“Plays all my records,” he said, “automatically. Seven thousand of them, on both sides. Cost me a fortue.” He nodded toward a davenport. “Sit down, Mr. Puma.”
I sat down and smiled at him.
He didn’t smile back at me. “Who told you about me?”
“I don’t care to answer that, Mr. Giampolo.”
“Gregory Harvest did, didn’t he?” I said nothing.
“Ambitious man,” he said musingly. “Friend of yours?”
“No.”
He looked at me thoughtfully. “You gave Koski and Kranyk to the police, but you didn’t give them my name. Why not?”
“Well, first of all, I had reason to hate that pair. You haven’t given me any reason to hate you.” I paused. “Yet. And second, you’re rich and they’re not. Most of my business comes from rich people.”
He frowned. “I can never tell when you’re being serious. You leave an impression of never being serious.”
“I try not to be,” I explained, “in order to retain my sanity. In a world as absurd, as the one we inhabit, Mr. Giampolo, sanity is not always a virtue.”
He half-smiled. He said nothing.
“Look at you,” I went on. “A paisan. Money enough to buy all the wine and pizzas a wop could ever eat and all the babes he could ever lay. Are you happy, as you should be? No. You take this world too seriously.”
“Not this world,” he said. “The next one. My doctor tells me I have about eighteen months.”
Nobody said anything for seconds.
Finally I said, “I’m very sorry, Mr. Giampolo.”
He nodded, saying nothing.
I asked, “Was that all you wanted to see me about, to ask about Greg Harvest?”
“Mostly. And to tell you that Harvest is a man to watch. I think he’s blackmailing Deborah Huntington. Is she your client?”
I hesitated and nodded.
He said, “Miss Huntington I only know casually and by reputation, but if she could sacrifice you to get rid of Harvest, I’m sure she has the moral invulnerability to do it without flinching. So you be very wary of that pair. Now, Miss Gallegan is something else. I’m sure she knows more than she’s revealed to either you or the police, but I’m not sure why she’s been secretive. However, I would not consider her as dangerous as either Miss Huntington or Mr. Harvest. Have I told you anything you don’t know?”
“Yes. And why?”
He frowned again. “Why …? Why what?”
“Why are you anxious to help me?”
“For two reasons,” he said. “First, you’re a paisan. You — rather remind me of myself at your age. And second, I’d like to keep wrestling the way it is, a harmless and lucrative farce. I have a number of friends in the field and I would like to think they would continue to prosper after I am gone.”
“You feel that wrestling, then, had nothing to do with the death of Duncan Guest or Einar Hansen?”
“I do. Though I have nothing but my intuition and my judgment to substantiate that feeling.” He paused. “And that doesn’t mean of course that a wrestler, as an individual, might not have killed them both.”
“I understand. And using your intuition and your judgment, who would be your choice as the killer?”
He smiled weakly. “Gregory Harvest. But that might be a purely emotional judgment.”
“And the girl in the white sheath dress?”
“I have no idea. Frankly, when I first read about her, I thought of Miss Quintana. I saw her in a white sheath dress one time and it was a sight I’ll never forget. But this girl Miss Gallegan saw appears to have been smaller and I’m sure Miss Quintana had no reason to kill Duncan Guest.”
“She hated him.”
“Dozens of people did. Miss Quintana is such a well adjusted woman, I can’t think of anything but a threat to Mike that would disturb her calm.”
“Maybe Duncan Guest was a threat to Mike. Miss Quintana slapped my face simply because I gave the police Mike’s name.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t the only reason. She probably feels exceptionally uncomfortable around you.”
“Why should she?”
“Because you could very easily be the first man she’s met since tying up with Mike who makes her think of some man besides Mike. As a matter of fact, after your first visit, Mike told me you had impressed her. He was a little worried for the first time since I’ve known him.”
I shook my head sadly. “And I had to get on the wrong side of her. You know, at first a person thinks of her as a big woman. But after seeing her a few times, she doesn’t look big at all. And all other women look like misshapen midgets.”
He didn’t seem to be listening, staring the length of his big living room.
I stood up. “Thanks for your interest, Mr. Giampolo.”
He looked at me and nodded. “Mr. Harvest will undoubtedly represent Koski and Kranyk in court. Don’t let that indicate to you that I sent him because he’s a friend of mine. He isn’t.”
I smiled. “Not a friend, only a partner. Has Devine got a piece of the top, too?”
He shook his head. “And Mr. Harvest won’t have his long. I think Mike Petalious would make an efficient heir, don’t you?”
“It would be a nice gesture for his loyalty,” I said. “And then his wife would be able to mix with her old friends again.”
“But she’s not his wife.”
“They’re being married Saturday.”
“Strange he didn’t tell me.” Giampolo smiled. “Maybe you’re responsible for the wedding. Maybe you did Miss Quintana a favor, Joe.”
“You overrate me,” I said. “Mr. Giampolo, have you been all over for your medical opinions? Have you been to Rochester?”
“I’ve been to Rochester,” he said. “As for going around the world for medical opinions, I didn’t have to. I sent for them and they came and the eighteen months is an outside figure.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Good day, Mr. Puma. It’s time for my nap.”
I went to the office. There was no mail of importance. I called my phone-answering service and was informed a Miss Huntington had phoned at ten this morning and would except me to return the call.
I didn’t do it right away. I typed up all the reports of my travels since last I had sat here and read those along with the previous reports. There were a number of lies apparent in the conflicting testimony but none of it was consistent enough to point a finger.
I was pulling the carbon copies to mail to Macrae when my phone rang and it was Deborah.
“I left a message for you to call me,” she said stiffly. “Where have you been?”
“I just this second walked into the office, Deb. I’ve been busy.”
“I’ll bet. I see you and Miss Gallegan are getting better acquainted.”
“Where did you see that?”
“In the afternoon paper. It didn’t make the morning papers.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry it had to make any paper. Nothing happened, Deb. Not that you’d care if it had.”
“You’re right; it’s none of my business. But was it necessary to attack Creg Harvest?”
“I didn’t attack him and if he told you I did, he’s a liar. He wanted to fight me and I let him off easy. We just shook hands.”
A pause. “I should have trusted my first feeling about you. I would like to cancel our contract. I don’t feel that you’re the proper man to investigate this murder.”
“You could be right,” I said. “I’ll bill you for the work already performed. I’ll pick up the tab on that evening at The Elms. For auld lang syne.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. “Good-bye, Joe. Good luck.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Good luck to you.” I replaced the receiver quickly.
The phone rang again almost immediately but I didn’t answer it. I stacked the carbons for Macrae. I hadn’t mentioned Giampolo in these reports and that was dishonest, but I told myself Giampolo wasn’t important to this
murder and if he had told me the truth he wouldn’t be a threat to law and order much longer. Let him die in peace.
The phone continued to ring. It was still ringing when I went out.
ELEVEN
EINAR HANSEN had lived in a beach shack not too far from the Koski-Kranyk apartment in Playa del Rey. He had lived there with his sister; she was not home. She had not been home early last night, either; she had been visiting an aunt in Encino when her brother had been stabbed to death.
At the shack next door, a fat woman in blue jeans and sweat shirt was watering the patch of Bermuda grass in front that served for a lawn.
“She ain’t home,” she called to me. “You selling something?”
“No,” I said. “I’m a detective.” I went over there. She squinted at me. “I know you. You were in the papers. Joseph Puma, right?”
“Right as rain, m’am.”
“You know my husband, Whitey Tullgren, right?”
I had put his buddy in San Quentin for nine years, but my testimony had helped to keep Whitey free. I said, “Hell, yes, I know him. How is he doing now?”
“Great,” she said. “He’s a bouncer at the Red Mill. He’s fishing today. Whitey thinks a lot of you, Mr. Puma.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “On the straight and narrow, is ne? I knew he could make it.”
“Could you go for a beer?” she asked.
“I certainly could,” I said. “That sun finally came out, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “We’ll have to drink it on the porch. Whitey finds me in the house with a man, he’d cut my legs off at the knee.”
“I don’t blame him,” I said. “Too many wolves around these days.”
She laughed cynically. “Save it, Mr. Puma. I got a mirror. And a scales. I’ll get the beer.”
I sat on the porch in a rattan rocker and looked out at the sand and the sea and the Hyperion Sewage Disposal Plant. The wind was from the shore today and there was no discernible odor.
Mrs. Tullgren came out with two cans of beer and handed me one. She sat nearby in a rattan armchair. “Einar’s sister is at the funeral home, arranging things. There was just the two of them; their folks is dead.”
‘Terrible thing,” I said. “Doesn’t make any kind of sense at all to me. Einar was not a violent man, was he?”
“Einar? No. Smart, though. I always had the feeling he picked up a dirty dollar now and then. That hamburger stand wasn’t exactly a gold mine.”
“No,” I agreed. “Nothing personal, now, but he wasn’t living in Beverly Hills, either.”
“He owned the place next door. He supported his sister. He bought a new Chev every year and owned seven acres out in Palos Verdes. Would he get all that out of a hamburger stand?”
“It’s possible.”
“No, it ain’t. I know what his daily take averaged.”
Silence. I sipped the beer and looked at the off-shore oil derricks to the north. I said casually, “I’ll bet you know more than that.”
“Maybe. I sleep nights, too. And got Whitey right next to me in bed, warm and snuggy. Who wants trouble?”
“Not you,” I said. “Not Whitey.”
“Right!”
I didn’t press her. She was dying to tell me, panting to give me all the gossip. I said, “I used to know Whitey at the Arragon. He could really dance.”
“We still do, all the time. Square dancing, though. Three times a week.”
“I could never see that,” I said. “Ballroom dancing, yes. But those squares give me a laugh.”
“Wait’ll you’re our age. You’ll like it.”
I sipped my beer and looked at the ocean.
“The cops were here,” she said, “asking did we see anything next door last night. I told ‘em we didn’t. Whitey don’t want any part of cops, with him or against him. We didn’t see anything, we said.”
“His sister found him, when she came home — is that the way it was?”
“Right.” A pause. “If I tell you something, you tell the cops and they come back at me. That’s the way it would be, ain’t it?”
“No,” I said. “I can keep my mouth shut. And if I collect any reward, I can send you fifty bucks if you know something that helps.”
“But you’re working with the cops.”
“True. And for myself. You and Whitey would never be mentioned, unless it was necessary and you gave me permission.”
“Forget the fifty,” she said, “You done enough for Whitey already. One thing his sister told me yesterday morning and I didn’t see in the paper, she told me Einar practically insisted she had to run up to the Valley to see that aunt. Funny, huh?”
“Maybe he figured it was his sister’s duty. With their parents dead, maybe Einar thought they should keep up the family relationships they did have.”
“Naw. Or he’d have gone along. He didn’t have the stand open yesterday; he wasn’t working. And the aunt didn’t have no money. Money, that’s what Einar loved, not relatives.”
“You figure somebody was coming to see him and he wanted his sister out of the way?”
“That’s what I figured and that’s what happened. He had a visitor, a blond guy in a Jaguar.”
“You mean the killer was a blond man driving a Jaguar?”
“I wouldn’t say that, not for sure. He could have been. I didn’t see nothing in the paper about him. And Whitey thought he heard another car earlier.” She paused. “We were — uh — ”busy then. This blond guy was there around one o’clock.”
“How could you see him in the dark?”
“He left his lights on. I suppose so he could see his way over there. No moon last night, you know. You want another beer?”
“I hate to be a pig,” I said, “but I could use one. It’s sure restful, sitting here.”
“Ain’t it?” she agreed. “Nothing fancy, but Whitey and me, we love it here.” She got up and went into the house.
I looked over at the house of Einar Hansen. Beyond it, in the background, was the Hyperion Sewage Disposal Plant. To the north was the Santa Monica Yacht Basin and the curving line of the shore all the way to Point Dume. For a low-rent district, the Tullgrens enjoyed an impressive view.
Einar Hansen, blackmailer…. I wouldn’t have thought it. Had he known at the time who had killed Duncan Guest or had he figured it out later or had he simply played a hunch? All this was only surmise; I had no facts to discredit Einar Hansen.
Mrs. Tullgren handed me another can of beer and I thanked her. She said, “Nice view, ain’t it?”
“Very nice. Do you own this place?”
“In fifteen years we’ll own it. We bought it five years ago. Twenty-year mortgage.”
“You might even have some oil. Those derricks are pretty close.”
“Who needs oil? I got Whitey and Whitey’s got me and we dance three times a week. You see many of them rich couples dancing three times a week?”
“I guess you’re right. Whitey’s happy, too?”
“Hell, yes. If we could have had a couple kids, now, we’d both be happier, but you can’t have everything, right?”
“That blond man in the Jaguar, how old would you guess he was?”
“In his thirties. About your age. College kid type. Had one of those tan car coats on.’ She sipped the beer. “I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a woman waited in the car. Make sense to you?”
“It could. I know a man like that, a lawyer. But he’s too sharp for me. All the bright ones are.’
“That ain’t the way Whitey talks about you. He says you’re a real brain.”
“I’m not, Mrs. Tullgren. Look, I’m going to tell this man with the Jaguar, that I saw him in this neighborhood last night. I won’t mention you or Whitey, under any circumstances. Okay?”
“Fair enough,” she said. “Glad to be of help.”
I finished my beer and thanked her and left. I was glad to see Whitey on the right side of the law; I’d always liked him, a man who enjoyed ev
ery second, drunk or sober.
I drove over to Wilshire and headed toward the Arena. I was no longer representing a client in this business, but there was still the reward Adonis had posted. Even if there had been no reward, I was involved, now, and had no other job that needed my attention.
I was backing into a parking space a half block from the Arena when a Continental stole it from me, sliding into it from behind.
I turned around, growling, and looked into the amused grimace of Deborah Huntington. She thumbed her nose at me.
I found another space a little further up the street. As I walked back, I saw Deborah waiting for me next to her car. I didn’t smile.
“Sour-puss,” she said.
“Good afternoon, Miss Huntington,” I said. “Visiting your lover or your brother?”
“Curt. Is Greg my lover now?”
“You were with him last night, weren’t you? He claims you were.”
“Would that make him my lover? Lover connotes something beyond a casual date now and then.”
“I’ll take the word back. I’ll call him your friend. And what were you and your friend doing at Einar Hansen’s last night? And if one of you didn’t kill him, why didn’t you tell the police you were there?”
We both stood next to her car now and she stared at me doubtfully. “I wasn’t with Greg last night. If he told you that, he lied.”
“Now you deny it. You didn’t before.”
She took a deep breath. “I didn’t know you were serious. I was trying to tease you.” She put a hand on my arm. “Was Greg there last night? Are you sure of it?”
I nodded.
“I tried to call you back this afternoon,” she said. “I was angry, and I didn’t mean to say what I did. I’m still your client, Joe.”
“I’ll think about it.”
She looked up anxiously. “What’s happened to you? My God, you can’t think I’m a murderer!”
“It isn’t that. You’re too emotionally erratic. I don’t like to be a victim of your iron whim.”
She smiled. “I thought you were tougher. You’re not really very tough, are you?”
I didn’t answer her. I started to walk toward the arena. She walked along next to me. “Will you come up to Curt’s office after you see Greg? He’d be interested, I’m sure, in Greg’s extracurricular activities.”
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