Howard Fast - The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs

“She became a full-time prostitute.”

“If you want to call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

“I don’t call it. To me, it’s no worse than being a cop.”

“We won’t discuss that. You said she was a hundred-dollar-a-night girl. You don’t walk the streets and pick up hundred-dollar customers. Did she have a pimp?”

“No!” Cooper snapped. “She hated their guts.”

“Then how did she work?”

“Do you know a place called The Bar?”

“Just that, The Bar?”

“That’s right. It’s in Hollywood, up on a hill to the left as you drive into Laurel Canyon. A driveway up to a parking lot, and then from the parking lot up a staircase. It’s got a lot of color and a wonderful view of the city lights. It’s a bar and restaurant, and the food isn’t bad, and it’s the kind of place people go when they don’t want to be seen. There’s always two or three girls working out of the place, and the guy who runs it, George Denton, is pretty decent to the girls. It brings him trade. There’s no cheap pickup. I suppose you could call George a pimp, because if a guy wanted something, George hustled it, but he never took more than ten percent from the girls. Mitzie worked out of that place until she met Fuller. I guess she met him two years ago. He gave her a couple of small parts, but she was no great shakes as an actress.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Masuto rose and held out his hand. “Thanks, Cooper.”

Cooper took his hand. “Forgive me for not getting up. I’m washed out. I work my ass off in this place, and I don’t know for what.”

Masuto let himself out, closing the door behind him.

A strange world, Masuto thought, wherein he earned his daily bread, a world of sunshine and palm trees and million-dollar mansions where a girl with the face of an angel was a hooker and a Zen Buddhist was a cop and a grocery store in Beverly Hills sold tomatoes for a dollar and seventy cents a pound and a boutique sold dresses that weighed less than a pound for three thousand dollars. But, he wondered as he got into his car, was any world less strange? On a planet gone mad and apparently intent upon destroying itself, was Beverly Hills abnormal?

He maintained his sanity and his equanimity by refraining from judgments. He did his work, and although it was past quitting time, he still had work to do.

He drove north to Santa Monica Boulevard and then to Sunset Boulevard, through the Strip into Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Somewhere in back of his mind was a recollection of a place called The Bar. It went back through the years, but the more he plucked at it, the more it eluded him.

There on his left was the modest sign and the arrow. THE BAR. He turned onto the driveway and drove up to the parking lot, a high angle drive about a hundred yards long. Half a dozen cars were already there. Against the wall of the hill, a wooden staircase went up another forty feet or so.

Masuto climbed the staircase. From the landing at the top, the view was magnificent, the whole of the Los Angeles bowl spread out in front of him, glittering in the night like some vast jewel. He was never unconscious of the beauty of Los Angeles. The beauty resisted the most fervent march of tackiness and bad taste that the development, which is euphemistically called civilization, had ever produced. The beauty fought back, even, as Masuto thought in his more optimistic moments, as truth and decency fought back.

He looked at the view for a moment or two more, and then he went inside. Like most Los Angeles restaurants, the place was underlit. Lamps on the tables, a few lights at the entrance, but for the most part a muted interior. There was a bar, a screen, and a dozen tables. At the far end, a spinet piano at which a black man improvised the blues.

A tall, good-looking man of about fifty, dark-haired, with a long, narrow face that had become habitually fixed in an expressionless mask, wearing working evening clothes, approached Masuto. He studied the detective, examining his battered tweed jacket, his wrinkled gray flannel trousers, and his tieless shirt.

“Can I help you?” The noncommittal question which left a variety of outs.

Masuto showed his badge.

“Would you come into the light?”

Obligingly, Masuto put the wallet which contained his badge under the reservation light. “Detective Sergeant Masuto,” he said. “Beverly Hills police.”

“Aren’t you out of your territory, Sergeant?”

“Mr.-”

“George Denton.”

“I see. This is your place?”

“That’s right.”

“Now I’m sure,” Masuto said, “that you know enough about the way the law functions in Los Angeles County to know that I can go anywhere in the county in pursuit.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Denton asked sardonically. “Hot pursuit? Isn’t that what the law says?”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“Well, look around you. I know every customer in the place. No criminals. So unless you got a warrant, I’d rather not have the fuzz around. It gives my place a bad name.”

“Your place has a bad name.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just this,” Masuto said quietly. “You’re running a classy whorehouse. Now I don’t mind you defending your business, but don’t knock mine. I’m a mild-mannered person, but I’ve had a long day, and I’d just as soon come down on you like a ton of bricks as not. I don’t owe you one damn thing, and if you think I couldn’t smash this joint and close up your lousy business, just try me. And if you think I’m off my own turf, I’ll pick up that phone and have two black-and-whites here in five minutes, and then you can tell your story to the L.A. cops.”

“Hey, wait a minute. Hold on.”

“And you’ll address me as Sergeant Masuto.”

“Okay, Sergeant. Okay. Look, I run a quiet, decent place here. No one gets cheated and no one gets rolled. I been in business twelve years and I never had no trouble. You can’t blame me for getting a little riled when a Beverly Hills investigator comes in and starts asking questions. My God, why would you want to close me up? I’ll show you places in Beverly Hills with five times the action we ever have here.”

“I don’t want to close you up. I want some information.”

“Okay, Sure. Come over here and sit down.” He led Masuto to a small table near the bar. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thank you. Do you know Mitzie Fuller?”

“She was Mitzie Kogan when I knew her. That was before she married Billy Fuller. I suppose he found out that she had turned a few tricks, and that finished their marriage. She was a good kid. A real beauty. A real strawberry blonde beauty. But she hasn’t been back here since she met Fuller. She told me she wasn’t coming back. I was glad. I wished her luck.”

“That was how long ago?”

“Almost two years ago.”

“And before that, how long did Mitzie work out of this place?”

“Three years, give or take a few months.”

“How did it work?” Masuto asked. “I mean, what time did she turn up?”

“Between eight and nine most of the time. You can see, there’s not much action before then. Of course, there were nights when she’d come in at six or seven and just hang around listening to Joe over there playing the piano. She was crazy about his blues, and you don’t hear much blues these days, nothing but rock.”

“Joe was working here then?”

“That’s right. I keep my help. That ought to say something about the kind of a place I run.”

“Would Mitzie stand at the bar or sit at a table?”

“Sometimes the bar, sometimes a table, sometimes up there with Joe. It would depend. Say, what’s she into? I’d hate to see that kid get hurt.”