The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs: A Masao Masuto Mystery (17 page)

Lost wholly in his thoughts, he ran a red light, narrowly missing a cursing motorist, and then he saw the blinking light of a Beverly Hills black-and-white behind him. He pulled over to the curb, the black-and-white behind him. The officer got out of his car, walked over and said, “Traffic lights don't mean anything to you, do they, mister?”

Then the cop bent down and said, “I'll be damned!”

“I will if I keep this up,” Masuto said.

“Are you chasing something, Sergeant?” the officer asked.

“No, Macneil. The only thing I'm chasing is an idea. I just ran the light. I haven't done it in years.”

Macneil shrugged. “We can't all be perfect.”

“You ought to give me a ticket. I deserve it.”

“Ah, the hell with it! Only keep your eyes open, Sarge. You missed that guy by inches.”

Masuto drove on. He turned off Santa Monica Boulevard into the parking space behind the real estate offices of Crombie & Hawkes. Their three-story building oozed prosperity. Over the door, heavy brass letters spelled out the names of the dead Hawkes and the living Crombie. Inside, the first floor was reminiscent of a bank, with two rows of desks, four on each side, and behind each desk an attractive woman. These, Masuto surmised, were the residential agents. A broad staircase led up to the second floor, and brass letters indicated that business properties were dealt with up there. Next to the entrance a pretty blonde woman—there was a pretty blonde woman at almost every reception desk in West Los Angeles and Beverly Hills—supplied information. But then the pretty girls from every town in America poured into Los Angeles to become film stars, an ambition which very few of them ever achieved.

The pretty girl at the reception desk informed Masuto that Mr. Arthur Crombie was not in.

“When do you expect him?”

“He left for lunch. It's after three now, and he's usually back by two-thirty. So he may have had an appointment with a customer. He'll call in sooner or later.”

Masuto gave her his card. “I would appreciate hearing from him when he returns.”

“I'll tell him.”

Back at headquarters, Wainwright intercepted Masuto. “Well, what about it, Masao? Where are we?”

“God knows.”

“That's a hell of an answer. Pete Bones called. He wants to talk to you.”

Dropping down behind his desk, Masuto dialed the number and asked for Bones.

The thick, throaty voice said, “Masuto?”

“Wainwright said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Right. We're going to put away the chemist. No one's claimed the body, so he goes into Potter's Field. Do you want to look at the corpse before we bury it?”

It was as cold and sad and terrible as so much of the human comedy or tragedy, depending on one's point of view. A man is trained as a chemist. What did he dream of as a kid, Masuto wondered? What wonderful adventures marked his first days with test tubes and retorts? And then what began to corrode and rot, until his knowledge produced a botulin that destroyed a poor Chicano girl who never knew of his existence or of the existence of the man who hired him. And now as alone as any corpse could be, he went into the earth, unmourned, unknown, and unwanted.

“What was his name?” Masuto asked, out of a curiosity he could not repress.

“Alfred Bindler.”

“Poor devil.”

“The son of a bitch is not worth your sympathy. Tell me, do you want to look or do we dump him?”

“No, I don't want to see him. Wait a moment. He was shot behind the ear?”

“Right.”

“Were there powder burns?”

“No. The way we see it, the range was the whole length of the room. The killer opened the door. Bindler had his back to him. The killer raised his gun and popped him.”

“Twelve feet?”

“Just about.”

“If he picked his spot and Bindler was in the act of turning, that was damn good shooting.”

“You can say that again.”

Masuto put down the phone. Someone knocked at the door to his office.

“Come in.”

He knew the face. A smallish man, balding, with protruding blue eyes and a wide mouth. It was a face millions of people knew.

“You're Sergeant Masuto?”

Masuto nodded.

“I'm Monte Sweet. They told me to see you. They told me you were in charge of the case.”

“Sit down, Mr. Sweet,” Masuto said.

“Yeah.” He sat down in the chair next to Masuto's desk. “Yeah—look at me. I'm ugly as sin. I make a living out of that, out of being ugly and nasty and rotten. They pay me thirty grand a week to insult the yokels in Vegas. An Italian sits down in the front row, I call him a wop. My real name's Seteloni. I see you sitting there, I say, Hey, Chink, where's the laundry? Stupid stuff, and they laugh themselves sick. It turns my stomach to watch those muttonheads laughing, but that's what I do for a living and it stinks. I'm fifty-three years old. You think a guy of fifty-three can't fall in love? You think Monte Sweet couldn't love anything? Well, let me tell you different. I loved that woman the way I never loved anyone. And she loved me. God damn it to hell, she loved me! It was real! And now that lousy creep killed her.”

He was shaking with emotion, tears welling out of the corners of his eyes, his hands trembling. “I'll get you some water,” Masuto said.

“I could use a drink.”

“I'll try.”

Masuto went out of the room, closing the door behind him. Three uniformed cops were standing there. “Is that Monte Sweet you got inside?” one of them asked.

“It is.”

He went into Wainwright's office. “This is a police station,” Wainwright said.

“Come on, I know you keep a bottle in your desk.”

“For emergencies.”

“This is an emergency.”

Wainwright poured into a paper cup. “What the devil goes on in there?”

“He's taking Alice Greene's death very hard. Apparently, he loved her deeply.”

“You got a soft streak that laps up bullshit, Masao. Men like Monte Sweet don't love anyone deeply.”

“All men love something.”

“Yeah? You tell me who Monte Sweet is going to love when he discovers that his light of love left her fortune to a passel of dogs.”

“Maybe he knew that. He tells me that they pay him thirty thousand dollars a week in Las Vegas. If that's the case, he can live without her fortune.”

“Thirty grand a week? You believe that?”

“I read such things. He's very big there and on TV. And Alice Greene was not that rich.”

“What's he here for?”

“He's mad.”

“Then he ought to tell you something.”

Masuto went back to his office, holding a paper cup which he gave to Sweet. “This is vodka. A police station is not a good place to look for a drink.”

“Okay, okay.” He took it in a single gulp, grimacing.

“Who killed Mrs. Greene?” Masuto asked him.

“Don't you know? What the hell are you—Keystone cops?”

“We have a case and we're trying to solve it.”

“Oh, that's beautiful. You got a case. A woman is dead, a woman who was the best thing that ever happened to me, and you tell me that you got a case.”

“You were talking about it before,” Masuto said evenly. “You indicated that you knew. Who do you think killed her?”

“I don't think. I know.”

“Who?”

“Alan Greene.” And when there was no reaction from Masuto, he went on, “I know what you cookies think. You think because her car was wired, it was a Mafia job, and they been telling you that I'm hooked up with the Mafia. That is a carload of crap. I got no more connection with the Mafia than you have, mister, and maybe less. And who says you got to be a contract man to wire a car? I could wire a car if I had to and so could Greene. Did he tell you that he once ran a garage? No, sir. You bet your sweet patooties he didn't.”

“So you think Alan Greene murdered his ex-wife. Why?”

“Because he hated her guts. He played the big macho game with her and beat her to within an inch of her life. You didn't know that?”

“No, I didn't,” Masuto admitted. “You're talking about a physical beating?”

“What other kind is there?”

“How bad? Was she hospitalized?”

“You're damn right she was,” Sweet said.

“What hospital?”

“They took her to Cedars-Sinai and she was there three days. After that, he didn't have a leg to stand on. She agreed to keep it quiet, and he agreed to the divorce and the settlement. He was paying her five thousand a month and he gave her the house on Roxbury Drive. I would have married her in a minute, but Alice and I agreed that we'd never let that bastard off the hook as long as he lived. Well, he got off the hook.”

“Apparently he was rich enough to afford the alimony. Why should he kill her?”

“No one is rich enough to afford sixty grand a year.”

“Do you inherit from Mrs. Greene?” Masuto asked him.

“Come on, if you haven't spoken to her lawyers you're lousier cops than I imagine. Her money goes to dogs. You know that. I never wanted a nickel of her money, and I'm as crazy about dogs as she was.”

“Yes, of course. I was not trying to trap you. I just wondered whether you knew what was in her will.”

“All right. That's your job. Now what are you going to do about Greene?”

“You make an accusation. That's not evidence.”

“You bring him in and put the screws on him, and you'll get plenty of evidence.”

“We don't do things that way,” Masuto said.

“I just bet you don't, with your two-bit police force. If it was the L.A. cops—”

“They don't go in for torture either. But I can tell you this, Mr. Sweet. We'll have the evidence and the killer.”

“When?”

“Ah, that's not easy to say.”

When Monte Sweet had departed, Wainwright said to Masuto, “Well, what did he give you?”

“He said Greene once owned a garage and that he could wire a car. As a matter of fact, Sweet said he could wire a car himself.”

“So where are we, Masao?”

“Closer.”

“And now?”

“I think I'll try Laura Crombie again.”

The Bar

Going to the Crombie house, on Beverly Drive, Masuto's car was almost sideswiped by a tourist bus. It was the second time in a single day that he had narrowly avoided an accident. It was unlike him. He had allowed himself to become submerged completely in a game of chess with an invisible antagonist—and to become absorbed in this manner was dangerous, dangerous for himself and dangerous for the women he was committed to protect.

He was crowding too much into a single day, and he was being drawn too thin, yet he could not stop. He found himself quietly cursing the tourist bus, and the fact that he could be thus irritated disturbed him. Yet, he reflected, it was ridiculous to allow these huge tourist buses to prowl the streets of Beverly Hills, adding their noxious blasts to the prevailing pollution. People from all over the country and all over the world came here to look at streets not too different from streets in any other wealthy community, content to pay then-money to have the homes of movie stars pointed out to them. Masuto knew it was a swindle. Three quarters of the places pointed to as the tourists rode by in their big buses had been vacated by the stars years ago, sold and resold since then, but still giving the tour guides a reason to sell their tickets—and of course Beverly Drive, the broad main street of the town with its magnificent mansions, was the focus of all the tour buses.

Driving more carefully, he pulled into the Crombie driveway, parking behind Beckman's Ford. Beckman let him into the house.

“Quiet, very quiet, Masao,” Beckman said. “The ladies are driving me crazy. I don't know if I can hold them tonight. And to make it worse, someone at the station gave my wife this number. She called here three times. Now I stopped answering the phone. I let the ladies do that.”

They were standing alone in the entrance foyer, and Masuto said to Beckman, speaking softly, “Tell me about Mitzie.”

“What's to tell? I'm forty-three years old, Masao. If I was fifteen years younger, I'd leave my wife and marry Mitzie. Except why the hell should she look twice at a cop who makes fifteen thousand a year? I'd have to put away three years of wages to buy that Porsche of hers.”

“You've spent twenty-four hours with those women, and that's all you've got?”

“What do you want?”

“Who is she?”

“You mean where does she come from? I'm not totally a jerk, Masao. She comes from Dallas, Texas. Her mother was a laundress. Her father was a no-good bum and a drunk. Mitzie cut out of there first chance she got and came here like all the other kids do to become a movie star. She worked around as a waitress and for a while she worked in a hair-dressing place.”