I WENT DIRECTLY BACK to the office. And from the locked drawer in my file cabinet I took out my pistol harness and the .38. Because of the heat I hadn’t worn it today but from now on I would feel naked without it.
If I had to declare war on somebody, why not somebody I could lick? Well, I had never been known as a rational man.
At the drug-store lunch counter my fan said, “That woman was in here asking for you, that dame that runs the decorating shop a couple blocks away.”
“You are speaking of my truly beloved,” I told him, “and she’s no dame.”
“So, okay. Anyway, I told her I hadn’t seen you all morning. Maybe you’d better call her.”
“I did,” I told him, “and that’s why she was in here. What’s edible in this crummy joint today?”
“The short ribs are pretty good,” he answered. “And we got boysenberry pie.”
I had the short ribs. And some monologue from my fan about the Dodgers, who weren’t looking so good in spring training, and about the Rams and their miserable showing of last fall.
His words slid off my consciousness; I was thinking of Giovanni. If he hadn’t been at his friend’s place in Las Vegas, it still didn’t mean he had anything to do with Malone’s death. But if Captain Apoyan had been right about him, if he was now out of the rackets, where else could he have been that required an alibi?
I was planning my afternoon and attacking the boysenberry pie when my love took the next stool. She looked furious.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Murder,” I told her, “and idolatry. Chicanery and incest, high finance and low adultery. It always is.”
“Adultery,” she said. “That’s a key word. You’ve been up to something.”
I looked at her candidly and pityingly. “Darling, I have been up to my hips in homicide and hoodlums. I simply haven’t had time for adultery.”
She studied me carefully, suspiciously.
“I love you,” I said quietly. “Why don’t you have some boysenberry pie? It’s pretty good for drug-store pie.”
Some moisture in her eyes now and she asked, “Why do I love you?”
“It’s a natural reciprocal emotion for the great love I bear you. With the boysenberry pie, you could have vanilla ice cream.”
“Damn you,” she said. “Damn you, damn you, damn you …!”
I put a hand on hers. “Easy. You don’t need me. You don’t need anybody. You could have your pick of all the eligible males in Beverly Hills.”
“Damn you,” she said. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I called right back.”
“I was hungry. I didn’t know it was you.”
“I had a message,” she said. “From Mr. Duster. You didn’t go to see him, did you?”
“His son-in-law’s funeral was this morning,” I said. “How could I see him?”
“Well, he wants to see you. That’s why I called back. He wants to see you this afternoon.”
“I’ll see him. How about some pie now? I’ll pay for it.”
“You’ll pay,” she assured me. “If I find out the real reason for that silly phone call, you’ll pay plenty.”
“I love you,” I said. “Have ice cream, too.”
She sniffed. My fan came over and I ordered the pie for her, with ice cream, and coffee for both of us.
It is a dilemma, my relationship with Jan. She won’t marry me, because of my trade and almost guaranteed poverty, but she wouldn’t marry a man she couldn’t sleep with, and she can’t sleep with the other men. To the best of my available knowledge.
Women with careers shouldn’t earn more than their husbands. It’s not good for either one of them and Jan earns much more than I do, on a yearly average.
It is a dilemma, so we drift along, getting nowhere. Though we do have our moments of ecstasy. It is a hell of a situation.
We didn’t talk much. We ate and listened to the music on the little FM radio behind the counter and more or less thought our separate thoughts.
And I am ashamed to admit my thoughts were divided between Giovanni and Selina Stone. That girl … That slim, elegant, perfumed and sensual girl …
Jan said, “What in hell are you smirking about?”
“Was I smirking? I was thinking of the time I nailed Otto Graham for a forty-six-yard loss.”
“I’ll bet.”
I finished my coffee and stood up. “Let’s not fight. Let’s part friends. I’m going up to see your Mr. Duster now. I’m already working for his daughter.”
She stared at me. “She’s paying you?”
I nodded. “She will. Harry Adler hired me but it’s her money.”
She expelled a big breath. “Well, that’s better. I’m glad to see you’re getting some financial sanity.” She stood up.
We went out together and on the sidewalk, right there, almost in the center of Beverly Hills, she stretched to kiss me and then went hurrying off toward her exclusive shop.
That was another part of our trouble: we dealt with the rich all day long, the troubled rich and the wasteful rich, and that had a tendency to make us discontented and resentful.
I climbed into the flivver and headed for the residence of William Duster, a man reputed to be worth twenty-seven million. In the north the clouds were forming; more rain was coming down the coast, heading our way.
There was a possibility that it hadn’t been Duster’s idea to see me. Perhaps Jan had been putting in a sales pitch. If there is any flaw in my beloved, it is a persistent and exaggerated commercialism. It is a common fault among interior decorators, despite their artistic pretensions. They certainly know how to squeeze a client dry.
The house was a two-story structure of fieldstone and Arizona flagstone, on a rise overlooking Roxbury Drive. The green concrete driveway wound through two acres of perfect lawn and continued around the house. The flivver sniffed in class-conscious disdain.
The Negro butler told me Mr. Duster had been expecting me and led me through a breezeway that led to the covered patio on the sunny side of the house.
Big Bill Duster was in a deck chair out there, looking tall and gaunt and green. The green came from the translucent panels overhead. He stood up and I figured him for about six-seven. He had short, wiry gray hair, fierce black eyes and a voice right out of the Oklahoma oil fields.
He said harshly, “it’s about time, Callahan.”
“Miss Bonnet only gave me your message twenty minutes ago,” I explained. “I’ve been busy, Mr. Duster.”
“I’ll bet you have. And I’ll bet you know plenty about him, don’t you?”
I stared at Duster questioningly. The servant went quietly away. I asked, “Him …?”
“Malone, that little bastard. I went to the funeral, just to please my daughter. But it didn’t do any good. She didn’t even come home with me. I want to know about him, Callahan, him and that niece of Giovanni’s.” He took a breath. “Her—and all the others, too. I want you to work on it. I’ll show her what kind of man she was married to.”
I continued to stare.
He said, “Sit down.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Could you lower your voice? My hearing is good.”
“Don’t get smart with me,” he said.
I sat down. “I won’t if you won’t. I already have a client, Mr. Duster. I’m not in the scandal business.”
“Don’t con me. All you peepers are in the scandal racket. You couldn’t stay alive without divorce work, not you small-time operators.”
I thought of Jan and kept my voice polite. I said, “Mr. Duster, you are taller than I am, but I’m wider. Because you are also richer than I am, I’m trying to be patient. But don’t push it.”
Now, he stared. He picked at a rear tooth with his tongue and looked at me thoughtfully. Finally he said, “You are a big son-of-a-bitch at that, aren’t you?”
I said nothing.
He looked past me, out at the blue slate pool. “I love her. She’s all I’ve got. Absolutely all.” His face was bleak.
I continued to say nothing.
He looked at the clouds. “Rain coming.”
“I know,” I said. “I can feel it in my bad knee.”
“You got one, too?” He went over to sit in the deck chair again. He rubbed his left knee and said, “She’s a wonderful girl. No spite in her, no malice, nothing petty. And then to get tied up with a creep like that …”
“He seemed to have an unusual attraction for women,” I said. “Maybe he brought out the maternal in them.”
“Hmmmmm!” he said. “Had trouble with a couple of minors, too, didn’t he?”
“That’s what I’ve heard, Mr. Duster. I didn’t check it. I think he was a minor, too, at the time, so the records wouldn’t be open to me.”
“Or anybody else,” he said. “But I happen to know it’s true. Do you think it made any difference to my daughter? About him, she wouldn’t listen to nothing.”
Love, I thought. Love, love love … I was silent.
“Who’s your client?” he asked.
“Harry Adler,” I said.
His laugh was short and bitter. “Like hell! Harry wouldn’t spend his money like that. It’s my daughter’s money Harry is spending.”
“Probably. Mr. Duster, I can guess that you spent some money, too, investigating Tip Malone. Am I right?”
“You’re right. And I’ll tell you who else spent some money on him, because we talked it over—Frank Giovanni. We compared reports.”
“Then what could I tell you that you don’t already know?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You’d have to tell me. I’d make it worth your while—you can be damned sure of that.”
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t sell information except to my clients. And I already have one.”
“And you didn’t even tell her about Giovanni’s niece,” he said.
“That’s right. I didn’t see that it would serve any purpose, once Malone was killed. You see, all your daughter worried about was the possibility of Tip getting involved with Frank Giovanni. She thought it would stop his racing career.”
“Oh, man!” he said harshly. He rubbed the knee and looked at me quietly for a second. Then, “I’m going to tell you something I maybe shouldn’t, and I don’t want it to go into any damned report, either.” He waited.
“Okay,” I said, “if that’s the only condition under which you’ll tell me.”
“I want your word,” he said.
“You’ve got it.”
He spoke quietly and distinctly. “Giovanni told me that for ten grand I could have the little bastard bumped. It would be sweet and clean and professional. It would look like an accident. That’s the gospel truth.”
I paused, started to say something, and decided against it.
“I know what you were going to ask,” he said. “And the answer is—no, I didn’t pay it or authorize it.”
I said, “But maybe Giovanni did? I think he loves his niece as much as you love your daughter.”
“Maybe Giovanni did,” he admitted. “But you wouldn’t go up against him, would you?”
“I already have,” I said. “I beat up one of his stooges and only two hours ago told him to stay out of my way.”
For seconds he stared at me. And then he shook his head. “You’re crazy. You won’t even see today’s sun go down. What in hell got into you?”
I didn’t answer.
“You think you’re important,” he asked, “because you had a couple of good years with the Rams? Man, you’re nothing to somebody like Giovanni.”
“I’m a citizen,” I said. “I hate hoodlums. I’m armed.”
He was silent. He stared at the pool and at the black clouds getting closer and then he stood up. “Wait here,” he said. “I want to look up something for you.”
He went toward the house, tall and thin and slope-shouldered, a rich, sad and lonely man. I didn’t envy him any of his twenty-seven million.
When he came out again, he had a card in his hand. He handed it to me. The name on it was Lily Chen, the address was up near Gollago Lake.
“Giovanni’s girl friend,” he said. “I could be one of five or six people in the world that knows that. He wanted to marry her, I’ve heard, but that niece of his wouldn’t stand still for it.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“She’s Chinese, one hundred percent Chinese, and that niece of Giovanni’s is a little snob.”
There was a silence. Finally Duster said, “Maybe, if I’ve helped you—maybe if you live and find out something, you’d be willing to tell my daughter that I helped?”
“I would. Is that the only reason you gave me this?”
He shook his head. “No. I hate hoodlums, too. Though judging by the play at Vegas, you and I could be about the only ones that do, huh?”
“I thought I was the only Vegas hater,” I said. “Do you think maybe Giovanni was here when he was supposed to be in Vegas and that’s why he gave the phony alibi?”
“I didn’t know it was phony,” he said. “But I know he sees this woman secretly, because of his niece.”
“Gollago Lake,” I said. “That’s where Malone was killed.”
He nodded. “One hell of a damned coincidence, isn’t it?” He sat down in the deck chair and looked at me. “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me what you learn, anything you can ethically tell me.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Duster,” I said.
We shook hands. His hand was big and bony. He wished me luck. I had a feeling he considered them empty words; luck alone wouldn’t do it.
The sun was almost obscured by the time I got to the Coast Highway, heading for Gollago Lake. The sun worshippers were driving back toward town and there was a damp smell of iodine in the air.
Lily Chen … A jolly little, round-faced, smooth-skinned bundle of love for the big man with the small legs. Lily Chen …
The flivver snickered as we turned up the first road past the Topanga Canyon light. She is occasionally prescient.
To my right the clay cliff was abrupt, studded with enormous rocks. To my left the canyon yawned, more rock than clay. Way down at the bottom a thin stream flowed, seepage from the recent rain.
Around a sharp turn and now I was at the summit and the still, dark surface of Gollago Lake was visible in the hollow below. The sun was completely behind the clouds, there was no wind. Everything in sight seemed momentarily static.
On the main road below, a police car was parked in front of a hillside lodge and I wondered if that had been Malone’s new love nest. I turned off the main road onto a narrower, tree-shrouded road called Toluca Lane.
And then, as I came around a bend, I saw something one rarely sees in California—lilacs. A row of lilac bushes was set back from the road here, screening the property they fronted. A black-enameled rural mailbox on a white post identified this as 483 Toluca Lane. There was no name on the mailbox.
I turned in at the driveway and saw a sunken garden built around a natural-rock fountain and miniature waterfall. The house seemed to be enameled, mauve and white, and even on this gloomy day it glistened.
Just a little bit of heaven, as they say, for Frank Giovanni. A refuge from the monstrous and terrifying world he had helped to create.
I parked in front of the bougainvillaea-covered carport and walked to the front door. The chimes were heavily audible.
A woman opened the door. Not little or round-faced, but fairly tall and slim, black-haired, her eyes a shimmering green, almond-shaped and slanted. I had guessed right only about the skin; it was smooth as polished marble. She wore tight satin trousers and a mandarin jacket and her perfume was like remote incense.
When I managed to speak I asked, “Miss Lily Chen?”
She nodded, her green eyes steady on mine.
“My name is Brock Callahan,” I said.
She nodded again. “I’ve heard of you. You’re a friend of Glenys Christopher’s, aren’t you?”
“Not quite,” I answered. “I did some work for her once.” I smiled. “I’m a—a private investigator.”
Her own smile was scarcely perceptible. “Oh? Are you investigating me, Mr. Callahan?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I’m checking—an alibi.”
She stared, saying nothing. In the background I could hear the waterfall and I was lost in the green of her eyes. Giovanni, I thought, this is his. That miserable man and this lovely woman …
Her voice was as soft as the sound of the waterfall. “Come in, Mr. Callahan.”
The furniture was Chinese modern, I suppose. I’m no expert. The living room was as wide as the house, the fireplace framed in black tile. From the hi-fi in the corner came Debussy.
“Be seated, please,” she said, and I sat on a low, long divan near the fireplace.
She stood near the front window and asked quietly, “Is it about Frank?”
“Yes, Miss Chen.”
“Who told you about me?”
“I can’t tell you. It would be betraying a confidence.”
“Miss Ronico? She’s the only one who knows about me.”
“I can’t tell you, Miss Chen. I’m not here to cause trouble.”
“I’m sure you’re not.” She came over to sit at the other end of the divan. She took a cigarette from a hammered brass box and I held a light for her.
Finally, “This is his sanctuary. The public doesn’t know the real Frank Giovanni. He’s a gentle, compassionate man.”
I said nothing.
“He built that waterfall,” she went on. “He designed this house and planned the landscaping. We were going to live here, together.” She paused. “And then his sister died and that—that spoiled girl became his—personal cross.”
Things are rough all over, I thought. But said nothing.
“He’s kind,” she said. “He’s no murderer.”
I said, “And the night he was supposed to be at Chalmers’ place outside of Las Vegas, was he really here?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I want to be sure his lie about that had some reason other than implication in Tip Malone’s death.”
“And that’s the only reason you want to know?”
I nodded.
She bit her lower lip. “He was here. He told his niece he was going to Las Vegas and when she phoned there, Mr. Chalmers told her he was there but doing some business in town. So then, when the police questioned Mr. Chalmers, he stuck by that story.”
“I see. And all the time he was here, you were with him?”
She frowned. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“Because Malone was killed a mile or two from here.”
She stared at me and I thought there was apprehension in her face. Her voice shook. “He was with me every second. He’s no murderer, I tell you, Mr. Callahan.”
“Maybe not. But he’s hired some in his time, Miss Chen. I can’t believe you’re as naïve as you sound.”
The green eyes flared. “I assure you I’m not naïve. And certainly you aren’t naïve enough to believe what you read in the newspapers.”
I said, “Miss Ronico and I had a conversation on the same lines, Miss Chen, and I’ll tell you what I told her—Congressional committees don’t operate on whimsy and I believe most of what I read in the newspapers. Both you and Miss Ronico have sentimental reasons for believing as you do. At least, I hope they’re sentimental.”
Her voice was icy. “If you mean they could be financial, you’re wrong, Mr. Callahan. Speaking for myself, of course.”
“Sure,” I said. “Everybody always is. Speaking for himself, I mean. And nobody speaks for his brother.” I stood up. “Well, I didn’t learn much, did I?”
“Only if you came to learn that Frank Giovanni is innocent of murder. You’ve learned that, haven’t you?”
I shook my head.
We stared at each other silently. And then, from the rear yard there was a crash, as though furniture had been tipped over on a concrete patio.
Startled, Lily Chen glanced that way and then back at me. “Did you come alone?”
I nodded. “Are you alone here?”
She nodded. “I—earlier I saw some men walking along the bluff about two hundred feet to the south. They looked—well, I didn’t like their looks.”
“Like tramps?”
“No. But—rough … One of them was tall, with red hair. The other was short and heavy.”
I asked her, “Have you ever heard of Monte Calavo and Tony Jessup?”
“No.” She glanced again toward the rear of the house.
“They are friends of gentle, compassionate Frank Giovanni,” I told her. “They are employees of his. I’m sure they won’t harm you.” I started toward the front door.
“Wait …” she said. “Please …?”
I turned. She had risen. She said quietly, “Won’t you come back there with me? It’s rather—isolated up here, and …”
I smiled at her. “Lead the way.”
We went out through a lowered dining room to the sliding glass doors that looked out on the bluff behind. A flowerpot had fallen off the low patio wall, we could now see, and a mammoth black cat studied us warily from the redwood bench that was built into the wall.
“Just a cat,” I said.
“No,” she said. “It sounded more like furniture. It wasn’t the pot that made the noise, I’m sure.”
With that statement, her status changed in my mind. From a solace, she changed to a participant; from a lovely lady to a finger man.
The cliff was to our left as we went out. She pointed to the south and said, “That’s where those men were an hour ago.”
There was some shrubbery along the house here and a path flanked it, leading toward the rear of the carport. It was the only place of concealment in sight and I headed for it, brave and brainless.
And then to my left, on the cliff side, I thought I heard a noise and I turned that way.
And something charged me from the other side.
It had to be a man, though he hit like a bull and I went stumbling toward the abyss, trying to turn away from it; trying to fall toward the house.
I almost made it.
But he hit me again and I went over the edge and I could hear Lily Chen scream. Far below, I could see the rocks that jutted from the canyon floor and I could no longer hear her scream.
Because I was screaming too loud, myself.