by Howard Fast
“They could give us the name of the man who was killed.”
“Come on, Masuto. So you got a name for the victim,” Bones said. “What does that change?”
“Everything. Because my guess is that the killer took his victim’s name and identity. Once you have the victim’s identity, you can find the murderer in the telephone book.”
“What do you base that on?” Wainwright wanted to know.
“Bits and pieces. The body was put in the grave naked. The reaction of the killer today. What Kennedy here said. Why kill people who weren’t witnesses? The mind, the ego, the personality of the killer.”
“What in hell do you know about his personality?” Morrison asked. He had listened scowling, looking uncomfortable at being lectured to by an Oriental.
“A good deal. He’s pathological, without conscience, indifferent to any usual standards of right and wrong. He’s highly intelligent in terms of being able to plan and calculate precisely. He’s careful. He leaves no loose ends. He’s five feet eight or nine inches in height, muscular, well built, in excellent physical condition. He exercises regularly. He’s well off, possibly wealthy, compulsively neat—”
“Bullshit!” Morrison exclaimed.
“As you wish.”
The others began to laugh. Still not mollified, Morrison said, “You got a murder thirty years ago, and you tell me the killer’s walking around knocking off people with his bare hands. That’s a hard pill to swallow. You tell our cops that he killed the old lady with brass knucks, and now it’s changed to a bare hands job.”
“He analyzes. When he makes a mistake, he moves immediately to correct it. The brass knucks was an error. It involves a weapon, and a weapon is incriminating. He got rid of the brass knuckles.”
“And kills with his bare hands? One blow? I don’t buy that crap.”
“I can split a brick with one blow of my bare hand,” Masuto said quietly, watching Morrison.
“Maybe we should consider that.”
“Morrison,” Kennedy said, “will you lay off that tack. We asked for an explanation and the sergeant’s given us one.” He turned to Masuto. “If all we need to turn up this bastard is the name of the man he killed, providing you’re guessing right, there are ways. Someone must have put out a missing report or some kind of inquiry?”
“I don’t think so. A lot of laborers are drifters, no home, no family. They pick up jobs here and there, unskilled work, pick and shovel work, fruit picking, that kind of thing. We have no fingerprints and no dental work. The man never had a cavity filled. Beckman spent most of yesterday trying to get a lead that way. Nothing.”
“The F.B.I.?”
“Nothing.”
“Could we go back to that Laurel Way job? Maybe someone besides the contractor and the foreman?”
Masuto shrugged. “Thirty years. We can try. But the killer’s a lot more familiar with that job than we are, and if there are any leads in that direction, he’ll get rid of them. Was there another murder today?”
“Not that we know of.”
“Then I suspect he’s closed the doors.”
“What about the black Mercedes?” Bones asked.
“Beckman found a kid who says it was a two-door four-fifty SL.”
“So much for that.”
“Fingerprints?” Kennedy asked.
“This man wouldn’t leave prints.”
“Then we got nothing. Not one damn lousy thing.”
“We have something,” Masuto said. “The Lundmans’ maid, Rosita, was in the basement of the house when it happened. The killer made a quick tour of the house, but he missed her. That’s his only mistake to date.”
“What kind of mistake?” Bones demanded. “She didn’t see him.”
“But he doesn’t know that. The media’s told the world that she was there.”
“The media’s also told the world that she didn’t see him.”
“He can’t depend on that,” Masuto said. “That could be a ploy to put him off his guard. He has to get rid of her. He’s not a man who takes chances or depends on luck.”
“Where is she now?” Kennedy asked.
“She’s in my office with Beckman.”
“I told her to stay in the house,” Bones said.
“Yes. I asked her to come with me. She agreed.”
“What in hell do you mean, she agreed? Where do you come off countermanding my orders in an L.A. jurisdiction? There was a cop in the house. I wanted her there.”
“Just cool down,” Masuto said, his annoyance beginning to show. “She wasn’t under arrest. She can go where she damn pleases. I decided she wasn’t safe in that house, and she agreed and went with me.”
“With a cop there?”
“Yes, with a cop there.”
“All right,” Kennedy said. “You two can stop scrapping. She’s here. What now?”
“I want you to give her key witness protection, to put her up in some hotel with guards in constant attendance.”
“She’s not a key witness.”
“It comes to the same thing. Her life is in danger.”
“So you say, Masuto. The way I look at it, you’re pulling this whole scenario out of your hat. Maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong. But you know we can’t treat her as a key witness. She isn’t a witness. She can’t testify to anything, and we can’t bend the rules and spend a bundle of city money because you got intuition. She’s free to go back to the house, where there’ll be a cop on guard for the next twenty-four hours. That’s all we can do.”
“There’s something else you can do.”
“What’s that?”
“You can pay the burial expenses when she’s killed. She has no family here.”
“You got a big mouth, Masuto. It’s going to buy you a lot of trouble some day.”
When they had gone and Masuto was alone with Wainwright, the captain said to him, “Kennedy’s right, Masao. The last people in the world we need as enemies are the L.A. cops. You know that. We depend on them for a lot of things, not to mention those fancy computers they got down there. We’re a small city with a small police force. All right, we got a thirty-year-old murder up there on Laurel Way. The city manager isn’t breathing down my neck, and the mayor says the best thing we can do, since it’s nobody anybody ever heard about, is to let the hullabaloo die down and close the file.”
“You’re not serious?”
“I’m serious, Masao.”
“This lunatic has killed three people today, and you’re telling me to close the file?”
“It’s not our jurisdiction. The headache belongs to Inglewood and to Los Angeles, and we got enough headaches of our own. Anyway, this lunatic, as you call him, only connects with Laurel Way on your say-so.”
“Captain, you don’t believe that.”
“I believe what the city manager tells me to believe. Yesterday he was on my back. Today he’s off my back.”
“You said you’d give me until Wednesday, and if I turned up something then, you’d give me the rest of the week. I think I’ve turned up a good deal.”
“I said if you turned up the name of the deceased. That’s what counts. Find me a movie star or a hotshot businessman under the pool, and I’ll give you your head. But John Doe without even a name tag just doesn’t rate it.”
“But I have until Wednesday?”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
“And what about the girl, Rosita?” Masuto asked gently.
“What about her?”
“She has to be put in a hotel room with protection.”
“Come on, Masao, you heard what Kennedy said. Like I said, this is out of our jurisdiction. We got no obligation to this girl.”
“We have an obligation to keep a human being alive. What will it cost, a few hundred dollars and a few days of time for an officer?”
“You can take her back to Brentwood. They got a cop there.”
“And make her a sitting duck. No, thank you.”
&n
bsp; “Masao, I’m not made of stone, but there’s no way I can justify this, no way.”
Masuto went back to his office, where Rosita was carefully improving Beckman’s bad Spanish. “A qué se dedica usted?”
“Got it. I’m a cop, right?”
“Right,” Rosita said.
“How did it go?” Beckman asked Masuto.
“As it always goes, like trying to swim in a pool of molasses.”
“Are they off your back?”
“For the time being.”
“And what do we do with the kid?”
“What would your wife say if you pulled duty for tonight?”
“You got to ask?” He nodded at Rosita. “Is that what you have in mind? I’ll tell you what she’d say. She’d say she isn’t too old to divorce me.”
“Then you’d better lie.” He pointed to the telephone.
“Now?”
“Do it now, Sy. But let me specify that this is outside the line of duty. I can’t force you.”
“She’s a sweet kid. If I was ten years younger—ah, what the hell!”
He called his wife, and while he made his excuses, Masuto said to Rosita, “I’m going to take you to a hotel, and Detective Beckman here will stay with you. I’m doing this because I feel you are in great danger. Hopefully, it will only be for a few days. But Mr. Beckman is a good, decent man and there’s nobody in the world I trust more.”
“If you say this, I believe you.”
“Which is more than my wife does,” Beckman said. “Where are we going, Masao?”
“To the Beverly Glen Hotel.”
“You got to be kidding. That’s the most expensive place in town. Wainwright would never spring for it.”
“I know that. We’ll give it a try anyhow. It’s the last place our karate expert would look for her. Eventually he’ll find her. But it gives us time. Now listen, Sy. I’ll go first, with her in the car. Give me a block or so, and then follow me. If you pick up a car following us and you’re sure it’s a tail, cut it off and don’t hesitate to use your gun. I know you can take care of yourself but this one is something else. Don’t give him a chance to get close to you and don’t try to put cuffs on him.”
“You’re thinking of the black Mercedes?”
“He could change cars—no, I’m just reacting to this insane world we inhabit. He couldn’t know about Rosita until he heard the six o’clock news, and maybe they didn’t have it there. It’s a thousand to one shot, but I don’t even want those odds.”
No one followed Masuto, and Beckman pulled up at the Beverly Glen Hotel a minute or so after Masuto arrived. The Beverly Glen, a large, rambling pile of pink stucco, was almost as famous as Beverly Hills, a watering place for New York agents, actors, international jet-set characters, business tycoons, Mafia chiefs, high-priced call girls, and rich tourists who wished to rub shoulders with the general assortment of boarders. The hotel was managed by Al Gellman, a harassed, balding man in his mid-forties, who in any given month encountered everything imaginable excepting a major earthquake.
Now, in his office, he shook hands with Masuto and looked dubiously at Beckman and Rosita. “What is it, sergeant?” he asked. “We’ve had a quiet day so far, no drunks beating up on women, no fights at the bar, no one trying to stiff us on a room—but the day isn’t over, is it?”
“I need a favor, Al,” Masuto said.
“Whatever I can do. I owe you.”
“I want to put this lady in a room with Beckman here to guard her, and I want it very quiet.”
“You’re bringing me trouble, sergeant.”
“No. No one knows she’s here and no one will know.”
“It will cost. The best I can do with two adjoining rooms is two hundred and twenty a day.”
“You said you owed me, Al. The city won’t pay for this. I want three days free.”
“Free!”
“With meals.”
“I can’t do it. It’s out of the question. There’s no way I can justify it.”
“You find a way, Al. We’ve helped you out of more rough spots than you can shake a stick at. I’ve bent the law a dozen times. You’ve parked a hundred cars illegally on the streets around here, not once, but maybe two hundred times. We’ve never shaken you down, not for a nickel. Suppose we were to tell you the streets were off limits for parking? How many weddings would you cater then, how many balls? All I’m asking is a humanitarian gesture that won’t cost you a cent. This is off season for you. You’ve got the space.”
“If this is straight, why won’t the city pay?”
“Because it’s out of Beverly Hills jurisdiction. I’m not trying to con you. I’m trying to save this kid’s life.”
Gellman was silent for a long moment, and then he asked, “Can this be kept among us? I can’t put it on the books and I can’t let them register—which means I’m breaking the law.”
“Let’s say bending it a little. I don’t want them on the register. Feed them sandwiches and coffee. They can survive on that for three days. Beckman will pick it up in the kitchen. And as far as we’re concerned, no one will know.”
“How about Wainwright?”
“He doesn’t know and he won’t know.”
“Aren’t you going out on a limb, sergeant?”
“I don’t think so. We’re breaking no law. There’s no failure to register with intent to defraud or commit a crime. We’re taking normal security precautions with a witness to a crime, and if the owners should come down on you, I give you my word I’ll pay up myself. It won’t be easy, but it won’t break me.”
Rosita, who had been listening intently, now said to Masuto in Spanish, “I have eleven hundred dollars in the bank I can pay.”
“You’ll need that money.”
“My Spanish is as good as yours, sergeant,” Gellman said, smiling. “I’ll give you the three days. What the hell, it’s a cold, hard world out there. I got a kid of my own her age.”
7
DR. LEO
HARTMAN
It was after nine o’clock when Masuto finally parked his car in front of his house in Culver City. Ever since Kati had joined a consciousness-raising group of Nisei women—with his encouragement—Masuto had been uneasy when a case kept him to late hours. There were days when he regretted his liberal stance on the question of women’s rights. He had married a lovely woman who, while born in California, had been raised in the old-fashioned Japanese manner, and it was with a sense of unease that he watched the changes taking place in her character. Tonight, he expected at least some degree of annoyance from Kati. Instead, he was surprised and pleased when she greeted him with a kiss and a pleasant smile.
He undressed and lay for a few minutes in a steaming hot bath, deciding during that interval that he would make no mention of the fact that he had filled his stomach with tamales and brown beans. Even through the closed bathroom door he could hear the sizzle of tempura and faintly smell the delicate shrimp, the green beans, and the sweet potato, all of it fried to fawn-colored perfection. Kati’s opinion of Mexican food would have been unprintable, had Kati been given to saying unprintable things, and Masao also knew that she had delayed her own dinner, feeding the children and putting them to bed, so that she might share her evening meal with her husband. While he could not account for this defection from the rights of modern woman, he was in no way disposed to condemn it.
Clad in a black robe, his bare feet in comfortable sandals, he sat across the table from his wife and managed to deal adequately with the tempura. But he could not refrain from asking for some explanation of her behavior.
“Oh, I did consider being very provoked at your coming home at such an hour, but then I thought of how sweet and patient you have been for the past week, locked up in the house while the rain poured down, and never complaining while your vacation was completely spoiled. So I decided that a man with your qualities deserves tender loving care—unless of course this becomes a habit with you.”
“God forbid.�
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“Also, my Uncle Naga telephoned and told me you had been to visit him, and he was very impressed with the respect you showed him. He feels that in this barbarian society respect for an old man is most commendable.”
“Your Uncle Naga never approved of our marriage. I don’t think he ever forgave you for marrying a policeman.”
“That’s nonsense. He gave us a set of sterling silver dinnerware. I think that’s very approving.”
“Or a suggestion that I could never afford such a set myself.”
“That is silly. Anyway, he told me that the skeleton on Laurel Way has turned into something horrible.”
“Yes, it has. Your uncle talks too much.”
“Uncle Naga is very clever. He said that from what you told him, you felt that the murderer had killed the man whose skeleton was found in order to steal his identity. Then the murderer could become someone else.”
“Yes, more or less.”
“But why should the murderer have to become someone else?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had a case like this, Kati. There is absolutely nothing to go on. A man was killed thirty years ago, and there appears to be no way in the world to find out who he was. I’m convinced we’ll never find out who he was.”
“But isn’t it more important to find the man who killed him? If he took the dead man’s identity, then you will know who the dead man was.”
“You make it sound very simple.”
“If he wanted a new identity, he must have done something terrible. He had to hide.”
“No doubt,” Masuto agreed.
“But what good would all this trouble and evil he went to do, if he could still be recognized?”
Masuto stopped eating and stared at her.
“Why are you looking at me that way, Masao?”
“Go on. Don’t stop. What were you saying?”
“I mean that if a man does something truly terrible and he has to kill someone to find a new identity, then wouldn’t the police everywhere be looking for him? Wouldn’t his picture be in the papers?”
“Yes, of course,” Masuto said softly. “There are really no limits to my own stupidity. Then tell me, Kati, what would he do in such circumstances?”