"The chance of a death-time, Harry."
The thought sobered him. "Yeah. That, too."
"Why would Leo Spillman put it in your hands?"
"Kitty did. I'm the only one she trusts."
He must have noticed my dubious look because he added: "That may sound funny to you, but it's a fact. I love Kitty, and she knows it. She says if I can pull this out she might even come back to me."
His voice rose, trying to make it truer.
I could hear soft rapid nurse-footsteps approaching in the hall.
"Kitty told me she used to live here in town."
"That's right, Kitty was a local girl. Matter of fact, we had our first honeymoon in the Breakwater Hotel."
His eyes rolled under his bandages.
"What was her maiden name?"
"Sekjar," he said. "Her old man was some kind of Polack. So's her mother. She hated my guts for robbing the cradle, she called it.
The head nurse opened the door and stuck her head in. "That's enough now. You said you'd keep it quiet."
"Harry got a little excited."
"We can't have that."
She opened the door wide. "Out now."
"Are you with me, Archer?"
Harry said from the bed. "You know what I mean."
I wasn't with him and I wasn't against him. I made a circle with my thumb and forefinger and showed it to him in a gesture of encouragement.
22
IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD of Mercy Hospital there were several satellite treatment centers and clinics, and Dr Sylvester's clinic was one of them. It was smaller and less prosperous-looking than most of its neighbors. A visibly threadbare path crossed the rug in the lobby from the front door to the reception desk. Several doctors and their specialists, headed by George Sylvester, Internal Medicine, were listed on a board beside the door.
The girl behind the desk told me that Dr Sylvester was still out to lunch. He had a free half-hour scheduled, if I cared to wait.
I gave her my name and sat down among the waiting patients. After a while I began to feel like one of them. The pink champagne, or the lady I had drunk it with, had left me with a dull headache. Other parts of my anatomy began to nag. By the time Dr Sylvester appeared, I was just about ready to break down and tell him my symptoms.
He looked as though he had symptoms of his own, probably hangover symptoms. He was clearly not glad to see me. But he gave me his hand and a professional smile, and escorted me past his formidable-looking secretary into his consulting room.
He changed into the white coat. I glanced at the diplomas and certificates on the paneled walls. Sylvester had trained in good schools and hospitals, and passed his Boards. He had at least the background of a responsible doctor. It was the foreground that worried me.
"What can I do for you, Archer? You look tired, by the way."
"That's because I am tired."
"Then take the weight off your feet." He indicated a chair at the end of his desk, and sat down himself. "I only have a few minutes, so let's get with it, boy."
The sudden camaraderie was forced. Behind it he was watching me like a poker player.
"I found out who your patient Ketchel is."
He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
"He's a Vegas casino owner," I said, "with a very extensive background in the rackets. His actual name is Leo Spillman."
Sylvester was not surprised. He said smoothly. "It fits in with our records. I checked them this morning. He gave his address as the Scorpion Club in Las Vegas."
"It's too bad you couldn't remember that last night when I could have used it."
"I can't remember everything."
"Try your memory on this one. Did you introduce Leo Spillman to Roy Fablon?"
"I don't remember."
"You know whether you did or not, doctor."
"You can't talk to me like that."
"Answer my question," I said. "If you won't, I'll find somebody who will."
His face slanted forward in thought. It looked both precarious and threatening, like a piece of rock poised on the edge of a cliff: "Why would Marietta Fablon apply to you for money?" I said.
"I'm an old friend. Who else should she go to?"
"Are you sure she wasn't trying to blackmail you, old friend?"
He looked around his office as though it was a kind of public cage. The lines bracketing his mouth were deep and cruel, like self-inflicted scars.
"What are you trying to cover up, doctor?"
After a thinking pause, he said: "The fact that I'm a god-dam fool."
He glanced sharply into my eyes. "Can you keep a secret?"
"Not if it involves a crime."
"What crime?"
He spread out his large hands palms up on the desk. "There hasn't been any crime."
"Then why are you so worried?"
"This town is a hotbed of rumors, as I told you last night. If the word gets out about Leo Spillman and me, I'm dead."
His hands curled up very slowly, like two starfish. "I'm moribund now, if you want the truth. There are too damn many doctors in this town. And I've had financial losses."
"Gambling losses?"
He was startled. "Where did you dig that up?"
He pounded the desk with his curled hands, not threateningly, more like someone trying to get out. He wasn't a subtle man, and his anxiety had blunted him even more. "What are you trying to do to me?"
"You know what I'm trying to do - get at the facts about this man Martel, and incidentally clear up any doubts about what happened to Fablon. The two things are connected by way of Spillman, possibly in other ways. When Spillman left town, two days after Fablon's death, he took Martel with him. Did you know that?"
He looked at me in a confused way. "Are we talking about seven years ago?"
"That's right. You're involved in all this because you brought Spillman here."
"I didn't bring him. He invited himself. As a matter of fact it was his woman's - his wife's idea. Her idea of heaven was two weeks at the Tennis Club."
His mouth lifted on one side showing the edges of his teeth.
"Did you owe Spillman money?"
"Did I not."
His eyes were bleak, looking past me at his life. "If I give you straight answers to some of these questions, what use do you intend to make of them?"
"I'll keep the facts to myself, so far as I can. A client once told me he could drop a secret into me and never hear it hit bottom. You're not my client, but I'll do what I can to protect your bella figura."
"I'll take you at your word," he said. "Don't get the idea that I'm one of those compulsive gamblers. It's true I'm in the market, it's the only way to outwit these confiscatory taxes nowadays - but I'm not the Vegas type of gambler. I stay away from Vegas."
"And that's why you never met Leo Spillman."
"I admit I went there in the past. The last time I went to Vegas I was in a bad mood, a destructive mood. I didn't care what happened. My wife-" He compressed his lips.
"Go on."
He said haltingly: "I was just going to say my wife wasn't with me."
"I thought you were going to say she was having an affair with another man."
His face twisted in pain. "Good Lord, did she tell you that?"
"No. It doesn't matter how I found out."
"Do you know who the other man was?" he said.
"Roy Fablon. It gave you a reason for wanting him dead."
"Is that an accusation?"
"I just thought I'd mention it, doctor."
"Thanks very much. You throw some wicked curves."
"Life does, anyway. What happened your last time in Vegas?"
"Plenty. First I lost a few hundred on the tables. Instead of cutting my losses, I got mad and plunged. Before I was through I'd exhausted my credit - it still hasn't recovered completely and I owed Leo Spillman nearly twenty thousand.
"He called me into the office to talk about it. I told him I could raise ten at mos
t, he'd have to wait for the rest. He blew a gasket and called me a cheat and a four-flusher, and a good many other names. He would have attacked me physically, I think, if the woman hadn't restrained him."
"Was Kitty there?"
"Yes. She was interested in me because she'd found out that I came from here. She reminded Spillman that it was a felony for him to use his fists. Apparently he was an ex-professional boxer. But he was in terrible shape, and I think I could have taken him."
Sylvester caressed his fist. "I did some boxing in college."
"It's just as well you didn't try. Very few amateurs ever take a pro."
"But he was a sick man, physically and emotionally sick."
"What was the matter with him?"
"I could see that one of his optic nerves was jumping. After he calmed down a bit, I persuaded him to let me look into his eyes and take his blood pressure. I had the equipment in my car. That may seem like a strange thing to do, under the circumstances, but I was concerned about him as a doctor. With good reason. He had a bad case of hypertension, and his blood pressure was up in the danger zone. It turned out that he'd never been to a doctor, never had a checkup. He thought all that was for sissies.
"At first he thought I was trying to frighten him. But with the woman's help I got the fact across to him, that he was in danger of a stroke. So he suggested a deal. I was to rake up ten thousand in cash, treat his hypertension, and get the two of them a cottage at the Tennis Club. I imagine it was the weirdest deal in history."
"I don't know. Spillman once won a man's wife in a crap game."
"So he told me. He's full of little anecdotes. You can imagine how I felt injecting a man like that into my club. But I had no choice, and he was willing to pay nearly ten thousand dollars."
"It didn't cost him anything."
"It cost him ten thousand less the value of my services."
"Not if you paid him the other ten thousand in cash. He'd save more than enough in taxes to make up the difference."
"You think he was dodging taxes?"
"I'm sure of it. They're doing it all the time in Vegas. The money they hold back is known as `black money,' and that's a good name for it. It runs into the millions, and it's used to finance about half of the illegal enterprises in the country, from Cosa Nostra on down."
Sylvester said in a chilly voice: "I couldn't be held responsible, could I?"
"Morally, you could. Legally, I don't know. If everybody who collaborated with organized crime was held responsible, half the boobs in the country would be in jail. Unfortunately that won't happen. We treat the crime capital of the United States as if it was a second Disneyland, smelling like roses, a great place to take the family or hold a convention."
I stopped myself. I was slightly hipped on the subject of Vegas, partly because the criminal cases I handled in California so often led there. As this one was doing, now. I said: "Did you know that Martel left town with Spillman seven years ago?"
"I heard you tell me. I didn't understand what you meant."
"He was a student at the local college, working part-time as a flunky at the Tennis Club."
"Martel was?"
"In those days he called himself Feliz Cervantes. He met Ginny Fablon, or at least saw her, at a gathering of French students, and fell for her. He may have taken the job at the club so he could see her more often. He ran into Spillman there."
Sylvester was listening closely. He was quiet and subdued, as if the building might collapse in ruins around him if he moved. "How do you know all this?"
"Part of it's speculation. Most of it isn't, But I've got to talk to Leo Spillman, and I want your help in reaching him. Have you seen him recently?"
"Not in seven years. He never came back here. I didn't urge him to, either. Apart from my professional contact with him, I did my best to avoid him. I never invited him to my house, for instance."
Sylvester was trying to rescue his pride. But I suspected it had been permanently lost, within the past half-hour, in this room.
23
THROUGH THE DOOR behind me I heard the telephone ring in Sylvester's outer office. About twenty seconds later the telephone on his desk gave out a subdued echo of the ring. He picked it up and said impatiently: "What is it, Mrs. Loftin?"
The secretary's voice came to me in stereo, partly through the telephone and partly through the door. It was just loud enough for me to hear what she said: "Virginia Fablon wants to talk to you. She's in a state. Shall I put her on?"
"Hold it," Sylvester said. "I'll come out there."
He excused himself and went out, shutting the door emphatically behind him. Refusing to take the hint, I followed him into the outer office. He was standing over the secretary's desk, pressing her telephone to the side of his head like a surgical device which held his face together.
"Where are you?" he was saying. He interrupted himself to bark at me: "Give me some privacy, can't you?"
"Please step out into the hall," Mrs. Loftin said. "The doctor is advising an emergency patient."
"What's the emergency?"
"I can't discuss it. Please step outside, won't you?"
Mrs. Loftin was a large woman with a square determined face. She advanced on me, ready to use physical force.
I retreated into the hallway. She closed the door. I leaned my ear against it and heard Sylvester say: "What makes you think he's dying?"
Then: "I see.. Yes, I'll come right away. Don't panic."
A few seconds later Sylvester emerged from the office in such a blind rush that he almost knocked me over. He was carrying a medical bag and still wearing his white coat. The prosthetic telephone was no longer holding his face together.
I walked beside him toward the front door of the clinic. "Let me drive you."
"No."
"Has Martel been hurt?"
"I prefer not to discuss it. He insists on privacy."
"I'm private. Let me drive you."
Sylvester shook his head. But he paused on the terrace above the parking lot and stood blinking in the sun for a moment.
"What's the matter with him?' I said.
"He was shot."
"That puts him in the public domain, and you know it. My car's over here."
I took him by the elbow and propelled him toward the curb.
He offered no resistance to me. His movements were slightly mechanical.
I said as I started the car: "Where are they, doctor?"
"In Los Angeles. If you can get onto the San Diego Freeway - they have a house in Brentwood."
"They have another house?"
"Apparently. I took down the address."
It was on Sabado Avenue, a tree-lined street of large Spanish houses built some time in the twenties. It was one of those disappearing enclaves where, in a different mood from mine, you could feel the sunlit peace of prewar Los Angeles. Sabado Avenue had a Not a Through Street sign at its entrance.
The house we were looking for was the largest and most elaborate on the long block. Its walled and fountained grounds remind me a little of Forest Lawn. So did the girl who answered the front door. I would hardly have recognized Ginny, she was so drawn around the mouth and swollen around the eyes.
She started to cry again into the front of Sylvester's white coat. He patted her shuddering back with his free hand.
"Where is he, Virginia?"
"He went away. I had to go next door to phone you. Our phone isn't connected yet."
Her sentences were broken up by hiccuping sobs. "He took the car and drove away."
"How long ago?"
"I don't know. I've lost track of time. It was right after I phoned you."
"That makes it less than an hour," I said. "Is your husband badly hurt?"
She nodded, still clinging to Sylvester. "I'm afraid he's bleeding internally. He was shot in the stomach."
"When?"
"An hour or so ago. I don't know exactly what time. The people who rented the house to us didn't leave any clock
s. I was taking a siesta we were up most of the night - and somebody rang the doorbell. My husband answered it. I heard the shot, and I ran down here and found him sitting on the floor."
She looked down at her feet. Around them on the parquetry were rusty spots that looked like drying blood.
"Did you see who fired the shot?"
"I didn't actually see him. I heard the car drive away. My husband ' She kept repeating the phrase as if it might help him and her marriage to survive.
Sylvester broke in: "We can't keep her standing here while we cross-question her. One of us ought to call the police."
"You should have called them before you left your office."
Ginny seemed to think I was blaming her. "My husband wouldn't let me. He said it would mean the end of everything."
Her heavy look swung from side to side, as if the end of everything was upon her.
Sylvester quieted her against his shoulder. Slowly and gently he walked her into the house. I went next door. A stout executive type in a black alpaca sweater was standing outside on his front lawn, looking helpless and resentful. He owned a house on Sabado Avenue, and this was supposed to guarantee a quiet life.
"What do you want?"
"The use of your phone. There's been a shooting."
"Is that what the noise was?"
"You heard the gun?"
"I thought it was a backfire at the time."
"Did you see the car?"
"I saw a black Rolls drive away. Or maybe it was a Bentley. But that was some time later."
This wasn't much help. I asked him to show me a telephone. He took me in through the back door to the kitchen. It was one of those space age kitchens, all gleaming metal and control panels, ready to go into lunar orbit. The man handed me a telephone and left the room, as if to avoid finding out something that might disturb him.
Within a few minutes a squad car arrived, followed closely by a Homicide Captain named Perlberg. Not long after that we located Martel's Bentley. It hadn't gone far.
Its gleaming nose was jammed against the metal safety barrier at the dead end of Sabado Avenue. Beyond the barrier the loose ground sloped away to the edge of a bluff which overlooked the Pacific.
The Bentley's engine was still running. Martel's chin rested on the steering wheel. The dead eyes in his yellow face were peering out into the blue ocean of air.
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