Росс Макдональд - The Ivory Grin

She introduced a diversion: “Anyway, his name isn’t Desmond. It’s Heist or something like that. I caught a glimpse of his driver’s license.”

“When?”

“Last night in the car.”

“The Buick?”

“Yeah. Personally I think he stole it. I had nothing to do with it. He already had it when he came to move me out of the apartment. He tried to tell me he found it, can you imagine. He said it was worth five thousand, probably more. I told him that was a lot of money for a secondhand Buick, but he just laughed.”

“Was it a green 1948 two-door sedan?”

“I don’t know the years. It was a two-door Buick, and that was the color. He stole it, didn’t he?”

“I think he found it all right. Did he say where?”

“No. It must have been in town, though. He had no car at suppertime and then at ten o’clock when he picked me up at the apartment, he was driving this Buick. Where would a guy find a Buick?”

“It’s a good question. Put on your clothes, Florie. I’ll look away.”

“You’re not going to arrest me? I didn’t do nothing wrong – anything wrong.”

“I want you to try to identify somebody, that’s all.”

“Who?”

“That’s another good question.”

I went to the window and tried to open it. I could hardly breathe the hot foul air sealed in the little room. The window rose four inches and stuck forever. It faced north towards the City Hall and the Mission Hotel. In the sun-stopped streets a few pedestrians trudged, a few cars crawled and snored. Behind me I heard the twang of a snagged comb, Florie’s quiet swearing, the pull and snap of a girdle, the slither of silk stockings, heels on the floor, water running in the sink.

At the rear of a bus depot below the window, a dusty blue bus was loading passengers: a pregnant Mexican woman herding half-naked brown children, a fieldworker in overalls who might have been the father of the children, an old man with a cane casting a tripod shadow on the asphalt, two young soldiers looking bored with any possible journey through any valley under any sky. The line moved forward slowly like a colored snake drunk with sun.

“Ready,” Florie said.

She had on a bright red jacket over the batiste blouse. Her hair was combed back from her face, which looked harder under a white and red cosmetic mask. She peered at me anxiously, clutching the red plastic purse.

“Where are we going?”

“To the hospital.”

“Is he in the hospital?”

“We’ll see.”

I carried her cardboard suitcase down to the lobby. Heiss had paid for the room in advance. The aged clerk didn’t ask me about the telegram. The contract players followed our progress across the lobby to the street with knowing looks.

In my car, Florie relaxed into hangover somnolence. I drove across town to the county hospital. Obscured by the dust and insect splashes on the windshield, wavering in the heat, the streets and buildings were like an image of a city refracted through Florie’s mind. The asphalt was soft as flesh under the wheels.

It was cold enough in the morgue.

She came out shivering, holding the red purse against her breast like an external heart that wouldn’t hold still. I supported her elbow. At the ambulance door she pulled away from me and went out by herself to the car. She stumbled on high heels across the gravel, dazed by too much light.

When I got in behind the wheel she looked at me with horror as if my face had been scorched, and slid far over against the opposite door. Her eyes were like large marbles made of black glass.

I took the yellow Western Union envelope out of my inside pocket: Mr. Julian Desmond, c/o Great West Hotel, Bella City, California. As long as Heiss was alive, it was a crime to open it. Since he was dead, it was legitimate evidence.

It contained a night letter sent from Detroit by someone who signed himself “Van”:

ONCEOVER LIGHTLY DURANOS AIRMAIL REPORT FOLLOWS. LEO ARRESTED FELONIOUS ASSAULT 1925 AGE TWENTY SERVED SIX ARRESTED 1927 KIDNAPPING NO CASE ALLEGED MEMBER OR PROTECTEE PURPLE GANG ARRESTED 1930 SUSPICION MURDER NOLLE PROSSED NO WITNESSES 1932 MURDER AIRTIGHT ALIBI ACQUITTED. BREAKUP PURPLE GANG LEO TO CHICAGO RAN GOON SQUAD THREE-FOUR YEARS THEN SYNDICATE TIEUP LEGIT FRONT HATCHECK CONCESSIONS. ARRESTED CONTRIBUTING DELINQUENCY MINOR EARLY 1942 COMMITTED STATE HOSPITAL DIAGNOSIS UNKNOWN RELEASED OCTOBER 1942 GUARDIANSHIP SISTER UNA PUBLIC STENOGRAPHER AND BOOKKEEPER. ENFORCER FOR NUMBERS RING ATTEMPTING TAKE OVER ROUGE AND WILLOW RUN PLANTS BROKEN UP 1943. 1944 LEO AND UNA ORGANIZED DETROIT-BASED NUMBERS RING STILL GOING GOOD PROTECTION ESTIMATED WEEKLY NET TWO TO THREE GEES. LEO AND UNA NOT SEEN MICHIGAN SINCE JANUARY YPSILANTI HOUSE CLOSED BANKS BEING RUN BY WILLIAM GARIBALDI ALIAS GARBOLD OLDTIME PURPLE ALUMNUS. NO RECORD ELIZABETH BENNING LEO LIVING WITH BESS WIONOWSKI PRIOR DEPARTURE MICHIGAN. DO I DIG DEEPER.

“I should go some place and lie down,” Florie said in a small voice. “You didn’t tell me he was dead. You didn’t tell me they blowtorched him. A shock like that is enough to kill a girl.”

I put the telegram away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know who it was until you identified him. What makes you so positive?”

“I worked for a dentist one time. I notice teeth. Julian had bad teeth. I could tell it was him by the fillings.” She covered her glassy black eyes with her hand. “Won’t you take me where I can lie down?”

“First the police.”

Brake was sitting at his desk with a deeply bitten sandwich in his hand. The bite he had taken was pouched in his cheek, rolling rhythmically with his chewing. He said around it: “The wife put up enough sandwiches to feed an army before I remembered to call off the picnic. I told her to bring some down here, save me lunch money. Lunch money mounts up.”

“Even with all this overtime?”

“I’m saving the overtime to buy a yacht.” Brake knew I knew that no cop ever was paid for overtime.

“Miss Gutierrez here has just made a positive identification on your torch victim.” I turned to her. “This is Lieutenant Brake.”

Florie, who had been hanging back in the doorway, took a timid step forward. “Pleased to meet you. Mr. Archer convinced me to do my duty.”

“Good for him.” Brake popped the remnant of his sandwich into his mouth. Whatever was about to happen or be said, he would have finished his sandwich. “Does she know Singleton?”

“No. It isn’t Singleton.”

“The hell it isn’t. The license was issued to Singleton, and the engine-number checks.” He tapped a yellow teletype flimsy on top of the pile in his “In” basket.

“It’s Singleton’s car but not his body in it. The body belongs to Maxfield Heiss. He was a Los Angeles detective. Florie knew him well.”

“I didn’t know him so well. He made advances to me, trying to pump me about my bosses.”

“Come inside, Miss Gutierrez, and shut the door behind you. Now tell me, who are your bosses?”

“Dr. and Mrs. Benning,” I said.

“Let her do her own talking. What was he trying to find out about them, Miss Gutierrez?”

“When Mrs. Benning came back and if she dyed her hair and all like that.”

“Anything about murder?”

“No, sir. Julian didn’t say nothing about a murder.”

“Julian who?”

“Heiss was using an alias,” I said. “We should get over to Benning’s.”

I turned to the door. There was a cork bulletin board beside it, with a number of frayed Wanted circulars thumb tacked to it. I wondered how Mrs. Benning would look in that crude black-and-white.

Brake said: “Can you swear to the identification, Miss Gutierrez?”

“I guess, if you insist.”