From the pattern of geographical proximity I wandered to the patterns of time proximity, and something flickered in my mind, a thought trying to be born. It had something to do with accidental time proximity, but it wouldn’t come out into the light of the conscious mind.
One of the curses of being stupid is the elusiveness of the obvious.
Was it the three-way connection, between Vanyo in the parked car, the woman in the parking lot and the man in the window above who had killed Louis Reno?
No, it was not that. Proximity was the trigger that had stirred the unconscious, but it was not the proximity of this trio.
An earlier geographical proximity between George Tomsic and Horace Wilding could have been responsible for either George or Wilding getting into the stolen-car racket. Assuming Wilding was, which I was assuming strongly at the moment.
All the people involved in this merry-go-round had been connected to at least one other person before the death of Leo Dunbar. Except for Hans Deutscher; he was the new face in the crowd.
I phoned Pascal and asked him if there was anything new I should know and he told me there wasn’t. He complimented me on being alive, after yesterday, and asked me how the Rams would do against Detroit.
I told him I didn’t know and asked him if the Department had checked the financial affairs of Leo Dunbar, including any checks that had been drawn in the last few months.
“Why should we? You don’t think he’d pay for a hot car with a check, do you?”
“He could, if he bought it from George Tomsic. He had other reasons for writing checks to George.”
“Callahan, I get a feeling you’re playing it cute. What’s really on your mind?”
“A weirdy,” I said. “I think, in his way, Leo Dunbar was a fairly honest man, don’t you?”
“For a car dealer, yes. So?”
“So maybe he doubted George Tomsic. And he hired Deutscher to investigate him.”
“So what you’re looking for is a check to Hans Deutscher?”
“I guess.”
“But Leo’s dead, and Deutscher still operating.”
“Naturally. He got wise to Tomsic’s racket and went to work on him. And maybe for him, now.”
“That would be a typical Deutscher switch. Any one-man agency leans toward …”
“Easy,” I said. “Let’s stay friendly.”
“All right. I’ll send a man down to Leo’s bank. We’ll see what we will see. You don’t think the Rams are a good bet against Detroit, then?”
“Get ten points,” I advised him. “That’s three better than the Minneapolis spread.”
I went to the window to see that the man in the Dodge was still sitting there. I had expected a call from Mary Macarty by now, telling me that she had had a call from Tomsic.
If my theory was right, it would figure that Tomsic would call me. With Deutscher in the hospital, George would need a new man between him and the law. And logical he should pick the operator of a one-man detective agency. Because everybody knows they’re crooked.
I got tired of waiting and phoned the office of Elbert Kronen, Incorporated. I told the girl I wanted to speak with Mary Macarty.
“Miss Macarty didn’t come in this morning,” she informed me. “She’ll be here right after lunch.”
“Didn’t come in? Was she sick?”
“No, sir. She went directly from home to the home of a client. Who is calling, please?”
“My name is Brock Callahan,” I said. “Would you have Miss Macarty phone me the second she comes in?”
“Yes, sir. If it concerns a decorating problem, Mr. Kronen is available right now, and he’d be glad to …”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I don’t want any color-blind decorators messing up my office. You have Miss Macarty phone.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and I thought I heard her giggle.
I picked up the Times and read an editorial on the current wave of stolen cars. According to the writer, it looked like the most efficient gang since the breakup of the Vigorito mob was at work in our fair city. From there the writer went on to a condemnation of the Police Chief and the Sheriff. A shake-up in both Departments was long overdue, the writer thought. Or was told to think by the publisher.
To hell with this; I was hungry. I told my phone-answering service I would be out of the office for forty-five minutes and went over to the drug store for lunch.
My fan said, “You really caught one in the kisser, didn’t you? Man, you’re getting the ink, though.”
“I’m kind of famous,” I admitted. “What’s good?”
“The clam chowder. We paid over fourteen cents a can for it. Wholesale. And we got rye rolls.”
I ordered a barbecued beef sandwich and a malted. There were six of us at the counter, momentarily related by geographical proximity. Sharing no relationship nor communication beyond that apparently. And yet, if a man were to trace each life, each experience in that life and every contact, a pattern would form, I was sure.
Now, what in hell had put me on this kick?
A man two stools down looked at me in doubtful recognition.
Because my mother had taught me to be polite, I nodded.
He smiled. “Brock Callahan, right?”
“Right as rain,” I said. “Your face is familiar but I can’t remember your name.”
“I played against you in high school. Remember, in Long Beach?”
How many had played against me in high school? Hundreds. I said, “High school is a long way back.”
He nodded sadly. “Isn’t it, though? I twisted your knee in that game. I hope it didn’t develop into anything serious.”
“Just a cartilage operation two years later,” I said. “And now I need another one.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “It’s a small world, isn’t it? Gosh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“If you hadn’t twisted it,” I said consolingly, “somebody else would have. Football is rough on the knees.”
His eyes were musing. “Yup. But what a wonderful game it is. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed life as much as I did in high school.”
I went to work on my barbecued beef sandwich, feeling haunted.
“Of course,” he went on, “we were all single then. That helped.” He laughed.
“I’m still single,” I said, “and it doesn’t help.”
My fan behind the counter said, “Maybe you don’t know the right people, Rock.” He winked at the other man. “I mean the wrong people.”
That day I’d come home with a twisted knee, there had been a domestic crisis in the family. Mom had insisted this was the end of my football career. Dad and I had had to work on her very carefully all through the summer in order to get me back on the field next fall.
That had been my first year and the coach had tried me at fullback, because I was big and fairly fast. My last year in high school, some good fullbacks had come along and I’d been shifted to guard. And because I was a much better guard than I had been a fullback, I made All-League. Which had resulted in my scholarship at Stanford.
But what if those fullbacks hadn’t come along? I would have remained in the position and won no honors. And thus, not gone to Stanford, nor to the Rams. And because I hadn’t gone to the Rams, I would have been unknown in this town and not thought of going into the private investigation profession in Beverly Hills. And thus would not be eating here.
And would not have met the man who twisted my knee.
That last was sort of anticlimatic. What difference did it make if I met or didn’t meet the man who had twisted my knee?
“You’re muttering again,” my fan said.
“I’m thinking aloud,” I said. “What kind of pie is there?”
“Cherry, apple, boysenberry.”
“How come you never have pumpkin?”
“You’re the only customer that ever asks for it. You eat a pumpkin pie a day, we’ll order one.”
I had boysenberry à la mo
de. Proximity, proximity, proximity, a proximity in time … It continued to gnaw at me. A coincidence …?
At the office, my phone service informed me I had had a call from a Miss Mary Macarty.
I phoned her and she told me, “George called. I told him you would talk to him, and he said he’d call you directly as soon as he can. He thinks he’s being watched by someone named — Banyan, or something like that?”
“Vanyo?” I asked.
“That’s it. Tony, isn’t it?”
“Correct. Okay, Mary, thank you. I’ll be seeing you.”
“We both hope. Be careful, Callahan. Don’t start any trouble, will you?”
“I never do. And you be careful, too.”
So the technician, George Tomsic, who had served the mob only as a skilled workman, had become involved in the violence he served. I remembered telling Mary Macarty she had lived next door to violence, but George hadn’t actually been that. He simply had a skill which he used illegally.
I picked up a New Yorker and sat back to wait for his call.
TWELVE
VANYO STILL ON the prowl … Why? To protect the big boy, the man George Tomsic knew about? Vanyo, if he had the sense of a rabbit, should be as far out of town as he could get. But I had thought that before and learned he wasn’t. He had more guts than sense, though he wasn’t completely without sense.
Vanyo very probably was out to silence Tomsic before he could make a deal with the law. Tomsic was a sly one and he had stayed well hidden up to now. And I had thought he was in contact with the mob while in hiding. There had even been indications that he had given Vanyo information just as he was now ready to give our side some.
He had played the same kind of game Hans Deutscher played, to either side, entirely motivated by self-interest. Though self-interest was probably the dominant drive in us all, Deutscher and Tomsic played it all the way, to the exclusion of all other interests.
At two-thirty, my phone rang.
A quiet voice asked, “Callahan?”
“Right.”
“Tomsic. Do you know where Lydia’s Bar is, in Venice?”
“No.”
“You know where Windward ends, there at the ocean? Right in that neighborhood.”
“I know the area. I’ll find the place. Have you seen Vanyo?”
“Just once, early this morning. I’ve moved since then.”
“How soon should I meet you at Lydia’s Bar?”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“So will I. See you.”
It was a strange thing. I knew what George looked like; I’d spent half an hour on Sunday morning with him. He looked like what he was, a garage mechanic. A refugee from the Corn Belt with a missing index finger. But since Sunday, I had seen some of his real estate, had gazed upon two of the women who went to his parties, and had roughly figured his extracurricular income. Through all this, the image of him in my memory had taken on stature and I had begun to remember him as rather Gregory Peck-ish.
When I walked into Lydia’s half an hour later, it was a shock. For there was George in a corner booth and he looked exactly as he had Sunday morning.
He was wearing a cheap suit and a sports shirt but he had looked more at home in a white coverall coat. He smiled at me and beckoned to the stocky, blond waitress.
I ordered a bottle of eastern beer and sat down across from him. I said, “I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
He nodded. “I was in touch with the boys at first. Now they’re trying to get in touch with me.”
“You want to sell them out, is that it, George?”
“I want to be a solid citizen. I can afford it, now.”
“Would you answer some questions?”
He looked at me for a second before saying, “Shoot.”
“Why did you hire Deutscher?”
“I didn’t. Next question?”
“He’s not working for you?”
The blonde brought my beer. George waited until she was out of earshot before saying, “The first time I remember seeing his name is when I read in the paper he’d been shot. But that picture of him was awful familiar. I’m trying to remember where I’ve seen the guy.”
“You were the number changer for the mob? Is that what you want to tell the police?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to go up. This much I can say, that I did some repainting in that garage on Montana. But I didn’t know I was repainting stolen cars.”
“You knew Wilding in Pasadena, didn’t you? You worked on his car, when Leo had the Buick agency up there.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, how can you testify against Wilding without having him testify against you? And if that happens, you both go up.”
“I don’t intend to testify. I’ll give the police enough to nail Wilding without any need to have my name mentioned. He’s made some mistakes; I can guarantee them a conviction on him.”
“And that would mean the end of the ring?”
“That would mean the end of a well-organized ring. Organization, that’s Wilding’s specialty, and he’s a whiz at it.”
“I see. And who killed Leo Dunbar?”
He stared at me and shrugged. “So help me, I haven’t the faintest damned idea.”
“That’s the only question I really wanted an answer on,” I explained. “You see, his death is my only real interest in this whole mess. I’d have no reason to act as intermediary between you and the police unless by doing it I would get closer to the killer of Leo Dunbar.”
He continued to stare. “Your only real interest …? Sunday morning you come nosing around. You admit you’re a private investigator and work for the Better Business Bureau. That was before Leo died.”
“I said I had worked for the BBB. I came Sunday morning as a spectator, man. My girl wanted to buy a car and I just came along to jeer.”
“You’re kidding. You got to be.” He frowned. “Who the hell is paying you, then?”
“Dorothy Hartland Dunbar.”
He finished his drink and signaled for another. He was silent until the girl had brought it and left. Then he said, “So all right. You can still talk to the law for me. For pay. You work for money, right?”
“Not in this kind of a deal. The Department doesn’t like investigators to act as intermediaries. Unless they’re lawyers. And I’m not. For free, though, I’ll take your offer to Ryerson.”
“Who’s Ryerson?”
“A lieutenant in the Auto Theft Division downtown. So you give him Wilding and ask what? They haven’t anything on you, have they?”
“They got that Samuels out in Bel Air. He didn’t identify me last time, but maybe his memory will improve.”
“I see. Just for my personal curiosity, why would a man who was making two hundred and fifty a day changing numbers want to work a hot-car deal of his own?”
He looked at me blandly. “I could only guess that a man making one hundred and fifty a day changing numbers might see an easy eight hundred in a quick, clean deal with his own boss without the boss even knowing it was a hot car.”
I nodded, and sipped my beer.
George sipped his drink. “You remember I said Sunday morning that everybody’s a crook, one way or another?”
“I remember.”
“Well, Leo was a legal crook. That’s the only hot one he ever sold and he thought that was legitimate. Leo did his chiseling with the pencil and the hard pitch.”
“Did Leo know about your — night work?”
“I think he — was — well, suspicious….” George’s eyes widened. “Hey, that’s where I saw that Deutscher, in Leo’s office one day a couple weeks ago. Do you think Leo put him on me?”
“I think so. Because Deutscher knew all about you. He’s a damned fine operator, you know, even if he is a crook.”
“Deutscher knew about me? Is he the guy that told you about me being the number man?”
“Who else?”
“I figured Van
yo or Reno or one of the boys. I figured then that you were kind of keeping an eye on me for them even though I was still in contact with them.” He took another sip. “That’s what burned me about ‘em.”
“You thought I was working for them? And why would they work me over, if I was working for them?”
He shrugged. “You private eyes … So I figured you tried to cross them, sell them out.”
“You thought that? And now you want to hire me? George, you’re not making sense. Would you hire a crook?”
“Let’s go back to Sunday,” he said easily. “Everybody’s a crook, one way or another.”
“You love that line, don’t you? What is it, your total philosophy of living?”
He grinned at me without rancor. “That could be. It worked; too, didn’t it? You saw some of my property, some of it.” He waved. “Have another beer. On me. I can afford it.”
“You sleep all right nights, George?”
“Like a top. Why not?”
“Look, you’re single, you make top wages. You could live well staying inside the law every day. You could save money.”
“You look,” he said. “Take a good look. Women, that’s what I like. Expensive women, not dance-hall chippies. With a face like mine, that takes money. With enough money, any kind of man can have any kind of woman.”
“Don’t answer this if you don’t want to,” I said. “But is Mary Macarty one of your expensive women?”
“Not yet,” he said. “And to level with you, I don’t think I’m ever going to make out there. But I’m not going to cry about it, if I don’t. Not in a town as full of broads as this one.”
I shook my head and signaled for another beer. The girl brought it, and George gave her a bill. “Keep the change,” he said.
“You’re certainly adjusted to this world, aren’t you, George? You’ve got everything you need and can look forward to more of it as long as you’re able to climb into a woman’s bed. There isn’t anything you really need in this world. Do you ever think about the next one?”
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