that nothing will happen to them while they’re there. But we can’t keep them there. You know by now the kind of women we deal with in Beverly Hills. They’ve had it their own way; they’ve always had it their own way. All I can do is ask them to stay there, and maybe while they’re scared enough they will. But the fear will wear off, and my guess is that by tomorrow, no force on earth can keep them there. But while they’re there, Beckman is with them, and there’s no one I’d trust more than Beckman in a situation like that.”
“All right,” Wainwright agreed uneasily. “Where are you off to now?”
“Downtown-oh, I am stupid, I don’t have a brain in my head.” He broke off and stalked back to his office and called the Crombie house again. This time, the phone was busy. He kept dialing, looking at his watch, dialing. It was eleven o’clock. The day was running away.
Beckman answered the phone.
“Sy, did you get her first husband’s name?”
“Whose first husband’s name?”
“Crombie’s.”
“Yeah. I forgot to tell you. She was married to a guy named Neville Addison. He invented a type of radar for use on small military vehicles and made himself millions. From what I’ve been able to get from Mrs. Legett”-he dropped his voice-“this Crombie dame is worth millions, but millions.”
“Good enough,” Masuto said. “Hang in there.”
Outside, the press was waiting, pleading with him. “Come on, Sergeant, open up. Give us something. Is the Mafia established in Beverly Hills?”
“Is this a contract job?”
“How does Monte Sweet fit into it?”
“Where is Monte Sweet?”
“Was he romancing this broad? Come on, give.”
Masuto got into his car and drove away. He was totally into it now, putting it together, piece by piece. He felt that he had most of the pieces, the only trouble being that the most important pieces were blank. He felt driven, compelled. The shadow figure who opposed him was locked with him in combat. Masuto knew, and by now the killer was aware that Masuto knew.
He pulled his car into the parking lot at the Los Angeles Police Department and went inside. On a day when every minute counted, luck was with him. Lieutenant Pete Bones was at his desk.
Bones regarded him sourly.
“I know,” Masuto said, “but if you could wrap up those two killings you got and maybe fish another one out of the bin, you wouldn’t hate me so much. Right?”
“I don’t hate you. You’re just one curious son of a bitch, and that pisses me off. What the hell have you got, some kind of lousy Oriental crystal ball?”
“Come on now, Pete,” Masuto said gently.
“How in hell did you know that those two bullets would match up?”
“Two bullets?”
“You know damn well what I’m talking about. The bullet that killed the Chicano kid and the bullet that killed the chemist.”
“Same gun?” Masuto said innocently.
“You know, if it was anyone else, I’d say you’re mixed up in something, but the word is you’re an honest cop. Not that I’m taking my hat off to the Beverly Hills Police Department.”
“No,” Masuto agreed. “Of course not.”
“All right. You got this thing with the botulism. Omi Saiku filled me in on that. It had to be a chemist, and you figured the chemist had to be dirty, so there was a dirty chemist somewhere whom we might have picked up, and if we put the screws on him, he would have implicated your killer. So your man killed him. You laid that out uptown. But how in hell could you be sure that the Chicano kid tied into it?”
“I don’t know how many plainclothes detectives you have in the L.A. force,” Masuto said. “Perhaps a thousand. We don’t have enough to make up a good poker game. So I have to guess. Sometimes I guess right.”
“Let me make a guess,” Bones said, “that the killing you had last night ties into this.”
“That’s good guessing.”
“Nah! Not even smart. We got a Chicano housemaid who dies of botulism who works for this Crombie woman, and then we got this Mafia-type killing in her front yard.”
“Is that what you think?” Masuto asked. “The Mafia?”
“Do you?”
Masuto shook his head.
“Then what the hell are you asking me for? What am I, some kind of schmuck? When the Mafia comes into this county, I will know about it, and if they put out a contract, I’ll know about that too. I’m not saying I can make an arrest stick, but I will know about it.”
“Let’s pretend we’re on the same side,” Masuto said, smiling. “I’m not trying to do you in. I come bearing gifts.”
“What kind of gifts? And what do you want?”
“Only a little help.”
“Yeah. What kind of gifts?”
“We have four murders,” Masuto said. “Three of them took place in Los Angeles.”
“That Chicano maid was working in your town.”
“Yes, but she went home to L.A. before she ate those eclairs. So technically, it’s yours. We don’t want any more killings than we have to have. Now I think I can clear this up before midnight today, and if I do, I give you my word I’ll call you in for the arrest.”
“You can’t do that even if you wanted to, which I don’t believe for a minute.”
“You know I can. I’ll get through to you or to whoever you designate, and you have a car cutting through Beverly Hills, and I’ll put out an assist and your car picks it up and makes the technical arrest.”
“No. It’s clumsy.”
“If I already have the man? I’ll tell you something else, when I go after him, I may very well be in Los Angeles. I can’t say at this point.”
“You know, Masuto, every time I see you, you got trouble for me. Every time I see you, you got some crazy project. You come here and tell me you got a killer lined up and you want to hand him over to me. Why?”
“Justice. More killings on your turf.”
“Bullshit. You know who the killer is, give me his name and we’ll do the rest. We’re not the worst police force in the world.”
“Maybe the best. We’re not up to names. But you can’t tell me it won’t be a feather in your cap to clear up four killings.”
Bones leaned back in his chair and stared at Masuto. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. We got a deal. But don’t rat on me. If you do, I’ll take it out of your hide. Now what do you want in exchange?”
“Very little. Perhaps a month or two more than three years ago, a young woman whose name was Catherine Addison was killed in a car crash. I want to know exactly when and where the accident took place. I want you to locate the policeman or policemen who attended the accident at the time and I want to talk to them, and if you assigned an investigator to the case, I want to talk to him as well.”
Bones grinned slowly. “You got to be kidding.”
“Oh, no. I’m very serious.”
“Three years ago? Are you crazy, Masuto? Suppose no other car was involved in the accident? Suppose no one was booked? Suppose it didn’t even happen in Los Angeles? Did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You got a lot of nerve coming down here with something like this.”
“I know.”
He opened the pad in front of him. “What did you say her name was?”
“Catherine Addison.”
“Hasn’t she got relatives, a family? There are easier ways to get at this.”
