Canvas Coffin

by Gault, William Campbell

  “Don’t be cryptic, Max. Say what you mean clearly.”

  “I mean, starting tomorrow you two feel sentimental, you can hold hands.”

  “You’re being vulgar, Max.” She winked at me.

  “I’m wording it as clean as I can. Something’s got to be said. I want Luke in the best shape he’s known in years. Not because I figure he’s got any chance to win, but because the better his shape, the less permanent damage Giani is likely to do. No part of this brawl was my idea, you’ll remember. But I’m going along with it, so it’s going to be my way. You love the guy, that’s the way you’ll want it, too.”

  “I love the guy, Max. Tomorrow it starts?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Baby,” Sally said to me, “what are you doing tonight?”

  • • •

  Above the city, this place was, the lights below us. The air was clean, after the rain, clean and cold. The bed was one of those king-sized beds Sally had called ridiculous.

  “I was wrong about that,” she said. “Luke, we’re like animals.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s not all we have though, is it?”

  “I never think of it that way. You do, all the time. Maybe it’s all we have to you.”

  “No, no, no — Luke, you’re — strange. Sometimes you don’t seem to be in this world. I can’t reach you at all.”

  “Own me, you mean, not reach me. Nobody owns me.”

  “Could you live without me?”

  “Sure. But not well. You could live without me, too.”

  Dimness, relaxed, at peace, asleep. No dreams, a void. Waking to darkness and the shadowed silhouette of Sally against the lights. She sat near the bank of windows on the buttressed side, smoking.

  “Come and see the lights, Luke.”

  She had a cigarette waiting for me. Lights in rows, the streets leading out across the valley floor. Jutting out of the side of a mountain, this place. Belonging to a friend.

  “That bed,” Sally said. “I see Brenda’s point.”

  “Shut up about Brenda.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re here, and alive. Nobody can help Brenda any more.”

  “Or hurt her,” Sally said quietly.

  She was looking out at the lights. “I wonder how many are sleeping? Do you think Noodles and Ruth are sleeping?”

  “I don’t know. You’re not going back to Chicago, just because I’m going to be training, are you?”

  “Not if you want me here.”

  “I want you here. Are you sleepy? Do you want to go back to bed?”

  “I’m not sleepy. Let’s go back to bed.”

  • • •

  Back at the hotel, Max said, “That Coast Highway is open again. We can go out and look at the place in Malibu this morning.”

  “I’m going along,” Sally said. “I can rent a cottage.”

  Max frowned.

  Sally said, “Holding hands only. That’s a promise, Max.”

  “All right, all right. You still disturb him, don’t you?”

  “She’d disturb me if she was in Chicago, too,” I told him.

  “All right; all right, all right!”

  About a hundred yards from the water, this home was. Glass brick and natural stone, one story high and spread all over the landscape, an immense place.

  The training ring was under the protecting branches of a eucalyptus tree.

  “What a silly place for it,” Sally said. “Those seed pods will be dropping in the ring all the time.”

  “My national tree,” Max said. “We can put netting over the ring.”

  The canvas of the ring was frayed and rotted; the padding was useless. But that could be repaired.

  The house had five bedrooms and five baths, a living-room no more than fifty feet long with a high hearth fireplace just large enough to accommodate a roasting ox.

  “My kind of living,” Sally said. “Where’s the owner, Max?”

  “In Las Vegas. He runs a club there. Sally, you might as well stay here, too. You could handle some of the publicity and the paper work, and all.”

  “And you could keep an eye on Luke and me.”

  Max sighed, looking aggrieved. “Suit yourself.”

  “I’ll stay.” She plopped down in one of the room’s nine-foot davenports. “What a vulgar display of wealth.” She looked at me. “This, you could have, if you’d saved your money.”

  “Let’s get our stuff,” Max said. “Let’s get the ball rolling. You two can handle the hauling, can’t you?”

  Max stayed out there, to wait for the telephone men and the other utility connections. Sally and I went back to the hotel.

  There was a message for me at the desk. There were three of them, actually, but all from the same person. They’d been phoned in.

  “Some man named Noodles,” the clerk said. “And you can reach him at that address there. He doesn’t want you to phone.”

  The address was in the poor district of Santa Monica, in the colored district off Olympic. Sally drove; she can make a lot better time than I can.

  A small, leaning frame house, the front yard fenced with chicken wire, the gray lawn beyond recall. Next door a dog was howling, as we came up the path through the yard to the rotted front porch.

  “That dog,” Sally said. “I’m-”

  I knocked on the thin front door, and there was no sound.

  I knocked again, and heard a low moan from inside. It was a woman’s voice.

  “Open the door,” Sally said. “There’s something wrong here; I know it, Luke. That howling dog — ”

  The door was open, and I went through it ahead of Sally.

  A faded rug, a battered velour davenport, a chair to match. A television set and a contour chair, looking out of place in that sad room.

  The moaning came from a doorway to the right. A small hall leading to the bathroom and the bedroom. The moaning was coming from the bedroom.

  Linoleum on the floor in here, a painted iron bedstead, a cigarette-scarred bird’s-eye maple chiffonier, a straight chair, and an oilcloth-covered chest. The window was open; the slight breeze stirred the grimy curtain.

  In the corner of the room, sitting on the floor, holding her hands tightly in her lap and rocking from side to side, the girl from the bar, the girl named Ruth.

  Moaning quietly, rocking methodically, staring out at nothing, she was in shock.

  On top of the unmade bed, a quiet small body, one small hand clenching a handful of his own shirt, the other hand and arm extending stiffly down his side, the man known as Noodles.

  Noodles, too, was staring, but he wasn’t in shock.

  Noodles was dead.

  Chapter IX

  BEHIND ME, a choked murmur came from Sally’s throat. I turned to see her paper-white face, to see her waver on her feet.

  “Steady, baby,” I said, and came to put an arm around her. “We’d better phone the police. If there isn’t a phone here, we’ll have to go next door.”

  Footsteps in the living-room, coming our way, and I called, “Who’s there?”

  No answer, but a moment later he stood in the doorway from the hall. The redheaded cop, Sergeant Nolan.

  He came into the room, stared from Ruth to Noodles, and then at us.

  “He’s been phoning me all morning,” I said. “He probably had something to tell me.”

  “Get to a phone,” he said wearily. “Get Sergeant Sands here, and an ambulance. And then call the local police. We can’t sit on this one any more. This is Santa Monica.”

  • • •

  The captain said, “We want to co-operate, Sergeant, of course. We always have. But let’s not rush things.”

  In a small bright room, the four of us. Sergeant Sands and Sally and I and Captain Aaronsen of the Santa Monica police.

  Big, blond man, the captain, dwarfing the desk in front of him, smiling out at the three of us, one of those calm Swedes.

  “There’s no doubt in my mind,�
�� Sands said, “that this is directly connected with the death of Brenda Vane. I can guarantee you that Pilgrim is clean on this kill. Sergeant Nolan went with him to that house.”

  “After him,” Aaronsen corrected him gently.

  “With him, in a department car. They took two cars, but they went together. I’d like to have you release this Ruth Gonzales to my custody, too, when you’re finished with her.”

  “We’ll get along, Sergeant. Let’s be patient. Those statements should be ready in a few minutes.” He smiled at all of us.

  From there to the west-side station. From there, Sands drove us back to our car, still in front of the little house.

  We hadn’t learned anything, Sally and I. Whether Noodles had been stabbed, shot, or poisoned we didn’t know. What Ruth Gonzales had told the police, we didn’t know.

  As he pulled up behind our car, Sands said, “You’ll be fighting Giani, I hear.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I hope you kill him.” His voice rough with emotion.

  “Oh? You think Giani’s behind this murder, Sergeant?”

  “D’Amico. And he’s behind Giani. And they pressured you into the fight, didn’t they?”

  “They think they did. I wanted them to think they did. I need all the weapons I can find for that battle, Sergeant.”

  He studied me. “I could be wrong about you, but I’ve been working on the theory that you’re clean, and a credit to the game. Giani isn’t. Wald isn’t. D’Amico sure as hell isn’t. But you’re not working with me.”

  “I’ve been trying to save my neck,” I said. I took a deep breath. “I — ”

  “Luke, shut up,” Sally said.

  “No,” I said. “Sergeant, I may have killed Brenda Vane. I don’t remember any of the things that happened from the seventh round of the fight until the next morning.”

  “So? How about your manager?”

  “He tried to protect me. Brenda dropped him off at the hotel first and she and I went on from there. Probably to her apartment. Noodles picked me up in front of her apartment, he told me, and took me back to the hotel. He doesn’t know, didn’t know if Brenda was alive then or not. There was a light on in her apartment, but he didn’t see her.”

  “That’s what he told you, that day in the Hoot Owl Club?”

  “That’s right. I think he was lying; I had a feeling he was trying to protect somebody. Otherwise, why didn’t he go to the police with what he knew about it?”

  “That would be too simple,” Sands said bitterly. “That way, he’d be alive, today.”

  “What killed him?” I asked.

  “Conine. Rye whisky, loaded with conine. His own bottle, right there in the house. You figure that one. Who but the girl? But who paid her to do it?”

  “Ruth wouldn’t,” Sally said. “I know she wouldn’t. She really loved him, Sergeant.”

  “Love — ” the sergeant said. “The smart thing to do would be to put you and your manager away, Pilgrim. And then build up a case. A good prosecutor could probably get a conviction just on what you’ve told me.”

  I said nothing. Sally started to cry, and I put an arm around her.

  “Only the hell of it is,” the sergeant went on, “you’re not the killer, and I’m the simple kind of bastard who lets a little thing like that bother him.”

  Sally stopped crying. A great peace moved through me.

  “How do you know I’m innocent?” I heard my own voice ask. “Because of the hands, Sergeant?”

  “That’s part of it. And I could be wrong, too. D’Amico and his boys must know you went home with Brenda. How do they know it?”

  “They don’t, probably. They played a hunch, because Wald knows I left with the girl. I don’t know how they learned about Noodles. That’s their kill — Noodles?”

  “Who knows? That Bevilaqua knows more than he told us. But you could work him over with an ax and get no more than he wants to tell you.” He shook his head. “Isn’t there anything you remember about that night?”

  “The windmill. That bakery trade-mark on the front of the supermarket on Sunset, there in the Palisades. I keep dreaming about the thing, about two of them, lately. But it doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “All right. You’re still at the hotel?”

  “No. We’ll be moving out to Malibu, to go into training. I don’t know the address, but I’ll phone it in to you.”

  “That place where Burke trained?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I know the place. I’ll be seeing you, out there. Don’t keep anything else from me, Pilgrim.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And work. Be ready for that guy, be right.”

  “I mean to, Sergeant. Still betting?”

  “Beat it,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  We got out of the department car, and Sally said, “You drive, Luke.” She was crying again. “That poor little man. Why, Luke, why did he have to die?”

  “So they could keep the heat on, they think. Or maybe the killer. I don’t know. Don’t think about it, Sal.”

  “He likes you, that Sergeant Sands. He’s certainly going along with you.” She blew her nose. “He must believe in you.”

  “Maybe. Maybe he’s giving me enough rope to hang myself with, too.” I put a hand over hers. “Don’t tell Max I spouted to the law. He’s fretting enough now.”

  “I won’t. Luke, I just thought of something. I’ll bet I know why he admitted he thought you were innocent. Because he didn’t want you to worry, before this fight. He wanted you to be ready for this fight. It’s D’Amico he really hates. Anything else is secondary with him.”

  “That could be. There’s some sense to that. There’s no other reason I can think of why he’d let me know I wasn’t his number-one suspect.”

  “That girl, the way she stared. She must have loved him. She couldn’t have poisoned him, not Ruth, could she?”

  “Don’t think about it.”

  “How can I stop?”

  “Think about the moving. Think about the fight, anything but this morning.”

  “Morning?” she said. “Migosh, Max is out there without transportation. I’ll bet he’s starving. What time is it?”

  It was almost two. It was after three when we started for Malibu with the luggage.

  Max wasn’t at the house. Max was at the roadside restaurant, picking his teeth and watching the seals. We almost missed him breezing as we were.

  I swung the flivver in a U-turn and came back.

  “No hurry,” he said acidly. “Did you have some shopping to do?”

  “Noodles has been killed,” I said. “Poisoned.”

  “Noodles? Who the hell’s Noodles?”

  “That cab driver, the one who brought me home from the girl’s apartment.”

  Max was in the act of getting into the car, and he paused, to stare at me. Seconds passed, and he said, “D’Amico. This time I’d make book on it.”

  We made the rest of the trip in silence.

  We put away our clothes, each to a bedroom, and then a man came with a load of groceries, and I helped Sally stow those away in the kitchen.

  Max came in as we were finishing. “There’s some more bedrooms and a bath over the garage. The help can stay there. I want to get Tony Scarpa, for one. The rest can come from town.”

  Tony Scarpa was an overweight welter, a fighter more or less in the Giani pattern, though a hell of a lot smoother.

  I said, “I think Charley Retzer will work out with us, too. Charley doesn’t like Giani. I’ve talked to him.”

  “You boys sure love to spend money,” Sally said. “Is all this necessary?”

  “It’ll pay,” Max said. “We’re going to have the biggest gate in middleweight history, I’ll guarantee you that. And this town goes for a lot of front.”

  “Maybe,” Sally said, “we could get a couple of those searchlights and some bright bunting. This fight’s had too much publicity already.”

 
“How do you figure that?” Max asked.

  Sally looked at me. I looked at Max, and said, “I — we, Sally and I found Noodles’s body, Max. We called the police. Or no, the police followed us; Sergeant Nolan, it was.”

  Max opened his mouth, and closed it. He opened it again, looking like the papa seal waiting for a fish. He closed it again, turned on his heel, and left the kitchen.

  “Max — wordless,” Sally said. “I’ll bet it’s the first time in history.”

  “Let’s eat something,” I said. “I’m starving.”

  It was what is known as a farm kitchen, with its own fireplace and eating-section and lounging-area. Sally made an omelette with cheese and toasted some rye bread and made coffee, and we ate in the dining-section, where we could see the ocean.

  No sign of Max, no sounds from him. “He’s sulking,” Sally said. “Let’s have our coffee in the living-room.”

  That’s where Max was. He’d built a fire in the huge fireplace and was sitting on the davenport in front of it, a drink in one hand.

  “You might have told us about the fire,” Sally said, “so we could all enjoy it.” She went over to sit next to him on the davenport. “Don’t be unhappy, Max.”

  I went over to sit on the other side of him.

  “I’m scared,” he said simply.

  “Why?” I asked. “You grew up with mugs. And you’ve got more influential friends than Jim Farley. You’ve no reason to be scared.”

  “I’m old and tired and scared. Neither one of you know enough about D’Amico’s kind of people. I’m getting old and I earned some peace. But you two have to play cop.”

  “We didn’t, Max. When we got to the hotel there was a message for me. Noodles had phoned three times and wanted to see me. I went over there, and he was dead. Sergeant Nolan had followed us over.”

  “So maybe if you hadn’t got to him in Bevilaqua’s bar that afternoon and maybe if Sally hadn’t worked on his girl friend, maybe this Noodles would still be alive. One thing I did learn, growing up with those kind of people, was to mind my own damned business. That way, everybody’s better off.”

  “I can’t accept that, Max,” Sally said. “But let’s not fight about it. We’ve enough to fight without fighting each other.” She put a hand on his.

  He sighed, staring at the fire. “I never used to be scared, and God knows I had reason to be. Maybe I didn’t have so much to live for, then. Or maybe I wanted more than I do now.”