Gat Heat (22 page)

“Oh, dear.” She looked distressed. As well she might.

But I said, “Don't kick yourself too much, Mrs. Halstead. Any con man worth his salt is not only of the criminal elite, but a consummate actor, a practicing psychologist, a student of human emotions—and weaknesses. They're usually brilliant, but warped, and almost invariably
totally
without a trace of conscience. They're freaks, true; but this team, take it from one who's known plenty of them, is the cream of the elite. To put it simply, they combined a new twist on the old con game with an old extortion play, and from the beginning had blackmail in mind. Hence the blackmail album. You can be sure Ed knew there are other clubs, other groups with similar albums. He just decided to choose his marks—marks with money—and make up his own album. With the willing, maybe even eager cooperation of the marks he meant to bleed later, which seems a nice touch.”

“Oh, dear,” she said again.

“It could be they had a good-sized group in mind from the beginning, or maybe they started with you and your husband and let the thing build, grow naturally. All the couples but one came from among your friends or acquaintances, you'll remember. Well, when Ed and Marcelle were ready for the payoff they ‘burned' the album which was in their possession. At least that was their story, and they even faked a fire in the Norvue so there'd be corroboration if you checked.”

She frowned. “Why would they do that? And go to all that trouble if—”

I smiled. “Not trouble. Simply part of the routine, the s.o.p. In the con man's phrase, they always try to ‘cool out the mark,' that is, they not only attempt to keep the mark from ever knowing he
has
been the victim of a con, but also cover themselves so they won't draw any heat if there's a rumble. Some con men never spend a day in jail in their lives, simply because they go to all that trouble, as you put it.”

“Then the pictures never
were
burned? I believed Ed when he said—”

“Sure, you did. Doubting Thomas would have believed him. What I think—what I'm almost certain—they did then was turn that album over to Jimmy Violet. Either for a flat, and undoubtedly fancy, chunk of cash, or perhaps in expectation of a cut from the later profits.”

“Profits. You make it sound like a business.”

“That's what it is. They simply farmed out the physical labor of extortion to a guy with the men and muscle appropriate to the act. One of whom visited your husband here last night.”

“The one you—killed?”

“The same. Stub Corey. We know a copy of one of those snaps from the album, burned a little to fit the tale, was used to hit the Sporks today. But I think that must have been the second blackmail try. The first being when Stub came here last night.”

“You know he was here?”

“Yeah. More important, I know they went up to your husband's den. There's where Stub most likely gave him the pitch, complete with photo of George and a lady—or you and somebody's husband—maybe even both for all I know. Anyway, Stub named his price. When your husband phoned me he was upset, speaking softly; asked me to come over as soon as possible. Obviously he wouldn't have phoned from the den if Stub was still around. I'd guess he left Stub there—maybe on the pretext that he was going to get the money, or part of it, and used the outside phone near the pool for the call.”

Mrs. Halstead stared at the wall, then nodded slowly. “Then you think this man followed him out, and saw or heard my husband phoning … and killed him.”

“I do. He very likely heard part of the conversation. Stub's IQ wouldn't have put him in the genius class, but if one of the marks wasn't acting like a mark, and was calling in the law—or even a private investigator—Stub would have known the man couldn't be allowed to blow the whole operation apart by spilling the beans. Maybe Stub acted on his own, without instruction from higher up so to speak, but he grabbed a rock and that was it, right or wrong.”

She bent forward a little, pressing the fingers of one hand against her forehead.

“It happened very soon after Mr. Halstead phoned me,” I said. “Had to Immediately after that—if he could have—he would certainly have called off the party. Before my arrival, I mean. But he didn't.”

“Yes. I see. Have you proof of all this?”

“Not all, but some. I hope, with the help of a lot of police officers, to get more proof before the night's over. For example, there's no question in my mind that the entire album still exists—except of course, for any shots of Ed or Marcelle. Those
will
have been burned by now. But the others, I'd bet my life, are in Jimmy Violet's possession.”

There wasn't much more that Mrs. Halstead needed to hear, so after another minute I got up to go.

At the door she said, shaking her head, “I know you must be right, Mr. Scott. But it's hard to believe. They seemed so nice. And Ed was … so
completely
charming.”

“I'll bet he was,” I said. “And so, I have no doubt, was Marcelle.”

When I walked into the Homicide squad room just before eight p.m., Sam was filling a paper cup with coffee from the ever-present pot, and there were half a dozen men with him from other departments—a couple from ID, two from Burglary, one each from Forgery and Narcotics.

“We having a party?” I said, to nobody in particular.

Sam turned from the coffee pot and smiled. “Remains to be seen,” he said. “Some of the men heard about a few of your less exciting exploits today and this movie masterpiece, or whatever it is, so they dropped by for a lesson in proper police procedure.”

I smiled, myself. I knew why they were here.

There is a rather rough camaraderie among the men of the L.A.P.D., many of whom—including all those present—are friends of mine. They are not, as a general rule, however, the kind of friends who act particularly friendly. Nothing would give them more real, sadistic pleasure than to catch me with egg on my face. Well, no egg tonight, I thought. They would have to wait for another day.

So, smiling, I said, “Splendid. The Shell Scott Academy of investigation, ratiocination, cinemation, and several other ations, will be open to eager seekers after the truth in a very few minutes. I shall be overjoyed to give you all a few minutes of my time, and the benefit of my vast experience—”

There were some hoots and catcalls, and a six-foot-four-inch, two-hundred-and-sixty-pound sergeant named MacCraig made a vulgar noise with his lips.

“—in the hope of making better human beings of you. Thanks for your applause. Just be patient, men.”

I turned to Sam. “But first, a brief conference?”

As we started into Sam's private office, Lieutenant Rawlins came into the squad room, and Sam waved him in with us.

Bill Rawlins, a damned fine detective, and also a very good-looking so-and-so. If I had any desire at all to be a handsome chap, which I don't any more, I might choose to look like Rawlins. Tall and slim with good shoulders, he had wavy black hair and long-lashed movie-lover eyes, and his expression usually reflected the jollity and good humor inside him.

Rawlins sat against the wall and I straddled a chair as Sam got behind his desk. For several minutes we went over everything from the Halstead killing to my plugging of Corey and Skiko, and I repeated to Sam all I'd told Mrs. Halstead, and more.

Then I said, “How about letting me borrow about a hundred of L.A.'s finest for the purpose of dropping in on Jimmy Violet tonight?”

“And how do we justify invading a citizen's private property?”

“How? Hell, I've just been telling you, Sam. It's eight to five the album's out there. Not to mention Gippo and Tooth and—”

“Eight to five isn't good enough.”

“So make it a hundred to one.”

“Not on what you've told me.”

“I'll tell you some more, then. Also …” I smiled, thinking about it. “When that film is delivered here you'll see three men whom we all
know
work for Violet, plus another guy who undoubtedly does. You'll see them trying—unsuccessfully, of course—to kill me. That should help excuse our calling on Jimmy, shouldn't it?”

“Maybe.”

Rawlins chimed in, “I heard a rumble about that, Shell. You really have got some kind of film of Jimmy's hoods?”

“Not
some
kind, Bill, but assuredly a masterpiece of its kind—of which it happens there is only one of a kind. These hoods will not be able to say, ‘Gun? What gun?' Or, ‘Officer, I ain't done nothin'; I was in Chicago.' This is evidence which will convince judge or jury, a silent witness which cannot be coerced or intimidated—”

“You were going to tell me some more?” Sam asked sweetly.

“Take Stub Corey—he's dead, sure, but you know he worked for Jimmy. Mrs. Bersudian places him at the Halsteads shortly before the time when Halstead phoned me. A car—the same Dodge Polara Corey and Skiko used the next day—followed me from the Halsteads to the Norvue Hotel. I just happened to check that address first, true, but since it was where Vanda, registered as Whist, had been living, it must really have shaken the boys up that I went
directly
there from the scene of Halstead's murder. Because Violet and his boys knew the truth about Whist-Vanda, they almost certainly must have assumed I knew at least a little myself, certainly more than I actually did. After all, there were several other couples in the group I might have visited, but where did I go right away? Why, straight to Vanda's. And since we conclude that Vanda turned over the album to Jimmy Violet—”

“
You
conclude.”

“If he didn't, how in hell did Jimmy's boy Corey get the picture he must have shown to Halstead last night? And if you won't buy that, how did Jimmy's boy Bingo get the photo we
know
he hit the Sporks with this afternoon. The timing is cute, too, but I'll get to that in a minute.”

“Suppose we assume, for now, that Vanda turned the extortion material over to Violet.”

“O.K., Violet was already twitchy about me getting close to Kermit Vanda—and so were Kermit and his Dilly, because they were all keeping in touch. They got twitchier the next day when I not only checked the Beverly Hills Hotel but later located Vanda himself in Beverly Hills. Even before I actually got to Vanda, though, Jimmy was wetting his pants—his boys, including Stub Corey, picked me up, you'll recall.”

“Circumstantial. Highly.”

“But it gets damned convincing, Sam. Let's get to when I
did
find Vanda, right after leaving Jimmy with his sore beak. Vanda explained beautifully why he'd used the name Whist with the Halsteads and that bunch. He told me just enough of the truth to make it believable, while still keeping himself covered. He didn't expect me to live past two p.m., anyway.”

“Come again?”

“Well, he couldn't have known the hour then, but he soon did. Because it's clear as can be to me that his lovely Dilly was in the house with him then, was
right then
making her call to Hazel and setting me up. I'd say she made the call and immediately phoned Jimmy Violet to tell him I'd not only located Kermit, but would probably be entering the Hamilton at around two p.m.”

“Why right then?”

“Because when I left and phoned Hazel she told me the sexy-voice call had come in twenty minutes before. And that placed it at the time when I'd just started talking to Kermit Vanda in his home. Ergo, Dilly wasn't downtown getting her hair done.”

Samson shrugged. “Or Jimmy had some babe make the call for him, and it happened to reach your office while you were talking to Vanda. You'd left Jimmy's place not long before, Shell.”

“Either way, that makes it Jimmy Violet. And if he had some babe do it, it was Dilly. Hell, check the next bit, the timing of the extortion play at the Sporks. I was supposed to get hit at the Hamilton at two p.m., only I was a few minutes late and Porter got it. All the important characters
thought
I'd been killed, however, for a while. So the go-ahead was given to put the bite on the Sporks—no need to worry about Shell Scott getting close to Vanda, now that Scott's dead—and Bingo was sent on his way. In the meantime the much-involved ‘Marcelle Walles' of the friendly club—Dilly Pickle to us—took off in a flap about two-ten after eyeballing me, not down there on the sidewalk in pools of blood, but right next to her and not even anemic. The Sporks were contacted at two-twenty p.m.—before Dilly could get word to them, or more likely to Violet, that I wasn't the guy who got killed. Anyway, Bingo hadn't got the word.”

Sam scowled. “Even if I bought everything you've said so far—and I'm not saying I do—we still couldn't go piling in on Violet and tearing the place up. Except for what you've told us, there's nothing solid and concrete that ties him in.”

“Hell, you've got records on Vanda and Dilly. I've told you how they started and built up the group, developed the album idea, pulled the fake fire. Then Violet's men turn up with the photos, his boys grab me, Jimmy himself leans on me, they kill Porter instead of me and try for me again a couple more times—the last time, by the way, without question at the request of Vanda himself.”

“How's that?”

“Well, I didn't go into detail, Sam. That was out at the Hidden Valley Lodge.” I hit the high spots as quickly as possible, adding, “A little while ago I phoned the chief of security at the Lodge, asked him to check around for me, and he found one old geezer who'd been at the pool keeping most of his attention on Dilly—which you'd understand if you saw her. This guy heard what Vanda said when he ran past Dilly and what she answered.”

“Slow down. Ran past her?”

I'd skipped over much of that sequence, since I didn't feel I had come out of it too dashingly, but I explained to Sam about Vanda running out of the lobby, waving and apparently yelling to somebody at the far end of the pool. “He wasn't yelling, though,” I went on, “just making it look like he was. Maybe that's one reason the old geezer remembered exactly what they both said, because Vanda must have looked more than a bit peculiar.”