Росс Томас - Twilight at Mac’s Place

“Sure. Mr. Burns grabbed me from behind the moment I came through the door. I broke away, turned and whacked him on the nose before we recognized each other.”

“Where’d you learn to roll a paper up all nice and tight like that?”

Haynes shrugged. “High school maybe.”

“They teach it in arts and crafts? Never mind. So when you went up there with the Times all rolled up nice and tight, who were you expecting to hit?”

“Nobody. It was just in case.”

“Just in case of what, Granny?”

“In case I might have to defend myself.”

“Because nobody asked who you were over the intercom?”

“Right.”

“So you and Burns had a little tussle and you gave him a bloody nose.”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“When his nose stopped bleeding we went into the bathroom and he showed me Miss Gelinet’s body.”

“Then?”

“Then we called the police.”

“What’s Burns do for a living?”

“He sells weapons.”

“Where?”

“Paris”

“What’d he do before he did that?”

“He was a professional soldier.”

“In whose army?”

“The American Army and after that the French Foreign Legion. There may have been other armies after the Legion, but you’ll have to ask him.”

“He an American citizen?”

“French”

“But he used to be American?”

“Yes”

“And you’re an actor, that right, Granny?”

“Yes”

“And what’d you do before you got to be an actor?”

“I was a homicide detective.”

The detachment left Detective-Sergeant Pouncy’s face, shoved aside by sudden anger. “No call for smartass stuff. No call for that at all.”

“I was with the LAPD for almost ten years, seven of them in homicide.”

“You gotta know I’m gonna check it out.”

“Go ahead.”

“So how come you didn’t lemme know right away from the start?”

“Because if I’d found some guy in a dead woman’s apartment who right away wants me to know he’s an ex-D.C. homicide cop, I probably wouldn’t’ve let him loose till around midnight. If then.”

“Figure he’s dirty, huh?”

“It’d make me wonder.”

“You really an actor?”

Haynes nodded.

“Been in anything I might’ve seen?”

“You watch TV?”

“Not unless she makes me.”

“I was in a Wiseguy , a Jake and the Fatman , and I had two speaking roles in a couple of Simon and Simons! ”

“That the one with the black cop called ‘Downtown Brown’?”

“Yes.”

“You ever know a real cop that’d tell a private one what year it was?”

“Never.”

“Then how come they’re always such asshole buddies on TV?”

“Because the private cop has to have a legitimate connection to law and order.”

“Who says?”

“Hollywood ethics.”

“What the fuck’s Hollywood ethics?”

“Nobody knows,” said Granville Haynes.

It wasn’t until after he had used the dead Isabelle Gelinet’s telephone to call the Los Angeles Police Department and speak to the irrepressible Sergeant Virgil Stroud in robbery and homicide that Detective-Sergeant Darius Pouncy was nearly convinced that Haynes and even Tinker Burns were probably what they claimed to be.

After an exchange of the usual amenities and the usual information about the weather (a high of seventy-two degrees and fair in Los Angeles; down to forty-one degrees and looking like rain or snow in Washington), Pouncy asked, “You ever have a real slick article out there in homicide by the name of Granville Haynes?”

“Haynes... Haynes” said Sergeant Stroud. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Claims he used to work for you people.”

“And you need his home phone number, right?”

“What the fuck I want with his phone number?”

There was a brief silence until Stroud said, “Oh. You mean Granny Haynes. Sure. He used to work here. What’s he up to?”

“Up to his ass in a homicide investigation, is what.”

“Who bought it — somebody rich?”

“Not hardly.”

“Reason I asked is because Granny’s the one we liked to send when rich folks bought it. Real nice manners. Neat dresser. Spoke French, Italian and fair Spanish. Made some damn good cases, too. You’re lucky you—”

Pouncy broke it off. “Hey. We’re not looking to hire him. We just wanta check him out. Claims he used to be a homicide cop but now he’s an actor”

“Ever see a low-budget slasher flick called Thirteen Hangingtree Lane ?” Stroud asked. “Came out two, three years back and Granny goes down into the basement of this big old house. The one in Hangingtree Lane. And there’s this fat sack of slime down there with an ax. Now, this is Granny’s first feature speaking role. So just before this guy with a face like a four-cheese pizza takes Granny’s head off with the ax, Granny gets to say, ‘Listen! Please! I’m here to help you!’ And then his head goes flying off and they cut to the corner of the basement and there’s Granny’s head, looking surprised as hell.”

“Guess I missed it,” Pouncy said. “How much you figure he got paid for doing all that?”

“Probably SAG minimum. Maybe four hundred bucks.”

“What’s SAG?”

“Screen Actors Guild.”

“He was a cop then?”

“Sure.”

“Out there you let cops be actors?”

“Lemme ask you something,” Stroud said. “If you’ve gotta moonlight, which’d you rather be — an actor or a liquor store security guard in some low-rent neighborhood?” Without waiting for an answer, Sergeant Stroud chuckled his good-bye and broke the connection.

The driver of Tinker Burns’s hired limousine had chosen Park Road as the best route to Sixteenth Street. It was nearly 8 P.M. and they were somewhere in darkest Rock Creek Park when Burns ended the long silence in the backseat. “I’ll take care of Isabelle’s cremation and funeral and everything.”

“They’ll have to do the autopsy first,” Haynes said.

“I mean after that.”

“Will the cops call Madeleine?” Haynes asked. Madeleine was Madeleine Gelinet, mother of the dead Isabelle and former mistress of Tinker Burns.

“You think Sergeant Pouncy speaks French?”

“Maybe Madeleine’s learned English.”

“Never” Burns said. “I figured I’d go back to the hotel, have a couple of drinks and then call her.”

“Does she know about Steady?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You can tell her about him, too.”

Burns shifted uneasily in the seat, not quite squirming. “Maybe you’d rather call her?” he asked without hope.

“No thanks,” Haynes said. “She still in Nice?”

“Where else? She’ll never part with that house.”

There was another silence that lasted until they turned south down Sixteenth Street. It was then that Burns asked, “Who d’you think killed her?”

“No idea.”

“Guess.”

“Maybe a guy prowling for a TV set. Maybe the neighborhood rapist. Maybe even some weirdo who followed her home and got off on tying her up and drowning her in the bathtub.”

“They said there weren’t any signs of forced entry.”

“Forced... entry,” Haynes said, spacing the words as if to savor them. “Let’s say he rings the bell from downstairs. Isabelle asks ‘Who is it?’ over the intercom and he says it’s Federal Express. Well, Federal Express people are about as common as mailmen. I know guys in Century City who use Federal Express to send scripts from the tenth to the thirty-sixth floor by way of Memphis. So Isabelle buzzes him up. He knocks at her door. She opens it on the chain and sees this guy with a clipboard and a Federal Express packet he’s fished out of the trash can. She opens the door all the way and winds up dead in the bathtub.” Haynes paused. “How’d you get in?”