He was in the right, of course. He had harbored me in a bad time and I had badgered him. I finished the theatrical news and poured myself another cup of coffee. He poured his second cup and lit a cigarette. He looked around the room and his eyes met mine. He looked away.
“Thanks,” I said, “for everything.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Sorry if I seemed to get miffed about nothing. I suppose you’d better check in at the Venice Station. Will you have to tell them I hid you for the night?”
“No. I’ll run over there now and get cleared away.” I stood up. “What’s that Dorothy’s last name?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Why? Did you plan to send her a bill?”
What I planned to send her was some flowers, but I didn’t voice this. I didn’t want him to think of me as sentimental. I thanked him again and went out into a blazing near-noon sun.
In last night’s alcoholic haze some incident or remark had almost triggered a hunch that might have led to a new line of inquiry, but it was lost in this morning’s sobriety. The picture still showed me Tampett as the key piece and Tampett was now beyond mortal inquiry.
So, I told myself, it’s always darkest just before dawn.
In this optimistic spirit, I entered the small room at the Venice Station where Sergeant Macrae was making out some reports.
He looked up and his sour Scots face turned even more sour. “Start lying,” he said.
I stared at him in innocent surprise. “What about? I understand I was being looked for last night, so I came in to make myself available.”
“One of those boys,” he said grimly, “was released from the hospital only an hour ago. So start lying.”
I sat down in a nearby chair. “I went there to talk with a man named Leslie Elkins. He had some information on Delsy. Evidently, Elkins', well, good friend, resented my interest in sweet Leslie. So he chose me. He didn’t want to tackle me alone; he brought two friends along. So they dragged me out into the alley — and whammo!”
“Sure,” he said cynically. “There were three of them; that much we have to admit. So it puts you about halfway out of trouble.”
“How do I work out the other half, Sergeant?” I asked humbly.
“You answer two questions,” he said. I sat back and nodded.
“First,” he said, “how did you get away from the officers?”
“I hid out in the ladies’ John.”
His chin came up and he half-smiled. “You’re kidding.”
I shook my head. “Next question?”
He said musingly, “I’d like to ask what conversations you may have overheard in there. I’ve often wondered what women talk about when — ” He broke off.
“Sergeant,” I said warmly, “you’re almost human.”
He cleared his throat. “Second question. Tell me all you know about this Delsy-Tampett murder. Including your theories.”
I worded it to him as I had to Willis Morley. And finished by saying, “Then Tampett is killed — and everything goes out the window.”
“Not completely,” he corrected me. “There’s an answer in there, somewhere. We’ve got that ballistics report that pins the gun on Tampett. He shot you with it.”
I said nothing.
“Foy,” he went on, “is clean. We sweated him yesterday. So who next? Morley?”
“I have no idea, Sergeant. I’m really nowhere. I had it all sewed up — and a stitch came loose.”
“A stitch, sure, but the whole damned thing didn’t’ unravel. You’ve done some fine work here, Joe. You can’t quit now.”
“Why can’t I? Who appreciates me? Do you? Look how you treated me last time I was in here.”
“Cut it out,” he said. “A big slob like you, sulking. It’s enough to turn my stomach. You’re getting paid, aren’t you?”
“Half my usual fee,” I answered.
“One way or another, you’re getting paid,” he said caustically. He leaned back. “How about Mrs. Fidelia Sherwood Richards? What’s her alibi for the night Delsy was killed?”
A real long silence. He smiled at me and I glared at him. Finally, I said, “Ask her.”
He continued to smile. “As soon as I’ve called the reporters. They’re entitled to hear it. The press in this town has a great interest in the Sherwood adventures.”
I was breathing heavily.
“I’m glad I’m in the Department,” he said. “You wouldn’t hit a police officer, would you, Investigator Puma?”
“I have,” I said. “Only the other day in Santa Monica, I popped one.” I shrugged my shoulder muscles, trying to relieve the tension at the base of my neck. “Considering my reputation, I think I get pretty damned lousy treatment from the Los Angeles Police Department.”
He smiled. “You wouldn’t want it any other way. If people started to be nice to you, it would destroy you.”
“Don’t butter me, Sergeant. It’s out of character.” I stood up. “Did those boys I fought file any charges?”
“They’ve withdrawn them,” he said, and paused. “After I talked with them this morning.”
“Well!” I studied him. “Maybe I’ve got friends I don’t even know about.”
“I wouldn’t be a damned bit surprised,” he admitted. “You’re quite a man. Carry on, you slob.”
He was all right, that Sergeant Macrae. The city was damned lucky to have him at the starvation prices it paid. Teachers and cops, the only two trades our civilization absolutely has to have. And we pay them peanuts.
The sun was still boiling in a cloudless sky. Perspiration ran down my sides and my wound itched under the bandage.
In the grounds of the Avalon Beach, the big palms afforded shade and the breeze coming over the clay bluffs above the ocean was cooling.
The breeze wasn’t as cool as Mrs. Fidelia Sherwood Richards’ welcome. She opened the door of her cottage and glared at me.
“I’m not free-loading,” I explained. “I’ve already eaten a big breakfast.”
“It’s lunchtime, now.”
“I had a late breakfast, with your recent husband. He took care of me last night after you deserted me.” “Huh!” she said.
“Do we stand here and bicker for the neighbors,” I asked, “or do I come in?”
“Come in,” she said. “Come in and start lying, you vulgar, loud — ”
“Sergeant Macrae told me the same thing. Where did you and Eddie wind up?”
“Home,” she said furiously. “Right here!”
I raised my eyebrows. “You and Eddie? Fidelia, he’s a married man.”
“He brought me here and left me,” she said icily. “Don’t try to change the subject. Don’t you think I don’t know dear old Pete was trying to hide that — that tramp from me. You went with her, didn’t you? You’re probably diseased, right now.”
“What tramp?” I asked innocently. “You don’t mean some girl, do you?”
“Girl? I mean that weather-beaten, bar-battered, whiskey-voiced, stilt-legged — ” She took a deep breath.
“Fidelia,” I said gently, “phone Pete right now. This second. Please? Ask him about me.”
“Why should I phone him? I know the girl went with Pete. And you’ve just told me you went with Pete. So who in the hell would the girl be with?”
I chewed my lower lip and studied the ceiling thoughtfully. “Let’s see, now. Why, the girl would be with Pete, natch. She went with him, right?”
“And what would Pete Richards want with a girl?”
“Fidelia, it’s none of your business. Are you jealous?”
“I’m asking you, Joseph Puma, as calmly as I can, what would impotent Pete Richards want with a girl?”
That was what he meant when he said I was embarrassing him. That was why he and Fidelia were divorced. I stared at her and said, “That’s what he meant!” “That is what who meant?”
“Pete,” I answered. “May I sit down? It’s a mixed-up story.”
She nodded grimly.
<
br /> I sat down and stared thoughtfully at the floor. I looked up at her and said earnestly, “I can’t tell you much about last night. I dimly remember a girl coming with us to Pete’s. And then, some time in the night, I woke up and heard this horrible argument going on between Pete and a girl. I suppose it was the girl who came with us. She called him some names I don’t want to repeat.” I shook my head. “It was pretty sickening. This morning, when I asked Pete what the fight was all about, he seemed embarrassed. When I pressed him, just for gags, he told me quite plainly that any further discussion along those lines would embarrass him, and I should shut my mouth.”
Fidelia sat down across from me, staring doubtfully.
“And now you tell me,” I said. “He’s impotent, huh? That’s why you got divorced?”
She continued to stare at me doubtfully. “If you’re lying, you’re good at it. But you would be. Lying well is important in your profession, isn’t it?”
Only in my love life, I thought. I said, “I don’t lie any more than anyone else, and never to clients.”
“Even half-price clients? I suppose I’m only entitled to half the truth from you.”
“Fidelia, be reasonable. Did I make a fuss about your coming home with a married man?”
“You’re being absurd,” she said.
“And you’re not? Think of who you are and who I am and you’ll realize, I’m sure, that your tantrum was adolescent.”
“Who I am?” She wrinkled her forehead. “Class conscious, are you?”
“Always,” I said. “Most poor people are.”
“It’s a form of snobbery, isn’t it? It’s inverted snobbery.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “You’re still in love with Pete, aren’t you?”
She shook her head.
“And he with you,” I went on. “I see now why you two don’t fight.”
She looked dully past me at nothing. She seemed spent, emotionally exhausted.
“You need a comeback drink,” I said. “You were really belting that booze, last night.”
“I was? How about you, Gargantua?”
“We both need a drink,” I agreed. “Some hair of the dog. You phone, and I’ll buy.”
She picked up the phone and called for room service. She ordered bourbon, replaced the phone on its cradle and looked at me sadly.
I winked at her.
“I was adolescent, wasn’t I?” she said. “We’re not married. What difference should it make to me what you did last night?”
I sighed and leaned back, rubbing my neck.
“After all,” she went on, “in a sense, you’re really only an employee, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“And I knew your reputation, long before I met you.”
“Right,” I said. “Feeling better now?”
“Not a bit,” she said. “You damned tomcat!”
Chapter Fifteen
There is no point in trying to reason with a woman. They don’t operate from the intellect but are wired directly to their emotions, and reason is wasted on them.
Fidelia had a drink and felt better. We talked quietly, avoiding any reference to last night. Though the talk was quiet, it was strained and unnatural; she was obviously itching to tell me off again.
And why? We were not children. Such fleshly alliance as we had enjoyed was doomed to be temporary; it established no proprietary rights. Of course, I had taken her to Eddie’s and not been available for return transportation. But that was only a social oversight and slim excuse for her possessive fury.
She finished her drink and sat quietly in her chair.
I finished my drink and stood up. “I’m wasting your money, Fidelia. I thought I had it, but I don’t. I’m nowhere.”
“Finish the day,” she said wearily. “The other money is already spent.” “Other money?”
She didn’t look at me. “The money you’ve charged me so far.”
Annoyance stirred in me. It wasn’t the first indication of her penuriousness. I held my tongue. She was getting cut-rate service already, but I held my tongue. I thought of the man at Vegas who had torn up the check. Maybe she was a bad loser, too.
She looked up. “Don’t voice what you’re thinking.”
“I won’t. Do you want me to quit now? I won’t charge you for today.”
“Finish the day,” she said. “Then send your bill to my attorneys. Gallegher, Hartford and Leedom, in Beverly Hills.”
“Okay,” I said, and started for the door, waiting for her to call me back. She didn’t call, and I paused at the door, giving her a final chance.
She wasn’t even looking at me; I went out.
From near-hysteria to despondency in half an hour. Well, maybe she had run down. Maybe her stamina had been depleted by last night’s excitement and not left her enough energy to sustain her rage.
Or maybe a thought had struck her.
My peasant’s intuition was rumbling in me, begging to be heard. It wasn’t the eggs. It was a hunch trying to be born.
In that fluster of angry words, some hint of truth had come through to her and made her rage meaningless. It couldn’t have been the drink; one drink couldn’t make her that quiet. I thought back to our first night together and remembered how soundly I had slept. Had she seen something while I was asleep? Had she seen Brian Delsy die?
From a lobby phone, I called Sergeant Macrae at the Venice Station. “On that fingerprint,” I asked him. “How soon would you expect an answer?”
“Tomorrow, maybe. Why?”
“I just wondered. If the guy had been in the service, his fingerprints would be on file in Washington, wouldn’t they?”
“Yup. Come on, Puma — let us in on your hunches.” “I haven’t any. One’s trying to be born. So help me, that’s the solemn truth.”
A pause, and then he said, “Okay, Joe. Carry on.”
In the phone book, I found the number of Leslie Elkins and called that, hoping to find him at home.
I did. I said, “Joe Puma. Could I talk with you today? I’m right in the neighborhood.”
“I suppose. About Brian?”
“That’s right. Your … friends aren’t around, are they?”
“Friends?” he asked. Then, “Oh, those roughnecks who attacked you? They’re no longer friends of mine, Mr. Puma.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said. “They’re a rowdy bunch. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”
Geographically, it wasn’t much of a trip from the Avalon Beach to Leslie Elkins’ three-room house on a back lot off Ludlow Street. But it was a long step down in property values.
It was a small frame house, leaning and obviously ancient, though freshly painted. Leslie Elkins was waiting for me at the front door.
Inside, he had covered the walls with a rough fabric similar to monk’s cloth and decorated in silver grays and soft pastels, with an occasional ebony accent. It was peaceful and cool and in impeccable taste.
I looked around and said, “This makes me thoroughly ashamed of my little ratrap. But what can a man do, lacking taste?”
He smiled. “Would you like something cool to drink? How about a gin and tonic?”
“I’d like one, thank you.” I sat on a low love seat and looked out at his small, fenced garden full of flowers.
He mixed a pair of drinks and brought me one. He sat in a low, ultra-modern chair close by and lifted his drink. “To better understanding.”
We drank.
Then I said, “You told me last night that you were a very good friend of Brian Delsy’s.”
He nodded without looking at me. “I was.”
“Despite that,” I went on, “I hope you can look back at his temperament, his … disposition objectively and also understand that honest answers from you could lead to the discovery of his murderer.”
He nodded once more, looking up to meet my gaze.
“Was he,” I asked quietly, “in any sense malicious or unkind?”
A pause. Then Leslie Elki
ns nodded for the third time. “He could be. He had a streak of cruelty, of arrogance, in him.” He smiled wanly. “I’m sure you have reason to remember his arrogance.”
“I do. Think carefully now. Would it be possible that Mr. Delsy wanted to warn Mrs. Richards about Dr. Foy out of some malicious intent?”
Leslie Elkins took a shallow sip of his drink and a deep breath. He said very softly, “It is entirely possible. Brian was not helped by Dr. Foy. Fidelia was. It’s not a nice thing to say about a dead man, but Brian might have resented Fidelia’s cure.”
“Cure?” I said. “It wasn’t that, was it? She became almost totally dependent on Dr. Foy.”
“She did. But he helped her in other ways. You see, with Fidelia hanging onto Foy for her continued, well, adjustment, Brian was playing with fire when he tried to degrade Foy’s image in her mind.”
“This arrogance of Delsey’s, this streak of cruelty — was it commonly know?”
Leslie Elkins frowned. “Commonly? That’s too broad a word. To his intimates, yes. To the boys who drink at Eddie’s.”
“Did Lou Serano know it?”
“I doubt it. I’m sure Bob Tampett did, though. Who could have killed Tampett?”
“The same person who killed Delsy,” I said. “Probably. They were allied deaths, one way or another.” I finished my drink and stood up.
Leslie Elkins said, “You’re groping, aren’t you? You’re working on some intuition that you can’t even define?”
“That’s right. How could you tell?”
He smiled dimly. “I’ve been called a number of things in this vulgar world, Mr. Puma, but nobody has ever called me insensitive.”
“You’re quite a guy,” I said. “I mean that as a compliment.”
“So are you,” he answered. “Though I’m not sure I mean it as a compliment. Have I helped?”
“I think you have. I have to start the wheels turning again before I get a pattern, but it will come. Thank you for the drink and the information, Mr. Elkins.”
“I hope I’ve helped,” he said softly. “I miss Brian.”
I went out into the ugly world again and drove to the office. The mail was all third class and my answering service had no messages. I sat near a window and looked down at the traffic below.
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