Cana Diversion

by William Campbell Gault

“More or less. You wouldn’t gouge a fellow investigator, would you, Trace?”

  He sighed. “Brock the Rock, as sarcastic as ever.”

  The parking attendant at Antoine’s looked skeptically at the Chev and then at Trace, but made no comment. The maître d’ found us a small, secluded table, well screened from most of his other diners.

  I ordered a martini for Trace and a glass of draught Einlicher for me and gave the waiter the haughtiest eye I could achieve.

  “How’s business?” I asked Trace.

  “I eat. Not here, of course. One more year and I’ve had it. I’ll be sixty-four next month.”

  He looked eighty. I said nothing.

  “Bought me a trailer home in Hemet,” he said. “Got a nephew there, my sister’s boy. He’s got a gas station and I can pick up enough on part-time work there.”

  “What did Joe want?”

  “Some information about a Santa Monica doctor named Darius. Joe figured Santa Monica was my stamping grounds.”

  “Who knows it better than you?”

  “Raymond Chandler, maybe. But he called it Bay City. Anyway, I gave him what I had and he gave me a double sawbuck. Then, two weeks later, I read he got wasted up in your town. Mafia, Brock?”

  I shrugged.

  He took a deep breath and a sip of his martini. “They’re all over, aren’t they?”

  “I guess. Another martini?”

  “Why not? All I had on Darius was the name of his girl friend. What Joe found out from her I don’t know.”

  “Darius is married?”

  “Oh, yes. Real solid citizen. Gets a lot of the movie trade, big-money people.”

  I signaled the waiter, ordered two more of the same. When he went away, I asked, “What’s Darius’s speciality?”

  “Cosmetic surgery.”

  That could be the link. Hide, phone, intimidation; the pattern was forming. I said, “And you’re going to sell me the name of the girl friend, aren’t you?”

  “Hell, man, I’d give it to you free. This meal is going to cost you more than Joe paid me. But I ain’t about to go up against the mob, Brock. Even pumping gas is better than being dead. That Puma had more brass than sense.”

  The waiter brought our menus and we ordered the specialty of the day, fresh mountain trout.

  “Those damned Rams,” Trace said, “moving to Anaheim. After all the money they made in L.A. No loyalty anymore, is there?”

  “Not much.”

  “Who you working for, Brock?”

  “Myself. Nobody’s paying me. I just don’t want Joe’s death to go unnoticed. He’s one of ours, Trace.”

  “I suppose. But I’d hate to get knocked off in my last year in the game.”

  “Has it been a game to you?”

  “Mostly. It’s mean at times, sure. It’s still better than bucking rivets at Douglas or driving a bus. I could have worked for one of the big agencies. But, hell, I was always my own man.”

  That he was, without wife or kids. He would wind up living in a trailer in Hemet, working part-time in a gas station to pad out his Social Security. Call it the Sam Spade syndrome; dreamers, all of us.

  We ate our trout, finished with Turkish coffee and went back to his office. It was small and shabby but it was clean. Trace had always been neat.

  He took a slim file out of his cabinet. “I got her grounds for divorce,” he said, tapping the file. “Later, some punk kid tried to blackmail her. He was threatening to tell Darius’s wife about their love nest. I scared him off. You don’t plan to play it heavy with her, do you, Brock?”

  “Have I ever?”

  “I don’t know. I never followed you that close. What I mean, she’s a real nice lady who was married to a creep and she’s been the doc’s faithful back-street wife for six years.”

  Her name was Mary Bettis. She lived on Ocean Avenue. It was a small apartment, he explained, over the garage behind the main house. She was probably at work now.

  I took out my wallet and said, “Thanks, Trace. I’ll walk softly.”

  “Put your money away,” he said. “You’re right. Joe was far from being a saint but he was one of ours.”

  I didn’t insist. He really was his own man.

  I drove over to the San Vicente Lodge and rented a room. I phoned Mary Bettis from there. Nobody answered. I phoned Kay Decor, Inc., in San Valdesto and Jan was there.

  “It will be at least one night,” I told her. “The people I have to talk with aren’t home during the day.”

  “Okay. I think I have Madame Vulgar Taste ready to sign.”

  “I was sure you would. Hang in there, tiger. I’m at the San Vicente Lodge.” I gave her the phone number. “If anybody wants me up there, they can leave a message.”

  Then I phoned my friend at Loreli General. Calvin was still unconscious. The prognosis was still as bleak as the last one he had given me.

  The black clouds started to drift in from the ocean around four o’clock. It was misty outside at five, drizzling at six.

  Peter Scarlatti had got his golf in before the rain had returned. That should put him in a good mood.

  19

  THE RAIN NEVER GOT really heavy, only nasty. The vagrant wind kept blowing it from one direction and then another. The Chev moved through it undaunted along the winding road called Sunset Boulevard.

  Parked on Peter Scarlatti’s driveway was one magnificent car, possibly the finest this country has ever produced. It was a gleaming black Duesenberg roadster with Dayton wire wheels, including a spare wheel mounted in each front-fender well.

  I stood in the rain, getting wet and staring. I was still standing there when the light went on next to the front door.

  A broad, fairly short man stood on the porch. “Mr. Callahan?” he called.

  “Yes.” I turned to face him. “Is that a 1933 J?”

  “S. J. Did you come here to talk about cars?”

  I walked up under the protection of the porch. “No. It’s just that I’ve wanted one of those for ten years. Is it for sale?”

  “No.” He held out a hand. “I’m Peter Scarlatti.” I shook his hand.

  “Unless,” he said, “you have a loose quarter of a million dollars you’d like to throw away?”

  “If that’s a firm price, you’ve got a deal.”

  “Cash?”

  “Cash. I can have it here as soon as the bank opens tomorrow.”

  He smiled. “It’s not for sale. Come, in.”

  We walked through a dimly lighted living room and along an unlighted hall to a book-lined study at the rear of the house.

  He indicated a chair in there and I sat down. He stood for a few seconds, studying me. “Were you joking? If you weren’t, you must be doing a lot better in your trade than Joe did.”

  “Not much. I’m not in the trade anymore. I had a rich uncle. He drove his Ferrari into a bridge abutment one night—and I retired.”

  “You mean this work you’re doing for Mrs. Puma is charity?”

  “Yes. You see, Joe. … Well, no matter what he was, he was one of ours. Can you understand that?”

  He smiled again. “Of course.”

  This was no slick Tony Romolo in tennis shorts. This was a square, solid, old-country son carrying oh the family business.

  “My father bought that S.J.,” he told me, “from Augie Duesenberg forty-seven years ago. It’s been in the family ever since. Drink, Mr. Callahan?”

  “Bourbon and water, thank you.”

  He went to the liquor cabinet behind his desk and made a pair of them. He brought mine over and went to sit behind the desk.

  “How long,” he asked, “has Tony been up in your town?”

  “I’m not sure. A couple of months. He has a heavy investment, I understand, in the land around that projected nuclear plant at Point Mirage. A professor at the university up there is the majority stockholder.”

  “You think Tony might be responsible for what happened to Joe?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not. I
don’t want to go up against him.”

  He nodded. “He’s crazy! He should be driving the Duesy. He’s still living in the thirties.”

  “Maybe in the nineteenth century. He even has a butler.”

  “He would. It’s very important to third-class people to live first-class. What do you want from me, Mr. Callahan?”

  “Whatever crumbs you might throw my way. I don’t want to go up against you, either.”

  His ever-ready smile again. “I’ve watched you play. I’m sure I don’t frighten you. You must have some theories about what happened.”

  “There were a couple of boys, who might have been working for Tony, that the police have questioned. Brothers. Rodney and Arvid Patulski. Have you heard of them?”

  He nodded.

  “But they have five people ready to swear they were in El Cajon the night Joe was killed.”

  “And the police bought that?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t confide in me completely.”

  “How about the Feds? They’re up there, too, aren’t they?”

  I nodded.

  He took a deep pull from his glass. “Say what you think. Ask what you want. You’re certified.”

  I took a swallow of liquid courage and said, “I was wondering about that five hundred you send the Pumas. I was thinking it might be a retainer. Maybe Joe had a line on those men who kidnapped you. Maybe they’re in San Valdesto.”

  He shook his head. “If Joe was looking for them, he’d need a spade. Is that frank enough?”

  “It is. And you never said it. So that takes us back to the power plant.” I paused for another sip of courage booster. “Is it true one of your corporations has a big block of stock in the South Coast Electric Company?”

  “Which corporation?”

  “Livorno Investments.”

  “I honestly don’t know. That was only set up a few months ago. But I’ll find out for you tomorrow morning. My investment counselor is coming back from Chicago later tonight. What’s your angle there?”

  “It would put Tony on the opposite side of the fence from you again. Joe was investigating the company that owns the land around the plant. The professor told me he had hired him—but I’m not sure I believe him.”

  He was silent, apparently considering his next words. Then: “There’s an angle you may be overlooking. I want to talk with some—with some of my associates before I mention it. Will you still be in town tomorrow?”

  I nodded. “At the San Vicente Lodge in Santa Monica.”

  “They’ll probably go along with me,” he said. “But who can ever be sure? I inherited a complicated business and it’s not possible to completely desert it. I heard yesterday that Tony is in trouble with his Miami friends. I don’t want to make his mistake.”

  “I understand. You’ve been more cooperative than I had a right to expect.”

  “Joe saved my life,” he said. “I pay my debts.”

  The rain had stopped, the stars were out. Maybe the dawn would come.

  There had been an angle I had overlooked, but not anymore. Joe hadn’t been working for Barlow. Barlow had lied to us. The bull probably knew more about the Mead Land Company, or suspected more, than he was ready to admit.

  It was still early. I drove to the address Tracy had given me. The address was for the big house, the only house on the block, sandwiched between towering apartment buildings. The apartment over what Tracy had called a garage was served by an alley that ran behind the house and the apartment buildings.

  It wasn’t a garage; it was a double carport under her apartment. There was a Chevette hatchback in the carport and a Cadillac DeVille. The doctor and his back-street wife might be sharing a cozy late supper; it would be bad manners to disturb them now.

  I left a wake-up call for seven and phoned Mary Bettis at seven-thirty. I explained to her that I was a private consultant working with the San Valdesto Police Department investigating the murder of a man named Joseph Puma.

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “We found your name in his files. And another local resident, a Dr. Darius. Do you know him?”

  “I think,” she said, “I had better phone the San Valdesto Police Department before I answer any more questions.”

  “If you wish. But don’t talk with anybody else up there but Lieutenant Vogel. The Justice Department has asked us to keep this investigation as private as possible. That’s why I was hired.”

  “You’re working with the Justice Department, too?”

  “With only one of their agents, a man named David Delamater. As I said, this is not a case where many officers are involved. In police departments, even in the Justice Department, there are leaks. And we certainly don’t want any more murders. Would it be possible for me to meet you for lunch? At our expense, of course.”

  “All right. I guess I can wait until after that to phone San Valdesto.”

  “It might be wise. Joseph Puma had a lot of connections and some very unsavory associates.”

  “I can believe that. In front of Caldwell Savings and Loan at noon?”

  “I’ll be there. And thank you for your trust.”

  I went down to the dining room well pleased with myself. The muscle days were behind me; suavity was my new approach.

  A glass of orange juice, four eggs, six pork-sausage links, three rolls and two cups of coffee later, I picked up the Times in the lobby and went back to the room.

  I had finished the financial pages, the sports, skimmed the world news and was deep in the prose of Jack Smith when my phone rang.

  Peter Scarlatti said, “Could you come here? I don’t like to talk over the phone.”

  “I’m on the way.”

  The swarthy housekeeper answered the door and led me to the study. There was another man in there with Peter, a slim man of medium height, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a conservative vested suit.

  I was not introduced to him. Nor did either man suggest I sit down. We all remained standing.

  “This angle I mentioned last night,” Peter said, “is only a rumor and I have no idea how sound it is. There is a possibility, though, that Joe was looking for a man named Lester Hardin. Have you ever heard of him?”

  I shook my head.

  “He was the major witness for the Justice Department when they put Nick Romolo away. He was the man who clinched the case for them.”

  “And you think he’s in San Valdesto?”

  Peter shrugged.

  “How about the Patulski brothers? Do they work for Tony?”

  “They seem to be working for him now. They work for anybody who needs their kind of work to be done.” He paused. “As for that big block of stock in the South Coast Electric Company, one of my corporations held five hundred shares—which we sold this morning. I’ve never favored utility stocks. Five hundred shares would hardly constitute a big block, as I understand the term. Anything else?”

  “Not unless you want to sell the Duesy?”

  “No way.” His smile again. “Let me say, before you leave, that I think you were even better than Merlin Olsen.”

  “No way,” I said. “But thanks for the thought and your help.”

  CANA had been a diversion. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. … Honest men should not practice it. It takes years of training. He had tried to lead me down all the wrong trails—and trapped himself.

  I knew, as you must know by now. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to meet Mary Bettis to make sure.

  Maybe I was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. At noon I was standing in front of the Caldwell Savings and Loan office.

  A woman came out a few minutes after noon. She was not the pallid prototype of the suffering second woman. She was tanned, she was slim. She was smartly dressed in a camel-hair skirt and a tan suede jerkin over a cream-colored silk blouse.

  “Mr. Callahan?” she asked.

  “Yes. Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

  “Pleas
e! It’s the wrong time for low comedy. Are you the Brock Callahan who played football?”

  “Yes.”

  “My brother thinks you’re God.”

  “Let’s talk about lunch. Antoine’s?”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t that much time. There’s a sandwich shop around the corner where the food is almost edible.”

  We got there before the line formed. She ordered a bacon-and-tomato sandwich on toast; I ordered a double cheeseburger.

  She said crisply, “I phoned Dr. Darius from the office. He’ll see you tonight, at my place.”

  “You know him?”

  “Don’t be devious, Mr. Callahan. You know I know him, just as Mr. Puma did. That was his sword. He might be your friend, but I’ll say it anyway. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  I said nothing.

  “Was he a friend of yours?”

  I shook my head.

  “You didn’t know him?”

  “I knew him. Not well. I used to work down here.”

  She sniffed.

  “Puma,” I told her, “was in the same business I used to be in. It’s a dirty business. He had a wife to support and a kid he hoped to get into law school. If he turned dirtier than the rest of us—” I shrugged.

  “He had cause? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Let’s call it economic pressure. I’m not here to defend him.”

  “You don’t plan to use the same approach, the same wedge?”

  “What wedge?”

  “Revealing my relationship with Dr. Darius?”

  “Of course not! Did Puma threaten to do that?”

  “He did.”

  “I wouldn’t. I never have. Is that the only reason Dr. Darius agreed to talk with me?”

  “Why else?”

  “Because, being a doctor, I had this naive belief that he might share my repugnance for killing and killers. I came down here at my own expense, I’ve spent a week on this case without fee. You tell your Dr. Darius he doesn’t have to talk with me tonight.”

  Silence while we ate. When our coffee came she said, “My place, tonight at six-thirty.”

  20.

  THIS HAD NEVER BEEN a whodunit. All the fingers had pointed in the same direction. This had been a whydunit and now I had the why. I should have let the Feds handle it. What business was it of mine? Joe, you bastard! Nobody should ever get that hungry.