Eureka (18 page)

Moriarity was right. They knew I was there before I did. It was time to move on. I rolled down my sleeves, pulled up my tie, put on my suit jacket and gray fedora, and headed down into Culhane Land.

CHAPTER 12

The road took me down the hill and into town in front of the city park. Up close, the town was just as charming and quaint as it was from afar. It was also eerie. The street gutters were spotless—no leaves, candy wrappers, or cigarette butts. A Mexican smoking a stogie was sitting on a park bench next to a wheeled refuse can with a push broom resting in it, waiting to sweep up anything alien that might hit the pavement.

Down at the city docks, to the delight of a bunch of small children, two bronze fishermen were hauling a large swordfish from the stern of a cabin cruiser. Several older citizens were holding down canvas beach chairs under red-and-white-striped umbrellas that lined the edge of the wharf; some were reading books or dozing, others were gazing out across the bay as if they expected the
Queen Mary
to come steaming into the harbor at any minute. A small arrow-shaped sign with private beach printed on it was at the edge of the pier pointed northward.

The black block letters on the marquee of the Ritz theater, a two-story adobe building painted bright yellow, advertised
The Road to Zanzibar
with Hope, Crosby, and Lamour, and selected short subjects, “Shows at 3, 7, 9”; and the windowed one-sheets across the face of the theater told me that
The Ziegfeld Girl
and
In the Navy
with Abbott and Costello were coming soon.

It was a warm day, on the muggy side, but a cool breeze wafted across the bay, stirring the eucalyptus trees that spotted the city park and bringing the heat down a couple of degrees. There was a festive air about the place. Red, white, and blue balloons bobbed in the wind from shrubs and park benches; up near the main street men were setting up grills and ice-laden chests. A couple of sandwich boards spotted through the park invited one and all to enjoy hot dogs, soft drinks, and watermelon at a noontime picnic, courtesy of the Culhane for Governor Committee. The word free in bright red capital letters adorned the top and bottom of the boards. Culhane was upstaging the Fourth of July by a month.

The spired building facing the theater across the park was the municipal building. The big clock on the facade of the spire told me it was 11:10. The black Pontiac was maybe three blocks behind me. I turned right on the main street, which was called Ocean Boulevard. Quaint. It was paved with cobblestones and the streetlights were old-fashioned gas lamps. After that, the town got kind of creepy, as if George Orwell had come up with the concept and Norman Rockwell had hired the architect so he could do the
Saturday Evening Post
cover.

I was heading north on Ocean Boulevard with the big-money hotel behind me and another park several blocks ahead. The theater and Wendy's Diner filled the block on my left. A pleasant-looking, three-story hotel called the San Pietro Inn was on my right. It also filled the entire block. An old-fashioned bar called Rowdy's Watering Hole held down the north corner of the hotel.

After that and for the next eleven blocks, the street on both sides was a succession of stores, all built hard against each other, varying only slightly in height, width, and color: gray with white trim, pale blue with dark blue trim, green and white, white and green, and so on. There were two basic designs: gabled roof and flat roof. And they came in three sizes: small, medium, and large. They offered everything from a tobacconist and a record store to a jeweler and a restaurant advertising delicious home cooking. In between were a haberdashery, confectionary, shoe store, bookstore, newsstand, deli, pharmacy, soda fountain, children's shoe store; more services than 2,000 people could need or want. And just one of each kind. No competition here, except for restaurants, bars, and banks.

The exceptions to this architectural déjà vu were four banks and the library, each of which were brick and commandeered an entire block. They stood out like mausoleums stand out among tombstones.

The other park formed the northern perimeter of the town. I checked the rearview. Mutt and Jeff were a block behind me. I pulled into the tiny parking lot next to the library and stopped. They stopped. A block away, in the middle of the street. I pulled out and turned left, drove back past them and went to the municipal building, parked by the curb, and went up a half-dozen wide, deep steps into the building.

It was sturdily built, its thick walls holding the heat at bay. A long, wide hallway led straight through the interior. To the right were the D.A.'s office, the judge's sanctuary, and the courtroom. To the left were the police department and city jail. On the second floor were the municipal offices and the council's meeting room.

At the end of the hall on the right was Culhane's office. I decided to play it dumb, as if I had never heard of Culhane or anything else about San Pietro county. I wanted the chance to meet the man and size him up face-to-face.

I went through a glass-paneled door and came head-on to a hefty, pleasant-looking Hispanic woman in a blue police uniform, sitting behind a counter that ran almost the full length of the big room. She had a deputy's badge pinned over an ample breast, was smoking a thin cigarillo, and looked like she could handle herself just fine in any situation. A small nameplate told me her name was Rosalind Hernandez. Behind her in the corner was the switchboard, commandeered by a skinny little white lady in a plain cotton dress, who looked over her shoulder at me with a bored stare of mild disdain.

There was a small gate at the end of the counter and a door on the opposite wall, which I assumed led back to the squad room and jail. Also on the wall were two large, color photographs, one of FDR, the other of the governor, separated by a large American flag, which hung vertically almost to the floor. On the wall to my right a large, round Seth Thomas ticked forlornly as the second hand whiled away the time.

Hernandez looked at me and arched her eyebrows as a way of greeting me. I laid my card in front of her.

She read it, turned it over, turned it back, laid it on the counter, and tapped it with a finger.

“What can I do for you, Sergeant?” she asked with authority.

“Is the sheriff available?” I asked with a smile.

“No, sir,” she said. “And he goes by captain, not sheriff. Captain Culhane.” She said it in her official tone, without a trace of an accent. She looked up at the clock. “I expect he'll come back about five to twelve and make a pass at the gent's before he goes out to greet the voters.”

“In that case I'll just wait over at the picnic,” I said. “Would you give him my card? Tell him I need a word or two with him?”

She looked at a blue-covered log book, traced down the entries with a finger, and said, “No appointment?”

“Afraid not,” I said.

She gave me another once-over and nodded. “I'll tell him.”

“Thank you. I'll catch up with him at the picnic.”

“Good luck on that,” she said, and settled back to listen to the clock tick.

I drove back to the other end of town to the Pacific National Bank. The list Millicent's mousy assistant had prepared for me told me that Ben Gorman was president and manager. There was a large parking lot behind the bank. A black 1933 Pierce-Arrow limousine was parked near a rear entrance, and the chauffeur was leaning against the wall beside the door, having a smoke. I got out and went around to the front door. There was a plaque beside the twin eight-foot, brass-trimmed doors that told me: founded by elijah gorman, eureka, california, 1895.

When I entered the bank, I looked down the length of the main room to what seemed to be the big shot's office. It was on the left, a corner office about the size of Soldier's Field. A secretary was seated at a walnut desk, talking into a cradle phone. A tall, slender-faced man in a checked jacket was framed in the half-open door behind her, talking to someone I couldn't see. He looked at me as I came in and pushed the door shut. I walked back to the secretary's desk and she cupped her hand over the mouthpiece.

“Can I help you?” she asked, trying to be pleasant and not doing very well at it.

“Mr. Gorman, please.”

“He's gone for the day.”

“Really? It's not even noon yet.”

“It's Wednesday,” she snapped at me. “And Mr. Gorman's business is none of yours. He can leave anytime he wishes to. As you can see, I'm on the phone. Excuse me.”

I wanted to barge past her and kick open the door like Cagney might do, but instead I nodded and went back the way I came. I went around the back to my car, got in, slumped down behind the wheel, and rolled a cigarette.

The Pierce-Arrow driver finished his smoke and ditched his cigarette in a red pail filled with sand. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Then the back door opened. The driver bounced smartly over to the sedan and opened the door for the same tall, hawk-faced man I had seen in the bank. He was over six feet, with jet-black hair streaked with gray, and was smartly dressed in a black-and-yellow-checked sports coat, dark gray pants, and what appeared to be riding boots. He jumped in. As they pulled out of the lot I checked the tag. bg1.

I left the lot by the rear driveway onto Presidio Drive, a short street between Ocean Boulevard and the waterfront. In the rearview mirror, I saw the black Pontiac ease from behind a parked car and drop in behind me. I decided to play a little game with my shadows. I drove past the rear of the First Bank and Trust of San Pietro, turned left onto Ocean, doubled back the way I had come, passed the bank, and turned down an alley next to it. I parked, went in the bank, stood inside the door, and watched the Pontiac park on the other side of the street.

According to my list, the head knocker here was Andrew McBurney. This time I showed my credentials to a small, blond woman with a toothy smile and a pleasant attitude who looked to be in her late twenties. She was chewing gum.

“My name's Bannon,” I said, matching her smile. “I'd like a word with Mr. McBurney, please.”

“Sure,” she said. She went to the office door, stuck her nose in the door and said, “Mr. McBurney, there's a Sergeant Bannon from the Los Angeles Police Department to see you.” I heard a muffled answer, and she turned back to me and swung the door wide.

It was a large gloomy office. All dark wood. Shades pulled halfway down. A dismal lamp on the corner of the desk in a puddle of light. The parquet floors, which had been beautiful once, were scarred and pitted as if someone had worked them over with a jackhammer.

McBurney was a short, almost bald, little Scotsman with a built-in scowl and ashen skin littered with liver spots. He was wearing a knit shirt open at the throat. His desk was a massive walnut antique that came up to his chest. The rest of him protruded from its top like the clown in a jack-in-the-box. I offered him my hand, which he took without standing and waved a hand toward a chair.

“Alright, what is it?” he asked in a no-nonsense tone.

I gave him the Verna Hicks Wilensky spiel, from the radio in the bathtub to the fact that she was intestate. He listened with a bored expression and about halfway through my presentation started drumming his fingers on the desk. Then I laid out the part about the cashier's checks. Then I sat back and waited for a response.

“That's it, that's what you're taking up my time about?” he said. “The woman's a fool, dying without a will. And you know better than to ask something like that,” his voice now hissing like a snake. “Cashier's checks are confidential. It's the bank's sacred trust not to share them with anyone. If I
could
, I wouldn't show them to you. None of your goddamned business. But I
can't
show them to you, Mr. whatever-your-name-is from the Los Angeles Police Department. It's against the law. You should know that if you are who you say you are.”

I felt my blood rising. I took out my wallet, opened it, and, leaning over the desk, put it in front of him.

“I am Sergeant Bannon of the L.A.P.D., sir,” I said. “I was hoping we could finesse the state tax boys. I'm looking for a name, that's all. The last check from this bank was dated two months ago. Certainly it wouldn't be that hard to find.”

“Are you deaf?” he said, his voice rising. “I said I wouldn't if I could. And I am not in the habit of finessing the state tax people. Commissioner Weatherly is a personal friend of mine. I certainly do not want to jeopardize our friendship—and violate the law.”

He slid the wallet back across the desk to me.

“Out,” he growled. He stood up. He was no more than five feet four and was wearing lime-green golf knickers, bright red kneesocks, and cleated golf shoes. He stormed past me, the shoes digging new wounds in the inlaid floor, and flung the door open.

“OUT!”

I got up and left the office, and the door slammed at my back.

The little blond secretary stared at me open-mouthed.

“Guess he doesn't want to go to the policeman's ball,” I said.

“It's Wednesday,” she said apologetically.

“That's what Gorman's secretary said. So what?”

“All the banks close on Wednesday at noon.” She looked at her watch. “Which is in two minutes. The big shots play golf.”

“Well, that shoots down a long trip,” I said.

“I'm truly sorry,” she offered.

“You're sweet,” I said, and asked, “Is there a back door? I'm going down to the pier, save me some walking.”

“Follow me,” she said. “It's the least I can do.”

She led me down a short hallway and opened the door for me.

“Sorry you wasted your day,” she said. “If you stay over, come back tomorrow, maybe he'll be in a brighter mood.”

“Anybody who wears golf shoes on a floor like that will never be in a bright mood,” I said, and thanked her.

I stepped into the alley next to the bank, left my car on the opposite side of the building, walked rapidly down to Presidio, and headed for the park. When I got there, I mingled with the crowd and kept an eye out for my two shadows. They didn't show. I got myself a hot dog, slathered it with mustard and onions, picked up a Coke, then sat down on a bench to enjoy the free lunch and wait for the captain to make his appearance.