Twenty minutes later we were about ready to call it a wasted morning. We went down the stairs and I reached for the door. From the kitchen, the cat let out a wild wail. Hammett and I looked at each other and moved quickly back into the kitchen.
“I didn’t see any cat food,” I said.
“They probably fed him table food, but I don’t see a bowl.”
I found a can of tuna and an opener and opened the can while the ball of orange and white fur rubbed against my leg. Hammet filled a bowl with water.
When the smell of the tuna hit the cat, he meowed, turned his head and dashed for a space next to the refrigerator. I followed him and found him pushing against the door of a low wooden cabinet. I opened the cabinet door. Inside was a supply of canned cat food. When I picked up the top can, the stack toppled. I shoved the cans back in the cabinet and noticed the loose board. I used a kitchen knife to pry the board up and found a small cloth bag.
Hammett put the bowl of water next to the cat and went with me to the kitchen table where I opened the bag and dumped its contents. There were three stacks of money, neatly wrapped and taped, and there were four letters—all from a Mr. Gerald Pintacki in Angel Springs. Each letter contained only one word. The first, postmarked July 6, read: “Yes.” The second, postmarked August 2, read: “Soon.” The third, postmarked August 29, read: “Ready.” The fourth, postmarked September 1, read: “Saturday.”
I tucked the letters in the inside pocket of my jacket. The hungry cat had gulped down the can of tuna and was rubbing against my leg and purring for more.
Hammett leaned over, picked up the cat and tucked it under his arm.
“We’ll take him,” he said. “Who knows when he’ll eat next if we don’t.”
I considered a protest but let it drop. I had other things to think about. “Fine,” I said.
“Peters,” Hammett said. “This hungry cat was locked in a room with a bloody corpse. Did you see a mark on that body besides the bullet holes? This is a cat of principle, a cat to be admired.”
“I love him,” I said. “Now let’s go.”
Hammett stopped at the front closet near the door. We’d both been through it but he opened it again, rummaged around with his free hand and came up with a blue baseball cap. He banded it to me.
“Put it on,” he said.
I put it on and he handed me the glasses he had taken from the dead man upstairs. I put them on too. I could see, but not very well.
“Look over the tops and let them drop on your nose,” he advised. “The scratch is a problem.”
I touched the tender line under my left eye where the cat had left his mark.
“I’ll try to maneuver Arthur and his friend to right side of the car so they won’t see it,” Hammett went on. “Did something like that with Tiffany Jack Rourke in Butterfield, Kansas. Corrupt little town. Lucky to get out with our lives.”
“What about you?” I asked. “What’s your disguise?”
“Too late for that. He’s already had a good look at me. Besides, you live in this town,” he said. “If things go right, I’ll be out of California and in the army in less than a week. I know how to stay out of sight for a few days. I have another idea or two. Let’s go.”
He stepped forward, stroking the cat, and waited for me to open the door. I did, pulled the baseball cap forward and hurried to the car, the glasses low on my nose so I could see over them.
Hammett got in the Crosley next to me and we headed for the gate. Arthur and his buddy were standing around and talking. Both were on the passenger side of the car as we approached.
“Stop right in the driveway,” he whispered, putting the cat on the floor.
I stopped, pushed the glasses up in front of my eyes and waited while Hammett leaned out of the open window.
“Arthur,” he called. “My nephew didn’t show up and I’ve got to get to a meeting. Tell him I’ll call him tonight, and don’t you forget you’ll be getting a call from my assistant, Ryan.”
“I won’t forget, Mr. Lansing,” Arthur said amiably.
“And Arthur,” he went on. “Do you know a pair of men living near my nephew, brothers, named Samuels or Lemuel, something like that?”
“Can’t say I do,” said Arthur, looking puzzled.
“Odd,” sighed Hammett. “They stopped by. One tall older man, gray hair, thin, about six-two, old suit. The other fat, bald?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar to me, Mr. Lansing. You know these guys, Bill?”
Bill didn’t know these guys. Hammett waved and smiled and whispered for me to drive on. I drove about ten yards slowly, pushed the glasses away from my eyes and stepped on the gas. A block later I took off the glasses and threw the cap behind the driver’s seat.
“That will give the police two descriptions of a pair of men seen lurking near Lansing’s house,” said Hammett. “Let’s find a phone and give them a third.”
We stopped at a gas station on Washington Boulevard just off the highway. While a kid who looked like he was six filled the Crosley, Hammett and I went into the station. The cat stayed in the car, hiding under the driver’s seat.
“I’m feeling better already,” Hammett said with a grin, breathing in the slightly smoggy air.
There was a phone in the station. It was reasonably private but I stood watch while Hammett called the Pacific Palisades police. His Italian accent was the best I’d heard.
“Police?” he asked. “My name is Manfriedo and I justa see two men coming out of this house near where I work. They look like they in one bigga hurry and my partner, he say, ‘No one home at Mr. Andrew Lansing’s house. Who they?’ So I calla you. I think maybe they rob the place.”
Hammett paused, automatically reached into his jacket pocket where he probably usually kept his cigarettes, changed his mind and nodded his head.
“Sure. One man he young like my son Gino who’s fighting the Nazis somewhere. I don’t know. About thirty maybe. Yellow hair, almost white. Thin man. The other guy? He’s tall, maybe six foot, built like a wrestler. Nose like a bird. That’s all I see. No, wait. They got in one of those little cars like Willie the Milkman has, a Hillman, a brown Hillman. Sure …” He paused and began to scratch the mouthpiece of the phone with his fingernails. “Something’s wrong with thisa phone. I call you back after work if I get a chance. You check on Mr. Lansing’s house. I’m worried he’s …” And Hammett hung up.
“Hungry?” I asked.
“Starved,” Hammett said, rubbing his long fingers together.
I paid the kid and we got back in the car, drove up Sunset to Pico and headed east. We stopped for lunch at a place Hammett knew called Al Sandy’s on La Cienega. Hammett tucked the cat under his arm and led the way into the restaurant. It was a little late for lunch so the place wasn’t crowded. It would have taken a lot of people to fill Al Sandy’s. The place was long, narrow and dark with a low ceiling that sagged every few feet. The tables were covered with red and white checked tablecloths, some of them reasonably clean.
In the farthest corner, a group of old men were arguing in a language that sounded like it might be Greek. The waiter, gray haired and wearing a white apron over his round belly, nodded at Hammett and continued to chew something the size of a baseball.
“What’ll it be, sports?” the waiter asked as we sat.
“Anarchy,” said Hammett, putting the cat on the table.
“I don’t recommend it,” said the waiter. “How about the salad, fried squid, a couple glasses of wine and some baklava instead?”
Hammett shrugged and nodded. “And the same for the cat.”
The waiter nodded and gulped down some of his baseball. He looked me over, decided he didn’t need my opinion, and wandered slowly toward the short-order window, behind which stood a dark, thin, sweating man in an undershirt and white chef’s toque.
“Well?” Hammett said when the waiter was gone.
“I go to Angel Springs,” I said.
“I know somebody there,” Hammet
t said, absently petting the cat, which closed its eyes in delight. “Might be able to open a door or two.”
“Okay, we go to Angel Springs,” I amended as the waiter brought a basket of bread and glasses of red wine. Hammett poured his wine into his butter saucer and let the cat drink it. I didn’t see how die wine could hurt the cat, or Hammett for that matter. It had been watered to the point where you could brush your teeth with it.
The fried squid was good and the wine deceptive. I was feeling a little sleepy when the small cups of black tar came and woke me up.
“You want to drive?” I asked, after I had paid the check and we headed for the door, cat purring under Hammett’s arm.
“I don’t drive,” he said, waving at the waiter, who let his eyes droop to let us know what a pleasure it had been to serve us. “Had an accident when I was driving a bus during the war in ’18. Some people got hurt. I haven’t been behind a wheel since.”
“Suit yourself,” I said, and he did.
I drove him back to his room in the Kingston Hotel on Beverly. He explained that he usually stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he had run up some bills that made the maids blush, but the Kingston was a better place to keep a low profile. I promised to be back for him in and hour or so. I had a few places to go before I went to Mrs. Plain’s and packed a change of underwear. Hammett took the cat.
I lied about the underwear. I had nothing to pack but I did want to see Ann. I figured I could just make it to her new apartment in Culver City and back in an hour. I was right, but there were a few things I hadn’t counted on. One of them was my brother, Phil.
4
Ann’s apartment was one of eight facing a courtyard with a little fish pond in the middle. I took a quick look at the fish. They were gold and black, big-eyed and gulping. The pond looked like it could use a cleaning. The red brick courtyard itself was filled with small, thick-stemmed plants with big leaves. It was like thousands of other little places in California cities, trying to look tropical instead of small and cluttered.
Ann had come down fast. This wasn’t even as nice as the apartment complex she had lived in before she married Ralph and moved to Santa Monica.
Number seven was tucked into a corner. I knocked at the door, heart pounding, half hoping she wouldn’t be home. But she was.
“Toby,” she said, opening the door with a smile. Then she realized what she had done, took back the smile and went politely sober.
She looked like Ann: dark, full-bodied, a light green dress. Her hair was naturally curly and black and barely touched her shoulders. Her body was ample, and her lips pink without makeup.
“Ann,” I said. “Just stopped by to see if you needed …”
“What I need I’ll get on my own, thanks,” she said.
I didn’t go away and she was too polite to close the door on me, though there were times in the past when she had managed to overcome such civility.
“You want to come in,” she said, her hand still on the door, her fingernails red, catching the afternoon sun. Ann had class.
“For a minute,” I said. “I’m on my way out of town, Angel Springs, on a case.”
She stepped back and let me enter. The place was small. I could see beyond the living room to a small bedroom and a kitchen–dining room on the left. Her house in Santa Monica on the beach had five bedrooms, a servant’s quarters and a bathroom that would have held this entire apartment with room left over for a volleyball court.
I recognized some of the English-style furniture from her old house.
“Can I sit?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said with a wary and weary smile, looking at the gold watch on her left wrist. “I don’t think you have it in you. But you may. I’ll have to leave in about ten minutes. I’ve got a job interview with Republic Airlines at four.”
“You look voluptuous,” I said, sitting on a bowlegged chair.
“I’m sagging, Toby,” she said, sitting across from me on another bowlegged chair. She didn’t offer me anything to drink.
“Never,” I said.
“I’m almost forty-five,” she said, playing with the bracelet on her wrist. “My husband died leaving me nothing and I have to go back to work. I’m a tired woman, Toby. Why don’t you just stop doing this and go chase someone who doesn’t know your underwear size and the way you snore when you don’t sleep on your left side?”
“How much did you clear for the house?” I asked, ignoring her question.
Ann crossed her legs and looked down at her nails.
“Enough to put away a little. We owed a lot on it.”
“You don’t look tired. You look like a twenty-two-year-old right out of college and ready to enjoy her first apartment and new job,” I said. “You just think you should feel tired and depressed.”
Ann shrugged, got up and straightened her dress.
“I need this job, Toby,” she said. “This dress, from J. J. Haggarty’s, complete with peplum, drapes and pleats, cost me $49.95. The shoes, Peacock’s, also from Haggarty, suede pumps, cost $12.95. I need the job to pay for the clothes and I need the clothes to get the job.”
She adjusted a little green hat, the price of which she hadn’t quoted, checked herself in a mirror near the door and sighed.
“Ralph wasn’t worth faking it for, Annie,” I said, standing.
“You didn’t know him,” she said.
“Well enough,” I answered. “You want to spend an hour in bed? No, forget I asked that. I couldn’t help it. It came over me. You look so …”
“Voluptuous,” she completed with a grin and a shake of the head. “Toby, the gravy’s in the navy. There are eight women to every man and most of the men still around aren’t carrying their weight. Even at your age you don’t have to chase an ex-wife who knows what your socks will smell like if you take off your shoes.”
“You always had a way with words, Ann,” I said. “I don’t want war widows and riveters.”
“I’ve got to go, Toby,” she said, looking at her watch again. “Next time, wait for a formal invitation. It’s not that I’m ungrateful for what you did when Ralph died, but …”
“One question and I’m gone,” I said as she picked up her purse from a chair near the door.
“Ask it and go,” she said.
“You need a ride?”
“No,” shesaid. “I still have Ralph’s car. Now …”
“That wasn’t the real question I want to ask,” I jumped in as she opened the door. “Honest answer. Wouldn’t you like to feel our bodies together again?”
“Honest answer?” she asked, looking at me with shiny brown eyes as big as the dials on an upright Philco radio. “Yes, I would. There were things you were very good at, Tobias. Very good. And it felt good; feels good, to know you want me, but I’m not going to start getting used to you dropping in when you want to, getting to depend on you again, getting disappointed again, shopping for your cereal, listening to your bizarre excuses. You are the oldest twelve-year-old in California. If I wanted children, I would have had them with you.”
“I guess that means …” I began.
“I’ll think about it, but not very hard,” she said, opening the door for me to leave. I could smell her perfume as we moved to the door and out. I didn’t smile, just stepped past her into the courtyard as she locked the door behind us.
“Nice fish,” I said, looking at the pond.
“Building manager says there were more,” she said, looking at me. “But one of the tenants threw in a small fish he caught at Lake Arrowhead. It ate its way through the smaller fish and had downed two big ones when the manager pulled him out.”
“Moral?” I asked.
“Don’t throw odd fish in with the domestic ones,” she said. She turned and walked down the red brick path, past a green elephant-eared plant and into the late afternoon. I didn’t follow, didn’t say anything. I made the mistake of going back to the pond to look at the fish.
They swam in odd
patterns, looking for something to eat or be eaten by. Black and gold splashes of paint with tails that …
“Fish belong in soup,” came a familiar voice behind me.
I played it right. I didn’t turn, just kept looking at a big gold one with bulging eyes and a mouth that opened and closed over slightly brackish water.
“Fish are fascinating,” I said.
“Why?” asked Lieutenant Steve Seidman of the Los Angeles Police Department.
“You need a soul to understand, Lieutenant,” I said, turning to him with a sigh.
“That explains it,” he said flatly. There was no expression on his pale skeleton face. For years there had been rumors that Seidman had a rare disease and would soon be gone, but other cops faded and died around him and Seidman went on, a pale shadow beside his boss, my brother, Captain Phil Pevsner of the Wilshire District.
“What we have here is one hell of a coincidence,” I said. “Or …”
“Phil-wants to see you,” he said, looking at the fish but seeing nothing that interested him.
“Should I ask?”
“I would,” he said.
“Right. Why does he want to see me?”
“Fellow named Hower got himself killed down in Pacific Palisades. Found the body about an hour ago,” Seidman explained. “We got a call about thé same time suggesting that you might know something, about it.”
“And my brother had you …”
“And four other detectives,” he interjected.
“… come out looking for me. You got lucky.”
“No,” said Seidman. “Phil called people you know and found out that Ann got back to town today. He figured you’d come here looking for her. Said you couldn’t stay away from her.”
“Betrayed by love,” I said.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” he said. “I’ve been a cop all my life. Let’s go.”
And we went. Seidman trusted me enough to let me drive my Crosley ahead of him. We got to the Wilshire Station in fifteen minutes, bucking the traffic. The Wilshire had been the hotbed of police activity back in 1923 when my brother Phil joined the force. Phil had come in during Prohibition when the department was at its most corrupt. He became a cop the same month the city fathers appointed August Vollmer, the father of police science, to a one-year term to clean up the L.A.P.D. Vollmer, a clean-living police chief from Berkeley, got nowhere, and when his term was about to expire in September of 1924, billboards began to appear all over the city, saying: “THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER WILL BE THE LAST OF AUGUST.” And it was. I remember seeing the signs and asking Phil what they meant. I remember he rapped me in the head and told me to shut up.
Buried Caesars Page 5
