Come Die with Me (19 page)

A third silence. “I guess. You sound—dispirited, Brock.”

“It will go away. It always does. Kid, believe in me? Everyone needs someone who believes in him.”

“I love you,” she said. “Be careful. Very careful?”

“I will. And you, too. It’s very important these days.”

“I love you,” she said again, and hung up.

I phoned Pete Petroff and he said, “I called you this morning. I located Dave. He went to Phoenix, like I thought he might. He’s on his way home now.”

“Good,” I said. “Pete, my ankle has managed to weaken my bum knee and I can’t drive so well. Would you chauffeur me tonight?”

“Hell, yes,” he said. “Are we going after those hoodlums?”

“Not tonight. Around eight? I have to make some dinner first.”

“I’ll be there,” he said.

As I heated the beans and the frankfurters, I thought about this case and realized it had never been a whodunit. It had been a whydunit all along and my unconscious mind had tried to throw up the obvious to me, but what had triggered the unconscious? The facial resemblance, no doubt. The resemblance I had noticed that first day but couldn’t put together.

My stomach rumbled and I knew it wouldn’t improve to fill it with beans and frankfurters, but there was nothing else in the house. Menus, menus, menus—it’s enough to drive a fellow insane.

I was rinsing the dishes when Pete Petroff came. “Dave’s due any minute,” he told me, “but I didn’t wait. At your service, Muscles.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

When we went out it was dark and over toward the Westwood Village center searchlights were probing the sky. Another première of some big-money picture, undoubtedly; another major local investment going out to a disinterested audience. When the movies died, if the movies died, would the fraudulence also leave this town? I doubted it; TV would carry on.

Pete helped me into his Continental and asked, “Where to?”

“Toward Malibu. Toward the hills.”

He stood for a moment outside the car, staring at me. “You’re not going to see that Lily Chen, are you?”

“Not tonight, Pete,” I answered. “Tonight I’m going to a reunion.”

He still stood there. “You’re not making sense.”

“Get in,” I said. “I’ll brief you on the way.”

He continued to stare for a moment, and then he went around to climb in behind the wheel.

As we moved through the traffic on Wilshire, I told him about Selina Stone. How I had heard of her through Gina Ronico and how she had admitted being at Tip Malone’s lake cottage the night he was killed. And I told him about Larry Crewe.

When I had finished, we were on the Cabrillo Highway. The night was warm, the ocean calm and the traffic heavy.

“I don’t see that you’ve got anything,” he said. “About her being at Malone’s that night, it would be her word against yours, if you went to court. She sure as hell isn’t going to stick to that story if she gets a smart lawyer.”

“I don’t know,” I said wearily. “She’s about as honest as anyone can be in her business. I don’t know …”

“You tell me when to turn off,” he said. “This sure as hell looks like a blind alley to me. What’s her connection with Giovanni?”

“I don’t know. Pete, she’s the only solid lead I have so far and I have to explore it, don’t I?”

He shrugged, his eyes on the road.

“Turn off here,” I said.

The big Continental swung to the right and started up the climb that led to the eucalyptus grove. To our left the canyon was dark and frightening. The rear wheels sent a rock clattering over the brink as we swung around the curve leading to the mesa.

“Crazy,” Pete muttered.

“Intuitive,” I said. “Discerning.”

He turned to look at me. “What …?”

“Keep your eyes on the road,” I said quickly. “Man, that’s a drop!”

His voice was low. “It is, isn’t it? You’re not leveling with me, Brock.”

“I’m leveling. I’m not telling you everything, naturally. I’m a
private
detective.”

“I think you’re way out in left field,” he said, “and you’ll never get to bat.”

“That won’t bother me too much. I never liked this case. With the exception of Miss Stone and one or two others, I’ve met some nasty people on this case.”

He was silent for a few seconds. Then, “You are a
private
detective, as you said. And work for profit, don’t you?”

“I try to, Pete. Turn off at that road that leads to the eucalyptus grove. It’s one of those supermodern houses. It’s on the Big Rock Road.”

He started to say something and then evidently decided not to. The car turned onto Big Rock Road and continued down to Selina Stone’s house.

“Here,” I said. “Where that Aston-Martin is parked.”

He pulled in next to the little black car. He cut the ignition and looked at me. “Shall I wait here?”

I shrugged. “Do you want to?”

He didn’t answer. There was a long silence and then he got out of the car. We went up to her front door together.

I rang and in a moment the overhead light went on and the door opened.

“Well,” she said genially, and then her eyes went past me and saw Pete and I thought she flinched.

“This is Pete Petroff, Selina,” I said. “May we come in?”

Her face was masked and her voice tight. “Of course.” She stepped aside.

We came in and she closed the door. I hobbled to the davenport. Pete stood near the door.

Selina looked at him. “Aren’t you going to sit down, Mr. Petroff?”

He shook his head, staring at her.

“Would either or both of you like a drink?” she asked. Her poise seemed to be returning.

I shook my head and so did Pete.

She took a deep breath. “There’s—something in the air. Why are you here, Brock?”

“Just to talk.” I rubbed my swollen knee. “There’s a quotation been bothering me: ‘… upon this rock I will build my Church’. Do you recognize it, Selina?”

“Of course. It’s what the Lord said to Peter. He said, ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.’ It’s in the Bible.”

I nodded. “Peter means rock. Does Petroff mean Peter?”

She looked at Pete and back at me. “You’d have to ask Mr. Petroff. That’s a strange question, Brock.”

“It puzzled me for a while,” I admitted. “If Petroff means Peter and Peter means rock, we have a start, though, don’t we? Because we all know a rock is a stone.”

Pete said, “I said it, and you are. You’re crazy.”

“It kicked around in my unconscious,” I went on, “because when I first met Selina, she reminded me of someone. My unconscious mind told me she looked like Pete Petroff, but it didn’t come into my conscious mind until a long time later. So I checked back and it added. I saw your mother’s grave this morning, Selina.”

She stared at me and then turned to Pete. “Perhaps you had better sit down, Mr. Petroff.”

He shook his head.

“Her name was Selina, too,” I went on. “Selina Petroff. And I got the story of the young Selina Petroff, who changed her name to Selina Stone and came up in the world.”

“From whom?”

“It doesn’t matter. I saw the house she lived in and was living in when her mother died and her brothers were in the service. They were very close, those two brothers, and Selina was an outsider to them. They were close as thieves and in a way they were thieves. And they didn’t come home for their mother’s funeral and they didn’t worry about their fifteen-year-old sister, left there in Oxnard without money or many friends.”

Pete was breathing hard. Selina looked at me without any emotion on her face.

“She hated them, this deserted sister. And after the war, when they tried to make amends, she would have nothing to do with them. But their consciences were finally alive. Maybe the war did that. And they watched over her though she didn’t want their protection. And a guy got beat up, here and there, any man who tried to get fresh with Selina Petroff Stone. And she hated that, too and tried to find a home where she could hide from them. But they had their sources of information.”

Pete said, “How much, Callahan? Get to the meat. I’ll pay.”

“I’m getting to the meat,” I said. “This Tip Malone romance was too much for the brothers to stomach. They followed him around, trying to get a line on him, trying to figure a way to take him out of the picture. When I got on Tip’s trail, they worried about me learning about Selina Stone, so the brothers came to me and tried to steer me off the trail, onto Giovanni. But Giovanni’s stooges were also trailing this Malone for their boss.”

“You make sense,” Pete said. “Get to the meat. Get to a figure.”

“I’m not sure I’m for sale, Pete,” I said. “Why don’t you sit down?”

He came over to sit in a chair near me. He looked at his sister and then at me.

I said, “None of you three told me you were related. Selina said she had no relatives worth mentioning and she also tried to steer me off investigating that last fracas in Santa Monica, when Larry Crewe got beat up. And she referred to you boys as ‘those gamblers’ as though she didn’t know who you were.”

Selina came over to sit near me on the davenport.

“I’m guessing, now,” I went on, “but maybe Giovanni’s hoodlums saw the Continental over at Malone’s cottage and after he was killed they came to see you boys, knowing you were there that night. You weren’t home, so they worked on Dave. Is that a good guess, Pete?”

“Dave wasn’t there,” he said. “Dave’s got
nothing
to do with this, absolutely nothing. Dave’s clean. He’s always been clean. He’s a good boy.”

“Is that why he went to Phoenix, because he couldn’t stand the sight of you any more?”

He glared at me. Selina murmured something.

I said, “Tip told Harry Adler about Selina. And maybe Selina told Tip about you boys?”

She shook her head. “He hinted that he was checking something like that, though, the day you found him here, Brock. He said there was a rumor I had some—racketeer brothers.”

“So,” I said, “Adler was another threat.” I looked at Pete. “How come he was at that cottage when you killed him?”

“I didn’t kill him,” he said hoarsely. “I swear to you I didn’t kill him. That was Giovanni’s, that one. It has to be. Those hoodlums of his … Hell, they were standing right over him when you caught them.”

The doorbell rang. Selina and Pete looked at me. I shrugged. Selina rose and went to the door.

Pete said, “How much?”

“What makes you think I can be bought, Pete?”

“All you guys can be bought. It’s what keeps you in business.”

Selina came back into the room. Dave Petroff was with her. Dave looked at his brother and said, “I got your note. I figured if you were driving Callahan around, it would be about time for him to get up here.”

“Sit down, Dave,” Selina said.

He sat in a chair near the doorway. Selina came over to sit near me again.

Her voice was soft. “You have to remember, Brock, that I was a little tramp, even at thirteen. So maybe Pete and Dave had reason to be ashamed of me. You can’t blame them, not completely.”

I looked at Pete. “When did you stop being ashamed of her?”

“In Italy,” he said, “and in Germany, I saw these young girls, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. All they were trying to do was survive, and all the fine young American soldiers, these noble bastards, were putting a price on that.”

“Not
all
of them,” I argued.

“Most of them in my outfit,” he said. “Guys I’d thought were really—you know—
decent
? I mean, not the slobs, but the real
men,
the guys who bathed once in a while. And I got to thinking that a woman really has only got that one weapon, hasn’t she? I mean, that’s one way she can always earn a buck to eat on.”

“And that took you back to Selina, in your mind?”

He nodded. “And then when Dave and I came out and she was doing so good, we figured the least we owed her was a chance to make it the class way. The slobs in this town are no better than soldiers.”

“Or any town,” I said.

For a moment nobody spoke and nobody looked at anyone else.

Once again Pete asked, “How much?”

“Pete,” I said, “if Jessup and Calavo saw your car over at the lake cottage, they’re going to take it to the police, eventually.”

“Never,” he said firmly. “They’d never take
anything
to the police.” He looked off into space. “All I wanted to do was reason with the little bastard and he went for that knife … Hell, I didn’t have any idea of killing him. And if those Giovanni hoods killed Adler, Malone can be written off to them, too. Maybe we can prove they killed Adler.”

Dave had been silent. Now he shook his head and said, “You couldn’t prove that, because they didn’t.”

We all stared at him. He sat quietly in his chair near the doorway looking back at us blandly.

Finally Pete said, “For Christ’s sake … Oh no, it couldn’t be! What did you mean, Dave?”

Dave said calmly, “He threatened to turn you in. He wanted to show me the tire marks in the back of the parking space there. He said he’d made molds of them. He said he knew about Selina and the guys we’d beat up.” Dave looked at the floor. “He said Selina had told Tip all about us and Tip had told him. I think he wanted money.”

Pete whispered hoarsely, “You
think
…? Dave, you’re talking foolish.” He turned to me. “Don’t listen to him, Brock. He’s—been out in the sun.”

Dave said calmly, “I’m sure he wanted money. Why else would he approach me? But the way he talked about Selina and … I took the .32 along, that one you took away from Johnny Hope.” He exhaled heavily. “And then I got out of town.”

Pete said, “Shut up. Shut up about guns and calibers. Callahan’s price is going up by the minute.”

“It just went out of reach,” I said. “All I can promise you is that Selina will be kept out of it. That deal I’ve already made with the law, and it won’t cost you a dime.”

“And the law hasn’t got a damned thing,” Pete said. “Not on me or on Dave, either. So all your big talk isn’t going to amount to a damn, Callahan.”

Dave said, “They can get me. I’ve still got the gun.”

Pete smiled. “Have you now? And wouldn’t this be a nice time to bring it out and show it to us? Point it at Callahan as you show it to us.”