Case File - a Collection of Nameless Detective Stories

by Bill Pronzini

  I was silent.

  "I get it," Eberhardt said. "You don't think so. That's why you're here."

  "Colly's wife doesn't think so. I guess maybe I don't either."

  "I can't let you look at any reports. And even if I could, it's not my department. Robbery'll be handling it. Internal Affairs, too."

  "You could pull some strings."

  "I could," he said, "but I won't. I'm up ‘to my ass in work. I just don't have the time."

  I got to my feet. "Well, thanks anyway, Eb." I went to the door, put my hand on the knob, but before I turned it he made a noise behind me. I turned.

  "If things go all right," he said, scowling at me, "I'll be off duty in a couple of hours. If I happen to get down by Robbery on the way out, maybe I'll stop in. Maybe."

  "I'd appreciate it if you would."

  "Give me a call later on. At home."

  "Thanks, Eb."

  "Yeah," he said. "So what are you standing there for? Get the hell out of here and let me work."

  I found Tommy Belknap in a bar called Luigi's, out in the Mission District.

  He was drinking whiskey at the long bar, leaning his head on his arms and staring at the wall. Two men in work clothes were drinking beer and eating sandwiches from lunch pails at the other end, and in the middle an old lady in a black shawl sipped red wine from a glass held with arthritic fingers. I sat on a stool next to Tommy and said hello.

  He turned his head slowly, his eyes moving upward. His face was an anemic white, and his bald head shone with beaded perspiration. He had trouble focusing his eyes; he swiped at them with the back of one veined hand. He was pretty drunk. And I was pretty sure I knew why.

  "Hey," he said when he recognized me, "have a drink, will you?"

  "Not just now."

  He got his glass to his lips with shaky fingers, managed to drink without spilling any of the whiskey. "Colly's dead," he said.

  "Yeah. I know."

  "They killed him last night," Tommy said. "They shot him in the back."

  "Take it easy, Tommy."

  "He was my friend."

  "He was my friend, too."

  "Colly was a nice guy. Lousy goddamn cops had no right to shoot him like that."

  "He was robbing a liquor store," I said.

  "Hell he was!" Tommy said. He swiveled on the stool and pushed a finger at my chest. "Colly was straight, you hear that? Just like me. Ever since we both got out of Q."

  "You sure about that, Tommy?"

  "Damn right I am."

  "Then who did do those burglaries in Glen Park?"

  "How should I know?"

  "Come on, you get around. You know people, you hear things. There must be something on the earie."

  "Nothing," he said. "Don't know."

  "Kids?" I said. "Street punks?"

  "Don't know."

  "But it wasn't Colly? You'd know if it was Colly?"

  "Colly was straight," Tommy said. "And now he's dead."

  He put his head down on his arms again. The bartender came over; he was a fat man with a reddish handlebar mustache.

  "You can't sleep in here, Tommy," he said. "You ain't even supposed to be in here while you're on parole."

  "Colly's dead," Tommy said, and there were tears in his eyes.

  "Let him alone," I said to the bartender.

  "I can't have him sleeping in here."

  I took out my wallet and put a five-dollar bill on the bar.

  "Give him another drink," I said, "and then let him sleep it off in the back room. The rest of the money is for you."

  The bartender looked at me, looked at the fin, looked at Tommy. "All right," he said. "What the hell."

  I went out into the rain.

  D. E. O'Mira and Company, Wholesale Plumbing Supplies, was a big two-storied building that took up three-quarters of a block on Berry Street, out near China Basin. I parked in front and went inside. In the center of a good-sized office was a switchboard walled in glass, with a card taped to the front that said Information. A dark-haired girl wearing a set of headphones was sitting inside, and when I asked her if Mr. Templeton was in she said he was at a meeting uptown and wouldn't be back all day. Mr. Templeton was the office manager, the man I had spoken to about giving Colly Babcock a job when he was paroled from San Quentin.

  Colly had worked in the warehouse, and his immediate supervisor was a man I had never met named Harlin. I went through a set of swing doors opposite the main entrance, down a narrow, dark passage screened on both sides. On my left when I emerged into the warehouse was a long service counter; behind it were display shelves, and behind them long rows of bins that stretched the length and width of the building. Straight ahead, through an open doorway, I could see the loading dock and a yard cluttered with soil pipe and other supplies. On my right was a windowed office with two desks, neither occupied; an old man in a pair of baggy brown slacks, a brown vest and a battered slouch hat stood before a side counter under the windows.

  The old man didn't look up when I came into the office. A foul-smelling cigar danced in his thin mouth as he shuffled papers. I cleared my throat and said, "Excuse me."

  He looked at me then, grudgingly. "What is it?"

  "Are you Mr. Harlin?"

  "That's right."

  I told him who I was and what I did. I was about to ask him about Colly when a couple of guys came into the office and one of them plunked himself down at the nearest desk. I said to Harlin, "Could we talk someplace private?"

  "Why? What're you here about'?"

  "Colly Babcock," I said.

  He made a grunting sound, scribbled on one of his papers with a pencil stub and then led me out onto the dock. We walked along there, past a warehouseman loading crated cast-iron sinks from a pallet into a pickup truck, and up to the wide, doubled-door entrance to an adjoining warehouse.

  The old man stopped and turned to me. "We can talk here."

  "Fine. You were Colly's supervisor, is that right?"

  "I was."

  "Tell me how you felt about him."

  "You won't hear anything bad, if that's what you're looking for."

  "That's not what I'm looking for."

  He considered that for a moment, then shrugged and said, "Colly was a good worker. Did what you told him, no fuss. Quiet sort, kept to himself mostly."

  "You knew about his prison record?"

  "I knew. All of us here did. Nothing was ever said to Colly about it, though. I saw to that."

  "Did he seem happy with the job?"

  "Happy enough," Harlin said. "Never complained, if that's what you mean."

  "No friction with any of the other men?"

  "No. He got along fine with everybody."

  A horn sounded from inside the adjoining warehouse and a yellow forklift carrying a pallet of lavatories came out. We stepped out of the way as the thing clanked and belched past.

  I asked Harlin, "When you heard about what happened to Colly last night — what was your reaction?"

  "Didn't believe it," he answered. "Still don't. None of us do."

  I nodded. "Did Colly have any particular friend here? Somebody he ate lunch with regularly — like that?"

  "Kept to himself for the most part, like I said. But he stopped with Sam Biehler for a beer a time or two after work; Sam mentioned it."

  "I'd like to talk to Biehler, if it's all right."

  "Is with me," the old man said. He paused, chewing on his cigar. "Listen, there any chance Colly didn't do what the papers say he did?"

  "There might be. That's what I'm trying to find out."

  "Anything I can do," he said, "you let me know."

  "I'll do that."

  We went back inside and I spoke to Sam Biehler, a tall, slender guy with a mane of silver hair that gave him, despite his work clothes, a rather distinguished appearance.

  "I don't mind telling you," he said, "I don't believe a damned word of it. I'd have had to be there to see it with my own eyes before I'd believe it, and may
be not even then."

  "I understand you and Colly stopped for a beer occasionally?"

  "Once a week maybe, after work. Not in a bar; Colly couldn't go to a bar because of his parole. At my place. Then afterward I'd give him a ride home."

  "What did you talk about?"

  "The job, mostly," Biehler said. "What the company could do to improve things out here in the warehouse. I guess you know the way fellows talk."

  "Uh-huh. Anything else?"

  "About Colly's past, that what you're getting at?"

  "Yes."

  "Just once," Biehler said. "Colly told me a few things. But I never pressed him on it. I don't like to pry."

  "What was it he told you?"

  "That he was never going back to prison. That he was through with the kind of life he'd led before." Biehler's eyes sparkled, as if challenging me. "And you know something? I been on this earth for fifty-nine years and I've known a lot of men in that time. You get so you can tell."

  "Tell what, Mr. Biehler?"

  "Colly wasn't lying," he said.

  I spent an hour at the main branch of the library in Civic Center, reading through back issues of the Chronicle and the Examiner. The Glen Park robberies had begun a month and a half ago, and I had paid only passing attention to them at the time.

  When I had acquainted myself with the details I went back to my office and checked in with my answering service. No calls. Then I called Lucille Babcock.

  "The police were here earlier," she said. "They had a search warrant."

  "Did they find anything?"

  "There was nothing to find."

  "What did they say?"

  "They asked a lot of questions. They wanted to know about bank accounts and safe-deposit boxes."

  "Did you cooperate with them?"

  "Of course."

  "Good," I said. I told her what I had been doing all day, what the people I'd talked with had said.

  "You see?" she said. "Nobody who knew Colly can believe he was guilty."

  "Nobody but the police."

  "Damn the police," she said.

  I sat holding the phone. There were things I wanted to say, but they all seemed trite and meaningless. Pretty soon I told her I would be in touch, leaving it at that, and put the receiver back in its cradle.

  It was almost five o'clock. I locked up the office, drove home to my flat in Pacific Heights, drank a beer and ate a pastrami sandwich, and then lit a cigarette and dialed Eberhardt's home number. It was his gruff voice that answered.

  "Did you stop by Robbery before you left the Hall?" I asked.

  "Yeah. I don't know why."

  "We're friends, that's why."

  "That doesn't stop you from being a pain in the ass sometimes."

  "Can I come over, Eb?'

  "You can if you get here before eight o'clock," he said. "I'm going to bed then, and Dana has orders to bar all the doors and windows and take the telephone off the hook. I plan to get a good night's sleep for a change."

  "I'll be there in twenty minutes," I said.

  Eberhardt lived in Noe Valley, up at the back end near Twin Peaks. The house was big and painted white, a two-storied frame job with a trimmed lawn and lots of flowers in front. If you knew Eberhardt, the house was sort of symbolic; it typified everything the honest, hardworking cop was dedicated to protecting. I had a hunch he knew it, too; and if he did, he got a certain amount of satisfaction from the knowledge. That was the way he was.

  I parked in his sloping driveway and went up and rang the bell. His wife Dana, a slender and very attractive brunette with a lot of patience, let me in, asked how I was and showed me into the kitchen, closing the door behind her as she left.

  Eberhardt was sitting at the table having a pipe and a cup of coffee. The bruise over his eye had been smeared with some kind of pinkish ointment; it made him look a little silly, but I knew better than to tell him so.

  "Have a seat," he said, and I had one. "You want some coffee?"

  "Thanks."

  He got me a cup, then indicated a manila envelope lying on the table. Without saying anything, sucking at his pipe, he made an elaborate effort to ignore me as I picked up the envelope and opened it.

  Inside was the report made by the two patrolmen, Avinisi and Carstairs, who had shot and killed Colly Babcock in the act of robbing the Budget Liquor Store. I read it over carefully — and my eye caught on one part, a couple of sentences, under "Effects." When I was through I put the report back in the envelope and returned it to the table.

  Eberhardt looked at me then. "Well?"

  "One item," I said, "that wasn't in the papers."

  "What's that?"

  "They found a pint of Kesslers in a paper bag in Colly's coat pocket."

  He shrugged. "It was a liquor store, wasn't it? Maybe he slipped it into his pocket on the way out?"

  "And put it into a paper bag first?"

  "People do funny things," he said.

  "Yeah," I said. I drank some of the coffee and then got on my feet. "I'll let you get to bed, Eb. Thanks again."

  He grunted. "You owe me a favor. Just remember that."

  "I won't forget."

  "You and the elephants," he said.

  It was still raining the next morning - another dismal day. I drove over to Chenery Street and wedged my car into a downhill parking slot a half-block from the three-room apartment Lucille and Colly Babcock had called home for the past year. I hurried through the rain, feeling the chill of it on my face, and mounted sagging wooden steps to the door.

  Lucille answered immediately. She wore the same black dress she'd had on yesterday, and the same controlled mask of grief; it would be a long time before that grief faded and she was able to get on with her life. Maybe never, unless somebody proved her right about Colly's innocence.

  I sat in the old, stuffed leather chair by the window: Colly's chair. Lucille said, "Can I get you something?"

  I shook my head. "What about you? Have you eaten anything today? Or yesterday?"

  "No," she answered.

  "You have to eat, Lucille."

  "Maybe later. Don't worry, I'm not suicidal. I won't starve myself to death."

  I managed a small smile. "All right," I said.

  "Why are you here?" she asked. "Do you have any news?"

  "No, not yet." I had an idea, but it was only that, and too early. I did not want to instill any false hopes. "I just wanted to ask you a few more questions."

  "Oh. What questions?"

  "You mentioned yesterday that Colly liked to take walks in the evening. Was he in the habit of walking to any particular place, or in any particular direction?"

  "No," Lucille said. "He just liked to walk. He was gone for a couple of hours sometimes."

  "He never told you where he'd been?"

  "Just here and there in the neighborhood."

  Here and there in the neighborhood, I thought. The alley where Colly had been shot was eleven blocks from this apartment. He could have walked in a straight line, or he could have gone roundabout in any direction.

  I asked, "Colly liked to have a nightcap when he came back from these walks, didn't he?"

  "He did, yes."

  "He kept liquor here, then?"

  "One bottle of bourbon. That's all."

  I rotated my hat in my hands. "I wonder if I could have a small drink, Lucille. I know it's early, but . . ."

  She nodded and got up and went to a squat cabinet near the kitchen door. She bent, slid the panel open in front, looked inside. Then she straightened. "I'm sorry," she said. "We . . . I seem to be out."

  I stood. "It's okay. I should be going anyway."

  "Where will you go now?"

  "To see some people." I paused. "Would you happen to have a photograph of Colly? A snapshot, something like that?"

  "I think so. Why do you want it?"

  "I might need to show it around," I said. "Here in the neighborhood."

  She seemed satisfied with that. "I'll see if I can
find one for you."

  I waited while she went into the bedroom. A couple of minutes later she returned with a black-and-white snap of Colly, head and shoulders, that had been taken in a park somewhere. He was smiling, one eyebrow raised in mock raffishness.

  I put the snap into my pocket and thanked Lucille and told her I would be in touch again pretty soon. Then I went to the door and let myself out.

  The skies seemed to have parted like the Red Sea. Drops of rain as big as hail pellets lashed the sidewalk. Thunder rumbled in the distance, edging closer. I pulled the collar of my overcoat tight around my neck and made a run for my car.

  It was after four o'clock when I came inside a place called Tay's Liquors on Whitney Street and stood dripping water on the floor. There was a heater on a shelf just inside the door, and I allowed myself the luxury of its warmth for a few seconds. Then I crossed to the counter.

  A young guy wearing a white shirt and a Hitler mustache got up from a stool near the cash register and walked over to me. He smiled, letting me see crooked teeth that weren't very clean. "Wet enough for you?" he said.

  No, I thought, I want it to get a lot wetter so I can drown. Dumb question, dumb answer. But all I said was, "Maybe you can help me."

  "Sure," he said. "Name your poison."

  He was brimming with originality. I took the snapshot of Colly Babcock from my pocket, extended it across the counter and asked, "Did you see this man two nights ago, sometime around eleven o'clock?" It was the same thing I had done and the same question I had asked at least twenty times already. I had been driving and walking the streets of Glen Park for four hours now, and I had been to four liquor stores, five corner groceries, two large chain markets, a delicatessen and half a dozen bars that sold off-sale liquor. So far I had come up with nothing except possibly a head cold.

  The young guy gave me a slanted look. "Cop?" he asked, but his voice was still cheerful.

  I showed him the photostat of my investigator's license. He shrugged, then studied the photograph. "Yeah," he said finally, "I did see this fellow a couple of nights ago. Nice old duck. We talked a little about the Forty-niners."

  I stopped feeling cold and I stopped feeling frustrated. I said, "About what time did he come in?"