Paula paused long enough to ask, ‘What happened to Benny, Vic?’
‘Yeah, Benny. Get this down. Benny had no idea Louis was hooked up with Anita. He went to the shop and into trouble. Thayler happened to be there. As soon as he heard Benny ask questions about Anita, he came out with a gun. Anita had already told Thayler she was being watched by Universal Services. Thayler was jittery. He had been to Orchard City hoping to see Anita on the night Dana was murdered, but hadn’t contacted her. On his return to Frisco he was in a state of nerves, and when Benny turned up he lost his head and knocked Benny off. Then he caught the ten o’clock plane to Orchid City. Maybe he decided the safest thing would be to silence Anita. I don’t know. The point is he was on the spot when Anita was killed. Whether he killed her or not is something I have still to find out. I’m sure he was the guy who sapped me when I found Anita. He may have taken her body. I don’t know. These are the first pieces of the jigsaw that mean anything, but they don’t make a complete picture. There’s a lot of work to do before we do get a complete picture:’
I finished my drink, got up and began to pace the floor.
‘If I can find out why Dana was murdered,’ I went on, ‘and why Anita Cerf left the diamond necklace in Dana’s apartment I think we’ll have the answer. I think those two points are the framework of our jigsaw. If we can only find the answers to them the rest of the bits will fall into place. I want to find out too why Anita was scared when I found her at L’Etoile, and why she was hiding there. And why she was murdered and what s become of her body. There are a hell of a lot of things I want to find out.’
‘How about Gail Bolus?’ Paula asked, laying down her pencil. ‘Where does she fit in in this?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, sitting on the edge of her desk. ‘On the face of it I think she’s still hooked up with Thayler. The way she turned up after I had been sapped was too much of a coincidence to be an accident. It’s something I’m going to find out.’ I reached for a cigarette and lit it. ‘Another thing: I have an idea Caesar Mills is mixed up somewhere in this business. It’s a hunch, but it’s a strong one. It’s time I went out to his place at Fairview and looked the joint over. Maybe it’s a waste of time, but it’ll set my mind at rest.’
‘We haven’t a lot of time to waste, Paula said. Brandon is raising hell over Leadbetter’s killing. He wants to see you. They’ve matched the bullet that killed Leadbetter with the one that killed Dana. You’ll have to watch out, Vic. Brandon’s in a dangerous mood.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, and scowled. ‘Right now I’ll have to see what I can do about Thayler, but I’ll take care of Mills at the same time. The point is I can’t go chasing all over town looking for Thayler. He may be here or he may have gone back to Frisco. It might take me weeks to run him down.’ I sat thinking for a moment, then reached for the telephone. ‘Finnegan’s an old friend of Dana’s. He offered to help. I believe he could find Thayler. He has contacts among the mobs in town.’ I dialled Finnegan’s number, waited, and when Finnegan’s growling voice came over the line, I said, ‘Pat, there’s something you can do. I want to contact a guy named Lee Thayler. He may or may not be in town. He’s a trick sharpshooter, blackmailer and possibly a murderer. It’ll be worth a couple of hundred bucks to anyone who let’s me know where he is to be found.’
‘Well, all right, Mr. Malloy,’ Finnegan said. ‘I’ll pass the word round. If he’s in town, I’ll find him. How about a description?’
‘I’ll do better than that. On my way out I’ll leave a photo of him for you. It’s urgent, Pat. He has something to do with Dana’s killing.’
‘Let me have the photo,’ Finnegan said, his voice hard, ‘I’ll find him for you if he’s to be found.’
I thanked him and hung up.
‘That takes care of Thayler,’ I said, and slid off the desk. ‘Now, while I’m waiting, I think I’ll take a look at Mills. Get these notes typed, Paula, and put them in the safe. And another thing, take that diamond necklace over to Cerf and get a receipt for it. We should have done that before. If Brandon heard about it and found it here we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. In Cerf’s hands it doesn’t become evidence anymore.’
Paula said she would do that right away.
‘Well, so long,’ I said, making for the door. ‘If I run into trouble turn the whole works over to Mifflin,’ and before she could fuss, I left the office and went pelting down the stairs.
II
Beechwood Avenue, a three-mile long, two-way street, separated by a parkway planted with magnolia trees, climbed snakelike up the hill at the back of Fairview and down into the valley to the San Francisco and Los Angeles Highway. It was a quiet, backwater street, lined on either side by stately houses, white columned with balconies and lofty porticos.
No. 235, Caesar Mills’s residence, hid behind white stucco walls. The moonlight was bright enough for me to read the chromium numbers on the seven-foot gate as I drove past. All I could see of the house was its green-tiled roof.
About two hundred yards farther on I saw a cul-de-sac, leading to one of the bigger estates, and I drove into it, pulled up close to the kerb, turned out all but the parking lights and got out.
It was a hot, still night and quiet, and the air was heavy with the scent of flowers growing in the hidden gardens and from the magnolia trees in the parkway: a nice secluded spot for courting couples or burglars.
I walked casually towards No. 235, without hurrying, like a man taking a little exercise before going to bed. It was twenty minutes past ten. I was feeling flatfooted and tired, and the heat bothered me. I had a feeling, too, that I was wasting time; that I had no business to be out here. I should be concentrating on Lee Thayler, or better still in bed, getting some sleep to be ready for whatever happened in the morning.
I paused outside the seven-foot gate to look up and down the street. There was no one around, and I lifted the latch, pushed open the gate and peered at a small, well-kept garden, flood-lit by the moon. Facing me was a one-and-a-half-storey frame house with the chimney at each end, six wooden columns supporting a verandah roof, broken by three dormers that extended across the front of the building. Four casement windows opened on to the verandah, and lights spilled through the windows. It looked as if Caesar Mills was at home.
I decided, now I was here, to take a peep at him, and I crept along the garden path to the verandah and looked in through the nearest window.
One glance showed me that Mills lived in style. The room was designed for comfort, and money had been lavished on it. Chinese rugs lay on the parquet floor. Two big chesterfields, four lounging chairs and a divan were arranged about the room. A walnut table, loaded with bottles and glasses stood against one of the walls. Lamps with parchment shades made pools of subdued light on the polished floor and the rugs. It was a nice room: a room furnished with taste. The kind of room anyone could be happy in.
Caesar Mills sat in one of the armchairs, a cigarette between his lips, a tall, frost-filmed glass of whisky in his hand. He was wearing a navy blue, silk dressing-gown, white silk pyjamas and his bare feet were thrust into heelless slippers He was reading a magazine, and by the bored frown on his face, he didn’t seem to think much of it.
I wondered if it would be worthwhile to wait. I wanted badly to get into the house and look it over, but I didn’t feel like taking risks, nor did I feel like getting into a rough house with Mills. But there was a chance he would go to bed before long so I decided I’d give him half an hour and see what happened.