Murder in the Raw

by William Campbell Gault

  The blaze was back. “Get out of here. Damn you, get out of here.”

  I had a full cup of coffee in front of me and only half my three eggs eaten. But it didn’t seem like a time to mention that.

  I stood up and smiled down at her. I said, “I think you’re one of the lambs, but let me remind you that the woods are full of tigers. You know who I am, now, and if you need me or want to help me, I’ll come at your call.”

  I went back into the bedroom for my jacket, and out through the living room to a bright and hot morning. I wasn’t happy; I liked Jan Bonnet. Through a wire mesh fence, a Doberman stared at me silently. He seemed to be quivering, though I couldn’t be sure at this distance.

  I stood next to the car a moment in indecision, and then realized she’d have one hell of a time getting to her car, public transportation being what it is in this town.

  I went back up the slight slope to her house and looked in through the open upper half of the Dutch door. She was dialing the phone in the living room.

  I called in, “I want to take you to your car.”

  She looked up, startled, and replaced the phone in the cradle. She stared at me. Then, finally, “There’s no need of that. As a matter of fact, I — was just phoning a garage.”

  “I want to take you to your car,” I repeated. “Let’s not be adolescent.”

  She shook her head, stood up, and went back to the kitchen.

  If she’d been dialing a garage, there’d have been no reason for her to stop dialing when I appeared. She must have been dialing a number she knew, for the phone book wasn’t in sight, and she hadn’t had time to look up a number in the seconds I’d been gone.

  I was almost as close to Westwood as I was to my office; I went home and changed my clothes. The phone rang in the middle of that.

  It was Glenys Christopher. “Well, you are a hard man to find, aren’t you? I’ve been phoning your office and this number since nine o’clock.”

  “I’m a heavy sleeper,” I said. “I didn’t hear the phone.”

  “Perhaps you weren’t close enough to it. They’re hard to hear beyond a half a block or so.”

  I said nothing, waiting.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, Miss Christopher. I’m waiting to learn why you phoned.”

  “You needn’t be insolent, Brock Callahan.”

  “Yes, ma’m. Anything else, ma’m?”

  A silence, and then, “No. Just this — forget our talk the other night about putting you on a retainer. I’ll have no further need for your services.” She hung up.

  It didn’t seem to be one of my better days with women. They have always been hard for me to figure and I guess I wasn’t the only man in the world with that failing. I finished dressing and drove down to the office.

  At the drugstore, I had the second half of my breakfast and two cups of coffee. My fan wasn’t behind the counter this morning; the straw blonde who waited on me showed no indication of succumbing to the charm that had proved so fatal to Jan Bonnet.

  Man-crazy, Glenys had called her. A sentimentalist. Jan had some opinions on Glenys, too. I still liked Jan better. But maybe, if Glenys had been as kind — ?

  “More coffee?” the straw blonde asked indifferently.

  I shook my head and took my check along to the cashier, another imitation blonde. The bleach industry must be a big one in this country.

  My phone-answering service informed me that a Miss Christopher had phoned three times. There had been no other calls. I phoned the Venice Station and asked if the two hoodlums had been picked up.

  They had been picked up and released, I was informed. They had denied slashing the upholstery. And as I didn’t know the name of my witness to the act, there had been no grounds on which to charge the kids.

  I phoned the West Side Station and got Dave Trask. There was nothing new. Nystrom had been released last night.

  “On bail?”

  “Mmmmm. No. We want him free and moving around, Brock. We have a theory on him.”

  I hung up and heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I went to the window and saw the Austin-Healey parked a half block down.

  I was back in my chair, studying an insurance ad, when Bobby Christopher appeared in the doorway.

  “Hi,” I said. “You look fresh for a morning after.”

  “Why not? All I did was swim and eat hamburgers. Brock, what’s with you and Sis?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. What do you mean?”

  “What’s she so furious about?”

  “I don’t know. Didn’t she tell you?”

  “Oh, come off it, Brock. I’m no baby. Was it because you took that Bonnet girl home?”

  I held up a hand. “Just a minute, boy. Your sister was a client, not a guardian. She has no reason to concern herself with my social life.”

  “Was a client? Didn’t she put you on a retainer?”

  “We talked about it. This morning, she phoned and told me to forget it. And also that she had no further need for my services.”

  Bobby grinned. “Jealous. She sails for you, Brock.”

  “Now, you come off it. That’s not my league. She could have her choice of dozens better.”

  Bobby’s grin grew. “Modest, aren’t you? You’re not exactly homely, Callahan.”

  “Not exactly. But close enough. And you’re too big to be playing cupid. What kind of deal did you get from S.C.?”

  Bobby sat down in my customer’s chair and threw one leg over an arm of it. “Don’t change the subject. Tell me about Glenys and you.”

  “Nothing,” I said emphatically. “Nothing, nothing, nothing. You’re way off base, Bobby, and I think this kind of talk is in poor taste.”

  His grin was a little strained. “All right, then, tell me about you and Jan Bonnet.”

  I said patiently, “Look, kid, it’s been a messy day up to now. Don’t make it any worse. Jan Bonnet is one of three people who attended Roger Scott’s funeral. I thought she might be able to tell me something about him. She either can’t or won’t; she got indignant when I questioned her about him. She, like your sister, is not currently talking to Brock Callahan. I am now officially off the Roger Scott case. If you want to talk football, okay.”

  Bobby was no longer grinning. He said gravely, “Believe me, Brock, I know Sis. And she thinks one hell of a lot of you. And so do I, if that means anything to you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Now tell me about S.C.”

  He stood up. “I don’t want to talk football right now. I’m going to tell Sis she’s stupid to let you go. I’m going to make her call you.”

  I smiled. “Okay. I can always use the business.”

  He smiled and waved. “See you.” He went out and I heard his feet going down the steps.

  I can use the business. … Who’d said that last night? Jan had said it to Glenys. From below came the sound of a horn, and I went to the window, but it wasn’t anyone blowing for me. Up the block, I saw Bobby gun the Austin-Healey away from the curb.

  Well, there wasn’t any point in sitting around here; I was still supposed to be working for Juan Mira. My phone rang, and it was the local Ford agency. The new seats were there.

  They let me use a loaner while they worked on my car; I drove over to the West Side Station for a heart-to-heart talk with Dave Trask.

  Trask looked tired but semi-friendly. He told me, “The girl has just disappeared. We’ve less than nothing on it. Nystrom we want to watch because we think he’s organizing a new kind of crime element in this town.”

  “What kind?”

  “Young hoodlums. The hot-rodders and the minority group punks who are spoiling for trouble, the petty thieves who are too young to know about fences they can trust, the broken-home girls who want to get paid for what they’ve been giving away. Nystrom could build some organization on that kind of material, couldn’t he?”

  “There wouldn’t be much discipline,” I said. “And he didn’t seem like much of a brain to
me.”

  “He’s not long on brains, I’ll grant you. But he’s got one thing kids admire; he’s got all the guts in the world. And don’t think some of these hot-rodders aren’t bright. When you can take a ‘34 Ford and run it up to over two hundred horsepower, you must have something above the neck. What sickens me is that kind of engineering genius going right down the drain to the cesspool.”

  Something came to me, and I voiced it. “You know, when Nystrom first saw me, he said he’d heard of me. Well, where would he hear about me — unless it was from those two hoodlums who cut up my upholstery?”

  Dave Trask nodded. “Exactly. Ten minutes after those boys were brought into the Venice Station, there was a shyster down there to represent them. That kind of thing didn’t used to happen. If we can break this up before Nystrom is really organized, we’ll save a hell of a lot of the taxpayer’s money. That’s why we let Nystrom go. We want to see who his adult contacts are.”

  I asked, “Do you think it would do us any good for me to talk to those kids?”

  Trask stared past me, at the wall. “As a Ram, you mean? As a big local athlete?”

  “Well, yes.”

  Trask sighed. “I don’t know. There are kids who are impressed by that kind of reputation and kids who aren’t. These kids weren’t on your side when they went to work on your car. You can’t approach ‘em with any home, heaven and mother talk. That’s for sure.” He stood up and arched his back, as though stretching the aches out of it. “You’re still a gringo to them, remember.”

  “So’s Nystrom.”

  “Yup. But on the side of the fence they’ve picked for their own. Whatever you do, Brock, do it slowly. Don’t go flexing your biceps at anybody.”

  “I promise. We’re friends again, huh, Dave?”

  “So long as you work with us. Though you’re never going to be on Pascal’s hit parade.”

  “I guess I can stand that,” I answered. “I’ll keep in touch.”

  He nodded. “That’s the big thing — keep in touch with us.”

  I wasn’t too far from Brentwood; I drove over to the motel. Randall was out in front, watering the parkway. He waved as I drove up, and went to turn off the water.

  When I came out of the car, he greeted me with, “What’s new?”

  “Nothing much. Anything new here?”

  He shook his head. “I’m — waiting.” He inclined his head toward the office. “Let’s get out of the sun.”

  In his office, we enjoyed a moment of silence while he removed the cellophane wrap from a cigar. I had an impression he was thinking hard.

  Finally, he said, “I suppose you work very closely with the police?”

  “I was told a few minutes ago that that’s the best way for me to stay in business.”

  Silence again.

  So I said, “Was there something you wanted to tell me if I didn’t work very closely with the police?”

  “Well, now, Mr. Callahan, that’s a hell of a way to put it.”

  I shrugged.

  He looked out the window. “I’ve got fourteen units out there. Nobody gets rich on fourteen units.”

  “Even if they’re constantly filled?”

  “Even if they’re constantly filled. And you can’t keep them filled with tourists, not here. That’s no national highway out there, it’s no natural stopping place between big cities.”

  I smiled. “Mr. Randall, if you’re working up to telling me that you get some quickie trade, don’t you think you’re laboring the obvious?”

  He looked at me solemnly. He hadn’t lighted the cigar; he was rolling it nervously between his fingers.

  “Drop the other shoe, Mr. Randall,” I said.

  “And have Pascal blowing his breath in my face again?”

  “That could be. But wouldn’t you rather have Pascal on your neck than Nystrom?”

  He lighted the cigar and blew out some smoke and watched it. His face looked guarded. “I really didn’t have anything besides suspicion. The police don’t want that, do they?”

  “I think they might. There’s very little else to go on in this mess.”

  “They got a fingerprint. That’s something, isn’t it? It doesn’t match the maid’s, or Scott’s or that Rosa’s. The technical man told me it was a very clear print, in blood, on one of the doors.”

  It was news to me. My friend, Trask.

  Randall studied the end of his cigar. “What I didn’t tell the police was my suspicion that Scott was running some kind of a racket in that room.”

  “You mean that Scott had been here before? I had the idea this was a one-night stand. He had an apartment in Hollywood, you know.”

  “I know. But he had that room on a retainer and he phoned me when he didn’t intend to use it. And nights that he did have it in his name, he wasn’t always the occupant.”

  A fine, white ash was growing on Randall’s cigar. I thought I could smell the musky odor of sin in the Havana fragrance.

  “Go on, Mr. Randall,” I said.

  He opened a drawer in his desk and brought out what looked like a photographic flash bulb, only it was coated with some dark substance.

  “Infrared,” he told me. “The maid would find them in the room some mornings.”

  “What are they used for?”

  “For taking pictures in the dark with infrared film. The subject doesn’t know he’s being photographed.”

  “Or she’s being photographed.” I smiled. “You’re not telling me Rosa Carmona could be blackmailed with compromising pictures? She’d probably use them for publicity. She wasn’t in the kind of business where that kind of pictures would hurt her.”

  “Rosa, Rosa, Rosa,” he said irritably. “She’s missing, so the police make her the number one suspect. It gives them an out. What about that blonde with the yellow Plymouth? I gave them that, and what have they done with it?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody told me about her. The police don’t always confide in me, Mr. Randall. What’d she look like?”

  “Smallish woman. Beautiful build, fine clothes. She was here quite often. Used to come in the afternoons, once in a while, and wait for him.”

  “I see.” I pointed to my loaner, out at the curb. “What kind of car is that, Mr. Randall?”

  He stretched his neck to look out the window. “Dodge.”

  “What color?”

  “Light green.”

  It was a light blue Ford six. I said, “Are you sure this yellow Plymouth wasn’t a mustard-colored Chev?”

  “Hell, yes. It was a hard-top. I saw it often enough.”

  “This Chev Bel Air is a hard-top, too.”

  “Mr. Callahan, I see cars all day long. Are you telling me I can’t tell a Chev from a Plymouth?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I’m telling you you can’t tell a green Dodge from a blue Ford. That’s a blue Ford at the curb.”

  “So I’m color-blind between green and blue a little. I knew that. And it’s quite a distance to the curb from here. I saw the Plymouth a lot closer than this.”

  “You saw the Ford a lot closer than this, too. You were two feet from it when I got out of it.”

  “What the hell are we arguing about?” he asked irritably. “You got somebody special you want to nail?”

  I shook my head. “But I know a smallish woman with a beautiful build and fine clothes who knew Roger Scott. And she drives a Chev Bel Air.”

  There was the sound of big tires on gravel, and a Cad convertible came into our line of vision. Randall set the cigar carefully on an ash tray, and went out. He took a registry card along with him.

  The driver was tall and tanned and blonde; the girl in the seat beside him was tanned and bleached blonde. It was a California license plate, and the frame around the plate bore the insignia of a Beverly Hills dealer.

  The Cad moved out of my line of vision, back toward the units, and Randall came in with a ten dollar bill and the registry card.

  “Frisco people,” he said. “We get a l
ot of them.”

  “Some drive, if they started this morning at a reasonable hour.”

  He looked at me. “Not for a Cad. Those Cads eat a lot of highway.”

  I made no comment.

  He changed the subject. “This girl in the Plymouth — if you know her, bring her around. I could maybe be wrong about the car, but not about the girl. She’s stuck in my memory.”

  I nodded. “Could I have one of those burned-out flash bulbs?”

  He opened the drawer again and took one out. “Going to give it to the police, are you?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe you had better tell them about it, though. There weren’t any in the room the afternoon the maid found Scott, were there?”

  He shook his head. “That’s why I didn’t tell the police about it.”

  That could have been one of the reasons. I thanked him and went out to the hot car. I’d had a late breakfast but I was getting a little hungry. It was now almost three o’clock.

  Randall had withheld information from the police; I wondered how much he had withheld from me. If he had been in with Roger Scott on the photographic blackmail racket, it was likely that only the two of them knew of the connection. And Scott was dead; he couldn’t implicate Randall.

  It figured that Jan Bonnet could be a frequent visitor at the motel. She still carried the torch for Scott and she was not a phlegmatic woman. But whether she knew the true Scott, I couldn’t be sure.

  Nor whether I did, nor anyone else.

  It didn’t seem logical that an operator that smooth should get into a racket as cheap and vulgar as compromising photographs. There are too many unethical ways within the law for an operator like Scott to mint money. Why would he stick his neck out on anything as doubtful as blackmail?

  My new upholstery was installed when I got back to Beverly Hills. The luncheon special was no longer in effect when I got to the drugstore. I ordered a steak sandwich and a salad and iced coffee.

  The blonde was still behind the counter; the regular man was enjoying a day at Hollywood Park, she told me.

  The fat woman was back, digesting a New Yorker this time, along with a four-scoop banana split smothered in pineapple, loaded with whipped cream.

  My mind went to Jan Bonnet and clung there, reliving our mutual history from the funeral to the swim party to the half-eaten breakfast. A short and turbulent period that had been. Was the girl a tramp? I am no lure to the ladies; was the girl an indiscriminate, man-hungry tramp? I didn’t want to think so.