Bill Saul lived in a rambling, rustic old house perched on a wooded hill off of Laurel Canyon. Trehearne urged his unhappy car up the steep drive, parked it securely, and went up the steps. Saul was already at the door, propped lazily against the frame and watching Trehearne with some private amusement.
“Just like old times,” he said. “Hi, flatfoot!”
He stood aside for Trehearne. He was wearing slacks and a thin white T-shirt. His lean body showed a surprising muscular development. He reminded Trehearne of a big black tomcat padding across the floor.
“Don’t tell me,” Trehearne grinned, “that you’ve had contact with the police before. In an official capacity, I mean.”
Bill Saul laughed. “Christ,” he said, “there was a time when I had to throw cops out of my bed before I could get in myself.”
“Liquor?”
“Yeah. That, and gambling.” Saul flexed his long slim sinewy hands, and sighed. “Those babies used to be awfully good to me.”
Trehearne said shrewdly, “Of course you’re out of practice now.”
“Oh, sure.” Saul’s voice was innocence itself. “I found I could keep myself in bread and cheese painting lampshades and doing a little fine sewing. It’s dull, but it’s honest.”
Trehearne nodded. ‘I’m glad to know that. A lot of people have wondered just what you did do for a living. I’d hate to think you were mixed up in any of these friendly little gin rummy tournaments around the studios, and such.”
Saul said virtuously, “I never play for more than ten bucks a point.”
Trehearne grunted sourly. “Jesus, I can lose all I want to at a quarter of a cent.” The living room was like a small and very comfortable barn, with big windows and haphazard furniture. He noticed an ashtray overflowing with crumpled butts. It stood on a coffee table in front of the big couch. There was a game of patience laid out. It was only half played, and it was never going to be finished, because somebody had shoved the telephone violently into the middle of it. The Queen of Hearts had fallen to the floor and had not been picked up.
Trehearne said quietly, “Having trouble getting hold of the Vickers’?”
Saul shot him a quick, hard look. “Yeah. Are you?”
‘I’m the police.”
Saul studied him with his odd, pale eyes. He said finally, “So you are. Mind coming out back for the third degree?” He jerked his head toward a closed door. “Peggy’s still asleep, and I’d just as soon we didn’t wake her. She’s the sleepiest dame I ever saw, and also the dumbest – outside of Jennie Bryce. She’ll be right here when you want her, but leave us get this done while we can make sense.” Trehearne nodded, and he led the way out. “I’ve got some beer in the icebox.”
“Fine.”
Saul got two frosted quart bottles and a pack of cigarettes. The garden at the rear of the house was small and green and well-kept. There was a little covered patio with big canvas chairs. Trehearne decided that detecting was not always such a bad business.
“How’s the case going?”
“Too early to tell yet.”
“And you wouldn’t say anything anyhow.” Saul poured beer carefully down the side of a tall glass, took a long drink, and settled back. “Okay. I suppose you want my story of what took place on the fatal evening.”
“If you have one.”
“It’s short, and fairly snappy. I came. I got drunk and made my usual pass at my hostess and took my usual No for an answer. I got even drunker, made my usual pass at Peggy, and was about to get my usual Yes for an answer when Vick arrived and interrupted me forcibly. There was some horseplay in between, of course, but it’s all pretty hazy. There was a howling mob there, and I know someone put nitroglycerine in the old fashioneds. I don’t remember one single goddamned thing about Harry or what he or anyone else did, up to the time Vick came. After that I was reasonably sober, but nothing of interest happened, except Peggy got hysterical and I had to put her to bed, and she looked so doggone cute I didn’t bother to go back to the party. That was about – oh, between one-thirty and two.”
Trehearne said, “The autopsy report sets the time of death at not later than midnight.”
“Before midnight I can’t help you.”
“Vickers was sober when you saw him?”
“But stony. He never drank anyway. Not what you could call drinking.”
“But he was drunk that night in Mexico.”
Saul’s eyebrows went up. “You do get around. Yes, he was. Good and drunk. What the hell, everybody slips sometime.”
“Harry Bryce have any enemies?”
“Harry? Christ, no! He was a good egg. Stupid, like Job Crandall, but you couldn’t dislike him, any more than you can dislike Job.”
“How about Vickers?”
“Him,” said Bill Saul slowly, “you can dislike.”
“Why?”
“Because he thinks his middle name is God. I used to get a kick out of him. He and I got along pretty well, because we understood each other. I’ve got enough of that in me, and he could never get me down, and it was just one of those funny things. I think we were closer to being friends than either Harry or Job.” Saul laughed softly. “I was kind of glad the old son-of-a-bitch got back. I never thought he was dead anyway.”
“Why not?”
“We never found a body. Of course, he could have fallen in the bay, but...” Saul shrugged. “Call it a gambler’s hunch, if you like.”
“Who hit him over the head?”
Saul turned and looked very intently into Trehearne’s eyes. “I kind of thought somebody would get around to that. Vick hasn’t been very subtle.” He leaned back and held up his glass and watched the sunbeams filter through the amber beer. “I don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t tell you, of course. It might have been Harry. I wouldn’t pick him for a killer type, but when a man is nuts enough about a woman, he may do anything, and I’ve seen guys a lot weaker and meeker than Harry cut other guys’ guts out with long, sharp knives. On the other hand, maybe Vick just got clipped in the ordinary way by José Doakes, who wanted his watch. And maybe some funny ideas blew in through the hole in his head. I don’t know.”
He set the glass down and sprang up, without warning, in the quick smooth way an animal moves.
“I do know I wish he didn’t have her up there alone!”
“Worried?”
“God damn right I am. People talk too much. They run off at the mouth like fire hydrants. Christ knows what Vick may have heard about Angie. In this neck of the woods the Virgin Mary wouldn’t have a reputation, and Vick may be just dumb enough...”
There was an extension phone beside his chair. He sat down and reached for it, and it rang, startlingly, under his hand. He grabbed it.
“Hello!” His face changed, in a queer mingling of relief and anger. “Vick, you bastard, what’s going on up there? Christ, I’ve worn the dial off the bloody phone... Oh. Well, I hope you drown in it. How about this, anyhow? You’ve got half the town imagining... Yeah, I suppose so. How is the lucky little girl? Still able to lift her head, I hope. Could I speak to her?... Oh. Okay. Well, I may drop by later to compare notes. I’ve got the law leering at me now...What?... Oh. Yeah, sure, Vick, I understand. Maybe tomorrow, then. So long.”
He hung up. He sat for a moment, as Crandall had, staring at Trehearne and not seeing him.
Trehearne said, “Angie is tired and upset over the murder, and Vick has a splitting head, and will some other time do?”
Saul’s pale eyes flickered. “He didn’t feed you that?”
“Not me. I’m the police. I’m quoting Job Crandall.”
Saul shrugged and lay back in his chair. “Sounds logical enough. A guy would want to be alone with his wife after four years. He says they’ve been down by the pool most of the morning, and the hell with phones. He’d just come back to the house for some cold drinks. Angie was still down there, by the pool.” He picked up his beer. “Yeah,” he said. “It sounds logical enough.” He took a long drink. Then he said reflectively, “I never tried it in a pool. Wonder if it’s fun.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Trehearne. “My wife doesn’t swim. Has Vickers changed, do you think?”
“Yes and no.” Bill Saul’s eyes were clear again, his mouth harboring a faintly derisive smile. “Physically, he’s turned from a show-piece into a man. Mentally well, I was watching him yesterday morning. God is still there, all right, but he’s tougher than he used to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if he packed a few thunderbolts in his jeans.”
He glanced sideways at Trehearne, who was getting up. “No rubber hose? No phone book? No bar soap in the sock?”
“We’ll catch that on the next time round. I’ll give you a ring later, if you like.”
“What about?”
“Angie. I’m going up there now.”
“That’s right,” said Saul. “You’re the police.” He rose to show Trehearne out. “Sure, give me a ring.”
The inner door was still closed. Apparently Peggy was still asleep. Saul made a “what-can-you-do?” gesture. “It doesn’t really matter,” he said. “She sleeps on her back anyway.”
Trehearne said, “Doesn’t that get monotonous for both of you?” and went away.
He stopped at Schwab’s to telephone the lab. The profane and plaintive voice on the other end urged him to refrain from losing his trousers. Trehearne gave them the number of Vickers’ phone and told them to call there as soon as they finished. It was very hot in the phone booth. Trehearne came out dripping wet and yawning. Bill Saul’s beer was making him drowsy. He climbed back into his car and drove out along the Strip and then up the long steep hill to the house where Vickers and his golden-eyed Angeline were all alone with what Vickers said was love.
Just out of sight of the gates he stopped, and a small nondescript man detached himself from the shrubbery and came up to the car. He nodded at Trehearne, who said, “What’s cooking?”
“Nothing. Some reporters came and went away mad. That fat little guy, Sessions, was up here. He had the Merrill dame in his car, and they went away mad. Nobody’s been inside the house, or come out of it since the Merrill dame and the servants left this morning.”
“You’d be surprised,” Trehearne told him, “what a hornets’ nest that has stirred up. Okay, Brownie. I’m on my way in. If I’m not back when you think I should be, call out the Marines and come looking. The sheriff’s office has been alerted – they’ll cooperate.” Trehearne’s beautiful mouth was positively seraphic. “This case may crack any minute, and I may need help on the arrest.”
“Right,” said Brownie. “You’ll get it.” He stepped back. It was remarkable how closely he blended with the trees. Trehearne drove on. He left his car in the drive, climbed the steps, and rang the doorbell. The house looked cheerful, calm, and perfectly normal. There were bright flower beds, and the lawns were green and smooth, and the sunshine was all it was expected to be.
He rang the bell again.
It was very quiet on top of the hill. There were a lot of birds, and they did a lot of singing, but it was a natural kind of noise that didn’t disturb the quiet. There was a fine old pepper tree out on the lawn. The light-green lacy foliage was pricked out with the soft bright red of the berries. The whole tree swayed a little in the breeze, with the slow grace peculiar to pepper trees. Trehearne remembered the one in the school yard that he used to climb when he was a kid.
He rang the bell again.
Presently he forgot about the birds and the pepper tree and the restful quiet. He bent his head forward, and listened, and heard nothing, and his eyes got a hard, puckered look. He pushed the bell, and listened to the faint chiming echoes die away, and then he turned and went swiftly down the steps. He did not head toward his car, but around the house to the rear.
He was already on the lawn when he heard the door open behind him. He stopped and turned.
The door was wide open. The inner hall was dark after the outer brightness, full of shadows. Michael Vickers stood there with his hounds. In the dimness, all three looked abnormally huge and something more, or less, than human.
Vickers smiled. “Trehearne,” he said cordially. “Have you been waiting long? I was outside, and I only just heard the bell.”
Trehearne went back up the steps. “I’d begun to think you were avoiding me, too.”
Vickers laughed. “Everybody seems to be frightfully upset over an extremely simple thing. Apparently all my friends suspect me of homicidal mania – or something!” He closed the door. “Angie’s down by the pool. Can I offer you a drink?”
Trehearne said, “No, thank you.” He was looking at Vickers’ forearm, left bare by the short sleeve. There were three parallel scratches on it. The kind of scratches fingernails make. They were fresh. So fresh that the blood was still welling, and had not begun to flow.