Emma’s heart gave a little lurch. ‘What do you recommend?’ The steadiness of her own voice surprised her. ‘You say Mr Crain’s butler got his call at about six, which must be shortly after Young Mr Crain secured his father’s company in some way. It’s …’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s just after eight now. They have to have both of them there at the villa, and they have to do whatever they need to do, to set up the house to look like a love-nest killing.’
‘If that’s what’s happening.’
‘Do you think it is?’
‘I do.’ He was barely a shadow against the glare of his headlights. ‘Mostly because Tim Crain’s got the money to set up Festraw’s murder, in order to make Kitty famous coast-to-coast as a woman who’d kill a lover.’
‘And set it up in such a way that it won’t get her put in jail. That,’ agreed Emma, ‘was clever. That the evidence was just enough to make all the newspapers, but would leave her still within his reach. He must have put detectives out to find Mr Festraw in New York, the minute he heard that the land he’d already signed over as collateral on some stock transaction was going to be sold and title-checked … He would be able to get that information, wouldn’t he?’
‘Oh, sure. If he follows market news and reports like Crain says he does … And if I were making hanky-panky with somebody else’s real estate, you bet I’d have somebody in one of the brokerage houses keeping an eye on it. But we both could be wrong.’
‘And we could be wrong about where this is all taking place,’ said Emma quietly. ‘Although I can’t think of a place where Timothy Crain would have more control of the … the set-dressing of his father’s murder by a scandalous woman. Our only alternative is to call the Los Angeles county sheriff …’
‘Yeah, without a shred of proof and no idea where this is actually taking place, in four thousand square miles of LA county. They’re gonna rush right out to thwart that crime.’
‘Go through the hills.’ She let her breath go in a little sigh. ‘I think … I think we don’t have any time to lose.’
The hillside homes disappeared in the dark. The lights of the village of Burbank among its orchards twinkled for a moment, then also were gone. The hills closed in around the little car, and when Emma wound the window down, the wind that flowed over them was redolent with the smells of dust and sagebrush. She could see the strip of ill-kept asphalt that looked barely newer than the ruined pavement that had led up Sycamore Canyon Saturday night, and wondered how robust the tires on the little Ford were.
And whether Sid Gross had anyone else with him.
At length she said, ‘I’m sorry about calling you—’
‘Herbie was dying for the chance to shoot. It’s cut-and-dried stuff, extras running through the burning city screaming.’
‘Even so—’
‘Hey.’ He took his hand from the wheel long enough to grasp her wrist. ‘I love Kitty. She drives me nuts, but she’s like a sister to me. And I couldn’t let you …’ He hesitated.
‘There’s nothing I could have done,’ said Emma, ‘if you hadn’t come when I called.’
‘I know. And I’m pretty sure you’re right about what’s going on. And when the newspapers came out about finding her body, I couldn’t let you go through your life wondering if there was something you could have done.’
‘Thank you.’ There didn’t seem to be much else to say. Around them the hills loomed taller, lightless as velvet under a velvet sky. There was still no sign whatsoever of a forest, but the pavement dwindled to little more than a graded track of broken asphalt, cut by watercourses and walled in by prickly shoulder-high brush, barely visible in the feeble gleam of the headlamps. Zal drove swiftly but carefully, the car swaying with the uneven roadbed but never jolting.
‘Do you …?’ Again she hesitated.
‘Do I know how to shoot a gun?’ She could hear the sidelong flicker of his half-grin. And, more soberly, when she didn’t reply: ‘Or, do I think I can pull the trigger on another human being?’ Silence for a time, and the soft grind of the tires on gravel. She remembered that he had spoken of dodging the draft. ‘Can you shoot?’
Emma shook her head. ‘Jim – my husband – offered to teach me, but I’m afraid I … I thought too much about what it would mean, to actually be ready to kill someone. And if one doesn’t mean it, I don’t expect one can be convincingly threatening in an emergency.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
‘That’s what Jim said. Have you ever shot anyone?’
He said, ‘Whoa,’ and braked, cutting the headlights as another pair of far-off lights pin-pricked the blackness before him. In liquid moonlight Emma had the impression they’d come out on a wider road that curved down to their left, the direction from which the other car was coming. Uphill, she thought. Framed by the shoulders of the hills around them she had a dim sense of flat land beyond, and infinitely far off, a tiny salting of lights.
She kept silent, watching the car-lights approach. She recalled the headlights that Zal had mentioned seeing in their rear-vision mirror, twice or thrice on the twisty drive along the backbone of the Santa Monica hills, and the silent bulk of a car slipping away down Ivarene Street in the wake of Peggy’s departure. Invisible in the blackness she could tell nothing of Zal’s face. She herself felt curiously without fear.
We’re dealing with people who calmly plan to kill Kitty and Mr Crain for money. Have been planning it for weeks. Had killed Mr Festraw the way a cook wrings a chicken’s neck, because that’s what’s on the dinner menu … not that the man was any great loss. But she knew to the marrow of her bones that it wouldn’t have mattered to these people – Sid Gross, and his employer Timothy Crain – if he had been. He was just a convenient piece of a convenient scheme.
How much money did one get in a murky business deal involving oil wells and stock futures, anyway?
Quite a bit, it sounded like.
She remembered the way Mr Crain had glanced aside when the subject of his son had arisen. Even now, I find myself entangled in the past, he had said. Preoccupied by things I did wrong, or should have done differently …
Concerning his son?
Heard in her mind Kitty’s voice, casually speaking of an early swain in her chorus-dancing days. Well, he was passionately in love with me but if his father’d cut him off he had no way – nothing – of making his own living. None of them do, you know. They can sell stocks but they can’t wash dishes.
She wondered if Mr Crain had given his son any ultimatum.
Kitty’s in that car …
The headlights swung, disappeared around the shoulder of a hill. Her heart was pounding but she still didn’t feel any fear. How far is the villa from the main road? Did he see our headlights before Zal switched them off?
Zal let in the clutch, guiding the car – carefully – by moonlight down the grade. In a startlingly matter-of-fact tone, Emma asked, ‘Will they be able to hear us?’
‘Depends on how many of them there are. If Junior’s smart it’ll be just him and Gross, unless he wants to be paying blackmail for the rest of his life. And if Gross is smart, he’ll watch his back for the rest of his life. This may be the first time Junior’s killed for gain. I’ve been told the second time’s always easier.’
‘Jim said that about war.’
Two stone plinths, barely visible in the gloom, marked a driveway that led downhill to the left. In the moonlight – only a few days past full – Emma could make out the brass numbers on one of the plinths: 100. As Zal turned the car between them she felt behind her breastbone the breathless sensation she’d had, just before her first piano recital. Chopin’s second piano sonata. Her fingers – her wrists – twitched with the recollection: slow dark opening, then flickering notes like fire … This is a stupid time to be remembering that …
Across a shallow valley three enormous windows threw lakes of topaz out into the darkness. Zal cut the engine, steered the little Ford in silence over what felt like new paving, smooth and
silent. Every molecule of Emma’s flesh cringed, waiting for the sounds of shots that would tell her they were too late.
In moonlight and the residual glow from the windows, she saw there were two cars, parked in front of the three wide, shallow steps that ascended to a tiled terrace outside the windows. Trees made dark clouds beside the house, the only sign Emma had seen so far of the ‘forest’ of which everyone had spoken. In California, did two trees constitute a forest?
Why am I thinking this? If those men have guns I may be dead in the next ten minutes. WE may be dead … myself, Zal, Kitty, Mr Crain …
Poor Aunt Estelle will arrive to that news …
Through the windows she could see a couch, a chair, a long narrow refectory table, Renaissance antiques or very good fakes. A door of that big tapestried room opened and a thinnish, balding man came in, taller than Mr Crain but with enough resemblance to his sharp-featured face that she guessed at once that this was Timothy. He was speaking over his shoulder to someone in the dark of the hall.
A moment later a bigger man came in, tall, broad, and just the respectable side of fat. Emma remembered that ‘XLarge’ notation on Millie’s costume log.
He was carrying Kitty in his arms.
She was unconscious, limp as a rag doll in the frock of wine-colored charmeuse she’d had on that afternoon, waiting for her manicurist. Gross – the man had to be Sid Gross, she could see the mole on his nose – dumped her into one of the chairs, and turned as Timothy crossed to the big carven fireplace, gesturing like a man giving instructions.
‘You stay here.’ Zal had stopped the car far back enough from the house that, hopefully, it wouldn’t be seen from those great windows. Not with the lamps on inside, it won’t …
He took the Luger from the glovebox, and in the darkness his voice was grim and steady. ‘I’m going to check the other cars to see if there’s another weapon in either of them, and then I’ll see if there’s a way into the house. You keep the doors locked and be ready to start up and get the hell out of here the minute there’s trouble. Don’t stick around waiting for me. They won’t be able to find me in the hills. Starter-pedal on the floor here, button on the dash here … All right?’
She whispered, ‘All right.’
He started to get out of the car, leaned back in, caught her by the shoulders and kissed her, hard. Then he slipped out and vanished almost at once into the darkness.
The three large windows framed the scene within like a triple proscenium arch. Evidently no drapes had yet been hung. Timothy Crain was still giving instructions in dumb-show; Gross nodded, then went out the door into the dark of the house once more. The millionaire’s son went to the sofa, bent over it and with a visible effort dragged up the man who, up until that moment, had lain out of sight there. The whole scene was about thirty feet away but Emma recognized Ambrose Crain’s slender form, gray suit, and white head lolling as his son propped him in a corner of the seat. Timothy studied his father for a moment – Emma wasn’t close enough to see his expression – then changed his position, and turned to tip over the low, long coffee table in front of the couch. Emma saw that he was wearing gloves. When Sid Gross came back in, he was wearing them, too.
Gross bent to the humidor that had been on the coffee table, which had flown open when the table was upset, spilling cigars on the Persian carpet. Young Mr Crain – though Kitty was right, Emma thought, thirty-five at least, unhealthily pallid, the bare spot on his scalp blotchy with eczema – stepped over to him with a rebuke, and there was a brief argument. It’s got to look natural, thought Emma. It can’t look as if a third – or a fourth – person was here …
She was reminded again of Ned Bergen, arranging the empress’s chamber for Marcus Maximus to stride in by moonlight …
When Gross handed Young Crain a small silver box, and Young Crain turned to calculate where it should fall if it were knocked off the table, the detective quickly stooped and helped himself to a half-dozen of the scattered cigars. (Come ON, Zal, where are you …?) Young Crain flipped the silver box open and dusted a little white powder on Kitty’s chest, then dabbed the fingertips of her right hand in it (You’ll never get away with that, everyone in Hollywood knows she hasn’t touched the stuff since February …). With a flick of his hand he flung box and its remaining contents obliquely across the floor.
Star Slays Lover and Self in Dope Frenzy …
Of course he’ll get away with it. Standard Oil’s going to pay him millions for that Long Beach land.
Love’s Fatal Tragedy …
Young Crain gave another curt order. Gross went to the decidedly un-Renaissance liquor cabinet behind a carved screen, came back with two glasses and a satchel. The satchel contained two nearly-empty bottles – by their shapes and color Emma guessed one was Gordon’s gin, the other imported whiskey of some kind. Young Crain sprinkled whiskey over his father’s body and the couch, sloshed the other glass with gin and dropped it on the floor.
Zal, where ARE you …?
Gross picked Kitty up, carried her to the side of the fireplace, laid her face-down on the floor. Both men stood back, considering the scene.
ZAL …!
Young Crain nodded briskly, dug in his pocket for an envelope and handed it to Gross. Gross counted what was in it, shoved it into the breast of his jacket, and took out a gun.
NINETEEN
Emma jammed the starter-pedal with her foot, hit the self-starter, yanked the car into gear and slammed the accelerator. The Ford roared into life – Gross and Young Crain snapping around like two characters in a play – and the little car bounced as it leaped up the shallow steps to the terrace …
Emma’s foot rammed to the floorboards and she thought, Now don’t close your eyes or you’ll run over poor Mr Crain …
She hit the windows in an explosion of flying glass, slammed on the brake, and prayed that Zal was somewhere close by as she opened the door.
Gross brought the gun up and Young Crain swatted the weapon aside.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Emma, in the tone that had worked when one of Lawrence Pendergast’s drunk and rampant friends had cornered her in the pantry. ‘How are you going to account for a third corpse? Or a bloodstain on this carpet? They’ll test the blood, you know,’ she added, as Gross’s gun wavered in his hand. Sam Wyatt had told her that much. ‘They’ll know it isn’t either Mr Crain’s or Miss de la Rose’s.’
Gross looked at Young Crain. Emma could almost see a title-card, ‘Wadda we do now, Boss?’ The wily Odysseus would have rolled his eyes in disgust.
‘Mr Devine is already on his way back to Pasadena,’ Emma went on, extemporizing from the dialog of every film she’d ever seen. ‘Someone recognized you, Mr Crain, at Doolittle’s Wednesday—’
The hall door opened and for an instant Emma’s heart leapt to her throat, but it was, thank God, Zal, Luger in hand.
Gross’s hands were already coming up in surrender when Young Crain lunged at him, almost tripping in the process, grabbed the gun he held, and fired at Zal. Zal ducked, and Young Crain knocked the carved screen over into him, sending Zal’s Luger flying. Young Crain spun, again almost over-balancing himself, and fired at Emma – who heard the clang of a bullet hit metal as she dodged behind the Ford’s open door. As he turned back toward Zal, Kitty reared herself up unsteadily onto one hand, Zal’s dropped Luger in the other.
Gross had already leaped behind the couch, and Timothy Crain turned and quite deliberately – at a distance of five feet – shot him. Then he bolted like a deer for the broken window and pelted into the night. Kitty fired after him – the police later found that bullet lodged in the ceiling – and Zal scrambled out from under the heavy screen, yet another gun in hand. (‘Found it in the glovebox of Crain’s car,’ he told her later.)
Gross meanwhile had begun to sob, ‘I’m hit! I’m hit! Oh, God!’ and Emma, true to her VAD training, ran to his side. Zal ran to his other side and waved Emma back, searched the groaning detective for another weapon even as
Kitty staggered to her feet and stumbled toward the windows, Luger held out at arm’s length.
Emma caught her as she passed, her mind filled with bullets coming out of the dark, but Zal, tearing open Gross’s coat to reveal a huge soak of blood over his right hip, said, ‘He won’t get far. Do the phones here work, Kit?’
‘I don’t …’ She looked hazily around her. ‘Where are we? Ambrose!’ She fell to her knees beside the couch, gathered her elderly lover into her arms. ‘Oh, Ambrose! Oh, my God, is he all right?’
Emma took the gun away from her. We need an extra henchman, she thought, as Gross continued to gasp and sob – he was quite clearly really injured, and not just faking in order to grab Emma as a hostage (which was how Sam Wyatt would have handled the scene …). Zal was pulling off his sweater, and then his shirt (prudently keeping hold of his gun); Emma tucked the Luger down into the couch cushions in such a way that even if it went off it would only shoot the floor, and pulling up her skirt, tore the flounce from her petticoat, which appeared to be much simpler to do in the movies than it was in actual fact … but perhaps that was because her hands had begun to shake.
Zal tore open the buckle of Gross’s belt, undid his flies, and pulled his trousers down. He wadded sweater and shirt on either side of the streaming wounds in his hip and bound them tight with the strip of petticoat-silk. Emma meanwhile crossed to the liquor cabinet – miraculously still standing on its legs – and found another bottle of gin and three of Apollinaris water, as well as two small, neatly-folded bar towels.
‘What happened to him?’ Kitty looked up at her as she returned to the couch. ‘Is he – Ambrose!’ He stirred in her arms, as Emma soaked a towel with the water and applied it to his face. ‘Oh,’ she added, looking around her again. ‘We must be at the villa! Thank you, dearest.’ Emma had put three fingers of gin in the glass. Kitty took it from her hand, drank most of it, and poured the remainder between the old man’s gray lips.
Scandal in Babylon Page 23
