Vein of Violence

by William Campbell Gault

  I said quickly, “I’ll tell you what I can, Mr. Parkas. And perhaps you can fill in the rest.” I moved slightly to my right, and he turned to keep the gun pointed at my belly.

  Now his back was to the house, and I began slowly. “It occurred to me, when I learned that Mr. Rivali and Miss Thorne were to share in the inheritance of Mary Mae Milgrim —

  Herbie had taken one club from his bag, a wood. It looked like his driver, a heavy club, with a big face. Blanche saw him, looked startled for a second — and then interrupted me to attract George’s attention.

  “That isn’t quite right, Mr. Callahan. I understand that Joyce is the sole heir.”

  “Originally,” I said slowly, “both Joyce and Mr. Rivali were to split Miss Milgrim’s estate evenly, but her attorney told me just the other day that — ”

  Herbie was coming quietly along the grass. He wasn’t holding the club high, but over to his right side, as though he meant to deliver a lateral rather than a downward blow. I hoped and prayed that he was a low handicapper.

  “ — and so,” I went on, “it seemed logical to me that Mr. Rivali believed one of two things. Either he was still an heir or Miss Joyce Thorne had cheated him out of his share by — ”

  Herbie was within range now, and the driver was way around to the right. His left arm was bowed only a little, his grip and stance were adjusted only enough to permit an upward sweeping blow rather than a downward sweeping blow.

  It was a horrible weapon and my voice faltered and George was instantly suspicious.

  Luckily, Herbie started to swing before George turned around. Or George would have lost his entire face. For it was an extremely broad and deep-faced driver and Herbie swung like a champion.

  It was a direct hit over George’s ear and it sounded like a heavy watermelon cracking open on a concrete road.

  • • •

  The matron came into the room and said, “We’ve given Mrs. Thorne a sedative. She kept mumbling something about a ‘vein of violence,’ whatever that means.”

  Captain McHugh looked at Herbie and Herbie shrugged. Captain McHugh looked at me.

  I said, “I used the phrase in talking about Rivali’s death.”

  This was Santa Monica headquarters and I am not really appreciated in Santa Monica. Captain McHugh said, “Mrs. Thorne is in shock. But you two don’t look any the worse for wear. Used to this kind of sight, are you?”

  “Almost,” I said. “The sound made me sick, and then I stopped looking. Will he live?”

  Captain McHugh shrugged and looked at Herbie. Herbie said, “He had a gun pointed at my wife. If it happened again I’d do just what I did again.”

  “I thought the gun was pointing at Callahan,” McHugh said.

  “Most of the time,” I admitted. “But Mr. Thorne couldn’t make that distinction from where he stood.”

  McHugh frowned and looked at my statement. “You say here that you warned Captain Devine over at the West Los Angeles Station about this Parkas yesterday. You said he was dangerous. He hasn’t any record to support that assumption.”

  “He was dangerous yesterday. His — best friend, hell — his sweetheart had been murdered. And he’s a violent man. I think it would be obvious to anyone but young Captain Devine that he should have been held.”

  McHugh smiled briefly. “He didn’t impress you, eh?”

  “Not for a second.”

  “Sweetheart? What did you mean by that crack?”

  “Check it,” I said. “Call Lieutenant Remington over at Beverly Hills Headquarters.”

  McHugh looked doubtful.

  Herbie said, “Everybody in the industry knew Rivali was queer. And this Parkas was living with him. A guy doesn’t need a diagram.”

  McHugh said sternly, “We don’t operate on rumor here, Mr. Thorne.”

  “You got a town full of ‘em,” Herbie said belligerently. “If anybody should be able to spot a homo, a Santa Monica cop should.”

  McHugh stared at him and Herbie stared right back. McHugh said, “I’ll tolerate no insolence.”

  Herbie muttered something and stared at the floor.

  McHugh picked up the phone and said, “Get me Lieutenant Remington over at Beverly Hills.”

  A pause, while he stared out the window at the bay and Herbie lighted a cigarette. Then, “Lieutenant, this is Captain McHugh. There’s a man here by the name of Brock Callahan who claims to be working with your Department in the — ”

  His voice went on and I stared out the window, remembering the sound that driver had made as it crashed into George’s skull. Little Herbie Thorne had more stomach than I had. I couldn’t do that to anyone, not with a weapon that vicious.

  McHugh finished talking and replaced the phone.

  “Okay, Callahan, you can go.” He said to Herbie, “I suppose you’ll want to wait until you’re sure your wife is ready to travel? She’s probably still in shock.”

  Herbie nodded.

  “We can talk while we’re waiting,” Captain McHugh explained. “So long, Callahan.”

  “So long, Captain,” I said. “Thank you for your courtesy.” I left him on that ironic note.

  It was four o’clock, too early for dinner after my full lunch. There would be no percentage in talking with the elder Thornes in their present state. I headed for Beverly Hills.

  Joyce Thorne opened the door to her rent-free cottage and stared at me coldly. She offered no word of greeting.

  I said, “I’ve just left your parents, over at Santa Monica Police Headquarters. They had a — rather bad scare.”

  Her eyes widened. “What happened? Is this a trick — ?”

  “No, Miss Thorne. Why would I trick you?”

  “Are they all right?”

  I nodded.

  “Come in,” she said. “What happened?”

  I came in and said, “It’s a long story. It starts a few years back. What happened this afternoon was that Rivali’s friend, George Parkas, threatened your mother and me with a gun. Your dad came home from golf, sneaked up behind George with a golf club and removed the threat.”

  “He didn’t-?”

  “Kill him? Not yet. It’s touch and go. Do you have any beer in the place? It’s been a hot day.”

  She hesitated, staring at me.

  “I’m not going to crowd you,” I said. “You can tell me only what you want to and I imagine that will be nothing. I’m working on my own time and thought I was working to protect you. I’m not sure, now, that I’ll even continue working at all.”

  She paused, and then went to the kitchen. From here, she called, “Do you prefer to drink directly from the can?”

  “Please,” I called back.

  She brought me one of the new pint cans, what the brewer labels as “half-quart” can. It was cold and almost as good as High Life, though far short of Einlicher.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” she asked. “This isn’t a bar.”

  I sat in an upholstered chair and smiled at her. She sat on the davenport and asked, “What did you mean about my telling you only what I want to? Do you think I’ve been lying to you?”

  “I wouldn’t call it lying. I think you’ve been withholding information, probably.”

  I sipped the cold, wet beer and shrugged.

  “You’re not making sense,” she said.

  “Perhaps not. I’m enjoying the beer. It’s been a — a tiring day. And seeing a man’s head cracked with a driver is sort of unsettling. Give me a few minutes.”

  She lighted a cigarette and stared moodily at the big bank of windows. I sipped the beer and tried to relax.

  Finally she said impatiently, “Name one lie that I’ve told you, just one!”

  I finished the beer. “When you phoned that morning, you told me that Miss Milgrim was in desperate need of money.”

  “That was on Miss Milgrim’s orders. You know that isn’t what I meant. Point out one lie I’ve told you since the — since Miss Milgrim died.”

  I smiled. “You t
old my uncle I was measuring the moat.”

  “You’re impossible,” she said. “Impossible!”

  “All right,” I said wearily, “I withdraw the charge. And I’ll ask you quite humbly if there is anything you want to tell me now?”

  She picked at her dress, her eyes downcast. “I’ve learned, since last we talked, that I’m the sole heir to Miss Milgrim’s estate.”

  “Haven’t you wondered why?”

  She looked up to stare at me. “Should I? I assumed it was another of her temporary whims. She was a woman with an iron whim. Should I wonder why?”

  “Your mother was her best friend. “I paused. “Not you.”

  There was honest bewilderment in Joyce’s eyes. “Did she have a fight with Mother? Is that what you’re trying to say? Or that scandal Rivali talked about, did that concern Mother?”

  I shook my head.

  Her voice shook. “Why are you being so cryptic? Do you like to torment me?”

  “Of course not,” I said softly.

  The phone rang, and she went to answer it. I heard her say, “Oh, Dad — are you all right? And Mother? Oh, thank God. I’ve been so worried since Mr. Callahan — yes, he’s here now.” A long pause. “Of course, if you want to. Dad, what’s the secret?” A pause. “Oh, all right!”

  She came into the living room to tell me, “My dad wants to speak with you.”

  I went in and picked up the phone and Herbie Thorne said quietly, “She doesn’t know, Mr. Callahan. Not unless you’ve told her.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  A pause. “Look, Blanche and I, we’ve saved a few dollars and I know you fellows have a rough go of it and we thought — ”

  “Mr. Thorne,” I told him firmly, “I’m always for rent but never for sale. I’ll do what I can to protect everybody who deserves it and that’s all I can promise you.”

  “That’s why you didn’t tell Captain McHugh,” he said.

  “Blanche and I, we thought maybe you didn’t tell him because — Well, we were wrong. I sure hope you can keep it quiet, Mr. Callahan.”

  “I’ll try to. That’s all I can promise.”

  I replaced the phone and came back to the living room. Joyce Thorne stared at me angrily.” Secrets, secrets, secrets! Am I too young to know? My mother was in the picture business for years, Mr. Callahan. I never expected that she was a saint.”

  “None of us are,” I said. “Is there anything you want to tell me before I leave?”

  “It’s your turn,” she said. “You tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll find out, so why don’t you tell me now?”

  “I’m not free to,” I said. “I’m still a private detective.”

  SEVENTEEN

  I LEFT HER with her doubts and went over to Beverly Hills Headquarters. Remington was still there, in his office.

  He told me, “Gnup just phoned from the hospital. Parkas thinks he’s going to die and he’s spilling his guts. It was Rivali who killed Mary Mae, just as we thought.”

  “Why?”

  “She’d threatened to change her will. He’d been blackmailing her for years about some old scandal, and she finally got fed up and told him she was cutting him out of her will. “

  “He didn’t know she already had?”

  “Evidently not.”

  “Did Parkas know what Rivali was blackmailing Mary Mae about? Did he know what the scandal was?”

  Remington shook his head. “But we can guess, can’t we? She never married, did she? And people like Parkas and Rivali would be quick to spot another of their kind, wouldn’t they?”

  I said nothing, thinking of Kitty Cornelius and the Thornes.

  “You don’t look convinced,” Remington said. “Maybe you have another theory?”

  “I was wondering who killed Rivali. Aren’t you?”

  “We think it’s suicide. Is anybody paying you to investigate Rivali’s death?”

  “No. My client pulled out last night.”

  He stared at me. “Well, then, what the hell do you care who killed Rivali?”

  I said evenly, “The State was kind enough to license me. In simple reciprocation, I figure I owe it to the State to be a citizen.”

  He continued to stare. “You have to be kidding.”

  Anger moved in me.

  “Don’t glower,” he said. “I withdraw the sneer. Callahan, what gnaws you, what drives you?”

  “Nothing. I’m an adjusted man. But what’s wrong with wanting an orderly case and an orderly world?”

  He sat quietly for seconds. “You know something, don’t you?”

  I stared at him, neither denying nor affirming.

  He asked, “Where were you this morning?”

  “I took a drive in my flivver. I wanted to get out of the smog for half a day.”

  “You’re not co-operating,” he said.

  “On what, a closed case? If I catch a killer before I hit the hay tonight, I’ll bring him in. Simply as a gesture from a public-spirited citizen. My reports to you, Lieutenant, ended with yesterday’s. Because the case we worked on together is closed.” I started to leave.

  “Just a second,” he said.

  I turned to stare at him.

  “If you know something, Callahan, we want it.”

  “When I know something,” I said, “you’ll get it. So long, Lieutenant.”

  I went home. I took a shower and read the Times I hadn’t had time to read this morning, all the glowing tributes to the great genius of Enrico Rivali. The people who were writing about him were sincere; Rivali was their kind of man. He was their brother, another jackal from the same pack.

  Don’t be bitter, Callahan. You had three days’ work. You are still alive and healthy. Who wants to live in a perfect world?

  I opened two cans of beefburger soup and ate half a loaf of rye bread with it. The sun went down and the traffic began to diminish; I climbed into the groaning flivver and headed for Hollywood.

  In the weathered building on Kenmore, John Davenport opened his door and said, “Well, Mr. Callahan. Come in.”

  I came into the room that held the studio couch, the wooden card table, the coffee table made from a piano bench and all the photographs on the walls.

  “What have you been doing?” he asked me.

  I sat in one of the frayed easy chairs. “I’ve been reading the columns of Dawn Rhodes.”

  He sat on the piano bench and stared at me. “Is she still writing somewhere?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve been reading her old columns, down in the Times morgue.”

  “She was the best,” he said. “What else have you been doing?”

  “Oh, I took a little trip up to the Village Sanitarium. Do you know where that is? It’s near Camarillo.”

  “I know where it is,” he said. “Would you like a drink?”

  “I don’t drink. Don’t let me stop you.”

  He went over and poured a drink of the Scotch I’d brought him. He came back to sit on the piano bench.

  I looked at the picture of Mary Mae. To stubborn and gifted John Davenport. I said, “When she called you stubborn, she was referring to the fact that you wouldn’t marry her, wasn’t she?”

  “I suppose,” he admitted. “Why are you here, Mr. Callahan?”

  “To talk,” I said. “She was quite a girl, wasn’t she? Loved one man all her adult life. You.”

  He shrugged. “It’s possible. Stranger things have happened.”

  “Never married,” I went on. “Was true to you all her life. Had a child by you, a daughter. Had it secretly, because in those days that kind of scandal would have destroyed her.”

  He raised a hand. “I want to explain about that. She told me she’d had an abortion. Until two nights ago, I had no idea I had a daughter in this world.”

  “Joyce Thorne, that’s your daughter. Joyce Thorne, brought up by Blanche Arden, because Blanche was married.”

  He nodded a
gain. “What started you thinking about Joyce?”

  “The inheritance. Blanche was the friend, not Joyce. Joyce had to be closer, if she was inheriting. About the only way to be closer was to be a relative, a close relative.”

  He sighed and sipped his Scotch.

  “What did Rivali want?” I asked him.

  “The first time — ” he paused — ”I mean, that time?”

  “You meant the first time,” I corrected him. “The second time he came, you killed him. And then drove him in his car to his house and left him there. There’ll be prints in that car, don’t worry. They’re probably looking for someone to match them to, right now.”

  He stared at the floor. He belched.

  “The first time,” he said, after a second, “he had one of his complicated schemes for blackmailing Joyce and getting enough money from her and possibly from Mr. Gallup to finance a picture, which he would direct and in which I would have a fat part.”

  “Why Mr. Gallup?”

  “I don’t know. There’s no connection between him and Joyce, but Rivali could keep a lot of irons in the fire at one time without getting burned. He was a — moral juggler. And that night, with you outside, he told me Joyce Thorne was my daughter. It was a — a horrible shock. And then, well, damn it — I was suddenly kind of — proud. A daughter, a child. My only child.”

  He sipped his drink, staring at the faded carpeting on the floor.

  “Go on,” I prompted him.

  “Then we all went down to Headquarters,” he said, “and went through that — that official farce, and then you brought me home. And I couldn’t sleep. Damn it, I kept thinking of that girl, my daughter, threatened by a bastard like Rivali. What could it do to her, learning she was illegitimate?”

  “And you phoned Rivali?”

  John Davenport shook his head slowly. “The son of a bitch came here.”

  “Why? At that time of night? He was released at two o’clock.”

  “That’s what I asked myself. If we were going to blackmail Joyce, what was the hurry? I realized he must have some other reason for coming, though he wouldn’t voice it, of course. The heat was on, understand? The law was getting closer and closer to Enrico Rivali.” He took a breath and looked at his empty glass.