Since I wanted to be away from Warner’s as much as she wanted me away, I talked fast, telling her about my investigation of the Hughes’ theft, or possible theft, and left out the two murders.
“Can’t help you,” she said. “I wasn’t even a potential contributor to the festivities, though I probably talked too much. I usually do. I got the reputation that I was a witty kid when I wrote my first and only play. I’ve been trying to live up to it ever since. That is one hell of a burden to carry, Peters.”
“There are worse,” I said. “Then why were you there?”
“I went with Ben Siegel. It was him that Hughes wanted to meet.”
“Why?” I asked.
“If you’re working for Hughes, why don’t you ask him, or is he on his way around the world on a kite?” she said.
“Mr. Hughes doesn’t talk very much,” I said, and she nodded in agreement.
“O.K.,” she said. “Hughes said that when the war broke out, he wanted Ben to organize some friends in Europe to act as a kind of information network. We were going to talk about it that night, but Hughes broke up the party.”
“What kinds of friends does Siegel have in Europe?”
She looked at me as if I were from the hills of Dakota.
“Criminals,” she said, “drug dealers, killers. Bugsy Siegel knows a lot of people.”
“I didn’t know it was that Siegel,” I said.
She gave me a broad fake grin.
“You are one hell of a detective, Peters. Remind me to call you if I ever lose my mind. Now if you’ll let me get back to my nonwork…”
I left, promising that I might be back. She said she was looking forward to it, but her eyes said she wasn’t. You can’t charm them all. I left without seeing a single movie star or anyone I knew, which was fine with me.
My next stop was Bugsy Siegel’s. I had a pair of addresses and some phone numbers. I called the first and got no answer. Then I called the second and got someone with raw fish in his mouth. I said I wanted to talk to Siegel. I don’t know what he said, but he went away, and a few minutes later another voice came on.
“What do you want with Mr. Siegel, and how’d you get this number?”
“I’m working for Howard Hughes, and this has something to do with national security. I’d like to see Mr. Siegel for a few minutes, tonight if possible.”
Someone on the other end covered the mouthpiece, and I could hear muffled voices. Then the talker came back. He gave me the address of a small night club on the Strip and told me to be there at five. I said I would and hung up.
I went to Levy’s Grill on Spring, ordered the brisket special and said sweet nothings to Carmen the cashier while I waited for my order. Carmen was looking very ample and busy. Levy’s was crowded. I hovered near the register eyeing her, the customers and the candy on the counter. I even bought a box of chocolate babies and popped them in my mouth for an appetizer as we talked between customers.
“How about wrestling next Tuesday?” I said.
“I don’t think I’ll feel like wrestling next Tuesday,” she said without looking at me, as she checked the total on the tab before her. The little guy who handed her the check counted off bills without looking at her or me.
“I meant we’d go to the East side and watch them,” I explained.
“I know what you mean,” she said, glancing at me with her soft cow eyes. “Where have you been?”
“Busy,” I said. “Big cases, lots of money. Fame, fortune. I met Basil Rathbone today.”
“You didn’t!” she said, always impressed by movie stars.
“I did,” I said.
“Next Tuesday?” she said. I leaned forward with a pleased nod.
“Dinner and wrestling,” I said.
“All right,” she said. “Now leave me alone and stop trying to look down my dress. I’ve got a job.”
Feeling better, I ate the brisket special, left a big tip and gave Carmen a smile when I paid my bill. Then I headed for the Strip and Bugsy Siegel.
A black Caddy pulled into traffic behind me with two guys in it. Maybe I was being followed. Maybe I was just jumpy. I decided not to take a chance, so I circled the block twice, and they were gone. At least I thought they were gone, but as I later discovered, even a sharp-eyed investigator like Toby Peters makes mistakes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I was driving slowly down Hollywood Boulevard with an hour to kill when the hour decided it might prefer to kill me. The black Caddy showed up three cars back in the bright sunlight, sending a mirror of buildings and trees back at me and hiding the faces of the two guys in the front seat.
Instead of turning on Sunset I went down Santa Monica Boulevard, picking up Sunset in Beverly Hills and going south toward U.C.L.A. I had an idea of going to Rathbone’s house in Bel Air, but changed my mind. I didn’t know who the guys behind me were, and I didn’t want to lead them to Rathbone. He could think a good case, but I don’t know how he’d handle the pair behind me.
I had a few thoughts about who they might be. They might be cops, but I knew enough about cops to know they didn’t drive Caddys and they didn’t assign two men to tail a private detective about a simple-well, not so simple-murder. They could have been the murderers, which was a more likely possibility since Frye had already tried to kill me. Maybe he had friends who were taking up his unfinished job. It would have been nice to have a little talk with them, if that were the case, and find out what they thought I knew, but I didn’t think friends of Frye would be the talking kind.
There was another possibility. They might have been a pair of Bugsy Siegel’s boys. Norma Forney could have told him about me. He knew I was coming to see him. Maybe he had something to hide about that night at Howard Hughes’; in which case, the gentlemen in the car behind could still want to act more than talk.
Whoever they were, I decided to try to lose them. We had a merry chase. At first I tried to make it look as if I were simply driving around randomly, but my pair of circles around the block at Levy’s Restaurant must have given them the idea that I was on to them.
They stayed close, so I headed for an area I knew-or thought I knew. I went south on Sepulveda past the university, trying to put a little distance between my ’34 Buick and their ’4 °Cadillac by going twelve miles an hour over the speed limit for a residential area. It was almost hopeless. When I got within two blocks of my old habitat, now a recently demolished motel-like bungalow, I hit the floorboard and darted past a cement truck that let a blast out of its horn. With the truck between me and the Caddy and a half block between us, I made a blind turn over the curb and into the lot where I had once lived. It was a mess of rubble and rain puddles. The Buick landed hard and something clanked in the trunk. I remembered the groceries and hoped the milk bottle would hold up under the punishment.
With a sharp right and squealing tires, I spun in back truck on the lot. It was full of what looked like my old house, which surprised me because I didn’t think my old house had enough material to fill a bicycle basket.
A couple of gloved workmen heaving debris into the truck stopped to glare at me. I willed them to look somewhere else, but it didn’t matter. The guys in the Caddy must have seen me. They came flying over the same curb I had hit and came down even harder. I put my car in gear with my foot on the brake and gave it a little gas. The Caddy stormed toward the truck, almost hitting one of the workmen, who jumped for his life, abandoning a window frame which came down on top of the Caddy with a thud.
As the Caddy rounded the dump truck, I went to the other side, tearing my Buick for all it was worth, which was probably about fifty bucks, toward Sepulveda. I hit a rain-filled rut, knocked a sink into the sky and barely missed the cement truck that was turning into the lot I was leaving. I headed back north.
The Caddy driver had trouble turning. I could see him in my rear view mirror, trying to make up the ground he had lost. I was well up the street, pounding the steering wheel with the palms of my hands to urge it on to greater effort.
I caught a yellow light at Wilshire with a Red Top Cab between me and the Caddy. I went through the yellow. The cabbie decided to stop. The Caddy plowed into him and I slowed down to turn right at the next corner and lose
