Two-thirds of the way back to town I stopped at the foot of Alessandro Street and tucked myself into a drugstore phone booth. I dialed Howard Melton’s office number.
A chirpy voice said: “Doreme Cosmetic Company. Good afternoowun.”
“Mr. Melton.”
“I’ll connect you with his secretary,” sang the voice of the little blonde who had been off in the corner, out of harm’s way.
“Miss Van De Graaf speaking.” It was a nice drawl that could get charming or snooty with the change of a quarter-tone. “Who is calling Mr. Melton, please?”
“John Dalmas.”
“Ah—does Mr. Melton know you, Mr.—ah—Dalmas?”
“Don’t start that again,” I said. “Ask him, girlie. I can get all the ritzing I need at the stamp window.”
Her intaken breath almost hurt my eardrum.
There was a wait, a click, and Melton’s burly businesslike voice said: “Yes? Melton talking. Yes?”
“I have to see you quick.”
“What’s that?” he barked.
“I said what you heard. There have been what the boys call developments. You know who you’re talking to, don’t you?”
“Oh—yes. Yes. Well, let me see. Let me look at my desk calendar.”
“To hell with your desk calendar,” I said. “This is serious. I have enough sense not to break in on your day, if it wasn’t.”
“Athletic Club—ten minutes,” he said crisply. “Have me paged in the reading room.”
“I’ll be a little longer than that.” I hung up before he could argue.
I was twenty minutes as a matter of fact.
The hop in the lobby of the Athletic Club scooted neatly into one of the old open-cage elevators they have there and was back in no time at all with a nod. He took me up to the fourth floor and showed me the reading room.
“Around to the left, sir.”
The reading room was not built principally for reading. There were papers and magazines on a long mahogany table and leather bindings behind glass on the walls and a portrait of the club’s founder in oil, with a hooded light over it. But mostly the place was little nooks and corners with enormous sloping high-backed leather chairs, and old boys snoozing in them peacefully, their faces violet with old age and high blood pressure.
I sneaked quietly around to the left. Melton sat there, in a private nook between shelves, with his back to the room, and the chair, high as it was, not high enough to hide his big dark head. He had another chair drawn up beside him. I slipped into it and gave him the eye.
“Keep your voice down,” he said. “This place is for after-luncheon naps. Now, what is it? When I employed you, it was to save me bother, not to add bother to what I already have.”
“Yeah,” I said, and put my face close to his. He smelled of highballs, but nicely. “She shot him.”
His stiff eyebrows went up a little. His eyes got the stony look. His teeth clamped. He breathed softly and twisted one large hand on his knee and looked down at it.
“Go on,” he said, in a voice the size of a marble.
I craned back over the top of the chair. The nearest old geezer was snoozling lightly and blowing the fuzz in his nostrils back and forth with each breath.
“I went out there to Goodwin’s place. No answer. Tried the back door. Open. Walked in. Radio turned on, but muted. Two glasses with drinks. Smashed photo on floor below mantel. Goodwin in chair shot dead at close range. Contact wound. Gun on floor by his right hand. Twenty-five automatic—a woman’s gun. He sat there as if he had never known it. I wiped glasses, gun, doorknobs, put his prints where they should be, left.”
Melton opened and shut his mouth. His teeth made a grating noise. He made fists of both hands. Then he looked steadily at me with hard black eyes.
“Photo,” he said thickly.
I reached it out of my pocket and showed it to him, but I held on to it.
“Julia,” he said. His breath made a queer, sharp keening sound and his hand went limp. I slipped the photo back into my pocket. “What then?” he whispered.
“All. I may have been seen, but not going in or coming out. Trees in back. The place is well shaded. She have a gun like that?”
His head drooped and he held it in his hands. He held still for a while, then pushed it up and spread his fingers on his face and spoke through them at the wall we were facing.
“Yes. But I never knew her to carry it. I suppose he ditched her, the dirty rat.” He said it quietly without heat.
“You’re quite a guy,” he said. “It’s a suicide now, eh?”
“Can’t tell. Without a suspect they’re apt to handle it that way. They’ll test his hand with paraffin to see if he fired the gun. That’s routine now. But it sometimes doesn’t work, and without a suspect they may let it ride anyway. I don’t get the photo angle.”
“I don’t either,” he whispered, still talking between his fingers. “She must have got panicked up very suddenly.”
“Uh-huh. You realize I’ve put my head in a bag, don’t you? It’s my license if I’m caught. Of course there’s a bare chance it was suicide. But he doesn’t seem the type. You’ve got to play ball, Melton.”
He laughed grimly. Then he turned his head enough to look at me, but still kept his hands on his face. The gleam of his eyes shot through his fingers.
“Why did you fix it up?” he asked quietly.
“Damned if I know. I guess I took a dislike to him—from that photo. He didn’t look worth what they’d do to her—and to you.”
“Five hundred, as a bonus,” he said.
I leaned back and gave him a stony stare. “I’m not trying to pressure you. I’m a fairly tough guy—but not in spots like this. Did you give me everything you had?”
He said nothing for a long minute. He stood up and looked along the room, put his hands in his pockets, jingled something, and sat down again.
“That’s the wrong approach—both ways,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking of blackmail—or offering to pay it. It isn’t enough money. These are hard times. You take an extra risk, I offer you an extra compensation. Suppose Julia had nothing to do with it. That might explain the photo being left. There were plenty of other women in Goodwin’s life. But if the story comes out and I’m connected with it at all, the home offices will bounce me. I’m in a sensitive business, and it hasn’t been doing too well. They might be glad of the excuse.”
“That’s different,” I said. “I asked you, did you give me everything you had.”
He looked at the floor. “No. I suppressed something. It didn’t seem important then. And it hurts the position badly now. A few days ago, just after I met Goodwin downtown, the bank called me and said a Mr. Lancelot Goodwin was there to cash a check for one thousand dollars made out to cash by Julia Melton. I told them Mrs. Melton was out of town, but that I knew Mr. Goodwin very well and I saw no objection to cashing the check, if it was in order and he was properly identified. I couldn’t say anything else—in the circumstances. I suppose they cashed it. I don’t know.”
“I thought Goodwin had dough.”
Melton shrugged stiffly.
“A blackmailer of women, huh? And a sappy one at that, to be taking checks. I think I’ll play with you on it, Melton. I hate like hell to see these newspaper ghouls go to town on a yarn like that. But if they get to you, I’m out—if I can get out.”
He smiled for the first time. “I’ll give you the five hundred right now,” he said.
“Nothing doing. I’m hired to find her. If I find her I get five hundred flat—all other bets off.”
“You’ll find me a good man to trust,” he said.
“I want a note to this Haines up at your place at Little Fawn Lake. I want into your cabin. My only way to go at it is as if I’d never been to Chevy Chase.”
He nodded and stood up. He went over to a desk and came back with a note on the club stationery.
Mr. William Haines,
Little Fawn Lake.
Please allow bearer, Mr. John Dalmas, to view my cabin and assist him in all ways to look over the property.
Sincerely
HOWARD MELTON
I folded the note and put it away with my other gatherings from the day. Melton put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll never forget this,” he said. “Are you going up there now?”
“I think so.”
“What do you expect to find?”
“Nothing. But I’d be a sap not to start where the trail starts.”
“Of course. Haines is a good fellow, but a little surly. He has a pretty blonde wife that rides him a lot. Good luck.”
We shook hands. His hand felt clammy as a pickled fish.
3: THE MAN WITH THE PEG LEG
I made San Bernardino in less than two hours and for once in its life it was almost as cool as Los Angeles, and not nearly as sticky. I took on a cup of coffee and bought a pint of rye and gassed up and started up the grade. It was overcast all the way to Bubbling Springs. Then it suddenly got dry and bright and cool air blew down the gorges, and I finally came to the big dam and looked along the level blue reaches of Puma Lake. Canoes paddled on it, and rowboats with outboard motors and speedboats churned up the water and made a lot of fuss over nothing. Jounced around in their wake, people who had paid two dollars for a fishing license wasted their time trying to catch a dime’s worth offish.
The road turned two ways from the dam. My way was the south shore. It skimmed along high among piled-up masses of granite. Hundred-foot yellow pines probed at the clear blue sky. In the open spaces grew bright green manzanita and what was left of the wild irises and white and purple lupine and bugle flowers and desert paintbrush. The road dropped to the lake level and I began to pass flocks of camps and flocks of girls in shorts on bicycles, on motor scooters, walking all over the highway, or just sitting under trees showing off their legs. I saw enough beef on the hoof to stock a cattle ranch.
Howard Melton had said to turn away from the lake at the old Redlands road, a mile short of Puma Point. It was a frayed asphalt ribbon that climbed into the surrounding mountains. Cabins were perched here and there on the slopes. The asphalt gave out and after a while a small, narrow dirt road sneaked off to my right. A sign at its entrance said: Private Road to Little Fawn Lake. No Trespassing. I took it and crawled around big bare stones and past a little waterfall and through yellow pines and black oaks and silence. A squirrel sat on a branch and tore a fresh pine cone to pieces and sent the pieces fluttering down like confetti. He scolded at me and beat one paw angrily on the cone.
The narrow road swerved sharply around a big tree trunk and then there was a five-barred gate across it with another sign. This one said: Private—No Admittance.
I got out and opened the gate and drove through and closed it again. I wound through trees for another couple of hundred yards. Suddenly below me was a small oval lake that lay deep in trees and rocks and wild grass, like a drop of dew caught in a furled leaf. At the near end there was a yellow concrete dam with a rope handrail across the top and an old mill wheel at the side. Near that stood a small cabin of native wood covered with rough bark. It had two sheet-metal chimneys and smoke lisped from one of them. Somewhere an axe thudded.
Across the lake, a long way by the road and the short way over the dam, there was a large cabin close to the water and two others not so large, spaced at wide intervals. At the far end, opposite the dam, was what looked like a small pier and band pavilion. A warped wooden sign on it read: Camp Kilkare. I couldn’t see any sense in that, so I walked down a path to the bark-covered cabin and pounded on the door.
The sound of the axe stopped. A man’s voice yelled from somewhere behind. I sat down on a big stone and rolled an unlit cigarette around in my fingers. The owner of the cabin came around its side with an axe in his hands. He was a thick-bodied man, not very tall, with a dark, rough, unshaven chin, steady brown eyes and grizzled hair that curled. He wore blue denim pants and a blue shirt open on a muscular brown neck. When he walked he seemed to give his right foot a little kick outwards with each step. It swung out from his body in a shallow arc. He walked slowly and came up to me, a cigarette dangling from his thick lips. He had a city voice.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Haines?”
“That’s me.”
“I have a note for you.” I took it out and gave it to him. He threw the axe to one side and looked squintingly at the note, then turned and went into the cabin. He came out wearing glasses, reading the note as he came.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “From the boss.” He studied the note again. “Mr. John Dalmas, huh? I’m Bill Haines. Glad to know you.” We shook hands. He had a hand like a steel trap.
“You want to look around and see Melton’s cabin, huh? What’s the matter? He ain’t selling, for God’s sake?”
I lit my cigarette and flipped the match into the lake. “He has more than he needs here,” I said.
“Land sure. But it says the cabin—”
“He wanted me to look it over. It’s a pretty nice cabin, he says.”
He pointed. “That one over there, the big one. Milled redwood walls, celarex lined and then knotty pine inside. Composition shingle roof, stone foundations and porches, bathroom, shower and toilet. He’s got a spring-filled reservoir back in the hill behind. I’ll say it’s a nice cabin.”
I looked at the cabin, but I looked at Bill Haines more. His eyes had a glitter and there were pouches under his eyes, for all his weathered look.
“You wanta go over now? I’ll get the keys.”
“I’m kind of tired after that long drive up. I sure could use a drink, Haines.”
He looked interested, but shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dalmas, I just finished up a quart.” He licked his broad lips and smiled at me.
“What’s the mill wheel for?”
“Movie stuff. They make a picture up here once in a while. That’s another set down at the end. They made Love Among the Pines with that. The rest of the sets are tore down. I heard the picture flopped.”
“Is that so? Would you join me in a drink?” I brought out my pint of rye.
“Never been heard to say no. Wait’ll I get some glasses.”
“Mrs. Haines away?”
He stared at me with sudden coldness. “Yeah,” he said very slowly. “Why?”
“On account of the liquor.”
He relaxed, but kept an eye on me for a moment longer. Then he turned and walked his stiff-legged walk back into the cabin. He came out with a couple of the little glasses they pack fancy cheese in. I opened my bottle and poured a couple of stiff ones and we sat holding them, Haines with his right leg almost straight out in front of him, the foot twisted a little outwards.
“I copped that in France,” he said, and drank. “Old Pegleg Haines. Well, it got me a pension and it ain’t hurt me with the ladies. Here’s to crime.” He finished his drink.
We set our glasses down and watched a bluejay go up a big pine, hopping from branch to branch without pausing to balance, like a man running upstairs.
“Cold and nice here, but lonely,” Haines said. “Too damn lonely.” He watched me with the corners of his eyes. He had something on his mind.
“Some people like that.” I reached for the glasses and did my duty with them.
“Gets me. I been drinkin’ too much account of it gets me. It gets me at night.”
I didn’t say anything. He put his second drink down in a swift, hard gulp. I passed the bottle to him silently. He sipped his third drink, cocked his head on one side, and licked at his lip.
“Kind of funny what you said there—about Mrs. Haines bein’ away.”
“I just thought maybe we ought to take our bottle out of sight of the cabin.”
“Uh-huh. You a friend of Melton’s?”
“I know him. Not intimately.”
Haines looked across at the big cabin.
“That damn floozie!” he snarled suddenly, hi
s face twisted.
I stared at him. “Lost me Beryl, the damn tart,” he said bitterly. “Had to have even one-legged guys like me. Had to get me drunk and make me forget I had as cute a little wife as ever a guy had.”
I waited, nerves taut.
“The hell with him, too! Leavin’ that tramp up here all alone. I don’t have to live in his goddam cabin. I can live anywheres I like. I got a pension. War pension.”
“It’s a nice place to live,” I said. “Have a drink.”
He did that, turned angry eyes on me. “It’s a lousy place to live,” he snarled. “When a guy’s wife moves out on him and he don’t know where she’s at—maybe with some other guy.” He clenched an iron left fist.
After a moment he unclenched it slowly and poured his glass half full. The bottle was looking pretty peaked by this time. He put his big drink down in a lump.
“I don’t know you from a mule’s hind leg,” he growled, “but what the hell! I’m sick of bein’ alone. I been a sucker—but I ain’t just human. She has looks—like Beryl. Same size, same hair, same walk as Beryl. Hell, they coulda been sisters. Only just enough different—if you get what I mean.” He leered at me, a little drunk now.
I looked sympathetic.
“I’m over there to burn trash,” he scowled, waving an arm. “She comes out on the back porch in pajamas like they was made of cellophane. With two drinks in her hands. Smiling at me, with them bedroom eyes. ‘Have a drink, Bill.’ Yeah. I had a drink. I had nineteen drinks. I guess you know what happened.”
“It’s happened to a lot of good men.”
“Leaves her alone up here, the —— —— ——! While he plays around in L.A. And Beryl walks out on me—two weeks come Friday.”
I stiffened. I stiffened so hard that I could feel my muscles strain all over my body. Two weeks come Friday would be a week ago last Friday. That would be August twelfth—the day Mrs. Julia Melton was supposed to have left for El Paso, the day she had stopped over at the Olympia Hotel down at the foot of the mountains.
The Collected Raymond Chandler Page 246