Bad Samaritan (21 page)

He hung up. “Okay, you can go, Callahan.”

“I have to wait for Pontius to call back,” I said.

“Go,” he said. “Haven’t you had enough trouble for tonight? Why didn’t you tell me you were down in Malibu three hours ago?”

“Would it have made a difference? And how does the chief know that? Did Pontius tell him, or am I being followed?”

“For the third and last time, Callahan—go!”

It was too late to phone Jan now. I went home. I filled the tub with hot water and a tumbler with liquid corn and I soaked. About halfway through the corn, I realized the night had balanced out. I should have been picked up in Malibu and hadn’t. I should not have been picked up here, and had.

I
DIDN’T WAKE UP
until nine o’clock. I phoned Jan, and she was home twenty minutes later. I was still in my robe, consuming four scrambled eggs and toasted sourdough bread when she came into the breakfast room.

“Welcome home,” she said, and kissed me. “Now Mr. Locum won’t dare show his face around here, will he?”

“Maybe his ghost. He’s dead.”

“How? When? How do you know?”

I told her how and when and how I knew and went on to relate a bowdlerized version of my adventures in Los Angeles, while she drank some of the coffee I had made.

When I had finished my stirring tale of gallantry and heroism, she said only, “You sure make lousy coffee. You should have waited until I got home.”

“Oh, God!” I said.

“I’m not that trivial, dummy. I said that because I decided not to say what I wanted to say. And I’m not going to say it. You’re safe at home.”

“Nobody’s safe. At home or anywhere else.”

“Let’s not fight. Skip had a message for you. I wrote it down to make sure I got it right.”

The message was this: A friend of Skip’s, with his female friend, were parked along Chapparal Road the same night Jesus Gonzales was supposed to have left town at eight o’clock. It was ten o’clock when this couple had seen Jesus walking up Chapparal Road. Both Skip’s friend and his friend’s friend would confirm this. Skip had added that he didn’t know why or if this information was important, but the couple were friends of Jesus, and they had thought it was.

“Will it help you?” Jan asked.

I nodded.

“Are you going downtown again today?”

“Yes.”

Danning Villwock, the hermit, the retired parole officer, the marijuana advocate, lived off Chapparal Road. But that was a long walk up to his place. Jesus might have turned off at Ellis Lane, that road Moses Jones’s son had called a goat path.

I had my name. I still didn’t have any hard evidence. Mary had her daughter back; she didn’t need me anymore. But I was sure that Mary, as I did, believed in owing and being owed.

Jan was out in front, chipping again with one of my old clubs, when I left. She was a natural, dropping six out of ten shots into a redwood tub only thirty inches across from twelve yards away.

“You’re beautiful,” I said. “You’re ready for the L.P.G.A. tour. You’re remarkable.”

“That’s what Skip said. He said I’m already better than both of you.”

“That would still put you two light years away from the L.P.G.A. tour,” I told her. “I won’t be home for lunch.”

“Neither will I. I’m having a one-o’clock lesson at the club.”

Fight bravely on, Jan. The enemy is at the gate. I kissed her and went down to the real world again.

Helms’s office was full of smoke, as usual. “You ought to hang a ham in here,” I said. “It should cure pretty good.”

He shook his head sadly. “Lippy is home! The chief has been asking for you. You’d better get in there.”

The chief was at his desk, reading some papers and frowning. “You’re back,” he said. “I suppose you were surprised when I told Dahl to release you last night.”

“Not really. Not after I phoned Pontius and he phoned you.”

He half rose from his chair. “What are you suggesting?”

“That’s the way it was, wasn’t it? I only repeated what happened.”

“You are one arrogant son of a bitch,” he said. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but nobody ever called me a crooked cop before.”

“Neither did I. Who told you about the trouble I’d had in Malibu?”

“Your good friend Sergeant Marvin Burns from the Malibu Sheriff’s Station. He phoned me around eleven o’clock.”

“He was working two watches? He was on the day watch yesterday when I talked with him.”

“He wasn’t working. He called me from home. The boys who answered the call at that porno place got your name from somebody there, and they knew you were a friend of his. They phoned Sergeant Burns at home. He gave me a message to relay to you.”

“Drop dead? Get lost?”

“You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are, Callahan. He told me to tell you that he didn’t like the way you worked, but to thank you, anyway. There were two twelve-year-old girls in that house.”

“I know. Why did Captain Dahl have me picked up?”

“He made that clear to you, didn’t he? Pretend you were Dahl, in charge of the night watch, knowing what he knew. Would you have sent out the call?”

“Yes, I guess. Okay, yes.”

“And as for Paul Pontius phoning me,” he went on in his grating voice, “he knows two people in this department, me and Lieutenant Vogel. He phoned me. He didn’t know I knew you had an alibi for the Locum kill until I told him. And frankly, from the injuries sustained by those men they picked up at that house, I think you are quite capable of killing.”

I shook my head.

“Yes, you are. Maybe not coldly and with premeditation, but both emotionally and physically you sure as hell are equipped for it.”

I said nothing.

“You’re excused,” he said.

“Do you want me to go home, Chief?”

“No. I agree with Sergeant Burns. I don’t like the way you work, but you
do
work, and you get results.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Drop dead,” he said. “Get lost.”

That was his dismissal, the copycat. I went back to Helms’s office. Vogel was there.

“Did you bring Patty home?” he asked me.

“I did. Want to go with me and question her about Tishkin?”

“Not today. We had to postpone that narcotic bust. Today’s the day and we’ll need every available man.”

I felt as if I was in a time warp.

At the Serano house, Patty was sunning herself in the back yard and Mary was vacuuming the living room, a pleasant domestic scene.

“I didn’t think you’d be here until this afternoon,” Mary said. “I look a mess!”

“Not to me. Why don’t I have a bottle of that Bechtel’s Bavarian and watch you vacuum?”

“Chauvinist,” she said. “I’ll have a bottle with you, and we can talk.”

We sat and talked. She said, “You run a small book or sell a little grass, and you figure—who’s hurt? Nobody, maybe, but it puts you outside the law, working with people who can hurt, and do. Where do you find true friends then?”

“True friends? You’re lucky if you find three in a lifetime, Mary.”

“That’s what I’ve finally learned. Family you can trust. These so-called friends we’ll talk with today, they’ve never been that. Locum scares them, but not me. I never paid off to anybody.”

“Locum is dead,” I said. “He was pushed off a cliff last night.”

“Good! I hope he lived long enough to hurt for a while.”

My spiritual sister. I said, “You don’t know who the collector was before Locum?”

She shook her head. “I never paid.”

“I think I know who he is,” I said. “I think he was working with Locum and I think he killed Mrs. Marner.”

“Why?”

“Because Gonzales and Mrs. Marner were working together to get evidence against him. Jesus probably moved too soon. I think he’s dead, just like Maude.”

“Are you hungry?” she asked me. “Would you like some lunch?”

“No, thanks. I had a late breakfast.”

“So did we,” she said. “I’ll get cleaned up and we’ll visit my former friends.”

I headed for my car when we went out, but she said, “Let’s take mine. It’s air-conditioned.”

Through the squalid district the elegant car moved, stopping here, stopping there. I’ve forgotten most of their faces now and all of their names, except for Leeds. Mary made a point of introducing me to all of them in a clear voice. I didn’t realize why until later.

We had finished at the Padilla Grog Shop, and Leeds, too, confirmed my suspicion. But there was no way, he assured us, he would ever repeat it in court.

“You may never have to,” Mary told him. “Thanks, Barney. I’ll give you my list of customers, if you want them. I’m quitting the business. I’m going to Europe next week with Patty.”

“Wonderful!” he said. “Drop me a card, won’t you?”

She smiled. “Of course. And I’ll make out a list of customers for you.”

Outside, she said. “That’ll be the day I give him any list.” She patted the big black leather purse she’d been carrying. “It’s all right here, the first time in history Barney Leeds ever admitted anything to anybody.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s get into the car,” she said. “It’s hot.”

She climbed in behind the wheel and put the purse in my lap. “See that ornamental catch? That hides the microphone and the recording button. Everybody we talked to is in that purse, on tape.” She swung the big car away from the curb.

“It’s kind of sad, Mary, ending your career as an informer.”

“A traitor to my heritage,” she admitted. “But for a good cause. I thought an awful lot of Mrs. Marner.”

“I don’t think this would be admissible in court.”

“It’s a record for me. I’ll bet the police would like to have a copy. And you found out what you wanted to know, didn’t you?”

“I did. You’re going whole hog, aren’t you?”

“I’ve got my Patty. To hell with all of them. Any of them bother my Patty, I’ll have that to hand the police. Maybe it won’t convict anybody, but it would sure give the police an excuse to harass them.”

At her house, she said, “Come in and have another beer and some spaghetti. And I’ll give you your check.”

“I’ll have the beer and the spaghetti. If you insist on making out a check, make it out for what you think my time was worth and mail it to the Boys’ Club downtown.”

Too many calories later, she told me at the door, “I’ll make a couple extra copies of those tapes for you. You can decide if the police should have one, or part of one. And I’m going to send you a real nice present from Europe.”

When I got home, Jan was out in front, hitting cotton golf balls with my old three wood.

“You look owly,” she said. “Did something bad happen?”

“Not yet.”

“Lieutenant Vogel called. He’s going to call again after dinner. He said he’ll be busy until then.”

“And I’m going to be busy tonight.”

“You’re tense,” she said. “What kind of business is it?”

“I’m going to see a man. I don’t want to talk about it. If Vogel’s willing, I’d like to take him along.”

“Why shouldn’t he be willing?”

“It’s—too complicated to explain. It’s mostly hunch. Let me say, this town is—dirtier than it looks.”

T
WO PEOPLE WERE NOW
dead, and probably a third, if my hunch on Gonzales was correct. Locum could be a victim of Maude’s killer. Or he could have died because he had become powerful enough to attract the attention of some local retirees.

These men had made their fortunes out of coordinating the take from all our vices into one giant and efficient network. They knew how easily and completely a city can be destroyed by organized corruption. They didn’t want that to happen here, in their peaceful years.

If Locum had been one of their victims, his death would get minimum investigation. As Villwock had said, the police had more work than they could handle trying to protect the decent citizens. The murderer of Otis Locum had done both the police and the taxpayers a favor.

When the phone rang, I thought it would be Vogel. But it was Paul Pontius. “I just realized,” he said, “that I promised to phone you back last night. But after I phoned Harris and learned you would be released, I saw no reason for it. Apparently you were released.”

“I was. And thanks for—calling the right man.”

“It has been my experience that going directly to the top man is the best way to get results.”

Let’s hope he’s the top man, I thought. “Thanks again,” I said.

“Have they learned anything downtown about that Locum killing?”

“Nothing I know of. But I was only there for half an hour this morning.”

“And no suspects in Maude’s death?”

“None,” I lied.

“Well, hang in there, Brock.”

“I intend to,” I assured him.

At seven-thirty I phoned Vogel, but there was no answer. I would have to go it alone. Maybe, knowing as little as I did about the alliances in this town, that would be the wiser move, anyway.

It was still light out when I came along the entrance road to the freeway. Traffic was heavy, tourists coming to town for Fiesta Week, for a look at yesterday tomorrow. I took the Avalon turnoff and followed it to Chapparal Road. I turned off that on Ellis Lane.

A goat path, Jerry Jones had called it, and he was right. But once I squeezed around a sharp outcropping of rock, the slope was more gentle, and the view was almost up to Villwock’s.

A broad, low house of lightly stained yellow barn siding was at the top of the slope. There was a brand-new pale green camper parked under a metal carport at the side of the house, and an older Plymouth two-door sedan parked on the crushed rock of the parking area next to it.

The man who worshipped in the temple of Mammon had built himself a nice spread.

The porch was as wide as the house. There was no bell; I knocked. The door opened. The smell and sizzle of frying pork drifted out past the wide body of Joe Helms.

“Callahan! What gives?”

“I’ve learned some more about Tishkin’s story. Another lie.”

“Come in. I’ve got some chops frying. Get yourself a beer out of the fridge and sit down.”

The living room was immense, with open rafters. The kitchen and eating area had a lower ceiling. I didn’t get a beer. I sat in one of the chairs near the dining table.