The Triple Shot Box (Goodey's Last Stand, Not Sleeping Just Dead & Fighting Back): Three Gritty Crime Novels

by Charles Alverson

  “Hello, Ramsey,” I said. ‘This is Joe. Let me speak to your mother.”

  “Hi, Joe, when are you coming to see us?”

  “Soon,” I lied, looking at my watch. It was twenty after one. “Is your mother there?”

  “Gee, Joe—” I could hear a slight scuffle on the other end of the line, and Rachel Schute’s husky voice came on. “Hello, Joe,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Yes,” I said flatly, unwilling to start meaningless explanations. “Look, Rachel, I haven’t got much time. I called mostly to say that a bit of a situation has come up, and I’ve got to go away for a while. Last night—”

  “I heard,” she said. “How’s the old man?”

  “Okay, I think. Last report from the hospital said he wasn’t particularly cheerful but would pull through. I’m not so sure Cousin Sanford will. How did you hear? The Chronicle? Thatcher?”

  “Neither. People have been calling all day.”

  “Yeah, and I can imagine who they were, too. But I haven’t much time. I’m just on my way out of town.”

  “I thought you’d be just on your way to jail if I know Kolchik at all.” She sounded really concerned. And I felt even more guilty.

  “Naw,” I said, “Lehman claims he can work a deal for me. I handed in my badge and agreed to disappear for six months while Kolchik cools off and gets himself re-elected.”

  “Six months is a long time, Joe,” she said in that grave, even voice I knew so well. “Where do you plan to go?”

  “No plans at all,” I admitted. “But Mexico looks like a strong contender.”

  “Why Mexico?”

  “Why not Mexico?”

  “Are you going alone?” There was no complaint, no plea in her voice, but the words were heavy with what I knew they left unsaid.

  “Yes,” I said shortly. How do you stretch out a one-word answer? But I added: “As soon as I know where I’m going to be, I’ll let you know. I’ll send you an address.”

  “You do that, Joe,” she said. “I’ll be glad to hear. We all will. Thanks for calling. But, Joe, one thing—”

  “Yeah?” I said wearily, expecting the worst.

  “Don’t try to go too far today. You sound like you’re going to sleep on your feet. You’re tripping over your words.”

  “You’re right,” I said, feeling the fuzziness heavy upon me again. “I won’t. Take care, Rachel, and give my love to the boys.”

  “I will,” she said and hung up the telephone.

  The pump jockey was waiting impatiently. Two cars were lined up behind the Morris.

  “That’ll be a buck ninety-five,” he said, holding out a small hand.

  “Did you check the battery water?”

  “I forgot,” said the attendant. “That’ll be a buck ninety-five.”

  “Do it now,” I said, wondering why I was wasting valuable time.

  “Look—” the boy said, turning his eyes toward the line-up of customers.

  “The line will only get longer,” I said like a kindly uncle.

  Mouthing a nice, if limited, line of curses, the boy threw himself toward the station office, came lurching back with the distilled water bottle, and wrenched up the hood of my Morris. His enraged fingers twisted off the battery caps and spilled half the water on the concrete. He put the caps on, slammed the hood down, and turned back to me.

  “That okay?” he said savagely.

  “Just fine,” I said approvingly, handing him two dollars.

  The boy didn’t even see the money. He was concentrating on me, willing me to disappear.

  “My change,” I said. “Five cents. Or make it a nickel.”

  The attendant clawed into his tight pocket and came up with a handful of keys and small change which he thrust toward my face like a knockout punch. I looked it over, took a nickel and climbed back into my car. You’re a bastard, Goodey, I told myself.

  Continuing west on Lombard, I ignored the turn north to the Golden Gate Bridge and went on through the Presidio, heading for the beach and the road south. I was thinking about Rachel Schute.

  She was the closest thing I’d had to a steady woman since Pat had left. But not that steady. Rachel was a remarkable woman—pretty in a delicate-skinned, red-haired, high-strung way, intelligent, affectionate, and easy to be with. Her three boys liked me as much as she obviously did. For me, Rachel had only two drawbacks, but they were big ones. She was forty-four years old and a millionairess several times over. Not that I have anything against money. Though there’s something about rich women—even Rachel—that makes me nervous. But the biggest problem for me was her age. I couldn’t see any way around that. I’m the kind of stupid jerk who likes them young and firm—like Pat—and moldable. In a slightly drunken moment Rachel had once said that real women scared me. Maybe she was right.

  Soon I was rounding Sutro Heights and heading down the familiar road running along Ocean Beach. On the left, Playland lay sprawled like a gypsy camp. The orange and yellow canvas had a desolate gaiety. The sea was calm, with just a scattering of whitecaps. I’d walked this beat for over a year when I was a rookie. I could still feel the biting cold and hear the ragged music from the old merry-go-round at Playland.

  Continuing south, hugging the coastline, I pushed the old Morris past Lake Merced until I came to the familiar San Francisco City Limits sign. I looked at my watch. It was ten of two. Ten minutes’ grace. I had made it. But I felt fatigue hit me like a sandbag behind the left ear. My eyes closed involuntarily, and it seemed to take ages to wrench one of them open and stay on the road. I knew I had to sleep.

  A little farther along I caught a sign on the right side of the road: Seavue Lodge—Vacancy. Driving over a grass-cracked sidewalk, I pulled the car up slightly askew against a whitewashed timber railing and let the engine die of its own accord. With great effort, I reached up and switched off the ignition, but my hand fell back before I could pinch enough to remove the key. Moving as I imagine zombies—tired zombies—do, I eased myself out of the car and pushed toward a screen door at the front of a big old house with a pink stucco addition tacked on at the side.

  “A room,” I said to a pleasant-faced old body with gray hair sitting behind a short desk, knitting something orange. I could read her mind as she sniffed at me and then decided I wasn’t drunk. She opened a faded black registration book on the desk.

  “Is seven dollars okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I said with effort. I scrawled something in the book and held out my hand. “The key.”

  She reached up to a peg board behind her, took down a large brass key with a wooden tag marked “8,” and handed it to me. I nearly dropped it.

  “Luggage?” she said.

  “In the car,” I managed to squeeze out. “Later.” I stood in front of the counter, knowing that there was something I wanted to ask but unable to think what it was.

  “Through that side door,” the woman said, pointing, “and turn right. It’s the third door on the left.”

  I cleverly followed her instructions and found myself facing a door carrying the number “8” painted in shiny black. With profound relief I saw that the door was open a crack and pushed through it. I scarcely saw a big, sagging iron bed covered with what looked like cotton candy before I hit it with all my weight.

  5

  It was broad, broad daylight again when I woke up with a faceful of fuzzy bed cover. I rolled over on my back on the swaybacked bed and saw Ralph Lehman sitting in a chair in front of the window, looking at me with the eyes of a 225-pound Jesus Christ. One of his big feet was resting on one of my suitcases.

  I closed my eyes again, hoping that he’d go away. But he remained—fat, tired, getting old, but still there. A glance down told me I was still fully clothed, but some kind soul had removed my shoes. I knew I’d been asleep for a long time because I felt queerly rested and very hungry.

  “What day is it?” I asked, once I could get a little saliva flowing again. Someone had been blotting u
p mud with my tongue. “Friday,” Ralph said. “One o’clock. Joe—”

  “Don’t Joe me, you son of a bitch.”

  “Joe,” he said.

  “You lying bastard. You promised. Just leave town, Joe, you said, give up a brilliant police career and disappear, and everything will be all right. I’ll fix it. I’ll dazzle Sanford and The Brother with my faultless footwork, and there’ll be no sweat. That’s what you said. You, Chief of Detectives Ralph C. Lehman, said that. Tired as I was, I heard you. And now this, you prick.”

  “Joe,” he said, “are you finished?”

  “No, but I’m taking a breather. What do you have to say?”

  “You promise you’ll listen? Really listen?”

  “I’ll listen, but I don’t promise to like it.”

  “You’ll like it,” he said. “Joe, I meant every word I said yesterday morning. And things went very smoothly. The mayor and his high-ranking brother weren’t very happy about your escaping alive, but I sweet-talked them. I told them how it was. And they bought it, Joe. They bought it.”

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “You said you’d listen. Now, shut up.”

  “I’m shut up.”

  “Okay. That was yesterday. But things have changed since then, Joe.”

  I opened my mouth again, but Ralph pointed a thick finger toward it, so I shut up.

  “Things have changed,” he said, “because at about three o’clock this morning Tina D’Oro was found murdered in her apartment over The Jungle.”

  I didn’t have to hide astonishment, because I didn’t feel any. Or any emotion other than a vague feeling you might get when you heard that a public landmark you didn’t feel much for had been pulled down. More of a feeling that I should feel something.

  “And you think I did it, Ralph? You’re more senile than the boys in the squad room think. If you—”

  “No, no, no,” Ralph said with the consummate weariness of a man whose last year before retirement looks as if it’s going to last forever. “I don’t think you did it. Now, just listen, for Christ’s sake.” He looked at his watch. “We haven’t got much time. Bruno Kolchik expects us in his office by three o’clock.”

  I let that pass. “Go on,” I said, sitting down on the bed.

  “When Tina was found, she had been dead for close to twenty-four hours. At that time, we know where you were. You were busy shooting the mayor’s cousin. That’s a damned fine alibi. But it’s also beside the point. In plain, simple language Tina D’Oro’s diary was found in her apartment, and featured prominently in that diary was the name of a man we all know and love.”

  “Ralph Lehman,” I said, just for the hell of it.

  “Sanford F. Kolchik,” Ralph said.

  Then I was surprised, and I didn’t try to hide it. “Sandy Kolchik, our revered mayor and maybe prospective governor, messing around with the queen of the go-go girls? You’re kidding. Even Sanford’s not that stupid.”

  “I’m not. And he is. But fortunately, a young detective with a brilliant police career ahead of him stumbled on the diary and stashed it before the press arrived.”

  “Which is a contravention of every law I can think of and could get that brilliant detective, you and Sanford many years if it comes out.”

  “If it comes out,” Lehman agreed. “But in the meantime it’s got Johnny Maher promoted to detective sergeant, and—”

  “Not the Johnny Maher who’s such an opportunistic and sucking-up little bastard?”

  “The very same,” Lehman said. “But, more important, it gives you a little time, a very little time, to find out who killed Tina.”

  “Me? Why do I want to do that?”

  “Well, partly, as you may have heard, because Kolchik would sort of like to be re-elected.”

  I laughed, not a very nice laugh. “I wish him a whole lot of luck.”

  “He’s wishing you the same. Because his future is very much tied in with yours. If you don’t come back to San Francisco and find out who killed Tina, he’s going to do all those things I promised you he’d do. Remember?”

  “I remember,” I said, and I did. All too well. “But why me, Ralph? Yesterday morning Kolchik didn’t seem to think I had much promise as a detective…as I remember.”

  “He still doesn’t. He thinks you’re a fuck-up. But you’ve got two things going for you. You’re off the force, so you can operate in a private capacity. And you knew Tina. That makes you the man for the job.”

  He was right on both counts. I certainly was off the police, and I knew Tina, if only casually. A couple of years before, I’d had to fill in for a couple of weeks on the North Beach squad, and somebody was shot to death at The Jungle, the nightclub she was supposed to own a hunk of. While I was brushing away the flies and waiting for the homicide bunch to take over, Tina came over and sat on a bar stool near me. She was in costume—that is, she had almost nothing on—but she’d thrown an old chenille bathrobe over her shoulders. She was sitting at the bar, sipping on a tall drink and peering at a paperback book through thick, horn-rimmed glasses that definitely were not part of her act. She looked up with a puzzled expression and, since no one else was very close, asked me a question.

  “Which is the one where you throw up,” she wanted to know, “resuscitation or regurgitation?”

  I took a wild guess and told her the second one. The book turned out to be Thirty Days to a Vocabulary Like a High-School Graduate, and we started talking about long and funny words—a highbrow conversation which was soon broken up by the murder boys, and I disappeared.

  But sometime later, after I’d gone back to the commercial squad, I was eating alone one night at Fettucini’s, and somebody sat down at the table with me. Tina. “How’s your vocabulary?” I said for lack of anything more intelligent, and we talked for a while. After that, every so many weeks I’d run into her, and we’d talk. Me about the trouble I was having with Pat. Her about her search for an improved word power. Both sad stories.

  It wasn’t what you’d call a long and close relationship. But behind those spectacular tits and the brassy blond hair and the flat, dumb little face, there seemed to be a person. Not the brightest, maybe too ambitious, but a person who had nothing much to do with swinging boobs and loud music.

  “All right, Ralph,” I said, “I’ll give you that. I knew Tina—slightly. But that doesn’t mean I can tell you who killed her. Are you sure Kolchik didn’t do it?”

  “He says he didn’t,” Lehman said, “and I sort of give him the benefit of the doubt. But I’m not worried. You’ll find out who did it, and you’ll find out pretty soon. Without the sacred name of Kolchik coming into the case.”

  “Or what?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “Joe, I don’t have to tell you that. Don’t make me go through it again. I feel crappy enough doing Sanford’s dirty work as it is. Can’t you look on this as an opportunity, Joe? It gets you out from behind the eight ball. It gets you back on the payroll. The mayor’s apparently got a little fund for such delicate matters. Every week, your old salary will go into your bank account.”

  “And expenses, Ralph,” I said. “Those lousy private operatives always get expenses. Don’t forget that.”

  “And expenses,” Lehman said, looking more cheerful. “Thank God you’re beginning to make sense. Look on the bright side, Joe. You get your private buzzer right away, and if all goes well, you get a good shot at getting back your old job.”

  “You’re a real sport, Ralph,” I said, but I knew I had no other real choice.

  “Let’s get cracking,” he said. “We’re going to have to move if we’re going to make that appointment with Bruno.”

  I showered vigorously, brushed my teeth, shaved, dressed again, and followed Lehman out of the room. He carried my suitcases just as he’d brought them in from my car.

  The woman with the orange knitting was behind the desk again, and she looked at me as if I were Public Enemy Number One. She glanced down at my wrists, and I
knew she was looking for handcuffs.

  I didn’t want to disappoint her entirely, so I scowled and jerked a thumb at Lehman. “This guy will pay the bill,” I said. I pushed through the screen door into the soft, midday sunshine. Lehman’s big Mercury stood next to my small convertible, and a young patrolman leaned on it and looked at me with curious eyes.

  “Get in with me, Goodey,” Ralph said, coming out of the motel office. “This nice young man will be happy to drive your wreck into town for you.” The rookie scuttled out of our way toward the Morris, and I flipped him the keys.

  “He’d better be a careful driver,” I said as I settled into the Mercury’s big, soft seats, “or the mayor will be buying me another car.”

  “Find out who murdered Tina,” Ralph said, starting the engine, “without splashing shit on Kolchik, and he’ll buy you a new Cadillac.”

  6

  Lehman reluctantly stopped at a roadside restaurant and balefully stared at me while I ripped through a city-paid-for steak. The city got robbed, but I felt like a better man. As we got back into Ralph’s Mercury, I looked longingly at the highway south. Mexico was going to have to wait.

  Our second stop was the coroner’s meat room down in the bottom of the Hall of Justice. It felt funny to be walking into a building I thought I’d said goodbye to just yesterday. It hadn’t changed a lot. We went down a set of outside steps at the back, because I wasn’t supposed to be there.

  Smokey Sefton, the assistant ghoul, pulled out what looked like a filing cabinet drawer, flipped back a rubber blanket, and there was Tina, lying on her back with those fantastic tits sticking up like howitzer shells. Her skin was the color of old, weatherworn marble, gray-white, and with a vague coarseness. The famous body was unmarked except for a nasty appendix scar and a rather triangular wound just above and slightly to the right of her left breast, made by the blade that had nicked an artery and spilled her life’s blood. The interns had done a good job of cleaning her up, but they didn’t know much about the latest hair styles.