The Third Figure

by Collin Wilcox

  “What can you tell me, Mr. Russo?”

  “Call me Frank. What’d they call you? Steve?”

  “Yes. Steve.”

  “Good. Well, there’s not much I can tell you that’d mean anything. I mean, Dom had his troubles, like the rest of us, but it wasn’t anything serious.”

  “What kind of troubles?”

  He thought about it a moment before saying carefully, “Maybe Aidia told you some of it. Frank always liked the girls. That’s all right. All of us do. But when he got hooked on this Hanson woman, things started to slide a little. He didn’t pay attention to business, like he should. That’s when I came out to the Coast, about a year ago.” He paused. Then, choosing his words, he said, “Some of the newspapers figured that the two went together: me coming out, and Dom getting killed. But you know as well as I do, it doesn’t happen like that anymore. Sure, Dom didn’t have the zip he used to have. And, sure, I was running things, mostly, for the past six months or so. But Dom, he didn’t really care. He had his. He had more real estate than you have ribbons for your typewriter. There wasn’t any beef; he would’ve retired. It was all worked out, as a matter of fact. Another year, and he’d’ve been out to pasture, playing with his girl friend.”

  “Then you must’ve been disturbed by his murder.”

  “You’re damn right I was. I can tell you, things were pretty rough around here.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, no one knew where they stood. They were nervous. I mean, they didn’t know what to think. Especially the way Dom was killed. It was like—well, it was like the old days.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, it was a clean job. It looked like a professional job. It still does.” He said it almost indignantly. “That’s what I say, everyone got nervous. Even the cops. Maybe you know that we’ve got things pretty well under control here in La Palada. I mean, we’ve got the lowest crime rate in the state. So when this thing blew up, everyone got hot as hell. I even had to go back East and explain things. As a matter of fact …” He smiled to himself, in covert satisfaction. “As a matter of fact, when Aidia came to me, all wide-eyed, and said she was going to hire you, I first of all let her think I didn’t like it. Maybe at first I didn’t. But then, when I’d had a chance to think about it, I told her to go ahead, provided you talked to me first. I was even thinking of hiring a private detective to look into things for me. I didn’t do it, but I was thinking about it. So now …” He waved his glass at me. “Now Aidia’s spending her money. And just as long as we all understand each other, nobody’ll get burned.”

  “What would happen if I should discover that the murderer was actually an—associate of yours?”

  “That’d depend on who it was and why he did it. But that’d be my business.” He looked at me meaningfully. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you. Right?”

  I nodded. I was feeling a little more irked each time he stared at me with his bully’s black eyes and said, “Right?” I finished my drink, anxious to be gone.

  “You don’t really have any idea who did it, then?” I asked.

  He spread his hands. “None at all. I’m as much in the dark as Aidia, except that I’m not as bugged. Everything’s settled down, and Dom was dead weight anyhow. There’s no sweat. I’d still like to know who did it, but I’m not hurting.” He drained his own drink, glanced at his watch and heaved himself to his feet. As I also stood, he looked me up and down, smiling.

  “You know,” he said, clapping me heavily on the shoulder and turning me toward the grape stake fence. “You know, you don’t look to me like a real rugged guy. You’d better take care of yourself. Don’t take any chances, and stay loose. If you need anything, let me know. Call me anytime. I have someone that answers the phone, most of the time. I’ll give him the word. He’ll know where to find me, and he’ll put you right through.”

  “All right, I will.”

  “Good.” We’d reached the gate, which my host opened. Montez was standing by the Buick, waiting. Russo extended his hand.

  “Good luck, Steve,” he said smiling. Then, allowing the smile to fade, he said, “And be sure and remember what I said. Everything I said.”

  “Thanks, Frank. I will.”

  “Good.” He nodded, unsmiling now. Then he turned back to the pool, closing the gate behind him.

  4

  I’D HALF-EXPECTED FAITH HANSON to put me off, but when I called her later Sunday afternoon she seemed almost anxious to talk with me. She spent several minutes giving me detailed driving directions, and with the aid of a La Palada Chamber of Commerce map I easily found her house.

  It was a modest stucco bungalow, California-ersatz-Spanish, with an imitation-tile roof and matching red tile entryway. Three spiky palms dominated the small, neatly mowed front lawn, and a flagstone sidewalk led to an ornately paneled front door.

  As I rang the bell I tried to picture her, finally deciding on the image of a medium-sized brunette, full-figured and heavily made up, wearing capri stretch pants and a pastel-colored bulky-knit sweater.

  The image was wrong. She was rather small, almost petite. Her ash-blond hair was simply worn, and her heather-hued dress was conservatively cut. Her wide-set gray eyes were calm and appraising.

  We introduced ourselves, and she showed me into her small living room. The furniture was richly carved in the Mediterranean style; the polished floors were covered with a colorful collection of small oriental rugs.

  As we sat in facing easy chairs, I decided that Mrs. Hanson possessed taste, composure and probably intelligence. The restrained, graceful economy of her movements suggested a kind of elegant, understated sensuality—something special for a special man, but not for public display.

  “Would you like a drink?” she asked.

  “No, thanks. I, ah, won’t stay very long, Mrs. Hanson. I just wanted to ask you a few questions.” I drew a deep breath, deciding to come directly to the point.

  “As I told you on the phone, I’ve been retained to look into the death of Dominic Vennezio. I’ve talked to Mrs. Vennezio, and I’ve talked to Frank Russo. Now, if it’s all right, I’d like to talk to you.”

  “You didn’t say who retained you.” As she spoke, she held herself rigidly—back arched, knees tight together. Her voice had a low, breathless quality. She was obviously exercising a painful, precarious self-control.

  “Mrs. Vennezio retained me,” I answered, content for the moment merely to watch her. Against what emotion was she bracing herself so rigidly? Was it grief? Fear? Guilt? If fear or guilt were her problem, why had she so willingly agreed to see me?

  “Mrs. Vennezio,” she repeated, her voice expressionless. Her eyes were fixed unblinkingly on my own, yet I felt that only an enormous effort of will kept her eyes so steady. She seemed somehow strangely compelled to respond to my questions, almost as if she were speaking from the depths of a hypnotist’s trance.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Even though they were separated, Mrs. Vennezio is naturally anxious to know who murdered her husband. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  She nodded, woodenly. Then she asked, “Are you a private detective, Mr. Drake?”

  I somehow felt unwilling to become enmeshed in the lengthy business of explaining my alleged prowess of clairvoyance. So I simply nodded. She seemed to accept it. Immediately, I wondered whether she thought I’d come representing the Outfit. It would be a possible explanation for her curiously hushed responses. Fear paralyzed, especially if guilt were the catalyst.

  Perhaps I had my opening.

  Lowering my voice to a more impersonal note, I said, “Would you mind telling me something of your relationship with Dominic Vennezio, Mrs. Hanson?” Then, thinking about it, I hastily amended: “That is, when did you meet him, how often did you see him, et cetera?”

  “I’ve known him—” She blinked and swallowed. “I knew him for about two years.” Her voice was still controlled, her eyes were still steady. But her fingers, I noticed,
incessantly twisted. Her legs, I also noticed, were beautifully shaped.

  “You were working in a real estate office, I understand, when you first met him.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then, soon afterward, Mr. Vennezio set up his own real estate office. And you worked for him. Is that right?”

  She nodded. Waiting. Again I felt the resignation with which she answered me—and the strange compulsion.

  “And you became, ah, friends.”

  For a moment she remained perfectly motionless, staring at me with her wide-set gray eyes. Then, very distinctly, she said:

  “I became his mistress.”

  I drew a deep breath. I was infuriatingly aware that I must be blushing as I said, “Thank you for being so honest, Mrs. Hanson. It’s very helpful.”

  With a quiet, ironic sarcasm she said, “Do I have a choice?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’ve been waiting for you—or someone like you—ever since they killed Dominic. I’m only surprised that it took so long. And I’m also surprised at you.”

  “At me?” I felt myself suddenly at a sheepish loss.

  She nodded. “You’re much different from what I’d expected. I’ve only met a few of Dom’s—associates—but none of them was like you.”

  “But I’m not—I mean—” I realized that I was shifting uncomfortably in my chair, squirming before her increasingly obvious scorn.

  “I know. You don’t work for them. Not really. I wasn’t a gangster’s girl friend, either. Not really. That’s what the other women were. I was something special. I have ‘class,’ as Dominic used to say. Refinement.”

  Suddenly I felt a sense of shame. Should I try to explain? I decided against it. She could be answering out of fear, feeling that she only had a choice between my questions or something much worse. If I disassociated myself from the Outfit, therefore, I might be the loser.

  And, besides, she was right. Since noon that day, I’d been an employee of the Outfit—or at least a tacit associate.

  So, with a kind of hostile guilt I took the role of the impersonal inquisitor.

  “Tell me something about your life before you met Dominic, Mrs. Hanson.”

  “What would you like to know? How far back should I start?”

  I shrugged. I was aware of a rising cynicism in myself—a blunt, bitter response to her own cynical, self-debasing hostility.

  “Start wherever you like.”

  Silently she looked at me, deciding. In her tightened mouth and chilled gray eyes I could plainly see contempt. Then, with a slow, eloquent movement she raised her shoulders, seemingly indifferent. She began speaking in a low, precise monotone. Her voice seemed to express both the numbness of defeat and the defiance of someone with no more to lose.

  “It all started, I suppose, forty-one years ago, when I was born. That’s where it always starts, I’m told. My father was an awning salesman—a successful awning salesman. He made a good living. However, unfortunately, he always spent more than he made. My mother, you see, appreciated the finer things in life. Her family, we were always told, had raised her to expect the best and to act accordingly. So we were always in debt. Then, when the depression came, my father lost everything. He got some of it back, of course, during the war, but he was never quite the same. Neither was my mother. She never let him forget that he’d failed. Never. So, gradually, my father became a—a hollow man. And my mother became bitter. Brittle, and bitter.”

  I sighed. “That’s a common story.”

  She smiled with a kind of pensive, wistful regret. “The rest is common enough, too. During my last year in college my parents finally got divorced, so when I graduated I decided to come out to California, to San Francisco. I had an aunt in San Francisco, my mother’s sister. She got me a suitable job, in the financial district, and found me the right kind of apartment, in the right neighborhood. And, in due time, I met the right kind of a young man. John Hanson. We got married, after a glittering kind of cocktail-party courtship. And then, slowly, I proceeded to do to my husband what my mother had done to my father.”

  “How …” I cleared my throat. “How do you mean?”

  “John was a stockbroker,” she said softly. “A young, bright, golden-haired stockbroker, with a wonderful smile and a boyish charm. His family was well off and even had social pretensions. They could afford to go to the opera and to charity balls, and once in a while they got their names in the society columns. And so did John and I, occasionally. We were a handsome young couple, you see, and we lived on Russian Hill and drove a sports car and sailed and had a Japanese couple cater when we gave cocktail parties. That was in 1948 and 1949. We were both happy, I suppose. But then, unfortunately, it became increasingly apparent that John wasn’t really a very good stockbroker. He was good at entertaining people, especially in bars, but he wasn’t good at selling them stocks or bonds. So John’s parents started giving us money, ‘until we got on our feet.’ And the more money they gave us, the less John worked. And the more he drank.”

  “That’s a common story, too”

  She nodded. “So is the last of it, too, I suppose. I decided that what we needed was a child, to bring us closer together and give John a sense of responsibility. Unfortunately, however, the child was conceived at almost exactly the time North Korea invaded South Korea—and John was in the reserve.”

  She sighed. “In a way, Korea was John’s last chance. He was a pilot, flying cargo planes, and he liked it. When his Korean tour was over, he told me that he wanted to stay in the Air Force. But I wouldn’t let him. My mother, I suppose, had told me it was a ghastly life, being an army wife. So, anyhow, John went back with his old company, selling stocks. Except that, this time, he didn’t even make any pretense of working. He just stayed in the bars all day and drank. Sometimes he’d go to movies, and once a week or so he’d visit an old girl friend who’d just got divorced. He was never obvious about it, though, or inconsiderate. John was always considerate and really very sweet. He would have made a good husband, probably, if he’d stayed in the Air Force. The army can be a good place for weaklings.”

  “What happened then, Mrs. Hanson?”

  “Well finally, after a year or so, John became an embarrassment to his family—and to me. So we decided, his family and I, that the best thing for John would be for us to move to Los Angeles. If we could get John away from his old environment, we decided, everything would be all right. And also, as part of the therapy, John’s family would stop sending us money. As it turned out, there was more than just therapy involved. Mr. Hanson’s business was failing, and two years later, in the recession of 1958, it failed altogether. By that time, of course, we’d come to Los Angeles. John was selling ‘real estate,’ instead of ‘selling stocks.’” Bitterly she accented the two phrases. “And instead of his parents giving us money ‘until we got on our feet,’ I began working. Full time. I became very good at real estate escrow. And, over the years, I had various affairs with various men. Somehow it was the only thing left.”

  “You and John had a child, did you say?”

  A brief spasm twitched at her face.

  “Yes, Mr. Drake. We had a child. John Hanson the third. He was a beautiful boy. He still is a beautiful boy, only now he’s sixteen. He doesn’t need me anymore. He never did, really. That was my husband’s single virtue, you see: he loved his son. He loved Johnny, and he understood him. I suppose, in many ways, John was really more a boy than a man. He was defenseless, and innocent, and …” She swallowed, then continued in a firmer voice:

  “When I had to go to work, my husband looked after Johnny. He’d even pace himself, drinking, to fit Johnny’s schedule.” She paused, staring down at her hands. “I’ve often wondered whether that’s why I started with other men—because my husband, for all his faults and his weakness, really meant more to Johnny than I did. I don’t know. I do know, though, that men became more and more important to me. Wealthy, aggressive men. Men with drive and ambiti
on.”

  “And that’s how you met Dominic Vennezio.”

  She raised her head in the timeless gesture of the fallen woman, defiant in her fall.

  “Yes, Mr. Drake. That’s how I met Dominic.”

  “And …” I hesitated. “What happened to your husband, Mrs. Hanson, after you met Vennezio?”

  “Shortly after I met Dominic, and began—seeing him, John left.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “I understand he went back to San Francisco.”

  “Have you heard from him?”

  “Not directly.”

  “But you know he’s alive.”

  “I’ve heard he’s alive. I don’t know for sure. He has a younger brother living here in Los Angeles. Bruce. If anything had happened to John and Bruce knew about it, I suppose I’d’ve heard.”

  I nodded, thinking about it. Finally, I said, “What about the boy? I mean, weren’t you surprised that your husband would’ve left his son if they were so close?”

  “Johnny was fourteen by then. They weren’t close any longer.”

  “Is he—” Involuntarily I looked around. “Is the boy living with you?”

  “He was, until this last year. Now he’s going to Midfield. It’s a boarding school in the Ojai Valley, just forty miles from Los Angeles.”

  “I see. And how long has it been since your husband left?”

  She thought about it, then said, “Just about two years. I’d been working for Dominic three months, when John left.”

  “Were you living here at the time?”

  She laughed with brief, bitter humor. “We were living in a one-room apartment. Drinking is an expensive habit, Mr. Drake, especially when there’s only one income.”

  “Then …” I hesitated. “Then, if I understand the sequence correctly, first you met Dominic. Then, three months later, your husband moved out. And then, shortly afterward, you moved into this house. Is that right?”