Cat and Mouse (14 page)

Mrs. Casey went up to her room after dinner. Harley got ready to leave. I didn’t suggest it would be safer if he had a night’s rest before leaving for home. Nor did I tell him to
please
drive carefully. He is almost as bullheaded as I am.

Jan and I walked to the car with him. On the way back to the house she said, “He is one handsome gent, isn’t he?”

“I guess. He could use a few more pounds. And he’s kind of slow on his feet. I really clobbered him in a run on the Santa Monica beach.”

“You?”

“Yes, dear.”

“What were you two doing on the Santa Monica beach?”

“I told you. We were running.”

“And maybe looking for some feminine company?”

“Of course not! We had some offers, naturally. But we told the girls we were married.”

“I’ll bet you did!”

I shrugged. “Believe it or not. That’s the way it was.”

Opposing linemen and jealous women, I had learned through the years, stay more tractable if you can keep them guessing.

Chief Chandler Harris phoned me around nine o’clock. He said, “Brock, I think it is time you and I had a little talk.”

“About what?”

“We’ll discuss that when you get here. Could you be in my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll be there.”

It was Mr. Callahan the last time I had been in his office. I was now Brock again. Cunning Chandler Harris had put on his Dale Carnegie mask. He was about to win friends and influence people. Or try to.

“Who was that on the phone?” Jan asked.

“Just one of those girls from Santa Monica who can’t take no for an answer.”

“Stop talking nonsense! I’m not in the mood for it.”

“It was Chief Harris. He wants me to come to his office tomorrow for a strategy conference.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“Not exactly, perhaps. He told me he wanted to talk with me. As you well know, it won’t be the first time I have worked with the police in this town—and helped them. But it is also possible that he simply wants to lecture me.”

“Why don’t you phone Bernie and find out which it is?”

“I’ll talk to him when he picks you up tomorrow. I’ve had enough talking for today.”

Corey had already gone to bed. Jan read in the living room. I went over my records again, hoping to find some hoodlum I had helped bring to justice in San Valdesto, some local who might have driven Charles Turbo to Santa Monica. I found none who seemed likely.

It was a quiet breakfast, a gloomy breakfast, with an occasional mutter from Mrs. Casey.

I went out with Jan when Vogel came to pick her up. I asked him if he knew why Harris wanted to talk with me.

“I didn’t know he wanted to,” he said. “He didn’t mention it to me. Now, remember he’s my boss and he knows you’re my friend. So try to use some tact for a change.”

“I’ll try, but it’s not easy with him.”

Chief Harris stood up from behind his desk and offered his hand when I entered. I shook it and sat down in the nearest chair.

He sat down and stared past me for a few seconds. “As you probably know, Brock, the Chicano element in our town resents me for some reason I have never understood.”

“I know that,” I agreed. “How many Chicano officers do you have in the department?”

He frowned. “Three. That’s how many qualified.”

“Sheriff McClune has eight.”

“It’s possible their standards are less strict than ours.”

“It’s possible,” I agreed.
McClune’s lack of bigotry could be one of the standards,
I thought.

“But you,” he went on, “have been their benefactor, supporting both the Brotherhood and the Tomorrow Club.”

The Tomorrow Club was a youth organization. I nodded.

“I have been informed by one of our undercover officers,” he said, “that they are now getting involved in this search for Charles Turbo. Did you know about that?”

I lied with a shake of the head.

“Last night, before I phoned you, a man was severely beaten in the Diaz Hill area. He is now in St. Mary’s Hospital with a broken arm and serious facial contusions. He refused to tell us anything except that it was Chicanos who attacked him. He is a—a black man.”

I asked, “Are you suggesting that he might confide in me?”

“No, no! What I had hoped was that you might tell your Chicano friends to calm down. We suspect that the attack on this black man might somehow be connected to this case. And I hope you won’t be offended, but I suspect their reason for this vendetta is their regard for you.”

“It’s possible,” I agreed. “I’ll talk to one of them. I’m sure you and I share a dislike for vigilante justice.”

“I sincerely hope so.”

“As we both know,” I said, “there has been trouble ever since the blacks began to move into the Chicano neighborhood. But that is not true at the Tomorrow Club. They get along very well there. If this black man knows about my sponsorship there, perhaps he would tell me some things he would not tell a police officer.”

He gave that a few moments of thought before he said, “Information you will, of course, relay to us?”

“Of course.”

The man’s name, he told me, was Davis Washington. He was in room 314 at St. Mary’s Hospital. That wasn’t far from the station; I walked there.

Davis Washington was in a double room, but the other bed was not occupied. He had a cast on his right arm and bandages swathed the upper part of his face. He was short and thin. He stared at me through the peepholes in the bandages.

“My name is Brock Callahan,” I opened.

“The football player?”

I nodded.

“Didn’t you room with Jugger Johnson?”

I nodded again.

“There weren’t many white guys in those days who had black roomies.”

“I know. But things have changed.”

“Not enough of ’em. What do you want from me?”

“Any information you might have on Charles Turbo. He came to this town to kill me.”

“Charley? You’re crazy, man!”

I shook my head. “He’s the crazy one.”

“Why would he want to bump you?”

“Because I was responsible for putting his brother in jail. And he never got out. A couple weeks before he was up for parole he was stabbed to death by some of the inmates.”

“Glen?”

I nodded.

“That could put Charley over the edge,” he admitted. “Glen was the smart one. He got Charley out of a lot of scrapes. He kept him out of the can a couple of times, I remember, when he was picked up for assault. He never even got charged.” He paused. “But murder?”

I said, “It’s a ninety-nine-to-one bet he killed a kid in town here and a woman in Santa Monica.”

“Jesus!” He took a deep breath. “When those Chicanos cornered me last night they didn’t tell me anything about that. I told ’em to get lost and they went bananas.”

“You told them nothing else?”

“I told ’em.
After
they went to work on me. And then they warned me if I beefed to the law, I’d get even worse than I had.”

“What did
you
tell
them?”

“I told ’em I picked up Charley about a week ago at the Travis Hotel. He offered me fifty bucks to drive him to Santa Monica. I drove him there. He was living with some woman down there. I never met her. I dropped him off in front of the house and headed for home.” He stared past me. “If Charley has really gone heavy, be careful, footballer! Glen had the smarts, but Charley is the tricky one. He’ll hit you when you least expect it.”

“That woman’s name was Jane Meredith,” I told him. “She is the woman he murdered. The Santa Monica police agree with me on that.”

“Christ! I could be tied into the mess if the Chicanos tell the local law.”

“They won’t and neither will I. Do you know of any other address Turbo had in this town?”

“I don’t know the address. But when I picked him up once before he was at a rooming house near that Chicano bar on Padre Street. It’s an old two-story house with shutters on the windows. He’s probably long gone from there.”

“Maybe and maybe not,” I said. “Thanks.”

“You’d better take a gun along,” he said. “He’s a hell of a lot bigger than you are.”

I smiled, shook my head, and left.

The house he had described as a rooming house no longer was. It was apparently deserted. A sign on the parched gray grass of the small front yard informed any passersby that it was for sale or rent.

I took my lug wrench out of the rear deck and walked up the steps to the sagging porch. The door was locked. I went around to the back door. This, too, was locked. But it was a very flimsy door. I kicked it open.

I heard the sound of somebody moving on the floor above, the scrape of a foot. I went through the kitchen and down a narrow hall to the foot of the stairs. It was darker up above; the window in the wall at the top of the stairs was tightly shuttered.

Silence. If it was Turbo, he had two options. He could come down these stairs or jump out of a second-story window.

More silence. And then a voice asked, “Al, is that you?”

“Come down and find out,” I said.

“Callahan?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

The scrape of a foot again and suddenly he showed. Even in the dim light I could see his bald head and the scar.

“Callahan!” he said. “What’s that you’re carrying, peeper?”

“Protection,” I said.

“It’s not enough.” He started slowly down the steps.

His hands were hanging at his sides, free of any weapon—until he was halfway down. His hand went into his right pocket and pulled out a small revolver. It looked like a .22-caliber purse gun. But it was more weapon than I had.

I threw the lug wrench at him before he could pull the trigger. It missed him. His first shot whistled past my left ear. I headed down the hall toward the back door. He leaned over the banister to get off a second shot at me. It missed. I was in the back yard before he could get off a third try.

I took the chance he would not show a weapon when he came outside. This was a crowded neighborhood. When I came to the side yard I saw him running up Padre Street. He turned at the next corner and was out of sight.

The Chicano bar Washington had mentioned was Rubio’s. I phoned the station from there and asked for Vogel. I didn’t want any of the other officers there to know what a fool I had been. I told him the story.

“You could have phoned us after you talked with Washington,” he pointed out. “He’d be in custody now.”

“I should have. But it was a doubtful tip.”

“Okay! It will be our secret. I’ll send out the word.”

Rubio was arguing with a disgruntled horseplayer when I came to the bar. He smiled at me and said, “Pancho!” He glared at the horseplayer, pointed at the door, and said, “Go!”

The man left. Rubio asked, “What’s on your mind? You look grouchy.”

“I am, a little. That black man your
compadres
put into the hospital last night was telling you the truth.”

His smile was cynical. “All of it? Did he tell you that he sells dope to kids and pimps for teenage whores?”

“No.”

“Then let us start over.”

“Let’s. As I have told you before, the Brotherhood is not the law in our town.”

“It is not the
gringo
law,” he admitted. “But you must remember that we were here long before you
gringos
came to this country. And then your people thought it was India. We are far better friends of yours, Pancho, than most of the officers at the police station. Is that not true?”

“It’s true,” I said wearily, “I’ll have a beer.”

He put a bottle of his premium beer on the bar and a glass. “On the house,” he said. “Trust us, Brock.”

What other choice did I have? I nodded.

R
UBIO HAD HIS RIGID
code; Stan Nowicki, its reverse. Rubio’s code was an-eye-for-an-eye vengeance, Nowicki’s pure constitutional justice. The dichotomy was that when Rubio’s underprivileged friends were victims of injustice it was Stan who fought their battles in court. Most of them couldn’t afford the big-money boys.

Bernie and I held one belief in common; we hated to see the guilty walk early, many of them released on some technicality before they were even brought to trial. Where we differed was in method; I was forced to be more devious, lacking official status.

It was now one o’clock but perhaps Bernie hadn’t gone to lunch at his normal time. I went to the station.

He had brought his lunch and Ellie, as was usual, had packed more than he could eat. I offered to share it with him, corned-beef sandwiches on dark rye bread.

He said, “I sent out the call. No answer so far. Harris told me this morning that you two are now bosom buddies.”

“Not quite.”

And McClune, he informed me, had phoned to tell him there had been a burglary in Omega last night. A motorist, going past, had seen the man leaving the house in the glow of his headlights. It had been a big man with a scarred cheek.

“Bald?” I asked.

“He was wearing a hat. If it’s the man we want, why would he burglarize a house in the low-rent district? He picked up five hundred dollars in Santa Monica.”

“He’s a crapshooter and a bad one,” I said. “Maybe he lost his wad in a local game.”

“Maybe. Are you holding up all right?”

“So far. But when I think of all the trained and untrained hunters on that bastard’s trail—And we’ve come up with nothing!”

“We’ve come up with plenty, you with the most. We need you, Brock. Stay healthy.”

“I plan to. That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me in months. Thanks for the lunch. I think I’ll run out to Omega and scout around. There’s no way that man can operate without some local allies.”

Bernie nodded. “He can’t stay lucky forever. Keep the faith.”

Harley had cruised the Omega streets and learned nothing. I cruised for over an hour with the same lack of success. I considered going over to visit The Judge while I was in the area. But Larry Rubin’s recently purchased house was not far from here, out near the university. I drove there.

The former owner had built a one-room, bath, and kitchenette guest house in the rear which was now Larry’s office.

I entered without knocking; his door was open. He was on the phone; he waved at me and pointed to a chair.