I was still sitting behind Blinder’s desk when Red walked in with Williams close behind. Red looked down at Drakos, walked over to look at Blinder, and then crossed to Benny. He stood there several long minutes. Williams sat on one of the short bookcases stuffed with law books, stared at me for a while, then pulled a notebook from his cheap suit coat and started writing.
After Red had spent time examining all three dead men, he came over to me, and asked, “You can explain all this, right?”
“I can tell you who killed who and in what order. That’s easy. The why of it all is more difficult.”
“Well, let’s start with the easy stuff. And stick with the facts. Stay off the guesses.” He sat on one corner of Blinder’s desk, pulled out a little cigar, and lit it. “I know Tsongis, but who are the other two?”
“The one in the doorway was a gunsel named Nick Drakos. He’s a Testor boy from Philly and the Feds wanted him for a shooting in St. Louis. They say he’s responsible for a dead U.S. Marshall. Yesterday, or maybe the day before, he killed a hood named King Bolardis and dumped him out at Ballona Creek. At least, I think he did. Andy Cooper knows more. Talk to him. Anyway, Drakos was the last to go. I shot him. With this.”
I handed my gun to Red, and he sniffed at the barrel. “I shot him for the simple reason that he had a gun on me, and I believed he intended to use it.” I looked over at Williams, put some lemon in my voice, and said, “That, and the killing he’s already done, are enough to show self-defense, I suppose, but I have more, if you need it.”
Williams just kept writing.
“What was a crook from Philly doing out here? And what are you doing here?”
“That’s where things start getting difficult, Red. Let me finish with Benny and the other guy, and then I’ll answer your questions.”
“Ok.”
“The little old guy was a lawyer named Addison Blinder. This is his place. Used to be Hayden Tinge’s house.”
“I know. I was here the night Bobby Andrus died. It’s not a place you forget. There aren’t too many Italian castles in Los Angeles.”
“I thought it was supposed to be Spanish, but what do I know about castles?” I grabbed for a cigarette, but then I thought about my mouth being sore and stopped. Instead, I said, “Blinder was also here that night. Maybe you remember him?”
“Can’t say that I do. But I spent most of that night standing out by the gate, keeping the newshounds away.”
“It doesn’t really matter. Benny killed Blinder. I couldn’t tell you how he did it exactly. It may have been with that fancy stick on the floor – Benny hit him awfully hard with that – but it may have been with that gun over there. He shot him up close, but the old man may have already been a corpse by then. I don’t know.”
Williams stopped writing long enough to look over at the dead lawyer and throw an acid glance in my direction.
“Benny wanted to shoot me with the same gun. He’d already hit me with the damn thing twice.” I gestured to my face, which still ached and felt bruised and swollen. “But he got that idea a little too late, and nothing came of it.”
“So who got Benny?”
“Blinder. With that little derringer. Hit him twice. Once, in the shoulder, which didn’t do much but make Benny mad. The second shot went in close and low, and it looks like it blew through an artery. He died from the bleeding before the ambulance got here.”
“And where you were in all of this?”
“In this chair, mostly. Getting beat up by Benny.”
“So now give me the why. And start with why you’re here.”
“Because Blinder was the reason the Henderson kid died.”
For the first time, Williams broke in, and in that unpleasant voice of his, said, “Wayne, we don’t know how Summers got into the house, do we?”
Without hesitation, I said, “I broke in.” I looked at Red and added, “Out in the living room, you’ll find some French doors with broken glass by the handle. I broke the glass, unlocked the doors, and let myself in. I wasn’t waiting for an invitation.”
“You’re freely admitting, without coercion of any kind, that you broke and entered a private residence?” Williams asked.
Red shut him down. “I got three stiffs on the floor and a live guy with a swollen kisser and blood all over him. Breaking and entering is the least of my concerns. But make yourself useful and go check his story. Maybe you can write something about that.”
Williams left the room, and Red shook his head. “I hate that bastard.” He put his cigar in his mouth, sucked angrily, and then exhaled the smoke forcefully. “Sometimes I feel just like I’ve been sent to hell.” He pulled at his cigar again and repeated, “just sent to hell,” sounding as tired and beat as an old hound tied down in a yard without shade on the afternoon of the driest, sunniest, and hottest day of the year. He pulled the cigar from his mouth, licked at his lips, and then asked, “What makes you think Henderson died because of Blinder?”
“As I make it, Red, it was Blinder’s idea to steal that fancy jewelry from Roger Clayman. I think Blinder felt abused. Felt that he hadn’t gotten his share of all the money he helped Clayman make. Then too, Clayman was as good as dead and none of his money – all that was left of it – was going towards Blinder. So, the little lawyer thought he’d help himself to something big before it was all gone.”
I rubbed at my face and found dried blood on my skin. My cheek was swollen and hurt when I pressed on it. I traced the cuts Benny’s gun had made. They were longer and deeper than I expected. Red offered me a handkerchief, which I took, but then did nothing with it, just held it in my hand as I continued the story.
“Blinder knew Benny. I don’t know how exactly. I have my guesses, but they’re pretty thin and don’t matter anyway. The simple fact is, they knew each other.”
Williams came back and reported, “The door’s broken, just as he said.”
Red looked at him, said, “How about that? At least we’ll have one solved crime in our report.” He grinned sarcastically, and there was a meanness in Red I hadn’t seen before. “Now, sit there, listen, and just take your notes. When I want you to do something different, I’ll let you know.”
Red turned back to me and asked, “Want that handkerchief a bit colder and wetter?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“Give it to me, then.”
I did, and he said, “Williams, go get this wet and make sure it’s cool.”
“The kitchen’s just down the hall and to the right,” I said. “You’ll probably find some blood on the floor. Drakos first jumped me in there. We fought. He lost.” Williams looked at me with all the spite he could muster, and I smiled and asked, “May I have some water, too?” He said nothing but yanked the handkerchief from Red and left.
I went on. “Benny knew the Henderson boy. And Henderson, in one of those odd twists of fate, worked for Clayman. Blinder must have thought Henderson was his personal gift from the gods – a thief with access to everything in Clayman’s house. And a thief Benny could push around.”
My head ached and my mouth was dry, so I stopped talking for a bit. I licked my lips and swallowed what little spit I could muster. Then I went on.
“But one day Clayman found the boy in a place he didn’t need to be with no good reason. He knew the kid’s background, and not being the trusting type, he did all he could to shut down the kid’s chances of getting his hands on anything valuable. That meant Blinder needed another plan. The way I put it together, Blinder knew Clayman needed cash, and he suggested Clayman sell the stuff, using a jeweler in New York. Clayman was too sick to travel, so Blinder volunteered to take the jewels there himself. But this was all a con, just to get Clayman to hand over the stuff.”
Williams came back with a glass of water and the handkerchief. I took both. Surprisingly, the handkerchief was damp and cool. I dabbed it on my face and said “Thanks.”
After I had cleaned away the blood, I held the cool rag against my cheek. It felt good. I drank all the water in one long slug, and that felt even better.
Looking back at Red, I said, “Blinder tried to hire me to shepherd him and the jewels to Manhattan. But I was going to be his patsy and wasn’t going to make it out of Los Angeles. Benny and a young pal of his were going to bump me off, and the jewels and I would disappear. Word on the street was that I was hard up for money. That would give me a motive, and the trip to New York would be my opportunity, and no one would bother squinting around too hard after me. Or the jewels.”
I wiped at my face with the rag some more.
“Only Henderson came through. He used Clayman’s collapse to grab the stuff and take it to Benny.”
I had to stop again. I breathed deeply a few times before going on.
“Now this part is just guesses, Red, and the only ones who would know how good they are are dead. So, take it, or leave it, but it makes sense to me.”
Maybe I said that to let him know he could dismiss what I was going to say, or maybe I said it because the thought that he didn’t care about my guesses left me angry.
“That afternoon at the Gilbert was part of Blinder’s original plan. With no trust among thieves, Blinder couldn’t be sure that Benny would turn over the jewels or wouldn’t hold him up for more dough, and Henderson, having no confidence that Benny would ever pay him his cut, wasn’t interested in giving the stuff to him at all. The Gilbert solved those problems. Henderson could give the jewels directly to Blinder and Blinder wouldn’t have to put up any dough until he had the stuff in his hands.”
Red broke in with a question. “Why didn’t Benny and the boy just jump Blinder, take the dough, and keep the jewels for themselves?”
“Because, to Benny, Blinder was worth a lot more than whatever he could get for the rocks. Blinder had access to morphine and pharmaceutical grade heroin. And Benny could do enough math to know that could be worth hundreds of thousands.”
“So why kill Henderson?”
“To protect Blinder. The kid knew him. Had seen him at Clayman’s place. Blinder even stood up for the kid once. After Clayman found him nosing around in his office. Benny had reasons to stick with Blinder, but Henderson had none. Which meant there was always the risk that Henderson might turn his knowledge to his own benefit sometime. So, he had to go. At least, that’s how I read it.”
“Anything behind this string of guesses?”
“Upstairs, in Blinder’s bedroom, in a little chest on the night table, you’ll find a fancy diamond ring. The one Henderson stole from Clayman.”
Red looked over at Williams and said, “Go get it.”
Williams left, still wearing that huge chip on his shoulder, and I continued. “Over in the closet, under the carpet, you’ll find some morphine and heroin. A guy named Gilles Martin who runs a little company that imports chemicals can tell you how the stuff got from France and into Blinder’s closet. He may have other things to tell you about Clayman and Blinder. How dirty that might be, and whether it will mean anything to you, I don’t know. But he’s been around for a long time. Long enough to know a lot.”
“There’s also a kid, goes by Detto, laying in Georgia Street Receiving, with a monkey on his back. He can tell you about the plan to make me a dead patsy and about how Benny got paid for the stuff. But he might not do it without persuasion.”
“My last guess is that Clayman’s necklace is in that safe over there. But, if it’s not, it’s somewhere in this house. Look hard enough. You’ll find it.”
Williams came back with the ring. He gave it to Red, who looked at it quickly, then put it on the desk. Williams reached over and picked it up.
Red turned back to me and asked, “How does the gunsel fit in?”
“Cooper will tell you about a carpenter named Ray Schmidt who was killed on Bunker Hill a few days ago. That Bolardis fellow did the deed, but Drakos was with him. I could put Drakos at the scene. He’d already shut Bolardis’s mouth. He wanted to do the same to me. He tried two nights ago, broke into my place last night, and has been following me around ever since, I guess. He followed me here.”
Somewhere in all of this, the lab boys and the medical examiner turned up. They started working, and Red and Williams and I went to sit in the dining room. I sat in the chair behind the unfinished solitaire game. Red buzzed me on my story a few times, and even let Williams ask me some questions. I studied the cards from time to time as we were talking, and the game looked unwinnable to me. Too many columns ended with a club, and that was the one ace Blinder hadn’t uncovered.
After that, they planted me in that big empty living room and left me alone. It had gone dark by then, and the only light I could find was a floor lamp down by the piano. I turned it on and sat on the piano bench. I opened the lid, exposing the keys, and ran off a quick scale with both hands. It was a nice piano – a bit out of tune, but not so badly I couldn’t play it. I played a Field nocturne, the one in E minor, and then I did a tune Russ had showed me; one that Bruce played. It was slow and quiet, and I liked it.
Red came in and listened until I finished the song. When I was done, he put a hand on my shoulder.
I closed the piano, stood up, and asked, “Can I go? Or does Williams want to arrest me?”
“He mentioned something about that. I suggested he go straight to hell.” He smiled and said, “Go home. I know where to find you, if I have to.”
“Thanks. Can someone open a gate for me? I don’t want to crawl through that hedge again.”
When I got home, I found a letter of nine pages from my sister, Ruth. She didn’t write often and when she did it was never more than a page or two. Curious, I sat at the table and read through it quickly – as quickly as I could get through all those pages of her tiny, delicate script. When I finished, I took off my shoes, my coat, and my tie, went into the kitchenette and fixed myself a drink. I stared into the glass for a bit, thinking about Ruth’s letter, and then went into the living room, sat down in my big chair, and called Cliff.
I gave him the highlights, and he said he’d talk to McCarty in the morning. He didn’t say a word about me frisking Blinder’s place or about Benny and Blinder being dead. But that’s how Cliff could be. He was being paid to get Croft out of trouble, and so the important fact for him was that Clayman’s ring had been found in a place the cops couldn’t tie to his client. The rest of the stuff was just window dressing that explained how it got there.
I called Sheila to thank her for her help and to tell her that Cliff and I had enough to convince McCarty to drop the charges against Bill. I also told her that Blinder was dead and promised to give her the full story tomorrow, once we knew what McCarty was going to do.
I had a cigarette and fixed another drink. My mouth still hurt. I read Ruth’s letter again.
Then I called Bess. I laid the story out for her, and, like a good reporter, she had a lot of questions. Some I could answer and some I couldn’t. Not because I was hiding anything, but because I didn’t have all the answers. You never know everything you want to know.
I asked if she wanted to meet me at the Hickory for drinks – or maybe dinner – sometime in the next few days. She asked if the next evening would be too soon. I said it wouldn’t. We agreed on dinner and said goodnight.
I put on the radio and listened to a quiz program and then a comedy show. I couldn’t find much to like about either one. After the comedy show, I found a remote from Ciro’s. The band was professional enough – I couldn’t complain about that – but the music they played was light and cheap and said nothing to me. I turned it off after two songs and went to bed.
Lettres d'un Inconnu 