The cause of death was apparent. There was a small, purple-ringed hole in the center of the forehead that looked as though it had been made by a very small-caliber slug, perhaps a twenty-two.
I screwed the back of the console on again and shoved the set against the wall. I left the speakers there-four blocks was too far to walk with one under each arm — but took my tape and record. I unplugged the work lamp, raised the sliding door enough to duck under it, locked up, and put the key back inside the drainpipe.
It was five-thirty when I got back to my room, which I managed to do without encountering Mrs. Sull. After replacing the tape and the LP record, I went downstairs to call Stan from the pay phone in the lower hall. There was no answer. Obviously he and his mother had already left.
Mrs. Sull called her rooms light-housekeeping apartments, which meant they were equipped with small refrigerators, hot plates, and a few dishes and pans. I had some canned soup and a cold meat sandwich, then tried phoning Stan again. Still no answer. It was still only about six.
I couldn’t face the prospect of sitting alone in my room for a full hour waiting for Stan to call, so after some soul searching I took five dollars of the rent money hidden beneath the newspaper liner in my shirt drawer and walked to the nearest liquor store. I decided that if worse came to worst I could always take Stan’s advice and propose to Mrs. Sull — but there was no way I could survive the evening without a drink.
There was a cheap brand of bourbon on sale for $3.99 a fifth.
When I got back to the house I tried phoning Stan again before going upstairs but there was still no answer.
Up in my room I had a couple of jolts from the bottle, just enough to settle my nerves. At seven I went downstairs to phone Stan. This time Mrs. Turner answered.
When I asked for Stan, she said, “He’s out for the evening. Is this Jerry?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“I think he’s headed for your place. We only got home about two minutes ago, and he went right out again.”
“O.K.,” I said. “Thanks.
It wasn’t more than a five-minute drive from Stan’s house to the rooming house, but it was forty-five minutes before he showed up. By then the bottle was half empty.
“Where the devil have you been?” I asked as I slid in next to him in the station wagon.
He gave me a curious look. “Are you bombed?”
“I had a few jolts,” I confessed. “I needed them. Get going.”
He shifted into drive. As he pulled away from the curb he said, “I’ve got something that’ll cheer you up.”
Dipping into his jacket pocket, he brought out some folded bills and passed them to me — three twenties, a ten, and a five.
“Your share of the hundred and a half,” he said.
“Not from Spooky for the combo set?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Since when does he pay off before delivery?”
“It’s delivered. I went by the junk yard and happened to find Spooky there, so he followed me to the station in his pickup.
I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. Spooky Lindeman had been known to break arms for being dealt bummers. Charging him a hundred and fifty dollars for a corpse was likely to put him in a mood to break necks.
“Oh, no!” I said. “We’ve got to get that set back!”
Stan gave me a look of surprise faintly tinged with alarm. “Doesn’t it work?”
“It doesn’t even have any guts.”
Now he looked puzzled. “It didn’t feel empty.”
“It isn’t. It has a corpse in it with a bullet through the head.”
Stan drove right through a red light. Horns blared as cars coming from both directions took evasive action. He pulled over to the curb and stopped.
“Say that again,” he requested.
I repeated what I had said and described the body.
Eventually he said, “You think that man and woman with the U-Haul killed him?” I nodded. “But why stuff him in a hi-fi cabinet? Why not in a trunk or something?
“I’ve been working on that ever since I found him,” I said. “I figure it wasn’t a planned murder, but a spur-of-the-moment thing, and they’d already moved everything else they could put him in when it happened. They couldn’t just carry him out to the truck in broad daylight, so they had the bright idea of taking the works out of the hi-fi and hiding him in it until they could decide how to dispose of him.”
Stan nodded. “But what did they do with the guts?”
“Just loaded them onto the truck, I imagine.
“Then the insides are probably over at their new house, right?”
“I guess so.”
Stan shifted into gear and pulled away from the curb.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To get those guts so we can stick them back in the set.”
I disagreed. “The first problem is to get rid of that body. Spooky will kill us if he finds it in there.
“He’ll kill us if he finds the cabinet empty.” Stan said. “So there’s no point in taking the body out until we have the works to put in.”
He was right, but there was another factor. I said, “How are we going to get the guts when we don’t know where those people moved to?”
“We’re going to find out where.”
He took the Hollywood Freeway to Lankershim Boulevard, drove north on Lankershim to Archwood, and parked in front of the duplex. By now it was a quarter after eight, but because of daylight saving time it was still light. Through the bare front windows of the unit with the FOR RENT sign in front of it, we could see that the front room was now empty.
A car was parked in the driveway belonging to the other unit, and we could see a man sitting in the front room reading a newspaper.
“You come with me for moral support,” Stan said, “but let me do the talking. Your tongue is too thick.”
We both got out and I followed him along the walk to the front porch. The redwood sign reading THE STOKELEYS was gone, but a card that remained beneath the doorbell read DON AND EVE STOKELEY. Stan rang the doorbell.
“What are you doing?” I said. “There’s nobody here!”
“It’s for the benefit of the neighbors,” he explained. “Keep your knickers on.”
He peered inside through the front window, shrugged, and crossed over to the door of the other unit. I followed him.
A plump, middle-aged woman answered Stan’s ring. Beyond her we could see the man reading the paper. He was about the same age as the woman and equally plump.
Even if I hadn’t been a little bombed I would have let Stan do the talking — he’s a born con man. With his most charming smile he said, “Excuse me, ma’am. We’re looking for the Stokeleys, but it looks like they’ve moved.
“Yes,” the woman said, “just today.”
Stan let a rueful expression form on his face. “My mother sent me over with twenty bucks she owes Mrs. Stokeley. Did they move out of town?”
“Oh, no, just over to Benedict Canyon Drive. They bought a home. Wait a minute and I’ll get you the address.”
She went away, leaving the door open. The man folded his paper, got up, and came over to the door.
“You fellows friends of the Stokeleys?” he asked.
“She’s a friend of my mother,” Stan said. “I barely know her — they became friends after I got married and moved away from home. I only met her once, as a matter of fact. She’s a blonde, isn’t she? Kind of big but good-looking?”
He nodded. “That’s Eve.”
“And he’s a big heavy guy with hairy arms?”
He shook his head. “That’s Bert Pinter, who works for Don. Don Stokeley is a painting contractor, you know. I guess he’s doing pretty good. They bought a beautiful house. I’m not surprised you took Bert for Eve’s husband-he was over there a lot. Matter of fact he was helping them move today. Don’s kind of tall and skinny, has red hair, turning grey.”