Oh, have you seen the popcorn man, the popcorn man, the popcorn man,
Oh, have you seen the popcorn man who lives in Hollywood …
Albion had lived south of the boulevard. It was another of the relic sections of Hollywood, a half-dozen frame houses left behind when business moved in. The address he had been given was the tall house next to the corner. There were signs of life, plenty of them; the parlor lights were bright behind undrawn shades, the voices were loud and merry. In one of the foolish coincidences of the everyday, the radio was singing the same old song of the Prague duet, My darling … my darling …
He walked up to the open screen and he found the bell. The man who appeared smelled of beer. He was just a man, maybe a shoe clerk or an electrician or a cop off duty. He said, “Come on in. Party’s not over yet.” He didn’t wait for Steve to explain himself as a stranger, he held open the screen and Steve followed him into the parlor.
There were several men who might have been the host’s brothers, there were women to match, and there was a fat old woman billowing over the best chair. And there was the reason for the party, a teen-age girl who’d marched in the parade. She was still wearing her brief red satin skirt and her soiled, high white boots. Her satin top hat was on the table with the beer. The girl—she couldn’t have been more than fourteen, all knobs and angles—was leaping in excited dance steps until Steve’s entrance halted everything. Everything but the radio moaning its song of heartbreak.
He began, “I’m sorry to bother you.”
The fat woman came out of the chair. Her face was flushed from the beer, one strand of her scant gray hair hung over her ear. “You are looking for a room?” She pushed at the strand but it fell again rakishly over the little fat ear.
He was sorry to bring remembrance of death into this celebration. But death had been here; it was not his doing. He said, “I wanted to ask about a man who used to live here, Frederick Grasse.”
The silence was even more silent. These people had known him better than anyone had known him in his last months. They had lived with him.
The man who’d admitted Steve asked bluntly, “Are you from the police?”
He’d never been taken for a cop as often as tonight. “No,” he said, “I’m the man he went to the airport to meet. My plane was late.” And he asked, “The police have been here?”
“Been here!” The teen-ager wagged her frizzy hair. It was bleached almost white. “We’ve had tons of them! They keep coming!”
It must have been her mother who spoke petulantly, “Don’t exaggerate, Melba.” She had the same rabbit nose of the young girl and whining lines about her lips.
Steve said, “I suppose the police took all of his belongings.”
The old lady was suspicious.
“I’m an insurance man from New York,” Steve explained to her. “Mr. Grasse was making out a report for me.”
Insurance was something she could understand. “You won’t find it here,” she told him. “They took everything.”
“They tore the room apart,” Melba exaggerated further. The soft song had died, some noisy cacophony had replaced it making all of them shout. No one turned off the radio; they were accustomed to its competition. Melba rounded her eyes. “Do you think he was murdered?”
“Melba!” her mother complained. “Where do you get such ideas?”
“Well, the police don’t tear a room apart when a man dies of heart failure, do they?” Having made her point, the little girl grabbed a cookie and crunched it between her crooked teeth.
“The kid’s got imagination,” her father said proudly. “And she’s got a point,” he told the roomful, gesturing with his beer bottle. “Do the police move in when a man dies natural? When Pa had his heart attack, did the police move in?”
They’d been over this time and again, making the same points, the same rebuttals. It was in their faces. The old woman was the only one not amused by the untoward excitement. She glared at them but she didn’t say anything. When she looked at Steve there was a spit of fear behind her washed-out eyes.
Steve asked her, “I suppose you’ve rented the room?” It wouldn’t do him any good to see it, the police would have taken anything he could want.
“I rented it the day after,” she defied him. “Lucky. Very lucky.”
The police had known from the beginning it wasn’t heart; they’d autopsied and known; they’d torn up the room and left it for renting the next day.
He said, “Thank you,” and turned to go. If they only knew how to tell him. They’d seen Albion daily while he was hunting down Davidian; they’d seen him while he fumbled for the trail, when he’d been cold and then warm, hot, when he’d reached sight of the goal. He tried again, “Did you see him when he left that night?” Had he known he’d been marked for the sacrifice? Had he believed he could be safe long enough to meet Steve? He must have believed that, he’d reached the airport.
The woman slapped at the irritating wisp of hair. “I saw him.” She’d told it so often, it was by rote. “He came home from the bookstore about six-thirty and changed his clothes. I met him out there in the hall. I asked him if he was going out. Just making conversation. He told me he was meeting a friend at the International Airport. He said the plane might be late because it was already foggy but he had his key with him. I lock up at eleven.”
Steve nodded. Albion had been alone, she’d mention it if there’d been a friend with him. She’d answered all these questions before. “Do you know what time it was when he left?”
“I don’t watch the clock.” She was tired of him, she wanted him to go away and leave them alone.
But he kept on. “Before dinner or after?”
The shirt-sleeved man, he must be a son, said, “Before I got home. Because I asked Grammaw, I asked, is Fred home? I’d brought some beer and I thought we could have a beer. I don’t like drinking alone. Sometimes we’d have a beer together before supper. But he’d already gone.”
“So you had it alone,” the wife said sourly.
“So what’s a beer? You think a beer makes an alkie out of a man?”
Steve said, “Thanks.” No one seemed to notice. He went out into the night. The radio and the loud voices and the smell of beer followed him up the street.
Somewhere within this small section of the city’s map, Davidian was waiting for him. Why couldn’t Davidian have sighted him when he sighted Davidian? The man must know he was in town; why no message? He could answer that one. Because Davidian was under Steve’s own orders; the contact must be made Winterich to Davidian, not the reverse. It was that extra measure of safety. But Davidian was too cute not to figure out a way to reach Steve without making contact. Unless he had and Janni was deliberately withholding it. Or unless Davidian had sold him out.
Oh, have you seen the popcorn man …
A man who knew those walking the streets of Hollywood. No bobble of a yellow lantern. No smell of hot popped corn. Janni and Rube were still dancing or they’d parked somewhere in the car Steve had promoted. The boulevard was deserted, the shop fronts dim, the office buildings empty shafts. Gusts of music rattled from the jazz bars. Steve turned in at the dull lobby of the hotel, started across its emptiness to the elevator.
But it wasn’t empty. The man on the settle laid aside the morning edition which had been masking his face. He said, “I’ve been waiting for you.” Just an ordinary guy, Steve’s size, wearing a beaten brown hat and a trench coat as old as Steve’s. It took a second look to recognize Wilton.
“What for?”
“There’s some men who want to see you.”
Steve started by him. “Bring them around. Ten cents a look.”
Wilton halted him. Not violently. With no more than a disinterested finger upon the sleeve of his coat. “I’d come if I were you.”
Steve took out his cigarette pack, lit one while he thought about it. “That’s the way it is?”
“That’s the way.”
He hunched h
is coat. “Let’s get it over with.”
Tonight it wasn’t the big hearse. Just a sedan, nothing shiny, nothing you’d notice.
Steve said, “I’ll sit up front. I get lonesome.”
Wilton gave a nod. You couldn’t get much out of this guy.
“Don’t you get tired running errands for the brass?”
“Don’t you?”
It was a fair retort, both of them were working stiffs, neither called the shots.
“What does Armour want now? Didn’t he get enough this afternoon?”
Wilton didn’t bother to answer. He carried along on Sunset to the Doheny hill, on down to Santa Monica Boulevard. When the Beverly Hills city hall loomed a white and golden fairy-tale tower, Steve tightened. He could take questions, not a lockup. He relaxed when Wilton directed the car straight ahead, following Santa Monica across Wilshire, continuing on past dark woods. And on, until he drew up in front of an inconspicuous motel. It had some Spanish name on it.
“Haig’s moved,” Steve commented.
Wilton said nothing.
“You can run out of dough fast putting on a front.” He didn’t feel as flip as he sounded. He could crack Wilton one and take off. But it would necessitate getting out of town fast, and he couldn’t leave town until the job was done.
Wilton stood beside him on the sidewalk. “Number ten’s in the rear. It isn’t Armour wants to see you.”
Steve didn’t move. He hadn’t considered it this way. “Suppose I don’t like this?”
“You don’t have to like it. You’ll save yourself trouble if you take it.”
Their eyes met on even keel. Wilton was right, he knew he was right, and he knew Steve understood. There were plenty of ways to get a guy who didn’t co-operate.
“Coming?”
Steve dug his hands in his pockets. “What do you think?”
Their steps were solid on the concrete walk leading to the rear right bungalow. Wilton rapped on the door. The man who opened it was a narrow dark young fellow in a blue suit. “Hello, Cal. Mr. Wintress?”
“Who else?” Steve returned insolently. The two men waited until he walked inside. But no lock turned behind him. He stood in a miniature living room. There was another guy on the couch against the further wall, heavier set, balding; his suit was gray. Not an elegant tailored job like Haig Armour’s gray, just a suit like the blue one, or Steve’s own.
The blue suit gestured, “Mr. Wintress, Hale.”
Hale said, “Sit down, Mr. Wintress. You know Ferber and Wilton.”
He didn’t sit down. He didn’t have to. Ferber returned to his straight chair backed up to the window. Wilton took another chair, swung it around to protect the door.
Hale said, “We’re having a beer. Join us?” The beer cans were on the low table, moist beads stippled on them. A paper sack had crumpled to the floor. These were temporary quarters.
Wilton said, “You might as well sit down, Wintress. You’ll be more comfortable. And you might as well have a beer. Or do you drink only with the brass?”
The three men were a triangle hemming him in. He lifted his shoulders, took the place they’d left for him, the one comfortable chair. He might as well take the beer as well. “Okay,” he said. “Get started.” There was probably a recorder under the couch or in the curtains. They wouldn’t get anything on him.
“We’re curious about Frederick Grasse’s death,” Hale began.
“You think I killed him? I got witnesses. Ask Wilton. Top brass ones.”
“What makes you think he was killed?” Ferber had a college man’s voice, smooth, educated.
They knew the answer. “The Feds don’t get curious about heart failure.”
Hale asked offhand, “Why was he rubbed out?”
“You know more than I do.”
“No,” Ferber denied in his quiet way. “We don’t. We don’t know why.”
Steve pushed up in the chair. “For God’s sake, you think I know why? After making a trip all the way from New York to see him?” They knew damn well he had nothing to do with Albie’s death. Their informers would have reported how important it was for Steve to see Albion. “Why the hell don’t you find the killer and ask him why? Why figure me in?”
“Because,” Hale said, cracking another beer for himself, “you and Grasse were tied up with another man. A man who has disappeared.”
Steve said, “I don’t know anything about it. I came out here to see Grasse. He was dead before I arrived.” They couldn’t change his story.
“You knew he didn’t die a natural death.”
“For God’s sake,” Steve said wearily. “I guessed it. Haig Armour wouldn’t be interested if he had.”
Ferber put in, “What’s happened to Davidian?”
Steve didn’t answer.
“Grasse is dead. Davidian is missing. You’re left Top dog.”
He didn’t like it. Not even with the knowledge that they were only playing him, figuring he might spill something.
Wilton announced without interest, “Even Commies have their little spats.”
He wanted to walk over and push his fist through Wilton’s face. “So Grasse was a Communist? Do you have to ask a guy to take a loyalty oath before you call him a friend?”
Hale ignored that. He remarked, “You know what I think? I think there was a slip-up in plans. I think Davidian and Grasse were bumped off too soon. Before you got your hands on the report.”
He lost his temper. “Davidian isn’t dead!”
Wilton said offside, “He does know more than we do.”
“He isn’t dead.” But the cold hand on his neck wouldn’t lift. Like Haig, they were so damn sure of themselves. Davidian wasn’t dead, not yet. Davidian was too experienced to be dead. He wouldn’t let it happen until he turned over the report. And he wouldn’t turn it over to anyone but Steve. He spoke quietly, in control of himself again, “I saw him tonight. At the parade.”
They didn’t believe him. They had a dossier on Stefan Winterich, a story of betrayal and death; they wouldn’t believe anything he said.
“And he turned the report over to you?”
For the record Steve said flatly, “I didn’t get to talk to Davidian. He got lost in the crowd. I don’t know anything about a report.” If Hale had checked with Armour, he’d know damn well that Steve knew about it. But it was different talking across a Musso table with Haig and talking to a hidden wire recorder. One which could, by a carefully arranged accident, fall into Schmidt’s hands. Divide and destroy. Let Schmidt destroy Stefan Winterich; keep Haig Armour’s manicured hands clean.
“Don’t you?” Ferber let the legs of his teetering chair clack down hard on the linoleum floor. But his voice was still nicely modulated, Harvard grad. “You don’t know that Davidian escaped from Berlin, the Eastern zone, that is, carrying in his head the war plans for Soviet expansion through Western Europe? You don’t know about Davidian’s photographic memory, considered as fabulous as his draftsmanship? You don’t know that he managed to carry a few notes with him to bolster that memory? Or that heads fell like walnut shells in East Berlin when Davidian came up missing?”
“Maybe I heard something about it.” It wouldn’t have been possible to be in Berlin and not hear about it. And they’d know it. When it was discovered that it wasn’t Davidian in the t.b. ward but just another scrawny guy who hardly resembled him, everyone in both zones heard plenty of Davidian.
“But you didn’t hear that he was writing a report of what he learned while engaged in certain work for the Reds?”
Steve told the truth. Not that they could recognize it. “That didn’t leak out.” The clamp of censorship saw to that.
“You didn’t come to L. A. to grab that report?”
“You mean he hasn’t turned it over to his American pals?” Steve jeered.
“It’s possible he doesn’t mean to turn it over to us,” Ferber said. “It might be he plans to sell it.”
To the outfit with the biggest bank r
oll. They could believe this yarn. Davidian’s reputation as a dirty little spy was well established.
“You can stop worrying,” Steve scorned. “I’m broke.”
“There’s only one thing worries me,” Hale stated. “Where’s Davidian?”
Steve laughed.
“Something’s funny?” Wilton demanded.
“Yeah.” He laughed some more.
“Hand us a laugh.”
“You’ve got it.” He gave them the same needle he’d used on Haig, it always worked. They were so damn proud of their organization. “The great F.B.I. with all its terrific brains and stupendous resources can’t find one little guy. And they think I can.”
He let his glance pace over the three of them. “I’m a stranger here, remember?”
Ferber said quietly, “It might be easier for an old friend from Berlin to find him. A guy whom Davidian might believe to be his friend.”
He didn’t like Ferber. “That’s the way you see it.”
Hale rested his heavy hands on his knees. “There is something you’d better know, Wintress. If anything happens to Davidian, we’re picking you up for murder.”
Anger flooded him. “Like that!”
“Like that.” Hale jabbed a hand towards the door. “Take him home, Wilton.”
Steve was on his feet. “No wonder Haig Armour has such a big-shot reputation. He can railroad anyone who gets in his way.” He hit all of them with his buckshot words. “You’ve been following me around. Okay. Just keep on. Stick closer to my tail. Because if anything happens to Davidian, I want witnesses that I didn’t do it. Witnesses almost as good as I’ve got for Albion’s murder.” He started to the door. “I don’t know how in hell you figure I’d want Albion out of the way—” In anger he’d used the wrong name, the private name. But there wasn’t one of the three who didn’t get it. “If I’m here for the reason you’ve dreamed up, God knows I’d be an idiot to get rid of the one guy I needed to find Davidian.” Somehow he managed a degree of dignity. “Frederick Grasse was my friend.”
Davidian Report Page 11