Hard Case Crime: Fade to Blonde (9 page)

“You goddamn psycho,” said the guy with the knee. He was down on one elbow with his gun leveled at my chest. “Don’t you move. Don’t you move a lick. I put ‘em where I want ‘em, and the next one’s yours.”

He had the floor.

“You goddamn psycho. What’s the matter with a guy like you? What’s the matter? We weren’t supposed to kill
you. We weren’t even supposed to mark you. We were just told to give you a shove and a warning, and look. Look what you turn it into.”

“He threw down on me,” I said.

“None of this had to happen.”

“He threw down on me,” I said. “Next time he’ll have to do it lefty.”

“You’re a goddamn psycho. I had a dog like you, I’d have it put down. The only reason you’re living is, Halliday wouldn’t like I killed someone he didn’t say to. You come at him again, or me, and I’ll forget what Halliday wouldn’t like. Now get going.”

I let him have the curtain line. He hadn’t said anything inaccurate. His colleague was still out, making wet snoring noises. I turned and headed back for my car. In front of the entryway, I saw what looked like a little brocade package on the sidewalk. Lotus Blossom had run out when she heard the shots, hadn’t liked what she’d seen, and had hunkered down hugging her legs, her head tucked against her knees. As my footsteps came closer, her head came up slowly, like someone was pulling it up on a string. Her shiny black eyes were the size of hubcaps, and her mouth was open.

“I think your right profile’s your best,” I said as I went by.

I had a card for an after-hours place in Gardena, and I went there and stayed until past three, drinking and trying to cool down. I was still asleep next morning when
someone started hammering on my front door. I opened my eyes and watched the knob shiver. I was too tired to swear. The drapes were shut. A smart guy, even a half-smart guy, would have pretended nobody was home. I pulled on some pajama pants and opened the door. Two neatly dressed men with guns backed me smoothly into the room. Neither of them stood higher than my chin, but they didn’t seem to have a complex about it. One had a very round head and the other had light green eyes with rusty brown hair, the kind that makes ridges. Aside from that, they were nondescript, the way men like that ought to be. “Someone wants to talk to you,” the round-headed one said, almost pleasantly. “Let’s go.”

I stood there scratching my belly and staring. Then I turned around and walked back to my bed. “Nuts,” I said, climbing in. “You didn’t come to shoot me, or it’d be done. So you must want to tell me something or ask me something. Either way, I can hear you from here.”

I closed my eyes.

“They told us you were a cutie,” the green-eyed one said. “I guess we were warned.”

“If you came here to tell me I’m cute, consider me told. Close the door on your way out, and tell your boss I’m tired of waltzing with his punks.”

“We’re not Halliday’s boys,” the round-headed one said. “We’re not as easy as Halliday’s boys. C’mon, let’s go.”

I fixed up the pillow again and got comfortable.

“You know your problem?” Round Head said. “One of ‘em? You make more of things than you oughta. My guess is, what we’re discussing here? Is ten minutes of conversation. No lie. You could be back in your own little bed while the blankets’re still warm.” I heard him hit a few licks at random on my typewriter.

“Don’t do that with no paper in,” I told him, opening
my eyes. “It’s bad for the platen.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m always after my kids to quit monkeying around with ours.” He picked the typewriter up one-handed by the frame, swung it around, and held it out at arm’s length. The floor was linoleum over concrete slab. No give. Ten bucks would’ve bought me another typewriter just as good, but this was the one I’d used to write everything I’d ever tried to write. And I didn’t have ten bucks to spare. I climbed back out of bed and said, “Let me get some clothes on.”

“You’re beautiful just the way you are,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Green Eyes walked beside me and Round Head followed behind as I slopped out the front door and past the office to the parking lot, barefoot and naked except for a pair of old pajama bottoms. It was a pretty day. I had that feeling in my gut you have when somebody’s about to do something, maybe you, maybe not. There was a long cream Caddy in the lot, the windows tinted almost black. Green Eyes opened the door and I climbed inside. Through the murk I could see Round Head leaning back over the front seat, tracking me with his gun. The man in the back seat was about thirty-five, a solid, compactly made man whose face didn’t fit. It was narrow and all jaw. You could have plowed the North Forty with it. He wore a sharkskin suit with lapels that were almost too wide, but not quite, and a look of mild disbelief that seemed to be permanent. The door thudded shut behind me and the Caddy eased away from the curb and slipped into traffic like it was slipping into a warm bath. The man said, “What happened last night at the Jade Mountain?”

I said, “What makes it your business?”

The look of mild disbelief didn’t change. “You know who I am?”

“No.”

“I’m Lenny Scarpa.”

“Okay, I know who you are. Everybody says the nicest things about you, too.”

“What happened last night?”

“What the hell makes it your business?” I said. “You drag me out of my bed, eight in the morning, the head nun come to spank me with a ruler. C’mon, buddy, youse are goin’ fer a ride. Jesus, you must love old movies. Ask me a civil question and I might answer it, but right now? I’ve got no reason in the world to talk to you.”

Scarpa glanced at Round Head, amused.

“What,” I said, “the gun? What good’s the gun? All you can do with it is shoot me or club me, and either way, your question goes unanswered.”

“You think I couldn’t make you sorry?”

“If you’re Lenny Scarpa, I hope to God you got better things to do than ride around Hawthorne making me sorry.”

“These guys,” he told the roof of the car. “There’s a place someplace, and out comes these guys, and they come to me.”

He began to laugh.

“
Mister
Corson,” he said. “It’s
so
good to have you with us this morning. My name is Leonard Scarpa. I hope we haven’t caused you no inconvenience?”

“Not at all, my son,” I said. “And what can I do for you today?”

“What the goddamn happened at Jade Mountain?”

“Job interview.”

“Take him someplace and hurt him,” he told Round Head.

“That’s the house number,” I said, grinning. “Why wouldn’t it be? Halliday thought he could maybe use me. My own manners must’ve been poor. He told his punks to lean on me. I leaned back.”

“You tailed him there from the Centaur.”

“I wasn’t going to make my play in front of a room full of people who think he’s an independent producer.”

“Why would you want to work for him?”

“I need a job.”

“It adds up,” he admitted. “You’re just the kind of Mau-Mau Halliday likes. Wild. No control. You know, those guys, they’re both still in County General, and one of ‘em’s prob’ly ruined.” He sat there, thinking it over. He gave me the look while he was at it. He did it pretty well. I still thought I should be getting a professional discount. Then he fished in his breast pocket, brought out a deck of cards, and shuffled them expertly without looking. He fanned them and held them out to me.

It was a Tarot deck. The card I picked showed a man standing on one foot in front of a tree. Then I saw I had it wrong way up. The man was dangling head-down from a branch by a rope around his ankle, his hands tied behind his back. He looked like he wanted to go back a few bars and take it from the bridge. “That’s your significator,” Scarpa said. “The Hanged Man, reversed. Huh. I would’ve guessed the Fool.”

“You think those cards’ll tell you the truth?” I said, handing it back.

He shrugged, tucking the deck away. “I never heard of anything or anybody that’ll tell you the truth. But I’ll buy your story.”

“Good. What does the Hanged Man mean?”

“That you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“Aw, I never thought I was as smart as I think I am. My turn for a question?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Why would you care what I do with my nights off?”

“I don’t. But if Halliday’s making some bonehead play, I got to care.”

“What’re you, his babysitter?”

“Yes, friend,” he said grimly. “That is exactly what I am.”

“Why would he take that, from a rival organization?”

He made a sharp sound between his teeth. “He thinks he’s got an organization. He thinks he’s a rival. Lance Bejesus Halliday. For my sins. Some bottle-blonde rube from Porter, Michigan.”

“Porter, huh? You’ve been doing some studying.”

He shook his head. “A guy like Halliday, you wind up knowing all kinds of things about him you wish to God you didn’t know.”

“I don’t think the hair’s a dye job.”

“Great. Now that’s another thing I know.”

“Why does Burri put you to the trouble?”

“Grandpa Burri,” he told the ceiling, eyes closed, “is a nice old grandpa who loves children. He wants them to learn. Me, I’m a bachelor.”

“Why don’t you give me a job? I could use one.”

“Friend, a Mau-Mau like you is the last thing I need. But after last night, I’ll tell you. You ever wanna pick up the gloves again, let me know. You ain’t too old.”

“How do you know I used to fight?”

“I told you,” he said. “This town’s full of little punks you wind up knowing things about. This is your stop.”

I peered out through the black window. We were back in front of the Harmon Court. I got out and said, “Well, don’t be strangers. Now that you know the way.”

I shuffled off, leaving the door open. It was childish, but I was tired of being hey-you’ed by hoods.

The phone was ringing as I came up the walk. It stopped as I was opening the door. The clock said 9:25. I always sleep later than I think I do. I picked up the phone, called Mattie Reece, and said, “Listen. I need a favor from your cop friends. Halliday’s from Porter, Michigan. I don’t know what name he had back then, but
a guy late twenties, his looks, tailback on the high school team, you think you could see what they’ve got? Can’t be that big a place. Why don’t you talk to Mc Donald? He knows a few things, and doesn’t mind telling what he knows.”

“Why would I bother?” Mattie said.

“I’ll tell you how it was with Rebecca.”

“Jesus, don’t. I got to go home to my wife,” he said, and hung up.

I sat there a while, thinking about the Hanged Man. Then I got out a sheet of paper and wrote down Scarpa’s license plate number, before I forgot.

The phone started ringing again as I got into bed.

I let it.

It rang an hour later while I was shaving, and I ignored that, too. When it came to breakfast, I found there wasn’t a damn thing left in the house. There were five pieces of bread, some old meatloaf, and ketchup. I had two meatloaf sandwiches and a piece of bread, and that was that. I called Joanie Healey at the courthouse and gave her the number of Halliday’s Lincoln. I looked over my suit. It wasn’t bad, and I put it back on. Then I took it off and put on just the jacket over a yellow polo shirt, my shoulder holster, and slacks. A sports jacket would have been better, but I don’t have one. I got out my .44, cleaned and loaded it, and adjusted the holster until it sat right. I put on sunglasses. They weren’t the right kind, but I looked like just enough of a damn fool, and I tucked a steno pad
in my pocket and drove over to the Cellar Agency.

Alban Cellar had made his bones as a cameraman at UFA and gone on to work with Pabst. I’d seen some of his old stuff. He had a pretty good eye. He was one of these painterly guys. He’d gotten out of Berlin while the getting was good and then had to think fast when he hit L.A.. One thing, he was flexible. Cellar was Viennese, originally, and in Vienna everyone’s supposed to be about half an artist. In L.A., everyone’s supposed to be rich. He didn’t know any rich cinematographers. What, he must’ve asked himself, would I be if I wasn’t a cameraman? A pimp, probably, but he didn’t know any rich pimps, either. Still, he’d always helped get little parts for little honeys, and now he started to work at it, and take a commission. Twenty years on, Ollie Cellar had a tidy little office on DeLongpre and a fourteen-room house in Beverly Clen. He had no stars in his stable, and no serious actor would go near him, but the TV and B movie folks called him first to get someone who wasn’t too expensive or too good. He was as honest as anybody else, and better organized than most, the way you have to be when you’re selling cut-price goods in bulk. Every has-been, thick-tongued beauty queen, and non-actor in town was in his files. I was in there myself, assuming he hadn’t gotten around to throwing me out.

Lately Gellar had left the actual work to a series of little honeys, each one cute as a button and sharp as a knife. When I came in, the current incumbent was sitting at the reception desk, behind a plaque reading
L. R. BELLINGER
. She was fox-faced, with curly russet hair. She didn’t have much upstairs or down, but she did have self-confidence, and I guess she deserved to. She had one other thing, something you don’t get much out here, and that’s an accent. It was pure Georgia honeysuckle, and most girls would’ve gotten rid of it in case Darryl Zanuck
might not like it.

She wasn’t stingy with it, either, and there was a whole waiting room full of hopeful actors who got their share. They all wanted to see Ollie, and they all got told he was in conference. Some had appointments with him. He was still in conference. Most of them handed over a small sheaf of glossies, answered half a dozen quick questions, and were back on the street before they could get their charm out of first gear. One matronly woman got a dozen questions and a minute of finger-drumming, then was told to call back that afternoon. One courtly old gent with silvery temples got dead silence and a stare. He put his head shots away and left without arguing. Near noon there was a lull, and I got up and went over to the desk.