Darkest Hour (6 page)

At the moment Simon wasn’t of a scientific bent of mind. He didn’t pause to examine the object. He wrenched it loose and hurled it as far as he could from the highway. The almost instant blast that followed defoliated two orange trees and wrecked an “Impeach Earl Warren” sign.

Simon didn’t wait for the highway patrol’s investigation of a new blight on the orange industry; he drove on to the Marina Beach off-ramp and followed the gentle slope of a country road into the booming seaside development. He parked the Rolls in front of Jake’s Lock Shop on Ocean Street and ordered two cable locks. Then he borrowed Jake’s telephone long enough to put in a call to a watchdog service in a nearby industrial area. He ordered a trained dog to be delivered to The Mansion before sundown and then returned to the Rolls. The last stage of his homecoming was a twist-and-turn spiral up through the new suburbia to the older section called the Heights where, high above the stucco and plate glass explosion, The Mansion still reigned in restored splendor. The great white house was surrounded by well-kept grounds and a high wrought-iron fence. The gates of the fence, both front and rear, had never been locked. The cable locks were to change that condition immediately. The watchdog was added protection, which would be more difficult to explain to Hannah.

• • •

Simon found her in the gymnasium working out on a rowing machine. She wore black leotards and a sweat shirt over a figure that might have been twenty years old except for the painful contraction in her right leg each time the exercise went into the stretching back sweep. One had to be observant to catch the tightening of her mouth which was her sole tribute to pain. Seeing Simon, she switched off the machine and pulled herself to her feet by means of the wall rail.

“What took you so long?” she demanded. “Were you shacked up with that pretty blonde clerk at the Seville?”

Hannah never missed a trick.

“No such luck,” Simon said. “She was off duty when I checked out.”

“Then you better call Wanda. She’s telephoned from New York twice since I got home. Director trouble.”

“Wanda will have to wait one moment,” Simon said. He draped a heavy towel about Hannah’s shoulders and escorted her into the den. He needed a drink. He poured himself a double Scotch and downed it neat, and then he placed the empty glass on the old-fashioned bar top and propped one foot on the brass rail.

Hannah watched him carefully. “What’s bothering you that I don’t know about?” she demanded.

“I was late getting back,” he said quietly, “because someone planted a bomb under the hood of the Rolls.” Hannah gasped. He quickly reassured her. “No, there was no damage. I heard the rattle and stopped and tossed it into someone’s orange grove. But think, Hannah, it would have been you driving the car if I hadn’t sent you home in the limousine. If you’re right and Monterey was in terror of his life last night, whoever was on his tail must have seen him approach you in the car. He ran. That proves he was either afraid of the police or of someone on the lot he had seen that you weren’t aware of. Obviously, there was something he wanted to tell you or to give you.”

“And you think the party who put the bang-bang in my car thought Monte had succeeded.” And then the truth hit her like Simon’s Scotch on an empty stomach. “My God,” she said. “Somebody tried to kill me.”

The worst was over. Hannah would now accept the locks on the gates and the guard dog without too much protest. But that still left a sticky situation that wouldn’t blow away like a morning fog.

“Was Monterey a heavy drinker?” Simon asked.

“No, that’s the peculiar thing about his death. That girl at the desk this morning said he had gotten drunk and fallen over the railing. Monte was always very proud of his body. He did all his own stunts, you know. Really. That wasn’t just a press agent’s gag. He watched his diet—he was a health-food faddist. He had wine with meals because it aids digestion, and sometimes a cocktail or two. But I never knew him to drink to excess. That’s more of an Anglo custom.”

“But that was all years ago,” Simon reminded her. “Monterey was getting older. His body began to slow down and needed a booster. He might have started hitting the bottle in later years.”

Hannah smiled wickedly. “You are so right. Look at me. Without my after-dinner Drambuie I couldn’t make it into the drawing room. But you, a strapping young bachelor in your prime, need a double shot to steady your nerves just because you found a bomb under the hood of the car.” She paused, thoughtfully. “Simon, isn’t that a gangster sort of thing? A bomb in a car, I mean. What would Monte have been doing with gangsters?”

It was a gangster sort of thing, but they were getting nowhere with Monterey. Simon decided to take another route. “What about Sam Goddard’s great love? You were all for telling me the story back in La Verde.”

Hannah seemed relieved at the change of subject. “It was delicious,” she said, “but common knowledge. Sam married Lola for love, as Whitey said, but Sam grew, not merely financially. That too, but he grew intellectually and Lola was satisfied with a society-page sort of life. Sam was ambitious. He saw visions of the governor’s mansion for a time, but we were more prudish then. More hypocritical. It was pointed out to Sam that his long-standing affair with his secretary was too flagrant. Not that Lola objected. She was a good Catholic girl and accepted man for what he is, but Sam minded. He didn’t want the governorship without her. I don’t think he could have managed it without her. He was beaten badly, but that wasn’t only because of Vera—”

“Vera?” Simon echoed.

“Vera Raymond, the other woman. Most of Sam’s trouble politically was that he’d become too much of an idealist. That’s considered an encumbrance in the mature. We Americans expect it in youth—it’s considered bland but wholesome like Girl Scout cookies. But we can’t tolerate it in the sophisticated who are supposed to know enough to speak out of both sides of the mouth. With Sam it might have been a stroke of conscience. He made his fortune in land, not publishing. Land bought at a fraction of the real value when the Japanese were deported from California during the Second World War. Oh, how things did escalate in those days! Prices, black markets and that dirty rape of the Japanese. Most of us who lived here never understood why it was so important to save us from our gardeners and greengrocers—or was it done to protect them from us? With the military mind one never knows what cockeyed idea is coming next. But profits were made and Sam Goddard got his. I confess, Simon, that I don’t understand war. As I recall we got involved in that one because Hitler was burning people in ovens and that’s not nice and then we got out of it by dropping A-bombs and burning people without ovens which was patriotic and wonderful! I admit that I’m only a woman but I just don’t get it.”

Gently but firmly, Simon led Hannah back to the subject at hand.

“Vera Raymond,” he said, “what happened to her? Is she still alive?”

Hannah reflected. “As far as I know—yes. She stayed with Sam when his world went smash. He lost his wife, his son, his political status and his newspaper. But he still had his land. Do you still have that paper with Sam’s obituary? Does it mention Vera? No, of course it wouldn’t. Newspapers are for facts, not realities. Just the same, if Vera’s still alive she’ll be at Sam’s funeral. You can make book on that.”

The telephone rang. Simon answered. It was the man with the watchdog calling from a highway booth for directions to The Mansion. His timing was perfect. The sun was slipping behind a fog bank brooding over the coastline, and the shadows that were lengthening across the grounds didn’t seem as picturesque as usual. Simon related the route to the listener on the line and then placed a call to the editor of the
Marina Beach Tribune
. The paper had run a brief obit on Sam Goddard and had the information Simon needed. Burial was at 2
P.M
. of the following day from Willows Mortuary in a small retirement community called Enchanto-by-the-Sea, located fifty miles south on the Coast Highway.

• • •

Enchanto-by-the-Sea was some developer’s idea of a way to make a few million and retire to Las Vegas, but his timing or his bankroll had been amiss and what was to have been a paradisaical resort had become a cluster of dated, peeling stucco buildings housing the low-income overflow from the wealthier coastal towns to the north and to the south. Enchanto-by-the-Sea enchanted only from a distance with a wide-angle lens. Close up, it lost glamour like a sex-pot starlet without a press agent.

Willows Mortuary was easily identifiable. It was the most prosperous-looking building in town. When Simon pulled his black XK-E into the patron’s parking area only three other vehicles were in evidence: a Willows limousine, a huge blue Cadillac sedan with a La Verde dealer’s name on the license plate holder, and a five-year-old Ford coupé with a press card fastened to the under side of the sun visor. It wasn’t much of a gathering for the departure from earth of the flamboyant Sam Goddard, but the notice on the chapel door stated that the service was private and Simon was prepared to wait out the interval in the patio when the chapel door opened and to his surprise, Whitey Sanders beckoned him inside. Sanders seemed even larger in a black lounge suit and no less rugged.

“Saw you drive in, Drake,” he whispered. “Nice of you to come. The service is starting now.”

It was a decently brief affair. The Unitarian minister managed to review Sam’s life without making him sound like either a candidate for an equestrian statue or somebody who shouldn’t have been born, and whatever was erratically mortal about Sam was rightfully left to the judgment of God. The chapel was fairly light and Simon had no difficulty identifying Vera Raymond. She was a slender woman—probably in her late forties—smartly dressed in a navy blue knit suit and a beret-type hat small enough to show traces of gray in her severely cropped dark brown hair. Her features were small and finely chiseled, and she wore dark glasses which were probably a concealment for tear-reddened eyes. She had a fragile dignity, and when Sanders offered his arm she took it with one gloved hand in a gesture that indicated a deep need for masculine support. For a few moments Simon was so engrossed with the woman that he failed to notice the third mourner. He was a slightly seedy-looking man of about sixty, lean and stooped of shoulder. He showed emotion only in the way his fingers clutched the brim of a gray felt porkpie hat as if it were the guard rope separating him from a plunge into eternity.

There were flowers in the chapel (one large spray was from Hannah), and the sermon was followed by an organ interlude played by someone who had knowledgeable rapport with Bach. It was as simple a departure as could be arranged, but nothing could make a funeral service a happiness time and Simon was relieved when the last words of the benediction were spoken and all that was mortal of Sam Goddard was removed in its closed casket to the crematorium.

Simon was the first one to step outside into the sunlight, his fingers groping through his pockets for a cigarette. It was then that he noticed a fourth vehicle had come into the parking area: a dark green Cougar with dirty license plates. Two men wearing sunglasses were seated inside the car. Simon glanced back at the chapel schedule board and saw that no other funerals were listed for the day. Then he heard Vera Raymond speak and forgot the new arrivals. Her voice was soft and a bit hoarse. He was right about the reason for the dark glasses. The woman had been weeping.

“Charley Leem!” he heard her say. There was more than surprise in her tone. There was an undercurrent of dismay, as if she had been startled by the physical deterioration of the man who stood before her. She recovered grace quickly. “It was so nice of you to come,” she added. “It’s been such a long time!”

Vera Raymond had a good, honest voice. Simon pushed the cigarette back into his pocket and eavesdropped. He saw her hand grasp the hands of Charley Leem, who immediately dropped his hat and had to stoop to retrieve it. There was a bald spot in the center of his crew cut.

“I saw the teletype when it came into the newsroom,” he said. “It didn’t seem possible that Sam could be gone—like that. We had a good paper back in the old days, didn’t we, Miss Raymond?”

“We had a
great
paper, Charley,” she answered almost too emphatically, “and largely because you were on the city desk. What have you been doing with yourself all these years?”

“Oh, I’m still in the business. Got me a nice spot on a San Diego daily. Not like the old days, but a nice spot. Got me an apartment with a view of the bay and enough work to keep me out of trouble. Not that I can get in much trouble any more.”

“You look frisky enough to me to tackle the Hollywood jungle all over again,” Sanders broke in.

Charley Leem’s lips parted in what was probably as close to a smile as his face could manage. “Don’t try to make me feel good, Mr. Sanders,” he said. “With crutches and a liver transplant, I might make it, but I’d as soon not try. I hear the elegant times are gone. The damn town’s nothing but a bunch of TV factories now. That’s no way to run show business—with a slide rule and a bunch of frigging accountants in the front office! No thanks, Whitey, I’ll stick to my view of the harbor—which reminds me, I’m on the desk tonight.”

It was like old-home week and Simon was beginning to feel very much the uninvited guest until Charley Leem shuffled off toward the Ford and Sanders introduced him to Sam Goddard’s common-law widow. It was assumed that he understood everything about the relationship, and that was good. Vera Raymond’s hand was a little hesitant in his. She was wondering why he was present.

“Mr. Drake is a very good friend of Hannah Lee,” Sanders said. “He was in La Verde yesterday.”

That statement meant that Sanders had told Vera about the death of Monte Monterey. It was a natural thing to do. In a strange Hollywood way they had been almost related.

“I see,” Vera remarked. As long as she wore the glasses Simon could only guess how much she saw.

It was an awkward time when people said words just to break up the silence and cling to the time before Sam Goddard was an urn full of ashes. “Hannah wanted to come,” Simon said, “but she had enough excitement yesterday. Look, why can’t we go somewhere and have a drink even if it’s coffee?”

“I’d like to,” Vera Raymond said.