“All right,” I admitted. “I’m lazy. And I’m a smart aleck. But you did put mad dog Crenshaw onto me, right? And you two seem to go back to the day before they invented fire. If I sit here like a good boy, do you think you could enlighten me about him? Just a little?”
Ralph sucked up a little more Scotch and looked relenting. “Okay,” he said. “But don’t interrupt. And try to look intelligent.”
I nodded intelligently.
“Right,” he said. “When Stanford University decided that it could do without my services as a mayhem artist, Fred stayed on to make All-American, Phi Beta Kappa, and to win a Rhodes Scholarship. Fred was a bit of a brain in those days. He came back, went into business and, except for that unpleasantness we called World War II, pursued a very successful career and made a few million dollars, most of which, if I know Fred, he still has.”
“Is there a Mrs. Crenshaw?”
“There was,” he said. “Just before the war he married a Miss Evelyn De Lane Ventnor of the Nob Hill, Palm Beach and Honolulu Ventnors. Evelyn was no great beauty, but she served to humanize Fred a bit and helped him several hundred rungs up the social ladder at the same time. In those days, Fred wanted to be a social lion. And she brought along a fair little slice of the Ventnor millions.”
“A useful match,” I said. “Since they had a grandchild, I’m assuming that Fred and Evelyn had at least one child.”
“Just one,” said Ralph. “A son, Fred Junior, but called Bud or something equally awful. Went off to Korea in a Sabre jet and came back in a bronze urn. The daughter-in-law gave birth to Katie about five months later, got remarried to a Nevada rancher named Pierce and took Katie to live there.”
“And?” I said just to keep my vocal cords tuned up.
“Fred didn’t see much of Katie for about ten years. Mrs. Junior didn’t care much for his high-powered style. In the early sixties, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce split the blanket, and she took Katie to live in Las Vegas. Not long after, Evelyn died of something premature, painful and lingering, leaving a trust fund of about three million bucks.”
“To?”
“Katie. The trust to become hers when she turned twenty-one.”
“A useful sum,” I said, “but unless I miss my guess, not to Katie anymore. Who was the lucky heir?”
“One guess,” said Ralph, “but the initials are FMC, and you’ve met him. Not much later, Fred was struck down by an ungovernable hankering to have Katie by his side. I don’t doubt that he did feel a belated resurgence of grandfatherly feeling, but if I know anything about Fred, the trust fund made him feel it all the keener.”
“Highly understandable,” I said. “Let me guess what happened next. Crenshaw went wading over to Nevada, slugged Mrs. Junior with an attractive lump sum and brought young Katie back to Los Angeles strapped to the pommel of his saddle.”
“Close enough,” Ralph said. “Katie was sent to all the best schools, put on all the cutest ponies and generally spoiled rotten. Fred bought her into Stanford, but it didn’t do much to stop the rot. All she seemed to study was folk singing and pill popping, and the last couple of years she spent more time in clinics and shrinks’ offices than at the university. So Stanford gave her the boot and probably cost themselves a million-dollar bequest. Katie went her way until she ended up at The Institute last summer. Fred didn’t like it, but it seemed better than the street. I didn’t hear any more until she took the big fall just before Christmas. Then I began to hear a lot more about her than I could stand.”
“Fred figured you ought to do something.”
“Not at first,” Ralph said, crunching an ice cube. “Fred was perfectly happy to let the sheriff’s office down in Monterey handle it as long as they came up with the right answer—his right answer—right away and no dillydallying. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and that was when Fred started to lean on them. Until you’ve been leaned on by Frederick Melhuish Crenshaw, you haven’t lived. You know Sheriff Dominguez?”
“The same way I know Governor Brown. I’ve seen his picture in the paper. Little Mexican fellow, isn’t he?”
“Not exactly. To call Luis Dominguez a little Mexican is like describing Lorenzo de’ Medici as a dead wop. Dominguez is Spanish, so Spanish he makes your gums swell, and no touchier than the average fencing master.”
“He and Fred didn’t get along?”
“In a word: Not a fucking bit. Fred became such a nuisance that they nearly took out the phones. When he found out that even the Crenshaw millions couldn’t make the sheriff’s office roll over and play dead, Fred fell back on a high-powered—and higher-priced—firm of private investigators down in L.A.”
“Brazewell Associates,” I said.
“Those were the fellers. As you’ll discover when you read their report, Brazewell’s men got nowhere at The Institute. They were able to tell Fred a lot about that estimable organization and its founder that he didn’t know, but they got no further than Dominguez’s boys when it came to finding out how Katie Pierce came to die on those rocks. It’s a lovely report—good syntax, neatly typed, attractively presented—but no good to Fred. He couldn’t even wipe his butt with it. Fred gritted his teeth, paid through the nose, and—”
“Came running back up here to you.”
“Yes. I read the sheriff’s report, read Brazewell’s very interesting document, shrugged my shapely shoulders and passed him on to you. End of story.” Ralph settled back in the big leather chair as if that were true.
“Why me, Ralph?” I asked. “Sure, I can use the money. If anybody hates starving to death, it’s Jonah Webster Goodey. And I know we’re old friends, even if you did let them run me off the force last year just to collect your rotten pension. But what have I got that Dominguez and the Brazewell organization haven’t?”
Ralph looked smug. “What you’ve got that they haven’t, Joe boy, is a very good in with The Institute.”
I don’t mind being a straight man. “I’ll bite,” I said. “What would that be?”
“You know Rachel Schute,” he said.
That was true enough. I did know the Widow Schute. And although I really liked Rachel and had spent the best part of a year doing a poor imitation of a gigolo, it hadn’t been any good. After a few desultory attempts to meet her exalted expectations, I’d done a calculated drift out of her life last autumn and hadn’t seen her for over six months. I’d heard no word of attempted suicide at her half-million-dollar tepee over in Sausalito.
“So what?” I said.
“So Rachel Schute is in very deep with The Institute, and from all reports seems to be getting in deeper by the minute. I hope it won’t come as too big a shock, Joe, but she’s even romantically involved with one of The Institute’s big shots, some sort of doctor, I think.”
That was a small surprise. I hadn’t imagined that Rachel spent her nights knitting me bed socks, but I couldn’t imagine what she was doing messing around with The Institute. She didn’t even smoke pot.
“Some cynics,” Lehman continued, “have been nasty enough to suggest that Hugo Fischer has his froggy eyes on Mrs. Schute’s bulging moneybags. That’s slander, of course, but all the same, it’s pretty interesting.”
“Sure, it’s interesting. Several million bucks is always interesting. I wish Fischer a lot of luck. But what makes you think Rachel is going to make The Institute roll out the red carpet for me even if she does have some clout down there? You may not have heard over here in the sticks, but we’re no longer an item. She gave me back my fraternity pin last fall.”
“That’s not the way I hear it,” Ralph said. “I hear that the Merry Widow still carries a modest torch for you, though only God knows why. You’re not exactly Paul Newman. But if I were you and wanted to earn that impressive check you’ve been flaunting around here, I’d get over there and see how much credit you’ve got left with Mrs. Schute. You might be surprised. And I wouldn’t be amazed if Hugo Fischer welcomed you if not with open arms, at least without setting the dogs on you.”
3
It seemed pretty crass to use a dead romance as a lever to get inside The Institute. And if Rachel didn’t think the romance was so extinct, that made it even worse. A guy would have to be pretty low to do that sort of thing.
Such thoughts occupied me all the way to Rachel’s place in Sausalito. As I parked the old Morris in the carport and climbed the redwood steps to Rachel’s front door, I was none too proud of myself. I’ll bet my knock even had a shamefaced sound to it.
Ethelberta, Rachel’s black maid, answered the door with a “What, you back again?” look on her somber face and left me standing deep in grass-colored carpet while she went to spread the good news and hide the best silver. Long before, Ethelberta and I had developed a symbiotic relationship. I didn’t try to bullshit her, and she didn’t sell me any tickets to the Black Panther’s Ball. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
Either there was more silver to hide these days or the news of my arrival hadn’t been received in milady’s chamber with much jubilation. I was beginning to feel like the second bride at a wedding. I studied the brushstrokes on an early Picasso, but time was beginning to get heavy on my hands when at last Rachel Schute came down the stairs with a less than welcoming expression on her face.
One glance at that face told me that I could have picked a better time for my visit. It was a face in transition from sleepy sensuality to a public expression of not particularly happy anticipation. I astonished myself by feeling a small surge of jealousy. She looked good, flushed slightly either from recent exertion or the knowledge that I could read her face pretty well. For the moment I felt some regret, which I did my best to smother.
“Hello, Joe,” she said in her throaty voice. “I didn’t expect you.” I was trying to come up with a response when someone else came down the stairs behind Rachel.
He wasn’t a big man, but he had a beefy substantial look that made up for it and a square, slightly florid face with plenty of residual scowl lines. If he were a drunk, he’d be the nasty kind who always wants two olives in his martini and howls the “Yellow Rose of Texas” out of tune. But just then he wasn’t drunk. He was mentally tucking in his shirttails and looking smug. I did not take an immediate liking to him.
Rachel looked nervously over her shoulder at him and said: “Joe, this is Dr. James Carey. Jim, this is Joe Goodey. I think I mentioned him.”
I’d bet she had, but I didn’t care to learn what she’d mentioned about me.
“Evening, doctor,” I said brightly. “I didn’t know you guys made house calls anymore.” I turned to Rachel with a concerned expression on my face. “I hope none of the boys is ill.”
Rachel couldn’t decide whether I was being a smart ass, but she decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. “Jim isn’t that kind of doctor, Joe—I mean, he is, but he isn’t practicing right now. He’s a director of The Institute. You have heard of it, haven’t you?”
From her tone of voice, I knew I was supposed to have, so I decided not to mess around. “I have, Rachel,” I said. “That’s what I’ve come to see you about. Do you think we could sit down for a minute?”
The idea startled Rachel a bit. She’d forgotten that we were standing there like actors frozen in position after the second-act curtain. “Of course,” she said. “We’ll have some coffee.”
We settled comfortably on twin couches of pale green crushed velvet, with them facing me. A trenchant silence reigned while Ethelberta poured the coffee. “Thank you, Ethelberta,” Rachel said. “Why don’t you go home now?”
“All right, Mrs. Schute,” she said. “Good night, doctor.” Her eyes passed over me with all of the expression of twin fog lights, and Ethelberta headed for the door. I let her get her hand on the knob and then said “Ethelberta?” in a voice she couldn’t safely ignore.
She pivoted warily and dropped her eyes on me.
“Nice to see you again,” I said.
Her tea-colored face went even bleaker. “Thank you,” she-said flatly, pivoted again and moved smartly through the doorway, shutting the door crisply behind her.
Rachel didn’t bother to comment on this little interplay, but came right to the point. “I don’t understand, Joe. Why have you come to see me about The Institute?”
“It has to do with an assignment I’ve just taken on,” I said. “Somebody wants me to find out who killed Katharine Pierce, the girl who died there last December. And I’d like you to help me get in there. I’ve heard—”
“No one killed Katie Pierce,” Carey butted in. “She jumped or fell from the terrace, and that’s that. There is no need for further investigation.”
“You sure about that, doctor?” I asked.
“Yes, I am. And we don’t need any more cheap private detectives prowling around wasting our time. That case is closed.”
That was said positively enough. I wished that I was as sure of anything as he seemed to be about everything. I was about to beg to differ when Rachel saved me the trouble.
“What makes’ you so sure, Jim?” she asked, in a tone I knew all too well. Rachel has her soft moments, but she’s no pushover. I knew—and Carey was no doubt beginning to realize—that he’d gone a bit far.
He brought his tone down a shade or two. “Hell, Rachel,” he said, “you know that we’ve already had two investigations. First, the sheriff had his men all over the place, and then those slick characters from Los Angeles were nosing around for weeks. Don’t you think that’s enough?”
Worried that his reasoning might get to Rachel, I said: “Dr. Carey, a young girl—not yet twenty-one—has died under very suspicious circumstances. An old man wants to know just what happened to his only granddaughter. Do you think that’s so very unreasonable?”
“Crenshaw knows, Goodey,” Carey said, fighting a rearguard action. “The sheriff’s department told him. That ought to be good enough, even without those private detectives. Katie’s death was an accident—or possibly suicide. She was a very mixed-up girl.”
“She was a very doped-up girl when she went off that terrace, Dr. Carey,” I said. “Is that usual at The Institute?”
“Of course not,” he said angrily. “You have no idea—”
“That’s why I want to come to The Institute,” I said, running right over him. “If only to satisfy her grandfather once and for all. That’s not so much to ask, is it, Rachel?”
I thought I could count on Rachel feeling tender toward poor, dead Katie Pierce, and she didn’t fail me. She turned to Carey with an expression half imploring and half demanding, something that seems to come easy to rich women.
“No, it’s not. It’s really not, Jim. I don’t see what harm it can do if Joe can settle in the old man’s mind what happened to that poor girl. It’s not as if The Institute has anything to hide. Is it?”
“Of course not,” he came right back on cue. He turned his pale eyes toward me challengingly. “Goodey,” he started, “you can—” But then he thought of something. “Rachel,” he asked, “may I use your telephone?”
While he was out in the hall doing just that, Rachel and I sat staring at each other. There didn’t seem to be much to say. I learned that her three boys were just fine. She learned that I was staying alive but not getting rich.
Carey came back into the room looking more confident, even aggressive. I hoped he hadn’t been drinking out there. “Goodey,” he said, “you come on down to The Institute. Come any time. Turn the place upside down. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is the way to get that old nut off our backs for good.”
“Would tomorrow be too soon?”
“Come right now,” he challenged. “I’ll drive you down myself.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I can see that you’re busy here, and I’ve got to wash a pair of socks. I’ll come down tomorrow if that’s okay. You’ll be there, Rachel?”
“I was going to be there anyway,” she said, “for a wedding. But now that you’re going, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I want to be arou
nd when you bump into Hugo.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sounds like fun. See you then, Doctor?”
“Oh, sure,” Carey said, but didn’t sound all that sure. But it wouldn’t do him any good to have doubts. I was going to The Institute, and with Rachel behind me, I might even have a chance of staying there long enough to learn something. If there was anything to learn.
I got up from the comfortable couch. “I won’t keep you folks up any longer,” I said. “Thanks very much for your time.” Rachel’s mouth tightened. That’s not very good for the facial wrinkles when you’re pushing forty-five, but I didn’t think that was a good time to mention it.
I drifted into the hall, followed by Rachel with a mixed expression on her face. Dr. James Carey skulked in the drawing room doorway, looking baleful. He hadn’t been very happy to see me and he didn’t look sad to see me go. I have that effect on people sometimes.
As I went through the front door, I turned back toward Rachel. “It was good to see you again,” I said. “You’re looking fine, Rachel.” And she was. There must be something about getting laid regularly that brings a high polish to a mature woman’s appearance. “The Institute seems to be doing you good.”
“It is, Joe,” she said. “You could use some of what it has yourself.”-
“We’ll see about that,” I said. “It didn’t seem to do a lot for Katie Pierce. See you tomorrow.” I turned to walk down the stairs.
“Joe,” she said quietly, and I stopped with my foot in midair. “Do you have to be such a complete bastard?” she asked just as quietly and closed the big door.
Rachel’s question gave me something to think about as I recrossed the Golden Gate Bridge and headed for North Beach. Maybe Rachel was right. Maybe I was jealous because somebody had picked up something I’d rejected. I wouldn’t put it past me.
But before I could ponder the point to death, I was pulling off Broadway and heading into the little cul-de-sac where I lived at the tail end of Chinatown. It hadn’t changed much since morning. The dingy, dun-colored apartment houses still huddled together in self-protective squalor. Lum Kee’s grocery store lurked on the ground floor of my building, but it was run by a manager, an old lady with young eyes. Lum Kee, my late landlord, had gone to his ancestors with about four inches of war-surplus steel in his gut. I wondered what sort of celestial crooked deals he was working.
Charles Alverson - Joe Goodey 02 - Not Sleeping, Just Dead Page 2