by Wade Miller
She regarded his face quizzically. “Maybe not later but it’s pretty gruesome right now.” She looked at Clapp. “May we go now? He really ought to get some rest.”
“I’m afraid we have a few things to talk over, Miss Gilbert.” He turned to Walter James. “There’s a man in my office I want you to meet.”
“I see,” said the smaller man. “Will you read magazines for a while, Kevin? I’ll try to make this quick.”
“I can get a car and send her home,” volunteered Felix.
Kevin shook her head and sat down on the bench. “I’ll wait. You don’t have to hurry, Walter.”
Walter James went into the office first. The man who was sitting by Clapp’s desk rose briskly to his feet. In front of his ears, bushy black hair had turned iron color. There were flecks of iron in his mustache and his face was all business.
“Mr. Maslar — Mr. James,” said Clapp.
Walter James smiled and shook hands. “How do you do, Maslar. F.B.I.?”
Maslar nodded shortly. “I can see you’re not at your best right now, James. But I thought we’d all better get together on this as soon as possible.”
Clapp walked around his desk. “I called Maslar as soon as the wires got here this morning. It looks like you’ve uncovered something, son. Everybody sit down and get comfortable.”
After the scraping of chair legs, Maslar said, “Clapp’s briefed me on everything including Gilbert’s call to Luz. It was lucky you overheard that number. That and the wires are the only reason I’m here.”
Clapp spoke up. “Suppose you tell us of your fun this morning, James. Give him some cigarettes, Felix.”
“Thanks,” said Walter James. “Naturally, I checked the phone number and the name Steve about the same way you did. Esteban Luz owns the Devil’s Bar in Tijuana. It’s a fairly classy layout. He’s known in his circle as Big Steve and he has a son, Little Steve Luz. The other man I met was named John Darmer. Luz introduced him as his executive manager.”
The F.B.I. man nodded. “We know of all three. They aren’t on my department’s records as anything but potential. How about you, Clapp?”
“Same story. I know of them but they’re clear here. Besides, they’re out of my territory.”
“I wish they were out of mine,” said Maslar wrily. “This border stuff is dynamite. And complicated. Go on, James.”
“Luz has had contact with Dr. Boone. He mentioned him as being big and healthy looking. That’s as far as he went on the subject.”
Clapp mused. “Then Dr. Boone does exist.”
The slender man blew out smoke. “That’s the way I felt. At long last, someone’s actually seen him. Now maybe you’ll believe I got a phone call in Atlanta.”
The detective lifted his hands. “Hell, I believed you. If it wasn’t for anonymous phone calls, we’d never get half our convictions.”
“Anyway, Luz also knew of the Filipino, which wasn’t played up much in the papers.”
“What made him start getting rugged?” interrupted Felix.
“That was after I had called him on the XEGC deal.” Walter James exchanged glances with Clapp. He leaned forward in his chair, fingers laced tightly together, and stared at the floor. “This is the part I hate. Two nights ago Kevin — the Gilbert girl,” he added for Maslar’s benefit, “told me why she suspected her father was keeping Shasta Lynn. Gilbert, who is no chaser, goes out one night a week and recently Kevin caught him in a couple of lies about where. She got suspicious and, nosing around, found the old man had given Shasta Lynn that house in La Mesa as an outright gift plus some money every month. I don’t know how much, but enough to dent his bank account. That’s the reason Kevin was at the Grand Theater, Clapp. She wanted to take a look at Shasta.”
“I get it,” said the big man.
“Just get it straight. The poor kid doesn’t know her father’s got a finger in this goof-ball pie. She just happened to pick the night to go scouting that the Filipino was murdered. There was a chance in a million that she’d pick that night and sit next to him, but she did.”
Felix grunted. “It never fails.”
Walter James kept his eyes on the floor. “Of course, when I found that Shasta Lynn was diking around with her buddy Madeline, that threw the Gilbert May-December passion out the nearest window. He obviously wasn’t spending his nights with her. So the money seemed to be blackmail. Maybe the Filipino knew him and passed some information on to Shasta. I figured about the only way the Filipino would know him was by the dope angle. Maybe Gilbert was the man that Ferdy passed the stuff on to.”
Maslar said soberly, “I’m glad to meet one private detective who uses the word maybe.”
“When you’re in the racket for cash, the long shots save time and money,” Walter James said. “At any rate, that might explain where Gilbert was one night a week — at the Grand Theater picking up the delivery from the Filipino. Last night I had Kevin let him know that I had been to see Shasta Lynn. That scared the old man into calling Luz. I was lucky enough to catch the number.”
Clapp interrupted. “You figure Luz as the boy who gets the marijuana across the border?”
“That’s it. He probably has trucks coming across to pick up American liquor and beer. It wouldn’t be hard. The border men can’t find everything, and they’re easier on the regular commercial traffic. I figure Luz gathered it in, Darmer brought it across to the Filipino, the Filipino delivered it to Gilbert and Gilbert sent it on to Atlanta.”
Clapp pursed his lips. “Fair enough.”
“Well, back to what got me this beating. Something Kevin said about her father always listening to the radio — to XEGC — gave me a wild hunch. So in front of Luz, I called the station and asked which specific day every week the Devil’s Bar radio advertisements were broadcast.” He paused. “And look at me now.”
“That was the answer?”
“That was the answer. When Luz broadcast his plugs, that was the tipoff for Gilbert to go to the Grand Theater and pick up a shipment.”
“I guess the radio would be safer than a lot of phone calls back and forth across the border,” said Felix. He looked at the slim man’s battered face. “Just who did the dirty work?” he asked softly.
“Luz’s son started working me over first with a knife butt. Then Darmer put in his two-cents worth with aluminum knucks. He’s a sadist, junior grade. He wears heavy shoes just to kick the bejesus out of guys like me.”
Clapp rolled his tongue around under his lips. “Just where was your gun all this time, James?”
“Did you want to see me killed? I left one gun in the car. I had a .32 strapped over my tailbone that they didn’t find, but I didn’t feel like using it. Darmer kicked it halfway through me. Gentlemen, if that gun had gone off, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”
The roomful chuckled. “Well, except for my troubles getting back across the border with this face, that’s the story.”
Maslar broke the short silence. He looked at Clapp. “My jurisdiction,” he said. “We’re coming in.”
“Okay,” said Clapp. “Looks like the only way I’ll ever get this Filipino killing off the books.”
“I’ll check with consul and call Mexico City. It shouldn’t take more than twenty-four hours until the Mexican police can close in on the Luz bunch.” He sighed. “And then afterward. You should see the paper work involved. This border stuff is dynamite.”
“Don’t forget this case is in my jurisdiction, too,” said Walter James. “Luz is only part of the setup. The man I want to see is Dr. Boone. You know my reasons.”
Clapp pursed his lips. “Speaking of doctors — Boniface is clear. So is Rockwell. At least as far as our records go.”
Walter James scowled at the floor. “Maybe they don’t fit into this case at all. I braced Major Rockwell last night.”
“And?”
“No answer.”
“How about Boniface’s card in the Filipino’s pocket?”
“That’s one of those thing
s that always screws you up on a case like this.” Walter James shrugged slim shoulders. “Solez was a pretty sharp operator for a brown boy. Maybe he was selling marijuana on the side to Boniface.”
Maslar looked at Clapp. “Why don’t you pick them off?”
Walter James said quickly, before the big man could reply, “You couldn’t hold them.”
“No,” agreed Clapp heavily, “we couldn’t hold them. Not yet, anyway.”
Maslar frowned. “But if one of them is Dr. Boone — ”
“Let them run,” Walter James said softly. “Give them plenty of rope. Dr. Boone isn’t going to get away.”
Clapp fished in the drawer for his pipe. “He’s human like the rest of us. His luck can’t last.”
“Dr. Boone’s actions so far indicate something more than just luck,” Maslar said.
“No argument,” agreed Clapp. “But nobody’s plan ever worked perfectly. It’s the human element, Maslar. Eventually, something that Dr. Boone hasn’t planned for will drop him right in our arms.”
“The unknown factor,” smiled Walter James. “Let X equal the unknown.”
Clapp struck a match and puffed at his pipe noisily. “Right. In the meantime, we got to go ahead and try to stir up that unknown factor.”
“Speaking of the human element,” Walter James said and eyed Clapp soberly, “I know this is a touchy subject, Clapp, but I want to warn Maslar.”
“Warn me?”
He turned to the F.B.I. man. “It won’t be as stringent as the one Luz gave me to stay away from the cops and the Gilbert house. It’s this: Luz knew the Atlanta report was in this morning.”
Maslar caught Clapp’s eyes. “I’ll check,” said the big man. “I don’t think Luz will get away. It won’t go out of this office except with you. God, I hate to think of a stool in my own outfit!”
“I’m sorry,” said Maslar. “I know the feeling.”
Walter James started a new cigarette and flicked the match in the wastebasket. “I know damn well all this activity isn’t on my say so,” he commented. “What was in the Atlanta wire?”
Clapp smiled grimly. “The Atlanta and Denver wires.”
“Then there was something in Denver?”
“Was is right.”
“Tell me all. This thing is really beginning to open up.”
Clapp grinned. “The East has been popping even after you left it, James. Take Denver. On the seventeenth of September, the Monday before you got here, a man was strangled and burned. A druggist on Curtis Street named Melvin Emig. He also had a lot of other names. The Denver authorities didn’t know he had a record until he showed up dead. He was strangled with a wire garrote and covered with cleaning fluid. Then somebody touched a match to him and walked off.”
“The connection?”
“Not much of his drugstore was burned. In the back room he had been wrapping our brand of marijuana for shipment to a post office in Atlanta. He was shipping it as reducing powder.”
Maslar broke in. “This Emig seems to have been some sort of relay along the dope route to the East. San Diego to Denver to Atlanta. It looks like the boys at each end didn’t want to know each other. And undoubtedly Emig didn’t know anything but addresses.”
“Didn’t he send to a name in Atlanta?” Walter James leaned forward.
“Yes,” said Clapp. “The post-office box he was addressing the stuff to belonged to Dr. Elliott Boone.”
The slender man sat back and stretched his arms. “Well, well, well.”
“That’s not the payoff. Denver, of course, got in touch with Atlanta. Atlanta had already opened Dr. Boone’s box — they ran onto it the day after you left. They checked the post-office people on who had rented the box but didn’t learn anything. It had been rented several years ago and was paid semiannually in advance by mailed cash. The guy who rented it out was still working there but he couldn’t remember that far back. One girl was sort of sure that once she saw a kind of big man call on the box, but that’s all. They remember putting packages in it about once a week.”
Maslar said, “It all fits together beautifully. This particular dope ring is all shot to hell. We want to make sure we round up all the participants, of course, but as an organization it’s out of business. We also want the top man — presumably Dr. Boone. The question in my mind is this: are all these marijuana runners being liquidated by another ring? Or is Dr. Boone closing up his organization the safe way?”
Walter James ground a pale fist against his palm. “The one man who can enlighten us is Dr. Boone. Maybe he’s on the run himself if this other ring you mentioned exists. In that case, why was my partner killed?”
“He might have had something on both rival rings,” said Maslar. “But we haven’t had the slightest hint of a second weed outfit so far.”
“It’s my guess that Hal was getting too damn close to Boone himself,” said Walter James. “I vote for the ring we got. Or, at least, are getting.”
“Damn, you got me off the subject,” interjected Clapp. “What I’m trying to get around to is this: when the Atlanta cops opened Dr. Boone’s box there wasn’t any dope in it. There was just a gun — the .45 that killed your partner.”
Walter James slammed to his feet. “The registry?” he asked.
“No registry. No prints. It’s just another automatic the Army reported missing some years back. There must be a million of them floating around the country.”
“Oh.”
“I can guess how you feel about your partner, James. I wish we had more for you. But things are looking up.”
“Atlanta have anything to say about Ethel?”
Clapp shook his heavy head. “They’re still looking and checking bodies. Do you think she’s dead?”
“I haven’t any idea. If she’s hiding out — why I don’t know — she’s had plenty of time to get in touch with me.”
Maslar rubbed the gray hair on his temple, pushing the side of his face into worried wrinkles. “There are only three women really involved in this case so far, James. Miss Gilbert, Shasta Lynn and the missing Ethel Lantz. I’m thinking of the attack on you last Saturday night where face powder was found on the weapon. Miss Gilbert was shot at along with you. Shasta Lynn has no alibi, presumably having started home. Ethel Lantz has no alibi, presumably being dead. Can we rule out Ethel Lantz conclusively?”
Walter James looked at him steadily. “Yes. If Ethel is alive, I don’t know why she’d be shooting at me. Or Kevin.”
“Which leaves woman or women unknown,” said Clapp. “And our girl Shasta.”
Walter James smiled without humor. “I thought I had that end closed off,” he said. “But she keeps popping up.”
“Yes, she does,” agreed Clapp. “Like the Gilbert family.”
Walter James’s lips tightened, then relaxed. “Maybe I’m just getting used to that dull knife of yours, Clapp. If I had my way, old man Gilbert would never get in this picture because I don’t want his daughter hurt. But I can’t have my way because Hal got his belly blown out. Gilbert didn’t do that, but it looks like he did business with the man who hired the gun. So he gets in the picture come what may. There’s a code — if your partner’s gunned out, it’s your baby to find the killer. Like cop killings.”
Maslar said, “Very commendable, James. Just remember you have no official status except as a pretty damn material witness. As Clapp says, steer clear of any legal troubles. Law is law, and as government employees we can’t push it too far.”
“Just a light shove now and then,” said Felix.
“I don’t think I’ll need it,” smiled the slender detective. “I’m going to visit Mr. Gilbert tomorrow. You won’t haul him in for questioning until you’ve shut down the Devil’s Bar outfit. He might tip off Luz himself — if Luz has a man in this headquarters. I wouldn’t advise even putting a tail on him until you have Luz. After all, our good neighbor has at least seen Dr. Boone. That’s more than we can prove for Gilbert.”
“We can reason, to
o,” answered Clapp sourly. “It’s pretty obvious we can let Gilbert ride for twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four will about do it,” agreed Maslar. “Meeting’s adjourned as far as I’m concerned, gentlemen. I imagine James would like to go home and lick his wounds.”
“Keep in touch with us, James,” said the big man, as they all rose. “And avoid dangerous entanglements. I’ll keep a guard on the Gilbert girl when she’s not with you. I’ll trust you to take good care of her.” He grinned.
Walter James’s voice was bitter. “Yes. I’m proud of the way I’ve taken care of her interests at our meeting today. I’ll collect my thirty pieces of silver on the way out.”
17. Tuesday, September 26, 6:15 P.M.
“NO. THIS COFFEE will be plenty, redhead.”
“Does your stomach hurt much?”
“Not much. But I’m not hungry.”
The cool night began to dwell over the red neon drive-in. Scattered traffic purred along the Causeway, returning to the city from Ocean Beach, Mission Beach and La Jolla. Far away by the ocean, the serpentine lights of the roller coaster gleamed.
Kevin pushed her leg against his. Between mouthfuls of bread and barbecued pork, she said, “It’s nice being alone with you here. I mean, all these other people are shut up in their own cars. It’s almost like being alone. But I wish we’d go home and let you get some rest, Walter.”
He flicked his eyes across the rear-view mirror. “I’m afraid we can’t rest for a while.”
She lowered her voice. “Why not? You have to!”
“Put on some lipstick,” suggested Walter James, “and while you’re looking in your mirror, catch that black convertible on our side of the street half a block back.”
“Who is it?” she asked, running her hand around in her purse. She found the mirror.
“Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum, the boys who pounded on me. They warned me not to go near the cops. I didn’t think they’d pick me up so quick.”
“I see them — two men. I can’t see what they look like.”
“I know what they look like.”