“What do you mean?”
“You killed Lee Tolman.”
“That’s absurd.”
“She’s gone.”
Nahan shrugged, knowing as well as I did that he hadn’t killed Lee.
I elaborated my grief-crazed role, keeping my voice unnaturally flat: “Lee would never have left without telling me. She loved me.” I let my voice strangle and fail, then recover: “And I loved her too. And you killed her.”
“I said...
“You’re going to get away with killing Peeper Martin. Her body’s gone for good and I’m the only one who saw it. And I didn’t recognize you in the dark. No body; no witness; no conviction.”
Nahan considered this.
“I didn’t see you kill Pepe either, and now I’ve grabbed your gun and wiped out your fingerprints.”
Nahan’s reaction showed he hadn’t thought of this. “People have tried to nail you for years and you’ve wiggled out every time. Every single time. I can’t let that happen again - for Lee’s sake.”
“Wait...”
I rode over him in the same gentle monotone. “I don’t care about Pepe and I don’t care about Peeper but I do care about Lee. And I’m going to punish you for killing her because no one else will.”
“You...”
“I’m going to shoot you and then I’m going to put the gun in your hand. You’ve already fired it, so the police will find powder traces on your hand. It will work very well.”
“You won’t do it.”
Still insanely reasonable: “I have to. It’s the only way to punish you - unless you tell me what you did with Lee. They’ll convict you then.”
“That’s illogical.”
“All right, we are going to walk back to Pepe’s office and you’re going to stand in his blood and I’m going to shoot you in the forehead.” I paused, looking puzzled. “I think I better shoot you in the forehead because I’m not sure I can hit your heart with one shot. You see what I mean? Maybe it’ll hit a rib or go right through or something.”
“Listen! You...”
“Or maybe I should open your mouth and stick the gun in there and blow the back of your head off. Yes, that’s a good idea. I think that’s the way they usually do it.”
I delivered this monologue in a relentlessly friendly voice, as if discussing ledger entries, and by the time I was through, Nahan’s face was working. “I did not kill your... Lee!”
“I think we better start now. Or I could kill you here and drag you.” I pointed both pistols at him.
“Let’s discuss this. How can I prove I did not kill the girl?”
“You killed Peeper.”
Nahan clenched both hands in irritation. “That had nothing to do with - anything.” Nahan actually looked embarrassed. “I had been... seeing Peeper. We met through Pepe. I took her to the boat because it was more private. I have a certain reputation, and she was not exactly...”
Keeping up my mild, mad delivery, “That’s not an answer.”
“When you told Peeper about the pornography, she was frightened. She telephoned me; insisted upon seeing me. I met her at the boat. She wanted to leave town and she wanted money to do it.”
“Why?”
Nahan shrugged disgustedly. “She admitted that she and Pepe were using the film to extort money from the girl’s mother - rather ineptly, I suspect. Peeper thought you were close to discovering them.”
“But why did you kill her?”
“I don’t customarily lose my temper, but I grew angry. Peeper and Pepe were jeopardizing other plans of mine.”
“For the film?”
Nahan ignored that. “When I spoke my mind, she grew loud and abusive. I didn’t want the whole marina listening, so I slapped her - not hard. Her head hit the corner of some electronics box.”
“The Loran receiver.”
“I wouldn’t know. But she was dead. It was the worst possible luck.” Nahan sounded exasperated at Peeper’s inconsiderateness in dying on him. “Then you appeared at the boat. There was no time to lock you out, so I concealed her in one of those narrow beds and hid in the front of the boat.”
“And when I came below, you climbed out the forward hatch and locked me in. How did you manage to sail the boat?”
“I didn’t. I only knew how to turn on the engine, so I drove the boat as if it were a car. I did well enough.”
“You motored out into the shipping lanes and dumped her body.”
“I put her in a sail bag with a pair of anchors and their chains. It worked satisfactorily.” Again, Nahan’s eerie focus on details, as if discussing an accounting procedure.
“How did you navigate?”
“I waited until daylight. The Pacific coast is hard to miss.” Nahan actually smiled at his little joke.
“Who were those men you sent to kill me?”
“I was surprised at their ineptitude. They’d proved reliable on past occasions.”
“Did they kill Lee?”
“I told you...”
“Why did you have her make that film? To use on Hammond?”
“She told you that? Yes, an ill-considered plan. But he was taking an unnecessary interest in things.”
“Church finances.”
“He was meddling in certain enterprises.”
“Did you really think you could keep him in line with that tape?”
“I only required a few weeks. I hoped it would work that long.”
“So you could finish draining the church and leave.”
“In retrospect, it does seem inadequate.”
“Why did you kill Pepe?”
Nahan clenched his hands again at an untidy world. “Another stupid accident. It was his gun. He waved it at me when I demanded the film.” With a touch of pride: “I removed it from him without difficulty, but it discharged in the process. Quite unnecessary.”
“Why did you want the film?”
“I prefer to be neat. The film was evidence.”
“But Pepe made a tape copy to use on Mrs. Tolman. Didn’t you realize that?”
“Another copy?” He looked blank momentarily, then sighed. “No.” He shook his head several times, his face working. “No I did not. Another copy.”
Keeping a careful watch on Nahan, I checked the door: the only lock was the deadbolt, on the corridor side.
“I’m going to leave you here while I call the police.”
“I didn’t kill Lee Tolman.”
I dropped the crazy act abruptly: “I knew that, but I needed a threat to make you talk.”
Nahan glared. “You never intended to kill me.”
“A tempting thought, but no. You’ll be all right in here until the police come. There’s an air vent.”
I shut the door on Nahan’s furious face. I had to force it against the sea of film covering the floor and several brittle snarls escaped under the door and streamed out into the hallway. Still, I managed to push it shut and throw the deadbolt.
Then I started down toward Gladys’ phone to call the law.
But first, back to Pepe’s office to discard Nahan’s gun. Going to be one unholy mess when the police arrive, and a lot of explaining to do.
I surveyed the disaster in Pepe’s office. Plucking a Kleenex from a box on the desk, I wiped my prints off the gun and placed it on the bloody carpet. That would simplify my story for the law.
Then down the stairs to the first floor hall, which suddenly smelled of gasoline.
Gasoline?
Chapter 17
Dark splotches soaked the cheap carpet in a trail leading to the sound stage door. When I pulled the heavy stage door open, an immense WHOOSH of flames drove me back. The sound stage was engulfed. I tried to force the stage door closed to cut down the air draft but the heat was blasting through the doorway. Impossible. I raced down the corridor toward the lobby to call the fire department. I glanced back as I wrenched open the door: the flames had found the trail of gasoline on the carpet, which ignited like a wick. Abrup
tly, the sprinklers erupted and six pathetic piddles splashed the floor.
Into the dark lobby, fumbling the phone, dialing 911 to report the fire. Then, out of there before it spread.
Nahan! I’d locked him in the upstairs storeroom. I opened the lobby door again. Carpet blazing, wall paint bubbling and catching fire. I charged down the hall toward the staircase, shielding my head with my arms. The staircase carpet was shooting flames. No way up; back to the lobby. Near Gladys’ desk, a metal stand dispenser held a ten-gallon bottle of spring water. I heaved the bottle off the stand. Too heavy to lift over my head. Lying down, I wrestled the bottle onto my chest, tilting it over my wind-breaker until the water was half gone, and dumped the remainder over my head. Then soaking wet, I headed down the tunnel of roiling orange flames to the stairwell.
No good: stairwell was solid fire all the way to the second floor. White smoke billowed in the updraft; embers charred my clothes where the water missed. Back into the lobby again, eyes streaming, lungs stinging with smoke.
There was a fire escape in back; I’d used it before to get onto the roof. Must be fire doors opening on to it. I sped out the front door, through the parking lot, around to the rear of the building, and up the rusty iron staircase, heedless of feeble treads and shaking railings, to a door on the second floor landing.
Locked of course. I peered through the glass panel: flames engulfed the inside stairwell on the far side of the storage room where Nahan was trapped.
Trapped by me. I had to break in. The glass panel was reinforced with heavy wire mesh. I needed something to smash it.
Back down the rotten steps, jumping, stumbling, hands scraped by the rusty railing, to the back parking lot below. Trash bins! I flailed through coffee cups, papers, film trims, and boxes. Nothing heavy.
Wait: someone had smashed a concrete parking bumper, breaking off a foot-long piece. Hefting it - my God concrete’s heavy - I staggered back up the stairs with my ingot-shaped weapon.
The fire had reached the second floor hallway: the carpet flaming, paint burning. Pressing the concrete chest-high like a weight lifter, I bashed the glass. It crazed but the wire mesh held. Again! Three strands of mesh snapped, opening an inch-wide hole. I drew back for another heave. The fire had reached the storeroom, inches away from the film looping out under the locked door.
The film! That old cellulose nitrate stock is gun powder – literally! I was frozen by this thought; hypnotized by the searing yellow glare in the hallway.
One flame finger touched film; the pile blazed instantly and flames rushed toward the door as if along a quick-match fuse.
Under the door. A long pause, then Nahan screamed and screamed. Even over the fire and through two doors, I could hear his agony. He was standing ankle-deep in loose film. The acetate stock would curl and melt but the nitrate film ignited like magnesium. Nahan was roasting to death.
He must have been pounding on the door, stamping on the flaming film, beating at his clothing. And still screaming, screaming. An eternity of anguished shrieks, then nothing but the roar of flames.
Shaky hands dropping the concrete to the iron landing; staggering down the groaning steps, shivering in my sopping jacket, breath whistling through my nose. Sirens keening in the distance.
The Rabbit! I didn’t want to be here when the fire engines pulled in. Too much to do to hang around answering questions.
I pelted back to the front parking lot. The area was deserted. Smoke boiled up from the studio roof but there were no visible flames yet to attract a crowd. I jumped into the Rabbit; starter grinding; engine wheezing; firing; quick reverse; then I swung around and into the street.
I pulled over like any good citizen as the fire trucks screamed past me toward the studio.
I parked in the shadow of a closed Arco gas station and sat behind the wheel, willing my heart and breath to slow and my mind to erase the sounds of Nahan as he barbecued to death. I was half-retching at the smoke stench rising from my soggy jacket. I checked to see that the area was deserted and wobbled over to a public phone.
Denise picked up the receiver instantly: “Yes?”
“Denise, this is Stoney.”
“Stoney!”
“I don’t know what to say, Denise. I thought I had wonderful news. Lee is alive and well after all, and I found the film.”
“Lee’s alive? That is wonderful.”
“But I’m afraid your studio’s burning down.”
“What?”
“Someone soaked it with gas and lit a match. It’s going to be a total loss.”
“Oh no!”
“Listen: I’m coming out to your house. I should be there in half an hour.”
“You don’t have to, Stoney.”
“I owe you that much.”
I hung up. Then soaking, filthy, singed and guilty of manslaughter, I aimed the failing Rabbit at Pasadena.
* * * *
Groaning down the Hollywood Freeway toward the downtown oasis of lit skyscrapers, I wondered what the police would make of Denise’s studio: one charred corpse in a ransacked storeroom. Another shot to death in his office, gun beside him on the floor - if there was any floor left. It would seem as if the lot had been torched to cover up the killings.
I swung through “the stack” and headed north on the Pasadena Freeway, the Rabbit engine noisily rehearsing a deathbed scene.
As for motive, Pepe and Nahan were both involved in a pornography operation. Plenty for the cops to chew on there. Studio Victim of Gangland Arson, etc.
And when Nahan’s trail led back to the church, the scandal would put Hammond out of business faster than any porno tape.
Not a day too soon.
I roared down San Rafael Avenue in the creamy glow of the old-fashioned streetlights and turned into San Rafael Circle. Flying toward the turnaround at the bottom of the street, I screeched into a right turn, then accelerated up Denise’s long driveway.
Suddenly a pair of double headlights swung toward me at the top of the drive and a car rushed forward. No chance to stop; I was doing thirty up the drive. Instead, I swerved hard left and floored it.
Right into a tree beside the driveway. The car’s front end crumpled like a stomped-on beer can and the seat belt grabbed me an inch from the windscreen. Then the other car hit me broadside.
When the double crash had died away and I’d regathered my senses, I forced the door open, got out, and walked shakily around the Rabbit’s remains. Lucky it was the passenger side: the right door was pushed in two feet by the massive nose of a red Cadillac Eldorado, from which the figure of Harry Hummel was emerging in righteous wrath.
“Goddam son of a bitch! Look what you did to my car!”
“Greetings, Harry.”
“Winston, get your goddam piece of junk out of the way. I’m in a hurry.”
“Not any more.”
“I’m not gonna play with you, shithead; move it!”
“How?”
“I don’t care. I’ll push you.” He started for his car.
“Hummel!”
He jerked his door open, then stopped at the sight of the .38 in my hand. “What...?”
“Calm down, Harry; there’s no place to go.”
“What’s that thing for?”
“I want your cooperation and I’m too tired to beat it out of you; so just reach in and get your car keys.”
“You can’t...”
Stepping forward, I slammed the gun barrel into his ribs as hard as I could. “Keys!”
“All right, jeez!” He pulled them out of the ignition.
“Unlock your trunk.”
“Hey!”
Another stab with the gun barrel. “Harry, don’t push your luck.”
Reluctantly, he found the key, unlocked the trunk, and raised the lid. The trunk was filled with gas cans. I hefted one: empty.
“Let’s go see Denise.”
Hummel opened his mouth, but I slammed the trunk lid and gestured with the gun. He closed his mouth and
turned toward the house. I followed with the gas can.
“Listen, Stoney: about the cans. I always carry them. Insurance, right?”
“Yeah, fire insurance. Ring the bell.”
He did. “I was gonna talk to you about something. You been doing all the work on our productions and I thought maybe you oughta be a partner.”
“You’ll have to let me sign the checks.”
“We can work that out.”
“Because you’ll have trouble running the company from your cell.”
Denise opened the door, dressed in a tartan skirt and soft blouse, looking anxious. “What was all that noise?”
“Harry sent my Rabbit to the great Hutch in the sky. It’s totaled.” Denise peered around us, down the drive. “He also wants to say good-bye before he goes to jail for arson.” I raised the gas can for inspection.
Denise looked uncertainly from the can to Hummel to me. “I guess you better come in.”
Chapter 18
Denise led the way to the family room: round maple table, Amish-design wallpaper, hardwood railing high on the wall displaying commemorative plates ordered in series by mail. An over-scale grandfather clock parodied Big Ben tones as I dropped onto a chair, then it chimed eleven. I suddenly realized how wretched I felt: reeking, dank, and so tired that my thighs were trembling under the table.
Denise sat opposite with her hands on the flowery cloth, fingers laced together. Hummel reversed a chair and sat with his chin just above its ladder back. We faced one another like poker players under the plastic Tiffany chandelier.
I explained how and why Nahan talked Lee into faking the film. But his scheme to blackmail Hammond was so farfetched that the preacher just laughed at it.
I recounted how Pepe got the bright idea to recycle the film by using it to extort money from Denise. But he and Peeper were so inept that they never progressed past a phone call and a melodramatic letter.
I repeated Nahan’s story of how he’d killed Peeper completely by accident when she came to Hammond’s boat to ask for money.
All unrelated events, juxtaposed by chance to form a plausible but meaningless design. It was as if two elephants were standing back to back. Blind Winston felt their parts and announced: “An elephant has four hind legs.” Delbert was right after all: it’s not cause and effect; it’s one damn thing after another.
Denise cleared her throat. “I’m sorry for the other girl, but it’s wonderful that Lee’s all right.” She started to rise. “Well, I’m glad it’s all cleared up.”
“Sit down, Denise. I told you on the phone that your studio was burning down.”