I checked this room for electronic listening devices. There aren’t any. And your only witness is asleep.”

  “The crime business, then,” Dave said.

  Pham inclined his head slightly. “And the crime business is a watchful business, Mr. Brandstetter. I have to know what’s going on at all times, in all places. If I get careless, I could end up like Mr. Le.”

  “Who was not in the crime business?”

  Pham laug
hed. “Quite the reverse. An upright man. An old-fashioned man. A man of conscience.”

  Dave studied him. “Which made him your enemy, right?”

  “Don’t be a slave to logic, Mr. Brandstetter.” Pham turned and walked away. The bodyguard stayed put, pointing his Uzi at Dave. Pham called, “I and mine had nothing to do with the death of Le Van Minh. Don’t waste your time on us. Look into the Le family.” He opened the front door. “A wealthy household, Mr. Brandstetter, but a very unhappy one. Old Vietnamese ways clashing with new Western ones.” He went out into the dark. The doll-boy, running backwards on silent feet, followed him, and slammed the door.

  “Cecil?” Dave ran for the stairs to the loft.

  7

  CECIL MOVED ANGRILY, YANKING clothes from the hospital room closet. Wire coat hangers flew. His long fingers groped for the ties down the back of the short, starchy garment they’d put on him at four in the morning. By Dave’s watch, it was five past eleven, now. The hospital bed coat flapped across the room. Cecil jerked into jockey shorts, a T-shirt. “There were two,” he said to Dave. “Two. It took two of them to pin me down.”

  “All right,” Dave said mildly, “there were two. I didn’t mean to insult you. I only saw one. The other one must have been out in the car and I missed him.”

  “Two of the little creeps.” Cecil sat in a chair by a tall window, and pulled on socks. “Jumped me in the dark. Otherwise it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “I shouldn’t have let you go home,” Dave said.

  “Hell, how could you know?” Cecil was one leg into his trousers. When Dave had found him lying face down across the wide bed on the loft, those trousers had been dragged down to his knees. Pham and company had stuck him in the butt with a hypodermic. The empty, throw-away syringe lay on the pine chest of drawers. When he’d got Cecil to the UCLA emergency room, they’d told him the injection was morphine. Cecil was staring at him now. “You didn’t know, did you?”