The Way Some People Die

Chapter 3

Acacia Court was within easy walking distance of the hospital, on a quiet middle-class street across from a school-ground. It probably wasn’t so quiet when school was out. The court consisted of ten small stucco bungalows ranged five on each side of a gravel driveway that led to the garages at the rear. The first bungalow had a wooden office sign over the door, with a cardboard NO VACANCY sign attached to it. There were two acacia trees in the front yard, blanketed with yellow chenille-like blossoms.

When I got out of my car a mockingbird swooped from one of the trees and dived for my head. I gave him a hard look and he flew up to a telephone wire and sat there swinging back and forth and laughing at me. The laughter actually came from a red-faced man in dungarees who was sitting in a deck-chair under the tree. His mirth brought on some sort of an attack, probably asthmatic. He coughed and choked and wheezed, and the chair creaked under his weight and his face got redder. When it was over he removed a dirty straw hat and wiped his bare red pate with a handkerchief.

“Excuse me. The little devil does it all the time. He’s my aerial defense. I think it’s your hair they want, to build a nest. He drives the nurses crazy.”

I stepped in under the shade of the tree. “Are you Mr. Raisch?”

“That’s my name. I told them they better wear hats but they never do. Back where I was brought up, in Little Egypt, a lady never went out without a hat, and some of these girls don’t even own one. You wanted to see me? I got no vacancy.” He jerked a large gray thumb at the sign over the door. “Anyway I just take mostly girls from the hospital and a few married couples.”

I told him I wasn’t a prospective tenant, but that was all I had a chance to tell him.

“I can afford to pick and choose,” he said. “My place doesn’t look like much from the outside, maybe, but she’s in absolutely tiptop shape. Redecorated the whole thing with my own two hands last year, and put in new linoleum, fixed up the plumbing. And I didn’t raise the rents a red cent. No wonder they come to me. What did you want to see me about? I don’t need a thing if you’re selling.”

“I’m looking for Galley Lawrence. Remember her?”

“I should say I do.” His blue eyes had narrowed and were appraising me. “I’m not so old and dried up that I’d forget a pretty girl like that one. Even if she had a hump on her back and one glass eye I wouldn’t disremember her. I don’t get the chance; seems that every few days somebody comes around asking after Galley. What do you want with her?”

“I want to talk with her. What did the others want?”

“Well, her mother was here a couple of times. You’d think I was in the whiteslave traffic the way that biddy talked to me, and all I did was rent her daughter a home. Then there was all her young men calling up – I practically had to have my phone disconnected back around the first of the year. You one of her young men?”

“No.” But I was grateful for the adjective.

“Let’s see, you’re from L. A., ain’t you?” The eyes were still appraising me. “You got an L. A. license on your car. These other customers were from L. A., the ones from the pinball company. You work for the pinball company?”

“Not me.”

“You’re carrying a gun. Or maybe you got a tumor under your armpit.”

I told him I was a private detective, and why I was looking for Galley. “Do you carry a gun if you work for the pinball company?”

“These customers did, the thin one anyway. He let me know he had a gun, he thought he’d throw a scare into me. I didn’t tell him I was handling firearms before his dam dropped him on the curb and kicked him into the gutter. He wanted to think he was smooth and sharp and I let him go on thinking it.”

“You’re fairly sharp yourself.”

The flattery pleased him, and his big red face relaxed into smiles again. He felt the need to express himself some more.

“I didn’t get where I am by sitting on my rump waiting for the cash to grow on trees. No sir, I been in every one of the forty-eight states and I watered every one of them with my good sweat. I lost a fortune in Florida and that’s the last time anybody put anything over on me.”

I sat down tentatively in the canvas camp-chair beside his, and offered him a cigarette.

He waved it away. “Not for me. Asthma and heart condition. But you go right ahead. The old biddy must be really anxious, hiring detectives and all.”

I was beginning to think she had reason to be anxious. “You said the pinball boys tried to scare you. Any particular reason?”

“They thought I might know where Galley Lawrence was. Her and this slob she went away with, some kind of a dago or wop. They said his name was Tarantine, and I told them it sounded like something you put on your hair. The lean one wanted to make something out of that, but the short one thought it was funny. He said this Tarantine was in his hair.”

“Did he explain what he meant?”

“He didn’t say very much. Seems that this Tarantine ran off with the collection money, something like that. They wanted to know if Galley left a forwarding address, but she didn’t. I told them try the police and that was another laugh for the little short one. The lean one said they’d handle it themselves. That’s when he showed me the gun, a little black automatic. I told them maybe I should try the police, and the short one made him put it away again.”

“Who were they?”

“Pinball merchants, they said. They looked like thugs to me. They didn’t leave their calling cards but I wouldn’t forget them if I saw them again. The one with the automatic, the one that worked for the other one, he was as thin as a rake. When he turned sideways he cast no shadow. Frontways he had his shoulders built out so his jacket hung on him like a scarecrow. He had a jail complexion, or a lunger’s, and little pinhead eyes and he talked like he thought he was tough. Take his gun away and I could break him in two, even at my age. And I’m old enough to qualify for the pension, if I needed it.”

“But you don’t.”

“No sir. I’m a product of individual enterprise. The other one, the boss, was really tough. He walked into my office like he owned it, only when he saw he couldn’t push me around he tried to be friendly-like. I’d just as soon make friends with a scorpion. One of these poolroom cowboys that made his way in the rackets and was trying to dress like a gentleman. Panama hat, cream gabardine double-breasted suit, hand-painted tie, waxy yellow shoes, and he rode up here in a car as long as a fire truck. A black limousine, and I thought the undertaker was coming for me for sure.”

“You expecting the undertaker?”

“Any day now, son.” He started to laugh, and then decided against it. “But it’ll take more than an L. A. thief with a innertube on his waistline to kiss me off, I can tell you. The little man was hard, though. He had his own shoulders and you could see on his face that he’d taken his share of beatings. He had a way of looking at you, soft and steady-like, that chilled you off some. And the way he talked about this Tarantine, the man was as good as dead.”

“What about Galley Lawrence?”

He shrugged his heavy collapsing shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess the idea was if they found her this Tarantine would be tagging along. I didn’t even tell them I knew him by sight.”

“You didn’t tell Mrs. Lawrence either. Did you?”

“Sure I did. Twice. I didn’t like the lady but she had a right to know. I told her when Galley moved out this Tarantine carted her stuff away in his automobile. That was on December the 30th. She was away for a week or ten days and when she came back she said she wanted out. I could have soaked her thirty days’ notice but I thought what the hell, I had people waiting. She drove away with Tarantine and I haven’t seen her since. Didn’t even tell me where she was going–”

“Mrs. Lawrence didn’t know Tarantine’s name.”

“Neither did I, till the pinball merchants told me. They only came here two days ago, Saturday it was, and Mrs. Lawrence hasn’t been here for weeks. I thought she gave up.”

“She didn’t. Can you tell me anything else about Tarantine?”

“I can tell you his fortune, maybe, and I don’t need a Ouija board. Folsom or San Quentin, if the long and the short of it don’t catch him first. He’s one of these pretty-boy wops, curly black hair that the women want to run their fingers through. Hollywood clothes, fast roadster, poolroom brains. You know the type. You’d think a girl like Galley would show better taste.”

“Think she married him?”

“How the hell would I know? I’ve seen pretty young girls like her take up with coyotes and live on carrion for the rest of their lives. I hope she didn’t.”

“You said he drove a roadster.”

“That’s right. Prewar Packard with bronze paint and white sidewalls. She hopped into the front seat and tooted away and that was the last of Galley Lawrence. If you find her, you let me know. I liked the girl.”

“Why?”

“She was full of vim and vigor. I like a girl with personality. I’ve got a lot of personality myself and when I see somebody else that has it my heart goes out to them.”

Thanking him, I retreated to the sidewalk. His loud optimistic voice followed me: “But you can’t get by on personality alone, I learned that in the depression. They say there’s another one coming but I don’t worry. I’m sitting pretty, ready for anything.”

I called back: “You forgot the hydrogen bomb.”

“The hell I did,” he yelled triumphantly.” I got the bomb outwitted. The doctor says my heart won’t last two years.”