G. Lane Price nodded. I wasn't sure what the nod meant. He robbed the top of his head like Guy Kibbee.
'Somebody killed him,' G. Lane went on.
'Looked that way to me,' I agreed.
We were getting along just fine so far.
'Two of my men, Frank Oznati and Carmen Harris. They were in the Mozambique with their wives, they say your friend, one who looks like Robert Taylor, started a fight and ran, and you went after Ramone.'
'Carmen?' I asked. 'There're cops named Carmen now?'
Price shrugged.
'Tends to put a chip on your shoulder,' he said. 'You went after Ramone. Lou Canton says…'
'Lou?…'
'Old piano player. Says when he and Ramone left the stage when the fight started, Ramone said he saw someone he knew in the audience. Canton says Al looked scared. Canton helped him to his dressing room and went out to call the station. No phone backstage and he was afraid to go back into the bar.'
'Interesting,' I said.
'Depends,' said Price. 'Maybe two, three minutes after you go backstage, you come out and announce that Ra-mone's dead.'
'Right.'
'Right,' Price said, nodding and pursing his lips. 'Questions. Why did you go backstage? What did you see? Who was the guy you were with? And what were you doing in the Mozambique?'
'Which one do you want first?' I asked.
'Take your pick and take your time,' the chief said, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head. 'Longer we take, the less time I have to spend at my wife's brother's house. Then, after you tell me, you tell it all to Officer Cooper, who takes it down so you can sign.'
'I need a lawyer?' I asked.
'This day and age everyone needs a lawyer,' Price said, sighing.
'Al Ramone used to be an actor,' I said.
'That a fact? Which question you answering?'
'He owed my client a few dollars,' I said, turning my most sincere unblinking look at the chief. It was wasted. His eyes were closed.
'A few?' he said, eyes still closed.
'Two hundred and change,' I said. 'I get forty bucks if I collect from Ramone.'
'Client got a name?' Price asked dreamily.
'Everybody's got a name,' I said.
'Can I trouble you for it?'
'I don't…'
'Just to check if you're on the up-and-up about this,' he said, opening one eye to watch my reaction.
'Sheldon Minck,' I said. 'A dentist in L.A. In the Farra-day Building.'
'Report says Ramone had a full set of dentures in his lap. What'd he need with a dentist?'
'Old bill,' I said.
'This dentist, he doesn't happen to look like, say, some movie star, Robert Taylor maybe?'
Both of Price's eyes were open now.
'Dr. Minck is five-six, about two hundred pounds, bald, and sporting glasses as thick as Yorba Linda.'
'Guy who was with you who started the fight…' Lane Price went on, checking his watch.
'Don't know anything about him. Just a guy who had a few drinks and was looking for someone to tell his troubles to. He offered me a beer. I took it. He started to tell me the story of his life and wife in Omaha. Then Ramone came out… and everything started when the guy from Omaha punched your man and was gone. Ramone left the stage and I went after him.' ' 'Guy from Omaha looked like a movie star,' the chief said, sitting up again.
'Maybe,' I said. 'A little like Edward G. Robinson maybe.'
'Not the way I heard it,' said the chief.
'Closest star I can give you,' I apologized, holding my hands up.
'Backstage. Next scene,' said Price. 'And slow it down. This is a homicide.'
'Looked for Ramone. Couldn't find him. Went into the toilet and there he was.'
'That's it?'
'That's it. Didn't see anybody. Didn't hear anything.'
The chief started to open his desk drawer, changed his mind, and closed it again.
'Curtain rod from his dressing room,' said Price. 'Skewered like that Hungarian stuff I hate.'
Price demonstrated a two-handed jab with a curtain rod aimed, I guessed, at an imaginary brother-in- law.
'Damn thing doesn't even have a point,' he went on. 'I mean the curtain rod. Take some strength, don't you know, even if you got lucky and went in right under the ribs, which he did.'
'Take some strength,' I agreed.
Price stood up and worked the kinks out of his legs.
'Got the knees of an old ballet dancer,' he said.
I held back a good comeback with another one in the wings and just nodded. Price had no sense of humor.
'Hell,' he said. 'I'll buy your story but I'll check it out. Can't see any reason you'd go coconuts on me with a curtain rod for forty bucks. Hell, these are boom times, boom times this side of the Rockies. People don't kill for forty bucks, but you never know.'
'You never know,' I agreed.
He was standing over me now, looking down, his face sour with the realization that he'd soon be back with the little woman and her brother.
'Some of what you told me is maybe half true,' he said. 'I find it's not and you killed Ramone, I'll haul you back to Glendale so fast your ears'll bleed.'
'I'm always happy to come back home,' I said, 'but I didn't…'
'Hell,' he said with another sigh. 'I'm shorthanded here, Peters. You get cleared on this I'll take you back, promotion to sergeant.'
I stood up now.
'Damn war's got my good men. Thinking of taking on women for street work,' he said to a photograph on the wall of Herbert Hoover.
'I'll think about it,' I said as Price walked to his door and opened it.
'No, you won't,' he said. 'I'm gonna have to make it for the duration with Carmen, Frank, amazons, little kids, and dwarfs.'
'Little persons,' I corrected.
He looked back at me, puzzled.
'Little persons. They don't like to be called dwarfs. My best friend is a little person.'
'That a fact?' said Price.
I nodded as he called out the door for Officer Cooper.
'Those sailors didn't start that fight with our cops, and the guy in the booth didn't either,' I said as he stepped away from the door, leaving it open. 'Your boys started it.'
'Figures,' said Price, adjusting his suit jacket. 'Damn thing is I can't get rid of 'em. They're tough, stupid, and 4-F, one for a trick shoulder and the other for flat feet. Best I can do. When Johnny comes marching home, Frank and Carmen can join the job market. Wait. Now things are coming back to me here. You used to live on…'
'Linden,' I said. 'My dad had a grocery store on Canada.'
'You had a brother…' he said, squinting at me and trying to remember.
'Phil. He's a cop. Wilshire District. Captain.'
'Change his name too?'
'No,' I said. 'He's still Pevsner.'
