some water,” Masuto said.
“I could use a drink.”
“I’ll try.”
Masuto went out of the room, closing the door behind him. Three uniformed cops were standing there. “Is that Monte Sweet you got inside?” one of them asked.
“It is.”
He went into Wainwright’s office. “This is a police station,” Wainwright said.
“Come on, I know you keep a bottle in your desk.”
“For emergencies.”
“This is an emergency.”
Wainwright poured into a paper cup. “What the devil goes on in there?”
“He’s taking Alice Greene’s death very hard. Apparently, he loved her deeply.”
“You got a soft streak that laps up bullshit, Masao. Men like Monte Sweet don’t love anyone deeply.”
“All men love something.”
“Yeah? You tell me who Monte Sweet is going to love when he discovers that his light of love left her fortune to a passel of dogs.”
“Maybe he knew that. He tells me that they pay him thirty thousand dollars a week in Las Vegas. If that’s the case, he can live without her fortune.”
“Thirty grand a week? You believe that?”
“I read such things. He’s very big there and on TV. And Alice Greene was not that rich.”
“What’s he here for?”
“He’s mad.”
“Then he ought to tell you something.”
Masuto went back to his office, holding a paper cup which he gave to Sweet. “This is vodka. A police station is not a good place to look for a drink.”
“Okay, okay.” He took it in a single gulp, grimacing.
“Who killed Mrs. Greene?” Masuto asked him.
“Don’t you know? What the hell are you-Keystone cops?”
“We have a case and we’re trying to solve it.”
“Oh, that’s beautiful. You got a case. A woman is dead, a woman who was the best thing that ever happened to me, and you tell me that you got a case.”
“You were talking about it before,” Masuto said evenly. “You indicated that you knew. Who do you think killed her?”
“I don’t think. I know.”
“Who?”
“Alan Greene.” And when there was no reaction from Masuto, he went on, “I know what you cookies think. You think because her car was wired, it was a Mafia job, and they been telling you that I’m hooked up with the Mafia. That is a carload of crap. I got no more connection with the Mafia than you have, mister, and maybe less. And who says you got to be a contract man to wire a car? I could wire a car if I had to and so could Greene. Did he tell you that he once ran a garage? No, sir. You bet your sweet patooties he didn’t.”
“So you think Alan Greene murdered his ex-wife. Why?”
“Because he hated her guts. He played the big macho game with her and beat her to within an inch of her life. You didn’t know that?”
“No, I didn’t,” Masuto admitted. “You’re talking about a physical beating?”
“What other kind is there?”
“How bad? Was she hospitalized?”
“You’re damn right she was,” Sweet said.
“What hospital?”
“They took her to Cedars-Sinai and she was there three days. After that, he didn’t have a leg to stand on. She agreed to keep it quiet, and he agreed to the divorce and the settlement. He was paying her five thousand a month and he gave her the house on Roxbury Drive. I would have married her in a minute, but Alice and I agreed that we’d never let that bastard off the hook as long as he lived. Well, he got off the hook.”
“Apparently he was rich enough to afford the alimony. Why should he kill her?”
“No one is rich enough to afford sixty grand a year.”
“Do you inherit from Mrs. Greene?” Masuto asked him.
“Come on, if you haven’t spoken to her lawyers you’re lousier cops than I imagine. Her money goes to dogs. You know that. I never wanted a nickel of her money, and I’m as crazy about dogs as she was.”
“Yes, of course. I was not trying to trap you. I just wondered whether you knew what was in her will.”
“All right. That’s your job. Now what are you going to do about Greene?”
“You make an accusation. That’s not evidence.”
“You bring him in and put the screws on him, and you’ll get plenty of evidence.”
“We don’t do things that way,” Masuto said.
“I just bet you don’t, with your two-bit police force. If it was the L.A. cops-”
“They don’t go in for torture either. But I can tell you this, Mr. Sweet. We’ll have the evidence and the killer.”
“When?”
“Ah, that’s not easy to say.”
When Monte Sweet had departed, Wainwright said to Masuto, “Well, what did he give you?”
“He said Greene once owned a garage and that he could wire a car. As a matter of fact, Sweet said he could wire a car himself.”
“So where are we, Masao?”
“Closer.”
“And now?”
“I think I’ll try Laura Crombie again.”
13
The Bar
Going to the Crombie house, on Beverly Drive, Masuto’s car was almost sideswiped by a tourist bus. It was the second time in a single day that he had narrowly avoided an accident. It was unlike him. He had allowed himself to become submerged completely in a game of chess with an invisible antagonist-and to become absorbed in this manner was dangerous, dangerous for himself and dangerous for the women he was committed to protect.
He was crowding too much into a single day, and he was being drawn too thin, yet he could not stop. He found himself quietly cursing the tourist bus, and the fact that he could be thus irritated disturbed him. Yet, he reflected, it was ridiculous to allow these huge tourist buses to prowl the streets of Beverly Hills, adding their noxious blasts to the prevailing pollution. People from all over the country and all over the world came here to look at streets not too different from streets in any other wealthy community, content to pay then-money to have the homes of movie stars pointed out to them. Masuto knew it was a swindle. Three quarters of the places pointed to as the tourists rode by in their big buses had been vacated by the stars years ago, sold and resold since then, but still giving the tour guides a reason to sell their tickets-and of course Beverly Drive, the broad main street of the town with its magnificent mansions, was the focus of all the tour buses.
Driving more carefully, he pulled into the Crombie driveway, parking behind Beckman’s Ford. Beckman let him into the house.
“Quiet, very quiet, Masao,” Beckman said. “The ladies are driving me crazy. I don’t know if I can hold them tonight. And to make it worse, someone at the station gave my wife this number. She called here three times. Now I stopped answering the phone. I let the ladies do that.”
