Built for Trouble

by Al Fray

  She was still yakking at me when I got back into my car and drove toward the city. I hadn’t discovered much; it would have been better if I’d had time to browse alone, but I was fairly sure that what I was looking for hadn’t been stashed in the garage.

  My next stop was at a sporting goods store. I needed swim fins and a face mask, but I couldn’t go to the beach now without running into some of the old gang, and I didn’t want that. I tossed my purchases into the back of the car and rolled nn down toward the main part of L.A. The public library was next on the agenda.

  In the periodicals room I asked for several newspapers and gave the librarian the dates for the two days following my alleged rescue and two more dates for those issues right after Hank Sawyer’s death. It turned out to be a pretty healthy stack of papers. I pored over the printed columns until almost two o’clock, took time out for a fast hamburger across the street from the library, and then came back to my work once more. I read and reread and considered a hundred possibilities, most of which had to be rejected.

  By seven I was starved again, but I took time to go over the few slim points that had seemed inconsistent. Most important was the one, obviously posed, snapshot the paper carried the morning following Nola’s big break, the picture showing her at the water’s edge, that long black hair riding off to the side on a gentle breeze. It was a hell of a good photograph all right. Too good. A shadow was missing!

  Nola Norton had fished me out of the water a little after lunchtime, and it was a bright day. The way the coastline runs along the beach at that point, her shadow should have been behind as she looked to the sea. It should have been right there on the sand between Nola and the boy who snapped the pic, but there wasn’t even a hint of shadow.

  So that photograph hadn’t been snapped after she pulled me out of the drink. Nor any time after she came to the beach. About the only way they could take a shot like that would be to work early in the morning before the sun was very high in the east. The guy who just happened to he standing by with his camera when Nola made her triumphant rescue and then peddled the film out of his camera to the press was as phony as the rescue itself. It was pretty obvious, once you looked at it. Come down in the morning and make a real good job of the posed shot, then bring the same camera back in the afternoon and stand by for the production. When the boys from the press showed up, our amateur photographer was right in business.

  All of which proved that I was on the trail, but it didn’t shed any light on exactly how Nola had staged her part in the rescue. I couldn’t do much without something concrete in that direction. And most of all I needed some link between Nola and Hank which might establish a good reason—beyond covering up a publicity caper—for her to arrange Hank’s sudden death.

  Nola’s past was the logical place to look. It wasn’t very complete—a little bit about her being a lifeguard for two summers and vague references to a father who followed construction booms and a childhood on the move. Nothing you could tie to, so I shifted to Hank Sawyer’s press clippings. The cheap bathtub booze in high-class bottles was strictly a Sawyer-type maneuver all right, except for one thing. From what I saw of him and by the way the boys talked, when did he ever pay for the party?

  I was still wondering about that when I returned the stack of papers to the desk, went out to my car, and drove toward my rented apartment in Santa Monica.

  The next morning I was on my way again, this time through gray dawn toward the beach at Playa Del Rey.

  The lifeguard tower was deserted now. Farther down the beach I could see a surf fisherman at the water’s edge and looking north toward the jetties, I saw a fire. An all-night fisherman or two, no doubt, warding off the morning chill. I shucked off my denims, worked my feet into the rubber flippers, slung the face mask loosely around my neck, and splashed through the low rollers washing in. When the water was chest deep I cut through the next breaker, then swam out toward the spot where Nola Norton had begun to have trouble.

  The water was surprisingly warm, or it seemed that way due to cooler air, and when I was out a good hundred yards I turned and tried to locate myself with something on the shore. The mechanics of the plant weren’t hard to figure; she had to have air and that meant something to get air out of. It would have to have been put there in the morning, or at least some time previous, and this required that Nola be able to find the thing without too much trouble. It had to be lined up with something. I looked toward the lifeguard tower with its flag staff, and up the hill in the distance, but there were a million objects that might have been used. The red brick chimney on a house on Montreal Street half way up the hill, a corner of the porch, a window.

  I slipped the mask over my face, then ducked my head under the surface. The bottom was vague but the light fell evenly; there was no problem of sand and silt stirred up to obscure things. I took a big breath, went under again, and kicked down to the brown sand. There was no place to start, no way of knowing whether I was getting farther from or closer to whatever she had used. And there was, of course, the one thin chance that whatever she used had been buried or removed, but I had to play against it.

  When I needed air I came up again, and then I made a second descent. This time I located a green pop bottle partly under the sand. I pulled it out, then stuck it in again, neck down, and using it as a focal point I began to work in a widening circle around the bottle. The water was deep. I didn’t have much time to search after each dive, but I worked away, went carefully over the bottom and tried to avoid hitting enough to disturb the sand. There had to be a cylinder of some sort down here, an old oxy bottle from an aircraft, some small hand acetylene bottle that she’d emptied and charged with air.

  I passed beer tins and a whisky bottle or two, the work tedious as I surfaced every minute to get a fresh breath, then kicked my way down for another small section of bottom to be searched. When the circle had widened so that the pop bottle was hard to see, I took it thirty feet farther out and transplanted it, then started afresh. The water felt colder now; I was getting tired.

  When I surfaced again I took time for a rest, my face barely above water so that just a small amount of paddling would keep me afloat. Then I rolled over on my back and kicked a time or two, resting a good five minutes. When I was ready to go down again, I glanced toward the beach.

  It was still almost deserted, but the jetty had gained in population, with about a dozen fishermen scattered over the distant rocks. I had maybe another hour before the kids would be starting to arrive for their day in the sun.

  I went down to the bottom again, and my pop bottle, and the ever widening circles. Three dives later I saw the beer tin.

  An unusual one! It lay horizontally, the bright yellow end like a copper disk as I swam toward it, but the disk had a black spot in the center. I went past, then turned and looked again. From this end I should have seen the disk with the two triangular holes punched by a church-key, but instead there was something brown and indistinct near the top. I swam back, put my fingers around the can. started up, and lost my grip. I was out of wind and went up without the can, then made a dive to get it. I didn’t feel the coldness of the water any more, or the fatigue. I kicked straight down and took a firm hold, pulled it free of the sand, and brought it to the surface.

  There wasn’t any doubt. The black spot on one end was a small valve, like those in a bicycle tire, and it was soldered into the can. On the other end was a little brass petcock, also soldered in, and a heavy block of lead lay along one side, splotches of bright solder marking the points where the weight had been fastened.

  Swimming side-stroke, the can in my left hand, I went toward the beach. Planting the gimmick had probably been no great trouble. Swim out and drop it, first making sure that you were lined up with a marker on the beach. Finding it would be easy too—with the block of lead soldered on to sink it, the thing wouldn’t drift much.

  And it would work. It would work damn well and I knew now about the cut-up bicycle tire I’d seen in Hank�
��s garage. He’d soldered the valve into this can. To fill it. A couple of minutes with a tire pump and she’d be pumped full of air, and later, down in the swirl of dirty water Nola had kicked up, she could simply put her lips over the petcock in the other end of the can, turn the little brass handle, and inhale the stream of air rushing into her mouth. Those bubbles I’d seen racing toward the surface—probably enough air in the beer tin for several easy breaths while Nola waited for Eddie Baker to run out of wind. Real cozy!

  But she couldn’t bring the thing in with her, obviously, and she couldn’t be seen fishing it out the next day. At night she’d never be able to locate it, so unless someone else took care of the can for her, Nola would have to leave it right there on the bottom.

  It was pretty easy to figure out who was supposed to bring that piece of evidence in out of the water and now, swimming slowly toward the beach, I tried to fit Hank Sawyer’s death into the picture. But the hell of it was, there just didn’t seem to be enough motive. Sure he might have tried to put the bite on Nola but even so, murder is always the last resort and it just didn’t figure that Nola Norton would take that big a risk to cover up a clever publicity stunt.

  By the time the breakers were under me and I started to ride one in, I’d come up with one solid conclusion. I was going to keep a damn sharp eye on Nola Norton when we got down to discussing the terms.

  Chapter 4

  WHEN I CAME IN FROM THE SURF I palmed the beer tin against my thigh like a quarterback hiding a football before the handoff. I stopped long enough to wrap my towel gently around the thing, hoping to preserve whatever fingerprints might remain, and then trekked across the sand to where I’d parked the car.

  Before I started the motor I dropped the towel long enough for a close examination of the can. There were plenty of heavy fingerprints scattered around, some of them deeply embedded in what was probably smeared soldering paste, but the one or two smaller prints I saw were pretty well smudged. I’d have to do something about that, but the first order of business was to get the can into a safe place, a spot where it would be out of the way, yet accessible when I needed it. I’d already worked out that part of the plan and had decided on the check-lockers in the Union Depot. I whipped over to my place, got into some clothes, wrapped the can in paper towels, dropped it into a small suitcase, and headed for downtown L.A.

  “I’d like to ask about the lockers,” I told the man at the information window.

  “And what would your question be?” He was plump and a little bored with his job but he gave me the main parts of a smile.

  “I want to check this bag in a locker but I’m not sure how soon I’ll be able to pick it up. What happens?”

  “Well, sir, when you put it in the locker and pay your quarter, that’s good for twenty-four hours plus however long after that it takes for them to get around and check the numbers. Anything that’s been left in over that time is picked up and you can claim it at the check stand by showing the key to the locker it came out of. That and paying the additional storage.”

  “How long does the check stand keep it?”

  “One year. You’ll not be going away that long, I trust.” He smiled and turned to the next man in line, but I wasn’t smiling as I walked away. I didn’t intend to be gone too long, but maybe Hank Sawyer didn’t intend to drink that bad booze. I crossed to a stand of lockers, boosted the bag into one, and pocketed the key. I stopped at the phones long enough to check the book for the address of Joe Lamb’s theatrical agency, but the closest I could come was Lamb & Taylor. I jotted it down and headed for Hollywood.

  The place wasn’t pretentious, just a modest location in a building on Hollywood Boulevard a few blocks west of Vine Street. I climbed the white steps to the second floor, walked down the hall, and found the right door. Lamb & Taylor, Agents was newly lettered on the frosted glass, and when I went in the small waiting room was empty. A paneled door on the left said J. Lamb; the one on the right said C. Taylor.

  C. Taylor opened and a trimly built redhead came through, horn-rimmed glasses in her hand, a flash of even white teeth in her smile. Not a show-girl doll all done up in false eyelashes—this one was for real. She had a certain class that had been obscured by a flopping white shirt and the rest of her get-up the only other time I’d seen her—which was on the beach with Nola Norton.

  “Good afternoon,” she said brightly. “May I help—” She stopped there, both the words and her step, and we looked steadily at each other for several seconds. Then the redhead recovered. Her smile came back and she took one more step.

  “Our lifeguard friend. How nice to see you again; won’t you come in?” She bobbed her head toward the inner office, her red pony tail switching as she turned. She was all woman—her walk, her voice, the contour—and when I followed her in and closed the door she dropped the glasses on an open script on her desk and sat down.

  “You—look better,” she said, “than when I saw you last.”

  “You,” I said grinning, “should give away those Calypso pants and that white shirt. But I came to see Joe Lamb. Isn’t he around?”

  “Not right now, but perhaps I can help. I’m Carol Taylor and our agency is a partnership. Exactly what did you want, Mr. Baker?”

  “Nola Norton’s address.”

  Carol made a pretty face, her lips rounding into an O like a mother reproving a small child. “We never give out a client’s address, Mr. Baker.”

  “Let’s say I’m a friend. Where does Nola live?”

  “Oh, I am sorry, but our rules are quite strict. Miss Norton decides which of her friends are to have her phone number and address. There are so many salesmen and people who want—”

  “Step down,” I said wearily. “This is business; I’m just a salesman myself, but she’ll see me. I’ve got a nice special on today, a Lucky Lager tin with a couple of valves soldered in the ends. You can’t hardly get them no more, as the TV comedians say, just one left in the whole Pacific area. Now how about that address?”

  “A—a beer can?”

  “Correction. The beer can. The one she used that day you were standing by on the blanket, just in case the stupid lifeguard didn’t notice her having trouble out in the deep water, ready to send him on his way.”

  Carol blinked and looked away quickly, that rusty pony tail doing tricks again, and then she snapped open a mechanical address file on her desk.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Baker, but actually, you are a friend of hers and I suppose it will be all right to give you the information.” She turned the file around and I jotted down the street and number, her phone, then got to my feet.

  “Thanks, Fire Top,” I said, grinning, “and don’t forget about those Calypso pants. Throw ’em away.” When I closed the paneled door and walked across the carpeted waiting room, I could hear the phone dial spinning rapidly behind me.

  Nola Norton’s place turned out to be a stucco apartment building up on Los Feliz, one of those big, fortresslike jobs with a heavy glass door leading into the central quad, which would doubtless have a swimming pool. There were half a dozen buildings in the line, all roughly the same. When I stopped in front of her number I didn’t get out of the car right away. I had to do something about getting Nola’s thumbprint, so I whipped out my wallet, ran a finger under the dash and over the speedometer cable, and brought out a touch of grease. Flipping open the billfold, I smeared a thin, almost invisible layer of grease over the transparent celluloid card-holder containing my civil service identification tag, then wiped it lightly with my handkerchief, then returned the billfold to my pocket. All I had to do now was get her to handle that card and I’d have the print. I got out and went through the heavy glass door.

  The pool was there, a beautiful oval job done in blue tile trim and wide decking. The grounds were nicely terraced. I walked back along the side and found her apartment.

  She came to the door in a white knitted suit that seemed to ebb and flow with the curves. That long black
hair was nicely combed, the waves neatly in place, and she wore smooth white high-heeled pumps and a blank look on her lovely face.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Eddie Baker,” I said, “and I just dropped over to thank you for saving my life a couple of weeks back.”

  “Well, how nice. Won’t you come in, Mr. Baker.”

  She stepped aside and I went in onto a white shag rug, then turned and watched her carefully close the door. When she came toward me she nodded to an easy chair, and I sat down.

  “I’m surprised to see you, Mr. Baker. May I get you a drink?”

  “No, thanks. I never drink while I’m working.”

  “Working?”

  “And you aren’t surprised to see me. Carol Taylor passed the word on her hot little telephone before I was out of the building, so turn it off. My crack about thanking you was meant for any nosy neighbors who happened to be fanning an ear at their window; now suppose we talk about the beach and a dame in distress and a hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of publicity.”

  It was a fast opening bid; I didn’t want to stall around with her, because the way I had it figured we’d have company any minute and there was one bit of business I wanted to get over before her agent arrived on the scene.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Baker.”

  “I’ll clue you,” I said, and brought out my wallet. I flipped it open to the identification card in the celluloid sheath, then held it out to her. “Read it,” I said, but my hand was unsteady and she had to hold it herself.

  “It’s a card that says you’re a lifeguard with the—”

  “That’s right,” I cut in. I didn’t pull the billfold out of her hand, just waited, and when she let it fall free I folded it and returned it to my pocket.

  “But,” I said pointedly, “it’s no longer in force. I’m through on the lifeguard crew—finished, all washed up, and I don’t like it, baby. Not a damn bit, I don’t.”