town that might have popped off a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover. The downtown section was twelve blocks long and as many blocks wide. The storefronts were white and trimmed in grays and light blues and reds. At the south end of the town, dominating a low, flat shoulder of the foothill that ran out at the sea, was a large U-shaped hotel. The open side of the U faced the ocean. An Olympic-size swimming pool surrounded by beach umbrellas and cabanas and emerald grass was embraced by the sides of the two-story resort. On the south side of the building were four tennis courts, with canvas panels facing the sea to cut the ocean’s wind. Across the street was a large parking lot half-filled with Packards, Maxwells, Caddies, Pierce-Arrows, and a smattering of Rolls- Royces. A Ford or Chevy would have been as out of place in that lot as a three-hundred-pound girl in the Miss California contest.
Separating it from the rest of town was a large public park with a fountain at its center. On one side of the park was a large three-story building built in the Mexican style, with an orange tiled roof and pale yellow walls and a United States flag flying from the spire of the tower that dominated it. Facing it on the other side of the park was a movie house. On the ocean side of the park were the public docks.
Sailboats rocked serenely at its piers. Others were anchored nearby, captained by rugged individuals who preferred anchoring free of land. Farther out in the bay, a white Grebe yacht trimmed with teak drifted idly at anchor. It looked as big as a football field and sat low in the water. I reached in the car pocket, retrieved my binoculars, and focused on the yacht, sweeping the deck slowly from the stern. The brass fittings were buffed and spotless, the hardwood decks glittered in the bright sunlight, the portholes and windows were as immaculate as a Florentine mirror. I moved the glasses a little farther. A woman lay on the large front deck facing the sun, on a beach blanket that would have covered my living room. She was stark naked. A few feet away, a white-haired man in white ducks, canvas shoes, and a red-and-white-striped shirt was sitting with his feet on the rail, drink in hand, staring out to sea as though she didn’t exist. I suppose if you can afford a setup like that, you take everything for granted. I hoped I never got that rich.
Moving in from the sea and surrounding the village on the north and west were tree-lined streets, where I assumed the common folk lived in pleasant bungalows. Beyond the residential section, the hill rose up sharply. A wide, sweeping ridge swept around the bowl, forming a broad mesa. I was parked on one side. A golf course consumed most of the ridge to the east and north. Facing me, hidden among pines and water oaks, was where the rich obviously lived.
The roofs of mansions peeked above the foliage spotting the hillside as it rose to the crest of the foothill. A two-lane road curved up the side of the hill and vanished into the thick trees. A strip of stores a couple of blocks long wound through the trees and then, a few city blocks farther on, the ridge ended on a cliff overlooking the ocean. A three-story Victorian mansion sat as close to the edge of the cliff as was safe. From it, a narrow road tortured its way along the cliff a mile or so down into the village. It was like Olympus, where the gods of this sequestered community could look down on the common folk and dictate the mores, morals, and standard of living of mere mortals.
So this was it? A town of maybe two thousand people? A town so serene and peaceful a lizard sitting in the sun would probably die of boredom. A town which, like all small towns, probably harbored secrets darker than a pedophile’s soul. A town that had nurtured and reared the man who might become the next governor of the state.
As I was standing there, binoculars in hand, a black Pontiac came down the road on my side and slowed almost to a stop. The car drifted past me and a roughneck as big as a billboard gave me a hard stare out of his one good eye. The other eye was frozen in one position and stared straight ahead, while the serviceable one stayed on me until the car was well past. Then it picked up speed again. The license plate read sp 3 and the attitude told me they were cops. Small-town cops. Cops with muscle who wrote their own rule books and, for nothing at all, could give you more grief than a broken back.
Moriarity was right. They knew I was there before I did. It was time to move on. I rolled down my sleeves, pulled up my tie, put on my suit jacket and gray fedora, and headed down into Culhane Land.
CHAPTER 12
The road took me down the hill and into town in front of the city park. Up close, the town was just as charming and quaint as it was from afar. It was also eerie. The street gutters were spotless-no leaves, candy wrappers, or cigarette butts. A Mexican smoking a stogie was sitting on a park bench next to a wheeled refuse can with a push broom resting in it, waiting to sweep up anything alien that might hit the pavement.
Down at the city docks, to the delight of a bunch of small children, two bronze fishermen were hauling a large swordfish from the stern of a cabin cruiser. Several older citizens were holding down canvas beach chairs under red-and-white-striped umbrellas that lined the edge of the wharf; some were reading books or dozing, others were gazing out across the bay as if they expected the Queen Mary to come steaming into the harbor at any minute. A small arrow-shaped sign with private beach printed on it was at the edge of the pier pointed northward.
The black block letters on the marquee of the Ritz theater, a two-story adobe building painted bright yellow, advertised The Road to Zanzibar with Hope, Crosby, and Lamour, and selected short subjects, “Shows at 3, 7, 9”; and the windowed one-sheets across the face of the theater told me that The Ziegfeld Girl and In the Navy with Abbott and Costello were coming soon.
It was a warm day, on the muggy side, but a cool breeze wafted across the bay, stirring the eucalyptus trees that spotted the city park and bringing the heat down a couple of degrees. There was a festive air about the place. Red, white, and blue balloons bobbed in the wind from shrubs and park benches; up near the main street men were setting up grills and ice-laden chests. A couple of sandwich boards spotted through the park invited one and all to enjoy hot dogs, soft drinks, and watermelon at a noontime picnic, courtesy of the Culhane for Governor Committee. The word free in bright red capital letters adorned the top and bottom of the boards. Culhane was upstaging the Fourth of July by a month.
The spired building facing the theater across the park was the municipal building. The big clock on the facade of the spire told me it was 11:10. The black Pontiac was maybe three blocks behind me. I turned right on the main street, which was called Ocean Boulevard. Quaint. It was paved with cobblestones and the streetlights were old- fashioned gas lamps. After that, the town got kind of creepy, as if George Orwell had come up with the concept and Norman Rockwell had hired the architect so he could do the Saturday Evening Post cover.
I was heading north on Ocean Boulevard with the big-money hotel behind me and another park several blocks ahead. The theater and Wendy’s Diner filled the block on my left. A pleasant-looking, three-story hotel called the San Pietro Inn was on my right. It also filled the entire block. An old-fashioned bar called Rowdy’s Watering Hole held down the north corner of the hotel.
After that and for the next eleven blocks, the street on both sides was a succession of stores, all built hard against each other, varying only slightly in height, width, and color: gray with white trim, pale blue with dark blue trim, green and white, white and green, and so on. There were two basic designs: gabled roof and flat roof. And they came in three sizes: small, medium, and large. They offered everything from a tobacconist and a record store to a jeweler and a restaurant advertising delicious home cooking. In between were a haberdashery, confectionary, shoe store, bookstore, newsstand, deli, pharmacy, soda fountain, children’s shoe store; more services than 2,000 people could need or want. And just one of each kind. No competition here, except for restaurants, bars, and banks.
The exceptions to this architectural deja vu were four banks and the library, each of which were brick and commandeered an entire block. They stood out like mausoleums stand out among tombstones.
The other park formed the northern perimeter of the town. I checked the rearview. Mutt and Jeff were a block behind me. I pulled into the tiny parking lot next to the library and stopped. They stopped. A block away, in the middle of the street. I pulled out and turned left, drove back past them and went to the municipal building, parked by the curb, and went up a half-dozen wide, deep steps into the building.
It was sturdily built, its thick walls holding the heat at bay. A long, wide hallway led straight through the interior. To the right were the D.A.’s office, the judge’s sanctuary, and the courtroom. To the left were the police department and city jail. On the second floor were the municipal offices and the council’s meeting room.
At the end of the hall on the right was Culhane’s office. I decided to play it dumb, as if I had never heard of
