Dead Pigeon

by William Campbell Gault

  “Maybe Tucker followed you on his own because he learned you were investigating his cousin.”

  I shook my head. “They’re not that close.”

  “That’s a doubtful confirmation, Brock.”

  “Probably. But what else do we have? I’ve been lucky before, working on instinct.”

  “So have I,” he said.

  He reached into the backseat and picked up a pair of binoculars. He took a notebook and a ballpoint pen out of his jacket pocket and handed them to me.

  “We don’t need the binoculars,” I said. “We can see from here what’s going on down there.”

  “But not the license plates of any visitors,” he explained.

  It had been a long time since I had done any surveillance. I said nothing.

  We sat. There was no radio in the car. We sat in silence.

  About twenty minutes later he said, “That cop who came with you when you came to our office, that Hovde, he’s a real cowboy, isn’t he.”

  “Yup.”

  “The boss thinks he’s on the take.”

  “Your boss is wrong. Lars hates crooked cops. And your boss is also dumb if he supports Turhan Bay.”

  “I know. I wish he was half as generous with his help as he is with that faker.”

  More silence.

  Two cars came down the hill in the next fifteen minutes; none came up. When one finally did, a jet-black Cadillac, we missed the reading on the front plate. We hadn’t known it was going to turn into the driveway; no signal light had shown.

  “We’ll get the back-plate number when it leaves,” Dennis said.

  The minutes dragged on. The car got hotter. “We should have brought a six-pack,” I said.

  “There’s a bottle of spring water behind your seat,” he told me.

  It was a vacuum bottle and the water was cool. We sat.

  The Cad finally left and he read me the plate, which I recorded. A few minutes after that, Terrible Tim came out and raised the hood of his truck.

  Several more cars went down the hill, one came up. Tim closed the hood of his truck and went into the house. It was close to noon now and the car was an oven.

  I could be home, swimming in the pool, I could be playing golf. Was Mike worth all this? The Mike who had been my roomie, yes. But now? What was I, the avenger? Somebody had to be, I told myself. Who else gives a damn? Certainly not the SMPD.

  Tucker came out of the house and climbed into the truck.

  “Should we follow him?” Dennis asked.

  I nodded. “Let’s hope he’s heading for the ocean. It should be a lot cooler down there.”

  He was. Traffic was heavy on Ventura Boulevard; we stayed close to the truck. Dennis dropped back as the traffic thinned.

  “You’re good at this,” I said.

  “I always thought I was. But my mother-in-law won’t even ride with us unless my wife drives.”

  Down the pass, toward the ocean. The ocean breeze hit us about halfway down. He adjusted our pace to the flow of traffic, staying out of sight. The truck turned left on Olympic, into Venice. The traffic was minimal here; we stayed far behind.

  The For Rent sign was still on Big Bertha’s boardinghouse pillar when we drove by. A block and a half later, Tucker turned into an alley.

  “That’s a dead-end alley,” Dennis said. “Let’s get out.”

  Tucker was walking toward a deserted one-story cement block building when we came to the mouth of the alley. The building was at the far end.

  When he went in we went partway down and crouched behind a huge dumpster, out of sight.

  A few minutes later he came out carrying a large cardboard box. He put it into the bed of the truck. He went back in and came out again moments later carrying ą suitcase. He put that next to the box and turned to look back at the building.

  About a minute later, a bulky bald man with snow-white eyebrows came out of the building, carrying another, smaller, suitcase.

  The truck backed out of the alley. When we came out to the street it was nowhere in sight.

  “They’re probably heading back to Gillete’s house,” Dennis said.

  “Probably. Do you know where Ye Sandwiche Shoppe is?”

  He nodded.

  “Drive there.”

  “Why?”

  “Hovde might be there. I want a read on that bald guy.”

  Lars was there, sitting with a uniformed officer. I related the events of the morning to him and finished by describing the bald man with the white eyebrows and our guess as to where he was heading.

  “Clauss,” he said. The uniformed man nodded agreement.

  “I’ll alert the Valley boys,” Lars said. He left the booth.

  The uniformed man looked at Dennis. “Don’t you work for Arden?”

  Dennis nodded.

  The man’s smile was scornful. He looked at me. “You another private eye?”

  I shook my head. “I’m the Chief of Police in Yuba City. What’s it to you?”

  He stared at me and I at him. Dennis smiled and yawned.

  When Lars came back he told us the Valley cops were sending a car to watch the house. “I should hear from them in about half an hour. Sit down and have a cup of coffee while we wait.”

  “We’re going to have lunch here,” I told him. “We’ll find another booth.”

  He stared at me. “You sore about something?”

  “The company you keep.”

  In our booth, Dennis said, “I thought you and Hovde were buddies.”

  “No comment.”

  “I was thinking,” he said, “maybe Tucker didn’t take Clauss to Gillete’s house. Maybe he took him to his cousin’s house.”

  “I doubt it. You really hate Bay, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I hate all those blood-sucking electronic preachers, too.”

  When we finished our lunch I asked him, “Do you think your friend at DMV would tell you the name of the owner of that Cadillac we saw at Gillete’s house?”

  He nodded and got up to use the pay phone next to the kitchen door. Several minutes later he came back to tell me that the owner of the Cadillac was a man named Winthrop Loeb.

  “That name rings a bell,” he said. “Do you recognize it?”

  “I do. He’s an attorney. He defended some pretty hairy characters and got them off. That includes a couple of major mob big shots.”

  He took a breath. “That’s too heavy for me.”

  “And me,” I agreed. “What we need now is finesse. I’ll check out the man.”

  “Where? How?”

  “Through a friend who should know.”

  He stared at me. “If you’re thinking what I’m suspecting, please don’t mention my name to your friend.”

  “I won’t. There is one more place Clauss could have gone to, but it’s a doubtful one. His son lives in Brentwood. He might be home.”

  I directed him to the apartment house and went in to ring young Clauss’s bell. Nothing.

  When I came out to the car, Dennis asked, “Now where?”

  “Back to the hotel for me. I’m beginning to stink. I need a shower. I’ll phone my friend from there.”

  He asked, “Should I come back here tonight and watch the place?

  I shook my head. “Young Emil promised me that I would be the first to know if his father ever showed up here. He really hates the man.”

  He drove me back to the hotel. There were no messages for me. I took a shower before I phoned the Peter Scarlatti residence.

  He answered the phone. I told him about Loeb’s visit to Gillete’s house.

  “So what?” he asked.

  “Well, as you warned me, I shouldn’t skate on thin ice.”

  “Ain’t you the cute one? The ice is a little thicker this time. Winthrop is no longer involved in criminal defense cases. Financial manipulations are his current interest. He is now the man who is skating on thin ice. But not with us, with the Feds.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Yo
u’re welcome. Next time you plan to go up against Terrible Tim Tucker, let me know. That one I want to see.”

  “I’ll be sure to send you a free ticket,” I said.

  I added what I had learned today into the record and searched one more time for the pointing finger. Nada. I was putting the sheets back into the folder when the phone rang.

  The desk clerk told me there was a man in the lobby named Lars Hovde who wished to speak to me. Should he send him up?

  I said he could.

  Lars was scowling when I opened the door. “That smartass clerk downstairs made me show him my shield.”

  I shrugged. “Come in.”

  He came in. “What’s your beef with me?” he asked. “You were really snotty at the restaurant.”

  “It’s been a bad day, Lars. And I’ve been a little resentful about the lack of interest the Santa Monica Department is showing in Mike’s death.”

  “Jesus! I’ve been trying to hunt down Clauss every free minute I’ve had.”

  “Clauss, yes. Because you hate crooked cops and Clauss is one of them.”

  “What are you, a mind reader? Cut out the bullshit, Brock.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s drop the subject. Let’s go down to the bar and I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Okay. But next time you have a beef with me, speak up. I’ve got a hunch that your friend Crystal has told you some lies about me.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Two drinks and some small talk later he left, promising that he would work with me again as soon as he could find the time.

  Maybe, just maybe, Crystal had lied to me about him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A COINCIDENCE I HAD overlooked came to mind as I was having dinner. The same day I had returned to the hotel after questioning Peter Scarlatti about Gillete, Gillete had phoned me. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Had Peter phoned Gillete after I left? I hoped that if he had, he said some kind things about me, such as Peter being a very good friend of mine.

  So many lies had been told, so many false trails followed … I had told a few lies myself, but only, I assured myself, in the cause of justice.

  It was a balmy evening, too pleasant to spend indoors with the boob tube. Lars and I had not talked with Big Bertha’s Shorty when we had visited her. He had been at work. I drove there.

  Bertha was wearing a green-and-black striped caftan tonight, her brows and lashes devoid of mascara.

  “You again!” she said. “Now what?”

  “I was wondering if I could talk with Shorty.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m still looking for Clauss.”

  “You got a name?”

  “Brock Callahan.”

  “Wait here,” she said.

  A minute later a short and chunky man with a crew cut was at the door. He stared at me. “By God, it is! I thought Bertha was kidding me. Come in, come in.”

  I came into a hall with a staircase on the right-hand side and an archway to a small living room on the left. The room was furnished in old-fashioned and heavy pieces of dark mahogany chairs and a davenport upholstered in brown velour, all of them with carved arms.

  “Sit down,” he said. “Want a beer?”

  I sat in one of the chairs. “No, thanks. I had two drinks before dinner.”

  He sighed. “Well, I guess I can live without one for a while.” He sat down in the upholstered chair across from me. “Nothing new on Clauss, huh?”

  “Nothing.” I told him about my talk with young Clauss, our identification of him in Venice and how we had lost track of him. “I wondered if you might know of any place where he could be hiding?”

  He shook his head. “That bastard! Bertha told me about your visit, but she only mentioned Lars. She’s not a sports fan. And she didn’t know Emil had two shotguns. One of ’em is a short-barrel twelve-gauge blaster. You know, the man was almost human before he started having trouble with his wife. He thought she was cheating on him because he wasn’t getting any nooky from her. Who can blame her, huh? He ain’t no Robert Redford.”

  “Do you think she was cheating on him?”

  “No way! She’s a real religious woman. She moved to Bakersfield after the divorce. She didn’t get one dime in alimony.”

  “Do you think Clauss is still in town?”

  “Probably. Hell, he grew up here. He went to school in Santa Monica from kindergarten on.” He paused. “And he’s got buddies who won’t fink on him. That’s why I told Bertha not to get too nosy.”

  “I can guess that you feel the same way.”

  He nodded. “But if I learn anything without asking around, I’ll phone you. I mean, if you plan to stay in town.”

  “I do. You don’t want to call Lars?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll call you. Where are you staying?”

  “At the Beverly Hills Hotel.” I stood up. “Thanks for what you told me. I appreciate it.”

  He smiled. “Would you do me one favor?”

  “Name it.”

  He got up and left the room. He came back with a well-worn, slightly lopsided football and a ballpoint pen filled with white ink. He handed both to me.

  “What’s your full name?” I asked.

  “Bolger,” he said. “Make it to Shorty Bolger.”

  Which I did, the high point of my day.

  From there I drove past Tessie’s Tavern on the off chance there might be a yellow pickup truck parked near it. There wasn’t. And there were no lights on in Turhan’s temple. I drove to Brentwood, planning to tell young Emil about tailing his father this morning and to warn him that he might still be in this area.

  There was no red Porsche in front of the building and no answer to my ring. I went back to the hotel.

  My file was getting thicker, but no clearer. I went to bed and had a weird dream. Jan and Crystal were both sitting with me on the beach and quarreling. And both of them were naked.

  The radio had the standard weather report in the morning; foggy in the morning, clearing by noon, except along the coast. It was probably a taped message. It was misty in Beverly Hills.

  The fulcrum in this seesaw choice of suspects was Tucker. He was Bay’s cousin; he was the muscle man and errand boy for Gillete. Our prime choice for the who was now Clauss. But what was the why?

  I voiced these thoughts to Dennis when he phoned before breakfast. He agreed with me that finding Tucker was our best choice for success.

  When he picked me up, I told him where I had been last night and what I had learned.

  “If Clauss is still in that end of town,” he said, “he might find out where his son lives.”

  “He hasn’t up to now. And if he had learned it earlier he stayed away.”

  “He hasn’t been a hunted man until now.”

  “That’s true,” I admitted.

  “I think,” he said, “that we should find out where young Clauss works and warn him. Did you learn that when you talked with him?”

  I shook my head. “That was dumb of me. And I didn’t get his unlisted phone number. I could have phoned him this morning.”

  He said nothing; he was a polite young man.

  Neither the Bentley nor the truck were visible when we drove past Gillete’s house. But the garage door was closed. Both of them could be in there.

  We sat. At twenty dollars an hour for him and zilch for me, we sat. Traffic on the street was heavier today, the weather comfortably cooler. Most of the traffic was going downhill and most of the drivers were women. The Broadway Department Store was having its semiannual storewide sale.

  A few minutes later the garage door opened and a man in coveralls came out, carrying clippers and a rake. The Bentley was in the garage, but not the truck.

  “Damn it!” Dennis said. “Now where?”

  I shrugged. “Back to where the action is, I suppose.”

  Back to the sea. We prowled through Venice and Santa Monica, then stopped in Brentwood, hoping that
young Clauss was home, so we could warn him. He wasn’t.

  “As long as we’re here,” I said. “Let’s check out Bay. His place is only a few blocks from here.”

  The thought was good; our luck was bad. The yellow truck was coming toward us on the other side of the street when we were almost a block from Bay’s house. Cars were parked on both sides of the street. Dennis gunned the car, made a screeching U-turn at the next corner, and headed back.

  The yellow truck was nowhere in sight on any of the streets we passed nor the street we were on.

  “That bastard!” he said.

  “Back to Bay’s house,” I said.

  I went to the house and Dennis stayed in the car when we got back there.

  Bay looked troubled when he came to the door. I asked him, “Was your cousin just here?”

  He nodded. “He just left,” he said wearily, “two thousand dollars richer than when he came.”

  “Blackmail?” I asked.

  He nodded. “He threatened to tell my followers about something that could lose me my ministry.”

  “Your Chicago history?”

  He nodded again. “And some other things he knew about me which I do not care to discuss. He told me he had lost his job and needed the money.

  He was here for two hours. I had to wait for the bank to open. He wanted cash. He claimed he had to get out of town. I’m sure he lied about that.”

  “Maybe not. His former boss is a hoodlum and it’s possible Tim did something the man didn’t approve of.”

  “I hope so.”

  “If he comes back again,” I said, “call the police. He’s involved with a man named Emil Clauss, a former cop who is suspected of Mike Gregory’s murder. Clauss worked at the West Side station before he was fired.”

  “One of my people is a detective there,” he told me. “I’ll phone him.”

  When I came back to the car, Dennis asked, “Anything?”

  “Blackmail,” I said.

  I didn’t tell him about the “other things” Bay had alluded to. I could guess what they were. That would be his secret. Revealing it would bring me down to the Tim Tucker level.

  He asked, “Do you think Tucker was lying about having to leave town?”