Vein of Violence

by Gault, William Campbell

  “Pour another,” I said. “The night’s young.”

  He went over, poured another, and came back to the piano bench-coffee table-sitter on. “While we were talking, my phone rang. It’s there, in the kitchen. He sat in that chair over there, out of my sight from the kitchen. But next to it, see, is that tobacco stand, and if I’m facing the right way in the kitchen, I can see that.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Go on.”

  “Now, who in hell would call me at almost three o’clock in the morning?”

  “George Parkas?” I asked.

  He glanced doubtfully at me. “You knew?”

  “No. But I’m getting a pattern.”

  “So did I,” he said. “With anyone else, I wouldn’t have looked for a pattern — but Rivali? He never made an uncalculated move in his life.” He sipped his Scotch. “I glanced toward the living room and all I could see was that tobacco stand, that and Rivali’s hand as he put something into the stand and closed the little door again.”

  “Planting the coniine on you,” I said. “The heat was on and he needed a fall guy, and who more logical than the father of the heiress?”

  “That’s right. He’d be a big help to the police then, wouldn’t he? Telling them about the Village Sanitarium, about me, about the Thornes. He’d be a stinking hero, wouldn’t he?”

  “If he got away with it. What did Parkas claim to want?”

  “He wanted to know if Rivali was here and if he could talk with him. And I did some quick thinking. I said Rivali wasn’t here, but I’d have him call as soon as he came.”

  “Didn’t that make Rivali nervous, hearing you say that?”

  “I came back into this room and told Rivali that the fewer people who knew we were working together, the better. And somehow I knew that was coniine in that tobacco stand. And who would ever suspect John Davenport had any access to coniine?”

  I stared at him and he stared back. He smiled wryly. “Fate helped. He had to use the bathroom. I took the phial out of the tobacco stand while he was in there.”

  “Deliberate,” I said quietly. “I had a thought, I mean a hope — that perhaps you had switched drinks or — ”

  “That’s pretty old stuff, isn’t it? Perhaps the DA would fall for it. Say, maybe-?”

  “Let me warn you,” I said, “that all you say or are about to say has to be repeated by me.”

  “Not all,” he said. “Nobody has to know about Joyce. You’ll promise me that, won’t you?”

  “I can’t,” I said honestly. “I can only promise to try.”

  “You will try, won’t you?”

  “I promise. What I can’t understand is how you could convince Rivali you were to be trusted when earlier that night you had told him off?”

  He smiled. “Would that be difficult, for a man of my talent?”

  “I apologize,” I said. “I take it back.”

  He accepted the apology with a gracious nod. “We talked. And then we had one for the road.” He sighed. “Poor Enrico, he never saw the road!”

  I stared as my flesh crawled.

  “Didn’t I warn you,” he said, “when you drove me home? Did you think I didn’t develop the stomach for anything, all the years I’ve spent in this town? I can kill, and make a joke, if the corpse is Enrico Rivali.”

  I shook my head in wonder and disgust.

  “A daughter to be protected?” he went on. “An only child? And the memory of two heart attacks in the last eight months? And where would John Davenport get coniine?”

  “Don’t try to explain it,” I said. “I could never understand it, not if you talked forever.”

  He nodded. “I wouldn’t try to explain it to anyone outside of the industry. Anyone inside wouldn’t need an explanation.”

  I rubbed my neck and he finished his second drink.

  He asked, “How do we deal? Is that an insult? I guess Brock Callahan wouldn’t come here to sell something, would he?”

  “I came to deal,” I said. “You go down to the Hollywood Station and confess to the murder of Enrico Rivali. If you do that, I’ll do my damnedest to see that Joyce and Blanche and Herbie Thorne are protected. That’s my deal.”

  “How about up there, at the Village Sanitarium?”

  I thought of Kitty Cornelius. I said, “Nothing will come out of there. You can think up some reason why you killed Rivali. You can make up any damned story you want to, but I want you to confess.”

  “And what’s in it for you?” he asked me. “I’ll believe it isn’t money, but I’d like to know what it is.”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I didn’t even get paid for today’s dirty work. Somehow, to me, it’s mixed up with being a citizen. But much smarter people have assured me I’m wrong.”

  He smiled once more. “I can believe you,” he said. “You know, killing Rivali, somehow to me that was mixed up with being a father and a citizen. Maybe we’re both punchy, eh?”

  I stood up and he stood up. He said, “I haven’t a car.”

  “I’ll drop you off at the Hollywood Station,” I said.

  I dropped him off and drove on, toward Westwood, toward home. Tonight, John Davenport would pay for a moral lapse of thirty long years ago. Patterns, patterns, patterns….

  Tomorrow, Remington would suspect that I had brought John Davenport to justice and might complain that it would have been possible to bring him over to Beverly Hills, though it was another jurisdiction.

  But tonight, Lieutenant Remington had washed his hands of the case and it would have been unjust to bring John Davenport to him. To hell with Lieutenant Remington.

  Abortion is murder and John Davenport had agreed to that murder thirty years ago. It hadn’t come off, but he had agreed. Tonight, he would pay.

  Was the pattern always this clean and just? It would take some tracing and would indicate, if true, an Overseer. If I believed in an Overseer, why had I left the church?

  To hell with all of them. Except Jan, damn her ….

  The flivver snorted in disdain and jealousy.

  The flivver’s headlights illuminated the curb in front of my apartment house and the little Chev waiting there. Jan’s little Chev.

  I parked behind and got out. She got out and stared at me in the dim light from the traffic half a block away. “Damn you,” she said. “Damn your philandering soul! Where have you been?”

  “I just dropped John Davenport off at the Hollywood Station. He killed Enrico Rivali.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh — ? Let’s — go up to your place and talk.”

  “Talk, talk, talk,” I said. “I’m sick of talk!”

  “Let’s go up, anyway,” she said, and her voice was shaky. “Oh, Brock, you bastard — ”

  She came running, and my arms were open. Tomorrow, we could talk. Tonight, we would communicate.

  If you liked Vein of Violence check out:

  Dead Hero

  Chapter 1

  I GUESS I’VE mentioned the Scooter before, Scooter Calvin. He had come to the Rams from Southern Methodist and taken his lumps. For some reason, flashy backs with All-American ratings are resented by the veterans their first few years in the NFL. The Scooter was also handsome and on the lippy side, a combination not likely to win him any friends among the meatballs.

  But the kid took what was offered and returned as much and eventually became one of the boys. He left the Rams the season after I did and went to work for Greenwald-Abbot, second-largest theatrical agency in this town. Three years of salaried flesh-peddling and he was ready to step out on his own.

  He took two fledgling stars and one employee with him when he left Greenwald-Abbot to open his own small office on the Strip. In this business, his lip and his looks were no handicap; he prospered.

  At the tender age of thirty-two, Donald Mark (Scooter) Calvin lived in a fine house high in the hills above Malibu, the envy of all his former playmates.

  And why not? He was young and well-to-do and handsome. He knew dozens of gi
rls with theatrical ambitions and was in a position to help them. Even Methodists named Calvin aren’t invulnerable to that degree of temptation. He had it made.

  We’ll leave him for the moment, high on his hill and tall in the saddle. My story probably should have opened with Horse Malone.

  Horse’s career, like mine, had been less glamorous since leaving the Rams. He had started as a collector for a local small loans firm and was now a branch manager for a more reputable national company.

  He phoned me one hot October morning and I assumed at first he had another recalcitrant debtor who needed hunting. My rates are too high for Horse to call on me often, but occasionally one of his more stubborn sheep would threaten to impair Horse’s professional ego and I would get a half day’s work.

  This morning, however, it was something else. Could he buy me a lunch at Cini’s? It was something he didn’t want to talk about over the phone.

  “I’m not busy,” I told him. “I’ll come over right now if you want me to.”

  “It can wait until lunch,” he said. “One o’clock all right?”

  I agreed to that and hung up, puzzled. The Horse was not a secretive man or one likely to need the personal services of a private investigator.

  It was eleven o’clock now; I spent the time until lunch in getting out some overdue bills and dusting the office. Business had been slow for a month.

  Edwin W. (Horse) Malone was roughly my size, perhaps an inch taller and fifteen or twenty pounds heavier. He was waiting for me in the foyer at Cini’s. He was generally a cheerful man; today he looked bleak and morose.

  “A drink first?” he suggested.

  I ordered a bottle of Einlicher; he ordered a double Martini. He had seemed embarrassed on first seeing me; I didn’t ask immediately about the reason for his call.

  Halfway through his Martini, he said dully, “Some weather, huh?”

  “Ridiculous,” I agreed. “Thank God it’s dry or it would be unbearable.”

  Another moody silence, while around us the laughter and quips of less troubled people flowed.

  He finished the second half of his drink in one swallow and looked at me doubtfully. “Think I ought to have another?”

  “You were never a boozer, Horse,” I reminded him. “Maybe you’d better tell me what’s on your mind.”

  He stared stonily at his empty glass. He continued to stare at it as he said in a near-whisper, “Linda, that’s what’s on my mind. Linda.”

  Linda was his wife, a tall and lovely girl. Linda was the mother of his three-year-old son.

  Not Linda and infidelity, I thought. Linda and another man? Never!

  I asked, “What about Linda?”

  “I wish I knew,” he said hoarsely. His face was flushed.

  The waiter came and we ordered. The waiter went away and Horse said, “I guess this was a mistake. I guess maybe I shouldn’t talk to you about it, Brock.”

  I was silent. He was going to tell me about it. These words of his were just preliminary nothings.

  In less than a minute, he said, “Maybe it’s nothing. People can lie for a lot of reasons, can’t they?”

  “They certainly can. Has Linda lied to you?”

  He nodded. “Twice about a meeting of her bridge club. Once about a shopping trip. Those are the three times I’ve learned about. It — shook me up.”

  “You thought of another man, I suppose, right away?”

  His face stiffened and he looked at me fiercely. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been married. Did you want me to follow Linda next time, Horse?”

  “That’s what I had in mind,” he admitted, “when I phoned you this morning. But — hell, it would be a rotten thing to do, wouldn’t it? For me, I mean. I suppose you do this kind of thing all the time?”

  I shook my head. “Only when I’m starving. Are you sure Linda lied to you?”

  He nodded, as the waiter brought our food. He was silent until the waiter had left. Then, “I don’t know — It seems — crazy. I mean, Linda — Jesus!”

  I shared his sentiment. Linda was a lovely, lanky girl, sister to all the old warriors. And the three-year-old Edwin W. Malone, Jr. was our common nephew. I had the feeling that my own family had been invaded.

  I said, “I’m not busy, Horse. If I charged you for this, it would be vulgar. You let me know the next time Linda will be leaving the house. It might not have anything to do with another man.”

  He took a deep breath, studying me. I had weasel-worded it and we both knew it. I would be checking on Linda and that was a breach of faith.

  Finally, he said, “She told me this morning she was going over to see her sister tonight. I happen to know her sister’s out of town.”

  “She’ll be leaving after dinner?” I asked.

  He nodded, staring beyond me. “It wouldn’t be before seven o’clock.”

  We were both embarrassed now; we finished our meal without much further dialogue. He decided to have an after-lunch drink so I left him at the restaurant.

  Infidelity and adultery brought a number of prospective clients to me; it was a sordid profession. But outside of my trade there had been couples such as Horse and Linda to remind me the motel bed was not the only symbol left to this sick civilization.

  Among the old Rams, the Horse and Randy Roman were probably my closest friends, one a guard, the other a tackle. We were not the glamor boys of the backfield most admired by the fans; for ego sustenance we had only each other and our competitive linemen.

  I drove past the office and around the corner and down to the shop of “jan bonnet — interiors.” Jan is my girl.

  She was talking on the phone when I entered; I sat on a wrought iron settee and waited for her to finish. Though she is basically sweet and honest, my Jan, she has a voice for her ritzier clients which can only be described (by me) as phony. This hot and depressing day it annoyed me more than usual.

  When she had replaced the phone on its cradle, she asked smilingly, “Well, grumpy, what’s your problem?”

  “A broad-A girl friend,” I told her, “among other things.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, paused — and said, “It’s too hot to fight I won’t fight today. Have you had lunch?”

  I nodded.

  “I haven’t,” she said wearily, “but I don’t think I want any. Have you something pleasant to tell me or did you just drop in to criticize?”

  “I came in to tell you I can’t go to the Adlers with you tonight”

  “Why not?”

  “I have to work.”

  “It’s about time,” she said. “Does it look like a long job? I mean, more than a day or an evening?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it”

  She studied me. “I wasn’t prying. What in the world is bothering you?”

  “Practically everything in this world is bothering me.” I stood up. “I don’t mean to be bad company. I love you, Jan Bonnet. I apologize for criticizing you.”

  “Oh, shut up!” she said. “My telephone voice annoys me, too.”

  “Why don’t we go to the beach?” I suggested. “I don’t start the job until after dinner.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I have an appointment at Knapp and Tubbs with Mrs. Huntington in half an hour.”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds in silence and then she came over to kiss me. “Don’t be blue.” She looked up gravely. “Are you sure you can’t tell me what’s bothering you?”

  I bent and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be better. Maybe it will be cooler tomorrow.”

  There was nothing to do at the office. My phone answering service could handle any calls. I went over to Heinie’s. I am not a drinking man but a few more glasses of Einlicher wouldn’t hurt on a day like this.

  It was cool in Heinie’s and the sound of traffic outside was muffled. From behind the bar, Heinie said, “Don’t usually see you in the afternoon. Business must be slow.”

  “It is. An
d with you?”

  “I can’t kick.” He looked musingly toward the doorway. “You know who’s doing a lot of afternoon drinking?”

  I said nothing, sipping my cold, clear beer.

  “Horse Malone,” he supplied without urging. “Something must be bothering that man.”

  “He’s in a rough business,” I explained. “We can’t all have a fat, sweet racket like yours, Heinie.”

  He ignored the gibe. “I like Horse. He’s a real citizen. I wonder what’s bugging him.”

  I said nothing.

  “Friend of yours,” he said peevishly. “You ought to know.”

  I said firmly, “If Horse wants me to know, he’ll tell me. That is, if there’s anything to know. I don’t like to gossip, Heinie. Let’s talk about the Dodgers.”

  “Phooey on the Dodgers!” he said. “I’ll talk about the Angels.”

  I didn’t know anything about the Angels and he didn’t care about the Dodgers and the season was over, anyway. I had one more glass of beer and went back to the office to sulk.

  I won’t bore you with the tedium of that afternoon. At seven o’clock that night I was parked near the Malone house in West Los Angeles, waiting for Linda to appear. The afternoon’s depression had built to a low-voltage anger; I resented Horse’s phone call and was annoyed with Linda’s secrecy. It wasn’t anything resembling the properly objective attitude of an efficient investigator.

  Half a dozen lawn sprinklers between me and the Malone residence threw a mist into the dry air that was reflected by the street lights. I was glad the sprinklers were on; it prevented Malone’s neighbors from recognizing my car. I knew quite a few of them.

  The logical route for Linda, on leaving the house, would be north if she intended to head for a main artery. I had come from that direction, driven past the house, and turned around. At about twenty minutes past seven, the light next to the Malone front door went on and Linda came out to where their Buick was parked.

  I could see Horse framed in the open doorway and then the door closed and he came into the range of the outside light. The Buick began to back out of the driveway as I started the engine of my car.

  She headed north, as I had anticipated. When she was a full block away, I followed. Still standing desolately in the light flooding his driveway, Horse watched me go by but gave no sign of recognition.