Never Cross a Vampire (14 page)

“What I'm doing,” I said quickly, “is checking the credit rating of two depositors who are taking out, or at least asking for, a small business loan. Both coincidentally reside right in this building.

“Who?” he said.

“Long on the first floor and whoever is in apartment 2G. My notes have the address and apartment, but Mrs. On-tiveros failed to type in the name. She's had a lot on her mind with her brother Sid going into the Army and …”

“What you want?” said Rouse.

“How long has Long lived in this building?”

“Three, four years. They got no money to invest. Can't even keep up with the rent.”

“Good to know,” I said. “Just the kind of information I need. Now about 2G. That's …?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Offen,” he supplied. “Don't know anything about them.”

“How long they live here?” I asked with benign solemnity.

“Three months, but they don't live here. They rent the place. Hardly ever sleep here. Hardly ever show up.”

“Doesn't sound like the Offens who applied for the loan,” I said, puzzled. “Could you describe them?”

“She's little younger than you. Some might say pretty. I'd say hoity-toity. Never saw him. She pays the rent. They're right above me. Every once in a while I hear his voice and another guy.”

“This worries me,” I said, leaning against the wall and pushing my hat back. “I'll tell you the truth, Mr. Rouse. I can see you're a man who can be trusted with a confidence. I've tentatively approved this loan, and my career could be in serious trouble if I make a mistake. Bartkowski in mortgages is near retirement, and I have a shot at his desk. I'd really like to take at look at the Offens' assets, very quietly, discreetly … it would mean a lot to me.” I pulled a five from my wallet, and then another. Rouse stopped chewing, went back in his apartment, and exchanged words with a shrill woman before returning. He had a ring of keys in his left hand and his right hand out, palm up. I crossed it with the two bills, and he led the way up the stairs. The hallway was dark and slightly musty, though the building seemed to be only about ten years old.

“Your apartments all come furnished?” I asked.

“Right,” he said, inserting the right key into 2G. The door popped open, and he stepped in and stood in the center of the room. It was clear he had no intention of letting me go in there alone.

“All I need,” I said, touching my chin, “is some evidence of financial stability. A checking account, paid bills.”

Rouse didn't answer. The room was small and furnished in unmatching bits and ends. The carpet was dark green, and the room smelled of dust. I tried drawers, tables, and behind the pillows on the sofa. Nothing. I tried closets and found no clothes. I even tried the garbage. There wasn't any. The refrigerator held three beers and a bottle of wine. There was no telephone. The only thing that indicated anyone had been in the two small rooms was the fact that the bedding was put on haphazardly. Someone had slept in or used the bed.

I put on a very sad face, a face of utter dejection that signaled the end of nations and careers.

“Nothing,” I sighed. Rouse did not respond. “This is very distressing. Mr. Rouse, I wonder if I could impose on you further? If you hear Mr. and Mrs. Offen come back at any hour of the day or night, please call the number I'm going to write on the back of this card. My gratitude will be five more dollars.”

“Right,” said Rouse.

Someone was coming up the dark stairs when we closed the door, but I paid no attention until the footsteps stopped somewhere below us, maybe five or six steps. I looked down into the dusty darkness at a thin figure. Rouse looked down too. The figure stared in our direction for a beat and then leaped noisily down the stairs three or four at a time. I considered running down to take a look, but the slamming of the door and my knee told me not to. The figure had a distinct resemblance to the guy who had attacked me in Wilson Wong's parking lot.

“Who was that?” I asked Rouse.

Rouse shrugged. “Didn't get a good look. Someone with a key, though, else he couldn't get in downstairs. I didn't hear any buzzers.”

I couldn't find my banker's card so I left Rouse the exterminator's card with my office and home numbers written on the back. I told him to ask for my assistant, Mr. Peters, and give him the message.

I didn't know whether Rouse believed any of my story, and I don't think he cared. He did believe in five-dollar bills.

There are times in every man's life when he has to decide whether he is going to face the Green Knight, Grendel, or Trampas. Most of us decide we can do without the encounter. But when one is getting paid and … Hell, there are some things a man just can't walk around. I think Gary Cooper said that once. The thing I couldn't walk around was named Haliburton and I knew where I could find him, at the Shatzkin house in Bel Air. Now I would have been pleased as Aunt Minnie's cat with a ball of yarn never to see Haliburton, but I had to talk to Camile Shatzkin again.

A car kept up with me for a few blocks but stayed far back. I was imagining dark Fords everywhere. I didn't see it when I got to Bel Air, where the same guy was on the gate as before.

“Are you coming to Mr. Shatzkin's funeral?” I said before he could come up with a reasonable question about my reappearance.

“'Fraid not,” he said.

“Too bad,” I sighed. “It will be beautiful.” He looked like he was about to say something so I started slowly forward. “We plan something special in conjunction with the Forest Lawn Anniversary,” I said with a wave.

His eyes stayed on my car as I drove slowly up the road toward Chalon. It was the car that blew my cover every time. It was hard enough to play a role without a decaying mess of a car with a third-rate paint job giving me away. I knew where I could get a 1937 Studebaker for about $300, if I could get $300. It would make my life easier, but as my ex-wife would say, if I really wanted an easy life I wouldn't be doing what I was doing.

I checked my gun and opened my jacket to be able to flash it or even reach it if necessary. From the point of view of a nearly middle-aged mess of a detective, it was necessary. I felt noble and stupid as hell at the same time.

The chauffeur wasn't in the garage. Before I parked the car, Haliburton was outside, hurrying toward me, his white shirt billowing in the breeze, a look of vengeful joy in his red eyes. He was the five o'clock commuter train ignoring the closed gate. I got out quickly, acutely aware of the crunch of gravel under his flying feet. When he was ten feet away, I opened my jacket so he could see the .38. That slowed him, but he didn't stop. I lifted the gun out and cocked it. He stopped almost within touching distance. The run had been short, but he was panting with excitement.

“You're not going to shoot anyone,” he said.

“Is that a question?”

He took a step forward and I fired a bullet between his legs. Since my intent had been to shoot a safe five feet to his left side, he didn't know how lucky he was to survive. He backed away a few feet, shaken badly enough not to notice that I was shaking too.

“Assault and attempted murder,” he said.

“Hell,” I said putting the gun away. “I've been lying with a straight face all my life. I didn't shoot at you. I don't even have a gun with me. I'm an ex-cop with a brother on the force. I'll lay three to one you've got some reason why the police won't take your word.”

“I'll get you alone, without the gun, little man,” he said, pointing at me with his right hand and using his left to push the long hair from his face.

“That won't be necessary,” Mrs. Shatzkin said from the door. I turned toward her. Her widow's black was still with her, but the outfit was more clinging and less somber. By the fourth day after her husband's death, she would probably be wearing white with flowers. “I've called the police.”

“I suggest you call them back and tell them it was a mistake,” I said.

She had already started to close the door, but I blurted out quickly. “They might want to know about a little apartment Mrs. Offen rents in Culver City.”

The door stopped closing and opened. Mrs. Shatzkin turned to me, the sun in her face. For the first time, she looked as if grief had touched her.

“Haliburton,” she said, her voice almost cracking. “Call the police. Tell them it was a mistake, that I thought I heard a prowler but was wrong. Tell them anything.”

Haliburton looked from her to me in stupid puzzlement.

“I can …” Haliburton began, facing at me with clenched teeth and fists.

“Mr.—” she started.

“Peters,” I said.

“Mr. Peters is coming in briefly. And I think it would be best if you forgot your quarrel with him. I was angry Saturday and very upset.”

“You want us to shake hands?” I asked her.

“There's no need for sarcasm, Mr. Peters,” she said.

“Sorry about your teddy bear,” I said to Haliburton, walking right past him toward the door. My back went tight, knowing he was behind me, but I kept walking. It was one of those times. The adrenalin was running, and a Dybbuk was driving me. I entered the house and followed Mrs. Shatzkin into a comfortable deep-brown living room with thick, soft carpeting that looked as if no human feet had touched it.

She sat in a single seat, indicated the couch across from her, and then folded her hands in her lap. The red of her fingernails caught a flash of sun from outside. She was composed again.

“Are you a blackmailer, Mr. Peters?” she asked, her chin going up to show her contempt for such things.

“No,” I said, taking off my hat and putting it on my lap. “I'm what I claim to be, a private detective doing my best to find out who killed your husband and hoping it won't turn out to be my client.”

“Mr. Faulkner killed Jacques,” she said emphatically. “I was …”

My head had been nodding a steady no from the instant she began, and she stopped abruptly.

“Who do you share that apartment with over in Culver City?” I asked softly.

Her face flushed. Camile Shatzkin looked like a human being instead of a mannequin for an instant, but she went back into her act.

“That has nothing to do with Jacques's murder,” she said. “He is an actor, Thayer Newcomb. He would have absolutely nothing to gain by Jacques's death. He knows I would never marry him and that I would despise him if he hurt Jacques. As it is, I never intend to see him again. All of this has made it clear to me how much I really loved Jacques.”

Her head was down again, and a handkerchief had appeared from nowhere. She pulled herself together and came up for another try.

“Mr. Peters, in spite of these surroundings and Jacques' business …”

“And his insurance?” I continued.

“… and his insurance,” she agreed, “I am not really a wealthy woman. I doubt if there is even a total of $800,000 after taxes.”

“You had that figure on the tip of your grief,” I said.

She stood up in anger, looked at my calm, mashed face, and sat down again.

“Just for the sake of Jacques's reputation and—I must admit—my own, I would like to offer you a fee for your services to keep the information you have discovered private.”

“How much of a fee?” I asked.

“Well, let's say $20,000,” she said.

“Let's say $50,000,” I said.

“Very well,” she said. “I would need a written statement from you guaranteeing that you would seek no further fee on this matter.”

My head was shaking again.

“No money,” I said.

She went flush again and bit her red lower lip. “I could offer …”

“And no offers of flesh, either,” I added. “I have no ambition,” I explained. “Absolutely none. I don't want or need a lot of money. I have no dreams money can buy. What I always need is just a little more than I've got, not a lot more, and I'm not about to be bought in for a few hundred dollars. It's a bind, but it keeps my reputation clean and my suits old.”

“And when you go to that great Pinkerton agency in the sky, they may reward you by making you a night watchman on the gate of heaven,” she spat.

“Or the gate of hell,” I added. “I'd like that. As for you and me having a social life together, I can't see you warm and friendly and sitting next to me tonight at the Wild Red Berry and Yukon Jake wrestling matches at the Hollywood Legion. No, Mrs. Shatzkin, I'll just have to amble out of here with my curiosity about your friend and a little more faith in the innocence of William Faulkner.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way, Mr. Peters,” she said, rising. I joined her. “If you should change your mind, please feel free to call me. Am I to assume, however, that you plan to take your information about my private life to the police?”

“No,” I said, heading for the door. “I think I'll just find Mr. Thayer Newcomb and have a chat. You wouldn't want to make my job easier and give me an address, would you?”

Her lips tightened and her breasts rose. She was Joan of Arc defending her voices, a noble figure.

I went outside without an escort, closing the door behind me. Haliburton was at the car. He had obviously stopped the cops, but he hadn't stopped his mind, what there was of it, from working.

“No trouble,” I said, holding my jacket open.

“No trouble,” he said meekly. “I … what did you mean about Culver City and … what did you mean?”

Haliburton was a hurt and jealous lap dog, waiting to be whipped or given an order. I wasn't going to do either.

“I can't talk much about it,” I said, easing into my car. He held the door firmly so I couldn't close it. “It has something to do with a private transaction Mr. Shatzkin made.” He let go of the door and I closed it, but opened the window to add, “Haliburton, I'd suggest you pack up your suitcase and head out someplace clean if I thought you'd listen, but you won't listen. You can't. The Medusa has made you stone deaf.”