We caught up with Roy Longstreth as he got out of his Toyota in the Thrifty’s parking lot. He was short and frail-looking, with watery blue eyes and an undernourished chin. Prematurely bald, what little hair he did have was on the sides; he had left it long, hanging down over his ears, so that the general effect was of a friar who’d been meditating too long and had neglected his personal grooming. A mousy brown mustache snuck across his upper lip. He had none of Penn’s bravado but there was that same jumpiness in the eyes.
“Yes, what do you want?” He piped up in a squeaky voice after Milo gave him the badge routine. He looked at his watch.
When Milo told him, he looked as if he were going to cry. Uncharacteristic anxiety for a supposed psychopath. Unless the whole thing was an act. You never knew the tricks those types could come up with when they had to.
“When I read about it I just knew you’d come after me.” The insignificant mustache trembled like a twig in a storm.
“Why’s that, Roy?”
“Because of the things he said about me. He told my mother I was a psychopath. Told her not to trust me. I’m probably on some whacko list, right?”
“Can you account for your whereabouts the night he was killed?”
“Yes. That’s the first thing I thought of when I read about it—they’re going to come and ask me questions about it. I made sure I knew. I even wrote it down. Wrote a note to myself. Roy, you were at church that night. So when they come and ask you, you’ll know where you were—”
He could have gone on that way for a couple of days but Milo cut him off.
“Church? You’re a religious man, Roy?”
Longstreth gave a laugh that was choked with panic.
“No, no. Not praying. The Westside Singles group at Bel Air Presbyterian—it’s the same place Ronald Reagan used to go to.”
“The singles group?”
“No, no, no. The church. He used to worship there before he was elected and—”
“Okay, Ron. You were at the Westside Singles group from when to when?”
The sight of Milo taking notes made him even more nervous. He began bouncing up and down, a marionette at the hands of a palsied puppeteer.
“From nine to one-thirty—I stayed to the end. I helped clean up. I can tell you what they served. It was guacamole and nachos and there was Gallo jug wine and shrimp dip and—”
“Of course there’ll be lots of people who saw you there.”
“Sure,” he said, then stopped. “I—I didn’t really mingle much. I helped out, tending bar. I saw lots of people but I don’t know if any of them will—remember me.” His voice had quieted to a whisper.
“That could be a problem, Roy.”
“Unless—no—yes—Mrs. Heatherington. She’s an older woman. She volunteers at church functions. She was cleaning up, too. And serving. I spent a lot of time talking to her—I can even tell you what we talked about, It was about collectables—she collects Norman Rockwells and I collect Icarts.”
“Icarts?”
“You know, the Art Deco prints.”
The works of Louis Icart went for high prices these days. I wondered how a pharmacist could afford them.
“Mother gave me one when I was sixteen and they—” he searched for the right word—“captivated me. She gives them to me on my birthday and I pick up a few myself. Dr. Handler collected them, too, you know. That—” he let his words trail off.
“Oh, really? Did he show you his collection?”
Longstreth shook his head energetically.
“No. He had one in his office. I noticed it and we started talking. But he used it against me later on.”
“How’s that?”
“After the evaluation—you know I was sent to him by the court after I was caught—” he looked nervously at the Thrifty’s building—“shoplifting.” Tears filled his eyes. “For God’s sake, I took a tube of rubber cement at Sears and they caught me! I thought Mother would die from the shame. And I worried the School of Pharmacy would find out—it was horrible!”
“How did he use the fact that you collected Icarts against you?” asked Milo patiently.
“He kind of implied, never came out and said it, but phrased it so you knew what he meant but he couldn’t be pinned down.”
“Implied what, Roy?”
“That he could be bought off. That if I bribed him with an Icart or two—he even mentioned the ones he liked—he would write a favorable report.”
“Did you?”
“What? Bribe him? Not on your life. That would be dishonest!”
“And did he press the issue?”
Longstreth picked at his fingernails.
“Like I said, not so you could pin him down. He just said that I was a borderline case—psychopathic personality, or something less stigmatizing—anxiety reaction or something like that—that I could go either way. In the end he told Mother I was a psychopath.”
The wan face screwed up with rage.
“I’m glad he’s dead! There, I’ve said it! It’s what I thought the first time I read about it in the paper.”
“But you didn’t do it.”
“Of course not. I couldn’t. I run from evil, I don’t embrace it!”
“We’ll talk to Mrs. Heatherington, Roy.”
“Yes. Ask her about the nachos and the wine—I believe it was Gallo Hearty Burgundy. And there was fruit punch with slices of orange floating in it, too. In a cut glass bowl. And one of the women got sick on the floor at the end. I helped mop it up—”
“Thanks, Roy. You can go now.”
“Yes. I will.”
He turned around like a robot, a thin figure in a short blue druggist’s smock, and walked into Thrifty’s.
“He’s dispensing drugs?” I asked, incredulous.
“If he’s not in some whacko file he should be.” Milo pocketed his notepad and we walked to the car. “He look like a psychopath to you?”
“Not unless he’s the best actor on the face of the earth. Schizoid, withdrawn. Pre-schizophrenic, if anything.”
“Dangerous?”
“Who knows? Put him up against enough stress and he might blow. But I’d judge him more likely to go the hermit route—curl up in bed, play with himself, wither, stay that way for a decade or two while Mommy propped his pillows.”
“If that story about the Icarts is true it sheds some light on our beloved victim.”
“Handler? A real Dr. Schweitzer.”
“Yeah.” said Milo. “The kind of guy someone might want dead.”
* * *
We got on Coldwater Canyon before it clogged with the cars of commuters returning to their homes in the Valley, and made it to Burbank by half past four.
Presto Instant Print was one of scores of gray concrete edifices that filled the industrial park near the Burbank airport like so many oversized tombstones. The air smelled toxic and the flatulent roar of jets shattered the sky at regular intervals. I wondered about the life expectancy of those who spent their daylight hours here.
Maurice Bruno had come up in the world since his file had been compiled. He was now a vice-president, in charge of sales. He was also unavailable, we were told by his secretary, a lissome brunette with arched eyebrows and a mouth meant for saying no.
“Then give me his boss,” barked Milo. He shoved his badge under her nose. We were both hot and tired and discouraged. The last place we wanted to be stalled was Burbank.
“That would be Mr. Gershman,” she said as if discovering some new insight.
“Then that would be who I want to talk to.”
“Just one second.”
She wiggled off and came back with her clone in a blond wig.
“I’m Mr. Gershman’s secretary,” the clone announced.
It must be the poison in the air, I decided. It caused brain damage, eroded the cerebral cortex to the point where simple facts took on an aura of profundity.
Milo took a deep breath.
“We’d like to talk
with Mr. Gershman.”
“May I inquire what it’s about?”
“No, you may not. Bring us to Gershman now.”
“Yes, sir.” The two secretaries looked at each other. Then the brunette pushed a buzzer and the blonde led us through double glass doors into an enormous production area filled with machines that chomped, stamped, bit, snarled, and smeared. A few people hung around the periphery of the rabid steel monsters, dull-eyed, loose-jawed, breathing in fumes that reeked of alcohol and acetone. The noise, alone, was enough to kill you.
She made a sudden left, probably hoping to lose us to the maws of one of the behemoths, but we hung on, following the movement of her swaying butt until we came to another set of double doors. These she pushed and let go, forcing Milo to fall foward to catch them. A short corridor, another set of doors, and we were confronted by silence so complete as to be overwhelming.
The executive suite at Presto Instant Print might have been on another planet. Plush, plum-colored carpets that you had to bargain with in order to reclaim your ankles, walls paneled in real walnut. Large doors of walnut burl with names made of brass letters tastefully centered on the wood. And silence.
The blonde stopped at the end of the hall, in front of an especially large door with especially tasteful gold letters that said Arthur M. Gershman, President. She let us into a waiting room the size of an average house, motioned us to sit in chairs that looked and felt like unbaked bread dough. Settling behind her desk, a contraption of plexiglass and rosewood that afforded the world a perfect view of her legs, she pushed a button on a console that belonged at NASA Control Center, moved her lips a bit, nodded, and stood up again.
“Mr. Gershman will see you, now.”
The inner sanctum was as expected—the size of a cathedral, decorated like something conceived in the pages of Architectural Digest, softly lit and comfortable but hard-edged enough to keep you awake—but the man behind the desk was a complete surprise.
He wore khaki pants and a short sleeved white shirt that needed ironing. His feet were clad in Hush Puppies and since they were on the desk the holes in their soles were obvious. He was in his mid-seventies, bald, bespectacled, with one of the sidepieces of his glasses held together with masking tape, and potbellied.
He was talking on the phone when we came in.
“Hold the wire, Lenny.” He looked up. “Thanks, Denise.” The blonde disappeared. To us: “One second. Sit down, fix something.” He pointed to a fully stocked bar that covered half of one wall.
“Okay, Lenny, I got cops here, gotta go. Yeah, cops. I don’t know, you wanna ask em? Ha ha. Yeah, I’ll tell em that for sure, you momzer. I’ll tell em what you did in Palm Springs the last time we were there. Yeah. Okay, the Sahara job in lots of three hundred thousand with coasters and matchbooks—not boxes, books. I got it. I give you delivery in two weeks. What? Forget it.” He winked at us. “Go ahead, go to someone local, see if I care. I got maybe one, two more months before I drop dead from this business—you think I care if an order drops dead? It’s all gonna go to Uncle Sam and Shirley and my prince of a son who drives a German car. Nah, nah. A BMW. With my money. Yeah. What can you do, it’s out of control. Ten days?” He made a masturbating motion with his free hand and beamed at us. “You’re jerking off, Lenny. At least close the door, no one will see. Twelve days, tops. Okay? Twelve it is. Right. Gotta go, these cossacks are going to drag me away any minute. Good-bye.”
The phone slammed down, the man shot up like an uncoiled spring.
“Artie Gershman.”
He held out an ink-stained hand. Milo shook it, then I did. It was as hard as granite and horned with callus.
He sat down again, threw his feet back up on the desk.
“Sorry for the delay.” He had the joviality of someone who was surrounded by enough automatons like Denise to ensure his privacy. “You deal with casinos they think they got a right to instant everything. That’s the mob, you know—but what the hell am I telling you that, you’re cops, you know that, right? Now, what can I do for you, officers? The parking situation I know is a problem. If it’s that bastard at Chemco next door complaining, all I want to say is he can go straight to hell in a handbasket, because his Mexican ladies park in my lot all the time—you should also check how many of them are legal—if he wants to get really nasty, I can play that game too.”
He paused to catch his breath.
“It’s not about parking.”
“No? What then?”
“We want to talk to Maurice Bruno.”
“Morry? Morry’s in Vegas. We do a lot of our business there, with the casinos, the motels and hotels. Here.” He opened a drawer of the desk and tossed a handful of matchbooks at us. Most of the big names were represented.
Milo pocketed a few.
“When will he be back?”
“In a few days. He went on a selling trip two weeks ago, first to Tahoe, then Reno, end up in Vegas—probably playing around a bit on company time, not to mention the expense account—but who cares, he’s a terrific salesman.”
“I thought he was a vice-president.”
“Vice-president in charge of sales. It’s a salesman with a fancy title, a bigger salary, a nicer office—what do you think of this place—looks like some fag fixed it up, right?”
I searched Milo’s face for a reaction, found none.
“My wife. She did this herself. This place used to be nice. There was papers all over the place, a couple of chairs, white walls—normal walls so you could hear the noise from the plant, know something was going on. This feels like death, you know. That’s what I get for taking a second wife. A first wife leaves you alone, a second one wants to make you into a new person.”
“Are you sure Mr. Bruno’s in Las Vegas?”
“Why shouldn’t I be sure? Where else would he go?”
“How long has Mr. Bruno been working for you, Mr. Gershman?”
“Hey, what’s this—this isn’t child support or something like that?”
“No. We just want to talk to him about a homicide investigation we’re conducting.”
“Homicide?” Gershman shot out of his chair. “Murder? Morry Bruno? You got to be kidding. He’s a gem of a guy!”
A gem who had been excellent at passing rubber checks.
“How long has he been working for you, sir?”
“Let me see—a year and a half, maybe two.”
“And you’ve had no problem with him?”
“Problem? I tell you he’s a gem. Knew nothing about the business, but I hired him on hunch. Hell of a salesman. Outsold all the other guys—even the old-timers—by the fourth month. Reliable, friendly, never a problem.”
“You mentioned child support. Mr. Bruno’s divorced?”
“Divorced,” said Gershman sadly. “Like everyone. Including my son. They give up too easily nowadays.”
“Does he have family here in Los Angeles?”
“Nah. The wife, kids—three of em, I think—they moved back east. Pittsburgh, or Cleveland, some place with no ocean. He missed ’em, talked about it. That’s why he volunteered at the Casa.”
“Casa?”
“That kids’ place, up in Malibu. Morry used to spend his weekends there, volunteering with the kids. He got a certificate. C’mon I’ll show you.”
Bruno’s office was a quarter the size of Gershman’s, but decked out in the same eclectically elegant style. The place was neat as a pin, not surprising, since Bruno spent most of his time on the road. Gershman pointed to a framed plaque that shared wall space with a half-dozen Number One Salesman commendations.
“You see—’awarded to Maurice Bruno in recognition of voluntary service to the homeless children of La Casa de los Niños’ blah blah blah. I told you he was a gem.”
The certificate was signed by the Mayor, as honorary witness, and by the director of the children’s home, a Reverend Augustus J. McCaffrey. It was all calligraphy and floral intaglio. Very impressive.
“Very nice,�
�� said Milo. “Do you know what hotel Mr. Bruno was staying at?”
“He used to stay at the MGM, but after the fire, I don’t know. Let’s go back to the office and find out.”
Back in Office Beautiful, Gershman picked up the telephone, punched the intercom and barked into the receiver.
“Denise, where’s Morry staying in Vegas? Do that.”
A half-minute later the intercom buzzed.
“Yeah? Good. Thanks, darling.” He turned to us. “The Palace.”
“Caesar’s Palace?”
“Yeah. You want me to call there, you can talk to him?”
“If you don’t mind, sir. We’ll charge it to the Police Department.”
“Nah!” Gershman waved his hand. “On me. Denise, call Caesar’s Palace, get Morry on the phone. He’s not there, leave him a message to call—”
“Detective Sturgis. West L.A. Division.”
Gershman completed the instructions.
“You’re not thinking about Morry as a suspect, are you?” he asked when he got off the phone. “This is a witness thing, right?”
“We really can’t say anything about it, Mr. Gershman.” Milo paid lip service to discretion.
“I can’t believe it!” Gershman slapped his head with his hand. “You think Morry’s a murderer! A guy who works with kids on the weekend—a guy who never had a cross word with anybody here—go ask around, I give you permission. You find someone who has a bad word to say about Morry Bruno, I’ll eat this desk!”
He was interrupted by the intercom buzzer.
“Yes, Denise. What’s that? You’re sure? Maybe it was a mistake. Check again. And then call the Aladdin, the Sands, maybe he changed his mind.”
The old man’s face was solemn when he hung up.
“He’s not at the Palace.” He said it with the sadness and fear of someone about to be torn from the comforting warmth of his preconceptions.
Maurice Bruno wasn’t at the Aladdin or the Sands or any other major hotel in Las Vegas. Additional calls from Gershman’s office revealed the fact that none of the airlines had a record of him flying from L.A. to Vegas.
“I’d like his home address and phone number, please.”
“Denise will give it to you,” said Gershman. We left him sitting alone in his big office, grizzled chin resting in his hands, frowning like a battered old bison who’d spent too many years at the zoo.
Jonathan Kellerman - [Alex Delaware 01] Page 11