Private Eye Four-Pack, page 29
“Edward, I’m a private investigator. My specialty is finding people.”
“I guess I never thought about that. Tell me, how will you go about finding Mr…what was it? Crowell?”
“I really don’t think you want to hear a run-down of investigative procedures. Take my word for it. I’ll find him.”
“Like you found Frank Terrell?” he asked softly.
I clenched my hands to keep from smashing him in the face. Luckily my car sat under a streetlight just ahead.
“Pull over and let me out,” I told him, “before I forget you’re Ted’s son and tell you exactly what I think of you.”
The Mercedes slid to the curb and stopped. I reached for the door handle, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me around to face him.
“Listen, you little bitch.” Savage hate replaced the sarcastic bantering. His fingers, cold and hard, bit into my skin. “I don’t give a shit what you think about me. Whatever you feel goes double for me. All I care about right now is my father. Stay away, understand?”
His face was a dark mask highlighted in a skeleton design by the greenish glow from the mercury-vapor streetlamp. I couldn’t see into the blank cavern of his eyes. I didn’t have to. I knew what they held.
He dropped my hand in a contemptuous gesture and moved back behind the wheel, staring straight ahead. “You’ve had warnings before and you chose to ignore them. This time, you’d better listen, Mrs. West.”
I didn’t say anything. I just scrambled out as fast as I could and watched the Mercedes burn rubber away from the curb and vanish rapidly into the fog. My estimate of Edward would have to be revised. The disdain I felt for the man was now edged with a niggling little fear. Given the right circumstances, Edward Lacey could be a dangerous man.
What set him off like that, I wondered. Was he really worried about Ted? Maybe I had been way off base with my reasoning earlier that evening. Maybe jealousy of me had nothing to do with his resentment. Certainly all this hovering was completely out of character for Edward unless…unless Edward really was concerned about his father’s health. What if Ted was really sick, maybe even…
I fought the word, but it lay hard and cold against the edge of my mind as I unlocked the Pinto, started the engine, and set the wipers to work on the wet, salty film obscuring the window. I busied myself with the routine of brake, throttle and steering, but eventually the thought crept in, whispering its ugly message: dying…unless Ted is dying…
“No,” I said fiercely, the sound of my voice startlingly loud in the confines of the car.
It was crazy to think that Ted might be—no, I told myself firmly. It’s just not true. Ted is fine. He had looked a little tired, that’s all. And after all of Edward’s hints, what had he really said about his father? Nothing. Obviously he wanted me out of Ted’s life, but for reasons of his own. I would not—could not—believe anything else.
I had to get my mind back on the business at hand. My head was on the chopping block unless I concentrated on two things: getting rid of the incriminating teakwood knife rack and finding my phony client. Neither objective would be accomplished with that plain brown police sedan tagging along behind me.
My plan was simple. Once on the freeway, I’d ditch them, using the fog for cover. They stuck to me like a burr as I looked for the green-and-white entrance sign and followed its arrow up the ramp. I idled along in the outside lane, planning to make a dash up an exit ramp, a split-second maneuver that hopefully they wouldn’t be able to follow. It might have worked, but suddenly the fog thinned. The thick gray mass swirled into streamers, lying like torn silk among the palms and eucalyptus.
Maybe it’s just as well, I told myself. If I shook them, if they knew I was off on my own, Savoni would be down on me faster than I could say “George Crowell,” to the nearest bartender.
The effects of Ralph’s aspirin were wearing off. I drove slowly, battling fatigue and a mushrooming headache, trying to figure a way out.
I could only think of one.
TEN
The plan involved Rita. I didn’t like it. Taking my chances with the police was one thing; bringing Rita into it was quite another. My mind scurried around and around, looking for another way out. I couldn’t think of anything else, and the mileage signs counted down the distance to my exit at a dizzying rate. I started looking for an all-night restaurant.
Luck was with me for a change. At the next off ramp Denny’s blazed a welcome. I parked in the deserted lot and went inside. Despite a decor of bright orange and hot pink, the plastic interior looked dispirited and chill. Even the bubbles of Muzak fell flat. I waved off a waitress bearing down on me with a strained smile and a menu, and headed for the ladies’ room. If the layout was consistent with other Denny’s in the chain, there ought to be a pay phone near it. A booth was there, shielded by a wall from the dining area.
A jingle of push buttons connected me with Rita. I had a feeling that she had been tensely waiting for my call.
“Are you all right?” I could hear the anxiety in her voice. “I told Ted to have you call me right away.”
“Sorry, Rita. This was the first chance I had.”
“Ted did come down, didn’t he? Maybe you wanted me to keep my mouth shut, but he called right after you did, and I figured he was a friend and you needed help, so—God, listen to me rattling on and on. Where are you? At home?”
“No.” I leaned my forehead against the cold metal handset rest and for the first time in a long while I wished I was in my apartment. The battles I fought there with the demons of loneliness seemed a mere skirmish compared to the Armageddon that lay ahead.
“What’s up, kiddo?” Rita demanded. “You’re not in jail?”
“Not right now, but I may be there permanently unless I take care of a couple of things. I need some help, Rita. You could get in a lot of trouble, and I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.”
“Don’t ask, then. Just tell me.”
I gave her the details.
“You going to explain this to me?” She sighed. “I know, I know. Later.”
The waitress led me to a booth and I stared at the menu while she ambled off for coffee. The full-color bill of fare was encased in a slick plastic coating. My stomach contracted uneasily at the sight of glossy piles of French fries and the bloody insides of a steak, but I had to order something. Rita needed time to set things up.
“Tuna sandwich,” I decided. It sounded worse after I said it.
My tail had come inside for coffee and cigarettes. The two men sat at a corner booth with an air of patient boredom. The one who faced me was black with close-cropped hair. His skin reflected overtones of gray from the artificial lighting. My view of the other man was mostly limited to the back of his head, which was covered in thin, sandy hair. When he turned it I had the impression of a long, narrow face and a lopsided nose.
They smoked and waited, talking little. I imagined that they were grateful for the break. I’d done enough surveillance to know what the waiting is like when you’re cramped in a car with your throat raw from too much tobacco smoke and your bladder full and burning.
The waitress brought my sandwich, and I knew it was a mistake. Toothpicks feathered with cellophane secured plastic-textured bread to globs of heavily mayonnaised tuna and slabs of lettuce. I pulled out the wooden anchors and picked the sandwich apart with a fork, isolating a few morsels of fish and forcing myself to swallow them. When my stomach finally rebelled, I pushed away the plate and asked the waitress if she had any aspirin.
She brought back a box of Anacin. I swallowed two pills, sipped the endless coffee she kept pouring into my cup, and watched the minutes creep by. By the time I figured it was safe to leave, the pain in my head had subsided to a dull throb, but the caffeine left me with a bad case of jagged nerves. At least I was wide-awake as I paid the bill and got back on the freeway with the brown sedan close behind. From here on, things had to look perfectly normal.
I took the Tustin Avenue off ramp and headed north. It’s a wide street, a typical California strip of gas stations, drive-ins and small shopping plazas. The traffic lights were my interest. They’re plentiful and well-timed. I adjusted my speed, idled up to Collins Avenue just as the light changed, flipped on my turn indicator and made a quick left on the yellow.
The brown sedan sped up, but the light was red and there was enough cross traffic to hold him there. Thank God for night owls. I made a right at the next block, rocketed down a quiet side street, and pulled into the parking area lined diagonally just in front of my apartment building. I jumped out of the car and made a dive for the tall hibiscus hedge where there was a good two feet of space between the plants and the building. The sedan skidded around the corner and slid to a stop on the street. I held my breath. If they bought the fact that I’d had time to get inside…They held a brief palaver, parked the car, and one of them got out. He headed for the rear of the building, moving quickly but not in a panic.
My breath escaped in a shaky whistle. So far, so good. My apartment faced the back. When the cop got there, he’d see the light on. The timer would turn it off in about fifteen minutes if Rita got everything straight.
I waited, shivering in the fog that was creeping slowly into the inland valleys, thinking about all the things that could go wrong. Maybe Rita couldn’t find the spare key. Maybe she couldn’t get her car started. Maybe she had come to her senses and decided not to get mixed up in such a damn-fool scheme.
The damp air and the cold thoughts wormed their way into the marrow of my bones. I braced myself for the cry of alarm, for my inevitable discovery, but the only one to find me was a cat. He crouched under the bushes with his slitted eyes glowing until the sound of footsteps startled him into bolting from the shadows.
“Damn!” It was the cop returning from the back of the building, swearing softly.
“What is it?” The other one in the car pitched his voice low, but the sound carried in the stillness.
“Damn cat ran in front of me.”
“Everything else okay?”
“Yeah. Looks like she’s in for the night.”
I waited until they were settled in the car, and then I inched along the wall behind the hedge. It took a long time to work my way to the corner, and by the time I got there I was drenched in clammy sweat. For one exposed moment I had to leave the bushes and cross a sidewalk to the shadows of the next building. The brown sedan faced the opposite direction. Still, if they looked up for an instant—if the rearview mirror caught a reflection—I took the opening fast, expecting a shout and pounding feet, but there was only the roar of blood in my head.
This building offered no leafy hedge for protection, just a rim of darkness sharply defined by moonlight. I walked a tightrope of shadow to the end of the block, turned the corner, and ran full tilt toward Rita’s V.W. parked a safe distance away.
I didn’t see the figure slouched down in the passenger’s seat until I had the door open. My insides did a complete flip-flop before I recognized her. “Rita?”
She wriggled upright in the seat and groaned. “Yeah, it’s me, kiddo. My spine will never be the same.”
“You scared the hell out of me.” I collapsed behind the steering wheel and shut the door. “What are you doing here? I told you to go home.”
“Well, it seemed to me that calling a cab was not one of your better ideas. Dispatchers keep records.”
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m not thinking straight.” Momentary panic seized me. “You did everything?”
“Relax, kiddo. It’s there.” She gestured to the teakwood knife rack and a small suitcase that lay on the back seat. “I thought you were in a hurry. Shouldn’t we get going?”
The key was in the ignition. I started the engine and headed for Rita’s place, begrudging the time and dreading her questions. Surprisingly, she didn’t ask anything until I stopped in front of her building, and then only: “You going to be okay?”
“Of course.” I wished I believed it.
She didn’t. She sighed and reached for my hand. “That man who killed Jack—somehow, finding him dead didn’t end anything, did it? It’s not over yet.”
“No, Rita. It’s a long way from being over.”
“And you got to do what you got to do. I know, I know.” She gave my hand a parting squeeze. “Only, kiddo, for God’s sake, be careful.”
I circled back to the freeway, stopping once to dump the rack into a large trash bin behind a store. Then I retraced my long drive back to L.A.
It was about three o’clock in the morning when I checked into a run-down motel several blocks away from the Altmont. Gunfire and roars thundered from a television set on the end of the counter. The manager kept his eyes on the gory spectacle while I filled out the registration card and signed it Jane Smith. He glanced at me only briefly when I paid him from a small cache of money I keep for emergencies in a side pocket of my purse. I got the feeling he’d seen a thousand faces and they all looked the same to him. He’d have no reason to remember mine.
The motel room was small and dirty. When I flipped on the light, roaches stampeded for hiding places behind the baseboards. Any longing for a nap left me. I opened up the suitcase and laid out the clothes Rita had packed. Jeans, sandals, a stringy blond wig. Protective coloring as well as a disguise. Everything I asked was there except the most important item—my gun.
I knew Rita well enough to know the omission was no oversight. “Guns kill people,” she was always pointing out.
Swearing under my breath, I changed my clothes. If I was lucky, Savoni wouldn’t get his search warrant until morning, and the two detectives staked out outside my apartment wouldn’t realize they had been had. If not, the alarm might already be out. All the more reason to get moving.
I pulled on a faded Levi’s jacket and went out, hunching my shoulders against the chill pervasiveness of the foggy air and wondering what the hell I was trying to prove. If I had settled for having Rita dump the knife rack, I could be home in bed, letting the police find Crowell. But would they really try to find him? Ralph was plainly skeptical about Crowell’s existence. Savoni believed I’d made the whole story up to cover my guilt. Both might be easily satisfied by a sketchy investigation.
I wouldn’t be. I couldn’t. I had to find Crowell—or whatever he was calling himself. This seemed as good a place as any to start looking. Crowell was the one who set me up; logically, he had killed Rinker. The man wasn’t invisible. Maybe somebody saw him near the Altmont. Maybe this was home territory. It wouldn’t hurt to ask.
I cruised past the Altmont, just in case the police were still hanging around. The only activity on the street was a drunk staggering a zigzag course toward All-Nite Liquors. I parked and beat him to the door by a large margin.
The store was empty except for the man behind the cash register who eyed me warily as I approached. One hand stayed out of sight below the counter, fingering a pistol, I’d bet.
“Hi,” I said, forcing a smile. “I was supposed to meet somebody around here, but he never showed. Maybe he came in for a bottle. He’s about so tall.” I wiggled my fingers a few inches higher than my head. “Overweight. Bald. Plaid sports coat.”
“Ain’t seen him.”
Scratch one long shot. After noting the prices on the booze, it didn’t surprise me that Crowell did his liquor shopping someplace else. I decided to try a different tack.
“What happened at the Altmont? I drove by earlier tonight and the place was crawling with cops.”
“How should I know? Some people got to work. Ain’t got time to be nosy. You gonna buy something?” His eyes darkened with suspicion. “Store’s for customers. I don’t like people hanging around asking questions. Makes me nervous.”
A sawed-off shotgun, I decided suddenly. That’s what he had under the counter. In place, on some kind of firing rack, lined up on my belly button. I definitely did not want to make him nervous.
“Thanks, anyway,” I mumbled and hurried out, bumping into the drunk who had finally found the door.
Next stop, the Altmont.
This time the desk clerk, Wellsey, wasn’t asleep. He cowered behind the registration desk and yelled strangled curses at a woman on the other side. From the back, she looked like an animated ragbag. Layers of mismatched clothing hung over a skeleton-thin body. Scraggly black hair was pinned at random to her head. She clutched a shawl around her shoulders. As she made grabbing motions at the old man, the shawl fell back, revealing bony arms.
I crossed the lobby and began to understand the sick look on Wellsey’s sweaty face. She emanated an odor like a force field—not just cheap liquor, but something so foul your olfactory senses sent out screaming messages to every nerve in your body.
“Get outta here, you crazy old broad,” Wellsey screeched.
“You got a bottle,” she whined. “You always got a bottle.”
“I ain’t giving you shit.” He saw me and said thankfully, “I gotta customer, see? Go on, get lost.”
She turned, made a halfhearted gesture of appeal, changed her mind, and scuttled out the door, leaving behind a skunklike afterscent.
“God!” Wellsey said. “Twisted old bat.” He dragged a wine bottle from the desk, drank noisily and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What the hell do you want? Can’t pick up no johns here tonight. Already had the cops crawling all over the joint.”
“That’s not the reason I’m here,” I said. “I’m looking for my old man. We had a little fight, you know? I’d like to find him and patch things up.”
“Yeah?” He tilted the wine bottle again. Strands of dirty white hair fell across his face, and he batted at them ineffectually. “I had enough trouble for one night. Go look someplace else.”
“It would be worth ten dollars to me to find him.”
“Why?” he asked suspiciously, peering over my shoulder and shouting toward the front door. “G’wan you! Stop hanging around.”
“Listen,” I said, “he’s about my height, heavyset, bald.”
Recognition leaped like a frog in his watery eyes, but he blinked it away.
