ON THE RED BRICK PATIO, THE CHARCOAL WAS ALREADY lighted and on the door a note said: Martinis in the refrigerator. I’m in the shower. Mary.
I went into the kitchen and found the pitcher of martinis. I poured one over a whole tumbler full of ice cubes and listened to the sound of the shower through the thin walls, the shower caressing that slim and lovely body.
It became too much for me, this auditory voyeurism, so I took my drink out to the patio and relaxed on the chaise longue.
There were no pink clouds tonight, just the cool breeze coming from the ocean and the yellow pallor of smog to the east. From this height, I could see over the top of it, like a yolk-heavy frosting on a cake.
The faces of all of them went through my mind, the beseeching, the bedeviled and the bellicose faces I met in my constant merry-go-round. Such a wearisome way to make a living, listening to their lies and threats and gossip.
Mary wanted to talk about Terry. I wondered if she wanted to tell me the worst kept secret in town, that his alibi was cracked.
I remembered Sergeant Dugan in my office saying, with his hand on my shoulder, “Joe, if you get in trouble, just call us at the West Side Station and we’ll send a platoon.” I had asked for one man and they had bitched and finally sent a man subject to being called away.
Words, words, words, words, words.
What was it to me, the death of Gus Galbini? Why did I work tonight?
“Quit muttering,” a voice said, and I looked up to see Mary smiling at me, a drink in her hand.
“I’m brooding,” I told her. “I only do it about once a day. You look fresh and beautiful.” I paused. “And friendly.”
She made a face. “I want to take you over to meet a girl tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to bring you over. Steak, again?”
“You’re spoiling me,” I said. “Tell me about this girl.”
“Not now.” She went in to get the steaks.
Friends…. We had another drink and ate the steaks, the salad and the rolls. We drank our coffee and talked, comfortable friends. But not this morning, when I’d left. A change in the social climate for the better — and I had to be suspicious of it, because of my trade.
Some impulse in me made me say, “Have you forgotten how angry you were this morning?”
“No. Why did you ask that?”
I shrugged.
Her voice was more edged. “Do you think I’m trying to — to use you?”
“Isn’t it natural to wonder why you’re no longer angry?”
A pause, and she said, “I talked with Mary again today, Mary Pastore. She says you’re friends. No more than that, at the moment, she says. She told me you’re not the kind who will ever settle for one girl.”
“I love her,” I said. “And you. Is it time to go?”
We went in my car. Over to Sunset and along its curves to Beverly Hills. Behind the high walls and protective hedges on this fabulous boulevard were the mansions of the mighty, the well-screened abodes of the town’s real money.
“Pretty soon, now,” Mary said. “That driveway on the right, flanked by those junipers.”
A wide driveway, an estate. Far ahead, set in a grove of poplars and oaks, a huge field-stone mansion. Acreage, in an area where footage is out of reach.
“One of your rich friends?” I commented.
“Not mine,” she said. “Terry’s.” A pause. “Linda Carrillo. Have you ever heard of her?”
“Not Linda,” I answered. “The Carrillos, of course, but I’ve forgotten which half of the city they own.”
She put a hand on my knee. “Linda’s folks are in Europe right now, and she’s worried about scandal. She’s a good girl, Joe, a serious, lovely girl, not a scatterbrain.”
Linda Carrillo. It couldn’t be. I said, “Don’t tell me she’s in love with your brother?”
“Desperately,” Mary answered.
Jeepers! Not a scatterbrain? She had to be, a girl with all those millions behind her in love with an arrogant and ignorant club fighter. There had to be a big, fat flaw in her somewhere.
The parking area would hold about twenty cars, the garage no more than six. We parked near the front door and went up two wide steps, along the pebbled concrete walk to the front door. I had no chance to ring the bell. A maid opened the door had no chance to ring the bell. A maid opened the door.
“Miss Loper and Mr. Puma to see Miss Carrillo,” I said.
The maid nodded, and stood aside. “Miss Carrillo is expecting you.”
We went into the entry hall and followed her past what looked like two living rooms, a dining room and a bathroom to an immense house-wide room in the rear, lofty and walled with planters and one mammoth aquarium wall. The entire place was cove-lighted and the rheostat must have been set low. It was dim in here.
A girl rose as we entered and came over to meet us. Her hair was black as jet, her beauty Castilian, classic and serene. She seemed very young but her poise was enviable.
“Mr. Puma?” she asked, and I nodded.
“You’ve worked for Mona Greene?” she asked me, and I nodded again.
“And Fidelia Sherwood Richards?” she asked.
I nodded, and glanced at Mary.
Mary said too sweetly, “Oh, Joe knows all the girls.” Linda Carrillo’s smile was dim. “Mona and Fidelia claim you’re — incorruptible, Mr. Puma.” I shook my head. “Nobody is.”
Mary said, “This is beginning to sound like one of those corny TV dramas. Mr. Puma’s as incorruptible as he’s permitted to be.” She paused. “Except around women. He’s the corrupted man of the year, there.”
I ignored that and asked Linda Carrillo, “Why did you want to talk with me?”
“I’m Terry’s alibi,” she said. “I’m the reason he lied to the police.” Some color in her face, now, and a little less assurance in her voice.
“He had to lie?”
She nodded. “We — were at a motel. Because he’s married and because of — my parents, he had to lie.”
“Because of your parents? How about your reputation?”
She said proudly, “I love him. I don’t care who knows that. But my parents, I — I mean — ”
“Naturally. Miss Carrillo, I don’t see what I can do for you. I’m obligated to tell you to take your story to the police.”
“To the police means to the newspapers,” she said softly. “I can’t do that to my parents.”
I lighted a cigarette and looked at the aquarium. One fish stared back at me, the rest ignored me.
She went on quietly. “We never for a second thought Terry would be accused of murder. But the police are suspicious of him, now, aren’t they?”
I shrugged.
“You know they are,” she said. “They’re watching him.” “Who told you that?” I asked her.
“Terry. He’s seen them outside his house.” She gestured toward a chair. “Don’t you want to sit down?”
“I doubt if we’ll be here long, Miss Carrillo. I can’t understand what you think I can do for you.”
“You’re a private detective,” she said. “You can talk with the police privately. You can learn if they’re willing to take a statement from me without leaking it to the newspapers.” She chewed her lower lip. “I’d pay you, of course.”
Of course. In her mind, anything could be accomplished with money. I said, “The police need the newspapers in this town. They’re afraid of them. And the newspapers live on scandal; that’s their only solidly selling item. You can’t make a deal like that, Miss Carrillo.”
“You mean you won’t even try?”
I looked at her fine, intense young face and took a deep breath. “I didn’t say that. I’m not sure, right now, how I could sound them out, not mentioning your name, without getting them on my neck. At this particular time, I’m not on their hit list. I had to lie to them this afternoon and they know I lied.”
“You have to try,” she said hoarsely. “You have to try! He’s innocent, and I know it, and if you can’t work it this way, I’ll tell the police and the newspapers.”
“Calm down,” I said soothingly. “Don’t tell anybody anything, yet. I’ll phone you tomorrow. You have an unlisted number, I suppose?”
She had and she gave it to me and I put it into my notebook neatly and efficiently. And then she went to the door with us and thanked us both for coming.
A sweet girl. A real prize. And Terry Lopez — Cripes!
Outside, the night was turning cold. Mary said, “Mona Greene and Fidelia Sherwood Richards and Mary Pastore. Do you know every woman in town?”
“I hope to,” I said, “before I die. Isn’t that Linda Carrillo a darling?”
“They’re all darlings to you,” she said.
“Not tonight,” I answered, and took her hand. “Why don’t we go to the Crescendo and listen to George Shearing? Do you like him?”
“I don’t know him. Is it that quintet they had there last week?”
“That’s it. But it’s Shearing’s piano I go for.” “Didn’t you plan to work tonight?”
“To hell with it,” I said. “I’m sick of mugs and cops and double-talking citizens. I wish I had been born smart instead of muscular.”
“Or rich,” she added. “How much do you think a house like this costs?”
“Too much,” I said. “Let’s go.”
The little two-door went chirping down the long driveway. Mary sat close to me, like the high school kids do to each other and I could almost forget I was a stupid and cynical phony in the phoniest town in the world.
Incorruptible Puma…. Horse manure!
Shearing helped and so did his boys. The magic piano of the great man went searching for elusive meanings and occasionally wandered onto a rhythmic truth and the boys communicated with him tonight, answering his questions and looking for questions of their own.
The tight knot between my shoulder blades melted and the nagging ache behind my eyes went away and Mary smiled at me, thanking me for bringing her to this peaceful though invigorating place.
And the booze went down and the day went into history.
And later, in her dim bedroom on the low bed, our communication continued, extended to the fleshly spiritual, soared to the sublime and receded to the nostalgically quiescent.
Those are only words; the act can’t be described. Spent, she said, “Professional, aren’t you?”
“No. Love makes me ingenious.” “Love — Love means one person, eternally.” “Only in the magazines. I am a big man with big appetites.”
“And no roots,” she added.
I had roots; this was my native state. By roots, women mean a schedule, kids, and paid vacations and the PTA. By roots, women mean chains.
“Have you an alarm clock?” I asked. “I have to get back to work at six.”
She turned on a small lamp and set the clock on the same table for five o’clock.
“I suppose,” she said sadly, “that means no seconds.”
“Any time,” I said. “Call when ready.”
She didn’t call. But someone did. Now, you can believe it was a dream if you want. I don’t. In a restless near-sleep I heard someone call for help and I wakened in the dark room with the chill of death on me.
My peasant’s prescience. No, not that; that is foreknowledge, which I believe I have. This chill of death was contemporary and extrasensory; this chill of death was shared.
I sat up on the low bed and there was not a sound from outside. A cold perspiration beaded on my forehead, on my wrists. Next to me, Mary breathed lightly and steadily, her long, thin leg lying over mine.
I extricated myself gently and went to the bathroom. I sponged my face with a warm, wet cloth and washed my arms and the back of my neck. The chill was gone but the certainty remained; someone had died, someone I knew.
I thought of that detective, that Schultz who was on the night watch, and wondered if he had been called away.
If this was a shared death, taking a part of me with it, it would have to mean I was partially responsible. The memory of that moment came back and brought the chill along. I went into the bedroom and quietly dressed.
Mary stirred in her sleep and muttered something; I paused in the doorway, but her steady breathing resumed.
Outside, the night was cold and clear. The two-door started complainingly and moved down the street with a great rattle of tappets. I steered her toward Brentwood. It was now close to four o’clock.
The streets were almost completely empty of traffic; I made good time.
There was no Department car in Marie Veller’s neighborhood. Detective Schultz was nowhere in sight.
I parked and went into the apartment building. Again, I’m not asking you to believe; I can only relate what I felt. As I approached her door, the hair on my neck ‘bristled and a coldness seeped into my bones, the coldness of the grave.
I rang her bell and waited. There was no sound from within. I tried the door. It was locked. I rang again.
And then I went to an all-night service station and phoned Mrs. Galbini.
“A hunch?” she said sleepily. “Jesus, man, you don’t want me to come way over there with a set of keys just on a hunch, do you?”
“Okay,” I said. “Just throw them out onto the front porch and go back to bed. I’ll come and get them. I thought this way would be faster.”
“A hunch,” she said again. “All right, all right — I’m on the way.”
She must have really barreled. Because it was about five minutes after I got back to the apartment that she came with the keys.
And as we approached Marie Veller’s door, she asked, “What is it? This creepy feeling, what is it?”
“Your peasant awareness,” I said. “I’ve got it, too.”
I rang once more and then she handed me the key. I opened the door, and she reached in to turn on the wall switch.
A lamp in the near corner of the room went on, a dim lamp, but bright enough to illuminate the room. Bright enough for us to see the overturned furniture and Marie Veller in the middle of the living room floor.
There was the handle of a knife still protruding from her stomach.