“I’m afraid not. I came in on Vegas West. It’s a shuttle service. Anyway, what the hell is this? You said when you drink that you’re off duty. When you come right down to it, I don’t have to answer any questions.”
“I only thought it might be easier if you did, here. It’s a convenient place for you. It would be tiring to go up to Beverly Hills. By the way, did you know that your husband was staying at the Beverly Glen Hotel?”
“Of course I did. He always stays there.”
“But I should think that with you opening here, he would stay at the Ventura. As you are.”
“He hated downtown L.A. Anyway, I like to be alone when I’m dancing.”
“Do you have any notion who might have shot him?”
“No. None.”
“Did he have enemies?”
“A man like Jack, well, what do you think? But not to kill him.” She stood up suddenly. “Excuse me for a moment.” And she walked off, pausing only to exchange a few words with the waiter.
The moment her back was turned, Masuto took out his handkerchief, folded it carefully around the brandy glass, and slipped the glass into his jacket pocket. The waiter came to the table and said, “The lady won’t be back. She’s tired. And by the way, we don’t give away our glasses.”
“It’s a memento,” Masuto said. He gave the waiter ten dollars. “Keep the change.”
“Keep the memento,” the waiter said.
Masuto walked into the lobby of the hotel, dropped into a chair, and looked at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. A long, long day. He turned it over in his mind, trying to remember the events of the day and put them into proper sequence. It was Beckman who caught the piece in the paper about the Russian agronomists. No one else had mentioned them. Was it a three-day visit or a four-day visit that they were making to Southern California? According to Toda Masuto, three days were hardly enough to scratch the surface of the art of orange growing. The Russians could build spaceships, but they couldn’t grow oranges. Americans could grow oranges better than anyone in the world, but they couldn’t keep their cities from disintegrating. It occurred to him that he had told Beckman to find the agronomists, but then the thing happened to Jack Stillman and they were all there, Beckman and the others, and both he and Beckman forgot about the agronomists. It was a crowded, disorganized day, and that was his fault. He had gone off on a wild goose chase to San Fernando, because someone had stolen some lead azide. Why? What sense did it make? The whole country, no, the whole world was bomb crazy. It had been in his mind all the time. Why hadn’t he simply told Beckman to look in the papers for the makings of a bomb? Was it true, he asked himself, that he liked to be mysterious, or was there an undercurrent in his thoughts that he himself was hardly aware of?
He looked up, and there, standing in front of him, was Binnie Vance. She had changed into a yellow pants suit.
“Hello, cop,” she said to him.
“I thought you were tired.”
“You were the tired one.” She dropped into a chair next to him. “I was kind of pissy with you, wasn’t I?”
Masuto shrugged.
“I gave you the impression that I didn’t give one damn about Jack. That isn’t true.”
“Oh?”
“You know anything about Vegas?”
“A little.”
“Jack lived in Vegas fourteen years. He was an operator, and he spent a lot of time in the casinos. That’s why he never had a nickel. When you got a crush on the crap tables, you got an expensive habit.”
“I suppose so.”
“You don’t spend all those years like that and not get mixed up with the Mob.”
“And was Stillman mixed up with the Mob?” Masuto asked indifferently.
“He was.”
“And you think the Mob put out a contract on him and had him shot?”
“It’s happened.”
“If that’s the case, that’s pretty much the end of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those kind of killings-well, for the most part, they’re never solved.”
“You mean you don’t care about solving them.”
“No, we care.” He stood up. “Why? Had he run up a score at the tables? Was he a big loser?”
She shrugged. “That’s the last thing he’d talk to me about.”
“But you’d know. He was your husband.”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ever hear of the Jewish Defense League?”
“What?”
“The J.D.L., they’re called.”
“Should I?”
“Your husband was Jewish. You knew that.”
She stared at him without speaking.
“You’re not Jewish, are you?”
“If it’s any of your damn business, no!”
“Well, good night,” Masuto said.
7
“In one day,” Kati said, “you are everywhere. You see the whole world.”
“Not really the whole world, dear Kati.” Masuto was steaming in the hot bath he had looked forward to all day, and Kati sat by the tub with two thick white towels in her lap. She was glad that her husband, who was so very American in so many ways, was at least old-fashioned enough to make a sort of ritual out of his bath.
“Only San Fernando and downtown Los Angeles.”
“Only San Fernando. That’s well enough for you to say. Do you know how long it is since I have been to San Fernando? What can your Uncle Toda think of me?”
“That you are an excellent wife and a devoted mother. What else should he think?”
“That I am an uncaring niece.”
“What nonsense!”
“Anyway, I can’t understand what took you there. What has Uncle Toda to do with these terrible things that happened at the Beverly Glen Hotel?”
“I had to know why the Russians would send five agronomists to Southern California to study orange growing.”
“I could have told you that.”
“You could have?”
“Of course. They don’t know how to grow oranges. That’s all.”
“Kati,” Masuto said, “you are a remarkable woman.”
“I see nothing remarkable about that. It’s only common sense.”
“When you’re a policeman long enough, you tend to forget about common sense.”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You never took me to the Ventura Hotel. It’s a place that tourists come to see from all over the country, but you never took me there. You’re very fine about such things when you’re out doing your work, but as far as I am concerned all you desire is an old-fashioned Japanese wife.”
“You’re not Japanese. You’re American.”
