Built for Trouble (6 page)

“I know them both.” He watched me and I just nodded.

“The guy is Sawyer. Hank Sawyer. Pulled lifeguard duty here for a while right after the war. And the girl is Nat Novak.”

“Nat?” I asked it slowly, wondering if he could have mistaken her for someone else. Still, the initials were the same. I waited. The old guy behind the counter had gotten up to scrape the grill but you could tell he’d developed an interest in our conversation. Carl was watching me closely now and I pointed toward Nola’s picture once more.

“You’re sure of her name?”

“Natalie Novak. So what are you digging into? What’s the beef?”

“No beef. Just doing a little checking for—”

“You a newspaper guy? You gotta rake all that muck over the coals again?” He stood up now and began to move toward the jeep.

“Wait a second,” I said. “All I wanted to know was—”

“Forget it, Mac. Let’s just forget all about it.” He gave me a sour look and climbed into the red jeep and rolled out onto the sand.

When I turned back the cook had come over to the counter. He wiped his hands on the flour-sack apron and grinned.

“Carl’s a little touchy about some things,” the cook said, and winked. “Exactly what was it you were interested in?”

“Whatever I can find out about these two. Did you know them?”

“Yup. Real well. How interested would you be?”

“If you say anything worth listening to,” I said softly, “I’ll probably get excited and walk away without my change.” I nodded toward the five, four ones, and silver on the counter.

The cook turned to the counter girl. “Alice, go on out back and pick up the papers blowing around,” he said.

“But, Pop, I just picked them up a few—” She stopped as he thumbed toward the door, and then she gave me a pained look and went out.

“This Natalie,” the cook said, leaning his elbows on the worn linoleum counter, “was really stacked. So was a couple of others hanging around the beach in those days, and I guess you’d say they were pretty bitchy. You know how things was, the war not long over and all. These babes were chasing around here on the strand at all hours of the night and swilling beer with the Marines from Camp Pendleton and doing their bit to keep the boys happy, as you might say. For free, just for kicks, and then Sawyer got an idea, I guess, because the next thing we knew this San Diego deal broke in the news.”

“What San Diego deal?”

“Well, seems that Sawyer figured out as long as these kids had ants anyway they might as well get a buck or so for their tricks. He took some pretty inviting photographs and he’d circulate around a convention down in Diego whenever a good one was there and he’d drum up some trade. A lay-for-pay deal, or at least that’s what they were able to prove. On her, I mean. Sawyer, he got the hell out and stayed out.”

“You mean Nol—Natalie got caught?”

He nodded. “Sure did. Right in the sack in a hotel room with a drummer from San Francisco or somewhere. When they began to make a noise about her being a minor, the salesman got scared and that’s when hell broke loose. He explained how he’d paid hard cash and this was strictly a commercial jump. They couldn’t find Sawyer but they sweated Nat out and she admitted it was a paying deal. Been down to half a dozen San Diego conventions, she had, along with some others from the beach here, but she didn’t give out no names. It was all hushed up in a hurry, but Nat didn’t never come around here no more, which I guess was best if you take it all the way around.”

“And when was this? What year, what date?”

“Can’t say exactly, toward the end of summer and ten—no, no it was eleven years ago. Eleven.”

“I see.” He’d earned his dough, and I didn’t even look a second time at the money as I got up and turned away. It all figured now—that phony background about her old man having been a construction laborer and no permanent address while she was a kid. Nice. It cleared her of having to provide a detailed account of her early years. She could start with when she settled down in the midwest and took that lifeguard job. The long black hair instead of a short bob and the original honey color helped. And Nola Norton—that switch was necessary too.

I got back into the Ford and drove north again. So now I had it. Had it, but what was I going to do with it? I’d started out to get a few thousand I thought I had coming on a publicity gag, but the water had gotten deep in a hell of a hurry. Of course she’d bumped Hank off—she had to; if he was shaking her down for big dough she’d have to pay or get him off her back another way.

Hers was an unforgivable sin in the picture industry. The movie moguls aren’t as skittish as they once were and some pretty strong raps have been beaten. Dope parties. Wild orgies in night clubs. Even a couple of stars posing for nudes managed to survive when the exposé washed over the newspapers. You can say boys-will-be-boys and you can cover a lot of things with “the poor girl was down to a crust of bread and her mother needed an operation,” but when you go as far as peddling it… that’s all. No producer in the country would try to buck that kind of publicity at the box office, and everyone knows it. Hank Sawyer knew it and pushed too hard when he saw a big pay-off shaping up. Now Eddie Baker held the whip.

The police? I thought about it for a lot of miles as I rolled toward L.A. So far I wasn’t in very deep; mine were minor offenses. And she’d killed Hank, so maybe I ought to run to the cops and—But what the hell was Sawyer to me? He’d been in on the swindle—he had helped her set Eddie Baker up, for the kiss-off. The two of them were running hand in hand. Was it my fault if he got too greedy and careless and let her palm off some poisoned hooch on him? Hell, no!

Even so, I
did
have evidence of murder and legally I was supposed to go to the authorities and…

I got a little sore about then. What would it get me? What besides thanks? And there’s no drawer in the cash register for that kind of pay-off. Sure as hell nobody had been very anxious to see that Baker got a fair deal. Call it a blackout and wash the man out—that’s the easiest answer. But I’d scrounged around on my own and I’d come up with some answers. I was entitled to put in my bill. And the lady with the stars in her eyes was going to pay. I goosed the Ford up to sixty-five, glanced into the mirror for a speed-cop check, and ran the needle up to eighty. I had work to do in Los Angeles.

I PARKED THE CAR at Union Station, hurried in, and slipped the key into the locker. My suitcase was still there. I carried it out to the car, opened it, and unwrapped the Lucky Lager can. Hank’s thumbprint was there, nice and clear. Now it was time to check the celluloid separator in my wallet.

The light smear of grease on the celluloid had done well. Nola’s thumbprint on the beer can wouldn’t be absolutely necessary but it would help. I found a lead pencil, scraped a tiny pile of black dust from the end with my pocket knife, and blew it across the greasy print with a quick breath. Then I rubbed a spot clean on the can a little above Hank’s thumb mark, pressed the bit of celluloid tightly against the tin, and rolled Nola’s thumbprint onto the beer can. When I held it up for close examination, it looked fairly good. The next stop would be a photographer.

Not a big outfit. What I wanted was a small one-man enterprise and I found one out on Jefferson Boulevard, a shoestring operation someone had started in a little bungalow sandwiched in between half a dozen shops lining the street. It would do nicely. I rolled on past, stopped at a supermarket on the next corner, begged a big cardboard carton, and bought a roll of scotch tape.

Sitting in my car, I cut one side off the carton and began to flatten out the snapshots of Nola Norton, all five of them. When I had them taped down on the reverse side of the cardboard in a loose fan-shaped arch, I put a strip of cellophane tape around the Lucky Lager tin and fastened it in the center. Then I fished Nola’s earring out of my pocket, fastened it just above the can, and held the cardboard up for a look.

It was tight. She’d just given me the earring yesterday and there wasn’t any way she could doubt that I had all the evidence in my possession. The pictures, the beer tin—I had Nola over the well-known barrel and the only way she could get off would be to settle with Baker. I put my display card down and drove over to the small photography shop. There were framed photographs all over the tiny display room, and the owner came through a curtained arch, wiping his hands on a paper towel. I put the cardboard exhibit on a glass showcase.

“How much to make an eight by ten of this display?” I asked. “And how long will it take?”

“Of—of this?” He looked a little puzzled, and when I nodded he said, “You only want one. That right?”

Again I nodded. When he looked once more at my cardboard with the pictures, the can, and the earring taped in place, I gave him a story about having an idea for an advertising scheme and said I wanted a photograph to send to New York along with my suggestion. I managed to be a little vague about it all, and when he asked casually where a guy could sell advertising ideas I got real coy.

“Now, now,” I said grinning, “you’ve got your racket and I’ve got mine. All I want to get from you is a photograph.”

We spent a couple of minutes haggling over a price. He wanted to take at least a day because both the negative and the print would have to dry. I suggested using a fan to dry the negative and agreed to take the photograph wet. We closed at a flat eight bucks, and he went to work.

It only took a few minutes to expose the film and make a development. When he hung it up to dry and rigged a fan, I went for a bite to eat and attended to the next chore on the agenda. His negative looked pretty sharp; we weren’t going to need the beer tin or the snapshots of Nola again for a while. I stripped them off the cardboard, packed them into the suitcase, and dropped her earring into my pocket. At a drugstore I bought envelopes, a tablet, and a cheap ball point pen. When I got back into the car again I propped up the suitcase for a writing surface and ran off the following note:

To the Homicide Division, L.A. Police Department:

The items in this bag are evidence of murder. The starting point is the rescue of lifeguard Edward Baker (myself) by Miss Nola Norton last July. It was a neatly camouflaged publicity stunt rigged by Nola, her agent Joe Lamb, and Chief Lifeguard Hank Sawyer, but without my knowledge or help. This publicity skyrocketed Nola into national prominence and a big-money movie contract. Hank Sawyer, who had information which would have blackballed Nola in the picture industry, tried a shakedown once he had helped make Nola a profitable target for such action. Sawyer apparently got too greedy, and Nola and Lamb murdered Sawyer. Here are the facts:

The blackmail gambit was based on a prostitution rap Nola Norton took about a dozen years ago. Her name is really Natalie Novak; she lived in Oceanside, California; she admitted guilt in the lay-for-pay operation in San Diego. She accused Hank Sawyer of organizing this deal but he had already left town. These facts can be quickly checked in both Oceanside and San Diego.

Investigation will show that Sawyer never supplied the liquor for any get-togethers at his place; hence he would have had no reason to deceive anyone with cheap booze in fancy bottles. The “accidental death” (by lethal booze) verdict falls apart.

The five pictures here presented are the ones the police were unable to find from the pin-ups on Sawyer’s wall at the time of his death. The reason for their being taken down is self-evident—Sawyer pulled them off the wall but kept them for a club in his blackmail game. A check with some of the lifeguards in L.A. will prove that these were at one time on Hank’s wall. They are obviously Natalie Novak, now known as Nola Norton, and they link Nola to the past she had to cover up—even at the price of murder.

Finally, there is the beer can. I found it where Nola “rescued” me in the waters off the beach at Playa Del Rey. Fingerprints will show that both Hank Sawyer and Nola Norton handled this homemade aqualung. It is the link which joins the two of them in the phony rescue, and ultimately in the death of one at the hands of the other.

And as this suitcase has come to your attention, there is doubtless one more “accidental death” on the books by now, also arranged by Nola Norton and Joe Lamb. The victim will be—

Edward Baker

I slid the letter into an envelope, sealed it, and wrote on the outside that both suitcase and envelope were to be given to the L.A. police immediately. It was all any good investigator would need. I slipped it into the suitcase, locked it, and drove down to the Union Depot. It took only a few minutes to run in, boost it into a locker, shove a quarter into the slot, and depart with the key. When I got back to the photography shop, my eight-by-ten print of the pictures and beer can was soaking in the rinse.

“Turned out damn good,” I observed, looking over the guy’s shoulder. He nodded, caught it with a pair of wooden tongs, and lifted it out.

“Sure did. A close-up like that, you really get the detail. More’n you need, most likely, if you’re just trying to give that advertising agency a rough idea.”

I grunted and picked up the negative. He rolled the wet print in a piece of wax paper, and I paid him the eight bucks. An hour later I was back in my little apartment in Santa Monica, the wet print pinned to the breadboard so the paper wouldn’t curl up as it dried. The man was right. The detail was strong. I bent to look at it again and then grinned and went into the living room and sat on the pulldown bed. Slowly I got my clothes off. It had been a long day, but a rewarding one, and tomorrow should see me over the hump. Tomorrow I could make the second contact and zero in on some real money.

At nine in the morning I checked the scrap of paper on which I’d written Nola’s phone number, and made the call.

“Got a picture I’d like you to see,” I said. “I’ll come over. Can you get your agent to stop by?”

“When, Mr. Baker?”

“No hurry. Now will be all right.”

“We’ll have to—to make it a little later. Say about eleven?”

“Eleven,” I echoed, and hung up. It would give me time to take care of a couple of loose ends. I crumpled the negative, held it over the sink, and struck a match. The transparent film curled up in a fast cloud of black smoke and was gone. The key to the coin locker was next; I had to keep it but I didn’t want to carry it in my pocket. If Joe and Nola managed to grab the upper hand long enough to shake me down, I wouldn’t want them to run onto that key. The locker number was stamped on it and once they saw that they’d come up with some fast answers, run down the right stand of lockers, pay the overdue storage, pick up my suitcase, get rid of the evidence—and maybe the owner of that evidence. This could run into a long caper. It was certain that the cash from Apex Pictures hadn’t all been paid in advance; part of the package was Nola’s pay for work yet to be done. I didn’t want the key on me, and there was no telling how long I’d want to stay in this particular apartment. That left my car.

I lifted the hood, found a place where a piece of tin was fastened to the firewall with a self-tap screw, backed out the screw, and spread the metal. Dropping the key in between, I ran the self-tap through the first piece of tin, then through the hole in the key, and on into the sheetiron of the firewall. With my finger I wiped a glob of grease from the steering column, smeared it over the key to hide the thin edge of bright metal, and put the hood back down.

At eleven I went through the heavy glass door and up to Nola’s apartment. She came to the door in a chartreuse skirt and thin, tight black sweater with a high neck. Her earrings were black and so were her high-heeled pumps. When I stepped inside, she glanced anxiously toward the street entrance, then closed the door.

“That sweater girl effect is perfect, but it will get you nowhere; I came on business,” I said, grinning. “Where’s the friend?”

“He’s late, apparently.” She said it stiffly and made a production of filing a fingernail. “You said something about a picture, Mr. Baker.”

“We’ll wait for him. Meantime, here’s your jewelry,” I said, and tossed her the ivory earring. She missed it, picked it up from the sofa, and turned it idly in her hand.

“Have a nice ride out on the freeway?” I asked. She gave me a wry smile and then the door chimes announced a new arrival. Nola turned the knob, and Joe Lamb breezed in.

“All right, Baker, where the hell is it?”

“Maybe you’d better sit down before you look at it. This is going to throw you.”

“The hell you say,” Lamb barked, but a thin edge of excitement crept into his voice. He lit a smoke and sat down on the sofa next to Nola, and I dropped the big eight-by-ten photograph on the coffee table in front of them, face down. Joe reached for it and turned it over.

“Damn it, we should have made sure these—” Joe began, but Nola cut him off.

“And exactly what is this supposed to be, Mr. Baker?”

“You mean you don’t know?” I took one of the smokes from her little glass box and struck a match.

“Should I?”

“Try,” I said. She looked toward the wall, her eyes half closed in thought, and then Joe Lamb wheeled into the line.

“For a guy with nothing but a tin can, a few old snapshots, and a dream, you got a hell of a lot of push, Baker.” Joe moved the picture toward me and leaned back, his hands turning nervously in his lap. “So there’s maybe a small nuisance value here, a trivial embarrassment over the rescue Nola made. We don’t want to argue all day over a few bucks, so name a price and—”

“You can take
that
record off right now,” I cut in. “Get out your bifocals and look again. Nola’s prints are on that can, or at least some prints a damn sight too small to have been Hank Sawyer’s, and they point—”

“The hell with that! Let’s get down to business.”

“All right,” I said. I looked at Nola as she rested easily on the soft cushion, calmly regarding the tip of her cigarette. But one toe tapped nervously against the heel of her other shoe. Joe inched forward on the sofa and took a quick puff of his cigarette.

“All right,” I said softly, “I want a flat fifty per cent of the property I helped create, the publicity you got out of that phony rescue. To be more specific, I want seventy-five thousand dollars.”

“What!” It came from both of them at once, and then Joe Lamb bounced off of the sofa.

“Baker, are you out of your mind? Who do you think would pay you seventy-five thousand dol—”

I pushed him back to a sitting position. “Who do I think will pay it? That’s simple—you and Nola.”

Actress or no actress, that got through to her. Nola ground out her smoke and glared at me, and when Joe tried to get up again she put a hand on his arm and motioned him back. When she spoke her words were slow, her voice unsure.

“Since no one in his right mind would pay such a sum for the reason you’ve outlined, and no one with any sense at all would expect such a payment, I assume there’s more. Is that right, Mr. Baker?”

“That’s right, baby. There’s a hell of a lot more. Murder.”

“Oh?” She said it slow again, but she’d regained part of her composure now and lit a fresh cigarette with steady hands. “I presume you’ll be able to develop that theme, Mr. Baker.”

“I’d have to do a little guessing.
You
don’t have to guess at all; why don’t you add it up?”

“Look, Baker, why don’t you give us something firm for a change,” Joe Lamb said.

“I think I can oblige,” I said. “The last time I was here we pretty well established how this caper went from the time you set it up until I was hauled out of the water by our mermaid here. Let’s start from there and work a little in each direction.”

“We admit nothing, Baker,” Joe said quickly, “but go ahead.”

“Let’s suppose that a little before this time, Hank Sawyer spotted Nola in one of her bit parts—even with the long hair, the twelve years of change, and the switch from blonde to brunette. He puts the bite on, but a small bite; after all, Nola isn’t making it big yet. Then the
Island Love
deal suddenly looms in the immediate future. I don’t claim to know all the details, but they’re not important. The result is that Hank is willing to help Nola stage this rescue, and when it’s over she is in position to score big.

“Except that Hank slides in with the bite once more. And strong this time. He’s in the driver’s seat—a few words about Nola’s bedtime capers in San Diego back when she was Natalie Novak, and that promising career she’s reaching for will go up in smoke. She’s dead. She couldn’t get a job sweeping out the studios once that mess smelled up the press. Now after you used it Hank was supposed to fish the beer tin out of the water at the first opportunity. He was supposed to get rid of the thing, but instead he kept you on the hook. He had the can and he had the pictures that would lead back to Oceanside and connect Nola Norton with Natalie Novak. There was no way you could get around him; it was pay him off or kill him off. Maybe you weighed some of the more obvious facts: He didn’t have any friends; you weren’t going to worry about him having shared this with anyone. And more important, you didn’t have to find the beer tin or the snapshots of Natalie Novak; you only had to risk their showing up in the wrong place. Buried, hidden away, destroyed—all of these would be safe answers. The odds were strongly in your favor.”