Natural Causes (36 page)

"Harry, I don't know," Glendora said.

"I'll call you later, Frank." I hung up the
phone.

I sat there for awhile. Then I called a friend in
Cincinnati--a newspaperman--and asked a few questions, because you're
supposed to ask questions, even when there aren't any answers. She
hadn't left a note. She'd been drinking. She'd taken some Nembutols.
And she'd gone to sleep.

I got the bottle of Scotch
out of the suitcase and poured a drink in one of the bathroom
glasses. I sat there drinking for a long time, until I was numb. I
tried to think about the way she'd looked--about how beautiful she'd
been. But I kept remembering how I'd felt when I'd left that house
for the last time, practically running away from her, the way the
phone guy had run away from me. I thought of what Helen Rose had said
about Quentin--about how we fuck with other people's lives. Christ,
how he'd fucked with hers. How he'd fucked with his own.

***

The phone company man called about a half hour later.
I was so drunk by then that I had trouble concentrating on what he
said. He gave me two numbers. I copied them down. One was an L.A.
exchange--Dover had made that call at eleven P.M. on Saturday night.
The other, made early on the same day, I didn't pay attention to,
until after I'd hung up. When I did take a look at it, I started to
feel bad all over again. It was one more thing that I hadn't wanted
to know.

I dialed the number, anyway, from the phone by the
window. His wife answered.

"Where is he, Liz?" I said.

"I thought he was with you," she said with
surprise. "In California. He left this morning."

"Did he say where he'd be?"

"At the Belle Vista, I guess. That's where he
usually is. What's wrong, Harry."

"Liz," I said. "This is important. Did
Quentin Dover call Jack on Saturday?"

"Yes. He called him on Saturday afternoon. Jack
hadn't gotten back from New York yet. So I took a number and left a
message for him to call. Why is that so important?"

"Do you remember the number?"

"It was a local number."

"In Cincinnati?" I said.

"Yes. I don't remember it exactly."

"Did Jack return the call?"

"Yes. Late that afternoon. Harry, would you
please tell me what's going on. First Jack starts acting strangely
and now this."

"How was he acting strangely?"

"He seemed upset with himself the last time he
talked to you. You know how he gets--little attacks of conscience,
like hot flashes. He started berating himself for letting you down.
That's why I thought he was with you. He said he was going out to the
coast to put things right."

"Christ," I said. "If he calls, tell
him I'm on my way to California. Tell him not to do anything until I
get there. Tell him I said everything was all right--that there
weren't any problems."

"O.K.," she said uncertainly. "But
what's this about?"

"I'm not sure, Liz. Something to do with
Quentin."

As soon as she hung up, I called Glendora at the
Belle Vista.

"Is Jack Moon with you?" I said.

"Why, no," he said. "He's in
Cincinnati."

"No, he's not, Frank." I hesitated a
moment. If I told him what I suspected--that Jack had somehow been
involved in Quentin's deal--it would have meant Jack's ass. There had
to be some way around that, I thought. There had to be a way to get
someone out of this thing unscathed. I decided not to tell him.
Instead, I put him on mild alert. "If you see Jack at the hotel,
I want you to collar him, Frank. I want you to order him to stay put
until I get into town this afternoon."

"Why? What's he doing out here?"

"Some amateur detective work," I said.

"That's unlike Jack. He's usually such a prudent
man."

"Today he's not," I said. "I'll be in
at five forty-five."

"What are we going to do about Walt?"

"You let me handle it. Just find Jack, all
right?"

"About Marsha . . ."

"I don't want to talk about that," I said
and hung up. I dialed the other number I'd written down-the
California one. Walt Mack answered the phone.

"This is Stoner," I said. "I'm coming
into town tonight. I want to talk to you."

"I'm busy," he said curtly.

"Well, make yourself unbusy, Walt. I know about
the drug deal and I know about the document."

"Bullshit," he said.

"Mack, if you know what's good for you, you'll
stay in your house until I get there. Don't go out. Don't let anyone
else in."

"Why? What do you mean?"

"I mean your friends killed a girl because you
told them that she knew about Quentin's deal and because I was
getting vaguely close to finding out about it. I'm a lot closer now,
Walt. And if they'd kill her for next to nothing, just think what
they'd do to you."

"They won't do anything to me," he said
calmly. "But there are some others who might be in jeopardy."

"You mean Jack, don't you?"

"I mean if you're thinking of going to the
police, think again. You're way out of your league on this one,
sport."

"How deeply was Jack involved?"

"Just deeply enough." He laughed. "If
I go down, he's going with me. I'll see to it. So let's stop
threatening each other, all right? I've got a soap to write."

He hung up.
 

42

Talking to Mack and Liz Moon sobered me a little. A
quart of hot coffee and a handful of aspirins helped, too. By
three-thirty, I was steady enough to drive. I checked out of the
Holiday Inn and drove south on the expressway to El Paso. The heat in
the car helped sweat the booze out of me. By the time I got to the
airport, I had a raging headache and was drenched in perspiration,
but I was sober. I dropped the car off at a Hertz stand and picked up
my pass at the American window. I had to go through a special
procedure to take the gun with me. They made me disassemble it,
unload the magazine, and stick it in my overnighter. They tagged the
suitcase with a special red "Firearms" sticker and stowed
it in a pressurized compartment in the cargo hold. That special tag
was like an engraved invitation to any sticky-fingered baggage
handler. I fully expected to find the gun or the suitcase gone when I
got to L.A.

I didn't drink any booze on the plane ride. I was
afraid to--afraid I'd make myself sick or drunk again. It wouldn't
have taken more than a couple of drinks to do both, even on airline
Scotch. When we landed, I went to the baggage pick-up and got the
overnighter. It felt as if the gun was still inside. To be sure, I
went into one of the johns in the terminal, and took a look in the
bag. The gun was still there, boxed and disassembled. I put it back
together, loaded the clip, and cocked and locked it. Then I stuck it
back in the bag and walked out to the taxi stands.

It took twenty minutes for the cabbie to drive to
Mack's house on Highway One. On the way there, I thought things out.
I decided to kill Mack. All things considered it was probably best
for everyone. If I killed him and made it look like a suicide, I'd
get the thugs off Ramirez's back. And, maybe, off Jack's. I was sure
they'd feel a lot safer with Mack out of the picture. He was the only
direct link between them and the cocaine, except for Dover, who was
already dead. It hadn't been just their own asses they were covering
when they'd killed Maria Sanchez and her son, it had been Walt's.
Jack Moon could be next, if he was more directly involved in
Quentin's deal than Maria had been. The alternative was to pay the
hoods off in some way that would make them feel reasonably secure. I
didn't know how much money that would take--probably a great deal. It
would be simpler to kill Walt. After Marsha, I wanted to kill
someone, anyway.

The sun was beginning to set over the ocean when we
got to Pacific Palisades. It was turning the breakers gold and
lighting up the cliffs and the bungalows built into the hillsides.
The cabbie pulled over at the turnoff and I stepped out into the
sunset. I paid the cabbie and told him he could go. He sped off in a
little cloud of gravel dust. When he was gone, I took the pistol out
of the suitcase and tucked it in my belt. Then I walked up to the
buzzers and rang. No one answered. I pressed the buzzer again. When
no one answered the second time, I started to worry. The fence was
over ten feet high-impossible to climb without a ladder or a boost
up. I tried my shoulder against the gate, but it was locked with a
dead bolt.

I was about to go hunting for something I could use
as a step ladder-some concrete blocks or two-by-fours when someone
pressed the buzzer. The gate fell open. I walked through it into the
courtyard. I looked up at Mack's second-story balcony. The sliding
glass door was open and a stream of dust was blowing out of it and
falling in the narrow court. It looked like gold dust in the sunset,
but it tasted like snow. I ran up to the front door of Mack's house
and tried the handle. The door was unlocked.

I went incide, up to the circular stairway at the end
of the hall. There was blood on the bottom steps. It looked as if it
was dripping down from the landing. I pulled the pistol out of my
belt, unlocked it, and slowly climbed the stairs. I could hear the
surf pounding through the open balcony door in the second-floor den.
When I got to the upper steps, I craned my neck and peeked over the
landing. Walt Mack was lying on the floor right across from me. His
eyes were open and staring into mine. There was blood coming from his
nose, ears, and mouth. It had pooled around his head, soaking the
carpet and dripping down onto the bottom steps.

I walked quickly up to the landing, flattened myself
against the wall, braced the pistol with both hands, and swung around
into the entryway of the den. Jack Moon was sitting on the floor by
the sliding glass door. His legs were stretched out in front of him.
He seemed to be staring at them. He was clutching his stomach with
his hands. There was blood on his hands and everywhere on his shirt
front. A gun was lying on the floor in the middle of the room, by the
overturned Parsons table. A cellophane bag full of cocaine lay by the
open door. It had spilled open and the cocaine was blowing out toward
Highway One.

Jack looked up at me, glassy-eyed.

"Oh, God, Jack," I said. I went over and
kneeled down beside him, dropping the pistol on the floor.

"It doesn't even hurt," he said with a weak
smile. "I thought it hurt getting shot."

I went downstairs to the phone and called for an
ambulance, then I went back to him.

"It was Walt's gun," he said. "I
didn't even know he had one. Came here to tell him that I was going
to go to the police. That I'd figured it out."

"Don't talk," I said.

He smiled again. His teeth were stained with blood.
"I didn't know about the deal, Harry. Really, I didn't. Didn't
want to know. When I talked to Quentin, he said that Walt wanted me
to do a favor for him--the sort of thing I used to do for Russ. Just
an errand boy, again. Executive producer. Should have guessed what
was going on when Walt didn't call me himself. Maybe I did guess."

He coughed up some blood and his pupils dilated and
his eyes opened very wide. "I take that back about it not
hurting," he whispered.

"Jack, shut up," I said to him. "Please."

In the distance I could hear a siren screaming toward
us, down the coast highway.

Jack swallowed hard. "Just wanted the money,
that's all. Got hungry--tired of waiting. Tired of not having. I was
supposed to carry some of it to New York--for Helen and her friends.
Quentin said it was for Walt. Poor Quentin. I finally figured it out
when you told me about the document. Knew what Walt had done. What a
bastard--Walt. He made Quentin go through all that hell and gave him
Russ's document at the end of it. It would have gotten him fired
anyway. Can you beat it? After all that. Maybe Quentin figured it out
for himself on Sunday. Maybe Walt told him--it was his style. Poor
Quentin."

The siren noise got very loud. Jack looked up. "Tell
Liz," he said.

Two paramedics came into the room, carrying a
folded-up gurney.

"Christ," one of them said.

They lifted Jack onto the gurney and carried him
downstairs. There were cops and flashing lights everywhere. I tried
to get into the ambulance with Jack, but one of the cops stopped me.

"You're not going anywhere," he said.

The ambulance flew out of
the turnaround. I watched it disappear down the coast highway. I
didn't find out until early the next morning that he'd died on the
way to the hospital.

***

The cops kept me for ten hours. I didn't tell them
anything I didn't have to. It was about three A.M. when Glendora
finally managed to spring me. I still don't know how he did it. They
weren't about to let me go on their own.

As we were walking out to his car, he said, "We're
going to have to keep Quentin's name out of this. If we don't,
Goldblum will blow the whistle on all of us. He told me so. The
Pacoima police are just too close to making a connection between the
Sanchez girl and Ruiz and Dover."