Davidian Report (18 page)

It was over and Haig Armour was moving up to the family. Anger spurted into Steve. Armour couldn’t be permitted to invade the mother’s privacy at this time. Part of the anger could have been his own shame but Steve moved rapidly. And vainly. Feather stood in his way, cat-eyed, smelling of violets. “I want to tell you—”

In that moment, Haig reached Mrs. Grasse. Steve set Feather aside. “Hold it.” He didn’t bother to see how she took it; he reached Haig.

And he heard the rich voice, properly subdued. “May I express my sympathy, Mrs. Grasse? I knew your son a good many years ago. I had hoped to see him while I was in town.”

Steve wasn’t needed. The watchdog sisters had closed in and the impresarios of this affair. Mrs. Grasse had only the same words, “He was a good son,” and she was conducted away.

Haig turned and looked into Steve’s face. If he was chagrined over the brush-off it didn’t show. Steve said sardonically, “You were an old friend of Fred Grasse?”

“Hello, Steve. Maybe I knew him.”

The mourners were filing out. Schmidt was interested. And Wilton. Neither came forward.

Steve said angrily, “She’s decent. Call off your hounds.”

“I can’t hurt her. Nothing can hurt her further.” Haig’s jaw was squared. “She might like to know that there are some who aren’t willing to condone murder.”

He hadn’t seen Haig angry before. Maybe it was the presence of the assassins, the hypocrites, mouthing amens. Steve demanded, “And you think you’ll find a killer by heckling her? She doesn’t know his friends or his enemies. Miss Grasse doesn’t allow them in the house.”

“You’ve been there.”

“Yes. Unlike you, I was an old friend of Frederick’s. Like you I hadn’t seen him for a long time. And hoped to see him while I was here.”

Haig said, “Maybe you did see him.”

“Meaning what?”

“There was time enough. While you were looking for your unknown pal at the airport. Time for more than a few words.”

Haig’s boys hadn’t accused last night. Haig hadn’t outright before. It rocked Steve but he hung on. “He was dead when I was on the plane. With you.” Haig said nothing.

“You know damn well he was dead before I got there.” They weren’t going to saddle this murder on him, no matter how much Haig would like it that way. “The police know. They released the body, they know when he died.”

Haig quoted, “The tolerance of the body to certain alkaloids is different in different men. They can’t be certain whether Grasse got his before he went to the airport or later.”

The attendants were working around the edges of the auditorium, cleaning up for the next show. They wished the two men would carry their argument outside. Feather had drifted to the door, as if she didn’t want to hear what they were saying.

Steve’s fists ached from their clench. “You’ll have a hard time hiring witnesses who can put us together. I came here to do business with Frederick, not to kill him. I can prove that.”

“Not on the witness stand,” Haig said smoothly. “You wouldn’t dare go on the witness stand and reveal your business with Grasse.”

That was it. Rage ate at him, knowing they could do this to him, knowing he couldn’t make testament of the truth of the matter between him and Albion. Even if they couldn’t prove their case, and they couldn’t without perjury, they could tie him up long enough to make him worthless on the job. Haig had many ways to win his victory.

Steve whispered, “You bastard.”

Haig said, “Don’t worry. I don’t believe the police will bother you for a few days yet.” He moved with the taunt, towards the girl.

Steve waited until they’d gone. When he came out of the place, the pitifully small cortege was driving slowly away. Haig and Feather were advancing to a Cadillac roadster. Ferber and Wilton idled by a plain black sedan as if concluding desultory conversation. Schmidt and Oriole duplicated the performance by another sedan. Steve knew what they were all waiting for. The number-one pigeon. He had no choice. He moved down the walk and joined Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Oriole. It couldn’t be news to Ferber and Wilton that he belonged in that category. They’d had his friends tagged before now.

Schmidt asked, “What had Armour to say to you?”

He didn’t have to answer. It was none of Schmidt’s goddam business and it wouldn’t hurt to tell him so plainly. Nor would it hurt to speak up. “He wanted me to understand that this doesn’t close the file on Albion.”

“So?”

“He’s still trying to put it on me. He’s capable of having me picked up for questioning. To keep me from reaching Davidian. If that happens, you’re going to have a hard time explaining to New York why I wasn’t given proper protection.”

Schmidt didn’t move an eyelash.

“If that happens,” Steve pounded it, “you’re going to get me out of it fast. If you have to turn yourself in as the killer.”

Schmidt inclined his head. The smile on his lips wasn’t nice. It was Mr. Oriole whom Steve had frightened. He would have to pick the victim, arrange for proof. Even if he had to turn himself in, Schmidt wouldn’t be touched. He was the brainy kind, safe until Steve could undermine him at headquarters. Unless something happened to Steve. His insolence was icy. “Don’t worry, Mr. Wintress. We will take care of you.”

Steve propelled the question. “Who did kill Albion?”

It didn’t disturb Mr. Schmidt. “We are working on that, Mr. Wintress.”

Steve didn’t shove in the man’s face. He simply walked on to the car and drove away. Neither Armour nor Schmidt was worth his blowing his top. He wasn’t here to fight big shots. He was here to get the Davidian report.

He should have insisted that Davidian pick a safer locale. But the little guy had seen too many American movies or heard too many tales of eternal palm trees and orange juice. Or was it that Janni was here? Davidian wasn’t a man you could drive; Steve had had to have his co-operation. And what was the difference? There were outfits working in every city, Des Moines or San Francisco or New Orleans, name any of them. There was activity in even the small towns.

You couldn’t outrun danger, not when you were in the business that Albion and Davidian and Steve were in.

He remained on Wilshire into Beverly, parked the old crate a block away and walked back to the hotel. There was nothing cozy about this lobby; it was as big and glittering as a movie set. Feather wouldn’t be early. Time for a phone call.

The phone rang on and on in an empty room. Reuben and Janni would find out he was late when he didn’t show up on time for dinner. They wouldn’t care how late he was. The call hadn’t been to find out if she’d gone to the room with the soldier. It didn’t matter to Steve if she had.

He left the booth and found the cocktail lounge. It was crowded and noisy, high-class noise, Beverly Hills brand. He had a straight one standing at the bar and returned to the lobby. She wasn’t very late. She was still dressed up like a cocktail-hour girl but she didn’t play the part. She stood timidly by the revolving door, looking out myopically into the lobby. Steve went to her.

She fumbled, “I tried to be on time. But Haig insisted I have a drink with him before I dropped him at his hotel. I thought it was better. He was angry.”

He guided her elbow back towards the fancy bar. The head waiter found them a sliver of space; it didn’t take him long to bring a sherry and a weak highball.

Steve asked her, “What has he got to be angry about?”

“This man. The funeral—” She didn’t want to continue. “He was murdered. Haig thinks you—” Her eyes scuttled away from him. “You didn’t. You were on the plane. But—”

He said sourly, “They couldn’t pin it on me but they could hold me too long. What about Davidian?”

She wasn’t listening. “Is Haig really F.B.I.? He says he isn’t. He says he’s a lawyer with the Department of Justice. But Eldon says—”

Steve told her, “He’s been an important Federal man for years. What did you find out about Davidian?”

She admitted, “Not very much.”

“Haig won’t talk?”

“I don’t believe he knows. He seemed to be trying to pump me as much as I was pumping him.” She seemed embarrassed. “As if he thought you might have confided in me.”

If that was a come-on, he ignored it. “He doesn’t know where Davidian is?”

“I don’t think so. Only that he’s in touch with this girl—Janni.” She breathed hard against his shoulder. “I know I haven’t found out much for you. I’ll do better tonight.” She was too eager, as if she had to convince him that she was on his side, not Haig’s. “We’re going to have dinner with him at the hotel. Eldon and Elsabeth and me. And Eldon is going to help me. Eldon’s very good at things like that.”

Steve said, “My God, did you have to rake in your whole family?”

“Was it wrong?” Her lip fell. “I wouldn’t have only I thought—” Her shoulders hunched tremulously. “I mean I thought because Eldon knows everybody, he might know—”

“He couldn’t possibly know the man I’m after,” Steve said. “Davidian’s not a movie star.”

She caught his wrist. “I’ll find out something to night. I promise you.”

“I’ll give you a ring.” He put a bill on the table.

“After dinner. I’ll go home right after dinner.” She didn’t want him to go; she was fine-strung as a race horse. Her mouth was opening to spill a further delaying action. For what purpose, he didn’t know.

He got to his feet. “I’ll ring you after dinner.” He swerved away. He was threading through the tables, almost to, the door, when he noted Eldon Moritz sitting alone, almost directly opposite to where Feather was now alone.

It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered what cooked with Eldon Moritz. But it was the first time that it bothered him sufficiently to wish that he weren’t already too late for his appointment at the Prague. He’d have liked to join the man for a few presumptuous questions.

It could be that Eldon was only keeping an avuncular eye on his wife’s niece and her odd companion. It could be but it wasn’t. Not the way Eldon was casting a calculative eye on the girl. Not the way Feather reacted to men old enough to be her uncle. It didn’t necessarily have to be a thing between the two. And it was this riding Steve as he steered Oriole’s old boat over to Hollywood. There was the matter of Haig’s interest in Eldon Moritz, they’d gone chummy fast for a couple of professed strangers. You could never know who was undercover these days, it added to the hazards of what once had been a comparatively simple occupation. One item stood out with clarity, with Feather sandwiched between Haig and Eldon, she was as trustworthy as an adder.

The small parking lot attached to the Prague wasn’t very popular on a Saturday night. A few cars stood forlorn in the angular shadows. A slovenly boy ambled out of a wooden kiosk to take thirty-five cents from Steve in exchange for a yellow ticket.

After the lonely lot, the café was pleasant. The mustached man and towhead boy were making sounds of music. Through the candlelight Steve spotted Janni and Reuben against the wall. He headed for them, ignoring the beckoning eye of the brass-haired woman at the cash register.

“Sorry to be so late.”

Reuben and Janni were already eating something Hungarian and their salad greens were strong with garlic.

“We did not expect you,” Janni said complacently. She’d cleaned up somewhere—in his room?—she looked scrubbed.

“I said I’d be here.” He told the waiter, “Bring me the same.” He put his elbows on the table. “When I say I’ll be somewhere, I’m there.”

“Ha,” she mouthed. She was looking for trouble.

And he wasn’t in any shape to take it. “What does that mean?”

She slanted her black eyes. “It means, Ha Ha Ha.”

“Skip it,” Rube murmured.

“Why should I skip it? After those many times when I have waited on the corner, and waited, and waited, for the very dependable Herr Winterich. Ha Ha.”

Why this? For God’s sake why? She’d kept the past out of it so far, brutally so. Why drag it in tonight? Was she striking out of fear, fear that his delay meant he’d caught up with Davidian? So he’d kept her waiting sometimes, so he’d had to cut appointments without warning, it was over and done with. She’d known he wasn’t a free agent.

She shoveled in another mouthful. “And so,” she explained to Rube noisily, “when I make an appointment with Herr Winterich, no longer do I expect him. Maybe he will come, maybe not. Who knows?” She licked a bit of gravy off her finger. She didn’t say,
Who cares?
It was implicit.

Reuben tried to quiet the waters. “How was your day, Steve?”

“Just dandy.” The waiter set a bowl of potato soup in front of him. “I went to a funeral.”

She stopped eating.

“The guy at the airport.”

“Was your friend?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t explain why he’d denied him heretofore. To Janni he said, “You remember Frederick Grasse.” They’d had him to supper, he’d furnished the schnapps.

She remembered too well. “Albion. He brought you a pair of shoes. American shoes. He is dead? How?” She cut the word like a whip.

“Heart failure.”

Over his shoulder the brassy woman called, “Ah,” as if she’d been searching for Steve. “I have news for you.”

He didn’t tip her off to silence. He preferred Janni to hear the news, whatever it was. “Yeah?”

“But it is Bona who should tell you. I asked questions.” She waved imperiously to one of the waiters. It wasn’t the one attending their table but it could have been. They were all of a type.

“Bona,” she said, “this is the man who asked, you know.”

Bona twitched his mustache. “It is like this,” he began. The other waiter moved in, snatched away Steve’s soup dish and replaced it with the goulash. Bona glared his comrade away.

“Wanda was asking about the ruble.” Wanda was the woman nodding her glittering pompadour.

“Where did you get it?”

“This I am telling you.” Bona wasn’t going to have his moment sucked away by undue haste. “I am in the kitchen waiting for the order to be served and the talk turns to Russia. Quite naturally, you understand. There is at the time a dishwasher, a starved dog who works cheap, you understand, because he can eat his fill.”

Janni began mopping her plate vigorously with a lump of bread.