When the door closed, Beaumont turned and looked at me with his patented sneer.
“In a year,” he hissed, “he’ll be where I am, bit parts in B pictures.”
“I’m fascinated by your predictions,” I said, “and I’d like to hear more, but you and I have some business. I’m a private investigator working for Errol Flynn.”
“I’m impressed,” he said sarcastically.
Maybe he knew nothing, but he could be the key to this whole thing-the guy who took a shot at Flynn and murdered Cunningham over his daughter’s honor. He didn’t seem the type, but I’d been fooled before. Getting him angry was the quickest way to get information and Bogart had given me a good start on the job.
“You were at the table when Flynn got that blackmail threat?”
“You came all the way out here to confirm that?”
“No, I came all the way out here to ask you what you did when you recognized the girl in the picture.”
He wasn’t as good an actor as his wife. His look was narrow and wary.
“Recognized the girl?”
“Your daughter, Lynn.”
He walked toward me. I was ready for him if he didn’t have my gun in his pocket.
“You mind telling me what you’ve been doing for the past two days,” I said evenly, “like every minute of your time, and what you know about the murder of a guy named Cunningham?”
He fingered his moustache.
“Not at all,” he said. “I have nothing to hide.”
He started to turn and I relaxed slightly. It was a mistake. I was making a lot of them. He turned quickly for such a big man and rammed his fist into my stomach. I doubled up, trying to refill my lungs. Beaumont pushed me backward with both hands, and I slid down catching a little air, but it was coming too slowly. He opened a closet and shoved me in. I reached up to hold the door open, but a coat was in my mouth. The door closed and I heard Beaumont’s footsteps moving away. As I untangled myself from the clothes and got to my feet, I heard a car start and pull away. There wasn’t much room in the closet to get my shoulder into the door. I sat in the dark with my back against the wall. It took two or three good kicks to break the lock, which wasn’t designed for holding men.
As I ran out of the house, I met Cowan coming down the hill. Behind him and in the distance I could hear Bogart shouting, “All right. All right. I’ll take the goddamned fall.”
“You talk to Beaumont?” Cowan asked me.
“Briefly,” I said panting.
“Mean-tempered son of a bitch, isn’t he?”
Cowan told me Beaumont had torn down the road in his car, a white ’39 Cadillac. I thanked him and made it to my car, which was no match for a Caddy. My wind was back, and I wanted my hands on Beaumont. I had been pushed around enough.
9
Beaumont had a three or four minute start on me. He also had a Caddy that could leave my gasping Buick eating dust all the way back to Los Angeles.
But I had a few things going for me. First, that big car of his ate a lot of gas, and my tank was full. If he needed gas anywhere between Buellton and just beyond Santa Barbara and he stayed on the main road, I might catch up with him.
I knew I was a good driver. I didn’t know anything about Beaumont except that he lost his temper easily. That might make him a driver who took chances. Maybe he would get caught in a speed trap or maybe he’d have an accident. He was still wearing his state trooper costume from the movie. He might stop to change that if he thought I hadn’t followed.
I went down the mountain. Between some lower hills I saw the white Caddy heading down the highway. He was going way past 70. I took it easy going out of the hills, but pushed the speed limit all the way and never let up when I hit the highway.
He wasn’t in sight for forty minutes, and I was beginning to think he had turned down a side road or held back waiting for me to pass. Then I spotted him. He was a couple of hundred yards ahead in a gas station, a ramshackle place with the ocean at its back and a mountain in its face, on the other side of the highway.
Once Beaumont was gassed up, he would almost certainly not stop again till he hit home. When he got to the city I either closed the gap or took a chance on his seeing me. He didn’t know what my car looked like, but I was sure he’d remember my face.
I stepped on the gas and pulled into the station on the other side of the pumps from the white car. Beaumont wasn’t in it, but an attendant was pumping it full of ethyl.
The attendant looked like an extra from a Republic Western, one of the tough bad guys. He was wearing Levi’s, a red flannel shirt and a two-day growth of beard. His hair was long and black, and he was a burly type.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Check the oil,” I said, getting out of the car and stretching. I couldn’t see Beaumont.
I tried the washroom inside the station. The door was open, but Beaumont wasn’t in it. I considered asking the attendant where the driver was, when I saw the small house behind the station. It was a little more than a shack, but it was right on the edge of a two-story drop into the ocean. The view probably made up for the lack of splendor in the house.
Moving around the far side of the garage I came up on the shack. There was a dirty window. I went up to it as quietly as I could through the thick weeds.
Through the window I could see Beaumont in his state trooper uniform. He was talking on the phone. I put my ear near the window to try to catch what he was saying. The noise of the ocean drowned out his voice.
I went to the front door and opened it a crack.
“… when I get there,” he was saying. He paused and laughed. It was an ugly laugh, the laugh of a man who knew the person dealing with him hated him, but he was going to rub the hatred back in that person’s face.
“I know what I am,” he went on. “We’ve been over that before, several times. We also know what you are, don’t we? But that’s not what I want to discuss.” Another pause for the person on the other end to talk. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. The fewer people involved, the better. I …”
The interruption wasn’t on the phone. It came from me. Something grabbed me from behind and shoved me into the room. I kept my balance, and Beaumont looked up.
“Caught him listening to you at the door, trooper,” said the gas station attendant, who had given me the shove. He stood across from me with a heavy chisel in his hand.
Beaumont held the phone for a second, uncertain, his mouth open.
“I’ll see you in a few hours,” he said into the mouthpiece and hung up. Then to the burly gas station man, he rasped:
“Good work. I thought he looked suspicious down the road. I think he’s on our wanted list.”
“Hold it,” I countered, moving toward Beaumont.
The gas station man held up the chisel. Both he and it looked mean.
“You hold it, mister,” he said. “You want to take him, trooper?”
“No,” said Beaumont with a triumphant, one-sided smile. “Hold him here for about fifteen minutes. I’ll be back with a car and some help.”
“He’s not a state trooper,” I shouted. “That’s a costume for a movie. He’s an actor.”
Beaumont had recovered and was now playing the part. I had to admit he looked like a trooper, and I surely looked like a thug from a Monogram serial. Beaumont adjusted his cap, patted the bearded man on the shoulder and took a step toward the door.
“Why’s he driving a new Cadillac if he’s a state trooper?” I tried.
Beaumont laughed and shook his head sympathetically.
“Not very clever,” he said, “that’s a stolen vehicle. I’m driving it in. My partner is in my car about ten minutes ahead of me.”
“That’s good enough for me,” the gas station man said.
Beaumont went out of the door.
“Why didn’t he call from here?” I tried on the man with the chisel.