He stood and shook my hand, got us each a beer and told me to have a seat on the couch.
"They don't bunt," he said, settling back into his chair. "Ballplayers nowadays can't bunt." He looked older than when I'd last seen him, had less hair and more loose flesh beneath his jutting jaw.
Together we watched an attempted sacrifice bunt result in a sickly pop fly to the third baseman. Hiller shook his head in disgust.
"What are you onto, Nudger?" he asked.
"I need to know something about a suicide here," I said without directly answering his question, knowing he wouldn't push. "A big businessman named Robert Manners."
Hiller sat still for a while, eyes fixed on the TV. "I recall it, but I don't know much about it."
I sipped my cold beer. "There probably isn't much to know, but Manners' doctor was no help. I thought I might be able to check the autopsy report and whatever else is available through you."
"Sure."
The third out was a near home run. Hiller groaned, excused himself and left the room. I heard him talking on the telephone in the hall. He was on the phone for a long time. When he came back to the living room, he was carrying two more cans of the very cold beer.
"What happened, Nudger?"
"Strikeout, walk, double play," I said, accepting the chilled wet can. "What happened where you were?"
"Probably a strikeout there, too. The autopsy report on Manners says he was in good health until he hit the sidewalk. And a subsequent investigation turned up nothing to suggest his death was anything but suicide."
I nodded, took a pull on my beer in disappointment.
"There is one thing, though," Hiller said. "I talked to the officer who handled the investigation. For what it's worth, he says a suicide finding didn't sit quite right with him, but it was only a feeling. The facts said suicide."
I understood what Hiller was saying, but I also knew how often hunches were wrong. "Is the case still being actively investigated?"
Hiller stared at me "You know better than that. Time, money and manpower come into it. They don't let us go looking for crime when there's no live victim and there are far to many live victims walking around out there today."
Hiller had a point I couldn't contradict.
"Stick around for a while," he invited. "Watch the ball game. It's a genuine pitchers' duel."
"For an inning or so," I said. "I've got an appointment later at a hotel with a beautiful girl."
Hiller laughed. "As long as no money changes hands." He propped his feet on the hassock again.
When I left him to drive to the Clairbank, the Dodgers had just scored three runs on a triple, and he was happy.
The Clairbank was one of L.A.'s older hotels, spacious and accommodating, the sort that still offers top service at moderate rates. I crossed the carpeted lobby, took a smooth but slow elevator to the fourth floor and knocked on the door of 407.
"You're late," Alison said as she opened the door.
"And hungry," I told her, glancing at my watch to see that it was five after seven. "Why don't we talk things over while we're having dinner downstairs?"
Alison must not have eaten, either, because she agreed, stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her. She was wearing a pale-green outfit with a loose-fitting skirt and chunky, thick-soled shoes, which, despite the work of a deranged fashion designer, failed to rob her ankles of their grace.
The Clairbank had a comfortable restaurant with good food and a varied menu. Over chicken oreganata specials, we discussed.
"What did Elizabeth Manners tell you?" Alison asked, sipping her wine.
"That her husband committed suicide," I said truthfully, but stopped short of mentioning the letter. "He'd been apprehensive for some time, then especially so just before his death."
"Do you think she really believes it was suicide?"
"I'm sure she does. And I'm sure she'll never get over it."
"You might be right. This sauce is terrific."
I watched her use her knife and fork enthusiastically on her chicken breast. She bothered me. She was one of the few women whom I felt I should dislike but who greatly appealed to me. I considered trying to work out a way to spend the night in the Clairbank, in room 407. Maybe it was something in the sauce.
"Okay," she said, "let's compare notes on Mr. Brian Cheevers."
Cheevers had told her, almost word for word, what he'd told me. Alison had also gotten a duplicate story from Manners' secretary, Alice Kramer. Not much on the West Coast had panned out.
"So we learned nothing," Alison said, with some dejection, to her half-consumed chicken breast. "There was nothing unusual or business-related about Manners' suicide."
For some reason I felt I had to console her. "Either that or everyone has his story memorized to perfection."
She looked up at me. "Do you suppose that's possible, some sort of conspiracy?"
I understood why she was a reporter. Some of the juiciest news is wished into being.
"You know anything's possible," I told her.
Alison waited until we'd got to the rice pudding before saying, "Oh, incidentally, I found something on your Gratuity Insurance. I phoned the secretary of Craig Blount, a high-level executive killed in a hit-and-run accident a few weeks ago in Seattle. She told me she remembered that some time ago a man from Gratuity had called at the office and seemed to upset her boss tremendously."
"Upset him how?"
"Made him edgy and bad-tempered," Alison said, "which wasn't like him."
Good as the food was, my fluttering stomach would accept no more. I set my fork down and sat back in my chair.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"The thing about Gratuity Insurance," I told Alison, "is that there is no such company."
19
The next day I knocked again on Elizabeth Manners' door. When I got no answer I looked about and found her in the garden, with a pruning shears, working on an espaliered lemon tree. She turned, startled, as she heard my footsteps on the path.
"Mr. Nudger!" she said with what seemed to be genuine pleasure. "I hope you've returned because you've discovered something."
"Maybe a crack of light, Mrs. Manners." It was peaceful in the garden, pleasantly shaded. I hated to pull Elizabeth Manners into the subject of her husband's death.
"Gardening pacifies the soul," she said, working the red-handled shears expertly; but I could see her tenseness as she waited for what I had to say.
"Was your husband acquainted with any of these business executives?" I asked, feeling somewhat like the serpent in the garden. I read her the list of five names given to me by Alison.
Mrs. Manners continued to work the shears for a while before answering. Then she lowered them to her side and faced me. "Craig Blount. I don't think they were acquainted, but I remember the morning Robert and I were having breakfast and he read about this Blount's death in the newspaper. It seemed to disturb him, so much so that he couldn't finish his breakfast."
"Did he say what it was about Blount's death that upset him?"
"No, he tried to pretend that he wasn't upset, but I could see that he'd been thoroughly shaken. After he'd left for the office, I picked up the newspaper and read the piece on Craig Blount, but I couldn't find anything that warranted Robert's reaction."
"How long before his death was this?"
She laid the shears on the cement bench, as if they'd suddenly taken on weight. "Only about a week," she said. "That's why I remembered. Many things seemed to upset Robert during that period, but that newspaper story did particularly."