Cheap as Beasts

by Jon Wilson

  “The letter. The one you say you got from Troyes, pronounced Troyes. Didn’t you call me about a letter you say you received from France?”

  “I didn’t call you about that letter!”

  “Oh, my mistake. How may I help you?”

  She took another moment. “You talk fast.”

  I nearly dropped the telephone receiver. Actually, I nearly picked up the entire set and tossed it across the room. Fortunately, my other hand was busy with a cigarette. My lips shared that burden a moment, readying myself for a final assault. I spoke slowly, with a measured tone. “Maybe we should start again. This is Declan Colette. I’m a private investigator. I’m returning the call of Miss Ramona Wyman.”

  Her own voice was softer, more restrained. “Well, you needn’t be rude about it.”

  “You’re right, of course. I needn’t. How may I help you?”

  “I actually think it’s a rather nice name, actually.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There’s an author called Colette. Did you know?”

  “Gigi.”

  “No, I think it’s just Colette. One name. Listen, can I make an appointment to see you? It’s very important.”

  I sighed loudly, hoping she didn’t hear that time. It was just such an overwhelming relief. I almost managed to overlook the fact that it threatened me with the prospect of being stuck in the same room with her. Of course, there was always the possibility of giving her that kick.

  “Certainly,” I said. “When would you like to come by? I have some time tomorrow, both morning and afternoon.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly come there. Couldn’t you come here? Or, I suppose, we could meet somewhere. Yes, actually that’s best. We could meet somewhere. Say the park? No, that’s too public. How about the public library?”

  I appreciated her irony and considered paying a compliment, but the last thing we needed was another sidetrack for her mind to go sprinting along. “Wherever is convenient for you, Miss Wyman.”

  “Do you know Eisley’s?”

  “The deli?”

  “No, Eisley’s the mortician. Of course, the deli.”

  I bit my tongue so hard I’m surprised it didn’t snap off. “Tomorrow noon?”

  “Oh, I can be there in an hour. I have to pick up something for Auntie anyway. No one will suspect anything if we meet at Eisley’s. Half an hour.”

  I looked at my wrist and then confirmed my findings with the clock on the wall. Eisley’s was down on Market Street, but I could make it at a brisk pace. “Three-thirty?”

  “Swell. How will I know you?”

  “Grey suit, light blue shirt. Blue and black striped tie.”

  “Really?” She was amazed. “How old?”

  “I bought the tie last month. The shirt and suit are a little older.”

  “No. How old are you?”

  “Oh, right. Thirties. Early.”

  That actually earned me another of her quiet moments of reflection, or maybe she was just distracted by something shiny on her end. “What color hair?”

  “Brown, but I’ll have a hat.”

  “Beard?”

  “Goodness no.”

  “I rather like beards. Uncle Larry had a beard, actually. Very distinguished.”

  Fearing how much she might decide to pontificate on facial hair, I cut her off. “How will I know you?”

  “I’ll be wearing a green dress with a blue—no, white—no, blue coat. I’ll wear my lavender scarf. Auntie got it for me at Christmas. It’s got little designs that look kind of like peacock feathers only they aren’t. Oh, and I have blonde hair. Medium length. I’m trying to decide if I want to grow it out. I’m not sure if that will be the fashion next season.”

  “And, um, how old are you?”

  “Twenties,” she said, allowing me another relieved sigh. Then she appended, “Well, nearly. In three years.”

  Chapter Three

  Between my legs and a convenient street car, I made good time to Market and up the few blocks to Eisley’s, arriving about twenty minutes past the hour. There were no green dresses with coats of any color at the half dozen tables outside, and, at that time of day, there was no one who wasn’t employed inside. Despite their full assortment of meats and the fact the big sign over the picture window reads Eisley’s Delicatessen, the place was mostly renowned for desserts. I got a slice of pie and a glass of milk and joined the al fresco diners to await my rendezvous, as our meeting might have been called had it been mentioned in Miss Wyman’s letter from Troyes.

  By the time I finished the pie, it was a quarter to four and the glass of milk got me nearly to four o’clock. Two cigarettes saw me through the full hour I had decided to wait. On the way back to my office, I decided Miss Ramona Wyman had truly earned a swift kick on the sitter.

  The note with her name and number was still on my desk, but I didn’t call. I did check with my service, but that time nothing was doing, doubtlessly reassuring the operator that God was in His heaven, and the sun might safely be expected to rise again tomorrow.

  At five-of-five, I broke down and called Walter Cobb to see if he had anything I might help him out with, but he’d already called it a day. I hung up, got my hat, and did the same.

  With the pie still settling, I opted for a movie first and saw the new John Garfield. I’ve been a fan of Garfield since Four Daughters, and I met him once after a USO show. He’s shorter in person.

  On the way back up the hill to my apartment, I grabbed a sandwich at an all-night counter, washing it down with another glass of milk. I rent one room for my living space, but it’s shaped like an L and is slightly larger than my office. Most importantly, it has its own attached bath. After three years fighting in Europe, I swore I’d give up eating before I’d ever hunker down in a place that didn’t have a private bath.

  I read some and smoked a lot, then splashed water on my face and went to bed. All these details are admittedly that, but I include them to show I was absolutely not expecting the pounding on my door three hours later.

  I used to sleep quite soundly, but the Germans cured me of that. I was sitting up by the third pound and fully awake for the three that followed. “Open up!”

  I switched on the lamp and growled at my watch when it told me it was two thirty-nine. I swung my feet out from beneath the covers and onto the floor. I didn’t call out Who’s there? I didn’t care. I just didn’t want them to pound any more.

  But they did. Another half dozen that was clearly some bozo who had never learned to use his knuckles properly. It was the sound of the side of a fist landing hard against the wood. I stumbled over and turned the bolt, reaching down for the handle when the door flew open and two men charged in, nearly knocking me flat.

  “Alright Colette?” That was from the second guy, a crumpled-looking older specimen I knew and loathed named Oscar Dent. Lieutenant Oscar Dent, San Francisco Police Department. He had stopped a few paces into the room, looking ready to draw his guns. The uniformed man two steps in front of him, whom I did not know, continued on around the bend in my room.

  I had backed up and stayed back to avoid being trampled. While I might have had a moral case for escorting them back into the hall, and physically I had a good chance of success—especially with Dent, who, though several inches taller than me was quite a few pounds lighter and nearly twice my age—they were officers of the law, and it might prove legally problematic. Not that I wouldn’t have liked to try.

  The uniform had opened up the bathroom door, the closet door and even gone down on one knee to search under the bed. Dent was helping, though just with his eyes. “You alone?”

  I appealed to him. “Listen. You can’t do that, and you know it.”

  “You’re a lawyer now?”

  “I don’t need a law degree. If you got a warrant, let’s see it.”

  “Maybe I thought I heard a woman’s voice. Maybe I thought she was calling for help.”

  I tsked at him. It’s an admittedly bad habit
I have which has gotten me into more than one scrape. But I was disgusted. I have two nice chairs in the front half of my room, one that I like to read in and the other I keep to maintain my optimistic outlook. I sat in the second, leaning back and getting comfortable. “Fine. Look away. I mean look around. Search away. Constitution be damned.”

  “Save it. When did you last see her?”

  “Her who?” I was staring at my bare feet, wiggling my toes. August is probably the best you can expect in San Francisco, weather-wise, so I was in nothing but my shorts and a t-shirt. “Did you even say hello?”

  Dent watched me watching my toes. Past experience told me he was probably scowling, as that was just about all his ugly mug did in my vicinity. The uniform continued to search, though my place is small enough I’d wager he was merely putting on a show at that point for his so-called superior officer. The lieutenant apparently wasn’t impressed because he barked, “Wait in the hall, Jones.”

  When we were alone and Dent had closed the door, he took up a position in the center of the room with his feet planted too far apart and his fists on his hips. He scowled some more, doubtlessly thinking that he was towering over me and obviously expecting me to buckle. “Spill it. When and where did you last see her?”

  I was lighting a cigarette and didn’t rush to answer. Finally, I waved out the match and used it to gesture at him and the room and the whole unseemly business. “Even if I did know to whom you were referring, you think I’d talk after that performance?”

  He used his mean smile. “Oh, you’ll talk. Get dressed, we’re going downtown.”

  I didn’t hide my skepticism. “Nothing doing. Get your boy back in here and have him tackle and cuff me and then you can talk to my lawyer tomorrow. Today. Later today.”

  He chewed on that notion for a while. “Ramona Wyman. We know you met with her today. When and where and what for?”

  It’s harder to act nonchalant when someone delivers a sucker punch like that. It helped that I was sitting down. I mean, I knew he wouldn’t have burst in, spittle flying, with good news, but why her? Did I neglect to mention that Lieutenant Dent works homicide?

  I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Gigi.”

  “What was that?”

  I decided it was my turn to scowl, and I aimed it up at him. “Ramona Wyman’s dead?”

  “I’ll ask the questions. You get dressed.” Then he decided it would probably be in the morning paper. “She was found a few hours ago. What was your business with her?”

  “None of yours.” I didn’t get up. I didn’t move. I sat there still staring at my feet but not seeing them. “We had an appointment to meet, and she stood me up.”

  “When and where?”

  “Eisley’s, downtown. She called sometime around noon, and I called her back at about two-thirty. She said she had to meet me, that it was important.”

  “Yeah? What was important?”

  “That she didn’t say. She wasn’t alone when she called, though she wasn’t exactly being sly about it. She did mention something about no one suspecting her if we met at the deli.”

  “Yeah, she went there a lot, nearly every day. We haven’t found anyone who works there yet. The place opens early, and the bakers or whatever they have come even earlier, but nothing yet.”

  “We were scheduled for three-thirty, and I made it early. She hadn’t shown by half past four when I left.” I stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray at my elbow and then fumbled another one out of my pack. “When did she…?”

  He took a deep breath, expanding his sunken chest, then gave up trying to look imposing and paced a few steps to stretch his legs. “No one wants to commit. She was found floating under a pier by some tourists at about nine p.m.” He stopped pacing and watched me strike another match. “Did I tell you you could smoke? Get dressed, we’re going.”

  I finished with the match and deposited it in the ashtray. Reclining in the chair, I crossed my ankles and took a long drag on my smoke. A second. I didn’t look up at Dent, but I wasn’t exactly looking it over either. There was nothing to look over. She hadn’t called me about a letter from France, nor a French author named Colette, yet that was nearly all we’d talked about. “It sure would be nice to know why she had to see me.”

  He made a strangled sound, and I wondered if the bile might kill him. “I’ll say. Get your goddamned clothes on!”

  I finally did look up at his red speckled face and his bulging rheumy eyes. The man was a walking coronary. “I never saw her. I can’t help you.”

  He clenched his hands into fists and clamped his jaw. I expected him to lurch over and grab me or clutch his chest and drop to the floor. He did neither. “Just my goddamned luck to find you in this. Things looked bad enough with her uncle.”

  “What about her uncle?”

  “The family’s been raising a stink for a month now that he was actually murdered. Now I guess people will start listening.”

  I sat forward. “Hang on. Who’s her uncle?”

  “What did I say about asking questions? Get dressed.”

  On my feet, I reminded him that we weren’t too far off from eye-to-eye. Also there was my weight advantage. And his age. “Who’s her uncle?”

  Like any bully, he sort of shrank in the face of opposition. “Lawrence O’Malley.”

  Pathetic. Not just Dent, but all of it. There I had sat eating pie. My cigarette was only half gone, but I stubbed it out anyway. “I’ll get dressed.”

  Chapter Four

  They cut me loose just before noon. I think the ADA who was questioning me had a lunch date. He kept checking his watch and right about eleven-thirty, got a call, his end of which included in its entirety, “Is it that time already? I’ll be right down.” Not that I wasn’t ready to go; he was my third interrogator of the day. After Dent came Dent’s boss, Inspector Ackerman, and after him, Assistant District Attorney Holloway. They asked a lot of questions, or maybe I mean they asked a few questions a lot of times.

  All three started out on the girl, Ramona Wyman, aged seventeen, hailing from Williard, Ohio. But Ackerman and Holloway both segued quickly over to the O’Malley kids. Of course, not long after I got downtown, either Lana or her brother had spilled that they had visited my office that morning. They had not been hauled to headquarters—money and familial connections matter—but that didn’t mean they weren’t questioned and well. So I was twisted deeper into the mire.

  Holloway was the smoothest. He made the transition seem almost natural. Had Ramona Wyman mentioned anyone else during our telephone conversation? Her aunt, Miranda O’Malley, for instance? How about her cousins, Morgan or Lana? Was she concerned about their visit to my office earlier that day? Did she ask what the O’Malleys spoke with me about? Did she suspect them of something? Did I tell her what the O’Malleys said? What did I tell her about the O’Malleys?

  Then he was off. What had the O’Malleys said about Ramona Wyman? How did I think they felt about her? Was there animosity?

  Nothing, No Comment and No Idea. Neither Lana nor her brother had mentioned they even had a cousin. Of course, I furnished very little in the way of answers anyhow. And it was only partly to do with my attitude toward cops. This was simply a case where I knew decidedly little. I hadn’t actually met with Ramona Wyman, and the O’Malleys had stormed out of my office half way through our first meeting.

  But it wasn’t a complete waste of time, at least on my end. I may, to quote Lieutenant Dent, be nothing more than a lousy snoop, but even I manage to sniff out the occasional clue. For instance, after turning his attention to the O’Malleys, Ackerman especially, phrased some interesting questions. What proof did the O’Malleys possess that their father had been murdered? What about that proof had been insufficient to persuade me to take their case? Did I not consider their proof authentic? Did it strike me as having been fabricated?

  He was clearly addressing something specific, some actual piece of evidence. He and Holloway thought that I had seen i
t or at least had it described to me. I couldn’t quite decide if they had seen it or even knew exactly what it was. But it was something, and they were keen on it.

  Also, being, to quote both myself and my license, a private investigator, I was able to piece together an assortment of other pertinent facts despite the universal attitude of everyone I spoke with not to answer any questions. For instance, Ramona’s personal info. I also learned that she stood five-foot-four, weighed a hundred and ten pounds, and wore red lipstick. There hadn’t been any sign of sexual assault. No purse had been discovered, but the ocean is wide and deep, and they hadn’t yet found where the actual murder had taken place.

  About that. She’d been strangled with her own scarf, still bound tightly in place when the body was recovered. It was apparently purple with something like peacock feathers on it. No prints. A few coins were found in a pocket, making theft seem unlikely, despite the absence of a purse. Although a thief, having lost control and killed, might be unnerved enough to forget to check all the pockets. The only article found on the body in addition to clothing was a slip of paper with my name and number, the words “Gray Suit, Blue Shirt, Striped Tie, Old” and a time, three-thirty.

  Dent had some fun with that word old, of course. And him gazing fondly back at fifty, yet nothing but a lieutenant. He decided to take the line that I was dogging the Wyman girl and, how pathetic, she thought I was old. That attack made no sense for any number of reasons, but the mere sight of me sets the old bird’s blood pumping at such a pace it’s a wonder he manages to form any words whatsoever. Busting through my door like he was Elliot Ness. I should have filed a complaint, but it would have taken even more time, and I had things to do.

  When I hit the street, I used the first phone booth I could find. Of course, the Hall of Justice has public telephones, but after nearly eight hours of sitting, sitting and more sitting, the muscles in my thighs were twitching, and I needed to pound some pavement. I stopped at a drug store on Kearny, south of the Square, and tried Gig Barton, my reporter friend at the Clipper, but he wasn’t available. I trudged to California Street and tried again at a diner. Same result. I started up California, moving at a fair clip, got to Stockton and another drug store and got him.