"Of blackmail. Letters to Amanda, then Amanda picks the ones most ripe for bleeding and sends his boy for the transfusion."
"The — yes. At first I understood only that Miss Antoinette had divulged in a letter to Amanda information which she should have entrusted only to the proper authorities, if to anyone. But you would not believe the secrets and confidences, and even confessions, which pour into a column such as 'Lifelorn'."
"Sure I would."
I was starting to light another cigarette, but I froze.
My lighter was low on fluid, and I just looked at the little flame until it petered out. Not until this moment had I thought about that handwritten page I'd picked up in the gutter across the street from Finley Pike's home. But I thought about it now.
Waverly said, "Is something wrong?"
"No, something's right. Have you got a match?"
He frowned. Maybe he didn't mind if I smoked; but clearly he didn't want actually to contribute to my delinquency. However, be found a book of matches in a desk drawer and handed it to me. The book carried advertising copy — advertising Inside. No clues there.
I lit my cigarette, and Waverly continued, "As I say, at first I knew only that Miss Antoinette was being blackmailed; I thought the information with which to blackmail her had been obtained from a letter she wrote to Amanda, and that she blamed me. It was immediately apparent that Miss Antoinette must be pacified or she might in her frenzy tell others her story. Tell, for example, others in the industry, or newspaper reporters . . . Whether there was any truth to her allegations or not, I knew it must not become even a rumor in Hollywood. That could of itself be fatal, could ruin Inside, my reputation, several reputations. You understand?"
"I begin to."
He pulled at his lip again. "I told Miss Antoinette I was totally innocent but would do all in my power to help her establish the facts, whatever they might be. If anyone on my staff was involved in an attempt to blackmail her he would be brought to justice. I then suggested we contact the police. And that diminished her hysteria considerably."
I blinked. "She wanted the cops in on it?"
"On the contrary. She preferred that the police know nothing about the affair. So, not only because an exploratory investigation did indeed seem advisable, but primarily to pacify Miss Antoinette, I suggested we employ, at my expense, a private investigator — of her choosing, to eliminate any suspicion that I might select one favorable only to my own interests. She mentioned your name, said she knew you. I asked her to place the call so she would be certain her choice had actually been telephoned."
"You weren't missing any bets, were you?"
"She . . . ah, still had the gun."
"Uh-huh. At the time I suppose she was pretty well shaken, maybe dripping a few late tears?"
"She had stopped actually sobbing and shrieking but was not back to normal by any means."
Which would explain why she'd sounded like a fish strangling in an aquarium. Waverly's story seemed, at least so far, to be plugging the holes I'd meant to probe.
He said, "For the same reason, I let her listen to my conversation with you. And she calmed down almost completely. Once calm, she related her story in such precise and exact fashion, and with such artlessness and sincerity, I became convinced she was telling me the truth. That accepted, I had to accept the logical corollary, that Mr. Pike had betrayed his confidence and was the true author of the blackmail. I believed he was blackmailing Miss Antoinette — and if her, why not another? A dozen others? Perhaps several dozens of others."
"Why not?"
"I almost became ill when the extensions of that thought became apparent. If he was engaged in blackmail of others, perhaps some of those others had guessed the information must have come from their letters to Amanda and — like Miss Antoinette — assumed erroneously that I myself was a party to the blackmail. It was that thought which sent me to Mr. Pike's home. I let Miss Antoinette out the side exit after telling her I would have you call upon her; I considered the situation briefly, then determined to have it out with Mr. Pike."
"And raced out of here yelling, 'Finley Pike! I'll fix him,' or words to that effect."
"Eh?" He frowned at me. "Oh, no. I couldn't have done anything like that. I was angry, of course . . . but, no."
"Miss Prinz might have garbled it a little."
"Well . . . the rest you know."
"So you went to Pike's and beat hell out of him."
"I did not — I repeat, Mr. Scott, the rest you know. All else occurred precisely as I told you."
"So why didn't you tell me last night about Natasha's flip? Why wait till now?"
He seemed truly surprised. "Why," he said, "I assumed that would be apparent to you at this point."
I blinked. And then realized he was right. "Yeah," I said "I'm a little slow. Motive, you mean."
"Certainly. The police were, and I'm sure still are convinced I murdered the man. They know I was there and that I knew the victim. But there is not any evidence that Mr. Pike and I were on anything but the best of terms. The truth is, we got along extremely well. The police have everything except a motive for the crime. If I had told them, or they had overheard me telling you, of Miss Antoinette's allegations — that I believed Mr. Pike to be engaged in a possibly enormous blackmail operation, an operation fed by information extracted from letters to the 'Lifelines for the Lifelorn' column in my journal, Inside — clearly my position would have been hopeless. Additionally, true or false, that would have been emblazoned in the newspaper stories this morning."
He'd called it a "journal." But he was right on the nut this time, too. The police would have had one hell of a motive — or, rather, their choice of two: Waverly, furious at the sudden revelation that Pike was using an Inside column for blackmail, raced to Pike's, beat him, and then killed him; or, Waverly was co-partner with Pike in the blackmail, there was a falling-out-among-thieves, and Waverly pounded on Pike and then killed him. Either way, my client would soon be inside looking out.
It also occurred to me that either of those motives would fit Waverly very nicely, if he had killed Pike. More, if his story was true, only Natasha Antoinette could have corroborated it. If he'd been lying to me, it was very convenient for him that she was now dead.
It was clear as mountain air, however, that either Waverly was telling me the truth or he was very, very clever.
I said, "O.K., Mr. Waverly, now explain away the connection between you and Al Gant and we'll be in business."
"There is no connection between me and Mr. Gant."
"I thought I told you — "
"Yes, you told me. That does not make it true. It could be true, though, I suppose. At least it's possible."
"What does that mean?"
"All I know is that Miss Willow and two other persons active in the industry — whom I respect, by the way — approached me something over two years ago and suggested that I was a suitable person to begin publishing a new Hollywood journal. They were willing to provide the necessary capital. The idea appealed to me and, after mulling over the offer for a few days, I accepted with pleasure. But where my associates — including Miss Willow — got their money, which they invested in the enterprise, I do not know. In fact, I never thought about it until now."
He placed his hands on the desk again, pushed his fingers together, and looked directly at me. "I have heard the name Al Gant, yes. But I have never met the man, have never been and am not now associated in any way with him. If you say that some of his criminal associates were at Mr. Pike's last night I will accept your statement. But that acceptance is not based on any knowledge of my own. I know nothing of this person, whoever it was, that the police shot last night at Mr. Pike's. I did not even know until you told me that anyone had been shot. Now, again, and for the last time in our discussions, I did not kill Mr. Pike."
Well, ambivalence will chop up an investigation eight ways from the middle. So either I told Waverly good-bye, or I went ahead on the assumption tha
t he was as honest as the day is long, and it was the middle of summer. Besides, once you really make up your mind, a lot of the missing elements often fall magically into place. I made up my mind.
"O.K.," I said. "We're in business. So, by the numbers. One, if there's Gant money in your — your journal, slipped in by Miss Willow, I'll find out about it. Two, those hoods of Al's were sure as hell headed for Pike's last night — one of them went back — so if there's no connection between you and Gant it's better than eight to five there was some kind of link either between him and Pike or him and the guy who ruined Pike's brains. Three, if Natasha said there was no witness to that hit-run, I believe her — which means someone, probably Pike, had a blackmail bonanza going right here under your nostrils; if he was blackmailing other letter writers, I think I've got a hunk of one of those letters — though I didn't realize it till a few minutes ago — and I may be able to trace it to the writer, and thus to one more of the victims. . . ."
I stopped. It's funny how conviction sneaks up on you. In that moment I became completely convinced Waverly hadn't killed Pike. See? Magic. Nobody, but nobody, could have been that clever about it. So I went on, "Thanks to the unintentional helpfulness of Pike's killer, who must have dropped it after exiting in one hell of a hurry from the house. Four, fill me in on how the Amanda section operated and show me what files you've got here, give me Natasha's description of that would-be collector, supply any details you've got on the hit-run she told you about, and accept my abrasive apologies for leaning on you a mite — and I'll get out of here."
He grinned. It wasn't a mere smile this time but a real, big, grinny grin. "We," he said, "are in business."
THIRTEEN
After leaving Waverly I drove back to the Spartan. In my bedroom I found the coat I'd been wearing the previous night. The crumpled and soiled sheet of paper was in the pocket, where I'd stuck it.
The thing wasn't part of a story for True Agony Confessions, but it was true agony: one page of a letter, from one of the tortured ones Waverly had mentioned, to Amanda Dubonnet. At least, so I assumed; there was nothing on the sheet of paper, or in the lines written on it, to indicate that. But maybe between the lines there was.
Except that, when I'd read the whole sheet carefully, I still hadn't found a thing that might lead me to its writer, not a glimmer. At least nothing I could see. I read it over quickly three or four more times, then forgot about it. For the moment.
Then, back to my list, putting the lines out, phoning, seeing, talking — and this was the third time now. Lines out tagged, in addition to the others, Natasha Antoinette, Madelyn Willow — and Jeremy Slade.
Plus a description, and the question, "Who is he?" He being the blackmail boy, or bagman, the Collector. The description was all that Waverly had been able to give me from what Natasha, between or among sobs and shrieks, had told him: a big guy, not very clean, bald on the front of his head but with a kind of mound of hair, proceeding from the middle of his scalp on back, and in need of a cutting at the nape, maybe gray, maybe brown. For some reason she'd especially noticed his feet. As Waverly had recalled her colorful and somewhat jazzy word-picture of those extremities, they were "the biggest damn feet I ever did see, except on a hippopata-whatever the hell. Daddy, those were feet."
Not much. Maybe enough. So: a big lout, half bald, with feet that wouldn't quit. He'd called on Natasha at eight p.m. Before nine she'd been with Waverly.
I checked with the police. No help there, and no late developments. I did learn the brand of cigarettes Natasha's killer had smoked. Him and several million other people.
I talked to Madelyn Willow. She looked like the kiss-off of death, a gal at least a hundred and sixty years old, with a pound and a half of weight for each year, and two thirds of it fat. That's the way she looked. The sober truth was that she stood five feet, two inches tall and weighed one-ninety, which was a pretty sobering truth even without exaggeration. She had starred, about thirty years back, in a B-minus movie in which she kissed the male lead on the neck, and then bit him, and danced on tippy-toe at the New Year's Eve ball. It was hard to believe: She had danced on tippy-toe.
Al Gant? Who? Of course I don't know him, whoever he . . . Who? Aldo Gianetti? Is there something wrong with you, young man? Of course it was my money. I made thousands, millions, when I was a Star. I — what? Of course it was my own money; I told you I never heard of . . . I'll report you to the authorities, young man. I'll report you.
I told her, golly, I was only asking, and left, having learned exactly as much as I'd expected to: nothing. But there are ways and ways.
During the afternoon I kept thinking about Cherry Dayne. I called and talked to her twice, partly to see if she'd remembered anything about the rifleman, but also to tell her to keep under cover and not wander around where she, too, might get shot. The more I learned, or guessed, about this case the more concerned about Cherry I became.
Maybe I should have been worrying more about me.
It happened when I least expected it.
I might have been tailed from time to time during that afternoon — but not for long at a time, and I can say that without boasting. Watching for and avoiding a tail is simply routine, a fact of investigative life, part of the job; you'd expect a bookkeeper to know how to keep books. But, still, they could without too much trouble have gotten a line on what I was up to, on where I might go next or go at some time during the next hour or two.
It was nearly five p.m., and I'd spent the last couple of hours calling on members of Slade's production company, the cast and crew, hoping one of them — when alone, rather than among others who could overhear a comment — might have something to add to my fragments. But none of them had any more fragments. Anyone aware of what I was doing, though, could have assumed, logically enough, that I would eventually get around to calling on others of the company, certainly the principals, and could have chosen the spot accordingly, to lie in wait for me.
Yeah. Afterwards I figured it out. But to be sure of staying alive you've got to figure those things out before. So who's sure of staying alive?
For about twenty seconds I wasn't at all sure.
I'd parked at the curb on Palm Drive before the two-story Beverly Hills home of Vivyan Virgin. I got out of the car thinking that Vivyan was sure a lot of woman, and I like lots of women, and even if she couldn't help on the case I hoped she was home, and —
That was all the real thinking I did for a while.
I heard the whine of the slug whipping past my head before I heard the crack of the gun. It's funny what goes through your mind at a time like that. I was thinking: It's not the rifleman, at least not the same rifle, because I heard the shot — that, and possibly as many as eighteen other things. But I was not dwelling on any of these thoughts with real concentration, because I was spread-eagled in the air, having taken a leap that would have done credit to a large gazelle, and then I was skidding over Vivyan's lawn with my chin digging into it like a mole. But not for long.
I hit, felt the lawn shoving against my chin, then rolled over and over again, getting the .38 Colt Special into my hand between rolls. I got a foot planted firmly and shoved — but it slipped on the slick grass and went out from under me. And a good thing, too.
I'd heard a second shot, and as my foot slipped and I flopped on my chest again, the third slug raked my back. I felt my coat twitch as the bullet tore through it and the slicing burn as it raked the skin. A little lower and I might not have gotten up. But I got up, and this time my feet didn't slip.
I bent forward and sprinted toward Vivyan's house. The shot had come from my left, and I angled right, away from the man with the gun. I hadn't seen him, had only a general idea where he was, but several impressions had piled one on another in my brain, and I knew what I was going to do. If I didn't get hit.
There was one more shot, but it missed as I jumped past the side of the house, landing in some clipped shrubbery. There was one house beyond Vivyan's, on the corner lot
at the intersection of two streets. The man was there somewhere, about a hundred feet away. The gun he was using had the solid, heavy sound of a .45 automatic, so it was a good thing none of those fat slugs had done more than scrape me. But I knew where he was and could guess he was either in or near a car, parked around the corner for a quick getaway. There was a chance he had company, another man or two with him; but he might be alone.
As I went past the side of Vivyan's house I caught its edge with my left hand and dug in my heels, jerked back and fired one shot from my .38 in the general direction of the corner, but high, so I wouldn't hit anybody. I didn't have a chance of potting the gunman and I didn't want to hit anybody else. The shot was just sound effects, anyway, to make the mugg think I was standing at the corner of the house. While the crack of my Colt was still echoing I turned and sprinted alongside the house, then left, behind it, toward that intersecting street.
There was a low brick wall between the two lots, and I went over it like a man taking a toy hurdle. My feet made little sound on the grass, which was also planted back here. Straight ahead of me was a car, a spic-and-span new Corvair, empty. It was the gunman's car. I didn't know that at first, but I did in the next few seconds.
My hope was that the bastard was still near the corner, waiting for me to poke my head around the side of Vivyan's house so he could blow some of it off. He wasn't. Knowing he'd missed me, he'd had enough; now he was going to get the hell out of the area and try another day. At least, that was obviously his idea.
I kept sprinting when I reached the sidewalk and turned left — and the big mugg was suddenly right in front of me, running toward his car, the heavy .45 still in his right hand. But the gun was angled toward the ground, and mine was up, held before me and all I had to do was swing it an inch to center it on his middle.
We saw each other at the same time, but there was a little difference. I had been expecting to see him. That little difference was enough. If we'd kept running we would have plowed into each other hard enough to knock us both silly, but we both tried to stop. I slapped my feet down on the sidewalk and skidded over the cement toward him, knees bent, as he let out a hoarse gasp of surprise and threw his gun hand up toward me.
Kill Him Twice (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 8
