Shakedown (15 page)

I was just getting into the Chev when Veber came out and called to me. He had my thirty-eight in his hand.

“We picked this up out there and checked it. It’s yours, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

No reply from him. I climbed into the Chev and headed her toward Doheny. Down that to Santa Monica and Santa Monica toward the sea. It didn’t seem likely that Charles Adam Roland would pick a spot as isolated as his Playa del Rey hide-out if he intended to move every day, but I wanted to check.

I pulled past as I had the first time I drove here, and checked for his car in front before coming into sight on foot. There was no car and when I went up onto the front porch, there was no sign of life. I pressed the bell button and heard it ring, inside. Then I went around to the back. And there was an unlocked window, as I’d hoped.

There was a very big closet, full of clothes. All of his grips were unpacked and the grips were on a high, closet shelf. That indicated he wasn’t thinking of moving today, at any rate. And then, in the kitchen, I came across a real surprise. There was a new freezer, and it was a big one. And it was loaded, right up to the lid. And in the kitchen cupboard, there must have been nearly two dozen bottles of Scotch and bourbon. This wasn’t the larder of a man ready to run; this was the larder of a man who intended to hole in, right here.

And why not? If Willi should scream for some law, the last place the law would look would be in town. No big operator would hang around town after a steal of this size. Unless the operator was big enough to have imagination and courage, big enough to realize it might be the safest place in the country.

Except that Deutscher had known it; I’d seen him there. Did Roland know Deutscher was dead, then? Or did he trust him enough to—? No, he must know Deutscher was dead. Or he had really meant to cut in Deutscher for a share and freeze me out. That could be another answer. But I couldn’t understand a man as sharp as Roland cutting in someone for the little that someone had planned to contribute. But if he knew Deutscher was dead, why wouldn’t he go to the police? Or confide in Jean and me? My headache came back as I went out the back door and headed for the car. Ever since Moose Jelko had camped on my doorstep, I’d had a crowded feeling. Too many people were interested in me and my business. Too many eyes were on me from under the geraniums.

I was traveling north on Lincoln when the Cad went by, going south, Roland at the wheel. He didn’t see me, luckily. And then the graveled parking lot was to my left and I turned in between the untrimmed and dying palm trees that flanked Little Phil’s drive.

Jean had warned me to stay out of trouble, but how much trouble could that little bastard give me, now that his big friend was in the clink? And he must have some answers.

The place was dim and without customers. At the far end of the bar, Little Phil was reading a
Racing Form,
and he looked up as the door closed behind me.

He stood there, immovable, the paper in his hands, staring at me. Then he said, “What in hell happened to you?”

I went over to stand in front of him. “Your friend came to see me.”

“My friend—?”

“Moose Jelko.”

Little Phil expelled his breath. “Moose is punchy. He gets crazier every day. You don’t think I sent him, do you?”

“You sent him to Jennings.”

The little man said nothing. He shook his head.

“Yes, you did. He told me you did. And now he’s in jail and Jennings is in jail, and if they beat the local rap, there’ll be a federal charge. Kidnapping. You might need a friend, Phil. A friend on the right side of the fence.”

He didn’t say anything. He put the paper down and stared at the bar.

“The cops,” I went on, “are beginning to realize Rickett must have been doped here and they are almost convinced Jennings was the man behind it. All you are in this is a stooge and now you’re the boy who ratted on Jennings. Because I’m going to tell the law that you told me Jennings was crooked. And if Jennings has any friends in town, they’ll be looking you up.”

“I got to have a drink,” he said. “You want a drink?”

I shook my head. “All I want is information. And I think I’ve got it coming. Maybe you’d like to see my belly, where Moose worked it over?”

“I just want a drink,” he said. He went down toward the middle of the bar and reached underneath it. But he didn’t come up with a bottle. He came up with a gun, a big gun, a service .45.

He was a big man with that in his hand. He said quietly, “You want to repeat that part about what you’re going to tell the police about me ratting?”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “Put that thing away. If I’d come looking for trouble, I’d have brought a gun.”

“You’ve got all the trouble you can handle right now,” he said. “And holding up a tavern would give me an excuse to shoot you. They’d believe that of you, the law would. They know you.”

“I can come back,” I said.

“Not if you’re dead. I’ll count to ten. You ought to be able to make the door by that time.”

“I’m going to report this.” I turned toward the door, and paused to study him.

“One,” he said. “Two, three, four—”

I didn’t know if the little bastard would shoot or not. But I was through the door before he got to “seven.”

And from my office, a half hour later, I phoned McGill and told him, “Tried to get something out of Little Phil, and he pulled a gun on me. Thought you might like to know.”

“Thanks,” he said. “We’ll have the West Side Station look into that. Why the gun? You didn’t threaten him, Joe?”

“Absolutely not, Captain. I showed him what Jelko had done to me and asked him if he knew why.”

“And he told you nothing?”

“He told me he’d count to ten and then shoot. He told me the police knew what a crook I was, and he could claim I was trying to hold up the joint.”

“Well, well. Rough man, isn’t he? I’ll have to check to see if he has a permit for that gun.”

“Sure. Hasn’t Rickett ever said anything about him?”

“Just that he was supposed to meet Target there, and didn’t.” A pause. “Well, we’ll have another go at him.”

I hung up and looked over to see a man standing by the door. I knew him, one of the partners in the Gardaluck Music Company, a thin and worried man who wore expensive clothes.

“It’s been some time,” he said, and came over to stand near the window. “And you haven’t been in the office much.”

I nodded. I’d done a little job for him, once, but it wasn’t anything that would make us buddies. There was undoubtedly something on his mind.

He was looking more worried than usual. “You got rid of a lot of records day before yesterday, if I remember right.”

I nodded.

He met my gaze for a second and then looked at the top of my desk. “Since this trouble you’ve had that I read about in the paper—I mean, I thought, of course, that they might be checking some of
our
old records. We’ve had some trouble you know and—”

“They—?” I said. “Do you mean the police?”

He nodded and faced me squarely. “Yes, day before yesterday, late in the afternoon, they pulled all that unlighted refuse out of the incinerator. I got the word from the janitor on that. We’ve done him a few favors.”

I thought of Manny standing in the hall while I stuffed papers down the chute, too late for the morning burning. I tried to remember if there was anything incriminating in the batch, anything I couldn’t double-talk out of. There was the handkerchief, of course. Maybe it would mean something, when they found Deutscher. But they’d also have to prove it was my handkerchief.

But how phoney was McGill’s new geniality in the light of this?

The worried man said, “The bastards sure hate to see anybody make a buck, don’t they?”

“They sure do,” I agreed. “They’re in the public trough. They don’t have to scramble for their dough. Thanks a lot for the information. I don’t think there was anything I need to worry about in the stuff I threw away, but I do appreciate your coming in.”

“If there wasn’t anything
you
need to worry about,” he said, “that makes me more nervous.” He went out.

The crowded feeling was heavy in the small office. I wondered if maybe Manny was working on his own. He’d love to nail me, and so would Veber and the rest of his buddies. McGill believed in impartial justice; Manny and Veber made it more personal.

I phoned Jean and asked, “Willi back?”

“She’s due this evening. Are you in a hurry, lover?”

“Aren’t you? The sooner we get the money, the quicker we can get out of town and live. We
are
going out of town, aren’t we?”

“And cut Papa out of his share?”

“You’d have to decide that,” I said. “He’s your father.”

A silence, and then, “Could we do it?”

“If you’re willing, I think we could. I’d have to give it some thought.”

“Give it some,” she said. “He told me this afternoon that he’s coming over to see you. Are you home?”

“No, but I will be in twenty minutes. I suppose he wants to get together with me on this story about the investment clique, the story we’re going to feed Willi.”

“I guess that’s it. I’m saving the papers for her. You look awfully beat-up in those pictures.”

“I’ll be in good shape,” I promised her, “before the honeymoon.”

The office still seemed crowded, as though the walls were closing in on me. Deutscher out of the deal, Jennings and Jelko in jail, Rickett in jail. Josie out of town. I was clean as a whistle, and why should I feel crowded? Only Jean and her dad left to keep me from the whole wad. Another day or two and McGill could think what he wanted. I wouldn’t be available for questioning. The tough ones were out of the way. All I had to worry about was a con man and his luscious daughter.

McGill was one of those workers, one of those men who pile detail on detail until he’s ready to move in. There was good reason to believe he was now piling up the evidence against me. But what did he have, what could he prove?

Quiet in the office. Outside, traffic hummed and across the hall the typewriters clacked, but it was too damned quiet in the office. I went out and down to the parking lot and settled up for the month. At a super market I picked up a steak and some bread and a fifth of rye, and went home.

The apartment affected me the same way the office had. It seemed too small. Maybe I was getting expensive tastes. In my mind, I saw McGill’s cold eyes and the hot eyes of Manny Rodriguez and the scorn in the smile of Veber. The bastards were watching me, I’d bet. I hadn’t noticed a tail, but I hadn’t been looking for any, and they wouldn’t use a man I knew.

I was just finishing the steak when Roland came. In a silver gabardine suit and a sport shirt you don’t get under forty dollars.

“You’re looking sharp as usual,” I said. “I wish I could afford to dress like you do.”

“You will, you will. Miss Clifford is about ready to strike at the hook.” He was sitting on the davenport and he looked at his wrist watch. “She’s due in town in three hours.”

“Drink?” I asked him. “Rye.”

He shook his head. He smiled at me. “You’ve been in the wrong business, Puma. That was quick thinking, that story for the papers. Waste nothing, eh?”

“Right.”

His eye covered my face. “They really got to you, didn’t they?”

I nodded.

He expelled his breath. “I wonder if they got to Deutscher, too.”

“Can’t you find him?”

He continued to look at me as he shook his head.

“Do we need him?”

He shook his head again. “Is there something going on, Joe? Do you know anything about Deutscher?”

“Plenty,” I said, “but I don’t know where he is now. Did you think Deutscher and I were trying to work some kind of racket on you?”

He smiled. “The possibility occurred to me.”

I gave him the smile back. “I had a feeling, at one time, that you and Deutscher might be trying to cut me out.”

His face was bland. “We are a pair of untrusting bastards, aren’t we? Well, I didn’t come here to squabble. I wanted to give you a name to use in your story to Willi. The name is Brattan.”

“And who’s Brattan?”

He waved. “A myth I’ve built in Willi’s mind, a man from the East, from New York. He represents the unprincipled Eastern crowd who tried to force you to tell them where I’ve all this acreage tied up in options.”

“I see. Eastern, eh? New York.”

Roland smiled. “Willi’s very bitter about Easterners and for an intelligent girl, very narrow-minded about New Yorkers. I suppose she must have had some unfortunate experience back there as a child.” He studied me. “Your eye and the lip will do very well the way they are. You could put a Band-aid along the bridge of your nose as though that had been cut. And limp. That always gets them.”

“I understand.”

“You see the illusion we’re building?” he asked. “You and I are enemies as far as Willi is concerned. Then you get beat up and blame Brattan, which confirms everything I’ve been planting in her mind.”

I nodded.

“You can confess to me in front of Willi that you almost did sell out to Brattan before he pulled the muscle stuff with his stooges. That angered you so much you want to put your own savings into the company.”

“A good touch,” I said. “Now who handles the money in this pitch?”

“Deutscher was supposed to be the man who represented the landholders. But he’s disappeared. I don’t know how we’re going to work that. If I take it, we’ll have to arrange a meeting place. We certainly can’t divide the loot in Miss Clifford’s apartment.”

“And then you leave town; is that it?”

“That’s it, though there’s no need to leave immediately. Not unless Miss Clifford begins to get suspicious. Leaving immediately, as a matter of fact, might tend to make her suspicious.”

Everything he said made sense. Everything was said with warm earnestness and frankness. If I hadn’t stood outside that window in Playa del Rey, I’d have swallowed every word he was feeding me now.

“When do I make the appearance?” I asked. “Tonight?”

He frowned. “I don’t think tonight would be good. I want her to read those papers. I’ll phone you tomorrow. Don’t forget the Band-aid and the limp.”