Canvas Coffin

by Gault, William Campbell

  Sands said, “Sergeant Krivic will take your statements.” Those words and the glance was all he was allowing us at the moment.

  Sergeant Krivic was the uniformed man. He took our statements and had them typed up, and we signed them.

  Sands was at a desk in one corner of the room, watching us as we signed. He waved us over without getting up.

  We came there and stood in front of the desk. We were like a couple of kids before their high-school principal.

  “You’ll be in town for a while?” he asked, after a second.

  “I guess,” Max said. “Hard to tell.”

  “Call me if you intend to leave. Check with me first.”

  “All right, Sergeant,” Max said.

  Sands looked at me. “Anything to say, Mr. Pilgrim?”

  “Nothing. That’s what Max gets paid for, talking.”

  “And keeping you out of trouble?”

  “That’s right, Sergeant.”

  “Okay. I’ll be in touch with you. Good afternoon.”

  “Clean,” Max whispered to me, as we went out. “We’re clean, clean, clean.”

  When Max wants to believe something, he keeps repeating it to himself.

  “They haven’t even given it to the papers,” he went on. “They know we’re clean and they don’t want to dirty the title. Boy, I’m glad that’s over.”

  We were going through the hall now, and at the door a man looked up and said, “Hello, Max. Parking-ticket?”

  “Speeding,” Max said. “How’s by you, Al?”

  “Good. Where’d they nail you, Max?”

  “Sunset. Sunset and — Rodeo.”

  We went out, the man’s stare following us.

  “Reporter?” I asked Max.

  “Yup, and a nosy one.”

  “I like the way you think on your feet,” I said. “We’re walking out of a Los Angeles police station, and you tell him you picked up the ticket at Sunset and Rodeo.”

  “So?” He was climbing into the Cad.

  “That’s in Beverly Hills.” I climbed in and slammed the door. “Maybe I’d better do the thinking from here in. I couldn’t do much worse than you’ve done today.”

  Nothing from him. And nothing from me. Behind me was a blank I couldn’t fill, but which could be full of horror. Ahead was Sally. And, I felt sure, future attention from Sergeant Sands.

  Max knows his way around the fight game, but on other things how wrong he can be.

  The traffic was thick, and Max was giving it all his attention.

  “I’m hungry,” I said. “How about you?”

  “I can eat. Know a good spot for a steak.” He continued to look straight ahead. “Maybe I should have let you handle the whole thing. Now that you can read, you’re probably brighter than when I first picked you up.”

  “Where’s this steak spot?” I asked.

  “On Wilshire. I keep thinking of you as a dumb pug who was a sucker for any slob with a hook. I keep remembering how you looked against Jeff Koski, that first time. And how you thought brown shoes would go all right with your first tux. I keep forgetting about this new influence in your life.”

  I yawned.

  He swung the Cad onto Westwood Boulevard, heading for Wilshire. “You’re still a sucker for a high right hand, but you can’t learn everything, I suppose. Nobody would call you dumb.”

  I stretched my shoulders, arching the ache out of my back.

  “I took you from the Gloves to the crown, and there’s hardly a mark on you. But, of course, you learned that from Hemingway. Or maybe from Somerset Maugham? Or could it be this Truman Capote taught you that?”

  “Okay, Max,” I said. “You win. Just one question, and I want it straight, Max.”

  “Shoot,” he said, his eyes ahead, his full face stern.

  “Where was it, again, that you got that ticket for speeding?”

  Nothing, at first, and then he started to smile. And then he laughed, and I was laughing with him. And then I stopped laughing.

  The girl dead, and maybe I killed her. What did I have to laugh about? I couldn’t see myself as a killer, but that’s because I’d never killed. The army was full of boys who’d never killed — before.

  The steak was tops. That’s another thing Max knew, where the good food was in practically every town in America. The purse-size Duncan Hines.

  And people, too, Max knew. There were a couple in here, and we got to gassing in the bar, and the hands of the clock went around without our noticing.

  We had to log. Max took Sepulveda and had me pressing the floor boards all the way. When we parked on the big lot, Max looked at his watch triumphantly.

  “Three minutes to spare,” he said. “I’m some wheeler, eh?”

  “You sure are.”

  Overhead, the big boys were coming in from the east and the west, from the north. Sally was on one of those, and I’d have to tell her about the redhead.

  Since I’d met Sally, she’d been enough for me; there’d been no out-of-town sessions since I met her. But there’d been one last night.

  The girl was dead; I wondered if that fact would be as important to Sally as the fact that I was with her, dead or alive. I don’t scare easily, for some reason, but I was scared now.

  Max said, “Well, let’s go. That plane’s due, Luke.”

  I got out slowly, and we walked over toward the biggest of the buildings in this immense airport.

  Sally’s plane wouldn’t be in for twelve minutes, the girl at the desk downstairs told us. We went up to the flight deck.

  The bar and restaurant was up here, but we stood out on the open part, watching them come in. There were others up there and probably only a few of them were meeting people.

  “Like the peasants in the hick towns,” Max said, “hanging around the station for the trains to come in and go.”

  Only this was different. This was an international airport and those big birds were coming from South America and the Orient and Australia, besides all the traffic from the east.

  “Some day,” Max said, “it’ll be Mars and the moon, rocket ships. I wish I wasn’t so old.”

  Well, it was like this, Sally, if I’d known what I was doing, you know I’d never —

  Max said, “You cold? What you all hunched up like that for? It’s not that cold.”

  “I’m cold,” I said. “Thinking about Sally.”

  “What d’ya mean?”

  I said, “She isn’t going to like hearing about the redhead.”

  “Who’s going to tell her?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you crazy? Why? Why should you tell Sally about the redhead? And what can you tell? Look, Luke, the less people know about what I told you, the better. Think of me, if you don’t want to think of yourself. Don’t be a damned chump.”

  I didn’t argue with him. I was going to tell her, no matter what he said. Her flight was announced, and we went downstairs to wait.

  She was wearing a tan suède coat, and no hat. She was carrying a big suède purse and looking worried and expectant. Then she saw me and she started to run.

  My arms were waiting for her. My arms went around her and that fine body was pressing mine and I could smell her perfume and feel the softness of her cheek nuzzling my neck.

  “I’m starved,” she said. “Oh, baby, I’ve been lonely.”

  “We can eat upstairs,” I said. “If it’s food you’re starved for. How was the trip?”

  “The trip was standard. Food’s one thing I’m starved for. Hello, Max.” She patted his cheek, the other arm still around my neck.

  “It must be love,” Max said. “Hello, Sally. How’s Chi?”

  “Cold, cold, cold.” She took my hand and put it into one of the big pockets of the suède coat, holding it there. “Lord, you’ve got my combination, you — you — ”

  “Handsome bastard?” I suggested.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “That’s one thing nobody would call you.” Her voice suddenly quieter. “Luke, is
something wrong?”

  “Mmmm-hmmm. We’ll talk about it while you eat. Max and I will have a cup of coffee and tell you about it.”

  “Not me,” Max said. “I don’t want to be there when she goes through the roof. I’ll go into the bar.”

  “Roof?” Sally stopped walking and looked at me. “Is there a — woman involved in this trouble?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “I don’t remember her.”

  “You were drunk?”

  I shook my head. “Slug-nutty. Let’s get something to eat.”

  We walked quietly into the dimly lighted restaurant. Conversation in the background and the hum of the big birds and the clink of a dish here and there. But from Sally, only the chill silence.

  My hands were clammy; my stomach was a knot. Without Sally, nothing would be fun. Without her, I’d just as soon be dead. I would be.

  She ordered a steak, and I told her what Max had told me. Max had gone into the bar. I told her about Sergeant Sands and our story, watching her face for a reaction every second I was talking.

  In the dim light her gray hair was silver, her fine eyebrows black as soot. In the dim light there wasn’t a trace of expression on her face.

  Her steak came, and she just looked at it. She continued to look at it while she said, “Conscience, maybe. A psychic block — because of what happened. Maybe you didn’t kill her, but you — What’d she look like? Oh, damn you — ”

  “I don’t know. There’s a picture of her in the paper, but she’s — it’s — I mean, the face was battered.”

  “Damn you,” she whispered. “Damn you, damn you — ”

  “Sally,” I said, “for God’s sake, I’m as sick as you are. Infidelity’s bad enough, but maybe I killed her, Sally.”

  “Some damned tramp,” she said, “some — ”

  I raised my voice. “Sally, the girl’s dead.”

  She was breathing hard, and her eyes burned at me. “So am I. So are you, in my book.”

  “Slow down,” I said quietly. “Try to be civilized. Get on top of your ridiculous temper. We’re not kids, Sally.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Eat,” I told her. “And think. There’s never been anybody in my life since the first time I saw you. I don’t even want to look at other girls. You know that’s true.”

  She ate. Like the mechanical woman; the knife, the fork, the clamp of the jaws, the sip of water. The eyes not meeting mine, the lovely face blank.

  Coffee, and she said, “Max. Max and his damned parties. He knows them all, doesn’t he, all the tramps?”

  “He knew an artist in Chicago, thank God,” I said.

  “You’re getting better with words, aren’t you? You know just what to say, don’t you?”

  “I read a lot,” I said. “My girl’s got me reading.”

  “Not last night,” she said. “No book, last night; you curled up with a good blonde.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what I did last night. The girl who died was a redhead.”

  She groped through her purse and came up with a cigarette. She lighted it, and stared at her coffee cup. There was some moisture in her eyes. The hand holding the cigarette trembled.

  I said, “I like to think nothing happened. Maybe nothing did happen while I was with her.”

  “You like to think.”

  “Yes. It doesn’t make sense, I suppose.”

  “It doesn’t. Luke, I don’t want to talk about it now. Maybe tomorrow we’ll talk about it. Or maybe I’ll get the first plane back tomorrow. But for now, I want to get a room and be alone.”

  “All right. You may as well stay where we’re staying.”

  I paid the bill and got Max from the bar. Then we went down and picked up her luggage. No dialogue through this; it wasn’t a time to crawl and I’m not very good at it, anyway.

  Max tried a couple of conversational openings and gave it up. It was a wordless ride, all the way to the hotel.

  There she signed a registry card, and a bellhop took the luggage from us. There she said coolly, “I’ll leave you here, boys. I’ll get in touch with you in the morning — if I haven’t gone back to Chicago by then.”

  “All right,” I said, and nothing more.

  We were still standing at the desk when she disappeared into the elevator.

  Then Max turned to look at the desk clerk. “You were the man on duty when we came in last night, weren’t you?”

  Chapter III

  HE WAS A SLIM MAN, about thirty, one of those blasé types the hotel business seems to attract.

  He gave us the guest smile and said, “I believe I was, sir.”

  Max studied him like a trophy in a game room. “Sergeant Sands claims you told him I came in alone, last night.”

  “I’ve been asked not to discuss that, sir.”

  “Asked by who?”

  “By Sergeant Sands.”

  I said, “I’m tired, Max. I’m going up.”

  “I’ll be up later,” Max said.

  I didn’t argue with him. He was probably going to try and buy something from the clerk, which could really put us in the soup. But I’d had my fill of arguing today.

  I was tired, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep. My tiredness was nervous tension; it was only nine o’clock and I’d slept late this morning.

  The paper Max had bought was still in the room; I picked it up and started to read about Mary Kostanic, alias Brenda Vane.

  There was a knock at the door, and I said, “Come in.”

  Sally.

  I said nothing. She said nothing. Very reserved, very calm, both of us.

  Finally she said, “Have you a paper that tells about — this — this business?”

  “Right here.” I stood up and brought it over to her. “You can order more. Are you back to normal now?”

  She took the paper and went out.

  She was weakening. It was going to be all right. I would have given odds, right then, she wouldn’t be on any plane in the morning.

  I was sitting by the window, watching the traffic on Sunset when Max came in.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Well, what?”

  “Did he sell? Did you buy him?”

  “Didn’t try,” Max said. “Want to play some gin?”

  “No. What about the clerk, Max?”

  “Nothing about the clerk. Where’s the paper?”

  “Sally came and got it. I’ve got some books, if you want to read.”

  “I don’t want to read books. What you got against gin rummy all of a sudden?”

  “Sit down and relax,” I told him. “I’m the guy who went with her, not you. You’re not in trouble.”

  He sat down. “If you’re in trouble, I’m in trouble. Sands was back here tonight, talking to the help.”

  “That’s what you bought.”

  “Not from the clerk. That Sands is one of those smooth and easy characters that never gives up and never makes a bum move, I’ll bet. That’s the way he strikes me. They wouldn’t put no punk on a kill like this.”

  “He’s only a sergeant,” I said.

  “Politics. That’s got nothing to do with efficiency. He isn’t the kind would butter up to the brass. He scares the hell out of me, so polite and tricky.”

  “Max,” I said, “if it’s all right with you, I’d rather not talk about it. Maybe tomorrow, but no more today.”

  “All right, all right.” He rubbed one ear with a flat hand, and stared out at nothing. “I think I’ll take a hot bath. My nerves are jumping.”

  I went back to watching the Sunset traffic. Some people like a view from their windows — trees and lawns, mountains, or water. My view had always been traffic, a great sedative.

  The phone startled me.

  A man’s voice said, “Max?”

  “He’s in the tub,” I said. “Can I help? This is Luke.”

  “Sam Wald, Luke. You boys will be home for a while?”

  “All night. Coming over?”
/>
  “Mmmm-hmmm. Like to talk to both of you.”

  “We’ll be here.”

  Sam Wald? Then I remembered that’s where the party had been last night. I went into the bathroom to tell Max about it. He was toweling himself.

  Max frowned. “Didn’t he say what he wanted to talk about?”

  I shook my head.

  “What could it be but the — what happened last night? What else would he want to talk about?”

  “I don’t know. What’s his business?”

  “Angles. Anything that’s got a buck in it is his business. What the hell?”

  “Better take another bath, Max,” I said. “Your nerves are jumping again.”

  “You’re cool enough, aren’t you?” he said. “You’ve got an awful cold streak in you, Luke.”

  “Somebody has to have the poise in this combination,” I said, and went back to the living-room. I didn’t seem to be what is known as a popular champion, at the moment.

  Sam Wald was a man of about forty, tanned and looking solid, the handball type. He wore some fine tailoring in blue garbardine and one of those insurance-salesman smiles.

  He told us, “Krueger wants a fight for his boy. He came to see me this afternoon.”

  Dutch Krueger was Giani’s manager.

  “Why’d he come to you?” Max asked.

  Wald shrugged. “He knows we’re pretty close.”

  Max studied him before saying, “Why doesn’t he go to the Association?”

  Wald shrugged again. “He knows he hasn’t too much standing with the N.B.A. The thing is, Max, I’ve got a piece of that new arena we’re building in the Valley and a title fight would be a fine opening attraction.”

  “I don’t want any part of Giani,” Max said flatly.

  “Maybe I do,” I said.

  “Go read a book,” Max said. “I’ll handle this.”

  I winked at Wald. “That’s going to be some arena. Could press a lot of hay into that spot, I’ll bet. And there’s tons of money being spent out here.”

  Wald nodded. “I just wish I had Santa Anita’s breakage. Great sport town.” He paused. “Great gambling town.”

  The pause made the last three words hang in the room.

  I said, “How would you bet that one, me and Giani?”