Cat and Mouse

by William Campbell Gault

  The lunch trade was beginning to come in now, filling the booths. The drinking trade was lining up at the bar. Heinie said, “I’ve got to get to work. Hang around after you’ve eaten, okay?”

  I nodded. “I’ve run out of places to go.”

  Heinie was still busy when I had finished eating. I went into his small office and made a collect call to the house.

  Jan answered. I told her I might be home today or might stay over; I wasn’t sure yet.

  She said, “A man named Harley Belton phoned about half an hour ago. He’s staying at the Sheraton here. He left the room and phone number and wants you to call him. Gould that be the boy’s father?”

  “Probably.”

  She gave me the numbers and said, “Now, damn you, please be careful!”

  “I will. I’ll phone you again some time today.”

  I phoned the Sheraton and Harley Belton was in. I identified myself.

  He said, “I’m Jasper Belton’s father. Sheriff McClune gave me your name. Where are you now?”

  “In Los Angeles. In a bar near Beverly Hills. I should be home tonight.”

  “Stay there,” he said. “That’s where it all started. I want to help you find that bastard.”

  “Mr. Belton, that could be extremely dangerous.”

  “Don’t tell me about danger, Mr. Callahan. I spent thirty years in the Marine Corps. Wait for me!”

  He sounded like my kind of man. I gave him the address and directions on how to get here.

  The lunch trade began to drift out; the bar trade stayed to argue. Heinie came over to sit across from me, bringing his steak sandwich and Einlicher with him. José followed him, bringing me another beaker. We didn’t talk much.

  I spotted Harley Belton as soon as he walked in. He could have been the model for a Marine poster, lean as a greyhound, ramrod-straight shoulders, eyes of arctic blue, and a crew haircut.

  He walked right to the booth where I was reading the morning Times. “You’re Callahan, aren’t you? I’ve watched you play.”

  “Guilty. Can I buy you a drink?”

  “A double bourbon on the rocks,” he said. He sat down across from me.

  I called out the order to Heinie and asked, “Have you had lunch?”

  He nodded. “I brought a couple of sandwiches along to eat on the way. Have you learned anything here?”

  I told him what I had learned and my suspicion that our quarry evidently wanted to play hide-and-seek. I told him about the clues he had left behind and the ploy he had used to trap Corey.

  “Those cuties can outfox themselves,” he said. “I brought along the letters from my son. There might be some leads in them.”

  I said, “Mrs. Patino told me he rarely wrote to her.”

  “She’s my wife’s daughter,” he explained. “She and Jasper were never very close. My first wife died three years after he was born. I can’t say I was much of a father, away on duty so often, and Jasper never really got along with my present wife.”

  I said nothing.

  He took a swallow of his drink. “Gad, that was a dumb move to Arizona! I thought Tritown was boring. Compared with Sun City, it’s Paris.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifty-three. I joined the Marines when I was eighteen and retired when I was forty-eight. I had a smart buddy in the service who told me where to invest my money, so I’m not hurting. Could I buy you a drink? I’m going to have another.”

  He had another double bourbon, I another beer.

  “You got any kids?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I married too late.”

  He took a deep breath. “I had one—and blew it! He was a smart and sensitive kid. It’s not easy for a dumb Marine to understand a smart kid.”

  Again, I said nothing.

  “And killing the creep,” he said, “won’t bring Jasper back.”

  “Easy, Harley! We’re not the law.”

  “I know, I know,” he said wearily. “Jasper—that’s a dumb name to give a kid, right? My first wife had a rich uncle by that name. Hell, he didn’t leave the kid a dime.” He finished his drink. “Santa Monica and Venice, that’s where most of his letters were written. Should we headquarter there?”

  “It makes sense. I know a fairly nice motel in Santa Monica that won’t gouge us. You can follow me.”

  He followed me. He practically tailgated me to the Bayside Inn. He was driving a new Camaro, but with a lot more horses under the hood than Corey’s old one. Harley, like Larry and Bernie, didn’t favor foreign products, probably their only area of agreement.

  At the desk, the dapper clerk smirked and said, “Twin beds or a double bed, gentlemen?”

  Harley turned rigid. I said quickly, “Twin beds,” thus saving the man from a flying trip through the plate-glass window that fronted on the parking lot.

  In our second-floor room, Harley said, “This is really kook country, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” I agreed. “Let’s look over the letters.”

  “The name of the man we want isn’t in them,” he told me. “They were mostly about the kids he met here. The only man he mentioned is somebody the kids called Big Bear.”

  “Why don’t you make out a list of them,” I suggested, “while I take a shower?”

  He nodded agreement.

  CHAPTER 8

  HARLEY HAD THE LIST made out when I came from the shower. Some were only first names. But there were other means of identification; one a poet, another a guitar player, another the publisher of an antiestablishment press in Venice.

  Harley smiled. “Names, names— Guess what my middle name is.”

  “You tell me.”

  “I’ll give you a hint. I grew up in Milwaukee.”

  “Davidson?”

  He nodded. “My old man grew up with Bill Harley and Walter Davidson. The difference is that they built motorcycles and he only rode them. So they wound up rich and he wound up with a couple of broken legs.”

  “And you wound up in the Marines. Do you have any tattoos?”

  “None I’m going to show you. A tattoo is also a call sounded before taps, notifying us to go to quarters.”

  “I’m sure there’s some symbolism there that escapes me,” I said. “To get back to the here and now, what did Jasper say about this man called Big Bear?”

  He picked up one of the letters and read aloud: “‘I first saw him when I was working in a Venice bar. He never talked much there. Later I got to know him at several of Duane’s parties. Duane admires him, a true revolutionary, he claims. I’m not sure I agree but he certainly is interesting.’”

  “That’s the only time Jasper mentioned him?”

  He nodded. “That was his last letter to me.”

  “This Duane is the one who publishes the Venice Vendetta, isn’t he?”

  He nodded again.

  “We’ve got a lot of time before dinner,” I suggested. “Let’s run over and talk with Duane.”

  He tapped the letter. “This is Jasper’s last address. Let’s go there first.”

  It was an ancient frame house of two stories, newly painted, only a few blocks from Denny’s Tavern. The sign next to the door informed us that there was a room for rent. Harley turned the old-fashioned bell crank in the door.

  A normally thin but currently pregnant black woman in a flowered print caftan opened the door a few moments later.

  Harley said, “I am Jasper Belton’s father. My friend, here, is a police officer from San Valdesto. Could we ask you some questions?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Come in.”

  She led us to a small and sparsely furnished room in the front of the house. It now served as a living room but had probably been a front parlor when the house was built.

  We sat on a worn velour-covered couch, she in a matching chair. She said, “Your son was a fine boy, Mr. Belton. I liked him.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I’m afraid I was a bad father. Do you know any of his friends—particularly a man
who calls himself Big Bear?”

  She shook her head. “Jasper’s friends rarely came here. He knew I didn’t like them. Jasper mentioned that man but I never learned his real name.”

  “Was he moody when he was here?”

  “At times,” she said. “Who isn’t—at times? He told me that doctor up in the San Fernando Valley thought he had schizophrenia.” Her smile was sad. “You know what Jasper told him? He told him ‘physician, heal thyself.’ Doctors—! I’ll be going to a midwife.”

  “Was he ever on drugs when he was here?”

  She hesitated.

  “I have to know,” Harley said.

  She nodded. “He was, I’m almost sure, the last week he was here. Before that, if he was, it didn’t show.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing,” she said, “except that I sure miss him.” Tears came to her eyes. “I hope you find that mother-fucking son of a bitch!”

  “I assure you, ma’am,” Harley said in an even voice, “that we intend to find the man you have just described so accurately.”

  He was silent as we walked to my car. After I had started the engine, he said, “Nice lady. I should have married her.”

  “Duane next?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  The office of the Venice Vendetta was a narrow place, sandwiched between a deserted sidewalk restaurant and an adult bookstore.

  A thin youth with a pale complexion and wheat-colored hair was laying out photos on a table on the other side of the counter. He was wearing a pair of old khaki trousers, sandals, and a sweat-stained T-shirt.

  He studied us. “Yes—?”

  “I’m Jasper Belton’s father,” Harley said. “You’re Duane?”

  “Yeah. So? And who’s your friend?”

  “I have a number of names,” I said. “You can call me trouble.”

  “Oh, God!” he said. “A comedian!”

  “And large. We came here to find out the name of the man known locally as Big Bear. We think he’s the man who murdered your friend Jasper.”

  “Jasper—dead?” He came to the counter.

  “Dead,” I said. “Don’t you read the papers?”

  “Not the commercial ones. Jesus!”

  “All we want from you,” I told him, “is the name of the man who calls himself Big Bear.”

  “So help me, I don’t know it. I never knew it.”

  Harley said, “Jasper told me in one of his letters that you admired the man.”

  He nodded. “Oh, yes! Until the bastard left town owing me seventy dollars.”

  I smiled. “I guess he wasn’t the true revolutionary you thought he was.”

  He glared at me. “God damn you, lay off! Jasper was my friend.”

  “So was the man who killed him,” I said. “The man he met through you. Learn to live with that!”

  “You said you think he killed him,” he pointed out. “You don’t know. I have no reason to want to defend him after he stiffed me. But a man is innocent until he is proven guilty.”

  “Yes. Is Big Bear bald? Does he have a scar on his right cheek?”

  He stared at me and nodded.

  “Does he smoke Corinth cigarettes?”

  He nodded again.

  “Do you know where he buys them now? He stopped buying them at Denny’s Tavern.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know where he bought them, then or later.”

  Harley put the list of names on the counter. “Could you help us with the last names and addresses of these friends of Jasper’s? They might have some information we can use.”

  He read the list. “I can do that. All of them are subscribers to my paper.”

  It was still too early for dinner when we came back to the motel. Harley went in to take a shower. I read through the addresses Duane had given us and then phoned Jan.

  “You won’t be home tonight,” she guessed.

  “I won’t. Anything new up there?”

  “Nothing. And with you?”

  “Belton and I are working together. He’s a good man to have along, a retired Marine.”

  “That should make him your kind of man. I miss you, Brock.”

  “It’s mutual. And you be careful! We can’t be sure that man is still in town here.”

  “I’m well protected, sweetie. Mrs. Casey is now sleeping in our bedroom and she brought her dagger along.”

  Harley came in as I hung up.

  “The missus?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “You happily married?”

  “Most of the time. Are you?”

  “Not lately,” he said. “You think maybe I’m trying to transfer my sense of guilt to my wife?”

  I shrugged. “That’s too complicated for me.”

  “Yeh. You know, you and I are a lot alike.”

  I grinned at him. “Maybe we should have asked for a double bed.”

  “Let’s get off that kick, Brock.” He paused. “We’re going to find that bastard, aren’t we?”

  “Or die trying. Did you see much action in the Marines?”

  “I killed a few people.” He took a deep breath. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it. Should we eat here?”

  “We may as well. The food’s not bad and they have a liquor license.”

  He had his standard double bourbon, I a bottle of Beck’s. We both ordered the special of the day, Wiener schnitzel, cottage fries, buttered carrots, and a tossed green salad.

  Over our coffee, he said, “I’m bushed. I spent most of last night driving to San Valdesto after the funeral. Maybe only one or two stops tonight?”

  “Fair enough. It’s been a tiring day for me, too. How about this Fernando Valdez, the guitarist? His address isn’t far from here.”

  “Let’s go.”

  The residence of Fernando Valdez was not a house; it was a converted garage. A long shelf loaded with flowers in pots ran the length of the overhead door. A battered Dodge pickup truck was on the driveway.

  The entrance was on the side of the building. There was no bell. Harley knocked.

  The tall, thin Chicano youth who opened the door was wearing blue cords and a blue work shirt. His long black hair was gathered in a ceramic ring at the back. He was barefoot.

  Harley said, “I’m Jasper’s father and this is a friend of mine. We’re investigating Jasper’s…death.”

  “Come in,” the youth said.

  His dining table was a steel card table, a campers’ stove sat on a table nearby. His bed was an army cot. His clothes were on hangers, strung on a long pole at the far end of the room. There were three chairs for visitors. There was no bathroom or any faucet in sight.

  Harley said, “We’re trying to learn the true name of a man who calls himself Big Bear. We haven’t had much luck.”

  “Neither did any of us,” Fernando said. “I’m sure he had more than one name. I suspect he had a police record and that could be why.”

  Harley said, “He seemed to be admired in your group.”

  “Not by me. He was the one who put Jasper on the hard stuff. Your son, Mr. Belton, never touched the stuff until that creepy bastard put him on it. That’s more than I can say for the rest of Duane’s friends.”

  “Duane told us Big Bear left town owing him seventy dollars.”

  Fernando smiled. “That’s peanuts to Duane. His mama sends him a big fat check every week. She lives in Beverly Hills and he lives in Venice! Gringos!” He smiled again. “Nothing personal, gentlemen.”

  “No offense taken,” Harley said. He took a five-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Fernando. “There’s nothing else you could tell us about Big Bear?”

  Fernando shook his head. Then, “Wait. There was a woman he brought to one of Duane’s parties one night. Damn it, I forget her first name! Her last name was Meredith and I remember the street she told me she lived on. It’s Cervato Way but I can’t remember if she told me the house number. She must have been about sixty and ugly as sin. There ca
n’t be too many people named Meredith on Cervato Way. It’s only about three blocks long and ends at the beach.”

  “Thank you,” Harley said.

  “You’re welcome. I hope you find that bigoted bastard. If you do, give him a shot for me.”

  “I will,” Harley said. “Thanks, again.”

  Outside, he said, “I’ve had more than enough for today. Let’s hit the sack.”

  I agreed.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE MORNING WEATHER REPORT on the radio could have been a taped replay of the standard San Valdesto report: overcast in the morning, clearing by noon, except along the coast.

  At breakfast, Harley asked, “This Meredith woman first?”

  I nodded. We had found the only Meredith listed on Cervato Way last night in the phonebook—J. Meredith, 267 Cervato Way.

  I nodded.

  “Your car or mine?” he asked.

  “Mine. Traffic here is a little heavier than it is in Sun City.”

  He sighed. “I get the message. When we go out together my wife always insists on driving.”

  “Why don’t you phone her before we take off?”

  “Later,” he said.

  Two sixty-seven Cervato Way was an old one-story frame house flanked by a small convenience store on one side and an older two-story stucco house on the other.

  A thin white-bearded man who could have been older than either house was putting out his trashcan at the curb in front of the larger house when we got out of the car.

  “You guys cops?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Harley said, “Why do you ask?”

  “There was such a rumpus in there last night, I figured somebody must have complained. Such screaming—!”

  “And you phoned the police?”

  “Not me, mister! I got enough troubles of my own.”

  “Have you seen her this morning?” Harley asked.

  The man shook his head. “But I see her morning paper is still on the sidewalk. She always picks that up early.”

  Harley looked at me and then at the house. I said, “Let’s go up and find out.”

  We went up to the low front porch and rang the bell. No answer. A minute later, Harley rang it again. No answer. He tried the knob. The door was not locked.

  “Should we go in?” he asked.