If I were anything but a private dick he might have been a little warmer toward me. But he was simply incapable of understanding any attitude except the police department’s and so he could only believe I was deliberately wilful if we didn’t see eye to eye.
Presently O’Leary finished off her conversation and hung up. “The things I do for you,” she complained. “Telling lies to the police! What are you going to dp, Willie?”
“Give up, I guess. I haven’t a thing to work on.”
“You can still get Lida Randolph’s job. She called me again this morning about you.”
I gave her a sharp scrutiny. “Just why,” I asked, “are you so anxious for me to take that job?”
“Well... it’s... it’s a job. And you need—”
“Save your little white lies for the cops, baby,” I said unpleasantly. “You’re ears get as red as a neon sign when you’re lying.”
“They do not,” she snapped... “Do they really, Willie?”
“Absolutely. You’re doomed to a lifetime of telling the truth. Tell it now.”
“All right,” she grinned ruefully. “Randolph knows DeCoudre well. She will put in a good word with him for me to do the publicity for his picture if you go to work for her.”
“Fine thing!” I said. “Working for a guy like DeCoudre. Have you forgotten about Elaine Jordan?”
“That happened at a party. I’m just going to work for him.” She came around behind me, put her arms on my shoulders and her nose in my hair. “He’s really starting a comeback, Willie. It’s a big chance for me. What difference does it make if DeCoudre is an old lecher. I won’t have anything to do with him directly.”
“Anyway at all I can’t see him.”
“Maybe the president of Standard Oil is a wife beater,” she argued, “but every employee doesn’t walk out on his job, does he?”
I couldn’t win an argument with her if I had a lawyer to help.
Finally I told her to tell Lida Randolph I’d investigate her burglary. But I had my fingers crossed too. I wasn’t going near her. As soon as Maggie got her publicity job Fd call Randolph and say I was stumped, and there was no fee.
“I’m still working on the Bressette case,” I growled at O’Leary. “The police will turn up something on the Anselmo shooting. Somebody must have seen who fired that shot. I figured it out — it had to be somebody on the street.”
O’Leary was reaching for the phone to call Randolph. “Maybe one of the street photographers got a picture of him.”
“Hey!” My yell scared the phone right out of her hand. “That’s it. The street photographer. He was there in the crowd. I remember seeing him now. He could have done it.”
She put the phone down. “You’re just guessing, Willie.”
“Sure, I’m guessing. But look at it: somebody on the street shot Anselmo from behind. Nobody was near enough to him at the time to be able to hit him without aiming. Yet nobody saw him. A street photographer could aim his camera with the gun held against the side, and nobody would ever notice.”
“Well,” O’Leary conceded, “if he was next to the building he would be covered on that side.”
“Sure. And that guy has been under my feet for two days. He was always just a camera before. I didn’t realize until now it was always the same man behind it. He’s been following me.” O’Leary said: “Willie, I think you’ve got it! It has to be him. It fits too perfectly. I’ll bet we can get his name from the picture company.”
“You call ’em,” I told her. “Get whoever you talked to this morning and have him look up the number on the card you turned in.”
The man at the film company didn’t like the idea of doing all that checking, but O’Leary could charm the rattles off a snake. She got the information.
“Marty Wensel. Hotel Junipero.” She scribbled it down. “Between Fourth and Fifth, on Main. Thanks so much.” She hung up, her eyes shining. “Do you know where that is, Willie?”
“I know. Let’s go.”
We went out and buzzed for the elevator. A big man stepped out as we were getting in. I paid no attention to him but just as we sunk below floor level I saw through the glass door of the elevator that the man was trying my door. O’Leary looked at me. I said, with my lips: “Copper.”
“One of Kissinger’s men,” O’Leary suggested silently.
I nodded. When we reached the ground floor we got the hell out of there before the dick realized he had bulled things up. Kissinger would have his heart on a salver for that.
Chapter Five
Frame for Murder
Main street in this city isn’t what you might expect by the name. In the early days it may have been the heart of Los Angeles, but with time and wealth the city had spread out and away from the downtown section. Now Main Street was cheap, garish and loud. If your tastes were earthy, Main Street was the place to go. Burlesque shows, bistros, ten-cent movies, pawn shops, marihuana joints and flop houses. Whatever it was, Main Street had it.
The Hotel Junipero was one cut above a flop house. It was upstairs over a row of shops with the stairway just barely getting through to the street. O’Leary stayed close to my side as we mounted the dim, smelly stairway.
We came out in what had to be called the lobby. There was no one in sight. A small desk, fronting an alcove, held a hand bell and a sign suggesting we ring for the manager. Instead of ringing, I leaned over the desk and found the register on a shelf underneath. Together we went over it. There was no Marty Wensel registered for four months back.
“Either a phony name,” I said, “or he just used this as an address. We’d better ring for the manager.”
“Won’t I do?” I didn’t have to turn around. I’d know Lieutenant Kissinger’s skeptical, slightly nasty voice anywhere. “Nice of you to come down, Carmody. Where’s Packard?”
I turned around anyway. “Who’s Packard?”
“The man I sent to get you.” His sharp eyes got suddenly watchful. “He did bring you, didn’t he?”
“No,” I said. “We’re down here on a personal matter. Maggie’s Uncle Tim has been on a two-week bat and we’re just looking for him.” O’Leary kicked me neatly and unobtrusively on the ankle. “You remember Maggie, don’t you, lieutenant?”
Kissinger said grudgingly: “How are you, Miss O’Leary?” He knew now that she had been lying to him on the phone, and he was hurt. “If you’re all through clowning, Carmody, let’s have the truth. What do you know about this shooting?”
“Nothing. I had an appointment with Anselmo,” I admitted. “But he was shot before I talked to him.”
“Anselmo?” Between the first and third syllable, his voice changed from bewilderment to casualness, but not quick enough for me to sense I’d pulled a bull myself. “Oh, yes. Anselmo.”
“Then it wasn’t the Hollywood shooting you wanted to see me about.”
“No,” he said. “Why did you think it was?”
I nonchalantly reached for a cigarette just to show him I wasn’t bothered. I discovered I didn’t have any left. It wouldn’t have impressed him anyhow. “That’s obvious. Every time somebody gets knocked off out there, you always think I’m involved.”
“And I seldom go wrong! As a matter of fact, Carmody, I’m not on the case. I’ve got a murder down here.”
O’Leary blurted: “Marty Wensel?”
Without a word Kissinger dug out a notebook and a stubby pencil and wrote down the name before answering. “No. A little rum-pot named Pop Kurbee. That’s the name he used on the register. You want to go over to the morgue, Miss O’Leary and see if he’s your Uncle Tim?”