Troublemaker (21 page)

Dave stood. Maybe simply to shield the boy from that basilisk stare of Taylor's. He said, "Your photo was in the
Times.
Evidently before Yoshiba got you away from there, reporters came. You were on those long cement stairs down from the Wendell place. Wearing that outfit."

"Yeah." Johns's clear brow wrinkled. "So?"

"Have you thought," Dave asked, "why someone tried three times to kill Tom
—then didn't try anymore?"

"Oh, wow." Johns sat down as if maybe his legs were unsteady. He watched the bare brown boys a moment without really seeing them. He blinked at Dave. "No, not really. It's kind of funny, though, isn't it?"

"I hope it stays funny," Dave said. "But I'm betting it won't. Keep close to me
—right?"

"What's wrong?" Johns looked around, alarmed.

"Take it easy," Dave said. "I'm working on a hunch. They're not always reliable."

The music reached a final whining upslide of guitars, the brown boys snatched up their fallen sarongs and fled the stage, giggling like the three little maids from school. Applause clattered
off
the wooden walls. For this, people had abandoned their drinks. Confetti showered from the lofts. A few colored balloons wagged toward the high, shadowy rafters. Someone on a loft reached out and punctured one. It popped like a shot.

The man in the white tuxedo returned, applauding, to the microphone. "Our thanks," he said, "to the management of The Flower Lei for sending us Mei Mei, Tei Tei and Laverne." Laughter. "Seriously, if that didn't get you in the mood, lie down, dears
—you're dead. All right. So much for foreplay." Laughter, his own with the crowd's. "Now, I know you're all dying for a look at the stars of the evening —those handsome and talented and sexy finalists for the title 'Mr. Marvelous.' What?" He turned from the mike, stepped toward the back of the stage. "Yes, right." He faced the crowd again. "They're ready—isn't that nice? They've only had four months. Anyway—take a good look at them with their clothes on. It will be your last chance tonight." Cocked eyebrow, open hand on breast. "Did I say that? All right—here we go. First, from The Barracks, contestant number one, Skeets Mclntyre—five eleven, one sixty, actor, bronco buster, Texan from top to toe. Let's hear it for Skeets Mclntyre!" He backed from the microphone, applauding. Mclntyre appeared in the spotlights. His eyes were too close together.

The parade ran on while the smoke thickened and the comments of the M.C. thinned and the judges squinted upward appraisingly and made notes with chewed pencils. The biggest applause came for Bobby Reich. But as Dave understood it, appearance was only a step. Somehow or other, as the evening wore on, talent and intelligence were supposed to be displayed. He set his drink between his feet on the sawdust and applauded Bobby. It might be his only honest opportunity. More balloons were loosed. Two of them banged this time. He wished that would stop. Here was a hairy lad in skin-tight wet-look black plastic from The Rawhide. And last, a lissome prince
— princess?—from The Queen and Court.

He reached down for his glass and nearly bumped heads with Ace Kegan, who was crouching in front of him, trying to make himself heard over the din of clapping, cheering, stamping, music, the clatter of empty beer cans underfoot. At the same moment, Dave noticed Vern Taylor trying to come back, working his way past the knees and floor-tangled camera cases of the news people who now filled the chairs. Except that no one filled the chair next to Dave. Where the hell was Larry Johns? Dave bent toward the broken face of the little ex-boxer. If this was bad news about Bobby Reich, then his worries about this evening were off target. He cupped a hand to his ear. But what Kegan said was:

"You're wanted on the phone. By luck I was there when the call came. They won't page anybody
—not with a crowd like this. Too many people afraid the boss might learn where they were. But I heard the dude who took the call speak your name. It's some kind of emergency. Somebody's mother. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. You don't exactly top my list of people I want to do favors for." He got to his feet, jerked his chin. "Phone's back of the bar."

"Thanks." Dave stood, pushed his chair aside, headed for the mirrors. While he fought his way, he squinted around him, trying to locate Larry Johns. Nowhere. He swore to himself. The phone receiver lay like a stunned thing by a silver-painted wrought-iron cash register halfway along the back bar. Dave worked the trick latch of the gate at the bar's end. A hefty youth in a leather vest and waxed mustaches blocked his way. He gave his name. The youth went back to the tall, spooled spigot handles and the foaming steins he was supposed to be minding. Dave picked up the phone.

"Get to the pet store, will you?" It was Doug. "On the double, please. Dave, she's really done it this time. She's liberated everything. The God damn sky is alive with parakeets and cockateels. Rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, white rats down every storm drain, cats and monkeys up every tree. They were political prisoners. She's Secretary General of the U.N. or something. Declared a worldwide general amnesty. I got the turtles back and a couple of toads. I'm quicker than they are. And, thank God, she didn't think of the fish. Yes, the fire department's coming. And the S.P.C.A. They say. But I need
you.
" While he listened, Dave watched the stage. The pastor of gay sheep came to the microphone. His sweet, swamp-water tones met a hush of beery reverence. Head thrown back, eyes closed, hands folded demurely at his crotch, he told God what had happened to big, gentle, lovable Rick Wendell. As if God let cases stack up on his desk like Johnny Delgado. The prayer ended. An electronic organ with bronchial problems and a subnormal pulse began "The Lord's Prayer." A plump, balding young man stepped up to sing the words.

And a gun went off. Not that near, but near. The sound was nothing like the bursting of balloons. Bad nerves had tricked his memory. The crowd didn't know the difference. The organ and the off-key baritone wobbled on and they listened. But Dave knew the difference and felt very sick. Larry Johns. Why had he wandered off when Dave had warned him? Where was Vern Taylor? Why had Doug's disaster had to happen now? He told the phone, "Doug, I can't. Not now. I'm sorry." He blundered the receiver into place and ran.

He didn't bother with apologies now, plowing his way backstage. He ended bruised and with a torn jacket pocket by the time he got there. In dim amber light, the contestants were stripping down to swim trunks. Silent. Out of respect for dead Rick Wendell and their own stage fright. The Big Barn's owner, bony, bucktoothed, sixty, in a silver-braided baby-blue satin cowboy outfit, was running an electric shaver over the bulging chest of his champion. Tenderly. Dave took it away from him, thumbed the switch to stop the waspish little motor, pushed the shaver into the boy's hand, took the man's stringy arm, led him away.

"There's been a shooting," Dave said quietly. "Out in back, I think. How do we get there?"

The man blinked, went pale, swallowed hard. But he moved. He led the way around a plank-and-stud partition that made a kind of hallway. To one side, doors were labeled us and
them.
There was a zinc-covered kitchen door with no light, no activity behind it. At the end of the hallway, a red
exit
sign was dim over a door with many bolts and chains. They weren't fastened. The bucktoothed man pulled the door open. The bulb outside was even dimmer, forty watts in a cage. It threw more shadow than light. There were big, scarred trash modules, stinking galvanized-iron garbage barrels, crates filled with smashed bottles. And in a chain-link fence corner clotted with soggy wastepaper
—a man. He lay face down in a puddle that showed rainbows of oil. And something darker. Blood.

"My God!" The bucktoothed man put out a hand.

Dave knelt by Ace Kegan, laid fingers against the big vein in his neck. Life still beat there. But no thanks to Dave. Anger churned in him, disgust. Granted there'd been a lot of ways to be wrong in this case
—did he have to try them all? And always too late? He got to his feet. "He's not dead," he told the bucktoothed man. "Phone the police. They'll bring an ambulance."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to the beach." Dave headed for the glare of neons at the end of the alley. "As fast as I can get there. I hope to God it's fast enough."

CHAPTER 15

But
H
ollywood traffic
on a summer weekend night was geared down. There was no way to get through it fast. In a three-block-long jam-up that had lasted through ten minutes of signal changes, he got disgusted. He left the car idling in the middle lane near La Cienega and Santa Monica and closed himself in a telephone booth. It stood against the curved stucco wall of a topless dance place. It smelled of marijuana smoke. He dug in his pocket. And the coins were wrong. Many yards off on an opposite corner, a Rexall drugstore promised change. There wasn't time. The signal went green. Horns began to blare behind the abandoned Electra. He dodged back to it. It was his turn at last and he made it across Santa Monica, but the achievement meant nothing. Down the long slope of restaurant row, the traffic clogged forever. When after another five minutes he reached a side street, he swung west toward Robertson. He'd phone from the apartment.

He sat on the bed, sweating, working his way out of his jacket, tugging down the knot of his tie, and listening to the phone buzz busy at Tom Owens's end. He tried twice more. Hopeless. He lit a cigarette and dialed Operator. His shirt was soaked. The night breeze through the big empty rooms made him shiver. "Look, I'm trying to reach this number." He gave it. "And it's busy. Can you break in on the line? It's urgent." "One moment
—I'll give you the supervisor." The supervisor took more than a moment. And when she did get around to him, it didn't help. "I'm sorry. That number is out of order. I'll report it."

"Oh, no!" Dave said. "Look, the party's an invalid. Maybe he knocked the phone off the hook."

"I wouldn't be able to give you that information," she said. "You'd have to call Repair Service. They can check it for you. Dial 611." He dialed it and it rang a long, long time, but they checked the phone. "It is off the hook, sir. If this is an emergency, we can use a howler on it."

"Great," Dave said. "Make it a loud howler."

"They're not very loud," the girl said. Whether it was or not, Tom Owens didn't seem to hear it. "No one answers," the girl said.

"Right, thanks." Dave hung up and bent to twist out his cigarette in the ashtray on the floor. Hell, he'd only wasted time. What good would it do to warn Tom Owens someone was coming to kill him? He couldn't move from that bed. Dave dialed another number. "Los Santos police. Officer Zara speaking." Officer Zara didn't sound more than sixteen. "Lieutenant Yoshiba, please. Dave Brandstetter calling. It's an emergency."

"I'm sorry, sir. He's not here. Matter of fact, I'm the only one that is here. If you're calling about the trouble in Paradiso
—"

"I wasn't. What's the matter?"

"It's the college kids again. They're trashing the mall again. They've occupied a bank. They're burning it. And somebody's sniping at the police. Everybody's there." He sounded wistful, left out.

"Well, look, Officer Zara," Dave said. "I have reason to believe there may be an attempt at homicide. The Thomas Owens house." He gave the R.F.D. address on the coast road. "Can you send somebody?

The man's alone there, laid up in bed, legs in casts."

"He hasn't called us," the boy said.

"He doesn't know the danger he's in," Dave said. "And while we're talking
—"

"Okay, sir. I understand. I've written down the address. I'll try to radio a car, send them out there. He's alone like that? No nurse?"

"No nurse. The whole family's away tonight."

"What about dogs? Those people out on the dunes, they usually have a dog."

"Right," Dave said. "They've got dogs."

The big dog lay just inside the open front door. It lay on the polished floorboards among splinters of glass. A panel had been smashed out of the door. Dave crouched by the dog. The light was poor. It came a long way
—from the hanging wicker lamp above the wicker furniture at the room's far end. But it was enough to show him a puddle of drying blood under the dog's head. He touched the motionless body. It had begun to lose heat in the cool beach night, begun to stiffen. The fur had lost its sheen and felt coarse. There was no sign of the other dogs.

A breeze sighed across the sand outside. There was the splash and sibilance of surf. Somewhere in the house, as in a ship, a beam creaked. He stood. And then he heard it, the sound of a voice. It came from beyond that far bulkhead, insistent, on a single pitch, no shift in tempo. It sounded not quite sane. But he knew the voice.

If he'd had any doubt about whom he was chasing out those red-taillight-streaked miles of freeway and coast road after escaping the tangle of city traffic, the doubt had been wiped out by what he'd found, a minute ago, leaking oil on the clean planks of Tom Owens's otherwise empty carport. It was a battered ten-year-old European mini. The slatted engine cover at the back was still hot.

Now he pried off his shoes and went quietly along beside the great painting under the gallery. Toward that edgy voice. The boxy hall the other side of the bulkhead was dark below but light came out through the tall opening above Tom Owens's closed door. It went high into a roof peak windowed by dark triangles of glass. The voice went up there too. And banged back down to Dave in the dark.