by Josh Lanyon
Veronica appeared in the doorway and beckoned Nathan in.
The living room was dark; it smelled of pine trees and Elizabeth Arden. A five-foot evergreen stood unadorned in one corner, and various scattered ornaments winked and glinted in the dim light. He could just make out the woman sitting on the sofa near the French doors. Claire Arlen’s hair appeared to be the exact shade of the pale carnation her brother wore in his lapel. She was fair and small and curvy in all the right places. She was wearing some kind of frothy negligee set, and she looked as fragile as the Christmas tree angel sitting on the table beside her elbow.
Nathan glanced around and Veronica had disappeared.
Claire said in a dull voice, “Carl called to tell me you’d probably turn up. I didn’t kill Phil.”
Nathan took off his hat and sat down on the ottoman. “You were pretty upset with him on Saturday night.”
“Not with Phil. With her. That woman.”
“Pearl Jarvis?”
Claire nodded. “The torcher. ‘I’m Getting Sentimental Over You.’” She laughed a bitter little laugh and covered her eyes with her hand. “I used to like that song!”
“Was Phil having an affair with her?”
“I don’t know.” She wiped her eyes. “I didn’t think so, but then…” She shook her head. “There was something between them.”
“It seemed like you thought so on Saturday night.”
She took her hand down and glared at him.
He made sure his voice stayed low and soothing. “Did you ever try to talk to Pearl?”
“Her?” She sounded indignant. “That tramp?”
He smiled apologetically. “I know wives sometimes do—try to talk to other women.”
Something in his smile seemed to disarm her instinctive affront. “Are you married?” she asked.
“No.”
“Got a sweetheart?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been overseas.”
Claire shook her head like he couldn’t possibly understand. “I did try to talk to her once. She just laughed at me. Told me Phil was free, white and twenty-one. When Phil found out I’d been to see her, he slapped me. Carl told him if he ever laid a hand on me again—” She broke off.
“He’d kill him?” Nathan finished.
She didn’t reply.
“I guess I’d feel the same,” Nathan said. “If someone treated my sister that way.”
“Do you have a sister?”
“No.”
“Then what do you know about it?” She turned a mutinous profile and stared unseeingly at the row of photos on the credenza. “Anyway, it was only the one time. Carl didn’t kill Phil. He was killed by the kidnappers.”
“Why do you think they did that? After the ransom was paid?”
“How should I know? Maybe…Phil saw one of them. Maybe he saw or heard something and they couldn’t afford to let him go. Maybe…there was a problem with the money. Maybe they didn’t receive the ransom payment.”
“Do you think there was a ransom payment?”
That brought her face forward in a hurry. “What are you suggesting?”
“Yes, what are you suggesting?”
That was Veronica, standing in the doorway behind him. He hadn’t heard her, and he wondered how long she had been standing there.
He said simply, “Nothing the police won’t think of on their own.”
“Listen,” Veronica said. “Regardless of what Bob thought of Phil and the way Phil conducted his affairs—sorry, Claire, honey—he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his safety. That’s not brotherly love, it’s the kind of man Bob is—and you ought to know it. Bob delivered that money exactly per the kidnapper’s instructions.”
“I believe you,” Nathan said.
“I don’t care if you believe me or not. You’ve outstayed your welcome, Mr. Doyle.”
Nathan glanced at Claire, but she seemed to have tuned out again. She was staring at the grouping of photos, her hand resting lightly on her midriff as though she felt ill—and he couldn’t blame her for that. He rose and followed Veronica into the outer hallway with the Italian carvings. He put his hat on, and she said abruptly, “You’re getting the wrong idea about Phil. Mostly he was just young. If Benedict had let him enlist like he wanted to, he’d have been all right. The irony is Benedict wanted to keep him safe at home.”
“Just boyish high spirits, is that the story?” Nathan inquired.
She met his gaze levelly. “We all have our stories, Mr. Doyle. Don’t we?”
Nathan had lunch—a drink and a smoke—at the High Hat, where most of the reporters from the larger papers hung out. It was a nice little place with decent food and strong drinks. There was a piano bar in the evenings, and out back was a red-carpeted patio with several tables beneath green umbrellas. Because of the rain, everyone was inside and the bar was noisy and blue with smoke. Most of the noise centered on the Arlen story, and Nathan took a fair amount of razzing about being picked up by the police.
He grinned, easily deflected the questions and listened closely. Everyone seemed to be running with the same angle: a kidnapping gone wrong. He hoped that meant the police were investigating it the same way. He wasn’t convinced though. Lieutenant Spain seemed the thorough kind.
For a moment he let himself dwell on the thought of Lieutenant Spain. Alert, aggressive—probably an ex-marine. They were all tough bastards. But Spain had that boy-next-door quality too. And that infrequent and devastating smile—and eyes just the color of a Scottish loch at sunset, sort of green-gold, like summer bracken or polished cairngorm.
And the fact that Nathan was thinking like this about a cop indicated just how bad things had gotten. Maybe he really was losing his mind.
It was after two o’clock by the time Nathan caught the Yellow Car for Wilshire Boulevard and the Las Palmas Club. By then he was feeling the cumulative effect of too many drinks and too many sleepless nights. He was still a long way from being fit—there were days when he wondered if he would ever feel truly fit again. And the worst part was he didn’t really care either way.
Like all such places, the Las Palmas Club seemed smaller in the daylight. Rain sheeted off its striped awning and gargled down the gutters of Wilshire.
He expected to have trouble getting into the club but, in fact, he had very little. An ugly, bald-headed bruiser let him inside and, after a brief wait in the foyer, he was shown into a leather-lined office. As he entered the room, Nora Noonan and Sid Szabo broke off what appeared to be an intense discussion. Sid swung away and went to glare out the rainstreaked window.
Nora rose from a Queen Anne chair behind an equally magnificent desk. “Mr. Doyle, you’re becoming a regular.”
Nathan smiled and shook hands. “I’m afraid I’m here in my official capacity.”
“And what’s that? Snoop?” That came from Sid, his back to the room.
“The Arlens are news in this town,” Nathan said mildly.
“Of course they are.” Nora shot Sid’s back an exasperated look and then smiled again at Nathan. “We always like to cooperate with the press, but I’m not sure how much help we’ll be. Frankly, it’s not the best publicity for us, Phil Arlen getting kidnapped off our doorstep.”
“Was he kidnapped?”
“The police seem to think so.”
“What do you think?”
She directed another one of those looks at Sid’s unresponsive broad shoulders, waiting in vain, it seemed, for him to chime in. “It seems likely. The last time anyone seems to have seen him was here.”
“With you,” Sid said.
Nathan turned his way. “That’s right. Phil and I walked out together. We said good-night. He went his way and I went mine.”
“So you say.”
“Sid!” That time Nora couldn’t contain her impatience. The smile she turned on Nathan was apologetic and charming. “There’s no reason we can’t be civilized. Would you like a drink, Mr. Doyle?”
Nathan thought about
it. He couldn’t remember if he had eaten at all that morning. He suspected breakfast had consisted of a nip from the flask belonging to Fred Williams of the Daily News. And there had been several drinks after that, but the alcohol was helping him get through this—and there was still a long way to go—so he said, “Sure.”
Nora poured him a generous two fingers from a bottle of Four Roses. “Sid?” she inquired.
“You know I don’t drink during the day,” Sid returned.
Nora winked at Nathan and took a dainty sip. She reminded Nathan of a nun with the high white collar of her blouse and her plain, intelligent face—although he’d never seen a nun taking a nip.
He said, directing the question to either of them, “What can you tell me about the relationship between Pearl Jarvis and Phil Arlen?”
“Why are you trying to start something? There was no relationship,” Sid said, turning to face the room—to face Nathan. “The little weasel had a crush on Pearl. Lots of guys do.”
“Mrs. Arlen seemed to think it was a little more than that.”
Nora sighed. “Perhaps it was. What can it matter now? Arlen’s dead.”
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “Supposedly his kidnappers bumped him off after they picked up the ransom money. Any idea why that would be?”
“Maybe he got on their nerves,” Szabo said. “It’s been known to happen.”
“Maybe,” Nathan agreed. “How much was Arlen into you for?”
“Forty big ones,” Szabo said. “So if you’re thinking Nora and I have a new sideline—”
“If you have, you came out sixty grand ahead on the deal.”
Nora laughed. “We’re gamblers. We’re not crazy.”
“I agree,” Nathan said. “For that kind of risk it would have to be worth a lot more to you than sixty—or even a hundred grand.” When neither of them responded, he asked, “Would it be okay if I talked to Pearl?”
“Why?” Szabo asked.
As though he hadn’t spoken, Nora said, “That’s up to Pearl. She’s not here right now. You can probably catch her after her show this evening.”
“Do you have an address for her?”
“No,” Szabo said.
Nora looked regretful. “We don’t give that kind of information out, Mr. Doyle. But come back this evening. We’ll see you get the best seat in the house. Nothing’s too good for the gentlemen of the press.” She smiled a secret sort of smile.
Nathan looked at Szabo. “Any reason you don’t want me to talk to Pearl?”
“Why should there be?”
Nathan shrugged. “Every time her name comes up you get a little testy. You have a lot of problems with her?”
“We don’t have any problems with her.”
“She’s very good,” Nora said. “Very talented. Have you ever heard her sing ‘I’m Getting Sentimental Over You’?”
“Once or twice. She knows how to sell a song.” Nathan said to Szabo, “Maybe you did like her. Maybe you liked her too much.”
Szabo stared long and unblinkingly at Nathan.
Nora said, “I guess you haven’t heard the rumors about Sid and me, Mr. Doyle.”
Nathan smiled. “I guess I might have—but I don’t believe everything I hear.”
He was not going to be very popular with Whitey Whitlock, his editor. At the rate he was going, the Tribune-Herald was going to be the only paper in town that didn’t have a major story filed on the Arlen murder. That in itself was liable to look suspicious.
He couldn’t help it. He didn’t have a lot of time. Every time he thought of a particular police lieutenant with a pair of shrewd hazel eyes, Nathan could hear a clock ticking. It wasn’t going to take Lieutenant Spain long to put two and two together because—unless Nathan was very wrong—Lieutenant Spain already had an inkling or two.
Of course he could be letting his imagination—and guilty conscience—run away with him. He thought back to what he’d read in Spain’s eyes. The look he’d first seen across the sand and weeds and grass that morning—a very different look from the one he’d seen by the time they parted ways after leaving Bob Arlen’s apartment. Had he interpreted that look correctly? Or was he seeing what he wanted to see? It was hard to know sometimes.
Either way it was moot now. Spain had picked up the scent, and Nathan recognized, without knowing almost anything about the man, that Spain was a very good tracker.
There was still a chance, if he acted quickly, and that’s what he had spent the morning doing.
He needed to find Pearl Jarvis. Needed to hear her story, find out what she had to say, but if she wasn’t deliberately lying low, she was sure giving a good impression of it.
Having struck out at the club, he wasted another hour hunting down her last known address. But Pearl no longer resided at the rooming house in Echo Park, and Nathan got an earful from her former roommate about owed rents and a missing Bonwit Teller evening coat.
From Echo Park he trailed the elusive Miss Jarvis back to an apartment on Highland Avenue, but it was the same story—or at least a similar one—there. Miss Jarvis had vacated owing a month’s rent and claiming loudly that she knew nothing about a misplaced cultured pearl choker.
Pearl was clearly a girl who moved around a lot even in Los Angeles’s wartime housing shortage. But maybe she had good reason. It seemed that way to Nathan. From Highland Avenue he finally tracked her down at a rooming house on Hill Street.
But although Pearl technically still lived at Mrs. Malloy’s, she was not at home.
“When do you expect her back?” he asked.
Mrs. Malloy was vague. “Not ’til after the last show tonight.” Her face took on a suspicious look. “No gentlemen visitors after seven o’clock.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Nathan said, and that was true.
It looked like he was going to have to settle for talking to Pearl after the last show at the Las Palmas Club.
He caught a streetcar back to Broadway and Third, pushing through the arched entrance of the Tribune-Herald Building, making his way through the inside courtyard, looking up to see rain washing across the skylight. Taking the caged elevators up, he mentally hammered out his story. He didn’t have anything. He was trusting that no one else did either, but he didn’t know. He hadn’t noticed any extras showing up on the street, but he’d been so preoccupied, somebody could have pushed a paper into his hand and he wouldn’t have noticed.
Had the cops managed to talk to Pearl? Something Szabo had said before Nathan left the Las Palmas Club made him think not. Not then, anyway. But even if the cops talked to Pearl, they might not know which questions to ask. In fact, Nathan was trusting that they didn’t, that they were still investigating Arlen’s murder as a kidnapping gone wrong.
Whitey Whitlock greeted him with the usual inquiry as to whether he could explain why they were paying him such an exorbitant salary to sit on his duff and drink martinis at the High Hat all day.
Doyle assured Whitlock he had no idea, but he personally felt he was worth every penny. Then he sat down and typed up some malarkey, handed it in to Whitlock, who scowled from beneath white and beetling brows as he skimmed the crisply typed pages and shook his head.
“Doesn’t anyone in this town know anything?”
“If they do, they’re not talking to the press.”
Whitlock didn’t say the obvious, that it had taken Nathan all goddamned day to file a story any cub reporter could have turned in his first day on the job. In the old days Nathan would have had his ass canned for that kind of omission, but with the manpower shortage, and the war effort dominating every front page, he had a little room to operate. And, while he wouldn’t have previously thought to trade on it, his bloodstained resume gave him a certain amount of clout at the Tribune-Herald.
He told Whitlock that since every paper in town was covering the story, he was hoping to get the human-interest angle. Whitlock looked skeptical, and rightly so. Nathan hadn’t given any previous indication of anything so unwholesome
as an interest in humans, but he contented himself with shaking his head and muttering how he’d always known it was a mistake to hire Doyle.
And then, very off-handedly, he mentioned that the police had been there looking for him—twice.
Nathan stood still for a moment. Then he realized that Whitlock was watching him, and he raised his brows. “I can’t uncover all their leads for them,” he said.
Whitlock harrumphed. “Next time meet them at your other office. They bring down the tone of the place.” He retreated, muttering, to his lair, and Nathan went to the men’s room and splashed cold water on his face.
He needed to eat something. That was the first priority. And then he needed to see what the cops wanted. But, of course, he knew what they wanted. They wanted to know why he hadn’t mentioned he was one of the last people to see Phil Arlen alive. They would have found that out right after they visited the Las Palmas Club.
There had never been any question he was going to have to have this conversation with Lieutenant Spain, but it was better to go into it prepared, so he drank some water and headed downstairs to the newspaper morgue where he looked up everything he could find on Lt. Mathew Spain.
There wasn’t a lot. He learned that Spain was thirty-five—a few years older than himself—and had been a cop for ten years before he enlisted in the marines, had been hit by sniper fire on Guadalcanal, and he returned to the Los Angeles police force, who were, apparently, so delighted to have him back they’d promoted him to lieutenant.