When I left Moriarity’s office I checked my mail slot. There was a message from Frank Templeton, the manager of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, inviting me to a screening of The Ziegfeld Girl on Thursday night. “Screening at 7:30, get there about 7:20. We have a couple of rows ribboned off for big shots, of which I consider you one. Yuk, yuk. Bring a friend. Frankie.”
Templeton and I had gone to school together and I occasionally did some after-hours security work for him. My name was on the permanent guest list at the box office.
I sat down at my desk and looked around. Drab would be a compliment. The walls of the big squad room were covered with wanted posters, notices, the assignment board, and an enormous map of the greater L.A. area.
My desk was in the center of the room, surrounded by other desks, all of which looked pretty much alike. On mine were an in- and out-box, with a telephone, a notepad, and a gaudy ashtray from The Oyster Bed in Ventura. There was a typewriter on the stand next to it. The ashtray and a half-finished report in my in-box were its only distinguishing traits. I leaned back in my chair and thought about Millicent Harrington and Zeke Bannon. The picture was pretty bleak.
I could picture the scene: coming home for dinner and her asking me what I did in the office, and me telling her about the fellow who walks up the street after dinner to get a newspaper and a drunk jumps the curb and splatters him against a wall; or the woman who comes home unexpectedly and finds her husband in bed with a neighbor and she, unheard over the sounds of passion, gets his pistol from a drawer and walks back in and kills them both with one shot, through the back of his neck and into her forehead; or the starlet who dreams of being the next Betty Grable and is sleeping her way up the ladder and ends up in Topanga Canyon very naked, very dead, and very pregnant; or the way a man falls when shot dead, not gracefully as in the movies but like his bones have turned to dust and he has collapsed into his own skin.
Oh, by the way, darling, please pass the cream.
But I thought it might be fun for a little while to squire a lady of class around town. What the hell, a security man can always use a beautiful assistant, especially when Tommy Dorsey is providing the mood music.
A movie would be as good a place as any to start.
I called her office. The secretary plugged me through.
“Hi, this is the police calling,” I said in my most threatening monotone.
“Hi,” she said. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Must be a slow day.”
She laughed.
“Look,” I said. “I hate to call on such short notice but I have an invite to a sneak preview Thursday. I thought you might like to join me.”
I waited two seconds for her answer. “Sounds great!” she said with enthusiasm. “What time?”
“We’d have to be there by 7:20, so I thought we could grab a quick bite at a little place I know down the street. Is 5:30 too early?”
“Do you know how to find my place?”
“I’m a cop, remember?” I paused a moment and said, “How do I find it?”
Another laugh. The house was on Boxwood Drive, on the south side of Coldwater Canyon.
“Got it,” I said. “Five-thirty, then.”
“Yes,” she said, and hung up.
I hung up, sat for a minute, then broke out in a happy laugh.
A detective named Travers looked back at me. “Geez, you musta got some good news,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I had five bucks on a nag at Santa Anita and he came in first.”
“Oh,” Travers said. “I thought maybe you heard your mother-in-law just died.”
I called the photo department at the Times, got hold of a guy in the darkroom I knew named Jerome, and asked if he could blow up the picture of Wilensky for me.
“I got two speeding tickets hangin’ fire over there,” he said.
“Not anymore.”
“Gimme an hour.”
Then I called the coroner’s office and asked them if they’d dig up one of Bones’s close-ups of Wilensky.
I was down in the garage waiting for them to tank up the company Chevy when Ski found me.
“Thanks,” he growled. “Going on a little pleasure trip and you tell the boss you don’t need me.”
“I didn’t think he’d go for two of us taking the ride.”
“San Pietro’s like the Riviera. The movie stars go up there to play around. Rich boys to play golf and act studly with their girlfriends.”
“I got ten bucks for expenses. Maybe I’ll run into Clark Gable and treat him to a night on the town.”
“Hell, you’re not gonna find anything on Wilensky, Zeke. If she had relatives, she woulda left a will.”
“I got one of those feelings.”
He rolled his eyes. “Sheesh. Every time you get one of your feelings, I end up in the hospital and you get a promotion.”
“That happened two years ago. Aren’t you ever going to get over it?”
“Nope.”
Louie, the garage man, pulled the Chevy up and hopped out. He had washed it; water was dribbling off the running board. “Treat it like a lady, Zeke,” he said, tossing me the keys. “She’s a cream puff. I altered the radio in her. You can pick up local stations.”
“Well,” Ski said, “you and your little cream puff have a good time. I got stuck with Gruber for the day. He eats garlic for breakfast. The last time he brushed his teeth, Herbert Hoover was vice president.”
“Give him a pack of Dentyne.”
“He can’t chew gum, his teeth are so rotten they’d fall out.”
“Then keep the windows rolled down.”
“It don’t help. You stop at a light, people on the sidewalk stagger around gasping for breath.” He clutched his throat and his mouth bobbed like a fish out of water. I broke up. Ski should have been in the movies.
“I’m going to miss you, partner,” I said.
“What about Little Miss Moneybags?”
I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll spring for four bits and call her long distance.”
“Oh, that’ll really impress her. If it ain’t folding money, those people toss it out the car window. Loose change bags down their pants.”
I laughed. “See ya later, pal.”
“Be careful up there. They play rough.”
I shrugged. “I’ll tell them I’m an insurance man looking to give away some money.”
“Oh yeah, they’ll really believe that story.”
CHAPTER 11
It was an easy drive. The traffic was light and after I passed Santa Barbara, the two-laner was almost deserted. Occasionally a truck would rumble past going south with a load of produce, the driver giving me a friendly wave. A yellow Lincoln limo passed me as I was leaving Santa Barbara. The chauffeur was stiff as a mannequin and was hanging on to the wheel as if he was afraid he’d blow out of the car if he let go. Four kids, all of whom looked to be under six, were playing tag in the backseat. One of them looked out the window as they cruised by and stuck her tongue out at me. I smiled at her and she looked as startled as if she had walked in on Mommy and Daddy having a nooner.
I thought a lot about Millie, then my mind went to work, back to the list Jane at the bank had prepared for me. The night before, I had sorted through the bank names on that list. Then on my blackboard I had listed in different colors the ones with the most checks to their credit and, vertically under them, the dates the checks were received. It boiled down to four banks in San Pietro, one in Mendosa, a little town south of San Pietro, and a bunch
