The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of

by Joseph Hansen

  Doug asked, “What kind of pre-Columbian figures?”

  “West coast,” Dave said. “Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit. Classic period. The Nayarit are the deformed ones—right? Hunchbacks, women with misshapen skulls?”

  “Terra-cottas,” Doug said. “Polychrome finish?”

  Across, the street, a miniature brown youth wrapped in a long white apron sloshed water from a bucket across the sidewalk in front of The Bamboo Raft and used a push broom to sweep last night’s stains into the gutter.

  “Big ones,” Dave said. “Glossy.”

  Doug pushed his key into the blue door. He was shaking his head. “In La Caleta, of all places.” The door opened and his voice echoed up the stairs. “A new gallery, you said. Who’s their backer? What millionaire?”

  “They is a woman.” Dave followed Doug up the stairs. “It’s more than a business arrangement. Her backer is the local police chief. Was.”

  “The murdered one? You didn’t say he was wealthy.”

  “He wasn’t. He worked for a living.”

  Doug’s short laugh was sharp on the narrow stairs. “No wonder he’s dead. Dave, we’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars. He must have been crooked as hell.” They reached the top step. “Mexico won’t let them out of the country anymore. And there just aren’t that many floating around loose.” Faint sounds of guitar and bongo drifted from the big hollow room where the stereo equipment sat on bare flooring. An old Cal Tjader album. Dave didn’t look in there. He followed Doug to the sun-bright kitchen. Doug said, “Museums hang on to the ones they’re lucky enough to own.” He dropped ice cubes into a tall glass.

  “I think it’s museums she’s selling to,” Dave said.

  Doug dumped vodka over the ice. “Not many private collectors have that kind of money.”

  “The one who unloaded this batch has—now.”

  Doug made a skeptical noise. “It was a damn secret transaction.” He brought a pitcher of tomato juice from the fridge. “You know how hard I’ve been looking. There was no announcement, catalogue, auction—not even any gossip.”

  “Look no farther,” Dave said. “Drive up there.”

  “With whose life savings?” Doug poured tomato juice after the vodka and set the pitcher back.

  “Maybe there’s one with a chip out of it,” Dave said. “Isn’t it early to start boozing? You already cried.”

  Doug tilted Worcestershire sauce into the glass, spun the ice cubes with a finger, kept his back to Dave. “Right. This was in case you started talking about us.”

  “What is there left to say?” Dave asked.

  Doug turned around. “You really don’t give a damn, do you? About Christian—walking in, finding him here?”

  “And before him, Kovaks,” Dave said. “And before him the mechanic from European Motors. I used to think you only did it to get my attention. I don’t think so anymore.”

  “Maybe I gave up,” Doug said.

  “There was no call to start,” Dave said.

  Heels knocked in the hall and Cecil came in. “I found her,” he said. The sunlight made the yellow pants and jacket shine. “Like you said—nothing to it. Phoned the State Board of Nursing and stepped in the car. She isn’t even far away. Few miles south, down that next big street—La Cienega?”

  “Doug Sawyer,” Dave said, “Cecil Harris.” He watched them shake hands, Doug sulky, Cecil wary. Dave asked, “What’s it like? The car there? The motorcycle?”

  “Apartment buildings set in a park—trees, lawns, flower beds. Black now but it hasn’t been black long. Streets where CHITTERLINGS in a market window still looks wrong. Her type—when it gets so people know it’s a black neighborhood, they move on out.” He gave Dave a sly smile. “You never thought I’d be conspicuous. No way.”

  Dave grinned. “Feel used, do you?”

  Cecil laughed. The far-off record was still playing. He snapped his fingers to the beat. Shoulders and hips twisting, he crossed the kitchen to the open roof-deck doors. “I felt so inconspicuous among all those darling pickaninnies off to school on their fifty-dollar skateboards, I went right up and rang the lady’s doorbell.”

  “I’ll be in the gallery,” Doug said, and left.

  Cecil blinked. “He can’t be jealous. What about the island queen?”

  Dave listened cheerlessly to the clatter of Doug’s heels down the stairs. “Don’t worry your pretty head,” he said. “You can’t tell the players without a program. What did Thelma Green say?”

  “She was dressed up in her nurse outfit and she had her coat over her arm, about to go to work. I said Lester was a friend of mine from school, told me to look him up. She said she didn’t know anything about it. He wasn’t there. But I saw a duffel bag on the floor just inside the door, and she is definitely not the kind of lady that would travel with a duffel bag.”

  “So you waited until she left and went back?”

  “They’ve got this security guard so old all that holds him up is the starch in his uniform, but he kept after me like I was about to rip off every TV in the place. I went back to the car, drove up and down streets. Waste of my time and your gas. The Kawasaki was how they got down here to L.A. all right—but it wasn’t where I could find it.”

  “Then how do you know?” Dave said. “Where is it?”

  “I got thirsty,” Cecil said. “Stopped at the local liquor store for a Coke. Lots of excitement. Seems the place got knocked over last night. Black boy with a beard and a fat girl with long blond hair. They had a little snub-nose police revolver, you know? Everybody on the floor, all that? They cleaned out the cash drawer and ran for their little red motorcycle, but right then a black and white just happened to come around the corner. So—I guess where we find it now is the police garage, right?”

  15

  THE SMALL GREEN ROOM had a wide window. Outside it, upright green steel slats sliced the sunlight that beat in. It was hot and the cold air that fell from a ceiling grille was no match for it. A uniformed officer took handcuffs off the wrists of a frail-looking black boy in a beard and a fake leather jacket. The officer left the room, pulling the door shut after him. The boy sat on a green steel chair at a green steel table where someone had left a stained and crumpled paper napkin, a half cup of curdled white coffee, and the bones of a supermarket barbecued chicken in a throwaway tin pan. The boy tried to see Dave against the window glare but gave up and looked at the man seated across from him at the table. The man had a broken nose and shoulders that strained the fabric of his shirt. His collar was unbuttoned, the knot of his tie dragged down. His eyes were bloodshot, and he needed a shave. He was Lieutenant Ken Barker of the LAPD. He said:

  “This is not about the liquor-store holdup.”

  The boy tried to see Dave again. “No? Why not?”

  “It’s about kidnapping, extortion, and murder.”

  “No way.” The boy stood up and lunged for the door. Barker caught him, rammed a knee into his butt, flattened him against the wall, twisted his arms up behind his back. The boy struggled. “No way,” he said again. “I know what this is. You got some monster case you can’t solve and then some dumb spook kid tries a little two-bit stickup and you got an instant candidate for death row. Well, not me. No way, man, no way.”

  “Every which way,” Barker said. “Starting with who you are and where you come from. You didn’t do yourself any good not telling us. The license on your bike told us.”

  “Yeah? What does it mean?” Lester said.

  “It means you’re not just some dumb spook kid.” Barker spun the boy and hoisted him like a big, awkward puppet back to his chair. “You are a very special dumb spook kid.” He set him down hard. “This man will explain to you why.”

  Dave said, “Two years ago, you and the girl you were arrested with last night applied for a marriage license, and right away you were busted for possession of marijuana and convicted and sent to Soledad. It was a setup and you knew it and you knew who did it to you.”

  “I never
said so,” Lester said.

  “You were afraid something worse would happen,” Dave said. “To you. To the girl. It’s no special shame. Everybody was afraid of him.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Lester Green said.

  “You don’t need a lawyer to listen,” Barker said.

  Dave said, “On the sixteenth of this month you were let out of Soledad. You reported to your parole officer. In a new green Gremlin driven by the same girl. The one whose father had you locked up. Next day, he got a note demanding twenty-five thousand dollars for the safe return of his daughter. And the day after that, he was murdered.”

  Barker sat down and said, “Try that on your paranoia.”

  “I don’t have to say anything.” Lester eyed the cigarette pack Dave held out. He took a cigarette and let Dave light it for him. “I’m a law student. I know my rights.”

  “You also knew this man was after you,” Barker said. “You heard your mother tell him about her sister-in-law here in Los Angeles. Yet when you ran, you ran straight to her.”

  “For money,” Dave said. “Mrs. Orton didn’t have any. Her late husband had spent it on a pretty lady and her art gallery. Jerry Orton’s wife buys cameras and lenses that would bankrupt a rock star. Lester’s mother hasn’t a dime. But Aunt Thelma smelled trouble and didn’t want any part of it.”

  Lester stared at Dave like a little kid watching a magician take silver dollars out of his ears.

  “That makes it bright,” Barker asked, “to then go out and knock over a liquor store practically next door?”

  “It wasn’t his idea,” Dave said. “It was Anita’s. She wanted to go home. She was tired of the game. All that had kept her in it, in La Caleta, was Lester’s mother. All that made her run to L.A. was her brother. He told her to disappear for a while.”

  “Is she all right?” Lester said.

  “She’ll always be all right,” Dave told him.

  Barker said, “As soon as she learned that we knew her identity, she phoned home, crying.”

  “Her mother is on her way down here,” Dave said, “to bail her out. Not you. Her.”

  “I didn’t write any note,” Lester said.

  “It wasn’t written,” Barker said. “The words were clipped from a magazine and pasted on a sheet of paper.”

  Dave said, “I found the magazine yesterday, in your mother’s house. You know that. You were there.”

  “Show me.” Lester acted scornful. “You don’t have any magazine. You don’t have any note.”

  “I don’t need them,” Dave said. “I have you.”

  “Why? The one who killed Orton is in jail.”

  “You don’t think so,” Barker said.

  “Don’t tell me what I think,” Lester said.

  “The lieutenant is right.” Dave drew out a chair and sat next to Lester. The jacket with its zippers and bright little chains gave off a chemical smell. “It’s what you and I have in common. Neither of us thinks that man did it.”

  “She didn’t tell you that,” Lester said.

  “She didn’t have to,” Barker said. “You hid. You ran away. Mr. Brandstetter here didn’t have any ransom note, he didn’t have any magazine—so what were you afraid of?”

  “I don’t have to say anything.” Lester stood up.

  “That’s right, you don’t,” Barker said. “The answer is obvious. You killed him. Sit down.”

  Lester went to the door. “I want to go back to my cell. I didn’t kill him. But even if I did, it’s none of your business. It happened in La Caleta. And the La Caleta police—they’re never going to send for me.” He gave Dave a crooked smile. “You know that.”

  “If it was up to them,” Dave said. “It’s not. It’s up to me. If the wrong man is convicted of that murder, my company drops seventy-five thousand dollars. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  On the street below, a police siren moaned.

  Lester Green said, “How can you stop it? Shit, man, they ran you out of town.”

  “I left to find you,” Dave said. “No. Medallion Life is a big, powerful company, Lester. It hires big, powerful lawyers. All the La Caleta district attorney has against Cliff Kerlee is one piece of very suspect evidence. It was good enough for a grand jury consisting of the dead man’s friends. But a real lawyer will shred that case in a day when it comes to trial. I’m sending a real lawyer.”

  “And then it’s my turn?” Lester said.

  “That grand jury will never indict Anita Orton,” Dave said. “Figure it out. Who does that leave?”

  “You,” Barker said. “All alone.”

  “No way.” Lester yanked open the door. The uniformed officer looked at him from the hallway. He had soft brown Mexican eyes and a neat mustache. He closed a fist around the handle of his nightstick. Lester let the door fall shut. When he turned back there was a gray cast to his skin. “How is that going to save your seventy-five thousand dollars?”

  “Anita was with you all the way,” Dave said. “That will come out at your trial if you never say a word.”

  “She wasn’t due any insurance,” Lester said. “He wrote her off. When he found out about her and me.”

  “But after he was dead,” Dave said, “her mother helped keep you hidden. Her brother destroyed evidence linking you to the murder. And helped you escape arrest. They were due insurance. No, they won’t lose out for murder. They’ll lose out for conspiracy to obstruct justice and to defraud an insurance company. And our only way to them is to nail you for the murder.”

  Lester stared at him. He licked his lips. He moved his head from side to side. His voice came hollow. “No. I didn’t do it, man.” The hands he held out were shaking. “You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t kill him. He was already dead when I got there.”

  Barker bowed his head and rubbed his flattened nose to hide a smile. He rose and took the thin arm in the honcho jacket and led Lester back to the chair next to Dave’s. The boy dropped onto it as if his knees had given out. Barker went back to the door, poked his head into the hall, and said something. He closed the door. “We’ll have coffee in a minute,” he said. “What passes for coffee around here.” He sat down. “So you did go there. By appointment—right? To collect the money.”

  “No.” Lester’s hands lay on the table. He stared at them. But he plainly didn’t see them, didn’t even feel them. The cigarette had burned down between his fingers. Dave took the smoldering butt and rubbed it out in the little pan of chicken bones. The coal hissed in the grease. Lester said softly, “I went there to apologize.”

  Barker made a disgusted sound. “You went there for twenty-five big bills and instead he pulled a gun and said he was going to send your black ass back to prison and you smashed his head in and ran away with the gun. It was a police gun you used in your hit on the liquor store.”

  “I took the gun,” Lester said. “But he was already dead. Laying there with his head in a puddle of blood. It wasn’t any gun did that. His skull was busted in.”

  Shadows of pigeons flickered across the sunlit window slats. “Your mother sent you, didn’t she?” Dave said. “When she found out about the note. You’d do what she told you but Anita wouldn’t and she didn’t go.”

  “It was a joke to her,” Lester said. “Laughs, you know? To me too. I mean, sort of.” He moved his shoulders. “Well, maybe not a joke, exactly.”

  “Not exactly,” Barker said dryly.

  “We knew he’d guess where the note came from,” Lester said. “Who sent it and what for. Oh, we wanted the bread, all right. But we never thought he’d pay it for any fake kidnapping. He’d pay it to keep us from making him look like a fool to everybody. To shut us up, get rid of us.”

  “Your mother didn’t think it was a joke,” Dave said.

  “We told her we wanted to hide there because we’d gotten married and couldn’t figure out how to tell him.”

  “I wondered why she let you sleep together.”

  “Then he came looking for me, told her about t
he note, and soon as he left she was after me with a broom.” A small-boy smile twitched the corner of his mouth. “You better believe it. She never quits. Something evil—she keeps hitting it. I was to crawl to Ben Orton on my knees and confess to him with tears in my eyes and beg him to forgive me.” Lester whispered a wry laugh. “That’s how she said. How she saw it. Like some corny old movie.”

  “But you went,” Dave said.

  “She was right,” Lester said. “Look at me now.”

  “This isn’t bad,” Barker said. “It can get a whole hell of a lot worse.” A shoe tapped the door. He got up to open the door. “And it probably will.” A black officer in uniform handed him a plastic tray with big paper cups of coffee steaming on it. Barker set the tray on the table. “Because when you found that body you didn’t step to the telephone and call the police.”

  “Oh, man.” Lester closed his eyes and wagged his head. He opened his eyes wide. “The police was who set me up with that dope under my fender.” He tapped the tabletop with a strict finger. “They knew I knew that. How they’d think was—who had better reason to kill him? No, I didn’t call any police. I got the hell out of there.”

  “And hid.” Barker set one of the paper cups in front of him. “Which makes sense.” He set a second cup in front of Dave. “What doesn’t make sense is that you kept hiding.” He set down his own cup and tilted the tray. Candy-stripe plastic stir sticks slid off it onto the tabletop with a delicate rattle, along with paper napkins and packets of sugar and powdered cream. He set the tray on the floor. “They made an arrest. They got an indictment. You had to hear about that.”

  “They weren’t looking for anyone else,” Dave said. “They thought they had Cliff Kerlee dead to rights. Why didn’t you come out?”

  Lester stirred his coffee. He blew at the steam. He said flatly, “Because I knew he didn’t do it.”

  Barker tipped his coffee over. It spread hot across the table and splashed into his lap. He yelped and jumped to his feet. He grabbed up paper napkins and mopped himself. “What the hell do you mean?”