My phone rang for two days. First it was Randolph’s business manager inviting me out to the house for a conference. He was a little hurt when I stalled him.
Next, Western Union had a telegram for me from East Peoria. Doctor Bressette, asking hopefully if I’d contacted Laurie yet and when was she coming home? I simply didn’t have the courage to answer him. I had a sneaking suspicion that Laurie was never going home — except in a box.
A little later O’Leary called to say happily she had already signed to do the publicity on DeCoudre’s new picture.
“In fact,” she said, “I’m releasing our first big story for tomorrow.”
“Which is?”
“Lida Randolph is going to star in the picture.” She said it like she had achieved a personal triumph. “That’s how she could get me the job. I mean that was the condition.”
“I don’t believe it,” I told her. “Why should she make that a condition? DeCoudre might say no, and she’d be out too.”
“I don’t think that would worry Randolph. She owed DeCoudre a picture a year, dating from the time he was a big shot here. This is the last year, so he’s anxious to have her.”
“Well, I still don’t like it,” I said, but I didn’t know just what it was I didn’t like. It bothered me long after O’Leary hung up, but I couldn’t quite nail it down. Then my phone rang again, and I forgot it.
It was Randolph herself this time and she tried to coax me out to see her. By this time I was beginning to wonder. Even on my good days I’m not that good a detective. And I wasn’t having any good days these days. I tried to stall her, but she was insistent. “Can you meet me this evening?” she asked, in her lowdown, sexy voice that fills movie houses all over the country. “I’m doing a broadcast at nine at CBS.”
“All right,” I said reluctantly, “I’ll be there.”
When the phone rang again I almost didn’t answer it. It was probably only the landlord. But a ringing phone is hard to ignore. I reached for it and as I was putting it to my ear my infallible sixth sense warned that it was the Voice calling to scare the pants off me. Then I got mad. Nobody could do that with just a voice.
“Carmody?” It wasn’t a voice I’d ever heard before. I stopped perspiring.
“Yeah.”
“I been reading the papers, Carmody. I see you got a job with Lida Randolph.” I decided I had heard that voice somewhere — but where? “I got something to sell, Carmody. You want to buy?”
“Not a pig in a poke,” I assured him. “What is it?”
“I’ll let you look. You want to meet me tonight — alone?”
I thought it over. “What can I lose? Where?”
He said: “There’s a park off Western Avenue, north of the Boulevard. You cross a little bridge and go up a hill—”
“I’m supposed to do all that in the dark?” I demanded.
“All right,” he said. “Just walk into the park at eight o’clock and keep your eyes open. I’ll flash a light.”
“O.K.,” I said. “But you’d better have something good.”
“It’s hot, Carmody, it’s hot.” He chuckled hoarsely and hung up.
Chapter Six
Hold-up Hill
Well, I thought, maybe there is something in this publicity business. I had a lead anyway. If I could recover Randolph’s property for not too much, she might be glad to deal. That would get it off my hands in a hurry. I left the office so I wouldn’t have to answer the phone again. Next time it might be the Voice. He wasn’t scaring me though.
I went for a walk among the screwballs to get my mind off my troubles. In front of the Paramount Theatre I saw, of all people, Eva Vaughn. I wondered if she was tailing me again. If she was, experience had improved her technique because she disappeared into the girdle section of a department store when I tried to trap her again. I had some dinner and went back to the office to sleep until time to go to the park. The phone didn’t ring once.
I got off the street car at Western and started walking north, wishing I’d thought to borrow O’Leary’s car. I had the distinct feeling I was being followed — my good old sixth sense again — and on foot I didn’t stand much of a chance of hiding my trail. I forgot about it when, after climbing a grade about seven blocks long, I came to the park.
A dirt road wound into the park and crossed a small bridge. It was simpler than I’d expected. I found a path and started climbing a steep bank.
Presently, I picked out a blinking light up among the stars and nearly quit right there. It was so far up I’d need a helicopter to reach it in the dark, but neither heat nor cold nor dark of night could stay me in pursuit of my duty. For a small beer I’d have chucked duty on the spot!
The path twisted, up and up. And up. There was no doubt in my mind that it had been laid out by a mountain goat with the blind staggers. It was eight inches wide and during the rainy season it doubled as a drain. Before long I was on my hands and knees, clutching at shrubs and tufts of grass. I got so high I thought my nose had started to bleed.
But it was rain, a light, mean drizzle that was a cinch to soak me through in twenty minutes. And all this time that damn light was winking every now and then somewhere above me, and never any closer. Finally I just sat down and snapped on my cigarette lighter and winked right back at him. He came down to meet me.
“Carmody?” he whispered.
“I’m not a Swiss yodeler,” I assured him. I was puffing so hard I could hardly answer. I thought he seemed vaguely familiar but it was so dark — and damp — I couldn’t see him clearly. “What are you so cautious about?”
“Being cautious has kept me alive, Carmody,” he assured me. “Right now I’m being so cautious that I’ll shoot you dead if you reach for a cigarette.” He snicked on the flashlight to let me see that his hand was full. In the faint illumination I saw his face. “It’s a gun, Carmody.”
“I didn’t think it was a camera,” I said. “Or are you out of that racket now.”
He started. “You got that figured out, eh? Do the cops know?”
“No. I’m the only one.” I wasn’t smarter than the police, I just happened to have seen Wensel and his camera around Hollywood Boulevard once too often. “But I’m a little confused, Marty,” I said. “I thought you were selling Lida Randolph’s loot.”
“Nah,” he said. “I got a fillum. I’m going to have to frisk you, Carmody. Turn around.”
“I never carry a gun.” But I turned around and let him verify it.
“O.K.,” he said. “You got this place staked out?”
“I’m alone,” I said impatiently. “Where’s the film?”
“It wouldn’t do any good if you brought the whole police department,” he said. “I know this park better than anybody. I played here when I was a a kid. One funny move and I can vanish like a gopher.”
Now that he mentioned it, he looked a little like a gopher. “Stop worrying,” I said. “I’m getting wet.”
He shrugged in the dark. “I got this here fillum to sell. I couldn’t take time to talk on the phone because you might have been trying to trace the call for the cops.”
“They aren’t in on this at all. They don’t know you exist.”
“They don’t think Anselmo killed himself!” he retorted.
“Anselmo,” I told him, “isn’t dead. You only grazed his ribs.”
He took that hard. If I’d been planning to jump him, I could have done it then, the shock was that bad. “Not dead, eh?” he mused. “Then it was Anselmo who potted old Pop through the window.”