“I don’t think he’s that kind of hater,” Dave said. “Are you Lauder?”
“I’m White, Wilbur White. Bob Lauder and I have been partners since we got out of the Army—World War II. We’ve had bars all over L.A. County. Fifteen years here in Venice.”
“Where is he now?”
“Bob? He’ll be in at six. Today’s my long day. His was yesterday. It’s getting exhausting. We haven’t replaced Robbie yet.” He tried for a wan smile. “Of course we never will. But we’ll hire somebody.”
“You live in Venice?” Dave asked.
“Oh, heavens, no. Malibu.”
It was a handsome new place on the beach. Raw cedar planking. An Alfa Romeo stood in the carport. Dave pulled the company car into the empty space beside it. The house door was a slab at the far end of a walk under a flat roof overhang. He worked a bell push. Bob Lauder was a time getting to the door. When he opened it he was in a bathrobe and a bad mood. He was as squat and pudgy as his partner was the opposite. His scant hair was tousled, his eyes were pouchy. He winced at the daylight, what there was of it.
“Sorry to bother you,” Dave said, “but I’m death claims investigator for Medallion Life. Arthur Robinson was insured with us. He worked for you. Can I ask you a few questions?”
“The police asked questions yesterday,” Lauder said.
“The police don’t care about my company’s ten thousand dollars,” Dave said. “I do.”
“Come in, stay out, I don’t give a damn.” Lauder flopped a hand and turned away. “All I want is sleep.”
It was Dave’s day for living rooms facing the Pacific. Lauder dropped onto a couch and leaned forward, head in hands, moaning quietly to himself.
“I’ve heard,” Dave said, “that Robinson was good for business, that you were happy to get him back.”
“He was good for business,” Lauder droned.
“But you weren’t happy to get him back?”
“Wilbur was happy.” Lauder looked up, red-eyed. “Wilbur was overjoyed. Wilbur came un-goddam-glued.”
“To the extent of letting Robinson take what he wanted from the till?”
“How did you know? We didn’t tell the police.”
Dave shrugged. “He was hurting for money.”
“Yeah. Wilbur tried to cover for him. I let him think it worked. But I knew.” He rose and tottered off. “I need some coffee.”
Dave went after him, leaned in a kitchen doorway and watched him heat a pottery urn of leftover coffee on a bricked-in burner deck. “How long have you and Wilbur been together?”
“Thirty years”—Lauder reached down a mug from a hook—“since you ask.”
“Because you didn’t let the Arthur Thomas Robinsons of this world break it up, right? There were others, weren’t there?”
“You don’t look it, you don’t sound it, but you have got to be gay. Nobody straight could guess that.” Lauder peered into the mouth of the pot, hoping for steam. “Yes. It wasn’t easy but it was worth it. To me. If you met Wilbur, you’d see why.”
Dave didn’t. “Do you own a hunting rifle? Say a thirty-thirty?”
Lauder turned and squinted. “What does that mean? Look, I was working in the bar when Robbie got it. I did not get jealous and kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking. Or did I do it to stop him skimming fifty bucks an evening off the take?”
“I’m trying to find out what to think,” Dave said.
“Try someplace else.” Lauder forgot to wait for the steam. He set the mug down hard and sloshed coffee into it. “Try now. Get out of here.”
“If you bought a rifle in the past five-six years,” Dave said, “there’ll be a federal registration record.”
“We own a little pistol,” Lauder said. “We keep it at the bar. Unloaded. To scare unruly trade.”
Where Los Santos Canyon did a crooked fall out of tree-green hills at the coast road, there was a cluster of Tudor-style buildings whose 1930 stucco fronts looked mushy in the rain. Between a shop that sold snorkles and swim-fins and a hamburger place Dave remembered from his childhood, lurked three telephone booths. Two were occupied by women in flowered plastic raincoats and hair curlers, trying to let somebody useful know their cars had stalled. He took the third booth and dialled the television people again.
While he learned that Bambi O’Mara had definitely been in Bear Paw, Montana at the time a bullet made a clean hole through the skull of the man she loved, Dave noticed a scabby sign across the street above a door with long black iron hinges. L. DIETERLE REAL ESTATE. He glanced along the street for the battered Triumph. It wasn’t in sight but it could be back of the building. He’d see later. Now he phoned Lieutenant Ken Barker.
He was at his desk. Still. Or again. “Dave?”
“Shevel is lying. He wouldn’t lie for no reason.”
“Your grammar shocks me,” Barker said.
“He claims he met Robinson when he was in the hospital. After his so-called accident. Says Robinson was an orderly. But at the Sea Shanty they say Shevel walked in one night and met Robinson. According to a girlfriend, Robinson was never anything but a bartender. You want to check Junipero Hospital’s employment records?”
“For two reasons,” Barker said. “First, that rifle didn’t have any prints on it and it was bought long before Congress ordered hunting guns registered. Second, an hour ago the Coast Guard rescued a kid in a power boat getting battered on the rocks off Point Placentia. It wasn’t his power boat. It’s registered to one Bruce K. Shevel. The kid works at the Marina. My bet is he was heading for Mexico.”
“Even money,” Dave said. “His name is Manuel—right? Five foot six, a hundred twenty pounds, long hair? Somewhere around twenty?”
“You left out something,” Barker said. “He’s scared to death. He won’t say why, but it’s not just about what happened to the boat. I’ll call Junipero.”
“Thanks,” Dave said. “I’ll get back to you.”
He left the booth and dodged rain-bright bumpers to the opposite curb. He took a worn step up and pushed the real estate office door. Glossy eight-by-tens of used Los Santos and Surf sidestreet bungalows curled on the walls. A scarred desk was piled with phone directories. They slumped against a finger-smeared telephone. A nameplate by the telephone said, L. Dieterle. But the little man wasn’t in the chair back of the desk.
The room wasn’t big to start with but a Masonite partition halved it and behind this a typewriter rattled. A lumberyard bargain door was shut at the end of the partition. Tacked to the door was a pasteboard dimestore sign, NOTARY, and under it a business card. Verna Marie Casper, Public Stenographer. He rapped the door and a tin voice told him to come in.
She’d used henna on her hair for a lot of years. Her makeup too was like Raggedy Ann’s. Including the yarn eyelashes. She was sixty but the dress was off the Young Misses rack at Grant’s. Glass diamonds sparked at her ears, her scrawny throat, her wrists, the bony hands that worked a Selectric with a finish like a Negev tank. She wasn’t going to, but he said anyway: “Don’t let me interrupt you. I just want to know when Mr. Dieterle will be back.”
“Can’t say,” she said above the fast clatter of the type ball. “He’s in and out. A nervous man, very nervous. You didn’t miss him by long. He was shaking today. That’s a new one.”