Murder in the Raw

by William Campbell Gault

  And Glenys so indignant…. Why? There was a counter-length mirror here, showing me my undistinguished face. I am as vain as the next man, but the mirror assured me Glenys Christopher was not jealous.

  Bobby was young and full of wishful thinking. To Bobby, any man under two hundred and thirty pounds who can play guard for the Rams is something special. I’d be the last to deny this, but the first to acknowledge that wouldn’t make me the outsize Eddie Fisher for the distaff trade. The glamour of a football player fades for women after their college years.

  Of course, in my way, I was a specialist, and Glenys collected specialists.

  I had another glass of iced coffee and went up to the hot and airless office. There had been a call from a Miss Glenys Christopher, I was informed.

  I didn’t call back immediately. I opened all the windows and turned on the fan and sat down with a pitcher of water to type out my reports. I was making better time today, I’d added my thumb to the two active fingers, using the thumb for the space bar. I couldn’t see why a man would have to go to business college to learn this.

  At four-thirty I was finished, and I was about to file today’s sheets when I decided to review them all, from the first day. Perhaps, in studying the sequence, I could get a picture, a pattern.

  I studied them all. I even spotted my calls against a map of the L.A. metropolitan area, seeking some geographical clue to it all. Nothing came; I was more confused, if anything.

  Well, what had I brought to this trade? Three years in the O.S.S. and my memories of a cop father. Along with a nodding acquaintanceship with maybe fifty lads in the Department. That didn’t make me any Philip Marlowe.

  Work alone wouldn’t do it, nor determination; I was a fraud in my chosen profession. So many are, but that didn’t make me any more admirable.

  At Redlands, Pool would be weeding the lambs from the goats, the men from the boys, the promising rookies from the broken hearts. One more year, maybe, and then some job I understood? Hamp would take me back for another year; he’d already told me that. I was no youngster, but I’d learned some tricks in the campaigns and I could get by for another year, maybe even two.

  My bad knee worked well; all that bothered it was dampness. And the Rams were thin at guard.

  My phone rang and I picked it up.

  A rough voice said, “This is Nystrom, footballer. I’m just letting you know you won’t get off so easy the next time we meet. If you’re smart, you’ll see we don’t meet.”

  “Drop dead,” I told him. “But thanks for calling, Red. You couldn’t have picked a better time.” I hung up on him.

  8

  I DIALED THE CHRISTOPHER RESIDENCE and told the maid I was returning Miss Christopher’s call. I heard the click of an extension phone being lifted and then Glenys’, “Hello, Brock Callahan.”

  “Hello. You phoned?”

  “To apologize. Bobby tells me I’m being unfair.”

  “He’s partial to athletes,” I said.

  “Mmmmm-hmmm. Jan came for her car. She didn’t bring a mechanic along.”

  I said nothing.

  “We’re friends again, aren’t we, Brock?”

  “If you want to be. I didn’t know we ever were.”

  “Friends are what I need, real friends.”

  “Then I’m a friend. How much of a retainer did you have in mind?”

  Silence for a moment, and then, “You can be cruel, can’t you?”

  “I can be tactless,” I admitted. “To be truthful, I’ve been wondering whether I have anything to offer a client in this unusual profession.”

  “I think you have and I’m willing to put it into writing.”

  “Thank you, Glenys. I’ll inquire from one of the big agencies as to a fair rate and have a contract drawn up. Your party was fun, last night.”

  “I’m glad you had fun. That wrestler was a mistake, though, wasn’t he?”

  “They usually are. But nobody got hurt. Bobby tells me he’s going to S.C. Was that your school?”

  “No. Smith. Will you be busy tonight?”

  “I’m sorry. I will. Something important?”

  “Nothing,” she said, and there was a silence. Then, “Jan — ?”

  “No, I don’t think so. The other end of town. I don’t think Jan is involved too much in Roger Scott’s death.”

  “Oh.” A silence. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant when I asked about her. What did you mean by ‘the other end of town’? Did you mean East Los Angeles?”

  “No. I meant financially, not geographically. I meant the other side of the tracks. Your friend mixed at all social levels, it seems.”

  “Roger — ?”

  “Right.”

  “I’ve stopped thinking of him as a friend. Call me tomorrow, won’t you, Brock?”

  “I will,” I promised. “I’m glad we’re friends again.”

  I hung up and went over to the mirror near the door, but the face was the same. I looked up Jan Bonnet in the phone book and found she had two addresses. The business address was only a few blocks from here.

  It was almost five, but perhaps she kept her shop open until six. I didn’t phone; I walked over there.

  It was a narrow shop, sandwiched between a pair of women’s apparel stores, with jan bonnet in uncapitalized black script on the window and what looked like a wormwood front door.

  It was cool and dim inside and Jan sat at the rear of the shop, in front of a desk and under a skylight. There were fabrics and wallpaper sample books all around on the library tables; there was a feeling of quiet elegance to the small place.

  She looked at me wearily. “Well — ? Good afternoon.”

  “Hello, Jan.” I came over to where she sat and put the flash bulb on the small desk in front of her. “Know what that is?”

  “It looks like a flash bulb. There’s a photography shop three doors away. You could ask them.”

  “It is a flash bulb. Infrared. For taking pictures in the dark with infrared film.”

  She nodded. “I’ve heard of it. Didn’t know the process was perfected, though. Why are you showing it to me?”

  “Because they were often found around Roger Scott’s motel room. The manager there thinks that Scott used them for taking pictures. For blackmail purposes.”

  “That’s ridiculous, of course.”

  “Is it, really?”

  “It is to me.”

  “You spent a lot of time over there, Jan, didn’t you? Over at that motel, I mean.”

  She stared at me, the brown eyes vulnerable. “Who told you that? Do the police know that?”

  I shook my head. “The manager talked about a girl in a yellow Plymouth. That put the police off.”

  Her voice was low. “You’re threatening me, aren’t you? Why?”

  “I’m not threatening you. You’d be the last I’d threaten, Jan, believe me. But why can’t you be honest with me?”

  “I don’t know who killed Roger Scott. That is God’s unvarnished truth, Brock Callahan. I don’t know anything about infrared photography or blackmail. I was — infatuated with Roger, yes.” She looked down at the desk top. “Maybe I infatuate easily; I can’t seem to help being a woman.” She looked up to face me candidly. “If you think I’m involved, take your information to the police. But please get out of here now.”

  “I thought I could buy a drink,” I suggested. “We don’t need to fight, Jan.”

  “We don’t need to be friends, either,” she said in a monotone. “I distrust your interest in me, Brock.”

  I studied her for seconds, trying to think of something to say, trying to find some opening through the wall.

  “Get out,” she said quietly. “Please get out.”

  I went out and over to the parking lot. I drove home slowly, thinking of them all. Randall was the most obvious phony in the cast; in the bright light of day he hadn’t noticed any visitors to the room of Roger Scott. He hadn’t noticed Rosa Carmona — he claimed. Randall wasn’t necessarily implica
ted. He could be trying to protect his own reputation. So could they all, but in so doing, they were walling off the path to the killer.

  At home, I took off my shoes and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to think. Nothing bright came, and I dozed.

  It was dark in the room when I wakened. The pillow was wet under the back of my neck and my clothes felt gummy. I turned on the light and saw that I had slept over three hours.

  A shower, and three cool glasses of milk and then I put on a seersucker suit. For the wind was from the east and the heat would continue into the night. I considered taking a gun, and changed my mind.

  The place was about half filled when I came in and the same big moose was behind the bar. He remembered me. He brought out a bottle of beer and looked at me questioningly.

  I nodded, and he brought along a glass.

  “That Richter’s shaping up, I read. Good man, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “He’ll be one of the great ones, like Don Paul.”

  “And Brock Callahan.”

  “Huh!” I said. “I’m a midget, next to those two.”

  “Cut it out,” he said. “Name me a year you weren’t an All-League choice.”

  I smiled, and said nothing, trying to look modest.

  “I wish we’d have got Don Moomaw,” he said.

  I looked around, but there was no sign of Sue Ellen. A swarthy kid in jeans and T shirt was putting dimes into the juke box, but when he turned away from it, I saw it wasn’t one of the pair.

  The bartender had gone down to the other end of the bar to serve a couple. I pushed a stool next to the wall at the end of the bar and sat on it, my back to the wall, my left elbow on the bar. I could see all of the room, now, and the small area that served as a stage.

  The bartender finished serving the couple, and came back. “It looks like Detroit again this season, don’t you think?”

  “They’re always tough,” I said. “I’m a Ram fan, myself.”

  He nodded. “Who isn’t, in this town?”

  I asked, “Sue Ellen here?”

  He shook his head. “She should be in soon, though.” He looked at me doubtfully. “She’s no relative, is she?”

  I sipped my beer. “No. Why — ?”

  He shrugged. “I mean, you could do better than that. That’s really a wretch without her make-up on.” He seemed to shudder. “And the way she’s been hitting the booze, she sure as hell ain’t going to get any prettier.”

  “Just lately, she’s been hitting the booze?”

  He nodded. “The last couple of days. And she’s nervous as a cat until she’s loaded. Then she gets gabby.”

  “Maybe she’s frightened of something — or somebody.”

  “Maybe. She keeps it up, she’ll get the can for sure.

  And where can you go from here?”

  A guitar player and an accordionist came in from the back hallway now and took their chairs near the piano. Then the front door opened, and Sue Ellen came in.

  She looked haggard and nervous. Her glance moved along the bar, paused at me. Indecision fought a losing battle on her face, and she came my way.

  “Don’t leave,” she told me quietly. “I want to talk to you, later.”

  I smiled. “All right, Sue Ellen. I’ll wait.” I tried to look as friendly as possible.

  She went down the hallway toward her dressing room.

  The piano player took his seat at the piano and the three of them went to work on Carolina Moon. They went from that to some Spanish music, and then Sue Ellen made her entrance, to a trickle of applause.

  She sang a double-entendre bit about Daddy’s Not As Old As All That and the applause was stronger. She went lower with A Southern Girl Who Didn’t Know The Way and I was uncomfortable. But evidently the audience had less shame; they loved it.

  Then her whiskey contralto took them all into the gutter with a pornographic ditty usually reserved for stags or a Las Vegas audience. There is no law in Vegas; hoodlums own and run that town. But I was surprised the L.A.P.D. would let this kind of thing go on in Venice.

  Next to me, the bartender shook his head.

  “Me, too,” I said. “But who are we, against so many?”

  Sue Ellen went by and gestured. I followed her down the hall.

  Into the odor of perspiration and talcum powder and it seemed to intensify as she closed the door behind us. She pointed to a battered kitchen chair and sat down in front of her dressing table, with her back to it.

  “I have to talk to somebody,” she said. “You’re working for Mira, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “And with the police?”

  I hesitated, and nodded.

  A pause, and then, “Rosa didn’t phone you that day at your office. I did.”

  “And imitated Rosa’s voice?”

  “I didn’t need to. I just changed my own. You didn’t know what her voice sounded like.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because we knew the manager kept a record of calls and this would make it look like Rosa was in the motel at that time.”

  “And why did you want that established?”

  “Because I was conned into thinking it would throw Mira off the trail. I knew how Rosa wanted to get rid of him, and Red told me this would do it, would throw you off.”

  “Red — ? Red Nystrom?”

  “Who else?”

  I said, “Roger Scott was in that room, dead, when you phoned, Sue Ellen.”

  “That’s what I read in the papers, now. But believe me, he wasn’t anywhere in sight when I phoned you.”

  “That call would make Rosa a suspect for the murder.”

  “Don’t I know it? Damn it, don’t I know it, now?”

  “Nystrom took you over there?” She nodded.

  “Didn’t the manager see you?”

  She shook her head. “That room of Scott’s is in the rear and if you park on the side street there, you can walk right across to it without anybody seeing you.”

  “Nystrom killed Scott, then?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem like the kind who’d use a knife, does he?”

  “He had a beef with Scott, though. He threatened him. The manager heard that a few days before.”

  “I suppose he wanted to cut in on Scott’s racket. I guess Rosa was working with Scott on that, whatever it was.”

  I nodded. “And those two punks who were in here the other afternoon — they work for Nystrom, too, do they?”

  “They know him — that much I know. Say, you don’t think those two — ” She stared at me, horror in her eyes.

  “Nystrom’s working with the young ones,” I said. “And the way they worked my upholstery over — ” I shrugged.

  “Upholstery’s one thing. But a man — Jesus, Callahan, you can’t believe — ” She shook her head. “I need a drink. Will you get me a drink?”

  I got her some bourbon over ice and came back. She was smoking a cigarette. She had taken her shoes off.

  I handed her the drink, and asked, “Where’s Rosa now, Sue Ellen?”

  “I wish to God I knew. I wish to God I knew if she was even alive.”

  “Nystrom must have killed Scott,” I said, “and then tried to frame Rosa for it. But why Rosa?”

  “Who knows? Gawd, the guts of the man, huh? Taking me into that room. How the hell could he know he wouldn’t be seen?”

  “Red’s not short on guts,” I said. “Sue Ellen, you’ve got to tell this to the police.”

  “I know,” she said. “But not yet. Give me time to line up some friends.”

  “The police will protect you.”

  “No thanks. I can find better protection than that. I know who to go to, but it’ll take time. Red’s too wild and loud to suit the big boys on this side of the fence. But I want them to take care of him, not the police.”

  “Nobody scares Red,” I argued. “He’s too damned dumb to be scared by the big boys. You’d better come
over to the law’s side, and quickly, Sue Ellen.”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. And I’ll call you a liar if you tell them what I told you.”

  “Who do you think the police would believe?”

  She finished her drink. “I’ve a few connections, Callahan. I wasn’t always this unattractive. Don’t cross me, or you’ll regret it.”

  “Then why did you tell me this?” I asked.

  “Because of Rosa. She’s the best friend I ever had. And I hoped it would help you find her.”

  “And now you’ve told me all you know?”

  “Every bit of it. Would you get me another double bourbon? That bartender makes cracks when I buy them.”

  She went over to open the small window as I went out with her glass.

  I was about halfway along the hall when I heard the smashing explosion behind me. From the barroom came screams and I turned back toward the small dressing room.

  The window was open; Sue Ellen was on her back, her face almost completely shot away. The stink of gunpowder filled the room and I paused for a moment.

  Only a shotgun at close range could have done that damage. I hoped he didn’t have a repeater, as I went to the window and looked out.

  It was an alley, and there was a light at the far end. I saw the man running. I saw the fringe of red hair around the bald pate and the ridiculous skinny legs and the enormous shoulders. I saw the shotgun in his hand, and though I couldn’t be sure, it didn’t look like a repeater.

  Big stupid hero, Brock Callahan, went out the window and after him.

  9

  I CURSED MYSELF for not having brought a gun, as I’d planned. Running down the alley, toward the light at the corner, I looked for cover I could use in case Red Nystrom stopped running.

  I came to the street end, and hesitated.

  Then I heard the sound of straight tail-pipes blasting and the screech of a souped car getting underway under full gun. I came out to the street just in time to see a chopped and channeled ‘34 Ford coupe go screaming around the next corner. I couldn’t make out the license number.