The woman came back earning an address book and she read off an address on Benedict Canyon Drive.
Stan repeated it and thanked her.
Back in the car I said, “You’re pretty smooth.”
“I’m proud of you too,” he said. “For keeping your mouth shut. Was it her husband they bumped off?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Probably the old triangle. Maybe they killed poor Don because he caught them in a hot embrace.”
The house on Benedict Canyon Drive was a one-story green stucco home with a front stoop that was merely a six-inch-thick concrete slab, so the front door was only that much above ground level. Benedict Canyon Drive is hilly and curvy, and the house was situated on a curve at the bottom of a hill.
There was no parking on the side of the street where the house was, so Stan drove past it, turned around in a driveway, and drove past it again to park on the other side. Because of the sharp curve, there was no parking immediately before the curve on that side either, so that he had to park on the crest of the hill a good fifty yards beyond the house.
Because of the way the road curved we had a perfect view of the house from that point. When we swiveled in our seats to look back at it, it occurred to me that Mrs. Stokeley would be wise to build a brick wall along the front. If a car ever missed that curve it would plough right through her front door.
The U-Haul truck was parked in the driveway running alongside the right side of the house. A Volkswagen was parked behind it. Beyond the house, at the far end of the driveway, was a garage with the door closed.
It was just beginning to get dark, and the lights in the house were on. With no drapes or curtains on the windows we could see the big blonde woman — Mrs. Stokeley-and Bert Pinter walking around inside. We were too far away to make out what they were doing, but I got an impression of restlessness.
Apparently Stan got the same impression because he said, “I imagine they’re kind of worried about what happened to that corpse.”
“They must be going nuts.”
“You think maybe they stored those works in the garage?”
“If they didn’t, we’ve got a problem,” I said. “Because then we’ll have to try the house and I doubt if those two plan to do any sleeping tonight.
Stan glanced up and down both sides of the street. Halfway down the hill on the other side two men were conversing on a lawn. A little farther down on our side a teenaged couple sat on some porch steps. That added up to a lot of witnesses. Stan said, “I guess we’d better wait until it’s good and dark before we check out that garage.”
“Uh-huh. But we’d better not wait here.”
Nodding agreement, Stan pulled away. “About eleven, you think?”
I nodded. “We can come back then to check out the setup. If people are still up and around we’ll just drive on by and try again at midnight. We’ve got all night.”
“All weekend, Stan said. “Spooky won’t be going down to the junkyard on Sunday.”
“I’d as soon get it done tonight,” I told him. “I’m not going to be able to sleep until this is taken care of.”
Where Benedict Canyon Drive runs into Woodman Avenue, Stan kept on it to the Ventura Freeway and took an eastbound ramp onto it.
“What do you want to do until eleven?” he asked.
“We could kill some time by picking up my speakers and taking them home.
“O.K. Incidentally, Spooky said to offer you another fifty for those.”
“Big deal,” I said. “They cost me a hundred and twenty-five.”
By the time we got to the service station it was quite dark. Stan parked facing the sliding door and left his headlights on. We both got out and I got the key from the drainpipe and unlocked the door. We each picked up a speaker and stowed it in the station wagon.
“We’d better pick up whatever tools we’ll need to put the guts back into that cabinet,” Stan said.
I went over to the rack on the wall and got a Phillips screwdriver, a small standard screwdriver, and a pair of pliers.
“Another thing,” Stan said. “There’s an eight-foot chain-link fence around the junkyard. Do you think you can pick the lock on the gate?
“We’ll climb over it,” I said.
He cocked an eyebrow at inc. “Carrying the guts to the set on the way in, and a corpse on the way out?
While I was considering this, my gaze fell on the tow rope hanging from a hook in the corner.
“Problem solved,” I announced.
I took the tow rope and put it and the tools on the floor of the middle seat of the station wagon. When I turned around Stan was still standing in the service garage, staring at something on the floor.
I went back to see what he was looking at. It was the wheeled creeper I used to use for sliding beneath cars.
“That would come in handy to move the body,” he said.
The creeper was longer than most, because I’d built it myself to accommodate my six-foot-four frame. It was about five feet long, and Id nailed an old roller skate to each corner, so it had a total of sixteen wheels instead of the usual four. “Let’s take it,” I said, and stooped to grab one end.
It was a little after nine when we got the speakers back to my room. After plugging them in I put on an Aretha Franklin tape and turned the volume low.
“You got any more of whatever it was you were drinking? Stan asked.
“Sure, but I’m still a little bombed.”
“Well, I’m not,” he told me. “Don’t be such a cheapskate.”
I got out the bottle and made Stan a stiff highball, then decided to have a weak one myself.
I kept mixing them strong for Stan and weak for myself and by ten o’clock I had fully recovered my rosy glow and Stan had caught up with me. Half an hour later he blearily studied his watch and said, “Let’s have a nightcap and split.” There was only about a half inch of whisky left in the bottle. That finished it.
When we got back to Benedict Canyon Drive no one was outdoors and most of the houses were dark, but the green stucco was still ablaze with light.
Stan parked in the same spot as before. In case we had to take off in a hurry he opened the back of the station wagon, and in case there was a padlock on the garage he lifted out a tire iron.
At the bottom of the hill we saw Bert Pinter and Eve Stokeley talking in the living room of the green house. Her face was pale, her hair was sticking out in all directions as though she had been running her fingers through it, and she looked like a nervous wreck.
We turned silently into the driveway, past the Volkswagen and the U-Haul to the garage.
There was a padlock on the garage, but it was a cheap one. Stan gave it one muffled crack with the tire iron and it popped open.
The garage door was the kind that swings up overhead and is held there by tension springs. The springs groaned loudly when we raised it. We stood still, listening and looking toward the house for several seconds, but no one appeared to investigate.
The moon was bright enough so that we could see into the garage without needing a flashlight. It was a double garage, one side occupied by a Ford sedan. I assumed that was the Stokeleys’ car and that the Volkswagen in the driveway was Bert Pinter’s.
Against the wall on the other side of the garage was a welcome sight-the metal framework containing the innards of the hi-fi combo.
We each took one end and carried it out setting it down in the driveway. It wasn’t particularly heavy, probably no more than forty pounds. Remembering how surprised I had been at the weight of the set when we ripped it off, I wondered now why I hadn’t suspected something then.