The Third Figure (6 page)

I cleared my throat. “Yes. Right.”

For a long, intent moment he stared directly into my eyes, still sitting hunched forward in his chair.

“What I mean,” he said, “is that I don’t want you talking to anyone, without you first talk to me. That means Aidia, or the cops or anyone else. If you get a—a picture, you tell it to me first. Right?”

I nodded, slowly.

He raised his hand and deliberately pointed his index finger directly at my forehead. As he did, he closed one eye, sighting along the finger.

“You’re sure you understand me, now? You’re a nice young guy. I like you, like I said. You’ve got class. So I wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstanding.” He lowered his forefinger, still staring at me with his small dark eyes. “You understand?”

All I could think about was Larsen’s similar gesture: the long forefinger, pointing in warning.

“Yes,” I answered. “Yes, I understand.”

Immediately he smiled, settling back in his chair.

“Good.” He said it loudly, heartily. Then, reaching to the bottle-laden table, he said, “Now we’ll drink. What’ll you have?”

“Well, I’ll—I’ll have a vodka and tonic, if you’ve got it.

“Perfect. That’s what I’m drinking.” Rapidly he filled the glasses and handed mine over.

“Now,” he said briskly, “how’re you going to tackle this? Give me the rundown.”

“Well, I’m not sure. I have to get all the information I can about Dominic Vennezio. Then I have to—to just start looking around until I find something. If I’m lucky, I get a feeling that it’s something special. But …” I broke off, and gulped down a third of my drink. My hand was unsteady, but the glass didn’t shake.

“Well, you won’t get much from Aidia,” he said decisively. “I can tell you that. All she can think about is how Dom took up with another woman. That’s all she’s got on her mind. That and Dom’s murder.”

“What can you tell me, Mr. Russo?”

“Call me Frank. What’d they call you? Steve?”

“Yes. Steve.”

“Good. Well, there’s not much I can tell you that’d mean anything. I mean, Dom had his troubles, like the rest of us, but it wasn’t anything serious.”

“What kind of troubles?”

He thought about it a moment before saying carefully, “Maybe Aidia told you some of it. Frank always liked the girls. That’s all right. All of us do. But when he got hooked on this Hanson woman, things started to slide a little. He didn’t pay attention to business, like he should. That’s when I came out to the Coast, about a year ago.” He paused. Then, choosing his words, he said, “Some of the newspapers figured that the two went together: me coming out, and Dom getting killed. But you know as well as I do, it doesn’t happen like that anymore. Sure, Dom didn’t have the zip he used to have. And, sure, I was running things, mostly, for the past six months or so. But Dom, he didn’t really care. He had his. He had more real estate than you have ribbons for your typewriter. There wasn’t any beef; he would’ve retired. It was all worked out, as a matter of fact. Another year, and he’d’ve been out to pasture, playing with his girl friend.”

“Then you must’ve been disturbed by his murder.”

“You’re damn right I was. I can tell you, things were pretty rough around here.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, no one knew where they stood. They were nervous. I mean, they didn’t know what to think. Especially the way Dom was killed. It was like—well, it was like the old days.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, it was a clean job. It looked like a professional job. It still does.” He said it almost indignantly. “That’s what I say, everyone got nervous. Even the cops. Maybe you know that we’ve got things pretty well under control here in La Palada. I mean, we’ve got the lowest crime rate in the state. So when this thing blew up, everyone got hot as hell. I even had to go back East and explain things. As a matter of fact …” He smiled to himself, in covert satisfaction. “As a matter of fact, when Aidia came to me, all wide-eyed, and said she was going to hire you, I first of all let her think I didn’t like it. Maybe at first I didn’t. But then, when I’d had a chance to think about it, I told her to go ahead, provided you talked to me first. I was even thinking of hiring a private detective to look into things for me. I didn’t do it, but I was thinking about it. So now …” He waved his glass at me. “Now Aidia’s spending her money. And just as long as we all understand each other, nobody’ll get burned.”

“What would happen if I should discover that the murderer was actually an—associate of yours?”

“That’d depend on who it was and why he did it. But that’d be my business.” He looked at me meaningfully. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you. Right?”

I nodded. I was feeling a little more irked each time he stared at me with his bully’s black eyes and said, “Right?” I finished my drink, anxious to be gone.

“You don’t really have any idea who did it, then?” I asked.

He spread his hands. “None at all. I’m as much in the dark as Aidia, except that I’m not as bugged. Everything’s settled down, and Dom was dead weight anyhow. There’s no sweat. I’d still like to know who did it, but I’m not hurting.” He drained his own drink, glanced at his watch and heaved himself to his feet. As I also stood, he looked me up and down, smiling.

“You know,” he said, clapping me heavily on the shoulder and turning me toward the grape stake fence. “You know, you don’t look to me like a real rugged guy. You’d better take care of yourself. Don’t take any chances, and stay loose. If you need anything, let me know. Call me anytime. I have someone that answers the phone, most of the time. I’ll give him the word. He’ll know where to find me, and he’ll put you right through.”

“All right, I will.”

“Good.” We’d reached the gate, which my host opened. Montez was standing by the Buick, waiting. Russo extended his hand.

“Good luck, Steve,” he said smiling. Then, allowing the smile to fade, he said, “And be sure and remember what I said.
Everything
I said.”

“Thanks, Frank. I will.”

“Good.” He nodded, unsmiling now. Then he turned back to the pool, closing the gate behind him.

I
’D HALF-EXPECTED FAITH HANSON
to put me off, but when I called her later Sunday afternoon she seemed almost anxious to talk with me. She spent several minutes giving me detailed driving directions, and with the aid of a La Palada Chamber of Commerce map I easily found her house.

It was a modest stucco bungalow, California-ersatz-Spanish, with an imitation-tile roof and matching red tile entryway. Three spiky palms dominated the small, neatly mowed front lawn, and a flagstone sidewalk led to an ornately paneled front door.

As I rang the bell I tried to picture her, finally deciding on the image of a medium-sized brunette, full-figured and heavily made up, wearing capri stretch pants and a pastel-colored bulky-knit sweater.

The image was wrong. She was rather small, almost petite. Her ash-blond hair was simply worn, and her heather-hued dress was conservatively cut. Her wide-set gray eyes were calm and appraising.

We introduced ourselves, and she showed me into her small living room. The furniture was richly carved in the Mediterranean style; the polished floors were covered with a colorful collection of small oriental rugs.

As we sat in facing easy chairs, I decided that Mrs. Hanson possessed taste, composure and probably intelligence. The restrained, graceful economy of her movements suggested a kind of elegant, understated sensuality—something special for a special man, but not for public display.

“Would you like a drink?” she asked.

“No, thanks. I, ah, won’t stay very long, Mrs. Hanson. I just wanted to ask you a few questions.” I drew a deep breath, deciding to come directly to the point.

“As I told you on the phone, I’ve been retained to look into the death of Dominic Vennezio. I’ve talked to Mrs. Vennezio, and I’ve talked to Frank Russo. Now, if it’s all right, I’d like to talk to you.”

“You didn’t say who retained you.” As she spoke, she held herself rigidly—back arched, knees tight together. Her voice had a low, breathless quality. She was obviously exercising a painful, precarious self-control.

“Mrs. Vennezio retained me,” I answered, content for the moment merely to watch her. Against what emotion was she bracing herself so rigidly? Was it grief? Fear? Guilt? If fear or guilt were her problem, why had she so willingly agreed to see me?

“Mrs. Vennezio,” she repeated, her voice expressionless. Her eyes were fixed unblinkingly on my own, yet I felt that only an enormous effort of will kept her eyes so steady. She seemed somehow strangely compelled to respond to my questions, almost as if she were speaking from the depths of a hypnotist’s trance.

“Yes,” I answered. “Even though they were separated, Mrs. Vennezio is naturally anxious to know who murdered her husband. I’m sure you can understand that.”

She nodded, woodenly. Then she asked, “Are you a private detective, Mr. Drake?”

I somehow felt unwilling to become enmeshed in the lengthy business of explaining my alleged prowess of clairvoyance. So I simply nodded. She seemed to accept it. Immediately, I wondered whether she thought I’d come representing the Outfit. It would be a possible explanation for her curiously hushed responses. Fear paralyzed, especially if guilt were the catalyst.

Perhaps I had my opening.

Lowering my voice to a more impersonal note, I said, “Would you mind telling me something of your relationship with Dominic Vennezio, Mrs. Hanson?” Then, thinking about it, I hastily amended: “That is, when did you meet him, how often did you see him, et cetera?”

“I’ve known him—” She blinked and swallowed. “I knew him for about two years.” Her voice was still controlled, her eyes were still steady. But her fingers, I noticed, incessantly twisted. Her legs, I also noticed, were beautifully shaped.

“You were working in a real estate office, I understand, when you first met him.”

“Yes.”

“And then, soon afterward, Mr. Vennezio set up his own real estate office. And you worked for him. Is that right?”

She nodded. Waiting. Again I felt the resignation with which she answered me—and the strange compulsion.

“And you became, ah, friends.”

For a moment she remained perfectly motionless, staring at me with her wide-set gray eyes. Then, very distinctly, she said:

“I became his mistress.”

I drew a deep breath. I was infuriatingly aware that I must be blushing as I said, “Thank you for being so honest, Mrs. Hanson. It’s very helpful.”

With a quiet, ironic sarcasm she said, “Do I have a choice?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean that I’ve been waiting for you—or someone like you—ever since they killed Dominic. I’m only surprised that it took so long. And I’m also surprised at you.”

“At me?” I felt myself suddenly at a sheepish loss.

She nodded. “You’re much different from what I’d expected. I’ve only met a few of Dom’s—associates—but none of them was like you.”

“But I’m not—I mean—” I realized that I was shifting uncomfortably in my chair, squirming before her increasingly obvious scorn.

“I know. You don’t work for them. Not really. I wasn’t a gangster’s girl friend, either. Not really. That’s what the other women were. I was something special. I have ‘class,’ as Dominic used to say. Refinement.”

Suddenly I felt a sense of shame. Should I try to explain? I decided against it. She could be answering out of fear, feeling that she only had a choice between my questions or something much worse. If I disassociated myself from the Outfit, therefore, I might be the loser.

And, besides, she was right. Since noon that day, I’d been an employee of the Outfit—or at least a tacit associate.

So, with a kind of hostile guilt I took the role of the impersonal inquisitor.

“Tell me something about your life before you met Dominic, Mrs. Hanson.”

“What would you like to know? How far back should I start?”

I shrugged. I was aware of a rising cynicism in myself—a blunt, bitter response to her own cynical, self-debasing hostility.

“Start wherever you like.”

Silently she looked at me, deciding. In her tightened mouth and chilled gray eyes I could plainly see contempt. Then, with a slow, eloquent movement she raised her shoulders, seemingly indifferent. She began speaking in a low, precise monotone. Her voice seemed to express both the numbness of defeat and the defiance of someone with no more to lose.

“It all started, I suppose, forty-one years ago, when I was born. That’s where it always starts, I’m told. My father was an awning salesman—a successful awning salesman. He made a good living. However, unfortunately, he always spent more than he made. My mother, you see, appreciated the finer things in life. Her family, we were always told, had raised her to expect the best and to act accordingly. So we were always in debt. Then, when the depression came, my father lost everything. He got some of it back, of course, during the war, but he was never quite the same. Neither was my mother. She never let him forget that he’d failed. Never. So, gradually, my father became a—a hollow man. And my mother became bitter. Brittle, and bitter.”

I sighed. “That’s a common story.”

She smiled with a kind of pensive, wistful regret. “The rest is common enough, too. During my last year in college my parents finally got divorced, so when I graduated I decided to come out to California, to San Francisco. I had an aunt in San Francisco, my mother’s sister. She got me a suitable job, in the financial district, and found me the right kind of apartment, in the right neighborhood. And, in due time, I met the right kind of a young man. John Hanson. We got married, after a glittering kind of cocktail-party courtship. And then, slowly, I proceeded to do to my husband what my mother had done to my father.”

“How …” I cleared my throat. “How do you mean?”

“John was a stockbroker,” she said softly. “A young, bright, golden-haired stockbroker, with a wonderful smile and a boyish charm. His family was well off and even had social pretensions. They could afford to go to the opera and to charity balls, and once in a while they got their names in the society columns. And so did John and I, occasionally. We were a handsome young couple, you see, and we lived on Russian Hill and drove a sports car and sailed and had a Japanese couple cater when we gave cocktail parties. That was in 1948 and 1949. We were both happy, I suppose. But then, unfortunately, it became increasingly apparent that John wasn’t really a very good stockbroker. He was good at entertaining people, especially in bars, but he wasn’t good at selling them stocks or bonds. So John’s parents started giving us money, ‘until we got on our feet.’ And the more money they gave us, the less John worked. And the more he drank.”