Milo March #18

One-2

I said it even though I knew that the martinis were already mixed and sealed in a little bottle. All the girl did was open the bottle and pour it into a glass.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

She came back a few minutes later with my drink. “I hope it’s dry enough, sir.” She was going to play it straight.

I took a sip and frowned seriously as I tasted. “Excellent,” I said. “Give my compliments to the company that bottles it.” We both had a good laugh over that. “And bring me another one,” I added.

She looked a little doubtful, but she got it.

I opened my manila envelope from Intercontinental and took out the file. I read all of it, but there wasn’t too much to add to what Martin had told me. The name of the brother-in-law was there, Larry Beld. There was also a report on Masters, which showed that he was a swinger. He and his wife had been married for thirty years and had no children. He always had at least one girlfriend somewhere nearby. He also liked to gamble and usually went to Reno, Nevada, at least once a month. Despite all this, his corporation was very solvent. The business had started as a small company making belts. At the time the report was made out, they were still in the belt business, but were also involved in real estate, and the manufacture of radar equipment for the government, and of radio and TV parts. They owned a number of shops in Los Angeles and kept a few fingers in other pies.

That was about it. There was nothing to indicate that Masters himself was in financial trouble. He spent a lot of money, but he made even more. He’d been playing footsie with a variety of girls for years, but there was no evidence that his wife or any of the girls objected.

It was like most of the cases that came my way. If there was going to be anything to work on, I’d have to dig it up myself. So I put away the file, finished my second martini, and went to sleep.

A few hours later the big plane went into a glide for International Airport. I knew it was already dark in New York, but here the sun was reflecting brightly from the Pacific Ocean. We came down in a smooth landing.

I went into the terminal, claimed my bag, reset my watch, and got a cab. The driver took me to the Continental Hotel. It made me feel I was being loyal to Intercontinental.

After I’d checked in at the hotel and settled in my room, I called room service and ordered a bottle of V.O. and a bucket of ice. I unpacked my suitcase, and by that time the waiter was knocking on the door.

As I made a drink, I considered what to do. Back in New York it was dinnertime. Here it wasn’t—though my system hadn’t accepted that yet. But it was still too late to start working. I picked up the phone and called a car-rental place I always used when I was in town. They were open and promised to deliver a car to me within a half hour.

I sipped my drink and finally decided I’d go down to Hollywood for a few drinks, and then pick a place to eat. I took a shower and changed clothes. I’d timed it perfectly. The phone rang and the desk clerk told me my car was ready. I went down and signed for it, got in, and started driving east.

I had several favorite bars in Hollywood, but I had decided I would go to one that I’d discovered the last time I was here—the Casa Del Monte on Hollywood Boulevard and Gramercy. It was run by Leonard Del Monte. Everything about the place was just enough out of focus to make it interesting.

I parked the Cadillac on Gramercy and went into the bar. It was so dark inside that I had to stand still for a minute so that my eyes could adjust. Then I moved over to a stool at the bar. There were seven or eight people sitting there and the owner was serving. He was talking to the other customers, moving back and forth in a sort of rhythmic step that reminded me of the way Bojangles Robinson used to dance. I remembered that nearly everyone called the owner Bo instead of using his real name, and that was probably the reason.

He looked up, saw me, and came down, still keeping time to the music from the jukebox.

“Hello, Bo,” I said.

He took a closer look at me. “Hi,” he said. “You’re March, aren’t you? Milo. You were here a few months ago. How’s the action in New York?”

“The same as everywhere. You throw down your chips and they pull them in.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Still drinking the same? Gin and grapefruit juice?”

“Sometimes, but I think I’ll have a martini now.”

He mixed one swiftly and poured it. “This one’s on me.” He poured himself a shot of brandy and lifted his glass. “Glad to see you back. Going to be around long?”

“I don’t know. I’m here on business. It all depends on how that turns out.”

“I remember,” he said, snapping his fingers. “You’re an insurance eye. Going to send somebody to the bucket?”

“If I’m lucky. I read that you had a pretty bad riot out here.”

“Yeah. It seems to be over now, but you never can tell. We didn’t see any of it up here, but a lot of people were pretty nervous.”

Another customer came in and he moved over to wait on him. I had two more martinis and decided I could break down and have dinner. I told Bo I’d see him again, and left. I drove up to Fairfax and stopped at a restaurant called The Jade Lady. I had a wonderful Chinese dinner and then drove back to my hotel.

I had a couple of drinks in the bar, bought a paper, and went up to my room. There were still a few emaciated ice cubes left, so I undressed, poured myself a drink, and stretched out on the bed. After I’d read the newspaper, I turned on a TV news broadcast. Everything was relatively quiet in the southeast section of Los Angeles, but it was obvious that people were still a little edgy. I turned off the TV and went to sleep.

It was early when I awakened the next morning. I phoned room service and ordered tomato juice, scrambled eggs and toast, a pot of coffee, and some ice. When they came, I had my usual morning drink and then enjoyed the breakfast. I had another small drink with my cigarette. Then I shaved, showered, and got dressed. It was time to go to work.

My first stop was to look up the records on Belters, Inc. There were some interesting things about it. Harry Masters was the president, but he held only 10 percent of the stock. His wife, Alice Masters, was the vice-president and also owned 10 percent. Larry Beld, the brother-in-law, didn’t hold any office, but did own 5 percent of the stock. Someone named Frank Jeffers was treasurer, with 5 percent. A Kitty Harris had 19 percent. But the most interesting name was a Sherry LaSalle, who was the secretary of the corporation and held a tidy 51 per cent of the stock. I was going to look forward to meeting Sherry.

Next I drove to detective headquarters. I told my troubles to a desk sergeant, who finally consented to phone a lieutenant. Two minutes later I was knocking on an office door. A voice told me to come in.

The lieutenant was a big man, probably about fifty, who looked as if he’d been working straight through for about a week. His eyes were bloodshot, his suit wrinkled, and there were cigarette ashes all over the desk and his clothes.

“You’re March?” he asked. “Let’s see your ID.”

I handed him a wallet which contained all my identification cards and waited while he went through it. Finally he tossed it on the desk where I could pick it up.

“A big man, huh?” he said. His voice was flat, so it was impossible to tell whether he was being ironic or hostile or merely indifferent. “Private detective license in New York and California. g*n permit in both states. Member of the Footprinters. Sit down. It makes me tired just to look at anyone standing.”

I took the chair next to his desk. “Not a big man, Lieutenant. Just a guy doing his job. I don’t make them. I just work at them when I’m told to.”

“Going to come out here and solve all our little problems for us, huh?”

I shrugged. “I’m only interested in one tiny part of your problems. I’m also well aware that you probably haven’t been to bed for several days, that the work is piled up over your head, and that you wish to hell that I’d go visit Disneyland or take a tour of Death Valley. I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”

He sighed. “Yeah, it’s been a little hairy around here. Sorry if I’m jumpy. Tell me what you want and I’ll help you if I can.”

I took out a sheet of paper and placed it in front of him. “I’m interested in that building, which was one of those burned.”

He squinted at it and then stared at the wall for a minute or two. “Yeah,” he said finally, “I remember that one. It was the Belters Building. When the firemen finally dug their way through it, there were three roasts in what was left.”

“Identification?”

“Not very good, but about as good as we’ll ever get. We believe they were—” He broke off and looked in one of the folders on his desk. “Harry Masters, who owned the building; Larry Beld, his brother-in-law who ran the TV store on the ground floor; and a colored watchman named Bob Summers. We have reason to believe that they were all three there that night, and the three bodies roughly correspond to the sizes of the men. That’s all we have, and it’ll be about all we get.”

“What about dental identification?”

He shook his head. “No dental records have yet been found for Beld and the watchman. Masters wore false teeth—uppers and lowers.”

“Didn’t you find them?”

“No. We also didn’t find any belt buckles. That was an all-out fire, March. By the time it was washed down, there was nothing left but the concrete shell and several feet of ashes, which had once been the floors, the furniture—and three bodies.”

“I understand,” I said, “that the fire was started by Molotov cocktails tossed through the windows on the first floor. To do that much damage there must have been some gasoline spilled around on other floors. Did you find any evidence?”

“No. Where were we going to find it—in the ashes? The Arson Squad sifted through everything and found nothing, not even any traces of gasoline thrown into the two stores on the ground floor.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s about it,” he said heavily. “And you’ll have a lot of fun trying to find out who set that building on fire. There were quite a few people running around with torches that night. Going to cost your company much?”

“Almost three million dollars.”

“That’s a nice round sum. Well, you’ve got plenty of company.” He managed a slight smile. “Sorry I can’t be of more help, March. I can’t seem to even help myself very much.”

I took the hint and stood up. “Well, thanks a lot, Lieutenant. If I stumble over anything, I’ll let you know.”