Sellers turned on the siren when he was half-way to town and we started speeding again.
“You can take me back to the office,” I told him. “I’m not done with you yet.”
“Where to now?”
He said, “You’ll find out,” and pushed down harder on the throttle.
We screamed through the Sunday traffic, pulled up at length in front of the Beaverbrook Hotel.
A plain-clothes officer gave a nod of his head as Sellers stalked in.
Sellers moved over to him and said, “What’s he doing? In his room?”
The man nodded.
“Alone?”
“That’s right.”
“Telephoning?”
“Only to room service.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Getting plastered.”
“That suits me fine,” Sellers said. He jerked his head in my direction and said, “Come on, Lam.”
We went to the lift, and got off at the eleventh floor. Sellers already knew the way. He walked on down the corridor and banged with his knuckles on the door of 1110.
“Who is it?” a voice called from behind the panels.
“Come on,” Sellers said impatiently, “get it open.”
There was the sound of motion from within the room, and then the door was opened by a tall, thin individual with good shoulders, flat stomach, and an air about the way he wore his clothes which showed he knew he was good-looking. He had dark, wavy hair, a long, firm mouth, wide-spaced grey eyes, and a skin that was tanned to a hard bronze.
He’d been drinking, and his eyes were red. Whether all the redness came from the liquor was not readily apparent.
“Well, well,” he said, “the estimable Sergeant Sellers. Good Old Homicide, himself! Come on in, Sellers. Who’s the guy with you?”
Sellers didn’t wait for the invitation. He pushed his way into the room, and I followed.
Sellers kicked the door shut.
“Know this guy?” he asked.
The man looked me over, shook his head. “Who is he?”
“Donald Lam, a detective.”
“What’s he want?”
“He doesn’t — I do.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know all about him.”
“Ask somebody else.”
“Why not introduce us?” I asked.
The man said, “I’m Stanwick Carlton.”
“Oh,” I said.
Sellers walked over and sat down in the most comfortable chair in the place.
I put my hand out to Carlton and said, “Glad to know you, Mr. Carlton.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Donald Lam.”
We shook hands.
Carlton said, “Sit down and have a drink, Lam. Might as well. There isn’t anything else to do. The boys are nice to me. Tell me to do anything I want to, go anywhere I want to, just don’t leave town. Every time I leave the damn hotel some cop picks me up and trails along with me.”
“You don’t know when you are lucky,” Sellers said.
“Perhaps not, but I could stand with a little less good luck, if that’s what you call being lucky.”
Sellers said, “You could be behind bars.”
“For what?”
Sellers couldn’t think of the answer to that one.
“I’m the subject of morbid curiosity,” Carlton announced. “I’m the husband of a tramp, a tramp that got caught in the meshes of her own illicit love affair and got killed. Are you married, Lam?”
“No.”
“Have a drink, then. Don’t get married. You get all wrapped up in someone. They’re your very life. And then the first thing you know, they get killed in an auto camp. Have a drink. What do you want? Bourbon and 7-Up? Scotch and soda? Ginger ale and rye? Or…”
“Scotch and soda,” I said.
Charlton walked over to the dresser and said to Sellers, “You can’t drink, you’re on duty. That’s your hard luck.”
He splashed liquor into glasses with an unsteady hand and said, “Anyhow, the guy’s civilized. He drinks Scotch and soda.”
Sellers said, “You could have hired this man to shadow your wife.”
“That’s right,” Carlton proclaimed. “I sure as hell could. There’s lots of things I could have done. There’s lots of things I could do. I’m on the eleventh floor. I could make a parachute out of a sheet and jump out of the window. Want to see me try it?”
Sellers didn’t say anything.
Carlton grinned, and said, “What’s your angle in the racket, Lam?”
“No angle,” I said. “Old Beagle over here just picked me up and is taking me along to let people look me over. He thinks he’s going to discover something.”
“I may at that,” Sellers said, watching the whisky with hungry eyes.
“Why don’t you break down and be human, Sellers?” I asked. “After all, you can’t stay on duty twenty-four hours a day. And as far as this investigation is concerned you’re all finished.”
“Who says I’m finished?”
“I do. You’re up against a brick wall.”
Carlton tossed down his drink and said drunkenly, “I don’t want any sympathy. All I want is to be left alone. I don’t know what the hell I came to California for, anyway. I was just lonesome. I wanted to see my wife. I saw her — stretched out on a slab in an undertaking parlor.”
“Everyone knows about it. They read it in the papers. A cheap, sordid little affair out at an auto court. My God, I don’t think it was even a first-class dump. Okay, I’m the fall guy. I’ve got to arrange for her burial. I’ve got to go down and pick out the coffin. I’ve got to go to the funeral. I’ve got to listen while some concealed voice sings The End of a Perfect Day to organ music. I wish to hell I’d have been the one to…”
“Take it easy,” I said. “Little Pitchers, over here, has big ears.”
“So he does,” Carlton said, turning to Sellers. “I’d almost forgotten about you.”
Sellers said, “Some day, Lam, I’m going to take you to pieces just to see what makes you tick.”
Sellers heaved himself up out of the chair, crossed over to the bureau, poured bourbon into a glass and then dumped in ginger ale.
“Attaboy!” Carlton said. “I knew you had a human streak in you.”
“What the hell did you come to California for?” Sellers asked.
“I tell you, I wanted to see my wife, I was lonely.”
“Why didn’t you let her know you were coming so she’d be meeting you?”
“I’m damned if I know,” Carlton said. “I just had a hunch that something was wrong, that she was in some sort of a jam.”
He sneered into his drink and said, “The old sub-conscious. Good old mental telepathy. Thought she was in trouble and needed a helping hand from her husband!”
Sellers said, “Damn it, you came here because you had a hunch. You’ve admitted that you were suspicious of Dover Fulton. You started looking him up. You found out that he was with your wife. You trailed them to that auto court. You busted in there and did some talking and told them you were through; that as far as Dover Fulton was concerned, he’d taken your woman and now he could keep her. You stalked out.
“Your wife didn’t really care for Fulton, except as someone to play around with. She loved you, but she wanted just a little variety. So when she went on her vacation, she wanted to do a little playing. She…”
Carlton came up out of the chair. “Damn you,” he said, “watch what you’re saying! I don’t give a damn if you are a cop, I’ll throw this drink in your face!”
“You do it, and you’ll be flattened out as though a steam roller had gone over you,” Sellers said.
Carlton hesitated for a moment. “You keep a decent tongue in your head when you’re talking about Babe.”
Sellers said, “Just the same, you went out there, Carlton. It stands to reason you did.”
Carlton, quivering with anger, said, “God-damn it, let’s not misunderstand each other, Sergeant. If I’d gone out there and caught her with that son-of-a-bitch I’d have killed him so dead he never would have…”
“And then killed your wife,” Sellers said.
There were tears in Carlton’s eyes. “Not Babe,” he said. “I’d have booted her. I’d have kicked her. I’d have given her a black eye, and then I’d have said, ‘Get your clothes on and come home, you little tramp!’ And when I’d got her home I’d have loved her — just like I always will love her. Now then, keep your filthy mind on something else for a change, flat foot.”
Sellers said, “You’re drunk.”
“You’re damn right I’m drunk,” Carlton said. “Want to make something of it?”
Sellers got up and came to stand facing Carlton, chin to chin. “You watch yourself,” he said, his broad hulk making Carlton seem even more slender and fragile. “I could slap you real hard and break you in two. I could pick you up by the back of the neck and give you a good shake, and all of your teeth would jar loose. I know how you feel, and I’m making allowances for it, but don’t crowd your luck too far.”
“You know how I feel!” Carlton said sarcastically.
“I just want to know one thing,” Sellers said. “Did you hire this guy?”
“No.”
“Did you ever talk with him?”
“I’ve never seen him in my life.”
Sellers finished the rest of his drink, put down the empty glass and said, “Come on, Lam.”
“Stick around and talk to me,” Carlton said. “I’m lonesome. Don’t leave.”
I saw instant suspicion flare in Sellers’s eyes.
I shook my head and said, “Not that way, Carlton. This guy’s trying to find out who hired me. If you act as though you want to talk in private, he’ll have you nominated in the first ballot.”
“Who hired you to do what?” Carlton asked.
“That’s what Sellers wants to know.”
Carlton stepped back and squinted his eyes as though trying hard to get me in focus. “Say,” he said, “maybe I want to talk with you, after all.”
I went over to the door, opened it, stepped out in the hall.
“All right, then,” Carlton called after us angrily, “go to hell if you want to, and see who cares.”
Sellers came barging out into the hall and pulled the door shut behind him.
I said, “You keep leading with your chin, Frank. Why don’t you stay home and read the funnies? This is a hell of a way to spend Sunday.”
“Ain’t it,” Sellers said grimly. “And I haven’t finished spending it yet, either. There’s one more thing I want to investigate.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll find out.”
We went down in the lift. Sellers called the plain-clothes man in the lobby over to him and said, “I guess that’s all. He’s burnt up and we may as well let him go. He isn’t doing us any good the way he is.”
The plain-clothes man nodded. “Quitting when?” he asked.
“Now,” Sellers said. “Turn in your report. This is quitting time.”
The plain-clothes man grinned, and said. “That’s a break. I’m on my way. I had a date to take the wife and kid to the beach, and I’ve been in the dog house ever since I phoned her you’d staked me out up here.”
“Okay, get out of the dog house,” Sellers told him, and took me out to the police car.
This time we went to a parking lot.
Sellers said to the man who ran the place, “Dover Fulton keep a space by the month, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“His car in here last night?”
“It was yesterday afternoon. Say, that’s too bad about him. I had no idea he was in that deep.”
Sellers paid no attention. “What about the car? Who got it, Fulton?”
The man shook his head.
“Come over here and take a look at the guy with me,” Sellers said. “Get out, Lam.”
I got out.
“Ever see this guy before?”
The man who ran the parking station shook his head.
“What about Fulton’s car? Did you give him a check for it?”
“Not the regular tenants. We know them. They have stalls that are assigned to them by number and can come and go whenever they want to. They usually keep the cars locked. I don’t know whether Fulton kept his locked yesterday or not. It was the jane who got it.”
“The jane?” Sellers asked, surprised.
“That’s right. The one who was found in the cabin with him, I guess.”
“What did she look like?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see her too well — just a trim little package came bustling on in here as though she knew right where she was going, and evidently had the keys to the car. I watched her get in. The way she acted, fumbling around at the door for a minute, I felt certain she had the keys.”
“Why didn’t you say something to her?”
The attendant grinned, and shook his head. “Not with the regular clients. Not with a guy like Dover Fulton you wouldn’t. If he sent some babe down after the car, you’d not go over and ask any questions, not if she had the car keys.”
“How did you know she wasn’t making off with the car?”
“They don’t do that. Not in this locality. But I know it was okay. She had one of Dover Fulton’s cards with an ‘OK’ scrawled on it.”
“How do you know?”
“She gave it to me when she went out. I wouldn’t have stopped her, but she waved the card at me.”
“Let’s take a look.”
The attendant said, “I don’t know where I put it. I knew it was all right. Wait a minute, I think I stuck it in the bottom of the cash register. I remember now, I did.”
He went over and opened the cash register, pulled up the weight which held the notes in place in the cash drawer and took out one of Dover Fulton’s cards. On the back of it was simply written the initials “OK.”
Sellers looked at him pityingly. “This Fulton’s handwriting?”
“I presume so. It’s his card.”
“A business card. He passes ’em out by the dozen.”
The man grinned. “You should have seen this doll.”
“Redhead?”
“I don’t rightly know the colour of her hair. She may even have had a hat on. It was her eyes that I noticed — great big dark-brown eyes, about the colour of ripe dates. I guess I was thinking of dates and thinking how lucky Fulton was. Lucky! That shows all I know about it. The poor sap was up to his necktie, and sinking deeper.”
“Say, wait a minute,” Sellers said. “I don’t think that’s the girl that was in the place with him. Would you know her picture if...?”
“Probably not her picture. But I’d sure know her.”
“And this chap wasn’t with her?” Sellers asked, jerking his head toward me.
The man shook his head.
“You watched the jane get in the car?”
“I’ll say I did — and believe me, there was something to watch.”
“You’re a lecherous old goat,” Sellers said.
“I guess I am, for a fact,” the attendant admitted sorrowfully.
“Why don’t you grow up?”
“Hell, that’s the trouble, I have grown up. The missus is like an old shoe. I wouldn’t trade her for anything. She’s got a form like a sack of potatoes, but she cook’s like nobody’s business. She grabs the pay-check as soon as I get it and she bawls hell out of me every so often. But — hang it, I don’t know, Sergeant, a man needs a little inspiration once in a while. Just watching a cute little trick like that, as supple as the greased cable out of a speedometer — damn me, it wasn’t so long ago that the wife was quite a dancer. We used to go out and hoof it…”
“Not very long ago,” Sellers said impatiently. “Thirty-five years is all.”
The attendant furrowed his forehead. “It ain’t as bad as that — twenty-two — twenty-three — about twenty-four years, and…”
“Okay,” Sellers said, “save it. Get back in the car, Lam.”
Sellers was thinking all the way back to the office. He let me out in front of the office building and said. “This is where I came in. Go on and resume the even tempo of your life, and remember I’m keeping an eye on you. If you try to pull a fast one on this, I’ll break you so fast it’ll make your head swim. I don’t care what Bertha says, I’ll bust you.”
I yawned, and said, “I hear that stuff so much it sounds like a radio commercial. Why don’t you get someone to put it to music so you could be like the smart boys on the radio and have a singing commercial. It wouldn’t tire the audience.”
Sellers glared at me, slammed the door of the police car and went away from there fast.