“How’d it come out?” the guard asked him.
“Not too bad. Tell me, isn’t Fulton Legett here on this lot?”
“Going down the list, huh?” The guard nodded and pointed. “Over there in the executive building.”
“Are you going to give me a hard time again?”
“You’re really a Beverly Hills cop?”
For the second time, Masuto took out his badge and exhibited it.
“I didn’t know they had plainclothes cops on the Beverly Hills force.”
“They even have them in uniform,” Masuto said. “I’ll step in there and have a word with Mr. Legett.”
Inside, there was another guard at the desk, and once again Masuto went through the routine.
“I’ll call up,” the guard said.
“Why don’t you let me surprise him?”
“What is this? Are you going to make some kind of arrest?”
“No arrest. But I have some questions for him. If you call up there, and he says he won’t see me, and then I go up there anyway, you’re in hot water. This way, you just figured it was okay for me to go up. You can’t get into trouble.”
“He’s in room six eleven.”
“Thanks.”
The girl in six eleven-Masuto decided she was receptionist and secretary-looked up at him in surprise and said that they were not casting. She was a very pretty girl, with blonde hair and wide blue eyes.
“I’m not here for casting. I wish to see Mr. Legett.”
“Oh? Did you have an appointment, mister-?”
“Detective Sergeant Masuto. Beverly Hills police.”
“Oh? Are you sure it’s Mr. Fulton Legett you wish to see?”
“Quite sure.”
“And you’re sure you’re a policeman? I never saw a Chinese policeman before.”
“I’m a policeman,” Masuto said, showing her his badge.
She pressed a button on her telephone and said unhappily, “F.L., there’s a policeman here to see you.” She listened for a moment and then said plaintively, “He asked me if I’m sure you’re a policeman and not one of the studio guards. He thinks I can’t tell the difference between a policeman and a studio guard. That’s hitting below the belt, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Through that door,” she said, pointing.
Masuto opened the door and went into a large, square carpeted and wood-paneled room. The furnishings were all chrome and leather, with glass-topped tables and non-objective paintings on the walls. Fulton Legett sat behind a very large desk. He was a short, overweight man who looked more than his fifty years. He had pudgy hands with well-manicured nails, nails polished to a high sheen, and he had a small cupid’s bow of a mouth.
“Are you sure you want to see me?” Legett asked.
Masuto nodded. “Sergeant Masuto, Beverly Hills police.” He held out his badge.
“Ah, I see. I suppose it’s about that terrible thing at the Crombie house. Poor Alice. She deserved better.”
“Then you knew Mrs. Greene?”
“Oh, indeed, indeed. Knew her very well. I called Laura as soon as I saw it in the papers.”
“You knew Mrs. Crombie?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed.”
“Do you know Mitzie Fuller?”
Legett’s eyes narrowed. He hesitated a moment too long. “No,” he said shortly.
“But you do know Billy Fuller?”
“Of course I know the little son of a bitch. We’re on the same lot. He’s got a head as big as the Goodyear balloon. I’ve showed him a few scripts, nothing good enough for the little king-” He had forgotten grief and the dead; he was a producer whose scripts had been turned down by a director.
Masuto interrupted. “Your ex-wife, Nancy-”
“Yes, I spoke to her.”
“When?”
“When I called Laura Crombie. Nancy told me about the situation there. I just can’t believe it-that there’s some bloodthirsty lunatic out to kill those women.”
“There is.”
“Well, damn it, it’s one of those things that are hard to believe. Who would want to kill Nancy?”
“I don’t know.” Masuto shrugged. “Would you?”
“Are you serious?”
“I only meant would you know anyone who might want to kill her. I didn’t mean to suggest that you might want to kill her. But since you appear to take it that way, I’ll ask you. Would you want to kill her?”
“That’s a hell of a question.”
“Yes, I suppose so. But Mrs. Legett suggested it.”
“What? You mean she said I wanted to kill her?”
“Not exactly. But when I asked her who might want her dead, she pointed to you.”
“That miserable, crazy woman!”
“Oh? Then I take it she was responding emotionally.”
“What a lousy thing to say! I give that woman blood. Practically every nickel I got goes to paying my alimony. She is loaded. Loaded. That house of mine-which is now hers-up on Lexington Road is one of the best pieces of property in Beverly Hills. It would fetch a million, and from an Arab or an Iranian, maybe a million and a half, and she’s got it and I eat at Hamburg Hamlet. And now she tells the cops that I’m out to murder her. You know something,” he snapped at Masuto, “it’s not a bad idea. If I knew where to buy one of those contracts you see in films, I wouldn’t mind putting it out on her.”
“That’s not anything to tell me.”
“The hell with it! Who gives a damn?”
“Do you own a gun?” Masuto asked him.
“A gun? What in hell would I do with a gun?”
“Then you don’t own one?”
“No, of course not.”
“I asked you about Mitzie Fuller before,” Masuto said.
“Yeah?”
“You said you don’t know her.”
“You’re sitting here,” Legett said, “because you bulled your way into my office and I let it be. I don’t have to answer one goddamn question. As a matter of fact, I can have you thrown out of here. You’re a small town cop who’s off his range.”
“You called Mitzie Fuller a number of times, asking for a date. Why deny it? You’re divorced.”
“You have got one stinking nerve.”
Masuto slid Catherine Addison’s picture across the desk. Legett glanced down at it. “What’s this? That’s Kelly. What has she got to do with all of this?”
“You knew her?”
“Of course I knew her. She was Laura’s kid.” He pushed the picture back at Masuto. “That’s enough. Get out.”
Masuto put the picture in his pocket and left.
12
Monte Sweet
Masuto was building his structure, but it was still a house of cards, fragile, unsupported. He had written the name of the murderer down on a slip of paper and had handed it to Wainwright, but that was a gesture, a touch of ego that he was almost ashamed of, and always there was the possibility that he could be wrong. If he was wrong, then he had slandered an innocent person, and the fact that only he and Wainwright knew about the slander did not lessen his guilt. Whatever else he was-a policemen, a father, a husband, a rose-grower, a Nisei-he was still above all a Zen Buddhist with an ultimate responsibility to himself.
Yet as he picked up piece after piece, the pattern he looked for was beginning to emerge. Still, it was without meaning; he had built an arch out of intuition, psychological guesswork, and shreds of disconnected evidence. The keystone was missing.
Lost wholly in his thoughts, he ran a red light, narrowly missing a cursing motorist, and then he saw the blinking light of a Beverly Hills black-and-white behind him. He pulled over to the curb, the black-and-white behind him. The officer got out of his car, walked over and said, “Traffic lights don’t mean anything to you, do they, mister?”
Then the cop bent down and said, “I’ll be damned!”
“I will if I keep this up,” Masuto said.
“Are you chasing something, Sergeant?” the officer asked.
“No, Macneil. The only thing I’m chasing is an idea. I just ran the light. I haven’t done it in years.”
Macneil shrugged. “We can’t all be perfect.”