“Information which you will relay to me, of course.”
It was outside his jurisdiction, but I decided not to mention that. I said, “Of course.”
I went back to finish reading the paper, but I couldn’t concentrate. There was another resident of the Travis Hotel I knew who might have more information on the life and death of Luther Barnum than was stored in the police department files. His name was Wallace Stanton, but on lower Main Street he was known as The Judge.
It was ten o’clock now; he wouldn’t be at the hotel. He would be holding court at Rubio’s Rendezvous.
Rubio’s was a narrow bar between a deserted former pawnshop and an active massage parlor on Front Street, half a block north of lower Main Street. Only Rubio, The Judge, and a small, thin dozing man at one of the tables in the room were in attendance when I entered.
Stanton sat at the bar, wearing his funereal black suit and white shirt and string tie. His enormous buttocks sagged over the edges of the steel stool.
“The footballer!” he greeted me.
Rubio held out a hand across the bar. “Pancho! It’s been a long time, amigo.”
I shook his hand and said, “I just thought I’d come down and buy you boys a drink.”
The Judge smiled. “I’ll have cognac.”
Rubio scowled. “That was not funny!”
“I know,” Stanton admitted. “But that’s why he’s down here.” He looked at me. “Isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“Was Luther a friend of yours?”
I shook my head.
“Then why are you down here?”
“Because he’s dead. I apologize for the intrusion.” I turned toward the door.
“Wait!” Rubio said. “This is my place, and you are not intruding.”
“I apologize, too,” Stanton said. “But it annoyed me, that part about coming down just to buy us a drink. Why would you need to be phony with us?”
I said, “It must be a hangover from those days when I needed to be phony.”
“Sit,” he said, “and we’ll talk. Rubio and I have been discussing the case. I’ll have a small glass of ale.”
“I’ll have the same,” I said.
Rubio had coffee. I sat on the stool next to The Judge.
He said, “The way we see it, the killer could not have gone up those front steps. The night clerk is very watchful about more than one person sleeping in a room where the occupant is paying single-room rates. He knows all the tenants.”
He took a sip of ale. “The killer must have used the back stairs, which serve only the second floor. The rooms on the second floor are restricted to tenants the manager has learned to trust.” He paused. “Four of the rooms on that floor are occupied by the girls for their commercial purposes. They are the unofficial guardians of the back door and the back stairs.”
“They could have been working in their rooms when the killer came in,” I pointed out.
“All four at the same time?” The Judge shook his head. “Their business isn’t that good. They are street solicitors with a few steady customers. When they are working the street, they stay close to the door. That’s where their customers know they can find them.”
“You two think some John went up to a girl’s room. And after their business was consummated and the girl was dressing again, the John went down the hall to Luther’s room?”
“It’s a possibility.”
‘The coroner thinks he died around midnight. Would Luther open his door to a stranger that late at night?”
The Judge shrugged. “That bothers us, too. Maybe he had a bottle of his own to finish first. He could have been awake. He sleeps a lot during the day. We don’t know how long it takes for strychnine to act.”
“Do you have a prime suspect?” I asked.
“Not prime. Maybe choice. Somebody working for Joe Farini. Farini can afford cognac.”
“No,” I said. “He wouldn’t take the chance. He couldn’t trust his man to stay bought if he got caught. And he certainly wouldn’t take the chance on his own.”
Stanton said, “A doubtful rumor, hearsay. For what it’s worth, one of the girls said a friend of hers had a customer who paid but didn’t perform that night. It’s not the first time that’s happened, probably. What does it mean? Nothing.”
“Did the girl name the girl who was rejected?”
The Judge looked at Rubio. Rubio frowned.
“I won’t pressure her,” I promised. “I’ll walk softly. It could be a lead.”
“A lead for the police,” Rubio said. “We don’t want her harassed by the police.”
“I swear to you that it will stay our secret.”
They looked at each other again. Then Rubio said, “Her name is Maria Lopez.”
I thanked them, put a bill on the bar, and went out. The hotel was only a few blocks from here. I left my car where it was and walked over.
The clerk behind the desk was back to his white shirt with the blue trousers. I asked, “Is Maria Lopez in?”
He looked shocked. “Mr. Callahan, not you!”
“It’s not what you think,” I told him. “I only want to talk with her. She might know something that will help us find Luther’s murderer.”
“She’s probably still sleeping,” he said, “and I doubt that you’ll find her cooperative. It’s room two-eighteen.”
It was close to Luther’s room, on the other side of the corridor. I knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked louder.
“What’s your hurry?” a feminine voice asked from the room. “I was sleeping.”
The door opened. A buxom woman with deep brown eyes and a pocked olive complexion scowled out at me. She was wearing a yellow silk robe. “It’s early, man!”
“I’m not here for business,” I explained. “Rubio gave me your name. You can phone him if you don’t believe me.”
“You a cop?”
“Would Rubio give your name to a cop?”
She studied me doubtfully. I held up a ten-dollar bill.
She took it. “Come in,” she said.
The room smelled of dry rot and cheap perfume. The bed was gilded, as were both chairs and the dresser.
I stood near the closed door. “I’ve been hired to investigate the death of Luther Barnum. My client doesn’t believe the police will give it the time it deserves.”
“They won’t,” she said. “I hope you get the son of a bitch! All the girls liked Luther. We used to give him freebies. But I got no idea who would kill him.”
“You might know without knowing,” I said. “That man who paid you but didn’t perform, that could have been a trick to get him up here.”
Her chin lifted. “Who told you about that?”
I didn’t answer.
“Rubio,” she said. “He’ll hear from me!”
“Please, Miss Lopez!” I said. “Believe me, all of us want to find out who killed Luther. Was he a big man? Did he tell you anything about himself? Was he white? Tall or short?”
“He was no talker,” she told me. “I think he was dumb. You know, not in the head but—what’s that word?”
“A mute?”
“That’s it. He handed me a twenty and we went up. I’m getting ready for him, and the jerk turns around and walks out. He was white. He weighed maybe hundred and thirty or forty pounds, stood about five feet eight or nine inches tall.”
“Did you hear him knock on any other door up here, maybe Luther’s?”
She shook her head. “If it was Luther’s, he wouldn’t need to knock. He kept his door unlocked in case one of the girls wanted to drop in for a snort of booze and he might get some action.”
“And there’s nothing else you can tell me?”
She frowned. “Wait, yeh, one more thing. There was a bulge under this field jacket he was wearing.” She stared at me. “You think maybe that could have been the bottle?”
“I hope we find out,” I said. “Incidentally, I like the way you brightened up this room.”
She smiled. “I painted the furniture myself. It’s got real gold dust in it. With my age and weight, I figure I owe my johns something extra. So I give ’em a touch of class.”
I went to the station from there to learn if the fingerprint had been identified. Bernie shook his head. “We got the answer from the feds and Sacramento this morning. No luck.”
I told him about the Rubio-Stanton joint judgment that the killer must have gone up the back stairs because the clerk matched the front stairs so closely for freeloaders. “We figured the same. He went up the hustler’s stairs.” I didn’t break my sworn oath, but I said, “A John could go up and leave the girl’s room while she was dressing again and then hit Luther.”
“Maybe, but how many of their customers have names?”
“That’s true. Are you hungry? I’ll buy you a lunch.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said.
Chapter Twelve
OVER LOX, BAGELS, AND cream cheese at Plotkin’s Pantry, I told Bernie, “I think the man we’re looking for is white, weighs about a hundred and thirty-five pounds, stands five feet eight and a half inches tall, doesn’t talk much, might even be a mute. He was wearing a field jacket.”
He stared at me. “Where did you learn all that?”
“From bits and pieces. From a number of my informants.”
“Don’t bull me, Johnny-come-lately! We have ten times as many informants as you have.”
“But they don’t always confide in you boys, Bernie. That is all I am going to tell you and all that I know.”
“It’s a big help,” he said scornfully. “There can’t be more than a couple of thousand men that size and weight in town. Have you considered the possibility that a trained interrogator might get more out of this source than you did?”
“I said it was a number of informants, not one.”
“I know you did. But you were lying.”
“That’s my edge,” I admitted. “I don’t have your official clout, so I have to lie. And it often gets me answers from people who wouldn’t tell you the time of day.”
“All right,” he said. “All right! But I still think it’s a dirty way to work.”
“We’re in a dirty business, Bernie. Let’s have another beer.”
He went back to the station from there. I went home. Maybe we had a “how” now, but not a “who” or a “why.” Farini would know about those guardians of the back door. They were his clients. They could be beholden to him, willing to lie for him. And he wouldn’t have needed to use one of his local thugs; he could have hired a professional hit man from out of town.
But pros don’t leave prints behind.
I was working out with the weights when that casual remark of Luther’s came back to me: “I think I know why, but that’s a different story.”
I went in to phone the Baker house. Alan answered. I told him, “I’m working with Lieutenant Vogel on the Luther Barnum murder. I talked with Luther a few days before he died, and he said something that’s puzzling me. Could I come over and talk with you?”
“Not this afternoon. I’m due downtown in twenty minutes. Couldn’t we talk over the phone?”
“Okay. The way I see it, the boys in the department would love to pin this murder on one of Farini’s stooges, but I don’t see it that way.”
“Neither do I. Go on.”
“I guess you know Luther was a cousin of a maid you once employed.”
“I do. Lucy Barnum. A very winsome wench. So?”
“Luther told me that he knew why Lucy stayed with Joan after the divorce, but that, he told me, was a different story.”
“Why wouldn’t she stay with Joan? Joan hired her.”
“Is that the only reason, Alan?”
“It’s the main reason. Lucy had this idea I lusted for her. I’ll admit maybe I did. But I never made a serious pass at her, just a friendly pat on the rump now and then. When I saw it wasn’t getting me anywhere, I quit it. What the hell does that have to do with the murder?”
“Nothing, now that you’ve explained it.”
“Another thing—I know Farini has his stooges. Let me tell you, mister, that Cyrus has his own rough boys. I saw a couple of them at his stone hideaway when Joan and I would visit. I never learned their names. Stock manipulations were the least of that bastard’s crimes.”
“My thought exactly,” I lied. “I think Vogel and his buddies are heading up a dead-end trail.”
“You would be doing me a favor by telling them that. They sure hate Farini, don’t they?”
“So did Luther.”
“I know. And I know why. But our noble guardians of the law were involved in that, too, weren’t they?”
“That’s what Luther claimed. Well, I won’t hold you up any longer. Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime,” he said.
I would call him anytime I wanted more bull. What a liar! I should have taken a course on it from him. He could have earned my five grand.
As a connoisseur of the art, however, I felt that line—“I never learned their names”—was below his usual standard. If he could invent fictitious Allingham thugs, he should have been able to come up with believable fictitious names. They would have kept the trail just as blind. Despite Duane Detterwald’s scorn, I considered myself rather clever at names.
I went back to the weights and my ruminations. I had to keep revising my scenarios. Most cases stay truer to form, the good guys in the white hats, the bad guys in the black hats. All the principals in this case wore black hats.
I had a hazy theory, but it might develop into another errant scenario. It would be wise to let it simmer for a while. I went out for a short jog, came home and swam ten lengths of the pool.
Half an hour later, while I was still searching out the soft spots in my new theory, Corey rang our doorbell. He looked worried.
“You’ve been fired,” I guessed.
“No. But I didn’t work today, and Max Kronen came to the house to lecture me.”
“Come in,” I said. “A lecture from Max should be interesting. We’ll interpret it over a cup of coffee. Somehow, I have never thought of Max as a father figure.”
Over coffee in our cool den, Corey said, “The way he explained it, Baker was tied up with Joe Farini. He said he, too, had been working for Farini, but his ethics wouldn’t permit him to continue once he learned that Farini was involved in a criminal activity.”
I smiled. “Did you ask him what the criminal activity was?”
Corey nodded. “But he explained that it would be unethical for him to reveal privileged information.”
“Did you point out that it would be unethical for him to hide criminal activity that he was aware of from the police?”
“I didn’t think of that. He did tell me he was thinking of taking it to the police.”
“Not in this town, he wouldn’t. They don’t pay enough. And then, I suppose, he went on to lecture you?”
“Oh, yes. Heavy stuff! How a young man starting out in a profession with a long tradition had to be careful to establish a reputation for integrity if he hoped to build a solid clientele.”
“Corey, I hope you didn’t believe any of that bilge.”
“A little. He was very persuasive.”
“The man has switched sides! He was trying to get you off the case. I wonder how much Allingham paid him to switch?”
Corey stared at me. “That son of a bitch! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You’re still in the learning stage. Did he tell you he was going back to Los Angeles?”
Corey nodded.
“Let’s check him out,” I said, and picked up the phone.
Information gave me the number and I dialed it. A woman’s voice said, “Kronen Investigative Services.”
“This is Bertrand Ehrlich,” I told her. “Is Mr. Kronen available?”
“Judge Bertrand Ehrlich?” she asked.
“That’s right. It’s very important that I get in
touch with Mr. Kronen today. Is he in the office?”
“He isn’t, sir. He is out of town on a case.”
“Damn it!” I said. “This is extremely important, and Max is the only person who can help me.”
“I could have him phone you, sir.”
“I won’t be home. I’m not home now. Isn’t there any way I can get in touch with him today?”
“He’ll be at the Dunes Motel in Donegal Bay tonight. He might be there by now. You could try there.” She gave me the phone number.
I thanked her and hung up. I told Corey what she had told me and added, “You tell Baker about Max’s lecture. Don’t tell him what we learned. I have another call to make.”
“Okay. I don’t want to go up against Max, Brock.”
“I do.”
He left for Baker’s house. I phoned Duane Detterwald’s office lumber. No answer. I got him at home. I told him, “That private investigator, Max Kronen, is back in your town. He’s driving a gray Volvo with a San Fernando dealer’s license frame, he’ll be staying at the Dunes Motel tonight. If your friend Mike’s up to any shenanigans, you had better alert him. Kronen is working for Cyrus Allingham now.”
“What has Allingham got against Mike?”
“It’s complicated,” I said. “I’m not too clear on it, myself, but I suspect he’s trying to get something on Alan Baker by tying Mike up with Felicia.”
“I’ll say that’s complicated. Are you sober?”
“Trust me, Duane,” I said. “You are my only fan in Donegal Bay.”
“Okay,” he promised. “I’ll run right down there and talk with Mike.”
Jan came home with that greedy look in her eyes again. Guess who called me this morning and wants me to redecorate her house?”
“Princess Diana? Brooke Shields? Nancy Reagan?”
“Daphne Detterwald.”
“Great!” I said. “I’m going up to Donegal Bay tonight to talk with Duane. We can go together and save on gas.”
“I’ll phone her to see if it’s all right,” she said.
It was. We had an early dinner and took Jan’s car. The Mercedes, she explained patiently to me, would be more reassuring to a client willing to pay Kay Décor prices.
Death in Donegal Bay Page 8
