Have Gat—Will Travel (7 page)

Barney Goodman was the head of a small publishing house in Los Angeles. In addition, Barney was active in political affairs locally, a magnetic speaker who'd been on TV forums numerous times in the last year. He was only thirty-eight, but there was already talk about his running for the U.S. Senate in the next elections.

I said, "Barney's seen the manuscript?"

"Nope. Just Amos and Gale. Besides what you've read. But I told Barney the gist of it, what he could expect. Didn't scare him." He grinned. "But he's our next Senator — and we need some more like him."

"Okay, I'll vote for him. And if I ever write my memoirs I'll send them to Barney."

Jim went out for beer, and apparently got to thinking about something while in the kitchen. He was more sober when he came back, frowning, which was unusual for him.

"There's just one thing," he said, and stopped. After almost a minute he said, "Shell, remember when I told you about being in that pro group in New York?"

"Sure."

"There was a guy in the group named Lewis Tollman; he'd be about forty-five now, a real go-getter, intelligent, worked night and day for the party. The word went around that he was being groomed for big things. Seems he was that rarity, a guy who'd never been finger-printed. Little while later he was in an auto accident and wound up in the hospital. Point is, that's the last any of us heard of him. I assumed he'd died. It's — an important part of the book."

He swigged some beer. "He had a crippled hand, all closed up into a fist, something wrong with the nerve or muscles. Sometimes when he'd get excited, he'd point that fist at you with the little finger sticking out; only finger he could point with. Real odd thing, not something you'd forget. Well, a few days ago I was talking to a man and he got excited, raised his fist and pointed that little finger at me."

"Same guy?"

"No, that's the point. Didn't look at all like Lewis. Nothing wrong with his hand, either. I suppose a man could have a hand fixed and still, because of a thirty- or forty-year habit, use it in the same old way once in a while. But this guy was entirely different in appearance. Can't possibly be the same man." He paused. "The FBI's caught up with some comrades, though, who don't answer their descriptions — had some plastic surgery. And they do go underground, new faces, new pasts, have nothing to do with party activities — until they're needed for something big. By which time, of course, they're not suspect."

The upshot of it was that, because Jim wanted to know about Lewis Tollman for sure, I hopped a plane two days later and flew to Boston, then took a bus to the small city where the Merriman Hospital was located. Jim had given me a wealth of information from his files, date of the accident, description, all I needed.

With that information I didn't have to spend much time at the hospital. Half an hour after I'd arrived, a clerk was looking at a card in his hand and saying, "A patient answering that description, shriveled hand and all, was in here on that date. He hadn't been in an accident, however. There's no record of a Lewis Tollman."

"Who's your record of? And what was he in for?"

He looked at the card. "Mr. Arthur Harris. Doctor Zerek's patient. Doctor Zerek was our plastic surgeon."

"When can I see Doctor Zerek?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid you can't, sir. Doctor Zerek died several years ago. He had a bad heart."

"Heart attack, huh? Would you know offhand when he died?"

"Why . . . just a moment." He went to another filing cabinet, fumbled through a drawer and read off a date to me. Then he looked around. "Odd you should have asked. He died less than a month after Mr. Harris was treated by him."

"Yeah," I said. "It is odd."

The next day I arrived back in L.A. When I gave my report to Jim his face got almost chalk-white. He licked dry lips. "That does it. I'll have to make a change . . ." He stopped. "Kind of late, now. God, I wouldn't have believed it. Not him."

That was all he'd say. We had arranged to get together Sunday, today — and now he was dead. If he'd made any last-minute change in the book, I wanted to find out what it was. Gale should know, since she'd typed it all.

S
he lived in a big two-story house with her parents and a bachelor brother, Fred, several years older than herself. Fred met me at the door, led me into the front room where Gale sat on a couch. He sat beside her and she looked up at me, eyes puffy from crying.

She spoke dully, but she answered my questions. "There were so many things in the book, Shell. A lot of names and case histories, stories about Communists getting into places where they could hire others, things like that."

"Can't you think of any specific thing that might explain —"

She winced. "No. It was all jumbled, Shell. I never typed more than a few consecutive pages at a time. Maybe from the middle or the end or front, I don't know. It's all mixed up."

"Remember anything about a man named Lewis Tollman?"

"The name sounds familiar, but . . . no."

I looked at her brother. "Fred, did Jim ever talk —"

He interrupted, shaking his head. "I don't know anything about the stuff. Don't want to know."

I turned to Gale. "You haven't the manuscript then?"

"No, I typed the original and a carbon, gave him the final pages last night."

"Final — you mean the book was finished?"

She bit her lip. "Yes. Finally. I'll . . . never forget what he said. I handed him the last ten pages and he grabbed me, and gave me a big kiss. The papers got all wrinkled." Two big tears welled up in her eyes, slid down her cheeks. "Jim looked so happy. He said, 'Sweetheart, that's it, that's the last. Wh-what do you say we get married?'" She sobbed, bent her head forward and cupped both hands over her eyes, shoulders shaking. Fred put his hand on her arm. I got up and left.

B
arney goodman opened the front door of his modernistic home on the outskirts of Hollywood, smiled that warm smile of his and told me to come in. After leaving Gale's I'd phoned Goodman, asked if I might see him. I hadn't wanted to go into detail over the phone.

He shook my hand firmly, grinned his boyish grin and said, "This is a pleasure, Mr. Scott. You're the first private investigator I've met. At least — you're not investigating me, are you?"

"No. The main reason I'm here is to find out if Jim Brandon delivered his manuscript to you yet."

We had walked into a paneled den and he pointed to one of two deep leather chairs near each other. As we sat in them he said briskly, "Not yet, but I expect it soon. Perhaps tomorrow or the next day."

"Jim's dead," I said. "And the manuscript doesn't seem to be around. It's gone. I hoped he'd already delivered —"

Goodman leaped to his feet and stared down at me. "Dead? Why, he can't be. He — the manuscript's gone? What do you mean, the manuscript's gone?"

I got the queer impression he was shocked a little too much, but that was probably because of the great sadness he seemed to feel at Jim's death. I said, "It just hasn't been found."

"That's it. He must have hidden it somewhere. It's dynamite, you know. Jim looked all over for a publisher, but nobody would handle it except me. Can't blame them; he said frankly that he'd left himself and his publisher open for libel suits. I'm probably a damn fool to take the chance." He stood straighter, and squared his shoulders. "But somebody had to take the chance." Light glistened on Goodman's thick hair, cast bold shadows on his angular face. He looked like Washington crossing the Delaware, and I figured he could land in the Senate without kissing a single baby. But then he spoiled the fine impression he was making on me by adding, "The publicity would have been worth a million dollars."

After a moment he looked down at me and said slowly, "Is Jim really dead?"

"Yes." I couldn't help adding, "And the manuscript's gone. The only other people beside me who saw parts of it were his fiancée and Captain Amos Wade. Neither of them has any idea where it is."

"Unfortunately, I suppose they know you're here."

"'No; I talked to Jim's fiancée, then decided to check with you." I stopped. Why the hell should Goodman care if anybody knew where I was? Nobody did know, come to think of it.

"How did Jim die?" he asked me.

"It looked like a heart attack —"

"Dead," he blurted. "My God. How terrible!"

"Worse than that. He was murdered."

He looked at me blankly. "Murdered? But you said —"

"It only looked like a heart attack. Captain Wade told me the method was the same used on two murdered Commies." I went on talking but I'd thought of something possibly significant. When I'd reported to Jim Friday night and he'd said, "I've got to make a change . . ." I'd assumed he meant change in the book. But he could have been referring to a change in publishers.

For the first time I became conscious of my heartbeat. It slowly increased in tempo, throbbed a little more heavily. Casually, I said, "Anyway, he's dead. Would you still want to publish the book? If you had the script?"

"Pub — Of course, But that seems . . . if it's found, naturally I'll publish it."

"Reason I asked, Jim and I were pretty close. He told me months ago," I lied, "that as soon as the pages were typed he put his originals, the first-pages, somewhere or other. I don't know where, but Jim said he'd made arrangement for them to be mailed to me — if anything should ever happen to him."

"Splendid! Mr. Scott, get that to me and you can be sure I'll see that it's published."

"I imagine the first draft will reach me in a day or two. I'll bring it to you just as soon as Amos Wade and I and the Homicide men downtown go over it for any leads that might be in it."

Goodman was walking back and forth over the carpet now, right hand in his pocket. "No," he said. "Bring it here. I . . . frankly, you won't like this, but there were several local police officers mentioned in that book. I didn't see the manuscript, but learned that from Jim." His face was flushed. "I don't know who they are — he was secretive about names. Rightly so; too many innocent reputations damaged. But that script might disappear for good, if it hasn't already. You bring it here. I'll publish it, by God. We can do that much for Jim."

He was worked up, really quite excited. I said deliberately, "I can't do that. I'd like to, Mr. Goodman, but it has to be thoroughly checked first. The important thing is to learn who —"

He swung to face me. "The important thing is that book! You'll have to bring it to me, to the company. It's too important!" He was pointing his left hand at me, hand clenched into a fist, pointing at me with the extended little finger.

I'd half expected it, been needling him with words because of my growing suspicion, but it shocked hell out of me anyway and I blurted, ""Lewis Tollman!"

Even before I said his last name, his right hand came out of his pocket, a short-barreled gun gripped in his fingers. I was half out of that deep leather chair, hand slapping against the revolver under my coat, but he had me.

And he knew it. His face suddenly looked harder, older. "You fool," he said. "You miserable fool."

I said softly, "You killed Jim."

"Of course." He was casual, a man talking to a corpse. "Not personally; Donna handled it, burned the manuscript and carbon. She's a real artist. You were incredibly lucky." He smiled, went on. "It was a million-to-one chance, Brandon's learning about me. Years ago arrangements were made so that if anybody ever asked at the Merriman Hospital about Lewis Tollman or Arthur Harris, the National Committee would be informed." He stopped, smiled grimly at me. "The National Committee. That's how important I am, Scott."

I swore at him, almost ready to grab my gun in the hope I could get off at least one shot. But my movements were cramped in the deep chair.

Tollman — Goodman — said calmly, "I prefer not to shoot you here in my home and have to drag you away. But I shall, if it becomes necessary." He paused to let that sink in, then said, "Take out your gun. Use your left hand. Just two fingers, Mr. Scott."

I
did what he said; he knew his business. He told me to stand up, clasp my hands behind my head, and I did. He had a self-satisfied, almost gloating look on his face, and he started talking to me, telling about himself. At first I thought he was just bragging, perhaps trying to build himself up in his own eyes, but then I realized that Barney Goodman had little or no opportunity to tell others what a really important man he was. Probably only a few other Communists high in the party, possibly only the National Committee, knew who he really was, what was planned for him. He must often have itched to tell others what he was telling me.

"Lewis Tollman died the day I entered Merriman Hospital. I got a new face, younger, to match the age on my new birth certificate. My hand was operated on. I established the new identity thoroughly and came to Los Angeles. I was provided with sufficient funds to start a publishing firm. And you'll have to admit that I've been careful. Not a single flaw."

"Wrong. You forget the guys like Jim Brandon. And the fact that you have to lie all the time. You can't help making slips — that hand of yours, for example. Besides, you're not useful until you start really working for the party. You'll give yourself away. Once you start spouting the Commie line —"

He laughed. "Don't be naive, Mr. Scott. You know that's not true. Even if it were, a man still has a right to honest opinions in this republic." He laughed again.

I'd just been talking, mainly for time, thinking I didn't have a prayer. But Goodman had told me to kick my gun toward him and it had been lying at his feet. Keeping his eyes on me he bent, picked my .38 up and dropped it into his pocket — and I remembered Jim's gun.

I'd forgotten that I'd had Jim's little .32 in my coat pocket ever since leaving his house. Muscles and nerves seemed to stretch taut in my body. Just a flicking away of his eyes on me, a momentary lapse, and I meant to grab for that gun. But he kept his eyes on me all the time. I caught the flash of headlights through a window beyond him. They approached the house, started to swing in before going out of sight.