Bad Samaritan (19 page)

“I’m paying for this,” I told him sternly. “Do you want to eat in here or in the dining room?”

“In here? What are we, hermits? When I eat at the Shamrock, I want people to see me. Where’d you get those threads?”

I was putting on my new sports jacket. “From my tailor, where else?”

“Since when do they have tailors down at the Salvation Army? What goes on here?”

I told him my story, from Homer Gallup’s demise to Mary Serano’s request. And added, “If you want to check my solvency, you can phone Grant Robbins, of Weede, Robbins, McCulloch and Adler. I’m sure you have heard of them.”

“Of course. But why would I check you? Haven’t we always trusted each other?”

I stared at him.

“So, all right! This morning I happened to need the ten in cash. Mimi has put me on a cash basis, and I was hungry, Brock!”

“I’ll feed you in a few minutes. What do you know about this Adult Art outfit? Do you think they might know who we are?”

He shook his head. “Not unless they’re football fans with long memories. They only came to town a month ago. They’re out of Newark.”

“I see. Then their number isn’t unlisted. You called information!”

“But you didn’t. Your money hasn’t made you much smarter, has it?”

“Let’s eat,” I said, “and talk.”

Twenty-nine dollars later, we were back in the room and Amos was on the phone with a Mr. Barry Holly of Adult Art Cinema.

The way Amos explained it, there was this quirky rich guy from San Valdesto who thought there must be a great profit potential in the kind of pictures Adult Art Cinema produced. Would it be possible for him to talk with Mr. Holly today? Perhaps we could all meet for lunch at the Shamrock?

A pause, and then, “All right. You’re on Ivar Street, aren’t you?”

Another pause, and Amos said, “His name is B. Langtry Callahan. His friends call him Loony Lanny. He lives outside of town, in Montevista.” Another pause. “Thank you.” He hung up.

“He’s too busy to have lunch with us. We have an eleven-o’clock appointment. You’re not still driving that little yellow junker, are you?”

I nodded.

“Call the desk,” he said. “Have the man rent us a Rolls with a chauffeur for the day. And call room service for some coffee. We have some thinking to do, and you’re not very good at it.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

At ten-forty-five we were rolling down Sunset Boulevard in a silver Rolls-Royce with a black top, driven by a liveried chauffeur. “You could probably afford one of these now,” Amos said. “But you’ve always had a lot of peasant in you, haven’t you?”

“If you mean I’ve always paid my way, if you mean I never got low enough to stiff some poor woman out of a meal—”

“Cut it out! Mimi is about as poor as an Arab oil Sheikh. I just happen to be going through a bad period.”

“You could try honest labor.”

“Look who’s talking! Morality lectures from a peeper, yet.”

Silence from me. And from him.

After a couple blocks of it, he said, “Name me somebody I hurt who didn’t have it coming. Name me one, you bastard.”

“When you name me one peasant who ever bought you a fifteen-dollar breakfast. I didn’t know you were so sensitive.”

He laughed. “And I didn’t know you were. Hell, man, there are Popes who have had lower moral standards than ours.”

“Not any recent Popes.”

“I’m sorry. I forgot you were Catholic. Buddies, Brock?”

“Blood brothers,” I said. “You bastard.”

The offices of Adult Art Cinema were not impressive, on the first floor of an old stucco building on Ivar. I thought the chauffeur’s nose twitched when Amos told him to keep the car in view of the former store-window front of the place.

“We’re lucky,” Amos said. “This kind of operation usually has that window boarded over. They probably don’t shoot their pictures here.”

There were no chairs in the waiting room, only benches. The muscle boys in their tight pants were sitting in there, some old hookers in tighter pants—and the kids. The sweet, dumb kids hoping for stardom on any stairway available to them.

The office of Barry Holly, vice-president in charge of casting, was on the right, off the front of the room. A prim-looking woman of about fifty in a simple gray dress sat at a small desk next to the door.

“Amos Gilchrist and Mr. Callahan,” Amos said. “We have an appointment.”

“Go right in, gentlemen,” she said.

His office wasn’t much of a change from the waiting room, except that there were chairs in there. Barry Holly stood up from behind his desk as we entered.

He was wide at the hips and narrow across the shoulders, with a thin ferretlike face, sparse hair, and eyes of faded blue. “Which one of you is Mr. Callahan?” he asked.

I reach across the desk to shake his hand.

“From San Valdesto, I understand,” he said. “A beautiful town.”

“A little on the quiet side for me. Do all those young chicks out there work for you?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Be seated, gentlemen.”

It was probably the first time in our lives that Amos or I had been called gentlemen twice in two minutes. We sat down.

So did Barry. “I understand from Mr. Gilchrist that you’d like to invest in a picture.”

I smirked at him. “Why not. Gives me a chance to meet the stars.”

He smiled. “Did you have a figure in mind, Mr. Callahan?”

I shrugged. “Not too heavy. Fifty, sixty thousand, until I see how it pays off. I suppose that’s peanuts.”

“Possibly to M.G.M.,” he said. “Not to us. Most of our pictures are low-budget productions. But they do have the potential for a substantial return of investment. I hope you understand we can’t guarantee anything?”

I nodded. “Mr. Gilchrist has explained that to me.” I glanced at Amos and looked back at Holly. “I, uh, wasn’t completely frank with him. There was a girl up there in San Valdesto, a girl named Patty Serano that I’ve. … What I mean, I kind of thought if
she
was in the picture—”

“Patty Serano,” he told me, “signed a contract with us almost a week ago. Where did you learn she was working with us?”

“From her Aunt Rose. Is she here now?”

“Unfortunately, no. She’s on location up in Malibu. They’re starting to shoot tonight. I have an idea—why don’t you and Mr. Gilchrist drive up there tonight, and we can have a sort of round-table discussion. Our president, Michael Ducasse, will be there and maybe we can come to some arrangement profitable to us all.”

“That sounds good to me,” I said. “How about you, Amos?”

“Fine. What time, Mr. Holly?”

“About nine?”

“We’ll be there,” I said.

He gave us the address and we went out into the smoggy but cleaner air of Ivar Street.

O
VER LUNCH AT THE
hotel, Amos said, “I’ll nose around town this afternoon and get what line I can on those creeps.”

I smiled. “And if you find out they’re mob connected, you won’t be back. Maybe I’d better pay you now.”

“Mob connected? An outfit that chintzy? But I could use a little walking-around money.”

I gave him three twenties and told him, “If that girl goes back to San Valdesto with me tonight, there’s five hundred more in it for you.”

He shook his head. “Man, have you changed! The way you used to chisel me—”

“I was dealing with a chiseler. I had to play his game.”

“I suppose,” he said, “the thought never occurred to you to play it straight. A contract with a seventeen-year-old girl isn’t valid unless her parents sign it.”

“Breaking her contract wouldn’t bring her home. I want her
home.
”

He studied me suspiciously. “You lust for this kid?”

“I’ve never even seen her. You have a dirty mind, Amos.”

He nodded. “I grew up in a dirty neighborhood. I think I’ll have another piece of that cheesecake.”

When he left, he said, “Why don’t you drive out to that address in Malibu and check out the roads? We may have to leave in a hurry.”

A drive along the ocean wouldn’t be a bad way to kill the afternoon. I took his advice. When I came out onto the Coast Road, the ocean breeze was cool, the smog at a minimum.

Past the Palisades, past Topanga, enjoying the air. Gehringer Road led off the highway to the right, a few hundred feet short of where the road to the Colony led off to the left. It was a steep, winding and narrow road.

The mailbox at the address Holly had given us was on the road. The name on the box was Ducasse, and the paint was faded. Ducasse couldn’t have come out here a month ago from Newark; even the California sun couldn’t bleach the letters that fast.

His house was high above the road, his entire acreage bordered with a chain-link fence that looked new to me. The double gate was locked. We could leave in a hurry—if we had a helicopter.

Driving down again, I wondered if my old friend Marvin Burns still worked at the Malibu Sheriff’s Station.

He did. He was knee-deep in paperwork, as usual. I don’t believe Deputy Marvin Burns had ever used his revolver, except on the target range.

“I thought you had moved to San Valdesto,” he said. “Somebody told me that.”

“I did move. I’m only in town for the day. I thought I’d drop in and buy you a beer.”

He studied me. “And what do you think a beer will buy you?”

“How about two beers?”

“Aagh!” he said. “You …! Okay, I guess I can knock off for half an hour.”

At the Tender Tavern (owned by Terence Tender), Marv said, “I understand a couple of the big boys have moved to your little sanctuary to retire. Dons, weren’t they?”

“I guess. Harris is still in charge, though, I’m sure.”

“He’s a lot of cop,” Marv said. “Ornery old bastard, isn’t he?”

I nodded. I asked, “What do you know about a man named Michael Ducasse?”

He shrugged. “Nothing much. He’s obviously rich and I hear he’s weird. Why?”

“Do you mean sexually weird?”

“Why do you want to know? You mean because he rents out his house to those porno movie creeps?”

“You know
that
, and nothing’s being done about it?”

“Cut it out, Callahan! We go to court and their shyster proves their films have redeeming social value. Which means we have wasted some more of the taxpayers’ money.”

“How long has Ducasse lived in that house?”

“As long as I’ve been out here. At least twelve years. Why?”

“He is the president of Adult Art Cinema. And the word I get is that his associates moved out here only a month ago from Newark.”

“Why the hell should you care? I thought you were retired.”

“I’m still a citizen.”

“Oh, Jesus! I’ll have another beer.”

After tender Terence Tender brought it and went away, I said, “They have just signed a seventeen-year-old girl to a contract without her parents’ consent. Isn’t that illegal?”

“Probably. But that would make it a civil case, not criminal. Sue him, if you’re an interested party.”

“I take it you’re not an interested party.”

“Not me. I’m just a crooked cop, drinking while on duty. If you think I’m cynical, I am. The world’s gone crazy in the last couple of years.”

When I left him at the station, he said, “Thanks for that Newark tip. Maybe
they
have records. Ducasse hasn’t.”

I was back at the hotel at four o’clock, and spent an hour in the pool. A little after five, Amos phoned. “Are we eating there?”

“Unless you want to put me on your tab at Mimi’s?”

“Be nice! That heap of yours hasn’t a very big rear seat, has it?”

“No.”

“We’ll take my car,” he said. “There’s a possibility Holly checked our credentials after we left him and found out you were a private eye. So I hired a couple of guys for backup.”

“Are they going to eat here, too?”

“Neither one owns a tie. They’ll meet us there at eight-thirty.” He paused. “Outside.”

OUTSIDE WAS THE PROPER
place for them. They both would have marred the elegant decor of the Shamrock lobby. They were high and wide and ugly, with matching cauliflower ears, scar tissue above the eyes and flattened noses. They both wore sweat-stained T-shirts and faded jeans.

One was black and one white; Amos was an Equal Opportunity Employer. The white one was named Joe, the black one Jack. That, Amos informed me, was all I needed to know.

We climbed into his highly polished twelve-year-old Cadillac and purred off toward Malibu.

I told him what Marv Burns had told me about Ducasse.

Amos had more: “The story I got, he has a yen for twelve-year-old girls. The Newark boys need the free rent. So they give him the title of president, find him a few twelve-year-old girls, and they’re in business.”

It was getting dark now; headlights came at us in a constant stream along the Coast Road. I said, “I’ve got to talk with Patty alone some way. I have to tell her her father’s no longer in the house.”

“We’ll think of something,” he said. “Maybe we won’t have to. I talked with a couple of case-hardened hookers today who walked out on them. Those muscle freaks dream up some sick stuff.”

We climbed the winding road. The gate was open. There was an old station wagon parked in front of the big house and a black Continental with New Jersey license plates.

Amos told Jack and Joe, “Stay out of sight. If we need you, I’ll signal.”

“How?” Jack asked.

“I’ll think of a way. Just be ready.” We walked to the front door and Amos rang the bell.

Barry Holly opened the door. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

I hope so, I thought.

“Come in,” he said.

The living room led off to the right from the small entrance foyer. We would be in the front part of the house, a comforting thought. There were two men waiting for us in the living room.

One of them had his back to us. He was staring out a front window. The other sat in an enormous, black satin upholstered armchair. He got up as we entered.

The man at the window turned toward him. “That’s some view you’ve got, Michael.”

He was a big man, with one of those blue black beards no razor can ever cut close enough to hide.

Michael Ducasse was shorter, thinner, darker and less frightening. He could have been a hairdresser. “Thank you, Al.” He turned to us. “Welcome to my home,” he said. “You can call me Mike. This is my friend, Albert Spicuzzi.”