County Kill (13 page)

She smiled at me. “It is too early for that kind of music. There is a time for everything, no?”

“Yes,” I said. A time to live and a time to die, I thought. Too many beers?

“You’re thinking again,” she accused me. “You’re a moody Irishman, aren’t you?”

“A man is dead,” I said. “A nothing man, from all I’ve heard; but he’s dead and his death causes complications among the living. You don’t think Johnny went to the cabin to meet one of the strangers from down south?”

“No,” she said firmly. “And he was not a nothing man. Because he was Mexican, is that why you think of him as nothing?”

“That’s not why. I don’t have your bigotry, Juanita. I think of him as a basketball player who sold reefers to kids. In my book, that makes him a shtunk — and I don’t care what his nationality was. I have a hunch he lusted to be a hot-shot again and tried to sell you out.”

She shook her head vehemently, but I thought I saw the beginning of doubt in her eyes.

“Didn’t he go with Skip, usually, to Mexico?”

“No. He couldn’t stand the ocean. He got seasick.”

“And Pete? Do you trust him, too?”

She nodded. “Pete is like you — all temper. But he is a friend.”

I had learned what I had almost guessed and gained nothing. Perhaps Pete Chavez knew things that Juanita didn’t. Though my chances of getting any information out of that knot-head were remote.

I stood up and said, “Thanks, Juanita, for trusting me. I don’t know if it has helped, but it might be a wedge with Pete or Skip.”

She looked up at me anxiously. “Go with God,
amigo
. And keep our secret.”

“I will.” I paused. “That Red Hovde — take it easy with him. He’s a jerk but really gone on you, honey.”

She sighed. “All the wrong men love Juanita. It is one hell of a world, hey, Irish?”

“At times. Where does Pete Chavez live?”

“In Goleta. But not tonight, I heard. Tonight he is staying in Skip’s apartment, here in town. Do you know where that is?”

I had it in my notebook, given to me by Chief Harris while he had still been semico-operative. I nodded.

“There is probably a girl there,” she explained. “He may not answer.”

I nodded again.

“And watch your tongue,” she said gravely. “He is very tough, that one.”

“So I’ve been told. I’ll be polite. Good night and thank you.”

As I went out, the beat of the guitar changed once more.
Goodbye
, it seemed to be saying.
Get lost
.

His beloved cousin lying cold among the mourners and Pete Chavez in the hay with a broad. A realist. His buddy in the clink, so why waste the apartment?

Well, why not? No tears bring back the dead. Get as hot as you can; you’re a long time cold. The opiate of the orgasm.

It was a warm night. Shadows hid the grimness of the neighborhood, showing only the warm light through the window, from where came the happy sounds of the poor man’s cocktail hour. A slight, dry breeze whispered in the eucalyptus overhead. The stars were bright.

It was not quite seven o’clock; perhaps Pete hadn’t reached his borrowed love nest yet. I drove over to the apartment almost hoping he wouldn’t be there.

It was true adobe ranch, an old place, four units in a row next to a new medical building. The front doors all faced on a covered, ground-level porch that served as a walk.

There was no bell. I knocked.

I heard footsteps over a stone floor and then the door opened and a stocky, well-used imitation blonde stared out at me.

“I’m looking for Pete Chavez,” I explained. “Is he here?”

“Not yet,” she said. “He phoned a couple minutes ago and said he was picking up a bottle on the way. You a friend of his?”

“I’m a friend of Skip Lund’s,” I said.

“Come in, come in,” she said genially. “Any friend of Skip’s is a friend of mine.”

I came into a high-ceilinged, rough-stone-floored utility apartment, complete with day bed, still unopened.

“You like Skip, eh?” I asked.

“I get goose bumps thinking of that hunk of wonderful flesh. But he’s so hot for Mary Chavez, he wouldn’t look at me, probably. You know Mary?”

“I’ve met her.”

“That was too bad about her brother, huh?”

I nodded.

She sat down on the day bed and pointed at a pull-up chair. I took it and she crossed her legs, showing me much more of her chunky thighs than I cared to see.

“You’re big,” she said. “You a fighter or something?”

“Nope. I’m a lover. Like Pete.”

It was the wrong thing to say. She had already had a few jolts of booze, I now realized, and it had made her combative.

She flushed. “Smart guy, ain’t you? Get lippy around Pete and he’ll cut you down to size.”

“I’d better be careful,” I admitted. “Nothing personal, Miss …?”

“Never mind my name. You’re not here to see me. For all I know, even Pete doesn’t want to see you. I shouldn’t have let you in.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was trying to be funny. I guess I didn’t make it.”

“O.K.. O.K.” She uncrossed her legs. “You live around here?”

“In Montevista,” I said. “I have forty acres up there, but I’ve decided to subdivide it. That’ll leave me about ten acres around the house, plenty for a single man.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “Montevista? You’re trying to be funny again, huh? You don’t look like money to me.”

“I’m the old money,” I explained modestly, “the kind that doesn’t have to look it. We’re beyond all that up where I live.”

“Huh!” she said in doubtful scorn. “You don’t fool me.”

I knew her now, Red Hovde’s spiritual sister, one of the great unfooled. I sighed and shrugged and stared at the stone floor.

Almost a minute of silence, and then she said, “Maybe you’re a cop. You’re snotty enough.”

I made no comment.

The defiance was wavering in her dull face now. For all she knew, I might be the LAW. Her voice was softer. “You a cop?”

Footsteps from outside before I could answer, and she rose quickly and went to the door.

She opened it and said with relief, “Welcome home, Pete. Your friend from Montevista is here.”

He came in with the fifth of supermarket bourbon and a bag of ice cubes. Big-time spender on Saturday night.

He looked at me scornfully and just as scornfully at his lady friend. “Montevista? He’s a two-bit private eye from down south. He couldn’t buy a cemetery lot in Montevista.”

“Let’s not fight,” I said easily. “I’m working for Skip, Pete. Skip needs all the help he can get. I’ve just had a long
talk with — ” I paused, to look meaningfully at the blonde.

“With who?” he asked.

“I’d rather tell you privately.”

He frowned doubtfully.

Then, “Honey, we ought to have something to eat, too.” He handed her a bill. “Gino’s is right up the block. Get some ham and rolls and some of those kosher pickles.”

“Aw, Pete! I thought we were going to eat out.”

He looked at her coldly. “Take about ten minutes. O.K.?”

She sniffed. She snatched the money, picked up her purse from the day bed, muttered something that sounded like “Montevista,” and stomped out, slamming the door.

Pete hadn’t moved. “So? You had a talk with who?”

“With Juanita. And she explained why Skip hasn’t an alibi.”

“Who thinks he needs one?”

“Be realistic for a few minutes. He’s being held, isn’t he? And not on a parking ticket. He’s being held on suspicion of murder.”

“Crap! You think he can be railroaded with his ex-wife still bleeding for him? You think that Christopher money won’t spring him? Who do you think is going to pay your hundred a day?”

“I’m not here to argue, Pete,” I said patiently. “Juanita co-operated. She told me enough to put her in trouble if she didn’t trust me. I’m asking for help, not anything about your private life.”

“Maybe you conned her, but you’re not conning me. How much did she tell you?”

“All of it, including the source, her father, and her source for the future, her brother. She put herself way out on a limb telling me those things and you act like I’m working for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.”

“Right now you ain’t, maybe. But when the chips are down, you guys save your own damned skins. I know your kind.”

“Do you?” I asked patiently. “How many private investigators are there in San Valdesto?”

“One’s too many,” he said. “Beat it, Callahan!”

“All right. Don’t drown yourself in that three-dollar booze.”

I brushed past him and opened the door. I was just closing it from the other side when I heard him say, “Montevista! Jesus, how dumb can a dame get?”

For some reason, I didn’t feel like Sherlock Holmes as I walked slowly to the car. I had caught Pete Chavez at a bad time, with his loins groaning, so to speak. That had seriously limited his spirit of co-operation. As had the dousing I had given him this morning.

But still I should have learned more; a competent operative would have.

Headquarters wasn’t far from here and I considered going over to talk with Lund. There was no other lead; Juanita had given me what she knew and Pete Chavez had given me nothing. The police would match what Pete had told me.

The red Porsche was parked not far from the entrance to Headquarters. I decided not to go in right now; I parked about three spaces up the street.

In a few minutes a big man came out of the wide doorway and down the steps to the walk. It was Joseph Farini. I left the car and got to him before he entered his own car.

He said wearily, “I should have stayed in my field. Lund’s absolutely no help at all and the chairman of the police commission phoned me this afternoon and read me the riot act.”

“About what?”

“About my insolence to some of the officers down here. I certainly lost a lot of hard-won respect in a short time, representing Skip. You learn anything?”

“Nothing I can reveal and nothing that points a finger. Mrs. Lund is with him now, is she?”

He nodded. “What do you mean — nothing you can reveal?”

“Just that. We can’t expect any police co-operation, then?”

“Very damned little. As a matter of fact, the way this Vogel talks, if they can’t get Lund for murder, they’re determined to get him for something else. Is this ‘something else’ what you’re being secretive about?”

“It could be, counselor. Vogel makes it seem personal, doesn’t he?”

Farini nodded, looking at me thoughtfully. “Any theories on why that might be?”

“He’s a good friend of Jim Ritter’s,” I said, “and Ritter is in love with June Lund.”

“Oh, Lord,” he said sadly. “Why did I ever get mixed up in this?”

“Lund’s worth saving,” I soothed him. “Get a good night’s sleep, counselor. Tomorrow might be a brighter day.”

He went away, and in a little while June Lund came out and drove away in her Porsche. I put on my warmest smile and went in to try
my
luck with Skip Lund.

T
HERE WAS A
different man at the desk, and though he admitted that he was a Ram fan, he hesitated about letting me speak with my client.

He said, “I’m not trying to be hard-nosed; don’t get me wrong. But, hell, Mrs. Lund has been here three times, and then Farini and that Chavez girl. The chief will have a fit if he comes in and finds
you
in there.”

“Has he
ever
come in at this time on a Saturday night?”

“Well, no …”

“I’ll be quiet,” I said. “I’m not on this case just for the money, you know. Lund’s getting a lousy deal, in my opinion.”

I had guessed right on his personal bias; he nodded. He took a breath and said, “Ten minutes. Long enough?”

“Plenty,” I agreed. “And thank you very much.”

I didn’t go into the cell this time; I stood in front of it. Skip Lund was seated on his cot, bent forward, staring gloomily at the floor. He looked up, some hope in his eyes.

“I’m nowhere,” I told him. “Juanita has been very frank,
but I can’t see a lead there. Pete won’t talk at all and he’s angry because Juanita did.”

He looked worried. “Juanita told you about — about — ”

“About your nonprofit venture,” I finished for him. “You were a damned fool for getting involved in something like
that.”

He nodded. “I know it now. At the time, hell — it looked almost noble. But after you told me about Johnny and those high-school kids — ” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s a stinking, lousy mess, isn’t it?”

“It is. Maybe your opinion of Johnny Chavez needs re-evaluation. In the light of what you know now, do you think he might have been trying to double-cross Juanita?”

He shrugged. “My mind won’t work. You mean Johnny might have tried to make a deal with some of the L. A. boys?”

“Something like that. Have you ever been approached by outsiders?”

He shook his head thoughtfully. “There was one guy — well, it’s maybe nothing, a guy I
heard
had L.A. contacts, but that’s all. You know — bar talk.”

“So a nothing rumor,” I agreed. “What else have we? What’s his name and why did he approach you?”

“He didn’t approach me,” Lund said. “He was a pal of Johnny’s in high school and just lately Johnny’s been seeing a lot of him again. His name is Pablo Chun. That’s a cutie of a name, huh? He’s half Mexican and half Chinese.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“In Goleta. It’s probably a blind alley. He’s got a patio-furniture store near the airport. He sells a lot of that rattan stuff and those hemp and grass squares for rugs. It’s called Chun’s.”

“Does he live there, too?”

“Right behind the store, in a little house. I was only there
once, but my memory’s right on that, I’m sure.”

A nothing rumor — and what else did I have? We talked for a few more minutes, but Chun was the only lead he had. There had been no bail set, he told me; he would have to stay in the clink.

It was almost nine o’clock now, and unless Chun kept his store open on Saturday nights the chances were better than even that my trip would be futile. But it was only a few miles and there was nowhere else to go.

• • •

Most of the new electronics firms in the neighborhood were out here, as was the San Valdesto airport. It was a ragged town, a victim of badly planned growth except near the university section.