“This Booker was a real main-liner,” Jimmy was saying. “His arms had been punctured so many times the veins are covered with scar tissue. Hank figures, from the shape he was in, somebody had to give him his dose. Whoever it was, probably you, slipped him a hot shot.”
I ordered two more drinks and asked Jimmy to wait. I went to the phone booth at the end of the bar and called my office. When Hilda answered I asked if the cops were there.
She sing-songed, “Mr. Sweeney isn’t in right now, would you care to leave a message?”
“I’m at a place called Friendly’s near the Mayflower building,” I said. I read her the phone number off the dial. “If you get the chance, call me here.”
“I can let you have an appointment at ten o’clock Monday if that’s satisfactory, Mr. Ottomeyer.”
I hung up and returned to the bar. I gave Jimmy my car keys and told him where the heap was parked. “Move it for me before they tow it away, will you?”
“Sure. I came over in a squad car. I’ll drive it back to the mill and leave word where it is. But first, what’s the scoop?”
I gave Jimmy most of the pieces, including a warning against the two hoods in the Buick. We often work together, and he’s willing to hold up his story until he receives the sign. When I finished he whistled softly.
“They cut out the middleman,” he said. “There must be millions in this.”
“Not only that, but the arms of the octopus don’t know where the head is. Receive and deliver and get paid, that’s all the members of this organization know. Take Donaldson, he didn’t even know what he was doing.”
“Do you think they’ve organized the pushers too?”
“Certainly, and the pushers only see one man. All they’re interested in is the supply and quality. They’re easy. But what we’ve got is the whole trolley set up — Bassey’s, who package the horse, the damn fool salesman who ferries it up the coast, and these Pennant stores which are undoubtedly putting it up in caps and distributing it to the public. The only thing missing is the source.”
We finished our drinks and Jimmy left. I ordered a steak sandwich and ate it at the bar. When Hilda didn’t phone I ordered another. For no good reason I scowled at the bartender when he brought the food.
I was sore at a lot of people right now, but I wanted one big guy to bate and the name eluded me. Booker, the spineless sucker fish, was dead. Donaldson and Doris O’Rourke were counting each other’s fingers over in Moraga. Syd and Eddie, the imports, had helium between their ears. Benny Lufts was nothing more than a shadow for Mortola, a meatball to carry his horse and carriage around and take the rap for possession if they ever got picked up. Mortola was the bloat with the guns, but someone with brains was aiming them for him. And the girl?
The phone in the booth rang and I bounded to it. Hilda was calling from the ladies’ room of our office building. “A sweet young man in a blue suit has been keeping me company all afternoon,” she said. “I had to smuggle my notes out in my brassiere.”
“Read ’em while they’re warm.”
“First, here’s what I did this afternoon. I went to the Green Slipper. It wasn’t busy so early, and when the bartender left for a minute I got a good look at the liquor license on the wall. It’s issued to a Melvin Danzig, Frank Mortola is a limited partner. Then I went down to the recorder’s office and searched the Bassey and Mayflower Shirt properties. They are both leased out by the Sungate Investment Company.”
I interrupted, “Ashton Brubaker’s corporation?”
“Yes. I looked him up too, in the library. He is the Sungate Investment Company.”
“Hell, he owns half the state.”
“Wait till you hear the rest. Jack Holland phoned from Gravenstein a few minutes ago. He checked Pennant Shirts in Sacramento. They’re a wholly owned subsidiary of Sungate.”
“Yoicks.”
“And among other enterprises Sungate controls Zephyr House, a Los Angeles import-export firm,” Hilda related. “I couldn’t ask Jack many questions with the gendarme here, but I gathered Miss O’Rourke’s house up the river was broken into and whoever did it made inquiries at Artcraft Studios. Jack didn’t go to the police because they might hold him, so that’s all he knows.”
“Where is he now?”
“On his way home.”
“Good girl, Hilda. Will you stay at the office until he gets there?”
“I certainly will.” Hilda paused, and I heard a door slam over the receiver. “One more thing, Anne Donaldson phoned. She’s staying in room thirty-three at the Beckett hotel. She wants to see you.”
“The hell she does. Shall I wear a bullseye on my back?”
“She sounded awfully disturbed, Bill.”
“Okay, Hilda. It’s almost five. Lock up and get a bite to eat, then go back and wait for Jack.”
I hung up and rang Jimmy Underhill. He had left the chewy outside the Herald Building, the keys in the glove compartment. I went back to the bar and finished my steak. When the bartender cleared the plates away I asked him to call me two cabs.
“Two taxis?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Who’s the second one for?”
“Will you call the cabs or shall I go out in the street and whistle for them?”
The bartender shrugged and reached for a direct line phone under the counter. “Two cabs to Friendly’s,” he said. “Yeah, two.”
A few minutes later the driver of the first one came in. When I asked if he wanted to make a quick saw, he tilted his visored cap back on his head and regarded me shrewdly.
“There’s a green Buick sedan with two men in it parked down the street,” I explained. “I’m trying to dodge it.”
The driver walked to the front of the bar and peered through dusty Venetian blinds into the street. He lifted his cap, scratched his head and came back. “Jersey plates,” he commented. “I thought they might be cops.”
“They’re not cops.” I placed a ten dollar bill on the counter. “There’s a car in front and in back of them. You double park for five minutes so they can’t move out.”
“Wife trouble?”
I nodded.
The driver seemed doubtful. “There’s buses on this street, you know. I’ll get a whale of a ticket if I screw one up.”
“If it works, I’ll leave another sawbuck with the bartender for you tomorrow.”
The driver glanced at his wrist watch, picked up the bill and left. By the time the second cab arrived traffic was already congested. The hood of the double parked cab was up, the driver was angrily tapping engine parts with a screwdriver. Benny Lufts and Eddie cursed him violently from the trapped Buick. I hopped into the second cab quickly and directed the driver. He eased around the bottleneck and drove me to the Herald building, where I picked up the heap.
The Beckett hotel was an ancient, red shingled building which sat between two modern apartment houses and grinned rowdily with chipped marble teeth. I climbed the teeth to the lobby, sauntered past a drowsy clerk who was studying entries at Eastern racetracks he hoped to visit someday, and entered a fragile steel cage. A freckle faced Negro woman in a faded green jacket monogrammed Beckett let me off at the fifth floor. I walked past Men, Women and Bath to room thirty-three.
“Who is it?” an almost inaudible voice answered my rap on the door.
“William Jeremiah Sweeney,” I whispered.
The door edged open and I entered a stern, acrid room with a latticed wrought iron bed, two wooden chairs, a writing desk and a mirrorless dresser. A vee had been cut in worn carpet from the door to the bed to the wash basin in the corner. One grimy window admitted begrudgingly that there was light outside.
The blonde closed the door behind me and wheeled to the large handbag on the dresser. She took a billfold out of it, extracted a card and handed it to me.