He snored.
CHAPTER 4
I awoke from a deep sleep to hear Rosebud scratching on the back door. A moment later he came into the bedroom, sat next to the bed, and growled at me. I opened one eye and stared at him.
“Don’t you ever bark, Slugger?” I said.
I hip-hopped barefoot back to the kitchen, let him out and left the door cracked for him, fed him and filled his water dish. I went to my bathroom, shaved and showered, and put on my dark suit, the one I wear when I’m going to be talking to nice, decent, everyday people who are anxious to cooperate with the law and usually tell you more than you want to know. Muscle and blackjack not required.
I put another can of dog food in Rosebud’s bowl, refilled the water dish, and put them outside in the little cave under the alcove.
He watched every move, and when I started back into the house, those dark eyes followed me to the door.
“Try not to bark or make a ruckus,” I told him. “Spend the day looking for Slugger.”
Fifteen minutes later I was tooting the horn in Ski’s driveway. I picked him up every day. He had a brand-new Plymouth but his wife, Claire, used it to take kids to school, go shopping, and do whatever women do all day long to make life pleasant for the rest of the family.
My five-year-old used Olds needed new shocks, the fan belt squealed like a pig on the way to the slaughterhouse, and I had to stand on the brakes to slow down, not an easy thing to do since I had to move the seat all the way back to accommodate Agassi’s frame and drive with the tips of my toes. There was a hole in the upholstery on the passenger side, which was covered by a blue embroidered pillow with a couple of palm trees framing yellow letters that said “Welcome to San Diego.” And it had that old-car smell, a mixture of oil, gasoline, cheap carry-out food, and an ashtray that hadn’t been emptied since Hitler was selling hand-painted postcards on the streets of Vienna. It got me there, which was all that mattered.
We stopped at Wally’s coffeehouse, which is on the way, and got coffee in paper cups and a bag of sinkers, and Ski read the newspaper as he always did, running an occasional headline by me if it was something he thought I needed to know or a comical item like: escaped kangaroo kicks preacher to death at bus stop.
As we pulled away from the curb, a flatbed truck went by, going the other way. There were two large billboards on the bed. Red letters on a field of white: buy bonds keep America free join the armed forces today
Two starlet types in red-and-white bathing suits were standing on a little perch to keep from falling out, waving blue high hats, while a loudspeaker over the cab was blasting Kate Smith’s “God Bless America” loud enough to raise the dead.
Ski started grousing. “I hate Kate Smith,” he snapped. “I really hate hearing her bellow when I’m not fully awake yet.”
Smith wrapped her song and Irving Berlin’s forlorn voice began moaning, “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning.”
“I hate that, too,” he growled.
“Why should you care,” I said. “You’re forty-two, you got a wife and three kids, and you’re sixty pounds overweight. They’ll be drafting blind men before they get to you.”
“Christ, you’re thirty-four. They’ll never get to you either. Besides, you’re a cop. Immediate deferment.”
“That sounds unpatriotic,” I said.
“I think you want to go if we get into it with the Krauts,” he said. “Mr. Gung Ho.”
I started laughing and he finally broke up, too, and turned back to the paper.
“So what’s the plan for the day?” he asked.
“I go to the bank, you check where she worked. We’ll meet at the Kettle for lunch.”
“How about Moriarity?”
“What about him?”
“It’s an accident. He’s gonna want to know what the hell we’re up to.”
“Let’s see what we come up with. Then we’ll worry about the lieutenant.”
“Great, just great,” Agassi moaned.
CHAPTER 5
The drive to the West Los Angeles National Bank took me past the entrance to Pacific Meadows. There was a small sign beside the road into the neighborhood that read:
Pacific Meadows no solicitations speed limit 10 we have children
It was a nice touch, the kind of understated warning you usually find in snottier neighborhoods with a lot of flowers around the entrance gate, and private police who patrol in unmarked cars and make more in tips at Christmas than I make in a year. Across the main drag from the entrance was a strip of necessity stores: a candy store and newsstand, dry cleaners, drugstore, greengrocer, butcher shop-which I assumed was where Verna Wilensky got Rosebud’s bones-a shoe cobbler, and a burned-out shop on the end, with an empty lot beside it.
A few blocks farther on was a small nameless village that was showing the signs of restoration. Freshly painted shops mingled with shuttered stores that were still waiting for tenants getting back on their feet from the Depression.
The West L.A. National was on the ground floor of a freestanding, three-story building that had professional offices on the upper floors. The entrance was in the middle of the block and had brass-trimmed, etched-glass doors and a small plaque next to it that told me the bank was founded in 1920 by Ezra Sutherland. It was cheerier than most old banks I was familiar with. The teller cages were mahogany. The high glass partitions, which had become popular when John Dillinger and his pals were fond of making sudden withdrawals from banks, had been removed. There was a long table down the middle of the room where depositors could fill in their slips. A vase of fresh flowers held down its center. On the right side, behind a hand-carved railing, were several desks where clerks made loans and did whatever else clerks do in a bank. All boasted freshly cut flowers in vases. Four towering cathedral windows lined the walls, providing warm sunlight to the big room. A large glass chandelier hovered majestically overhead.
In the far corner on the left was a stainless steel Standish- Wellington vault, its door standing open. In the center of the far wall was a door, which I assumed led to the president’s office, and another, probably to a secretary’s office. A pleasant-looking woman in her mid to late thirties occupied a large desk in front of the big shot’s office. A single red rose, flared out in all its glory in a fluted bud vase, sat on a corner of her desk. It was a pleasant room, less threatening than most banks.
I took off my fedora and walked the length of the bank to the woman with the red rose. Her nameplate said she was Amy Shein, executive secretary, and a plaque on the door behind her told me the office was occupied by Rufus Sutherland, President.
“Good morning, Miss Shein,” I said and showed her my buzzer. “Sergeant Bannon, Los Angeles Police Department. Is Mr. Sutherland busy?”
She looked a bit alarmed when she saw the badge but got over it quickly and smiled.
“May I tell him what this is about?” she asked pleasantly.
“It’s a routine matter,” I said. “Nothing serious. No crime has been committed.”
“Well, thank goodness for that,” she said, and went into the office. She was gone for less than a minute, then came out and stood at the door and motioned me in.
“Mr. Sutherland, this is Lieutenant Bannon from the police department,” she told the boss.
“Sergeant,” I said. “But thanks for the promotion.”
Sutherland smiled from behind a teak desk that wasn’t quite as big as a basketball court and just as barren: a leather blotter holder, a pen and pencil set, and a telephone. There were two large, framed Audubon originals on
