by T. N. Robb
"He had me doin' surveillance, tail jobs, back-up gigs like—like that night." He looked down a moment, a thought taking form. "Which reminds me..." He broke off in midstream as the boothside juke segued into Dinah Shore's "Lavender Blue," a saccharine piece of pop horror guaranteed to turn the stomach of any red-blooded rock and roller. He stared at the jukebox. "What the hell. Now I didn't—"
He slammed the box with his fist, then turned to the white-uniformed waitress passing by in her tractor-tread orthopaedics. "Hey, I punched my last nickel in on 'Susie Q,' and 'Race with the Devil,' and this sumbitch's playing Dinah Shore, for chrissake."
The waitress tilted her four-story bouffant and smiled at Cleary. "Thank God for small favors."
She passed on, leaving a visibly disturbed Betts cringing as the song continued dripping out of the errant juke. Then, burying his second burger beneath a mound of catsup, relish, onions, and pickles, he made a futile attempt to regain his prior train of thought.
"Like I was saying, if you plan on going after these guys you're gonna need...''
His eyes slid over to the juke as Dinah Shore sang: "If your dilly dilly heart feels a dilly dilly way, and if you answer 'yes'..."
He smacked the box again. "Damn, I hate that song." Looking back to Cleary, he continued, "... someone with the proper expertise and savvy who can—for crying out loud, man. I mean—"
He pushed the reject button again and again to no avail as Dinah sang on: "... on a dilly dilly day I'll be wed in a dilly dilly dress, ah, lavender blue, dilly, dilly..."
"...who can work the streets without..." Distracted again, he clenched his fist. "... attracting a lot of attention."
"If you were king, dilly dilly I'd be the queen, and a dilly dilly..."
Crazed by Dinah's relentless warbling, Betts wheeled about, cracked his fist down on the top of the box, ripping the entire unit off its wall mount. The music was finally silenced, and every head in the restaurant was turned toward them.
Stunned, Betts stared at his handiwork for a moment, then, glancing guardedly at Cleary, he attempted lamely to cover up the evidence with a couple of dirty napkins and plates.
"You mean someone like yourself? Is that the idea?" Cleary asked.
"Yeah. More or less."
Cleary looked out the window and saw the taxi pulling into the parking lot. He slid out of the booth, took a good look at the tattooed rockabilly rebel, who stared defiantly back at him over the remains of the meal and the mutilated jukebox. "I'll see you around, Johnny."
Betts erupted out of the booth, almost knocking the table over, and grabbed Cleary's arm. "Listen, your brother didn't hire me just for my social connections, Cleary. I can handle anything from .38s to full automatics, break and enter with the best of 'em, and hot-wire a car in under twenty seconds."
"College man, huh?"
"I'm as hot to nail these sons of bitches as you are, man."
Cleary looked at him another moment. "Stay out of it, kid. For your good, and mine." He dropped a couple of dollars on the table to cover the cost of Betts's meal, turned and headed out the door to the waiting taxi.
The taxi cruised down Sunset, headed to Grand. Another hour and the city would be awakening to the dawn. But now, in the early morning lull, the city looked uninhabited, like a scene from that movie a couple years back, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Cleary thought about an old cliché about criminals: They always return to the scene of the crime. There'd been a lot of times he had wished that was really true, but now, ironically, that was just what he was doing. Returning to pick up his car.
He had a feeling it would be wise to be prepared with an alibi in case anyone looking into the break-in got curious about the Eldorado across the street from the federal building. He asked the driver, a beefy New York transplant sporting a Brooklyn Dodgers cap, to pull into a gas station.
He placed a deposit on a five-gallon can and filled it with high-octane ethanol. His story was he had run out of gas earlier, and wound up in a bar until he had gotten around to retrieving the Eldorado.
As they pulled out of the gas station, Cleary leaned forward and asked the driver if there was anyplace nearby where he could pick up a bottle. "At this hour?" the driver asked, glancing back. "You should have thought of that a few hours ago."
After a moment, the driver looked at him through his rearview mirror, then reached under the seat. "If you want a short one, I can handle that for you, pal." He held up a paper bag with the top of a pint bottle sticking out the top. "There's only a couple swallows left, and I'd just as soon get rid of it."
Cleary smiled at his luck. "That's all I need," he said, reaching for the bottle. "You're a long way from home for a Dodger fan. Think they'll beat the Yankees in the Series?" he asked, taking a slug of the whiskey.
"As long as Newcombe's in there, I say they'll take it in five games. If Newcombe gets hurt, it'll take seven."
"Might be their turn to lose this year."
"If that happens, the bums oughta get their butts kicked out of the park."
As the driver talked on about the upcoming Series, Cleary poured the last of the booze into his palm and slapped it on himself like after-shave.
The taxi turned on Grand, and they were within a block of the federal building when Cleary saw just what he'd suspected. A break-in of a federal facility had warranted more than a brief B&E report. Three patrol cars were in sight, two across the street near the alley, and another half a block down from his own. Besides that, he saw a couple of unmarked cars, probably feds. He gazed at the Eldorado, black, sleek, a lone whale beached on concrete, and suspicious as hell. Swell. He needed this.
The boys probably didn't have much yet, besides the description of the jazzed-up Mercury. Getting out of the taxi and climbing into the Caddy at this hour was going to attract attention. No doubt about it. The taxi slowed.
"This where you want, mister?"
Cleary wavered now that he was here. "Listen, buddy, I don't care to talk to these cops. Got a stack of unpaid tickets in a drawer back at home. These guys will lock me up and throw away the key."
"You'll get another one if you don't move that car by eight." When Cleary didn't answer, he shrugged. "So, where you want me to take you and the gas can?"
He was about to give him his St. Ives address when he spotted a familiar face on the street. Dan Dibble was standing under a streetlight talking with a couple of patrolmen.
"So where do we go, mister?"
"Around the corner."
"'Around the corner'," he repeated, as if he thought Cleary had a few loose screws.
"Right. Some problem with that?"
"Nope. You're paying." He shrugged. "Suit yourself, pal."
He paid the driver, thanked him for the drink, and stepped out with the gas can. He knew he would have to pass Dibble and the others to get to the Eldorado, and that was exactly what he wanted. Dibble knew the Eldorado, and there was no way he would have passed it without noticing it.
Cleary would confront him right here and now.
The big Irishman spotted him from half a block away. "You up early, Cleary? Or is it out late?"
"You got it." The patrolmen and Dibble scrutinized him. "What's going on here?" he asked, slurring his voice.
"We had a couple of unexpected late-night visitors at the federal building a couple of hours ago. And what might you be doing in the neighborhood?"
Cleary placed the gas can on the sidewalk, took out a pack of Lucky Strikes, and tapped one out. "Ran out of gas earlier crossing town, then got hung up at Junior's." The nightclub was less than a mile away and always packed, so it would be hard to prove he wasn't there.
Dibble's eyes widened as Cleary, wobbling slightly, pulled out his lighter. "Hey, Jack, hold it. Lemme move the can for chrissake."
"Oh. Yeah. Jesus, I'm getting forgetful."
Dibble pushed the can away with his foot, and Cleary flicked his lighter a couple of times. "You sure you can drive home?"
"Well, I am a little loose, but I don't want my car towed."
"Tell you what. I'll drive you back, and have a patrol car pick me up."
Cleary didn't like the idea, but he didn't have much choice. He played a good drunk, all right. Too good. The ironies of the evening were piling up like kids at a Presley concert.
They walked over to the car. Cleary picked up the gas can, but a visibly nervous Dibble said, "Look, you sit down and let me pour the gas."
Cleary gave a drunken salute and plopped down on the curb. Suddenly he was worried about the gas. He couldn't remember when he had filled up last. Suppose the stuff just overflowed? He could see it now: Dibble suspicious, Cleary stammering through some half-assed excuse, the feds strolling over....
But a few moments later, Dibble was behind the wheel, en route to Cleary's. "I'm ready to call it a night. Started at nine this morning," Dibble said, stifling a yawn.
"What you doing at a B&E?" Cleary said, hanging his head at a properly soused tilt.
"I was on my way home when I was called into a chase. Some geared-up greaser in a hopped-up '49 Merc. Never got close to him myself."
"What was taken, you know?"
"Maybe files. They'll be checking in the morning. Could be an inside job of some sort, or maybe somebody was cleaning house on some incriminating evidence."
Incriminating: Hey yeah, Dibble, you got that right.
Cleary noticed him glance down at the gauge and his heart skipped a beat. "Say, Jack, according to this, you've got three-quarters of a tank of gas."
Damn. "Hit it with your hand. That needle keeps sticking."
Dibble brought his fist down hard against the glass. Too hard, like he was maybe imagining it was someone's head. "Nope. It's stuck."
"That damn gauge has been stuck on three-quarters for a week. That's part of the problem. I'm never sure when I'm gonna run out."
Dibble frowned at him, quiet a moment. "If I were you, I'd get that fixed real fast. Never know where you might run out next time."
NINE
At the Beach
Standing back from the shore under the shade of a palm tree, Cleary gazed out at the Channel Islands, visible far to the north against the lapis sky. It was hot and so still, he could hear the waves as they broke against the sand. The light made everything glisten and deepened the colors, almost as if the sea, the beach, and sky were covered with a light coat of varnish.
He shifted his gaze to the figure of a woman running through the sun-dappled ebb tide along Trancas Beach. She seemed illusory as she moved through the shimmering waves of heat that rose off the sand.
Then, as she drew closer and slowed to a walk, Cleary recognized her.
Poured into a one-piece black swimsuit, her damp auburn hair trembling over a glistening tan, Lana Williams was the loveliest sight he had seen in he didn't know how long.
Cleary, his eyes shaded by sunglasses, nodded as she approached. "Hi, hope I'm not interrupting anything important."
She smiled and caught her hair at the back of her neck with her hand. "Well, Mr. Cleary. I didn't expect to see you again. What brings you out to the beach?"
"It's ninety-eight degrees in town." Her face burned through to the back of his brain.
"It's not much better out here. Come on up."
She trotted up the short flight of stairs to the deck, offering Cleary a view of her from the back—the long curve of her spine, terrific legs, an incredible ass. She whisked a fresh towel from a chair and began patting herself dry. She caught his eye, smiled. "Any other news from town, Mr. Cleary? Other than the weather."
Cleary leaned against the railing, hands in his pockets. "If you mean your husband's file, the answer's no. I haven't been able to track it down yet." Lana accepted this bit of news with apparent equanimity. Then, slipping into a short beach robe, she began brushing her hair. Cleary watched a swell gathering momentum, rising, then crashing as it rolled toward shore.
"Mr. Cleary, you don't seem like the kind of man who would drive all this way just to look at the waves."
"You're right." He took off his sunglasses. "That job offer. Is it still open?"
Lana ran the brush through her hair one more time, then patted it against her palm as she looked at him. "You bet. Have you had lunch yet?"
Cleary shook his head.
"Well, you're invited." She turned to a maid setting a table on the deck. "Habran dos personas para la comida, Teresa."
She looked pensively at Cleary. "What changed your mind about looking into Buddy's murder?"
"Let's just say I've developed a personal interest in the matter," he said, slipping his sunglasses back on.
The answer was intentionally vague, but she didn't seem to notice. Or if she did, she decided not to press for clarification. They walked over to the table and sat down. Lana slipped on her own sunglasses. "Shrimp cocktail for lunch, hope that's okay."
"Sounds good."
Hell, he would have eaten raw fish if it meant he could sit here and look at her. The soft curves of her shoulders were pale pink from the sun, like the inside of a shell. A shadow shot down from her collarbone, narrowing at her cleavage, creating a perfect triangle against her white, creamy skin. She flicked her hair from her shoulders.
"How about a glass of wine? Or would you like something with a little more punch?"
"How about just some punch. I don't like to drink while I'm working."
She gave him an odd look, as if she thought he was joking. Cleary wondered if Nick had said something to her about his brother's drinking. Probably not. Nick hadn't been one to mix private matters with business.
Lane asked Teresa for a glass of wine and a soft drink, and a couple of minutes later the drinks and two large plates of shrimp cocktail were set in front of them. The sun warmed Cleary's back and, behind it, came the faintest breeze, a breath of air, as if someone were blowing softly against his neck. "You spend much time out here?" he asked her.
"Not this summer. No." She speared a piece of shrimp, washed it down with a sip of wine. "Buddy said he was redecorating the place for me. As a surprise, see. I was supposed to stay away until it was done. Things kept getting delayed, he said, and every time I asked it was always going to be another week. Finally I got suspicious one day, and drove out here." She took another bite of her lunch, and Cleary waited for her to continue. "I got here and found Buddy's car parked next to a pink Cadillac. It didn't look like the kind of car a construction worker would be driving, so I parked down the road and walked back along the beach. I spotted Buddy sitting on the deck with a woman."
"What'd you do?"
"Oh, contemplated all the usual things: racing up there and making a scene, throwing rocks at them, whatever." She shrugged. "But I've never been one for making a scene, so I left before he saw me."
"That was when you hired Nick?"
"I waited another week, until Buddy told me there would be more delays at the beachhouse."
"Why didn't you just confront him, and get it out in the open?"
"That would have been fine with some men, but not with Buddy. I was feeling a gulf between us, and I didn't want to see our marriage slowly deteriorate into divorce. I knew that if I told I'd seen him with a woman, he could have easily made up some story about it being someone in the record business he was entertaining, and there was nothing to it. I wanted to present him with the facts, then give him a chance to patch things up."
Cleary sipped at his ginger ale, wondering why Williams—why any man—would double-time a looker like Lana. He had been in an alcoholic haze when Nick had pointed out Williams at the Crescendo Club, but not so drunk that he hadn't noticed that Williams was sure lacking in the looks department. He was the sort of man who no doubt had bought his women, and money was probably the main reason Lana had married him.
"Were you in love with him?"
She set her wineglass down, and smiled. "It wasn't a great passionate affair, if that's what you're wondering. But, I'm a woman who believes
that once you make up your mind and get yourself hitched, you should keep the knot tied. So yeah, in my way I loved him."
He nodded without commenting.
"I suppose you think that's an old-fashioned idea. But that's the way I feel." She tipped her sunglasses back into her hair. "You married, Mr. Cleary?"
"Separated, and definitely headed for a divorce."
"Did you make any effort to reconcile?"
Cleary wasn't here to talk about his personal life. He didn't see any reason to spill his guts about drinking. Or about anything else, for that matter.
"I didn't hire anyone to spy on her, if that's what you mean."
"I wasn't implying that you did." She seemed embarrassed now. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry, Mr. Cleary," she said with a serious look.
He shrugged. "Call me Jack, all right?"
They finished their lunch, saying little of consequence, each one taking care not to trespass into the mine fields of the other's past. Yet, Cleary knew that if he was going to work for Lana, he needed to penetrate into her relationship with Buddy. The problem, of course, was how to do it without raising her suspicions that he had reasons of his own for taking this case. He didn't see any need at this point for her to know that Nick's death was related to the Williams case.
"Would you like any dessert, Jack?"
"No thanks. Could I see the house?"
"Sure. C'mon, I'll give you the tour."
They entered the living room through a sliding glass door. In fact, the entire wall that faced the ocean was glass. There was a bar along one wall and a decor that was definitely not castoffs from the other house. The pine floor shone, and the air smelled clean and new, just like everything in the room.
Clean, new, and expensive. "What got decorated? This place looks fine just like it is."
"Oh, Buddy kept his word. This is all new."
To the tune of how much? he wondered.
"By the way, I'm going to need a list of friends and associates, people who saw your husband on a regular basis." He paused a moment. "That includes the names of the women who Buddy was seeing."
