The Comedy is Finished

20

Mike walked into the underground room where Jock Cayzer stood with hands on hips, cowboy hat pushed back from his forehead, disgusted expression on his large face. “Flown,” he said. “But he was here, all right.”

“That’s what they said upstairs.”

Jock sniffed. “You can smell how sick he was.”

Mike could, but he’d rather not. “Who ran the check on this place?”

“One of your boys, I’m happy to say. Dave Kerman.” Jock’s smile was sympathetic, not malicious. “According to him, he did enter that utility room out there, and this door was hidden behind a stack of wine cartons. You can see them in that corner there, all tossed behind the water heater.”

“We haven’t been running in luck.”

“The worst of it is, I should think our man’s visit is what spooked them. But there is one hopeful item.”

“Tell me quick.”

“They didn’t plan to move. This was their base, but now they’re scrambling, improvising, it’ll be easier for them to make mistakes and attract attention.”

“And harder to keep Koo Davis alive.”

“Ah, Mike, take comfort where you can.”

“There’s no comfort until we’ve got him back,” Mike said. “Do you realize he was in this room less than an hour ago?”

“I do.”

“And he told us!” Moving toward the window, gesturing at it, he quoted, “Inside the whale.”

“I’ve been remembering that statement myself,” Jock said.

Mike stood at the window, gazing through his own faint reflection at the heavy wobbling oily translucent water; it seemed a less friendly element from this vantage. He wished he’d had time for another drink at the club, or that he’d taken a snort from the pint in the glove compartment. He would when he left here.

This thing was taking too long. It would be better if the bastards killed him. Let Davis be found murdered and the heat wouldn’t be so heavy on Mike Wiskiel anymore. Everybody would agree he’d done his best, and the incident with the transmitter would merely have been an example of over-eagerness. He could still come out of it clean, he could still have that shot at getting back to D.C.

Or, if the sons of bitches weren’t going to kill Davis, then Mike and Jock and everybody else better get on their horses and find the guy, while there was still some glory left to reap.

Turning away from the window, Mike said, “Do we know whose house this is?”

“Some musician named Ginger Merville. He’s away in Europe, we’re trying now to get in touch with him. The house is for rent.”

“Something wrong there,” Mike said.

“Yes, there is,” Jock said gravely. “It’s been sticking in my own craw, I must admit. But I don’t quite see what it is.”

“Was this house supposed to be empty? Would they all hide in here if the realtor brought around a prospective tenant? And wouldn’t the realtor know about this room, even make a point of showing it?”

“Those are all good questions,” Jock said.

“I’ll talk to the realtor,” Mike decided. “Do you have the name?”

“Calvin Freiberg. He’s got an office on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana.”

“I’ll go see him now, on my way to the TV studio. You’ll run things here?”

“Your people and mine are upstairs now,” Jock said, “poking and prying.”

“Good luck to them. Where’s Dave Kerman?”

“He went back to the office, he said to beat his head against the wall.” Jock’s ruefully sympathetic smile appeared again. “He says he now believes the woman who showed him through the house is the one we have in the sketch.”

“No shit.” Mike shook his head. “When Dave gets done beating his head against the wall, I’ll beat his head against the wall. See you later.”

“Happy hunting,” Jock said.

“Calvin Freiberg?”

The realtor, a narrow bald man whose polyester leisure suit, huge sunglasses and deep regular tan all looked like the parts of some masquerade costume, rose from his desk to blink mildly at Mike and say, “Yes?”

“FBI, Mr. Freiberg.” Mike held open his ID. “My name is Michael Wiskiel.”

“Oh, my goodness, I’ve seen you on television. Sit down, sit down.”

This paneled and vinyled office was actually a small storefront on Ventura Boulevard, its street wall a sheet of yellow-tinted glass, its interior neat, cheap and impersonal. There were three desks spaced around on the functional tan carpet, but Freiberg was the only one actually present. Taking the client’s chair as Freiberg re-seated himself behind his desk, Mike said, “You handle the rental on a house in Woodland Hills owned by a musician named Ginger Merville.”

“That’s right!” Freiberg seemed surprised to hear this information. “That’s right, I do.”

“I’ve just come from there, Mr. Freiberg, and until an hour ago that was where the kidnappers were hiding out with Koo Davis.”

“Kid—! Koo—! Oh, my God!”

Such astonishment could not be faked. Mike watched the flush glow pink through that artificial tan, watched Freiberg sit there open-mouthed and blinking, and waited for the man to recover himself. Finally Freiberg swallowed, shook his head, and said, “That’s incredible. My God, it’s lucky I didn’t try to show the place with those people in it.”

“Was that luck?” Mike said. “I mean, was the house available for rent or not?”

“Well, yes and no.” The realtor frowned, as though he’d confused himself with that answer, then said, “I take it you know who Ginger Merville is.”

“A musician.”

“A rock star,” Freiberg said, then corrected himself again: “Well, not a star, precisely. A sideman with stars, I suppose you’d say. In any event, he has a good deal of money, and he travels a great deal, so from time to time we rent his house for him. If he’s going to be away for an extended period.” Turning to a nearby filing cabinet, he fingered rapidly through the three-by-five cards, withdrew one, and handed it to Mike. “That’s the record of our rentals over the last several years.”

Mike glanced at the card without much interest, and said, “Why isn’t it rented this time?”

“He wanted too much money.” Freiberg pointed at the card in Mike’s hand, saying, “You see the prices there, gradually going up. A thousand a month, twelve hundred, fourteen hundred. At the moment, we could surely get fifteen or sixteen for the place; perhaps a bit more if we were willing to wait. Ginger for reasons best known to himself, insisted we market the property at three thousand a month!”

“Ah,” said Mike. “Did he give a reason?”

That Freiberg’s professional advice had been ignored had obviously left in the man a residue of resentment, so that a kind of petulant irony came into his voice as he passed on Merville’s reasoning: “Well, he would only be gone two months, and he found sub-tenants more trouble than they were worth anyway, and really he’d prefer the place empty if he couldn’t get his price. I told him it was hopeless, but he wouldn’t take my advice, and the result is, the house is technically for rent, but we haven’t seen any point in showing it. I mean, three thousand a month. There isn’t even a tennis court. And it’s still the Valley, it isn’t Brentwood or Beverly Hills.”

“How long would the place be available?”

“Till the end of next month.”

“So by this time you probably wouldn’t show it anyway, at any price.”

“Weekly rentals.” Delicately the realtor shivered. “Not a good type of tenant, usually. Not careful, as a general rule.”

“Thank you, Mr. Freiberg,” Mike said. “Thank you very much.”

Metromedia, Channel 11, in addition to air-time, was providing the FBI with office space in its Sunset Boulevard studio, and even a receptionist. On arrival, Mike identified himself to this girl and said, “Is Mr. St. Clair here yet?”

“Is he the gentleman expected from Washington? No, sir, not yet. We received a call about an hour ago that he’d landed at March Air Force Base in Riverside. He’ll be traveling by helicopter to Burbank Airport, and then a car will bring him here, so he should be arriving any time now.”

“Fine.”

“Agent Kerman is in that office there, sir. He asked me to let you know about him when you came in. He’s on the phone with St. Louis.”

“Dave Kerman?” Frowning, Mike crossed to the office she’d indicated. What was Dave Kerman doing here? When last heard from, according to Jock Cayzer, Dave Kerman had been in Burbank, beating his head against the office wall next to the sketch of the woman he hadn’t recognized. Secondly, and even more bewilderingly, what was he doing on the phone to St. Louis?

Waiting. When Mike entered the office—smallish, square, neatly but anonymously furnished, with windows overlooking the buzz of traffic on the Hollywood Freeway, half-screened by trees and shrubbery—Dave Kerman was seated at the desk with a telephone receiver hooked between ear and shoulder, and with the semi-doped facial expression of a person who’s been on hold for a long long time. He grabbed the receiver away from his ear and hopped to his feet at Mike’s entrance, his manner showing a combination of pleasure and embarrassment. “Mike! Hello!”

“What’s happened, Dave?”

Kerman became sober, apologetic. “I’m really sorry about the fuck-up, you know. I could kick myself.”

“I’ve seen the house, Dave. Nobody could have guessed that room was there.” If you want the troops on your side, you’ve got to be on their side; even if you’d love to kick their ass.

“But the girl! She was right in front of me and I didn’t connect it for a second.”

“Dave, tell me the truth. How close was the sketch?”

Kerman nodded, as though reluctantly. “In my own defense,” he said, “I must say it isn’t that damn close.” Continuing to stand, he had again propped the phone between ear and shoulder, and as a result was slightly bent to the left.

“That’s often a problem with those sketches,” Mike said. “If you already know who it is, you can see the resemblance, you can connect from person to sketch, but it’s a lot tougher the other way, from sketch to person.”

“Still,” Kerman said. “Still and all, I should have seen it. She was right there.”

“Remember all those sketches the New York cops did in the Son of Sam case? None of them looked like each other, and none of them looked like the guy when they finally grabbed him.”

“The goddamn thing is—” Kerman started, then paused and listened to something on the phone. “Sure,” he said into it. “I’m still here. Yeah, I’ll wait, I told you I’d wait. You just find him. Terrific.”

Mike, gesturing at the phone, said, “St. Louis?”

“That’s right. That’s the other bit of news.” Kerman gestured at the low sofa against the other wall. “Take a load off while I tell you.”

Mike sat on the sofa and Kerman returned to his seat at the desk. While he talked he gestured with both hands, the phone remaining wedged beside his neck. “Once I took another look at the sketch,” he said, “I knew for sure that was her. There were two women in the house, that’s all I saw there and I haven’t been able to identify the other one, but this one I’ve got. You know we had all those photos out already on likely radical types, so I went through them again, and bingo. Her name is Joyce Griffith, she’s been a known radical ten years or more, and she’s wanted for a whole lot of stuff: damaging government property, attempted murder, interstate flight, you name it.”

“Good work.”

“But that isn’t the kicker,” Kerman said, as the door opened and Maurice St. Clair entered, followed by a tall slender neatly dressed young man carrying what looked to be a shipping case for reels of film.

Mike jumped to his feet. “Murray!” Maurice St. Clair was an old friend and a good one; in Mike’s campaign to get back to Washington, St. Clair was definitely on his side.

St. Clair came forward to give Mike a hard massive handshake, saying, “Good to see you, Mike. Good to see you.”

“You’re looking trim, Murray.” Which wasn’t at all true; St. Clair was a big heavy man who took too much pleasure from his food and drink. Still, Mike knew that St. Clair worried about his appearance and health, and it was only the act of a friend to reassure him.

“I felt for you this morning, Mike.” St. Clair continued to grip Mike’s hand. “I’m glad you got this second chance.”

Mike’s grin was rueful. “Apparently they don’t think I’m much of a threat.”

“They’ll learn better,” St. Clair said, and with one last squeeze finally released Mike’s hand.

At the desk, Kerman suddenly said, “Douglas? Tom Douglas? Dave Kerman here, from the L.A. station, working on the Koo Davis case.”

Mike said to St. Clair, “Hold it, Murray,” then turned to Kerman. “Finish your story.”

“Hold on, Tom, will you? Just ten seconds.” And Kerman, grinning with accomplishment, put his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Mike, “The kicker is, this Griffith girl is one of ours!”

“She’s what?”

“A double agent. From sixty-eight to seventy-three she was on our payroll, reported every place she went, everybody she met, everything she did.” Gesturing to the phone, he said, “This fellow, Douglas, he was the one she reported to, in Chicago. He’s in the St. Louis station now.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mike said. “Can he still get in touch with her?”

“Let’s find out.” Kerman spoke into the phone again. “Tom? I want to talk with you about a one-time informer of yours named Joyce Griffith. Yes, that’s the one.”

St. Clair, speaking quietly, said, “What’s going on?”

While Kerman carried on his telephone conversation, Mike briefly explained the situation, including the belated discovery of the gang’s original hideout, and finishing, “Maybe this Griffith thing can help.”

“Let’s hope so.” St. Clair looked troubled. “I’m afraid we’re all going to need some help.”

“You mean—the answer’s no?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” St. Clair told him. “But not very good.” Gesturing at his assistant’s film case, he said, “Let’s just say we have here an unpleasant surprise for our friends on the other side.”