77 Sunset Strip

by Roy Huggins

  “I’m sorry, sir; that information is confidential.”

  “This is Captain Farr, city police.”

  “I’ll call you back, Captain Farr. What is the number at your office?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “You wouldn’t find me there.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Not so cordial now.

  We hung up.

  I found a breakfast shop and had some coffee. At seven-thirty I started out toward Dr. Slocum’s office. It was on North 3rd Avenue in a private house, a little square box with a tile roof and stucco the color of West Texas. His shingle told me all I wanted to know: He was a chiropractor. I wouldn’t have to wait for the doctor. I could drive out to the airport and sit, and hope that Farr didn’t get any hunches and come out there first.

  I drove through town, letting myself get used to the fact that I knew the answer to the thing now, and that knowing the answer made me feel more sanguine than I thought it should, and at the same time more uncomfortable for the unforgivable boner I had made. Just the other side of town, on Highway 89, I began to realize I was hungry. I turned into the first eating place I could find and parked the car in back. I figured it might be hot by now. I had ham and eggs and more coffee. I read the morning paper. The search was still on for the body of the San Francisco girl, and police were having difficulty locating members of her family in that city. The Los Angeles man who originally reported the disappearance as murder was wanted only on charges of resisting arrest and assault with a deadly weapon. He was thought to have returned to Tucson. They repeated the story the News had carried, with some garnishment, although no mention was made of accomplices or of Dr. Blair. There was some snide innuendo coupled with Farr’s name, and the story implied without saying it that there was a madman loose in the city and the police were responsible for it.

  It was just eight o’clock when I went out and started the car. The gas gauge registered almost empty, so I pulled around to the pump and asked for five gallons. The attendant walked back to the tank, came back to the window, looked bored, and held out a hand.

  I said, “You want me to read your palm?”

  “The key,” he groaned; “your tank’s got a lock on it, you know.”

  I fumbled in the glove compartment for a second and said, “Let’s skip it. Looks like I left the key at home.”

  He gave me a sharp look and his eyes opened wide and he reached for the wheel. But it wasn’t there. I was on the way out, hoping he’d get his feet out of the way. I had to brake the car hard at the highway to let a taxi whip past. And for an instant of time there was a blond head leaning against the rear window. I fell in behind, not too close, but a half mile later the round blank of Harvey Small’s face appeared at the rear window, ducked back, and the taxi added its last increment of speed. Three miles farther, a car began to come up behind me fast. I put the accelerator down to the boards, the car behind turned on a red light, and seconds later the sound of the siren caught up with me.

  We were lined up about two hundred yards apart when we pulled into the airport. By the time I had run across the lot the people from the taxi had disappeared into the building. They were halfway to the big plane when I came out of the front of the building—Muriel, Harvey, and a broad woman in white stockings and shoes and a hem of white showing beneath a black coat. And between Harvey and Muriel, being hurried along by both arms, was a slender girl in a short tan coat.

  I shouted, “Dorothy, wait!”

  She stopped, and Harvey tried for one last moment to drag her on. I could see Muriel’s mouth moving fast. But Dorothy turned, her wide blue eyes dark and staring in the paleness of her face. She gave a little cry and ran toward me. Behind me I heard the sound of heavy feet, and something that had possibly once been a voice saying, “That’s him all right!”

  Dorothy had reached me then. Maybe I went out to meet her. She took a grip on my arms that felt as if it might be permanent and buried her face in my shirt front. I felt vaguely uneasy and less vaguely ashamed.

  She had hired me to do a job and I had muffed it. Now she was holding on to me as if she thought I was a pretty sturdy character.

  I said, “It’s okay, baby. It’s all straight now.”

  The three cops hung their faces over my shoulders and said, “Break it up,” and “Come on, Roark,” and “That’s all, brother.”

  Dorothy said, “Why weren’t you there when she came? Why did you go away and leave me there alone?”

  I shook my head. The bruise on the temple, or maybe conscience, made it ache. “It’s a long story, angel.” Muriel and Harvey had joined us and had begun to talk at Dorothy, and two of the cops were talking at me. The nurse stood silent and implacable in the background. There was a sudden silence. The third cop had shouted, “Quiet!”

  He was big, gate-mouthed man with a stubble of gray hair. He looked everybody over, said, “Any-more of this and I’ll read the riot act,” then turned to me and snapped, “You’re Roark, or Bailey, aren’t you?”

  “Uh-huh, but relax. This,” I said, nodding down at Dorothy, “is the girl you’ve been referring to as ‘the body.’ ”

  One of the cops leered and said, “Why not, I ask?” The big man looked sharply at Dorothy, and Muriel stepped in and purred, “Dorothy, darling, we must hurry. The plane’s leaving.”

  Dorothy let go of me slowly and stood there looking bewildered. I said, “Do you want to go with your sister?”

  “No.”

  Muriel’s thin nostrils took on a bluish tinge and she looked at me out of her wide eyes, also blue, like damascus steel. She said slowly, “She’s ill and not responsible. If you interfere you’ll be sued for everything you’ll ever own. Come on, Dotty.”

  “Harvey will tell you,” I said, “that it’s kidnaping if you take her on that plane.”

  The three cops were standing by now, just listening. Muriel’s lips were drawn tight across the pithy teeth. “Dorothy asked us to take her home, where she belongs.” She put her arm around Dorothy and the girl shuddered lightly. “All this excitement. The poor girl doesn’t even know what’s being said!”

  I said, “Did you ask them to take you back, Dorothy? And do you want to go back with them?”

  She closed her eyes. Her teeth were held together tightly, deepening the shadows in her cheeks. It came out quietly. “No.”

  Muriel stiffened and glanced at Harvey. Harvey’s great round face was the color of laurel bark, his eyes wayward and empty. I said, “And they’re no good, Mrs. Small—those papers you got her to sign. I’m taking her back into town with me. As Harvey pointed out last night, Dorothy’s of age. I’m working for her. I’m taking her to a doctor first, then we’ll put a lawyer on it. If I can get Dorothy to see it that way, we’ll prosecute.”

  Muriel’s eyes were searching Harvey’s face again for help, but she didn’t find any there. The engines roared in the silence and then over the roar the loudspeaker was calling for passengers Small and Dreves. Flight eight for Los Angeles was leaving immediately.

  SIXTEEN

  I was at headquarters waiting for Farr to come in. Dorothy, the nurse, and one of the men had been dropped at Blair’s office. After a while the big man said, “Okay, you can call Blair, but you gotta hang up when Farr gets here.”

  I called Blair, told him who I was, and started to give him what I had on Dorothy. He cut me short and said, “Just what was the purpose of coming into my office and telling me Miss Halloran was dead? I want to know that before I continue this conversation.”

  “No purpose,” I said. “It was just a dumb play. I make lots of them. I thought she was dead. She was lying on the floor with bruises on her neck and I didn’t find a pulse. She’d had an attack of some kind; epilepsy?”

  Blair didn’t answer.

  My throat was suddenly dry. I said, “She had some kind of attack. Is it epilepsy? Is that what’s wrong?”

  “I have no idea, Mr. Roark. I doubt it. But I’m still confused. I think you described the bruises as havi
ng been put there by a hand.” Where Brother Roark was concerned, Doctor Blair was a cautious man. I didn’t blame him.

  I said, “Whatever she’s got, she didn’t know about it. To her it was just headaches. She had been going to a chiropractor, a Dr. Slocum. He put the bruises there, not me.”

  Dr. Blair breathed into the phone for a while without saying anything. When he got with me again his voice had thawed a bit and he said, “I see. I’m very sorry, Mr. Roark. You understand that I had to call the police yesterday, under the circumstances.”

  “Sure. The name’s Bailey.”

  “I shouldn’t feel too sensitive if I were you, about the mistake you made. If she were in a coma of some kind it would be very easy for a layman to assume she was dead. I’ll go see to Miss Halloran now, Mr. Roark.”

  “Bailey,” I said. But he had already hung up.

  I spent a long time with Farr. We had a long way to go. We started with ten years at hard labor, and after an hour and a quarter we ended with a promise from me that I would make no statements to the press now or later and that I’d never take another job in Tucson.

  At the door I asked Farr if he had fired Huffschmidt. Farr got a puzzled look on his face and said, “No. But it’s a funny thing. He quit.”

  “What d’ya know?” I said.

  I walked to Blair’s office. The sun was high, the streets hot with a dry hard heat that got inside me and brought my spirits up from where they’d been hiding under my arch supports. The girl was still at her desk holding the silver pencil. She grew a smile for me and I looked for it to wilt, but it didn’t. She said, “Go right on in. Doctor’s expecting you.”

  Blair was behind his desk looking grayer and more distant than he had the day before. I sat down in the deep leather chair. Blair looked at me for a while, then said, “Understand, this is a tentative diagnosis, but there is little doubt that Miss Halloran will be all right.”

  That was fine. But it was a little hard to believe. I said, “Her name is Dreves. The Halloran is just something she took while she was running from her sister . . . But she had an epileptic attack the other night, didn’t she?”

  “In a sense, yes. But she doesn’t have genuine epilepsy. She was in an accident—as you probably know —and as a result she has what Jackson calls ‘symptomatic’ epilepsy. It acts quite like it. But in Miss Hal-loran’s case it can be cured by rather simple surgery. The depressive condition was of course part of it.”

  I grinned. “I see you’ve had better luck with her this time.”

  “We had a very long talk. She’s resting now . . . This was her first serious attack. Was she under considerable tension or strain that night?”

  “An understatement, Doctor. She ran into her sister.” He nodded thoughtfully, as if that explained it pretty fully. “A very unhealthy relationship.”

  “Uh-huh, there’s probably close to half a million involved. It was Dorothy’s after the accident. I’ve got an idea the relationship’s been pretty deliberately unhealthy since then. The sister and her husband left here with some kind of legal codfish, but they’d have had to keep Dorothy with them to make it count.”

  “Miss Halloran mustn’t be concerned about things like that till we have her well, Mr. Roark. I may have to send her to Chicago.”

  “Bailey,” I said, and stood up. “Her attorney’ll be here tomorrow from San Francisco. He’ll know some of it, but you’ll have to give him the details.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Mr. Roark.”

  “Bailey,” I said.

  On the drive back I improved the hours thinking about Dorothy, hoping Blair’s optimism was well-founded, and that in any case the antic smile wouldn’t change. But as I neared the California line I began to think about Betty Callister and that full, rich evening I’d promised her. I stopped at Yuma, got a few hours’ sleep, and at El Centro stopped again, long enough to call Betty and ask her to have dinner with me that night.

  SEVENTEEN

  Betty was a girl without airs. She had agreed to save time by meeting me at the office, and she was sitting there waiting when I got in, an hour late. She was wearing a warm red dress and an even warmer smile.

  “I put your mail on the desk,” she said, rising, “and don’t you dare look at it.”

  I took the purse out of her hand, gave her a grateful kiss for waiting, or maybe for being so beautiful, and we started out of the office. That was when the phone began to ring. We looked at it, went on to the door, looked at it again as it continued to ring, and Betty sighed just a little.

  “Your phone’s ringing,” she said.

  “Shall I answer it?”

  “If you promise not to leave for Arizona.”

  I went back and picked up the phone. A deep and resonant male voice greeted me and I pulled the receiver away from my ear: “Mr. Bailey? Stuart Bailey?”

  “Yes,” I agreed, reluctantly.

  “I need some help. You were recommended as the man who could give it to me.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “I can’t tell you that on the phone. Come to my home—4118 Stansburg, in Westwood.”

  I jotted the address down, repeating: “4118 Stansburg. When?”

  “As soon as you can. Now. My name’s Gordon Trist.”

  I looked at Betty, who had apparently heard both sides. She sat down slowly in the customer’s chair.

  “Mr. Trist, I—” There was a click, followed by that friendly buzz known as the dial tone. “He hung up,” I said.

  “Are you going?”

  “No.”

  “He’s expecting you, isn’t he?”

  I thought about that a moment. “I guess he is.”

  “Then you’re going.”

  “But-”

  “I’ve waited this long, I can wait a little longer. At least it’s in L.A. county this time.”

  “How did you acquire this saintly character?” I grinned.

  She stood up again and walked with me to the door. “It comes of being a member of a persecuted minority,” she smiled, “the very rich.”

  It was one of those pink stucco mansions in Westwood with a lot of metal grillwork and a silent button. You push the button and wonder if somebody’s kidding you. I was leaning on it with my thumb when the door was opened by a little man wearing a crisp white coat and an expression of restrained contempt, both being essential items in the make-up of a Hollywood butler.

  “Mr. Trist’s expecting me,” I said. “Bailey.” He looked at me for a while as if he were measuring me for the service entrance, said, “Wait here,” and shut the door in my face. .

  The sun was down behind the Brentwood hills, but I could still see them in the twilight, rolling and spilling over one another in lithe grace to the Pacific. A tentative breeze was coming up from the south with a taste of salt in it. It was cold, and it seemed a long time before the door opened again and a tall man stepped out onto the porte-cochere with me. He looked pretty much the way he had sounded, full-chested and tanned, with gray hair thick at the temples, and a suit of evening clothes that he probably charged off to capital investment.

  “I’m Gordon Trist,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, but I won’t need you. It was a mistake.”

  “It’s nice you discovered the mistake in time,” I said. “The man who asked me out here told me to carry a gun.”

  The tall man looked puzzled. “What’s that? I didn’t tell you to bring a gun!”

  “That’s right you didn’t. But on the phone you didn’t sound like a man who would change his mind all of a sudden. I wanted to be sure I was talking to the same man.”

  “Oh.” He smiled, and his teeth gleamed in the gray light. They looked like very expensive teeth. “I certainly won’t fail to call you, Mr. Bailey, if I ever do have need of a detective.” He took a thin wallet out of his breast pocket, took out three bills, folded them twice, and said, “This will cover your trip out here.”

  I took the bills and started to unfold them, but I didn’t finish
. Trist suddenly gripped my arm, whispered, “Inside, quick,” and opened the door. We stepped inside and I heard someone on the walk. A tall slender man stepped onto the porte-cochere and came on into the hall.

  Gordon Trist turned and said, “Well, Freddie, what brings you home tonight?” He sounded nervous.

  Freddie grinned self-consciously and said, “Filial devotion, Pop—sheer filial devotion.” His pale eyes took me in casually and he reached up and put a stray lock of straight blond hair in place. He had dainty ears that clung to his head as if they were trying to hide there.

  Trist shot me a tight stare and said, “Mr. Tate, this is my son, Freddie Trist.” And to Freddie, “Mr. Tate just came by for a drink.”

  “An inspired idea, Mr. Tate,” Freddie said. “I’ll join you.”

  That was that. I dropped the three bills into a side pocket and we went on down the hall. At the end there were high, draped French doors. Freddie opened them and we went down two steps into a living room. There were two people in the room, a man in his thirties and a woman. The woman was young, with large dark eyes, a cold camellia face, and a who-the-hell-are-you expression.

  Trist said, “Darling, this is Mr. Tate, an old friend of Geoffrey’s, in San Francisco. He’s on his way to the airport and dropped by to say hello.” He put his hand on my arm and said, “My wife.”

  She gave me a speculative look and said, “I’m so happy you dropped by. And how is dear Geoffrey?”

  “I haven’t seen nearly enough of him lately.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Trist broke in rather abruptly, “And Mr. Crukston, Mr. Tate.”

  Crukston was compact and darkly handsome, with a smooth, tanned skin and the general appearance of a man who earns his living playing gin rummy at the Racquet Club. His hand was moist. Or maybe mine was.

  He smiled and said, “Geoffrey? I didn’t know the Trists had any friends that I didn’t know.”

  Mrs. Trist laughed lightly and said, “It’s Jeff, silly—Gordon’s brother.”

  “Oh,” said Crukston, and the smile widened and he gave me a look that didn’t mean anything at all.