The fizz delivered and an unmotherly smile returned, George turned to me. “Hey, Joe,” he said, “is it true that you’re no longer a cop? That you’re going to be a private detective?”
“Am a private detective, George,” I corrected. “Am. And I’ve got the papers to prove it.”
“Gee, that’s too bad,” he said, giving the bar an ellipsoidal sweep with a damp rag.
“How do you mean?”
“Now you won’t be able to put your drinks on the tab. Mario won’t deadhead anybody but the real thing.”
“I’ll try to survive the blow. Is that what you frantically signaled me over here to tell me?” I started to push myself away from the bar.
“Oh, no,” he said. ‘That’s not it. It’s something more important. Marley Phillips wants to see you.”
Marley Phillips. In a B movie, that would have been a great spot for some theme music. Something with kettledrums. Instead, the only noise was the tinkle of ice cubes and the rustle of lies brushing up against broken promises.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“He sent one of his mugs around this afternoon. An old guy running on one lung and strong hair oil. He nearly passed out on the stairs.”
“Did he say what Phillips wanted?”
“The way he was puffing and blowing,” George said, “he was lucky to get that much out. That lad is a candidate for an iron lung. Are you going to see Phillips?”
“Maybe. But thanks for the message anyway.” It doesn’t pay to tell bartenders too much. I went back to the booth where Mario loomed over Irma like a walking lamp.
“I’m sorry,” I told Irma, “but I’ve got to go see someone. It may be important.” Mario turned his back discreetly, but his ears kept twitching. “You have dinner, and we’ll meet later…say, at The Jungle at ten o’clock?”
“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll see you there. In the meantime is there anything I can do”—she flicked her eyes at Mario’s attentive back— “you know?”
“Not really,” I said in a low voice. “Just keep your eyes and ears open and try to remember anything that might help.” Without raising my voice or changing my tone, I said: “Mario, give this nice lady a good dinner. Anything but the veal.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, whirling around as if on ball bearings to gracefully take money from my hand. “I’ll take good care of m’selle.”
I was sure of that.
The car parker at the Mark Hopkins reluctantly accepted the Morris, and the doorman let me pass with no more than a look which said he didn’t think much of my wardrobe, haircut, or career prospects. George had told me Phillips’ suite number, so I gave the ramrod-stiff clerk behind the desk a miss and headed for the bank of elevators. I could feel his eyes on my back.
The elevator was soundless enough, but it stopped with a nasty jerk which brought back painful echoes of an old football injury to my left knee. I wondered whether I had sufficient grounds for a lawsuit. The closing door caught me wondering, and I had to strong-arm my way into the eighteenth-floor corridor.
The Mark Hopkins is a plush hotel. Not tacky-prefab posh like some of the newer high-rise mausoleums in San Francisco, but full of character like a sable coat with a moth-eaten lining. The corridor carpet wasn’t an ankle-grabber, but its well-kept, timeworn veneer hinted that it had been trodden on by some of the quality.
The door to 18D, Phillips’ suite, was slightly ajar. It had the air of a door that had never been anything else. I moved it a bit to see if the hinges were rusty. I edged through the door and stepped right out of the Mark Hopkins Hotel.
At first I didn’t know where I was. I was dazzled by the pure drabness of the decor. Someone had walled off a section of the suite, forming a shallow, dark antechamber. The walls were the color of stale, diluted tobacco. The only decoration on them was a faded, flyblown Goodyear Rubber Company calendar. Some wiseacre had made a clumsy attempt to turn the Goodyear blimp into a tit. The carpet underfoot was thin to the point of near translucence and exuded dust with every footstep. The furniture—a cruel-looking library table, four broken-spirited chairs, and an ashtray on a bayonet stand —said back-alley abortionist.
But a half-glass door across the anteroom dimly lit from within said “M. Phillips, Private Investigations” in peeling bronze letters. “Knock First” warned a footnote on the door, so I did. I almost expected my knuckles to raise dust.
“Come in,” said a heavy voice. “The door’s not locked.” I tried the knob and found that it was. I tried the knob a little harder, and it came off in my hand. “Come in, come in,” said the same voice with distracted impatience. It came from a throat that had been well-cured with cigarette smoke.
“I’d sure like to,” I said through the frosted glass, “but the door is locked, and I seem to have the knob in my hand.”
Silence. Then the springs of a swivel chair squeaked pitifully, and footsteps—slow but not too heavy—came toward me. The door swung inward, and Marley Phillips filled most of the doorway.
It had been nearly five years since I’d seen Phillips, and he’d aged. Not radically, but gently, as if he were a shale boulder gradually being eroded by balmy winds and Pacific waves. He stood just under six-feet tall, not slumped or bent but slightly telescoped, as if he’d been pressed down for a long time by a steady but not unbearable load. Phillips must have been close to seventy, and his face had the lines to prove it. But the brown eyes were bright and unclouded. Above them, his still-thick hair had gone gray-white.
When he opened the door, Phillips’ face wore an expression I can only describe as martyred—tough, rude, likely to tell you to go to hell, but a martyr all the same. He was all set to hear about my problem.
Instead, I said, “Hello, I’m Joe Goodey.”
The crown of thorns slipped from Phillips’ brow, and the martyr was transformed into a professional. Old, tired, maybe past it, but a pro all the same. “Come in, Goodey,” he said, turning back into the room. “Come in. Sorry I took so long to answer. I’m having a hell of a struggle with Steinitz. He’s a stubborn son of a bitch.”
As I followed him into the small, rectangular office, I swiveled my neck, trying to locate the son of a bitch. But all I could see was a room which equaled the antechamber in drabness. The only furniture in it was a blocky, heel-marked desk made of something which might have been wood once, a battered, slightly listing file cabinet with one drawer hanging open like a sleeping drunk’s mouth, and an elderly hat rack groaning under the weight of an antique fedora with a turned-down brim. Rolled-down shades the color of dust dully reflected the light from a naked bulb dangling from the ceiling like a hanged man. On the far wall was a door with a frosted window labeled ‘Gents.’ A gooseneck telephone stood on the very edge of the desk as if it were thinking of jumping.
Phillips pointed me toward a chair and retired behind his desk. He instinctively fell into the pose of a man who’d seen everything— twice. Then I noticed that set up in the middle of a pool-table-green desk blotter was a fine ivory chess set on a board which looked like ebony. I don’t know much about chess, but I could tell that somebody was getting the hell knocked out of him.
Phillips reached out and knocked over his sole bishop with a defeated hand. “If Steinitz hadn’t been dead for over sixty years,” he said, “I’d go step on his face.” Then he looked up at me with eyes that might have seen the Crucifixion.
“Now, what can I do for you?”
“I’m Joe Goodey,” I reminded him gently. “You said you wanted to see me. George, the bartender at Hungry Joe’s, gave me the message.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Goodey. You’re the cop who quit the force last week to become a private detective. I heard about it and wanted to have a talk with you. But first let’s buy ourselves a drink. I think you’ll find a bottle in the bottom drawer of that file cabinet.” Yeah, he thought I’d find a bottle the way I think I’ll find hands at the end of my arms. I turned, pulled open the drawer, and reached into it
s depths. My hand encountered and gripped something round, smooth and cool. I pulled out a quart bottle and set it on the blotter next to his busted chess game. The label said “Fine Canadian Rye, 12 Years Old,” but the bottle was as empty as Miss America’s smile.
Phillips had ducked down to a desk drawer and came up with a couple murky glasses. He took in the empty bottle with the expression of a condemned man whose reprieve from the governor turned out to be a singing telegram. He put the glasses down with a muted clunk. He raised his eyebrows wryly and said: “I forgot. They won’t let me drink.” A silence settled, and we sat there, me looking at nothing much and him fixing me with what was either a benevolent gaze or a disgusted stare.
Phillips pulled himself together manfully. “What I really want to know, Goodey,” he said, “is are you going to turn out to be a shit-heel like most of the dicks in San Francisco, or are you trying to be a real private investigator?”
That must have been a rhetorical question, because I hadn’t even opened my mouth to answer him when he was off and running again.
“I expect you know something about me, Goodey,” he said, “but let me fill you in a bit. For nearly thirty years I was a private eye in Los Angeles. I never got rich, but I did all right. I never took a dirty dollar or chased too hard after a clean one. There are some old cops, retired now or maybe dead, who’d have told you I was a sneaky, crooked son of a bitch, but they’d have been wrong. I lied to a few cops in my day, held out on them. But I never sold a client out or betrayed a confidence. I’ve seen the inside of a cell on that account.” All this he said almost to himself, but then Phillips looked up and got my eye in a hammerlock. “You know what I’m talking about, Goodey?” he demanded.
“I’m pretty sure I do.”
“I’m not saying I haven’t done things I shouldn’t have,” he went on. “I’ve killed men I wouldn’t have had to if I’d been better at my job. I’ve slapped a few women around, but only when it was absolutely necessary. You ever hit a woman, Goodey?”
I riffled through my memory for a few moments and then said, “Not many, outside of my wife, that is.”
Phillips didn’t like that much, but he let it pass. “You married, then, Goodey?” he asked disapprovingly.
“I was,” I said, “but the thing seems to have died a natural death. She’s in New York.”
He liked that better. “It’s just as well,” he said, the way surgeons don’t mind talking about taking out your gall bladder. “I never met a married private detective who was worth a damn. Though there was one fellow once working out in the Valley who used to take his wife along on jobs. She’d sit in the car and knit while he worked. You have any idea what she was knitting?”
“You’ve got me.”
“It turned out to be his shroud,” said Phillips, not, I wouldn’t be surprised, for the first time.
We both chewed that one over silently for a while.
Then Phillips started patting the breast pocket of a rumpled but very expensive sharkskin suit as if he were trying to put out a brush fire somewhere in his underwear. He stopped and looked up at me balefully.
“I used to get through forty to fifty Fatimas a day,” he said, “some years back. But the sawbones said it was either cut down or put a down payment on a coffin. But that’s my problem. What about you, Goodey? You pick up any jobs yet?”
“I’ve got a little something to keep me busy,” I said modestly. “Would it by any chance have anything to do with the murder of Tina D’Oro?” he asked.
I put on my best poker face and looked back at him. “I’ve been wondering, Mr. Phillips,” I said, “just what is behind that door with the ‘Gents’ sign.”
“You’re okay, Goodey,” he said with a stiff smile. “You might just do eventually, though I never had much faith in cops turned private detective.”
“I wasn’t much of a cop,” I said. But I was getting a bit sick of this routine, and I was curious. “If you don’t mind me being nosy, Mr. Phillips, what the hell are you doing in this squalid mockup office in the middle of what must be a very nice hotel suite?”
I thought his eyes looked a little sad at the question.
“That’s a very good question, Goodey,” he said. “The truth is that I married a very rich woman. Not exactly just like that, mind you. I didn’t just get up one morning and say: ‘Phillips, you’re getting too old and flabby to keep wearing your butt out on the LA freeways. Why not go out and find yourself a nice millionairess?’”
He paused, and when my look didn’t exactly say, “Oh, yeah?” he went on.
“This woman,” he said, “now Mrs. Marley Phillips, just sort of appeared one day. I hadn’t seen her in over fifteen years, since we’d crossed paths on a job I did involving her family. Something clicked then, but I was relatively young and more than relatively stupid. I went back to knocking my brains out against other people’s problems, and she went on to three or four more husbands. Then one day about ten years ago I looked up and there she was. I’d forgotten to turn on the buzzer in my outer office. Well, eliminating some of the cornier dialogue, we got married and moved up here. She can’t stand the heat and smog.”
“But,” I said.
“Yeah,” he grinned, “but it wasn’t any good. She was happy as two clams, and I wasn’t in any obvious pain. But something was wrong. I felt like a hound dog in a bubble bath. I kept looking at the marvelous views and getting morbid thoughts. So I had some very expensive gentlemen go down to LA and bring back most of my office. I was lucky: they got there just ahead of the wrecker’s ball. And now I sit here working on chess problems, reading a bit, and waiting for a knock on the door. I might still be in Los Angeles.”
I started to ask him if the knock came often, but then the old gooseneck telephone started jangling, and Phillips snatched it with what I took to be just a bit of eagerness.
“Sure,” he said, “in a minute.” And he hung up.
“My wife,” he said. “Dinner’s ready.” He dropped his big feet to the floor and stood up. “Thanks for coming by, Goodey,” he said. “If I can ever do anything for you, you know where to find me.” He turned toward the door with the frosted window.
I got an idea.
“You can help me, maybe,” I said. “I’m trying to find somebody called Tony Scarezza. A guy who used to be a waterfront hood.”
“Tony Scar?”
“That’s right. Have you got any idea where I could find him?”
Phillips stopped with his hand on the open door. Through it I could see part of a rich, colorful suite. “Sure,” he said. “Tony’s out at Laguna Seca. Has been for at least three or four years. What do you want to see him for?”
“Marley, dear,” a fruity old woman’s voice called from the other room, “the soup is getting cold.”
“Your soup’s getting cold, Mr. Phillips,” I said. “Thanks for the information.” I walked out into the antechamber. It still looked crummy, and it was still empty. It always would be.
16
Laguna Seca. As I drove southwest on Market Street toward the old people’s home beyond Twin Peaks, it occurred to me that this job had more old men in it than the Supreme Court
At the entrance to the home, I found a gatekeeper sitting in an outsized telephone booth with a Zane Grey novel in his shiny lap. He looked like a retired mess sergeant—too young to die, too lazy to do anything.
“Sorry,” he said without looking the least bit sorry, “visiting hours are two to five pee-em. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.” That took care of me, he figured, so he let his heavy eyes fall back to the book.
“This isn’t social,” I said. “It’s business.” I gave him a good look at the P.I. card. He must have had a firm grip on his chair because he didn’t fall out of it.
“Visiting hours are still from two to five, stud,” he said. “Try tomorrow. Sunday’s a barrel of laughs around here.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m washing my hair tomorrow. Is there a court of special app
eal around here? Can you use that instrument to call someone with a bit more weight?”
I don’t know what surprised him more: the thought that there might be someone more important than he was or the presence of a telephone in his booth. When he’d recovered, he picked up the telephone, dialed, and asked someone if he could speak to Dr. Chapel. There was a half-beat pause.
“Well, Christ on a fucking crutch,” he shouted down the phone, “find him.” He turned his head toward me. “Pardon my French,” he said. “Until last February I was a chief bosun’s mate, and it’s hard to lose the habit.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Tell the operator.”
“That wasn’t the operator. It was the night head nurse. She—” Someone had come back on the telephone, and the chief slid his glass door closed so that they could have a private chat. While the gateman was working his jaws, I took a look around at what I could see in the darkness. Which wasn’t much. Beyond the guard’s booth in a grove of dead-black evergreens, pale towers of what must have been the Laguna Seca buildings stood out in shadowy relief against the moonless night. I felt glad I was going in for just a visit. That is, if I got in.
My friend slid the door open again.
“Can I see that card again, bud?”
I handed it to him, and the door shut again. He read what was on it to the party on the other end. The door opened, and he gave me back my card.
“Okay,” he said, “go on through. Just keep taking bends to the left, and you’ll see the main building on the left. Dr. Chapel will meet you there. Sorry it took so long. He was chewing my ass for being so rude to Mrs. Felony.”
He read my expression.
“Felony. That’s the name,” he said. “Anyway, I’m to be more polite to her in the future, and Dr. Chapel is waiting for you up at the ad building.”
I admired his willingness to reform, thanked him, and got back into the Morris. He was right. A few left turns did find me coming into a half-moon drive in front of a dirty-white Victorian gingerbread mansion. A figure in crisp hospital whites was waiting for me on the bottom step of a short, wide flight of steps going to the main entrance. He came toward me as I got out of the car. He was taller than I, younger, handsomer, and no doubt richer. He walked bouncily as if he were dribbling a basketball.
Goodey's Last Stand: A Hard Boiled Mystery (Joe Goodey) Page 13
