The Twenty-Year Death (42 page)

My pulse went up. “Name?”

“A Drusila Carter. She was working as a temp in a cleaning service. No record, family in the Midwest. They never even brought in a suspect.”

“Anything else?” I said.

“My friend on the force said he thought he remembered the case being made a low priority. What are you onto here, Dennis? Should I be checking other parts of the city?”

“No,” I said. “I just want to see things that aren’t there.”

“Like hell they aren’t there.”

“Thanks, Fisher,” I said in a voice to end the conversation. Then before he could hang up: “Hey, you know anything about Merton’s kids?”

He wasn’t fooled by my attempt at sounding casual. “Is that what this is about, Merton’s kids?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Well, I can’t say I know much about them. Just what’s in the society pages. The girl’s a knockout, she’s got brains, they gave her an east coast education, but she has a tendency to get lonely and to get photographed when she does. Twenty? Something like that. The boy’s a few years older and there’s got to be something wrong with him because for a few months he’ll be all over the movie scene and then for a few months he’s gone. I’d guess it’s dope. All those rich kids are users.”

“All right,” I said. “Thanks again, and call if you get anything else.”

“This better be as good a story as I think it is,” Fisher said. “And you’d better not give it to anyone but me.”

I made noises he could interpret however made him happy, then hung up.

I crossed the lobby to the exit. He was opening the outer door as I was opening the inner door, and I hurried two steps and slugged him on the chin with all of my one hundred and eighty pounds. It was like punching a bag of unmixed cement. Mitch stumbled backwards, holding onto the door handle to keep from falling, although he wasn’t really in any danger of it
until I took advantage of his momentary imbalance by throwing myself against his chest. He went down and I rushed past him out the door.

The sand-colored coupe sat at the head of the circular drive with the tall thin man at the wheel. He stood on the gas when he saw me. I ran along the building back towards the security office and my car. The Packard started without any trouble, and I was able to pull it out and make it to the first intersection before the coupe appeared in my rearview mirror.

The way I had come into the studio would require the guard to unlatch the chain again, which would take too long, so I turned left towards the main entrance, where I could ram the wooden gate if I needed to. I pushed the car as fast as I could between the soundstage buildings, causing people to jump out of the way and one car to swerve and honk furiously. The coupe stayed behind me, but gaining.

As I reached the front gate, a blue Lincoln was just pulling out. I gunned the motor, slipping under the black-and-white gate arm as it began to close. It banged off the back of my car. My front bumper bottomed out, scraping against the road as the shocks absorbed the decline to the street. I took advantage of the blocked lane of traffic trying to get into the studio and turned right onto Cabarello.

I went through one light and then a second with no sign of pursuit, and then the coupe appeared several cars back and one lane over. Either it wasn’t so essential that they keep me in sight or they were confident they could catch up later. The traffic on the main thoroughfare acted as a barrier, but it also prevented me from getting away. I wove my way between the cars, changing lanes frequently, and made a sudden left turn at Underhill without signaling, earning me more angry honking.

I stepped on the gas, shifting up to third gear, and then to fourth, going much too fast in too highly populated an area. The coupe was behind me, doing the same, and it appeared to be gaining again. I pulled up the hand brake and jerked on the wheel, making a hairpin turn onto a residential street, then released the brake and flooded the engine as I sped down the block. I repeated the maneuver at the next corner, slamming my tail end into a telephone pole, almost losing control of my spin, until I managed to pull the car straight again. I was moving parallel to Underhill, still heading south, in the direction of Hollywood Park Racetrack.

I eased up on the speed, downshifting as my rearview stayed empty, and then brought it down to twenty-five, watching the mirror more than the road. When the street I was on hit California Avenue, I turned left and joined the traffic at a normal speed. It was only four blocks later that the sand-colored coupe was visible, weaving between the cars, two blocks behind me. I increased the gas, and made the turn onto Amity that would descend into the Valley, going through undeveloped rock formations before bottoming out in Hollywood Park. The winding road was clear of traffic, and I continued to increase my speed as best I could as the road switched back and forth, all the while descending.

The view behind me at first remained clear as well, but soon the sand-colored coupe would appear just before each curve, playing peek-a-boo behind the rock walls. Each turn, the coupe would stay in sight just a little bit longer, and soon they were taking one turn just as I was taking the next. We passed a produce-and-flowers shack built on a sandy lot where the space beside the road jutted out far enough. Around the next bend, there were more buildings on the left. Soon the rock wall would
fall away from the right as well, and we would be back in a residential area. It would be better for me then.

But an explosive crack caused me to jerk the wheel, veering into the oncoming traffic lane, while looking behind me to find that the coupe was no more than thirty yards behind. There was another crack. Mitch was leaning out the passenger side window, trying to steady a gun as he aimed at me. Neither shot had cracked my windows, so I decided he must be aiming for my tires. I pulled onto the right side of the road, and another car flashed by, the sound of its horn dropping through the registers. As it passed the coupe, the thin man pulled into the oncoming traffic lane and gunned his car, bringing it within a few feet of my left taillight. Mitch shot again. The bullet pinged off of the body of my car. The sky grew to the right, the rock receding and houses appearing below. The sand-colored coupe’s front right wheel was even with my back left wheel. I took my foot off of the gas and jerked the steering wheel hard to the left. I slid along the front seat from the impact, my bruised ribs bringing my stomach up to my throat and the taste of vomit into my mouth.

The coupe veered off to the left while its driver tried to regain control. A red car, maybe a Chrysler, maybe a Pontiac, appeared, nosing out of a residential street ahead. The coupe slammed into it, causing the red car to spin ninety degrees, and bringing the coupe to a stop after a forty-foot skid that left a trail of burnt rubber on the pavement. I managed to maintain control of my Packard and I continued on, watching the rearview for two more blocks, unconvinced that the coupe was out of commission. But they remained where their car had stopped.

I wondered if it had been Knox or Merton’s secretary who had called them in, or if maybe I had been followed this morning
without noticing after all, but in the end I decided it didn’t matter.

There was a siren already in the air. I put all my weight down on the gas pedal.

The racetrack was only another ten minutes away.

The Hollywood Park Racetrack was on a large stretch of land south of Hollywood that had been fields five years before. The parking lot was a patch of dirt outside of the grandstand, a three-story high, shingled edifice painted white. It shone in the California sun and blocked the view of the track from the lot. People had been opposed to the legalization of horse racing in the state, afraid that it would bring with it organized crime, more alcoholics, and debt-ridden gamblers. They were right; it had brought those things. But the main investors in the track had not been gangsters. They were the Hollywood brass. The head of just about every studio had put money into the Hollywood races, and they came to watch as often as possible.

Inside the grandstand was a crowd of men who had nowhere else to be in the middle of a weekday afternoon. They lined up nine and ten deep at the twelve brass-barred windows where tellers took the money eagerly pushed through the bars and handed back slips of paper. Drifts of spent papers littered the floor, kicked and crumpled underfoot, ignored. There were large windows looking down into the horses’ stables so you could get a good look at the contenders. A large mechanical letter board of the kind used in train stations took up part of an enormous wall to the right of the tellers’ windows. It rattled through the names of horses, showing that day’s previous races in first, place, and show, with spots for the upcoming races left blank. Most of today’s races were already finished. Another
board beside it showed the names of the horses in the next race and the odds. A chalkboard with the same information was posted in the tellers’ room, kept up to date by a small man in a gray suit. Ceiling fans worked at stirring the air overhead.

I looked at the harried tellers behind the counter, and took one step in their direction. I got dirty looks from no less than three of the marks, who didn’t want anyone getting in the way of their emptying their wallets. I turned and went the other direction, through one of the large open archways that led out into the stands. There was a lot of well-tended dirt in an oval around a lot of well-tended grass. The starting gates were being rolled into place. Several horses carrying bright-colored jockeys were stamping the track behind the gates. An amplified voice kept up a running commentary, listing the names of horses and the names of jockeys, goading people into placing bets. The grandstand was just under half full, the crowd thick down near the track and then spread out all along the upper seats. Above that, there were large windows open to the air. The V.I.P. section. I went back inside.

A white-haired Negro custodian in a blue uniform shirt and matching pants was using a rake to gather up the slips of paper on the edge of the crowd. He had a garbage can on wheels just behind him. He was unconcerned by the frenzy, and showed no resentment when a mark walked through his carefully collected pile. I pulled out a five as I approached, but then a second mark kicked through the Negro’s work and I switched it to a ten. I held it down near where his hands were on the rake so he would see it. He stopped scraping and looked up, causing creases to form in stacks on his forehead.

“Now I know you know I don’t take bets, officer,” the Negro said.

I didn’t correct him. “Show me where the V.I.Ps sit, the owners, the studio brass. Upstairs, right?”

He turned his eye to my outstretched hand, still holding the ten, still without taking it. “The stairs are right over there,” he nodded. “I know that’s not worth ten.” He looked back up at me again, waiting for me to say what it was I wanted.

“I need in. I was told Daniel Merton was here. I need to see him. Is that enough?”

He nodded his head and took the bill. “You’ll need another one of those for the boy upstairs,” he said.

I nodded. He led the way across the room. A race had started and the space around the teller booths was nearly empty. The door to the stairs was underneath the big board. It was a narrow steep set of wooden stairs that were painted green. The heat was bottled up inside and I began to sweat before we’d even climbed halfway. “You ever find a winning ticket in all of that mess?” I asked him.

“I never have,” he said without turning around.

There was another door at the top of the steps under a naked light bulb. He went through, holding the door for me. We were in a kind of vestibule open to the air on both sides. I could tell by the sound that the race was already over. He went and talked to an identically dressed young Negro standing guard outside a set of double doors opposite the door we’d come through. The youth looked at me and then back at the old man and shook his head. The old man said something more and the youth shook his head again. I walked up. “What’s the problem?”

“Damn fool don’t know where his mouth is to feed it,” the old Negro said.

The youth turned to me. “I can’t let anyone through these doors that’s not a founder. There’s no way to get in other than
past me. I’d lose my job. What sense does that make, old man?”

I reached into my pocket and brought out another ten, my card, and a pencil. I turned the card over and wrote three names on the back. I held the ten and the card out to the youth. “Take this to Daniel Merton. Tell him I’m outside and that I’d like to talk to him. He’ll tell you to let me through.”

The youth looked at the ten and looked again at the old man. Then he took the money and the card. “Don’t let anyone past,” he said, and slipped through the door, which closed behind him.

“Kids today,” the old man said, and headed off through the door to the stairs.

The echoing voice of the announcer continued its pitch. Better keep the patrons’ anxiety running high, right up to the last race. It was near on dusk now and the track would be shutting down soon. Then all of the winners and losers would cross to the strip of bars across the street, whether in celebration or to drown their defeat.

The door opened and the young Negro gestured me inside. “It’s the last one,” he said stepping past me. He closed the door without even looking back.

It was a long narrow hallway with painted green doors every five to twenty feet. A brass number marked each door starting at one. There was no way to tell if any of the other boxes were occupied. I figured they were probably filled about as much as the grandstand, just below half. There was an unpainted door in the middle of the hall with no number that must have been the janitor’s closet. The last door was numbered fifteen and it had been left open.

It was a small booth. Just four chairs along the short wall at
the front. The entire track could be taken in at one glance. There were telephone extensions on both sides of the booth at seat level for calling in bets. Merton was alone. He sat in the chair all the way to the left. He didn’t turn around.