No Questions Asked

16

I got back to the Riverside motel at eleven and I was brushing my teeth at eleven-fifteen when the phone rang. I put down my toothbrush, went into the bedroom, picked up the phone and said hello.

“That lawyer of yours. He doesn’t much like to be woke up at two in the morning, which is what it is back east.” The voice was a little slurred, but not too much. I didn’t have any trouble recognizing it.

“How are you, Fastnaught?” I said.

“Not too bad, good buddy. Not too bad at all.”

“Sounds like you’re having a party. All by yourself.”

“A little celebration, St. Ives. Just a little celebration.”

“What’s the occasion — or is there one?”

“You know what I told you back in Washington?”

“You told me a lot of things back in Washington.”

“Yeah, but the most important thing I told you was that I was gonna call you and that’s what I’m doing. I called you in New York but you didn’t answer.”

“Shame on me.”

“That’s because you were out here. I mean, that’s why you didn’t answer in New York.”

“I think I can follow that.”

“So I called your lawyer in Connecticut and—” Fastnaught chuckled. “He sure as hell didn’t like being got out of bed at two o’clock in the morning. That’s what it is back east, you know. There’s a time difference. Three hours.”

“I thought it was two.”

“Nah, it’s three. So this lawyer of yours — Myron Greene — he’s a Jew, ain’t he?”

“You want me to ask him?”

“Anyway this Jew lawyer of yours, and that’s what I’d get if I needed a lawyer, a smart Jew one—”

“His name used to be O’Malley, but he changed it.”

“Hah, hah. Well, anyway he told me where you were out here so I thought I’d call you up and let you know, just like I promised.”

“Know what?”

“I got it wrapped, St. Ives. I got it wrapped with a big blue ribbon. And tomorrow morning I’m gonna go down and see this buddy of mine in the LAPD and we’re gonna get us a warrant and then we’re gonna go over and make us a bust.”

“Who?”

“Who what?”

I think I bit my lip. Or maybe I just ground my teeth. “Who are you going to bust?”

“Well, now, that’s what I was sorta planning on telling you when you got over here.”

“Over where?”

“Where I’m at. I thought you’d come over here and we’d have a couple of belts and then I’d tell you how I done it and then I’d get to see the look on your face. That’s what I’m looking forward to — the look on your face.”

“Incredulity mixed with awe.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Why don’t you just tell me over the phone?”

“Nah. Huh-uh. That wouldn’t be any fun. That way we couldn’t do any celebrating. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”

“What?”

“I’ll give you a hint — a bit fat hint — and then by the time you get over here, if you’re half as smart as you seem to think you are — maybe you’ll have it all figured out just like I do. You sort of think you’re a pretty smart son of a bitch, don’t you, St. Ives?”

“Brilliant, really.”

“Yeah, well, see how brilliant you are on this little item. Jack Marsh, that guy I shot in Washington. Well, Jack Marsh was worth a hell of a lot more dead than he was alive.”

“That’s it?”

Fastnaught chuckled again. “Yeah, that’s it. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? I mean it’s sort of a puzzle the way I told you, but maybe you can get it worked out by the time you get over here.” He chuckled again. “But you probably won’t so then we can have a couple of short ones and then I’ll get to see the look on your face that I’m looking forward to seeing when I tell you all about it. Okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “Fine.”

“Well, I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.”

“Fastnaught,” I said.

“Yeah, what?”

“You forgot something.”

“What?”

“You forgot to tell me where you are.”

Fastnaught’s motel was on La Cienega near Rosewood Avenue. I got out the city map that the motel furnished its rooms with and looked it up. It was two miles away from where I was on La Brea. Maybe a little more. I thought about calling Guerriero but it seemed ridiculous to get him out of bed to take me someplace that was just two miles away. If I were in New York, I would have taken a cab or the subway or maybe even a bus. But this was Los Angeles, where there wasn’t any subway and the city buses, from what I had observed, took mysterious routes on a weekly basis. As for cabs, I might get one in fifteen minutes. Or thirty. Or maybe even an hour. There was another possibility, of course. A grim one. I could walk.

After having decided to make the sacrifice I felt that I needed something to quicken my step. I took a large jolt of Scotch right out of the bottle. I had no shame. I patted my pockets to make sure that I had the motel key, closed the door carefully behind me, and started off on what I was sure would turn out to be a fool’s journey.

Actually, it wasn’t too bad a walk. The temperature was pleasantly cool, the sidewalks were broad and unbroken, there were no hills, and I scooted right along at what I estimated to be a steady four miles per hour. Once, a black and white patrol car slowed and its moustachioed occupants gave me a careful appraisal. I waved at them and got a curt nod in return.

Fastnaught’s motel, which was called the Colony Inn, would probably be included in the same general classification that applied to mine: cheap. It was built in a deep U of cinder-block units and there was enough room left over in the middle of the U for a small swimming pool.

I started back toward the base of the U where Fastnaught’s room seemed to be, from the way that the numbers ran. A car door slammed somewhere. Then an engine started and a pair of headlights came on. Somebody was leaving.

The car backed out and started down the same leg of the U that I was on. Its headlights splashed over me and I put my hand up to shield my eyes. I edged over toward the pool to get out of the car’s way.

I knew something had gone wrong when the engine screamed as the driver jammed the accelerator all the way down. Then I heard the tires screech as they laid a thick layer of rubber on the cement drive. The car’s headlights switched on to bright, almost blinding me, but I could still see what was going to happen next. I was going to get flattened. I backed up furiously until my heels hit something and I couldn’t back any farther. There wasn’t anyplace to go or any time to run because two tons of Detroit craftsmanship was about to slam into me and kill me so I did the only thing I could do. I fell into the pool.

I could say I dived or jumped but I didn’t. I just fell. You get just as wet that way. I came up blowing and swearing and found that I had fallen into the deep end. I swam a couple of strokes till I came to the edge and heaved myself up and over the side. I sat there on the edge of the pool and shook and waited for somebody to come up and ask why I had jumped into the pool at midnight with all of my clothes on. But nobody came. That may have been because nobody heard. Or if they did, they didn’t care.

I got up and squeezed at my clothes, but it didn’t do much good. Fastnaught would love this, I decided. It would give him something else to chuckle about. I started walking back toward his room, my wet shoes squishing and squashing. When I got to number twelve, I knocked. When nothing happened, I pounded on the door and yelled, “Wake up, Fastnaught!”

Somebody yelled, “Knock it off, out there!” It wasn’t Fastnaught though, because Fastnaught didn’t have a woman’s voice.

I tried the door on the chance that he had left it unlocked. Drunks do funny things. It turned easily in my hand and I went in. The lights were off and it took me a moment to find the switch. I turned them on.

His tongue bulged out of his mouth and it was beginning to blacken — or at least turn dark. His blue eyes were popped and staring. I kept waiting for them to blink, but they didn’t. They would never blink again. He lay on the floor next to the bed. His legs were twisted up under him. He had on slacks and a shirt and socks. No shoes. It was probably his drinking uniform. On his left temple was a dark bloody wound — half bruise, half cut. I smelled whiskey, a lot of it. A broken whiskey bottle lay on the floor and its contents had soaked into the rug. On the table next to the bed was another bottle of whiskey, unopened, a glass that still had some ice in it, three bottles of soda, and six cigars. I looked down at Fastnaught again. There was a dark red mark around his throat where somebody had wrapped or wound something around it, a rope, a wire, or a cord, and used it to choke the life out of him.

I knelt down beside him. I had a vague idea that I should touch him somewhere to make sure that there was no life left, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, although my hand got almost halfway to the dark mark on his neck.

I rose and looked around the room and wondered whether I was going to be sick. Something sour and nasty kept rising in my throat. I moved over to the writing desk. On it were a set of keys, a billfold, some change, and a clean handkerchief. I picked up the billfold and looked inside and counted the money. There was seventy-six dollars. There was also a slip of paper that looked as if it had been torn from a spiral notebook. There was a name written on the paper and a telephone number. I wrote them both down on an envelope. The name was Carl Vardaman. It didn’t mean anything to me and I wondered what it had meant to Fastnaught.

I suppose the panic set in then. It must have been panic, although the wet clothes were part of it. I started shaking, almost uncontrollably. My teeth chattered. I started for the door, but stumbled, and almost fell. I caught myself on a chair. Next to the chair and the bed lay Fastnaught. For a moment I thought that he had turned to watch me, but he hadn’t, of course, because he was dead and there was nothing that I could do about it except say, “Goddamn it, Fastnaught, I’m sorry,” although it was a couple of moments before I realized that I had said it aloud.

I called the police from a phone booth three blocks away. Then I somehow made it back to my motel, stripped off my wet clothes, turned on a hot shower and stood under it until the shaking went away and the sense of panic subsided.

After that I sat in the chair that was covered in lime green plastic and drank whiskey and got very, very drunk.