Come Die with Me (13 page)

Who was Tip Malone and what was he to me? He was something to his widow and she had the money. I was profiting by his death and was I so naïve I didn’t realize it was
money
that was important, not murder? Money, money, money …
Get smart, Callahan. Listen to your beloved about that. She’s got the word. Money, money, money
…

I looked at my ankle cast and was conscious of my ribs and remembered the old wheeze—there are no pockets in a shroud.

I would do almost anything for money. Would I commit suicide for it?

Nonsense, this was negative thinking. They had tried to kill me and failed. From now on I would be more careful. I would be more polite and more careful and …

And nothing. It was too late for that. I was already on Frank Giovanni’s list of people least likely to achieve Social Security status. Politeness wouldn’t change that, only a publicly announced withdrawal from investigation of his affairs and affairs that impinged on his affairs.

Two hundred and twenty pounds on the horns of a dilemma, a ludicrous image. Was I a man or wasn’t I?

A man I was, and therefore vulnerable. I didn’t think a simple wish to continue living necessarily made me gutless. It is a basic and universal wish, shared even by jockeys and bullfighters.

I went to the window and saw that the clear patch of sky in the north was growing, but the rain was still falling steadily on the street below.

My phone rang, and it was Gloria Duster Malone. “I called the hospital,” she said, “and they told me you had sneaked out. That was foolish of you.”

“I suppose.”

A pause, and then, “Are you still working for me?”

“I haven’t decided, Mrs. Malone. It’s a difficult decision to make.”

“I suppose it is,” she admitted. “But you’ve been—so much more successful than the police so far, that—well, I hoped you would decide in my favor.”

“I’ll let you know. Good-bye, Mrs. Malone.”

“Just a second,” she said. “Have you seen Harry Adler?”

“I haven’t. Did he have some message for me?”

“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “His sister phoned and asked if I’d seen him. He must be missing. She sounded very worried.”

“I’ll phone her,” I said, “and inquire. And I’ll call you the moment I’ve made up my mind.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be waiting.”

Harry Adler missing … A senseless premonition stirred in me and I sat down and stared at the top of my desk. Harry Adler missing. Had he, too, been investigating Malone’s death and was that why he was missing.

I heard footsteps in the hall outside and then my door opened and Pete Petroff stood there. He looked tense and nervous.

“I went to the hospital first,” he said. “They told me you’d left.” He took a breath. “Dave’s missing. I haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon.”

“Something awful weird is going on,” I said. “I just learned that Harry Adler is missing, too.”

“Adler …?” He frowned. “Oh, that little guy. Malone’s agent?”

I nodded.

We stared at each other. And he asked, “What in hell is going on, Brock? It’s all Giovanni’s work, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “Dave may just have taken off. He was scared as hell last time I saw him. I wouldn’t be a damned bit surprised if he left town for his own protection.”

“Without telling me? We’re close, Brock. Hell, we’ve
never
been separated.”

“If you’re that close,” I said, “he wouldn’t know anything you wouldn’t know, would he? And if he disappeared because he knew something, maybe now would be the right time for you to tell me what he knew.”

Petroff stared and then came over to sit in my customer’s chair. “If I knew anything, wouldn’t I tell you? I want to nail Giovanni as much as you do.”

“You’re still on that kick, are you? If you’re so close to your brother, tell me why Jessup was working him over that day?”

“Because he thought we were friends of Malone’s, that’s why. But we were never real close to him. Tell me, when did this Adler disappear?”

“I don’t know if he has, for sure,” I said. “Just a minute.”

I looked up his number and dialed it and his sister Bertha answered. I said, “This is Brock Callahan, Mrs. Fine. Have you heard from your brother?”

“Not a word,” she said. “And Harry always lets me know where he is going when he goes away. Where could he be?”

“I’ve no idea,” I answered. “Have you told the police?”

“This morning,” she said. “I tell you, I’m worried sick.” She sniffed. “Yesterday afternoon he said he was going over to Heinie’s for some pinochle. But he never went there.” She began to cry. “It’s that Giovanni, isn’t it? He’s behind this.” She began to sob and then she hung up.

Petroff looked at me questioningly and I nodded. “She’s notified the police about her brother,” I said. “Have you told them about yours?”

“I’m going to,” he said, “right now.” He stood up. “If you need a chauffeur, Brock …?”

“I’ll holler,” I promised him. “And if you learn anything, let me know, won’t you?”

He promised he would.

He left and I sat there, my heart hammering, my ankle throbbing. Malone first? Then Adler and Dave Petroff? Giovanni’s work? Captain Apoyan had told me that so far as he knew Giovanni was out of the rackets, in the investment business.

I phoned the West Los Angeles Station and Captain Apoyan was in. I asked him, “Changed your mind about Giovanni, Captain?”

“Why should I?”

“Malone murdered, Dave Petroff and Harry Adler missing. Whose work is that?”

“You tell me. Can you prove it’s Giovanni’s?”

“Give me a likelier suspect.”

“I don’t have any at the moment. But you see, my impetuous and emotional friend, we don’t work on hunches and hearsay. We try to be more factual.”

“Captain,” I said evenly, “I often wonder whether the boys in the Department want to work on men like Giovanni at
all
.”

“Careful,” he said ominously. “I won’t take any lip from you Callahan.”

“Has Pascal gone to see him yet?”

“
Sergeant
Pascal talked with Giovanni this morning. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“It was my ankle and my ribs, Captain, and that makes it my business. Have Calavo and Jessup been picked up?”

“They haven’t been located. When they’ve been picked up, Miss Chen has promised to come in for identification.”

“I’ll bet. You don’t think Giovanni can afford to throw that pair to the wolves, do you? They won’t be found. And if they are, she won’t identify them. She’s a two-hundred percent phony, Captain.”

“She didn’t strike me that way.” A pause. “If she was, why did she describe them to you when you went to see her?”

“It was her way of warning me that I was being watched and that it would be smart for me to stop nosing around Frank Giovanni.”

“Boy,” he said, “you do reach, don’t you? What keeps you in business, Callahan?”

I was silent a moment. And then I said quietly, “Captain, you take a look at the cases I helped Sergeant Pascal on. And then, if you want to call back and apologize, I’ll be here for at least another half-hour.”

“Hey,” he said, “just a second. Don’t go off …”

I hung up. The phone rang again in less than a minute, but I ignored it. I hobbled over to the window to see if that clear patch in the north was growing any bigger. It seemed to be.

The bastards. … Just because I was big and strong and vulgar, they imagined I wasn’t sensitive. They thought they could say
anything
to me.

I looked at my reflection in the rain-streaked window and saw the pout. I might as well face it, they
could
say anything to me. They treated me a lot better, at that, than they treated most of the boys who worked one-man agencies. With reason, of course.

Harry Adler … He had promised me he wouldn’t tell the police about Selina Stone. It seemed likely that he had been investigating Malone’s death to some degree. That might have taken him out of town. It was possible he wouldn’t want his sister to worry and she would worry if he told her he was investigating a murder. But that didn’t add; he could have given her any number of excuses for a trip. Malone hadn’t been his only client and some of his boys would be riding at other tracks.

It wasn’t reasonable but this sense of doom about Harry Adler persisted. And a sense of guilt.

Outside, now, the rain had diminished to a California mist and I got my crutch and walked without incident to the drug store for lunch. My fan was behind the counter again.

“Brock,” he said. “Buddy, buddy. I saved a real choice filet for you.”

“Buddy, buddy, buddy,” I said, topping him by one.

It was an amazing cut of meat to be served at a drugstore lunch counter, juicy, tender and life-giving. Energy flowed through me and a fine poison-reducing sweat broke out on my face and neck. I was up and around, something I had not been sure of achieving at the bottom of that canyon. I was glad to be alive.

My fan said, “You know, the place where you fell off that cliff was real close to the place where Malone died.”

“The thought occurred to me, too,” I told him.

He smiled. “You were working on that Malone kill, huh?”

“I
was
,” I admitted, “but I think I’ve learned my lesson.”

He looked at me in disappointment. “Hey, Brock, nobody’s scaring you off, are they?”

“Almost,” I said.

He shook his head and walked to the other end of the counter. I had failed him.

That place was close to Malone’s cottage and so was Selina Stone’s modern hideaway. A triangle of geographical proximity, and was it just a coincidence?

At the far end of the counter my fan was talking to a pair of stout and middle-aged women. I called him over and said, “More coffee, please.”

He poured it silently.

“Nice day for a drive,” I said.

He looked out at the gloomy day and shrugged.

“I think I’ll take a drive out around the neighborhood where I fell off the cliff,” I went on. “Just sort of nose around.”

He smiled. “That’s my buddy, buddy. That’s the Rock. I knew they wouldn’t scare you off.”

I didn’t disillusion him. I didn’t have so many fans left I could afford to lose any. I finished my second cup of coffee and went out into a brightening day. My car had been returned to the lot and the attendant had the keys.

“A Sergeant Pascal brought it in,” he told me, “and he said I should tell you to take it easy.” The attendant frowned. “He said to tell you they couldn’t afford to lose you. Now, what did that mean?”

“It means,” I told him, “that the Los Angeles Police Department finally realizes what an important ally I am. And it’s about time.”

I steered the flivver out and headed west, my crutch in the back seat, my courage only faintly impaired. The air was warmer and it wouldn’t be long, I was sure, before the sun would break through.

The flivver murmured consolingly and my ankle hardly ached at all, though there was some pain in my left calf. My ribs were sore but not aching, as was my bad right knee. It didn’t matter; the flivver would take me anywhere I wanted to go and the .38 would compensate for any temporary lack of physical strength.

By the time I got to the Topanga turn-off, the sun was visible through the haze and the air was hot and muggy. I stopped off the road here and took out my detailed Los Angeles map. Lines connecting Selina Stone’s place, Lily Chen’s and Malone’s new place formed an almost perfect isosceles triangle, the equal legs being the lines from Selina’s to Malone’s and from Lily Chen’s to Malone’s. If murders were based on geographical distance, both Lily and Selina would be equally suspect.

But Lily Chen had no apparent reason to kill Tip Malone. And murder needed the deadly trinity—motive, means and opportunity. Selina had admitted being there and had admitted finding Tip’s body. As for Lily, she could be covering for Giovanni, who had been at her house when Malone was killed. It didn’t seem reasonable that Frank Giovanni, at his present level, still did his own killing.

But if he hadn’t, if he had called in a professional, there would be no reason for him to be presently concerned about my investigation. Murders done by professionals leave no point for investigative entry, either by the police or the private man. They remained unsolved.

So, then, it was possible Frank Giovanni’s emotions had led him to this amateurish act of doing his own killing? Because of his emotional involvement? It was possible. I got back onto the road and headed for Malone’s love nest.

A year or so back, I had talked with one of the investigators who had worked on Giovanni for one of the Congressional committees, and the man had felt certain that Giovanni had a Mafia tie-up. If that was true, I would get nowhere with Giovanni and neither would the L.A.P.D.

I was at the top of the hill now and to my right was the road that led to Lily Chen’s lacquered bird cage. I sent the flivver straight ahead, down the main road that led to the lake.

The last time I had seen this house, I had seen it from the top of the hill and there had been a police car parked in front of it. There was no police car in front now. But there was a Buick Roadmaster convertible on the driveway.

I didn’t drive onto the driveway. I drove past and parked off the edge of the road. I got my crutch from the back seat and worked my way out carefully, and walked back.

There were no curtains in the front window; the house seemed to be unoccupied. I went up to ring the front doorbell, but before I got to it, I heard voices from the rear of the house.

One of them sounded familiar, familiar enough for me to get my .38 into my hand before coming down off the porch and hobbling along the pebbled concrete walk, that led to the rear.

Once around the corner of the house, I could see the slight drop-off at the end of the back yard, and two men were standing there with their backs to me, looking down at something below the level of where they stood. It was Calavo and Jessup.

Calavo turned, saw me, and I said, “Don’t move, either one of you. I’m aching to pull this trigger. I’m aching for an excuse to kill both of you.”

They stood frozen, staring at me. And then Jessup said, “We didn’t kill him. We didn’t have anything to do with it.”