Cana Diversion

by William Campbell Gault

  He shook his head. “What I want, I’m going to get. Revenge. If I was stronger, we could play a little gin.”

  “Get stronger. Work on it!”

  “Sure. Don’t do nothing foolish, buddy. Don’t keep nosing around. We got the guys we want.”

  “Even though they’ re innocent?”

  “Innocent? Of what? Shit, man, they ain’t been innocent since they left the cradle. Overdue, that’s what they are. Don’t you believe in justice?”

  In an uncertain world it must be a relief to be as certain about anything as cantankerous Calvin Ellers was. He had too often been a victim of what the law called justice; he had been forced to find his own definition. He had followed the Kennedy dictum; never get mad, get even. On this one, Calvin had decided he would be judge, jury and executioner.

  His moral case was sound enough; they were overdue. They had killed and gone free. Capone had been slapped on the wrist with an income tax violation. Al was lucky Calvin hadn’t been the judge on his case.

  So what’s your problem, Callahan? Have you deserted your code of vindictive retribution? Come on, I told the inner me, that was arrogant nonsense and you know it.

  Calvin had gone through his soliloquy and decided the Patulski brothers were not to be.

  I went back to the station and Bernie was still there. “Any deals being offered by the defense?” I asked him.

  “Tentative. They’ll plead guilty to aggravated assault on Calvin. But murder? Nope.”

  “What would aggravated assault get them?”

  “With their records? Maybe fifteen years—with fourteen and a half years off for good behavior. What did Calvin have to say?”

  “Not much. The same old con. I guess he’s ready for the fires of hell if Rodney and Arvid make the trip with him.”

  “Crazy man! He finally got in over his head.”

  “So did they. Come on, I’ll take you to lunch and cheer you up.”

  He shook his head. “I’m eating at home. I’m starting my vacation today. I came in this morning only to clean up some paperwork.”

  I phoned Kay Decor from his office to see if I could buy Jan a lunch, but she was back in the Santa Ynez Valley, probably nailing old Vulgar Taste to the cross.

  I went home. Mrs. Casey was washing clothes. “I didn’t expect you home for lunch,” she explained.

  “Don’t worry about it. I can make my own.”

  “No, you can’t. No man is going to mess up my kitchen. I’ll fix up something in a jiffy.”

  Sloan and I, bossed by irreplaceable women. I took a cold bottle of Einlicher out to the patio with me. Lies and red herrings, blind trails and false leads, while the obvious had jeered at me.

  At the county jail I had asked Joe what he was doing these days. Whatever makes a buck, he had told me. He had extended his whatever too far. He should have stayed with bail bonds.

  Motive, means and opportunity, that’s what the prosecutor must show to prove guilt in a murder trial. The Feds didn’t have the gun, which was the means. Calvin had convinced them the Patulskis had the opportunity. The motive? If they went into court and established the motive, Lester Hardin’s cover would be on the public record.

  Nobody was paying me and it was none of my business. After lunch I gathered up the Puma papers and put them into an old cardboard-box file of mine. This case was closed.

  Vogel was going on vacation, the federal investigators were leaving town. We had the guys we wanted. I kept telling myself that. I put on my running clothes and went out for a five miler.

  The first half was uphill to Vantage Rock. I was bushed by the time I got there. I hadn’t done any running for a month. I stopped up there and sat on a bench and looked down on the city below.

  Ocean-laved, mountain-girded San Valdesto, snug little, smug little town that had resisted growth. No new homes could be built; they would not be granted water connections. The prices of the present homes had tripled in two years. Only the rich could move here now, people as rich as Tony Romolo.

  Had Tony moved here because the man who had helped jail his father lived here? Or had that been another coincidence? There had been enough of those.

  The trip home was easier, downhill all the way. Twelve minutes of stretching and bending exercises after that, and I should have felt better. I only felt more tired.

  Jan, too, was tired when she came home. “The ideas that woman has! I tried to listen politely, but my stomach kept churning.”

  “It’s her money,” I pointed out. “Hasn’t she a right to bad taste if she’s paying for it?”

  “She has. But I also have a professional duty to my trade. Taste is what we sell. If she wants an ugly house, she doesn’t need us. She already has that. I didn’t get back into this business for the money in it.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said soothingly. “Don’t get steamed. You’re right. Take off your shoes and relax. I’ll make you a nice cold martini.”

  I have a professional duty to my trade. … I dwelt on those words as I poured the refrigerated Beefeater into a chilled glass and tinged it with extra-dry vermouth from a converted perfume atomizer.

  I poured myself three ounces of distilled corn, added ice, and took it with me to the chair flanking hers.

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  “Mostly physical. I ran five miles this afternoon.”

  “And this morning?”

  “I talked with Vogel and that man the hoodlums put into the hospital.”

  “How is he doing?”

  “He’s still breathing. Only God knows for how long. The medics were sure he wouldn’t last this long. Now they think he is on the road to recovery. They could be wrong twice on the same case.”

  “And I,” Jan said, “come home complaining about a woman with bad taste. You must think I am the world’s most trivial nitwit.”

  “Nope. I adore you. And I admire your professionalism.”

  She looked at me suspiciously.

  “Scout’s honor,” I said. “You have helped me decide what I must do tonight.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I must see a man.”

  22

  I HAD PHONED HIM FROM HOME; Stu Engelke opened the front door before I had a chance to ring. “Come in,” he said. “Something new on the murder?” His voice was tight.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”

  He led me into the small room where Nadia and I had shared the Wild Turkey. She was sitting on the same hassock. She nodded as I came in, nothing more.

  I sat in the same leather chair. Stu asked, “Drink?”

  I shook my head. “Are you Lester Hardin?” I asked him.

  “Did Delamater tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Who, then?”

  “A number of things. Some lies, some informants. Why did you tell me Livorno Investments owned a big block of stock in South Coast? They owned five hundred shares, which they sold yesterday.”

  He didn’t answer.

  I looked at Nadia. “And you told me one of Stu’s attorney friends told you Puma kept trailing Stu after those first two days. How would a corporation attorney know that? You were worried about it weren’t you? But if you mentioned the Feds had told you, you’d be revealing too much to me.”

  She, too, didn’t answer.

  Stu looked at her and back at me. “What’s your point, Brock? If you know I’m Lester Hardin, you must know now why we lied. What’s your involvement now? The killers have been found and they’re going to be tried.”

  “Maybe they’re not the real killers.”

  He frowned. “What are you saying? You think that Ellers lied about that?”

  “I know he did. He as much as admitted it to me this morning.”

  “Why would he lie to the police?”

  “For revenge on those men who put him into intensive care.”

  “And you didn’t tell Vogel that, or Delamater?”

  I shook my head.

  “
In that case,” he said, “I think we had better tell Delamater right now. He’s still in town. I’ll phone him.”

  “Hear me out, first.”

  “Why? Delamater should be here. This is federal business. They have a right to know.”

  “Hear him out,” Nadia said.

  He stared at her and looked doubtfully back at me. “Go on.”

  “Puma was killed with a thirty-two,” I said, “an unusual gun for a professional to be carrying. Evidently the cartridges were old, the powder deteriorated. That would never happen with a professional.” I paused. This was the nasty part. I asked, “Do you have a thirty-two?”

  His face showed neither guilt nor fear, only shock. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Do you?”

  “I do. Delamater suggested I buy a gun eight years ago, in case I might need it. I’ve never used it. Did you come here tonight to accuse me of murder?”

  “In self-defense, to save your life, why not?”

  He said coldly, “The night Puma was shot I was in San Diego at a convention of California utility companies.”

  I stood up. “Okay. I guessed wrong. I had to ask. I don’t even know why. It’s none of my damned business, but I had to ask.”

  His voice was dead flat. “You can check that San Diego convention story easily enough. And I suppose the police still have the slug that killed Puma?”

  I nodded. “Ballistics has it.”

  “I’ll give you the gun,” he said. “They can check it. That much, I guess, I owe you.” He went toward the door.

  “No,” Nadia said.

  He turned and stared at her. She was huddled on the hassock, her head down. She didn’t look up to meet his stare.

  “You?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “My God! What—why?”

  She looked up. “He found out who you were.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. I went to his office that afternoon. I wanted to make sure he hadn’t kept a record of that silly—” She took a deep breath. “He was talking on the phone in his inner office. It’s only a five-foot partition. I could hear what he was saying. He told the other person the man he wanted was due back from San Diego tomorrow. He wanted his money tonight, thirty thousand dollars. The other man’s house was being watched, I guess, so Mr. Puma suggested they meet behind that filling station on Arroyo Road.”

  “Why didn’t you phone Delamater?”

  “Why? Has he protected us so well?” She looked at me. “We’ve moved three times in the last eight years.” She took another deep breath. “I went home. I decided I would offer him sixty thousand dollars. I phoned him at his office. He wasn’t there. I kept phoning his office and his home and never got an answer.” She broke off, and started to cry.

  “Jesus!” Stu said.

  “Tell us the rest, Nadia,” I said gently.

  She was huddled again, her eyes closed. “I got there before those men did. I told him I’d double their offer, I’d triple it. He tried to tell me at first it had nothing to do with Stu. Then he said it was his life or Stu’s; he couldn’t double-cross hoodlums. And I had better get out of there; they were due to meet him in a few minutes.”

  Stu said, “But you took the gun along. You had plenty of time to warn me, Nadia.”

  She looked up. Her eyes were fierce, her voice harsh. “So we could start running again?”

  Stu looked at me, back at his wife, and again at me.

  I said, “Why don’t we all have a nice double shot of Wild Turkey and forget I was ever here?”

  “Are you crazy?” Stu said. “Those men are innocent!”

  “That’s what I told Calvin Ellers in the hospital. His answer was that they weren’t. What they were was overdue. I’ve decided Calvin’s answer is my answer.”

  Stu shook his head. “No, no—”

  “Grow up, Stu. Delamater knows you own a thirty-two. Did he ask you about it? Did he ever ask you where you were that night?”

  “Why should he?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? I did. This isn’t murder, man. It’s justifiable homicide. Are you going to pour, or am I going home dry?”

  He came around before I left. How long a lawyer could keep that kind of secret from the law was something I couldn’t judge. As a nonlawyer, married to Nadia, I could have carried it to my grave.

  They would move again, probably. I suggested Pasa Robles, close enough so we could visit, secluded enough so that Romolo might take longer to find them. If Tony was outside the brotherhood now, maybe he’d be hiding, too.

  It was only nine-thirty; the Pumas should still be up. Under a full moon, I drove through the exclusive area and across the overpass to the less-exclusive area of tract homes.

  Joey opened the door. “Have you heard the news? It just came over the radio.”

  “What news?”

  “That witness died. Calvin Ellers.”

  Good night, sour prince. … “I didn’t hear it,” I said, “but I expected it.”

  “Mom’s in the kitchen. Want some coffee?”

  “A sound idea. I came here to tell you the story you may never read. There’ll be a million rumors. I want you to get it straight.”

  In the kitchen, at the breakfast-nook end, Ellen Puma was busily typing on a portable machine. The table was covered with papers.

  “Is the boss paying you overtime for home typing?” I asked her.

  She smiled. “He can’t afford it. Not yet. But I’m going to make him rich. He is one bright star.” She began to pick up the papers and put them into a manila folder. “Sit down. There’s coffee on.”

  When we were all settled with our coffee, she asked, “With that witness dead will the F.B.I. still have a case?”

  “Stronger than ever. Ellers identified both men. And they had already admitted they beat him up.”

  “They were working for Romolo, weren’t they?”

  I nodded.

  “And that’s why they killed Joe, because of their feud with the Scarlattis?”

  I shook my head. “Not completely. Though the animosity between those families probably culminated in what … happened to him. Somehow Joe found out enough to make him suspect that the man who testified against Nick Romolo was living in town under a new name.”

  Joey stared at me. “And dad was going to finger him for Tony Romolo?”

  “No way! Did Romolo ever send your dad a Christmas check?”

  Joey continued to stare at me, doubt on his face. He looked at his mother, took a deep breath and looked again at me. “Then what about the thirty thousand dollars?”

  “What thirty thousand dollars?” Ellen asked. “What are you talking about, Joey?”

  “One of Joe’s pipe dreams probably,” I answered for him. “We all have them in the trade. The only way I can figure it, he must have thought there was a reason Tony Romolo came to town and the reason could be he was going to waste the witness who had put his father in the can.”

  “And?”

  “And he could have figured that kind of information could be useful to Peter. The mob is more subtle now. One thing they don’t need is vindictive gang violence. They’ve gone legitimate. If Peter could convince the brotherhood that Tony was an anachronism. …”

  Ellen nodded.

  “But first,” I went on, “Joe had to make sure this man in town was what he suspected. He went down to Los Angeles and made sure by questioning the surgeon who had made the man a new face.”

  “And he took that information to Peter?”

  “He did. But Peter told me he didn’t ask for a nickel. I guess Joe figured Peter had done enough for him. There was still the problem of law school. That’s when he took out the insurance.”

  “You mean he knew he was going to die?”

  “No. But there was the risk. And the odds were right for a horse player. Term insurance is the best bet for the money.”

  “That fool,” Ellen said hoarsely. “That crazy man!”

&nbs
p; “That crazy gutty man,” I said.

  “But mostly crazy,” she said. “Meeting hoodlums in a place as deserted as that?”

  “He didn’t meet them there. They had some woman phone him on the pretext she was a prospective client. Romolo’s men picked him up, in the parking lot of the restaurant where he was supposed to meet the woman and took him to that lot where he might not be found for a while.”

  Silence. Joey took his mother’s hand in his. Silence.

  “None of this, will be in the papers, of course,” I explained. “It would blow the witness’s cover.”

  “But how,” Ellen asked, “did Romolo learn that Joe had uncovered the witness?”

  I shrugged. “They have sources of information not available to citizens. They might have been tipped off by that cosmetic surgeon. We’ll never know.”

  “And the stooges will be tried,” Joey said, “and Tony Romolo won’t be touched. I think I’ll buy a gun.”

  “They have the guns, Joey. You go to law school and get your own gun. As for Tony Romolo, the word I get is that he’s likely to suffer Mafia justice. It’s quicker and cheaper. Peter is still a power and Peter thought an awful lot of Joe.”

  “God!” Ellen said. “What a world we live in!”

  “It’s not our world,” I said. “Is that a fresh apple pie on the counter?”

  “Still warm from the oven,” she said. “Would you like a piece?”

  “Sure would. Maybe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top? That’s our world, Ellen.”

  “Eek!” she said. “You must watch ‘The Waltons.’ ”

  I nodded sadly and humbly. “I’m like Tony, an anachronism.”

  “Like hell,” she said. “You know what you are? You are an avenging angel.”

  We had that with another cup of coffee and they thanked me and I assured them it was nothing, glad to be of help, forget it, and I went out into the bright moonlit night.

  Liar, liar, your pants are on fire. … This time I didn’t even feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I had to survive, didn’t I? How could I bring order to a disorderly world if I didn’t survive?

  Little white lies in a black world—but all in the cause of justice, all on the side of the angels.