The Black Door

by Collin Wilcox

  “You’re forgetting one thing.”

  “l am?”

  “Yes, you are. When you talk about it being a closed case, don’t forget about the CIIB.”

  “The what?”

  “The Criminal Identification and Investigation Bureau. California’s FBI.”

  “They don’t ask for indictments, though.” I hesitated. “Do they?”

  “Not usually. But they can, in certain situations. And La Palada is a situation they’re looking into.”

  “Well, I know, but …”

  “There’s another thing I’d like to know.”

  “What’s that?” I was aware that I must sound defensive. Suddenly it was the way I felt.

  “Why did Mrs. Vennezio come to you?”

  “I’ve already told you, there wasn’t anyone else she could go to. Besides, she—she read my clippings.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that?” Now my voice sounded plaintive—also the way I felt.

  “Nothing’s wrong with it, except that you know as well as I do that you’ve always worked with the police. You need the information we develop. You’ve admitted to me, several times, that these—these flashes of yours are a pretty sometimes thing. They’re—”

  “Now listen, George. You’re the one person in the world who should know that—”

  “They’re genuine flashes, all right,” he interrupted smoothly. “I’m not saying they’re not. I’ve profited by them myself, and I’ve always been the first one to admit it. Publicly. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t become the victim of your own publicity. You know as well as I do that the Sentinel hired you for your publicity value when you found that murderer down in San Jose. And you also know that every time you and the San Francisco Police Department managed to come up with a murderer, the Sentinel spread your picture all over the front page, thereby selling a few thousand extra papers. Now, I’m not knocking it, Steve. And I’m not knocking you. All I’m pointing out is that, by your own admission, you operate just about like any reasonably talented detective. You pound the pavements, and you spend a lot of time chasing your tail. And then—still by your own statements—after you’ve walked a few miles and chased down a few bum leads and spent a lot of time moping around my office, you finally get your flash. But the point is that you’ve usually had help. Also, you’ve sometimes been wrong, and sometimes you’ve just simply failed. Now …” Again he leveled his long forefinger at me. “Now, everyone fails. It’s no sin. But if you start messing around with the Outfit and they don’t like the way things are going, they don’t just call you into the boss’s office for a friendly little chat.”

  I thought about it and then said, “You’re contradicting yourself, George.”

  “How do you mean?” He reached over to the stove for the coffee pot.

  “According to what you said first, the thing I have to worry about is what would happen if I found out who killed Vennezio. Now you’re worrying what’ll happen if I don’t. You can’t have it both ways.”

  Larsen refilled his cup, glanced at mine and then shrugged, resigned.

  “All right, go ahead. Everyone’s entitled to make a damned fool of himself once in a while, and it’s obvious you’re determined to do just that. But when you find yourself looking down a gun barrel or lying with your face on the floor mat of Russo’s shiny new Cadillac, don’t forget there’s one little flaw in your M.O. that we haven’t even discussed yet.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s your unfortunate habit of wandering around like a kid playing blindman’s buff. You’ve admitted to me, several times, that you just ‘follow your nose,’ as you put it, until—surprise—there you are: you’ve found your murderer. You can reach out and touch him—and he can touch you. With whatever’s handy. So far, you’ve been lucky. All your murderers’ve been amateurs, just like you. Either that, or the police haven’t been far behind. But you can’t buck the odds in this business, Steve. For a while you can, but sooner or later you come a cropper. Ninety-five times out of a hundred, we could run things with just one man in a squad car, for instance. We could do the job a lot cheaper, and make the taxpayers a lot happier. But then comes the ninety-sixth time. And it means a man’s life. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Well, I think you’re exaggerating. You—”

  “All right,” he interrupted sharply, raising a peremptory hand. “If you won’t listen to anything else I’ve said, for God’s sake, remember this: whatever you do, have the basic, elementary common sense not to stay in La Palada. Not that it’ll make a damn bit of difference, if they decide to—to discipline you. But at least you’ll be in more or less friendly territory.”

  “All right, that’s good advice. How far is La Palada from Los Angeles?”

  “Just a few miles, depending on where you are in L.A.,” he answered moodily. “As a matter of fact, I know of a good place for you to stay. It’s the Prescott Motel. It’s a nice place, and it’s not far from La Palada. Not too expensive either.”

  “Good. Thanks. Do you think I should notify the CIIB before I go? As a precaution?”

  “Oh, for …” He slammed down his cup, hard. His voice was loud and exasperated as he said, “Can’t you get it through your head what you’re getting yourself into? If you notify the CIIB, the first thing they’ll do is put a tail on you. Either that, or they’ll demand that you inform for them. But either way, you’d be cutting your chances of survival by about three hundred per cent. It’s bad enough, your wandering down to see Russo like he was some—some potentate in the Shriners, or something. But for God’s sake, keep your—your innocence. It’s the only thing that’ll get you back in one piece. It’s bad enough, you’re coming here. That was stupid enough, if you really want my opinion. But if you go to the CIIB, or the FBI, you’re just asking for—”

  Suddenly the kitchen door opened. Mrs. Larsen entered, smiling.

  “You’re raising your voice, George,” she observed, cheerfully. “Did Steve do something else to make your detectives look silly?”

  He stared at her and snorted.

  “Not this time, Carrie,” he said. “Not this time.”

  3

  BY THE TIME I’D rented a car, drove across Los Angeles, and lost my way three times on the freeways before finally finding the Prescott Motel, it was after ten o’clock Saturday night. But Larsen had been right; the Prescott was a good motel, although not as reasonable as I’d hoped. I unpacked, changed into a sport coat and found my way to the dining room for a belated dinner. The motel was laid out in a wagon-wheel pattern, so that each room opened both on the outdoors and also on a hallway leading to the hub, containing the dining room, bar and lobby.

  After dinner, out of curiosity, I asked for a La Palada phone book. First I looked up Frank Russo. There was a listing for “F. Russo,” which seemed close enough. Next I tried Mrs. Vennezio. She, too, was listed, and I also found an F. Hanson, which might be Dominic Vennezio’s mistress. Reflecting that I’d exhausted all the contacts I had in the Vennezio murder, I decided to have a drink and take stock. Since the time was almost eleven, I had no desire to call Mrs. Vennezio, and certainly I wasn’t going to call Russo for an appointment—or, for that matter, Mrs. Hanson.

  Over the drink I began thinking about my conversation with Larsen, and in the darkness of the bar, surrounded by strangers, I suddenly experienced a very lost, very lonely feeling. Larsen had been right. I’d been a vain, shortsighted fool to accept Mrs. Vennezio’s strange, illogical proposition. At best, I was a gifted amateur—with a gift that even I couldn’t define. Only the week before I’d read in a popular magazine that a noted psychologist considered clairvoyance in humans to be essentially the same as instinct in the lower animals and therefore no more remarkable than, say, the migratory instinct in birds. The author had then concluded with the speculation that clairvoyants were perhaps lower down on the evolutionary scale than ordinary humans.

  Larsen had also been right abo
ut the publicity I’d received. Most of it had been self-serving, cynically calculated to increase the Sentinel’s circulation. True, on at least three occasions during the past few years I’d discovered a murderer. The first time had been an accident: the random flash of a wayward image on my unsuspecting consciousness, turning my footsteps blindly toward the spot where a murderer crouched in the darkness, gibbering. By chance’s caprice, the story had been picked up by the wire services. I’d been working for a small San Jose daily, and within a week’s time the San Francisco Sentinel had offered to double my salary and give me a by-line. Other successes had followed—and some failures. At first, the police were derisive, even hostile. But the police were always there. We were on the same side.

  This was different. This time, I was on my own. I was in a strange town, staying in a strange motel, drinking in a strange, lonely bar.

  As I paid for the drink and slipped off the bar stool, I was conscious that the phrase Pride goeth before a fall was beginning to revolve in my thoughts. It was a phrase my father had been fond of quoting. For him it had always had a special meaning. For me it had always been a pointless parental aphorism.

  Larsen had put it another way, warning me not to become the victim of my own publicity. If the Bible were to be written in today’s idiom, I was thinking as I walked down the long corridor to my room, that’s the way a disciple might phrase it: don’t believe your own publicity.

  By ten the following morning I’d had breakfast and was standing in a telephone booth, staring at the name F. Russo, and the number, 824-4076.

  Should I wait until tomorrow, Monday?

  Should I give it up and get a plane back to San Francisco?

  As a teen-ager, trying to get up the nerve to call a girl, I could remember standing in exactly the same uncertain posture and feeling the same sheepish doubts. I hadn’t liked the feeling then, and I didn’t like it now. It was only a phone call. I wasn’t committing myself to anything. I’d come four hundred miles and I’d spend a hundred dollars before I got back to San Francisco. If I’d been a fool to take the job, I was being a bigger fool now—and a timid one, at that.

  I was dialing the number; the line was ringing. Was it Frankie Russo’s phone? F. Russo? It seemed incredible that—

  “Hello?” It was a man’s voice.

  “Is this—” I cleared my throat. “Is this Mr. Russo? Frank Russo?”

  “No. Mr. Russo can’t come to the phone right now. Who’s calling?” The voice was brusk, impatient.

  “Well, this is—I’m Stephen Drake. I—”

  “Is Mr. Russo expecting you to call him?”

  “Well, I don’t know. That is, I’m not sure. Mrs. Vennezio—Mrs. Dominic Vennezio—made an appointment for me with Mr. Russo. She said that I should—”

  “Just a minute.” The line clicked dead. I shifted the receiver from one ear to the other. As I did, I realized that the receiver was streaked with moisture. But at least now I was only a fool, no longer a timid one.

  “Hello?” It was a different voice, heavier.

  “Yes. Hello.”

  “This is Frank Russo. Are you the party that Aidia Vennezio went up to San Francisco to see Friday?”

  “Y—yes, I am.”

  “What’s your name again?”

  “Drake. Stephen Drake. Mrs. Vennezio said that I should—”

  “Where are you now, Mr. Drake?”

  “I’m in Los Angeles. I …” Desperately, I tried to decide whether I should give him the name of the motel. Larsen hadn’t …

  “Where, in Los Angeles?”

  “Well, I’m not sure. I’ve only been in Los Angeles two or three times, and I—”

  “What place is it, that you’re staying?”

  “It—it’s the Prescott Motel. But I—”

  “Just a minute.” This time, the phone was covered. Then: “I’ll send someone for you. His name is Montez. Jimmy Montez. He should be there inside a half hour.”

  “But I’ve got a car. I could—”

  “That’s all right. This place is hard to find. I’ll see you in about an hour.” The line went dead.

  As I replaced the receiver, I felt an unexpected sense of satisfaction—almost a smugness. Frankie Russo hadn’t sounded much different from any other business executive. He was a little less polished than some perhaps, but the short, crisp phrases and the brisk, decisive manner had been the same.

  It was, after all, a business—big business. Chicago in the thirties had been one thing. This was Los Angeles. Lotus Land, thirty years later.

  I decided to have a second cup of coffee and then wait for Jimmy Montez in the lobby.

  Montez moved with the lithe, elegant grace of a bullfighter. He was wearing an expensive orange silk sport shirt, narrow-cut tan gabardine slacks and beautifully burnished brown loafers. His black hair curled down low on his bronze neck, and he walked with a long, light stride. His smile was wide and quick; his teeth were very white. His dark, restless eyes seemed both friendly and shrewd.

  “Just down here,” he said, as we left the motel lobby. “It’s that Buick, there.” He pointed to a beige sedan parked at the curb. Walking quickly a few paces ahead, he opened the passenger door for me, then briskly closed it. I watched him circle the car, whistling. His hand lingered on the gleaming hood, lightly caressing the metal.

  The car smelled new. As we pulled away from the curb I said, “Nice car.”

  He flashed me his quick, youthful smile. “We’ve only had it three weeks. It’s not even broken in yet. Mr. Russo got two at the same time. Two Buicks. He gets a better deal, that way. He does it every year.”

  “Do you drive for Mr. Russo?”

  Some of his good humor seemed to fade.

  “Mostly that’s what I do. But it’s only been a year, since I started with him.” His manner became defensive. “Mr. Russo likes people to start at the bottom.”

  I was thinking of the prohibition era gangsters, and of tommy guns blazing through the drawn side curtains of careening cars. In those days, a wheelman had status. Now it was the era of the crooked accountants and lawyers, with a talent for either hoodwinking or discreetly bribing their opposite numbers.

  “What’re you going to do for Mr. Russo?” he asked, looking at me with a cheerful derision. “Are you one of those college graduates he talks about?”

  “Well, I …”

  “I’ll bet anything you’re a college graduate. Aren’t you?” His voice now had a certain insistent edge.

  “Well, yes, I am, as a matter of fact.”

  He nodded, satisfied. “I knew it. I’m getting so I can tell. I don’t mean just about being a college graduate, but about people. Mr. Russo says that’s the most important thing, to be able to judge people. If you can do that, he says—judge people—you can figure out which way they’ll jump. And when you can figure that, you’ve got it made. Because most people don’t know themselves which way they’ll jump. That’s what Mr. Russo says. And he’s right. I’ve seen it happen.”

  I decided not to reply, but instead looked out the window. We were entering the freeway. Montez held the car in a long, graceful curve, expertly. Obviously he enjoyed driving, as only a young man with expensive dreams can enjoy handling a big, powerful automobile.

  “Not too far now,” he said, his eyes on the road. “Eight, nine miles. No more.”

  “What did you do before you worked for Mr. Russo?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I was in and out of jail. I was a real nowhere kid. Tough, you know what I mean? Tough and dumb. The last time I did, it was for knifing some guy I’d never seen before in my life. And you know why? Because a girl just wanted to see us fight.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Nineteen. And it cost me almost three years, that fight. And it was hard time, too. My juvenile record went against me, plus I stayed dumb on the inside. I still thought I had to be tough. Then, just about six months before I got out, I met this guy Danny Frichetti, who’d worked for Mr. Rus
so back in Kansas City. We were cellmates, Danny and me. He was older than me, but he liked me. He said I could get somewhere, if I’d only cool down and use my head. He told me to see Mr. Russo when I got out. Danny’d heard that Mr. Russo had just come out to the Coast.”

  “That was just about a year ago, then.”

  “Right. I first got a job in a dry cleaning plant, through parole. But I saw Mr. Russo, and he got me fixed up right away. I’m supposed to be working in a cigar store. Technically.” He half-turned his head and smiled. “You know.”

  I nodded. Then, casually, I asked, “Did you always work for Mr. Russo? Or did you really work for Dominic Vennezio?”

  He shot me a cautious glance. But the answer came readily enough.

  “I guess you’d say that we all worked for Vennezio, until—a few weeks ago. But the only one I ever saw was Mr. Russo. Vennezio was someone I just heard about, and used to see once in a while. But I drove for Mr. Russo, right from the start. And did—other things. You know.” Again he glanced at me, thought about it for a moment and then asked, “Are you from the East?”

  “No. I’m from San Francisco. I just got in last night.”

  He nodded, but didn’t reply. The car was slowing, and ahead I saw a sign marking the La Palada freeway exit. Briefly I considered more leading questions, but then decided against it. Montez would willingly talk about himself, but my first mention of Vennezio had brought a wary question in return. Until Montez knew more of my credentials, he would tell me nothing.

  So, instead, I asked, “Have you lived in Los Angeles all your life?”

  I saw his eyes flicker in a spasm of opaque bitterness.

  “That’s right. All my life. Some life.” He pointed up ahead. “Here we are.”

  We’d been traveling on a narrow concrete road, and now we turned off on a graveled road marked “Private.” The road climbed for perhaps a quarter-mile, through a grove of eucalyptus trees. Then, suddenly, we were pulling into a parking area topped with crushed rock, gleaming sparkling white in the warm September sunshine. The car came to a stop before a long, low, three-car garage. I got out, aware that my first reaction was a sense of relief. Unconsciously, perhaps, I’d been expecting a tall, foreboding fortress of a house surrounded by a high cyclone fence, guarded by vicious dogs and electric eyes. Instead, I saw the shake roofs and the expansive redwood-and-glass architecture of California’s upper middle class.