to do, but he wasn’t feeling much like going out on a piece of tedious routine, and after a lunch he didn’t especially want, he drove up Virgil to Ben’s Bar and Grill, parked and went in.
It looked like a quiet family place, the cheerful red-checked tablecloths, and the fat bartender who was probably Reinke was friendly. It wasn’t once a year Galeano drank anything but an occasional glass of wine, and of course you weren’t supposed to drink on duty, but defying the regulations he ordered a Scotch on the rocks, feeling he needed it.
There was a friendly game of gin going at a rear table, a little money changing hands, but quiet and orderly. He couldn’t see there was anything to notice about the place. What they’d heard about Buford, if he’d been in here that night he wouldn’t have stayed long: had a couple of beers and left.
Galeano went back to the office and finding Grace there, told him that. 'Card game, huh?' said Grace. 'Well, I don’t get too excited about the state regulations either, Nick. This thing is going to wind up in Pending. We now know from Buford’s bank that he hadn’t drawn out any cash in a couple of weeks, and then only fifty bucks. I just had the brother in-he’s been through the house and says there isn’t anything missing, even his new shotgun there. Which is also funny. Because if somebody intended to rob him, you’d have thought they’d have made a job of it. In for a penny, in for a pound as they say. And then again, the brother said Dick was usually home, and he hadn’t been able to reach him for a couple of days. Where was he instead?'
Galeano wasn’t much interested in Buford or how he’d come to be taken off. He said, 'I suppose I’d better go see that Mrs. Chard again.' Not that that was very important either.
He had to look for the address on Constance Street, and by the time he found it, it was raining in buckets. He turned up his collar and dashed for the cover of the deep porch; it was an old California bungalow. Waiting for an answer to his ring, he wondered if Marta had sold the Dodge to Jim Newton; and remembered suddenly of course, Carey a very thorough man-that there’d been an examination of the car too, and nothing had shown up that was at all suggestive. So what if she had driven the car somewhere that day?
He rang the bell again and thought rather miserably, that part of it could be true. The boyfriend. Edwin Fleming was no good to her as a husband. Say she had a boyfriend, that didn’t mean they had to have plotted a murder. There wasn’t one scrap of evidence that the man was dead. It was hard to see how he could be alive, but queerer things had happened. And, he thought suddenly, hadn’t somebody called Marta straitlaced? If she was just covering up some affair- The door opened and a waft of noise came out at him. 'Thought I heard the doorbell,' said the man just inside. 'What you want?'
Galeano brought out the badge. The man was little, old, bent over as if he had arthritis or a crooked spine. He said, 'Oh. You want Cecelia-it’s about Bob?'
'Now what the hell have you got the door open for, you silly old bastard?' Mrs. Wilma Dixon came up behind him, glass in one hand, noticed Galeano, gaped for a moment, readjusted her expression to a winning smile and said, 'Oh, it’s that police officer who was so nice and understanding about poor Bob. Cissy! You know the funeral’s tomorrow, it’ll be a great relief to have it over. This is my husband, Mr. Dixon.'
'How do,' said Dixon, and hobbled away, a hand to his hip.
'Won’t you come in?' Galeano went in to a TV turned up too loud in a nearby room, an aroma of port and Scotch. Cecelia Chard appeared in the doorway opposite, gestured at someone behind her, and the TV volume lessened abruptly.
Galeano asked his questions uninterestedly, and Cecelia and her mother looked at each other. 'Bob having trouble with anybody? Oh, I don’t think so, any more than usual,' said Cecelia. 'When he was drinking- Why?'
'There’s been some suggestion he was deliberately killed,' said Galeano absently. 'He didn’t owe anybody money, or-'
'Oh, I don’t think it would be anything like that, Mr. Galeano. He was perfectly all right when he was sober, but when he got to drinking he always got in a fight.'
'Led astray he was,' said Mrs. Dixon, 'by all the bad company he ran with.'
It really didn’t matter much how Bob Chard had got himself killed. Galeano thanked them and dashed back to his car through the rain.
Landers and Glasser, out hunting those possibles on Sandra, accepted the rain as an added hazard. Landers was saying that Palliser was being too subtle anyway. 'As far as I can see, Rank is the prime suspect here. The girl picked his mug-shot-sure, with a couple of others, but the same general type-and he’s got the right record for the job. He had access to a house in the right area. Well, only maybe, but he looks better than any of these X others to me. I say, bring him in again and lean on him, get a search warrant for the house-even now S.I.D. might turn up some evidence of the girls being there.'
'Maybe,' said Glasser doubtfully. 'John saw her, and he’s pretty good at judging people, Tom.'
They went looking, and of the nine they were hunting found just one at home, in a single room a block away from Skid Row. He had several counts of rape behind him, and except for the goatee he conformed to the description, but how long did it take to shave one off? They brought him in to question when it was apparent he couldn’t produce an alibi and seemed nervous. But of course there was nothing conclusive about it, and they let him go.
'Waste of time,' said Landers.
At least Hackett and Higgins hadn’t had to go out on the legwork in the rain. They were still getting fed information from Pendleton Air Force Base, and so far, said Hackett when Glasser asked, they hadn’t come across any enlisted personnel who hailed from anywhere near downtown L.A. By some quirk, they hadn’t even found any originally from anywhere in California. There must be some, they just hadn’t showed up yet.
Landers wandered down to the Records office and said to Phil, 'If you want to take off early, I’ll take you out to dinner.'
'And what a night for it. I was rather looking forward to getting home, but I’d better take you up on that while you’re feeling generous. Not the Castaway-no night for a view.'
'The London Grill,' suggested Landers. 'All quiet and dignified. I’ll even buy you a drink.'
'It’s a deal. I’ll just tell the captain I’m goofing off.'
They drove up to Hollywood separately. Ensconced in a booth over drinks, it was rather nice to watch the rain drumming down the windows. 'I was talking to Margot Swain this afternoon,' said Phil presently.
'That Conway. He was afraid she’d get a rope on him. I think he’s back to playing the field.'
Phil laughed. 'Don’t worry about Margot. She’s mad at him, but there are a few bachelors at Wilcox Street too. She’s been dating Bob Laird.'
'Good.'
'And, Tom, I’ve been thinking,' she went on seriously, 'about a house. Before we start a family. While we’re both still earning--'
'Hey!' said Landers, alarmed. 'The payments--'
'But we’d be investing in something for the future, darling. It’s the same as rent really-'
'Phillipa Rosemary!' said Landers. 'It’s not just the payments, damn it, there’s yard work and upkeep of everything and- What?'
'Excuse me, sir, would you care for another drink?'
'Yes,' said Landers. 'Now look, Phil-'
On Monday morning, his day off, Palliser got up and discovered that it had stopped raining. He reread some of the dog book over breakfast. 'It sounds perfectly simple,' he said to Roberta. 'It shouldn’t be very hard with an intelligent dog.'
'I’l1 reserve judgment,' said Roberta. The baby began to yell and she added, 'Damn,' abandoned the dishes and headed for the nursery. Palliser said to Trina, 'You’re going to be a smart girl and learn all the lessons, aren’t you?'
Her eyes and tongue assured him earnestly that she would. He took her leash and put it on; Trina, thinking they were going for a walk, leaped joyfully in circles and got the leash wound around his legs. 'No! Come on
