The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance Read online

  She looked at me, at Wayne, whom she didn’t seem to recognize, and over at Vance on the bed, who had his head turned away.

  “You didn’t say anything about three,” she said. “Three is more.”

  She stepped in, looked at Wayne, and added appreciatively, “Maybe not much more.” He had pocketed the gun in his windbreaker and was looking at me for an explanation.

  “What did I say?” I said. “On the phone.”

  She stepped in, put her small red handbag on the yellow table next to my doctored Pepsi, and looked at me as if I had a few beans loose, which I did.

  “You said ten tonight,” she said, looking now at the body of Vance with the first hint of awareness. “It’s ten and here I am.” Then she turned to Wayne, looked at him enough to get him to look away, and added, “You really are Randolph Scott.”

  “John Wayne,” I said.

  “Right,” she said with a snap of the fingers. “That’s what you said, John Wayne.”

  Her eyes stayed on Wayne, who gave me a sigh of exasperation and said, “Thanks for clearing it up for the lady, Peters. I wouldn’t want her to forget who she met here.”

  She took a few steps toward the Murphy bed and Vance out of curiosity, and I eased over as fast as my retread legs would let me to cut her off.

  “Are you sure it was me on the phone?” I said, putting my face in front of hers.

  “You don’t know if you called me?” she said, trying to look over my shoulder at Vance. “Voice on a phone is all I know. You trying to back out of this? And what’s with the guy on the bed?”

  Wayne was leaning against the wall now, his arms folded, watching. He wasn’t going to give me any help.

  “We’re not backing out,” I said. “You’ll get paid, Miss …”

  “Olivia Fontaine,” she said.

  “Class,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she answered with a smile that faded fast. “That guy on the bed. Is he hurt or something?”

  “Or something,” I said.

  “He’s dead, lady,” Wayne said, pushing away from the wall. “And we’re going to call the police.”

  “Dead?” she repeated, and backed away from me. “I don’t want no part of ‘dead,’” she said, looking for something, finally spotting her red bag and clacking her red high heels toward it.

  “You’re going to have to stay awhile,” Wayne said, stepping in front of the door. “I don’t like this much, but you walk out of here and that’s one more complication that has to be unwound.”

  “You didn’t talk like that to Claire Trevor in Stagecoach,” Olivia Fontaine said with her hands on her hips. “She was a hooker and you was … were nice to her for Chrissake.”

  “That was a movie, lady,” Wayne said.

  “Me, other girls I know, love that movie,” she said, forgetting for a second the corpse on the bed. “I saw it five times. Hooker goes riding off with you at the end to a new life, ranch or something. Only thing is, I thought you were Randolph Scott.”

  The second knock at the door was louder than Olivia’s. It was the one-two knock of someone who was used to knocking at hotel room doors.

  Olivia, Wayne, and I looked at each other. Then Wayne nodded at me.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “Hotel detective,” came a familiar voice. “Got a call to come up here.”

  Wayne shrugged. Olivia looked for someplace to hide, found nothing, and sat in the chair I had recently passed out in. I opened the door, and he came in. He was Merit Beason, sixty, a massive white-haired man who had once been shot by a Singapore sailor. The shot had hit him in the neck, and when it had become clear he would survive, it also became clear he would never be able to turn his neck again. Hence Merit Beason became known as Straight-Ahead Beason. The stiff neck cost him his job as a Los Angeles cop but it gave him a strange dignity that got him steady if not high-paying work in hotels. Straight-Ahead looked like a no-nonsense guy, a stand-up, almost British butler in appearance, with strong ham arms and a craggy face. His suit was always pressed and he always wore a tie. Straight-Ahead avoided a lot of trouble just by looking impressive, but he wasn’t going to be able to avoid this one.

  He took it all in fast, Olivia, me, Wayne, and the body.

  “You know the guy on the bed, Merit?” I said.

  He stepped into the room, closed the door behind him, and looked at me carefully.

  “Before we talk,” he said without turning his body to John Wayne, which would have been the only way to acknowledge the actor, “I want the cowboy to ease the radiator out of his pocket and put it nice and gentle on the dresser. You think we can arrange it?”

  Wayne took the gun out and did just what Straight-Ahead wanted.

  “Good start,” Beason said, though he hadn’t turned to watch. In the thirty years he had looked straight ahead, he had developed great peripheral vision. “I’ve seen the gent staining the Murphy around the lobby now and then. Gave him a light rousting. Mean customer. Threatened to cut up Merit Beason. Can you imagine that, Toby?”

  “Can’t imagine it, Merit,” I said, shaking my head for both of us. Something he said hit me gently and whispered back that I should remember it.

  “You or the cowboy or the lady shoot him?” Merit asked.

  “None of us,” I answered.

  “Speak for yourself,” Olivia said, jumping up. “I didn’t shoot him is all I know.”

  “Sal,” Beason said, his body moving toward the corpse, “I thought you agreed to stay out of the Alhambra after the unfortunate incident of the trollop and the ensign. You recall that tale?”

  “I recall,” she said. “I’m not Sal anymore. I’m Olivia, Olivia Fontaine.”

  Straight-Ahead was leaning forward over the bed in that awkward stiff-back way he had. When Merit moved, people watched.

  “And I am now General Douglas MacArthur.” He sighed, touching the body carefully. “The former Mr. Vance has been with his maker for maybe five hours. That how you peg it, Toby?”

  “’Bout that, Merit,” I agreed.

  He stood up, pushing his bulk from the bed with dignity. The springs squealed and the body of Lewis Vance bounced slightly.

  “And what do we do now?” he asked.

  “We call the police,” said Wayne.

  “That the way you want it?” Beason said.

  “No,” Wayne admitted, stepping forward. “It’s not the way I want it, but it’s the way it has to be, isn’t it?” He pointed at the bed and said, “We’ve got a murdered man here.”

  “Not the first in the Alhambra,” Straight-Ahead said. He now had his hands folded over his belly like a satisfied Sunday School teacher. “You even had one last time you filled in for me, if my memory serves me, right, Toby?”

  “You’ve got it, Merit,” I agreed. “Salesman in five-twelve, but it was suicide, not murder.”

  “Not that time,” he agreed. “Not that time.” Then to Wayne: “No, you see, Mr. Wayne, hotels usually don’t like to promote the number of people who get killed within them. It’s not like they keep charts and compete with each other because it will bring in new trade. No, we usually do our best to keep such things from the attention of the populace.”

  I explained, “It is not unheard of for a corpse to be carted off to some alley by a house dick.”

  Wayne shook his head and looked at us as if he had been trapped in a room with the incurably insane. “You mean you’re suggesting that we just take …”

  “Vance,” I supplied, “Lewis Vance.”

  “Right, Vance,” Wayne said. “That we take Vance and dump him in some alley and walk away?”

  “No,” I said emphatically.

  “Of course not,” Straight-Arrow concurred. “Too many people involved now and you’re too big a name. Sal—”

  “Olivia,” she corrected from her chair as she reached for my unfinished Pepsi.

  “Olivia,” Merit said, “would be happy to walk away and forget it. Toby knows the routine. He’d walk in
a twinkling.”

  I nodded agreement and reached Olivia just as she was bringing the glass to her mouth. I took it from her. She gave me a dirty look, but I weathered it and put the flat, warm drink on the dresser near the gun.

  “So,” Wayne said. “What now?”

  “We get the killer in here and try to work something out,” I said.

  “That’s the way of it,” Straight-Ahead agreed.

  “But we don’t know who killed him,” Wayne said, running his hand through his hair.

  “Sure we do,” said Straight-Ahead, looking straight ahead at Wayne.

  “We do now,” I agreed. Olivia didn’t give a damn.

  I moved to the telephone, picked it up, and dialed a number.

  “The who of it is easy,” said Merit, unfolding his hands and scratching his white mane. It didn’t do his image much good but his head clearly itched. “It’s the why we have to figure. Then we’ll know what to do.”

  The killer answered the phone on the third ring and I said, “Get up to three-oh-three fast.” I hung up.

  The rain took this pause in the conversation to get really mad and started rocking the window in its loose fitting. It rocked and rattled and said bad things while we waited.

  “Can I go?” Olivia asked Merit.

  “Let’s all just stay cozy till we wind it up,” Merit said. “That’s how you put it in the movies, right?”

  “Wrap it up,” Wayne volunteered with a sigh. “Call it a wrap.”

  Straight-Ahead nodded and filed that information for future use.

  “You think he might skip?” I asked.

  “Human nature is a fickle thing. He might skip, it’s true, but where’s he to go? And going will be a confession. No, he’ll bluff it out or try. Besides, he doesn’t yet know that we know.”

  “That’s the way I see it,” I agreed.

  Wayne and Olivia looked at each other for an answer, got none, and joined Straight-Ahead in looking at the door and listening to the rain and the rattling window. I glanced at Lewis Vance’s body, trying not to be angry about what he had done to my head and gotten me into. Then the knock came, almost unheard under the noise of the rain.

  “Come right in,” Merit shouted.

  A key turned in the lock and the door opened to reveal Theodore Longretti. He stepped in, eyes darting around, and closed the door behind him.

  “What is this all about?” he said, his eyes finding John Wayne and fixing on him.

  “Murder,” I said. “Over on the bed.”

  Teddy Spaghetti turned his long, yellow face to the bed and registered fake surprise. “He’s dead?” he said.

  “You ought to know,” I said. “You put the bullets in him with my gun.” I nodded toward the dresser and Teddy’s eyes followed me.

  “Me?” he said, pointing to his thin chest and looking around at each of us for a touch of support, a sign of realization that it was too absurd to consider the possibility of his having killed anyone.

  “You,” I said.

  “I’m calling the police,” Teddy said, stepping toward the phone. I stepped in front of him.

  “Let’s just work it through,” Straight-Ahead said, turning slowly to look at us. “Then we’ll decide what to do about it. Give it to him, Toby.”

  I stepped away from Teddy, knowing I had his attention and that of everyone else in the room. I eased back to the metal railing of the Murphy bed.

  “Number one, Vance has been seen hanging around the lobby,” I began. “Which means you knew him. But you told me you’d never seen him before.”

  “I knew him, but …” Teddy began to say, looking around the group for support. All he got was distant curiosity.

  “I get a call on a Sunday to come to a room in this hotel, your hotel, while you’re on the desk. You know me. You know Vance. Nothing tight here yet, but it’s adding up. You following me?”

  “Toby—” Teddy started, but was stopped by Straight-Ahead, who put his finger to his ample lips and said, “Shhhh.”

  “Then John Wayne gets a call,” I said.

  Teddy looked at John Wayne, who nodded.

  “Then Sal—Pardon me—Olivia shows up. Someone called her. Someone who knows she’s for rent. You know Olivia, don’t you, Teddy?”

  He looked at her and she looked back at him.

  “I’ve seen her,” he said. “I’ve seen lots of whores.”

  “Seen is right,” she said disdainfully. “Just seen.”

  “I’ve done plenty,” Teddy said, standing straight and thin.

  “We’re not questioning your manhood,” Merit said. “We’re trying to clean a dirty room. Hush it now.”

  “And finally, Merit gets a call to come up here,” I went on. “Seems to me whoever did the dealing knew a lot about who was coming and going not just to the Alhambra but to Room three-oh-three. You follow my reasoning?”

  “No,” Teddy said stubbornly.

  “We could be wrong,” Straight-Ahead said.

  “We could be,” I agreed.

  “But we’re not,” Straight-Ahead added.

  “We’re not,” I agreed again.

  “Hold it just a minute here,” John Wayne said, shaking his head. “You mean this fella here set this all up, killed that fella on the bed, fixed it so it would look like you did it, and fixed it so I’d be found here with the corpse, you and … the lady.”

  “Looks that way to me,” I said.

  “What in the name of God for?” Wayne asked reasonably.

  “You want to answer that one, Teddy?” I asked, as if I knew the answer but was willing to give up the stage to let the supporting cast take over. I had tried to set it up this way with Merit’s help and the moment of truth or lies had come. All Teddy had to do was keep his mouth shut and we’d be stuck with having to make a decision. There was about enough evidence to nail him on a murder charge as there was to get Tojo to give up by midnight. A little digging might put him in the bag but a little digging would mean enough time for the newspapers to make John Wayne and the Alhambra big news. That gave me an idea.

  “Publicity,” I prompted. “You want to talk about publicity, Teddy?”

  Teddy didn’t want to talk about anything. He looked as if he were in a voodoo trance, his face almost orange as the thunder cracked outside.

  “Teddy,” Merit prompted. “Merit Beason’s got work to do and no one is on the desk downstairs.”

  Teddy shook himself, or rather a wave or chill went through him.

  “It got all crazy,” he said. “I’ll tell you it got all crazy.”

  Olivia sighed loudly to let us know she had no interest in hearing Teddy tell it, but she had no choice.

  “I didn’t plan on my killing him, you see,” Teddy said, playing with his shirt front and looking down. “Idea of it was to get you here, Toby, put you out or something, get Wayne in, and then Sal, and have Merit walk in on it. Idea was to give the Times a tip about a love nest thing at the Alhambra, have a photographer and reporter maybe right behind. You’d confirm the whole thing and—”

  “That was one hell of a stupid idea,” Olivia said angrily from the chair. “And my name is Olivia.”

  Teddy shrugged. It hadn’t worked out the way he planned. “Idea was publicity,” he whispered to his shirt.

  “That John Wayne was making it with a prostitute in your hotel?”

  “You think the Alhambra is such a hot-shot address?” Teddy came back defensively, with a little animation thrown in. “Kind of people we got coming here, it could be a real attraction, you know what I mean? Idea was to set something up like this with a whole bunch of movie people, you know, real he-man types, Wild Bill Elliot, Alan Ladd, you know.”

  “And then the girls would be kicking back a few extra bucks to you just to work the rooms,” Straight-Ahead said.

  “Never thought of that,” said Teddy, who had evidently considered just that. “But it was the publicity. Rooms aren’t going as good as they should. Nights are good for soldiers, sailo
rs when the troops are in, and we’ve got a small health-nut convention Wednesday night, but the Hatchmans, who own the Alhambra, say they need at least seventy-eight percent or they’ll sell and I’ll lose my job, and where does a Joe like me—”

  “Hold it,” John Wayne pitched in. He walked over to Teddy, who shrank away from him, almost flopping like a dry noodle over the coffee table. “This is one hell of a harebrained scheme, Pilgrim, and I’ve got a mind to snap a few pieces off of you, but I want to know why you shot that man.”

  Teddy was still backing away from Wayne toward the wall. He almost stumbled over Olivia’s stretched-out legs, but she pulled them in just in time.

  “An accident,” Teddy said. “An accident. Vance called me, said Toby had passed out. I had already made the calls to Sal and you, got your phone number from a friend at the Republic. Vance called me up, said he wanted more than the ten bucks I promised him, wanted in on whatever I was doing. I told him I didn’t have more than ten bucks to give him, that there might be more money later, but he wouldn’t listen. It was not a good situation.”

  “Not a good situation at all,” Straight-Ahead agreed, turning toward him. “So you took Toby’s gun and shot Lewis Vance between the eyes.”

  “He threatened to beat me up, kill me,” Teddy whined. “It was self-defense.”

  “That’s the story I’d tell,” I agreed.

  “It’s the truth,” Teddy squealed, bumping into the wall as Wayne advanced. I realized what was coming, but I couldn’t stop it. It should have been plain to a room in which half the living people were detectives, but it wasn’t. Teddy reached over to the dresser at his elbow and came away with my .38 in his right hand. It stuck out from the end of his spindly arm and pointed at the stomach of John Wayne, who stopped abruptly and put up his hands.

  “You are making me mad, mister,” Wayne said through his teeth, but he took a step backward.

  “Teddy, Teddy, Teddy,” I said, shaking my head. “You are not going to shoot all four of us. Put the gun down and let’s talk.”