The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  “I didn’t threaten him,” Timuroff answered reasonably. “I merely said the world would be a cleaner, sweeter place without him—which it is. As for last night, I was in at the death of a rather despicable wolf, but it was quite legal. I was with Liselotte and the Cominazzos, and we had a federal judge there besides.”

  “Bah!” shouted Ledenthal; and Timuroff reflected that he had never met another man who could say the word and make it sound like an enraged gravel truck grinding broken gears. “Bah! So thanks to Mozart they can’t pin that on you! You listen to me, Timuroff—” Abruptly his voice dropped, losing none of its intensity. “Tim,” he growled, “I came down here to warn you. Have you any idea at all what kind of people you’re playing with? What kind of people that stinking Hemmet and his she-vulture really are?”

  “Let’s sit down,” suggested Timuroff. “I still have most of a drink left. I’ll make you one.”

  “Make mine light—I’m driving. Going out to Pleasanton to see my Arabs. Nice, clean horse turds are going to smell pretty good after the characters you just said good-bye to.” He sat down while Timuroff put the drink together. He leaned forward intently. “You listen, Timuroff. I’m going to tell you what I told that fat-assed chief of police last night. You want to find out who killed Munrooney or had him killed? Okay, you don’t have to look any further than his friends. I’ll lay you ten to one that Hemmet and that Gardner woman are back of it. That’s what I told him—and Baltesar and Hemmet too.”

  Quietly, Timuroff put the drink down at his guest’s elbow. He said, “Doesn’t that sound a little bit unlikely, Amos? They’d have had nothing to gain and a lot to lose by killing him.”

  “Damn it, I know, I know! That’s the way it looks. And naturally that’s what Hemmet and the chief both said, besides Hemmet threatening that he’d sue me. But you don’t know the way that crew does business. I do—I’ve been in business with them. Tim, I feel it in my bones. Did you see the look that harpy gave me?”

  Timuroff nodded.

  “She hates my guts because she knows I know—even if I can’t prove anything. But watch what happens—they’re going to do everything they can to pin it onto someone else, and in a hurry. It could be you or me; it could be old man Grimwood, which is a lot more likely.” His forefinger stabbed the air. “Timuroff, does Caldwell, Jolly and Company, Incorporated, mean anything to you, or the San Francisco Parks Recreation and Ecology Master Plan?”

  “Not much,” Timuroff answered. “Caldwell, Jolly are big developers, and I’m pretty sure some of my customers are mixed up with them—Socrates, I think, and Melmoth? As for the Master Plan, all I know is that it’s been touted as a Munrooney stroke of genius, so I’m against it.”

  “You’re damn right customers of yours have been mixed up in Caldwell, Jolly—and not just those two, either. I was, and Kalloch too, and Hemmet and Miranda Gardner and Baltesar, besides a few who weren’t your customers—old Braidstone, Hemmet’s senior partner before he died, and of course Munrooney, and Heck Grimwood—” Timuroff looked surprised.

  “Yeah, him too. He bought in for damn near nothing at the start, when all they owned was a brickyard and a few acres of pineapples in Hawaii. The old bastard always manages to do that. Maybe he gets his inside information digging into brains. There were a few others too, people you don’t know. Anyhow, up till a year or so ago the more or less good guys had control—then Hemmet and Munrooney and that bitch-wolf pulled a fast one on us. They pried all Braidstone’s shares out of his estate—she bought them up. That put them in the saddle. Then they made it plain who was doing the handwriting on the wall, and most of us who didn’t see eye to eye with them sold out. By that time, we knew what we were up against, especially after what Hemmet did to Reese, though that’s neither here nor there—■”

  Timuroff looked at him inquiringly.

  “It was a personal thing—something Reese wouldn’t want talked about. There was a girl involved. Anyway, the only ones who stayed were Melmoth, because he thinks he’s big and tough enough, and Grimwood, because he’s too far-out to know what kind of company he’s in. Then, after we were out, they sprang this Master Plan, complete with a City Parks Foundation that calls itself ‘a non-profit group of concerned citizens.’ It’s got a lot of tame Ph.Ds and hired city planners pooping for it, behind a false front of prominent old farts with more dough than horse sense. But the real power is Caldwell, Jolly—and Caldwell, Jolly is Miranda Gardner.”

  “What do they plan to do?” asked Timuroff.

  “They plan to cut Golden Gate Park into three parts!” roared Ledenthal. “Like Gaul, goddamnit! They say—I quote—‘to make more efficient use of the environment, with lower taxes and maintenance, and better policing’—that’s so our underprivileged citizens can have more fresh air fun and commit fewer fresh air crimes! And the three hunks of park are going to be separated by big ‘developed areas’—and guess who’s going to slice the millions in that pie! I tell you, Timuroff, it’s big. And it’s damn dangerous. That Gardner woman’s like a swarm of army ants. No matter who’s the loser, she’s going to win. Don’t get mixed up in it.”

  He stood and killed his drink. “Well, that’s enough for now,” he growled. Suddenly and surprisingly, he smiled. He told Timuroff to kiss la Cantelou’s hand for him. “That is a lovely lady, Tim. You’re a lucky man.”

  “So are you, Amos,” Timuroff replied. “Give Jessica our love.”

  At the mention of his wife’s name, the gruffness ebbed away. “Good-bye, Tim,” Ledenthal said softly, courteously. “I guess you aren’t convinced, but I’m glad we had our talk. You’ll learn. I’ll see you in a day or two.”

  After he had gone, Timuroff tried to go back to work, but his visitors had really hung an albatross around his neck. It annoyed and worried him, and it just wouldn’t go away. Partly, it was what Hemmet and Miranda Gardner had said and how they’d said it, but even more it was Ledenthal’s accusation which, despite its logical absurdity, insisted on assuming a strange dramatic rightness in his mind.

  He tried to read his cousin’s letter, all about foxes and people who spent their time hunting them, but finally he swore softly in English and in Russian and gave it up. “Damn you, Munrooney!” he proclaimed aloud. “You now have my full attention.”

  He phoned Pete at headquarters and, saving the story of the visitors for later, told him about Hector Grimwood’s phone call and the mystery of Muriel Fawzi’s getting herself turned on; and Pete, though he obviously didn’t take it very seriously, promised to head out to Kemble Street as soon as possible.

  Timuroff then resorted to the news. The paper Liselotte had left for him was, as he expected, completely dedicated to the sensational display of Munrooney, Munrooney’s murder, Munrooney’s wife and children, Dr. Hector Grimwood and his eccentricities, Lucrece with and without dagger, and photos of various luminaries at the party. Most of the material was from the paper’s morgue, but enough hasty writing and rewriting had been squeezed in to assure not only its entertainment value but its immediacy. Mention was prominently made of several ladies with whom the mayor’s name, if not the mayor himself, had been entwined. Much was made of his romantic origins and picturesque career; and Timuroff, long a collector of Munrooneyana, amused himself by filling in omitted data with which he was familiar.

  Thus, where the paper simply stated that the Munrooneys had originated in the same part of Ireland as the Kennedys, he was reminded that this was not discovered until the Kennedy star had risen in the East. When the reporters went into minor ecstasies over the aristocratic Old Californian forebears of Trudie Vasquez, the mayor’s sainted mother, he recalled that they had been a secret long after her family returned from Puerto Rico (where, it seemed, they had fled to escape the Yanqui imperialism of the Gold Rush) and had been resurrected only after the Third World began to show its head, when mere hidalgo ancestry quickly evolved into a
direct connection, first with Tiburcio Vasquez, a folk hero known to the law officers of his day as Three-Fingered Jack, and then with a Spanish-Californian governor whose progenitor had, by a happy coincidence, been a mulatto.

  On the editorial page, Timuroff found a moving eulogy that wept over the untimely quenching of so bright a flame, over the loss suffered by the nation and especially by the poor and oppressed, and over their now shattered hopes for any peaceful, prosperous, and enlightened future. The writer hinted broadly that the dark influence of the firearms industry was behind the murder, and cited as evidence the significant fact that it had not been committed with a gun. Finally, he called upon the poor and oppressed to make their voices heard in protest.

  The initials with which this piece was signed were those of the editor in chief, a person who, in Timuroff’s opinion, had missed out on a career in the underground press only because of superannuation and inherited wealth. Therefore he was not surprised to find no mention of Munrooney’s tortuous business dealings—dealings so dubious and so immensely profitable that they had aroused the enquiring interest of bar associations, congressional committees, humorless federal agencies, and once even the Sierra Club.

  His equanimity more or less restored, he put Lieutenant Kije—which always made him feel very nostalgic and Russian—on the record player. He called his answering service and was not perturbed to hear that there had been two more calls from Lieutenant Kielty—about whom, he told himself, Prokofiev would never have written as much as one sour note. Then he made an unenthusiastic effort to get back to business, and succeeded only in shuffling papers back and forth. Finally, when the last notes of Lieutenant Kije’s death and burial had died away, he turned on a newscast reporting the discovery of van Zaam’s horrible corpse and telling of an apparent attempt by a radical group claiming to represent the poor and oppressed to memorialize Munrooney by bombing a Berkeley branch of the Bank of America.

  The clock informed him that it was now nearly four; and he reached again for his cousin’s letter, thinking that there still might be time to answer it before Liselotte and Olivia returned. He began once more to read it—

  There was a peremptory knock on the door.

  “Damn!” said Timuroff, no longer feeling Russian or nostalgic. “Who the devil’s that?”

  Then, as the knock was twice repeated, he strode to the door and threw it open.

  Lieutenant Kielty and a plainclothesman were standing there, Kielty small, pinch-mouthed, red-faced, and hostile, the plainclothesman heavy-jowled and not much interested.

  “Yes?” said Timuroff.

  Kielty was trying to keep his antagonism veiled, and not succeeding. “You’re going to answer a few questions, Timuroff,” he said, entering uninvited. “I tried the phone, but you weren’t answering. Now we can get it over with.”

  “I think not,” said Timuroff.

  “What d’you mean, you think not?” The veil was slipping; Kielty’s voice was shrill. “I can damn well hold you as a material witness, Timuroff. How the hell do we know you didn’t kill that van Zaam character—you and Grimwood? We’ve only got your word you found him hanging there.”

  Timuroff turned his back, and walked back to his office, Kielty at his heels. The plainclothesman lagged behind, fascinated by the weapons in their cases.

  “You’ve been doing your smart-ass detective act just long enough.” Kielty was crowing now. “Maybe Pete goes for it, but a lot of us at headquarters, we’re fed up to the gills. This once, you’d better find some real sharp answers!” Timuroff sat down. He smiled with all the warmth of a Siberian winter. “Mr. Kielty, if you had consulted your medical examiner, you’d have realized that neither I nor Dr. Grimwood could possibly have killed van Zaam, because we were elsewhere when he died. It would have saved you from attempting so absurd a bluff. As for holding me as a material witness—try it.” His voice hardened. “Pete Cominazzo is a friend of mine. You aren’t. I trust him absolutely. I don’t trust you at all. He is, as you are probably aware, in charge of this investigation. Therefore I will not answer any of your questions, now or in the future. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Mister, you’ll damn well answer if you know what’s good for you. I’ve got all the authority I need, and from the chief himself.” Kielty’s voice had risen almost to a shout; now suddenly he lowered it. “Look,” he hissed, “there’s two of us and only one of you. I’ve got a witness. If anything should happen, like maybe you attacking me, it’d be our word against yours. Get me?”

  “Is that a threat?” asked Timuroff.

  “It’s a promise!”

  “It would be more effective if you didn’t flap your wings. Let us be realistic, Lieutenant Kielty. The chief was very much the mayor’s boy, and I’m sure that you’re very much the chiefs, but I doubt very much that Officer Pickering there—it is Pickering, isn’t it?—is your man. If he had been, you’d not have dropped your voice to make sure he wouldn’t hear you threaten me.” Timuroff’s own voice rang out loud and clear. He saw the plainclothesman look his way. “Now, with the mayor gone, you and the chief are skating on thin ice, and anyhow I’m certain that Mr. Pickering would never testify to anything except exactly what he’d seen and heard.”

  As Kielty started sputtering, Pickering grinned at Timuroff embarrassedly. “Who the hell wants him to?” yelped Kielty. “Don’t try to smear me, Timuroff! What the hell d’you think you’re hinting at?”

  “Just that there’s really nothing more to hold you here.” Timuroff smiled. “Unless, of course, you’d like to start collecting swords and guns and things?”

  Kielty snarled incoherently. He whirled. “Let’s get out of here!” he snapped at the plainclothesman.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Timuroff,” called the plainclothesman from the door; and, “Good-bye, Pickering,” called Timuroff cheerfully as it banged shut behind them.

  He leaned back, his good temper returning. For a few minutes, he busied himself composing a limerick for Liselotte:

  I prefer the seventeenth century

  With its wars and wining and wenchery

  To the one we are in

  Where sinners and sin

  Are sordid instead of adventury.

  Pleased with his effort, he told himself that she’d been wrong, that he was really a seventeenth-century man, not an eighteenth-century one. He decided to tell Hugh Drummond-Mowbrey all about it, and picked the letter up again.

  The doorbell rang.

  Timuroff lifted his eyes to heaven, decided that no heavenly help would be forthcoming, and marched to the door prepared to demolish whoever might be there.

  He was pleasantly surprised to find Florencio Pambid, the perceptive bartender of the night before, accompanied by a dainty Filipina.

  “Senor, something has occurred,” began Pambid in Spanish. “It is, I think, important—especially since the cruel one has been killed. I have told my wife about it, and about you, and she also thinks we should inform you of it.”

  Timuroff smiled at the girl, said that it was only fair that so brave a soldier should be rewarded with so beautiful a wife, and asked them in. “Come,” he said, “we shall sit and talk, and this time I shall be the bartender.”

  Mrs. Pambid smiled; her husband courteously demurred; each finally accepted a Tom Collins and waited while Timuroff refreshed his highball.

  “To your bride,” proposed Timuroff.

  “Of three years already,” added the bridegroom proudly. “With one child, a boy.”

  They drank.

  Then, suddenly grave, Florencio said, “Now I shall tell you what—”

  “Un momentito!” interrupted Timuroff, remembering that he had a tape recorder, and kicking himself simultaneously at the realization that he could have taped Kielty’s entire attempt to bulldoze him. “My friend, may I turn on the recorder
so that Inspector Cominazzo can hear what you have to tell me?”

  The Pambids nodded.

  “Twice we called the police,” Florencio said, “and each time they said we could not speak to him. Then one man, a detective…well, I did not like the way he spoke. So I told him nothing, not even who I was.”

  “You have acted wisely,” Timuroff assured them. “What you tell me shall be heard only by Inspector Cominazzo.”

  “Muy bien.” Florencio leaned forward. “It was necessary for me to stay very late last night. We were not able to clean up everything until the police had finished. Even after the waitresses had been sent home, I stayed and helped the ones who work for Dr. Grimwood—”

  “The Hansons,” put in Timuroff.

  “Pues. They are nice, except that he is a little crazy in the head. I helped them bring glasses, bottles, other things downstairs to put away. You will remember the place where they play cards. Behind the bar, a door goes out into a little hall where the service elevator comes, like upstairs. I had just put down my tray to unload. Then I thought perhaps I had not closed the elevator door, which does not close itself. I started out into the hall—and then I stopped! Luckily, I made no sound. Quickly, I drew back, leaving only a crack to look through. There was a policeman, a small man not in uniform. Near the elevator there is a—how do you say?—an alcove. He was just bending to pick something up. He looked at it. Very quickly, he put it in his pocket. Then his glance darted every way, to make sure nobody had seen.”

  “What was it?” asked Timuroff.

  “It was a key. An ordinary key on a small chain, perhaps with something else attached.”

  They regarded each other silently.

  “That he should pick it up and put it in his pocket was not strange,” said Florencio Pambid. “But that he should be frightened of being seen—that, I think, was very strange indeed.”