Gat Heat (5 page)

“Well, hurry up,” he said.

I told him all I knew. It didn't take long.

At that point Sam lit his cigar. But by then I was ready to leave anyway. And Sam, of course, was aware of that.

Mrs. Riley came to the door when I rang.

I still hadn't found any trace of Mr. and Mrs. Whist, though I'd tried. I'd put some lines out among individuals who'd proved efficient at digging up odd bits of info for me in the past, but without luck so far. I had, however, already talked to Mrs. Bersudian, and to Mr. Warren in the plush offices of his law firm. I had also called at the Sporks' residence, but found nobody at home; Sybil hadn't even been in the back yard.

I'd come up with nothing concrete, that is, nothing I hadn't learned last night or from Samson this morning; but one of the case's intangibles had taken on a little more importance in my mind.

It was so intangible that I didn't even know what the hell it was. But it had become increasingly evident that nearly all of the people I'd talked to were twitchier than bats in the moonlight. It was difficult to get anything out of them except an impression that they weighed every word at least twice before reluctantly using it.

That's not uncommon when people talk to an investigator, but this was something more; and I had the feeling that nobody had yet told me all that could be told. Mrs. Riley wasn't much different from the rest of them. But, at least, before the interview was over I'd learned one item of exceeding interest.

I hadn't phoned before dropping out—I rarely do when on a case since an individual unprepared for interrogation has less time to prepare a possibly phoney story—so at the door I identified myself and told Mrs. Riley why I was there.

She was pleasant enough about it. Sometimes you find a door slammed in your face, or get hit with a mop. But Mrs. Riley smiled and asked me inside.

She was a handsome gal about thirty, or perhaps two or three years over the mark, slim and curvy and with a lazy, languid way of moving. She was wearing a simple but bright print dress and had a pink bandanna over her hair, which appeared to be put up on those big plastic curlers, judging by the lumps in the bandanna. Either that, or she had a very funny head.

“Well, come along inside, Mr. Scott,” she said. She sounded like a Southern gal. It wasn't accent so much as the easy, drawly way she talked.

I went along inside, and we got seated in the living room, she on an emerald-green couch and me on a big greenish-blue ottoman near it.

I asked her if she knew about Mr. Halstead, and she said, “Yes, isn't it a terrible thing? He was the sweetest man.” She shook her head. “I just can't conceive of anybody wanting to kill him like that.”

“I was hoping maybe you could, Mrs. Riley. I mean, that you might know of someone he'd had trouble with, friction, business problems. Anything that might help explain why he was killed.”

She shook her head some more.

I went on, “That's the trouble. So far, I get the picture of a man everybody liked, a man with no real enemies.”

“That's the way he was.”

“Yeah. Only somebody, obviously, failed to share the general opinion of Mr. Halstead.”

“Are you working for the police, Mr. Scott?”

I'd showed her my wallet card at the door, but I said, “I'm a private investigator. Mrs. Halstead hired me last night while I was at her home. By the way, what time were you and Mr. Riley out there last night?”

“Last night?” Her eyes widened. “Why, we weren't there at all. We haven't even seen George and Ann for—oh, for weeks now.”

“That's funny.”

“What's so funny about it?” she asked, just a little snappish.

“I heard you'd dropped out there, that's all. You and another couple, the Whists.”

“Well, you certainly heard wrong … The Whists?”

“Yeah.”

She gave me a very funny look. “What did you mean by that?” she asked finally.

“Nothing stupendous. A guy simply told me you'd been at the Halsteads', that's all. I think. Granted, he was about eleven sheets to the wind and changed his mind very speedily. In fact, he said he must have been thinking of some other time.”

“Who was it? Who said that?”

“One of the guests.”

“Who?”

“One of the guests,” I repeated.

“I'll bet it was Gregor.”

Gregor was Mr. Bersudian. I didn't tell her it hadn't been Gregor. Instead I asked, “Why him?”

“He drinks like a fish. Like a whale. It was him, wasn't it?”

“What difference does it make? Apparently the guy was full of beans as well as booze. Look, I'm not accusing you of anything, Mrs. Riley. I'm simply trying to determine the facts. If you and Mr. Riley were at the Halsteads' place last night, fine. If not, also fine. Just tell me—”

“We were
not
there.”

“That's all I wanted to know.”

“Maybe the Whists were, but
we
weren't. I wouldn't know about them.” There was something a bit snappish in her tone again.

“O.K.,” I said. “That settles that. I'd also like to ask the Whists, however. Can you tell me where I might find them?”

“They live at the Norvue.”

“Not any more, they don't.”

There she went again, giving me that glittery eye. “They don't? They've moved?”

“Yes.”

“Where to?”

“Beats me. They didn't leave a forwarding address. I'm not even certain they've moved. All I know is they're not at the Norvue now.”

“It doesn't surprise me.” Her lips curled a bit. “No, it doesn't surprise me.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Never mind. It's not important.”

Here we go, I thought. She seemed to withdraw, sort of retreat inside herself. It was that bats-in-the-moonlight bit again. And it was beginning to sour on me.

I stood up. “Look, Mrs. Riley.
Maybe
it's not important. I'm not here bothering you just for fun, but because George Halstead got slammed in the head and died suddenly of scrambled brains. We're talking about a murder.”

She winced slightly when I said “scrambled brains,” and then looked at me as she bit on her lower lip.

I went on, “If you truly don't know a thing I might be interested in hearing, O.K. I'll get out of here. But if you do, if you even think maybe you do—”

She interrupted me. “It's just that … well, I don't think their name is Whist. That's all.”

“It might be plenty. What makes you think that?”

“Well, I'm not really sure. And if I'm wrong, I'd hate to—”

And so on. I told her not to worry, that I'd check everything out, but it took another minute of coaxing and even getting a little red in the face before she finally gave voice to her suspicions.

They had met the Whists—“
if
that's their real name”—four or five months ago. They went out together several times, then one afternoon the Rileys had picked them up at the Norvue to take them to lunch.

“We went to the Beverly Hills Hotel,” she said. “For some reason, they didn't want to go there. But we'd reserved a table and had a special lunch prepared and all. So we went anyway.”

“How do you know they didn't want to go there?”

“They said so. Said they'd rather go somewhere else.”

I nodded.

“While we were having lunch, a Mr. Edward Walles was paged. That's Walles—W-a-l-l-e-s—Edward Walles,” she said.

“Hold it a minute. This was over the p.a. system?”

“One of those cute bellboys walked around saying there was a phone call for him.”

“Well, either way, how could you tell the spelling of the name—particularly an odd one like that—just from hearing it pronounced?”

“Oh. I must have left something out.”

“I'll bet you did.”

“Two or three weeks before then, my husband and I were over at their place for dinner. At the Norvue, I mean. We, well, we were playing bridge. I was dummy and went to the bathroom. And I happened to see a stack of mail, two or three letters on the dresser. They were addressed to Mr. Edward Whist—only one of them wasn't. It was addressed to Mr. Edward Walles.”

“Uh-huh. So maybe it was delivered by mistake. It happens. I've got mail meant for people named Wangler and even Barshfergenweis. Occasionally the post office—”

“But the letter had been opened. He wouldn't open it if it wasn't for him, would he?”

“Not if he's a nice fellow. But if it revealed some dark secret, I wouldn't think he'd leave the thing lying out in plain sight.”

“But it wasn't. The letters were in the bedroom.”

She stopped.

I waited.

Finally I said, “In the bedroom, huh?”

She gazed at something depressing in the corner of the room. I looked, but couldn't see it myself.

In a moment she went on, “Did I say bedroom? Well, that's because … because the letters were there. On the dresser. You see, the prettiest bathroom is just off the master bedroom. You have to go through it to get to the bathroom. Does it matter?”

“Not to me, it doesn't.”

“There's more than one bedroom. And I just happened to see the letters. My eyes just happened to fall on them.” She paused. “I wouldn't want you to think I was an old snoop.”

“Perish the thought. What else about the letters?”

“That's all. I'm explaining how I knew the spelling of the name when I heard Mr. Walles paged.”

“Got it. O.K., go on.”

“After they paged Mr. Edward Walles—we're back at the Beverly Hills Hotel now, all right?”

“Swell. Incidentally, when was this?”

“Oh, about two months. Yes, almost exactly two months now.”

“O.K. You're ready for lunch.”

“Yes. Well, when they paged this Walles, Ed and Marcelle
looked
at each other. You know.”

“I'm not certain I do. You mean, that … told you something?”

“It was the way they looked. Like they weren't really looking at each other.”

“What does that mean?”

She was disappointed in me, I think.

She eyed me for a second or two, then said, “It was—oh, goodness. A
woman
would know. The important thing is right after that Ed excused himself and left the dining room.”

“Maybe he had to go to the, ah, the master bath?”

“No, he didn't. I had to go myself, and on the way I saw Ed picking up one of the house phones. So he was taking that call for Edward Walles.”

“It's certainly a possibility. One of approximately three-point-two thousand possibilities.”

“It's what he was doing, you can bet. After all, there was that letter to him at the Norvue.”

“Yes, you've got a point there.”

She did at that.

I mulled it over, then looked at Mrs. Riley. “O.K. You make a pretty fair case. So why, if their name is Whist, would they claim to be named Walles?”

She shrugged.

I said, “Or it could be the other way around. Why, if their real name is Walles, would they tell you it was Whist?”

She shrugged again. “For all I know, their real name may be Bargenshwaffer … or whatever you said.”

“That might be it—I just made it up. Well, I'll check on this, Mrs. Riley. Who knows, it might be very important.” I paused. “You don't like the Whists much, do you?”

She frowned, and I thought she wasn't going to answer. But then she said, “Oh, Marcelle's nice. I liked her. But I never did
really
like Ed. He's pleasant and certainly good looking enough. But there was … oh, just something about him. Something I felt.”

“Uh-huh. By the way, do you happen to have a picture of them?”

She sure gave me a lot of twangy looks, this one. “Why did you say that?” she asked me.

“Well, I know roughly what he and his wife look like, but a photo might help me find them. As the Chinese say, one picture worth ten thousand word.”

“Do the Chinese say that?”

“Ah—somebody, who cares? I just want to make things as easy on myself as I possibly can, since there is something very twitchy in the air … Never mind. I thought, perhaps you and the Whists, or Walleses, or Fergenbashers, or whoever they are, while getting snockered in a nightclub might have paid one of those leggy camera girls to preserve for all time the memory—”

“Oh, no. We never did that. I don't have any pictures of them. I'm sorry.”

“It's all right. Can you think of anything else about them—or other friends of the Halsteads, for that matter—that perhaps I should know?”

She couldn't.

On the Pasadena Freeway, heading back toward L.A., I reached under the Cad's dash and grabbed the mobile phone, checked with information for a phone in the name of Edward Walles. There wasn't any listed, so I put a call through to my own number in the Hamilton Building.

Hazel, the cute and bouncy little gal on the switchboard down the hall from my office, answered, “Sheldon Scott, Investigations.”

“Oh, it is not,” I said. “It's Hazel, down at the end of the hall.”

“I'm surprised you remember my name,” she said. “It's been so long since I saw you here at work, I thought you'd died.”

“You poor kid. How you must have suffered—”

“Actually, it was kind of a relief. What do you want, Shell?”

“You, You, you, you! Don't I keep telling you? Hazel! I—”

“Shell, it's time I told you the truth. I'm still a virgin.”

“O.K., I'm trying to find a guy named Walles.” I spelled the name, adding, “Edward Walles, wife's name Marcelle. Maybe. These might be people who use half a dozen names.”

“Are they in Los Angeles?”

“You've got me. I'm hoping they're still in the L.A. or Hollywood area. Last-known address the Norvue, registered as Mr. and Mrs. Whist. Left there about four weeks ago, present address unknown.”