FOR:
Ruth Cavin
Michael Congdon
Brian DeFiore
Marcia Muller
Bill Pronzini
All of the above helped to keep this book from being stillborn.
THERE WAS AN ANCIENT but glistening bronze Camaro with mag wheels on our driveway when I came home for lunch. I knew that car; it was Corey Raleigh’s, the town’s youngest private investigator. He had studied under me in a way; he had worked for me before starting his own one-man agency in his parents’ garage.
He was a lanky young man with a shrewd instinct for the dollar and a fervent admiration for the fictional exploits of Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Lew Archer.
He was in the kitchen, talking with our housekeeper, Mrs. Casey, his surrogate mother.
“Long time no see,” I said.
“I’ve been in Los Angeles,” he explained, “on a case. Man, that’s where the action is, right?”
“Right. That’s why I moved up here.”
Mrs. Casey said, “If you two are going to talk shop, why don’t you talk it out on the deck? I’ll bring our lunch out there.”
Mrs. Casey does not approve of the trade I had practiced in Los Angeles. Nor is she happy about the fact that Corey now practiced it here in San Valdesto.
We sat in back under the shade of the overhang next to the pool. I said, “Your fame must have spread if they called you from L.A.”
He shook his head. “My aunt has a cassette and record store in North Hollywood that’s been robbed a lot. All I did down there was play night-watchman.”
“And that’s what you call action?”
“Of course not! But I had my days free and I made the rounds of some of the agencies down there. Boy, the stories those guys told me!”
“I’m sure at least three percent of them were true. Did you apprehend any burglars?”
He nodded. “Kids, punks. I hated to turn ’em in.” He paused. “I wondered if you had anything going that you needed help on. Things have been kind of slow at the office.”
I shook my head. “Remember, I’m retired, Corey.”
His smile was cynical. “Sure you are. That’s why you renewed your license this spring.”
Then Mrs. Casey came with our lunch, beef stroganoff. For Corey she serves beef stroganoff; for the master of the house it is usually a ham-and-cheese sandwich.
We sat and ate and talked of other things, in deference to Mrs. Casey. Then she went to her room for the first of her daytime dramas on the boob tube and I walked with Corey to the front door.
I closed the door and was two steps away from it when it opened again. Corey stepped back in and said, “There’s a cat on your front lawn and I think it’s dead.” He pointed at a spot at the far end of the driveway.
We walked there together. It was a sleek and slender cat of pale fawn, blue-eyed and short-haired, with darker ears, paws, tail, and face. It was dead; its throat had been cut.
“Jesus!” Corey said. “Some son-of-a-bitch—It’s a Siamese, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Some kinky kid, probably. Look, don’t tell Jan about this, or Mrs. Casey. I’ll dump it in the trash can. It’s collection day.”
“What kind of kid would do this?”
I shrugged. I could see the collection truck at the far end of the road. I picked up the cat by its tail and put it in the half-filled trash can and buried it with clippings from the full one.
Corey suggested, “Maybe one of the neighbors saw who put it there. Maybe you ought to ask them.”
I shook my head. “It would get back to Jan. Forget it.”
“Never!” he said.
I didn’t have to ask the neighbors. One of them, Bill Crider, was coming across the street toward me as Corey’s car pulled away.
He told me, “I saw you put that cat in the can just now. I thought, when I saw the car go by, it was one of those throwaway newspaper peddlers. If I’d known what it was I would have got his license number.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“An old Plymouth two-door sedan, gray. It had a rumpled left rear fender. Thank God, Sally isn’t home. She’s a cat lover.”
Sally is his wife. I said, “You’d better not mention it to her. The cat’s throat was cut.”
He stared at me. “What kind of creep would—Should we go looking for him? He could still be in the neighborhood. It only happened about ten minutes ago.”
“He must be long gone by now,” I said. “He sure as hell wouldn’t dump it in his own neighborhood. And there aren’t many people driving old Plymouths in this neighborhood, Bill.”
He nodded. “That’s for sure. But there have been two houses burglarized up here in the last week. Maybe we ought to start a neighborhood watch.”
“Maybe. I’ll phone Sheriff McClune. He’s a friend of mine. Did you get a good look at the driver?”
He shook his head. “Damn it, no.” He sighed. “We moved up here from L.A. just to get away from this kind of thing. This was going to be our sanctuary for our senior years.”
“I’ll phone the sheriff,” I repeated.
“Okay,” he said dully. “But I still think we should start a neighborhood watch.”
A sanctuary for seniors. I hadn’t reached that plateau yet; I would have to wait for my sanctuary. Since Hiroshima the only guaranteed sanctuary was the grave.
I phoned the sheriff’s station and McClune was in. I told him what had happened.
“Brock,” he said in an even voice, “we are currently investigating two burglaries in your neck of the woods and you phone me about a dead cat.”
“The cat’s throat was cut,” I explained. “Don’t you think that might indicate the guy is a weirdo?”
“Yes,” he said wearily. “An old gray Plymouth two-door sedan with a rumpled left rear fender? I’ll put out the word. When are we going to play poker again?”
“As soon as Bernie arranges another game.”
“Maybe we ought to have one without Bernie. He always wins!”
“Not always. I nailed him for three hundred one night.”
“I remember,” he said. “That was eighteen months ago. But hell, we need him, don’t we? We need the challenge.”
“We do. He teaches us humility.”
Lieutenant Bernard Vogel of the San Valdesto Police Department was another of my cop friends. Unfortunately, he is more cop than friend, which is endemic among the boys in blue when they deal with private eyes—or former private eyes. I had learned that in my maiden years in Los Angeles.
The mist began to drift in at about three o’clock. It was a dense fog when Jan got home. It had been a slow and dangerous trip for her down the curving pass from Solvang, she told me, where she had gone to see a client. Jan is an interior decorator working for Kay Décor.
“And what’s new on the home front?” she asked when I brought her her drink.
“Nothing exciting. I was talking with Bill Crider this afternoon. He thinks we ought to have a neighborhood watch.”
“Because of those two homes that were burglarized?”
“Yup.”
“They were daylight burglaries,” she informed me. “The prevailing opinion is that they were high school kids.”
I hadn’t known that. I don’t read the local paper.
“At the noon hour, the lunch hour,” she explained. “And what did they steal? No jewelry, no bonds, no paintings, no antiques. Only the cash they found.”
“They must have been kids,” I agreed.
She sipped her martini. I took a swallow of my beer. I asked, “Do you remember that cat you had when we were courting?”
She nodded.
“Was it a Siamese?”
She shook her head. “A Burmese. They look a lot alike. What brought this on?”
“Nostalgia, I guess. I was thinking…we don’t have a cat or a dog, not even a canary.”
“All we have is us,” she said, “us and Mrs. Casey. Isn’t that enough?”
“I guess. But the way things are going these days I’ve been thinking maybe a mean Doberman wouldn’t be a bad investment.”
She smiled. “You and your nyctophobia! Turn on the tube and let’s see what’s going on in Tinsel Town.”
We caught the opening news story on Channel 2 in Los Angeles. The creature known as the Valley Intruder had entered another home in that area, raping and strangling a seventy-nine-year-old widow. That ran his police estimate to fourteen rapes or murders or both.
“Turn it off,” Jan said, “and make me another martini.”
“Coming up,” I said. “Do you notice that the creep invades only those homes that leave a door or a window unlocked?”
“Yes, macho man. But we have you for that, don’t we?”
I gave her my injured husband look and went to get her another martini. I have this chauvinistic feeling that if we ever get the women’s-rights movement rightfully established in this free country we maligned males might finally achieve equality.
We watched “Masterpiece Theatre” on the PBS channel after dinner in the den. Mrs. Casey watched a rerun of High Noon on the tube in her room. Mrs. Casey has cinematic taste; she stays with the golden oldies.
The day’s restlessness didn’t invade the night. I slept soundly, all the doors and windows locked.
Larry Rubin, my bookie, phoned me when we were eating breakfast. He had a hot one, a cinch, running in the sixth at Santa Anita, he informed me. Did I want a piece of the action?
I told him to put me down for a double sawbuck, and asked, “How’s it going with you these days?”
“Great! I’ll be back to my Cadillac days in another month.”
“Maybe even a Mercedes?”
“Jews who buy German cars,” he informed me coolly, “have no memories.”
“Sorry, Larry. No offense meant.”
“And none taken. Any goy who lends me five grand and doesn’t even charge interest has to be a brother. By the way, I was down in L.A. over the weekend and stopped in at Heinie’s. He told me there was some guy down there asking about you. He wanted to know where you had moved to. Heinie told him he didn’t know. I guess he didn’t like the looks of the guy.”
“I’m glad. Heinie is a great judge of character. Let me know if I win, brother.”
“Natch!”
When I came back to the kitchen Jan asked, “Who was that?”
“Larry Rubin. He has a hot one running at Santa Anita. I told him I’d go for twenty on the nag.”
“I’ll take ten of it. Okay?”
“Yes. Cash, please?” Jan likes to win but resents paying.
She sighed. She got up and went into the living room to get her purse. She came back and handed me a ten-dollar bill. I decided not to tell her what Larry had said about German cars. Jan runs a Mercedes.
It was at Heinie’s, my favorite bar and grille, that I had met Larry Rubin. He was a horse player then, not a bookie. The boys and girls at Heinie’s called him The Wizard Of Odds.
Nobody, they claimed, could rate a horse or a jock or a track or any significant combination of the three as accurately as Larry. I agreed with that. Larry was the only horse player I’d ever known that bookies tried to avoid.
Unfortunately, like all mortals, Larry had a grandiose view of his skills in other fields of wagering. So he would go to Vegas when he was overly flush and try his skill at blackjack, poker, and roulette.
As any sane gambler knows, Las Vegas is the last place to go if you want to beat the odds. The houses in Vegas arrange their own bizarre odds and they are not designed to give the sucker a break. Suckers are what keep them in business. That is why they court the convention trade. Winners are not welcome in Nevada.
It was when his great gift at picking winners began to fade that Larry decided to move over to the other side of his profession. But Los Angeles is a highly competitive bookie area. He came up here after his last trip to Vegas, along with his bride of two weeks, a Vegas chorus girl. He came up broke. I lent him five thousand dollars for seed money; he paid me back in four months.
I had insisted on the no-interest bit; Larry’s tips had kept me eating in the early days of my chosen trade after leaving the Rams. Owing and being owed; I believe in that.
I waited until Jan went to work before phoning Heinie at his home number. His bar didn’t open until eleven.
“Well, stranger!” he said. “It’s about time! I thought you’d died.”
“Not yet. Larry Rubin told me this morning that some man was asking about me down there.”
“Yeh. Probably a bill collector. I told him I wasn’t sure where you were now, the last I’d heard it was Patagonia. He was a mean-looking bastard, a big guy.”
“No further description?”
“About two hundred and forty pounds, bald. He had a scar running down his right cheek from just below the eye almost to his chin.”
“It doesn’t ring a bell with me. I put away some mean hoodlums but never one with a scar like that.”
“So, maybe it was a fan. You still married to Jan?”
“Of course!”
“Treat her right. You are one lucky man.”
“I know. Keep the faith, Heinie.”
“Faith in what? Today? Shit!”
My sentiments exactly (almost). I took a cup of coffee out to the deck along with the sports pages from the morning paper. I left the rest of the paper on the breakfast-nook table for Mrs. Casey. She does windows but not breakfasts and has made it clear that she desires privacy when she eats hers.
As I had told Heinie, I had been instrumental in putting some rough characters behind bars when I was working the mean streets of Los Angeles. I’d had several threatening letters from a couple of them when they left prison.
But I would have remembered a man who fit the description Heinie had given me. It couldn’t have been a bill collector. I’d paid off every debt I had in town when my Uncle Homer died and made me solvent enough to retire and move up here.
It had probably been a fan. I still had a couple of those left.
IN THE FORMER CHAUFFEUR’S quarters above the garage, the file cabinet I had brought up from Los Angeles was still intact. The history of my adventures in Tinsel Town were all recorded there. The cabinet was covered with dust; the files were dustless enough to bring into Mrs. Casey’s house.
I took them down to the den in two trips. I had not become rich in Los Angeles but I certainly had been busy.
Some current sage was recently quoted as saying, “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.” These files were.
My modest second-floor office had been in Beverly Hills. There were some memorable names in the files: directors and actors and producers, boxers and football players, two heiresses and one starlet who only last week imprinted her hands in the cement walk of Hollywood Boulevard.
On the seamier side of the law, the files were fewer and older. These were the rough guys, the victims of my code of vindictive retribution. Many of their names brought back memories but not one resembled the man Heinie had described.
I was putting the files away in a cabinet for further consideration when the phone rang. It was Bernie. He said, “McClune tells me you’re aching to play poker again.”
“He lied. It was his idea.”
“So, why don’t you take me to some expensive place for lunch and we can discuss it?”
“What a vulgar, mercenary suggestion!”
“Okay. I just thought you might still believe in your own code.”
“Which is?”
“Owing and being owed.”
“You’re right, I owe you. Pierre’s?”
“Why not? He has your kind of food, too. Hamburger.”
“He calls it Salisbury steak.”
“I know. All you have to do is to tell him you want the Salisbury steak without the egg, bread crumbs, and seasoning.”
“I’ll do that. Twelve-thirty?”
“I’ll be there. And don’t forget to wear a tie.”
“Twelve-thirty,” I repeated.
I did owe Bernie. He had covered for me in all my local escapades and backed me against Chief Chandler Harris. And he had alerted some of his gambling peers to the only bookie in town who paid track odds on long shots, Larry Rubin. Like Larry, Bernie wouldn’t drive a German car if they were five cents a copy, tax included.
I figured I owed it to Pierre to dress with some decorum. I wore my gray flannel slacks with a charcoal jacket and a white oxford shirt. As a minor protest against the absurdity of his demanding a tie even for lunch (in California?) I put on a Mickey Mouse tie that one of my Little Leaguers had brought back for me after his visit to Disneyland.
Pierre’s is in Montevista, a suburb of San Valdesto. I was about to pull into a parking space near the entrance when I saw an old gray two-door Plymouth sedan at the far end of the lot. I drove down and parked in the vacant space next to it.
Neither rear fender was crumpled, but the left one could have been hammered out and repainted. The paint in one spot on it seemed to be newer. It was obviously smoother.
The right side door was not locked. I opened it and reached into the car, opened the glove compartment, and took out the registration slip. I was reading it when a shrill voice from the other end of the lot called, “Get away from that car, you damned thief!”
A pair of stout and middle-aged women were bearing down on me from the restaurant entrance. I replaced the slip, closed the car door, and put on my winningest smile.
When they came within range, I said, “I apologize, ma’am. I thought it was my wife’s car. We’ve been…well, I don’t want to go into that. I assure you I am not a thief. I am meeting a police officer here for lunch. He will be glad to confirm what I told you.”
She glared at me. “A likely story! We’re not waiting for anybody. Get out of here! Go back where you came from.”
“Sorry,” I said with hauteur, “but I have a reservation for lunch, and my officer friend will soon be here to meet me.” I nodded a curt good-bye and walked away.
Bernie was waiting for me under the canvas canopy in front of the restaurant door when I got there. He apparently had not witnessed the squalid scene and I didn’t see any reason to mention it. He looked at my tie, sadly shook his head, and said nothing.
Pierre met us at the door, sadly shook his head and looked at Bernie. “Maybe a corner table where nobody will notice him?” Bernie suggested.
“In which case,” I said, “Lieutenant Vogel will pick up the tab.”
“This way, gentlemen,” Pierre said. He led us to a table where we had a view of the town below and the sea beyond it.
Bernie ordered a dry martini, I a beaker of draft Einlicher.
Pierre said, “I owe you a lot, Mr. Callahan, for introducing me to that beer. Today, I will instruct my chef to broil you the finest hamburger you have ever tasted.”
“Thank you.” Ī said.
“And don’t forget his ketchup,” Bernie said. “I’ll order later.”
Pierre smiled and left. Bernie said, “What’s this about the cat on your lawn? McClune mentioned it.”
I gave him the sordid story.
“A kid, maybe?” he asked. “They’ve had a lot of juvenile burglaries in Montevista. And the ones they caught weren’t poor kids. But papa doesn’t give them a big enough allowance to pay for their dope.”
“I doubt if this was a kid.” I told him about the man who had asked about me at Heinie’s.
He frowned. “I don’t see the connection.”
“Neither do I, yet.” I shrugged. “You know me. I work on instinct.”
“Don’t downgrade it,” he told me. “I’ve seen it at work. Have you been threatened before by people you put away?”
“A couple of times. Have you?”
He nodded. “Oh, yes! And they included some vicious remarks about my heritage.”
When we had finished our drinks, Bernie ordered something in French I can’t spell and the waiter assured me I was in for a delicious surprise, compliments of Pierre. Way down deep in his devious soul I have the feeling that Pierre likes me and forgives all big tippers.
The hamburger the waiter brought me was large and pristine. He brought the ketchup along to make it less pristine. Bernie’s plate made me wonder if it was possible Pierre’s septic tank had overflown again. All sauce, no chow, French cuisine.
I am not a complete lout. I tried the hamburger without the ketchup. Delicious! I made the thought vocal.
“It’s probably gourmet-grade chopped filet,” Bernie informed me. “You’re lucky it’s on the house.” He took a sip of his wine; I took a sip of my second Einlicher. He said, “I told McClune I would alert the patrol boys in town about that gray Plymouth. I’m sure no kid in your area is driving one of those unless it’s a classic.”
“It isn’t.”
“Now, about the poker. Is Saturday night at my house okay with you?”
“I guess. Unless Jan has other plans. How much money should I bring?”
“Whatever you can afford. I can arrange transportation for you if you need it.”
“No, thanks. It will be worth the trip just to see Ellie again. What is she doing these days?”
Ellie is his wife. He shrugged. “I’m not sure if it’s saving the whales or fighting that oil company that wants to drill off Omega Beach or writing nasty letters to our governor. That woman—”
“Is a citizen,” I finished for him. “That’s getting to be an archaic word, isn’t it?”
“Could you define it for me?”
“Yes. It is a voter who quite often votes against his or her own self-interest.”
He smiled. “Could you name one?”
“It would be immodest of me. What do you want for dessert?”
“I’ve cost you enough already,” he said. “Only coffee for me.”
“You have just become a citizen,” I told him.
My good friend and occasional adversary, Bernie Vogel. We are different breeds of cat but I admire him. He could have retired five years ago on the property in town his father had left him. But I am sure he felt it was his citizen’s duty to put the bad guys where they belong (in the can or under the sod) and to maintain an orderly world. As a student of history he should have realized that there hadn’t been an orderly world since the dawn of civilization.
There was still a lot of afternoon left. I drove back and forth in the lower Main Street district on the off chance I might spot an old gray Plymouth two-door sedan with a crumpled left rear fender. The area was loaded with old cars and crumpled fenders but not one of them was a gray Plymouth two-door sedan. I went home.
Mrs. Casey had brought in the mail. It was on the table in the front hall: one letter, two bills, and nine pieces of junk mail. I opened the letter and read it.
Then I phoned Bernie. “You can forget Saturday night,” I told him. “I’ll be staying at home for a while. I just got a letter.”
“What kind of letter?”
“Seven words—‘The cat was first. Who is second?’”
“Take it to McClune,” he said. “They’ve got a better lab up there and a much faster computerized fingerprint file.”
“I’m not leaving the house.”
“Okay. I’ll phone him and have him send a deputy to pick it up. Sit tight, buddy.”
I phoned Corey’s office and he was there. “Are you still available for night work?” I asked him.
“Hell, yes. A store?”
“No. Our house. Did you get your gun permit?”
“Six months ago. What in hell is going on, Brock?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here. Take a nap now and come around ten o’clock. Bring the gun.”
“Right!”
I still had the second-hand gun I bought in Los Angeles when I opened the office. I had carried it on only two cases there. It was an ancient .38-caliber Colt Police Special. The gun was still in working order but the ammunition for it had been discarded years ago. I could get more; guns and ammunition are easy to buy in this country, too easy.
I was going over my files again when the doorbell rang. Mrs. Casey got there the same time I did.
The deputy said, “I came for the letter.”
I handed it to him and he left. Mrs. Casey asked, “What’s happening, Mr. Callahan? The Criders’ maid told me this afternoon that somebody threw a dead cat on our lawn. And now this!”
“Patience,” I said. “I’ll explain it all when Jan comes home.”
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“I don’t either, Mrs. Casey. Let’s wait for Jan.”
She went back to the kitchen muttering to herself. I went back to my files. Nothing, nothing, nothing…
The phone rang. It was Larry. He said, “I’ve got a hundred and forty dollars here for you. Do you want to pick it up or should I bring it over?”
“Not today. Mail me a check. Mail two checks, seventy of it to Jan the other seventy to me.”
“Mail? What’s with you? Trouble, Brock?”
“Yes.”
“Is it connected with that guy asking about you at Heinie’s?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible.”
“I’ve still got some friends down there, chum, who are on the shady side. You call me if you think they could be useful.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
Occasionally giving me an inside tip on a hot one and booking my bet was Larry’s way of paying the interest I had refused. It was possible, of course, that Larry laid off my bet as he did with his own money down in Los Angeles. Today’s sixth could have been a boat race, but that seemed highly unlikely at Santa Anita.
Jan came home a little after five o’clock and we gathered in the living room. I related all that had happened, starting with the dead cat and finishing with today’s letter.
When I had finished, Jan said, “So that’s why you were asking about my cat.” She looked at Mrs. Casey. “Did you know about it?”
“Not until this afternoon when the Criders’ maid told me.”
Jan looked at me. “And that’s why Bill Crider wants a neighborhood watch?”
“No. It’s the burglaries he’s concerned about. What I would like to suggest is that you girls take a suite at the Biltmore and live it up while I watch the house.”
“No way!” Jan said.
“I second the motion,” Mrs. Casey said.
“I was afraid of that,” I said, “so I phoned Corey. He’ll guard us nights, I’ll be home during the day. Could we take a vote on that?”
Jan looked at Mrs. Casey and she nodded.
Jan said, “And now I think we should have a quiet drink.”
“I’ll get my Irish whiskey,” Mrs. Casey said. “It will be nice to have Corey in the house.”
…where she can finally convert him to the true faith, I thought, and he can learn to play bingo. I didn’t voice the thought.
The man asking about me at Heinie’s and the dead cat on the lawn might have been only a coincidence. But the dead cat on the lawn and the seven-word letter certainly was not.
And why had the writer added, “Who is second?” Someone other than Callahan? My Jan? Why hadn’t he written “next”? Had he planned more than two? Trying to analyze the mind of a kook was traveling down a trail too murky for me.