the Hills Of Homicide (Ss) (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  "Fordyce." She sounded stunned. "He must have found out where I was! How the " Her voice died away.

  "I'm getting out of here. I want no part of killing a guy." "Don't be a fool!" She was angry. -I didn't know who the sap was. I met him at Eddie's. He flashed a roll, and I just figured it was an easy take. How did he locate me?" "What gives, Gracie?" The man's voice was prying. "What's behind this?"

  "Ah, I just was going to take the sap for plenty, that's all. Now what happens?" She stopped talking, then started again. "Bill saw him grab a wallet some guy dropped. This guy didn't return it, so Bill shook him for half of it. He figured on more, and this guy wouldn't stand for it."

  "So you moved in?"

  "Why not? He didn't know who I was or where I was. What I can't figure is how he found out. The guy must be psychic."

  Arthur Fordyce kept his eyes closed and listened. While he listened, his mind was working. He was a fool. An insane fool. How could he ever have conceived the idea of murder? He knew now he could never have done it, never. It wasn't in him to kill or even to plan so cold-bloodedly. He would have backed down at the last moment. He would have called it off. Suddenly, all he wanted was to get out, to get away without trouble. Should he lie still and wait to find out what would happen? Or should he get up and try to bluff it out?

  "What are you going to do now?"

  Gracie Turk did not reply. Minutes ticked by, and then the man turned toward the door. "I'm getting out of here," he said. "I don't want any part of this. I'd go for dumping the guy if he was just drunk, but I want no part of murder."

  -"Who's talking about murder?" Gracie's voice was shrill. "Get out if you're yellow."

  Fordyce opened one eye a crack. Gracie was facing the other way, not looking directly at him. He put his hands on the floor, rolled over, and got to his feet. The man sprang back, falling over a chair, and Gracie turned quickly, her face drawn and vicious.

  Fordyce felt his head spin, but he stood there, looking at them. Gracie Turk stared, swore viciously.

  "Give him his ten," Fordyce told her, "out of the money you took from me."

  "I will like "

  "Give it to him. He won't go for a killing, and you don't dare start anything now because he'd be a witness. For that matter, he would be a witness against me, too."

  "That's right," the man said hastily. "It was the same Latin-looking man he had seen in Eddie's. "Give me the sawbuck and I'll get out of here but fast."

  Gracie's eyes flared, her lips curled. "What do you think you're pulling, anyway? How'd you find me? Who told you?"

  Fordyce forced himself to smile. "What's difficult about finding you? You're not very clever, Gracie." Suddenly, he saw his way clear and said with more emphasis, "Not at all clever."

  The idea was so simple that it might work. He was no murderer, nor was he a thief. He had only been a fool. Now if he could assume the nerve and the indifference it would take, he could get safely out of this.

  "Look, Gracie," he said quietly, "like Chafey, you walked into this by accident. He misunderstood what he saw and passed it on to you, and neither of you had any idea but making a fast buck.

  "Bill" and he knew it sounded improbable " stepped into a trap baited for another guy. You know as well as I do that Bill was never very smart. He was neither as smart nor as lucky as you. You're going to get out of this without tripping.

  "What are you talking about?" Gracie was both angry and puzzled. Something had gone wrong from the start. That was Bill for you. And now the easy money was glimmering. This guy hinted that Bill had blundered into something, which was just like him.

  "The wallet I picked up" Fordyce made his voice sound impatient " was dropped by agreement. We were trying to convince a man who was watching that I was taking a payoff." The story was flimsy, but Gracie would accept a story of double-dealing quicker than any other. "Bill saw it, and I paid off to keep him from crabbing a big deal."I don't believe it!" Her voice was defiant, yet there was uncertainty in her eyes. "Was murdering Bill part of the game?"

  He shrugged it off. "Look Gracie. You knew Bill. He was a big, good-looking guy who couldn't see anything but the way he was going. He thought he had me where the hair was short when he stopped me outside my garage. Once away from that track, I was clean, so he had no hold over me at all. My deal had gone through. We had words, and when he started for me, I hit him. He fell, and his neck hit the bumper. He was a victim of his own foolishness and greed."

  "That's what you say."

  "Why kill him? He could be annoying, but he could prove nothing, and nobody would have believed him. Nor," he added, "would they believe you."

  He picked up his hat. "Give this man the ten spot for his trouble. You keep the rest and charge it up to experience. That's what I'll do."

  The night air was cool on his face when he reached the street. He hesitated, breathing deep, and then walked to his car.

  At the Charlton party, one week later, he was filling Alice's glass at the punch bowl when George Linton clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, Art!" It was the first time, he thought suddenly, that anybody had called him Art. "I got my money back! Remember the money I lost at the track? Fourteen hundred dollars! It came back in the mail, no note, nothing. What do you think of that?"

  "You were lucky." Fordyce grinned at him. "We're all lucky at times."

  "Believe me," Linton confided, "if I'd found that fourteen hundred bucks, I'd never have returned it! I'd just have shoved it in my pocket and forgotten about it." "That," Art Fordyce said sincerely, "is what you think!"

  *

  Author's Note:

  DEAD MAN'S TRAIL

  DEAD MAN'S TRAIL involves the first case of a private detective character I featured in a number of stories (of which three are represented in this collection)--a character I enjoyed creating very much.

  Kip Morgan is an ex-prizefighter struggling to make a new career for himself as a private operator. He's had a lot of contacts with the types generally referred to as the "underworld" throughout his boxing days. He knew how to cope with such people, and so the transition to private detective work was a relatively natural one for him. He also had experience working on waterfronts and on circus roughnecking gangs.

  I fought professionally myself for a while and although the part of boxing I was associated with was usually on the level, there was no shortage of disreputable characters congregating around the fight game. There were a lot of them around who were involved in gambling. Some came around selling all kinds of odd merchandise they picked up or had stolen to sell to others who were always eager to strike a bargain. Also, since many of the gymnasiums in the towns, like the Main Street Gym in Los Angeles, were in rather run-down sections, you came into contact with your share of such people. You knew them. They kind of took it for granted that you were one of them, even though you weren't. You would find that sometimes they talked freely about their activities. I knew quite a few of these less than honorable citizens at one time or another.

  *

  DEAD MAN'S TRAIL

  Kip Morgan sat unhappily over a bourbon and soda in a bar on Sixth Street. How did you find a man who did not want to be found when all you knew about him was that he was thirty-six years old and played a saxophone?

  Especially when some charred remains, tagged with this man's name, had been buried in New Jersey? All you had to go on was a woman's hunch.

  Not quite all. The lady with the hunch was willing to back her belief with fifty dollars a day for expenses and five thousand if the man was found.

  Kipling Morgan had set himself up as a private detective and this was his first case. Five thousand dollars would buy a lot of ham and eggs, and at the moment, the expense money was important.

  "No use to be sentimental about this," he told himself. "This babe has the dough, and she wants you to look. So all right, you're looking. What is there to fuss about?"

  He was conscientious; that was his trouble. He did not want to spend her money without giving so
mething in return. Moreover, he was ambitious. He wanted very much to succeed with his first case, particularly such a case as this. He could use some headlines.

  Kip Morgan ordered another drink and thought about it. He took his battered black hat off his head and ran his fingers through his dark hair. He stared at the glass and swore. He picked up the glass, sipped the drink, and muttered to himself.

  Five days before, sitting in the cubbyhole he called an office, the door opened, and a mink coat walked in with a blonde inside. She was in her late twenties, had a model's walk, and a figure made to wear clothes, but one that would look pretty good without them.

  "You are Kip Morgan?"

  He pulled his feet off the desk and stood up. He was a lean, hard-muscled six feet and over who had been until that moment debating as to whether he should skip lunch and enjoy a good dinner or just save the money.

  "Yes," he said, "what can I do for you?"

  "Do you have any cases you are working on now?" Her eyes were gray, direct, sincere. They were also beautiful.

  "Well, oh He hesitated, and his face flushed, and that made him angry with himself. What could he tell her? That he was broke and she was the first client to walk into his office? It would scarcely inspire confidence.

  "As a matter of fact," she said, the shadow of a smile on her lips, "I am quite aware you have no other cases. I made inquiries and was told you were the youngest, newest, and least occupied private detective in town.'

  He chuckled in spite of himself. "That's not very good advertising, is it?"

  "It is to me. I want an investigator with ambition. I want a fresh viewpoint. I want someone who can devote all his time to the job."

  "That's my number you're calling." He gestured to a chair. "It looks like we might do business. Will you sit down?"

  She sat down and showed a lot of expensive hosiery and beautifully shaped legs. "My name is Mrs. Roger Whitson. I am a widow with one child, a boy.

  "Four years ago, in New Jersey, my husband, who was a payroll messenger, left the bank acting as a guard for a teller named Henry Willard and a fifty-thousand-dollar payroll.

  "They were headed for the plant of what was then called Adco Products. They never arrived. Several days later, hunters found the badly charred body of a man lying beside an overturned and burned car in a gully off a lonely road. The body was identified as that of Henry Willard.

  "The police decided my husband had murdered him and stolen the fifty thousand dollars. They never found him or any clue to his whereabouts."

  "What do you need me for?" Kip asked. "It sounds like a police matter. If they can't find him with all their angles, I doubt if I can."

  "They can't find him because they are looking for the wrong man," Helen Whitson declared. "Mr. Morgan, you may not have much faith in women's intuition. I haven't much myself, but there's one thing of which I am sure. That charred body they found was my husband!"

  "They can identify a body by fingerprints, by dental records."

  "I know all that, but it so happened that the dead man's fingertips were badly burned. Their argument was that he burned them trying to force open the car door. It looked to me like somebody deliberately burned those fingertips! "They found a capped tooth in the dead man's mouth. Henry Willard had a capped tooth, but so did my husband. There were no dental records on either man, and the police disregarded my statement.

  "They discovered fragments of clothing, a key ring, pocketknife, and such things that were positively identified as belonging to Henry Willard. The police were convinced. They would not listen to me because they thought I was covering for my husband.

  "Mr. Morgan, I have a son growing up. He will be asking about his father. I will not have him believing his father a criminal when I know he is not!

  "My husband was murdered by Henry Willard. The reason he has not been found is because his body lies in that grave. I know Henry Willard is alive today and is safe because they have never even looked for him."

  "But," he objected, "you apparently have money. Why should your husband steal, or why should they believe he stole, when you are well-off?"

  "When my husband was alive, we had nothing. We lived on his salary, and I kept house like any young wife. After he was killed, I went to New York and worked. I was doing well, and then my uncle died and left me a wealthy woman. I am prepared to retain you for a year, if it takes that long, or longer. I want to find that man!"

  The information she could give him was very little. Henry Willard would now be thirty-six years old. He played a saxophone with almost professional skill. He neither gambled nor drank. He seemed to have little association with women. He had been two inches over six feet and weighed one seventy.

  He had, in her presence, expressed an interest in California, but that had been over a year before the crime. They sat for hours, and Kip questioned her. He started her talking about her life with her husband, about the parties they had, the picnics. Several times, Henry Willard had been along. She had seen him many times at the bank. For over a year, he had, at the request of the company, carried the payroll of Adco Products.

  He had never played golf or tennis. He expressed a dislike for horses, and Helen recalled during that long session that he disliked dogs, also.

  "He must be a crook" Kip Morgan smiled "if he didn't like dogs!"

  "I know he was!" Helen stated. She described his preferences for food, the way he walked, and suddenly she recalled, "There's something! He read Variety! I've seen him with it several times!"

  Kip Morgan noted it and went on. The man had black hair. Birthmarks? Yes, seen when swimming at the club. A sort of mole, the size of a quarter, on his right shoulder blade.

  The question was how to find a man thirty-six years old who played the saxophone, even if he did have a birthmark? The only real clue was the link between Variety and the saxophone. He played with "almost" professional skill. Who added that "almost," and why not just professional skill?

  DEAD MAN'S TRAILin "How about a picture? There must have been one in the papers at the time?"

  "No, there wasn't. They couldn't find any pictures of him at the time. Not even in his belongings. But I do have a snapshot. He's one of a group at the club. As I recall, he did not want to be in the picture, but one of the girls pulled him into it."

  Kip studied the picture. The man was well muscled, very well muscled. He looked fit as could be, and that did not fit with a bank job or with a man who played neither tennis nor golf. One who apparently went in for no sports but occasional swimming.

  "How about his belongings? Were they called for?" She shook her head. "No, he had no relatives." "Leave any money? In the bank, I mean?"

  "Only about a thousand dollars. When I think of it, that's funny, too, because he was quite a good businessman and never spent very much. He lived very simply and rarely went out."

  Through a friend in the musician's union, Kip tried to trace him down and he came to a dead end. Kip haunted nightclubs and theaters, listened to gossip, worried at the problem like a dog over a bone.

  "You know what I think?" he told Helen Whitson the next time he saw her. "I've a hunch this Willard was a smart cookie. No relatives showed up, and that's unusual. No pictures in his stuff. No clues to his past. Aside from an occasional reference to Los Angeles, he never mentioned any place he had been or where he came from. "I think he planned this from the start. I think he did a very smart thing. I think he stepped out of his own personality for the five years you knew him, or knew of him. I think he deliberately worked into that job at the bank, waited for the right moment, then killed your husband and returned to his former life with the fifty thousand dollars!"

  He turned that over in his mind in the bar on Sixth Street. The more he considered it, the better he liked it, but if such was the case, he was bucking a stacked deck. He would be well covered. He was not a drinking man, but he was almost finished with his second drink when the idea came to him. He went to the telephone and called Helen Whitson.
/>
  A half hour later, they sat across the table from each other. "I've had a hunch. You have hunches, and so can I. -Listen to this." He leaned across the table. "This guy Willard is covered, see? He's covered like a blanket. He's had four years and fifty thousand dollars to work with. He's supposed to be dead. If my guess is right, all that personality at the bank was assumed. He stepped out of himself and his natural surroundings long enough to steal fifty grand; then he stepped right back into his old life. He will be harder to locate than a field mouse in five hundred acres of cornfield. We've got just one chance. His mind." "I don't understand."

  "It's like this. He's covered, see? The perfect crime. But no man who has committed a crime, a major crime, is ever sure he's safe. There is always a little doubt, a little fear. He may have overlooked something; somebody might recognize him.

  "That's where he's vulnerable. In his mind. We can't find him, so we'll make him come to us!"

  She shook her head doubtfully. "How can we possibly do that?"

  "How?" He grinned and sat back in his chair. "We'll advertise!"

  "Advertise? Are you insane?"

  Kip was smiling. "We'll run ads in the Times and the Examiner. If he's in Los Angeles, hell see them. Take my word for it, it'll scare the blazes out of him. We'll run an ad inviting him to come to a certain hotel to learn something of interest.

  "He will be shocked. He's been thinking he is safe. Still, under that confidence is a little haunting fear. This ad will bring all that fear to the surface. With the fifty thousand he had to start with, he's probably become an important man. He could be big stuff now.

  "All right, suppose he sees that ad? He will know somebody knows Willard is alive. Don't you see? That was his biggest protection, the fact that everybody believed Henry Willard to be dead. He'll be frightened; he will also becurious. Who can it be? What do they know? Are the police closing in? Or is this blackmail?"

  Helen was excited. "It's crazy! Absolutely crazy! But I believe it will work!"

  "He won't dare stay away. He will be shocked to the roots of his being. His own anxiety will be our biggest help. Hell try, discreetly, to find out who ran that advertisement. He'll try to find out who has that particular room in the hotel. Finally, he will send someone, on some pretext, to find out who or what awaits him. In any event, we'll have jarred him loose. Hell be scared, and he'll be forced by his own worry to do something. Once he begins, we can locate him. He won't have the iron will it would take to sit tight and sweat it out."