Dalmas spread his hands and shrugged. «You boys think I know who it was?»
«Not exactly. We think you could give us some names to check on, though. Who’d you go to see in them apartments?»
Dalmas didn’t say anything for a moment. Lonergan turned away from the window, sat on the end of the desk and swung his legs. There was a cynical grin on his flat face.
«Come through, baby,» he said cheerfully.
Dalmas tilted his chair back and put his hands into his pockets. He stared at Weinkassel speculatively, ignored the gray-haired dick as though he didn’t exist.
He said slowly: «I was there on business for a client. You can’t make me talk about that.»
Weinkassel shrugged and stared at him coldly. Then he took the chewed match out of his mouth, looked at the flattened end of it, tossed it away.
«I might have a hunch your business had something to do with the shootin’,» he said grimly. «That way the hush-hush would be out. Wouldn’t it?»
«Maybe,» Dalmas said. «If that’s the way it’s going to work out. But I ought to have a chance to talk to my client.»
Weinkassel said: «Okey. You can have till the morning. Then you put your papers on the desk, see.»
Dalmas nodded and stood up. «Fair enough, Lieutenant.»
«Hush-hush is all a shamus knows,» Lonergan said roughly.
Dalmas nodded to Weinkassel and went out of the office. He walked down a bleak corridor and up steps to the lobby floor. Outside the City Hall he went down a long flight of concrete steps and across Spring Street to where a blue Packard roadster, not very new, was parked. He got into it and drove around the corner, then though the Second Street tunnel, dropped over a block and drove out west. He watched in the mirror as he drove.
At Alvarado he went into a drugstore and called his hotel. The clerk gave him a number to call. He called it and heard Denny’s heavy voice at the other end of the line. Denny said urgently: «Where you been? I’ve got that broad out here at my place. She’s drunk. Come on out and we’ll get her to tell us what you want to know.»
Dalmas stared out through the glass of the phone booth without seeing anything. After a pause he said slowly: «The blonde? How come?»
«It’s a story, boy. Come on out and I’ll give it to you. Fourteen-fifty-four South Livesay. Know where that is?»
«I’ve got a map. I’ll find it,» Dalmas said in the same tone.
Denny told him just how to find it, at some length. At the end of the explanation he said: «Make it fast. She’s asleep now, but she might wake up and start yellin’ murder.»
Dalmas said: «Where you live it probably wouldn’t matter much… I’ll be right out, Denny.»
He hung up and went out to his car. He got a pint bottle of bourbon out of the car pocket and took a long drink. Then he started up and drove towards Fox Hills. Twice on the way he stopped and sat still in the car, thinking. But each time he went on again.
EIGHT
The road turned off Pico into a scattered subdivision that spread itself out over rolling hills between two golf courses. It followed the edge of one of the golf courses, separated from it by a high wire fence. There were bungalows here and there dotted about the slopes. After a while the road dipped into a hollow and there was a single bungalow in the hollow, right across the street from the golf course.
Dalmas drove past it and parked under a giant eucalyptus that etched deep shadow on the moonlit surface of the road. He got out and walked back, turned up a cement path to the bungalow. It was wide and low and had cottage windows across the front. Bushes grew halfway up the screens. There was faint light inside and the sound of a radio, turned low, came through the open windows.
A shadow moved across the screens and the front door came open. Dalmas went into a living room built across the front of the house. One small bulb burned in a lamp and the luminous dial of the radio glowed. A little moonlight came into the room.
Denny had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up on his big arms.
He said: «The broad’s still asleep. I’ll wake her up when I’ve told you how I got her here.»
Dalmas said: «Sure you weren’t tailed?»
«Not a chance.» Denny spread a big hand.
Dalmas sat down in a wicker chair in the corner, between the radio and the end of the line of windows. He put his hat on the floor, pulled out the bottle of bourbon and regarded it with a dissatisfied air.
«Buy us a real drink, Denny. I’m tired as hell. Didn’t get any dinner.»
Denny said: «I’ve got some Three-Star Martel. Be right up.»
He went out of the room and light went on in the back part of the house. Dalmas put the bottle on the floor beside his hat and rubbed two fingers across his forehead. His head ached. After a little while the light went out in the back and Denny came back with two tall glasses.
The brandy tasted clean and hard. Denny sat down in another wicker chair. He looked very big and dark in the half-lit room. He began to talk slowly, in his gruff voice.
«It sounds goofy, but it worked. After the cops stopped milling around I parked in the alley and went in the back way. I knew which apartment the broad had but I hadn’t seen her. I thought I’d make some kind of a stall and see how she was makin’ out. I knocked on her door, but she wouldn’t answer. I could hear her movin’ around inside, and in a minute I could hear a telephone hem’ dialed. I went back along the hall and tried the service door. It opened and I went in. It fastened with one of them screw bolts that get out of line and don’t fasten when you think they do.»
Dalmas nodded, said: «I get the idea, Denny.»
The big man drank out of his glass and rubbed the edge of it up and down on his lower lip. He went on.
«She was phoning a guy named Gayn Donner. Know him?»
«I’ve heard of him,» Dalmas said. «So she has that kind of connections.»
«She was callin’ him by name and she sounded mad,» Denny said. «That’s how I knew. Donner has that place on Mariposa Canyon Drive — the Mariposa Club. You hear his band over the air — Hank Munn and his boys.»
Dalmas said: «I’ve heard it, Denny.»
«Okey. When she hung up I went in on her. She looked snowed, weaved around funny, didn’t seem to know much what was going on. I looked around and there was a photo of John Sutro, the Councilman, in a desk there. I used that for a stall. I said that Sutro wanted her to duck out for a while and that I was one of his boys and she was to come along. She fell for it. Screwy. She wanted some liquor. I said I had some in the car. She got her little hat and coat.»
Dalmas said softly: «It was that easy, huh?»
«Yeah,» Denny said. He finished his drink and put the glass somewhere. «I bottle-fed her in the car to keep her quiet and we came out here. She went to sleep and that’s that. What do you figure? Tough downtown?»
«Tough enough,» Dalmas said. «I didn’t fool the boys much.»
«Anything on the Walden kill?»
Dalmas shook his head slowly.
«I guess the Jap didn’t get home yet, Denny.»
«Want to talk to the broad?»
The radio was playing a waltz. Dalmas listened to it for a moment before he answered. Then he said in a tired voice: «I guess that’s what I came out here for.»
Denny got up and went out of the room. There was the sound of a door opening and muffled voices.
Dalmas took his gun out from under his arm and put it down in the chair beside his leg.
The blonde staggered a little too much as she came in. She stared around, giggled, made vague motions with her long hands. She blinked at Dalmas, stood swaying a moment, then slid down into the chair Denny had been sitting in. The big man kept near her and leaned against a library table that stood by the Inside wall.