The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance (2 page)

Beyond Wayne, who looked at me with his forehead furrowed in curiosity, the Murphy bed stood open and on it lay the former Lewis Vance. He was definitely not asleep, with that hole through his forehead.

I must have looked sick, surprised, or bewildered.

“You did that?” Wayne said, pointing his gun at the corpse.

“No,” I said, as emphatically as I could. I even shook my head, which was one hell of a mistake. The red cotton candy inside my skull turned to liquid and threatened to come out of every available opening.

Slowly, painfully, I told my tale. The call, the offer from Vance, the drugged Pepsi. Wayne listened, nodding once in a while.

“And,” I concluded, “I’ve got a feeling that hole in Vance’s face came from a bullet in my gun, the one in your hand, the one with your fingerprints on it.”

Wayne looked at the gun nervously and said, “Supposing I believe you. Where do we go now?”

First I asked him why he was in the room, holding my gun.

“Got a call,” he said, gun still on me, though he looked over at the corpse from time to time. “Man said I should get over here fast, a friend of mine, Grant Withers, had taken an overdose of something. I came fast and walked in to find you out with the gun in your hand and your friend Vance. He’s never been my stand-in. I don’t owe anyone any money and no one is looking for me. I was planning on going to a party at C.B. DeMille’s to celebrate the release of
Reap the Wild Wind
when the call came. I don’t think old C.B. is going to be too happy that I didn’t come. Won’t surprise me if I’ve worked for him for the last time.”

The rain got louder and the day darker.

“Why should I believe you, Peters?”

“When you were a kid you used to play in the driveway of Pevsner’s grocery store in Glendale,” I said, making my way back to the chair and dropping into it. “About two blocks from the drugstore where your dad worked. You used to go to that driveway and throw a ball against the wooden wall. You did that for about two weeks till Pevsner’s son came out and hit you in the head.”

Wayne’s mouth opened slightly and his hand went up to his head, a spot right behind the ear.

“That was you?” he said.

“My brother, Phil,” I said. “He’s a Los Angeles cop now.”

I figured Wayne was about thirty-five or thirty-six now, but there was still a little of that kid in him.

“I thought you said your name was Peters, not Pevsner,” Wayne said suspiciously.

“Professional change,” I said. “I thought your name was Marion Morrison.”

“You made your point,” he agreed. “But knowing your brother beat me up when I was a kid doesn’t exactly prove you didn’t shoot that fella over there.”

I got out of the chair again and started to stagger around the room in the hope of clearing my head and returning my agonized body to its former, familiar level of constant ache.

“Let’s go over it,” I said, looking at Vance. “Someone wanted me here. Vance or someone else. Let’s figure the idea was to set me up for Vance’s murder. Vance thought it was for something else. Who knows what? He put me out with the drink and our killer steps in, takes my gun, and punctuates Vance.”

“And then,” Wayne interrupted, “the killer calls me and I come over and step into it. Publicity could ruin the DeMille picture and maybe my career. Could be we’re dealing with an old enemy of mine.”

“Could be we’re dealing with an old enemy of both of ours,” I said. “The only one I can think of is my brother Phil, and I doubt if he’d go this far to get either one of us. Maybe it’s a blackmail deal. The phone will ring and we’ll get … No. It would have happened by now. It’s a frame-up, simple and dirty.”

“Let’s try it another way,” Wayne said, furrowing his brow. “Fella over there puts something in your drink. You feel yourself going out, get out the gun, put some holes in him, and pass out. I come in, find the gun in your hand, and …”

“Who called you?” I said. My mind was starting to work again, not as well as I would have liked, but that’s the way it usually worked even when I hadn’t had a boiled Pepsi.

“Beats me, Pilgrim.” Wayne shrugged.

The knock at the door cut off our further exploration of possibilities. We looked at each other, and he delegated me with a wave of the .38 to be the door-opener. I opened the door. The woman standing there was more than thirty and less than fifty but that was about the best I could do with her age. She had a body that could’ve passed for twenty-five. Her hair was red and frilly. So was her tight dress.

She looked at me, at Wayne, whom she didn’t seem to recognize, and over at Vance on the bed, who had his head turned away.

“You didn’t say anything about three,” she said. “Three is more.”

She stepped in, looked at Wayne, and added appreciatively, “Maybe not much more.” He had pocketed the gun in his windbreaker and was looking at me for an explanation.

“What did I say?” I said. “On the phone.”

She stepped in, put her small red handbag on the yellow table next to my doctored Pepsi, and looked at me as if I had a few beans loose, which I did.

“You said ten tonight,” she said, looking now at the body of Vance with the first hint of awareness. “It’s ten and here I am.” Then she turned to Wayne, looked at him enough to get him to look away, and added, “You really are Randolph Scott.”

“John Wayne,” I said.

“Right,” she said with a snap of the fingers. “That’s what you said, John Wayne.”

Her eyes stayed on Wayne, who gave me a sigh of exasperation and said, “Thanks for clearing it up for the lady, Peters. I wouldn’t want her to forget who she met here.”

She took a few steps toward the Murphy bed and Vance out of curiosity, and I eased over as fast as my retread legs would let me to cut her off.

“Are you sure it was me on the phone?” I said, putting my face in front of hers.

“You don’t know if you called me?” she said, trying to look over my shoulder at Vance. “Voice on a phone is all I know. You trying to back out of this? And what’s with the guy on the bed?”

Wayne was leaning against the wall now, his arms folded, watching. He wasn’t going to give me any help.

“We’re not backing out,” I said. “You’ll get paid, Miss …”

“Olivia Fontaine,” she said.

“Class,” I said.

“Thanks,” she answered with a smile that faded fast. “That guy on the bed. Is he hurt or something?”

“Or something,” I said.

“He’s dead, lady,” Wayne said, pushing away from the wall. “And we’re going to call the police.”

“Dead?” she repeated, and backed away from me. “I don’t want no part of ‘dead,’” she said, looking for something, finally spotting her red bag and clacking her red high heels toward it.

“You’re going to have to stay awhile,” Wayne said, stepping in front of the door. “I don’t like this much, but you walk out of here and that’s one more complication that has to be unwound.”

“You didn’t talk like that to Claire Trevor in
Stagecoach
,” Olivia Fontaine said with her hands on her hips. “She was a hooker and you was … were nice to her for Chrissake.”

“That was a movie, lady,” Wayne said.

“Me, other girls I know, love that movie,” she said, forgetting for a second the corpse on the bed. “I saw it five times. Hooker goes riding off with you at the end to a new life, ranch or something. Only thing is, I thought you were Randolph Scott.”

The second knock at the door was louder than Olivia’s. It was the one-two knock of someone who was used to knocking at hotel room doors.

Olivia, Wayne, and I looked at each other. Then Wayne nodded at me.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Hotel detective,” came a familiar voice. “Got a call to come up here.”

Wayne shrugged. Olivia looked for someplace to hide, found nothing, and sat in the chair I had recently passed out in. I opened the door, and he came in. He was Merit Beason, sixty, a massive white-haired man who had once been shot by a Singapore sailor. The shot had hit him in the neck, and when it had become clear he would survive, it also became clear he would never be able to turn his neck again. Hence Merit Beason became known as Straight-Ahead Beason. The stiff neck cost him his job as a Los Angeles cop but it gave him a strange dignity that got him steady if not high-paying work in hotels. Straight-Ahead looked like a no-nonsense guy, a stand-up, almost British butler in appearance, with strong ham arms and a craggy face. His suit was always pressed and he always wore a tie. Straight-Ahead avoided a lot of trouble just by looking impressive, but he wasn’t going to be able to avoid this one.

He took it all in fast, Olivia, me, Wayne, and the body.

“You know the guy on the bed, Merit?” I said.

He stepped into the room, closed the door behind him, and looked at me carefully.

“Before we talk,” he said without turning his body to John Wayne, which would have been the only way to acknowledge the actor, “I want the cowboy to ease the radiator out of his pocket and put it nice and gentle on the dresser. You think we can arrange it?”

Wayne took the gun out and did just what Straight-Ahead wanted.

“Good start,” Beason said, though he hadn’t turned to watch. In the thirty years he had looked straight ahead, he had developed great peripheral vision. “I’ve seen the gent staining the Murphy around the lobby now and then. Gave him a light rousting. Mean customer. Threatened to cut up Merit Beason. Can you imagine that, Toby?”

“Can’t imagine it, Merit,” I said, shaking my head for both of us. Something he said hit me gently and whispered back that I should remember it.

“You or the cowboy or the lady shoot him?” Merit asked.

“None of us,” I answered.

“Speak for yourself,” Olivia said, jumping up. “I didn’t shoot him is all I know.”

“Sal,” Beason said, his body moving toward the corpse, “I thought you agreed to stay out of the Alhambra after the unfortunate incident of the trollop and the ensign. You recall that tale?”

“I recall,” she said. “I’m not Sal anymore. I’m Olivia, Olivia Fontaine.”

Straight-Ahead was leaning forward over the bed in that awkward stiff-back way he had. When Merit moved, people watched.

“And I am now General Douglas MacArthur.” He sighed, touching the body carefully. “The former Mr. Vance has been with his maker for maybe five hours. That how you peg it, Toby?”

“’Bout that, Merit,” I agreed.

He stood up, pushing his bulk from the bed with dignity. The springs squealed and the body of Lewis Vance bounced slightly.

“And what do we do now?” he asked.

“We call the police,” said Wayne.

“That the way you want it?” Beason said.

“No,” Wayne admitted, stepping forward. “It’s not the way I want it, but it’s the way it has to be, isn’t it?” He pointed at the bed and said, “We’ve got a murdered man here.”

“Not the first in the Alhambra,” Straight-Ahead said. He now had his hands folded over his belly like a satisfied Sunday School teacher. “You even had one last time you filled in for me, if my memory serves me, right, Toby?”

“You’ve got it, Merit,” I agreed. “Salesman in five-twelve, but it was suicide, not murder.”

“Not that time,” he agreed. “Not that time.” Then to Wayne: “No, you see, Mr. Wayne, hotels usually don’t like to promote the number of people who get killed within them. It’s not like they keep charts and compete with each other because it will bring in new trade. No, we usually do our best to keep such things from the attention of the populace.”

I explained, “It is not unheard of for a corpse to be carted off to some alley by a house dick.”

Wayne shook his head and looked at us as if he had been trapped in a room with the incurably insane. “You mean you’re suggesting that we just take …”

“Vance,” I supplied, “Lewis Vance.”

“Right, Vance,” Wayne said. “That we take Vance and dump him in some alley and walk away?”

“No,” I said emphatically.

“Of course not,” Straight-Arrow concurred. “Too many people involved now and you’re too big a name. Sal—”

“Olivia,” she corrected from her chair as she reached for my unfinished Pepsi.

“Olivia,” Merit said, “would be happy to walk away and forget it. Toby knows the routine. He’d walk in a twinkling.”

I nodded agreement and reached Olivia just as she was bringing the glass to her mouth. I took it from her. She gave me a dirty look, but I weathered it and put the flat, warm drink on the dresser near the gun.

“So,” Wayne said. “What now?”

“We get the killer in here and try to work something out,” I said.

“That’s the way of it,” Straight-Ahead agreed.

“But we don’t know who killed him,” Wayne said, running his hand through his hair.

“Sure we do,” said Straight-Ahead, looking straight ahead at Wayne.

“We do now,” I agreed. Olivia didn’t give a damn.

I moved to the telephone, picked it up, and dialed a number.

“The who of it is easy,” said Merit, unfolding his hands and scratching his white mane. It didn’t do his image much good but his head clearly itched. “It’s the why we have to figure. Then we’ll know what to do.”

The killer answered the phone on the third ring and I said, “Get up to three-oh-three fast.” I hung up.

The rain took this pause in the conversation to get really mad and started rocking the window in its loose fitting. It rocked and rattled and said bad things while we waited.

“Can I go?” Olivia asked Merit.

“Let’s all just stay cozy till we wind it up,” Merit said. “That’s how you put it in the movies, right?”

“Wrap it up,” Wayne volunteered with a sigh. “Call it a wrap.”

Straight-Ahead nodded and filed that information for future use.

“You think he might skip?” I asked.

“Human nature is a fickle thing. He might skip, it’s true, but where’s he to go? And going will be a confession. No, he’ll bluff it out or try. Besides, he doesn’t yet know that we know.”

“That’s the way I see it,” I agreed.

Wayne and Olivia looked at each other for an answer, got none, and joined Straight-Ahead in looking at the door and listening to the rain and the rattling window. I glanced at Lewis Vance’s body, trying not to be angry about what he had done to my head and gotten me into. Then the knock came, almost unheard under the noise of the rain.