Dead Seed (4 page)

“Mr. Tryden?” she asked me.

I nodded.

She pointed to a door in the far wall. “Go right in,” she said, and pressed a button on her desk.

He was standing by his desk when I entered. It was a shock. I was looking at the spitting image of another of my old cinema idols, Tyrone Power. He was dressed in somber gray flannel.

“So you are a cousin of Carl Lacrosse,” he said.

I nodded. “You know the name?”

“I should. I worked in a camera shop for four years. His middle name is Tryden, isn’t it?”

I nodded again. “But I’m not really a—a first cousin. It’s kind of complicated.”

“Sit down, Mr. Tryden,” he said.

I sat in a straight-backed chair at the end of his desk.

“You are telling me, then, that Joel Lacrosse is Carl’s son? He denied any relationship when I asked him.”

“From what little I know, I guess he would. Carl doesn’t spend much time in Skeleton Gulch. To be frank with you, Mr. Sarkissian, Carl and I have never been close. I’m surprised that he phoned me.”

“But the fact remains that he phoned you. He must have some concern about the boy’s welfare.”

I shrugged.

“What is he doing in Bern?”

I shrugged again. “Maybe checking his Swiss bank accounts.”

He smiled. “It’s strange but, despite his reputation, I never thought of Lacrosse as being rich.”

“You can’t prove it by me. He was never real commercial, but my Aunt Lilah always claimed Carl still had the first nickel he had ever earned.”

He nodded absently. He looked past me into space. “Since we moved up here, Mr. Tryden, we have been under constant harassment from our neighbors.
That
is why we need the high fence. But this is not a racket. This is a true religion.”

I smiled. “And who has more right to the title? Weren’t Armenians the very first Christians?”

He smiled back at me. “My parents always claimed they were. You know about Armenians, do you, Mr. Tryden?”

“Very little,” I said. “I had a chauffeur years ago named Levon Apoyan and I learned that from him. And one more thing—they hate Turks.”

He sighed. “With reason. That was a holocaust the history books have slighted or ignored. You may tell your cousin that his son is in good hands.”

“I will. Could I speak with him for a few minutes?”

He shook his head. “Not for at least two weeks. He is now in his incubation period.”

“I get it,” I said. “He is being reborn. Would it be all right if I came back in a couple of weeks?”

“Of course,” he said. “But phone first, won’t you?”

“Of course,” I said. “And thank you for your courtesy.”

The flaxen-haired girl in the outer office smiled at me as I went through. “Peace,” I said. “Love.”

“Why not?” she said. She winked and held up a circled thumb and forefinger.

Vartan had better put that one back in the incubator. Unless she was in on the take.

The man at the gate was still reading
The Racing Form
when I pulled up there. He opened the gate and let me through.

I leaned out the window to tell him, “If you get rain and a wet track, and you spot a horse named Galloping Ghost running at Hollywood Park, lay on him heavy.”

“A mudder, huh?” he said. “You been charting him?”

“I own him,” I said, and started down the rocky road.

Below me, the city glittered in the morning sun. Around me, the grass and shrubs were gray and lifeless. And dry. We needed rain!

I didn’t go home. I went down to the station. In Bernie’s office the room was blue with cigarette smoke, his desk piled high with papers.

“Now what?” he asked.

“I came in to report, sir. The cult you mentioned yesterday is called The New Awareness. It is run by a man named Vartan Sarkissian. The Lacrosse kid claims he is not related to Carl.”

“You talked with him?”

“Nope. He is in seclusion at the moment, in his incubation period.”

“What is he, an egg?”

“More or less. In two weeks, his shell will crack open and we will have a reborn chick, ripe and ready for the new awareness.”

“Oh, God—!”

“And one other item,” I added. “Mrs. Lacrosse’s van was still parked on Dwight Kelly’s driveway this morning. It was probably there all night. Either she’s richer than we thought or Dwight Kelly has a lust for big mamas.”

He shook his head. “What a busy little bee you have been. And what is your interest in all this?”

“I have none. I hereby turn it over to you. Want to go to lunch?”

“I brought my lunch. I’ll be eating while I work.”

“Okay, see you around,” I said and started for the door.

“Don’t rush off,” he said. “Go get us a couple of Cokes or coffee, if you’d rather have that, from the machine in the hall. I’ve got extra sandwiches.”

“How nice!” I said. “A picnic! Could I open a window?”

“You get the drinks. I’ll open the window.”

When I came back with one paper cup full of coffee and a bottle of Coke for him, he handed me a tuna-fish sandwich and said, “Start at the beginning and tell it in detail.”

I gave it to him almost verbatim from our trip to Charley’s Chowder House to my tip on Galloping Ghost.

He shook his head when I’d finished. “Oy! If we honest cops could work like you, our jobs would be a breeze.”

“Huh!” I said.

“Huh what?”

“Does your vice squad work in uniform, or undercover? Don’t
any
of you practice entrapment?”

Nothing from him but a scowl.

The only creature Bernie hated more than a murderer was a crooked cop. Not that Bernie wouldn’t cut a corner here and there in building a case. But he figured his allegiance was to the taxpayer, not the crook. He would have made a lousy welfare worker.

I took a less intransigent view of the boys on the seamy side of our society. I’d had to work with them in Los Angeles. And I didn’t share Bernie’s devout belief that ninety-nine percent of all cops were honest. He had never worked in a big-city department; San Valdesto had been his only bailiwick.

“May I go now?” I finally asked.

He started to light a cigarette and then threw it angrily out the open window. “Those damned things!”

I stood up.

He stood up, too, and stretched. When he looked at me again he seemed less tense. “You were right about what you said this morning. I’d love to nail Kelly. But I’ll need an okay from the Chief if you’re going to get involved. I’ll do some discreet questioning this afternoon and drop in for some free booze on the way home. Okay?”

“Okay, buddy. And stop sulking about that captaincy. You don’t need the extra money.”

“To hell with the money. I just like to know I’m appreciated.”

I
T WAS HARD FOR ME
to believe that the dashing hero of my youthful dreams, the man who did his own stunts, would run from trouble. It had to be Carol he was protecting. When the showdown came, I was sure, he would unsheathe his sword of destiny and protect his princess.

Showdown. Why had that word almost triggered some dim memory in me? It had almost reached the surface of recognition—before fading.

There was no place to go but home. I went there. A dusty Plymouth two-door sedan was parked where the van had been parked before; I didn’t recognize the car, but I knew the youth behind the wheel.

He had come to me a year ago for advice. A few months later, when he was twenty-one, I had helped him get his investigator’s license. It was Corey Raleigh, the boy detective, a tall, gangly kid.

I went in to tell Mrs. Casey I’d already had lunch and then went down to the Plymouth. “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“You know better than to ask that, Mr. Callahan,” he said stiffly.

I opened the door on the curb side and slid in next to him. “Didn’t I tell you to stick with insurance claims and credit checks? Why this Sam Spade bit?”

Nothing from him. He didn’t look at me, staring rigidly ahead.

“Are you waiting for Miss Medford to come home?”

“Don’t ask,” he said.

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the Sheriff’s car pulling up behind us. I said, “Okay, Corey. If you won’t answer my questions, get ready for his.” I reached for the door handle.

He looked in the mirror. His voice was shaky. “Don’t go. Stay! Please?”

“All right. Let me handle it. You’re too young to start lying.”

The same young deputy who had questioned me came to Corey’s side of the car and looked down at us. “Well—!” he said.

“Something wrong, officer?” I asked him.

“We got a call from next door again,” he told me.

“From Charles?”

“Who’s Charles?”

“The butler. Corey came here to talk with me.”

“Is that so?” To Corey, he said, “Could I see your driver’s license, please?”

“He wasn’t speeding,” I said. “I can attest to that.”

The young deputy glared at me, his jaw muscles rigid. Corey handed him the license. The officer glanced at it and handed it back. “Have you known Mr. Callahan long?” he said.

“That,” I said, “is none of your business.”

He said harshly, “I was talking to
him.”

I took a deep breath and said evenly, “If you want to run us down to the station and book us, we’ll go. We will answer no more questions. And I resent very much this invasion of our privacy.”

There was a long silence while we glared at each other like a pair of adolescent nitwits. Then he said, “We got a call. I answered it. We answer all calls. I don’t relish, being lectured on invasion of privacy by a man who made his living by invading privacy.”

“And I don’t relish being slandered,” I told him. “I’ll go in and phone my attorney and we can all go down to the station together. Mr. Raleigh will be my witness for the slander charge. I’ll be right back.” I opened the door and started to get out.

He said tonelessly, “There’s no need for that. As I said, we answer all calls. I—apologize for the remark.”

He went back to the car and drove away.

“Man!” Corey said. “You are one great liar!”

“You’ll learn the art, and so will he. Have you had lunch?”

He nodded. “I brought a couple of sandwiches. This could shape up as a long stakeout.”

“You should have brought a tent and a week’s supply of groceries. Come in the house and we’ll have a beer. You can still watch the Medford driveway from there.”

We sat on the patio where we had a view of the driveway and sipped our beers. “What are you charging these days?” I asked him.

“Three dollars and twenty cents an hour,” he told me. “That’s the legal minimum, right? That’s the law.”

I kept a straight face. “Not for the self-employed. You’ll never get a downtown office on three dollars and twenty cents an hour.”

Nothing from him.

“Did you line up any insurance companies or loan offices?”

“Not yet.”

“Did you try to?”

He shook his head.

“This is not Los Angeles,” I explained to him patiently. “This is not Philip Marlowe country.”

He continued his silence. He sipped his beer and kept his eagle eye on the driveway next door.

“Who is your client?” I asked him.

He didn’t answer.

“You owe me, Corey,” I reminded him. “I just got you out of a jam and you owed me before that. Who is your client?”

“Her name is Mrs. Lacrosse,” he said.

“Did she come to your office?”

He shook his head. “She phoned me and I went to her house.”

“She doesn’t have a house, not in this town. Was the house you went to on Cathedral Oaks Road?”

He stared at me and nodded. “Do you know her?”

“I do. That house you went to belongs to an ex-cop, a crooked cop who got fired and is now a crooked non-cop. You could wind up in the can or maybe even dead. Don’t you check out your clients?”

He shook his head. “I can’t afford to be choosy. I guess I’d better tell her I quit, huh?”

“If you’re scared. If you’re not, I’ll pay you an extra five dollars an hour to stay with it and report back to me.”

He frowned. “Like a double agent? Isn’t that unethical?

“It is. But that is the road you chose. I tried to steer you onto the credit check, divorce, bail bond, and insurance road. This was your decision.”

He said nothing, looking doubtful.

“And when Miss Medford comes home,” I told him, “I’ll phone you. We can help each other. She is a friend of mine and in trouble, I think.”

He took a deep breath. And then, “All right. I’ll tell Mrs. Lacrosse that I bribed a maid in there to keep me posted. You know, in case she checks to see if I’m watching the house?”

“Now you’re getting the professional attitude. Another beer?”

“Nah. I was up all night sitting in a liquor store that’s been robbed a lot lately. I’m going home and take a nap.”

He went home to his nap. I worked on the weights and tried not to feel guilty. I told myself that I had not put Corey into a position any more perilous than he had chosen for himself. I almost believed it.

Mrs. Lacrosse and her son had been a minor irritant that probably would have been remedied if the lovers had not fled town. It was their flight that had brought in the more threatening characters.

Carol Medford, as Jan had said, had spent her life avoiding the realities of this cruel world. And Fortney Grange, I reminded myself, had not really been a warrior. He had been an actor, playing the part. Grow up, Callahan!

Jan came home looking less gloomy but not quite cheerful. “I sold her,” she told me.

“Good!”

“But it was her taste that won, not mine. I have decided to raise our markup ten percent. People should pay for bad taste.”

“Jan, that’s unethical!”

“Not in the decorating racket. How was your day?”

I gave it to her, blow by blow, over our drinks. When I’d finished she said, “Corey is going to charge the Lacrosse woman for work he isn’t doing. Wouldn’t you call that unethical, too?”

I shook my head. “Not at three dollars and twenty cents an hour.”

She was starting to give me an argument on that when Bernie came out to the patio. I went to get him his Scotch.

He had not, he told me, been able to learn from his peers whether Mrs. Lacrosse had talked with Kelly’s cop friend when she was at the station. “But I had another visitor this afternoon, a man named Sidney Morgenstern. He identified himself as Fortney Grange’s agent. He was a very classy gentleman.”