Murder in the Raw

by William Campbell Gault

  “Too long,” she said. “I’ll keep the ring.” The line went dead.

  I phoned Juan Mira at the number he had left with me. Juan answered, and I told him about Rosa’s call.

  “Where is she?” he asked excitedly. “Where did she call from?”

  “I don’t know, Juan. She doesn’t want to see you any more. She said she wouldn’t send your ring back.”

  “Never mind. You keep looking for her. You will find her. Maybe she is with that blond whore from Venice.”

  “Sue Ellen?”

  “She is the one. You go to her place.”

  “Juan, no! I am not Dorothy Dix, as I told you. Rosa doesn’t want to see you and that’s her right. I can‘t force her to see you.”

  Silence, and then, “Please, Mr. Callahan, you keep looking? It is so very important to Juan. And do not worry about money. There is plenty.”

  I said wearily, “If she phones again, I’ll let you know, Juan. But I couldn’t charge you for full-time service every day. There’s no place to look; you’d be cheated.”

  “You keep looking,” he said, and hung up.

  I went back to typing up the report. Juan wouldn‘t want one, but I had decided to make reports on everything, for my own files. It gave me a sense of business efficiency and killed the long, waiting hours.

  Outside, a Jaguar snorted and a hot-rod snorted back in contempt. The breeze shifted to its afternoon westerly and blew the flimsy carbon papers from the desk.

  I bent over to pick them up and the wind blew one under the love seat against the wall. I was on my knees in front of that, reaching for it, when my door opened.

  I saw two pair of feet, and looked up to see two faces frowning at me. Both the feet and the faces were stamped “Cop.”

  “You Brock Callahan?” one of them asked, and I nodded.

  Silence for a second, and I asked, “Well, what’s up, gentlemen?”

  “Murder,” one of them said.

  2

  I STOOD UP and dusted off my hands. “Someone I know?”

  I asked quietly.

  “You tell us. His name is Roger Scott.”

  “Never heard of him,” I said. I went back to the desk and put the sheets of carbon paper very carefully atop the pile and put a paperweight on top of that. I went over to my chair and sat down. The two men just looked at me.

  I said, “I suppose you two are police officers? Beverly Hills?”

  The one who had done the talking shook his head. He was a broad man and fairly tall with a surprisingly thin, bloodhound’s face. The other man was shorter and fatter, but not nearly as broad.

  The taller one said, “I’m Sergeant Pascal, and this is Officer Caroline. Didn’t you play tackle for the Rams?”

  “Guard,” I said. “Are you gentlemen from the West Los Angeles Station?”

  “That’s right. When’s the last time you saw Roger Scott?”

  “I never heard of him,” I protested.

  “Don’t lie to us, Callahan,” Caroline said. “He phoned you, from that Brentwood motel, just one hour ago.”

  I shook my head. “I came into the office about an hour and a half ago. My phone answering service will confirm that I had no calls up to then. And I’ve had one incoming call since, from a girl named Rosa Carmona.”

  Pascal looked at Caroline and nodded. “A girl. That’s the way it was. That manager just puts down the number called and the number of the unit calling. That’s all the slip showed.”

  Pascal turned back to me. “Where’s this Rosa Carmona now? And where’d she call from?”

  “I don’t know where she is now, and I don’t know where she phoned from,” I said. “She phoned about an hour ago.”

  Caroline started to say something, but Pascal put a hand on his arm. Then Pascal said quietly, “Suppose you give us the whole picture, Callahan? Start right from the beginning and don’t miss anything.”

  Caroline put his fat body down onto the love seat and Pascal came over to sit in my customer’s chair.

  I leaned back in my office chair, like those private eyes do in the movies, and gave them the whole picture in a restrained and well modulated voice.

  Pascal had a notebook out and when I finished, he picked up the phone on my desk. He called the station, and gave them the address and phone number Juan had given me. “Pick him up,” he said. “We’re on the way in, now, with another one.”

  He replaced the phone and looked at me. “C’mon, Dick Tracy. Time’s awasting.”

  “What’s the charge?” I asked.

  Pascal smiled at his buddy and looked back at me. “No charge. Come on.”

  The pudgy Caroline stood up. “Want me to drag him out, Sarge?”

  “You put a hand on me, lard-ass,” I told him, “and I’ll throw you right through that window, there. And if you don’t think I can, start something.”

  Caroline’s soft face stiffened and he put a hand in under his jacket.

  Pascal said sharply, “All right, Pudge, take it easy.” He looked back at me. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “A private operative with a Beverly Hills office,” I said evenly. “And if you’d like me to phone the Chief, here, I’m sure he’d give me a character reference. Or you could call your own station and ask Captain Apoyan about me, or Lieutenant Trask.”

  Caroline looked at Pascal. Pascal looked at me, and shook his head. “Name-dropper, eh? All right, Mr. Callahan, would you kindly accompany us to the West Side Station where we can continue our previous conversation? Your client will be there, and we can iron everything out.”

  On the way down the steps, Pascal was chuckling. At the bottom, he said, “You sounded very tough upstairs, there, Callahan. It’s too bad you couldn’t have been that tough against the Forty-niners, last season. They sure made a patsy out of you.”

  “Your memory’s bad,” I told him. “They didn’t gain a yard through my position.”

  Juan was at the West Side Station when we arrived. He was in a room with barred windows, talking to a detective. A uniformed man was taking notes. The plain-clothes man turned around, and I saw that it was Lieutenant Trask.

  “Brock — ” he said. “Brock the Rock-what the hell brings you in here this fine day?”

  “Pascal and Caroline,” I said. “How are you, Dave?”

  “Surprised.” He looked at Pascal. “Callahan in some sort of trouble, Sergeant?”

  Pascal shrugged. “He might be. Somebody phoned him from that motel room where Scott was killed.”

  “Phoned Brock — ?” He looked back at Juan and then again at me. “Oh, that’s right — you’re a private investigator now, aren’t you? I remember reading about it.” He smiled. “Juan didn’t want to give me your name. What’s the story, Brock?”

  The uniformed man turned his notebook to a blank page and looked questioningly at the lieutenant. Trask’s nod was almost imperceptible.

  Pascal said casually, “Maybe we’d better get their stories separately, Lieutenant.”

  Annoyance on Trask’s face and then he nodded. “A good idea. Caroline, take Mira out into the hall until we call you. Away from the door.”

  Caroline took Mira from the room and Dave Trask indicated a chair. “Sit down, Callahan, and tell us about it.”

  I had gone from “Brock” to “Callahan” in less than a minute. A cop is a cop is a cop. I gave it to him, just as I had to Pascal and Caroline, and the uniformed man took it all down.

  When I’d finished, Trask looked at the sergeant. “That manager didn’t say anything about a woman being in the room, did he?”

  Pascal shook his head. “But if they cut the hot pillow trade away from those Brentwood motels, they’d all go out of business, Lieutenant. It figures the manager wouldn’t mention a woman. I guess we’d better lean on him a little, don’t you think?”

  Trask nodded, and looked at me. “We’ll get this typed up, and you can sign it. Wait out in the hall until we talk to Mira.”

  Pascal went t
o the door, and beckoned the others in. My client didn’t look at me as we passed. His eyes were on the floor, as though he were getting prefight instructions from the referee.

  Nobody came out to the hall with me; evidently I wasn’t as seriously involved as their manner had suggested.

  I sat on a bench out there, studying the opposite wall.

  In a little while, Pascal came to the door to gesture me back into the room. The uniformed man went out as I came in.

  Lieutenant Dave Trask waved me to a chair. “Sit and relax, Brock. We’ll be ready with those statements in a few minutes.”

  I sat down, pleased to hear I was again Brock. Caroline went out and Pascal went over to stand near the barred window. Juan Mira looked at me anxiously from his seat near the desk.

  I smiled at him and held a clenched fist up.

  Trask said, “You say, Brock, that Rosa Carmona phoned you. But you’re not sure of that, are you?”

  “I only know she said she was Rosa Carmona. I never heard her voice before.”

  “She have an accent?”

  “Some. It could have been faked. As a matter of fact, looking back on it, I don’t think it was consistent.”

  Mira frowned. “Consistent — ? What you mean, consistent?”

  I turned to him. “I mean, Juan, that I didn’t think she used an accent all the time. It was like she could turn it off and on.”

  Juan nodded. “She does. For her shows, accent. No show, no accent.”

  “Easy, Juan,” I said. “You’re putting her in the grease. Maybe it wasn’t Rosa, at all. Maybe it was somebody trying to frame her.”

  “Maybe who would that be?” Trask asked quietly.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s for the police to find out.”

  Trask smiled. “All right, Brock. Let’s not be bitter. You’re new to this business. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

  I said nothing.

  Trask said, “One thing you learned today is to stay very far away from any homicide cases. We don’t like private investigators getting involved in those.”

  I said nothing.

  Mira said softly, “You still look for my Rosa, Brock? You find her for me?”

  “Ten thousand cops will be looking for her, Juan,” I told him. “For free.”

  He made a face. “Cops — ! Stinking crooks, cops. Yellow bellies, cops.”

  From the window, Pascal said, “Easy, little man. Watch your language.”

  Juan stood up, his slight body trembling. “Little man? One hundred thirty-five pounds. You want to fight this little man, yellow belly?”

  “Sit down, Juan,” I said. “Sit down and shut up, or I’ll fight you. You can’t lick city hall, Juan.”

  He glared at me for a moment, and then sat down. Pascal said softly, “Oh, those Forty-niners — ”

  I said to Trask, “Tell that Monday morning quarterback at the window the Forty-niners never ran over me.”

  Trask nodded. “I’ll confirm that. How come you got into this private eye dodge, Brock? Things can’t be that rough.”

  “I have a natural talent for it,” I told him. “My old man was a cop, you might remember.”

  “That’s right. I’d forgotten. In Dago, wasn’t it?” I nodded.

  “You might have tried the Department, Brock. We need men desperately.”

  “I can guess that by what I’ve seen today,” I agreed. “To use your own words, things aren’t that rough.”

  Pascal came over from his position at the window. His bloodhound’s face was pale. “Do I have to take that kind of crap, Lieutenant?”

  Trask looked down at the desk top. Juan Mira smiled. I said, “I’ll apologize, Sergeant, if you’ll promise to get off that Forty-niner kick. We all have our pride, you know.”

  Pascal muttered something, and went out the door.

  Dave Trask said gravely, “You’re getting a bad start in your profession, Brock. You can use friends, just like anyone else.”

  “I’m a friendly man, by nature,” I answered honestly. “But I never learned to swallow insolence and I don’t intend to learn now.”

  Trask sighed. Outside, there was the screech of brakes and a shouted curse. Juan Mira took out the gold cigarette case and removed one of the ivory-tipped cigarettes. His slim, platinum lighter flashed in a ray coming through the Venetian blinds.

  Trask watched him and shook his head. He looked at me and shrugged. Time crawled by.

  Then the uniformed man was coming back into the room with our statements. Mira’s was read to him; I read my own. We both signed them.

  Then I asked, “How do I get back to Beverly Hills?”

  Trask frowned and looked at the uniformed man.

  Juan said, “I take you, Brock. My car is here.”

  It was one of those salmon-colored new Merc convertibles, complete with everything but a lemon slicer. The twin pipes murmured mellowly to each other as he gunned over toward Wilshire.

  “Souped?” I asked him.

  He nodded. “Heads and carbs and pipes. Enough for Juan. Too much for Rosa. Rosa like the big fat cars.”

  “You may never see Rosa again, Juan,” I said. “She may be a long way from here by now.”

  “You find her,” he said confidently. “I pay you and you find her.”

  The Merc moved in and out of the traffic stream, about two hundred horses under the command of a hundred and thirty-five pound giant. At the light on Barclay, a Cad driver looked over and gunned his motor in anticipation.

  With the green, the Merc jumped, her tires squealing. We were half a block away before the Cad could get out of the intersection. The smell of burning rubber came up to us as we slowed.

  “Easy, Juan,” I said. “We’ve got all the trouble with the law we can handle right now.”

  “Cops — ” Juan said, and spit out at the windstream.

  I chuckled. “We’re citizens now, Juan. We are no longer prominent sports figures with free tickets to hand out. We had better learn to get along with the law.”

  He didn’t answer that. He drove without further dialogue all the way to my office. There, he double-parked while I climbed out.

  Then he said, “You find my Rosa,” and the Merc went gunning off, her tail pipes seeming to mock me.

  3

  THE MORNING PAPERS gave it a front-page splash, including a subhead in the Times about Ex-Ram Star Questioned In Motel Murder. There was a picture of me in Ram uniform in the Times and somehow they managed to drag in the coming Ram-Redskin Times Charity Game. In this paper, Roger Scott was identified as an author.

  In the Daily News, I was identified as a former football player now turned private investigator. Roger Scott was called a writer and literary agent. In southern California, and particularly in this area, any unemployed person identifies himself as a writer. It seems to be the standard excuse for idleness. There was a picture of Roger Scott in the News and unless it was a completely doctored portrait, he had been a very handsome man in the Barrymore tradition.

  There was no mention of Rosa Carmona by name. The police were sitting on that. There was mention in the News of a “mystery woman” threading through the case. I could imagine what the afternoon Hearst paper would make of that one.

  The Daily News also mentioned a “prominent former pugilist” being involved but again he was unnamed. Too many people knew Juan Mira was engaged to Rosa; too many of Rosa’s friends knew that.

  Roger Scott had been knifed to death. There were fourteen stab wounds in his body and throat.

  I had read it all and worked my way to the sport pages when my office door opened.

  A girl stood there, a fairly tall girl with onyx hair in an Italian haircut, a beautiful girl. She wore a lime-colored shantung suit, rather primly cut, but no suit would make her look like anything but all woman.

  She was not alone. Behind her, there was a young man who could have been seventeen or twenty-one. He had an adolescent moodiness in his finely featured face. He was taller than
the girl and a lot broader.

  The girl asked, “Mr. Brock Callahan?”

  I rose, and nodded.

  She smiled rather stiffly. “I’m Glenys Christopher. This is my brother, Bobby. He had to come along to meet you.”

  “How do you do?” I said, and then the name of Bobby Christopher rang a bell in my mind. I asked, “Not the Bobby Christopher?”

  He had been an All-State halfback at Beverly Hills High School. He had played with the South in the annual North-South prep star game.

  The lad smiled. “Yes, sir. That’s why I wanted to shake your hand. I think you’re the greatest guard the Rams ever had.”

  He came over to shake my hand and I thought I could dimly hear a trumpet flare.

  “Thank you,” I said. “From what I’ve read, you play a lot of football yourself. Going to S.C. this fall, are you?”

  “I haven’t decided, yet,” he told me. “I’m — weighing the offers.”

  His sister said quietly, “Now that the formalities are over, Bobby, would you wait in the car?” Her voice was strained.

  “Sure thing,” he said, and grinned and waved. He closed the door behind him.

  I gestured to my customer’s chair. “Business brought you here, Miss Christopher?”

  She nodded, frowning. She sat erectly in the pull-up chair.

  I went over to sit behind my desk again. She took out a package of cigarettes from her purse and offered me one.

  I shook my head. “Thank you. I don’t smoke.” I flipped my desk lighter into flame for her. She leaned forward and the light from the window behind me glowed on her lustrous black hair.

  She sat erectly again and thanked me and I nodded. Finally, she said, “I don’t know exactly where to begin.”

  “The beginning’s as good a place as any.” I had learned that from Sergeant Pascal, yesterday.

  She took a deep breath and looked at my desk top. “Well, to begin with — I was in love with Roger Scott.” She looked paler. “We — weren’t engaged — officially, that is, but — ” She took another breath and leaned forward to crush out her newly lighted cigarette in my ash tray.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.