“Maybe three or four hours,” flexing Stillman’s fingers. “Maybe eight o’clock this morning, maybe nine.” He straightened up and picked up his bag. “Well, that’s that. You don’t need me here anymore. Never needed me in the first place. I’ll poke around at the hospital and have the reports filled in. I want a card with his name tied to his hand. I’m rotten with names.” And with that he bustled out through the door, sending a last nasty glance at Masuto.
“He’s a sweetheart,” Beckman said.
“Stay with Sweeney,” Wainwright said to Beckman. “Once he’s lifted his prints, I want every corner of this place turned inside out.” And to Sweeney, “I want a full set of Stillman’s prints before they take him away, and when you get back to the office, put them on the wire to Washington and give them to L.A.P.D. as well. Nobody just gets himself shot. There’s got to be some sanity in this.”
“In murder?” Masuto said. “There never is, you know.”
Gellman said, “Look, Captain-I’m destroyed, so I’m not asking for pity. But if you have that body carried through the hotel-how do you do it?”
“The ambulance is on its way.”
“You mean the morgue wagon?”
“Al, get hold of yourself. We don’t have a morgue wagon. We got an arrangement with All Saints Hospital, and we use their pathology room and morgue. So it will just be an ambulance and some interns in white coats or whatever. It’s done, and life goes on.”
“Fool, fool!” Masuto exclaimed, and reached for the phone.
“Handkerchief!” Sweeney yelled.
Masuto dialed headquarters while the others watched curiously. He told Joyce, the operator, “I want an All Points Bulletin on a yellow Cadillac. First check all the car rentals at the airport and find out what kind of car Jack Stillman of Las Vegas rented. No. No, forget that. I have the license number.” He fumbled through his pockets, found the slip. “Here it is, seven-six-nine-two VVN, give it to everyone, our own cars, L.A.P.D., the sheriff, the Highway Patrol. High priority. Possibly driven by a woman. Even if it is a woman, she is armed and dangerous. I want the car located and anyone in it held for questioning.”
He put down the phone and turned to face Wainwright. “I should have thought of it immediately.” He shrugged. “Well, it’s three or four hours since Stillman died, so I don’t suppose it matters, They’ll probably find the car parked somewhere.”
“What the devil is this all about?” Wainwright demanded.
Masuto looked at his watch. “Twelve-thirty,” he said to Wainwright. “We ought to get back before the Russian comes.”
Wainwright started to say something, swallowed, and said to Beckman, “Sit on this, Sy.” And to Gellman, “When Sweeney’s finished, Al, we’ll have to close up the room. At least for twenty-four hours.”
“With a cop outside?” Gellman asked plaintively.
“Okay, I’ll tell the cop to go.”
“And what do I do now?”
“You’ll have the press all over you. They’ll keep you busy.”
“What do I tell them?”
“About the drowned man-if they ask, just tell them that he drowned. If they don’t ask, tell them nothing. About Stillman, he’s a guy from Vegas and he got shot. It happens.”
“He’s not just a guy from Vegas. He’s Binnie Vance’s husband and manager.”
“Who the hell is Binnie Vance?”
“You don’t live right, Captain,” Sweeney said, pausing in his dusting. “Binnie Vance is only the hottest thing that hit Vegas this season. She’s an exotic dancer who makes Gypsy Rose Lee look like a Girl Scout entertainer.”
“Gypsy Rose Lee-you got to be kidding. That goes back thirty years.”
“So do I,” said Sweeney.
“Well, whoever she is, she’s got to be told that Stillman is dead. Where do you suppose she is?”
“Probably in Las Vegas,” Beckman said.
“Oh, great, great,” Gellman said. “Do you know what the goddamn media is going to do? They’re going to make it a mob execution.”
“I told you a woman killed him,” Masuto said. “The mob doesn’t have women executioners, not yet.”
In the hallway, Wainwright told the uniformed policeman that he could go back to his car, and then he said to Masuto, “You seem damned sure that a woman did it.”
“Not positive. I think so.”
“And you also know who she is,” Wainwright observed sarcastically.
“I think so. But that doesn’t mean one damn thing, Captain. It’s just a wild guess, and I don’t know why or how it adds up or comes together or what it all means.”
“And you also know who killed the fat man?”
“Sort of.”
They were in the elevator now, along with the uniformed cop and two hotel guests, so Wainwright held his peace. But when they got out into the lobby, Wainwright snapped, “What the hell do you mean, sort of? Even from you, that’s a new one.”
“Captain, look at that,” the uniformed officer said, pointing to Sal Monti, talking to half a dozen reporters and cameramen.
“That little son of a bitch,” Wainwright snorted. “Where’s your car, Masao? You got the keys or did you give them to Monti?”
“I’m down the hill and I have the keys.”
“Good. I came with Beckman, so you drive. We go right through. Not one word.”
They were past the entrance before someone recognized Wainwright, and then the reporters raced after the captain and Masuto. “Nothing!” Wainwright snapped at them. “Not one word! Not one comment! Go back and talk to Gellman.”
When they were in the car, Masuto said gently, “You could have given them something.”
“No, sir. Not one word out of either of us. This is tangled up with Washington, and nobody says that you or me shot our mouths off. Now what the hell is all this about knowing who did it?”
“I don’t know, I make guesses. What is a guess worth when you don’t have motive or a shred of evidence?”
“You wouldn’t like to tell me?”
“To what end? Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Like hell it is. I don’t know why I put up with you, Masao. You are the most peculiar Oriental son of a bitch I ever encountered. Now what the devil is all this about a yellow caddy and the All Points?”
“Stillman rented the yellow Cadillac at the airport. Someone took the keys out of Monti’s box this morning and drove it away.”
“You said a woman.”
“That was a guess. I think a woman killed Stillman. I think the same woman drove off in his car. Nothing’s going to come of that, believe me, Captain. You said the F.B.I. knows who the dead man is. Who is he?”
“I never liked that little bastard.”
“What little bastard?”
“Sal Monti. Someone just takes the keys out of his box. Horseshit.”
“It can happen. What about the fat man?”
“This is what I got from the F.B.I. I told you they’re sending a special man out here. I hate those bastards. I guess every cop in America hates them. Anyway, according to the Feds, the dead man’s name is Peter Litovsky. He’s attached to the Soviet embassy in Washington as cultural attache, whatever that means.”
“It’s a very minor post. I imagine his job would be to effect cultural exchanges, keep us posted on what is happening in the Russian theater, concert stage, and so on. And the same thing in the other direction.”
“That may be, except that this Litovsky is not what he seems to be. The Feds say that he’s one of the top men in Soviet Intelligence, whatever their equivalent of the C.I.A. is, and that he uses the cultural attache job as a cover, and what I can’t understand is that if they know all this, why in hell do they let him operate?”
