Cana Diversion

by William Campbell Gault

  “If he’s on the wrong side of the fence, there’s an angle to it. You used to play cop; look for the hole in the fence.”

  “I didn’t play cop, Lenny. I was a state licensed and bonded private investigator. I worked at it.”

  “Hurrah! What you were was the best damned football player the Rams ever had. The rest was hogwash, and you know it.”

  “Take that back, Lenny,” I warned him. “Or the bottle goes home with me.”

  “You brought a bottle? Buddy, compared with you, Sherlock Holmes was a bush-league rookie.” He reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out two small plastic cups. “I had a hunch you might drop in today. Let’s drink to us.”

  We drank to us. We talked of better times and bigger men, under the shadow of the jacaranda. We talked until it was time for Lenny’s nap. I helped him up the stairs and into bed. I put the bottle in the darkest corner of his closet and the cigarettes deep in his desk drawer, behind his stationery.

  “Come back soon,” he said sleepily.

  “Sure thing. Hang in there, kid.”

  Out into the sun, out to my baking car. Some world. Heroes die and assholes flourish. …

  Where now, and why? Point Mirage, maybe, to look over the battleground? If I was to be a soldier for CANA, it might be wise to check out the areas of strategic retreat.

  I took the freeway to the Eucalyptus Lane turnoff and that all the way to the sea. There was no milling mob today, only four stalwart soldiers. They were two students, Lois Vaughan, and a small, weathered woman in a cotton dress and tennis shoes. No deputies were in sight, just a single uniformed company guard.

  “Brock,” Lois cried, “you’ve come to join us!”

  “It’s almost lunchtime,” I said. “Why don’t I take the four of you to lunch?”

  She looked at my little car. “In that?”

  “We could take your car.”

  We took her car, three tons of air-conditioned limousine. I thought of mentioning that monsters like it were a major reason why we had to search for new energy sources. But coming from a raw recruit that would seem like mutiny.

  “Find a place that has martinis,” she said. “It’s been a hot, dry day.”

  On a bluff overlooking the ocean we found a place with a sign that proclaimed booze was served. The kids and I ordered draft beer, Lois a martini. The old girl in the tennis shoes ordered a double boilermaker.

  “Small army today,” I said. “People losing interest?”

  “We’re putting on a big show tomorrow,” she explained. “The governor is coming down from Sacramento.”

  “Huh!” the taller kid said. “Old Wishy-washy is trying to make Brownie points.”

  Lois stared at him.

  “He’s not on our side,” the boy said. “And while I’m on the subject, if South Coast had sent a geologist to that meeting last night, old Barlow would have been cut to ribbons. I never heard so much nonsense. He sounded desperate to me. He’s not that bad a geologist.”

  “Professor Barlow,” Lois said primly, “has been one of our biggest contributors. I resent that kind of talk.”

  The kid said nothing, staring at his beer.

  “I don’t resent it,” I said. “What did you mean by desperate?”

  “I mean he said things that would be laughed at by any first-semester geology major. He sounded as if stopping the construction of that power plant meant more to him than his professional sense of ethics or honesty.”

  “You think Point Mirage is a safe place to put the plant?”

  “I don’t think, with our limited knowledge of nuclear power producing, there’s a safe place for it anywhere in the world. But if I were to pick the safest place in Southern California, Point Mirage would be my choice.”

  “That’s your major, geology?”

  He nodded. “As it was for my father and grandfather. Luckily for our cause, there were no other geology students at the meeting last night.”

  Lois took a deep breath, looked at me, and then at the boilermaker lady. “I, uh, don’t know what to say. Professor Barlow is an old friend of my husband’s and has supported our cause since its inception.” She looked at me. “Could I have another martini?”

  “Coming up,” I said.

  “And another boilermaker for me,” the other lady said, “but make it a single this time. Lois, I haven’t spoken up until now, but I’ve been wondering how a Barlow could be on our side. I’ve lived here and fought here all my life, but this is the first time I’ve ever had a Barlow on my side. It just doesn’t figure.”

  “And what can we do about it?”

  “Tell him to keep sending in the loot and keep his big mouth shut. The way I see it, any ally in a fight is a good ally.”

  The kids laughed. Lois sighed.

  “I second the motion,” I said. “Show of hands?”

  We all raised our hands—and finally Lois did, too.

  The students had classes after lunch, Lois a PTA meeting, and the old girl had to get back to her ranch. Which left only one soldier on the firing line.

  Back and forth I walked in the hot sun, carrying a sign that read Say No to Nuclear Nihilism, while the guard yawned in the shade of his shack.

  I felt foolish. Noble, but still foolish.

  3

  RIDING HOME, I DREAMED up a new name for the bull: “Fifth Column Barlow.” Lenny had told me the Barlows had once owned a quarter of the county. Would that possibly include the six acres of shoreline property that the power plant occupied? Had the Barlows sold the property to South Coast Electric and later discovered there was oil on it? Or realized that California coastal property had tripled in value in the last couple of years? Was there possibly a clause in the contract that stated the property would revert to its original owners if some outside agency prevented the plant from being built?

  That is the pattern I dreamed up on the ride home. It might not make sense, but investigating it would be more interesting than playing golf every day. I hadn’t been the world’s most successful investigator, but my record there was more respectable than I had ever achieved on the fairways of this state.

  Jan, too, has her patterns. “Where the hell have you been?” she asked me. “I was expecting you for lunch.”

  “I had lunch with your good friend Lois Vaughan.”

  “A four-hour lunch? Where did you eat it, in bed?”

  “In bed—Jan, Lois must weigh one hundred and sixty pounds!”

  “Oh? You mean you only commit adultery with thin women?”

  Very quietly and very calmly I said, “I have just spent three hours walking in that hot sun. Why don’t you get us a pair of cool tall drinks and I’ll explain it all.”

  “All right. With booze in them, I suppose?”

  “Vodka and tonic would be nice.”

  I sat in the air-conditioned dimness of the den, listening to the clink of ice dropping into glasses in the kitchen. She couldn’t be as absurdly jealous as she is, I thought, if she didn’t love me. I hoped she would always be jealous.

  She came in, handed me my drink, and sat down across from me in a higher chair, like a judge on his bench.

  “Your Honor,” I said, “it was like this …” and went on to tell her the story of my day. “And now,” I finished, “if you want to confirm my story, you can phone Lois and she can give you the names of those students and that woman rancher and you can call them and then you can apologize.”

  “I apologize now,” she said. “How was Lenny?”

  “A little weaker. Not much.”

  “I suppose you brought him cigarettes and whiskey again.”

  “I did. I think a man has a right to die any damned way he wants to.”

  “I’m sure you do. Do you realize, if he’s getting sedatives, whiskey could be poison to him?”

  “Lenny doesn’t take sedatives. He went through half a season at Pittsburgh playing with two broken fingers.”

  “He would. The invictus kid.”

  “A sou
l brother,” I said. “What do you think about that student’s critique of Barlow’s performance last night?”

  She shrugged. “What do I know about geology? I suppose this will give you an excuse to drop out of CANA?”

  “Would I have carried that dumb sign for three hours if I were going to desert the cause? My duty, as I see it, is to use my impressive investigative skills to clear the professor’s good name.”

  She looked at me suspiciously. “You must have had more than one drink at that lunch.”

  “I had one beer,” I said, “while Lois sat there soaking up martinis. I could use another vodka and tonic right now.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I guess I could, too.”

  We were watching “Barney Miller” on the tube when the phone rang. I was the nearest to the den doorway; I went into the kitchen to answer it.

  A woman’s voice said, “You don’t know me, Mr. Callahan. I’m Ellen Puma, Joe’s wife. He told me at dinner last night that he had seen you yesterday afternoon. I wondered if you were working on a case together.”

  “No. I’m retired. Is there something wrong?”

  “He went out after dinner last night and I haven’t seen him since.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “To meet somebody. He didn’t tell me any more than that.”

  “I think you had better call the police,” I suggested.

  A silence from her end.

  “I know,” I said. “Joe doesn’t want the police in his business. I had a few battles with them myself when I was active.”

  “He got along with the police in Los Angeles,” she said. “It’s been different up here. I don’t know what to do. Do you think he could be working on something dangerous? Maybe he had to go out of town.”

  “It’s possible. I still think you should call the police.”

  “Do you happen to know any—any decent ones down there?”

  “I know one, a friend of mine, but he doesn’t work nights. I’ll call him at home. Has this ever happened before?”

  “Once,” she said, “three years ago. And I still don’t know what that case was about. I suppose it could be the same this time. I’d appreciate it if you’d call your friend.”

  “I will. Right now.”

  Lieutenant Bernard Vogel answered the phone himself. “Bernie,” I said, “this is Brock.”

  “It would be,” he said sourly. “Right in the middle of ‘Barney Miller.’ What’s on your mind?”

  “Joe Puma’s wife just phoned me. Do you know Joe?”

  “I know the bum, a real shoddy operator out of smogtown. Is he a friend of yours?”

  “For a couple of minutes, would you pretend you’re not a cop? Would you pretend you’re a human being? Joe Puma is no angel, I’ll grant you, but I’ve known a dozen cops who were worse.”

  “Name one,” he said.

  “Oh, drop dead!” I said, and hung up.

  I didn’t leave the phone. When he called back, fifteen seconds later, he said, “So the man’s a friend of yours. He must be better than I rated him. What happened?”

  “He’s missing. He hasn’t been home since dinnertime last night.”

  “Why didn’t his wife phone the police station?”

  “She might get one of my dirty dozen. I promised her I’d phone one I trusted and your name immediately leaped to the front of my mind.”

  “Okay, I’ll call Captain Dahl. He’s working tonight. When are we going to play poker again?”

  “As soon as I finish this book I’m reading. It’s called Percentages for Proper Play. Thanks, buddy.”

  “You’re welcome, sucker. I’ll call Dahl as soon as ‘Barney Miller’ is over.”

  When I came back to the den, Jan asked, “Who was that?”

  “The first call was from Joe Puma’s wife. The second, Bernie Vogel’s return call.”

  “Who is Joe Puma?”

  “He’s the man who bailed you out of the clink yesterday. His wife said he’s been missing since last night. So I called Bernie, and he got snotty and I hung up and he called back. What happened while I was gone?”

  “You know what happened. This is a rerun. Why do you always have to fight with everybody? Even sweet Bernie!”

  Sweet Bernie? I had no answer for that one.

  “I remember,” she said. “You explained it to me this morning. Because they are they and you are you and if they could change you or you could change them, you would all be less than you are.”

  “That’s roughly it,” I said. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  The warm water came down, caressing me, washing away the grime of three sweaty hours of dusty plodding in the sun.

  Joe, Joe, Joe. … The private investigators in this town were little more than camera buffs. They took pictures of accident scenes for insurance claimants, of cracked sidewalks in front of public buildings where some citizen had fallen and needed evidence for a suit. They did credit and security checks and—as Joe had said—a few divorces.

  They didn’t handle bail bonds or go out into the dark night to meet a—

  A what? A client? Certainly not to meet anybody dangerous, not Joe. He watched TV too much; he saw what happened to those nitwits, always getting knocked in the head. Any sensible investigator who got knocked in the head as often as those private eyes on the tube did would have to realize he was in a business he didn’t understand.

  “A shoddy operator out of smogtown,” that’s what Vogel had called Joe. Bernie should work the Los Angeles scene for a couple of years and learn a new definition of shoddy.

  Why was I dreaming up a scenario for Joe Puma? For all I knew he was curled up with some cozy blonde in a local motel. For that, maybe, Joe would go out into the dark night.

  In our comfortable home in Montevista, a suburb of San Valdesto, I slept a dreamless sleep, ninety miles from the mean streets of smogtown.

  At breakfast Jan said, “Our governor’s in town. And where do you think he spent the night?”

  “I can’t wait to hear.”

  “At the home of Professor Judson Barlow.”

  “Wishy-washy and the bull, strange bedfellows;” I said.

  “Would you clarify that?”

  “It’s what the students called our governor, ‘Wishy-washy.’ I think of Barlow as the bull. Politics makes strange bedfellows.”

  “You still don’t like him, do you? But yesterday you said you were going to—How did you word it? Oh, you were going to use your impressive investigative skills to clear the professor’s good name.”

  “You have an exceptional memory,” I said. “How come you forgot I don’t like salt on my eggs?”

  She looked at her eggs. “I gave you the wrong plate.” She handed hers over and took mine. “You were lying yesterday, weren’t you?”

  “Not about Lois. About the bull, maybe a little. But now he has slept with Wishy-washy. He’s probably a big contributor to Wishy’s campaign fund.”

  “I hope so. Wouldn’t that be good for CANA?”

  I didn’t have time to answer. The phone rang and she went to answer it. When she came back she said, “That was Lois. All charges against me have been dropped.”

  “How nice to have friends with clout,” I said. “Did she ask for me?”

  It was her turn to get cheated out of a reply. The phone rang again. I went this time. It was Vogel. “We found Puma. We found him dead. He was shot.”

  “Jesus!”

  “I’m over at his house,” Vogel went on. “Maybe you’d better get over here. His wife is hysterical. She could use a friend.” He gave me the address.

  I told Jan, “Joe Puma has been killed. I’m going over to his house.”

  I was halfway to the bedroom for my car keys and my wallet when she asked, “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll phone you if I’m going to be late.”

  Joe Puma’s house was a pink stucco California standard in a stucco tract. The Bermuda-grass lawn was gray,
the blacktop driveway cracked and pitted. Two uniformed officers were standing on the walk in front.

  I had met one of them, but had forgotten his name. “Callahan!” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Vogel phoned me. What happened?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve only been here a couple of minutes.”

  The other man said, “Some cheap peeper went and got himself shot. If I remember right, he had a Mafia connection down in L.A.”

  “You’re full of shit,” I said.

  “Hey!” he growled, and took half a step toward me.

  The other officer stepped between us. “Easy, George. Callahan used to be a shamus, too.”

  “That figures,” the other man said.

  “Go right in, Brock,” my semifriend said. “Vogel’s in there.”

  The front door opened directly into the living room. A thin bleached-blond woman sat on a worn davenport at the far end, staring down at the floor. Vogel stood a few feet from her, his notebook in his hand. When the woman looked up I said, “I’m Brock Callahan.”

  “Thank you for coming,” she said. “We—don’t have many friends in town.”

  Vogel said,’ “Well, I guess that’s as much as you can tell me. Could I have that key now?” She got up and left the room.

  “What key?” I asked Vogel.

  “The key to his office. There might be a lead in his files.”

  “Wouldn’t you call that an invasion of privacy? Maybe Mrs. Puma needs a lawyer.”

  “Brock, the man is dead! We don’t plan to bring him to trial on anything we might find in his files.”

  “The department might get some juicy publicity out of them, though.”

  “Watch it!”

  Ellen Puma came in with the key as we glared at each other. She said, “It’s all right, Mr. Callahan. The lieutenant explained why he wanted it,” She handed him the key. “I apologize for all those crazy things I said about the police. I must have been hysterical.”

  “You had a right to be,” he said. “I want to talk with you outside, Brock.”

  Outside on the gray lawn he asked, “What’s with you? If you were forty pounds lighter, I would have belted you in there.”

  “I’m sorry. I walked in steamed.” I pointed at the uniformed men. “That lard ass on the right made a crack about Joe being mixed up with the Mafia.”