1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead (18 page)

‘Is he coming back here?’

‘Yes’

‘When?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Anita was shot last night.’

He flinched, and his small eyes receded in their sockets.

‘Shot? Is she dead?’

‘Yeah. There was a Colt .45 found near her. What gun did Thayler use?’

‘I don’t know. A big gun. I don’t know anything about guns.’

I shrugged and moved away from him.

‘I can’t think of anything else, can you?’ I asked Kerman.

Kerman shook his head.

‘What shall we do with the rat?’

‘I’ll fix him. Give me those photographs on the desk.’

Kerman picked up the prints, glanced at them, grimaced, and handed them to me.

‘Here, write your name on the back of these,’ I said to Louis.

As Kerman reached for the blow-lamp, Louis hurriedly scrawled his name on the back of each print. I took them from him, slipped them into an envelope I found on the table, scribbled D.D.C. Dunnigan’s name on the envelope and put it in my pocket.

‘I’m handing these to Police Headquarters,’ I told Louis. ‘They’ve been waiting to get their hooks into you.’ I turned to Kerman. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

Kerman stood over Louis.

‘Benny was a pal of mine,’ he said, in a low, flat voice.

‘Here’s something to remember him by,’ and he shoved the flame of the blow-lamp in Louis’s face.

I
arrived back at Orchid City as dusk was falling and went straight to the office. Paula was still there, and as I pushed open the office door she glanced up from a paper-strewn desk with an expression of relief and expectancy on her face.

‘What news?’ she asked. ‘And how’s the head?’

‘The head could do with a drop of Scotch,’ I told her, dropping into an armchair near her desk. ‘Be a nice girl and fix me a drink. Things are popping, but there’s some way to go yet. At least I know who killed Benny. A guy named Lee Thayler. He’s either here in Orchid City or he’s returned to Frisco. I’ve left Kerman to watch that end.’

‘Thayler?’ Paula repeated, as she opened the desk cupboard and hoisted into view a bottle of Haig, a glass and a carafe of water. ‘Who’s he and where does he fit in?’

‘He’s Anita’s husband,’ I said, reaching for the bottle. ‘I haven’t found him yet, but I’m going after him. I may run into a little trouble with him. He’s kind of cute with a rod. Maybe it’d be an idea for you to make a few notes just in case. If I step into anything too big to handle it will help Mifflin to clear up the mess to know some of the facts. But don’t tell him anything unless things do happen.’

Paula stared at me; her dark eyes opening wide.

‘Now don’t get excited,’ I said, pouring myself a drink.

‘This is just a precaution. Got your notebook?’

‘But, Vic . . . ‘ she began, but I waved her to silence.

‘I want this down fast. I haven’t a lot of time to waste.’

She pulled her notebook towards her and picked up her pencil.

‘Go ahead,’ she said, a resigned expression on her face. ‘I’m ready when you are.’

‘The scene is San Francisco,’ I began; ‘the time two years ago in early June.’ I watched her pencil fly over the page, making sure I wasn’t going too fast for her. ‘A strip-tease artist, calling herself Anita Broda, blows into town from Hollywood. Her act has been a little raw for Hollywood’s night clubs, and the Vice Squad has sent her packing. She goes the rounds in Frisco, trying to get an engagement, but the night clubs are scared of her. Finally, she gets an introduction to Nick Nedick who runs a third-rate vaudeville show on the corner of Bayshore and Third. He takes a chance on her, and gives her a week’s tryout. She clicks in a big way, and after her third week has her name in lights across the front of the house.

‘Most of the acts Nedick engages fade away after the first or second week, but the customers rave about Anita so she becomes a permanent feature, heading the top of the bill for a record run of eighteen months.

‘There’s another act, not so successful as Anita, but good enough to remain as a second permanent feature, put on by a guy named Lee Thayler, a trick sharpshooter, and his partner, a girl called Gail Bolus.’

Paula looked up sharply, blinked, and asked, ‘Isn’t that the girl ...?’

‘Yeah, the same one,’ I said. ‘Let’s get straight on. This stuff’s loaded with dynamite. You’ll get another surprise in a moment.’

‘Go ahead,’ she said.

‘Thayler and Anita fall for each other, and Thayler decides to quit show business and buys himself a piece in a photographer’s shop, specializing in theatrical work.

‘The owner of the shop is a guy named Louis, who makes money on the side as a blackmailer. Thayler is probably mixed up in the racket. The shop isn’t much, and two wouldn’t make much of a living out of it unless there was more to it than the photographer’s business.’

I paused for a moment to give Paula time to catch up, then went on, Thayler marries Anita on 8th November of last year. Gail Bolus quits show business. A month later Anita leaves Thayler. Maybe they didn’t hit it off. I don’t know. Anyway, she gets a job as a mannequin at Simeon’s swank dress shop on 19th Avenue. It’s here she meets Cerf.

‘Cerf, as you know, lost his wife a couple of years back in a car accident. He has a sick daughter on his hands, and life isn’t much fun. Anita spreads her net, and he walks into it. He offers marriage.

‘Anita talks it over with Thayler, who’s quick to see the advantage of her being hooked up with a millionaire. He tells Anita to go ahead and marry Cerf. He promises to keep out of the way providing he gets a take on whatever Anita gets out of Cerf, and she intends to get plenty. Anita marries Cerf: a bigamous marriage, of course, and goes to live with him at Santa Rosa Estate.

‘I’ve made inquiries about Anita, and can’t find anyone who’ll support Cerf’s suspicions that she was a kleptomaniac I spent a couple of hours before leaving Frisco, talking to people who knew and worked with her, and none of them ever suspected that Anita had this tendency. I am now pretty sure that the suitcase of stolen articles was planted in her cupboard to discredit her with Cerf. The only person who had reason to discredit her is Natalie, Cerf’s daughter, who would have lost half the estate if Anita had lived.

‘But we’ll leave that because I haven’t had time to tackle Natalie yet. I’m satisfied that Anita’s association with Barclay has nothing to do with the case. She found Cerf dull, and probably an unsatisfactory lover, and turned to Barclay for a little spare-time fun. She was the type. I’m pretty sure Barclay doesn’t figure in this, although there’s still the problem why Dana’s clothes were hidden in his house. It’s my guess they were planted there by the killer to divert suspicion, but that’s guesswork.’

Paula paused long enough to ask, ‘What happened to Benny, Vic?’

‘Yeah, Benny. Get this down. Benny had no idea Louis was hooked up with Anita. He went to the shop and into trouble. Thayler happened to be there. As soon as he heard Benny ask questions about Anita, he came out with a gun. Anita had already told Thayler she was being watched by Universal Services. Thayler was jittery. He had been to Orchard City hoping to see Anita on the night Dana was murdered, but hadn’t contacted her. On his return to Frisco he was in a state of nerves, and when Benny turned up he lost his head and knocked Benny off. Then he caught the ten o’clock plane to Orchid City. Maybe he decided the safest thing would be to silence Anita. I don’t know. The point is he was on the spot when Anita was killed. Whether he killed her or not is something I have still to find out. I’m sure he was the guy who sapped me when I found Anita. He may have taken her body. I don’t know. These are the first pieces of the jigsaw that mean anything, but they don’t make a complete picture. There’s a lot of work to do before we do get a complete picture:’

I finished my drink, got up and began to pace the floor.

‘If I can find out why Dana was murdered,’ I went on, ‘and why Anita Cerf left the diamond necklace in Dana’s apartment I think we’ll have the answer. I think those two points are the framework of our jigsaw. If we can only find the answers to them the rest of the bits will fall into place. I want to find out too why Anita was scared when I found her at L’Etoile, and why she was hiding there. And why she was murdered and what s become of her body. There are a hell of a lot of things I want to find out.’

‘How about Gail Bolus?’ Paula asked, laying down her pencil. ‘Where does she fit in in this?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, sitting on the edge of her desk. ‘On the face of it I think she’s still hooked up with Thayler. The way she turned up after I had been sapped was too much of a coincidence to be an accident. It’s something I’m going to find out.’ I reached for a cigarette and lit it. ‘Another thing: I have an idea Caesar Mills is mixed up somewhere in this business. It’s a hunch, but it’s a strong one. It’s time I went out to his place at Fairview and looked the joint over. Maybe it’s a waste of time, but it’ll set my mind at rest.’

‘We haven’t a lot of time to waste, Paula said. Brandon is raising hell over Leadbetter’s killing. He wants to see you. They’ve matched the bullet that killed Leadbetter with the one that killed Dana. You’ll have to watch out, Vic. Brandon’s in a dangerous mood.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, and scowled. ‘Right now I’ll have to see what I can do about Thayler, but I’ll take care of Mills at the same time. The point is I can’t go chasing all over town looking for Thayler. He may be here or he may have gone back to Frisco. It might take me weeks to run him down.’ I sat thinking for a moment, then reached for the telephone.

‘Finnegan’s an old friend of Dana’s. He offered to help. I believe he could find Thayler. He has contacts among the mobs in town.’ I dialled Finnegan’s number, waited, and when Finnegan’s growling voice came over the line, I said, ‘Pat, there’s something you can do. I want to contact a guy named Lee Thayler. He may or may not be in town. He’s a trick sharpshooter, blackmailer and possibly a murderer. It’ll be worth a couple of hundred bucks to anyone who let’s me know where he is to be found.’

‘Well, all right, Mr. Malloy,’ Finnegan said. ‘I’ll pass the word round. If he’s in town, I’ll find him. How about a description?’

‘I’ll do better than that. On my way out I’ll leave a photo of him for you. It’s urgent, Pat. He has something to do with Dana’s killing.’

‘Let me have the photo,’ Finnegan said, his voice hard, ‘I’ll find him for you if he’s to be found.’

I thanked him and hung up.

‘That takes care of Thayler,’ I said, and slid off the desk.

‘Now, while I’m waiting, I think I’ll take a look at Mills. Get these notes typed, Paula, and put them in the safe. And another thing, take that diamond necklace over to Cerf and get a receipt for it. We should have done that before. If Brandon heard about it and found it here we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. In Cerf’s hands it doesn’t become evidence anymore.’

Paula said she would do that right away.

‘Well, so long,’ I said, making for the door. ‘If I run into trouble turn the whole works over to Mifflin,’ and before she could fuss, I left the office an
d went pelting down the stairs.

B
eechwood Avenue, a three-mile long, two-way street, separated by a parkway planted with magnolia trees, climbed snakelike up the hill at the back of Fairview and down into the valley to the San Francisco and Los Angeles Highway. It was a quiet, backwater street, lined on either side by stately houses, white columned with balconies and lofty porticos.

No. 235, Caesar Mills’s residence, hid behind white stucco walls. The moonlight was bright enough for me to read the chromium numbers on the seven-foot gate as I drove past.

All I could see of the house was its green-tiled roof.

About two hundred yards farther on I saw a cul-de-sac, leading to one of the bigger estates, and I drove into it, pulled up close to the kerb, turned out all but the parking lights and got out.

It was a hot, still night and quiet, and the air was heavy with the scent of flowers growing in the hidden gardens and from the magnolia trees in the parkway: a nice secluded spot for courting couples or burglars.

I walked casually towards No. 235, without hurrying, like a man taking a little exercise before going to bed. It was twenty minutes past ten. I was feeling flatfooted and tired, and the heat bothered me. I had a feeling, too, that I was wasting time; that I had no business to be out here. I should be concentrating on Lee Thayler, or better still in bed, getting some sleep to be ready for whatever happened in the morning.

I paused outside the seven-foot gate to look up and down the street. There was no one around, and I lifted the latch, pushed open the gate and peered at a small, well-kept garden, flood-lit by the moon. Facing me was a one-and-a-half-storey frame house with the chimney at each end, six wooden columns supporting a verandah roof, broken by three dormers that extended across the front of the building.

Four casement windows opened on to the verandah, and lights spilled through the windows. It looked as if Caesar Mills was at home.

I decided, now I was here, to take a peep at him, and I crept along the garden path to the verandah and looked in through the nearest window.

One glance showed me that Mills lived in style. The room was designed for comfort, and money had been lavished on it. Chinese rugs lay on the parquet floor. Two big chesterfields, four lounging chairs and a divan were arranged about the room. A walnut table, loaded with bottles and glasses stood against one of the walls. Lamps with parchment shades made pools of subdued light on the polished floor and the rugs. It was a nice room: a room furnished with taste. The kind of room anyone could be happy in.

Caesar Mills sat in one of the armchairs, a cigarette between his lips, a tall, frost-filmed glass of whisky in his hand.

He was wearing a navy blue, silk dressing-gown, white silk pyjamas and his bare feet were thrust into heelless slippers He was reading a magazine, and by the bored frown on his face, he didn’t seem to think much of it.

I wondered if it would be worthwhile to wait. I wanted badly to get into the house and look it over, but I didn’t feel like taking risks, nor did I feel like getting into a rough house with Mills. But there was a chance he would go to bed before long so I decided I’d give him half an hour and see what happened.

I picked a spot in the shadows and sat down on the edge of a big stone tub full of petunias and waited. From where I sat I could see into the room and I could see Mills, sure he couldn’t see me.

Twenty minutes dragged by. I knew it was twenty minutes because I kept looking at my watch, and thinking how nice it would be to go home and get some sleep. It wasn’t much fun watching Mills taking it easy in an armchair while I sat on the edge of a stone tub with an ache in my head and a pain in my back. But I was playing a hunch, and I was obstinate, so I waited, and after a while he tossed aside the magazine and stood up.

I was hoping he was going to lock up for the night, but instead he went over to the bottles on the walnut table and freshened his drink. Watching the whisky run out of the bottle made my throat twitch with envy. I was hot and tired, and I could have done with that drink.

Then as he returned to his chair, I saw him pause and cock his head on one side and listen. I listened too.

The sound of a car coming fast disturbed the quiet of the night. Mills put down his glass, went over to the big mirror above the fireplace and took a look at himself, then he stood, waiting.

The car drew up outside the garden gate, a car door slammed and the latch of the gate clicked up.

By now I was on my feet. I stepped back into the darkness made by the shadow of the house. I heard the gate swing to, and footsteps come along the path: quick, light steps of a woman.

I waited, squeezed against the wall, looking from the darkness into the brilliantly lit garden. A woman came round the corner of the house: a woman in fawn linen slacks and an apple-green sports shirt, worn outside the slacks. She was bare headed and carried a handbag made of fawn linen to match her slacks.

She passed close to me, and I caught the fragrance of her perfume. The moonlight was harsh on her white, pinched face. There was an unhappy little sneer on her lips.

She walked briskly across the verandah and into the room.

As soon as she was out of sight, I took out my handkerchief and mopped my face and hands. I wasn’t tired anymore. My head no longer ached. I felt pretty pleased with myself. It’s always good to play a hunch and prove yourself right.

The woman in the fawn linen slacks and the apple-green sports shir
t was, of course, Natalie Cerf.