Come Die with Me

by William Campbell Gault

“Careful,” he said ominously. “I won’t take any lip from you Callahan.”

  “Has Pascal gone to see him yet?”

  “Sergeant Pascal talked with Giovanni this morning. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “It was my ankle and my ribs, Captain, and that makes it my business. Have Calavo and Jessup been picked up?”

  “They haven’t been located. When they’ve been picked up, Miss Chen has promised to come in for identification.”

  “I’ll bet. You don’t think Giovanni can afford to throw that pair to the wolves, do you? They won’t be found. And if they are, she won’t identify them. She’s a two-hundred percent phony, Captain.”

  “She didn’t strike me that way.” A pause. “If she was, why did she describe them to you when you went to see her?”

  “It was her way of warning me that I was being watched and that it would be smart for me to stop nosing around Frank Giovanni.”

  “Boy,” he said, “you do reach, don’t you? What keeps you in business, Callahan?”

  I was silent a moment. And then I said quietly, “Captain, you take a look at the cases I helped Sergeant Pascal on. And then, if you want to call back and apologize, I’ll be here for at least another half-hour.”

  “Hey,” he said, “just a second. Don’t go off …”

  I hung up. The phone rang again in less than a minute, but I ignored it. I hobbled over to the window to see if that clear patch in the north was growing any bigger. It seemed to be.

  The bastards. … Just because I was big and strong and vulgar, they imagined I wasn’t sensitive. They thought they could say anything to me.

  I looked at my reflection in the rain-streaked window and saw the pout. I might as well face it, they could say anything to me. They treated me a lot better, at that, than they treated most of the boys who worked one-man agencies. With reason, of course.

  Harry Adler … He had promised me he wouldn’t tell the police about Selina Stone. It seemed likely that he had been investigating Malone’s death to some degree. That might have taken him out of town. It was possible he wouldn’t want his sister to worry and she would worry if he told her he was investigating a murder. But that didn’t add; he could have given her any number of excuses for a trip. Malone hadn’t been his only client and some of his boys would be riding at other tracks.

  It wasn’t reasonable but this sense of doom about Harry Adler persisted. And a sense of guilt.

  Outside, now, the rain had diminished to a California mist and I got my crutch and walked without incident to the drug store for lunch. My fan was behind the counter again.

  “Brock,” he said. “Buddy, buddy. I saved a real choice filet for you.”

  “Buddy, buddy, buddy,” I said, topping him by one.

  It was an amazing cut of meat to be served at a drugstore lunch counter, juicy, tender and life-giving. Energy flowed through me and a fine poison-reducing sweat broke out on my face and neck. I was up and around, something I had not been sure of achieving at the bottom of that canyon. I was glad to be alive.

  My fan said, “You know, the place where you fell off that cliff was real close to the place where Malone died.”

  “The thought occurred to me, too,” I told him.

  He smiled. “You were working on that Malone kill, huh?”

  “I was,” I admitted, “but I think I’ve learned my lesson.”

  He looked at me in disappointment. “Hey, Brock, nobody’s scaring you off, are they?”

  “Almost,” I said.

  He shook his head and walked to the other end of the counter. I had failed him.

  That place was close to Malone’s cottage and so was Selina Stone’s modern hideaway. A triangle of geographical proximity, and was it just a coincidence?

  At the far end of the counter my fan was talking to a pair of stout and middle-aged women. I called him over and said, “More coffee, please.”

  He poured it silently.

  “Nice day for a drive,” I said.

  He looked out at the gloomy day and shrugged.

  “I think I’ll take a drive out around the neighborhood where I fell off the cliff,” I went on. “Just sort of nose around.”

  He smiled. “That’s my buddy, buddy. That’s the Rock. I knew they wouldn’t scare you off.”

  I didn’t disillusion him. I didn’t have so many fans left I could afford to lose any. I finished my second cup of coffee and went out into a brightening day. My car had been returned to the lot and the attendant had the keys.

  “A Sergeant Pascal brought it in,” he told me, “and he said I should tell you to take it easy.” The attendant frowned. “He said to tell you they couldn’t afford to lose you. Now, what did that mean?”

  “It means,” I told him, “that the Los Angeles Police Department finally realizes what an important ally I am. And it’s about time.”

  I steered the flivver out and headed west, my crutch in the back seat, my courage only faintly impaired. The air was warmer and it wouldn’t be long, I was sure, before the sun would break through.

  The flivver murmured consolingly and my ankle hardly ached at all, though there was some pain in my left calf. My ribs were sore but not aching, as was my bad right knee. It didn’t matter; the flivver would take me anywhere I wanted to go and the .38 would compensate for any temporary lack of physical strength.

  By the time I got to the Topanga turn-off, the sun was visible through the haze and the air was hot and muggy. I stopped off the road here and took out my detailed Los Angeles map. Lines connecting Selina Stone’s place, Lily Chen’s and Malone’s new place formed an almost perfect isosceles triangle, the equal legs being the lines from Selina’s to Malone’s and from Lily Chen’s to Malone’s. If murders were based on geographical distance, both Lily and Selina would be equally suspect.

  But Lily Chen had no apparent reason to kill Tip Malone. And murder needed the deadly trinity—motive, means and opportunity. Selina had admitted being there and had admitted finding Tip’s body. As for Lily, she could be covering for Giovanni, who had been at her house when Malone was killed. It didn’t seem reasonable that Frank Giovanni, at his present level, still did his own killing.

  But if he hadn’t, if he had called in a professional, there would be no reason for him to be presently concerned about my investigation. Murders done by professionals leave no point for investigative entry, either by the police or the private man. They remained unsolved.

  So, then, it was possible Frank Giovanni’s emotions had led him to this amateurish act of doing his own killing? Because of his emotional involvement? It was possible. I got back onto the road and headed for Malone’s love nest.

  A year or so back, I had talked with one of the investigators who had worked on Giovanni for one of the Congressional committees, and the man had felt certain that Giovanni had a Mafia tie-up. If that was true, I would get nowhere with Giovanni and neither would the L.A.P.D.

  I was at the top of the hill now and to my right was the road that led to Lily Chen’s lacquered bird cage. I sent the flivver straight ahead, down the main road that led to the lake.

  The last time I had seen this house, I had seen it from the top of the hill and there had been a police car parked in front of it. There was no police car in front now. But there was a Buick Roadmaster convertible on the driveway.

  I didn’t drive onto the driveway. I drove past and parked off the edge of the road. I got my crutch from the back seat and worked my way out carefully, and walked back.

  There were no curtains in the front window; the house seemed to be unoccupied. I went up to ring the front doorbell, but before I got to it, I heard voices from the rear of the house.

  One of them sounded familiar, familiar enough for me to get my .38 into my hand before coming down off the porch and hobbling along the pebbled concrete walk, that led to the rear.

  Once around the corner of the house, I could see the slight drop-off at the end of the back yard, and two men were standing there
with their backs to me, looking down at something below the level of where they stood. It was Calavo and Jessup.

  Calavo turned, saw me, and I said, “Don’t move, either one of you. I’m aching to pull this trigger. I’m aching for an excuse to kill both of you.”

  They stood frozen, staring at me. And then Jessup said, “We didn’t kill him. We didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  I walked over to where they stood. A man lay there, his eyes open, staring at me with the blank stare of the sightless. He was sightless. He was dead. It was Harry Adler.

  TWELVE

  CAPTAIN APOYAN SAID, “SHE’S on her way down. If Jessup is the man who pushed you, she’ll say so and we’ll have a case.”

  We were in his office and he was speaking of Lily Chen. I smiled and made no comment.

  “You’ve been awfully quiet,” he said.

  “I saw their lawyer come in a little while ago,” I said. “About the best in town, isn’t he?”

  “I suppose you meant the most successful. I wouldn’t say he was the best. I have too much regard for the law to say that.”

  “Sure.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully. “It’s one of your cynical days again. You have a lot of them, don’t you?”

  “Too many. I find a couple of hoodlums looking down at a man they probably just killed and now we’re hoping that a kept woman can identify one of them as the man who pushed me off a cliff. What’s wrong with a murder charge?”

  “If they killed Adler,” Apoyan said patiently, “they didn’t just kill him. He’s been dead since sometime yesterday. And if they killed him yesterday, it isn’t likely they would come back to look at him today. Brock, be reasonable.”

  “I’m trying,” I said. “I’m remembering the Mafia, and trying.”

  He frowned. “The Mafia …”

  “Giovanni’s one of ’em, isn’t he?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Maybe you have information I haven’t.”

  “Maybe. Couldn’t Calavo and Jessup have killed Adler some place else and then brought him to that place of Malone’s to dump him?”

  He shook his head. “Not according to the reports I’ve had so far. He was killed right where they found him.”

  “And what were they doing there?”

  “They wanted to wait for their attorney before they answered that question.”

  Sergeant Pascal came in then and Apoyan asked hopefully, “Anything at all?”

  Pascal nodded. “This. Though it doesn’t make much sense to me.” He threw a notebook on the desk. “It looks like he was playing detective, but if there are any leads there, I can’t find ’em.”

  Apoyan picked up the notebook. “Maybe our friend Callahan can use it. Maybe he knows some things we don’t.”

  I didn’t rise to the bait. I smiled and looked adjusted.

  Pascal said, “He was shot with a .32. Shot twice. We’ve got one of the slugs so far.”

  “And you’ve got Jessup and Calavo,” I added. “What more do you need?”

  Nobody answered me. Pascal left the room and Apoyan leafed through the notebook. Then he tossed it over to me.

  There were ten or a dozen pages filled with phone numbers and addresses. There was one page labeled MALONE. Under the heading was a number I recognized as Giovanni’s, another as Duster’s. There was another name followed by an address on the west side of town.

  Apoyan asked, “Recognize any of the phone numbers?”

  “Giovanni’s is here,” I answered. “And Big Bill Duster’s.”

  “How about that other name?”

  I shook my head. “But I’d like to copy it. In case your men don’t get anywhere with him.” I smiled. “No offense.”

  Then a uniformed man announced from the doorway, “Miss Chen is here now, Captain.”

  Apoyan looked at me. “Want to come along and hear her make identification?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “And five will get you nine that she won’t identify either of the bastards.”

  “I’m sure you’re wrong,” he said, “but I’m not a betting man.”

  He left, and I checked through the notebook. The Department had men enough to check every entry in it, if they thought it would prove worthwhile. I gave my attention to the page headed with Malone’s name.

  I didn’t need Giovanni’s phone number or Big Bill Duster’s; I copied the third name and west side address and the other two phone numbers on that page.

  I was at the window, watching the spotter in a dry-cleaning plant next door, when Captain Apoyan returned. His face was sour.

  “Aren’t you glad,” I asked him, “that you’re not a betting man?”

  He said nothing.

  “What was her story?” I asked him.

  He took a breath. “She said the red-headed one she saw was taller and the bald one she saw was fatter.” He expelled the breath. “Damn it, she looks so innocent and sweet!”

  “Yes, Captain,” I said. “Well, I caught them for you. The rest is on your conscience. Did you check out that Buick convertible they were using?”

  “Right. It’s a rental car.”

  “So now they go free?”

  He looked at me belligerently. “How can I hold them?”

  “I’ve no idea. But before you release them, give them a message from me. Tell them, if they see me coming, to get out of the way.”

  He glared. “Don’t you go heavy on me, now. You’re getting more cooperation from the Department than any private man in town.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. I reached out and got my crutch. “And look at me!” I stood there, staring at him.

  He said nothing.

  I said, “Harry Adler has a wife who’s been in a mental institution for two years and two sons he was trying to put through Columbia University.”

  “Has he, now?” His voice was cynical. “We checked him out a few days ago. He divorced that wife five years ago and the state is paying her way. And the sons are working their way through school.”

  “In that case,” I said, “he died rich. He had the reputation for being a slow man around a tab.”

  “He’s just as dead,” Apoyan said, “rich or poor. Now, you take it easy, Brock.”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t do anything foolish, anything violent,” he warned me.

  I smiled and winked and hobbled out.

  Harry Adler, another enigma. Lily Chen hadn’t surprised me; she had looked around her cozy love nest, listened to a reasonable explanation from dear Frank and believed what she had to believe. He had probably convinced her that I was an evil man and Jessup was only trying to protect her from me. It is difficult for anyone to believe something that might cost money. In her case, it was impossible.

  It didn’t seem logical that I could fight the big money and the Mafia, too, but mine isn’t a trade that attracts reasonable people. I got into the flivver and headed for the address I had copied from Harry Adler’s notebook. It was a Venice address.

  It wasn’t a house. It was a used-car lot, and there was a little shack at one end of it, its rear to an alley, the front door facing the lot. A streamer stretched across the front of the lot identified this as CREWE’S CUSTOM USED CARS—QUALITY TRANSPORTATION YOU CAN AFFORD.

  He seemed to be specializing in the big iron, Cads and Lincolns, Imperials and Roadmasters. They weren’t all of them recent models, but they were all gleaming and every one sported white-wall tires. A thin, tall man in a wine-colored gabardine suit came out from the shack as I worked my way out of the car and approached the lot.

  He was closer now, and I could see he was older than his clothes would suggest, with a taut, tanned face, and bags under his soft brown eyes.

  “Lawrence Crewe?” I asked him.

  “Right. At your service.” His smile was a con man’s smile.

  “Harry Adler sent me,” I said.

  The brown eyes hardened and he was quiet for a moment. Then, “What’s this Adler bit? The gendarmes were here five mi
nutes ago asking about him. I never heard of him in my life.”

  “He was killed,” I said, “and your name was in his pocket.”

  “How the hell would he get that?”

  I shrugged. “We think he was investigating the death of Tip Malone. Did you know him?”

  “Not personally. Lousy jock, though. Until this spring.”

  I nodded.

  He said, “Who did you mean by ‘we’? You a police officer?”

  “State,” I said.

  He frowned. “State? In plain clothes? State what?”

  “State-licensed,” I said “Did you ever hear of Lily Chen?”

  He shook his head. “State-licensed …? Hey, you’re a private eye!”

  “Did you ever hear of a girl named Selina Stone?” I asked.

  His mouth opened and he stared at me. Then he looked at the crutch meaningly and said, “You, too …? They roughed you too, eh?”

  “They pushed me over a cliff,” I said. “What reason did they have to hate you?”

  “You tell me,” he said. “So she’s singing at this little dump out in Santa Monica and I buy her a couple of drinks and squeeze her knee a couple of times under the table, and—whammo!”

  “Whammo—how?” I asked.

  “Right outside my apartment. She promised to come over after her last show, so I headed right home. And they got to me just as I was stepping out of my car.”

  “A big redhead and a bald, stocky little guy?”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t see ’em. It was dark. Boy, they got me down and put the foot to me good.”

  “Did you report it to the police?”

  He shook his head. “I had a wife, separate maintenance deal, and I was trying to talk her into coming back. What could I tell the law? They’d want to know why, wouldn’t they?”

  “I guess. How long ago was this?”

  “Hell, more than a year. Let’s see … Fourteen months. A year ago last February.”

  “You never checked into it or asked her about it?”

  “I’m crazy? I never even drove by the place again. I can take a hint, mister. How about you?”

  “I’m stubborn,” I said. “That’s all? That’s it?”

  “Yup.” He squinted into the sun. “But you know, it’s been eating me, ever since. When you get both feet again, and you get a lead to the bastards, do you want to call me? I’ll go with you.”