Come Die with Me

by William Campbell Gault

“Or anybody else,” he said. “But I happen to know it’s true. Do you think it made any difference to my daughter? About him, she wouldn’t listen to nothing.”

  Love, I thought. Love, love love … I was silent.

  “Who’s your client?” he asked.

  “Harry Adler,” I said.

  His laugh was short and bitter. “Like hell! Harry wouldn’t spend his money like that. It’s my daughter’s money Harry is spending.”

  “Probably. Mr. Duster, I can guess that you spent some money, too, investigating Tip Malone. Am I right?”

  “You’re right. And I’ll tell you who else spent some money on him, because we talked it over—Frank Giovanni. We compared reports.”

  “Then what could I tell you that you don’t already know?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You’d have to tell me. I’d make it worth your while—you can be damned sure of that.”

  I shook my head slowly. “I don’t sell information except to my clients. And I already have one.”

  “And you didn’t even tell her about Giovanni’s niece,” he said.

  “That’s right. I didn’t see that it would serve any purpose, once Malone was killed. You see, all your daughter worried about was the possibility of Tip getting involved with Frank Giovanni. She thought it would stop his racing career.”

  “Oh, man!” he said harshly. He rubbed the knee and looked at me quietly for a second. Then, “I’m going to tell you something I maybe shouldn’t, and I don’t want it to go into any damned report, either.” He waited.

  “Okay,” I said, “if that’s the only condition under which you’ll tell me.”

  “I want your word,” he said.

  “You’ve got it.”

  He spoke quietly and distinctly. “Giovanni told me that for ten grand I could have the little bastard bumped. It would be sweet and clean and professional. It would look like an accident. That’s the gospel truth.”

  I paused, started to say something, and decided against it.

  “I know what you were going to ask,” he said. “And the answer is—no, I didn’t pay it or authorize it.”

  I said, “But maybe Giovanni did? I think he loves his niece as much as you love your daughter.”

  “Maybe Giovanni did,” he admitted. “But you wouldn’t go up against him, would you?”

  “I already have,” I said. “I beat up one of his stooges and only two hours ago told him to stay out of my way.”

  For seconds he stared at me. And then he shook his head. “You’re crazy. You won’t even see today’s sun go down. What in hell got into you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You think you’re important,” he asked, “because you had a couple of good years with the Rams? Man, you’re nothing to somebody like Giovanni.”

  “I’m a citizen,” I said. “I hate hoodlums. I’m armed.”

  He was silent. He stared at the pool and at the black clouds getting closer and then he stood up. “Wait here,” he said. “I want to look up something for you.”

  He went toward the house, tall and thin and slope-shouldered, a rich, sad and lonely man. I didn’t envy him any of his twenty-seven million.

  When he came out again, he had a card in his hand. He handed it to me. The name on it was Lily Chen, the address was up near Gollago Lake.

  “Giovanni’s girl friend,” he said. “I could be one of five or six people in the world that knows that. He wanted to marry her, I’ve heard, but that niece of his wouldn’t stand still for it.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “She’s Chinese, one hundred percent Chinese, and that niece of Giovanni’s is a little snob.”

  There was a silence. Finally Duster said, “Maybe, if I’ve helped you—maybe if you live and find out something, you’d be willing to tell my daughter that I helped?”

  “I would. Is that the only reason you gave me this?”

  He shook his head. “No. I hate hoodlums, too. Though judging by the play at Vegas, you and I could be about the only ones that do, huh?”

  “I thought I was the only Vegas hater,” I said. “Do you think maybe Giovanni was here when he was supposed to be in Vegas and that’s why he gave the phony alibi?”

  “I didn’t know it was phony,” he said. “But I know he sees this woman secretly, because of his niece.”

  “Gollago Lake,” I said. “That’s where Malone was killed.”

  He nodded. “One hell of a damned coincidence, isn’t it?” He sat down in the deck chair and looked at me. “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me what you learn, anything you can ethically tell me.”

  “I’ll do that, Mr. Duster,” I said.

  We shook hands. His hand was big and bony. He wished me luck. I had a feeling he considered them empty words; luck alone wouldn’t do it.

  The sun was almost obscured by the time I got to the Coast Highway, heading for Gollago Lake. The sun worshippers were driving back toward town and there was a damp smell of iodine in the air.

  Lily Chen … A jolly little, round-faced, smooth-skinned bundle of love for the big man with the small legs. Lily Chen …

  The flivver snickered as we turned up the first road past the Topanga Canyon light. She is occasionally prescient.

  To my right the clay cliff was abrupt, studded with enormous rocks. To my left the canyon yawned, more rock than clay. Way down at the bottom a thin stream flowed, seepage from the recent rain.

  Around a sharp turn and now I was at the summit and the still, dark surface of Gollago Lake was visible in the hollow below. The sun was completely behind the clouds, there was no wind. Everything in sight seemed momentarily static.

  On the main road below, a police car was parked in front of a hillside lodge and I wondered if that had been Malone’s new love nest. I turned off the main road onto a narrower, tree-shrouded road called Toluca Lane.

  And then, as I came around a bend, I saw something one rarely sees in California—lilacs. A row of lilac bushes was set back from the road here, screening the property they fronted. A black-enameled rural mailbox on a white post identified this as 483 Toluca Lane. There was no name on the mailbox.

  I turned in at the driveway and saw a sunken garden built around a natural-rock fountain and miniature waterfall. The house seemed to be enameled, mauve and white, and even on this gloomy day it glistened.

  Just a little bit of heaven, as they say, for Frank Giovanni. A refuge from the monstrous and terrifying world he had helped to create.

  I parked in front of the bougainvillaea-covered carport and walked to the front door. The chimes were heavily audible.

  A woman opened the door. Not little or round-faced, but fairly tall and slim, black-haired, her eyes a shimmering green, almond-shaped and slanted. I had guessed right only about the skin; it was smooth as polished marble. She wore tight satin trousers and a mandarin jacket and her perfume was like remote incense.

  When I managed to speak I asked, “Miss Lily Chen?”

  She nodded, her green eyes steady on mine.

  “My name is Brock Callahan,” I said.

  She nodded again. “I’ve heard of you. You’re a friend of Glenys Christopher’s, aren’t you?”

  “Not quite,” I answered. “I did some work for her once.” I smiled. “I’m a—a private investigator.”

  Her own smile was scarcely perceptible. “Oh? Are you investigating me, Mr. Callahan?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “I’m checking—an alibi.”

  She stared, saying nothing. In the background I could hear the waterfall and I was lost in the green of her eyes. Giovanni, I thought, this is his. That miserable man and this lovely woman …

  Her voice was as soft as the sound of the waterfall. “Come in, Mr. Callahan.”

  The furniture was Chinese modern, I suppose. I’m no expert. The living room was as wide as the house, the fireplace framed in black tile. From the hi-fi in the corner came Debussy.

  “Be seated, please,” she said, and I s
at on a low, long divan near the fireplace.

  She stood near the front window and asked quietly, “Is it about Frank?”

  “Yes, Miss Chen.”

  “Who told you about me?”

  “I can’t tell you. It would be betraying a confidence.”

  “Miss Ronico? She’s the only one who knows about me.”

  “I can’t tell you, Miss Chen. I’m not here to cause trouble.”

  “I’m sure you’re not.” She came over to sit at the other end of the divan. She took a cigarette from a hammered brass box and I held a light for her.

  Finally, “This is his sanctuary. The public doesn’t know the real Frank Giovanni. He’s a gentle, compassionate man.”

  I said nothing.

  “He built that waterfall,” she went on. “He designed this house and planned the landscaping. We were going to live here, together.” She paused. “And then his sister died and that—that spoiled girl became his—personal cross.”

  Things are rough all over, I thought. But said nothing.

  “He’s kind,” she said. “He’s no murderer.”

  I said, “And the night he was supposed to be at Chalmers’ place outside of Las Vegas, was he really here?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I want to be sure his lie about that had some reason other than implication in Tip Malone’s death.”

  “And that’s the only reason you want to know?”

  I nodded.

  She bit her lower lip. “He was here. He told his niece he was going to Las Vegas and when she phoned there, Mr. Chalmers told her he was there but doing some business in town. So then, when the police questioned Mr. Chalmers, he stuck by that story.”

  “I see. And all the time he was here, you were with him?”

  She frowned. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

  “Because Malone was killed a mile or two from here.”

  She stared at me and I thought there was apprehension in her face. Her voice shook. “He was with me every second. He’s no murderer, I tell you, Mr. Callahan.”

  “Maybe not. But he’s hired some in his time, Miss Chen. I can’t believe you’re as naïve as you sound.”

  The green eyes flared. “I assure you I’m not naïve. And certainly you aren’t naïve enough to believe what you read in the newspapers.”

  I said, “Miss Ronico and I had a conversation on the same lines, Miss Chen, and I’ll tell you what I told her—Congressional committees don’t operate on whimsy and I believe most of what I read in the newspapers. Both you and Miss Ronico have sentimental reasons for believing as you do. At least, I hope they’re sentimental.”

  Her voice was icy. “If you mean they could be financial, you’re wrong, Mr. Callahan. Speaking for myself, of course.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Everybody always is. Speaking for himself, I mean. And nobody speaks for his brother.” I stood up. “Well, I didn’t learn much, did I?”

  “Only if you came to learn that Frank Giovanni is innocent of murder. You’ve learned that, haven’t you?”

  I shook my head.

  We stared at each other silently. And then, from the rear yard there was a crash, as though furniture had been tipped over on a concrete patio.

  Startled, Lily Chen glanced that way and then back at me. “Did you come alone?”

  I nodded. “Are you alone here?”

  She nodded. “I—earlier I saw some men walking along the bluff about two hundred feet to the south. They looked—well, I didn’t like their looks.”

  “Like tramps?”

  “No. But—rough … One of them was tall, with red hair. The other was short and heavy.”

  I asked her, “Have you ever heard of Monte Calavo and Tony Jessup?”

  “No.” She glanced again toward the rear of the house.

  “They are friends of gentle, compassionate Frank Giovanni,” I told her. “They are employees of his. I’m sure they won’t harm you.” I started toward the front door.

  “Wait …” she said. “Please …?”

  I turned. She had risen. She said quietly, “Won’t you come back there with me? It’s rather—isolated up here, and …”

  I smiled at her. “Lead the way.”

  We went out through a lowered dining room to the sliding glass doors that looked out on the bluff behind. A flowerpot had fallen off the low patio wall, we could now see, and a mammoth black cat studied us warily from the redwood bench that was built into the wall.

  “Just a cat,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “It sounded more like furniture. It wasn’t the pot that made the noise, I’m sure.”

  With that statement, her status changed in my mind. From a solace, she changed to a participant; from a lovely lady to a finger man.

  The cliff was to our left as we went out. She pointed to the south and said, “That’s where those men were an hour ago.”

  There was some shrubbery along the house here and a path flanked it, leading toward the rear of the carport. It was the only place of concealment in sight and I headed for it, brave and brainless.

  And then to my left, on the cliff side, I thought I heard a noise and I turned that way.

  And something charged me from the other side.

  It had to be a man, though he hit like a bull and I went stumbling toward the abyss, trying to turn away from it; trying to fall toward the house.

  I almost made it.

  But he hit me again and I went over the edge and I could hear Lily Chen scream. Far below, I could see the rocks that jutted from the canyon floor and I could no longer hear her scream.

  Because I was screaming too loud, myself.

  TEN

  THE PAIN WAS A giant heartbeat, starting with my ankles and working up to my head. Each time it hit my head, I would black out. There was delirium, there were dreams. The semiconscious moments were not rational; the dreams carried over.

  Concussion, I told myself. I’ve had it before. No more than concussion, I tried to believe, and remembered the chaparral that had slowed my descent to the bottom.

  I was alive. I would survive. I tried to repeat that in my mind when the pain slacked off. I would survive …

  I would survive. I would live to kill her. Lily Chen, I meant. I would kill them, Calavo and Jessup. God willing, I would even kill Giovanni.

  My mind wandered and I thought, All the people who go to Las Vegas put me here. And those who go to Reno. And the politicians who permit their states to license horse racing. All the solid citizens and their gutless public servants put me here and I will survive to kill them all.

  Brock Callahan against the world. It must have been delirium.

  It began to rain. The rain washed my face and I cried a little and knew I was no killer. I was the killed, the man who tried to be semihonest. I was big and I was strong, but there was a flaw in me; I tried too hard to be honest. It is an idiot’s goal.

  I thought of my father and wondered if I was to die as he did, killed by hoodlums. Survive, I told myself. The first law, survive!

  The rain grew heavier. To my right I heard the gurgling of a stream, and realized this was probably a runoff and the water would climb as the rain continued.

  I made no effort to move; it was impossible. My sole effort was to survive, purely a mental effort. Nausea swelled in me.

  Dimly I could see light at the top of the cliff, but the place where I lay was in shadow, hidden from the sun. How much time had passed? What were they doing up there?

  I thought I heard a sound from above and a rock came rolling down, a rock bigger than my fist, “… upon this rock I will build my Church …” I thought I heard a voice and I tried my right arm, to see if I could move it.

  The exertion sent lances into my brain, but the arm moved—and the hand with it—and I groped, hoping against hope that my .38 had made the descent with me.

  It had. I got it out.

  At the top of the cliff was Lily Chen, now explaining to the police how I h
appened to walk too close to the edge and slip? Was she trying to explain my car to the police that way? Or would her allies come down first to make sure I was dead?

  I heard no more sound from above, but the sound of the stream to my right grew as the rain continued. It was a rushing stream now, growing with the water running off the slopes.

  Come on, you bastards! Come on down and find out. Come down and die with me.

  The rage brought my nausea back and I tried to calm myself, to dull my mind. The rain ran down my neck and something thicker than rain ran down my forearm. It was blood; I could feel it on my fingers now.

  Again I heard a sound and from above, off to my left this time. I lifted the .38 and fired.

  The smashing sound of it reverberated along the canyon walls, and some dirt and rocks came clattering down the slope. I fired again and I thought I heard voices.

  The pain seemed to be diminishing now but darkness was coming with it and I fought it, fought to stay alive and aware, functioning and dangerous. But the darkness grew. I slept and dreamed of my father.

  I awakened to light and rain. From some place far above, a giant searchlight flooded the place where I lay and the raindrops looked like diamonds in its beam. Again I heard voices, loud and apparently friendly voices urging me to lie still, not to move, that help was on the way.

  The darkness ebbed and flowed and then started to grow again. They had me spotted; there was no need to shout, even if I could.

  And then I heard them closer and the darkness was coming back. Just before I passed out again I saw them, and heard one of them say, “Man, he’s a big son-of-a-bitch, ain’t he? We’re going to have some job getting all that meat out of here.”

  The hospital room was small and the bed was hard, but it was a solace and refuge. I had only some cracked ribs and a broken ankle beyond the concussion.

  Pascal came and I told him my story and he said it jibed with Lily Chen’s.

  “I’ll be damned,” I said.

  “Surprised?” he asked.

  “Hell, yes. She fingered me, that woman did. We heard a noise outside and looked and saw it was the cat. Now, why would she want me to investigate further?”

  “Because of the men she’d seen. They had made her nervous. They sound a lot like Calavo and Jessup, don’t they?”