Los Angeles Noir 2

by Denise Hamilton

  “Reverend Robinson?”

  No answer. He moved past a room divider of built-in bookcases with diamond-pane glass doors. There was a round golden oak dining room table under a chain-suspended stained-glass light fixture. Robinson evidently used the table as a desk. Books were stacked on it. A loose-leaf binder lay open, a page half filled with writing in ballpoint. Am I my brother’s keeper? Sermon topic. But not for this week. Not for any week now.

  Because on the far side of the table, by a kitchen swing door his head had pushed ajar when he fell, Merwin Robinson lay on his back and stared at Dave with the amazed eyes of the dead. One of his hands clutched something white. Dave knelt. It was an envelope, torn open, empty. But the stamp hadn’t been cancelled. He put on his glasses, flicked his lighter to read the the address. City Attorney, 200 Spring St., Los Angeles, CA. Neatly typed on an electric machine with carbon ribbon. Probably the battered IBM in Verna Casper’s office.

  Which meant there wasn’t time to hunt up the rectory phone in the gloom, to report, to explain. It didn’t matter. Merwin Robinson wouldn’t be any deader an hour from now. But somebody else might be, unless Dave got back to the beach. Fast.

  Wind lashed rain across the expensive decks of the apartments facing the Marina. It made the wet trench coat clumsy, flapping around his legs. Then he quit running because he saw the door. He took the last yards in careful, soundless steps. The door was shut. That would be reflex even for a man in a chronic hurry—to shut out the storm. And that man had to be here. The Triumph was in the lot.

  Dave put a hand to the cold, wet brass knob. It turned. He leaned gently against the door. It opened. He edged in and softly shut it. The same yammering voice he’d heard earlier today in Surf above the wash of rain and tide, yammered now someplace beyond the climbing vines.

  “—that you got him to help you try to rip off an insurance company—accident and injury. By knocking your car off the jack while one wheel was stripped and your foot was under it. And he told you he was going to spill the whole story unless you paid out.”

  “I’m supposed to believe it’s on that paper?” Shevel’s voice came from just the other side of the philodendrons. “That Robbie actually—”

  “Yeah, right—he dictated it to the old hag that’s a notary public, splits my office space with me. I heard it all. He told her he’d give you twenty-four hours to cop out too, then he’d mail it. But I didn’t think it was a clear conscience he was after. He was after money—for a sports car for that hustler he was keeping.”

  “I’m surprised at Robbie,” Shevel said. “He often threatened to do things. He rarely did them.”

  “He did this. And you knew he would. Only how did you waste him? You can’t get out of that chair.”

  “I had two plans. The other was complicated—a bomb in his car. Happily, the simpler plan worked out. It was a lovely evening. The storm building up off the coast made for a handsome sunset. The sea was calm—long, slow swells. I decided to take an hour’s cruise in my launch. I have a young friend who skippers it for me.”

  “You shot him from out there?”

  “The draft is shallow. Manuel was able to steer quite close in. It can’t have been a hundred fifty yards. Robbie was on the deck as I’d expected. It was warm, and he adored sunsets with his martinis. Manuel’s a fine marksman. Twenty-four months in Vietnam sharpened his natural skills. And the gun was serviceable.” Shevel’s voice went hard. “This gun is not, but you’re too close to miss. Hand over that paper. No, don’t try anything. I warn you—”

  Dave stepped around the screen of vines and chopped at Shevel’s wrist. The gun went off with a slapping sound. The rug furrowed at Dieterle’s feet. Shevel screamed rage, struggled in the wheelchair, clawed at Dave’s eyes. Dieterle tried to run past. Dave put a foot in his way. He sprawled. Dave wrenched the twenty-two out of Shevel’s grip, leveled it at them, backed to a white telephone, cranked zero, and asked an operator to get him the police. Ken Barker had managed a shower and a shave. He still looked wearier than this morning. But he worked up a kind of smile. “Neat,” he said. “You think like a machine—a machine that gets the company’s money back.”

  “Shevel’s solvent but not that solvent,” Dave said. “Hell, we paid out a hundred thousand initially. I don’t remember what the monthly payments were. We’ll be lucky to get half. And we’ll have to sue for that.” He frowned at a paper in his hands, typing on a police form, signed in shaky ballpoint—Manuel Sanchez. It said Shevel had done the shooting. He, Manuel, had only run the boat. “Be sure this kid gets a good lawyer.”

  “The best in the public defender’s office.”

  “No.” Dave rose, flapped into the trench coat. “Not good enough. Medallion will foot the bill. I’ll send Abe Greenglass. Tomorrow morning.”

  “Jesus.” Barker blinked. “Remind me never to cross you.”

  Dave grinned, worked the coat’s wet leather buttons, quit grinning. “I’m sorry about Robinson’s brother. If I’d just been a little quicker—”

  “It was natural causes,” Barker said. “Don’t blame yourself. Can’t even blame Dieterle—or Wilbur White.”

  “The bar owner? You mean he was there?”

  “Slocum checked him out. He had the letters.”

  “Yup.” Dave fastened the coat belt. “Twenty minutes late to work. White, sweaty, shaking. It figures. Hell, he even talked about apoplexy, how the reverend hated him for perverting his brother.”

  “The man had horrible blood pressure,” Barker said. “We talked to his doctor. He’d warned him. The least excitement and”—Barker snapped his fingers—“cerebral hemorrhage. Told him to retire. Robinson refused. They needed him—the people at that run-down church.”

  “It figures,” Dave said. “He didn’t make it easy, but he was the only one in this mess I could like. A little.”

  “Not Bambi O’Mara?” Barker went and snagged a topcoat from a rack. “She looked great in those magazine spreads.” He took Dave’s arm, steered him between gray-green desks toward a gray-green door. “I want to hear all about her. I’ll buy you a drink.”

  But the phone rang and called him back. And Dave walked alone out of the beautiful, bright glass building into the rain that looked as if it would never stop falling.

  THE KERMAN KILL

  BY WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT

  Pacific Palisades

  (Originally published in 1987)

  Pierre?” my Uncle Vartan asked. “Why Pierre? You were Pistol Pete Apoyan when you fought.”

  Sixteen amateur fights I’d had and won them all. Two professional fights I’d had and painfully decided it would not be my trade. I had followed that career with three years as an employee of the Arden Guard and Investigative Service in Santa Monica before deciding to branch out on my own.

  We were in my uncle’s rug store in Beverly Hills, a small store and not in the highest rent district, but a fine store. No machine-made imitation Orientals for him, and absolutely no carpeting.

  “You didn’t change your name,” I pointed out.

  “Why would I?” he asked. “It is an honorable name and suited to my trade.”

  “And Pierre is not an honorable name?”

  He sighed. “Please do not misunderstand me. I adore your mother. But Pierre is a name for hairdressers and perfume manufacturers and those pirate merchants on Rodeo Drive. Don’t your friends call you Pete?”

  “My odar friends,” I admitted. “Odar” means (roughly) non-Armenian. My mother is French, my father Armenian.

  “Think!” he said. “Sam Spade. Mike Hammer. But Pierre?”

  “Hercule Poirot,” I said.

  “What does that mean? Who is this Hercule Poirot? A friend?” He was frowning.

  It was my turn to sigh. I said nothing. My Uncle Vartan is a stubborn man. He had four nephews, but I was his favorite. He had never married. He had come to this country as an infant with my father and their older brother. My father had sired one son and one daughter, my Uncle
Sarkis three sons.

  “You’re so stubborn!” Uncle Vartan said.

  The pot had just described the kettle. I shrugged.

  He took a deep breath. “I suppose I am, too.”

  I nodded.

  “Whatever,” he said, “the decision is yours, no matter what name you decide to use.”

  The decision would be mine but the suggestion had been his. Tough private eye stories, fine rugs, and any attractive woman under sixty were what he cherished. His store had originally been a two-story duplex with a separate door and stairway to the second floor. That, he had suggested, would be a lucrative location for my office when I left Arden.

  His reasoning was sound enough. He got the carriage trade; why wouldn’t I? And he would finance the remodeling.

  Why was I so stubborn?

  “Don’t sulk,” he said.

  “It’s because of my mother,” I explained. “She didn’t like it when I was called Pistol Pete.”

  His smile was sad. “I know. But wouldn’t Pistol Pierre have sounded worse?” He shook his head. “Lucky Pierre, always in the middle. I talked with the contractor last night. The remodeling should be finished by next Tuesday.”

  The second floor was large enough to include living quarters for me. Tonight I would tell my two roomies in our Pacific Palisades apartment that I would be deserting them at the end of the month. I drove out to Westwood, where my mother and sister had a French pastry shop.

  My sister, Adele, was behind the counter. My mother was in the back, smoking a cigarette. She is a chain smoker, my mother, the only nicotine addict in the family. She is a slim, trim, and testy forty-seven-year-old tiger.

  “Well—?” she asked.

  “We won,” I told her. “It will be the Pierre Apoyan Investigative Service.”

  “You won,” she corrected me. “You and Vartan. It wasn’t my idea.”

  “Are there any croissants left?” I asked.

  “On the shelf next to the oven.” She shook her head. “That horny old bastard! All the nice women I found for him—”

  “Who needs a cow when milk is cheap?” I asked.

  “Don’t be vulgar,” she said. “And if you do, get some new jokes.”

  I buttered two croissants, poured myself a cup of coffee, and sat down across from her. I said, “The rumor I heard years ago is that Vartan came on to you before you met Dad.”

  “The rumor is true,” she admitted. “But if I wanted to marry an adulterer I would have stayed in France.”

  “And then you never would have met Dad. You did okay, Ma.”

  “I sure as hell did. He’s all man.”

  The thought came to me that if he were all man, the macho type, my first name would not be Pierre. I didn’t voice the thought; I preferred to drink my coffee, not wear it.

  She said, “I suppose that you’ll be carrying a gun again in this new profession you and Vartan dreamed up?”

  “Ma, at Arden I carried a gun only when I worked guard duty. I never carried one when I did investigative work. This will not be guard duty.”

  She put out her cigarette and stood up. “That’s something, I suppose. You’re coming for dinner on Sunday, of course?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  She went out to take over the counter. Adele came in to have a cup of coffee. She was born eight years after I was; she is twenty and romantically inclined. She has our mother’s slim, dark beauty and our father’s love of the theater. She was currently sharing quarters with an aspiring actor. My father was a still cameraman at Elysian Films.

  “Mom looks angry,” she said. “What did you two argue about this time?”

  “My new office. Uncle Vartan is going to back me.”

  She shook her head. “What a waste! With your looks you’d be a cinch in films.”

  “Even prettier than your Ronnie?”

  “Call it a tie,” she said. “You don’t like him, do you?”

  Her Ronnie was an aspiring actor who called himself Ronnie Egan. His real name was Salvatore Martino. I shrugged.

  “He’s got another commercial coming up next week. And his agent thinks he might be able to work me into it.”

  “Great!” I said.

  That gave him a three-year career total of four commercials. If he worked her in, it would be her second.

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  “Honey, I only met him twice and I don’t dislike him. Could we drop the subject?”

  “Aagh!” she said. “You and Vartan, you two deserve each other. Bull-heads!”

  “People who live in glass houses,” I pointed out, “should undress in the cellar.”

  She shook her head again. “You and Papa, you know all the corny old ones, don’t you?”

  “Guilty,” I admitted. “Are you bringing Ronnie to dinner on Sunday?”

  “Not this Sunday. We’re going to a party at his agent’s house. Ronnie wants me to meet him.”

  “I hope it works out. I’ll hold my thumbs. I love you, sis.”

  “It’s mutual,” she said.

  I kissed the top of her head and went out to my ancient Camaro. On the way to the apartment I stopped in Santa Monica and talked with my former boss at Arden.

  I had served him well; he promised that if they ever had any commercial reason to invade my new bailiwick, and were shorthanded, I would be their first choice for associate action.

  The apartment I shared with two others in Pacific Palisades was on the crest of the road just before Sunset Boulevard curves and dips down to the sea.

  My parents had bought a tract house here in the fifties for an exorbitant twenty-one thousand dollars. It was now worth enough to permit both of them to retire. But they enjoyed their work too much to consider that.

  I will not immortalize my roomies’ names in print. One of them was addicted to prime-time soap operas, the other changed his underwear and socks once a week, on Saturday, after his weekly shower.

  When I told them, over our oven-warmed frozen TV dinners, that I would be leaving at the end of the month, they took it graciously. Dirty Underwear was currently courting a lunch-counter waitress who had been hoping to share an apartment. She would inherit my rollout bed—when she wasn’t in his.

  On Thursday morning my former boss phoned to tell me he had several credit investigations that needed immediate action and two operatives home with the flu. Was I available? I was.

  Uncle Sarkis and I went shopping on Saturday for office and apartment furniture. Wholesale, of course. “Retail” is an obscene word to my Uncle Sarkis.

  The clan was gathered on Sunday at my parents’ house, all but Adele. Uncle Vartan and my father played tavlu (backgammon to you). My mother, Uncle Sarkis, his three sons, and I played twenty-five-cent-limit poker out on the patio. My mother won, as usual. I broke even; the others lost. I have often suspected that the Sunday gatherings my mother hosts are more financially motivated than familial.

  My roommates told me Monday morning that I didn’t have to wait until the end of the month; I could move anytime my place was ready. The waitress was aching to move in.

  The remodeling was finished at noon on Tuesday, the furniture delivered in the afternoon. I moved in the next morning. All who passed on the street below would now be informed by the gilt letters on the new wide front window that the Pierre Apoyan Investigative Service was now open and ready to serve them.

  There were many who passed on the street below in the next three hours, but not one came up the steps. There was no reason to expect that anyone would. Referrals and advertising were what brought the clients in. Arden was my only doubtful source for the first; my decision to open this office had come too late to make the deadline for an ad in the phone book yellow pages.

  I consoled myself with the knowledge that there was no odor of sour socks in the room and I would not be subjected to the idiocies of prime-time soap opera. I read the L.A. Times all the way through to the classified pages.

  It had been a tiring t
wo days; I went into my small bedroom to nap around ten o’clock. It was noon when I came back to the here and now. I turned on my answering machine and went down to ask Vartan if I could take him to lunch.

  He shook his head. “Not today. After your first case, you may buy. Today, lunch is on me.”

  He had not spent enough time in the old country to develop a taste for Armenian food. He had spent his formative years in New York and become addicted to Italian cuisine. We ate at La Famiglia on North Canon Drive.

  He had whitefish poached in white wine, topped with capers and small bay shrimp. I had a Caesar salad.

  Over our coffee, he asked, “Dull morning?”

  I nodded. “There are bound to be a lot of them for a one-man office. I got in two days at Arden last week. I might get more when they’re shorthanded.”

  He studied me for a few seconds. Then, “I wasn’t going to mention this. I don’t want to get your hopes up. But I have a—a customer who might drop in this afternoon. It’s about a rug I sold her. It has been stolen. For some reason, which she wouldn’t tell me, she doesn’t want to go to the police. I gave her your name.”

  He had hesitated before he called her a customer. With his history, she could have been more than that. “Was it an expensive rug?” I asked.

  “I got three thousand for it eight years ago. Only God knows what it’s worth now. That was a sad day for me. It’s an antique Kerman.”

  “Wasn’t it insured?”

  “Probably. But if she reported the loss to her insurance company they would insist she go to the police.”

  “Was anything else stolen?”

  “Apparently not. The rug was all she mentioned.”

  That didn’t make sense. A woman who could afford my uncle’s antique Oriental rugs must have some jewelry. That would be easier and safer to haul out of a house than a rug.

  “I’d better get back to the office,” I said.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” he warned me again. “I probably shouldn’t have told you.”

  I checked my answering machine when I got back to the office. Nothing. I took out my contract forms and laid them on top of my desk and sat where I could watch the street below.