Cana Diversion

by William Campbell Gault

  “Who’s dead?”

  “Calvin.”

  “Where’d you hear about it?”

  “I didn’t. I just knew. I thought you were going to put him under protective custody?”

  “We couldn’t find him. He wasn’t there when the officer went to his friend’s house. He was found up near the reservoir, wringing wet. They must have thought he would drown. Two broken arms, internal bleeding and a concussion. Officially, he’s dead.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s in intensive care at Loreli General.”

  “You mean he can testify against those creeps?”

  “If he ever regains consciousness, which is doubtful right now. I shouldn’t have told you this. If it leaks, you’ll join Calvin. We want those two to stay in town.”

  “You think Calvin hasn’t learned his lesson after what they did to him? Would you testify against them after that?”

  “Probably not. I’m not Calvin. And if he lives, Uncle Sam can make it worth his while. They can set him up in a whole new life.”

  Nothing from me.

  Vogel said, “The Feds are sending in reserves. F.B.I. this time. Enough for twenty-four-hour-watches. They’ll break this thing.”

  “Sure.”

  “And we never had this conversation. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “What the hell are you so down about? This is our big break.”

  “I’ve had a bad night. I’ll see you later, Bernie.”

  This is our big break. … Not to Calvin. The hoods had given him his breaks, one in each arm. Had they found him, I wondered, or had he tried to hustle them? He couldn’t be that dumb.

  Oh, yes, he could. He was kookier than Hamlet. Maybe guttier.

  “What was that all about?” Jan asked.

  “Bernie wants to play poker with Sloan Hartford.”

  “You’re lying,” she said.

  “Possibly. Have you eaten?”

  “Of course. I have to be in the shop in ten minutes.”

  She left. Mrs. Casey, who didn’t make breakfasts, suggested a nice cheese-and-ham omelet for me.

  While Calvin was probably getting his nourishment through needles in his veins, I ate a delicious omelet. I should have felt guilty about that. I felt guilty about not feeling guilty. The damned fool!

  Joe and Calvin, losers both, trying to hustle the mob? Maybe Calvin, but Joe hadn’t been that dumb. So far as I knew, Joe had worked for a mobster in his only contact with them.

  So far as I knew, but what did I know? Something that resembled a pattern was starting to take shape in my foggy brain. The dawn wasn’t here but a clouded line of inquiry was starting to form.

  On the investigative trail CANA had acted as a partial diversion. I was almost sure of that. This was mob business first, ecology concern second.

  It would take a C.P.A. superman to discover all the businesses in America in which the mob was involved. It would not be unreasonable to guess there was not a profitable field of enterprise in our economy in which they were not obviously or secretly involved. That was why the Feds had come to town. The San Valdesto police force couldn’t bat in that league.

  As Vogel had said—nobody cares. Our most admired theatrical stars play the hoodlum casinos, luring the square solid citizens to Vegas. This gives the mob enough money to put the squares’ kids on heroin.

  I knew the administrative head at Loreli General, a high-handicap hacker. I phoned him and asked him how Calvin was doing.

  “If you mean Calvin Ellers, he’s dead.”

  “Officially? Or actually? If you doubt my credentials, you can phone Lieutenant Vogel.”

  “I have never doubted your credentials, Brock, only your handicap. He’s still alive. Our chief of staff told me half an hour ago any patient less stubborn would have been dead when they found him.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “Not yet. The current medical prognosis is that he never will be.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” I said. “And thanks.”

  They probably had assumed he was dead. They had broken both arms, tore up his insides, rendered him unconscious and thrown him into the reservoir. What else could they assume?

  Killing him hadn’t been their original objective probably. All they wanted from him was something he didn’t know—who had killed Joe Puma? Hoodlums can never accept the possibility that somebody might be telling the truth. Honesty is alien to their world.

  They had been at the scene of the crime and not reported it. A lawyer would know if that was illegal; I didn’t. So far as I knew, there was no law that forced a man to become a citizen. Calvin might have thought it was illegal and tried to profit from it.

  I looked up Park Livett’s office number and dialed it. Ellen answered.

  “Busy?” I asked her.

  “Not yet. But we will be. He’s a very bright young man. And I’ll never be too busy for you.”

  “I had this thought that maybe the five hundred Joe got every Christmas could be a retainer. Is it possible he could still have been working for Vince Scarlatti?”

  “Certainly not for Vince. He’s in a state of advanced senility in a Beverly Hills sanitarium. I think that check from Peter is pure gratitude. The way Joe told it to me, he had a hard time convincing those kidnappers that Peter should go home alive.”

  “Were the kidnappers ever caught?”

  “Never.”

  “Does Peter live in Beverly Hills, too?”

  “No. I have his address at home. I thought the least we could do is send him a Christmas card. He lives in that subdivision with all those Italian street names on the cliff above the Riviera Country Club.”

  “That’s in Pacific Palisades?”

  “It is. Did you plan to visit him?”

  “Not without a good reason. I wondered if maybe you could phone him and tell him I’m working for you?”

  “I haven’t his phone number and there’s no way I could get it. I could write you a letter of recommendation. I’ll tell him what I think of you. There’ll be no need to lie.”

  “I’d appreciate that. I’ll pick it up, and the address, in a day or so. My favorite aunt is in the hospital and I don’t want to leave town until she’s better.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she said. “I’ll get it all ready for you.”

  It might work. It might not. If Peter had inherited his father’s insular vindictive personality, it wouldn’t. Vince would never have sent Christmas gifts to an employee already paid. That must have started when Peter took over the reins.

  Thy name is Peter and on this rock I build my case. …

  Ellen had said she didn’t have his number. What about that number I had tried and been told it didn’t exist? It probably was not a San Valdesto number.

  I rummaged through the papers and found the slip. The initials were D.D. David Delamater was the only person I’d met in this case with those initials. They weren’t Peter’s.

  What did I have to lose? I dialed one and two-one-three and the number. A crisp feminine voice answered, “Dr. Darius’s office.”

  “Is this,” I asked, “the Dr. Darius who lives in Sherman Oaks?”

  “No, sir. I’ve never heard of him. Are you sure of the address?”

  “I think so. Where is your office?”

  “In Santa Monica, where Dr. Darius has lived most of his life.”

  “It can’t be the same man,” I told her. “You’re sure there is no other Dr. Darius?”

  “I have no idea. Was there another one in the phonebook?”

  “I’ll look,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Half an hour later Vogel phoned to tell me the Feds had changed their story and their strategy. Calvin was no longer officially dead, only missing.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “If those two hoods read that he’s dead, they’ll know we’ll be picking them up for questioning. If they think he’s at the bottom of the reservoir and they’re the only ones who k
now it, they’ll be more likely to stay in town.”

  “I suppose by now you’ve checked the priors on those two?”

  “Delamater has. They’re a pair of brothers out of Detroit. They rented the Chrysler in Vegas. Both of them have been charged and acquitted of murder twice—when witnesses changed their testimony or disappeared. Both have served time for assault.”

  “Do they have names?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I’m working on this case, too. If you want me to quit, say the word.”

  “No macho crap, Brock.”

  “I’m not that brave or that dumb.”

  “Their names are Rodney and Arvid Patulski.”

  Rodney and Arvid? They sounded like a comedy team. I put their names on the list along with Dr. Darius. I went through Joe’s notes for any tidbits that might make more sense in the light of what I’d learned since I had picked them up. Nothing there. I added some things I’d been told that needed to be checked. A lie can point a finger.

  All this and the letter from Ellen Puma I would take with me to the Palisades. With Vince out of the picture maybe I would get some answers. Or maybe I would get two broken arms.

  I phoned Kay Decor, hoping that Jan would go to lunch with me. She was, I was told, up in Solvang with a client. Not a customer, you understand, a client. If the shop had been called Thrifty Furnishings, it would have been a customer.

  I told Mrs. Casey I wouldn’t be home for lunch and drove in my blue Chev to Loreli General. The high-handicap hacker there told me the last he had heard, Calvin was still unconscious. He called intensive care to make sure. Calvin was still unconscious.

  From there to the one-room-and-alcove home of Calvin’s bearded friend. Nobody answered my knock on his door. His landlord, the store owner, told me his tenant was out of town visiting his sister.

  I was safely back in the Chev, heading the other way, when the black Cordoba came down Main Street and turned into the alley.

  No macho crap, Brock. … But the urge was strong. How could a whole man be afraid of a pair named Rodney and Arvid? Oh, Rodney, oh, Arvid, if you didn’t have friends with guns, Sloan Hartford and I right now would be roasting you both over a slow fire.

  I stopped at the station to tell Vogel I had seen the black car turn into the alley. I told him they would find nothing there; Calvin’s friend was out of town.

  “I know. You going to take me to lunch at Pierre’s?”

  “What have you got against Big Macs and French fries? I feel uncomfortable around food you can’t put catsup on.”

  “Okay, cheapskate, forget it.”

  We went to Pierre’s in the rented Chev. On the way, I told him about my plan to visit Peter Scarlatti.

  “Why? What can you learn that a zillion federal cops can’t?”

  “Mrs. Puma is on my side, not theirs. That’s my edge. What can we lose? I’m not costing the taxpayers a dime.”

  “You can get your dumb head blown off.”

  “I didn’t know you cared, Bernie.”

  “I don’t. But if they bump you, who takes me to Pierre’s?”

  When I dropped him off at the station two hours later, and forty-three dollars poorer, there was no place to go but home. Which is where I went.

  18

  THE CAPITAL-PUNISHMENT ADVOCATES love to link crime with murder in their sales pitches to their vindictive followers. The fact is that more than two-thirds of the country’s murders are committed by citizens without previous criminal records. Drunken drivers claim many more victims than murderers year after year.

  Capital punishment might be a deterrent to drivers inclined to take one more for the road. The gas chamber should scare them more than losing their drivers’ licenses. A cuckolded husband or violent bar brawler is not likely to be thinking about the gas chamber in his rage.

  Mob killings, that’s a different story. They account for a very small percentage of the nation’s homicides. The rub is that they are the ones that most often go unsolved or unpunished. Some are unsolved because they aren’t reported. The victims simply disappear. If they are solved, the killers too often are acquitted. Because the witnesses disappear.

  Rodney and Arvid were still cruising the town, banking on the premise that their combined victim-witness had disappeared. I hoped they hadn’t learned about Calvin’s previous Ridge Road sanctuary. Or learned the address of the bearded man’s sister.

  I phoned Vogel and alerted him to the possibility. “They inquired,” he told me. “They didn’t learn anything because the store owner didn’t know the address.”

  “I’ve been thinking about Sloan Hartford—”

  “That’s being covered,” he said in his too patient voice. “Any more advice?”

  “Burn your leisure suit,” I said, and hung up.

  There was an ache between my shoulder blades and another starting in my skull. I took two aspirin, put on my trunks and went out to the Jacuzzi.

  Vogel had said the Feds could be our last best hope. Peter Scarlatti could be mine. The Feds and I had different goals. They were trying to discover whatever shenanigans Joe had been involved in. I was trying to find his killer.

  I phoned my Loreli friend before he went home. The latest word on Calvin was that he was still unconscious. But the prognosis was better. There was now a remote possibility that he would live.

  Jan didn’t look happy when she came home. She had forgotten how difficult some clients-customers—could be, she told me.

  I made her a drink and listened sympathetically to her detailed lament. “So you started with a lemon,” I said soothingly. “Your next client could be a big payoff.”

  “Oh, this woman will come around,” she told me. “What annoyed me was her superior attitude. She hasn’t the slightest idea how vulgar her taste is.”

  “Concentrate on how green her money is,” I said, “and consider what a favor you’re doing her by refining her taste.”

  “I’ll concentrate on her money. Her taste is hopeless.”

  My Jan had rejoined me in the real world.

  Calvin was still unconscious in the morning. I phoned Ellen before she went to work. She had the letter and the address for me. I could pick them up at her house in the next half hour.

  “That’s too soon for me. I’ll pick them up at your office.”

  At breakfast, I told Jan I might be out of town for a few days.

  “Out of town where—and why?”

  “The Santa Monica area. The Palisades, maybe Venice. I have to see some people.”

  “Business?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Is Bernie going with you?”

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t want to tell me about it?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “It’s dangerous, isn’t it?”

  “I doubt it. I’m going to visit the friend of a friend, one of Joe Puma’s benefactors. It might take only a day.”

  “You can’t quit working, can you?”

  I smiled at her.

  “Oh, shut up!” she said.

  Before she left, she made me promise that I would phone her if I stayed longer than a day. I promised. It would take longer than a day. I packed some clothes and got some money at the bank before I stopped in at Livett’s office.

  “Luck,” Ellen said. “And you be careful. Watch your tongue. Joe told me you have a nasty tongue.”

  I was reading the letter. “You didn’t mention it in here. Don’t you think you made me a little nicer than I am?”

  She shook her head. “And if Peter wants confirmation, you’ll notice my home and office phone numbers are in the letter.”

  I took the Chev. Like Delamater, I had left the intimidation stage and was now in the investigative. Normally, I would have taken the coast road at Oxnard, the most pleasant route to Santa Monica. But the rain had cluttered it with boulders in the Malibu area and sent the clay cliffs of the Palisades sliding down.

  I t
ook the freeway to the San Diego turnoff and that to Sunset Boulevard. The sun was out, the traffic heavy. To the right on Sunset, winding toward the ocean.

  The Scarlatti home could have been transplanted from the Middle West, right out of Oak Park. It was a two-story place of red brick, on the rim above the golf course. Vince had first come to prominence in Chicago.

  The woman who came to the door was dark skinned, gray haired and middle-aged. Peter, she told me, was out on the course, his first chance to play golf in two weeks. She didn’t know when he would be home.

  I gave her the letter. “Will he be home around dinnertime? I could phone him then.”

  “He has an unlisted number,” she said, “and I’m not supposed to give it out.”

  “I’m almost sure,” I told her, “that he’ll see me after he reads the letter. Would it be all right if I came back after dinner?”

  “I don’t know. You could try. I’ll give him the letter.”

  I took Sunset back to the nearest place I could cut through to San Vicente Boulevard and that to Santa Monica. I didn’t stop in Santa Monica.

  Two blocks beyond its border, the Venice office of Tracy Perlman Investigations was on the second floor of a two-story frame building, above a liquor store.

  I was going up the steps of his office as he came down. Gad, he looked old. He had always been skinny; now he looked shriveled.

  “Callahan,” he said. “For Christ’s sake! First Puma, and now you. What the hell’s going on up there in San Valdesto?”

  “Puma was here?”

  “Three weeks ago. And now he’s dead. What happened?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Could we talk?”

  “I’m going to lunch. We can talk if you’ll buy.”

  “You name the place,” I said, “and I’ll pick up the tab.”

  He named the place, Antoine’s, only a little more expensive than Pierre’s. As we climbed into the Chev he asked doubtfully, “Are you sure you can afford Antoine’s?”

  “It’s a rental car, Trace. I was afraid to bring the Rolls down here into this crummy neighborhood. What did Joe want with you?”

  “I’ll tell you after my first martini. Is it true what I heard, that you inherited a wad?”