Authors: Wade Miller
T
HE SUN
was rimming the Point Loma hills as Walter James eased his Buick out Rosecrans Boulevard. A stiff breeze was blowing off the bay. He rolled the car window higher.
Past the small shopping center, he turned left and followed the street toward the bay. A curved archway loomed ahead. The painted-chipped letters said EL REY YACHT CLUB. Two rows of straggly palm trees led toward a rambling frame building at the water’s edge. Small piers jutted haphazardly out into the bay, each with its cluster of sailboats and motor launches.
The parking lot was deserted except for a new Chevrolet and a 1938 Dodge. Walter James parked his Buick next to the Dodge. The wind blew small fragments of sand against the windows. When he got out, it pulled his trousers tight against his legs.
He met a brisk young man in dungarees and yachting cap just outside the front door.
“I’m looking for Major Rockwell,” Walter James said.
The young man pointed. “Follow that boardwalk around the clubhouse to the second pier and go right down to the end. He’s on board his cruiser. The
Carrie II.
I think he’s expecting you.”
“Thanks,” said Walter James. His heels knocked echoes from the boardwalk. He squeezed his left arm against the shoulder holster for reassurance. The wind made it hard to walk in a straight line. He looked at the
Carrie II
admiringly. It was a large cabin cruiser, about seventy-five feet long, painted white and brown. A blue and white flag with crossed swords snapped at the prow.
A man was seated in a deck chair watching him approach. Walter James halted ten feet away. “I’m looking for Major Rockwell.”
“I’m Major Rockwell,” the man said, and as he spoke he cocked the hand-action rifle that lay in his lap. “Won’t you come aboard, Mr. James?”
The slender man said, “You make it hard to refuse, Major.” He stepped gingerly aboard the gently rocking ship and dropped lightly to the deck.
Rockwell said, “Don’t let the rifle frighten you, Mr. James. I’ve been shooting at birds.” He was a big man, deeply tanned, with coarse gray hair. The backs of his hands and the portion of his chest visible from the open-throat shirt were covered with heavily matted black hair.
“Rifles never frighten me, Major.”
“You’re a brave man then. I’ve seen plenty of them and believe me, Mr. James, they are a competent weapon.”
Walter James tried unsuccessfully to light a cigarette. “The weapon is no better than the man who uses it.”
“Here,” said the major. “Let me.” He held up a wind-proof lighter. Walter James bent his head over it, puffed furiously.
“Thanks,” he said. “You need something like that around here.”
“Yes, the wind comes up every evening about this time. You get so you like it after a while. I’d miss it now.”
“Every man to his taste.”
“Yes,” said the major. “Every man to his taste. What’s yours, Mr. James?”
Walter James grinned without mirth. “You didn’t catch me off balance by knowing my name, Major. I’ve been in this business too long. I’m pretty damn sure you didn’t ever see me before, but then I’m the kind of a guy who isn’t hard to recognize. Even when the description is given over the phone.”
Rockwell’s eyes were bland. “You underestimate your fame, sir.”
Walter James looked out across the water. “What’s over there?”
“North Island — the Navy air base. Coronado Island is on the other side of it. You can’t see it from here.”
“Who’s the boat named for?”
There was a pause. The major said softly, “My wife. She’s — dead.”
“Do you think she’d like this business?” Walter James asked him. “And I don’t mean the yacht.”
Rockwell’s big hand brushed a speck of dust from the rifle barrel. “Subtlety is not your strong point, is it?”
“Sometimes, sometimes,” said Walter James. “Everything in its time and in its place. Tonight I feel like shooting the works. You see, Major Rockwell, I’m looking for a man.”
Rockwell lidded his eyes and didn’t speak. Walter James stared at him for a moment.
“Maybe you can tell me something I want to know. Or maybe I can tell you something. Let’s see who can surprise the other, shall we?”
The major smiled. “You’re a pleasant talker, Mr. James. Why don’t you just keep on?”
“I’ll give you some advice. You should get rid of Boniface. He’s too obvious to anybody with a suspicious mind. Like the police, for instance.”
Rockwell seemed amused. “My only connection with Dr. Boniface is through our country club.”
“In a pig’s eye,” said Walter James pleasantly. “He’s the front man in your racket. He has that fancy office, all complete with Lienster machine to put the suckers into a nice hypnotic condition before he even gets to them. Boniface digs out their troubles and he probably gets some beauties. San Diego is a rich town, a lot of retired people here. There’s bound to be a lot of neurosis mixed in.”
“But, Mr. James,” murmured the major, “isn’t that a psychiatrist’s business?” He seemed almost asleep in the chair, but his fingers caressed the stock of the rifle lovingly.
“Sure,” the smaller man said. “Sure, it’s his business. And business is pretty good. Because Dr. Boniface doesn’t stop there. As soon as he gets the dirt, he passes it along to somebody who decides if there are any possibilities, financially speaking.”
“You have very interesting theories, Mr. James. I’d be interested in hearing who you think that mysterious somebody is.”
Walter James pitched his cigarette overboard and watched the trail of sparks. The sun was entirely gone from the bay, but its traces were still visible on the Laguna mountains in the far distance.
“Don’t be naive, Major,” he said. “I figure it would be somebody with nothing much to do, somebody with a lot of nerve who likes action. Maybe even somebody with a yacht.”
There was a long silence. Rockwell stirred and stretched, his arms high above his head.
“Very pretty, Mr. James,” he said lazily. “But I’m afraid that you’re a better romancer than you are a thinker. That’s all just speculation on your part. Where’s your proof?”
“I’m not particularly interested in proof at the moment, Major.”
Rockwell stood up. His head almost touched the canvas awning that shaded the deck. He held the rifle casually under one arm, its muzzle pointing at the deck boards.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you, sir. Just what are you interested in?”
Walter James smiled. “I thought I told you. I want some information.”
“What kind of information?”
“I want to know what you know about Fernando Solez. That’s all, Major. I’m not interested in your racket — I’m not one of the local law. As far as I’m concerned you can blackmail the mayor and feed dope to the city council. That’s your business. My business is Fernando Solez.”
“I’m sorry that I can’t help you, Mr. James — ”
The detective straightened his slim shoulders. His voice snarled. “You’ll be damn sorry if you can’t help me, Major. Let’s take off the gloves. I’ve got to know anything you do about Solez. Tell me and we’ll be as chummy as hell. Otherwise, Lieutenant Clapp might hear your name mentioned.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. James?”
“Call it any name you like — but start talking.”
Rockwell looked out across the darkening water. “I like you, Mr. James — you’re a man after my own heart.” He chuckled. “Of course, your story is ridiculous — ”
“Skip it,” said Walter James.
“But since you’ve gone to the trouble to look me up, I’ll admit that I was acquainted with Solez, though only slightly. He was useful to me in a business connection on one or two occasions. The first I knew that he was dead was when I read it in the paper.”
“Put it plainer than that, Major. I’m kinda dumb tonight.”
Rockwell’s eyes glinted at him. “You’re a blunt man, Mr. James. That’s an admirable quality at times. Solez was able to procure certain chemicals that are useful to Dr. Boniface and myself in experiments that we’re conducting.”
The slender detective laughed noiselessly and without much mirth. “Our brown brother really got around. Where’d he get the stuff?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? It has to come from somewhere.”
“Dr. Boniface handled all the arrangements,” the major said smoothly. “I merely provided the financial — ah, backing. Neither of us were interested in the source.”
“Keep talking.”
The major gestured with his hands. “That’s all there is to tell.”
There was another moment of silence as Walter James picked over the story in his mind. “When was the last time you had any business dealings with Solez?” he asked finally.
“Let me see,” the major said blandly. “It’s hard to remember, Mr. James — it’s been quite a long while.”
Walter James said, “Take another look, Major. I’d say there was a deal on last Saturday night. The night the Filipino was stabbed.”
Major Rockwell laughed deeply but without sound. “I swear, Mr. James, you’re a wizard. There’s no use trying to conceal a thing from you, really there isn’t.”
“Oh, I’m no mind reader, Major,” Walter James deprecated. “There was a card found on Solez — at least, half a card. I found the other half later. Put them together and the trail was plain. Especially since it was one of the doctor’s business cards.”
The major was silent. A chuckle rippled through the other man’s slight frame. “Here’s how I figured it, Major. For a long time I wondered why the card was torn in two. But it’s really simple. Solez was a ticket taker and what does the ordinary ticket taker do with your ticket? Yep, he tears it in two. Am I boring you?”
The major sat down in the deck chair again. “Please continue, Mr. James.”
“Every time you and Boniface wanted a delivery from Solez, Boniface wrote him a note on a small piece of paper and handed it to the Filipino along with a ticket. Solez tore it in two and stuck it in his coat pocket. He read it later. It’s my hunch that he was just about to read it when he was killed. At least, that would account for why one piece was still in his coat.”
He paused. Rockwell didn’t move. “Maybe Boniface gave the note to Solez at an early show — or maybe he was sitting in on the last one. A check of the audience would show. But it doesn’t matter. He’d hardly give the Filipino a note with one hand and stab him with the other.”
The shadowy figure in the chair moved its head slightly. “I don’t see how all this particularly concerns me, Mr. James. I’m simply an innocent bystander.”
Walter James stretched the length of his slim form. “Bystander, yes, Major. But innocent — well, now, I wonder.” He groped around for the ladder to the dock.
The quiet in Rockwell’s voice was underwritten with subtle menace. “You wonder what, Mr. James?”
Walter James watched the rifle lying across the sitting man’s lap. “I wonder if you might be Doctor Boone.” The rifle didn’t move. Walter James put his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder.
“Why do you ask that?” The major’s tones were unreadable.
Walter James shrugged. “Just an idle question. I’m like Durante. I got a million of ‘em.”
H
E PICKED
K
EVIN UP
at her house a little after seven. She was ready and waiting in a black cloth coat over a crepe dress that approached mustard yellow in color. Mr. Gilbert slouched in a low chair by the radio. He unfolded and shook hands when the girl let Walter James in; he appeared not to notice the little lights in his daughter’s eyes. The two men appraised each other coldly. Walter James was wondering about the older man’s connection with Shasta Lynn. He could sense Gilbert’s wonder about his own connection with his daughter. Suddenly, Kevin seemed younger and younger.
The two men exchanged a few brief unimportant comments before Walter James followed the girl through the doorway. Gilbert’s last words were: “Don’t stay out too late, Laura. You’ve been doing it too much lately.” His looming shadow against the front room lights seemed to pursue them to the car.
Kevin gave an exclamation of disgust. “Oh, gosh, Walter — there’s Bob!” She gestured with her head at the yellow Model A coupe nuzzling the Buick’s rear bumper.
“He’s persistent, anyway.”
“I think he’s following me,” the girl said angrily. “Wait a minute, Walter. We might as well get this over with right now.” Her high heels made a belligerent tap-tap as she crossed the sidewalk to the yellow car. Walter James followed more leisurely.
“ — your own business,” Kevin was saying.
Newcomb’s head was a dark silhouette against the car window. “It is my business — at least it was until this guy showed up.”
Kevin’s tones were so icily formal that Walter James grinned in spite of himself. “Well, it isn’t any more. We’re not married, you know. We’re not even engaged. I can go where I want to and with anyone I want to.”
“Sure you can, Laura,” Newcomb agreed patiently, in the tone proper for reasoning with a small child. “But grow up a little bit, will you?”
Walter James expected for a moment that the girl would stamp her foot in exasperation. Instead, she merely drew herself a little straighter. “Please find somebody else to worry about.” The light car rocked from the impact as she slammed the door. Walter James silently helped her into the Buick.
As they rolled forward, he looked at her angry profile. “Relax.”
She moved over on the seat and squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry, Walter — I never felt so much like an infant in my life!”
“I thought your poise was wonderful,” he said gravely.
“Oh, did you?” she said and considered this for a moment. Then she looked at his face in the half-light. “Oh, you’re laughing at me!” He confessed the crime. She sighed. “I don’t mind — it’s one way of making you pay attention to me.” She gave an anticipatory shiver. “Tell me all about what happened today. Did you see Shasta Lynn? What’s she like?”
“Let’s just be a couple of people tonight. There’s a pretty good murder mystery on at the Fox.”
She wrinkled her forehead and peered at his profile. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you? Walter, I’ve got to know!”
He smiled forlornly. “Yes. I’m teasing you. I’m glad there isn’t much to tell.”
Kevin looked disappointed.
“And after that, can we be normal?” he asked.
“I suppose so,” she said. “But I don’t feel like being normal when I’m with you, Walter.”
“I went out to La Mesa about eleven. Both the women were there — Shasta and this Madeline Harms. They had refilled a cigarette box in a hurry while I was coming in. I let them watch me collect the tobacco scraps in the bottom of the box and intimated that I was going to turn it in to the police lab. They weren’t sure I was connected with the local cops or the government so they got a little excited. Particularly the Harms girl.”
“What’s she really like?” asked Kevin.
“She’s not so much — a little on the impressionable side. She spilled most of it. It was just the way we figured it. The Filipino was a go-between cutting a little out of each shipment to get in good with the big blonde.”
“Had they kept marijuana cigarettes in the box?”
“Clapp ran a test on it this afternoon. I haven’t seen him, so I don’t know how it turned out. But it’s going to turn out yes.”
“How about my father?” the girl asked in a low voice.
“No answer.”
“There has to be an answer. I haven’t thought about anything else all day.”
Walter James said, “Look. I tried to edge into the subject of your father from every direction. Believe me, I was as oblique as all hell. But no soap. They didn’t pick up their cues. All these women did was make me positive that your father has no possible chance of getting involved because of this killing. As far as I could see, he didn’t even enter Shasta Lynn’s mind all the time I was there.”
Kevin looked at him soberly. “Then you didn’t get anywhere at all.”
“I wouldn’t say that. With Shasta Lynn thinking that the law is on her pretty tail, she’s going to take a lot less interest in whatever might be going on between her and your father. And vice versa for your father.”
She blinked and turned her head to one side. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Furthermore, think of this: we’re way ahead of the cops on this thing. We’re going to stay that way — know everything first and be able to take steps to keep your father out of this. Clapp hasn’t a thing on Shasta Lynn but the weed angle and he can’t possibly learn about your father through that. First, because I couldn’t and, second, because he doesn’t dare push things half as far as I did this morning.”
He had one hand lying along his trouser leg as he steered down Park Boulevard. She slipped her hand under it. “You’re pretty clever,” she said gratefully.
“It all follows. When your father learns that Shasta is a popular girl in the eyes of the law, he’ll cool off in a hurry. I’ll give you odds it’s all over.”
“It seems so quick. Last night — big problem. Tonight — nothing.”
“What do you mean, tonight — nothing? We’ve got a date.” She giggled.
They were just another couple going into the Fox. Walter James thought: maybe we even look happier than most. He bought three loge seats at the box office. He left one ticket with the glass-caged girl, instructing her to present it to the first heavy-set man who tried to pay admission.
Kevin laughed at that. “You’re sweet,” she said. “I hope he hasn’t seen the picture.”
“Cops can’t have everything,” he told her.
They held hands for two hours. The picture was about a lovable old doctor who with small-town shrewdness, geniality and homely philosophy brought a murderer to justice and two sweethearts to the point of matrimony. When the second feature came on, they tiptoed out.
“Not much like you, was he?” Kevin commented in the lobby.
“Not much,” said Walter James. “I look like hell in a cracker barrel.”
“Where to now?”
“Home. You’ve been staying out too late lately.”
“Don’t throw it up to me, Walter. I couldn’t possibly sleep tonight.” She made her eyes pleading.
“You’ll have every opportunity. I have to stand in good with your father. And don’t pout at me, redhead — I’m wise to your tricks.” She stuck out her tongue at him.
The lights in the front room were still burning when he braked the Buick at 45th Street and El Cajon.
“This is the earliest I’ve come in for months,” Kevin pointed out. “Dad’s still up.”
“Fine,” he said. “I like to make a good impression.”
“I think you’d have the common decency to race me around the block. I’m just not tired,” Kevin wheedled.
“Race at my age!” He laughed like the old doctor in the movie. “You forget, miss, I’m not as spry as I used to be.”
“You’re young, Walter,” she said solemnly. “In a couple of ways, you’re younger than I am.”
He grinned. “Women always pull that one on their men.”
She was sitting very erect, facing him. Her hands twisted nervously in her lap. The street-lighted portions of her face looked puzzled. In a small voice, she asked, “Are you my man, Walter?”
He said, “God, I hope so.” She came to him. Their mouths were together but he wasn’t conscious of her lips. He was conscious of her fingers clutching the back of his coat, of her knees clumsily bumping his, of the enveloping warmth of her, of the fresh smell that rose from her skin, but he wasn’t conscious of her lips.
When they broke, she buried her cheek against his necktie. “Cigarette,” she said shakily. He found the pack somehow and lit one for her. The smoke rose in nervous little puffs. He couldn’t see her face.
Her voice was muffled. “Keep your hands on me, Walter. Please.” He stroked the curve of her back. She was trembling. His fingers investigated under the copper hair and discovered how two spearheads of soft down ran along the back muscles of her neck. His lips pressed the satiny top of her head.
She raised her face and sat up close to him. “It’s never been like this,” she whispered. “I guess I can’t take it.”
“I guess that’s the way I feel. I don’t know how I feel.” He pulled her body against his and kissed her again. After a moment, she sighed and let her head lean against the back of the seat. They sat for a long time without saying anything, his fingers gently tracing designs on her face.
“You know what?” she murmured. He kissed her eyelids.
“What, redhead?”
“I’ve lost my cigarette.”
He found it with his foot and ground it out.
She breathed out happily. “We could have burnt up and I’d never have found out about it.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“You’ll never be able to get rid of me now.”
“I’ll never try.”
She kissed the back of his hand and held it against her cheek. “Walter. Please don’t make me go in.”
“I don’t want to. But your father’s still up and our friend’s across the street and this isn’t the place for us right now, anyway.”
“We can go somewhere else.”
He shook his head. She beamed and sighed. “This is a wonderful place!”
“Come on,” he said. He helped her out of the Buick and she slipped her arm around him under his coat as they strolled up the flagstones. Before they came into the half-circle glow of the porch light, he stopped.
“Kevin, darling. Did you tell your father I was going to see Shasta Lynn today?”
She looked at him wonderingly. “Why, no! I haven’t told him much of anything about you. Except how sweet you are.”
“Well, just as insurance, just so he’ll be sure to find out, tell him when you go in that I was out to see her this morning. Do it casually, as though I were helping the cops on this marijuana case. I think that will finish everything for once and for all.”
“All right, Walter. And thanks for doing all this for me. You’ve been a terrific help.”
“I’m a born helpmeet,” he said.
“Kiss me again. Then I’ll go in like a good little girl. Kiss me again to hold me over till tomorrow night.”
They merged, a warm welcome in her body. Then they became two separate people again, whispering good night at the same instant. He watched her from outside the arc of porch light until the front door closed behind her.
Walter James gunned the car noisily away from the curb, drove down El Cajon two blocks, and pulled sharply right into a side street. He left the car there and paced swiftly down a block, over two, up another block.
The square whiteness of the house side facing 45th Street shone with street light. Carefully feeling his way along a row of bushes, he crossed in back of the house and circled the other side. This side was shadowed heavily. The window he wanted, the window nearest the telephone, was the first one from the front. He edged cautiously up to it and crouched by it at the foot of an oleander tree. The window was raised from the bottom about two inches. He sat on the backs of his ankles and watched the glow of the front windows on the lawn.
Twenty minutes later the glow snapped off. A husky voice spoke behind him. “What’re you up to now, James?” It was the heavy-set plain-clothes man.
“Come here,” whispered Walter James. The detective squatted down behind him. “Not so damn much noise! How’d you like the show?”
“I asked what you were doing here,” whispered the heavy man doggedly.
“Stick around and you’ll find out. How’d you like the show?”
“Stunk. Why didn’t you go to the Spreckels?”
“Thought you’d be interested in a murder mystery. Give you some pointers.”
“We get along.”
An orange-lit window at the rear of the house went black. “Probably the girl’s room,” murmured Walter James.
“Oh.”
The two men crouched motionless until their legs began to prickle. The heavy man whispered worriedly, “It’d be just my luck to have somebody steal the car. I left the keys — ”
A small lamp broke the gloom of the window above them. Gilbert’s tall shadow appeared on the shade. It picked up the receiver. Walter James oozed his body closer to the window.
Gilbert dialed once for the operator. His voice was low as he placed his call. The heavy man jerked Walter James’s coat. His lips spelled out, “I missed the number.”
The slender man pointed to his ear and nodded reassuringly. Both men froze alertly against the side of the house as Gilbert began to speak. His voice, murmuring at first, became louder as he argued.
“ — and I don’t care. I can’t get back to you over the radio, you know.”
Silence as Gilbert listened.
“Don’t ask me how I know. I just know. This end’s too hot right now to put in a new man. Shut it off for a while, Steve. That’s all. Shut it off.”
He replaced the phone angrily. On the drawn shade, the two men could see the outline of his head peer around nervously as though he feared the receiver click had betrayed him. Then his shadow grew huge and the small lamp clicked out. They heard soft footfalls leaving the room.
Walter James drew away, letting his breath out. With light steps he strode to the front of the house and out to the sidewalk. The heavy man was right behind him.
“Okay. Now what did all that mean?”
“Clapp will know,” said Walter James.
“Yeah, but I’m not Clapp. I’m not in on everything. I’m just watching the girl.”
“Did you catch everything he said?”