Come Die with Me

by William Campbell Gault

Cini’s has a portico and I drove the flivver under that. An attendant, not quite hiding his disdain for my equipage, held the door open for Jan and then came around to take the wheel.

  “Treat it right,” I told him. “It’s a special model.”

  His smile was bland.

  Jan said, “Could I have a drink first? You could have beer.”

  “I’ve had my quota,” I said. “Tell me, is there anything you know about Frank Giovanni, any gossip you may have heard around town?”

  “None,” she said. “I’ll write you the letter to Mr. Duster. You can use it or not, just as you see fit.”

  It was a quiet lunch. I put some lasagna on top of sauerkraut and tried to stir Jan into some animated dialogue, but the smile she’d greeted me with was my quota for that day. I couldn’t believe her glumness was due to my business ethics; it must have been the rain.

  Back at her shop, I waited while she wrote the letter, a letter I never intended to use, and then I drove over to the Beverly Hills Police Headquarters. Neither Sergeant Gnup nor Lieutenant Remington was in: I drove over to the West Los Angeles Station of the L.A.P.D.

  Captain Apoyan was in his office and not busy. I asked him, “What do you know about Frank Giovanni? What’s his major source of income?”

  My Armenian friend smiled. “Investments, I’d say. So far as I know, he’s left the rackets.” He yawned. “Why?”

  “A jockey named Tip Malone is hanging around with him and Tip’s wife doesn’t like it. She wants me to sort of snoop around.”

  For the first time, Apoyan showed interest. “Malone …? That little monster’s wife is worried about him?” He shook his head cynically.

  “Go on,” I said. “Why is he a monster?”

  “Involved in two paternity suits before he was twenty-one and a couple of assault cases since …”

  “Assault …? Armed?”

  “Hell, no. Against women, not men. He’s a real mean little son-of-a-bitch. A lot of those jocks are.”

  I smiled. “You sound like a man who plays the horses, Captain.”

  “That’ll be the day. Didn’t Malone marry Bill Duster’s daughter?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, then why is the woman worrying? Her old man had plenty of friends as crooked as Frank Giovanni ever was. Like Frank, he’s respectable now, but he pulled some raw ones in his day.”

  “Well,” I said, “Well, well, well … So why did she come to see me? It couldn’t be that she hopes to play me for a patsy, some way or another?”

  Apoyan leaned back and yawned again. “Brock, if a sharpie with money wants a stooge, their first thought is a private investigator. There is just enough larceny in you boys to make you the con man’s favorite mark.”

  “You’re joking,” I said, “of course.”

  “Am I? Look at the situation. Bill Duster’s daughter has a problem. She’s loaded; she can buy or hire any kind of advice or help she wants with it. She can get a big shot lawyer or afford a first class national investigative agency. Does she? No, she comes to a semipro named Callahan. Now, why?”

  “You tell me, sir.”

  “Because maybe Giovanni’s got something on Malone, something Malone’s rich papa-in-law would pay to keep quiet? Because maybe the jock has some shenanigans of his own going that need a fall guy? There are a number of angles. You know what I’d do if I were you?”

  “Go right to Giovanni, that’s what you’d do. Because he’s a big, rich taxpayer. But I don’t like hoodlums, even after they get rich and retire.”

  “So okay, you got three crooks and your client. You got Duster and Malone and Giovanni and this worried wife. I’ll tell you something, Rock; the guy that scares me the least in that foursome is Giovanni. He’s a predictable hoodlum, at least.”

  “If I go directly to Giovanni, it’s a violation of my client’s confidence, isn’t it? No—wait, she didn’t pay me; that wouldn’t be a violation because she’s not my client.”

  “She didn’t pay you?” Apoyan stared, his mouth open. “You mean, she isn’t going to?”

  “I told her I wouldn’t charge her unless I could do her some good. I—kind of liked the girl.”

  He shook his head. “Man, you’ve got no right to be in business.” He studied me. “Unless, maybe you figured to get paid—some other way?”

  I stood up. “You malign me, Captain. You know, your suggestion was absurd, but it appeals to my sense of whimsy. I think I’ll run over and ask Frank Giovanni what his plans are for little Tip Malone.”

  Both Harry Adler and Captain Apoyan had suggested I start with Giovanni, though they hadn’t both meant the same thing. I was sure that Harry hadn’t intended me to face the retired racketeer—only to investigate him.

  I had met Giovanni once at a party and had helped a friend of his another time. It was not violation of client ethics to take my problem to him; Mrs. Malone wasn’t my client technically and she hadn’t asked for any secrecy. Whimsical as it had at first seemed, this might be the intelligent way to get Mrs. Malone her information.

  By the time I got to Cresta Apartments, the rain had dwindled to a drizzle. The building was tall and white and modern, on a prominence east of the Sunset Strip, overlooking the entire town.

  It was a hotel apartment and the clerk at the desk asked my name before ringing Mr. Giovanni’s apartment.

  Mr. Giovanni, it developed, was not home at the moment, but a Miss Gina Ronico was in and asked that I be sent up.

  And who was Miss Gina Ronico, I asked the clerk. Mr. Giovanni’s niece, he informed me.

  I went up in the elevator to the penthouse apartment of Frank Giovanni. A girl was waiting for me in the hall up there. She was a slim girl with deep black hair and warm, alert brown eyes. Her mammary development, in the true contemporary Latin tradition, accented rather than contrasted with her essential slimness.

  “Mr. Callahan?” she asked in a soft, warm voice.

  “Right. Miss Ronico?”

  She nodded. “You’re the private detective, aren’t you? The former baseball player?”

  “Football, ma’am. When will Mr. Giovanni be home?”

  “I’m—not sure. Would you come in for a moment?”

  I came into a white and gold entry hall and from there into a lofty gold and white living room. From three sides of this immense room the city could be viewed.

  Miss Gina Ronico was not alone. A short, slim, dark man in flashy Hollywood tailoring sat on the low davenport near the white brick fireplace. He was a jockey-sized man and I waited for Miss Ronico to introduce us, a sudden realization flowering in me.

  She said, “Mr. Callahan, this is Tip Malone.”

  He didn’t stand up or offer me his hand. He nodded and looked at me without interest.

  “I’ve heard of him,” I said to Miss Ronico. “I’ve heard him mentioned as a friend of your uncle’s.”

  Miss Ronico stared at me, momentarily flustered. Malone said, “Wise guy, aren’t you?”

  I looked at him with the disdain of a man who outweighed him by a hundred pounds. I looked back at the girl. “You asked that I be sent up. What did you want to talk about?”

  She licked her lips. “About—you. About—why you wanted to see my uncle.”

  “I know him casually,” I explained, “and I had a personal question I wanted to ask him.”

  From the davenport Malone said sharply, “You’re a liar! You’re checking on me, that’s what you’re doing.”

  I studied him. “Watch your language, little man. I could drop-kick a man your size over fifty yards.”

  His face whitened and his dark eyes glared. He stood up.

  The girl said softly, “Tip … Please!” She glared at me. “Do you have to be insolent?”

  I shook my head and stared at her quietly.

  She took a deep breath, glanced at Malone, and then faced me candidly. “Mrs. Malone sent you here, didn’t she?”

  “Nobody sent me. I came to see your uncle. I trust you’ll tell him
I was here. My office number is in the phone book.” I turned and started to go out.

  I was about half way to the entry hall when Malone called, “I’ve got friends even bigger than you, footballer.”

  “That puts you one up on me,” I said. “I have no friends smaller than you.” That was my exit line.

  Outside, the rain had stopped and from the west the sun was starting to break through. I walked to the flivver thinking about Gina Ronico with the beeg bosooooms and that little man with the nasty tongue. A great mis-match there, a horrible waste of vintage body.

  Back at the office, I phoned the one friend I did have who was close to Malone’s size, my jockey friend, Nose Silvane. He wasn’t home, but his wife told me he’d be home in few minutes and she’d have him call me.

  I sat back in my chair and looked out at the sun getting bigger and hotter and the steam coming off the tops of the cars on the parking lot across the street. Maybe the rain would leave us for a while and we would again be sunny California.

  And then I thought of Harry Adler, with a wife in a mental hospital and two sons at Columbia and a reputation for being a slow man to pick up a tab.

  It was so easy to be wrong about people. Look at what I had thought Gloria Duster Malone was. And she, in turn, had thought her miserable little husband was hanging around with Frank Giovanni, when in reality he was hanging around Frank’s niece.

  Easy, now, Callahan … I couldn’t be sure of that. It had seemed obvious half an hour ago, but how often is the obvious the true story.

  My phone rang, and it was Nose. I asked him, “What do you know about Tip Malone?”

  “He’s a mean little bastard, for one thing.”

  “All you guys are that. What else do you know about him?”

  “All of us are spunky and a few of us rough, Rock, but Tip’s a first class son-of-a-bitch. He’s a woman chaser, too, and has got the nicest damned wife you’d want to meet. He knocked up a couple of minors and beat the rap both times. The latest I heard on him, he’s hanging around with Frank Giovanni, and I guess you know what he is.”

  “I’ve heard of him. And I’ve heard most of what you’ve told me. Why would he hang around with Giovanni?”

  “I’d just be guessing, but it would be a good guess to figure he’s looking for a way to make a dirty buck. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Married to a millionaire’s daughter and a good season at Santa Anita behind him? Why would he need a dirty buck?”

  “Brock, Bill Duster is no Malone fan; he’ll never get a nickel Out of Duster. And Malone was lucky with his mounts at Santa Anita. He’ll never be a big winner, not that monkey.”

  I thanked him and hung up.

  So what did I have to tell Mrs. Malone? I was glad she hadn’t paid me. All I had learned was that her husband was a miserable little hoodlum, who was probably backdooring her with Frank Giovanni’s niece.

  So I had wasted half a day but it hadn’t been the first time. There wasn’t any business anyway; all I had really wasted was gas. I decided to tell Mrs. Malone I had learned nothing.

  The sun grew hotter and the afternoon brighter. I read the sport pages and wrote out a check for my light bill at the apartment and went to the window to look at the new, bright day.

  I was looking at it when the door from the hall opened. I turned and saw the pair of them, both tanned, both expensively and badly dressed, both silently malignant. They closed the door quietly and stared at me.

  I sighed and shook my head. “This is what ruined the picture business.”

  “What is?” the one on the right asked.

  “This cliché scene. A poor but strong private peeper looking down at the traffic from his second-floor office and the door opening and a couple of hoodlums walking in without so much as a how-do-you-do. This is what makes me resent my trade, these repetitive scenes of imminent violence.”

  The one on the left smiled. “What makes you think we’re hoodlums? Do we look like hoodlums? Threads like we’re wearing? You look like the hoodlum, with that wrinkled ready made of yours.”

  “I apologize,” I said. “You are a couple of nuclear physicists who dropped in to kick around a new theory. Sit down, boys, and we’ll crack an atom together.”

  The taller one, the one on the right, laughed and said, “Look, Rock, my name is Pete Petroff. This is my brother Dave.”

  I came back to the desk, extended a hand across it and they both shook it, genially and in turn. I sat down and Pete sat down. Dave stood next to him.

  He opened a new pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I told him I didn’t smoke. He lighted one and blew some smoke toward the ceiling and asked, “Have you ever heard of us?”

  I nodded. “Gamblers. Didn’t you have a piece of one of those Vegas sucker traps, one of the lusher ones?”

  Pete said, “That’s right. The Comstock Jewel. We sold out our share two months ago. We might even retire.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “You must have saved your money. You’re both young.”

  Dave Petroff, the shorter one who was still standing, looked at his brother and frowned. Pete didn’t seem to notice.

  Dave asked, “Why so snotty? What’s your beef?”

  “It’s general,” I said. “Not specific. My dad was a cop and he was killed by a hoodlum.”

  Pete said sharply, “For Christ’s sake, we’re not hoodlums! Are all gamblers hoodlums?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Pete stared at me. Dave looked at the top of my desk. I stared back at Pete. Finally he sighed and said, “Okay, we’ll go quietly.” He stood up. “We came to reason with you. We were warned that wasn’t easy but figured nobody could be as ornery as your reputation.” He shrugged. “The punk is really nothing to us, anyway.”

  They were just about to the door when I asked, “What punk?”

  Pete turned and said, “Tip Malone. He asked us if we would talk to you. It was his idea.”

  “What did he want you to talk about?”

  Pete said, “About this afternoon. About you dropping in and seeing him in Frank’s apartment. That’s no good for a jock, you know.”

  “That’s not what he’s worried about,” I said.

  “So, all right. So the broad was there. You going to tell Tip’s wife that?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “I didn’t take the money she offered me so I wasn’t really working for her. I don’t handle divorce work.”

  Pete’s smile was back. Even Dave looked happier. Pete said. “Tip suggested we slip you half a C. Fair enough?”

  “No charge,” I said. “Tell him to rest easy.”

  They both stood there staring. Finally Pete said, “You wouldn’t take her money and you won’t take his. Where’s your pay-off?”

  I tapped my heart. “In here, boys, in here. And upstairs, when I get there, through those pearly gates. That’s the big pay-off, boys.”

  “Come on, Callahan,” Pete said. “Level with us. Frank paying you?”

  “Giovanni?” I shook my head. “Today I showed a loss—about three gallons of gas. I investigated the case and learned I didn’t want it and am here and now withdrawing from it. That’s the gospel.”

  Pete looked at me and at Dave. Dave looked at Pete and at me and back at Pete and then he shrugged. Pete said wonderingly, “We heard you were a little punchy. But Jesus, honest, too, in your racket?”

  “Why not? The big agencies are all honest.”

  “In a way. But you’re a one-man agency and I’d like you to name me an honest one-man agency.”

  “You’re standing in the home office of one, boys.”

  “I meant another one.”

  “Joe Puma.”

  “Huh! Not that greaseball. Well, Callahan, if we get any work in your line, we’ll sure as hell know where to bring it.”

  “Thanks. And there’s a question that’s been bothering me. You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”

  “Shoot,” Pete said.
r />   “What does Frank Giovanni think of his niece hanging around with a statutory rapist like Tip Malone?”

  Pete looked at Dave and Dave shrugged. Pete looked at me, hesitated, and finally said, “This is off the record, but Frank don’t like it one goddamned little bit.”

  “I figured as much,” I said. “And Frank sent you, didn’t he, not Malone? Frank doesn’t want Big Bill Duster to hear about his son-in-law’s indiscretions.”

  Pete raised a hand, palm toward me. “Scout’s honor; Frank didn’t send us and doesn’t know we’re here. This was Malone’s idea.”

  “Okay, boys,” I said in farewell. “See you around.”

  That “scout’s honor” hadn’t fooled me; he was no Boy Scout. It was Giovanni who had sent them.

  So I had wasted half a day, I told myself. I would probably never hear from any of these people again. But it had been kind of interesting, learning once more how wrong the obvious had been, how atypical the apparently typical. Maybe Pete Petroff was a Boy Scout.

  Again my phone rang, and this time it was my love, my nettle, my Jan. “I’ve been thinking about you,” she said with some sadness.

  “Obsessively or casually?”

  “Tenderly. Why do I needle you all the time? Why do I try to make you something you aren’t?”

  “It’s a natural female instinct; don’t fret about it. I have had an interesting and unproductive day that might be good material for one of our talks.”

  “One of our horizontal discussions, you mean. Damn it, we’ll never get married, will we?”

  “Not as long as your work keeps you in the homes of rich people. Not until you can get over your antipathy to the middle-class life.”

  “You’re not even middle-class. You’re poor, poor, poor … And you don’t need to be!”

  I said nothing.

  After a few seconds she said, “There I go again, huh?”

  “I could bring some steaks,” I said, “and if your conscience is in one of its rare moments of ascendancy, we could watch television or play gin rummy. You decide; I’m not coming over there to fight.”

  “Come over,” she said. “If I don’t answer the door, come in; it will be unlocked. I’ll be taking a shower.”

  That was a promising note. She wouldn’t need a shower to watch television or play gin rummy.