Shakedown (9 page)

It was the only house beyond the intersection and there was no cover for a quiet approach to the house. I risked it anyway, walking in from the rear of the empty property that led down from the intersection.

California walls are thin—there was a chance I might hear something. I came in under the shadow of the low overhang and moved around toward the lighted window. I was in luck. The upper half of the window was down about eight inches from the top and they were in this room. The louvres of the Venetian blind were at a 45-degree slant.

Deutscher’s voice. “Nobody can trust Puma but let’s be frank. You don’t need me in this pitch any more than you do him.”

“Not in this transaction, no. But I do need your good will and I know you’re well thought of in this town. If you want to earn your money, you can keep an eye on Puma.”

A chuckle. “And one eye on you?”

“You are suspicious, aren’t you? Well, what if you handled the money at the pay-off?”

“I don’t like to be that involved. But with you leaving town right after the steal, it’s about the only way I’ll ever see the money.”

Silence, while to my right the waves lapped the shore. Then Deutscher said, “What do you figure a fair cut for me?”

“A third.”

“That gives you two thirds.”

No answer.

Deutscher’s voice. “What do you figure she’s good for?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m not going to rush her. A first I thought a quarter million but that seems high now. From a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand, say.”

A silence and then Deutscher’s, “Holy cow! I didn’t know you were going for that kind of money.”

“In my business there’s no point in going for peanuts. You sit as long for one as the other.”

“Make it this “way,” Deutscher said, “I get twenty grand guaranteed, a third of the take.”

“Fair enough. And I’ll arrange it so you get the cash end of the pay-off. You may have to appear in this for that. Miss Clifford know you?”

“No, but wouldn’t that queer me in town? I intend to stay in business in this town, you know.”

“You’ll be made up, by an expert, so your best friend won’t know you. Then you bring the money here, get your cut, and I take off from here. I’m actually the only one involved—and I’m gone. Clean enough for you?”

“It looks clean. I’m leery of these things that look so clean and easy.”

“Easy? Peter, I spent thirty years in the big con. I worked with the best man in the world for twelve of those years. I’ve handled better than two million dollars so far. And haven’t spent one day in the jug. This pitch we’re on isn’t easy. It’s only easy for me.”

“I suppose.”

Silence.

Then Roland’s voice: “Here’s the nub of it—who’s trusting whom? You’ll have the money.”

“If you don’t work a switch somewhere along the fine, I’ll have the money.”

Roland laughed. “Oh, Peter, you
are
a cynic.”

The understatement of the week. I wondered if I should take off now or wait for Peter to leave. Peter decided that for me. He said, “Well, we’ll talk it over. I’ve had a bad day and it’s late. I’ll keep in touch with you. There’s a phone here?”

“No. I’ll keep you informed, Peter, all the way.” I ducked around to the back of the house. I heard the front door close and the grind of the Plymouth’s starter, and saw the reflection of its headlights on the water. Then, as I crouched in the shadows at the rear of the house, I saw the headlights appear in the other direction and the Plymouth made the swing onto Vista Del Mar. He wasn’t heading toward my car, luckily.

As soon as the lights had disappeared over the rise, I started through the empty lots. Roland might come out to put the car away but I didn’t intend to stay here all night to find out. And if he did come out, it could be a showdown time. If we didn’t need him …
We,
hell, if
I
didn’t need him, I would have gone in right then and told him what I thought of an inside man who’d double-cross his ropers.

I came up onto Vista Del Mar and went down to my car without looking back to see if he was watching. The Chev started with a cough and a growl, shuddered as I made the U-turn, back toward Culver Boulevard. Fog was settled in all the low spots of the road, shrouded everything once I turned onto Culver. It was slow going all the way to Santa Monica.

Something was gnawing at the back of my mind but it wouldn’t come through to where I could recognize it. It seemed like a warning. The further north-east I traveled, the clearer it got. The stars came into view and the moon and the lights. The gnawing went away. Whatever had prompted it still lay in the fog of the coast.

I slept restlessly that night and woke to a dull, gray morning. The lip was less swollen, but the skin was still tight. My hand had the streak of blue and brown between the knuckles but the swelling had gone down. I thought of Manny. Was that the warning that had bothered me last night? Nothing would come but it had something to do with that coast. I thought of the cottage in Playa del Rey and wondered if Roland would go there even if Deutscher was out of the picture.

I fried some eggs and made toast and coffee. While I ate, I thought of which of my worldly possessions I’d take along when I left. There wasn’t much. There were a lot of good towns in this country and why confine my thinking to this country? There were a lot of towns in Mexico. And women in all of them. In Mexico, the dollar went a long way.

At nine, I phoned Deutscher. His voice sounded sleepy.

I said, “I got a letter this morning, Pete, a threatening letter. You didn’t get one, too, by chance, did you?”

“My mail doesn’t get here until ten. Who’s the letter from, Joe?”

“Josie Gonzales.”

“Oh. Rodriguez tried to tell me she was still alive. He thinks I lied about her.”

“You didn’t. But the doctor did. Rodriguez and I had a fight about that. You going to be home for a while?”

“Until noon. What kind of fight? You didn’t hit him, did you, Joe?”

“Knocked him colder than an ice cube.”

“Migawd, Joe, we can’t afford trouble with the law right now. This is no time for that damned temper of yours to get out of hand.”

“It’s too late to worry about it,” I said. “This letter I got bothers me more, Peter. Josie’s got a hot-blooded friend, the way it looks.”

“Well, bring the letter along when you come. I’ve got to “shower and shave and make some breakfast. We’ll talk about it.”

He’d talk about everything but where he’d been last night. I stacked the dishes and made the bed, and then gathered up all my clothes that needed dry cleaning and laundering. When I left this town, I was going to leave it clean.

Then from my bureau drawer I took the little bone-handled stiletto I’d bought in Tijuana long ago. For no reason at all. I hadn’t even known Deutscher then. I looked at it for seconds before picking it up. Deutscher had to go. Deutscher was the one participant in this steal who was armed and not afraid to shoot a man for his share of the loot. The others would talk and storm, but Deutscher would
fight
for his share. And he was sharp enough to know how to cover the results of his violence.

I washed the stiletto and wrapped it in a handkerchief, knotting it tightly around the guard. I put it in my jacket pocket, unsheathed.

And then, as I was checking for more laundry, I saw Josie’s cotton dress. And that would help. If through this dress McGill should discover that Josie had once lived with Deutscher, they’d have the case against Josie’s mythical friend solidified by just that much. The friend that was mentioned in Josie’s letter to Deutscher would be their logical suspect. This dress would point up the fact that Josie had lived with Deutscher and maybe add another reason for the killing by the mythical man.

I made a small bundle of the dress and wrapped it in the Mexican newspaper Josie had left behind. I took the clothes to the cleaners and then drove over to the office parking lot. I left my car there and took a bus.

The street he lived on was quiet and I kept watching the windows I passed to see if I was being observed. There was no sign of prying eyes. I walked along the path in front of the first two units of the triplex and pressed Deutscher’s bell button. Chimes and then he was standing there in a dressing robe.

“Come in.” He looked at the lip. “Manny—?”

I nodded and came in.

He shook his head. “What a damn fool thing to do. Come on back into the kitchen; I’m still eating.”

He sat down at the small table in the kitchen and asked, “Coffee?”

“No, thanks.” A little flutter in my stomach.

He poured himself a fresh cup. “Let’s see the letter.”

“I didn’t bring it.” I studied his neck, spotting the jugular.

“Didn’t bring it—? Why not?”

“I’m too hot. I’m due to be picked up by one of McGill’s boys any minute, after my battle with Manny. I sure as hell wouldn’t want that letter on me.”

“Oh, yes.” He sipped his coffee and looked at the package under my arm. “What’s that?”

“A couple of dirty shirts. Where were you last night? I tried to get you.”

“On a case.”

“In Playa del Rey?”

He stared at me, saying nothing. His eyes showed his uneasiness.

I said, “Old double-cross Roland has had me there too. He’s trying to work us against each other, Peter. He’ll cross us both.”

Peter fought for composure and found it. “No, he won’t. But we can cross them, can’t we?”

“Quick thinking, Peter,” I said. “Then you were in Playa del Rey? I just took a shot in the dark on that one.”

Peter nodded slowly, studying me. “I was in Playa del Rey. I heard he’d moved out of the hotel and I tailed him to Playa del Rey. What’s your angle, Joe? Why are you here?”

“To find out what we’re going to do about him, about Roland. Maybe you two were planning on crossing me and maybe you weren’t. But we could plan on crossing him. I could anyway.”

Words, just words, waiting for the mail.

Peter started to say something and there was a sound like the clink of a coin. It was the mail slot cover closing. A letter fell to the rug on this side of the door. Deutscher took one glance at me, rose and went to pick it up. He sat down on the davenport in the living room and opened it.

When he’d finished reading it, he looked up to find me watching him from the other side of the coffee table.

His face was pale and his voice shaky. “You knew this letter was coming. You had something to do with it. You—” He started to get up, to run, I think.

I shoved him back and the davenport acted as the fulcrum from behind. I swarmed him there, shoving a knee into his groin. Then I pulled his head back, my hand over his mouth. He was a big man but soft, and that knee to the groin had taken all the fight out of him. I slid the Mexican knife into that soft throat, saw the blood spurt from the jugular, and waited until he’d gone limp.

There was blood all over the handkerchief. I removed it from the handle of the knife and shoved it into my jacket pocket. The knife I dropped to the coffee table. Then for seconds I stood there, listening to my heart beat. It was the first time for me. It was the first time the stakes had been worth it.

I was calm. I was calm as hell, and that wasn’t the way I’d read it would be. My heart was going a little faster than usual, but my mind was clear, and I didn’t feel a second’s regret. Peter hadn’t owed me a dime.

Then as I turned slowly I saw the package still on the table in the kitchen, and I unwrapped it and took out the cotton dress. There was a pool of blood on the coffee table, and I soaked the dress in that and stuffed it into the fireplace along with the paper. I lighted it, and watched the dry part of the dress burn and the fire go out as it came to the blood. It would look like an amateur who’d been in too much of a hurry to get rid of the dress right.

The letter I picked up with my fingernails and put with some other mail on the sideboard in the dinette. Then I closed the Venetian blinds in the living room and went out to the kitchen again. Through the glass top of the kitchen door, I could see an alley and high fences enclosing all the back yards. This would be the way to go out.

I checked the front door to see that it was locked and went out the back way. That door locked on closing, too. There was a good possibility Peter might not be found for a long time. Until he started to smell.

The small yard here was bordered with daisies and geraniums. I went through it to a deserted alley, and turned left to the nearest street.

There was no hurry. I walked back to the office.

I sat there for minutes, listening to the Gardaluck typewriters, the hum of traffic outside. Great town for cults and undertakers and genteel rackets. Great town to get out of. The old man had left it feet first; I’d be leaving it with a suitcase full of moolah. What had started as a four-way split was now down to no more than three and would culminate into a Joe Puma benefit. Because I’d left the minors, I’d taken Deutscher’s advice, and thought
big.

I had the gun and the guts. The others in this weren’t exactly gutless, but they didn’t work with guns. They weren’t prepared to go as far as I was because they weren’t as hungry as I was.

My phone rang and it was Jean. “I’ve been trying to get you all morning. Where were you?”

“Don’t make noises like a wife. What’s new?”

“Dad’s taking Willi to the modern art show at Pellini’s this afternoon. Isn’t that sweet?”

“He’s moving right in, isn’t he?”

“Yes. I’m beginning to wonder about that girl.”

“I wonder more about your dad. There isn’t a chance, is there, that he could get into her purse without our knowing it?”

“A very small chance. What did you learn last night?”

“That he’s got a place in Playa del Rey.”

“Great.”

“Sure. That’s why I’m worried about Willi. You have her confidence, have you?”

“I have. Don’t worry about this end. And Joe, you keep an eye on that Deutscher, too.”

“I’ll do that.”

“And this evening, I think Dad wants you to put on your act. I’ll phone you about that. Will you be at the office, or home?”‘

“Here for a couple hours. I’ve some work to do.”