SIX
The girl at the desk in the Kenworthy said: «This man called you three times, Lieutenant, but he wouldn’t give a number. A lady called twice. Wouldn’t leave name or number.»
Delaguerra took three slips of paper from her, read the name «Joey Chill» on them and the various times. He picked up a couple of letters, touched his cap to the desk girl and got into the automatic elevator. He got off at four, walked down a narrow, quiet corridor, unlocked a door. Without switching on any lights he went across to a big french window, opened it wide, stood there looking at the thick dark sky, the flash of neon lights, the stabbing beams of headlamps on Ortega Boulevard, two blocks over.
He lit a cigarette and smoked half of it without moving. His face in the dark was very long, very troubled. Finally he left the window and went into a small bedroom, switched on a table lamp and undressed to the skin. He got under the shower, toweled himself, put on clean linen and went into the kitchenette to mix a drink. He sipped that and smoked another cigarette while he finished dressing. The telephone in the living room rang as he was strapping on his holster.
It was Belle Marr. Her voice was blurred and throaty, as if she had been crying for hours.
«I’m so glad to get you, Sam. I — I didn’t mean the way I talked. I was shocked and confused, absolutely wild inside. You knew that, didn’t you, Sam?»
«Sure, kid,» Delaguerra said. «Think nothing of it. Anyway you were right. I just got back from Puma Lake and I think I was just sent up there to get rid of me.»
«You’re all I have now, Sam. You won’t let them hurt you, will you?»
«Who?»
«You know. I’m no fool, Sam. I know this was all a plot, a vile political plot to get rid of him.»
Delaguerra held the phone very tight. His mouth felt stiff and hard. For a moment he couldn’t speak. Then he said: «It might be just what it looks like, Belle. A quarrel over those pictures. After all Donny had a right to tell a guy like that to get off the ticket. That wasn’t blackmail … And he had a gun in his hand, you know.»
«Come out and see me when you can, Sam.» Her voice lingered with a spent emotion, a note of wistfulness.
He drummed on the desk, hesitated again, said: «Sure. When was anybody at Puma Lake last, at the cabin?»
«I don’t know. I haven’t been there in a year. He went alone. Perhaps he met people there. I don’t know.»
He said something vaguely, after a moment said goodbye and hung up. He stared at the wall over the writing desk. There was a fresh light in his eyes, a hard glint. His whole face was tight, not doubtful any more.
He went back to the bedroom for his coat and straw hat. On the way out he picked up the three telephone slips with the name «Joey Chill» on them, tore them into small pieces and burned the pieces in an ash tray.
SEVEN
Pete Marcus, the big, sandy-haired dick, sat sidewise at a small littered desk in a bare office in which there were two such desks, faced to opposite walls. The other desk was neat and tidy, had a green blotter with an onyx pen set, a small brass calendar and an abalone shell for an ash tray.
A round straw cushion that looked something like a target was propped on end in a straight chair by the window. Pete Marcus had a handful of bank pens in his left hand and he was flipping them at the cushion, like a Mexican knife thrower. He was doing it absently, without much skill.
The door opened and Delaguerra came in. He shut the door and leaned against it, looking woodenly at Marcus. The sandy-haired man creaked his chair around and tilted it back against the desk, scratched his chin with a broad thumbnail.
«Hi, Spanish. Nice trip? The Chief’s yappin’ for you.»
Delaguerra grunted, stuck a cigarette between his smooth brown lips.
«Were you in Marr’s office when those photos were found, Pete?»
«Yeah, but I didn’t find them. The Commish did. Why?»
«Did you see him find them?»
Marcus stared a moment, then said quietly, guardedly: «He found them all right, Sam. He didn’t plant them — if that’s what you mean.»
Delaguerra nodded, shrugged. «Anything on the slugs?»
«Yeah. Not thirty-twos — twenty-fives. A damn vest-pocket rod. Copper-nickel slugs. An automatic, though, and we didn’t find any shells.»
«Imlay remembered those,» Delaguerra said evenly, «but he left without the photos he killed for.»
Marcus lowered his feet to the floor and leaned forward, looking up past his tawny eyebrows.
«That could be. They give him a motive, but with the gun in Marr’s hand they kind of knock a premeditation angle.»
«Good headwork, Pete.» Delaguerra walked over to the small window, stood looking out of it. After a moment Marcus said dully: «You don’t see me doin’ any work, do you, Spanish?»
Delaguerra turned slowly, went over and stood close to Marcus, looking down at him.
«Don’t be sore, kid. You’re my partner, and I’m tagged as Marr’s line into Headquarters. You’re getting some of that. You’re sitting still and I was hiked up to Puma Lake for no good reason except to have a deer carcass planted in the back of my car and have a game warden nick me with it.»
Marcus stood up very slowly, knotting his fists at his sides. His heavy gray eyes opened very wide. His big nose was white at the nostrils.
«Nobody here’d go that far, Sam.»
Delaguerra shook his head. «I don’t think so either. But they could take a hint to send me up there. And somebody outside the department could do the rest.»
Pete Marcus sat down again. He picked up one of the pointed bank pens and flipped it viciously at the round straw cushion. The point stuck, quivered, broke, and the pen rattled to the floor.
«Listen,» he said thickly, not looking up, «this is a job to me. That’s all it is. A living. I don’t have any ideals about this police work like you have. Say the word and I’ll heave the goddamn badge in the old boy’s puss.»
Delaguerra bent down, punched him in the ribs. «Skip it, copper. I’ve got ideas. Go on home and get drunk.»
He opened the door and went out quickly, walked along a marble-faced corridor to a place where it widened into an alcove with three doors. The middle one said: CHIEF OF DETECTIVES. ENTER. Dejaguerra went into a small reception room with a plain railing across it. A police stenographer behind the railing looked up, then jerked his head at an inner door. Delaguerra opened a gate in the railing and knocked at the inner door, then went in.
Two men were in the big office. Chief of Detectives Ted McKim sat behind a heavy desk, looked at Delaguerra hard-eyed as he came in. He was a big, loose man who had gone saggy. He had a long, petulantly melancholy face. One of his eyes was not quite straight in his head.
The man who sat in a round-backed chair at the end of the desk was dandyishly dressed, wore spats. A pearl-gray hat and gray gloves and an ebony cane lay beside him on another chair. He had a shock of soft white hair and a handsome dissipated face kept pink by constant massaging. He smiled at Delaguerra, looked vaguely amused and ironical, smoked a cigarette in a long amber holder.
Delaguerra sat down opposite McKim. Then he looked at the white-haired man briefly and said: «Good evening, Commissioner.»
Commisioner Drew nodded offhandedly, didn’t speak.
McKim leaned forward and clasped blunt, nail-chewed fingers on the shiny desk top. He said quietly: «Took your time reporting back. Find anything?»
Delaguerra stared at him, a level expressionless stare.
«I wasn’t meant to — except maybe a doe carcass in the back of my car.»