by Peter Corris
If I'd ever had any thought of going to Pasadena to talk to Hart Sallust's sister that night, the events in Venice cancelled them out. I was frightened. Someone had cashed Charles Tan's chips in the most butal and ruthless manner. I guessed that the fracas in the street had driven him off, otherwise . . . I didn't like to think about it. Plus, I was worried on May Lin's account. What if Tan had spun some lying story about her? Or me? At the very least, I needed an ally. Where was McVey?
I drove back to Wiltshire and looked the area over carefully before putting the Olds into the car park. I took a small selection of the clothes up to the apartment, mostly the underwear, so that I could keep one hand free for the .38. The desk man had gone off duty; the stairs and corridors were dark and still. I jumped at my own shadow as I moved along to my door. Three quick stabs at the buzzer.
'Who is it?' May Lin's voice. Relief flooded through me.
'It's me.'
She opened the door and turned on a light.
'Richard! My God, darling.'
I hadn't allowed for the impact of my appearance. I was white-faced, twitching and clutching a gun and a handful of black lace underwear. 'May Lin,' I gasped, 'are you all right?'
'Yes, of course. I was worried at not hearing from you all day. But I'm fine. What's happened?' A practical female impulse cut through her concern. 'Are those the only clothes you brought? Richard, that's very romantic, but. . .'
I nearly collapsed into the hallway. She grabbed me and we clung together there for a minute. She smelled and felt wonderful, especially after the unpleasantness of the past few hours. I've been at close quarters with a lot of women in my life, but there was something, well, restorative, about the touch of May Lin's lips. I've never forgotten it. We went down to the car together and hauled back the clothes and records and grog. I realised that I'd eaten nothing since midday, and that my system had been running on coffee, beer, tobacco and adrenalin for almost ten hours.
May Lin did something with the eggs and vegetables and rice that were in the apartment and I wolfed it down along with some of the white wine as I told her about my day. She listened intently and hardly touched the food. When I'd finished eating she broke open a new pack of cigarettes and lit up.
'I spent some of your money on cigarettes,' she said. 'And the rest on vegetables.'
I nodded and lit up the last of my Luckies. 'Tobacco's a vegetable, too,' I said.
After the food and wine we had coffee and some more of our favourite vegetable. May Lin got excited when I told her about Sallust's sister. She wanted to go out there at once. I was feeling mellow and had got around to thinking about the black underwear again.
'I don't know,' I said. 'What if whoever killed Tan is in cahoots with her?'
'At least we could phone.'
'And say what?'
She puffed smoke. 'I don't know. Anything! We can't just sit here, doing nothing.'
'I'll be honest with you, May Lin. I was thinking of doing just that. Tan had got around to the same thought. But it was a bit late for him. If you'd seen him you might think again.'
'No,' she said fiercely. 'I've seen death. I. . .'
'Where?' I said.
'In San Francisco. I lived there for a few years. There were fights between the Tongs. People got killed, relatives, friends. We Chinese are used to death.'
'So are we Irish,' I said. 'That doesn't mean we go looking for it. Why can't you drop it?'
'It will sound foolish,' she said quietly. 'The revolution in this country was so long ago and you, you're an Australian. Was there ever a revolution in Australia?'
I tried to remember the school history books. They were all about English history. A few revolutions there, I seemed to recall, but a long way back and the same people seemed to stay in charge. We had the Eureka stockade, but it was all over in an hour or so. 'I don't think so,' I said.
'I hate the Manchus and the Japanese. I would do anything to keep them from getting control of China.'
'We're fighting the Japs,' I said. 'They'll get beaten.'
'Hah! The Americans will do a deal with the Japanese. They have already done a deal with them.'
'Come on. Pearl Harbor was. . .'
'Part of a deal to get America into the war. The big corporations will profit and America and Japan and Russia will carve up the world after Germany is beaten.'
I stared at her. All this was well over my head. Looking back, maybe she was right, in a cockeyed way. In any case, she wasn't going to listen to any arguments, even if I'd had any. There's only one way to deal with a fanatic—retreat and negotiate.
'Okay,' I said. 'I understand. China forever. Okay. I'm not going to kid you, love. I'm scared of what we're up against here.'
It was the first time in my life I'd told a woman I was afraid. There was no doubt, I was crazy in love with her. We were sitting on the sofa and had drawn apart as we talked. Now she came close and put her hand on my cheek. 'You said "we".'
I nodded. 'I'm with you. But we have to be careful. I'll call Beatrice Trudeau and play it by ear. That's if she answers.'
'What if she doesn't?'
'We go to bed and make love. Tomorrow I try to find Pete McVey and his great big gun. Deal?'
'Deal,' she said. 'Now dial.'
I dialled the Pasadena number. It rang in the way that tells you no-one is going to answer. I held the handpiece for May Lin to listen.
'Okay,' she said. 'You win. But tomorrow we find her, with or without McVey.'
'Right. But tonight. . .'
'I told you you'd won. The underwear?'
I nodded. 'You mind?'
She kissed me, hard. 'I'm no blushing virgin, Richard, you know that. I played around with a guy once who told me in the end that what he really wanted was to do it with my shoes. I minded that. There didn't seem to be any point in being in the room. But if you want to lift and lower a little silk and lace, that's fine with me. In fact, I'll love it.'
'Maybe you'd like me to keep my hat on,' I said.
In the morning, I rang Pete McVey's number in Santa Barbara and got nothing. I called Bobby Silk's office and got Miss Dupre, his personal secretary and my personal enemy. She liked me when I was in work. I asked her if Bobby was in and she said no, which didn't necessarily mean anything. I asked if he'd received a communication from Mr Peter McVey lately and she said she thought so.
Paper rustled. 'Is yesterday lately?'
'Yes.'
'He sent a telegram from San Francisco asking for more money. Mr Silkstein told me to ignore it.'
'What's the address?'
'Jack Tarr hotel.'
She gave me the number. I thanked her, hung up and called the Jack Tarr. May Lin was in the shower; I could hear the water running. I thought about a few of the things we'd done in the night. I wondered if lipstick washed off easily. The phone rang a long time, then Pete's voice came through like a buzz saw with a broken tooth.
'Yeah?' He coughed rackingly. 'McVey.'
'Pete? It's Browning. You sound like hell.'
'I drank too much last night. Chinese whisky. You calling for Silkstein?'
'No, he's dropped the Sallust case. He's lost interest. How far did you get?'
'Nowhere. The Cheng broad left for Hawaii yesterday. I was asking for more dough to follow her.'
'He won't give you any. Listen, Pete, it's got very sticky this end. People are dead.'
'Who?'
'Charles Tan, for one.'
'He wasn't people in my book. You still on it?'
'Sort of, yes. I need your help.'
'Who're we working for?'
I glanced up as May Lin came out of the bathroom. She was naked, rubbing at her hair. The lipstick had gone. Her small, tight breasts were lifted up high; her body was the colour of Australian beach sand and her eyes glittered green in the morning light. I almost dropped the phone.
'Browning? You there?'
'Yes, Pete. Yes, I'm here. I'm . . . ah, getting five hundred a week from Pa
ramount. I guess we could be working for me.'
'I don't follow.'
May Lin came across the room, walking tiptoe on bare feet, and kissed me. She bent and tickled my left ear with the hard bud of her right nipple.
'Don't worry, Pete,' I mumbled. 'Just get back here. I'm at the Bryson. . .'
'The Bryson! What happened to the Wilcox?'
The nipple moved around towards my mouth. 'I'll explain. The Bryson. Leave now. You'll be here at three, right?'
'Make it two,' Pete said. 'This I gotta see.'
I dropped the phone. I opened my mouth to receive May Lin's thrusting breast. She danced away from me on those high-arched feet. I lurched after her and caught her in the bedroom.
'Underwear?' she said.
I reached for her. 'To hell with underwear.'
The phone rang. May Lin suddenly looked serious; she waved at me. 'Go.'
I went. That woman could make me do anything, up, down and sideways. I grabbed the phone and barked, 'Yes?'
It was Loren Duke, the Texan. 'Browning?' he drawled. 'Hope I'm not interrupting anything.'
I had to go to the studio for a briefing from Joe Herman and Farrow on how our little deception was shaping. We met in an office in the administration building. They were satisfied. I wasn't very interested, except when they mentioned the Australian trip.
'That still on the cards?' I said.
Farrow frowned. 'You sound too American.'
'I can fix that, mate,' I said. 'Over-bloody-night, if I have to. How about it? She still a goer?'
'That's better,' Farrow said.
Herman puffed cigar smoke. 'Yes. It is a good idea. Some details to work out still. Mr Browning, you were seen talking to some writers in the commissary the other day.'
'So?' I said.
Herman's fat face reminded me of Buddha statues I'd seen in Chinese restaurants. 'What were you talking about? Not this project, I hope.'
Herman had hired Sallust to write whatever he liked, on salary. And now here he was, masterminding this charade. Was there a connection? I took a chance. 'No, Mr Herman,' I said. 'We were talking about Chinese history. Recent history, that is.'
Herman raised his cigar and took a draw. He expelled the smoke in a long plume. If it meant anything, I sure as hell didn't know what it was.
21
I was all through at the studio by one-thirty and I told Loren Duke I was going to have a late lunch in the commissary. He ambled off to look at some horses, maybe eat with them. I drove out of the car park fast and headed back to Wiltshire, thinking that May Lin and I might have time for a quick one before Pete McVey arrived. There was a smash-up on Melrose and the traffic was slowed to a crawl. I sweated and smoked and cursed bad drivers. It was close to three when I got to the Bryson and Pete was already there. That is to say, he was parked in his Packard across the street. When he saw the Olds he got out and waved at me. I swung the car into the parking lot and came back out to the street on foot.
We shook hands. McVey had a three-day stubble and was wearing what looked like a five-day shirt. He smelled of neglect and looked hungry and thirsty.
'Browning,' he said, 'you look like you're doing okay. You keeping honest?'
'Trying to. Come on up and I'll introduce you to my razor and some soap.'
The desk man was back on duty. He'd now seen me in the company of a Texan, a Chinese and a hobo. He must've been wondering what next. We went up to the apartment and May Lin opened the door. I half expected McVey to go for his gun, but he took off his hat instead. Maybe he was too tired for gunplay.
'Mr McVey,' May Lin said.
Pete said, 'Ma'am,' and turned to look at me.
I shrugged. 'Life is strange.'
'Ain't it though.' McVey lapsed into his country boy role as he entered the apartment. He looked at the carpet and clean walls and windows as if he'd never seen the like before. 'You said something about a razor and soap.'
I pointed to the bathroom. 'I can probably find you a shirt as well. Might be a bit snug.'
'Your size'd be fine,' Pete said. 'I've lost some weight.'
He had too. I caught a glimpse of his bony back as I tossed a shirt into the bathroom. May Lin made some coffee in the time off she got from kissing me. We sat in the kitchen, smoking and smiling at each other.
'I tried the number again,' she said.
'And?'
'Nothing. Then I got to thinking. You said she was a librarian. So I rang a few libraries. She works at the public library in Los Feliz.'
'Closer than Pasadena,' I said.
'Yes. But she called in sick three days ago. She said she had a cold and needed a day in bed.'
'Colds can be a bitch,' I said.
May Lin stubbed out her Tarelton. 'Right. They usually don't stop you answering the phone, though.'
We filled Pete in on this little development when he came out of the bathroom with his face shaved, his hair wet, and one of my best shirts almost fitting him. I was feeling a bunch of mixed emotions—besotted by May Lin, glad to have McVey at my side, even if he did seem a little frayed at the edges, and apprehensive about what we might encounter in Pasadena. It would have been nicer to be able to play along with the studio fairy tale, take the trip to Australia, come back by some slow, safe means of transportation. Business before pleasure, but Pete had asked the right question. Whose business was it?
He didn't like to ask, but he needed money for gas. I gave him some. We checked our guns, put on our hats and left the apartment. I was glad to see that McVey still had his big piece and plenty of ammunition. May Lin was wearing wide-leg slacks, medium heels and a silk blouse. She had a light, Chinese-style jacket around her shoulders. No gun. Pete said he'd taken the train back to Santa Barbara and collected the Packard there. He must have been very low on funds because the needle was on empty. We gassed up and headed for Pasadena. Pete drove.
'No offence, Ma'am,' he said after a mile or two, 'but I'm not sure you should be along.'
I knew that was a waste of breath. 'Might need a woman's touch,' I said.
In the 1940s, as now, Pasadena seemed to be mainly mansions, but that was an illusion. There were back streets and small subdivisions where ordinary folk lived. Not poor folk, but people who worked for a living and could pay a decent rent. It was not unknown for movie stars and executives to park their boyfriends and girlfriends hereabouts. Shakespeare was a narrow street that curved and climbed and wound up almost in Arcadia. Beatrice Trudeau's house was at the Arcadia end. The foothills were only a short scamper away for a lively coyote. The house was a modest brick bungalow set on a block that featured my kind of garden—mostly fruit trees, not much lawn and some identifiable flowers like roses and that kind of stuff. It had a big porch in the front with a waist-high wall. I couldn't help thinking what a good wall it would be to hide behind and shoot from.
The afternoon shadows were long; it was a little too early for the honest people to be back home, a little late for the lunch-time philanderers to be paying calls. Generally speaking, the driveways were empty. Pete passed the house and checked out the rest of the street. It ended in a dirt road that had some kind of gate across it with a sign warning trespassers not to trespass. All the houses were well back from the road and some had high hedges. If you had to go calling on a woman you didn't know, carrying guns and not knowing quite what you were going to talk about, this was a good place to do it.
We parked across Miss Trudeau's driveway. I had to admire McVey's technique. There was a garage at the end of the drive with the rear end of a Dodge or Buick sticking out of it. No chance of it getting away now. Pete looked like he wanted to tell May Lin to wait in the car but she got out before he could open his mouth. I was last out, but I walked up the driveway ahead of May Lin trying to shield her. I was in love, remember. Up the brick steps to the porch. No-one behind the wall. No sound either, apart from birds and insects and the sound of leaves being stirred by a light wind. I wondered if Pasadena meant peaceful25, because t
hat's certainly what it was just then.
McVey waved to us to stand clear of the door. He flattened himself against the wall beside it and knocked. No answer. Another knock. Same result. Pete tried the handle; it turned and the door opened an inch. He waited, then lifted his finger to his lips. His mime indicated that I should stand guard here while he snuck around the back. I felt very scared all of a sudden. What if Tan's killer was inside with a blowtorch? But May Lin's eyes were on me. I nodded, gestured for her to keep clear of any possible lines of fire and hefted the .38. After a few minutes I heard movement inside the house. Then McVey's voice came from inside the door.
'It's me,' he said. 'Come on in.'
We went inside. It was dark and had a shut-up smell, as if no windows or doors had been opened for a week.
'Is she here?' May Lin said.
McVey gestured with his gun towards the back of the house. 'Yup.'
We trooped down a passage that had two rooms off it, into a sitting room and then the kitchen. The place was a complete contradiction—a neat, formal arrangement that looked as if a hurricane had hit it. Everything was in a shambles—dresser doors and drawers opened and smashed, glasses and crockery shattered, kitchen linen in shreds, cookbooks likewise. The surprising thing was the number of gin bottles lying around—there must have been a dozen or so, also a few fifths of Wild Turkey and quite a few short dogs of muscatel. All the bottles were empty.
I picked one up and sniffed it. It hadn't been empty long. 'Sallust?'
McVey shook his head. 'Naw. This is a woman's drinking. You ever notice that? When a woman drinks she soaks up everything in sight?'
'For God's sake,' May Lin almost screamed, 'where is she?'
Pete pointed to a door that led to an enclosed section of the back porch. I opened the door. The area had been partly built in with lining board and there were a couple of big sliding windows with insect-proof screens across them. The room caught the sun in the afternoon and it was still hot even though the direct sunlight had gone. There were closely-packed bookshelves, a desk, a cane easy chair and a single bed. It was a room set up for reading and writing. Beatrice Trudeau was lying supine on the bed. I recognised her from the one time I'd met her several years before. She'd changed; she'd grown more angular and harsh-faced. Mind you, she wasn't looking her best. She wore a floral print dress and a knife was sticking through one of the flowers, right above her heart. A stain spread around her like another flower, a big, dark red one.